A safety inspection scandal in the British manufacture of potentially hazardous uranium- and plutonium-mixed oxide (MOX) fuel rods for use in Japanese reactors has created a new nightmare for the nation's nuclear planners. "We think the scandal will have a bad effect on our whole nuclear policy. It is regrettable, but we haven't changed our thinking that the program itself is very important," Shinichi Kihara, deputy director of the Nuclear Power Safety Administration at the Agency of Natural Resources and Energy, told Asahi Evening News.