Japan to fire 3 senior nuclear officials over Fukushima crisis

[muriel_volestrangler]

Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan's administration has announced it is to sack three senior nuclear policy officials amid scandals suggesting Japan's government had grown too cosy with the nuclear power industry.

The move is the latest attempt by Kan and his cabinet to shake off criticism they have not dealt sternly enough with nuclear power operators and to show they can push reforms deemed necessary after Japan's 11 March earthquake and tsunami touched off the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl at the Fukushima plant.

The trade and industry minister, Banri Kaieda, said the shakeup would involve three senior officials: the head of the Energy Agency, the head of the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency and a vice-minister at the trade and industry ministry.

"We want to refresh and revitalise the ministry," Kaieda said. The three posts are under his supervision.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/04/japan-fire-nuclear-officials-fukushima

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Sounds like our own MMS department, in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon leak.

We need better firewalls between regulatory oversight, and industry.

[GliderGuider]

2. And USDA/Monsanto and FDA/Pfizer and US Treasury/Goldman Sachs...

Welcome to the brave new world of corporate governance - not the governance OF corporations, but governance BY corporations.