Japan Author: Fukushima disaster “\'impossible to control' — Senior Scientist: The sheer number of things going wrong… they’ve never solved any problems — Mutual Fund: Officials never regained control at plant
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AFP, Dec. 3, 2013: Norwegian investment fund KLP said Monday it had sold its shares in [Tepco] due to its handling of the disaster. The mutual fund, which manages the pensions and insurance plans of public servants and is worth around 370 billion kroner (44 billion euros, $60 billion), owned about eight million kroner in Tepco shares. [...] “After the accident, the company did not manage to regain control of the situation or to prevent further leaks,” [Heidi Finskas, KLP adviser for responsible investments] added in a statement. [...] “It’s been two and a half years and the situation is still not under control.”
Ken Buesseler, senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Dec. 3, 2013: “With the sheer number of things that are going wrong, they should be more openly bringing in help [...] Tepco is a nuclear power producer, not a cleanup operation. There are people with expertise in decommissioning reactors, and they need to be brought in whether they are Japanese, European or American. Every time they have a problem, they come up with a solution that takes a long time to bring in, and then doesn’t even solve the problem. [...] They have said some silly things, that it’s largely under control. That doesn’t really mean anything when you are out on a ship and you are seeing elevated levels of these isotopes. ‘Under control’ is not a good phrase for the situation right now.”
Japan Focus, Nov. 3, 2013: Saito Minako is an award-winning literary critic, feminist writer, prolific author. The translation [that follows] is from her weekly column “Column of Hon’ne (True Inner Feelings)”: Languages of politicians have always been treasure troves of lies and deception. But watching a number of new Japanese phrases the Abe Administration spews out one after another, I started to think that perhaps we even need a special new dictionary for this administration alone. For example: With respect to the radioactive waste water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the administration used the phrase “being under control (kontororu sarete iru).” But the situation is such that it is actually more fitting to say it is “impossible to control (seigyo fukano).”
Published: December 3rd, 2013 at 7:57 pm ETBy ENENews |