• A company demonstrated a remote-controlled robot for retrieving melted fuel debris at Japan’s destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
• The plan involves deploying an extendable pipe robot into the reactor to begin debris removal by October.
• Approximately 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain in the three damaged reactors.

The operator of Japan’s destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant demonstrated Tuesday how a remote-controlled robot would retrieve tiny bits of melted fuel debris from one of three damaged reactors later this year for the first time since the 2011 meltdown.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings plans to deploy a “telesco-style” extendable pipe robot into Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 reactor to test the removal of debris from its primary containment vessel by October.

That work is more than two years behind schedule. The removal of melted fuel was supposed to begin in late 2021 but has been plagued with delays, underscoring the difficulty of recovering from the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011.

DRONE AIMS TO EXAMINE JAPAN’S DAMAGED FUKUSHIMA NUCLEAR REACTOR FOR THE FIRST TIME

During the demonstration at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ shipyard in Kobe, western Japan, where the robot has been developed, a device equipped with tongs slowly descended from the telescopic pipe to a heap of gravel and picked up a granule.

TEPCO plans to remove less than 1 ounce of debris in the test at the Fukushima plant.

“We believe the upcoming test removal of fuel debris from Unit 2 is an extremely important step to steadily carry out future decommissioning work,” said Yusuke Nakagawa, a TEPCO group manager for the fuel debris retrieval program. “It is important to proceed with the test removal safely and steadily.”

About 880 tons of highly radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the three damaged reactors. Critics say the 30- to 40-year cleanup target set by the government and TEPCO for Fukushima Daiichi is overly optimistic. The damage in each reactor is different, and plans must accommodate their conditions.

Better understanding the melted fuel debris from inside the reactors is key to their decommissioning. TEPCO deployed four mini drones into the No. 1 reactor’s primary containment vessel earlier this year to capture images from the areas where robots had not reached.

Thirteen out of 21 people killed by Israel in an air strike on the so-called “safe area” of al-Mawasi were civilian women and girls, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported on Tuesday.

This was the second attack since Sunday, with a horrifying strike on Sunday night setting displaced people’s shelters ablaze not too far from Tuesday’s strike.

The world had watched, aghast, on Monday as displaced Palestinians were forced to dig through smouldering remains with their bare hands – looking for bodies, or injured people, or in some cases, a few scraps of food they could salvage to keep their families going a bit longer.

As reports further clarify what happened on Tuesday, here are the details of Sunday’s attack:

When and where was this attack?

The attack happened at night on May 26.

It was inflicted on an encampment of makeshift shelters just north of Rafah city, in an area called Tal as-Sultan

It came after United States President Joe Biden said a “major offensive” by Israel on Rafah would be a red line.

What happened in the attack?

Many shelters burst into flames with their occupants still inside.

The Gaza Government Media Office said Israel dropped seven 900kg (2,000-pound) bombs as well as missiles on the displacement camp.

The Israeli army said it targeted Rafah with “precision munitions”, and that a nearby fuel tank led to the subsequent fire.

Horrific videos emerged of the aftermath – the most notable was of a man holding up the corpse of a young child without a head.

Al Jazeera’s Sanad Verification Agency was able to obtain images of fragments believed to be of the weaponry used in this attack. The photos the agency obtained show the tail of a GBU-39/B small-diameter bomb, which is made by Boeing. The GBU-39/B includes a jet engine taken from the M26 unguided missile.

Who were the people killed?

Thousands of civilians had been sheltering in the Tal as-Sultan area, seeking some minimal protection from the continuous Israeli attacks across Gaza.

The Israeli government had not issued any orders to evacuate the area before it attacked.

How many people died?

Israel killed at least 45 people in the offensive.

The total number of injured people is hard to determine, as the hospital where casualties were taken has closed after a subsequent Israeli drone attack on its entrance that killed two members of staff.

How did they die?

Some people died from the impact of the bomb.

Some people “reportedly burned to death”, according to Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

What were they doing when they died?

Accounts from Rafah say that many of the dead were preparing to go to sleep when the attack occurred.

Why is Israel doing this?

Initially, the Israeli army claimed it had struck “a Hamas compound in Rafah in which significant Hamas terrorists were operating”.

It added it was “aware of reports indicating that as a result of the strike and fire that was ignited several civilians in the area were harmed”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since said the attack was “a tragic mistake.”

“Despite our best effort not to harm those not involved, unfortunately a tragic error happened last night. We are investigating the case,” Netanyahu said.

The attack came two days after the ICJ ordered Israel to halt its offensive on Rafah.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is set to convene an emergency meeting over the attack on Rafah.

To date, the United States has vetoed every UNSC proposal aimed at holding Israel accountable.

When it comes to streaming, sports had to play catchup. In the mid-2010s, as the world grew comfortable with digital entertainment services, major leagues largely remained on the sidelines. Companies like Netflix focused on binge-able shows over live entertainment and streamers balked at the regional restrictions or high costs that came with acquiring athletic events. Leagues, meanwhile, valued the consistent reach traditional TV provided—and the big paychecks, too.

“I’m very confident we can get twice as big as we are without sports,” Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said at the end of 2022. Well, this month Netflix announced a deal to stream two NFL games on Christmas Day next season, at a reported total cost of roughly $150 million. For those counting at home, the company’s market cap and subscriber count are each up more like 10% rather than 100% since Sarandos’ prediction.

And it’s not just Netflix getting involved. Apple committed to a 10-year partnership with Major League Soccer. Google is now spending $2 billion annually for NFL Sunday Ticket rights. Amazon seems, dare I say, primed to add NBA inventory to its NFL slate and other sports rights. Even Roku recently joined the party. If Microsoft launched a Windows streaming service anchored by live sports, we’d have no right to be surprised.

So what happened?  It’s a question I’ve been asking in various forms to both sports and tech decision-makers for the last several years. As expected, there’s no single explanation for big tech’s big surge into the sports viewing experience. But the following four reasons are all regularly citied.

The tech works

This was always going to be the first hurdle. And live sports went through its growing pains, with broken payment processes holding viewers up as well as glitches emerging during crunch time of the Super Bowl. Netflix’s early live streaming attempts came with their own set of issues.

In 2024 though, the tech’s solid. Sure, there are areas for improvement, such as cutting down the delay between reality and the broadcast (latency) or upping the picture quality. Accessibility is also an issue for those without reliable, high-speed internet. But in each case, we’ve passed the point of “good enough.”

Sports are multi-generational

For a time, streamers specialized: There was your horror movie service, your classics subscription, your kids-focused offering and so on. But now, the heavy hitters try to appeal to a wide swath of potential viewers, and sports hit multiple demographic segments like few other properties. That’s especially true as blockbuster movies have become much less of a sure thing. The $75 million price tag Netflix is paying per NFL game is roughly equivalent to the cost of a single midsized movie on the service. Christmas flick out, Patrick Mahomes in.

By the same token, sports fans are generally followers for life. While people often cycle through their preferred type of TV show, athletic allegiances stick around. As streamers put an emphasis on retaining their current customers, that type of loyalty is invaluable. 

Sports = ads

Today’s consumer has gotten used to ad-free, or at the very least ad-light, entertainment experiences. That is, except for sports fans. While the NFL has worked to lighten ad loads during games, commercials are still a natural part of broadcasts. Sports also offer advertisers a reliable audience watching brand-safe content, regardless of what platform games air on. And tech companies are increasingly in the ad business.

Amazon turned its Black Friday NFL game into an ad tech showcase. Netflix’s push into live entertainment has uncoincidentally followed the addition of an ad-supported pricing tier. Even Apple is reportedly attempting to grow its ad business, backed in part by sports assets. 

At Netflix’s pitch to advertisers in NYC earlier this month, sports partners like Formula 1 and WWE received the largest footprint in the company’s warehouse-turned-“immersive experience.” That wasn’t a coincidence.

Eyes around the world

For a while, sports leagues selling games to streamers was seen as taking extra money at the expense of reaching fewer fans. But now, global tech brands can offer something that some traditional providers can’t match.

Amazon has helped the NFL reach new, younger fans with its shows, while Netflix will now make football easier to watch for many international fans. “It’s a global opportunity for us,” NFL media COO Hans Schroeder recently explained. I expect that the game times—1 and 4:30 pm ET rather than primetime—were in part set to increase viewership in Europe and beyond.

Tech companies have also wooed leagues with the precise data they’re able to gather on viewers and potential viewers, valuable information for sports executives building out international marketing strategies. 

Put it all together and it becomes clear why major tech companies are coming to compete with sports’ traditional broadcasters. The only question left is how much more they’ll take.