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Corruption to continue in Japan’s nuclear industry?

the official who ordered the cover-up of the data is now responsible for working out safety measures at nuclear plants

Cover-up of estimated costs to dispose of radioactive waste raises serious questions, Mainichi Daily News, By Tadashi Kobayashi, Kenji Shimizu and Seiichi Ota, Mainichi Shimbun  2 Jan 2012, Revelations that officials from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy concealed the estimated costs of disposing of spent nuclear fuel highlights the distorted logic of government officials who stick to reprocessing radioactive waste even by lying.

The cover-up is essentially similar to a case in which some high-ranking government officials hid a 2002 Russian diplomatic document in which Moscow offered to accept spent nuclear fuel from Japan, in that both helped promote the reprocessing of radioactive waste at a plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture. Continue reading →

January 5, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Nuclear trafficking and the danger of a “dirty bomb”

The Seoul Nuclear Summit, The National Interest,   issue Miles A. Pomper, Michelle E. Dover , January 4, 2012 “

“……….3. Illicit trafficking. Over the past two decades, the IAEA’s Illicit Trafficking Database has recorded hundreds of cases of criminal activity involving radioactive materials, including well over a dozen involving HEU or plutonium. Since illicit nuclear trafficking often makes use of the same tactics as do other black markets in humans, arms and drugs, it is considered imperative that law enforcement and border security are trained in what to look for in nuclear smuggling. The South Caucasus and Central Asia are of particular concern, in part because they are situated between the “supply” in Russia and potential buyers; these regions already have established networks for drugs, humans and arms, and all these could be used for nuclear trafficking as well. Officials could blunt the threat of nuclear smuggling by raising the level of border security in these countries and by providing training, detection equipment and response plans…..

for most countries, particularly those without fissile material, the threat of a dirty bomb is greater than that of the detonation of a nuclear device. One possibility could be making the current voluntary IAEA Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources a legally binding measure. Another might be to launch a broad, international scientific effort to look for technological alternatives to the most high-risk radioactive sources. Securing radioactive sources is not limited to on-site measures; it also requires a comprehensive tracking system and police training on how to respond to stolen nuclear material. …. http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-seoul-nuclear-summit-6284

January 5, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

74% of Japanese want to close nuclear power, but govt tied to nuclear industry

 Japanese Don’t Want a Nuclear Future: The Ticker, Bloomberg, William Pesek, 5 Jan “……..In a June Asahi newspaper poll, 74 percent favored Japan over time decommissioning all 54 reactors. Actions by the government, reinforced by Prime MinisterYoshihiko Noda‘s press conference today, suggest the opposite is afoot. Japanese want a nuclear-free future, and yet the government is back to coddling the power industry.

Why the disconnect? Japan’s nuclear-industrial complex is every bit as powerful as the nexus of business and the military in the U.S. There’s just too much money involved, and Japan’s “nuclear village” is circling the wagons. The moment Noda’s predecessor, Naoto Kan, announced plans to rein in the industry’s incestuous ties with government bureaucrats, his premiership was over. Continue reading →

January 5, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear power industry gave money to nuclear regulators

Nuclear safety panel given donations, 9 News 2 Jan 12, Almost one-third of commissioners and examiners at Japan’s nuclear safety commission received donations from the country’s nuclear power industry, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Sunday.

The daily said the governmental commission’s neutrality could be brought into question at a time when the safety of nuclear reactors in Japan was in doubt after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster…..


Two of the organisation’s five permanent commissioners and 22 of its 84 outside examiners received donations from companies and industrial organisations related to nuclear power, in five years to March 2011, Asahi said.

The donations totalled about Y85 million ($1.08 million), the daily said. Of them, 11 received donations from nuclear reactor manufacturers and, or, power utilities and nuclear fuel companies which are examined by the commission, Asahi said.

The commission is authorised to guide the state and power utilities from a neutral position.

Haruki Madarame, chairman of the commissioners, received four million yen from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries between 2006 and 2009 when he was a professor at the University of Tokyo before assuming the commission’s post last April, Asahi said….. http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8397277/nuclear-safety-panel-given-donations

January 2, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear industry is a black hole of criminal corruption.

When asked what were the major differences between the yakuza and TEPCO the same Senator paused for a minute. “The primary difference between TEPCO and the yakuza is they have different corporate logos.” He explained, “They both are essentially criminal organizations that place profits above the safety and welfare of the residents where they operate; they both exploit their workers

The Yakuza and the Nuclear Mafia: Nationalization Looms for TEPCO  Atlantic Wire, JAKE ADELSTEIN, 31 Dec 11,   Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the monolithic corporation that controls all electric power in Greater Tokyo, and runs the Fukushima Daichii nuclear plant that experienced a triple meltdown following the March 11 earthquake, is on the brink of nationalization according to Japanese government sources.

The official reason is that the firm may not be able to handle the massive compensation payments it owes to victims of the meltdown without going bankrupt.

Unofficially, the firm has such long-standing ties to anti-social forces, including the yakuza—that some members of the Diet, Japan’s national legislature, feel the firm is beyond salvation and needs to be taken over and cleaned up. A Japanese Senator with the Liberal Democratic Party stated on background, “TEPCO’s involvement with anti-social forces and their inability to filter them out of the work-place is a national security issue. It is one reason that increasingly in the Diet we are talking de facto nationalization of the company. Nuclear energy shouldn’t be in the hands of the yakuza. They’re gamblers and an intelligent person doesn’t want them to have atomic dice to play with.”

In June we reported that yakuza were working at the Fukushima nuclear power plant as cleanup crews and manual labor, but the post-meltdown yakuza ties were only the tip of the iceberg. This month, a new book was published, Yakuza and The Nuclear Industry: Diary of An Undercover Reporter Working at the Fukushima Plant (ヤクザと原発-福島第一潜入記-鈴木-智彦) in which a former yakuza fan magazine editor Tomohiko Suzuki reports on the nuclear business-industrial-political and media complex in Japan known as the “nuclear mafia” and Japan’s actual mafia: the yakuza. The book is already generating controversy and renewed examination of Japan’s “dark empire” and its ties to the underworld. It presents more solid pieces of evidence that Japan’s nuclear industry is a black hole of criminal malfeasance, incompetence, and corruption. Continue reading →

December 31, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Tepco’s history of crookedness culminated in Fukushima nuclear disaster

 The containment vessel was never designed to withstand an earthquake. Reactor one is 40 years old, it should have been shut down ten years ago. What was the Japanese government thinking when they gave them firm permission to extend the reactor life for another ten years? And that TEPCO had the audacity to ask, should tell you how close their ties are to the Japanese government.”

TEPCO: Will Someone Turn Off the Lights?JAKE ADELSTEIN AND STEPHANIE NAKAJIMA JUN 28, 2011 “……..The meltdown began on March 11, the day a 9.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Japan. For the first day, TEPCO strongly denied any problems at the plant but by March 12, reactor one had already melted down. Each subsequent day brings more news of radiation leaking from the plant and mistakes, cover-ups, and corporate malfeasance by TEPCO. Slowly voices within and outside the Japanese government are beginning to suggest that it’s time to dismantle the company and put their nuclear plants under government supervision; books highly critical of the firmare becoming best sellers.

TEPCO has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with the nation of Japan: cronyism, collusion, gentrification, corruption, weak regulation, and entropy. Despite being in the spotlight for the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, TEPCO continues to engage in questionable labor practices, and has escaped bankruptcy in closed-door meetings with politicians, and through denying culpability has shifted part of the reparations burden onto taxpayers – deeds which testify to the extent to which TEPCO still has plenty of political power, if not as much nuclear power…… Continue reading →

December 31, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

UK government’s secret decisions on nuclear warheads

the debate remains stifled. Trident was excluded from last year’s strategic defence and security review. As part of the coalition agreement, the Lib Dems were offered a Trident “value for money” review. It is little more than a fig leaf…..

Britain, meanwhile, is also collaborating with the US on plans to replace nuclear warhead components.

How many ministers are questioning the plan to replace Trident? Guardian UK,  ,  31 Dec 11, Two-thirds of Thatcher’s cabinet were reportedly against buying Trident. Thirty years on, debate about its replacement is stifled. In 1981, two-thirds of the cabinet were opposed to Britain buying the US Trident nuclear missile system, according to the defence secretary at the time, John Nott.

The prime minister went ahead anyway, without any proper debate.

Disclosures in hitherto secret papers released at the National Archives under the 30-year rule are extraordinarily pertinent now. Continue reading →

December 31, 2011 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK | Leave a comment

Ugly corporate tactics to get rid of safety conscious nuclear regulator Jaczko

What’s unfolding at the NRC is a textbook example of a little-discussed corporate tactic that is employed against public officials in extreme situations. 

Do what industry wants, and benefit both professionally and personally. But when carrots aren’t enough, corporations have sticks to swing, too.

“This is the ugly underbelly of large corporate lobbying,” 

Nuclear Power Play: Ambition, Betrayal And The ‘Ugly Underbelly’ Of Energy Regulation Huffington Post, by Ryan Grim, 30 Dec 11WASHINGTON — A feud at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, where five presidentially appointed commissioners oversee the safety of the nation’s nuclear power reactors, has broken out into full public view, with Chairman Gregory Jaczko’s fellow commissioners assailing his character and management style, both in a letter made public earlier this month and in the resulting testimony before Congress.

Republicans have begun calling for Jaczko’s ouster. Continue reading →

December 30, 2011 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Secrecy as Canada transports weapons grade uranium to USA

Canada shipping bomb-grade uranium to U.S.: memo Andy Blatchford, The Canadian Press, 27 Dec 11 MONTREAL — Weapons-grade uranium is quietly being transported within Canada, and into the United States, in shipments the country’s nuclear watchdog wants to keep cloaked in secrecy. Continue reading →

December 28, 2011 Posted by | Canada, safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, Uranium | Leave a comment

Australian Senator taking up the cause for Julian Assange’s human rights

Senator on mission for Assange Andrew Drummond The Age, December 26, 2011 SWEDISH officials have met an Australian senator to discuss the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As extradition proceedings against the 40-year-old Australian continue in London, West Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam has embarked on a European mission to secure guarantees about Assange’s human rights, should he be extradited to Sweden.

Swedish prosecutors want Assange in Stockholm for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women in the capital in August 2010. Assange denies the claims and is refusing to return to Sweden, fearing that the country will hand him over to the United States, where his secret-leaking website is the subject of an investigation. During the time he spent in Sweden, Senator Ludlam met justice officials and discussed the process faced by people being
extradited to Sweden…..Assange still wore an electronic tracking device and had to report daily to police as part of his bail conditions.
From February 1, Assange will face a panel of seven British Supreme Court judges for a two-day hearing during which he will appeal against the rulings of lower courts that he should be extradited to Stockholm. Senator Ludlam plans to take the information he has gathered in
Stockholm to the Australian Parliament and seek cross-party support to do ”everything possible to prevent this extradition”.  http://www.theage.com.au/national/senator-on-mission-for-assange-20111225-1p9ko.html#ixzz1hgmWKON5

December 26, 2011 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, civil liberties | Leave a comment

Japan’s coverup of public health risk from radioactive fallout

Public health fallout from Japanese quake, CMAJ,  Lauren Vogel, 22 Dec 11,  A “culture of coverup” and inadequate cleanup efforts have combined to leave Japanese people exposed to “unconscionable” health risks nine months after last year’s meltdown of nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, health experts say.

Although the Japanese government has declared the plant virtually stable, some experts are calling for evacuation of people from a wider area, which they say is contaminated with radioactive fallout.

They’re also calling for the Japanese government to reinstate internationally-approved radiation exposure limits for members of the public and are slagging government officials for “extreme lack of transparent, timely and comprehensive communication.” Continue reading →

December 22, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Cover-up of irradiated workers at Israeli nuclear plant

Expert claims nuclear plant cover-up J Weekly.com by http://www.ynetnews.com December 15, 2011  Workers at the Negev Nuclear Research Center underwent superficial and inadequate radiation exposure tests, an expert on radiation safety told the Petah Tikvah District Court.

Dan Litai’s testimony came during a court hearing Dec. 12 in a case meant to determine whether former employees of the institute, located in southern Israel, should be recognized as the victims of work-related accidents after they were diagnosed with cancer.

Litai, who served as a radiation safety engineer at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, claimed that until the late 1990s there was no department tasked with calculating and assessing the levels of internal radiation contamination, only external contamination.

Last week, the court heard the testimony of Thelma Byrne, who headed the radiation safety department at the Soreq center.

“I worked with materials whose nature was unknown. They didn’t tell us what we were exposed to,” she said, adding that the cancer victims could have been spared if they would have undergone preventive radiation exposure tests, but such tests were not given.

The damages suit was submitted by 44 employees of the Dimona-based reactor and the Soreq Nuclear Research Center in the mid-1990s. Some of the plaintiff have since died. — ynetnews.com    http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/63739/expert-claims-nuclear-plant-cover-up/

December 16, 2011 Posted by | civil liberties, Israel | Leave a comment

USA crashed drone was spying on Iran’s nuclear sites

Crashed drone was looking at Iran nuclear sites CNN By Tim Lister, with reporting by Kathleen Johnston and Pam Benson, 15 Dec 11 The Sentinel drone that crashed in Iran last week was on a surveillance mission of suspected nuclear sites in the country, U.S. military officials tell CNN.

Previously, U.S. and NATO officials had said the drone was on a mission to patrol the Afghan-Iran border and had veered off course. Continue reading →

December 16, 2011 Posted by | Iran, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

USA nuclear lobby aims to oust Gregory Jaczko, safety conscious head of Nuclear Regulatory Commission

it’s also clear that the nuclear industry is using the conflict to attempt to neutralize or remove Jaczko from the NRC, where he has been a consistent advocate for tighter safety controls

Commissioner William Magwood, who is leading the charge against Jaczko, has deep [nuclear] industry ties. His appointment was opposed by over 100 watchdog groups for that reason. Notably, Magwood did consulting work for Tepco—the company that runs the Fukushima plant.

Action and dysfunction in the Beltway swamp. Republicans Intensify Attacks on the Nuclear Safety Chief The Nation George Zornick on December 14, 2011 If there was any doubt that an imbroglio around the leadership of Gregory Jaczko, [at left] chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would be used to try to force his ouster from that agency, a Wednesday
hearing before a House panel removed it.

All five members of the NRC appeared before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is chaired by Representative Darrell Issa. Four commissioners publicly aired their grievances about Jaczko’s leadership, which include charges of bullying and intimidation of staff, along with refusing to share information with fellow commissioners.

Jaczko said he did nothing wrong, and cited a report from the NRC inspector general clearing him of legal wrongdoing when it came to sharing information among his colleagues. But Republicans went directly for the jugular. Continue reading →

December 15, 2011 Posted by | safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Secrecy caused delay in dealing with Fukushima nuclear disaster

Secret Weapons Program Inside Fukushima Nuclear Plant? U.S.-Japan security treaty fatally delayed nuclear workers’ fight against meltdown Global Research, 12/4/11 by Yoichi Shimatsu  “….Death of Deterrence …. in 2009, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a muted warning on Japan’s heightened drive for a nuclear bomb— and promptly did nothing. The White House has to turn a blind eye to the radiation streaming through American skies or risk exposure of a blatant double standard on nuclear proliferation by an ally. Besides, Washington’s quiet approval for a Japanese bomb doesn’t quite sit well with the memory of either Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima.

In and of itself, a nuclear deterrence capability would be neither objectionable nor illegal— in the unlikely event that the majority of Japanese voted in favor of a constitutional amendment to Article 9. Legalized possession would require safety inspections, strict controls and transparency of the sort that could have hastened the Fukushima emergency response. Covert weapons development, in contrast, is rife with problems. In the event of an emergency, like the one happening at this moment, secrecy must be enforced at all cost— even if it means countless more hibakusha, or nuclear victims.

Instead of enabling a regional deterrence system and a return to great-power status, the Manchurian deal planted the time bombs now spewing radiation around the world. The nihilism at the heart of this nuclear threat to humanity lies not inside Fukushima 1, but within the national security mindset. The specter of self-destruction can be ended only with the abrogation of the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the root cause of the secrecy that fatally delayed the nuclear workers’ fight against meltdown. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24275

December 15, 2011 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

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