Transcripts For ALJAZ Inside Story 20240712

A week ago failed to hold in the u. S. President trump is campaigning in 2 swing states his now in wisconsin after arriving in michigan the pressure is on as his democratic challenger joe biden is leading in Many National polls with just over 2 weeks before the election john hendren has more from washington. Hes been playing defense all across the map in florida georgia and iowa hes been campaigning those are all states that he should have handily in his column by now but National Polls show him behind across the u. S. The latest poll i saw said 12 Percentage Points behind joe biden and hes also behind in key battleground states those include michigan in wisconsin the 2 states that hes going to now so he has been aggressive there speaking very much like hes on the steroids that he was on just days ago when he tested positive for the coronavirus standing in front of the air force one showing people that hes back. And womens marches have been taking place across the u. S. Against president protesting against his pick for Supreme Court Justice Amy Connie Barrett if confirmed sheetrit case Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died last month. In lebanon protesters have a year since this mass on Thai Government demonstrations theyre calling for a complete overhaul of the political system the suspects who beheaded a teacher near paris was a teenager of chechen descent the school is believed to have received multiple threats after he showed a controversial image of the prophet mohammed and an arms embargo imposed on iran 13 years ago has expired it was lifted us part of the 2015 nuclear deal with well despite objections from the u. S. Coming up next since i story. Nearly a decade after the Fukushima Nuclear disaster japans government is considering releasing gold and a 1000000 tons of treated radioactive water into the. But how will people in the area and japans neighbors react this is inside story. Welcome to the program i mean ron come on its been nearly 10 years since the Fukushima Nuclear disaster in japan still struggling to manage its consequences one of the most serious challenges involves some 1200000 tonnes of contaminated water that still being stored near the site this week japanese media reported the government is considering releasing that water into the Pacific Ocean something thats prompted complaints from japanese fishermen and neighboring governments will bring in our guests in just a moment but 1st lets remind you of what happened at the Fukushima Nuclear power plant the site was destroyed by a powerful earthquake and tsunami that struck off the northeastern coast of japan in march of 2011 in the days that followed its cooling systems failed and tons of Radioactive Material leaked into the air and sea japans government designated a large of vacuum ration zone around the plant and more than 150000 people were forced to leave their homes an extensive operation to decommission the plant is expected to take decades but the Plant Operator now says theyre running out of space to store the contaminated water. Lets bring in our guests now in amsterdam yan have account sr experts on Nuclear Energy and Energy Policy at greenpeace in tokyo Michael Prior president of the shin gets to news agency and also in tokyo Tomohiko Taniguchi a former special advisor to the cabinet oceans are also professor at the Care University graduate school of System Design and management welcome to you all id like to begin in tokyo with you Tomohiko Taniguchi the fact that theyre doing this now the fact that they are considering releasing this treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean has many people alarmed why would they dump radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean there are 2 kinds of names to. Call water and mr khan youre using 2 descriptions one is to call it contaminated another treated the fact of the matter is it is that the amount of. Water no longer contaminated because there is an hour range meant and system called alcs that is advanced a liquid Processing System the only remaining radio active material is. But everyone knows the tritium is on pole in our poll supply and natural waters a bowl kinds it is in the human body and if you ask anyone in this field even if you drink the water. That has a treaty and in it itll itll cause no harm and so the japanese government and the advice given by the i a e a hoss been considering ways to release the war either to vapor into the air or to released into the sea and i think in a week or so the government is going to have a decision but why all the government considering releasing it into the Pacific Ocean if they do have of options well it is the easiest way and given the huge amount of true rated warter i think it is. Swift swift and the easiest way and indeed thats exactly what all the Nuclear Power plants across the world have been doing for decades but those Nuclear Power plants havent been destroyed in the tsunami yet another quake i mean this is a this is a very distinct sholay well thats thats one point that you should mention but the other thing is the total amount of tritium released by some Nuclear Power plants around japan actually involved have been big in amount on the anti amount of tritium stored on site at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. So you would be happy for your family once this is happening the water has gone into the Pacific Ocean to eat the fish that is fished in those waters youd be happy to drink from those waters to go into those waters if you ever went to the beach you think its all business as usual fisherman are grossly unhappy and docks why this is difficult and thats why its taken us for the japanese government to consider this despite the this fight the call from the. Day to move swiftly and i think its going to take some more months between tried to negotiate between the Fishing Community and the Central Government i think there must be some sort of understanding cut between the 2 parties. Yeah to have a campaign. Its all perfectly safe its been treated this is on advice from various different scientific organizations what is that worry about well in the moment that i hear the word treatment being used instead of contaminated comment. Think differently then this is a kind of newspeak yes the water is treated. But the system that is treating it help system. Is not as effective as it was hoped to be many years ago when they started using it and the water that we talk about is still contaminated he still has traces of stone to 90 and other isotopes where else has not been him to functional tamale. Of course the biggest problem that we do face is trees you mean the in the in the water and. Then coming forward and saying well there is not a problem treating is being emitted everywhere in the world and its in seawater yes but were going to talk about a large amount of treats you know its going to be put into the system directly near to or directly in the Fukushima Prefecture. The the i think the crucial words that we just heard was beef and he see that as well taco and the japanese government would like to do they want to get rid of this problem safe and easy so the everybody will forget about it especially these attempts of being wrong already for a long time weve seen it tends to to make for sure try in trying to make sure go away phrases in the run up to the union to games that are planned for this year that are no date to into next year. That is the provision of a Nuclear Problem is a large problem and. I think i have to say that i. I have a lot of compassion for the fisherman and other people who have you are making their living and usual prefecture in toronto it and who fear for their income at the moment that this will take place. We have been arguing already for years that it is better to take your time to take care that treatment is happening to down to levels which are under the acceptable rules and not to take certain decisions that will cause the amounts of water to be emitted that do not meet the normal current tyria but yet have a count all its isnt something that will concrete you can tell us i mean you know youre saying actually the fisherman to be kind of you know up in arms about this and will be upset about this but you havent actually said what the effect of that contaminated that treated water going into the Pacific Ocean might be and our guest in tokyo suggests that there wont be any effect. Well if theyre if if if there would have been very clear signs about low levels of radiation very clear signs about how treats humans behaving itself and ecosystems that we would be able to have another discussion about the problem is that that exact science is not there theres a lot of uncertainty about the effects of treats you know. For instance the the canadian more term court is is using prettier which are 20 times as sharp as the current t. V. Which or france is used by the i. A. E. A. And they do that with good reason because they have found out that there is a lot of uncertainty and that there are facts that should should weigh into the whole discussion at the moment that youre talking about these kind of uncertainties you use the socalled speak or 3 principle and in this case that is not a problem at all there is no problem at all in story more water over time and continuing to search for better ways to treat this water and the search moment is Water Treatment to wait that in fulfills the criteria before it is the released into for instance the ocean but its abysmal and what we see is in the swift and hes we see. Pressure on the whole system not for scientific reasons but simply for economic reasons lets bring in Michael Paine has also in tokyo hes the president of the shin gets a news agency michael this is clearly been a huge talking point in japan itself it seems to me given what ive been reading that the 1st line of defense against dumping this water into the Pacific Ocean is the fishermen and the fishing industry what are their objections to all of this. Well so you know i think its instinctually most people could understand what it is you know the 2 previous guests have kind of shown you already the spectrum of the scientific debate on the one hand you have the japanese government which very much insists there is absolutely no danger here and then you have other other critics who say well we dont know for certain that its dangerous but we dont know for certain thats not so nice. For saying theres uncertainty about whether or not there might be a problem down the road from from releasing this water into the ocean but you know whether or not. Whichever side the scientific argument is on i think there is a great deal of certainty that when people read in their newspapers that treated contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is being dumped into the Pacific Ocean near fukushima that its going to have an effect on the ability of these fisherman to be able to sell their fish because people are going to say well were not 100 percent sure it is safe now that could be bad reporting or it could be a scientific. Discretion or science or just being prudent but the reality the economic reality for these fishermen is real and you can expect that their debt their businesses will be damaged by it whether or not its safe or or not safe but look you just take the temperature for us in japan. Is the public behind this move is is it a popular move to to to say that actually that the water is safe they can be dumped or is it is a people divided as one of the well the japanese public might be thinking. Well to be honest i have i havent seen a specific poll thats asked about that cyc i cannot answer that question with precision but i would say that you know because of the history on the fukushima issue particularly before the accident when when the government did insist that everything was quite safe with the Operation Nuclear plants and because of things like revelations that tepco a new foreign aid years in advance of the accidents that a tsunami could potentially do damage enough to to create such an accident you know essentially that there were you could argue lies told to the public in the past about Nuclear Power and so because of that you know justified or not theres i think a lot of people see skep look at government claims and tepco claims tepco being the operator of the plant with a great deal of skepticism and you know people you know i dont think anybody would like the idea that the seafood on their plate comes from a place where treated radioactive water has been recently dumped so you know again its a matter of perception what whichever side the reality is on has had a gauge its a matter of perception your government hasnt got the confidence of the people because of things that happened in the past you think you will be the government will be able to push this through if thats the path it decides to go to. Truly it is perception not science perception sometimes dogs marta than anything else which is to be understood by anyone dealing with this issue. But. When it comes to Scientific Evidence a huge amount of evidence house already been there in the sense. Of fish stocks that Fishing Community Fukushima Daiichi. Relies upon is not contaminated so they complaints and worries understandably for the Fishing Community around the power plant are much to do with the perception and they are telling the japanese government to do more on the perception and. As your guest from the netherlands says if its possible for all of the Tokyo Electric Power company to take. Before things are going to be settled they could do that but they have already built 1000. 00 nearly 1000. 00. And on site in the plant there is a very little room physically left them to continue to build tonks and i think 2021 i think next year is going to be the limit which is why the sense of urgency have kicked in yet have a come whats your reaction. Well that is exactly what were talking about 1st of all the designs and i just want to make one remark about the signs here. There is no guarantee about the amount of radioactive substances that are still remaining in the 1200000 tons that tepco wants to emit into the ocean they also are going to take 2 more years to prepare for that so even dont know exactly what the money situation will be playing down there what we do know is that the government with this blind certainty and let go of wanting to talk about uncertainties for years already has been say we cant do this we are doing this and every time again it appears again that the op system for instance was not performing to what it needed to do so those are the dumps that we have and that we see all around us are justified and. Of course the amount of space on site is limited and its only getting fuel to go beyond that and be aware that in the coast so there is still ample space that will cost and it comes to a coast the reason why ted owens and continue with this is the question of cost its trying to cut costs and with that risk in decent livelihood over for instance a Fishery Community there but also how the people who are trying to make their livelihoods in the Fukushima Prefecture but yet have a cap we do have to be realistic head that is an economics consideration to take into consideration there is you know you have to make this Cost Effective and what our guest in tokyo is saying is that this is the most Cost Effective way of doing it. Well the most Cost Effective way would have been to take the heat to take the morning or for a loss to the tsunami seriously and invest in the time we have now seen a contest or fee for which there is trying to bunches responsibility time and can and this is one of the very many instances where temp was trying to do that and i am very sympathetic to to mine to my japanese friends in the region who say weve seen this once twice tens dozens of times happen in tepco tries to get away for it because of course it is troubling of course of history cannot be. But it is the responsibility that it is scary for catastrophe than this course and walking away from that responsibility and then in the process of destroying the livelihoods of even more people than they have already done is not acceptable to the hca tentatively why is this under consideration and not the vaporization plan is the vaporization plan much more expensive. Our of course its going to be much much more expensive and it will take much much more time in terms of the bail ability for the conchs its role full stop i have been there on site and have taken a close look at how narrow space has already become and so its going to be impossible for ted got responsible or not to make more tonks so why doesnt tepco deserve what is on time haitian i should suggest you go to Canadian Nuclear plant called bruce a Nuclear Generating station a known area and test the water to see how contaminated it is tritium has been. Released from that plant in a massive number and that that has caused no more harm to the Fishing Community nearby but. You are talking about tepco being responsible for this now as i understand it its not just this has to be the japanese government as well they have to take much more responsibility than they have done is that right certainly it is in the 1st place tepco says responsibility building those massive number of times has come from the shrinking profit of tepco so so long as tepco could carry on his tepco his responsibility michael penn what do the japanese people think of that what do you what did the journalists there in japan think of that its you know this is effectively a private company that is managing a National Ecological disaster. Well that lying is not really so clear in japan you know i mean effectively in the wake of the accident tepco is more or less nationalized in terms of its structure of whos whos calling the shots but that was you know we talk about the Big Industrial Enterprises Like this they always work very closely with the ministries which which oversee them and so you know what this isnt. The system of the Business Structure in japan isnt exactly the same as you would see in europe or the United States where theres a pretty clear distinction between the public and private sector is also what youre saying id like to so youre saying is michael that the japanese government isnt doing enough big and but it could. Well lets put it this way its the japanese government thats ultimately calling the shots i think would be a fair a Fair Assessment the ministries which are involved are the ones who are you know its probably Ministry Bureaucrats who are making the key decisions not some you know private sector individuals who are operating on their own you dont have a camp the japanese government is responsible and needs to do more whats the International Response to that what is there any International Pressure that can be put on an 8 and a help to the japanese government oh theres several forms of of International Pressure growing all of this small and 1st of all these issues already has already been discussed in the International Maritime organization no to come back there again because there are International Obligations that are only japan that he. Gets to make these kind of emissions so we will see that kind of International Pressure continue on the japanese governments to come to know that this issue. Then of course there is also. Possible further support. Especially in the in the reaal move the treaty asians so that means removing treats you from the torture there are developments going well technically guns at this moment. That newts needs implementation and it will not be easy and it is one of the big problems that we face with its regime of to disaster is we absolutely not be prepared for exhaustion of these kind and were trying to mitigate its impacts only go on the fly so to speak and that is very key visible here is well we dont have to we did not have the technology before hints to clean importer and the treaty properly we have to think of that now when we are into these had only 2 these problems these developments are ongoing and the japanese government instead of keeping an arms length route and yet. This is going to have that we are running out of time and there is one very quick question i want to ask all 3 of you before we go 1200000 tonnes of treated radioactive water may well go into the Pacific Ocean to tell him would you eat japanese fish after that happens. Certainly i would drink that water myself Michael Paine would you im not sure i want to go jump into the tank and drink the water but in terms of eating seafood in japan yeah im you know i wouldnt have a problem then i will i will eat seafood and you dont have a company were shaking your head youre not going to be any japanese seafood if this happens. To. Me the question is are these youre there to see if we true since japanese cd release. Is all my menu regularly. I find it so this is. I want to thank all our gas you have a camp Tomohiko Taniguchi and michael pan and thank you to forging you can see the program again any time by visiting our website out 0 dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page at facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story and you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a. J. Inside story for me and ron cowen and the entire team here by going to. On counting the cost the price of doing business with china and see how the fun is returned to the coercion of economic and geopolitical will also beijing for the tibetan Farm Labor Center be education camps and with mauled by a louts of baylors to moscow more of mints calvin they call on aljazeera. There is no channel that covers world news like we do we revisit places of the state aljazeera really invest in them and thats a privilege as a journalist. The health of humanity is at stake a Global Pandemic requires a global response. W. H. O. 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Now am fully back to bill in doha with a look at our main stories on aljazeera a new ceasefire between armenia and azerbaijan is now in place to humanitarian truce came into effect at 20 g. M. T. After an attack on the as eerie city of ganja which came at least 600 civilians this is the 2nd attempt to stop nearly 3 weeks of violence theyve been fighting over the disputed region of nagornokarabakh. Bernas smith is in armenia capital yes on this information about the new truce is come from the armenian side and the armenians that have been pushing for a cease