Japan Press Weekly

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2017 April 26 - May 9 [POLITICS]

Abe appoints nuclear power advocate as Fukushima reconstruction minister

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has put into his Cabinet lineup a nuclear-power advocate from Fukushima as the replacement for Imamura Masahiro who resigned as minister in charge of the 2011 disaster reconstruction after facing fierce criticism against his remarks insulting victims of the massive natural disaster resulting in the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns.

Fukushima-elected Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Yoshino Masayoshi, who was recently appointed as the reconstruction minister, demanded in the Diet in November 2010 that the government further promote nuclear power generation.

At a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting just after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, he said, “The Great East Japan Earthquake was one of the largest in the last 1,000 years,” and expressed his stance to grant the crippled nuclear power plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, immunity from liability for the nuclear meltdowns.

In 2015, as the head of the LDP Project Team on Nuclear Regulation, Yoshino was involved in compiling the party proposal for the use of nuclear power. The proposal criticized the Nuclear Regulation Authority for placing special emphasis on its independence and urged the NRA to improve “communications” with relevant government ministries and nuclear power-related business operators.