20110602

IAEA team says Japan underestimated tsunami threat

by AP

U.N. inspectors faulted Japan on Wednesday for underestimating the threat of a devastating tsunami on its crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but praised its overall response to the crisis as exemplary. The preliminary report by a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency also said the tsunami hazard was underestimated at several other nuclear facilities in Japan, and called for experts worldwide to learn from the disaster to avert future accidents. The IAEA team of international experts from 12 countries, which spent a week in Japan conferring with officials and inspecting the plant, will submit its full report at a high-level IAEA conference in Vienna from June 20-24. (AP)

Japan PM faces party rebellion; no-confidence vote looms

by Reuters

Japanese ruling party rebels on Wednesday claimed to have enough votes to back a no-confidence vote against embattled Prime Minister Naoto Kan but analysts said he would probably survive, albeit weakened and with a deeply divided party. Japan's fifth premier in as many years, Kan has struggled to deal with the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years and to push through policies to resolve deep-seated economic woes, with one ratings agency saying the intense political feuding could help force a downgrade in the country's sovereign debt. (Reuters)