Hong Kong to reach decision by November on lifting Japanese food import ban over Fukushima disaster
News comes after city’s leader in March declined request to remove restrictions, citing public safety
Hong Kong is considering lifting a ban on Japanese food imports after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, with a decision to be reached by November when the city’s top official visits the country, the Post has learned.
In March, Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono met Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in Hong Kong to request the removal of restrictions on food imports imposed after the 2011 accident. But Lam expressed reservations at the time, citing public safety.
The ban covers fresh produce and milk from Fukushima and four neighbouring prefectures, while fresh produce from the rest of the country is subjected to radiation tests by Hong Kong authorities.
An earthquake seven years ago led to a tsunami damaging nuclear reactors at a plant in Fukushima, sparking fears of radiation leaks.
On Saturday, Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that Lam told visiting members of the Japan-Hong Kong Parliamentarian League earlier this month she was exploring measures to scrap food import restrictions.
It also stated that Lam hoped to make the decision by November 1, when she is expected to head to Tokyo for a Hong Kong-related forum and meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
A local government source confirmed to the Post that it was looking into the possibilities of lifting the ban, but he added these might not cover Fukushima imports.
He also said Lam’s meeting with Abe was not finalised.
The Kyodo report said Lam had explained to visiting league members the difficulties in lifting the ban on Fukushima’s food products, saying the public might not understand the decision because the prefecture was “too well known”.
The report also quoted a Japanese government source as saying: “We are negotiating with Hong Kong and trying our best to get the ban lifted.”
A spokesman for the Hong Kong Food and Health Bureau said on Saturday the authority had tested more than 490,000 samples of food imported from Japan since the restrictions were in place and none of the samples had radiation levels exceeding recommended limits.
He said the government had been maintaining communication with Japanese authorities and reviewing control measures on food imported from the country in light of current conditions.
Total Denial of the Existing Fukushima Radioactive Contamination for Reconstruction’s Sake
Fukushima tops national sake competition for record-setting sixth year
Officials and brewers from Fukushima Prefecture, including Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori (second from right), hold bottles of sake during a photo session Thursday at the prefectural government building in Fukushima City. Fukushima sake brands won the largest number of prizes at the Annual Japan Sake Awards
FUKUSHIMA – Fukushima Prefecture is home to the largest number of award-winning sake brands for the sixth year in a row, marking a record in an annual competition, the National Research Institute of Brewing said Thursday.
Nineteen brands from the prefecture won the Gold Prize at the Annual Japan Sake Awards, matching Hyogo Prefecture for the year’s top spot. Judges, including technical officers from the National Tax Agency and master brewers, chose 232 brands as Gold Prize winners out of 850 brands submitted from across the country.
“We achieved the sixth straight year of victory despite a severe situation due to rumors (about radiation contamination),” Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori told a ceremony held in the prefectural government’s head office in the city of Fukushima, referring to the fallout from the March 2011 triple meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
“I hope to promote the excellent sake produced in Fukushima both in and outside Japan,” he added.
Among Fukushima breweries, Kokken Brewery Co.’s Kokken won the top prize for the 11th year in a row. Higashinihonshuzo Productivity Improvement Cooperative’s Okunomatsu and Nagurayama Sake Brewery Co.’s Nagurayama won for the 10th year.
Aspiring brewer taps Fukushima town’s hops in bid to boost sagging farming industry
Hop Japan Inc. President Makoto Honma (right) gives advice to a hop producer on how to plant a seedling in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture.
“I can’t wait to drink delicious beer made from homegrown hops,” Makoto Honma, the president of Hop Japan Inc., told farmers with a smile in April when he visited them in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture.
While his company was originally intended to focus on the production and sale of homegrown hops, Honma is now planning to build a craft beer brewery in the city amid the recent surge in popularity of locally produced beer and unique brewing methods.
Currently, most domestic hops are grown based on contracts with major breweries, but the production outlook is dim due to a dwindling number of farmers in Japan and falling consumption of big brand beers.
The 52-year-old also believes the realization of his dream would help solve problems related to the abandonment of local farms and revitalize rural tourism.
His brewery dream originates from his experience in the United States a decade ago.
While working as a spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co. in 2008, the Yamagata Prefecture native decided to take a two-year leave to study English in Seattle. During his stay, Honma developed a fascination with local craft beer and the brewery business.
In 2014, one of his friends asked him to help in negotiations with producers of Tohoku-grown hops, further piquing his interest in the industry.
Honma said the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, and subsequent tsunami and nuclear crisis, had a major impact on his life.
“I want to make hop production sustainable in Tohoku. I would do whatever I can do as we can only live once,” he said, recalling his new outlook on life.
Honma decided to quit his job and launched Hop Japan in Sendai in 2015.
He later learned that Fukushima Bank offers financial aid for startups, leading him to move his company to the city of Fukushima in order to receive the funding.
Honma was later tapped by the Reconstruction Agency to grow hops in Tamura, where farmers sought alternative crops because of the falling production of tobacco leaves.
Tamura officials later asked him to build a brewery in addition to farming hops.
Prompted by the local passion, Honma decided to follow through with the plan, and is set to move to the city by the end of the year, taking further steps toward fulfilling his dream. “By promoting the brewery business, I’d like to realize a society where economic activities from producing and processing to selling, work together in unison,” he said.
This section features topics and issues from Fukushima covered by the Fukushima Minpo, the largest newspaper in the prefecture. The original article was published on May 1.
Fukushima nuclear disaster from a foreign perspective: German film was shot inside exclusion zone
12 May 2018
Greetings from Fukushima, a movie on the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan, was shot on location, with the director Doris Dörrie even carrying a Geiger counter to monitor radiation levels
Rosalie Thomass (centre) in Greetings from Fukushima
There have been numerous responses by Japanese artists and filmmakers to the earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 and the subsequent tsunami. By contrast, Greetings from Fukushima, a 2016 feature by German director Doris Dörrie, gives a foreigner’s perspective on the disaster and its aftermath.
The film is also known as Fukushima, Mon Amour, a reference to Alain Resnais’ 1959 classic Hiroshima, Mon Amour, which was set amid the devastation of the atomic bomb. Dörrie’s film has a more straightforward structure than Resnais’ elliptical work.
In fact, Dörrie does not focus on the wider impact of the tsunami, instead limiting the story to a relationship between a troubled German girl and a grumpy Japanese woman, both of whom are trying to come to terms with events from their pasts. As Dörrie reveals more about her protagonists, the Fukushima tragedy plays into the main theme of overcoming grief to build a better future.
Marie (Rosalie Thomass) is a German street theatre artist who travels to Fukushima to entertain a small community of elderly people who have returned to a safe part of the exclusion zone around the damaged nuclear reactor. The job doesn’t work out but she strikes up an unlikely friendship with the elderly Satomi (prolific actress Kaori Momoi), who’s a geisha. Satomi moves back into her old house, which is still within the exclusion zone, and Marie reluctantly starts to visit her. By roundabout methods, the two women assuage each other’s grief.
Dörrie is no stranger to Japan, having travelled extensively around the country, and made a few films there, including 2008’s Cherry Blossoms, which also viewed the nation from a German perspective. She made a bold decision to shoot Greetings from Fukushima on location within the exclusion zone – in black-and-white – and even carried a Geiger counter to monitor radiation levels.
“We lived there. We shot there. We never left the zone through the entire shoot. Everything [you see in the film] is the real thing,” Dörrie told the Post in an interview in 2016. “Our main location is 11km away from the nuclear power plant.”
Thomass and Kaori Momoi (right) in Greetings from Fukushima.
Greetings from Fukushima is a cool-headed, quietly moving drama about personal loss and recovery. Sensibly choosing to depict the story through the eyes of a young German visitor, rather than a Japanese protagonist, the film avoids making any cultural errors, although its decision to focus on a geisha, rather than someone less traditional, does tend to reinforce the stereotypical view of Japanese women.
Fukushima: Radioactive Soil Might Be Used to Build New Roads—and Residents Are Not Happy
May 1, 2018
Residents of Fukushima, Japan, are rallying against plans to build new roads that use soil exposed to radiation during core meltdowns at the local nuclear plant in 2011.
The Environment Ministry plans to begin trials using the soil next month, with the city of Nihonmatsu as the testing ground, The Japan Times reported.
The project would bury large black bags full of the soil under a 656-foot stretch of the planned road. More than 17,650 cubic feet of soil would be buried at a depth of around 1.6 feet. The bags would then be covered with clean soil to block harmful radiation. Those bags, in turn, would be paved over with asphalt.
Ripped bags containing radioactive soil near Japan’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on February 11, 2016.
This represents but a small portion of the roughly 775 million cubic feet of irradiated soil in the prefecture. The 2011 meltdowns, caused by an earthquake and a resulting tsunami, sent radioactive debris spewing over the local area. The material eventually contaminated hundreds of square miles of Fukushima.
The Japanese government has encouraged residents to return to their former homes, but many still believe it is unsafe. Authorities even began withdrawing housing assistance payments to those who left the area after the meltdown, effectively forcing them to return.
Authorities eventually plan to hold all tainted material in temporary storage before transporting it to final disposal spots outside the state, but that could take as long as 30 years. According to a 2016 NPR report, there are around 9 million bags of contaminated soil awaiting disposal.
Because of the huge amount of soil to be disposed of, authorities want to use some of it productively. The Environment Ministry said it would use soil emitting a maximum radiation of 8,000 becquerels per kilogram. The average for soil used in road construction is around 1,000 becquerels per kg. If the trials are successful, the ministry plans to replicate the plans nationwide.
Workers move bags containing radiated soil, leaves and debris from a temporary storage site in Tomioka on February 23, 2015.
But to the residents whose lives were upended by the 2011 disaster, any amount of excess radiation is too much. A briefing given by the Environment Ministry on Thursday was interrupted by locals opposed to the project, according to The Japan Times.
“Ensuring safety is different from having the public feeling at ease,” farmer Bunsaku Takamiya, 62, said. His farm is close to one of the planned roads, and he fears that the proximity of his crops to the soil will stop people from buying his produce. “Don’t scatter contaminated soil on roads,” shouted another resident during the meeting.
A ministry-linked official told the newspaper that, given the residents’ anger, “it’s difficult to proceed as is.”
Japan ‘covering up’ Fukushima nuclear danger-zone radiation levels and blackmailing evacuees to return to radiated areas swarming with radioactive pigs and monkeys
Three reactors went into meltdown after the 2011 Japanese tsunami in the worst accident since Chernobyl, leaving an apocalyptic vision of ghost towns and overgrown wildernesses and scared residents refuse to return
JAPAN is lying to the world about nuclear-ravaged Fukushima’s recovery while forcing terrified evacuees to return to their radioactive homes, it is claimed.
More than seven years after the nuclear catastrophe rocked the world, many of the 154,000 people who fled their homes have not returned and towns remain deserted.
Thousands of irradiated wild boars and monkeys roam around while poorly paid and protected decontamination workers scrub homes, schools and shops down ready for people to come home.
Chilling footage of taken inside the evacuated areas of Fukushima City and Köryama lay bare the disaster that unfolded after an earthquake, measuring 9.01 on the Moment Magnitude scale, struck off the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011.
But it was the following 50ft tsunami that damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
This led to the evacuation of thousands of people from a 12-mile exclusion zone, with roads guarded by roadblocks and officials in protective gear.
Now there is a big campaign is under way to make people return but residents, campaigners and experts believe it not safe.
They accuse the Japanese authorities of wanting to allay public fears over the nuclear power by downplaying the dire consequences of the leak.
Propaganda videos showing the remarkable recovery of Fukushima have been spread by the government on its social media accounts.
“Since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, #Fukushima has been working towards a bright future.
Strict safety standards and monitoring means that #food from the prefecture is enjoyed all over #Japan.” See Fukushima’s amazing recover in this video:http://bit.ly/2CqP0HC
But senior nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie, from Greenpeace Japan, said the nuclear nightmare continues.
He said: “They are not telling the whole truth either to the 127 million people of Japan or to the rest of the world – about the radiation risks in the most contaminated areas of Fukushima.
“The nuclear crisis is not over – we are only in year seven of an accident that will continue to threaten public health, and the environment, for decades and well into the next century.
“Attempts by the government and the nuclear industry communicate that it is safe and it’s over are a deliberate deception.”
Most of Japan’s power plants shut in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
But in 2015 the Prime Minister announced plans to restart reactors because the economy needed cheap energy and using fossil fuels risked huge carbon emission fines.
Now five of them are back on – and it’s aimed to to have at least 12 in use by 2025.
The nuclear crisis is not over – we are only in year seven of an accident that will continue to threaten public health, and the environment, for decades and well into the next century (Senior nuclear specialist Shaun Burnie)
Mr Burnie said: “If they can create the illusion of the region that that has recovered from the nuclear accident they think it will reduce public opposition.”
But meanwhile the crisis continues at the Fukushima plant.
He said: “The massive Ice Wall built at the nuclear plant to stop contamination of groundwater is a symbol of this failure and deception – this is no Game of Thrones fantasy but the reality of a nuclear disaster that knows no end.”
Today he says “there were areas of Fukushima where radiation levels could give a person’s maximum annual recommended dose within a week.”
He said: “This is of particular concern with regards to poorly paid decontamination workers, thousands of whom have been involved in attempts to decontaminate radiation around people’s homes, along roads and in narrow strips of forest.”
Mr Burnie said the government claims decontamination has been completed in 100 percent of affected areas after a £8bn clean up operation.
But he added: “What they don’t explain is that 70-80 percent of areas such as Namie and Iitate – two of the most contaminated districts – are forested mountain which it is impossible to decontaminate.
“In areas opened in March 2017 for people to return – radiation levels will pose a risk until the middle of the century.
“These areas are still to high in radiation for people to return safely – and is one reason so few people are returning.”
Meanwhile heavy-handed tactics are being used with some fearful residents reporting that they have been warned they won’t receive lifeline compensation cash if they don’t comply.
Dr Keith Baverstock, a radiation health expert who was at the World Health Organization at the time disaster, told Sun Online: “For the past two years the Japanese government has encouraged the evacuees to return to their homes, but relatively few people have taken up this offer, even though there is a threat – it may even now be a fact – that their compensation will cease.”
Using underpaid Foreign Trainees for Fukushima’s Decontamination
3 Vietnamese trainees newly found to have taken part in Fukushima cleanup work
Three more Vietnamese technical intern trainees were sent by a contractor to carry out decontamination work at the Fukushima nuclear disaster area, it was learned from sources including a support organization.
The number of foreign trainees known to have taken part in the decontamination work now totals four. The Organization for Technical Intern Training under the jurisdictions of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is investigating the facts behind the incidents and there is a possibility that the number will rise.
According to the Zentouitsu Workers Union based in Tokyo, the trainees in the latest incident are all males and aged 24 to 34. They came to Japan in July 2015 and joined the contractor in the city of Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, to make molds and reinforce metal bars. Instead, the trio worked on decontaminating roads and other areas in Koriyama and the city of Motomiya, Fukushima Prefecture, from April 2016 to March 2018.
A supervisory organization for the contractor reportedly explained to the union that Koriyama and Motomiya were areas free of radiation exposure.
(Japanese original by Naoki Sugi, Maebashi Bureau)
More Vietnamese trainees made to conduct Fukushima decontamination work, union says
Three more Vietnamese men in a foreign trainee program in Japan were made to take part in radioactive decontamination work in Fukushima Prefecture, which was devastated by the March 2011 nuclear crisis, their supporters said Wednesday.
The Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau is conducting a probe, believing more foreigners may have been made to engage in inappropriate work under the Technical Intern Training Program.
Japan introduced the program in 1993 with the aim of transferring skills to developing countries. But the scheme, applicable to agriculture and manufacturing among other sectors, has drawn criticism at home and abroad for giving Japanese companies a cover to importing cheap labor.
According to the Zentouitsu Workers Union, which supports foreign trainees, the three Vietnamese men came to Japan in July 2015 and conducted radiation cleanup work in Fukushima Prefecture between 2016 and 2018 as trainees of a construction company in the city of Koriyama in the prefecture.
Their contracts only stated that they would be engaging in form-work installation and reinforcing steel placements, and the company did not give them a detailed explanation of the decontamination work beforehand.
In March, a Vietnamese trainee hired by a construction firm in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, said at a news conference in Tokyo that he had been misled into conducting decontamination work in Fukushima Prefecture.
The Justice Ministry and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare have released statements saying that decontamination work does not fit the purpose of the trainee program.
Contractors siphoned 1.6 million yen off pay of Vietnamese trainees sent to Fukushima
TOKYO — Construction firms skimmed roughly 1.6 million yen off the danger allowances of three Vietnamese technical trainees they sent to do cleanup work in the Fukushima nuclear disaster area over a period of seven months, the Environment Ministry announced on April 12.
The ministry punished four firms over the finding, including the construction firm “Creation” in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, and a prime contractor. The firms were suspended from participating in bidding for public projects for one month from April 13.
According to the Environment Ministry, Creation skimmed up to 4,600 yen per day off trainees’ danger allowances from September to December 2016, and March to May 2017, when they were working at home demolition sites in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture.
(Japanese original by Kazuhiro Igarashi, Science & Environment News Department)
Few return to Fukushima schools after evacuation lifted
Fourteen public elementary and junior high schools in five municipalities near the Fukushima Daiichi NPP reopened their doors in April for the first time in seven years, but only 135 youngsters showed up. The figure represents just 3 percent of the 4,000 or so children who were enrolled at 21 local schools prior to the disaster…
Those municipalities where evacuation orders were lifted refurbished school buildings and constructed new swimming pools and gymnasiums to attract more children…
Three first-graders gather at their classroom on April 6 in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture, after a ceremony welcoming them to the elementary school.
Near-empty classrooms marked the start of the new academic year in municipalities where evacuation orders dating from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster were recently lifted.
Fourteen public elementary and junior high schools in five municipalities reopened their doors in April for the first time in seven years, but only 135 youngsters showed up.
The figure represents just 3 percent of the 4,000 or so children who were enrolled at 21 local schools prior to the disaster.
The low return rate highlights the daunting task for officials trying to revitalize local communities, given fears that an absence of children offers only murky prospects of survival.
Municipalities where evacuation orders were lifted refurbished school buildings and constructed new swimming polls and gymnasiums to attract more children.
Schools reopened in Namie, Tomioka, Iitate and the Yamakiya district of Kawamata, where evacuation orders were lifted in spring 2017 with the exception of difficult-to-return zones, as well as in Katsurao, where most of the village was deemed safe to return to in 2016.
Those municipalities had set up temporary schools at locations where many residents evacuated.
After the lifting of the evacuation orders, the percentage of residents who have returned to their former communities range from 3.5 percent in Namie to 33.9 percent in Kawamata.
Most of the returnees are senior citizens.
Younger residents apparently are reluctant to return due to lingering concerns about radiation and also because many have made a fresh start in the areas where they moved to after the disaster.
Contractor skimmed pay of Vietnamese trainees doing Fukushima cleanup work
TOKYO — A construction firm siphoned off the danger allowances of Vietnamese technical trainees it sent to do cleanup work in the Fukushima nuclear disaster area, the Environment Ministry announced on April 6.
The firm, which assigned the technical trainees to radioactive decontamination and home demolition work, used false wage records in explaining that the allowances had been paid. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is investigating the firm for suspected violations of the Labor Standards Act.
The foreign trainee system is intended to bring foreign workers from developing countries to Japan to learn technical skills.
The Environment Ministry has confirmed that the construction firm skimmed off the trainees’ danger allowances in 2016 and 2017, when they worked at a demolition site in Kawamata, Fukushima Prefecture.
One of the trainees spoke about the pay-skimming at a news conference on March 14 this year. However, the construction firm had given Environment Ministry investigators the falsified wage records, and Environment Minister Masaharu Nakagawa stated on March 27 that the danger allowances had been paid.
Arbitration ends for Fukushima damages claim
April 6, 2018
A government body has given up trying to arbitrate between Tokyo Electric Power Company and more than 15,000 people seeking higher monthly compensation for the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
It was the largest arbitration case involving the nuclear accident.
Namie Town in Fukushima Prefecture filed a petition with the Nuclear Damage Compensation Dispute Resolution Center in 2013, on behalf of residents who were forced to evacuate after the disaster.
More than 15,000, or about 70 percent of the town’s population, signed the petition to demand more compensation from TEPCO, the operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
TEPCO’s monthly payment for each Namie resident was calculated at 100,000 yen, or about 934 dollars.
In March 2014, the dispute resolution center offered an arbitration plan that called for raising this amount by 50 percent. The town agreed to accept it.
But TEPCO maintains that increasing the compensation would have a significant impact on other evacuees. The center has repeatedly asked the utility to accept the plan.
On Friday, the dispute resolution center told the town of its decision to end the arbitration process.
The claimants are expected to consider whether to file a lawsuit against TEPCO. The town says more than 800 of the claimants are now dead.
Seven years later: Contradictory responses to Fukushima
Nuclear safety is an oxymore, shut them all down!
On March 11, 2011, the one-two punch from the Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunami wave it triggered left workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan powerless to prevent three reactors from melting down. In March 2017, the Japan Center for Economic Research estimated that the cleanup cost could range from $470 billion to $658 billion.
The conclusions Japanese and U.S. institutions made about why the Fukushima facility was so vulnerable to such an accident were strikingly similar. The commission created by Japan’s National Diet concluded that its “root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions.”
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee that investigated the accident similarly concluded “that regulatory agencies were not independent and were subject to regulatory capture.” According to the NAS report, regulatory capture is “the processes by which regulated entities manipulate regulators to put their interests ahead of public interests.” It found that the plant’s owner “manipulated the cozy relationship with the regulators to take the teeth out of regulations.”
In response to the accident, Japan established an agency, the Nuclear Regulation Authority. The NRA is not a clone of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), but it clearly is patterned after the U.S. agency, adopting many of its principles and policies to safeguard public health and safety.
Now, in an odd nuclear safety yin and yang, while Japan’s NRA strives to beef up its role as an effective, independent regulator, the NRC is backsliding towards becoming a cozy captive enforcing toothless regulations.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the NRC upgraded nuclear plant security. The upgrades included increasing the frequency of “force-on-force” tests, which determine whether security staff can thwart an assault on a plant. A team of mock intruders visited each operating nuclear plant at least once every three years and simulated four sabotage attempts against the plant’s gates, guards and guns.
The force-on-force tests either demonstrated security was sufficient or identified weaknesses for correction before actual intruders could exploit them. But plant owners complained about the cost, so the NRC has reduced the number of force-on-force exercises from four to one and is even considering allowing the plant owners to conduct the tests themselves.
Plant owners also complain about the high cost of NRC safety inspections and have targeted some of the NRC’s most important inspections, such as of fire protection measures, for replacement with self-assessments.
Nuclear dentistry last year involving the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona removed teeth from regulatory requirements. One of the two backup emergency power supplies for Palo Verde’s Unit 3 reactor blew up during a test. The plant’s NRC license allowed the reactor to continue operating for as long as 10 days with its backup power capability diminished. The repairs would take considerably longer than 10 days, however, so the plant owner asked the NRC for permission to continue operating for as long as 62 days. Despite the fact that NRC safety protocols prevent the agency from even considering requests for longer than 14 days, the NRC not only considered it, it granted it.
Granting the request also contradicted a formal agreement between the NRC and industry limiting how long a reactor can operate with less than the minimum amount of safety equipment specified in its operating license to 30 days. The agreement termed the 30-day limit a safety backstop, but it did not stop the agency from allowing the Palo Verde reactor to operate unsafely for twice that long.
It is admirable that the new Japanese nuclear power regulator is seeking to improve its safety oversight capability. But it is unfathomable that in the United States, the NRC is retreating from the regulatory front. There’s no doubt that uncompromising, effective regulation is not cheap. But Fukushima reminded the world of what was already well-known — that ineffective safety oversight can cost far more.
Americans deserve — and need — the nuclear regulator toward which Japan is striving.
Hong Kong will not lift post-Fukushima ban on some Japanese food
In meeting with Tokyo’s foreign minister, Chief Executive Carrie Lam says restrictions will stay in place for now, while government reaffirms commitment to enforcing sanctions against North Korea
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Sunday rejected for the time being Tokyo’s official request that the city lift restrictions on Japanese food imports brought in after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, citing public safety.
The chief executive also reaffirmed that the city had been strictly enforcing sanctions against North Korea, during her meeting at Government House with Japanese foreign minister Taro Kono, as he wrapped up his two-day visit to Hong Kong on Sunday.
Lam expressed her reluctance to lift the food ban, after Kono raised the possibility during the meeting.
In the wake of the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Hong Kong banned the import of fresh produce and milk from the prefecture and the four neighbouring prefectures, while conducting targeted radiation testing on fresh produce from the rest of Japan.
“She emphasised that it is incumbent upon the [government] to safeguard public health and hence effective measures must be in place to ensure food safety and to maintain public confidence,” a statement issued by Lam’s office read.
“Under this premise, the Food and Health Bureau will maintain communication with the Japanese authorities to review the latest situation and adopt appropriate measures in relation to the import ban.”
Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee said her department had been in touch with Japan’s agriculture ministry over the ban and that “food safety is the primary concern”.
Kono was the first Japanese foreign minister to visit Hong Kong for bilateral matters since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, according to the Japanese foreign ministry. Earlier on Sunday, he visited the Aeon department store in Tai Koo, where he tasted food from Aizu in Fukushima, including rice, sake and ramen – exempted from the ban because they are not fresh produce.
“It is scientifically proven it is very safe and those people from Hong Kong who come to Japan [are] already eating spinach and cucumbers from Fukushima. And I think Hong Kong people who have been to Japanese restaurants have eaten Fukushima vegetables and fruit,” Kono told NowTV.
“I would like to tell the Hong Kong people to come to Japan and enjoy the food in Japan.”
The city’s importers and legislators earlier urged Lam to be cautious about Tokyo’s request to lift restrictions on Japanese food imports, saying the government had to make sure all imports would not be contaminated with radiation.
Hong Kong is the largest export destination of Japanese agricultural, forestry and fishery products.
The two officials’ exchange came ahead of a North-South summit on the Korean peninsula next month, and US President Donald Trump’s possible meeting with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un before the end of May.
UN reports in recent weeks said Hong Kong companies were being used as fronts for North Korean businesses, to help it circumvent UN sanctions. Last month the US slapped sanctions on nine companies outside North Korea that were working on Pyongyang’s behalf. Two were based in mainland China and five in Hong Kong.
Lam took the opportunity to say her government was following the sanctions.
“Mrs Lam also reiterated to Mr Kono that Hong Kong has all along been strictly implementing the sanction measures decided by the United Nations Security Council on North Korea, and that Hong Kong will stay highly vigilant about activities and suspected cases that may violate the sanctions,” the statement read.
According to Japanese news agency Kyodo, both sides affirmed their collaboration in preventing North Korea from evading the sanctions. This was in response to incident in which a Hong Kong-registered tanker was found to have secretly transferred oil to a North Korean vessel in international waters last year.
Fukushima governor ‘pushes safety of prefecture’s food’ on Europe tour
Attendants of a reception held at the Japanese Embassy in London on Thursday are served sake from Fukushima Prefecture.
LONDON – Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori on Thursday kicked off a tour of Britain and France with the goal of publicizing the safety of food from the prefecture.
In London, Uchibori met with officials of British importing companies to promote Fukushima products and develop sales channels.
He also paid a courtesy call to Mark Field, the United Kingdom’s minister of state for Asia and the Pacific. Uchibori told Field that the people of Fukushima are profoundly grateful for the warm, generous support received from Britain since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami and the subsequent meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Before the meeting, Field enjoyed dried peaches from Fukushima given by the governor.
During a Thursday evening reception at the Japanese Embassy in London, some 200 Japanese and British guests tasted foods and drinks from Fukushima, including the prefecture’s specialty Ten no Tsubu rice dishes with wagyu, locally brewed sake and peach juice.
Uchibori’s tour was planned after the European Union in December lifted its restrictions on imports of some foods from Japan, including rice grown in Fukushima. The restrictions were imposed due to concerns over radioactive contamination from the nuclear disaster.
45 Lawsuits in Fukushima District Courts
A group of plaintiffs walk in front of Fukushima District Court in October 2017. The secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority will increase its number of legal staff from this spring to deal with lawsuits.
Japan’s nuclear regulator to hire more legal staff to respond to Fukushima-related lawsuits
Japan’s nuclear regulator will increase its number of legal staff from this spring to deal with lawsuits related to the Fukushima crisis, sources close to the matter said Wednesday.
The secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority will increase the number of staff at an office in charge of litigation to 22 in the fiscal year starting in April from the current 17. In fiscal 2012, when the body was launched, it only had five employees, the source said.
The secretariat said it was handling a total of 45 lawsuits as of March 1, of which 29 had been filed by over 10,000 plaintiffs nationwide including evacuees and victims of the Fukushima accident who are seeking damages from the state.
Among those 29 lawsuits, four of the five district courts that have already handed down rulings ordered the state to pay damages to the plaintiffs, rejecting the state’s claim that the accident “could not be foreseen.”
A lawyer representing the plaintiffs has criticized the expansion move, saying the state should not insist on fighting the lawsuits.
Izutaro Managi, a member of a lawyers’ group representing some 3,800 evacuees and accident victims in a lawsuit seeking damages from the state and the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, said, “The aim of the authority’s secretariat is to strengthen the state’s claim that it is not liable for causing the accident.”
“The state should rather reflect on the accident and accept its responsibility,” he said.
In addition to lawsuits related to the Fukushima evacuees and victims, the secretariat is also handling lawsuits filed by residents seeking to halt operations at nuclear plants or the construction of new ones.
New lawsuits could also be filed in the future as more nuclear power plants clear safety assessments by the authority to resume operations. Currently, 14 reactors at seven nuclear power plants have passed screenings under stricter regulations imposed after the Fukushima crisis triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.
SEVEN YEARS AFTER: Only trickle of former residents returning home to Fukushima
March 22, 2018
Close to a year after evacuation orders were lifted in four municipalities near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, only 6.1 percent of evacuees have returned to live in their former communities.
According to a survey of displaced residents, the top reasons cited for not returning were the condition of their homes, concerns about radiation and the lack of hospitals and stores.
The Asahi Shimbun has conducted annual surveys of evacuees since June 2011 with Akira Imai, a senior researcher at the Japan Research Institute for Local Government.
In the latest survey, questionnaires were sent in mid-January to 329 individuals who participated in past surveys. Valid responses were received from 161 individuals now residing in 19 prefectures around Japan aged between 28 and 91.
Of the respondents, 114 were still living as evacuees.
Close to 70 percent of the respondents said the measures taken by the central and local governments leading up to the lifting of the evacuation order on March 31 and April 1, 2017, were insufficient.
Regarding those results, Imai said, “The lifting of the evacuation order was conducted without adequate consideration for the hopes of the evacuees to have their communities returned to their former condition.”
Last year’s lifting of the evacuation order covered areas of the four municipalities of Namie, Tomioka, Iitate and Kawamata that were outside the difficult-to-return zones.
In the joint survey, respondents were asked about measures taken by the central and local governments to decontaminate irradiated areas and construct social infrastructure. A combined 109 respondents said the measures were insufficient or somewhat insufficient.
They were asked their reasons for not returning.
Multiple answers were allowed, and the most popular response given by 59 people was because their homes were not habitable. Forty-eight people raised concerns about radiation exposure on their health.
The inconvenience of not having shops and hospitals nearby was cited by 56 people.
One 46-year-old resident of Namie who lives as an evacuee with her husband and two children in central Fukushima Prefecture has no plans to return because there are no hospitals in the community capable of looking after her oldest daughter, who has an illness that could require emergency care.
While the rates at which evacuees have returned to the four municipalities range between 3.5 percent and 31.1 percent, the rates have not necessarily increased dramatically in the other municipalities where evacuation orders were lifted before spring 2017.
While the rates are between 80 and 81 percent for Tamura and Kawauchi, it is only between 19 and 34 percent in the three other municipalities where the orders were lifted prior to spring 2017.
1 This Month
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12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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