The joke is on me!
"Japan OK’s return of some evacuees" by Yuri Kageyama | Associated Press April 02, 2014
TOKYO — For the first time since Japan’s nuclear disaster three years ago, authorities are allowing residents to return to live in their homes within a tiny part of a 12-mile evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant.
The decision, which took effect Tuesday, applies to 357 people in 117 households from a corner of Tamura city after the government determined that radiation levels are low enough for habitation.
I'm sure they are all rushing to line up after hearing that from the government.
But many of those evacuees are undecided about going back because of fears about radiation, especially its effect on children.
What? They don't believe their government? Maybe the Emperor should order them back then!
More than 100,000 people were displaced by the March 11, 2011, nuclear disaster, when a huge earthquake and ensuing tsunami damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, causing meltdowns in three reactors. Many of the displaced people live in temporary housing or with relatives, and some started over elsewhere.
No mention of the 300 tons of radioactive water going into the Pacific every day.
Areas within the evacuation zone have become ghost towns, overgrown with weeds.
Shades of Chernobyl.
Temporary visits inside the zone had previously been allowed, and about 90 people were staying with special permission.
New stores and public schools are planned to accommodate those who move back.
‘‘People want to go back and lead proper lives, a kind of life where they can feel their feet are on the ground,’’ said Yutaro Aoki, a Tamura resident who works for a nonprofit organization overseeing the city’s recovery.
Life will never be "proper" again, sigh!
Evacuees now receive government compensation of about $1,000 each month.
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"Japan ends half-century ban on weapons exports" by Martin Fackler | New York Times April 02, 2014
TOKYO — Taking his nation another step away from its postwar pacifism, the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe discarded a half-century ban on the export of weapons and military hardware Tuesday, in a move aimed at helping Japan assume a larger regional security role in order to offset China’s growing military might.
Related: Asian Battlefield
Trying to get it going in Korea last few days, but not working. World sick of AmeriKa and her unending wars for global domination.
The decision, which had been under consideration for years before Abe took office, replaced the self-imposed ban dating to the late 1960s....
The new guidelines will also make it easier for Japan to join multinational development projects for expensive new weapons systems, such as the US-led effort to build the F-35 stealth fighter jet.
Which is an over-priced piece of crap -- as is the carrier getting them there!
Analysts say Japan is reacting to a shifting balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region brought by a relative decline in US dominance and a rapid military buildup by an increasingly assertive China....
What, because they wanted flight plan schedules?
In view of the vanished jetliner, that looks like a pretty good idea!
Tuesday’s move will also make it easier for Japan to provide military aid to less developed Southeast Asian countries, to help these nations respond to increasingly assertive Chinese claims to contested territories in the South China Sea.
Yeah, right, we got that piece of propaganda and mentally noted it.
Didn't need to repeat it!
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How is he going to pay for the stuff?
"In gamble, Japan raises sales tax" AP, April 02, 2014
TOKYO — Japan raised its sales tax Tuesday, moving to stabilize government finances but at the risk of undermining a shaky economic recovery.
It’s a gamble the world’s third-biggest economy must take, given its soaring public debt.
Economists expect the sales tax increase, from 5 percent to 8 percent, to slow but not derail the recovery. It is the first such increase since 1997, when the combination of the tax hike, an unwinding of debt from Japan’s bubble economy days, and the impact of a regional financial crisis plunged the country into recession.
They are right back where they were!
But recent data suggest the recovery may be less solid than Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had hoped for when he agreed to raise the tax last fall.
The “Abenomics” economic strategy aims to spur inflation and pull Japan out of its two-decade economic slump by getting consumers and businesses to make purchases sooner rather than later.
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Do they have homeless in Japan?
Maybe the government can find an apartment for them with a nice view of the ocean.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Coming home here:
"Crews enter troubled nuclear waste dump" | AP April 03, 2014
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Officials say crews have made their first trip into the federal government’s underground nuclear waste dump since a release of radiation in February contaminated 21 workers.
The Department of Energy says two crews of eight made the initial descent into the half-mile deep Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico, and no radiation was detected.
Related: Power Surge Plus
I love one-day wonders on the slowest news cycle day of the week that are then dispatched down the memory hole with official media obfuscation and authoritative government assurances.
(Blog editor then sadly notes this rank-rot government lo$t in the throes of corporate campaign cash and political privilege $creams about nonexistent threats over problems that are not while ignoring the real threats to our health. The Pacific and Gulf destroyed as a food source, the pollution filling land, sea, and air, and the ruinous GMO products all minimized or mitigated in my whoreporate mouth pie¢e)
The agency called the entries a critical first step toward figuring out what caused the leak. But they say more expanded trips will be needed to continue the probe and assess the extent of damage.
Shipments to the dump were halted Feb. 5 after a truck hauling salt in the mine and repository caught fire. The dump was shuttered nine days later after a mysterious leak sent low levels of radiation into the air.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, under a tight deadline to get nuclear waste off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks, has begun trucking containers to temporary storage in west Texas while the government’s only permanent nuclear dump remains shuttered....
I'm just wondering why the agenda-pushing media would put that out there.
Why would you let a "terrorist" know there are nuclear materials being trucked anywhere?
It's almost as if a SCENARIO were being created for some type of FALSE FLAG, huh?
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Oh, yeah, there is no more radiation leak that went on for what, six weeks? Underreported, just like the coal/water problems in North Carolina and West Virginia that have been whitewashed away.
It sounds strange to say it and it is a contradiction; however, it is a $tatu$ quo paper even as it pu$hes forward with the agenda.
