No More Free Lunch at #Fukushima I Because TEPCO Ran Out of Boil-In-The-Bag Food??

It's an unconfirmed bit of information from a Representative in the Lower House of Japan's Diet.

Yukiko Miyake says she had a chance to talk to Banri Kaieda, ex-Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who lost the bid to become the party leader and the prime minister. According to her tweet on September 16:

本会議で海江田さんと話すチャンスがあった。一昨日連絡した作業員食事打ちきりの件をすぐ調べてくれた。打ちきりは事実で、私達も試食した真空パックの非 常食がなくなったということだが、内部被爆の問題もあり今までのものが安全に思える。全国にストックがあるはずではとのこと。

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Kaieda during the main session of the Diet. I had told him two days ago about the free lunches for the [Fukushima I] workers that were stopped. He immediately did some research, and said to me the following: "It is true that the free lunches were stopped, because the emergency boil-in-the-bag food ran out. But we have to worry about internal radiation exposure for the workers, and I think the boil-in-the-bag lunches are safer. I think boil-in-the-bag food is in stock throughout Japan."

So, TEPCO may have run out of boil-in-the-bag food stocked at Fukushima I and at J-Village, and it couldn't buy more and/or it couldn't ask for more.

I wonder how Mr. Kaieda is doing these days, relieved of the ministerial job. My personal vote for the new PM was actually Kaieda, despite all the badmouthing I did of him. Unlike ex-prime minister Kan and ex-cabinet secretary and current Minister of Economy and Trade Edano, Kaieda hasn't appeared in the media circuit (I almost wrote "circus") to peddle "his side" of the recent 6 months history of Japan's nuclear crisis.

New Prime Minister Noda has gone very quiet after becoming the PM, with some questionable appointments of ministers and party leaders including Mr. Maehara, who was revealed in WikiLeaks to have been informing Americans about Japanese politicians like Ichiro Ozawa.

More about → No More Free Lunch at #Fukushima I Because TEPCO Ran Out of Boil-In-The-Bag Food??

NHK News May Have Tipped the DPJ Leader Election With Wrong Report on Vote Prospect

wrong, as in "180-degree wrong".



From what I've gathered in twitters and blogs of people who actually watched live both the election proceedings and NHK's reporting on the election (I watched only the election, live on the net), NHK repeatedly reported the totally wrong information about the number of votes that might go to Noda between the first round of voting and the second (final) round of voting.



There were close to 90,000 people watching the netcast of the election, with many of them also watching NHK.



The sequence is something like this:

1. 1st vote ended. The result: Kaieda 143, Noda 102, Maehara 74, Kano 52, Mabuchi 24.

2. 2nd round of voting started. Then about 15 minutes into the voting that took about 30 minutes, NHK reported: "Mr. Mabuchi instructed his supporters this morning to vote for anyone other than Kaieda [if Mabuchi loses in the 1st round]."

3. NHK also said "Kano instructed his supporters to vote for Noda, so did Maehara." NHK was practically predicting the landslide victory of Noda in the 2nd round. They were still voting, and the NHK report was conveyed by the reporters covering the election to the representatives.

4. 2nd round ended. The result: Noda 215, Kaieda 177. Difference was 38 votes.

5. 4PM: Special NHK News - "What we reported earlier about Mr. Mabuchi was wrong. He did not instruct his supporters to vote for anyone other than Kaieda; he told his supporters to do vote FOR Kaieda because Kaieda's policy on tax was close to his (they are both against increasing tax)."

Well, that admission was about 2 hours too late.



Despite the report, Mabuchi supporters are said to have voted for Kaieda after all. But the NHK's erroneous reporting may have swayed enough undecided voters in each faction, as all it took was to sway 16 votes in favor of Noda.



So, NHK may have ended up playing the "kingmaker" in deciding the next prime minister of Japan. Inadvertently or not, I do not know.



I do remember, after the election, PM Kan was all big smiles on the stage with 5 candidates. He must have been so happy to see the candidate backed by Ichiro Ozawa defeated.

More about → NHK News May Have Tipped the DPJ Leader Election With Wrong Report on Vote Prospect

Democratic Party of Japan New Leader Election Today

(Update: The last one, Minister of Agriculture Kano, just finished his speech. Well-rehearsed, totally irrelevant in today's Japan, IMHO. Mabuchi made the most sense, and so he won't get the vote. The worst two were Kaieda and Maehara; if either of them ends up getting the majority vote to become the next Prime Minister, oh boy, it's bleak.)



(Update: Kaieda spoke in an agitated manner, incoherent speech. So that's what Ozawa backs - someone who's hapless. Makes sense, just look at the former PM Hatohama, dubbed "space alien". Now Minister of Finance Noda is speaking. Much calmer, focused.)



(Update: The meeting is live on the net. Right now, Kaieda is speaking. Nothing worthy of mentioning. Sumio Mabuchi, who has the least number of supporters, seems to have impressed many net viewers for his forthright message of the first thing first - tackle the Fukushima nuke plant and recover from the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuke accident.)



------------------------------------------



The members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) will elect the new leader for the party (who will then become the prime minister) in the early afternoon on August 29, JST.



The meeting of 398 DPJ members of the Diet has just started in Tokyo. The candidates are to give 15-minute speech to the audience before the voting.



The majority vote is necessary to determine the winner. If there is no majority winner in the first round of voting, then they vote on the top two in the first round.



The first round of voting will start around 12:20PM, and the tally will be in by 1PM. If the second round is necessary, it will start about 1:20PM after the top two in the first round tries to convince more voters to vote for them. By 2PM, we will know who will be the new DPJ leader and the next prime minister.



Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda is the front-runner to succeed the outgoing PM Kan. Minister of Finance Noda is considered second, followed by ex-Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara. None of them seems to have secured the majority vote (200).



If it is a popularity contest among the Japanese, ex-Foreign Minister Maehara would win, according to the Yomiuri poll, because he is not backed by the kingmaker Ichiro Ozawa and he is young (he's 49).



"It doesn't matter who's at the top, they're all the same" has been the attitude of most Japanese from the time immemorial. At the same time, they trust the government authority (yes, even today) and clamor for a strong leader to guide them.

More about → Democratic Party of Japan New Leader Election Today

Democratic Party of Japan to Select New Leader, Ozawa Backs Kaieda

Prime Minister Kan finally steps down now that the renewable energy legislation has passed, the ruling party Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is going to hold an election to select the next party leader who will be the new prime minister of Japan.



The election is to be formally announced on August 27, and the voting will be on August 29, according to Jiji Tsushin (8/26/2011).



Jiji reports that there will be 5 candidates for the job. But it seems to boil down to two leading candidates backed by two warring factions within the DPJ.



On one side is Seiji Maeda, 49 years old former Minister of Foreign Affairs, backed by PM Kan and his faction. On the other, Banri Kaieda, 62 years old Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, backed by the faction led by Ichiro Ozawa and ex-PM Yukio Hatoyama, both of whom like to be the "king maker".



Banri Kaieda has been an unabashed proponent of nuclear power as the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry that oversees the nuclear industry in Japan.



5 candidates are:

• Seiji Maehara, age 49, ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs

• Yoshihiko Noda, age 54, Minister of Finance

• Michihiko Kano, age 69, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

• Sumio Mabuchi, age 51, ex-Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

• Banri Kaieda, age 62, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry

Take your pick.

More about → Democratic Party of Japan to Select New Leader, Ozawa Backs Kaieda

Kyushu Electric: Emails Sent to 2,300 Employees at Subsidiaries

More on Kyushu Electric Power Company busted (thanks to the Internet) for urging its employees and the employees at its subsidiaries to stuff the hearing for the re-start of Genkai Nuke Plant in Saga Prefecture with "anonymous, pro-nuke" emails.

According to Kyodo News Japanese (7/8/2011), A "Bucho" (general manager of a division) at Kyushu Electric ordered a "Kacho" (junior manager who work under "Bucho") to send emails urging the subsidiaries to participate in the hearing as anonymous pro-nuke citizens. 4 managers at the 4 subsidiaries dutifully forwarded the email to everyone at their respective companies, total 2,300 emails to 2,300 employees.

4 managers at the subsidiaries are all from Kyushu Electric. The "bucho" who ordered the "kacho" to create this email didn't say whether he also specified the details.

As the result of this scandal, even the pro-nuke gung-ho mayor of Genkai-cho (where the nuke plant sits) has grudgingly withdrawn his consent for the re-start, trashing both Kyushu Electric and the national government, who out of the blue has come up with the brilliant idea of nuke plant "stress test" that will not only delay the re-start at best, and at worst may reveal the aging Genkai plant to be very unsafe (if they really test).

But would anyone who believe the test, when the test parameters are set by the NISA and the nuclear industry?

Well, sadly it may well work. Just like the "stress test" for Wall Street banks devised by the US regulators (Turbo Tax Timmy and Helicopter Ben) and the banks themselves seems to have worked. Not that anyone believed the result, but more like "OK it's done, they cheated again, what's next? Anything changed? No. So what? Let's move on. Oh American Idol is on!" And the declaration by the banks and the regulators that "the US banks are safe".

Another minor victory for no-nuke people in Japan is that Banri Kaieda, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who amassed a fortune selling books on how to invest in risky assets right before the Japan's asset bubble collapsed, may be resigning over this Kyushu Electric scandal.

He feigned surprise and indignation, but hardly anyone believes he didn't have a hand in it. But just like his boss PM Kan, resignation "when the time comes" may mean he will never resign because no one knows "when" the time will come and what he means by "the time".

More about → Kyushu Electric: Emails Sent to 2,300 Employees at Subsidiaries