Posted on 06/23/2011 10:31:50 AM PDT by ransomnote
Participants at a closed door session of the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to set up an international mechanism to share information in the event of nuclear emergencies.
The IAEA held the ministerial meeting on Wednesday to assess Japan's response to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March.
A Japanese official quoted an expert from the World Meteorological Organization as saying the group was unable to obtain necessary information from Japan. He said this led to difficulties in projecting how radioactive materials would spread around the world.
The official said other member countries also criticized Japan's initial emergency response. They said they could not fully explain to their nationals what was happening as Japan failed to release detailed information immediately after the accident.
The participants agreed that if an emergency occurs, the IAEA should promptly obtain information on what radioactive substances escaped into the environment and how much. They also agreed that crucial information will be shared among member countries through a new mechanism.
After the session, a Japanese Cabinet Office adviser told reporters that he recognized the importance of continuing to release information.
Thursday, June 23, 2011 08:23 +0900 (JST)
"A Japanese official quoted an expert from the World Meteorological Organization as saying the group was unable to obtain necessary information from Japan. He said this led to difficulties in projecting how radioactive materials would spread around the world."
This article appears to be discussing a meeting discussing the initial response, and criticizing the initial lack of information. It appears to be a 'hearing'-type meeting about how to fix things in the future, not about an ongoing problem.
For example: The official said other member countries also criticized Japan's initial emergency response. They said they could not fully explain to their nationals what was happening as Japan failed to release detailed information immediately after the accident.
The quote you lifted says: the group was unable to obtain necessary information, again suggesting this is discussing a problem they ran into in the past.
If they were having trouble getting information today, I would have expected them to make comments to that effect, like "the group is still unable to obtain necessary information".
That’s for sure. Today’s information is superb: we have detailed information about the water processing facility, the radiation measurements, the levels of water in the pits and the access to the reactor’s buildings.
I am sure a Western country would have concealed it on grounds of National security.
BTW, IAEA hasn’t updated the information about Fukushima in his blog since June 2nd. That’s information sharing!
Then why did they apologize officially, with tears in their eyes, for not sharing information with the public? And why did TEPCO ask to abandon the plant because it was no longer safe in mid March?
This article is a good overview of a few of my concerns re the Japanese response before I came across this article today. I’ll put an excerpt here and a link at the bottom:
“The early disarray alarmed the United States government enough that it increasingly urged the Japanese to take more decisive action, and to be more forthcoming in sharing information. Making matters worse was Mr. Kan’s initial reluctance to accept the help of the United States, which offered pump trucks, unmanned drones and the advice of American nuclear crisis experts.
“We found ourselves in a downward spiral, which hurt relations with the United States,” said Manabu Terada, a lawmaker who served as an aide to Mr. Kan at that time. “We lost credibility with America, and Tepco lost credibility with us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/world/asia/13japan.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
I was referring to the results of the IAEA delegation to Japan:
“TOKYO, May 25 (Xinhua) — A delegation of nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency visiting Japan on a fact- finding mission to establish the cause of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the worst since the 1986 Chernobyl crisis, said Wednesday that their investigations are on “behalf of the world” and will be fair and objective.”
http://english.sina.com/world/p/2011/0525/374883.html
Upon return they had this closed door session wherein they said they were unable to get the information needed.
According to the article, upon returning from their fact-finding mission, they had a closed-door meeting where they said one of the FACTS they had FOUND was that people couldn’t get the information they needed during the initial stages of the crisis.
There is nothing in the article you posted which suggests the IAEA’s fact-finding mission was hampered by a lack of information. It might have been, but that wasn’t in the article you posted.
Having worked in a traditional Japaneese company and culture this doesnt surprise me a bit. Culture is very strange, and in my opinion hypocritical. Better than the ROP though!!
Hmmm.... Must be two different IAEAs:
IAEA: Handling of Fukushima has been exemplary:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/03/fukushima_iaea_preliminary_report/
The Japanese citizens have begun to develop a protest culture and are organizing their own radiation reporting networks because their gov and TEPCO has betrayed them.
“And now that none of their catastrophic predictions have happened, what is doing the West?”
Uh...I don’t think you’ve been following this closely if you believe ‘none of their catastrophic predictions have happened’. I don’t see how anything I might write to you will change that.
Other Japanese citizens have started sites exposing all of the media-manufactured lies about Fukushima:
No. Probably the same one. Gorbachev authorized one of his officers to go before the IAEA with a complete, uncensored accounting of all of the radiation released and exposures to the population. Hearing the awful news, the IAEA sat in stunned silence after the officer was done, and then the IAEA declared that they would only report a small fraction of the radiation in the official records. Hans Blix and Gorbachev are on film talking about this in the video series ‘The Battle for Chernobyl’
The stated purpose of the IAEA is to support domestic nuclear power. The organization has led the charge to downplay casualties and severity of Chernobyl. I knew they would not criticize the Japanese in their official review which they released in Japan. Revealing the scope of mismanagement and lasting harm done in Japan would not get new reactors built, would it? So I was very surprised that they chose to ‘leak’ a closed door session wherein they complain they didn’t get the information they want. I believe they are frustrated that Japan was not heeding the authority of the IAEA and chose to leak this to embarrass the Japanese into being more cooperative.
I’d like to see the portion of that IAEA report where they discuss, with approval, TEPCO’s request to abandon the plant in mid March, leaving the reactors and spent fuel pools to go out of control, because it was no longer safe for the workers to remain. Or Kan’s reluctance in the first hours and days, to accept foreign assistance. If this is ‘exemplary’ then the bar has indeed been set low.
The IAEA presented the whitewash some of us knew to expect in their official report - praising the Japanese response. Then they went home and ‘leaked’ that they didn’t get the information re radiation released they wanted.
If those news agencies bore a fraction of the responsibility that Japan and TEPCO has for this disaster, I’d be more upset about it. This thread is not a defense of the MSM.
I guess we should be glad you were in the meeting and able to get this secret information which wasn’t included in the article you posted.
Or maybe you just didn’t notice: “World Meteorological Organization” is not the IAEA.
The WMO is the group that said they didn’t get the information they needed on radiation releases, and therefore could not do their modelling. Of course, that also was a report about something that happened in the past, not a current complaint.
But it wasn’t the IAEA saying they didn’t get information for their review, it was during their review that they found out that the WMO didn’t get the information they needed.
It seems you are confusing the collection of data for the review with the data that they collected IN the review.
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