Antinuclear

A panel of experts has agreed that the compensation system for nuclear accidents should be maintained. It imposes unlimited responsibility on power companies.

The system states that utilities bear unlimited liability for damages even if they are not at fault in nuclear accidents.

The government’s Atomic Energy Commission set up a committee of experts to review the system. That’s because the amount of compensation has become huge in connection with the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, and a harsher business environment was expected after deregulation of the electricity market. The experts started discussions in May 2015.

At a meeting on Wednesday, many participants opposed establishing a cap on utility liability and having the shortfall covered by the government. They said residents near nuclear plants and the general public will not accept it.

Some observers say the current system creates too massive risks for utilities. Others argue the public will have to…

TRUTHFUL? The Green Consumers’ Foundation claims that a Ministry of Health and Welfare report on Japanese food imports contains false and inaccurate information

Green Consumers’ Foundation chairman Jay Fang, right, presses the doorbell of the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday to file a lawsuit against Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Tzou-yien following the release of a ministry report on food imports from Japan.

Green Consumers’ Foundation chairman Jay Fang (方儉) yesterday filed a lawsuit against Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office accusing the minister of “forgery,” claiming that the ministry’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used false data in its report on easing restrictions on Japanese food imports from the five prefectures closest to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which suffered a meltdown in March 2011.

Fang said that the government’s report provided at the weekend…

The planned site for an intermediate storage facility of radiation-contaminated waste spans the towns of Futaba and Okuma and surround the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

The Environment Ministry on Nov. 15 started building a facility in Fukushima Prefecture that will store radiation-contaminated debris for up to 30 years, despite obtaining permission for only 11 percent of the site.

The 16-square-kilometer storage facility is expected to hold up to 22 million cubic meters of materials contaminated by radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011.

“I hope that you take pride in this project and cooperate to construct the facility,” Tadahiko Ito, a vice environment minister, told workers.

The facility, which will span the towns of Futaba and Okuma, is expected to start accepting, sorting and storing the debris in autumn 2017 at the earliest, more…

The US promised Australia that they would take a bunch of Middle Eastern refugees-migrants that are trying to enter Australia if Australia would take Central American refugee-migrants! This was in Reuters news. It is found under World News videos and neither under humor, nor under humour.

Festival in Nebaj, Guatemala, photo released to public domain via wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_peoples

The US may transship Central Americans – largely indigenous to the Americas- to Australia, as was done with many indigenous British and Irish. British and Irish were transshipped to the Caribbean, the US and Canada before Australia. Australia has its own indigenous people. [Update: The refugees are apparently located in Costa Rica and not Mexico. This raises the question of why Mexico is not taking them? Are they Mexicans instead of Central Americans? What about Nicaragua and many South American countries which have low population densities? Why aren’t they taking them? Why…