METI bureaucrats were “too busy” to do their job TOKYO (majirox news) — It has recently come to light that the task force managing the Fukushima nuclear disaster has no records of its meetings. The Japanese Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency, which was acting as the secretariat of the task force, failed to keep minutes...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Prime Minister Naoto Kan kept his word to stand down upon passage through the Diet of a series of bills related to recovery from the March 11 disasters when he resigned as leader of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) on Aug. 26. Kan’s replacement as DPJ president will...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Prime Minister Naoto Kan reaffirmed his desire for Japan to stop using nuclear power generation on July 14, but senior Democratic Party of Japan figures and business leaders offered little support. “We faced the threat of having to evacuate 30 million people from Tokyo, Yokohama, the capital area, because of...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Four months after the March 11 disasters struck the Tohoku Region, more than 100,000 people remain evacuated from their homes, a quarter of them living in evacuation centers such as schools, according to Cabinet Office statistics. Cabinet Office figures showed that as of June 30, 99,236 people evacuated from the...
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TOKYO (majirox news) – The clean-up of the leaking Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor could take “several decades,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) meeting in Tokyo on Saturday, according to the Asahi newspaper. Kan spoke to a gathering of DPJ party secretaries from across Japan, saying there will be...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Prime Minister Naoto Kan said July 8 he has “not given it a single thought” about dissolving the Diet so voters can express their views about Japan’s energy policies. “I think it’s desirable to have future energy policies based on the will of citizens, but when it comes to the...
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TOKYO (majirox news) – Masataka Shimizu, the outgoing president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., TEPCO, will step down to take responsibility for “damaging the public’s trust and causing inconvenience.” Shimizu, who will become an advisor to the utility, said his duty is to continue supporting the company’s leadership. He said Toshio Nishizawa, the incoming...
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Update: According to the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho, Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s decision to shut down the Hamaoka power plant and compensate the victims of the Fukushima Daicihi accident has been well accepted by the Japanese people. However, the decision might not of itself be enough for the PM to keep his job. TOKYO...
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