For Whom Do You Lobby, Madame Secretary?

[Octafish]

16. One thing trumps peace.

Money.

Toshiba to Buy Shaw's 20% of Westinghouse

By KANA INAGAKI
Wall Street Journal
Oct. 10, 2012

TOKYO—Toshiba Corp. 6502.TO -2.14% said Wednesday it will buy out Shaw Group Inc.'s SHAW 0.00% 20% stake in nuclear power-plant company Westinghouse Electric Co. for about ¥125 billion ($1.6 billion) and pursue the search for new investment partners.

The company said it would use cash on hand and loans to buy Shaw's entire stake in Westinghouse by January 2013. Following the news, Toshiba shares dropped as much as 4.4% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Toshiba earlier said it was in talks with various parties to sell some of its 67% stake in Westinghouse on the condition that it keep its stake in the U.S. unit above 50%. The planned sale is part of Toshiba's effort to make the nuclear-power business more globally competitive and to raise cash to sustain its financial standing.

In a statement, Toshiba said it would be open to talks with potential investors if the company can expect "to share long-term business prospects and strategies with partners, and secure positive synergies."

Westinghouse has been at the core of Toshiba's global nuclear-power business, which has encountered headwinds since last year's accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, to which the Japanese company supplied two reactors.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444799904578047721238227476.html

The thing is, what nuke plants are really good for:

United States Circumvented Laws To Help Japan Accumulate Tons of Plutonium

By Joseph Trento
on April 9th, 2012
National Security News Service

The United States deliberately allowed Japan access to the United States’ most secret nuclear weapons facilities while it transferred tens of billions of dollars worth of American tax paid research that has allowed Japan to amass 70 tons of weapons grade plutonium since the 1980s, a National Security News Service investigation reveals. These activities repeatedly violated U.S. laws regarding controls of sensitive nuclear materials that could be diverted to weapons programs in Japan. The NSNS investigation found that the United States has known about a secret nuclear weapons program in Japan since the 1960s, according to CIA reports.

The diversion of U.S. classified technology began during the Reagan administration after it allowed a $10 billion reactor sale to China. Japan protested that sensitive technology was being sold to a potential nuclear adversary. The Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations permitted sensitive technology and nuclear materials to be transferred to Japan despite laws and treaties preventing such transfers. Highly sensitive technology on plutonium separation from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and Hanford nuclear weapons complex, as well as tens of billions of dollars worth of breeder reactor research was turned over to Japan with almost no safeguards against proliferation. Japanese scientist and technicians were given access to both Hanford and Savannah River as part of the transfer process.

SNIP...

A year ago a natural disaster combined with a man-made tragedy decimated Northern Japan and came close to making Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, uninhabitable. Nuclear tragedies plague Japan’s modern history. It is the only nation in the world attacked with nuclear weapons. In March 2011, after a tsunami swept on shore, hydrogen explosions and the subsequent meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant spewed radiation across the region. Like the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan will face the aftermath for generations. A twelve-mile area around the site is considered uninhabitable. It is a national sacrifice zone.

How Japan ended up in this nuclear nightmare is a subject the National Security News Service has been investigating since 1991. We learned that Japan had a dual use nuclear program. The public program was to develop and provide unlimited energy for the country. But there was also a secret component, an undeclared nuclear weapons program that would allow Japan to amass enough nuclear material and technology to become a major nuclear power on short notice.

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http://www.dcbureau.org/201204097128/national-security-news-service/united-states-circumvented-laws-to-help-japan-accumulate-tons-of-plutonium.html

Thank you, Scuba, for caring about democracy and all the other important stuff.