Before leaving for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) conference in Bali, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a plea that many in the world were waiting for:  He’s asking for international help in dealing with the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, where three reactors melted through in 2011.

“Our country needs your knowledge and expertise” in coping with the continuing problems and radiation releases from the scene, Abe said in a speech in English at an international science conference hosted by the city and Kyoto Prefecture.

“We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem,” he said.

The Japanese government is taking over control of the clean-up from the plants operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which has come under intense criticism for a series of radioactive water leaks and releases into the Pacific Ocean.  And then there’s the fact that no one actually knows the location of the three molten cores, or how deep they’ve gone into the ground.

Abe famously reassured the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last month that the leaks were “under control,” before the IOC announces the 2020 Summer Olympics would take place in Tokyo.  But many Japanese believe Abe wrongly played down the danger posed by Fukushima Daiichi, and one opposition lawmaker says Abe flat out lied.