2020 Olympics Minister Resigns Disparaged Fukushima Victims

Olympics Minister Sakurada Resigns

 

 Japan's Olympics minister Yoshitaka Sakurada resigned Wednesday after coming under increasing pressure over a series of gaffes -- in the latest, saying politics is "more important" than the recovery of the country's northeastern region devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 

"I felt I had to take responsibility and submitted my resignation" to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Sakurada, who was in charge of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics Games to be hosted by Tokyo, told reporters. 

Abe virtually sacking the 69-year-old is a setback to his administration seeking to showcase the Tokyo Games as a symbol of Japan's recovery from the disaster that led to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. 

After accepting his resignation letter on Wednesday night, Abe then publicly apologized for appointing Sakurada as the Olympics minister. 

"As prime minister, I'd like to apologize to people in the disaster-stricken area for the remarks (made by Sakurada)," Abe told reporters. "I bear responsibility for having appointed him." 

"We need to straighten up and make sure we can run the event without a problem," a senior Japan Olympic Committee official said. 

In mid-March, the head of the committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, said he will step down when his current term ends in June, as he is under investigation by French authorities for alleged bribery related to Tokyo's successful bid for the Tokyo Olympics. 

Sakurada's resignation comes less than a week after a senior vice minister at the land ministry, Ichiro Tsukada, was forced to quit following comments suggesting he had acted in the interests of Abe's constituency over a road project. 

Sakurada is the eighth Cabinet minister to resign since Abe returned to power in 2012. As Abe's Liberal Democratic Party gears up for a series of elections through July, the prime minister's decision to oust Sakurada from the government is seen as a damage-control effort. 

Former Olympics minister Shunichi Suzuki, 65, will replace Sakurada, according to a government source. 

At a fund-raising party in Tokyo for an LDP lawmaker from the northeastern region, Sakurada said the lawmaker, Hinako Takahashi, is "more important than the (region's) recovery." 

The remarks came on top of earlier ones that had already prompted opposition parties to step up calls on Sakurada to step down. 

In February, he said he was "very disappointed" over swimming gold medal hopeful Rikako Ikee's diagnosis of leukemia -- a comment on the potential absence of the star from the Tokyo Games that elicited a huge backlash. 

Sakurada, while attending a parliamentary session, also said he has heard of the Olympic Charter but has never read it. 

In March, reflecting his lack of knowledge about the situation in the northeastern region, Sakurada said traffic was smooth on highways linking the Tohoku and Kanto areas in 2011 even as they were indeed damaged by the disaster. 

Sakurada, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1996, then called the city of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the hardest-hit prefectures, "Ishimaki" more than once during a parliamentary session on Tuesday. 

Opposition party leaders and residents in the northeastern region view his resignation as a natural turn of events. 

Yukio Edano, who heads the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, said his latest remarks are "unbelievable." 

"The remarks are those that hurt people affected by the disaster," Edano told reporters. "The responsibility now lies with Prime Minister Abe who has continued to defend Mr. Sakurada."

"We are still halfway toward the recovery" said Shigeru Yamazaki, a 70-year-old resident in Iwate Prefecture, who just resumed his clothing business in February after his shop was destroyed by the tsunami eight years ago. 

"There are many people who are still struggling. His resignation won't settle everything," Yamazaki said. 

Senior officials from the Tokyo metropolitan government said they are concerned the remarks could undermine the image of the upcoming Olympics and Paralympics. 

"The comments are beyond acceptable and it's unthinkable for someone representing the nation to say such things," a senior metropolitan government official said. 

Asahi

GSDF Failed To Report Troop Logs

The Ground Self-Defense Force failed to report to then-defense chief Tomomi Inada that it had found activity logs in March 2017 for troops in Iraq, even as she denied their existence during Diet deliberations the previous month, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera said Wednesday.

The latest revelation comes as another potential blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, already embroiled in a cronyism scandal over a heavily discounted sale of state land to a school operator with ties to his wife, Akie.

Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera

The GSDF reported to the ministry in January this year that it had found the logs, even though the documents were discovered over nine months before.

Opposition lawmakers had requested to see the logs, but the ministry said on Feb. 16 last year that such logs did not exist. Four days later, Inada told a Diet committee that the ministry was unable to find the logs.

“I want to apologize for inaccurate explanations in the Diet and the failure to respond appropriately to the request for the documents,” Onodera told reporters, adding that he has set up an investigation team in the ministry.

The ministry was rocked by a similar scandal last year, when its inappropriate handling of GSDF activity logs for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan prompted Inada to resign in July.

Regarding the logs for GSDF personnel dispatched for reconstruction efforts in war-torn Iraq more than 10 years ago, the ministry admitted Monday that it had found them despite denying their existence last year.

Opposition lawmakers had been asking for the logs as deteriorating security conditions in South Sudan and risks facing the peacekeepers were being discussed in the Diet at the time.

“I cannot believe that the Defense Ministry would come as far as reporting false information,” said Hajime Sebata, an associate professor at Nagano Prefectural College who is knowledgeable about public document management.

“There have been a series of problems regarding the government’s handling of public documents, but this case (involving the Defense Ministry) is even worse,” Sebata said, referring to the Finance Ministry’s admission that it had altered documents on the state land sale to the school operator.

Japan sent roughly 5,500 GSDF personnel to Iraq from January 2004 to July 2006 to provide water and medical aid and help repair infrastructure in Samawah in the south of the country.

The mission stirred controversy as it was the first time for Japan to send the SDF, whose role is restricted by the war-renouncing Constitution, to a country where fighting was continuing.

KYODO

1 In 6 Children In Japan Live In Poverty

Finance Minister Aso Pressured By Media To Explain Poverty Issues

The smell of miso soup and rice wafts from a kitchen as a brigade of volunteers put their cooking skills to use on a recent Saturday evening in Tokyo’s commuter belt.

In an adjoining room, children chat and make paper cutouts while they await the arrival of what, for some, will be their only proper meal of the day.

Kawaguchi children’s cafeteria is one of hundreds to have sprouted up in Japan in recent years in response to a problem few associate with the world’s third biggest economy: child poverty.

The Health and Welfare Ministry announced last Wednesday 3.5 million Japanese children – or one in six of those aged up to 17 – are from households classed as experiencing relative poverty.

Japan’s relative rate of poverty has risen over the past three decades to 16.3%, while the rate in the US, though higher at 17.3%, has fallen.

“The global economic turmoil in 2008 hit women in their 20s and 30s particularly hard,” said Finance Minister Taro Aso.  “Those in full-time work were forced to take irregular or part-time jobs with low pay and no bonuses or annual pay rises. In some cases, these women have to borrow money, sometimes from loan sharks, and then end up working in the commercial sex industry to pay off their debts. It’s easy for them to get trapped in a negative cycle”, Aso concluded as he addressed the media yesterday.

Their plight is a rarely seen consequence of Japan’s struggle to steer its economy out of the doldrums after more than two decades of stagnation and deflation. Four years after Shinzo Abe became prime minister for a second time, campaigners say the rise in poverty is evidence that his grand plan for growth – known as Abenomics – has failed to deliver for many families.

Japan now has some of the worst wealth inequality and highest rates of child poverty in the developed world, according to a Unicef report released in April that ranked Japan 34th out of 41 industrialised countries.

Of the 3.5 million children who are eligible for state support, only 200,000 actually receive any – a low take-up rate that campaigners blame on the stigma attached to living on social security.

Jiji Press

New Zealand Man Dies In Saitama Hospital After Restraints Used

Victim Kelly Savage (27)

The family of a New Zealand man who died after being tied to a bed for 10 days in a Japanese psychiatric ward say his care was an abuse of human rights.

Kelly Savage, 27, had been teaching English in Japan for two years when a pre-existing mental health condition worsened.

His Wellington-based family say he became manic after stopping his medication because of the side effects.

He was admitted to Yamato Hospital In Yamato City, Saitama, under a compulsory order and restrained on a bed in a secure ward for 10 days.

A nurse found him in cardiac arrest in mid-May and he died seven days later.

His death certificate lists the cause of death as hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy caused by cardiopulmonary arrest.

But his family say the cause of the cardiac arrest is inconclusive and it has been suggested to them that deep vein thrombosis may have been involved because of the long period of restraint.

The doctors in Japan have reported that 30 days' restraint is common there.

The family have tried unsuccessfully to get medical records from the hospital, which also declined to allow an investigation into the cause of death by an outside party.

The hospital has also declined to apologise, with the chief doctor denying responsibility.

Kelly's older brother, Pat Savage, who lives in Japan with his wife and young children, said he was driven to tears of anger and frustration at a meeting with hospital chiefs yesterday.

He said they told him nurses would have removed Kelly's waist, wrist and leg restraints for short periods on occasions, to wash him or allow him to eat, but would not say for how long or give him the nurses' records.

"I kind of broke down and [was] crying and angry at them because I've been trying to get these records for almost two months now, and they know that I wanted it, and they just screwed us over by, you know, trying to drag the process out as long as possible."

He said whether the restraints were removed "for a few minutes" to allow Kelly, who was sedated, to be bathed was immaterial; he did not need to be physically restrained for so long.

"He does need to be in a hospital - I was glad he was in a hospital - but he didn't need to be restrained to the bed in my opinion."

Dr Savage said it was bad to treat anyone that way, but particularly his younger brother, who was helping Japanese students.

"The fact that Kelly was here ... to try to help international relations, trying to teach Japanese children English, and then he's just dying in this kind of outrageous circumstances that would never happen in New Zealand should be an embarrassment to Japan."

Kelly's mother, Martha Savage, a professor of geophysics at Victoria University, said what had happened was shocking.

"It just seems medieval to me. I mean we were just shocked when we first found out and it seems like it's something from a movie back in the Middle Ages. It doesn't seem like a modern society would be doing this [restraint]."

She said the only thing the hospital staff did for Kelly while he was restrained was put compression stockings on him.

She said restraint was needed to prevent people from hurting themselves or others, but it was usually for a short period of time.

"No more than a few hours and only if they're actually actively trying to resist and trying to go after other people, but Kelly had already stopped resisting at that point and they still put him in the restraint."

Prof Savage said the family did not want anything other than to prevent it happening to anyone else.

"We don't want to sue anybody, we don't want money. We just want other people to not go through this terrible situation again."

She urged the New Zealand government to push Japan to change its practices.

Radio New Zealand

TEPCO Needs 5 More Years Of Government Subsidies

TEPCO Head Takashi Kawamura At Diet Testimony

The new chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says the utility needs to stop dragging its feet on plans to dump massive amounts of treated but contaminated water into the sea and make more money if it's ever going to succeed in cleaning up the mess left by meltdowns more than six years ago at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Takashi Kawamura, an engineer-turned-business leader who previously headed Hitachi, is in charge of reviving TEPCO and leading the cleanup at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. In testimony Thursday in the House of Deputies in the Diet, Kawamura said despite the massive costs of the cleanup and meeting tighter safety requirements, nuclear power is still vital for Japan's national security.

Below are highlights from the testimony.

CLEANUP REQUIRES RELEASE OF TREATED CONTAMINATED WATER

Massive amounts of radiation-contaminated water that has been processed and stored in hundreds of tanks at the plant are hindering decommissioning work and pose a safety risk in case another massive quake or tsunami strikes. TEPCO needs to release the water - which contains radioactive tritium that is not removable but considered not harmful in small amounts - into the Pacific Ocean, Kawamura said. The method is favored by experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority as the only realistic option. Earlier, TEPCO had balked at calls by NRA chairman Shunichi Tanaka for controlled release of the water, now exceeding 770,000 metric tons, into the sea, fearing a public backlash. "Technically, we fully support the chairman's proposal," he said, adding that there is still strong resistance from local residents, especially fishermen. "I think we should have acted sooner. ... We should start moving faster."

PROFITS NEEDED TO COVER CRUSHING COSTS

Government subsidies are needed for at least five more years. Kawamura says TEPCO must become more profitable to manage to cover the gargantuan costs of cleaning up Fukushima Dai-Ichi after it suffered multiple meltdowns due to the massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. TEPCO'S longtime status as a regional monopoly undermined its profit-making incentive, hobbling its ability to cover most of the 21.5 trillion yen (about $190 billion) price tag for decommissioning the plant and compensating dislocated residents. "To reconstruct Fukushima, we must make more profit, and I know we should not be taking about just money, but I think that is important," he said.

DECOMMISSIONING IS THE FUTURE

TEPCO's main mission now is decommissioning Fukushima Dai-Ichi, an unprecedented challenge that experts say could take decades and will take still more research and development. "That's our main activity and gaining new expertise in the decommissioning is far more important. But I believe there will be a time when decommissioning becomes an important business," Kawamura said. "Decommissioning is a process which takes time, not only for accident-hit reactors but ordinary retired reactors," he said. "I plan to coordinate with those who are studying the possibility of properly turning decommissioning of ordinary reactors into a viable business."

JAPAN NEEDS NUCLEAR POWER

Kawamura says he believes nuclear power is still a viable business and one that will continue to be vital for Japan's energy security, despite the extra costs from stricter post-Fukushima safety requirements and the cost of processing spent fuel and waste. TEPCO is reviewing its business strategy, but based on rough estimates, "I still believe that nuclear is still superior for Japan, which is really a resource- poor country," he said. "Even if we take severe accident measures and factor in spent fuel processing and other costs, I think there are some reactors that can still be profitable." He said nuclear power includes a wide range of technologies that Japan should not abandon, for national security reasons, as China continues to build nuclear plants.

TEPCO'S OTHER REACTORS

Kawamura said TEPCO hopes to restart the utility's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in northern Japan, even while the decommissioning at Fukushima Dai-Ichi is underway, so the operable plant can be a major source of revenue for the company. He said a decision on whether to resume operation of the Fukushima Dai-Ni plant, near Fukushima Dai-Ichi, will depend on a financial review. He said he regrets TEPCO's slowness in making a decision and acknowledged calls from local authorities and residents to decommission the second Fukushima plant, which was also hit by the tsunami but avoided a meltdown.

From Diet Transcripts 13 July

Maekawa Testifies: Prime Minister Abe Ordered School Given Special Approval

Maekawa Testifies Before The Diet

A former top education ministry bureaucrat told the Diet Monday that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's office had significant influence over the government's decision to approve a new department at a university run by his friend.  

Kihei Maekawa testified, "Prime Minister Abe ordered that the school be given special approval in veterinary medicine.  He knew and his aids went to the Education Ministry and got special approval."

Abe's aide was clearly involved in the approval process for the veterinary department at the Okayama University of Science in a government-designated special economic zone, said Maekawa, former vice minister of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Attending as an unsworn witness, Maekawa told a Diet committee, "The prime minister's office worked behind the scenes," adding that the Cabinet Office, and the prime minister's office, was responsible for dealing with issues related to special economic zones.

Kotaro Kake, chairman of Kake Educational Institution, which runs the university, is known as a close friend of the prime minister.

Abe's Liberal Democratic Party agreed to briefly reopen parliament for committee deliberations, as requested by opposition parties.

But the deliberations were held when Abe was away for a tour of European countries including participation in the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, prompting opposition parties' demand for his attendance at a separate parliament session.

Appearing in the joint session of the House of Representatives' Cabinet affairs and education committees, Maekawa reiterated that the review process was "unclear" and "unfair," citing insufficient discussion of whether Kake Educational Institution met conditions to launch Japan's first vet school in half a century.

During a similar session in the House of Councillors in the afternoon, the former top bureaucrat also said Hiroto Izumi, Abe's assistant, urged him in September and October last year to speed up the procedure, saying he was making the request on behalf of Abe "because the prime minister cannot say it by himself."

Abe has come under fire over suspicions he influenced the approval process for the opening of the new department at the university in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

Such suspicions have grown after the revelation of documents indicating that officials of the Cabinet Office pressured the education ministry ahead of the selection of Kake.

Maekawa has said he remembers having seen some of the documents while he was still working at the ministry.

The documents, which Maekawa insists are authentic, state the officials employed phrases such as "what the highest level of the prime minister's office has said" and "in line with the prime minister's wishes." Abe and other Cabinet members have repeatedly denied wrongdoings.

It is the second scandal related to school operators close to Abe. He has drawn suspicion over his dubious ties with private school operator Moritomo Gakuen, which purchased state-owned land in Osaka at a dramatically reduced price. Abe's wife Akie was named honorary principal of the elementary school that Moritomo planned to open at the site.

Maekawa resigned in January to take responsibility for a scandal in which the ministry systematically secured post-retirement jobs for its bureaucrats.

Kyodo

Government Calls Response By TEPCO "Arrogant"

Protesters Outside TEPCO HQ

The head of Japan's nuclear safety watchdog on Monday criticized the attitude of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc (TEPCO) toward decommissioning of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and questioned the company's ability to resume operation of other reactors.

"I feel a sense of danger," Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said during a special meeting with the company's top management, adding that TEPCO does "not seem to have a will to take initiative and is responding with arrogance in our investigation" toward decommissioning of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Takashi Kawamura, the chairman of TEPCO, and its president, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, attended the meeting. The authority felt it is necessary to hear from the top executives before it could make a decision on whether to approve TEPCO's plan to resume operation of the Nos. 6 and 7 reactors at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Prefecture.

TEPCO filed for state safety assessment of the two reactors in September 2013 to reactivate them, hoping to restore its financial condition as it needed massive funds to pay compensation related to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and to scrap the plant that suffered meltdowns.

The watchdog's safety screening has found TEPCO's failure to report insufficient earthquake resistance of a facility built to serve as the base to deal with a possible nuclear accident at the Niigata complex although it had acknowledged the insufficiency for three years.

In June, TEPCO submitted to the watchdog its revised safety measures for the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex.

"An operator lacking will to take initiative does not have the right to resume operation of nuclear reactors," Tanaka said.

TEPCO's chairman responded by saying, "There are citizens who believe nuclear power is necessary. Operating reactors is our responsibility."

But he also admitted there is room for only two more years' worth of space in the tanks to accommodate contaminated water stemming from the Fukushima complex.

At Monday's meeting, the watchdog asked TEPCO's top management about the company's safety measures for the Niigata complex on the Sea of Japan coast as well as its safety awareness.

Tanaka said the authority does not view that it received sufficient responses from TEPCO at the meeting and requested that the company submit more explanation on its plan to decommission the Fukushima complex and resume operation of the two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant.

Tanaka plans to conduct on-site checkups at the two reactors of the plant in Niigata, saying, "TEPCO, which caused the (Fukushima) accident, is not an ordinary operator."

The two boiling water reactors at the Niigata plant are the same type as those that suffered core meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi complex, and no such reactors have cleared the authority's safety screening since the Fukushima disaster.

Kyodo

Diet Investigation Of Kihei Maekawa To Proceed Without PM Abe Present

LDP Lawmaker  Under Investigation For Favoritism

Japan's ruling and opposition parties agreed Tuesday to briefly reopen the Diet next week for one-off committee deliberations, with plans to investigate a former top bureaucrat at the education ministry who has come forward alleging favoritism by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The agreement came shortly after the main opposition Democratic Party spurned an offer by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party for committee deliberations on July 10 or 11, on the grounds that Abe would be unable to attend them due to an overseas trip.

Meeting with LDP Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Wataru Takeshita for a second time on Tuesday, Democratic Party Diet affairs chief Kazunori Yamanoi agreed to hold committee deliberations on July 10 after the LDP consented to summoning Kihei Maekawa as an unsworn witness.

Maekawa, a former vice minister of education, culture, sports, science and technology, is likely to be asked about allegations that Abe has used his power as prime minister to help Kake Educational Institution, whose president is a close friend, open a veterinary medicine department in a special economic zone.

Emboldened by the LDP's crushing defeat in Sunday's Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, the Democratic Party and several other opposition parties agreed earlier in the day to call for committee deliberations or a new session of the Diet, amid a number of scandals dogging the government and ruling party.

With Abe scheduled not to return to Japan until July 12, the committee deliberations in both houses on July 10 will be held without him. But Takeshita told Yamanoi that the LDP will "consider" holding a session of a parliamentary committee with the prime minister in attendance, according to the opposition lawmaker.

The previous Diet session ended last month, but one-off committee deliberations can be held without convening a new session.

Abe is scheduled to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Germany starting July 7 and visit several Scandinavian countries and Estonia before returning to Japan on July 12.

Maekawa, who resigned from the top bureaucratic post over an unrelated case in January, has drawn attention for publicly vouching for the authenticity of ministry documents that indicated Abe's influence over the school construction project.

At their meeting on Tuesday, senior officials of the Democratic Party, Japanese Communist Party, Social Democratic Party and Liberal Party also decided to call for the prime minister to dismiss Defense Minister Tomomi Inada over remarks she made during a stump speech that they argue amounted to making political use of the Self-Defense Forces.

The LDP lost its status as the leading force in the Tokyo assembly amid voter frustration with the Abe administration, which is embroiled in various controversies. Meanwhile, popular Gov. Yuriko Koike's Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First party) and allies won an overall majority in the 127-seat assembly.

Just days before Sunday's assembly election, Inada asked voters to back an LDP candidate, saying the request came from "the Defense Ministry, the SDF, the defense minister and the LDP."

Under the law governing the country's defense apparatus, the SDF is supposed to remain politically neutral and its personnel are restricted in their ability to engage in political activities.

Also during the campaign period, former education minister Hakubun Shimomura, who is a close aide to Abe and was responsible for the party's election campaign in the capital, was also reported to have mishandled political donations from Kake Educational Institution, which he denied.

Kyodo

PM Abe Dismisses Calls For Imamura Resignation

Imamura At Diet Thursday

 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dismissed opposition calls Thursday for the resignation of the disaster reconstruction minister, Masahiro Imamura, over remarks implying Fukushima evacuees yet to return to parts of the prefecture deemed safe to live in should fend for themselves.

Masahiro Imamura had been defending at a Tuesday press conference the central government’s decision to delegate help for the “voluntary evacuees” from the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster when he said it is such people’s “own responsibility, their own choice” not to return.

“I want him to continue to be alongside those affected by the disaster and devote every effort to his duties with the aim of realizing reconstruction as soon as possible,” Abe said during a plenary session of the House of Representatives.

Earlier Thursday, Imamura, 70, apologized for “causing a nuisance to everyone” at a session of the lower house committee on reconstruction from the 2011 disaster.

Housing subsidies ran out last month for people who left areas other than government-designated zones around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

At the Japanese Lower House of the Diet on Thursday Imamura said “Prime Minister Abe said I should apologize that I used a disparaging word and gave the impression that (the evacuees) are responsible for their own (return) despite the fact that they are displaced because of the nuclear disaster, and I deeply apologize,” Imamura said.

Kazuko Kori, a lawmaker from the main opposition Democratic Party the recovering area of northeastern Japan, had called for Imamura to resign because “we cannot discuss reconstruction under this minister.”

Many in the Diet have dismissed Imamura's aplogy as being nothing more than "Abe told me to, so that is the sole reason I am apologizing".

But Imamura vowed to “keep performing my duties in good faith.”

Imamura had aggressively lashed out at the reporter who had asked him the question on Tuesday, yelling “shut up” at the reporter during the press conference. He offered a brief apology the same day for having “become emotional.”

He said Thursday he is willing to apologize to the reporter, “if Prime Minister Abe said it is necessary.”

The lower house reconstruction committee is currently debating a proposal to reform a special law relating to the 2011 disaster that would see the state pay for cleanup efforts in the areas of Fukushima still too contaminated with radioactivity to live in.

Imamura has been in his post since a Cabinet reshuffle in August last year.

KYODO

Disaster Reconstruction Minister Masahiro Imamura Calls Fukushima Evacuees Leeches

Masahiro Imamura, Japan’s disaster reconstruction minister, said Tuesday displaced people yet to return to areas of Fukushima Prefecture deemed safe to live in are “responsible for their own lives and living,” before snapping at the reporter whose question prompted the remark.

Imamura made the comment at a press conference explaining the government’s efforts for the reconstruction of areas hit by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.

Housing subsidies ran out last month for those who had left areas other than government-designated zones around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Citing a court decision last month that the central government and the plant’s operator were liable in the nuclear disaster in the first ruling of its kind since the crisis, a reporter asked what the state is doing to help the “voluntary evacuees.”

Imamura responded that the central government has delegated such matters to prefectural authorities, which are more knowledgeable about local conditions.

“It’s evacuees responsibility, their own choice not to return, they are acting like leeches” he said when pressed further, pointing out that other evacuees have managed to go back to the areas.

The reporter said some of those still displaced have found themselves unable to return, and asked whether the state should take more responsibility for looking after those people.

“We are taking responsibility. The evacuees refuse to return so we have the situation now. So why are you saying something so rude?” Imamura shouted, slamming his podium.

Pointing a finger at the reporter, he then yelled, “Take that back! Get out of here!”

“You’re the one who’s causing problems for the evacuees,” someone called out as Imamura walked away from the podium, to which the minister responded “Shut up! You are annoying!" before leaving the room.

“The minister has informed me that he became emotional and was unable to remain calm for part of today’s press conference,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said during a subsequent press conference.

Suga, the government’s top spokesman, said the matter is one for Imamura himself to “handle appropriately.”

Imamura apologized later Tuesday, telling reporters he had “become emotional.”  When he was pressed again to explain what the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is doing to assist the remaining evacuees, Imamura thanked the media present and left the press room without comment.

Imamura, 70, was installed in his post in a Cabinet reshuffle in August last year.

KYODO

Here is video of the exchange

Cesium Spread In Fukushima By Wild Mushrooms

Source: Asahi News - 朝日新聞

Radioactive cesium released after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's triple meltdown in 2011 is continuing to contaminate the environment through wild mushrooms, scientists say.

It turns out that the fungi absorb cesium and then release it through their spores after concentrating it.

But the amount of cesium in the environment is miniscule and poses no threat to human health, say the researchers, who are primarily with the Meteorological Research Institute of the Japan Meteorological Agency, Ibaraki University and Kanazawa University.

The new findings indicate that cesium is released into the environment again by mushroom spores in mountains and forests in zones designated as difficult to return to because of high contamination levels after the nuclear accident triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Radiation levels in the air are measured at monitoring posts and disclosed to the public. Those measurements are taken at a designated height to measure radiation from the ground and in the atmosphere.

In a separate effort, a team of scientists from the Meteorological Research Institute and other bodies measured the radioactivity concentration of cesium-137 by collecting airborne particles 1 meter above ground in Fukushima Prefecture.

The team’s survey showed that cesium levels in a mountainous area in the northwestern part of the town of Namie rise five times in summer compared with winter. The region is part of the difficult-to-return zone.

The increased cesium level during summer is equivalent to less than one ten-thousandth of the radiation dose of 2.1 millisieverts, which the average individual is naturally exposed to each year.

The latest findings were in marked contrast to studies covering the prefectural capital of Fukushima and elsewhere that showed cesium levels were higher in winter than summer.

Initially, the researchers considered the possibility of cesium on the ground's surface being kicked up by clouds of dust. But they found no clear association between the cesium level and dust.

Teruya Maki, an associate professor of microorganism ecology at Kanazawa University, analyzed genes of airborne particles gathered in forests and mountains in the northwestern part of Namie from August to September 2015.

The results showed that many of the particles were derived from mushrooms.

Between June and October last year, more than 10 kinds of wild mushrooms were gathered on 10 occasions in the region’s forests and mountains. The radioactivity concentration levels in the spores measured up to 143 becquerels per gram.

When multiplying the cesium concentration per spore by the number of collected spores per cubic meter, the result roughly matched the measured cesium concentration for the area.

“Spores in which cesium was concentrated were likely released into the atmosphere, raising the airborne concentration,” said Kazuyuki Kita, an air environment science professor at Ibaraki University, who was involved in the analysis of cesium levels.

The amount of cesium contained in a spore of sampled mushrooms was extremely small.

“Even if people inhale the air in areas where mushroom spores containing cesium are spreading, that could never affect human health,” said Kazuhiko Ninomiya, a researcher of radiochemistry at Osaka University, who is a member of the research team.

The researchers are also trying to ascertain the extent to which the mushroom spores spread. They are planning more studies to figure out if the distances involved could be several kilometers.

Last summer, airborne cesium concentration levels for mountains and forests in Namie that have yet to be decontaminated were almost the same as those for an area 1 kilometer away that has been decontaminated on a trial basis.

That indicates cesium is likely spreading in the air, according to the scientists.

Asahi News

Fukushima Evacuees Face End Of Housing Subsidy

Fukushima residents protests end of evacuee subsidies

Saturday will mark six years since the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.  It marks as well the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster which caused the evacuation of over 150,000 residents of not only Fukushima City, but Fukushima Prefecture residents also.

At the end of this month, housing subsidies run out for those who fled the Fukushima nuclear disaster from areas other than the government-designated evacuation zones, and as the clock ticks down, evacuees have had to decide whether to return or move once again.

Many of these so-called voluntary evacuees are mothers seeking to avoid risking their children’s health while their husbands remain in radiation-hit Fukushima Prefecture, according to freelance journalist Chia Yoshida.

This is why the term “voluntary evacuee” is misleading, as it gives the impression that they fled Fukushima for selfish reasons, Yoshida told a news conference in January in Tokyo.

At the same news conference, another journalist proposed using the term “domestic refugee” to describe them.

The Fukushima Prefectural Government has been paying the cost of public and private housing for voluntary evacuees under the Disaster Relief Act since the reactors melted down at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The number of evacuees from the disaster, including those from mandatory evacuation areas, peaked at 164,865 as of May 2012, according to the prefectural government.

Its latest tally, conducted earlier this year, shows that 11,321 out of the 12,239 voluntary evacuee households had already decided where to live after April, while 250 had not.

It was back in June 2015 when Fukushima announced the plan to end the rent subsidy this month, saying that decontamination work in the prefecture had advanced and food safety had been achieved.

Still, the central government’s evacuation orders have not been lifted in “difficult-to-return zones,” which include the towns of Futaba and Okuma, home to the crippled nuclear facility.

Those no-entry areas are subject to radiation of over 50 millisieverts per year, compared with the government’s long-term annual target of less than 1 millisievert after decontamination work.

Rika Mashiko, 46, is a voluntary evacuee living in Tokyo. She has decided to rent a house near the Fukushima-paid apartment where she and her daughter, now in elementary school, are currently living so that her daughter will not miss her friends.

Mashiko and her daughter fled Fukushima about two months after the nuclear crisis started, leaving behind her husband in their house in Miharu, located in the center of the prefecture.

Mashiko said many women evacuated from Fukushima with their children, compelled by their instinct as mothers to avoid danger.

“Maybe nothing might have happened, but if it had, it would have been too late,” she said.

Mashiko, who first moved to a house in Higashiyamato in eastern Tokyo that was leased for free, said mothers like her who fled the nuclear disaster feel they shouldn’t have to pay their housing costs and are angry at being “victims of the state’s nuclear policy.”

Many voluntary evacuees are financially struggling as they have to cover the double living costs in their hometowns, where typically the fathers remain, and the new places where the mothers and children moved.

In that sense, the free housing has been a “lifeline” for them, particularly in the Tokyo metropolitan area where housing costs are high, according to journalist Yoshida.

In an attempt to extend support to those families, Makoto Yamada, a veteran pediatrician in Tokyo, established a fund with ¥3 million out of his own pocket to help them rent new houses, for example by covering the deposit.

The initiative was the latest example of the support he has been providing to evacuees. Three months after the disaster, he held a counseling session in the city of Fukushima that attracted some 400 people concerned about radiation exposure. He has continued to hold similar sessions in Tokyo.

Yamada, 75, says poor understanding of the plight of voluntary evacuees has also played a role in bullying cases involving evacuee children that have been reported across Japan since last year.

In one high-profile case, a first-year junior high school student in Yokohama was called a “germ” at school, in reference to his supposed exposure to radiation.

Society appears to generally feel that voluntary evacuees have received a lot of money on top of the one-time compensation payment made by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., the operator of Fukushima No. 1.

Yamada says if people understood that voluntary evacuees had no wish to leave but felt they had to, such bullying would disappear.

The first financial support from Yamada’s fund went to 10 mothers and their children on Jan. 15. He was surprised to see the recipients shed tears of joy upon receiving ¥200,000 or ¥300,000 each.

Yamada said the government has tried to reduce the number of evacuees from Fukushima in order to claim that their ranks have decreased and that the disaster has been overcome.

Yoshida echoed that view, describing the voluntary evacuees as “people who will be eliminated from history as the government seeks to trivialize the damage from radiation contamination and say their evacuation was unnecessary.”

As long as there are evacuees living outside Fukushima, they will remain a symbol showing the situation has yet to be solved, Yamada said.

“If you say ‘we will not forget about Fukushima,’ you should never forget the terror of radiation, bearing in mind that people will not live in safety as long as nuclear plants exist in the world,” he said. “So, I want to continue to think about the evacuees.”

Kyodo