Daily Japan Headlines: Friday, Aug 19, 2011
Photo Source: WTOP.
Washington Post: Shovelful by shovelful: Irradiated town struggles to clean up after Fukushima
Feeling forgotten and left largely to fend for themselves by the central government, officials in Minami-Soma, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility, have designated August as “Decontamination Month” in a campaign to woo spooked residents home.
“We decided that we could not sit by and wait until Tokyo figured out what to do,” said town official Yoshiaki Yokota. “It’s an enormous task, but we have to start somewhere.”
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NY Times: Japan Premier, Under Pressure to Quit, Drops Plan to Meet With Obama
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has scrapped plans to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington next month, as pressure builds on the unpopular Japanese leader to resign in coming weeks. The spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said that the trip was impossible given “Japan’s current political situation.”
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Wall Street Journal: Japan Finds Radiation in Rice
The tainted rice was found in Ibaraki prefecture, or state, a southern neighbor to Fukushima prefecture, in a city about 90 miles south of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The prefectural government posted a notice on its website saying that it had detected 52 becquerels of radioactive cesium from a kilogram of brown rice collected Aug. 16 from the city of Hokota in the southern part of the prefecture.
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Mainichi: Japan tones down nuclear power policy in new 5-yr science strategy
Japan’s new five-year science and technology program approved by the Cabinet on Friday has excluded references to an earlier draft that promoted next-generation nuclear technologies, reflecting the government’s backpedaling on its atomic power policy amid the ongoing crisis at a crippled nuclear plant.
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BBC: Can Japan do without nuclear?
After the tsunami triggered nuclear problems, Japan has been taking an in-depth look at how it generates electricity.
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Wall Street Journal: From Futenma to Fukushima, Japan’s Costly Dithering
With the U.S. grinding through a major budget crisis this summer, unless Tokyo and Okinawa hammer out details of a thorny relocation plan that more or less triggered the downfall of Mr. Kan’s predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, within a matter of weeks, the funds to cover the cost of relocating Futenma may be taken off the table, and the base will likely stay where it is, regardless of local outcry.
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LA Times: Former envoy tells of U.S. worries over Japan’s quake response
At one point, Maher said the Obama administration considered a worse-case scenario of evacuating tens of thousands of U.S. citizens from the Tokyo metropolitan area.
“There was nobody in charge,” Maher said Thursday at a speech at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. “Nobody in the Japanese political system was willing to say ‘I’m going to take responsibility and make decisions.’”
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Wall Street Journal: Japanese Official: Yen Doesn’t Reflect Economic Fundamentals
Japan’s top currency-policy bureaucrat complained Friday about global investors treating the yen as a “flight-to-safety currency” during times of global economic distress.
“We don’t think recent yen moves really reflect economic fundamentals,” Takehiko Nakao, vice finance minister for international affairs, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview Friday.
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LA Times: Japan finance official-No plans for frequent FX intervention
“we don’t have plans to intervene often,” adding “we don’t use intervention as a daily tool.”
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Boston Herald: Strong quake hits off Japan; no reported damage
A magnitude-6.8 earthquake struck off Japan’s northeastern coast Friday, triggering a tsunami advisory that was later lifted. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in the temblor, which rattled the area devastated earlier this year by a massive quake and tsunami.
The 2:36 p.m. (0536 GMT) quake was centered about 185 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and at a depth of 12 miles (20 kilometers), slightly south of where the magnitude-9.0 temblor struck March 11, Japan’s Meteorological Agency said.
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Courier Mail: Australian teachers in Japan may be placed too close to leaky nuclear reactors
A LEADING Japanese recruiter of teachers from Australia is placing recruits closer to leaky nuclear reactors than recommended by Canberra’s radiation safety agency.
The move by the Japanese Government-sponsored JET program reflects the gulf between what Japanese and other nations’ authorities constitute a safe distance from nuclear reactors.
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Wall Street Journal: Nadeshiko Swag: Goat-Hair Brushes, Luxury Wheels
In a tradition that dates back to the creation of the award in 1977, the National Honor Award also comes with a supplemental prize. In the past, it has ranged from a Swiss watch to an artisan porcelain vase. But if the players, and their male coach, were hoping to decorate their wrists or apartments, they may have been disappointed with the choice this time around: a set of seven make-up brushes.
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