U.S. Senate hearing to confirm Trump pick Issa for trade post delayed by concern over FBI check

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed a hearing on Thursday to consider former congressman Darrell Issa to lead the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, after Democrats accused the White House of withholding potentially compromising details in a background check. The panel's Republican chairman, Jim Risch, said consideration of Issa, President Donald Trump's nominee for the post, was postponed about half an hour into an acrimonious hearing. Senator Bob Menendez, the committee's ranking Democrat, said the White House had blocked access for all committee members to possibly compromising information on Issa.

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Injured crewman sues California dive boat owner after 34 diein fiery tragedy

Ryan Sims filed the suit last week in Ventura County Superior Court saying the Conception dive boat was unseaworthy and operated in an unsafe manner.

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Third Photo of Justin Trudeau in Blackface Threatens to Destroy His Progressive Reputation

REUTERS/Chris WattieThe progressive reputation of Justin Trudeau is in ruins Thursday morning after a third instance emerged of the Canadian prime minister wearing racist dark face-paint.The first photo that surfaced, showing Trudeau in 2001 wearing brownface as part of an Aladdin costume, would have been enough to turn some voters off him forever. But, within hours, a second photo was published of him wearing blackface to sing the Jamaican folk song “Day-O,” followed by a third video of him sticking his tongue out wearing dark makeup.What was initially assumed to be a deeply stupid and offensive costume at one theme party now looks like it was just one instance of a deeply troubling habit.Trudeau admitted he “made a mistake” late Wednesday after the first photo was published. That showed him wearing brownface makeup to an “Arabian Nights”-themed gala at the Vancouver private school where he taught in 2001.The picture, found in West Point Grey Academy’s yearbook and published by Time magazine, shows Trudeau with his face, neck, and hands darkened—along with him wearing a turban and robes. While he was not the only one pictured in costume at the gala, he appeared to be the only one pictured in brownface. “Obviously I regret that I did it, I’m really sorry I did it,” Trudeau told reporters Wednesday evening. “I take responsibility for my decision to do that. I should have known better... I didn’t know it was racist at the time.”Media relations lead of the Liberal Party of Canada, Zita Astravas, confirmed to Time that it was Trudeau in the photo. “It was a photo taken while he was teaching in Vancouver, at the school’s annual dinner which had a costume theme of ‘Arabian Nights.’ He attended with friends and colleagues dressed as a character from Aladdin,” Astravas said. In addition to the yearbook photo, he also disclosed to reporters that he once participated in a high school play “with makeup on”—but he did not elaborate further. That photo was then found shortly afterward.The third video, published Thursday morning by Canada’s Global News, appears to show Trudeau’s face covered in dark makeup while he sticks his tongue out. It appears his arms and legs are also covered in dark makeup. A senior member of the Liberal campaign reportedly told the network that it was Trudeau in the video but didn’t comment further.The photos, which surfaced as Trudeau is ramping up his re-election campaign, sparked an outpouring of criticism on Twitter, where many accused the Canadian prime minister of racism. Trudeau announced his re-election bid this month amid accusations he meddled in a corruption case. When asked by reporters if he would consider resigning over the photo, he said only that the incident “calls for important conversations.”“I have worked all my life to create opportunities for people to fight against racism, I can stand here and say I made a mistake... I should have known better then, but I didn’t and I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m going to be asking Canadians to forgive me... I’m disappointed and pissed off at myself.”New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh blasted the prime minister, claiming that his public calls to fight discrimination and his behavior in private were at odds.“Who is the real Mr. Trudeau? Is it the one behind closed doors, the one when the cameras are turned off that no one sees?” Singh asked, according to The Globe and Mail. “Is that the real Mr. Trudeau? Because more and more, it seems like it is.”The National Council of Canadian Muslims also said Trudeau wearing brownface was a “reprehensible” act that “hearkens back to a history of racism, slavery, and an Orientalist mythology that is unacceptable.”“While we recognize that people can change and evolve over two decades, it is critical that the prime minister immediately and unequivocally apologize,” executive director Mustafa Farooq told the newspaper.Earlier this year, a similar yearbook photo of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wearing a racist costume was uncovered—prompting calls for him to resign. He is currently still in office. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also recently apologized for participating in a blackface skit in college.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Lawmakers Court Trump on Gun Safety, With Some Appealing to His Ego

By BY SHERYL GAY STOLBERG from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2Ok2v0K

Giuliani Revels in Another Cable Dust-up Defending Trump

By BY ANNIE KARNI AND MAGGIE HABERMAN from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/2ABPyHE

U.S. says it will help El Salvador handle more asylum seekers

The United States and El Salvador on Friday agreed to attempt to reduce the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border by strengthening El Salvador's capacity to provide for asylum seekers, but did not detail any concrete actions.

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Saudis threaten UN-brokered truce in strike near Yemeni port city

The Saudi-led military coalition launched an air strike north of the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah early on Friday morning, amidst heightened tensions following a weekend strike against Saudi oil installations. The coalition said it had struck only “legitimate military targets,” and had succeeded in destroying four sites used to assemble maritime drones and sea mines by Houthi fighters. “These sites are used to carry out attacks and terrorist operations that threaten shipping lines and international trade in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the southern Red Sea,” said coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki in a statement. Houthi forces who control the area were quick to brand the strike a “dangerous escalation”, saying it violated a UN ceasefire agreement reached last year in Sweden. While the strike took place north of the city, it was within Hodeidah governate and as such violates the terms of the agreement. “The coalition will bear the responsibility of this escalation which is also a test to the United Nations,” said Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam on Twitter. But some argue this is only the latest in a series of violations on both sides. “There has been so much escalation in and around the city, but often when the Houthis break ceasefires they are labelled skirmishes,” said Fatima Alsarar of the Middle East Institute. “The focus has been so much on the Saudi-led coalition because it’s a partner to the United States and you expect them to behave responsibly, but the Houthis are expected to behave like a militia so the bar is so much lower.” “There’s also pressure to see Hodeidah agreement work, and this is unfortunate because the UN always says the ceasefire has been successful otherwise. But people have died. This is just an effort to make the agreement look more successful than it has been.” Yemen displaced Hodeidah is a vital port city on the Red Sea, not only for humanitarian access but because it is used by the Houthis to smuggle in missile parts and small weapons from their backers in Iran. As a result, the city has been at the centre of conflict for the majority of the five-year war. The Saudi-led coalition, which receives Western backing, have been engaged in Yemen's civil war since 2015 after Houthi forces, backed by Iran, ousted the internationally recognised government in the capital Sana'a in late 2014. Some suspect Friday’s strikes were a retaliation for attacks on Saudi oil installations on Saturday, which were later claimed by the Houthi movement. But experts have ruled out Houthi responsibility, arguing forensic evidence shows the attacks came from Iran, the Houthis’ principal ally in the region. “This attack seems symbolic and packaged for a domestic audience,” said Peter Salisbury, Senior Analyst at Crisis Group. “The Saudis likely felt the need to demonstrate their willingness to respond to Houthi cross-border attacks. They’ve struck this site before which raises questions about the utility of such a strike expect for show.” “Yemen, in the eyes of some in the Riyadh and elsewhere, represents the low-hanging fruit in terms of demonstrating a willingness to retaliate against Iran,” he added. The Houthis, for their part, are happy to be used as a scapegoat in Yemen for Iran in order to reach their ultimate objective, according to Ms Alasrar: “Iran thrives on creating confusion, it aims to deflect and say: look at the Houthis, look at the Saudis, we’re not doing anything. They’re sending a message to the US that they need to respect their authority while also denying involvement.”

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Justin Trudeau blackface: Third incident of Canadian PM wearing racist makeup emerges

A video of Justin Trudeau wearing blackface has been released. The clip is the third instance of the Canadian prime minister wearing racist make-up to emerge in the last 24 hours.The video was first obtained by Global News.

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2 dead as Imelda strands drivers, floods homes in Texas

The slow-churning remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda flooded parts of Texas on Thursday, leaving at least two people dead and rescue crews with boats scrambling to reach stranded drivers and families trapped in their homes during a relentless downpour that drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago. Law enforcement officers planned to work well into the night to clear freeways of vehicles stalled and abandoned because of flooding, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said. Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, said there had been a combination of at least 1,700 high-water rescues and evacuations to get people to shelter as the longevity and intensity of the rain quickly came to surprise even those who had been bracing for floods.

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Hong Kong police warn officers 'might have to kill someone' as violence escalates

Hong Kong police warned on Friday that violence in the territory had escalated to a point where officers feared “they might have to kill someone”, as anti-government protests entered their sixteenth consecutive weekend.  Violence has risen steadily since the mass demonstrations kicked off in early June. Protests now regularly descend into chaos with activists throwing bricks and petrol bombs at police officers who fire water cannon and tear gas. Conflicts have also erupted between protesters and pro-Beijing supporters, affecting tourists and bystanders. Concern is increasing significantly among the city’s police force – once dubbed Asia’s finest – that officers will need to use lethal force to defend themselves or others.  Violence has gotten “to such a level, [the officers’] greatest fear is that they might have to kill someone or that they might be killed themselves – it is really that critical,” a top police commander told a group of foreign media on condition of anonymity. “We have been so restrained in the face of such violence; this pressure has become extremely dangerous.“ “I haven’t seen this kind of widespread lawlessness in the whole of my career,” the commander said. “We are getting more and more worried about the possibility of death.” Hong Kong protests | Read more In recent weeks, police officers have pulled their guns and fired warning shots into the air during chaotic clashes with protesters. Senior police officers have said that their threshold to draw a weapon is if an officer feels his or her life is in danger. Protests first broke out over an extradition bill that would have sent suspects to face trial in mainland China, where Communist Party control of the courts leads to a 99.9 per cent conviction rate.  Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam pledged a few weeks ago to formally withdraw the proposal, though activist demands have widened in nearly four months of unrest to include direct leadership elections, and an independent investigation into police handling of the protests. Ms Lam hasn’t agreed to further concessions, but will begin a series of public meetings next week in efforts to resolve the situation. Police say that an independent inquiry now would frustrate their efforts to handle the protests.  “We are still in the middle of a crisis,” said the senior commander. “You really have to be sure that whatever measure you take now is helpful to the resolution of the situation, that you are not playing into the hands of people whose only objective is to undermine the police so this situation could get worse.” So far, police have arrested 1,474 people, aged 12 to 84, since street violence began in June. Of those, 207 people have been charged.  A number of cases are ready to go to trial, and some are starting to have their first hearings, the senior commander said, suggesting that city courts could fast track court dates and grant less bail to support broader efforts to quell the violence.  “I can’t tell you how we’re going to stop this without all the other institutions all playing their part,” he said. “We have always been relying on that deterrent sentence that comes at the very end of the process.”

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Inside Saudi Arabia's response to a raid on the heart of the oil kingdom

Saudi Arabia's newly appointed energy minister was in London when he learned in the middle of the night of the largest-ever attack on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, a veteran oil official and senior member of the Al Saud ruling family, hurried back to the kingdom, flying by private jet to Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran to assess the damage and manage the fallout from the attack on the world’s largest oil exporter, three sources close to the matter said. Officials at state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, meanwhile, gathered in what was referred to internally as the “emergency management room” at the company’s headquarters.

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FDA approves oral diabetes drug from Novo Nordisk

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved an oral version of Novo Nordisk's diabetes drug semaglutide, a boost for the Danish drugmaker, which hopes to transform the market by offering patients a noninjectable treatment.

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Elizabeth Warren Declares War on Lobbying, Hires Lobbyist One Day Later

Is she serious?

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Stranded cars, rescues and deadly flooding: Waters slowly begin receding in Houston after Imelda

As floodwaters began slowing receding in Houston, police worked to clear freeways of hundreds of stranded vehicles after four days of relentless rain

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Trump doesn't deny asking world leader about Biden, says conversations are 'always appropriate'

“The Radical Left Democrats and their Fake News Media partners, headed up again by Little Adam Schiff, and batting Zero for 21 against me, are at it again!”

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3 people have died as Tropical Depression Imelda strikes Texas with flash floods 'worse than Harvey'

Tropical Depression Imelda may drop up to 35 inches of rain onto southeastern Texas, the same region devastated by Hurricane Harvey.

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Trudeau says he doesn't know if there will be more blackface photos of him because he didn't remember doing it before the photos came out

Photos and videos surfaced this week showing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in racist makeup on three occasions in the 1990s and 2000s.

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2020 Democrats Gather for L.G.B.T. Forum

By BY REID J. EPSTEIN AND LISA LERER from NYT U.S. https://ift.tt/30g7B5B

Officials: Political donor caused deadly overdose during sex

Gemmel Moore had moved back home with his mother in Texas two years ago and was missing Los Angeles when he texted a photo of syringe in an arm to a wealthy gay man he knew in California. Buck bought a plane ticket for Moore and had a car pick him up a week later at the airport. Federal prosecutors released new details Thursday as they charged Buck, 65, with distributing methamphetamine resulting in Moore's death on July 27, 2017.

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A former employee of Andrew Yang claimed he abruptly fired her because she got married and he thought she'd stop 'working as hard'

Kimberley Watkins worked for Yang when he was a CEO in 2007. She said Yang claimed marrying meant she "wouldn’t want to continue working as hard."

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U.S. Senate hearing to confirm Trump pick Issa for trade post delayed by concern over FBI check

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee postponed a hearing on Thursday to consider former congressman Darrell Issa to lead the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, after Democrats accused the White House of withholding potentially compromising details in a background check. The panel's Republican chairman, Jim Risch, said consideration of Issa, President Donald Trump's nominee for the post, was postponed about half an hour into an acrimonious hearing. Senator Bob Menendez, the committee's ranking Democrat, said the White House had blocked access for all committee members to possibly compromising information on Issa.

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Who’s In Charge Here? The President Waits for Instructions from Saudi Arabia

The president of the United States can’t say who attacked the oil fields in Saudi Arabia last week or why. But the president can announce across his Twitter feed that Prime Mohammed bin Salman will tell our military what to do about it:> Saudi Arabia oil supply was attacked. There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!> > -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 15, 2019The president’s effusive support for the Saudi regime reads like a caricature of what critics of our Middle Eastern foreign policy would say of it. For years we’ve been working to advance the argument that the United States is too solicitous of the interests of the House of Saud, and then the president just tweets it out.Confused yet? We’ve been here before, and recently. Back in May, U.S. naval assets were moved into the Gulf region. This was announced by former national-security adviser John Bolton in a tweet and a memo, without a press conference. Military news portal Defense One asked for clarification: “If there was a threat, what is it? And why would the White House claim it is ‘deploying’ a ship already underway in the region? Is this just political bluster?”But why be confused? When the world’s superpower is waiting to hear Saudi Arabia’s commands, you can bet the answer will be something like John McCain’s reprise of that pop classic: Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran.On Fox News yesterday, host Bret Baier had on anti-war Democrat and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard to discuss the latest doings in the Middle East. The segment is worth watching. Gabbard had criticized President Trump, accusing him of trying to “pimp out” the U.S. military to Mohammed bin Salman. Baier tries to press her into a corner, making her choose between Saudi Arabia and Iran, even saying she sounded like a “fan of Iran.” Gabbard gamely refuses the choice, saying she is “on the side of the United States” and noting that Saudi Arabia’s government and its elite funds, appeases, and occasionally controls al-Qaeda. She’s right.She’s more than right. Saudi Arabia sponsors demotic Sunni radicalism throughout the Middle East, which has extended human conflict and contributed to the waves of refugees heading into Europe. Once in Europe, these refugees turn to mosques, funded by the Saudis, that preach a far more radical version of Islamism than what they had back in their home country. If in the past few years you ever stumbled on one of those confusing videos of various actors in the Syrian civil war using materiel provided by the U.S. Department of Defense to fire on others in the Syrian civil war who were using materiel provided by the CIA, well, you can thank Saudi Arabia for that too.One of the reasons that Donald Trump says that he’ll wait for instructions from Saudi Arabia is that he and the political class wouldn’t dare consult with the American people. When our relationship to the Saudis is explained, there are halting gestures at history, and a vague threat that somehow the Saudi royal family is better than any alternative regime. Saudi Arabia’s bone-saw, cholera-epidemic foreign policy doesn’t exactly inspire Americans to cry out to their government to support our gallant allies in the Peninsula. Americans like to be told they are fighting for nations with similar values — friends of freedom. American reporters who, until recently, attended “ideas conferences” in Riyadh used to burble credulously about how the country was modernizing under its new leadership. And yet Saudi Arabia will happily torture and behead a kid who was accepted to one of our universities because he attended a pro-democracy protest.Shia Islam is not going away anytime soon. And so the United States has no conceivable interest in taking such a strong side in the ongoing religious cold war roiling the dar al-Islam. We need to stop Saudi Arabia from outsourcing all the costs of its foreign policy to the United States and our allies in Europe. The president needs to be swiftly reminded that the people through the representatives are those who declare that the United States is at war with other sovereign nations, not Prince Bone Saw.

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Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Verdict Leads to Angry Fallout

Christopher FurlongTOKYO—Three executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) who ignored repeated warnings of a potential tidal wave that could result in a nuclear disaster, which did in fact take place, were found not guilty of criminal negligence resulting in death and injury by a Tokyo Court on Thursday. Many feel justice was poorly served. However, a former prosecutor says that the verdict was to be expected. * * *The Four-Hour Verdict* * *The Tokyo District Court ruled former executives of TEPCO were not guilty of criminal negligence, in the only criminal prosecution to come out of the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.The cataclysm at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in March of 2011 resulted in over 100,000 people losing their homes, wide-spread radioactive pollution, injuries, and the deaths of patients who had to be evacuated. The disaster, on the scale of Chernobyl, raised alarms around the world about nuclear energy and atomic safety. The disaster area has not been cleaned up entirely and is essentially a nuclear accident still in progress, requiring constant cooling. Radioactive water stored at the TEPCO facilities is likely to be dumped into the ocean next year—probably after the Olympics. The three former executives of TEPCO who were indicted on charges of professional negligence resulting in injury and death were: Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, chairman of TEPCO at the time of the accident, and two former vice presidents—Sakae Muto, 69, and Ichiro Takekuro, 73. The trial centered on whether these three could be held criminally responsible for what the Japanese Parliament’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission called “a man-made disaster.” How the Earth Is Reclaiming Fukushima, the Ninth Ward, and Staten IslandThe central issue at stake could be summarized as this:  Did the TEPCO officials know about the possibility of a nuclear-meltdown-inducing tidal wave, when did they know, and what did they do—or not do about it? TEPCO’s six-reactor plant, located on the Pacific coast, was disabled after tsunamis triggered by the massive earthquake of March 11, 2011 flooded power supply facilities, which were unprotected, and crippled reactor cooling systems. Some reactors suffered fuel meltdowns, while hydrogen explosions damaged others.  The indictment blamed the three former executives for injuries to more than 10 people from hydrogen explosions at the plant, as well as the deaths of 44 patients forced to evacuate from nearby hospitals. As early as 2002, TEPCO and the Japanese government were aware of a potentially disastrous earthquake and tidal wave causing a nuclear accident. The prosecutors argued, and the court also acknowledged that several times between February 2008 and March 2009 the TEPCO executives were warned of the risk of a tidal wave 14 meters (45 feet) high or higher hitting the power plant and causing a potential nuclear disaster. On March 11, tidal waves between 11.5 and 15.5 meters (50 feet) did hit the power plant, knocking out the power grid and, yes, as predicted for years, triggering the nuclear disaster. There were also independent reports that suggested the earthquake's tremors caused a nuclear meltdown in the 40-year-old Reactor One even before the waves hit, but those allegations were not considered by the court.The verdict, which took several hours for the judges to finish reading out loud—starting at 1:15 p.m. and ending around 4:30 p.m. with a short break—concluded that while the TEPCO executives did receive several warnings of a tidal wave large enough to cause a nuclear accident, they were justified in taking no safety measures for a number of reasons:1) If they had taken the warnings seriously and tried to take countermeasures it would have required them to close the plant down temporarily, which was considered prohibitively expensive. 2) There were questions as to how seriously to take the data about tsunamis.3) Even if the TEPCO executives had acted on the warnings, they probably wouldn’t have completed safety countermeasures in time. In reaching the decision, the court stated that tsunami forecast information was vague, and that the three could not have “realistically” foreseen a disaster on such a grand scale. It took the judges so long to read out the explanation for their ruling because as ex-prosecutor Nobuo Gohara explains, “Legally the judgment made sense but on an emotional level, gut instinct level—it all seems wrong and the judges must know that. They wanted to convince people their judgment makes sense.”  Residents of Fukushima Prefecture took the judgment less gracefully. “It’s a disgrace. It’s a slap in the face and it shows that the courts here always value profits over people,” said a 67 year old farmer from the area who had come to hear the verdict himself this afternoon. Former prosecutor Gohara noted, “There are limits to the Japanese justice system and I have said from the start that it was unlikely the individuals would be found guilty. What you have in the Fukushima Nuclear disaster is a failure of policy and of the entire organization. Japan does not have a legal mechanism for holding a corporation responsible for criminal behavior, and in this case the charges were criminal negligence—on an individual level. The hurdle is very high to prove that.” * * *The Trial That Almost Never Took Place* * *The trial of TEPCO executives almost never took place at all.In June of 2012 residents of Fukushima Prefecture submitted criminal complaints against TEPCO executives and central government officials to try to make sure someone was found responsible for the nuclear accident. As noted, the Japanese Parliament’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission called it “a man-made disaster," so it would seem to follow that men should be help accountable.However, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office decided not to indict anyone named in those complaints. In typical Tokyo Prosecutor's Office fashion, they deliberately tried to bury the story at first by leaking their decision not to prosecute on the day Japan won the bid for the 2020 Olympics.Despite the best efforts of the prosecutors not to serve the public interest, a prosecutorial review board decided on two separate occasions that the former executives should be indicted and made to stand trial. The Prosecutorial Review Board system was introduced in May of 2009 as part of judicial reforms in Japan that included the introduction of a modified jury system. If eight of 11 citizens chosen for the board agree that the prosecutors have failed to do their job, and that indeed an indictment is warranted—on two separate occasions—the individual named must stand trial. The court designates civilian lawyers to act as prosecutors, who then indict the individual. In February of 2016, the three former executives were indicted formally. The trial began in June of 2017. All of the former executives pled not guilty. The prosecution asked for five years in prison. * * *Jokyu Kokumin* * *It should be noted that even after the TEPCO executives were indicted, they were not jailed, although the charges were very serious and involved loss of life. In Japan, suspects in criminal cases typically are arrested and held for up to 23 days. But the executives of TEPCO, who are politically connected, belong to what the Japanese public now angrily refer to as Jokyu Kokumi (upper-class citizens who are above the law) so they remained at large during the entire trial. Carlos Ghosn, the former Chairman of Nissan charged with far lesser crimes, but a foreigner, spent months in detention without bail while prosecutors tried to extract a confession. Miwa Chiwaki, a 49-year old woman who was living in a small village in Fukushima Prefecture at the time of the meltdown, was outraged by the verdict. She is the spokesperson for a group of citizens supporting the pursuit of criminal justice in the Fukushima nuclear disaster. She told The Daily Beast,  “It’s as if the Japanese courts said that there is no one responsible at all. The argument that TEPCO executives would have had to shut down the power plant to put safety measures into place, therefore they had reason not to do it, makes no sense. It is the same as saying corporate profits matter more than people. The Japanese courts care more about the well-being of a company than a person. At least the case established that they knew of the danger...and did nothing.”The Real Fukushima Fallout Isn't RadiationThe designated prosecutors in the case may appeal and demand a second trial. In Japan, prosecutors do have the right to appeal a case. Not guilty verdicts are rare and occur in less than one percent of all criminal cases. In general, prosecutors almost always appeal when losing the first round, but the prosecutors in this case are civilian lawyers. It is not clear what will happen next, or if anything will happen at all. Nuclear power plant operators in Japan have faced charges of criminal negligence resulting in death in the past and were found guilty. In April 2003, the Mito District Court found six of employees of JCO guilty over a fatal nuclear accident. They ruled that the company had allowed workers to use buckets to pour uranium solution into a processing tank, causing a nuclear fission chain reaction that resulted in the deaths of workers. The guilty were given suspended sentences and served no time in jail.Hiroyuki Kawai, a lawyer who represents the 5,700 Fukushima residents who filed the original criminal complaint, said in a press conference, “It’s a terrible verdict. Yet, if there had been no indictment, the evidence would have never seen the light of day. In that sense, [the trial] has a historical significance.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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