'Fukushima catastrophe ongoing: Leakage on a daily basis’

RT interviews Beyond Nuclear on recent measurements showing 53,000 Rem per hour (deadly to humans within a minute or less, at close range, in the absence of radiation shielding), or higher, radiation dose rates in the melted down Unit 2 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi, Japan. (The interview includes a section about the chronic, and acute, leaks of radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean from the site. In Sept., 2015, Greenpeace published a report on the various streams of radioactive wastewater at the Fukushima Daiichi site.)

Trump & Abe regard joint marketing of nuclear power plants in third party countries as pillar of U.S.-Japan economic cooperation

As reported by the Asahi Shimbun, regarding the Feb. 10 Abe-Trump summit:

The draft proposal contains five main pillars for economic cooperation that “would bring about economic growth and jobs in both nations and further strengthen ties.”

Another pillar would involve cooperation in developing markets in nations other than Japan and the United States. The goal is to develop a market of $150 billion over 10 years through joint development of commercial jets and marketing of nuclear power plants. (emphasis added)

An earlier meeting between President-elect Trump, and Prime Minister Abe, held last November in New York City, caused a stir when Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, attended, despite lacking proper security clearances. 

NBC News has reported on the conflicts of interest created by Trump hosting Abe at his golf resort in Florida. Remarkably, the article reports that Abe's grandfather, Japanese Prime Minister Shinsuke Kishi, similarly golfed with Sen. Prescott Bush, father of George H.W. Bush, and grandfather of George W. Bush, as well as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, at Burning Tree Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1957.

Kishi had been imprisoned for three years as a Class A War Criminal after WWII. But the U.S. saw him as their best hope for pro-U.S. leadership in Japan, and released him. Kishi's -- and Abe's -- Liberal Democratic Party has ruled Japan for almost all of its post WWII history.

The Liberal Democratic Party was founded in the mid-1950s. One of its founding planks was pro-nuclear power. It turns out that the U.S. CIA had a hand in that.

After the Castle Bravo H-bomb fallout disaster on March 1, 1954, the Eisenhower administration sent the CIA to Japan to sell "Atoms for Peace" as a balm to soothe public anger. Eisenhower had delivered his infamous "Atoms for Peace" speech at the UN General Assembly in New York City just a few months earlier, on Dec. 8, 1953.

The CIA recruited Shoriki, the owner of Japan's largest t.v. station and newspaper, as a secret CIA agent, to help sell nuclear power to the Japanese people. Shoriki also co-founded the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Shoriki's CIA agent status was not revealed until 2006.

Abe has continued the Liberal Democratic Party's pro-nuclear policies, despite the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe, and despite pressure from his own wife, Akie, and his mentor in politics, former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. Koizumi has alleged Abe lied, when he told the International Olympic Committee that the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe was "under control," in his successful bid to secure the 2020 Summer Games for Tokyo.

Fate of Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant remains unknown

As reported by Jiji, and reprinted in Japan Times.

As the article reports, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has shrugged its shoulders, and and said it is up to Tokyo Electric Power Company to decide if and when Fukushima Daini is decommissioned.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan has called for immediate decommissioning.

The Prefecture of Fukushima, for its part, has called for Fukushima Daini to be decommissioned, consistently, since the beginning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe on 3/11/11.

In addition, Mycle Schneider et al., in the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report, have predicted that Fukushima Daini will likely never operate again.

Fukushima Daini is located just seven miles south of Fukushima Daiichi (Daini means Two, while Daiichi One, in Japanase).

The four reactors at Fukushima Daini narrowly averted catastrophe on 3/11/11 themselves. The grid was largely lost there as well, and all emergency diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami. The plant was saved by a single surviving off-site power line.

A Maverick Former Japanese Prime Minister Goes Antinuclear

As reported by Motoko Rich in the New York Times.

Troubled Chinese Nuclear Project Illustrates Toshiba's Challenges

The Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Troubled Chinese Nuclear Project Illustrates Toshiba's Challenges," shows how its not just U.S. new atomic reactor costs overruns and schedule delays causing a "nuclear nightmare" for one of Japan's largest corporations, and a global leader of the nuclear power industry.