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JAPAN – UNITED STATES Secret nuclear deals between Tokyo and Washington | Spero News
For decades, the authorities have denied that nuclear weapons were present in Japan; yet it allowed United States to stockpile and transport them on Japanese soil. The credibility of the Liberal Democratic Party, now in the opposition, sinks further.
Tokyo – The people of Japan was deceived for decades, this according to declassified documents that are only now coming to light about secret deals between Washington and Tokyo with regards to the presence of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. Since 1960, the government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has repeatedly denied that nuclear weapons were ever present in Japan or that any agreement existed to that effect.
In mid-October, the National Security Archives in Washington released declassified telegrams, background papers and top-secret minutes regarding US nuclear weapons policy in Okinawa and, more broadly, Japan between the 1950s and 1972. Information about secret deals comes from this source, but it is neither the only nor the main one.
The ‘secret’ US-Japan pact with loaded content — William Choong
Most visitors to Japan, this writer included, are usually impressed by the politeness of the Japanese. Taxi drivers are not gruff, department store staff bow, hotel porters try their best to help.
In this light, the country's former Foreign Minister Sunao Sonoda was rather un-Japanese when he denounced Dr Edwin Reischauer, America's envoy to Tokyo in the 1960s, a figure who was widely respected in Japan.
In 1981, Reischauer had spoken of a secret pact between the United States and Japan, whereby nuclear-armed US ships were allowed into Japan. This defied Japan's cherished “three 'no's” — that it shall not produce, possess or introduce nuclear arms.
“I have never met Dr Reischauer,” Sonoda told the Japanese Diet. “But he is an uncalled-for meddler who pokes his nose into matters that are absolutely none of his business.”
Nearly 30 years later, the issue of the secret pact has popped up again.
Japan says it will soon release details of nuclear pact with U.S. - washingtonpost.com
Japan's new government, already bickering with the United States about the location of a Marine air station on Okinawa, appears intent on revealing evidence of a decades-old secret pact between Tokyo and Washington that allowed U.S. ships and aircraft to carry nuclear weapons on stopovers in Japan.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said that the investigation is in its final stages and that its findings will be announced in January. "We'll be unburdening ourselves of the insistence of past governments that a secret agreement did not exist," Okada said in a speech last weekend.
The pact violates a Japanese law that prohibits nuclear weapons from being made, possessed or stored on its territory. But disclosure of the 1960s-era agreement is hardly new. In general outline, its existence has been known for years because of declassified U.S. government documents.
Japan plans to expose secret U.S. pact - UPI.com
The details of a secret agreement with the United States allowing nuclear weapons in Japan will be released in January, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada says.
Okada said the government's investigation of the pact is almost complete, The Washington Post reported.
"We'll be unburdening ourselves of the insistence of past governments that a secret agreement did not exist," Okada said in a speech Saturday.
Japan Finds Documents Indicating Secret Nuclear Pact, NHK Says - Bloomberg.com
Japan’s government has discovered documents indicating the existence of a secret agreement allowing the U.S. to transport nuclear weapons through its territory, public broadcaster NHK reported on its Web site.
The government will set up a panel of experts to examine the documents and will announce the findings early next year, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said yesterday, according to NHK.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chris Cooper in Tokyo at ccooper1@bloomberg.net
AFP: Smoke rises from Japan nuclear plant
Smoke rose on Thursday from the world's largest nuclear power plant in Japan, which was shut down by an earthquake two years ago, but the operator said no-one was injured and there was no radiation leak.
The smoke was caused by friction from the brake of a crane in a reactor's turbine room, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said in a statement.
"We reported immediately to the fire station and used fire extinguishers and now the smoke has stopped," the statement said.
"There were no injuries nor any radiation leak" in the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture, 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Tokyo, it said. The company said it would thoroughly investigate.
AFP: Hitachi plans to raise 4.6 billion dollars
Japanese high-tech giant Hitachi Ltd., reeling from massive losses, said Monday that it planned to raise 415.7 billion yen (4.6 billion dollars) from investors to shore up its shaky finances.
Hitachi, which makes everything from refrigerators to nuclear power systems, aims to drum up the cash by selling convertible bonds and new shares. The sprawling conglomerate has been hit hard by the global economic downturn.
It is restructuring with measures including 7,000 job cuts, after losing 787.3 billion yen in the year to March 2009 -- the biggest ever loss for a Japanese manufacturer.
Other cash-strapped Japanese companies are also going cap in hand to investors to bolster their capital, including electronics giant NEC.
AFP: US, Japan to call for nuke-free world: reports
US President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plan to issue a joint statement calling for a world without nuclear weapons when they hold talks Friday, reports said.
In the statement, tentatively entitled the US-Japan joint initiative for a nuclear-free world, they would welcome rising international momentum toward arms reduction and non-proliferation, the Yomiuri said Thursday.
In their joint effort, the United States would seek to raise the global momentum, while Japan would push the message from its perspective as the only country to have been hit with atomic bombs.
The statement would be based on the UN resolution adopted in September at a Security Council summit hosted by Obama, Jiji Press said.
NRC to Meet With Toshiba on Nuclear-Reactor Design (Correct) - Bloomberg.com
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Toshiba Corp. next week to discuss the safety of its proposed AP1000 nuclear-reactor design.
Toshiba’s Westinghouse unit will address the commission’s concern about the structural integrity of the silo-shaped shield building that would contain the reactor and trap radioactivity in an accident, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s New York bureau.
Containment buildings at existing reactors were poured at the site as a solid piece of steel-reinforced concrete, Jaczko said. Toshiba wants to piece the building together from sections, he said.
“Where the staff has some concerns is how those things are tied together,” Jaczko said. “When you’re dealing with the kinds of accident scenarios that we look at, or hurricanes or tornados or seismic events, will that structure maintain its integrity?”
Problematic 'pluthermal' era | The Japan Times Online
The 1.18 million-kW No. 3 reactor at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture, which is Japan's first reactor using plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) as fuel, attained nuclear criticality last Thursday and started trial operations Monday (commerical operations are to start on Dec. 2). Thus "pluthermal" power generation has begun, but many problems remain unresolved.
MOX fuel, made of plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel and uranium, was primarily intended for use in a fast breeder reactor (FBR), the core of Japan's nuclear fuel-cycle plan. But the prototype FBR Monju in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, has remained shuttered since a major accident in 1995. As a secondary step, the government in 1997 decided to adopt pluthermal power generation, which burns MOX fuel in ordinary light water reactors. But mishaps delayed its start by 10 years.
CPS Energy sends team to Japan to negotiate cut in nuclear power costs - San Antonio Business Journal:
CPS Energy CEO Milton Lee and Interim General Manager Steve Bartley are heading to Japan on Tuesday to square off behind closed door meetings with Toshiba Corp. officials to discuss why the cost projection on two new nuclear reactors are higher than expected.
Toshiba Power Systems is the lead contractor for the proposed expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant in Matagorda County, Texas. There have been reports indicating that the price tag could be as much as $4 billion higher than originally projected. CPS Energy’s partner in the South Texas Project expansion, NRG Energy, will also be involved with discussions. CPS Energy will press the Japanese for a pricing structure on the two new reactors that is more affordable than the current cost projection. CPS Energy wants the cost of the nuclear reactors to have no more than a 5 percent impact on customer bills, Bartley says.
AFP: Japanese to protest US base before Obama visit
Thousands were expected to rally Sunday against a US military base on Japan's Okinawa island, raising the heat in a simmering row days before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo.
Local opposition has often flared against the large US military presence on the southern island, strategically located within easy reach of China, Taiwan and North Korea and dubbed the United States' "unsinkable aircraft carrier".
Japan Uses Controverisal Nuke Fuel - CBS News
Critics of Weapons-Grade "MOX" Fuel Say It's Too Volatile and Generates High Amounts of Radioactive Waste
(AP) Japan used weapons-grade plutonium to fuel a nuclear power plant Thursday for the first time as part of efforts to boost its atomic energy program.
Kyushu Electric Power Co. said workers fired up the No. 3 reactor at its Genkai plant in the southern prefecture of Saga using MOX fuel - a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide.
The reactor is scheduled to start generating electricity Monday for a monthlong test run, and then begin full-fledged operations after a final government inspection and approval in early December, company official Futoshi Kai said.
The Genkai plant marks the beginning of Japan's use of MOX fuel for so-called "pluthermal" power generation, approved by the Cabinet more than a decade ago.
JapanFocus: The Atomic Bombing, The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and the Shimoda Case: Lessons for Anti-Nuclear Legal Movements
Yuki Tanaka and Richard Falk
Yuki Tanaka’s article is followed by a companion article by Richard Falk
The War Crimes Trials and the Issue of Indiscriminate Bombing
On May 14, 1946, ten days after the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (popularly known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal), Captain George Furness, a member of the defense counsel, cast serious doubt on the fairness of the Tribunal conducted by the victorious nations in World War II:
‘We say that regardless of the known integrity of the individual Members of this Tribunal they cannot, under the circumstances of their appointment, be impartial; that under such circumstances this trial, both in the present day and history, will never be free from substantial doubt as to its legality, fairness, and impartiality.’1
AFP: Japanese firms to develop small nuclear reactors
Japan's major nuclear reactor manufacturers have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report said on Saturday.
Toshiba Corp. is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.
The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.
AFP: US documents point to secret Japan nuclear pact
Despite decades of denials by Washington and Tokyo, US officials believe they enjoyed a secret pact to transport nuclear weapons through Japan, newly declassified documents showed.
The disclosure came after Japan's left-leaning government ended more than half a century of conservative rule and launched a probe into thousands of files to settle longstanding suspicions of a hush-hush pact.
Any evidence of an agreement would trigger charges of hypocricy as Japan is the only nation to have suffered nuclear attack and has campaigned for the worldwide abolition of the ultra-destructive weapons.
The National Security Archive at George Washington University released documents Tuesday showing US officials believed they had an understanding with Japan when the allies signed a new security treaty in 1960.
Nuke pact deniers face new 'refuter' | The Japan Times Online
The Foreign Ministry kept a written record of a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in 1968 in which he reminded ministry officials of a secret 1960 bilateral nuclear deal, a former senior ministry official said Tuesday, further contradicting government claims that no such pact existed.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's administration has been pressing the ministry to reveal whether there was a secret U.S.-Japan pact since assuming office last month. Up to now, the Foreign Ministry has repeatedly denied the existence of a deal despite confirmation of the pact in declassified U.S. documents and statements by former Japanese vice ministers.
According to the senior official, who once headed the ministry's former Treaties Bureau and who spoke on condition of anonymity, the records were maintained covertly by the Treaties and the North American Affairs bureaus at least until the end of the 1990s.
asahi.com: Atomic power safety questions still unanswered - English
Ten years after a nuclear accident killed two plant workers and shattered the "safety myth" surrounding atomic power generation, Japan still has much work to do in improving responses to cases of radiation exposure.
Experts and officials say the number of doctors and facilities that can provide emergency care is still insufficient, while more has to be done to prevent and respond to radiation emergencies.
The incident, at the JCO Co. nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Sept. 30, 1999, was the nation's first "criticality accident," a term used to describe the unintentional triggering of a nuclear chain reaction in fissile material.
Scars linger from nuclear accident | The Japan Times Online
10 years later, couple still fights in court while village grapples with how to move forward
On Sept. 30, 1999, Shoichi Oizumi and his wife Keiko couldn't figure out why helicopters were hovering over their auto parts factory in the village of Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture.
"Firefighters came to our factory to tell us to close the windows as an accident took place at JCO Co.," a nuclear fuel processor across the street, the 81-year-old Oizumi said. "But they did not know precisely what happened.
"I looked out the window, but I did not see any abnormal signs, such as smoke. I called the village office, but the officials did not know what really happened either," he said.
CNIC - Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
Contents
KK-7 Stopped Due to Radioactive Leak, KK-6 Begins Start-up Tests
Local groups demand that start-up tests be suspended until investigations into KK-7's leaking fuel rod problem have been concluded and that both KK-6 and KK-7 be immediately shut down.
Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station Struck By Earthquake
The fact that an earthquake that arose so far away could cause so large a ground motion begs the question of whether the plant could withstand an earthquake immediately beneath the plant.
Nuclear Energy Policy Under a New Government
It might be hoped that a change of government would herald a change of nuclear energy policy, but we should not be too sanguine about the chances of a significant improvement.
Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant: 14 Month Delay
The estimated date of completion of construction and testing of its Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant has been extended by fourteen months to October 2010. It is the seventeenth time that the schedule had been extended.
Public Finance and Export Insurance for Nuclear-Related Exports
NGOs demand rigorous safety assessment, information disclosure and stakeholder involvement.
An accident not to be forgotten: 10 Years have passed since the JCO Criticality Accident
It might not have been so when the plant was first constructed, but at the time of the accident the plant was surrounded by houses. Nuclear fuel should not be handled in such places.
Workers' Radiation Exposure Data for FY2008
The total collective dose in FY 2008 for people working at nuclear power plants was 84.04 person sieverts, an increase of 5.86 person sieverts compared to the previous year.
Who's Who: Hiromitsu Ino
There are many superb specialists in all sorts of academic fields, but there is one important difference between Ino and a large percentage of these "experts". That is that Ino succeeded in bridging the gap between specialist research and social activism.
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