Japan’s new minister’s sado-masochist prostitution and Fukushima scandals

This video says about itself:

Fukushima Residents Suing Tepco and Government for Radiation Contamination; update 2/8/2013

Japan Leader Faces Crisis Over Minister for Trade

By MARTIN FACKLER

OCT. 24, 2014

TOKYO — The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faced a new political crisis on Friday amid revelations that his recently appointed trade minister owns stock in the company whose cleanup of the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant he would oversee.

The cleanup by Tokyo Electric Power Company, which ran the plant when it suffered a triple meltdown, has already been plagued by problems, including the leaking into the sea of tons of radioactive water.

The news about the minister’s stock ownership, first reported in local news media, came soon after revelations that the minister’s aide had visited a club featuring sadomasochistic performances, then reported the visit as a political expense.

Taken together, the revelations have prompted growing calls for the resignation of the trade minister, Yoichi Miyazawa, just days after his predecessor and another cabinet minister stepped down because of financing scandals. Another resignation could be a crippling blow to the government of Mr. Abe, whose first term as prime minister ended seven years ago after a series of scandals in his cabinet. …

As trade minister, Mr. Miyazawa leads the committee that oversees the complicated cleanup of the site, which was covered in radioactive material after the meltdowns. The disaster, which happened before Mr. Abe’s second term, has been blamed in part on a cozy relationship between the government and the nuclear industry that led to lax regulation and oversight.

Members of the Abe government have so far dismissed the possibility of Mr. Miyazawa’s resignation, in an attempt to weather yet another scandal at a time when the economic recovery that Mr. Abe has led is showing some signs of faltering. Mr. Abe’s government is still reeling from the back-to-back resignations on Monday of the two cabinet ministers, a double blow that presented the prime minister with the first big political crisis of his current term.

On Friday, opposition lawmakers vowed to press for more details about Mr. Miyazawa’s ownership of shares in Tokyo Electric, also known as Tepco, calling it a conflict of interest. …

“Why couldn’t the governing party do a better job of vetting the cabinet members?” said Tatsuo Kawabata of the opposition Democratic Party, adding that Mr. Miyazawa should at least have sold the stock before becoming minister.

The problems with the new trade minister began on Thursday, when news reports claimed that the aide’s visit to an S-and-M club had been included in a list of political expenses filed to Mr. Miyazawa’s office. Later on Thursday, Mr. Miyazawa acknowledged that the aide had been reimbursed 18,230 yen, or about $170, for the visit four years ago to Mazan, a bar in Hiroshima.

This is a list of videos about the Fukushima disaster.

From daily The Guardian in Britain, also of 24 October 2014:

Miyazawa said he had spoken to the staff who had claimed ¥18,230 in expenses for a 2010 visit to a Hiroshima sex bar, where male customers pay to whip tied female employees. …

Abe had hoped that by acting quickly over the alleged spending irregularities involving Obuchi and Matsushima he could quickly regain the political momentum that saw his first cabinet last almost two years without a reshuffle or resignation.

Instead, he is confronting uncomfortable reminders of his first term as prime minister, from late 2006, which ended after just a year. Four of his ministers resigned, and one killed himself.

Atsuo Ito, a political analyst, said even if the share controversy did not force Miyazawa out, it was a distraction. “It takes energy away from the administration’s difficult policies, such as raising the sales tax and restarting nuclear reactors,” he told Reuters. “The ruling party wants to avoid further resignations. But this could be a repeat of the first Abe administration that was heavily criticised by the public when he defended his ministers for a long time, even after scandals.”

TOKYO, Japan—What do neo-Nazis, racists, necromancers, historical revisionists, bad accountants, and S&M fans all have in common? They all seem to have been represented in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet: here.

Japan nuclear plant gets approval to restart, over three years after Fukushima — Reuters: here.

Fukushima workers injured as steel material for coolant tank collapses: here.

A British scientist who studied the health effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster panned a United Nations report that virtually dismissed the possibility of higher cancer rates caused by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis: here.

Week-long negotiations in Canberra, followed by three days of ministerial talks in Sydney last weekend, failed to break a deadlock between the American and Japanese governments over the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): here.

Japan’s 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster still fracturing families — Los Angeles Times: here.

Question of negligence hangs over nuclear firms in U.S. case over Fukushima fallout — The Japan Times: here.