Japan utility execs received payments from town official

China buried nuclear waste in Sudan desert
Official: China buried nuclear waste in Sudan desert, Dabanga November 12 – 2015 KHARTOUM, China has buried dozens of containers with toxic waste in the desert of Northern Sudan, according to a high-ranking official. The waste was most probably coming from nuclear plants in China.
According to the former director of the Sudan Atomic Energy Commission in Sudan, Mohamed Siddig, 60 containers have been brought to Sudan together with construction materials and machinery for the building of the Merowe Dam (Hamdab Dam) in the Northern part of Sudan. He did not mention the exact year of the import and the date the nuclear waste was disposed. China worked on the dam between 2004 and 2009.
During a conference held by the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organisation (SSMO) in Khartoum on Tuesday, he disclosed how the Sudanese authorities allowed the import of the waste ‘without inspection’. He told the audience that 40 containers were buried in the desert not far from the Merowe Dam construction site. Another 20 containers were also disposed in the desert, though not buried. Mohamed Siddig was quoted by several local reporters, of whom some did not mention China, but ‘an Asian country’ instead. During the conference, titled ‘Raising awareness of the danger of chemicals’, Siddig said that a ‘number of Asian industrial countries’ had approached African countries to dispose their nuclear and other toxic waste…….https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/official-china-buried-nuclear-waste-in-sudan-s-desert?fbclid=IwAR1ScnDQ-6EcDBv2m2EhIqjnunbBnCpt5Ell_xuiNgFAhQapNqR0dF1ykMI
Russia’s manipulations in supplying Bangladesh with nuclear technology
Derek Abbott Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch Australia,7 Oct 19
I’m at an engineering meeting and got to meet an engineer working on the nuclear program in Bangladesh.
I asked him if Bangladesh had renewables. He said they have a lot.
I then made the point that nuclear is therefore not a good investment as his grid is now in greater need of sources that turn on and off quickly. As nuclear can’t do that, nuclear is not cost effective.
He agreed and said for that reason the Bangladeshi govt would actually never pay upfront for a nuclear station on an economic basis.
He said the nuclear program was a result of a political deal with the Russians.
He said that Pakistan and India have nuclear in the region, so the idea of Bangladesh having a nuclear station is a show of “arm flexing.”
The Russians were pushy and made a deal too hard to resist: The Russians will only charge 1% of the cost per annum for the first 30 years of operation and have agreed to remove all waste and ship it back to Russia.
I said that deal does seem too hard to resist.
I then naively asked why on earth the Russians would go to such lengths at an apparent economic loss to them.
His answer was that Bangladesh is seen as an economically strategic region. Labour costs are lower than India, and it has a very capable workforce with a GDP that is over 5 times (per head) higher than India!
I hadn’t realised that and asked how they are making money. He said that India is no longer the power house of the clothing industry. Due to lower wages, clothes are now made in Bangladesh. All your designer labels you might be wearing come from there and have been rebranded.
There are very strong trade deals between China and Bangladesh, and it his belief that Russia’s “bargain basement” nuclear deal is way of getting a foothold in the region themselves. It is a geopolitical maneuver.
What the Russians giveth with one hand, they’ll probably find a way to taketh with another.
USA – North Korea talks broke down, but USA calls them “good discussions”
North Korea’s chief negotiator says discussions with the United States on Pyongyang’s nuclear program have broken down, but Washington says the two sides had “good discussions” that it intends to build on in two weeks. ABC News 6 Oct 17
Key points:
- North Korea said the talks broke down because negotiations had not met their expectations
- The US State Department said North Korea’s comments did “not reflect the content or the spirit” of the “good discussions” that took place
- It was the first time US and North Korea had conducted working-level negotiations since a February summit
The North Korean negotiator, Kim Miyong-Gil, said the talks in Stockholm had “not fulfilled our expectations and broke down”.
“I am very displeased about it,” he said.
Speaking outside the North Korean embassy, he read a statement in Korean that a translator next to him read in English.
Mr Kim said negotiations broke down “entirely because the US has not discarded its old stance and attitude”.
Saturday’s talks were the first between the US and North Korea since the February breakdown of the second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Vietnam.
North Korea has since resumed missile tests, including an underwater-launched missile that fell inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone on Wednesday……. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-06/nuclear-talks-with-us-leave-north-korea-very-displeased/11577176
Nuclear Scandal Hangs Over Japan’s Abe as Parliament Opens
Nuclear Scandal Hangs Over Japan’s Abe as Parliament Opens, By
- Abe seeks to pass U.S. trade pact, work to revise constitution
- Opposition want to use Kansai Electric scandal to derail plans
Questions in parliament about a nuclear payoff scandal threaten to delay Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s bid to pass a U.S. trade pact and make progress toward changing the country’s pacifist constitution.
Opposition lawmakers have pledged to hammer Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party as the new session opened Friday over revelations that executives at Kansai Electric Power Co. took millions of dollars in payments, including gold coins hidden in a box of sweets, from a former local official in a town that hosts a major nuclear plant. Minority parties want to summon the executives for questioning in parliament….. (subscribers only) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-04/nuclear-scandal-hangs-over-japan-s-abe-as-parliament-opens
India and Pakistan sliding toward potential nuclear war
Kashmir crackdown: A warning of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Axios, Dave Lawler $ Oct 19, India and Pakistan are sliding toward potential nuclear war, according to the president of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The warning comes as Pakistan attempts to rally global outrage against its neighbor and rival.
Catch up quick: On Aug. 5, India revoked the constitutional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir — the state it controls within the disputed Himalayan territory — while instituting a communications blackout and a curfew enforced by hundreds of thousands of troops.
Bribery scandals in Japan’s nuclear power sector
Executives in Japan Nuclear Scandal Blame Dead Local Official. By Aaron Clark. Stephen Stapczynski, and Shiho Takezawa news,com,au October 3, 2019
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Kansai Electric officials took $3 million in cash and gifts
- Payments came from deputy mayor of town hosting nuclear plant
Top Japanese utility executives who admitted to taking illicit payments related to their nuclear business sought to deflect blame onto a deceased local official and vowed to stay in their roles, potentially deepening the nation’s latest corporate governance scandal.
Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Chairman Makoto Yagi and President Shigeki Iwane spent more than three hours Wednesday detailing in a public briefing how they and 18 other executives received nearly 320 million yen ($3 million) in cash and gifts, including suits and gold, from a former deputy mayor in the western town Takahama, which hosts the company’s biggest nuclear plant. They didn’t return the payments because the official, who died in March at the age of 90, wielded influence and intimidated employees, they said.
The Kansai Electric payments are the latest-high profile exposure of corporate malfeasance in Japan, which include the arrest last year of Nissan Motor Co.’s chairman for concealing more than $140 million in compensation and Kobe Steel Ltd.’s indictment in 2018 for falsifying quality data. It also follows the acquittal last month of executives charged with negligence related to the Fukushima meltdown, which has loomed in the background of the nation’s worst nuclear scandal since the 2011 disaster…….
Nuclear Nerve
That the drama is playing out in the nuclear power industry touches a raw nerve in Japan, where the technology has been shunned since the trauma of Fukushima. Public opinion has consistently been opposed to restarting the nation’s reactor fleet, once the biggest source of atomic power in Asia, as trust in the both the industry and regulators hasn’t recovered………
Gold, Suits, Cash
The company also revealed new details Wednesday of the gifts and cash Moriyama gave to executives from 2006 to 2018. Satoshi Suzuki, director of the utility’s nuclear power division, received the most at 123.7 million yen, which included 500 grams of gold and 14 suits, as well as $35,000 in U.S. currency.
Kyodo News also reported that Yoshida Kaihatsu, a local company that paid Moriyama money that was funneled to officials, won contracts worth at least 2.5 billion yen for work at Kansai’s nuclear power plant. Moriyama was also a part-time adviser for a Kansai Electric unit from 1987 through December last year. https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/climate-action-summit-greta-thunberg-rips-into-leaders-over-mass-extinction/news-story/2c8d4aac13cb60507a41b48c2ef3d8f2
North Korea launches missile into waters near Japan days before nuclear talks set to resume with U.S.
LA Times By VICTORIA KIM, STAFF WRITER OCT. 1, 2019, SEOUL — North Korea fired a ballistic missile Wednesday that landed in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, less than 200 miles from the Japanese coast, according to the South Korean military and the Japanese coast guard.
The launch came a day after North Korea said it would resume nuclear talks with the U.S. this weekend. The last time a North Korean missile landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone was LA Times November 2017……. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-01/north-korea-launches-missile-into-waters-near-japan-days-before-nuclear-talks-set-to-resume-with-u-s
Dispute between Japan and South Korea, over radiation levels in Fukushima food exports
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Japan embassy in Seoul posts radiation data amid escalating row, Straits Times TOKYO (REUTERS) 29 Sept 19, – Japan’s embassy in South Korea has begun posting data on its website to show there is little difference in radiation levels between the two countries, in its latest retort in a diplomatic and trade row rooted in wartime history.South Korea said last month that it will double the radiation testing of some Japanese food exports due to potential contamination from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant.
The embassy said the radiation reading in Seoul as of last Friday (Sept 27) was 0.12 microsieverts per hour, around the same as 0.135 in Fukushima City, and higher than Tokyo’s 0.036. It will update the data every day the embassy is open, it said……. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/japan-embassy-in-seoul-posts-radiation-data-amid-escalating-row |
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Koizumi hopes son will push for abandonment of nuclear power

New minister prioritizes Fukushima decommission

Disputing colleague, new Japan minister calls no-nukes policy ‘unrealistic’

Exasperation in South Korea as US-North Korea nuclear talks are failing
US-North Korea nuclear talks are sputtering. South Korea is furious. “The US position has been really harmful,” said a senior adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Vox, By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com Sep 23, 2019, SEOUL — The Trump administration likes to say that all is going well with its effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons. As long as Pyongyang doesn’t test long-range missiles or the bomb, negotiations remain mostly on track, President Donald Trump consistently claims.
But one country is clearly bristling at America’s management of the North Korea problem: South Korea.
That became immediately clear during my trip to Seoul this week, just days before South Korean President Moon Jae-in plans to meet with Trump at the United Nations. After chats with multiple government officials and experts, the sense in the capital is that the US proceeded with its own North Korea agenda without much thought for its staunch ally’s positions.
“We’re not at the negotiating table,” a top South Korean official told me on the condition of anonymity. “That bothers me.”
That’s not only making it harder for Washington to strike a nuclear deal with Pyongyang, these people say, but could also potentially doom Moon’s top project: improving inter-Korean ties……… https://www.vox.com/2019/9/23/20875380/south-korea-north-korea-usa-nuclear-negotiations-moon-unga
Despite previous warnings, and findings, court finds Tepco executive not guilty after Fukushima nuclear disaster
Fukushima trial ends in not guilty verdict, but nuclear disaster will haunt Japan for decades to come, By James Griffiths, CNN, September 19, 2019 The only criminal prosecution stemming from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has ended in not guilty verdicts, in a blow to families displaced by the meltdown, as the fallout promises to haunt northern Japan for decades to come.
CNN’s Yoko Wakatsuki contributed reporting from Tokyo. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/19/asia/japan-fukushima-trial-intl-hnk/index.html
Japan Just Let the Executives Who Oversaw the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster off the Hook
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Japan Just Let the Executives Who Oversaw the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster off the HookYears after the disaster, there are ghost towns in the areas surrounding the plant.
By Alex Lubben VICE.com Sep 20 2019 “………..Three executives at the utility were accused of criminal negligence for failing to take adequate precautions to protect the plant from a tsunami. Despite knowing their plant might not withstand big waves, they left it as it was.
Now, years after the fact, all three of them are off the hook. A Japanese court found the head of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., Tsunehisa Katsumata, along with two other former executives not guilty of criminal professional negligence. The verdict means it’s unlikely anyone will be convicted on charges surrounding one of the worst nuclear disasters ever, one that prompted an international reckoning with the dangers of nuclear power plants…… the company’s own scientists, in the lead-up to the disaster, had warned that the plant was in a tsunami-prone area, and that the plant might not be adequately prepared to weather one, Reuters reported. ……. “This is only the beginning of a major battle,” Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer representing more than 5,700 Fukushima residents who fled after the meltdown, according to the Guardian. “Our ultimate goal is to eradicate dangerous nuclear plants that have thrown many residents into despair.”….. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb5333/japan-just-let-the-executives-who-oversaw-the-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-off-the-hook |
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