Friday, November 30, 2012

Ms. Kada's New Party (Japan's Future) Would Allow Nuke Plant Restarts As Long As They Are Deemed "Safe and Necessary" by the Government


(Update) She "clarified" her comments in the afternoon. According to Asahi, she said she had simply outlined the procedure for the restart in her morning comment.

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From Asahi Shinbun (12/1/2012):

未来・嘉田代表、原発の再稼働容認「安全性担保なら」

Mirai's President Kada would allow restart of nuclear power plants "if safety is secured"

日本未来の党代表の嘉田由紀子滋賀県知事は1日午前のテレビ番組で、原発の再稼働について「原子力規制庁が安全性を担保し、必要という判断を政府がした場合には再稼働になる」と話し、条件を満たせば再稼働を容認することもあるとの考えを示した。

President of Japan's Future Party (Nippon Mirai) and Governor of Shiga Prefecture Yukiko Kada said in a TV program in the morning of December 1 that the restart of nuclear power plants "would happen if the Nuclear Regulatory Agency ensures safety and if the government makes the decision that the restart is necessary", indicating she may allow the restart if these conditions are met.

また、嘉田代表は「安全基準があれば動かしたらいいだろうと理屈では正しそうだが、われわれはゴミをこれ以上増やさない」とも述べ、使用済み核燃料の総量規制の必要性を強調した。

Ms. Kada also said, "It sounds reasonable to restart [nuclear power plants] if there are safety standards, but we will not increase [nuclear] waste any more", emphasizing the necessity to control the total amount of spent nuclear fuel.


If we recall, Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was inspected by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and deemed safe and secure. NISA was abolished and Nuclear Regulatory Agency has been created, but even the new agency cannot protect nuclear power plants from earthquakes and tsunamis. Besides, none of the deficiencies

I can almost guarantee that my tweet of this Asahi article will have very few retweets by my Japanese followers. No one wants to hear a bad piece of news that may damage their hopes and dreams of bright nuclear-free future of Japan.

Well, this is interesting. Just yesterday when I accessed Ms. Kada's party site, there was a manifesto with six major policies. Now that's gone. Instead, there is one sentence telling us her party will announce the manifesto on December 2. (Shame on me for not copying yesterday's page...)

Meanwhile, Mr. Taro Yamamoto, 38-year-old actor turned anti-nuclear activist who has been pressing for protecting children from radiation contamination, has decided to run for office, either as an independent or by forming his own party. He will hold a press conference at 5PM on December 1.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The usual.

Anonymous said...

Flip flop.
Betrayal.
Sad to say that the only Japan political parties in the 10-party debate who seem to understand that Japan does NOT need nuclear and needs to stop using it IMMEDIATELY were the communists and the socialists. How can this be considered a democracy when none of the major parties supports the will of the majority of the people.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Anon at 9:59PM, because it is not the will of the majority of the people, apparently. According to a Nikkei's poll, only 12% of people think nuclear energy policy is the most important policy.

Anonymous said...

Just take a look at this article and you will get a much better idea of the Matrix that is Japan which is serfdom and total indoctrination that most governments have wet dreams about...

http://deanhenderson.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/inside-the-japanese-matrix/

excellent article worth a read

JanickInJapan said...

The only way to go is to rely on the opposition parties who have been antinuclear for years.

Anonymous said...

Janick,
there are more Japanese uncomfortable with nuclear power than Japanese keen to vote for the Communist party (who are not Communists but this is another story).
Some time ago in this blog someone proposed to compile a list of parliament candidates that have a good antinuclear record in each party and advertise such list to the Japanese voters. Maybe this is not such a bad idea.
The next best would be a national referendum.
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Primavera-san
the majority of the Japanese want to get rid of npps as soon as possible; the number of people that think this is THE most important policy is apparently less: the two figures are distinct and not imcompatible.
If another earthquake+nuclear disaster hits Japan it is going to be big trouble so I would think this is a very important policy yet...
Beppe

Anonymous said...

Besides any comment, I would like to remind the writer of this and other articles that CAPITALS ARE USED ONLY AT THE BEGINNING OF A SENTENCE or for FIRST NAMES AND SURNAMES, NOT for every word. That is a totally childish attitude. Please aknowledge and apply.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Kada's party is another stalking horse for the "business as usual" Japanese establishment.

Anonymous said...

@ 5:51

If you had stayed in English class a little longer and you might have learned that all caps is pretty standard for titles and headlines to set them apart from the rest of the article and to add emphasis. It is commonly seen in the titles on book covers, in advertisements and in newspaper headlines. As this is a news based blog I don't see any problem with the formatting if you have one there is nothing stopping you from starting your own blog with the (wrong) formatting.

http://www.webmaster-source.com/2009/10/27/capitalize-your-headlines-properly-please/

Anonymous said...

Haha @ 5:51PM. Someone is a huge hypocrite. Personally, I don't feel that capital letters are particularly important in the face of nuclear disaster.

Back on topic, I still think it's nothing more than a farce how everyone resorts to seeking political candidates who claim to share similar interests. They say what's needed to appeal to the general populace. There's nothing stopping them from lying or backtracking.

Fact is, politics attracts the kinds of people who shouldn't be governing. The system is broken, but everyone still follows it faithfully and blindly, never seeking alternatives. You can pick whoever the hell you like, and it still won't make any difference. Nothing will change until the whole system is changed.

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Is that a new type of joke, anon 5:51PM?

Anon at 8:55PM, from what I've seen so far, people in Japan are only reading what they want to read from this party's manifesto. They probably don't even recognize, even if they see them, the policies at odds with what they think they believe (the party is all for free-trade agreement, NSC, UN "peace-keeping" operations, for example).

I've read her full comment, and in no uncertain terms she seems to me to be saying she would allow the restart if certain conditions (technical safety) are met. She prefaces it by saying those conditions are currently not met and therefore it is currently unthinkable to restart. That's after she acquiesced to Ooi restart for economic and political reasons.

VyseLegendaire said...

NPP cannot be safe, ergo she lies.

JAnonymous said...

Speaking of inspections and go-ahead green lights, the tunnel from chuo expressway that caved killing at least 9 people was inspected 2 months ago. If you can't secure a tunnel, can you secure a NPP ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20576492#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

Anonymous said...

At Hamaoka they realized they had seawater in the reactor pressure vessel only during a maintenance stop... they are running these plants as if they were ice cream factories.
Beppe

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