SEOUL: South Korean opposition lawmakers sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant during a tense meeting in Seoul on Sunday, with protesters screaming outside the door.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, arrived in South Korea over the weekend to engage with government officials and critics and help reduce public concerns about food safety. The planned release of the Fukushima plant’s treated wastewater emerged as a major political issue in South Korea after the IAEA last week approved the Japanese discharge plans, saying the process would meet international safety standards and pose negligible environmental and health impacts.
South Korea’s government has also endorsed the safety of the Japanese plans, saying that the contamination levels of water pumped out from the plant would be within acceptable standards and wouldn’t meaningfully affect South Korean seas as long as the plant’s treatment systems work as designed.
In his meeting with visiting members of the liberal Democratic Party, which controls a majority in South Korea’s parliament, Grossi said the IAEA’s review of the Japanese plans was based on “transparent” and “scientific” research. He acknowledged concerns over how the Japanese plans would play out in actuality and said the IAEA would establish a permanent office in Fukushima to closely monitor how the discharge process is implemented over the next three decades.
The lawmakers responded by harshly criticizing IAEA’s review, which they say neglected long-term environmental and health impacts of the wastewater release and threatens to set a bad precedent that may encourage other countries to dispose nuclear waste into sea. They called for Japan to scrap the discharge plans and work with neighboring countries to find safer ways to handle the wastewater, including a possible pursuit of long-term storage on land.
The party has also criticized the government of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for putting people’s health at risk while trying to improve relations with Japan.
“If you think (the treated wastewater) is safe, I wonder whether you would be willing to suggest the Japanese government use that water for drinking or for industrial and agricultural purposes, rather than dumping it in the sea,” Woo Won-shik, a Democratic Party lawmaker who attended the meeting, told Grossi. The party said Woo has been on a hunger strike for the past 14 days to protest the Japanese discharge plans.
Further details from the meeting weren’t immediately available after reporters were asked to leave following opening statements. Dozens of protesters shouted in a nearby hall while holding signs denouncing the IAEA and Japan, and they were closely watched by parliamentary security staff.
Hundreds of demonstrators had also marched in downtown Seoul on Saturday demanding that Japan scrap its discharge plans. Those protests provided a tense backdrop to a meeting between Grossi and South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, who called for IAEA’s “active cooperation” in reassuring the South Korean public.
The safety of Fukushima’s wastewater has been a sensitive issue for years between the US allies. South Korea and Japan have been working in recent months to repair relations long strained over wartime historical grievances to address shared concerns such as the North Korean nuclear threat and China’s assertive foreign policy.
South Korea’s assessment about the safety of the discharge plan was partially based on observations by a team of government scientists who were allowed to tour the Fukushima plant in May. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had agreed to that visit during a May 7 summit with Yoon in Seoul, in a show of his desire for improved ties.
In a statement released by state media on Sunday, North Korea also criticized the Japanese discharge plans, warning against “fatal adverse impact on the human lives and security and ecological environment” resulting from the discharge of “nuclear-polluted water.” The statement, which was attributed to an unidentified official in North Korea’s Ministry of Land and Environment Protection, also criticized Washington and Seoul for backing the Japanese plans.
“What matters is the unreasonable behavior of IAEA actively patronizing and facilitating Japan’s projected discharge of nuclear-polluted water, which is unimaginable,” it said. “Worse still, the US and (South) Korea openly express unseemly ‘welcome’ to Japan’s discharge plan that deserves condemnation and rejection, provoking strong anger of the public.”
A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the Fukushima plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and release large amounts of radiation.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the facility, has been storing the treated water in hundreds of tanks that now cover most of the plant and are nearly full. Japanese officials say the tanks must be removed to make room to build facilities for the plant’s decommissioning and to minimize the risk of leaks in case of another major disaster. The tanks are expected to reach their capacity of 1.37 million tons in early 2024.
Japan first announced plans to discharge the treated water into the sea in 2018, saying the water will be further diluted by seawater before being released in a carefully controlled process that will take decades to complete.
South Korean lawmakers berate IAEA chief over Japanese plans to release Fukushima wastewater
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South Korean lawmakers berate IAEA chief over Japanese plans to release Fukushima wastewater
- Planned release of the Fukushima plant’s treated wastewater a major political issue in South Korea
- Japan called to work with neighboring countries to find safer ways to handle the wastewater
Some airlines checking Boeing fuel switches after Air India crash
- Precautionary moves by India, South Korea and some airlines in other countries
- Some airlines around the world said they had been checking relevant switches since 2018
NEW DELHI: India on Monday ordered its airlines to examine fuel switches on several Boeing models, while South Korea said it would order a similar measure, as scrutiny intensified of fuel switch locks at the center of an investigation into a deadly Air India crash.
The precautionary moves by India, South Korea and some airlines in other countries came despite the planemaker and the US Federal Aviation Administration telling airlines and regulators in recent days that the fuel switch locks on Boeing jets are safe.
The locks have come under scrutiny following last month’s crash of an Air India jet, which killed 260 people.
A preliminary report found that the switches had almost simultaneously flipped from run position to cutoff shortly after takeoff. One pilot was heard on the cockpit voice recorder asking the other why he cut off the fuel. “The other pilot responded that he did not do so,” the report said.
The report noted a 2018 advisory from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which recommended, but did not mandate, operators of several Boeing models including the 787 to inspect the locking feature of fuel cutoff switches to ensure they could not be moved accidentally.
India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said it had issued an order to investigate locks on several Boeing models including 787s and 737s, after several Indian and international airlines began making their own inspections of fuel switches.
The regulator oversees the world’s third-largest and fastest-growing aviation market. Boeing planes are used by three of the country’s four largest airlines.
Precautionary checks
Some airlines around the world said they had been checking relevant switches since 2018 in accordance with the FAA advisory, including Australia’s Qantas Airways and Japan’s ANA.
Others said they had been making additional or new checks since the release of the preliminary report into the Air India crash.
Singapore Airlines said on Tuesday that precautionary checks on the fuel switches of its 787 fleet, including planes used by its low-cost subsidiary Scoot, confirmed all were functioning properly.
A spokesperson for the South Korean transport ministry said checks there would be in line with the 2018 advisory from the FAA, but did not give a timeline for them.
Flag carrier Korean Air Lines said on Tuesday it had proactively begun inspecting fuel control switches and would implement any additional requirements the transport ministry may have.
Japan Airlines said it was conducting inspections in accordance with the 2018 advisory.
Boeing referred Reuters’ questions to the FAA, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Over the weekend, Air India Group started checking the locking mechanism on the fuel switches of its 787 and 737 fleets and has discovered no problems yet, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
About half the group’s 787s have been inspected and nearly all its 737s, the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Inspections were set to be completed in the next day or two.
The Air India crash preliminary report said the airline had not carried out the FAA’s suggested inspections as the FAA’s 2018 advisory was not a mandate.
But it also said maintenance records showed that the throttle control module, which includes the fuel switches, was replaced in 2019 and 2023 on the plane involved in the crash.
In an internal memo on Monday, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the preliminary report found no mechanical or maintenance faults and that all required maintenance had been carried out.
Indonesia rescues 11 who swam for hours to survive boat capsize
- Two boats and dozens of rescuers hunted for those missing after the boat with 18 aboard overturned off the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra
JAKARTA: Indonesian rescuers found alive on Tuesday 11 people missing at sea who had survived a boat capsize in bad weather by swimming for at least six hours to the nearest island, officials said.
Two boats and dozens of rescuers hunted for those missing after the boat with 18 aboard overturned off the Mentawai Islands in the province of West Sumatra at about 11 a.m. on Monday, regional officials said.
“It was raining hard when the incident happened,” island official Rinto Wardana said. “Some of the passengers managed to swim and reach the nearest island.”
Seven had been rescued earlier, Wardana added. Ten of those on board were local government officials on a business trip to the town of Tuapejat, the boat’s destination when it left Sikakap, another small town in the Mentawai Islands.
The Mentawai Islands consist of four main islands and many smaller ones.
Boats and ferries are a regular mode of transport in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, where accidents are caused by bad weather and lax safety standards that often allow vessels to be overloaded.
When a ferry sank this month near the tourist resort island of Bali with 65 aboard, 30 passengers survived, while 18 died and 17 went missing.
Bangladesh struggles to contain the fallout of an uprising that toppled its leader last year
- One year after Hasina’s ouster, interim government faces growing unrest, delayed reforms, political fragmentation
- Rights concerns remain a major issue, conservative religious factions gain ground and Yunus resists calls for early elections
DHAKA: Bangladesh was on the cusp of charting a new beginning last year after its former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was removed from power in a student-led uprising, ending her 15-year rule and forcing her to flee to India.
As the head of a new interim government, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus promised to hold a credible election to return to democracy, initiate electoral and constitutional reforms and restore peace on the streets after hundreds were killed in weeks of violence that began on July 15, 2024.
A year later, the Yunus-led administration has struggled to contain the fallout of the uprising. Bangladesh finds itself mired in a growing political uncertainty, religious polarization and a challenging law-and-order situation.
Here’s what to know about Bangladesh a year after the protests that toppled Hasina.
Chaotic political landscape
Uncertainty about the future of democracy looms large in Bangladesh.
The student protesters who toppled Hasina formed a new political party, promising to break the overwhelming influence of two major dynastic political parties — the Bangladesh Nationalists Party, or BNP, and Hasina’s Awami League.
But the party’s opponents have accused it of being close to the Yunus-led administration and creating chaos for political mileage by using state institutions.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s political landscape has further fragmented after the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, returned to politics more than a decade after it was suppressed by Hasina’s government.
Aligned with the student-led party, it’s trying to fill the vacuum left by the Awami League, which was banned in May. Its leader, Hasina, is facing trial for crimes against humanity. The strength of Jamaat-e-Islami, which opposed Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, is unknown.
Both BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami party are now at loggerheads over establishing supremacy within the administration and judiciary, and even university campuses.
They are also differing over the timing of a new parliamentary election. Yunus has announced that the polls would be held in April next year, but poor law and order situation and a lack of clear-cut political consensus over it have created confusion. The chief of Bangladesh’s military also wanted an election in December this year — a stance Yunus didn’t like.
“Post-revolution honeymoons often don’t last long, and Bangladesh is no exception,” says Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst and senior fellow of Asia Pacific Foundation. “The interim government faced massive expectations to restore democracy and prosperity. But this is especially difficult to do as an unelected government without a public mandate.”
Yunus wants reforms before election
Yunus has delayed an election because he wants reforms — from changes to the constitution and elections to the judiciary and police. Discussions with political parties, except Hasina’s Awami League, are ongoing.
Some of the reforms include putting a limit on how many times a person can become the prime minister, introduction of a two-tier parliament, and appointment of a chief justice.
There appears to be little consensus over some basic reforms. While both the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami parties have agreed to some of them with conditions, other proposals for basic constitutional reforms have become a sticking point.
The Jamaat-e-Islami also wants to give the interim government more time to complete reforms before heading into polls, while BNP has been calling for an early election. The student-led party mostly follows the pattern of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Kugelman says the issue of reforms was meant to unite the country, but has instead become a flashpoint.
“There’s a divide between those that want to see through reforms and give them more time, and those that feel it’s time to wrap things up and focus on elections,” he says.
Human rights and the rise of Islamists
Human rights in Bangladesh have remained a serious concern under Yunus.
Minority groups, especially Hindus, have blamed his administration for failing to protect them adequately. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council says minority Hindus and others have been targeted in hundreds of attacks over the last year. Hasina’s party has also blamed the interim government for arresting tens of thousands of its supporters.
The Yunus-led administration denies these allegations.
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, says while the interim government has stopped enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions that had occurred under the Hasina government, “there has been little progress on lasting security sector reforms or to deliver on the pledge to create robust, independent institutions.”
Meanwhile, Islamist factions — some of whom have proposed changes to women’s rights and demanded introduction of Sharia law — are vying for power. Many of them are planning to build alliances with bigger parties like the BNP or the Jamaat-e-Islami.
Such factions have historically struggled to gain significant electoral support despite Bangladesh being a Muslim majority, and their rise is expected to further fragment the country’s political landscape.
Diplomatic pivot and balancing with global powers
During Hasina’s 15-year rule, Bangladesh was India’s closest partner in South Asia. After her ouster, the Yunus-led administration has moved closer to China, which is India’s main rival in the region.
Yunus’ first state visit was to China in March, a trip that saw him secure investments, loans and grants. On the other hand, India is angered by the ousting of its old ally Hasina and hasn’t responded to Dhaka’s requests to extradite her. India stopped issuing visas to Bangladeshis following Hasina’s fall.
Globally, Yunus seems to have strong backing from the West and the United Nations, and it appears Bangladesh will continue its foreign policy, which has long tried to find a balance between multiple foreign powers.
But Kugelman says the country’s biggest challenge may be the “Trump factor.”
In January, the Trump administration suspended USAID funds to Bangladesh, which had sought significant levels of US support during a critical rebuild period post Hasina’s ouster.
“Dhaka must now reframe its relations with an unconventional US administration that will largely view Bangladesh through a commercial lens,” Kugelman says.
Russia says it destroys 55 Ukrainian drones overnight, several people injured
- Several apartments in multi-story buildings in the city of Voronezh that is the administrative center of the broader Voronezh region were damaged
- Additionally, several commercial facilities throughout the region were damaged by falling drone debris
Several people were injured and houses and non-residential buildings were damaged as a result of Ukraine’s overnight drone attack on the neighboring Russia’s southwestern regions of Lipetsk and Voronezh, regional governors said on Tuesday.
Russia’s air defense units destroyed 12 drones over the Voronezh region that borders Ukraine, Governor Alexander Gusev said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Unfortunately, there were injuries,” Gusev said. “In central Voronezh, several people sustained minor injuries due to debris from a downed UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles).”
Several apartments in multi-story buildings in the city of Voronezh that is the administrative center of the broader Voronezh region were damaged, as well as houses in the suburbs, Gusev said.
Additionally, several commercial facilities throughout the region were damaged by falling drone debris, he said, without providing further details.
In the city of Yelets in the Lipetsk region a drone crashed in an industrial zone, regional governor Igor Artamonov said on Telegram.
“One person was injured and is receiving all necessary medical assistance,” Artamonov said.
The Russian defense ministry said on Telegram that its units destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones overnight over five Russian regions and the Black Sea, including three over the Lipetsk region.
The full extent of damage from the attacks was not immediately known. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the attack.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes during the war that Russia launched against Ukraine more than three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Ukraine has launched multiple air strikes on Lipetsk, a strategically important region with an air base that is the chief training center for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Australia and China call for more dialogue, cooperation at leaders’ meeting
- Australia has pursued a China policy of ‘cooperate where we can, disagree where we must’ under Albanese
- Australia’s exports to China, its largest trading partner, span agriculture and energy but are dominated by iron ore
BEIJING: China is ready to work with Australia to deepen bilateral ties, President Xi Jinping said during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday in Beijing.
The meeting between the two leaders comes as China tries to capitalize on US President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade tariffs by presenting itself as a stable and reliable partner. Chinese officials have expressed interest in expanding a decade-old free trade deal and cooperating in artificial intelligence.
China was willing to “promote further development in the China-Australia relationship,” Xi said in remarks at the start of the meeting.
Australia valued its ties to China, its largest trading partner, and welcomed “progress on cooperation” under the free trade deal, Albanese said in response, adding that Australia’s national interest would guide Canberra’s approach to the relationship.
“Dialogue needs to be at the center of our relationship,” the prime minister said. “I welcome the opportunity to set out Australia’s views and interests and our thinking on how we can maintain peace, security, stability and prosperity in our region.”
Albanese is expected to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang later on Tuesday. He has previously said resources trade, energy transition and security tensions would be key topics for discussions in Beijing.
Australia, which regards the United States its major security ally, has pursued a China policy of “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must” under Albanese.
In the run-up to the visit, China signaled repeatedly it was open to deeper cooperation. On Tuesday, the state-owned China Daily newspaper published a glowing opinion piece about the visit and said it showed countries with different political systems could still cooperate.
However, any cooperation is likely to be constrained by long-standing Australian concerns around China’s military build-up and the jailing of Australian writer Yang Hengjun.
Beijing has also separately criticized Canberra’s increased screening of foreign investment in critical minerals and Albanese’s pledge to return a Chinese-leased port to Australian ownership.
Australia’s exports to China, its largest trading partner, span agriculture and energy but are dominated by iron ore, and Albanese has traveled with executives from mining giants Rio Tinto, BHP, and Fortescue, who met Chinese steel industry officials on Monday, at the start of the six-day visit.
Bran Black, CEO of the Business Council of Australia, said Australia’s Bluescope Steel would also be at Tuesday’s business roundtable, along with China’s electric vehicle giant BYD, Chinese banking executives, Baosteel and state-run food group COFCO.
“First and foremost we use fixtures such as this to send a signal that business-to-business engagement should be welcomed and encouraged,” Black said on Tuesday.
