PM Noda on Friday Protest in Tokyo: "I Hear The Voices..."

The text below is taken from Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's official blog (officially translated into English, probably by the PR agency who did the homepage renewal) on July 11, 2012, titled "Listening carefully to a range of views".

The translator's effort to follow as close as possible the original cliche-ridden Japanese is evident. I sympathize. But Mr. Noda simply continues the fine tradition of the Japanese government, particularly since the Fukushima nuclear accident, of lying through his teeth.

From the Official Blog (English) of the Prime Minister's Office (7/11/2012), with my comment in square brackets, in blue italics:

I also hear the voices of the large number of people expressing anti-nuclear sentiments outside the Prime Minister's Office each Friday evening. [Yes, that the "sound" (some bloggers called it "noise" that he said he heard.] And I also hear the voices of people who are greatly worried about the possibility of rolling blackouts and drastic energy saving measures, including the elderly in elderly care homes, shop owners, and people employed at small- and medium-sized enterprises. [About the only people I heard who said those things were politicians - Mayor of Osaka City, for one.] We also have the hard fact that the restart of the Unit 3 reactor at the Oi Nuclear Power Station has enabled relaxation of the energy-saving target for the Kansai area to 10%. [The "hard fact" is that as soon as the Ooi Reactor 3 came online despite numerous alarms that were essentially ignored by KEPCO, KEPCO took 8 thermal power generation plants offline. It was also revealed that there would have been no shortage to begin with, as KEPCO's "calculation" was based on the summer of 2010, which was hotter than the summer of 2011.] What we should do now is vigilantly ensure safety, taking all possible means to do so. [Like how? By putting a senior vice minister at the plant who exclaimed "Jellyfish will never stop a modern nuclear power plant!" ?]

In addition, the issue of how to get through this summer's severe supply and demand situation through the restart of the Oi Nuclear Power Station is one that is fundamentally different from the issue of how in concrete terms we can reduce to the greatest possible extent our dependence on nuclear power over the medium to long term. [That's your problem, Mr. Noda, not the protesters'. The protesters don't want to restart Ooi or any other nuke plant until the Fukushima I Nuclear Plant accident is truly "over". Dependence of nuclear power has been part "manufactured" by deliberately putting thermal power generation plants offline and by calculating the "cost" of power generation that seemingly favored nuclear power generation.]

Recently, the Energy and Environment Council set forth three scenarios for Japan's energy composition in 2030. I intend to advance a national public debate regarding our medium- to long-term energy composition, earnestly taking into account the views of various people. ["Earnestly taking into account"? Well your Minister of the Environment Goshi Hosono said the same thing, and guess what. It is not Goshi Hosono who is reading the views of various people but the PR agency your administration has contracted (Hakuhodo). You have outsourced "earnestly taking into account" activity.]

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June 29 Anti-Ooi Protest in Tokyo Will Be Covered by IWJ's All 9 Channels: "Project to Visualize Citizens' Voices"

(UPDATE) Tweet by Japan Communist Party's newspaper "Akahata" (Red Flag) says "30 minutes before the official start of the protest, but the sidewalks are already full of people. There are significantly more people than last week."

Iwakami's USTREAM channel 5 is already showing protesters.

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Journalist Takashi Hirose and his supporters will fly a helicopter to cover the event from the air, and journalist Yasumi Iwakami and his staff will fly something "on a small budget" as Iwakami tweets.

And Iwakami's IWJ's all 9 USTREAM channels will cover the protest at the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo from different locations and angles. Now that's true journalism in my book.

Iwakami calls it "Project to visualize citizens' voices".

The protest will start at 6PM, June 29, 2012, Japan Standard Time. (See the clock to the right on my blog.)

Here's the link to his USTREAM channels: http://iwj.co.jp/channels/main/

According to Iwakami's tweets,

Channel 1: from 4:30PM, talk show (Iwakami, Professor Ayumu Yasutomi, Representative Tomohiko Taira, who recently quit DPJ), then Iwakami will go to the protest at the PM's Official Residence and report from there. After the protest, the channel will do the delayed netcast of the aerial video taken by his group

Channel 2: At 6PM, regular schedule (TEPCO press conference), then the delayed net cast of the aerial video taken by Hirose's group (for security reasons, they weren't allowed to netcast live; same with Iwakami's group). Our Planet TV will also netcast this video.

Channel 3: live netcast using a car circling the areas showing the protesters

Channel 4: Birdseye view of the protest from a nearby building

Channel 5: Live netcast at the head of the protesters right near the PM's Official Residence, citizens' speeches and protesters' shouting of slogans

Channel 6: Live netcast at the tail-end of the protesters

Channel 7: Focus on Professor Yasutomi and Representative Taira, as they join the protesters

Channel 8 and Channel 9: IWJ's volunteer cameramen and camerawomen from various locations at the protest.

I do not agree with his stance on certain issues, but he definitely have my deep respect.

Some say this protest will be much bigger than even the June 22 protest. Certainly the police seems to think so, as it is dedicating "several hundred" policemen to guard against unexpected incidents, according to Mainichi Shinbun (6/29/2012). According to Mainichi, that is the largest number of policemen at a protest in more than a decade.

The police admits that this is a type of protests and demonstrations that it is not familiar with at all. Traditionally, protests and demonstrations in Japan have been organized by existing groups and political parties. It has been easy for the police to estimate the number of participants and plan accordingly. But these days, organizers of protests and demonstrations are apolitical, and people learn about the protests via Twitter and Facebook. The police just can't come up with a good estimate, says Mainichi.

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Friday Protests Against Ooi Restart, 6PM June 29, 2012 in Tokyo and Osaka

It's Friday in Japan, and that means Ooi restart protests are on again in Tokyo and Osaka. The same time, the same places in Tokyo (at PM's Official Residence) and Osaka (KEPCO's headquarters).

From people at ".@TwitNoNukes":

Date: Friday, June 29, 2012
Time: from 6PM
Places:

• Prime Minister's Official Residence [東京都千代田区永田町２丁目３−１　2-3-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, google map]

• Kansai Electric Power Company headquarters [大阪市北区中之島3丁目6番16号　3-6-16 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka City, google map]

Please refrain from carrying political signs not related to "anti-nuclear".
Please follow the general guidance from the organizers.

This Friday, someone (I think it is Yasumi Iwakami's outfit) is flying a helicopter to capture the scene from the air. Not just for dramatic effect but also for refuting people who have tried their best to snicker at the number claimed by organizers (total 45,000) and downplay the significance of the protests. They will analyze the visual images from the helicopter and estimate the crowd size, I hear.

For those of you who go, be safe. "Agents provocateurs" may be there, claiming to be anti-protest and pro-nuke right wing, talking trash, like this one last week.

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45,000 People Protested Against Ooi Restart in Front of PM Official Residence in Tokyo on June 22, 2012, Media Finally Report

(UPDATE) Video of TV Asahi program reporting the protest in the latest post.

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Well well. People in Japan did it the old-fashion way to attract media attention (not that they did it to attract attention, but...). Every single media in Japan ignored the protest on June 15 with 11,000 (or 12,000) people, but they just couldn't ignore the June 22 crowd of 45,000. (The number is according to the organizers. The police puts the number at 11,000.)

(The photographs are from Mainichi Shinbun. There are more at Mainichi's site. Amazing.)

Quick report from Tokyo Brown Tabby (original in Japanese; I translated it quickly, may revise later):

Just now, TV Asahi's program "Hodo Station" [news and commentary show] took up the protest in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence earlier today [June 22].

The program devoted a decent amount of time reporting the protest, it did mention 45,000 protesters - the number as announced by the organizers, it also said the protesters were just totally ordinary people. They even interviewed several organizers. A female newscaster of the program went there as a reporter and interviewed them. The program further mentioned that the protest is carried out every Friday, and that it started out with only a few hundred people but the number has grown rapidly.

What was amazing was that the reporter went inside the PM Official Residence during the protest and picked up the sound from the protest. It was deafening.

The reporter even asked Edano and Hosono, "So what do you think of the demonstration outside?" [TBT didn't say what their answer was.]

The main newscaster of the program Furutachi was positive on the demonstration, saying that the demonstration was "the voice of ordinary citizens" and that the politics in Japan had become so dissociated with the ordinary citizens. A commentator on the program tried to change the subject and started to say the Japanese citizens should also turn their attention to the contradiction that Japan is showing the sign of moving away from nuclear power generation but at the same time selling nuclear power plants to foreign countries. Mr. Furutachi cut him off, and said "We should first tackle the contradiction of restarting nuclear power plants while the Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident is far from over."

Why did they suddenly decide to report the protest? Last week [June 15], I thought it would be them, if anyone should report. But they didn't. It's a mystery. Anyway, it was a very decent report.

Tokyo Brown Tabby didn't go this time, but plans to go to the future ones. TBT also says there is a plan to surround the National Diet building on July 29.

According to the Japanese mainstream media who suddenly decided to report this 45,000-strong protest in the central Tokyo, the Metropolitan Police put the number at 11,000. Some news outlets (like FNN) only reports this lower number, but Mainichi reported "45,000", so did Tokyo Shinbun.

I just noticed the FNN news video starts out by focusing on a very small contingent of ultra-right nationalists (the "black truck" people), as if the protest were being done by extremists. The June 16 protest, which some media did report, was framed as if it were about ultra-left extremists.

Asahi Shinbun decided to report only the protest in front of KEPCO in Osaka City, where 1,500 people gathered to protest the restart of Ooi Nuke Plant. Yomiuri Shinbun completely ignored both protests, so did NHK. True to form.

(Mainichi)

(FNN screen shot, right after the focus on ultra-right nationalists):

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Weekly Friday Protest Against Ooi Nuke Plant Restart in Front of PM Official Residence in Tokyo and KEPCO's HQ in Osaka, June 22, 2012 from 6PM

The protest in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo has been going on since March 29, 2012, according to one of the organizing groups.

It's on this Friday, June 22, same place, same time, whether it is being covered by the mass media or not.

From people at ".@TwitNoNukes":

Date: Friday, June 22, 2012
Time: from 6PM
Places:

• Prime Minister's Official Residence [東京都千代田区永田町２丁目３−１　2-3-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, google map]

• Kansai Electric Power Company headquarters [大阪市北区中之島3丁目6番16号　3-6-16 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka City, google map]

Please refrain from carrying political signs not related to "anti-nuclear".
Please follow the general guidance from the organizers.

According to their blog (rough translation by me; emphasis is mine),

私たち、首都圏反原発連合は、3月29日より毎週、大飯原発再稼動反対の首相官邸前抗議を行ってまいりました。
当初300名程度だった参加者は、1000人→2700人→4000人→12000人と、回を追うごとに劇的に増加していきました。
福島第一原発事故の収束もままならないまま、そこから何の教訓を得る事もなく、再稼動ありきで物事を進めていった野田政権に対しての怒りがいよいよ噴出する形で、この抗議行動の規模は拡大を続けています。

We have been protesting against the restart of Ooi Nuclear Power Plant in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence every week since March 29. Initially we had about 300 participants, but the number dramatically increased each week from 1,000 to 2,700, then 4,000, then 12,000. The Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident is far from over, and yet the Noda administration has proceeded as if the restart was a given, without learning any lesson from the accident. The size of this protest continues to expand as anger toward the administration grows bigger.

野田政権は、世論の大半を占める再稼動に慎重な市民の声を無視し、今回の決断を下しました。
したがって、私たちもまた、今回の決定を黙って受け容れる必要は一切ありません。
6月22日(金)18時より、首相官邸前にて原発再稼動反対の抗議行動を行います。
また、大阪でも同日18時〜19時半、関電本店前にて再稼働反対の抗議行動を行います。
前回の12000人をはるかに凌ぐ、10万人規模の抗議行動で、大飯原発再稼動決定をただちに撤回すること、私たちが一切諦めていないことを、野田政権に対して突きつけましょう。
今まで以上の情報拡散とご参加をどうか宜しくお願い致します。

The Noda administration has made the decision [to restart Ooi] ignoring the majority of citizens who are cautious about the restart. Therefore, we don't need to quietly accept their decision. From 6PM ono Friday June 22, we will protest against the restart of the nuclear plant in front of the PM's Official Residence. Also in Osaka, from 6PM to 7:30PM, we will protest in front of the KEPCO Headquarters. Let's show to the Noda administration that we demand the immediate retraction of the decision to restart Ooi Nuclear Power Plant and that we haven't given up at all, this time with the protest from 100,000 people or more, far exceeding 12,000 people last time. Please spread the information and please participate.

So it was 12,000, not 11,000 on June 15? Not sure if 100,000 people show up, but looking at the numbers of retweets on the posts announcing the weekly Friday protests, the interest at least to spread the word have increased in recent weeks.

Number of RT of the protests at .@TwitNoNukes blog:

For March 29: 2,283
For May 18: 4,447
For May 25: 2,627
For June 1: 5,856
For June 8: 5,741
For June 15: 8,612
For June 22: 10,005

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LDP "Shadow Foreign Minister: "Prime Minister's Office Refused to Accept Radiation Data from the US"

On June 18, 2012, Asahi Shinbun reported that:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the fax from the US showing the contamination map created from the actual data collected by Global Hawk drones via the US Embassy in Tokyo on March 18 and 20 last year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Asahi that it immediately forwarded the fax to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency and the Ministry of Education. NISA and the Ministry of Education both sat on the data.

A Lower House Representative and "Shadow Minister of Foreign Affairs" of LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) describes the event a bit differently.

Itsunori Onodera, a Representative from Miyagi District 6, tweeted on June 18, 2012 as follows:

福島原発事故直接の米国データ公表しなかった件、事故直接、官邸が受け付けないので、何とかして欲しいと私の事務所にも米国大使館から要請があり、官邸につなぎました。ですが結局無視されてしまいました。あまりに無責任。

About the data from the US right after the Fukushima nuclear accident started, the US Embassy asked my office to do something because the Prime Minister's Official Residence wouldn't accept the data from them directly. So I liaised with the PM's Official Residence. However, in the end it was ignored. It is just too irresponsible.

Some of the people responding to his tweet are rather critical of him. They say, "So what did you do then? Did you speak out?"

Mr. Onodera, as with many people at that time - journalists, experts, politicians, bloggers - may have self-censored so as not to cause panic among the population. Or simply, the earthquake and tsunami damage seemed overwhelmingly bigger than the nuclear accident, even after 3 (visible) explosions. (What happened in Reactor 2 is still not known or disclosed.) It was when some people were saying "Let's go out, have fun and spend money so that the economy doesn't contract and deflation further sets in", as I read at that time on an online message board in Japan.

But the government officials at the Prime Minister's Official Residence knew full well what the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident meant, as Mr. Edano was on record suggesting the evacuation plan for wider areas in Kanto be considered. If what Mr. Onodera says is true, there's some explaining to do for Mr. Edano, Mr. Kaieda, and Mr. Kan.

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June 15 Protest Planned Against Ooi Nuke Plant Restart in Front of PM Official Residence, KEPCO

Net citizens in Japan are planning for large demonstrations in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence in Tokyo and in front of the Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) headquarters in Osaka on Friday June 15, 2012.

If you are in the area (whether you live in Japan or are traveling in Japan), stop by and take in the atmosphere, and feel free to report your experience here in the comment section. (As someone commented in one of the posts about Ooi Nuke Plant restart, the Japanese media do pay a bit more attention if they see people who don't look like native Japanese.)

Last Friday, 4,000 people of all walks of life gathered in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence to protest the then-ongoing press conference by Noda in which he said he would restart Ooi Nuke Plant to "protect the people's living". The organizers are hoping to have 10,000 people or larger this Friday.

I've been asked if I could spread the information to the foreign residents in Japan by writing a post, so here it is.

Information from a @twitnonukes on the demonstrations is as follows, from their website (I added the addresses):

Date: June 15, 2012
Time: from 6PM
Places:

• Prime Minister's Official Residence [東京都千代田区永田町２丁目３−１　2-3-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, google map]

• Kansai Electric Power Company headquarters [大阪市北区中之島3丁目6番16号　3-6-16 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka City, google map]

Please refrain from carrying political signs not related to "anti-nuclear".
Please follow the general guidance from the organizers.

Probably by Friday, PM Noda is expected to make his final decision (foregone conclusion, as we all know). And then he's off to Mexico, I hear, to attend G20 meeting.

You can also view the translation of @twitnonukes webpage at this blog.

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Japan's Prime Minister's Office Website - How Can This Cost 120 Million Yen (US$1.5 Million)?

The "Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet" website did the site renovation and added some new features to its English and Chinese sites to appeal Japan's recovery and a special site just for kids, for 120 million yen (US$1.5 million). That's without the maintenance fee.

Who got to do this project? A company called Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ), 30% owned by the telecom giant NTT. It got the contract without bidding because "there was no viable competitor".

(For more, see here and here. Sorry they are both in Japanese.)

Front page, now with extremely small fonts:

"Kantei" (PM's Office) for Kids, where kids get to play games to learn all about the administration does:

"Let's study social science", "Get to know more about Prime Minister", "Virtual Prime Minister's Official Residence!", "Get to know more about what the administration is doing!"

If you go to "Kantei for Kids" site by the way, you will notice there is no link back to the original (adult-version) "Kantei".

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