Washington on Friday again urged countries to push Myanmar on a peace plan that has failed so far, although the regional bloc is divided over how to handle the Burmese crisis.
Countries must persuade the Burmese military to follow through on the five-point plan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he met with his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other countries in Jakarta on Friday.
“In Myanmar, we must press the military regime to stop the violence, to implement ASEAN’s five-point consensus, to support a return to democratic governance,” Blinken said in a speech during a meeting with ASEAN ministers.
The bloc, of which Myanmar is a member, has sought to mediate a resolution to the situation in that country, where the military toppled an elected government in February 2021 and threw civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in prison. Nearly 3,800 people have been killed in post-coup violence, mostly by junta security forces.
On Thursday, ASEAN issued a joint statement of its foreign ministers, but that was delayed by a day following a meeting of the region’s top diplomats Tuesday and Wednesday. Reports said the delay arose because they could not agree on what their joint statement would say about Myanmar.
The statement reflected the dissonance.
Thailand had last month held another meeting with Myanmar’s junta-appointed foreign minister, representatives of ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and India and China. The Burmese and Thai militaries are said to be close, and the outgoing Thai PM is a former army chief.
ASEAN 2023 chair Indonesia did not take kindly to that meeting, which it skipped along with Singapore and Malaysia.
And yet, the joint statement acknowledged that meeting, noting that “a number of ASEAN member states” viewed it “as a positive development.”
The statement went on to note, however, that efforts to solve the Myanmar crisis must support the five-point consensus and efforts by ASEAN chair Indonesia.
Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai defended the meeting, saying it was in line with an earlier ASEAN document that called for exploring other approaches for resolving the crisis.
In another shocker for the rest of ASEAN, and indeed, everyone else, the Thai foreign minister announced on Wednesday that he had met secretly over the weekend with Myanmar’s imprisoned civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Thai foreign ministry said that she and the junta had approved the meeting with Don.
And not everyone is on board with the five-point consensus either, although they present a unified front, reports say.
The previous foreign minister of Malaysia, Saifuddin Abdullah, was an exception. He had said last July that it was time to junk the peace plan and devise a new one on a deadline that included enforcement mechanisms.
ASEAN operates by consensus, which means any action it takes has to be approved by every member state. Divisions within the bloc have meant that not every member has approved of tougher action against Myanmar.
Therefore, other than shutting out the Burmese junta from all high-level ASEAN meetings for reneging on the consensus, little else has happened since February 2021.
Hunter Marston, a Southeast Asia researcher at the Australian National University, said the ASEAN top diplomats’ joint statement was largely in line with his expectations.
He would have liked to see “ASEAN invite the NUG as a way of imposing costs on the junta, but that won’t receive consensus,” Marston told BenarNews, referring to the National Unity Government, which is the shadow civilian administration.
He would have also liked to see “see a clearer acknowledgement of ASEAN’s frustration with the military junta.”
And the statement “still left room for Thailand’s rogue … diplomacy,” Marston said.
Another analyst, Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, said he had expected a little better from the joint statement.
“[N]ow I only hope that ASEAN does not accept back the junta without accountability,” he told BenarNews.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tria Dianti for BenarNews.
At today’s NATO summit in Lithuania, member countries are expected to debate Ukraine’s request to join the military alliance, which would provide additional military support for its war with Russia. Opponents to Ukrainian membership, however, warn that such a move would needlessly escalate what Russia sees as a proxy war with the United States against NATO encroachment on its western border. For more, we speak to journalist Katrina vanden Heuvel, whose recent piece for The Guardian, co-authored with James Carden, is headlined “Now is not the time for Ukraine to join NATO.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
ASEAN chair Indonesia said Friday it was increasing efforts to implement a five-point consensus to end instability in post-coup Myanmar, while Burmese civil society groups called for junking the “ineffective” plan amid divisions within the regional bloc.
The crisis in Myanmar is expected to be one of the main topics at a series of ministerial-level meetings that Indonesia will host next week as the 2023 chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The talks will involve ASEAN members and other countries, including the United States, China and Russia.
Jakarta has been communicating with all parties in Myanmar to persuade them to support implementing the consensus, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said.
“We have conducted 110 engagements, in the form of in-person meetings, virtual meetings, and phone calls, including my own face-to-face meetings with both the NUG and SAC foreign ministers on several occasions,” Retno told reporters, referring to the National Unity Government, the shadow civilian administration, and the junta, which calls itself the State Administration Council.
ASEAN leaders agreed on the consensus during an emergency summit in April 2021, but the Southeast Asian bloc has since been heavily criticized for inaction in pressing ahead with the five-point plan.
It aims to reduce violence in Myanmar after the Burmese military toppled an elected government in February that year. The plan demands an immediate halt to violence, a constructive dialogue among all parties, the appointment of a special envoy, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the visit of a delegation to Myanmar.
The junta agreed to this consensus but reneged on it, prompting ASEAN to exclude any representative from the Myanmar junta from its meetings, starting in October 2021.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi speaks during a news conference in Jakarta, July 7, 2023. (Achmad Ibrahim/AP)
‘Most ASEAN states have no interest in democracy’
Meanwhile, a network of Burmese civil society groups, which calls itself Myanmar Spring’s young revolutionaries, said the exclusion was a mirage, because Indonesia, through its office of the special envoy, was engaging with the junta.
“[T]he Special Envoy’s official engagement with the illegal military junta is inconsistent with ASEAN’s decision and stance to exclude and ban members of the military junta from all high-level ASEAN meetings,” representatives of several civil society groups told Ngurah Swajaya, the head of the special envoy’s office, according to a statement issued Friday.
The groups’ representatives had met with Ngurah on Monday.
“[T]he representatives expressed their concern and frustration over the ineffectiveness and failure of ASEAN to stop the terrorist military junta’s violence and atrocities against Myanmar people over the past two years since the adoption of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) on 24 April 2021,” the statement said.
They also conveyed to Ngurah that “the ineffective 5PC will only embolden the terrorist junta to commit further crimes and exacerbate the plight of the people of Myanmar.”
Indonesia’s president, too, acknowledged in May that there had been no progress in implementing the peace plan.
All along, Myanmar’s junta has cracked down on mass protests, killed more than 3,000 people and arrested thousands more, according to human rights groups. The United Nations said more than 1.8 million people had been forced to flee their homes in Myanmar because of violence since the coup.
And yet, ASEAN “continues to stick to a plan agreed in April 2021 that has palpably failed,” said CIVICUS Lens, a group that analyzes current events from a civil society perspective.
“A major challenge is that most ASEAN states have no interest in democracy. Half of them are outright authoritarian regimes, and the other half could be characterized as democracies with flaws – sometimes serious flaws,” the group wrote in an article in late June.
“Continuing emphasis on the 5PC as the baseline consensus, however, hasn’t masked divisions among ASEAN states. …But the fact that they’re formally sticking with it enables the wider international community to stand back and do little, on the basis of respecting regional leadership and giving the 5PC a chance.”
Of ASEAN’s 10 members, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are not democracies, and Thailand’s outgoing government first came to power much like the current Myanmar junta, via a military coup.
CIVICUS Lens also noted Thailand’s decision to break ranks with ASEAN and engage in talks with the Myanmar military.
Indonesia on Friday again dismissed the Thai meeting in June as not a formal one.
“Regarding the informal meeting in Thailand, once again it was an informal meeting of ASEAN and only the foreign minister of Laos attended. The 5PC is the main track for resolving the Myanmar issue,” Foreign Minister Retno said.
However, in addition to Thailand and Myanmar, representatives of ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines – as well as India and China – attended the meeting in Pattaya.
Some experts say that ASEAN’s approach to Myanmar reflects its limitations as a consensus-based organization that prioritizes stability and non-interference in its members’ domestic affairs.
Additionally, while Jakarta should be praised for holding so many meetings with different stakeholders, it was impossible to assess the progress of its diplomatic engagements as they were confidential, said Hunter Marston, a researcher at the Australian National University.
“It’s also possible that the Indonesian government has underestimated the degree to which the current conflict is entrenched and the unwillingness of the warring sides to consider a peaceful settlement that does not include the complete eradication of the other side,” he told BenarNews.
He said that the outcome of Indonesia’s efforts remained uncertain.
“If nothing materializes by the end of Indonesia’s chairmanship, however, then everyone will point and say, ‘See? There was never a chance of progress to begin with’,” he said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tria Dianti for BenarNews.
Among the international communist and left movements, including their Russian branch, there has been, throughout the entire period of the war in Ukraine, three conflicting assessments of the situation: unconditional support for Ukraine, a cowardly position of “critical” support with “reservations,” and unequivocal condemnation. However, even the generally correct anti-imperialist position of rejection of militarism suffers greatly from “pacifism” in the worst sense of the word. That is, this point of view, by and large, comes down to only one thesis – the immediate cessation of hostilities, without a specific plan, explaining by what methods this will be achieved, by what means, under what conditions, at what borders, etc.
And the social-chauvinists do not miss the opportunity to use this circumstance as an advantageous argument for themselves as justification for their conciliatory position: “And what do you propose? The war is already going on, this is a given, it is not possible to stop it, we must simply win and everything will end.”
Moreover, absurd and groundless accusations of “pro-NATO” and “pro-American” rhetoric, and even of support for NATO’s crimes, are also flying at the communist internationalists.
You think we don’t know about this!? We, whose senior comrades, and we ourselves, have consistently condemned the invasions of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia for so many years, held protests against the bombing and interference in the affairs of sovereign countries and rallies of solidarity with the peoples of these countries. Do you think we would hide and deny the role of the “alliance” in the destruction of the USSR and the socialist bloc, in the catastrophic results of these processes? Let’s leave these accusations against us to the conscience of these moralizers, if anything is left of that at all. Their position is all the more hypocritical because they themselves are well aware of the character of the current Russian government, which has started and continues the hostilities. It pursues a policy in its own interests, which by no means identical to the interests of the people, otherwise all this bloodshed would never have been started. So it was with almost all the conflicts of recent years in which this government participated: Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukraine. They have sold weapons surreptitiously, and they trampled on agreements, all to promote the interests of various oligarchs. It doesn’t happen otherwise.
It is impossible to be against the government and at the same time support its policies; this is called “schizophrenia” or “split personality.” Let psychiatrists figure it out from there.
At the same time, unilateral calls to stop deliveries of NATO weapons to Ukraine “here and now,” without preconditions or demands, no matter who they come from, are naïve and have a slight shade of hypocrisy and irresponsibility. After all, no similar requirements have been presented to the opposite side.
In fact, the authors and heralds of this idea, perhaps unwittingly themselves, are playing along with only one of the parties in the conflict. In other words, if this requirement is implemented, the war will not stop but will continue, but only on terms more favorable to the Russian army. It will be temporarily suspended on the current “lines of contact” until Putin’s oligarchs gather strength for their new campaign, using the truce as a respite. And for the people of Russia, this automatically means the preservation of the political regime, the continuation of police repression, state terror, and the preparation of the authorities for a new, broader general mobilization. In other words, such a truce would be no less – or even greater – of a catastrophe for Russian society than a military defeat.
Let’s try to imagine a real plan that would actually work to end the confrontation, and not simply to extend the Putin oligarchy. It could consist of four main points:
1. Stop fighting on both sides;
2. Cessation of any supply of foreign weapons and ammunition to both Ukraine and Russia;
3. Abandonment by the Russian Armed Forces of the territory of Ukraine as of February 1, 2014 (“zero option”);
4. The UN and its peacekeeping forces are temporarily introduced to the territories left by the RF Armed Forces.
In fact, even some official propagandists are beginning to understand the need to move in this direction. For example, Margarita Simonyan, head of the Russia Today TV channel, proposed to hold referendums again (in other words, from the point of view of the authorities, she calls for a review of the new borders of the Russian Federation). It seems that in the fall of last year, the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics were entered into the Constitution of Russia. The Criminal Code even has a special article for such a case: “Art. 280.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Public calls for actions aimed at violations of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.”
If you believe the Kremlin propaganda, one of the mouthpieces of which is Simonyan herself, there have already been “referendums” in these regions, but now she is proposing to hold new ones. So then, you will admit that what happened before was a circus, and not a vote?
But here a fundamental point emerges: it is necessary to stop the bloodshed not only to correct the previous injustices, but also to prevent new ones. It won’t be easy or simple. And in order to stop the escalation of violence and repression from any side, an appropriate policy is needed, which needs to be thought out today.
In order to avoid clashes and outrages on both sides, it is proposed to create a “humanitarian corridor” in the territories left by the Russian troops for the unhindered exit of residents in both directions, and to temporarily deploy UN peacekeeping forces from among countries that are not directly or indirectly involved in the conflict.
Failure to comply with at least one point entails the continuation of the war with innumerable victims and suffering for Ukrainian and Russian citizens, a war that claims hundreds and thousands of lives every day. So let’s find out, looking at the reactions to this program, what is actually more important to the elites and governments – is it land and territory, saving face (in fact, saving power and capital), or is it people’s lives? Bring out the hysterics to the slaughterhouse, who themselves are in no hurry to leave for the front, or send their children and relatives there!
Everything has gone too far, Russian territory is being shelled (it was foolish to believe that this would not happen – usually in wars, in response to constant shelling, the other side also starts shooting back!), and threats of a nuclear apocalypse are heard. Yes, the chances of this scenario occurring are extremely small, but such rhetoric itself speaks of the seriousness of the current situation. Time does not wait!
The peoples are tired of war, they want peace, and therefore a plan is needed that will stop the bloodshed and create conditions for the mutual laying down of arms, without fear of monstrous consequences for Ukrainians and Russians.
The left must offer a program of an honest peace without territorial conquest or any further aggressive policy, with remuneration for all destruction, not from the pockets of the working people, but at the expense of those who unleashed this massacre. It cannot be ruled out that such a “peace plan” could bring the revolution in Russia closer, contribute to the awakening of class consciousness among the soldiers, to their desire for self-organization, and to an awareness of themselves as an independent force. The left is fundamentally in favor of finally saying its word to “His Majesty the Working Class,” the same class that is often thrown into a meat grinder against his will and desire. So that there are no “agreements” behind the back of the people, and at their expense, and the working people themselves ought to be the ones to stop the war. However, for the time being we have to be guided not by what we ultimately desire, but by the existing reality. And therefore, we need to take responsibility, take the first step, and begin the process that will lead to an end to the war, and lead the workers to victory in the struggle for their power, so that the defeat of the insane adventurist plans of the government of the Russian Federation does not turn into a defeat for the people and the country.
Translated by Dan Erdman
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Boris Kagarlitsky.
Many nations and environmental groups have questioned Japan’s decision to discharge nuclear wastewater from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean. The Chinese government is among the plan’s most vocal critics, with China’s foreign ministry recently issuing statements questioning the plan’s safety and declaring that the Japanese government is imposing a “unilateral decision” without considering less harmful disposal methods.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found these claims to be unfounded. Japan’s planned release of water meets current international safety standards regarding wastewater discharge recommended by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as China’s own domestic safety standards.
The Chinese foreign ministry’s accusation that Japan is making a unilateral decision without sufficient evidence is also misleading. In the more than twelve years since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, Japan has proposed a variety of disposal methods for consideration, with the IAEA and broader international community engaging in related research and evaluation several times.
In Depth
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant on Japan’s Hakura Beach, is scheduled to begin discharging almost 400,000 of treated wastewater from the plant into the sea later this summer.
The impending deadline has brought international attention back to the more than 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater currently stored in thousands of water storage tanks at the plant.
TEPCO maintains that the controlled discharge of the wastewater follows a rigorous nuclear purification process using a pumping and filtration system known as ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) that is based on and meets the IAEA’s safety standards.
A final IAEA assessment of the proposal is expected to be published at the end of June, with earlier IAEA reports indicating that the organization will likely support the plan. The reported decision has reopened domestic and international debate on the issue, and many groups have expressed their opposition, including the Japanese fishermen association, the international NGO Greenpeace and many in the marine ecology community.
What are China’s main criticisms about Japan’s efforts to dispose of the wastewater?
China is one of the harshest critics of the plan. Chinese officials alleged that Japan’s plan lacks sufficient scientific evidence, that the ALPS treated water poses a “great harm” to the environment and that Japan has neither offered alternative plans nor consulted extensively with the international community – particularly neighboring countries who will be affected by the discharge.
Chinese netizens on video sharing platforms such as Douyin and TikTok have widely circulated these officials’ comments, with many echoing their government’s rhetoric about the “great harm” posed by the wastewater.
“Fukushima’s nuclear wastewater contains more than 60 kinds of radioactive elements,” reads one comment.
“The half-life [of the radioactive elements] is up to 5,000 years,” says another netizen.
Videos on Chinese social media comment on the dangers of Japan’s proposed plan to discharge nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima disaster into the Pacific Ocean. Credit: Screenshots from Douyin user accounts.
Will the ALPS treated water be a “great harm” to the environment?
No.
Discharging water into the ocean is a disposal method used by nuclear power plants around the world, including many of the 55 such plants in China. Despite this, Chinese officials have repeatedly claimed without further explanation that wastewater treated by ALPS is different from water discharged at other nuclear plants.
China’s assertions are incorrect, according to David Krofcheck, a professor of physics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He told AFCL that ALPS purified water is as safe as wastewater discharged from normal nuclear power plants, even going so far as to say he would eat fish caught in the discharged waters around Fukushima.
What radioactive elements will ALPS remove from the wastewater?
ALPS will reduce 62 of the 63 radioactive substances currently in the wastewater to amounts that will have a negligible impact on the environment, according to the IAEA and Japanese officials.
The one substance still remaining in significant amounts following purification and dilution is an isotope known as tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that exists in trace amounts in nature and which can combine with oxygen to form a radioactive water known as T2O or tritiated water .
In light of international concerns and following suggestions by the IAEA, Japan has agreed to dilute the tritiated water one further time following its initial purification by ALPS before discharging it into the sea.
Official diagram of the wastewater discharge plan and its anticipated impact. Credit: Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
How much tritium in water is considered normal?
Radioactivity is typically measured by the international unit becquerel.
The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends that drinking water contain no more than 10,000 becquerels of tritium per liter, Krofcheck says.
The purified wastewater Japan plans to discharge contains 1,500 becquerels per liter, or about one-seventh of the WHO recommended amount, he says.
In comparison, China’s government allows a nuclear power plant in the coastal town of Qinshan to discharge wastewater containing up to 3700 becquerels of radioactive elements per liter.
In 2022 alone, the plant itself disclosed that it discharged 201 megabecquerels (201,000,000 becquerels) of liquid tritium, about one-fourth of its government stipulated annual cap of 800 megabecquerels. This figure is over nine times higher than Japan’s estimated 22 megabecquerels of annual tritium which will result from the Fukushima discharge.
Has Japan provided alternative plans of disposal for consideration?
Yes.
Japan proposed five different ways to dispose of ALPS treated water in 2016 before finally settling on discharging the water into the ocean as of April 2021.
Has Japan coordinated the discharge with the IAEA?
Yes.
Since 2011, the Japanese government has regularly submitted progress reports to the IAEA concerning the response to the Fukushima accident. Japan has also asked the IAEA to participate in the creation and oversight of the entire discharge plan, with the UN nuclear agency forming a task force composed of scientists from 11 different countries, including China.
The international task force created by the IAEA has spent the past two years surveying the situation in Fukushima, holding dozens of meetings and publishing six reports offering specific recommendations to improve Japan’s final discharge efforts.
Has Japan communicated with its neighbors and the broader international community in planning the wastewater discharge?
Yes.
The IAEA task force further worked with independent third-party laboratories in Austria, Switzerland, France, South Korea and the U.S. to confirm that Japan’s ALPS treated water can meet all international safety standards regarding radioactive harm to the environment and humans.
In addition to the task force, the Embassy of Japan in China says that Japan sends monthly briefings on the discharge plan to all foreign embassies in Tokyo, including China’s mission.
TEPCO has set up websites in Japanese and English to explain the progress of the process while also publishing web pages in Chinese and Korean that explain the ALPS treatment process. In addition, the company regularly publishes monitoring data on the Fukushima nuclear plant every month.
TEPCO’s official explanatory chart. Credit: TEPCO official website.
The IAEA has not responded to AFCL’s inquiries about the conclusions of the Task Force as of the time this report was published.
There’s no perfect plan, but experts think discharging the wastewater into the sea is “the least bad option.” According to Krofcheck, many of these criticisms are connected to TEPCO’s slow response to the initial crisis in 2011.
Krofcheck notes that to just leave the more than 1,000 tanks of treated water in Fukushima – a region where another earthquake will likely occur within the next 30 to 40 years – potentially sets the stage for an even graver nuclear energy-related crisis down the line.
Conclusion
China’s criticism and resistance towards Japanese plans is part of the larger international controversy surrounding how to best deal with the wastewater left over from the Fukushima nuclear accident. However, statements on Chinese social media about the treated water’s “great harm” are misinformed and the assertion by the Chinese foreign ministry that Japan is unilaterally deciding on a plan that lacks ample scientific evidence is simply untrue.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a new branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng.
Fish that swim in treated wastewater from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant would be safe to eat, according to an expert who is part of the Pacific islands scientific panel that criticized Japan’s plan to discharge the water into the ocean.
The plan to release Fukushima water over four decades into the Pacific has been a source of concern about possible environmental and health risks for nearby countries such as South Korea and China, as well as Pacific island nations.
However, some scientists say the worries are based on misinformation. A few Pacific leaders now back Japan’s plan after briefings from Japanese officials on the process for removing radioactivity.
“We are talking much, much, much less [radioactivity] than is allowed in drinking water around the world. Would I eat the fish? Yes I would,” Tony Hooker, director of the Centre for Radiation Research at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said at a briefing on Wednesday.
Water used to cool the nuclear reactors damaged in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami is stored in hundreds of large tanks at the coastal Fukushima plant, and its operator Tokyo Electric Power Company has said room is fast running out. Treatment and discharge of the water is part of a decades-long plan to decommission the plant.
Japan is likely to carry out its first release of the wastewater during its summer, according to Hooker, who spoke at an online panel organized by New Zealand’s government-funded Science Media Centre. Tokyo Electric has been carrying out tests this month, using uncontaminated water, of equipment to dilute and pipe the wastewater out to sea.
Tony Hooker, director of the Centre for Radiation Research at the University of Adelaide, is pictured in this video screengrab from a New Zealand Science Media Centre panel on June 21, 2023. Credit: BenarNews/Science Media Centre
Hooker said he would stop short of drinking the treated water, but not because it’s dangerous.
“Would I drink the water? No, because it’s sea water,” he said.
Hooker is a member of an expert panel appointed in March by the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional organization of island nations, to review Japan’s plan and provide technical advice.
The forum’s chairman, Henry Puna, said in January that release of the water could “damage our livelihoods, our fisheries livelihoods, our livelihood as people who are very much dependent and connected to the ocean.”
The panel criticized the quality of data it had received from Tokyo Electric on the water in the tanks and expressed doubts about how well the purification process works. It called for an alternative storage method for the waste water such as making concrete with it.
Hooker was not representing the panel at the online briefing.
Japan’s decontamination plan for the water involves putting it through a purification process known as the Advanced Liquid Processing System, which it says will reduce radioactive elements except tritium to below regulatory levels. The nuclear waste produced by that process will be stored by Japan.
The treated water would then be diluted by more than 100 times to reduce the level of tritium–radioactive hydrogen used to create glow-in-the-dark lighting that’s at the mild end of the radioactive spectrum.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the Fukushima process is technically feasible and in line with international practice.
South Korean fishermen stage a rally against the planned release of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant in front of the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 12, 2023. Credit: AP Photo
David Krofcheck, a nuclear physicist at the University of Auckland, said removal of the “nasty” products of nuclear fission such as strontium and cesium is the more crucial issue versus naturally occuring tritium.
Even though outside laboratories can verify Japan’s efforts, diplomatically it could benefit from more collaboration with neighboring countries, Krofcheck said.
“There is a lot of trust that has been lost from early on [in the Fukushima disaster] that the Japanese scientists are doing this correctly,” he said.
“It would be nice if there was some kind of international collaboration from people in the neighborhood like Korea, Taiwan, China perhaps,” Krofcheck said. “I think that would smooth some of the hard feelings.”
Chau-Ron Wu, a North Pacific ocean currents expert at Taiwan research institute Academia Sinica, provided modeling for the online briefing that suggested tritium released from Fukushima would take a year to reach Taiwan’s coastal waters and two to three years to reach the west coast of North America.
Tritium occurs naturally in the environment due to the sun’s energy hitting the earth and is also emitted by the world’s nuclear power plants. Some remains from atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Pacific Ocean contains about 8.4 kilograms of tritium and Japan’s plan would add less than 0.1 gram a year, according to a statement from Nigel Marks, a nuclear materials scientist at Australia’s Curtin University.
He said there is more radiation in a banana than would be absorbed by fish from treated Fukushima water.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stephen Wright for BenarNews.
Samoa has severed ties with a Hong Kong tour company contracted to market the Pacific island country in China after criticism of a cabinet minister’s links to the business – the latest transparency scandal for the government of Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa.
Fiame acknowledged in Samoa’s parliament on Tuesday that Samoa Royal Tours, which has been operating as the local agent for Travel Focus Hong Kong Ltd. despite lack of experience in the tourism industry, is owned by children of agriculture and fisheries minister Laauli Leuatea Schmidt (also known as Laauli Leuatea Polataivao Fosi).
“It was evident from a statement released by Travel Focus Hong Kong Limited that Minister Laauli Leuatea Schmidt was involved with this company,” she said, calling for cabinet ministers to abide by principles of good governance and transparency.
In May, Minister for Communications and Information Technology Toelupe Poumulinuku Onesemo was criticized for attempting to get customs clearance for a relative’s vessel that arrived in Samoa from neighboring American Samoa without the necessary approvals. Samoa’s media association said he had attempted to intimidate a reporter who investigated the issue.
Separately, Samoa’s government last week released a statement denying any endorsement of a reportedly Hong Kong-based initiative to launch a Samoa stock exchange, a Samoa cryptocurrency exchange and a special economic zone.
The tourism industry in Samoa, home to some 200,000 people, has mainly relied on visitors from Australia and New Zealand and the country’s tourism authority has been keen to tap the vast China market.
Samoa Tourism Authority said in March that it had appointed Travel Focus Hong Kong to market Samoa as a destination in mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong, according to travel industry trade journal TTG Asia.
The Hong Kong company organized weekly direct charter flights to Samoa’s capital Apia from Haikou in China’s Hainan province, starting last month, bringing dozens of Chinese tourists to the island country. However the attempt to boost the number of Chinese visitors was beset by problems.
Established tour agents in Samoa complained that Royal Samoa Tours, as a new company, lacked the capacity to carry out tours.
Fiame told parliament that the venture also appeared ignorant of aviation rules. Charter flights from China were postponed because necessary permits weren’t secured far enough in advance including for a return flight to China, she said.
A passenger ferry service between Samoa’s two largest islands also was disrupted, Fiame said, with passengers forced to wait four hours until a Chinese tour group arrived.
Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa attends the 79th session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N. regional office in Bangkok, Thailand on May 15, 2023. Credit: Sakchai Lalit/AP
Fiame became Samoa’s first female prime minister in 2021 after voters narrowly rejected a ruling party in power for nearly three decades. She is the only woman head of government in the Pacific.
The statement issued by Fiame’s office last week about Samoa Stock Exchange, a Samoa Digital Asset Exchange and an Oceania Special Economic Zone said the government had received proposals and was reviewing them but “has not given any endorsement or approval” despite speculation on social media to the contrary.
The Samoa Observer newspaper reported that the three ventures have been registered as private companies with Samoa’s business registry.
The government said it welcomed new investments that would improve Samoa’s economy and benefit its people but it must ensure such initiatives are “safe, sound and feasible.”
“Proposals of this nature require proper frameworks to regulate the exchange platform and protect market users and investors,” the statement said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Joyetter Feagaimaali’i for BenarNews.
A public hearing in American Samoa about U.S. plans to expand a Pacific marine sanctuary has failed to assuage fears of tuna cannery job losses and further economic decline in the territory, according to workers, business owners and political leaders.
After a decade of lobbying by the Hawaii-based Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, the U.S. government earlier this year said it could double the size of the protected area around uninhabited U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean, making more ocean area off-limits to fishing fleets.
But the proposal has been greeted with dismay in American Samoa, where residents fear a heavy blow to the economically crucial tuna industry. Dozens of placard-wielding employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa protested outside a recent hearing held in Pago Pago by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees protected marine and coastal areas.
“I have seven children between the ages of two and 17, they are all in school, and I have been supporting my family working for StarKist Samoa,” Tanielu Malae, the sole breadwinner for his family, said at the May 25 hearing. “Do the people in Hawaii that made this proposal know what it is like for people like us that did not have proper education if we lose our jobs.”
Employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa are fearful about losing their jobs if the marine sanctuary plan goes ahead. Credit: Joyetter Feagaimaali’i/BenarNews
American Samoa’s Lieutenant Governor, Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who said he was at the hearing as a resident rather than representing the territory’s government, made an emotional appeal to “brothers and sisters” in Hawaii.
“What you are doing is unnecessary and it is painful and mean because you are not gaining anything extra by this proposition, but you are hurting us and cannery workers in this room that live off this land and rely on the fish that is coming from those islands,” he said. “If you really believe that we are your brothers and sisters you have to let this go.”
American Samoa’s governor and other politicians have voiced their opposition to the sanctuary expansion and criticized lack of consultation with the territory.
‘Fight against biodiversity loss’
The total area of the expanded sanctuary would be 2 million square kilometers (770,000 square miles), larger than the Gulf of Mexico, compared with about 1.3 million square kilometers (495,000 square miles) now.
It encompasses waters around several islands, atolls and reefs that the oceanic administration says are “home to some of the most diverse and remarkable tropical marine life on the planet.”
The tropical waters are also ideal for skipjack tuna which travel the equator in search of schools of small fish to feed on.
Tuna fishing provides about 5,000 jobs in American Samoa – where the South Korean-owned StarKist tuna cannery is the territory’s largest business – but the industry has been in decline. The American Samoan islands, located to the south of the marine sanctuary, are home to less than 50,000 people after suffering a shrinking population for at least the past decade.
“There are roughly 5,000 indirect and direct jobs that will be impacted,” said Taotasi Archie Soliai, Director of Marine Wildlife Resources in the territory.
“Think about that number,” he said at last week’s hearing. “These are underserved marginalized stricken disenfranchised minorities and indigenous communities that will continue to suffer because of these types of Federal policies driven by people who do not care.”
This October 2018 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows birds at Johnston Atoll within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP
Advocates of marine sanctuaries say they are crucial for the survival of endangered species and the health of the oceans.
The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, which includes activists, scientists and nonprofit organizations, said that expanding the Pacific marine sanctuary will “meaningfully protect” the interconnected land, reef, sea and deep ocean environments.
The coalition also wants to rename the sanctuary “through a culturally appropriate process that honors the cultural, historic, and ancestral significance of the region.”
“Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. Intact natural ecosystems such as the Pacific remote islands are more resilient to the effects of climate change and can help in the fight against biodiversity loss,” the group said in its 250-page submission to the U.S. government.
Questionable benefits for tuna stocks
For tuna, which have large ranges, it’s unclear if protected areas can produce an increase in their numbers.
Research published in January in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science predicted “weak to non-existent” benefits for skipjack and bigeye tuna numbers from marine protected areas. The study’s modeling was based on Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area and hypothetical sanctuaries making up about one third of the western and central Pacific Ocean.
Businessman Vince Haleck, who owns three long-line fishing vessels, told the Pago Pago hearing that an expanded marine sanctuary is meaningless without proper policing of American Samoa’s own waters to prevent unregulated fishing by China-flagged vessels.
“Literally thousands of vessels, my boats, our boats see them all the time, catching our fish and selling it to us,” he said.
Despite talk of U.S. Coast Guard assistance, “nothing has happened,” he said. “The Chinese will continue to fish in our waters, and we can’t seem to have the political will from Washington to be able to address this issue.”
Haleck said a possible consequence of the expanded sanctuary is that purse seiner vessels, which trail vast nets to scoop fish from the ocean, will find it more economic to take their catch to Mexico than American Samoa.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also held public hearings last month in Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Joyetter Feagaimaali’i for BenarNews.
A public hearing in American Samoa about U.S. plans to expand a Pacific marine sanctuary has failed to assuage fears of tuna cannery job losses and further economic decline in the territory, according to workers, business owners and political leaders.
After a decade of lobbying by the Hawaii-based Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, the U.S. government earlier this year said it could double the size of the protected area around uninhabited U.S. islands in the Pacific Ocean, making more ocean area off-limits to fishing fleets.
But the proposal has been greeted with dismay in American Samoa, where residents fear a heavy blow to the economically crucial tuna industry. Dozens of placard-wielding employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa protested outside a recent hearing held in Pago Pago by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees protected marine and coastal areas.
“I have seven children between the ages of two and 17, they are all in school, and I have been supporting my family working for StarKist Samoa,” Tanielu Malae, the sole breadwinner for his family, said at the May 25 hearing. “Do the people in Hawaii that made this proposal know what it is like for people like us that did not have proper education if we lose our jobs.”
Employees of the StarKist cannery in American Samoa are fearful about losing their jobs if the marine sanctuary plan goes ahead. Credit: Joyetter Feagaimaali’i/BenarNews
American Samoa’s Lieutenant Governor, Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who said he was at the hearing as a resident rather than representing the territory’s government, made an emotional appeal to “brothers and sisters” in Hawaii.
“What you are doing is unnecessary and it is painful and mean because you are not gaining anything extra by this proposition, but you are hurting us and cannery workers in this room that live off this land and rely on the fish that is coming from those islands,” he said. “If you really believe that we are your brothers and sisters you have to let this go.”
American Samoa’s governor and other politicians have voiced their opposition to the sanctuary expansion and criticized lack of consultation with the territory.
‘Fight against biodiversity loss’
The total area of the expanded sanctuary would be 2 million square kilometers (770,000 square miles), larger than the Gulf of Mexico, compared with about 1.3 million square kilometers (495,000 square miles) now.
It encompasses waters around several islands, atolls and reefs that the oceanic administration says are “home to some of the most diverse and remarkable tropical marine life on the planet.”
The tropical waters are also ideal for skipjack tuna which travel the equator in search of schools of small fish to feed on.
Tuna fishing provides about 5,000 jobs in American Samoa – where the South Korean-owned StarKist tuna cannery is the territory’s largest business – but the industry has been in decline. The American Samoan islands, located to the south of the marine sanctuary, are home to less than 50,000 people after suffering a shrinking population for at least the past decade.
“There are roughly 5,000 indirect and direct jobs that will be impacted,” said Taotasi Archie Soliai, Director of Marine Wildlife Resources in the territory.
“Think about that number,” he said at last week’s hearing. “These are underserved marginalized stricken disenfranchised minorities and indigenous communities that will continue to suffer because of these types of Federal policies driven by people who do not care.”
This October 2018 photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows birds at Johnston Atoll within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP
Advocates of marine sanctuaries say they are crucial for the survival of endangered species and the health of the oceans.
The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, which includes activists, scientists and nonprofit organizations, said that expanding the Pacific marine sanctuary will “meaningfully protect” the interconnected land, reef, sea and deep ocean environments.
The coalition also wants to rename the sanctuary “through a culturally appropriate process that honors the cultural, historic, and ancestral significance of the region.”
“Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. Intact natural ecosystems such as the Pacific remote islands are more resilient to the effects of climate change and can help in the fight against biodiversity loss,” the group said in its 250-page submission to the U.S. government.
Questionable benefits for tuna stocks
For tuna, which have large ranges, it’s unclear if protected areas can produce an increase in their numbers.
Research published in January in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science predicted “weak to non-existent” benefits for skipjack and bigeye tuna numbers from marine protected areas. The study’s modeling was based on Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands Protected Area and hypothetical sanctuaries making up about one third of the western and central Pacific Ocean.
Businessman Vince Haleck, who owns three long-line fishing vessels, told the Pago Pago hearing that an expanded marine sanctuary is meaningless without proper policing of American Samoa’s own waters to prevent unregulated fishing by China-flagged vessels.
“Literally thousands of vessels, my boats, our boats see them all the time, catching our fish and selling it to us,” he said.
Despite talk of U.S. Coast Guard assistance, “nothing has happened,” he said. “The Chinese will continue to fish in our waters, and we can’t seem to have the political will from Washington to be able to address this issue.”
Haleck said a possible consequence of the expanded sanctuary is that purse seiner vessels, which trail vast nets to scoop fish from the ocean, will find it more economic to take their catch to Mexico than American Samoa.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also held public hearings last month in Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Joyetter Feagaimaali’i for BenarNews.
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