Good times never seemed so good, oh, no, no....
"As ambassador, Kennedy gets warm welcome in Japan" by Yuko Takeo and Isabel Reynolds | Bloomberg News, November 20, 2013
TOKYO — Caroline Kennedy was greeted by thousands of cheering Japanese as she passed through the streets of Tokyo to present her credentials to Emperor Akihito as the first female US ambassador to Japan.
Spectators, many of them elderly, lined the streets snapping photos of Kennedy, 55, as she passed in a century-old horse-drawn carriage. Crowds thronged the front of the Imperial Palace where Kennedy met with the 79-year-old emperor in a ceremony marking the official start of her duties.
Kennedy’s background as the only living child of former president John F. Kennedy and her ties to President Obama have heightened attention on her appointment. Her father had hoped to become the first sitting US president to visit Japan before he was killed.
‘‘Some people say she doesn’t have enough foreign policy experience, but her fame is her strength,” said Fujio Yanaka, 76, who waited outside to catch a glimpse of Kennedy. ‘‘I hope she’ll pass on the spirit of JFK and carry out diplomacy for peace.”
Related: JFK and His Boy
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Kennedy will represent the United States at a time when the Obama administration is making Asia a foreign-policy priority. The administration is working toward a trade alliance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, meant to anchor the United States within the fastest-growing economic region.
First I have seen of it in my Globe!
Kennedy, who studied Japanese history and has a law degree, first visited Japan in 1978 when she traveled to Hiroshima with her uncle, the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. She spent her honeymoon in Japan....
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Related: Slow Saturday Special: Caroline Kennedy Article Makes Me Want to Cry
And not because of her dad, it's because of something else. Globe once again didn't let it ruin the moment.
Also see: Caroline Kennedy tries to boost poetry
Maybe she can pen one about the dangers of nuclear power.
"Japan extends radiation cleanup; Residents facing years until return" by Mari Yamaguchi | Associated Press, October 22, 2013
TOKYO — Radiation cleanup in some of the most contaminated towns around Fukushima’s damaged nuclear power plant is behind schedule, so some residents will have to wait a few more years before returning, Japanese officials said Monday....
And they were already going to have to wait decades so they might as well forget about ever going back. Home is where you are now.
Shigeyoshi Sato, an Environment Ministry official in charge of decontamination, cited several reasons for the delay, including a lack of space for the waste from the decontamination work. Some residents have opposed dumping the waste in their neighborhoods.
The Asahi newspaper reported on Saturday that the government is planning an extension of up to three years in areas such as Iitate, a village northwest of the plant where a highly radioactive plume spread in the first few days of the crisis.
Still, an International Atomic Energy Agency mission that visited the Fukushima area last week highlighted the progress Japan has made in the two years since the team’s previous visit.
‘‘The main conclusion of the mission is that Japan has achieved important progress,’’ team leader Juan Carlos Lentijo told a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
Related: Finishing Friday With Fukushima
I'm flabbergasted, and not simply because the Globe dropped the coverage like a hot nuclear core.
In a preliminary report released Monday, the team noted good progress in the remediation of farmland in some areas and monitoring that has shown the land can produce food with levels of radioactivity below the permissible level.
You take the first bite.
It also praised Japan’s efforts to involve stakeholders, noting that the leadership of some key local figures has helped gained the trust of their communities.
The radiation must have gotten to their minds because they are delusional.
Lentijo also stressed the need to strengthen communication with the public about the decontamination work and the costs and benefits.
More lies wasn't what I had in mind.
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"Japan OKs fuel removal from pool at nuclear plant" by MARI YAMAGUCHI | Associated Press, October 31, 2013
TOKYO — Japanese regulators gave final approval on Wednesday for the removal of fuel rods from an uncontained cooling pool at a damaged reactor building considered the highest risk at a crippled nuclear plant.
Removing the fuel rods from the Unit 4 cooling pool is the first major step in a decommissioning process that is expected to last decades at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, where three reactors melted down after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami....
The Unit 4 reactor was offline when the plant was hit by the disasters, but the building was damaged by hydrogen explosions and fire. Fuel rods in the pool, however, have since been properly cooled and are safe enough to remove, officials said.
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"Damaged Japan atomic plant begins removing fuel rods" Associated Press, November 19, 2013
TOKYO — Workers started removing radioactive fuel rods Monday from a reactor building at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. The painstaking and risky task is a crucial first step toward a full cleanup of the tsunami-damaged plant in northeastern Japan....
They are taking the first step two years after the disaster?
It will take at least until the end of 2014 to finish moving the 1,533 sets of fuel rods, including 202 unused sets, to a safer location. TEPCO will remove the unused fuel rods first, and will then move on to the more radioactive spent fuel. At the end it will remove three sets of rods that are slightly damaged. The storage pools in Units 1-4 contain a total of 80 sets of rods with slight damage, most of which occurred years ago.
TEPCO spokesman Noriyuki Imaizumi said six workers safely stored four sets of fuel rods in a cask on Monday. No problems were reported.
How can you believe TEPCO?
Besides, didn't the government take over the clean up operation?
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Also see: Japanese mayor apologizes after storm
I think the Globe should apologize for not covering the earthquake (quakes?) in my printed paper?
Related:
"HARD ROCK DISPLAY -- Smoke billowed Thursday from a new island that the Japanese Coast Guard and earthquake specialists said was raised by a volcanic eruption in the seas to the far south of Tokyo (Boston Globe November 22 2013)."
It's a photograph I noticed on page A5 of the printed paper.
Could that be why sea temperatures are rising and not where fart mist (a.k.a. global warming) is being hidden -- a far less threatening problem, if one at all, than tons of radioactive water being continuously dumped into the Pacific Ocean?
