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jp0010695

2016/05/16

Trump remarks prompt debate over cost of Japan-U.S. defense ties

Donald Trump, who is now expected to be the Republican candidate for U.S. president, has made a number of disturbing remarks. Particularly troubling to Japanese officials is his threat to shake up the Japan-U.S. military alliance. Trump has argued Japan should pay all the costs of stationing U.S. forces in the country, saying he would otherwise consider withdrawing the U.S. military and allowing Japan to arm itself with nuclear weapons. But how much exactly is the U.S. spending on U.S. forces in Japan? And is Trump’s argument fair? Following are questions and answers on the issue: How much of the cost of U.S. forces in Japan is borne by the U.S., and how much is spent by Japan? According to the 2017 Operation and Maintenance Overview by the Office of the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense, the direct cost of stationing U.S. forces in Japan is estimated at $5.47 billion (¥595 billion) for fiscal 2016, which includes personnel, operations, maintenance, construction and family housing. In addition, according to the Defense Ministry, Japan is set to pay ¥192 billion to support U.S. forces in fiscal 2016, including most of the utility charges at U.S. bases and facilities in Japan, as well as the wages of Japanese employees. In addition, Japan pays various other costs related to the U.S. forces, which totaled ¥364.6 billion ($3.35 billion) for the same fiscal year. This includes ¥176.6 billion for realigning the U.S. military in Japan, including costs to transfer Okinawa-based U.S. Marines to Guam and relocate forces within Japan, ¥98.8 billion for facility rent and ¥57 billion to improve the living environment in areas surrounding U.S. bases. If all those costs are included, the share of Japan’s financial burden is calculated at 48.3 percent. Trump has argued the U.S. would be “better off” if Japan and South Korea protected themselves. Is it true? Eliminating U.S. defense budgets for Japan and South Korea alone would probably not greatly help, given the massive size of the Pentagon’s total defense budget. According to the Office of U.S. Under Secretary of Defense, the total overseas costs of U.S. military forces is $19.32 billion for fiscal 2016, 65.7 percent of which is spent on the U.S. military in Japan, Germany and South Korea. Meanwhile, the total U.S. defense budget is $580.3 billion for the same fiscal year. Is Japan shouldering much larger financial burdens than other U.S. allies? Probably yes, although no updated data for comparison are available. Until 2004, the U.S. Department of Defense published an annual report titled Allied Contributions to the Common Defense. According to the 2004 report, in 2002 Japan provided direct support of $3.2 billion and indirect support worth $1.18 billion for the U.S. military in Japan, offsetting as much as 74.5 percent of the total costs of U.S. forces in the country. This ratio was the highest among major allied nations of the U.S. cited by the report. The indirect costs included forgone rents and revenues, such as rents on government-owned land and facilities occupied or used by U.S. forces and tax concessions or customs duties waived by the host nation. Why are U.S. forces in Japan in the first place? The U.S. has stationed its forces in Japan for years, not just to defend the country but also for its own strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region. After Japan’s surrender in World War II in 1945, the U.S. occupied Japan until April 1952. During the Occupation, the U.S. demilitarized Japan and drafted the postwar war-renouncing Constitution, which prohibited Japan from possessing a military. In 1951, the two countries concluded the Japan-U.S. security treaty, which allowed the U.S. to retain its bases and military in Japan beyond 1952, when Japan would regain full sovereignty to end the postwar Occupation. In 1960, the treaty was revised to oblige the U.S. to defend Japan if the country is attacked. In return, the accord obliged Japan to allow the U.S. to use land, air space and military bases in Japan “for the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East.” During the Cold War years, the U.S. used its bases in Japan as key footholds to send out numerous military aircraft and ships during the Korean War and Vietnam War. Even after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. bases in Japan have dispatched troops and aircraft for operations in the Middle East. More recently, U.S. President Barack Obama has adopted a “rebalancing” policy to maintain a strong U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region to protect U.S. interests in the area. Japanese bases are considered a key piece of this policy. “The U.S.-Japan alliance is, and will continue to be, a cornerstone of our engagement in the Asia-Pacific region,” read a 2013 report of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. Trump has argued the security treaty obliges the U.S. to defend Japan if the country is attacked, but Japan is not obliged to defend the U.S. Is this fair? Many experts say the treaty is not purely one-sided because Japan is obliged to allow the U.S. forces to use vast land, airspace and military facilities in Japan that serve as key strategic interests for the U.S. In addition, it is the U.S.-drafted postwar Constitution that legally prohibited Japan for years from using the right to collective self-defense, or the right to attack a third country assaulting an ally even if the country itself is not under attack. Meanwhile, some right-leaning Japanese politicians, most notably Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, may agree with Trump to an extent. They have long been concerned that Japan-U.S. ties would be critically damaged if the Self-Defense Forces did not try to defend the U.S. in the case of war. Last year Abe changed the long-standing government interpretation of the Constitution and thereby partially eased the long-held ban on collective self-defense. According to Abe’s constitutional interpretation, Japan is now allowed to attack a country attacking the U.S. military if Japan’s own “survival” is at stake. The Diet, controlled by Abe’s ruling coalition, has enacted a set of new laws to expand the SDF’s missions based on this interpretation. Abe’s constitutional interpretation and the laws remain contentious among the Japanese public.

defense;u.s. bases;u.s.-japan relations;donald trump

jp0010696

2016/05/28

U.S. Okinawa chief states shock at woman's death, explains restrictions

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - The U.S. military commander in Okinawa on Saturday expressed his shock and regret at the death of a local woman following the arrest of an American civilian worker suspected of dumping her body, and explained measures to tighten discipline among U.S. forces. “There are no words in the English language that can adequately convey our level of shock, pain and grief at the loss of life of this innocent victim,” said Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson at a news conference at Camp Foster in Okinawa Prefecture. The conference, which came the day after the base imposed a midnight curfew and alcohol ban off-base for a monthlong “period of unity and mourning,” was held to explain the measures. Under the restrictions, which will last through June 24, those living off-base can drink alcohol only while they are on base or inside their homes, and all service members must be back in their residences by midnight. Nicholson said the measures were not intended as punishment, but to demonstrate deep sympathy for the victim and her family. “It is not just the Okinawan people who are grieving and hurt. Our American community of 50,000 men, women and children are also grieving and are deeply hurt by the alleged incomprehensible actions of this American citizen,” he said. Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a former Marine and a worker at the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Air Base, was arrested last week in connection with the killing of the 20-year-old victim, who has been named as Rina Shimabukuro, after sexually assaulting her. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday made a direct protest to U.S. President Barack Obama over the crime at a meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in Mie Prefecture. Obama said the U.S. will make every effort to review procedures to prevent such crimes happening again.

okinawa;military;u.s. bases;sofa;u.s.-japan relations;rina shimabukuro;kenneth franklin shinzato

jp0010697

2016/05/10

Leaping sturgeon knocks boater unconscious on Florida river

CHIEFLAND, FLORIDA - Wildlife officials say a Florida man was knocked unconscious by a sturgeon that leapt into his boat on the Suwannee River during a fishing tournament. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said in a news release that 62-year-old Ronald Dick and his son were traveling about 30 mph when the nearly 1½-meter (4- to 5-foot) fish jumped into the boat Saturday afternoon. The release says Dick’s injuries were not considered life-threatening and that he was taken to a hospital for treatment. Wildlife spokesman Andy Krause says boaters need to be aware that large fish are found in the Suwannee and Santa Fe rivers and they sometimes leap into boats. He says it’s the first sturgeon incident in 2016. Last year, sturgeon strikes killed one person and injured eight in Florida.

u.s .;animals;offbeat

jp0010698

2016/05/10

Japan moves to protect 'copyrights' of AI creations

The Japanese government plans to develop a legal framework to protect copyright on novels, music and other works created by artificial intelligence. The government’s intellectual property task force led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the decision during a meeting Monday as the group believes the existing copyright law does not cover creations produced by AI. The government envisions putting the new measures into practice in fiscal 2017 beginning April 2017 or later, officials said. “We will support companies and universities working on creating innovation, to enable them to use intellectual property,” Abe said at the meeting of the Intellectual Property Strategy Headquarters. Legislative changes are thought necessary to protect AI-created works from unauthorized use, and to enable the developer of the AI system to be fairly compensated. The quality of AI works has been improving. Earlier this year, a novel written by a Japanese AI program passed the first round of screening for a literature award named after science fiction writer Shinichi Hoshi.

robots;copyright;japan;artificial intelligence

jp0010699

2016/05/26

Cameroon girl, 16, grabbed by Boko Haram, married off, trained as suicide bomber, flees during raid

TOUROU, CAMEROON - A 16-year-old girl was kidnapped with her 1-month-old baby by Boko Haram from her home in northern Cameroon 18 months ago, taken to Nigeria, married off to an extremist fighter and then trained to be a suicide bomber. Last week she succeeded in escaping when the Nigerian military launched a raid on a Boko Haram camp. She wandered through Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria for several days until, tired, weak and hungry, she was found by members of a local defense group fighting the extremists, who handed her over to Cameroon’s military, said Midjiyawa Bakary, governor of the Far North region of Cameroon. “When the Nigerian army attacked the Boko Haram camp where we were, there was confusion everywhere and I escaped to the forest, where I walked for a week and handed myself to the first people I saw,” she said. The teenager is among thousands of people who have been kidnapped by the Nigeria-based Islamic extremists since they launched their insurgency nearly seven years ago. Recently the abductions have reached across Nigeria’s borders to Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The Cameroonian girl is among hundreds freed since January. On Sunday, she was reunited with her parents but her daughter, she said tearfully, had been left with the man she was forced to marry after her kidnapping. “I was taken to a prison in a cave where we were locked up for three weeks and then distributed to men. We were given food every morning to prepare for our husbands,” she said in the local Hausa and Fulfulde languages through an interpreter. “Every afternoon we were asked to pray and vow that we would remain obedient.” She said she and many other girls were trained to be suicide bombers. “They took us two times every week and gave us lessons on how to detonate bombs. We were told if we died while defending Allah’s cause against evil men, we shall be received in paradise.” Crowds of people, including government officials and traditional rulers, welcomed the teen home to Tourou village, near Mokolo in northern Cameroon. Her 52-year-old father said he was delighted to see her. “I am grateful to all those who fought hard for the release of my daughter. As you can see, all of Tourou is very happy that she is back, even though her 2-year old daughter is not here with us,” he said. “Our immediate plight now is how to have her treated because she looks tired and very sick.” The girl needs more medical attention, according to Jacob Kodji, one of Cameroon’s military commanders of troops fighting the Boko Haram insurgency. “She was very, very sick when she was brought to us,” Kodji said. “We did our best to save her life and will continue to take care of her. We are also thanking the Nigerian military for the attacks that freed her. We have deployed troops to the forest to see if other freed captives can be found.” The Cameroonian girl is among dozens who have escaped or been freed since January as troops from Nigeria and the multinational joint task force continue to launch raids against Boko Haram, including in its stronghold in the Sambisa Forest, near Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. A Nigerian girl who escaped last week was one of the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok school in a mass abduction in 2014 that sparked international outrage. A May 19 raid on a Boko Haram camp liberated some 97 women and children and killed 35 extremists, said the Nigerian army. These rescues are renewing hopes that the fight against Boko Haram is yielding results and the group will not be able to kidnap so many young women and girls to launch suicide attacks or act as sex slaves and young men and boys who are forced to join their fight to create an Islamic caliphate.

terrorism;boko haram;nigeria;cameroon;chibok girls

jp0010700

2016/05/26

Thai man bloodied but unbowed after snake attacks him in toilet

BANGKOK - A Thai man is recovering from a bloody encounter with a 3-meter (10-foot) python that slithered through the plumbing of his home and latched its jaws onto his penis as he was using a squat toilet. Attaporn Boonmakchuay was smiling as television stations interviewed him in his hospital bed about the intimate intrusion, and doctors said he would recover. But photos of his blood-splattered bathroom in Chachoengsao province, east of Bangkok, were testimony to his ordeal. The 38-year-old told Thai TV Channel 7 that he struggled to remove the snake for 30 minutes Wednesday before he managed to free himself with help from his wife and a neighbor. After his wife tied a rope around the snake, Attaporn pried open its jaws before passing out. Emergency workers dismantled the squat toilet, with the python still twined through it. The snake was taken away to be released back into the wild, according to an emergency responder cited by the newspaper Thai Rath. Doctors said Attaporn, bloodied but unbowed, will recover. “He has a really good attitude . . . even though his own wife and children were in shock. He’s been smiling and giving interviews all day from his bed,” hospital director Dr. Chutima Pincharoen said.

nature;animals;thailand

jp0010701

2016/05/26

Okinawa governor irked that Abe-Obama talks didn't touch on revising SOFA

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga expressed disappointment Wednesday that the U.S. and Japanese leaders failed to show a willingness to respond to calls to revise a bilateral accord defining the handling of U.S. base personnel in Japan in the wake of the arrest of a civilian U.S. base worker over the death of a local woman. “It is extremely regrettable that there was no mention of amending the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement,” Onaga told reporters in Naha, referring to the press conference after the meeting Wednesday evening between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama. Onaga said people in Okinawa “have been forced to bear the heavy burden of hosting the bases.” “Unless the accord is revised, the concerns the people of Okinawa have over the bases will not be allayed,” he added. Abe and Obama met soon after the U.S. president arrived in central Japan Wednesday evening to attend a two-day Group of Seven summit beginning the following day. In the latest case, the 1960 accord has not posed any obstacles to investigations. But people in Okinawa have complained that the accord is overly protective of Americans, partly because it allows a suspect to cooperate with Japanese investigations only on a voluntary basis in some cases. At the joint press conference, Abe said he called on the United States to take effective and thorough measures to prevent similar incidents, while emphasizing the need to improve the operation of the SOFA if problems arise. Obama asserted the SOFA “does not in any way prevent the full prosecution and the need for justice under the Japanese legal system” and said the United States will be “fully cooperating with the Japanese legal system in prosecuting this individual.” The incident was a key topic in the Abe-Obama meeting after a contractor at the U.S. Air Force’s Kadena Air Base in Okinawa was arrested last week over the death of a 20-year-old woman. Investigative sources have said the former U.S. Marine has admitted killing the woman after sexually assaulting her. The incident has reignited anti-U.S. base sentiment in Okinawa. On Wednesday, about 4,000 people gathered near the Kadena base to protest and complain about the U.S. military presence, according to the event organizer. “These kind of incidents should never be allowed to happen again,” the gathering was told by Nago Mayor Susumu Inamine, who is against the planned relocation of a key U.S. air base from Ginowan to the Henoko district of Nago, both in Okinawa. Inamine also argued that the number of crimes committed by U.S. military and civilian base personnel will not decline as long as so many are stationed in Okinawa. Miyoko Ashimine, a 69-year-old Ginowan citizen, said: “U.S. military-linked incidents show no signs of ending. We can’t take it anymore.” A massive protest rally is scheduled on June 19, which is likely to attract tens of thousands of people.

shinzo abe;okinawa;barack obama;u.s. bases;sofa;u.s.-japan relations;takeshi onaga;ise-shima summit

jp0010702

2016/05/21

Whither the taxi in a withering Japan?

At the moment, Tokyo is the only city in Japan where people can use the Internet car hire service Uber, which relies on nominally freelance drivers to pick up fares through messages sent via a smartphone app. Though this could change at any time, Uber’s special qualities have already been appropriated to a limited extent by regular taxi companies in Tokyo thanks to the central government, thus diluting some of Uber’s appeal. The transportation ministry has always closely regulated the taxi industry, and in recent years has been trying to come up with ways that will not only improve service for consumers, but help taxi companies profit in a changing business environment. The ministry’s latest idea is to shorten the hatsunori , meaning the initial ride segment. Presently, taxis in Tokyo charge ¥730 for the first 2 kilometers and then ¥90 for each additional 280 meters. In order to gain more business from riders who might need a taxi for shorter distances, due to advanced age or because they are carrying something heavy or are with children, the hatsunori will be changed to a little more than 1 km, and the fare for that distance or less will be set at ¥410. The last time the hatsunori was changed was 1936, when ¥0.3 would get you 2 km. The last time the hatsunori fare was increased was April 2014. The new fare could commence next April. Right now the ministry is soliciting taxi companies who agree to the fare change. If at least 70 percent of the taxi companies that serve a given area agree to the new fare system, then every taxi that serves that area will have permission to use the new fares. In detail, it will be ¥410 for the first 1.059 km, and then an additional ¥80 for every 235.25 meters. This summer, however, the ministry will test the new fares in Tokyo, though, according to the Asahi Shimbun, some companies have already started. Not everyone is excited about the change, especially drivers, since they think it might backfire. Though very short journeys will be cheaper, longer journeys will be more expensive, meaning more people will think twice before calling a taxi: “Do I really need one?” Moreover, the next consumption tax hike is scheduled to go into effect next April, meaning that the hatsunori will automatically be increased by another ¥20. Drivers, who earn commissions in addition to salaries, aren’t convinced that the new service will increase the number of fares, and, in any case, at those prices they would have to get a lot of short fares to equal one decent long fare. But while taxis are regulated by the transportation ministry, individual companies have managed to adapt to dwindling ridership by coming up with their own means of indirectly increasing fares. For instance, in crowded urban areas where traffic congestion is common, meters in some taxis charge for time as well as distance. When the speed of the vehicle drops below 10 km/hour, the meter changes to a system that charges for time regardless of the distance traveled, usually ¥90 for every 110 seconds. Also, when a rider calls for a taxi, a surcharge is added, so there is already a fare on the meter when the taxi arrives to pick up the passenger. Many taxi companies in rural areas have expanded on this idea by allowing drivers to charge the passenger for the distance between the place where he or she received the call and the passenger’s location. Some simply tack an additional hatsunori fare onto the total fare when they get the call from the dispatcher. Ideally, a dispatcher should locate the cab closest to the passenger’s location, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the fare will be cheaper. In that regard Uber is better for the rider since he can choose the driver based on location he sees on his app. Taxi revenues have been dropping steadily in recent years mainly due to demographic changes, and while the hatsunori change might boost fares a bit, the main problem is moment-to-moment supply and demand. Vehicle numbers in Japan are not limited the way they often are in other countries. Tokyo has more than 50,000 cabs, or more than three times as many as New York City (but only half as many as Mexico City). That means at any given time there are either too many or too few, since demand can change drastically depending on time of day, weather and other changeable factors. And while other forms of public transportation are subsidized by the central and local governments, taxis are not. They are just regulated by the government. This means that private companies that serve rural areas tend to keep costs down by maintaining fewer vehicles. Rural populations are aging more rapidly than those in the cities, which means there could be more demand for taxis from people who cannot or should not drive any longer. Some local governments are considering subsidizing car services in order to guarantee vehicles at any time of the day or night. As mentioned above, many companies, taking a hint from Uber, have developed their own apps so as to make the transaction efficient and thus more appealing to riders. Just System, a market research company, conducted a survey in the Tokyo metropolitan area of 530 men and women between the ages of 20 and 50. About 20 percent said they use apps to call taxis. In addition, more cabs are accepting transportation cards like Suica and Pasmo, or e-money systems like Line Pay. Many years ago, the taxi business was completely open. Companies could put as many cabs as they wanted on the roads and charge whatever they wanted. They competed for fares. Some people feel that such a system is the best way. At the very least, fares should be adjusted depending on the region, which is usually the case. What makes money in Tokyo is not necessarily going to make money in Hokkaido.

transportation;phones;apps;depopulation;taxis;uber

jp0010703

2016/05/21

Texas woman and her Chewbacca mask go viral

LONDON - A Texas woman found fame this week after filming a Facebook Live video of herself in an electronic Chewbacca mask that racked up over 50 million views in less than 24 hours. Candace Payne recorded the video in a department store parking lot on Thursday. Chewbacca is a furry fictional character from the “Star Wars” movie series who is adventurer Han Solo’s sidekick. The mask emits a guttural sort of whine, characteristic of Wookiees, that Payne triggered when she opened her mouth. “I’m such a happy Chewbacca!” Payne exclaims, while laughing. “This is worth every penny!” “Chewbacca” began trending on Twitter in the United States on Friday, with users of the social media platform cheering the video. “If you haven’t seen the Chewbacca mask lady video yet, you are missing out on a few minutes of pure joy,” tweeted ¡Gabe! Ortiz (@TUSK81). “Can we all agree that this reaction to a Chewbacca mask is everything?” tweeted Kohl’s (@Kohls), where Payne said she bought the mask. “Laugh. It. Up,” tweeted Star Wars’ official Twitter account (@starwars). A Kohl’s spokeswoman said the Chewbacca mask has sold out online. As for Payne, a subsequent Facebook post indicated that she is enjoying the reaction. “Thanks for all the feels, Internet webs,” Payne wrote. “I mean it.”

film;media;u.s .;social media;offbeat

jp0010705

2016/05/07

British polar research vessel named, but it is not 'Boaty McBoatface'

LONDON - The name Boaty McBoatface captured the public’s fancy but British officials said Friday the country’s newest polar research vessel will be christened Sir David Attenborough, in honor of the prominent naturalist and broadcaster. But all is not lost for Boaty McBoatface fans who had voted in favor of the unusual — and perhaps undignified — name by an overwhelming margin. Science Minister Jo Johnson said a submarine vessel that will support the crew and various research programs will be called Boaty McBoatface. “The public provided some truly inspirational and creative names, and while it was a difficult decision I’m delighted that our state-of-the-art polar research ship will be named after one of the nation’s most cherished broadcasters and natural scientists,” he said. Attenborough, who has produced a string of nature documentaries for the BBC and who will celebrate his 90th birthday Sunday, said he is “truly honored” by the choice of name. The Natural Environment Research Council had asked for help finding a name reflecting the £200 million ($284 million) ship’s mission and celebrating British naval history. The jokey suggestion Boaty McBoatface got 124,109 votes, more than three times its nearest rival. The vote was advisory and officials had hinted that a more serious name would be chosen for the vessel, which is scheduled to be launched in three years.

antarctica;u.k .;social media;arctic

jp0010706

2016/05/07

Cat cafes facing more scrutiny as owners' top priority not always felines, experts say

The prospect of an afternoon of relaxation in the company of fluffy, purring friends has earned cat cafes a top spot on the itineraries of visitors to Japan, but not all operators have the interests of their feline employees in mind, animal experts warn. The decision by Tokyo authorities on April 21 to order a cat cafe in the capital to close for 30 days due to animal neglect has focused global scrutiny on the establishments, which let customers sit and play with multiple cats in shared rooms for an hourly fee. “(The shuttered Tokyo cafe) illustrates the potential for cafes to simply become places of abuse and neglect with no benefit to society or cats,” said Maho Cavalier at Animal Walk Tokyo, an animal rescue nonprofit organization. The Environment Ministry is moving to revise animal welfare regulations governing cat cafes based on the results of a study it conducted last October on a sample of 314 cafes nationwide. From June, cafes will permanently be able to open until 10 p.m., and cats’ “shifts” will be allowed to run up to 12 hours a day, as long as they can escape to a customer-free rest space at any time. A 12-hour shift seems excessive given what is known about cats, solitary hunters by nature, said Nai Machiya, 42, a veterinary inspector with the Japan Animal Welfare Society. As for the government study of stress levels in cafe cats, “We have no way of knowing if the sample is representative of all cafes in Japan, or if it leans toward the better cafes,” Machiya said. In the study, 55 percent of respondent cafes housed 11 or more cats on the premises, and 82 percent were open for eight hours or longer each day. “Living with multiple cats and having people pet them for over eight hours, you can imagine the level of stress on these cats,” said Animal Walk Tokyo’s Cavalier. The Tokyo cafe shut down by authorities had let cats breed uncontrollably, resulting in 62 cats living in a space that had permission for just 10. Hygiene suffered accordingly, with most of the cats displaying common cold symptoms when inspectors visited. Such a situation would be unthinkable at the Asakusa Nekoen cat cafe elsewhere in Sumida Ward, where the rescued cats are all spayed or neutered, according to owner and operator Takako Saito, 46. “When they arrive, we don’t force them to interact with people straight away but keep them in cages for an absolute minimum of two weeks,” Saito said. “Some cats can take as long as a month and a half to recover from their previous circumstances.” The first cat cafes are thought to have opened in Taiwan in the late 1990s. The trend soon spread to Japan’s dense cities, where many landlords bar renters from keeping pets and stressful working lives lead people to seek the relief the furry creatures provide. Cat cafes have spread beyond East Asia to other regions including Europe and North America in recent years. Saito said a popular culture boom in cats has seen the number of cafes in Japan grow rapidly, with around 100 now operating in Tokyo alone. But those in the business for mainly financial reasons are prone to taking shortcuts with the animals’ care, he added. “When you care about the cats, you don’t see them as a money-making product first and foremost. You give the cats plenty of hiding spots and you don’t disturb a sleeping cat to make it play with customers,” she said. Saito said the neglect at some cafes is indicative of attitudes toward pets in Japan — something that must change in order to see the animals as family members for life rather than as dispensable products. According to a 2015 survey by the Japan Pet Food Association, the average life span of a cat kept indoors in the country is 16.4 years, but like humans they require increased medical attention as they age and tend to become less active. Industry sources have suggested less scrupulous cat cafes sell the animals once they pass 6 or 7 years years old to replace them with kittens, without thoroughly vetting the new owners. Some argue the concept of cat cafes is intrinsically bad for the animals and reinforces societal attitudes that view pets as entertainment rather than companions. But with the trend unlikely to go away any time soon, there are measures visitors to Japan can take to select cafes that are kinder toward felines. “If a cafe is looking for lifelong adoptive homes for cats, that’s an indication that they’re concerned more about animal welfare than about just making money,” cafe operator Saito said. “A large proportion of mixed-breed cats, as opposed to just pure breeds that are sold at pet shops, is another good sign,” she said. Veterinary inspector Machiya said customers should judge cafes by the cats’ physical condition and the presence of adequate space, and report any concerns to animal charities or authorities. “We’d like people who decide to visit cat cafes to pay attention to the smell of the place and the condition of the cats’ fur, as well as whether there is mucus coming from their noses or eyes,” she said. While a stable home is the ideal environment for a cat, well-run cafes can serve an important function in a country where animals that are not adopted quickly are often euthanized by local authorities. “If cat cafes can reach people who had little previous interest in looking after cats and match cats with adoptive homes, they can be of significant merit to society,” Machiya said.

animals;animal welfare;animal rights;cats;cat cafes

jp0010708

2016/05/31

Meiji Jingu a Tokyo shrine that's popular for nuptials

One bright Saturday afternoon in the fresh green of spring, priests led a bride and groom toward a wedding hall at Meiji Jingu, a renowned shrine in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. The Shinto shrine is dedicated to the souls of Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shoken. It was established in 1920 and stands in a 700,000-sq.-meter enclosure planted with 100,000 trees donated by people in Japan and others overseas. Today, the shrine is a popular site for marriage ceremonies. On busy weekends, it carries out around 15 weddings a day. Last Saturday, Nao Sasaki, 30, and Jonathan Madrid, 24, walked nervously and silently toward the hall to pray, make their wedding vows and become a family. Madrid works at U.S. Army Camp Zama in Kanagawa Prefecture. Photographs were not allowed during the ceremony, but the rituals included a norito (prayer recitation) by a priest, drinking nuptial cherry blossom tea together, exchanging rings and pledging wedding vows before kami. This word refers to the Shinto notion of myriad divine spirits, as compared with the monotheist tradition of Christianity and Islam. “In Shinto, some divinity is found as Kami, or it may be said that there is an unlimited number of Kami,” the shrine’s website says. “You can see Kami in mythology, in nature, and in human beings.” Smiling newlywed Madrid said: “I felt very happy about the wedding. It was pretty different, but a happy experience.” “It was actually where my wife and I came on our first date. . . . We didn’t know at the time we would decide to get married and decide to have our ceremony here,” said Madrid. The couple now live at Camp Zama. Tomohiro Isogai, priest at the shrine, said of his job: “I feel the gravity of leading a once in a lifetime event for the couple. They have made their vows before kami and went though a ceremony to live their lives according to their vows.” He wished the couple eternal happiness. Staff writer Daisuke Kikuchi contributed to this report Jonathan Madrid and Nao Sasaki rehearse drinking nuptial cherry blossom tea together before their wedding ceremony at Meiji Jingu Shrine in Tokyo on Saturday. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Staff of Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu shrine adjust Jonathan Madrid’s kimono as his bride, Nao Sasaki, looks on. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Onlookers observe the wedding procession of Jonathan Madrid and Nao Sasaki at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo on Saturday. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Jonathan Madrid and Nao Sasaki have their picture taken after their wedding ceremony at Meiji Jingu in Tokyo on Saturday. | YOSHIAKI MIURA A staffer at Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu shrine gives a touch of powder to Nao Sasaki’s makeup during a group photo session after their wedding Saturday. | YOSHIAKI MIURA

religion;wedding;shrine;meiji jingu

jp0010709

2016/05/31

Ex-baseball star Kazuhiro Kiyohara gets suspended term for drug use

Former baseball star Kazuhiro Kiyohara was sentenced Tuesday to 2½ years in prison, suspended for four years, for possessing, using and purchasing illegal drugs. The ruling by the Tokyo District Court means that the 48-year-old former Seibu Lions and Yomiuri Giants slugger walked free. His lawyers had requested a suspended term with probation, which would have required him to take part in a government-sponsored rehabilitation program to prevent recidivism. The prosecution had demanded 30 months in prison without suspension for violating the stimulants control law concerning psychoactive agents such as amphetamine and methamphetamine. Presiding Judge Junichi Yoshikai called Kiyohara’s crimes “malicious” but said he had already been socially sanctioned after his arrest was widely reported in the media. “The defendant had been making social contributions through his performance as a leading professional baseball slugger,” Yoshikai said. “I am sorry,” Kiyohara said as he turned to the gallery after the ruling was handed down. Kiyohara, who retired in 2008, ranks fifth in Nippon Pro Baseball history with 525 career home runs and sixth in RBIs with 1,530. He was arrested Feb. 2 for possession of stimulant drugs at his apartment in Tokyo. He was additionally charged with using drugs at a Tokyo hotel around Feb. 1 and purchasing the drugs from an acquaintance at a hotel in Gunma Prefecture around Sept. 1. Kiyohara admitted to the charges as his trial opened two weeks ago, saying he began using drugs because he could not deal with stress and anxiety after retirement, and apologized to young people who are aspiring to become professional baseball players. Hoping to witness the high-profile trial, more than 1,700 people lined up for the 21 public gallery seats available. Hideaki Sasano, 50, who said he played baseball in high school and is a fan of Kiyohara, was one of the people who lined up outside the court. “I want (society) to give him a chance to recover,” he said. “He definitely needs other people’s help in avoiding drugs.” Another person in line, a 47-year-old Osaka woman, said she bumped into Kiyohara on a street in Osaka, where he is also from. “He patted my son on his head,” she said. “He is good to children, and I want him to come back to Osaka and teach the kids baseball in his hometown.”

baseball;drugs;ruling;kazuhiro kiyohara

jp0010710

2016/05/30

Japan shedding 1940s morality by relaxing rules on nightclubs

Late-night dancing is just a step away after the revision of a law that forced nightclubs to close by midnight. New regulations that take effect on June 23 will allow the music to play on until the early hours under some conditions. The law was in force for almost 70 years and was revised in 2015 amid recognition that it was a hammer-and-nut approach to prostitution, which the restrictions were aimed at. Until now, clubs have been lumped into the same category as sex parlors. Experts see it as the first big step for the adult entertainment business law — often dubbed the anti-dancing law — to shed its bad reputation. However, others worry that new ambiguities and overly specific rules leave room for authorities to impose a new clampdown on the entertainment industry. How has the law changed? The law revision, passed last June, will allow dance clubs to operate until 5 a.m. on condition that they do not serve alcohol. And in a measure to protect minors, it bans people under 18 from participating in club events that run later than 10 p.m. Dance schools, which were included in the adult entertainment business category because their clients engage in dancing, are no longer covered by the law. The rules establish a new category, tokutei yukyo inshokuten eigyo (nighttime entertainment restaurant operations), for restaurants and clubs that offer both entertainment and alcohol overnight. Under the new rules, such businesses will need to keep the lights turned up. They must have internal illumination of more than 10 lux, roughly equivalent to that inside a movie theater before the show begins. They should be located outside of residential areas, and the noise in the street must be below a certain level. The floor for customers should be larger than 33 sq. meters, and there must be no locks on the entrance. The law will also ban establishments from posting “pictures, ads and decorations that interfere with the healthy development of youths.” In other words, images with too much skin. It took about a year for the new rules to take effect because municipalities needed time to create their own guidelines on operating times and where such restaurants and clubs can be located. Why was the law revised? The adult entertainment business law, or fueiho , was introduced in 1948 with the aim of regulating the sex industry. It covered adult entertainment businesses and other nighttime commercial pursuits, lumping dance halls and dance schools into the same category. The law defined the adult entertainment venues that can serve food and alcohol while allowing patrons to dance, and required them to obtain a license and to close between midnight and sunrise — when demand is high. The law was criticized for reflecting an early postwar assumption that dance halls and prostitution went hand-in-hand and that alcohol led to immoral behavior. Many premises ignored the rule and police looked the other way. But around 2010, officers began a crackdown following neighborhood complaints about rowdy customers. What triggered the revision? In April 2012, Masatoshi Kanemitsu, owner of the Osaka nightclub Noon, was arrested and prosecuted for allegedly allowing customers to dance and for serving food and drinks at his establishment. Alarmed by the sudden police crackdown, a petition dubbed Let’s Dance kicked off the following month to press for legal reform. Organizers gathered some 160,000 signatures and helped to push the government into considering legal revision. Well-known musicians, including Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoshihide Otomo, joined the campaign. They argued that so-called live houses — small, privately-run concert halls for hire by amateur musicians and bands — are venues that promote culture and thus should be encouraged. In April 2014, the Osaka District Court found Kanemitsu not guilty. The Osaka High Court upheld the decision in January 2015. Chief Judge Masaaki Yoneyama ruled there was no evidence that Noon was offering services that could lead to indecent conduct. Lawyer Takahiro Saito, who was also involved in Let’s Dance, said another reason why the government began supporting all-night entertainment venues was to boost tourism and economic growth. “Many anticipated that clubs and a nighttime economy would boost tourism by bringing in more foreign tourists and help develop ‘cool Japan’ cultural trends,” he said. Where will the clubs operate? Restrictions are mainly aimed at reducing the disturbance for neighbors. Regional governments have demarcated zones outside residential areas where all-nighter clubs can be located. In Tokyo, for example, there will be 638 districts where the clubs can operate. Late-night operations will not be permitted in parts of Roppongi, Daikanyama, Aoyama and Nakameguro because the districts include residential areas. Saito noted many clubs are currently located outside the permitted areas, adding that they may be able to dodge the rules by separating their dance floor and dining or drinking spaces. Saito also said patrons must not be so rowdy that the neighbors are disturbed. “Many people have a negative impression of nightclubs because they were operating under the early law,” he said. Organizations led by musicians, including Club and Club Culture Conference and Playcool, are waging campaigns to get patrons to behave decently on leaving. How will other establishments be affected? The police excluded cinemas, traditional stage theaters and classical music performances from the new restrictions, but other entertainment businesses will be subject to the new rules if they remain open after midnight and also serve alcohol. Saito said the concept of yukyo (entertainment) under the law is ambiguous and says it may include previously unrestricted activities. “Live music performances are on the list, but how to define strolling guitarists who perform inside restaurants is unclear.” Examples listed by the National Police Agency as entertainment include various forms of live performances, dance and music among them, as well as activities in which patrons participate. “Sports bars are problematic too. It would not be considered entertainment to air soccer or baseball games on TV, but it would be if such screenings are held as an event, or if the operator cheers on the customers,” he said. Other types of entertainment, including billiards and karaoke, are not covered by the new rules.

nightclubs;fueiho;adult entertainment control law

jp0010711

2016/05/08

Forbidden fruit: China bans 'erotic' banana-eating live streams

Bananas may be China’s new forbidden fruit — at least online. As part of the government’s crackdown on “inappropriate” content online, Chinese live-streaming video services have banned people from filming themselves while eating bananas “erotically,” state media has reported. New regulations mean hosts of live-streaming services are now being required to monitor their output 24 hours a day, seven days a week, China’s state-run CCTV news reported last week. While standards have yet to be fixed, hosts of Web TV shows are prohibited from eating “bananas seductively” in front of the camera. The move comes after China’s Culture Ministry on April 14 announced an investigation of popular live-broadcast websites for “allegedly providing content that contains pornography or violence and encourages viewers to break laws and harms social morality.” CCTV reported Thursday that the sites being probed had tightened control of their most popular hosts, which it said were “predominately attractive women showing their cleavage.” According to ministry statistics, live-broadcast sites in China have a total of 200 million registered users. A survey cited by CCTV said 30-40 percent of the subjects in live-streams were students, while 77 percent of the viewers were male users. The government in Beijing, with its “Great Firewall of China,” is among the world’s strictest when it comes to censorship and stamping out Internet freedoms. China ranked dead last in Freedom House’s annual Freedom on the Net report in 2015. President Xi Jinping has made “cybersovereignty” a top priority, forcing Internet users to endure crackdowns on “rumors,” greater enforcement of rules against anonymity and disruptions to the circumvention tools that are commonly used to bypass censorship, the report said.

china;internet;censorship;rights;sex;offbeat

jp0010713

2016/05/06

Accused LA 'Grim Sleeper' serial killer guilty of 10 counts, faces death penalty

LOS ANGELES - A former Los Angeles trash collector was convicted Thursday of 10 counts of murder in the “Grim Sleeper” serial killings that targeted poor, young black women over two decades. Lonnie Franklin Jr. showed no emotion as the verdicts were read and family members who had wondered if they would ever see justice quietly wept and dabbed their eyes with tissues in the gallery. “We got him,” exclaimed Porter Alexander Jr., whose daughter, Alicia, 18, was shot and choked. Her body was found under a mattress in an alley in September 1988. “It took a long time. By the grace of God it happened. It’s such a relief.” Prosecutors will seek the death penalty during the second phase of trial scheduled to start May 12. Franklin, 63, was also was found guilty of one count of attempted murder for shooting a woman in the chest and dumping her body from his orange Ford Pinto two months after Alexander’s killing. The survivor, Enietra Washington, provided a link to seven previous slayings and was a key witness at trial. The killings from 1985 to 2007 were dubbed the work of the “Grim Sleeper” because of an apparent 14-year gap after Washington’s shooting, though prosecutors now think he never rested and there were other victims during that span. The crimes went unsolved for decades and community members complained that police ignored the victims because of their race and the fact some were prostitutes and drug users. Much of the violence unfolded during the nation’s crack cocaine epidemic when at least two other serial killers prowled the area then known as South Central. The 10 victims, including a 15-year-old girl, were fatally shot or strangled and dumped in alleys and garbage bins. Most had traces of cocaine in their systems. The cases were reopened after the last killing when a task force was assigned to revisit cases dozens of officers failed to solve in the 1980s. The team compiled ballistics evidence and DNA testing that hadn’t been available at the time of the first killings. Franklin, a onetime trash collector in the area and a garage attendant for the Los Angeles Police Department, had been hiding in plain sight, said Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman. He was connected to the crimes after DNA from a son, collected after a felony arrest, showed similarities to genetic material left on the bodies of many of the victims. An officer posing as a busboy retrieved pizza crusts and napkins with Franklin’s DNA while he was celebrating at a birthday party. It proved a match with material found on the breasts and clothing of many of the women and on the zip tie of a trash bag that held the curled-up body of the final victim, Janecia Peters. She was found Jan. 1, 2007, by someone rifling through a dumpster who noticed her red fingernails through a hole in the bag. Silverman described the victims as sisters, daughters and mothers who suffered frailties but had hopes and dreams. She projected photos of the 10 women from happier days, many smiling from headshots that captured their youth and hairstyles of the times. The images were in stark contrast to gory crime scene and autopsy photos also displayed of half-naked bodies sprawled among garbage — images that made family members wince, weep and recoil. Samara Herard, the sister of the youngest victim, Princess Berthomieux, said there were things she didn’t want to see during the trial and had to hold her head down at times, but was elated with the verdict. “I wanted to remember the sweet little girl who had her whole life in front of her,” Herard said. “She had a heart of gold and she deserved to live a full life.” Defense lawyer Seymour Amster challenged what he called “inferior science” of DNA and ballistics evidence. During his closing argument, he introduced a new theory: a “mystery man with a mystery gun and mystery DNA” was responsible for all the killings. He said the man was a “nephew” of Franklin’s who was jealous because his uncle had better luck with women, though he offered no supporting evidence or any name. Amster based the theory on the testimony of the sole known survivor, Washington, who crawled to safety after being shot in Franklin’s flashy Pinto. She testified that her assailant said he had to stop at his “uncle’s house” for money before the attack. Silverman scoffed at the “mystery nephew” notion, saying it was as rational an explanation as a space ship dropping from the sky and killing the women. She said Franklin had lied to Washington and was probably stopping at his house to get his gun. Washington later led police to Franklin’s street, but not his house. The attack fit the pattern of other killings and showed how the killer carried out the crimes, Silverman said. The bullet removed from Washington’s chest came from the same gun used to shoot the seven previous victims and she provided a detail that would later prove telling. Washington described how her attacker took a Polaroid photo of her as she was losing consciousness. Police searching Franklin’s house more than two decades later found a snapshot of the wounded Washington slouched over in a car with a breast exposed. The Polaroid was hidden behind a wall in his garage.

crime;death penalty;serial killer;los angeles;mass murder;grim sleeper

jp0010714

2016/05/24

Okinawa slaying prompts local assemblies to pass protest resolutions over U.S. military presence

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - Several municipal assemblies in Okinawa Prefecture unanimously passed resolutions Tuesday to protest the slaying of a local woman to which a civilian U.S. base worker has reportedly confessed. The assemblies in Naha, the prefectural capital, and Uruma, where the victim, Rina Shimabukuro, 20, lived, also passed a resolution calling for reducing U.S. bases in Okinawa and a drastic review of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The Nago Municipal Assembly passed a similar resolution. SOFA, which governs the management and operation of the U.S. military in Japan, is intended to serve U.S. interests, including protecting U.S. servicemen from being subject to what the United States sees as unfair criminal or civil justice systems. The development came after police last Thursday arrested Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a 32-year-old former U.S. Marine, for allegedly dumping Shimabukuro’s body. Investigative sources say Shinzato has admitted killing Shimabukuro after sexually assaulting her. The incident has stoked anger among residents who already feel burdened with the heavy U.S. military presence in the prefecture. “Citizens in the city and the prefecture are deeply shocked and worried. Deep sorrow and strong anger are growing,” the Uruma Municipal Assembly said in a statement. “It is absolutely wrong that we have to live here while at the same time be frightened by crimes committed by U.S. military personnel and base workers,” the Naha Municipal Assembly said, adding that it will send the resolution to the U.S. government and opinions to the chairs of both chambers of the Diet. The Defense Ministry and the U.S. Department of Defense, however, expressed reluctance to review SOFA. Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said at a news conference Tuesday, “Investigation of this case has been carried out rigorously based on Japan’s right to investigate and jurisdiction under the Status of Forces Agreement.” Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that the United States and Japan have been improving the way the agreement is applied and will continue with the effort. Adm. Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, offered an apology over the incident in Okinawa when he talked Monday with Adm. Katsutoshi Kawano, chief of the Joint Staff of the Self-Defense Forces, over the phone. Harris and Kawano reaffirmed the view that the Japan-U.S. alliance plays a vital role in maintaining regional peace and security, and that the two countries will continue to work to realize a deeper alliance. According to investigative sources, Shinzato said he drove around for several hours looking for a woman to rape. He was also quoted as saying he strangled and stabbed Shimabukuro before stuffing her body into a suitcase and transporting it in his car. The Okinawa Prefectural Police suspect Shinzato may have planned the incident beforehand, as he had placed the suitcase in his car earlier. He reportedly told the police that he threw the suitcase away, but he later became silent. Shimabukuro went missing after she texted her boyfriend at around 8 p.m. April 28 to say she was going for a walk. Her remains were found Thursday in a wooded area in the village of Onna, about a 40-minute drive from her home. The remains showed marks consistent with being stabbed with a knife, according to investigators.

okinawa;sofa;rina shimabukuro;kenneth franklin shinzato

jp0010715

2016/05/23

Much to lose, little or nil to gain in 'Brexit,' says Japan Inc.

Should the United Kingdom leave or remain in the European Union? With the world’s fifth-largest economy set to make a historic decision about its future next month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed support for the U.K. to stay in the political and economic club of 28 countries during his Europe tour earlier this month. But how would a “Brexit,” or British exit from the EU, affect Japan? What is Brexit? Brexit was coined after “Grexit” gained currency amid Greece’s sovereign debt crisis, when Athens was also mulling leaving the EU. The U.K. will hold a national referendum on the country’s EU membership on June 23. The country also conducted a similar referendum in 1975 to ask if the country should stay in or leave the European Economic Community, the predecessor to the EU. The British people at that time chose to remain in the group. What are the pros and cons of a Brexit? According to an opinion poll published by The Times newspaper last Wednesday, 44 percent of respondents said they want Britain to stay in the EU, while 40 percent wanted the country to withdraw. Brexit proponents say the economic union has changed over time and proved to be a failure, while undercutting British sovereignty. They also argue EU membership has too many rules for businesses and costs too much for a small return. Opponents, led by British Prime Minister David Cameron, say leaving the EU would be costly because membership makes it easier for the U.K. to move money and people and sell products. They also say the country can exercise more influence globally by being part of the 28-nation bloc. Abe also supports the idea of continued U.K. membership. “A vote to leave would make the U.K. less attractive as a destination for Japanese investment,” Abe said earlier this month at a news conference with Cameron. His view is shared by global leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Over the weekend, finance chiefs from the Group of Seven advanced economies meeting in Sendai also said that it would be the wrong decision and hurt the U.K.’s economic growth. How would a Brexit affect Japanese companies operating in the U.K.? There are some 1,300 Japanese companies operating in Britain, providing more than 140,000 jobs. Since 2012, Japanese firms have invested £15 billion in their British operations, Cameron said. Last year, Japan became the second-largest investor in the U.K. after the United States, replacing China, according to British Ambassador to Japan Tim Hitchens. Japanese businesses are attracted to the country because it provides access to the European market, which accounts for a quarter of global GDP. Toyota Motor Corp. exports about 80 percent of its vehicles made in Britain to other European countries, and Nissan Motor Co. ships 80 percent of U.K.-made cars to eurozone nations. “If the U.K. leaves the EU, the access will be lost,” Hitchens said. Companies like Hitachi Ltd. might be disadvantaged if the U.K. breaks away from the EU, considering the European Investment Bank has agreed to invest £235 million into a project that will use Hitachi’s Super Express Trains on the East Coast Main Line linking London and Scotland. Analysts also say a Brexit would trigger a sell-off of British pounds, which would weaken the euro. A weaker euro, which means a stronger yen, would erode the profits of Japanese businesses that have a strong presence in the eurozone. For example, a weak euro would hurt the earnings of companies including Canon Inc., whose consolidated net sales in Europe accounted for 28 percent of total sales in 2015. The company estimates a fluctuation of ¥1 against the euro could affect its operating profit for the rest of the year by ¥2.3 billion. As for Toyota, although the ratio of its European sales is much smaller than in the U.S., a change of ¥1 against the euro could have an effect of roughly ¥4 billion on profits, according to the firm. How do Japanese businesses view the referendum? According to a survey conducted between February and April by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the U.K., 94 percent of the 127 firms that responded said they want Britain to stay in the EU. While 54 percent said they are not sure how their businesses would be affected if the U.K. leaves, 28 percent said it would lead to an increase in costs, 24 percent said it would lead to a decline in investment and 20 percent said it would bring about less employment. Some responded that they might consider relocating U.K. operations to other European countries. Tony Walker, deputy managing director of Toyota Motor Manufacturing U.K., said in March that Britain maintaining EU membership is best for Toyota’s business and its competitiveness in the longer term. Carlos Ghosn, Nissan chairman and chief executive officer, in February said the U.K. staying in the EU makes the most sense for jobs and trade costs, adding that for Nissan “a position of stability is more positive than a collection of unknowns.” Toshiaki Higashihara, chief executive officer of Hitachi Ltd., told the BBC last month that he opposes a Brexit as the company has been investing heavily in the U.K., including in nuclear power plants and railways. What would happen to Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations? Japan and the EU have been negotiating on an economic partnership agreement since 2013. Still, the talks have been slow. At the last meeting, which took place last month in Tokyo, the two parties reportedly had a hard time compromising on tariffs for agricultural products and cars. Abe said during his Europe tour that he hoped to seal an agreement by the end of this year. Foreign Ministry officials, however, have expressed concern that a British departure from the EU would undermine negotiations as the U.K. has been a big supporter of the EPA. The deal could be worth £5 billion a year to the U.K. economy, or £200 per British household.

shinzo abe;david cameron;britain;european union;brexit

jp0010716

2016/05/15

Mie's revenue hopes dampened by G-7 security barrage, Obama detour

ISE, MIE PREF. - Hopes in Mie Prefecture for tourism growth after the Group of Seven Ise-Shima summit from May 26 to 27 remain high. But with tourists worried about heavy security and U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima stealing the spotlight, residents aren’t so sure what the situation will be during the summit itself. With just weeks to go until the leaders of Japan, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Canada assemble with the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission in Mie, the first question on many residents’ lips is how the tightened security will affect vehicle traffic and train schedules. In March, the Mie Prefectural Police released bilingual brochures in English and Japanese on what the traffic restrictions would be throughout the prefecture. Between May 25 and 28, anyone driving on the expressways between Nagoya and Ise faces the prospect of being stopped and searched — or having to wait until a motorcade passes. “The plan is that the expressway would be closed in portions, and reopened after the VIPs pass through. But we don’t know the time period each section of the roads along the route to Ise-Shima might be closed to allow motorcades to pass through,” said Susumu Kobayashi, an Ise city official involved in planning for the summit. In addition, while Kintetsu and Japan Railway trains in many parts of Mie will run, there will be security at the stations and on the trains. More than 20,000 police officers are expected to be in Mie for the summit itself, but security preparations are now necessary for Obama’s side visit to Hiroshima, raising concerns among officials. At a meeting of police officials in Tokyo last month, Masahito Kanetaka, chief of the National Policy Agency, said it was the job of the police to expect the unexpected. For his part, Mie Gov. Eikei Suzuki is extremely concerned that all will go off without incident. “First, of course, is (to aim for) a safe summit. Thorough security is the utmost concern,” Suzuki said late last month at a regular news conference. But the constant drumbeat of police, government and media messages about potential terror attacks, and the presence of so much security in Mie from early April plus the earthquake fears from Kyushu, convinced many tourists that either no hotel rooms would be available during the  just-ended Golden Week holidays or that it would be too much of a hassle to bother making the trip. In some places, hotel reservations were down by as much as 20 percent compared with last year’s Golden Week, prompting local last-minute campaigns to lure tourists. Toba, near Ise, even put up posters that read: “Relax. You can find a room,” just before Golden Week. On April 28, the Nagoya-based Chubu Region Institute for Social and Economic Research warned that the decrease in tourism prompted by the heavy security in Mie meant the prefecture would lose about ¥3.2 billion in tourist revenue. That’s small change compared with the institute’s prediction for post-summit tourism revenue, which is ¥119 billion by 2020, up ¥40 billion from 2015. But many of the predictions for economic growth are based on the assumption that hosting the summit will bring extensive media coverage, both domestic and international, that will boost Mie’s name recognition. There are two problems with that. The first is the official name of the meeting: the Ise-Shima summit. While the Ise area, especially Ise Shrine, may benefit, other towns in Mie have their doubts. “Most people in Mie do want the summit. And yet, there’s also a feeling that it’s the ‘Ise-Shima’ summit, so enthusiasm may not be as high here as it is in Ise,” said Mariko Matsui, an NPO leader based in Mie’s Yokkaichi and involved with the G-7 NGO summit that will take place there just before the Ise-Shima meeting. And since Obama will visit Hiroshima on the last day of the summit, there may be fewer Japanese and foreign media in Mie either right before or during the summit than initially planned. In public, officials are taking a long-term perspective. They hope tourists traveling back and forth between Tokyo and Kyoto will decide to take a detour after Nagoya to visit Mie, particularly Ise Shrine, where the number of Japanese tourists is decreasing as foreign visitors swell. Last year, about 8.4 million people visited the shrine, one of the most important in Shinto. Overall, that represents a drop of about 2.5 million from 2014. But the number of foreigners nearly hit 98,000, up 31,000 from 2014.

security;tourism;mie;g7 ise-shima summit

jp0010717

2016/05/12

Collector Maezawa drops $98 million on art in two days

Yusaku Maezawa, the 40-year-old founder of online clothing retailer Zozotown, continued his art shopping spree on Wednesday, helping Sotheby’s reach $242.2 million in sales at its contemporary art auction even as the art market continues to contract. Maezawa said he is building a private museum outside Tokyo. Sotheby’s evening sale in New York was within the target range of $201.4 million to $257.5 million. The result represented a 36 percent decline from a similar event a year ago. But it was an improvement over the auction house’s Impressionist and modern art sale on May 9, when a third of the lots went unsold. Of the 44 lots offered on Wednesday, only two failed to sell. The auction showed that, while many sellers have decided to wait out the economic volatility, plenty of buyers jumped in. In addition to Maezawa, Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad snapped up Sam Francis’ colorful abstract “Summer #1” for $11.8 million, a record for the artist at auction. The price was slightly below its high estimate of $12 million. “The uncertainty of the world and the economy is reflected in the art market,” said Pilar Ordovas, a London-based art dealer. “But when you have the right material, which is fresh to the market, and the right estimates, things are performing incredibly well.” Broad, who built some of his $2 billion art collection during the art market’s down cycles, pursued Francis’ 8-foot-tall by 6-foot-wide painting against other bidders. “We love Sam Francis,” Broad said as he left the salesroom. “We’ve got five or six works by him. We wanted one from that series for many years.” The auction began with a flurry of bids for fashionable artist Adrian Ghenie’s “Self-Portrait as Vincent Van Gogh.” Estimated at $200,000 to $300,000, the somber painting soared to $2.6 million. Maezawa, bidding through Sotheby’s contemporary art specialist Yuki Terase, outlasted at least five other hopefuls. A few minutes later he chased Christopher Wool’s white canvas spelling out “Chameleon” in chunky black letters. The work fetched $13.9 million, falling just short of the low estimate of $14 million. These two purchases brought Maezawa’s two-day tally to $98 million. At Christie’s on Tuesday, he dropped $81.4 million on five artworks, including $57.3 million for a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting. His purchases at Christie’s accounted for a quarter of the auction’s tally. “Chameleon” was one of four lots at Sotheby’s consigned by Daniel Sundheim, the chief investment officer at Viking Global Investors. They were part of a swap to pay for a $70.5 million Cy Twombly painting that he bought in November. Sotheby’s offered Sundheim a guarantee for seven swapped works, three of which went up for sale in London in February. Sotheby’s outsourced some of the risk on Wednesday by locking in bidders for the four works. Andy Warhol’s 1986 self-portrait in a fright wig fetched $7.7 million, just surpassing the low estimate. Twombly’s “Untitled [Bachus 1st Version V],” depicting messy red loops, fetched $15.4 million, falling short of its $20 million low estimate. Basquiat’s painting “Onion Gum” fetched $6.6 million. Sundheim paid $7.4 million for the work in 2012 at Sotheby’s, when it was sold by newsprint magnate Peter Brant. The evening’s top lot, Cy Twombly’s “Untitled 1968 (New York City),” showing blue chalk-like loops on a gray surface evoking a blackboard, sold for $36.6 million against an estimate of more than $40 million. Works that were new to the market or had been in significant collections did well. Alexander Calder’s standing mobile, which was given as a gift by the artist to Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, fetched $8.3 million, more than doubling the high estimate of $4 million. Chased by five bidders, Francis Bacon’s 1970 “Two Studies for a Self-Portrait” fetched $34.9 million, surpassing the high estimate of $30 million. The work remained in the same private collection for 46 years. Despite strong individual results this week, each evening sale totaled a fraction of its value from a year ago, when Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips tallied $2.7 billion in sales. The last evening sale in this event is Thursday at Christie’s. “This week’s auctions certainly suggest that a weaker art market is continuing,” said David Schick, a luxury analyst at Consumer Edge Research. “This happens after long periods of price appreciation and can be set off by a drop in confidence of wealth cycles.”

art;sotheby 's;yusaku maezawa

jp0010718

2016/05/12

New York man wins $1 million lottery second time

WEST BABYLON, NEW YORK - A New York construction worker who won $1 million in a lottery scratch-off game four years ago has defied enormous odds by hitting a $1 million jackpot again on a different game. But don’t call him lucky. After Bruce Magistro hit the jackpot the first time, his wife, Yvonne, lost a three-year battle with cancer. Much of the prize money went to pay for her medical bills. “She passed away two years ago today,” Magistro’s son, Nick Mayers, said Wednesday. He said he was sure the second jackpot was her way of sending help back to the family. “This is definitely a gift, from her to him,” Mayers said. State lottery officials introduced Magistro at a news conference at the Long Island gas station where he bought the second winning ticket on April 11. Magistro said he plays the lottery every day, and usually buys $5 or $10 lottery tickets. But he said he had a spare $20 when he asked a clerk at Mike’s Super Citgo in West Babylon for a set of 10 Win for Life scratch-offs. “This is impossible,” Magistro said he thought as he scratched off a lottery ticket and realized he won $1 million. “I just couldn’t believe I hit it two times.” He now plans to share his winnings with his three children and his fiance. Magistro is a regular customer at the gas station and usually spends about $50 every time he buys lottery tickets, owner Mike Abizeid said. When Magistro won $1 million on a different lottery scratch-off game in 2012, he bought the ticket from Abizeid’s brother, John, who owns a gas station nearby. It was the first time Magistro had played the Win for Life game, which will pay him and his family $1,000 each week — with a minimum of $1 million — for the rest of his life. Lottery representative Yolanda Vega, who had presented Magistro with a ceremonial check for his first win, said that even then she felt he could win a second time. “He was so positive and outgoing that I knew he’d win again,” she said. “There was something about Bruce that I felt. There was this energy coming from his core.” Magistro said he plans to use the money to pay his bills and go on a vacation, though he hasn’t decided where just yet. “Hopefully I’ll win again,” he joked. “Third time’s a charm.” The probability of winning twice is “astronomical,” and likely more than one in a billion chance, said Eugene Feinberg, a distinguished professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Stony Brook University. But, he said, calculating a precise number is difficult because the probability of winning increases every time you buy more tickets. “The chances are very small,” he said of striking it big twice in just a few years. “If you play more, you win more.” State gaming officials said the odds of someone winning the Win for Life grand prize — or $1,000 per week for life — are 1 in 7,745,600. The odds of Magistro winning Extreme Cash in 2012 were 1 in 2,520,000. While it isn’t common, Magistro is not alone when it comes to winning the lottery twice. A North Carolina woman who is battling breast cancer won $1 million in a lottery game in February and then scored a $250,000 prize last month. Gina Short was diagnosed with breast cancer six years ago and has been undergoing chemotherapy. She said earlier this month that winning a second time felt like a “second chance.” In 2012, a man in suburban Chicago won $1 million from the Illinois Lottery’s “Merry Millionaire” instant scratch off game after winning the same amount nine years earlier. Two years earlier, an Illinois woman won $1 million in an instant cash jackpot game and then won the same prize six months later.

new york;gambling;records;contests

jp0010719

2016/05/13

Rwanda aiding Burundi rebels, North Korea arming Congo forces, report to UNSC says

UNITED NATIONS - A confidential report to the United Nations Security Council accuses Rwanda of providing training, financing and logistical support through early 2016 for Burundian rebels seeking to oust Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza. A panel of six independent experts, appointed by the United Nations to monitor Security Council sanctions on Democratic Republic of Congo, had confidentially reported in February that 18 Burundian combatants in eastern Congo said they had been recruited in a refugee camp in Rwanda in mid-2015 and trained by instructors, who included Rwandan military personnel. Rwanda has repeatedly denied the claims. In the experts latest report, seen by Reuters on Thursday and due to be discussed by the Security Council sanctions committee on Friday, they said “similar outside support continued through early 2016.” “This took the form of training, financing and logistical support for Burundian combatants crossing from Rwanda to DRC,” the group of experts wrote in the report. “The group met with Rwandan nationals, as well, who said they had been involved in the training of Burundian combatants or had been sent to the DRC to help support the Burundian opposition,” they said. The findings contradict suggestions from Western officials in recent months who said any Rwandan support for Burundian rebels appeared to have ceased last year. The United States said it had raised concerns with Rwanda over reports it was meddling in Burundi. Political violence has simmered in Burundi for a year after Nkurunziza pursued and won a third term. The crisis has sparked concerns it could spiral into an ethnic conflict in a region where memories of neighboring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide are fresh. Burundi has an ethnic Hutu majority and Tutsi minority, the same split as in neighboring Rwanda. The U.N. experts said they had presented their findings to the Rwandan government “which denied any involvement, noting it was ‘unaware of recruitment of Burundian refugees in Mahama (refugee) camp.'” Rwanda’s U.N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some Security Council members want to deploy U.N. police to Burundi to help quell the violence and monitor the border between Burundi and Rwanda. The U.N. experts also reported that several Congolese officers told them North Korea has supplied Congolese troops and police with pistols and sent 30 instructors to provide training for the presidential guard and special forces. There is a U.N. arms embargo on North Korea that prevents Pyongyang from importing or exporting weapons and training. An arms embargo on Congo requires states to notify the Security Council sanctions committee of any arms sales or training. The experts said they found that several Congolese army officers, as well as several police deployed abroad in a U.N. mission, appeared to have North Korean pistols. The Congolese officers said the pistols were delivered by North Korea to the Congolese port of Matadi in early 2014. “The group also found that the same type of pistols was available for sale on the black market in Kinshasa,” the report said. The experts said they had asked Pyongyang and Congo for information but had not yet received a response. Congolese and North Korean officials had no immediate comment. Political tension is high in Congo, where opponents of President Joseph Kabila say he is trying to cling to power beyond the end of his mandate in 2016. Kabila has not commented on his future.

north korea;sanctions;congo;unsc;rwanda;burundi;u.n. arms embargo

jp0010720

2016/05/14

Change in the brain: Central nervous system cells finally get the recognition they deserve

As you read this, some 100 billion neurons are transmitting information through electrical and chemical signals via synapses in your brain. Given the central role these cells play in neurological functioning, it’s perhaps not surprising they typically hog the limelight — after all, the signals they transmit lie at the heart of human behavior, from the simplest of movements to the most complex of thoughts. It’s worth noting, however, that complementary cells called astrocytes actually outnumber neurons in the brain. Unfortunately, these star-shaped cells have largely been ignored in neurological research because they don’t fire electrical impulses in the same way that neurons do. Yukiko Goda of the Riken Brain Science Institute in Saitama is helping to correct this. Goda, who was born in Osaka, went to high school in Toronto after her father was transferred to Canada for work. She stayed on to attend the University of Toronto, and then studied at Stanford University in California. She ran a neuroscience lab at University College London for 10 years before taking up her current position at the Brain Science Institute. Goda’s most recent work suggests that astrocytes help to regulate synaptic strength. “We have found an active mechanism that helps to increase variation in synaptic strength,” Goda says. “Surprisingly, it comes from astrocytes, which have previously been thought to play mostly passive roles in the brain.” We often fall into the trap of thinking that the brain is like a computer and we imagine neurons as millions of tiny wires connecting the various parts. However, the brain is more dynamic than that. Every time we perform a certain action, such as ride a bicycle, or remember something, such as the date of someone’s birthday, the connections between our neurons change. This seemingly simple statement has profound implications. For one thing, it suggests that memories change slightly each time we recall them. Experiments have shown that if we have vivid memories that we rate as highly reliable and highly likely to be true, it does not mean they are necessarily real. In one famous study, a cognitive psychologist named Ulric Neisser had students fill out a questionnaire the morning after the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in 1986 on their recollections. In 1988, he had the students complete the same questionnaire. When Neisser compared the answers, he found them to be completely different. Similar comparisons have been done following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, finding complete mismatches between what we are sure we remember and what really happened. Our mind, quite literally, plays tricks on us. It will take a while for the implications of this to change the way our courtrooms work. It may take longer for it to change the way we think about ourselves. Let that sink in for a moment. Who do you think you are? Since the act of remembering, in and of itself, changes our memories, our perception of ourselves, in some sense, changes throughout our lives. This is not like lying to yourself, when you know, deep down, that you are shying away from the truth. It means that, in many cases, our memories may at best be inaccurate and, at worst, completely false. But back, for a moment, to Goda’s latest work (which incidentally has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). When neurons fire, the strength of the connections between them change. Sometimes the impulse is enough to create a whole new connection and, other times, the strength of the connection between neurons is weakened or reinforced. Goda’s team looked at brain cells growing in culture and in slices of the hippocampus, the seahorse-shaped structure in the brain that is heavily involved in memory-formation. The team found that astrocytes in the hippocampus regulate changes in the brain brought on by neural activity. “A deeper understanding of how synaptic communication is regulated will aid in discovering disease mechanisms and developing treatments,” Goda says. “Our work shows that astrocytes could be a potential target of novel therapeutics.” Astrocytes, we are now appreciating, are important in providing maintenance and nutritional support for neurons. However, they are also vital for our experience of consciousness because of the role they play in strengthening the connections between neurons. A couple of years ago, scientists performed a fascinating experiment that vividly demonstrates the power of astrocytes. Immature human brain cells were injected into the brains of baby mice. The cells developed into astrocytes and ousted the native mouse cells. By the time a mouse was 1 year old, its brain was a hybrid of human-derived astrocytes and regular mouse neurons. Now, here’s the crazy thing. Human astrocytes are much larger than mouse astrocytes, which means when they were fitted into the brains of mice, they had the effect of turbo-charging the mice. When the scientists tested mice with standard tests for memory and understanding, the rodents with human astrocytes turned out to be much smarter. In one test designed to measure memory associated with fear, for example, mice with human astrocytes performed far better than mice with regular astrocytes, suggesting their memory was much better. We’ve learned that astrocytes are far more important in the brain than has been appreciated. However, if you remember one thing from reading this column today, remember this — your memory of it is, in all probability, completely unreliable.

neurology;astrocytes;neurons

jp0010721

2016/05/14

Obama's Hiroshima visit sparks 'what if' questions

U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Hiroshima later this month, the first ever by a sitting president, has rekindled the debate on both sides of the Pacific on what happened during the weeks leading up to the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city in the closing days of World War II. Aside from calls for the president to apologize — or not apologize — for the decision made by his predecessor, Harry Truman, 71 years ago, and endless speculation about what the visit means for current politics (read: the fortunes of Shinzo Abe in July’s Upper House election and the fortunes of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in November’s U.S. presidential election), Obama’s visit has amateur and professional historians everywhere reviewing the fateful decisions in Tokyo and Washington that led to the bombing. And, for Kyoto and Osaka, it was indeed fate, and the deliberations of a few men at the highest levels of the American government, that spared both cities from a similar bombing. During a top secret meeting on April 27, 1945, just a few days before Nazi Germany surrendered and ended the war in Europe, a group of senior American military drew up what was one of the first lists of possible targets for America’s atomic bomb, then in the final stages of development. Seventeen different targets were suggested and, while Tokyo Bay was at the top of the list, Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, as well as Hiroshima, were also on it. Just a few weeks later, however, on May 12, 1945, another report from a top secret meeting about atomic bomb targets showed that Kyoto was now No. 1 on the target list, followed by Hiroshima. “From a psychological point of view there is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center for Japan the people are more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon,” the report said. Osaka was not mentioned in this particular report as a possible target. From here, so the story goes, the fates intervened. Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who had honeymooned in Kyoto many years before, ordered that Kyoto be removed from the list. Whether he did it out of fond, personal memories of Kyoto’s cultural treasures or for more geopolitical reasons — such as fears that bombing Kyoto would be used by the Russians, then officially U.S. allies but emerging as postwar rivals, as propaganda and make Japan’s surrender even more difficult to achieve — is something historians continue to debate. Whatever the reasons, Kyoto was dropped from the list. It would only be learned after the war that Kyoto University was involved with a top secret atomic weapons research program, and one wonders that if Washington had known about the research whether the ancient capital would have still been removed from the list. Osaka, by contrast, appears to never have been officially off the potential target list. It has long been believed by some older Osakans that their city was, in fact, the most likely target if Japan had not surrendered and the U.S. had dropped a third atomic bomb. Today, peace groups in Kyoto and Osaka are known nationwide for their citizens’ efforts in calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. While some no doubt wish Obama and the U.S. would apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, others, probably the majority, are more interested in seeing whether his trip will lead to an acceleration in disarmament efforts worldwide. Not only to ensure there are no more Hiroshimas and Nagasakis, but also to ensure no other cities, like Kyoto and Osaka, ever have to read about decisions made elsewhere that, but for fate alone, spared them a similar horror.

wwii;barack obama;osaka;hiroshima;nuclear weapons;world war ii

jp0010722

2016/05/14

Has pacifism always been doomed to fail in Japan?

Japan had a pacifist “constitution” long before 1947, when the current one went into effect. It was issued in the year 604, its author so esteemed, in his own time and since, as to merit the posthumous name Shotoku Taishi (Crown Prince Sage-Virtue). His lifetime (574-622) spanned an early phase of Japan’s astonishing leap from prehistory to history, barbarism to civilization, inchoate nature worship to the Buddhism and Confucianism it was just starting to absorb under the generously proffered, gratefully accepted tutelage of its vast and mighty neighbor, civilization itself to dazzled Japanese eyes — China. Shotoku himself was a great student and sponsor of Chinese learning. Article 1 of his 17-article constitution is Confucian to the core: “Harmony should be valued and quarrels avoided. … When superiors are in harmony with each other and inferiors are friendly, then affairs are discussed quietly and the right view of matters prevails.” Two decades after Shotoku’s death there occurred the famous Taika Reform. Beginning in 645, it transformed Japan — in theory — from a hodgepodge of independent clans into a unified nation, China being the model. “Under the heavens there is no land that is not the emperor’s,” reads a recurring phrase in contemporary annals. Clan leaders, no longer rulers, became bureaucrats, showered with titles and court ranks but stripped of independent power. From now on what authority they wielded was — again, theoretically — exercised in the Emperor’s name, not their own. Article 3 of Shotoku’s constitution provides the framework: “Do not fail to obey the commands of your Sovereign. He is like Heaven, which is above the Earth, and the vassal is like the Earth, which bears up Heaven. When Heaven and Earth are properly in place, the four seasons follow their course and all is well in Nature.” When all is well in Nature, all is well in government, and peace prevails — so Confucius had taught, and so Japan was now learning. And peace did prevail — for 500 years. All this is worth contemplating as Japan today moves toward writing the pacifism out of its current Constitution. The government leading the drive is not against peace; on the contrary, it assures us, it wants to defend peace, which disarmed pacifism, it says, is impotent to do. It’s an ironic paradox — not, however, a nonsensical one. History and politics are full of ironies. Shotoku’s constitution is prelude to Japan’s longest peace. It lasted, almost (not quite) unbroken, through the great cultural flowerings of the Nara Period (710-794) and the Heian Period (794-1185). Then the soldiers took over, and for four centuries Japan was convulsed in war — with itself, for there were no external enemies. Sad, tragic. Was it avoidable? Could Japan, an archipelago defended by stormy seas and geographic remoteness, having once gone pacifist, have remained pacifist? Or was it doomed to fall sooner or later, like almost every other nation, into the cauldron of war? The short answer is: yes, it was doomed. From day one the Taika system was unworkable. It was too Chinese for Japan. China was big, Japan small; China flat, Japan mountainous; China advanced, Japan still backward; China (more or less) egalitarian, Japan jealously aristocratic and sharply hierarchical. “There is no land which is not the emperor’s” — well and good; so it was in China; how could it fail in Japan? It could because of the differences listed above. Japan’s mountains blocked communication and entrenched fiefdoms. Roads were few and poor. Taxation, to a people not used to it, is odious. No central government can function without it, no untamed population will pay it willingly. Behind a veil of high culture and peace, an elaborate system of government slowly crumbled, finally breaking down altogether, the restless warriors — samurai — waiting in the wings to fill the power vacuum. Heian Period literature furnishes some marvelous slapstick parodies of samurai buffoons. To the elegant, effeminate aristocrats who for all those peaceful centuries had everything their own way, warriors, when noticed at all, were strutting clowns, objects of mockery. In the 11th-century classic “The Tale of Genji,” a Kyushu warrior blunders out of his mountain fastness in quest of an exiled court lady of high rank. To prove his worth he tries inditing a poem. What a fiasco! He retreats in disgrace, muttering, “You may look down on us country people, but what’s so great about city people?” The Taika Reform made all land taxable, but what good are decrees that cannot be enforced? What tax revenue accrues from tax-evading taxpayers? None. The Panama Papers leak has thrust the term “tax haven” into the Japanese vocabulary. Heian Japan was one vast tax haven. The first beneficiaries were the great temples and shrines, whose extensive landholdings the newly centralized government exempted from tax lest the monks slacken their prayers against evil spirits threatening the nation. Then as now, riches begot riches. Nobles began “commending” their own estates to temples. Ownership officially transferred, the nobles continued to enjoy their former cultivation rights — tax free. Commendation, sub-commendation, sub-sub-commendation — within a generation the system grew so cumbersome that no one understood it, let alone succeeded in governing it. The great warrior families claimed Imperial descent, their founders’ Imperial younger sons too numerous to fit into the tight little court coterie. For centuries the great warrior clans bided their time, taking sides with this court faction against that, this temple against that — for though Japan knew nothing like the religious bigotry and strife that shaped so much Western history, its priests were militant enough in defense of their lands and tax freedom. Pre-eminent among the samurai clans were the Taira and the Minamoto, offspring of different Imperial branches and, during a 12th-century Imperial succession dispute, supporters of rival pretenders to the throne. Civilian government, rotten to its hollow core, toppled at last. A preliminary defeat of Minamoto by Taira was reversed in renewed fighting 30 years later; 1185 marks the turning point. Japan’s long peace was over. The “way of the warrior” began.

tax;peace;samurai;pacifism;heian period;the tale of genji;nara period;shotoku taishi

jp0010723

2016/05/22

Osaka Ishin in existential crisis as election looms

OSAKA - A year after Osaka city voters rejected Osaka Ishin no Kai’s most fundamental policy proposal in a referendum, the party finds itself heading south. Ever since the referendum, the party has failed to gain traction outside the prefecture, unable to fill the void left by the retirement of its charismatic founder, and heads into the July Upper House election, and a possible simultaneous Lower House election, low in the opinion polls. With the announcement earlier this month that former Osaka Ishin ally-turned-adversary Yoshimi Watanabe, once head of now defunct Your Party, will run with Osaka Ishin backing in the Upper House race, the party hopes to once again create an alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito ruling coalition and traditional opposition parties. But other Osaka Ishin members are concerned that endorsing Watanabe, who in 2014 was accused of breaking the Political Funds Control Law, bringing down Your Party, will alienate voters fed up with money scandals. Aware of the potential backlash, Watanabe insisted last week he was clean. “I was acquitted after a thorough investigation by the (Tokyo) prosecutor’s office,” Watanabe said at a news conference May 16. Osaka Ishin no Kai is the Japanese name of both the national party and local political group, except that the party spells Osaka with hiragana rather than kanji. The other problem, especially for members loyal to Osaka Ishin movement cofounder Toru Hashimoto, who exited local politics in December after finishing his term as mayor, is the fear that Watanabe, a former Lower House veteran with a reputation for being a control freak, will try to take over. Though close at first, Hashimoto accused Watanabe of being “Machiavellian,” and their relations soured. When he announced he would run with Osaka Ishin support, however, Watanabe said he was not seeking a leadership position and said his shared political philosophy with Osaka Ishin was what convinced him to seek its support. “I recognized that Osaka Ishin returned to its political origins to work on local reform and I agree that over-concentration in Tokyo is a problem that needs corrected. I’m just one person, so it doesn’t mean I will be a new power within the party. Such concerns are imaginary,” Watanabe said. Since their push to merge the city of Osaka’s wards was defeated in the May 17, 2015, referendum Osaka Ishin has had few successes. Following Hashimoto’s retirement, Osaka Ishin hasn’t done well at the polls, with a virtually unknown candidate in neighboring Kyoto losing a Lower House by-election last month. During a closed-door party meeting in Osaka on May 14, Hashimoto reportedly warned that the only way Osaka Ishin can survive is to expand its brand, and that unless this happens, it will be in danger of folding. Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui, formerly of the Liberal Democratic Party, is seen in Osaka as less controversial than the independent-minded Hashimoto. But he faces deep public skepticism, and worries within his own party, about whether he can, or even should, attempt to lead a national Ishin movement. The problem of going national starts with the party’s regional name, which includes “Osaka.” Matsui and others want to keep it, but Watanabe dislikes it. Nevertheless, it is unlikely to change before the July poll. In the meantime, Hashimoto, as spiritual head of Osaka Ishin and in his official role as the party’s legal adviser, is attempting to spread its message — a combination of policies to cut costs, privatize public services, curb the power of public-sector unions and achieve more local autonomy from Tokyo. Last week, he traveled to Fukuoka, where he’s always had support, to address the inauguration of Fukuoka Ishin no Kai. Recent media polls meanwhile show the party is continuing to struggle. An Asahi Shimbun survey at the beginning of this month found that only 8 percent of respondents plan to vote for Osaka Ishin in the Upper House election’s proportional representation races. A Yomiuri Shimbun poll a couple weeks ago said only 5 percent would do so. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga are close to the party and still counting on its support to help them achieve their dream of amending the Constitution. But that has not convinced voters nationwide that Osaka Ishin is anything other than a collection of local Osaka politicians loyal to Abe who don’t understand the rest of the country. In recent weeks, Matsui has attempted to reach out to a broader section of the public by criticizing the opposition parties for focusing too much on the divisive new security laws that expand the capabilities of the Self-Defense Forces, saying Osaka Ishin was thinking about other issues. “Just focusing on one issue in the Upper House election isn’t likely to win voter support. What happens to issues like medical care, social welfare services, emergency response measures, public works projects?” Matsui asked local reporters last week. The party is expected to announce its final platform for the pivotal Upper House election by the end of the month, he added.

your party;yoshimi watanabe;osaka ishin no kai;2016 upper house election

jp0010724

2016/05/22

Kyoto's concerns mount over mystery 'minpaku' lodgings

KYOTO - Japan’s huge tourism influx is greatly welcomed by politicians and select local service industries that are benefitting from the boom. But it’s also created a shortage of hotel rooms, leading to the rise of online bookings at private residential establishments, known as minpaku , that fall outside the law on public lodging facilities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the traditional cultural capital of Kyoto. Over the past few years, an increasing number of foreign tourists have found it cheaper, and often easier, to simply book a room in Kyoto via online sites like Airbnb, which can put people up in minpaku accommodations at apartments or houses. That, in turn, has created complaints and concerns among neighborhood residents about everything from noise and garbage in the streets to potential communication problems during emergencies. The extent of the problem became clear earlier this month when Kyoto municipal and ward officials announced the results of a survey of 2,702 houses and apartments offering rooms to tourists online. Of this number, though, the specific location of only 1,260 could be confirmed. The survey revealed that only 189 of these, a mere 7 percent, had permission under the Inns and Hotels Law to operate. Because Kyoto authorities were unable to confirm the exact address of over half the places listed online, they were only able to offer a rough estimate that at least 70 percent of all such private residential rental units in Kyoto were operating without authorization. “There are places undergoing procedures to meet the law. On the other hand, there are a lot of places like one-room apartments in residential zones that have no intention of gaining permission,” said Kyoto Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa last month, just before the survey results were announced. Foreign tourists leaving heaps of trash outside residential buildings and homes is a perennial source of complaints among Kyoto residents, and that was one of the problems identified by the survey. But a greater concern was that residents often have no idea who owns the rooms or houses being rented out. Thus, they have no idea who to contact if there is a problem. This also means they have no one to complain to about , for example, noise coming through the walls late at night, and that they often don’t know who contact in order to confirm that foreign guests know what to do during earthquakes, fires or other events requiring evacuation. Fire and rescue officials have also warned that many places lack adequate fire extinguishers or clearly marked emergency exits. The city has promised to adopt new measures from June to reduce concerns and get as many places as possible to follow the law. But Kyoto is so popular now that complaints about price-gouging are common during peak periods. Thus, foreign tourists on moderate budgets are likely to continue to seek cheaper alternatives in Kyoto’s minpaku scene.

kyoto;tourism;hotels;minpaku

jp0010725

2016/02/03

U.S. groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicts early spring

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PENNSYLVANIA - Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog renowned for his ability to forecast the onset of spring, did not see his shadow after emerging from his burrow on Tuesday morning, predicting an early spring. Phil’s prediction came at about 7:25 a.m. and was met with cheers from a crowd of thousands who participated under a clear sky and 21-degree Fahrenheit (minus 6.1 Celsius) temperatures in the folk tradition that has been embraced by winter-weary Americans for more than a century. According to legend, if Phil sees his shadow on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, the cold weather will not loosen its grip on North America for six weeks. But if the morning is cloudy and no shadow appears, spring-like weather is supposedly around the corner. The event, which typically brings out 30,000 revelers to the small, west-central Pennsylvania town, has become a television staple at the beginning of one of the coldest months of the year in the U.S. Northeast. In addition to the celebrated rodent, the pageant features an entourage of city elders in old-fashioned dress and top hats, presiding over the festivities. The organizer, the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, is touting the 2016 event as “Phil’s 130th prognostication,” although technically it is not the same groundhog every year but one picked to represent the character. Club spokeswoman Katie Donald said 1886 was the first year that the club trekked to Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney and the groundhog delivered a weather forecast. Media coverage of the event started the following year, she said. “We go by the first trek, 1886,” Donald said. The event’s website, Groundhog.org , notes that “groundhogs are one of the few animals that really hibernate. Hibernation is not just a deep sleep. It is actually a deep coma.” This year’s Phil, however, has not whiled away the winter underground like most of his species, also known as woodchucks. Instead, Phil and his handlers from the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle made cameo appearances on Jan. 23 at Pittsburgh’s Penn Brewery for the unveiling of its “Punxsutawney Philsner” draft beer and at a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. While he is still the most famous of the weather-forecasting groundhogs, Phil has had to compete a host of imitators in recent years. New York City, for example, has a groundhog of its own that has generated more than its share of controversy. The 2009 groundhog bit the hand of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg during the annual Feb. 2 ceremony. Five years after that, the groundhog was the injured party, when a groundhog named Charlotte fell hard to the ground after she wriggled out of the grasp of Mayor Bill de Blasio. The animal died of internal injuries a week later. This year de Blasio will skip the event. Instead he is traveling to Iowa to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton ahead of the state’s Feb. 1 nominating caucuses. He will not return to New York until Tuesday evening, his office said, long after the groundhog is out of harm’s way.

u.s .;weather;offbeat

jp0010726

2016/02/03

U.N. expert on freedom of expression to visit Japan in April

A U.N. expert in charge of freedom of expression, whose visit was postponed at the Foreign Ministry’s request, will visit Japan in April, the ministry said Wednesday. David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, will visit Japan from April 12 to 19 to conduct research on the situation over freedom of expression through meetings with government officials and nongovernmental organization, the ministry said. His visit was previously scheduled for last December but the ministry made a request in November for rescheduling. The request drew criticism at the time alleging that the government was seeking to hinder him from taking up such issues as the secrecy law for the prevention of leaks of state secrets. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has said his ministry made the request as it cannot fully respond to his visit due to “budget compilation work.” Under the contentious secrecy law that took effect in 2014, civil servants or others who leak designated secrets will face up to 10 years in prison, and those who instigate leaks, including journalists, will be subject to a prison term of up to five years.

secrecy law;freedom of expression;david kaye

jp0010727

2016/02/02

Nakano Broadway marks 50 years, now known as a center for Japanese cultural memorabilia

Nakano Broadway turns 50 this year. The shopping complex in Tokyo’s busy Nakano district remains popular with enthusiasts of pop culture, boasting dozens of manga, anime and collectors’ shops. The scruffy but vibrant building, housing some 300 shops and restaurants across its five floors, sits at the end of the Nakano Sun Mall shopping street, which is adjacent the north exit of JR Nakano Station. Since the opening of Mandarake Inc. stores at the center in 1980, Nakano Broadway has evolved into a center for enthusiasts of pop subculture, offering everything from cosplay items and old movie posters to figurines, plastic models, toys and used books. There is, of course, a good dosing also of manga publications and anime goods. The Mandarake chain boasts 27 outlets in Nakano Broadway alone. It has a dominant presence in the complex, occupying almost all of the four floor and much of the second and the third floors. As many as 16 non-Japanese staffers are working at Mandarake stores in the complex, offering services in Japanese, English, Chinese and other languages. Zhansaya Baigaziyeva, an employee from Kazakhstan, dresses up in cosplay and offers guided tours of Mandarake stores on Saturdays. These days, however, a surge in the number of foreign tourists has turned the complex into not just a place to go for pop culture goods but also for watches, jewelry and other expensive items sold at duty-free shops. Nakano Broadway’s official website is at www.nbw.jp .

manga;anime;subculture;mandarake;nakano broadway

jp0010728

2016/02/20

Thousands marry in mass South Korea wedding ceremony

GAPYEONG, SOUTH KOREA - About 3,000 couples from 62 countries tied the knot in South Korea on Saturday, in a mass wedding ceremony conducted by the Unification Church founded by the late Reverend Sun Myung Moon. A further 12,000 couples worldwide participated in the ceremony via the Internet, said Ryu Kyeung-seuk, president of the South Korean headquarters of the church. Moon, who died in 2012 at the age of 92, had presided over mass weddings since the early 1960s. His widow, Hak Ja Han Moon, officiated at Saturday’s ceremony, which was witnessed by about 22,000 church followers and guests gathered at the church’s CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, about 75 km (50 miles) northeast of Seoul. The couples included 1,000 who were newly wed and about 2,000 who were already married and seeking to re-dedicate their marriages and families to God as they had married before joining the church. “We’ve been engaged for over one year now, mostly been separated, so of course it’s extremely good to be together again,” said Hyo-joo Song, from Britain, who married his Japanese wife on Saturday. “And yes, we’re happy to be married and also share that experience with many other people.” Moon was a lightning rod for controversy and was once jailed in the United States for tax evasion. He also declared in 1992 that he and his wife were messiahs. Critics over the years have called the organization a cult, questioning its finances and how it indoctrinates followers, who are sometimes derogatorily known as “Moonies.”

south korea;marriage;offbeat

jp0010729

2016/02/20

Stem cells used to replace part of the human brain

Sometimes I imagine famous scientists and doctors from the past magically catching a glimpse of our modern world. Sure it’s fun to picture their gawping faces, but the daydream also helps remind me that we take so much for granted these days. And, in fact, it illustrates the incredible pace of discovery, because you don’t even have to go very far back in time before you are in a completely different era. This week’s contribution is about one such discovery. Scientists at Riken’s Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe have grown a vital part of the human brain from scratch. Well, actually, not quite from scratch. The team have coaxed human embryonic stem cells — essential cells in our body that have the capability to grow into any particular cell — into developing the cell type and structure necessary to replicate a working pituitary gland. Or, as they describe it, a functioning three-dimensional pituitary-like structure. They then transplanted the stem-cell gland into mice without pituitary glands. The mice recovered and went on to live normal lives. You don’t have to imagine telling this to an Edo Period doctor to appreciate what the scientists have done: They’ve grown and replaced part of the brain! “This is an exciting step forward toward our ultimate goal, which is to be able to regrow fully functioning organs in the laboratory,” says Takashi Tsuji, leader of the Center for Developmental Biology’s Laboratory for Organ Regeneration. “We will continue to push ahead with experiments to grow other parts of the body.” The pituitary gland is a pea-sized organ hidden deep in the brain. It produces hormones but also controls the activity of other important hormone-making glands, including the adrenal and thyroid glands. When it doesn’t work properly, people can’t make enough of the growth, sex or stress hormones humans need. A few years ago, the same group at Riken produced a pituitary made of stem cells from mice, but now they’ve managed it with human cells. The mouse organ, produced in 2011 by biologist Yoshiki Sasai, was at the time the most complex organ made from stem cells. Back then, scientists said a human pituitary was still many years away. How wrong could they be? It’s sad that Sasai, who committed suicide in 2014 following the STAP stem-cell scandal involving scientist Haruko Obokata, did not live to see the latest breakthrough by the lab he used to head. In a previous breakthrough in 2011, he also grew a retina — the light-sensing sheet of cells at the back of the eye — from stem cells taken from mice. The retina was hailed as an advance that would pave the way for organ development. Who knows what Sasai would have gone on to discover, but at least his former laboratory is forging ahead following the tragedy of his death. The mice that received the human pituitary had been given lesions on their own pituitary glands. Usually these are fatal as the mice are unable to produce enough key hormones, but the transplant worked to provide the mice with the correct balance of hormones. The mice with the transplant lived three times longer than the ones with the lesions on their pituitaries. Also, since the mice were a special strain without strong immune systems, the human pituitaries were not rejected by the body. Hidetaka Suga, one of the authors of the new report, is reluctant to elaborate on when a lab-grown pituitary might be ready for use in human patients. When asked what other organs his group was working on, he replied, “Sorry, it’s a secret.” That’s intriguing, I thought, wondering if they we re working on a hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is a part of the brain near the pituitary that plays a key role in the operation of the pituitary. It is a vital component of the brain that links the brain and the rest of the nervous system to the endocrine system — the gland system in the body that produces hormones. If the lab-grown pituitary gland is ever used in human patients, scientists will have to find some way of linking it up to the rest of the brain. To test the pituitary gland, they positioned it next to the kidneys of the mice, because it was too difficult to put it back in the brain. For a while, at least, a kidney-based pituitary can operate adequately. However, a long-term solution is still needed to address how the organ communicates with the rest of the brain. That’s why I wonder if the hypothalamus is the “secret” organ that Riken is working on. They might also be working on other parts of the eye, possibly a human retina. A source of synthetic human retinas would be useful in treating a range of diseases and eye conditions. The field is known as regenerative medicine. For many years, regeneration was something we observed in animals such as lizards, which are able to regrow their tail if it falls off, and animals such as sea cucumbers, which can regenerate entire sets of internal organs. However, for the past 20 years or so it has been a branch of medicine that seeks to grow and replace damaged human organs. The potential rewards for success in the field are huge, which is why there is such pressure on researchers to demonstrate a breakthrough. Little by little, however, we are getting there. The pace of discovery is rapid, but not so rapid that these things will happen overnight. However, I always look forward to seeing what comes out of Kobe’s Laboratory for Organ Regeneration.

stem cells;regenerative medicine

jp0010733

2016/02/27

Florida fugitive attempts to hide identity in Ohio by chewing off fingertips

TALLMADGE, OHIO - Police say a fugitive from Tampa, Florida, who did not want to be identified by his fingerprints during a traffic stop in northeast Ohio chewed off his fingertips. Kirk Kelly has been jailed on felony counts of evidence tampering and obstructing official business and misdemeanor charges of falsification and resisting arrest. A message left for his attorney after business hours Friday has not yet been replied to. Police in Tallmadge, Ohio, say Kelly and several other people were put into a cruiser without handcuffs after their vehicle was stopped last weekend and officers thought they smelled drugs. Police say Kelly gave false names while officers tried to identify him. They say they figured out who he was after photos of his tattoos were provided by police in Florida, where he is wanted on firearms and drug charges.

drugs;crime;psychology

jp0010734

2016/02/27

Seven percent of public housing units for disaster victims unoccupied: survey

SENDAI - About 7 percent of public housing units built in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures for people whose homes were destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami were unoccupied as of late January, a Kyodo News survey showed Saturday. A total of 909 units were vacant out of 13,933 apartments or houses provided by 46 municipalities in those three prefectures, and by the prefectural governments of Fukushima and Iwate. The local governments eventually plan to offer 29,105 permanent housing units for rent based on requests from disaster victims. But because of construction delays and other reasons, many have since canceled their applications, finding places to live elsewhere or building their own homes, resulting in the vacancies. The results also underline how difficult it is for local governments to provide services for disaster victims over the long term given it has been nearly five years since the earthquake and tsunami hit. Some applicants have also canceled their application because they need to enter nursing care facilities or they have passed away. Other reasons cited for the vacancies include inconvenient locations and high rent. By prefecture, the vacancy rate stood at 13 percent in Iwate and 5 percent in both Miyagi and Fukushima. By locality, the rate stood at 31 percent in the town of Yamada and 24 percent in the city of Rikuzentakata, both in Iwate Prefecture, and 18 percent in the Miyagi town of Watari. Meanwhile, about 59,000 people still live in temporary housing in the three prefectures, underlining a mismatch between housing supply and demand. Some of those are refusing to move to public housing due to work or family circumstances. In the town of Watari, Miyagi Prefecture, in one 100-unit public housing complex, nearly 40 percent, or 38 apartments, are vacant. It is located where the massive 2011 tsunami swept through the area. “Some people may still be traumatized” from the disaster, according to one resident. “If you take the free bus, you have easy access to a supermarket and the scenery is terrific,” said Tetsuko Ishioka, 75, one of the residents at the public housing. “It’s nice to live here,” she added. Her house was swept away by the tsunami five years ago, but she was determined to stay where she was born and raised. “It’s a waste when (the local government) built such a nice home,” Ishioka sighed. In the Miyagi Prefecture town of Minamisanriku, four of the five public housing units completed in August 2014 remain vacant. Town officials come from time to time to air them out to help maintain them. To fill the vacancies, the Miyagi prefectural government suggested last November that those other than disaster victims should be allowed to rent public housing units. The Miyagi town of Wakuya, where eight units stand vacant, will begin soliciting occupants, possibly in April, becoming the first municipality to do so in the three prefectures. Toshio Otsuki, professor of architectural planning at the University of Tokyo, said change in the willingness of survivors to live in public housing is inevitable and municipalities should come up with ways to make the best use of vacant units.

fukushima;3/11;iwate;miyagi;public housing

jp0010735

2016/02/27

Health ministry panel urges allowing foreign caregivers to engage in elderly home care

A health ministry panel compiled plans Friday aimed at allowing potential foreign caregivers entering Japan under bilateral free trade agreements to take care of elderly patients at their homes. The move to expand work opportunities for the foreign caregivers — currently limited to working in nursing care homes and other facilities — comes as the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry aims to address the acute labor shortage in Japan’s nursing care sector and its rapidly graying population. The government may implement the proposal in fiscal 2017, sources familiar with the matter said. The panel said in its report that the caregivers should be allowed to engage in home care after passing the national qualification examination. Foreign caregivers should be eligible to provide services for the elderly at their homes as long as they know the Japanese language and have a certain level of practical experience, the panel said, citing the need to avoid incidents that could be triggered by the language barrier. Japan accepts caregivers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam under bilateral free trade agreements, but they must sit for certification tests to continue working in Japan. Around 2,100 trainees have arrived in Japan from the three Southeast Asian countries since fiscal 2008. Under the bilateral deals, the current length of stay for prospective caregivers, who study for the exams while working at nursing care facilities, is four years. So far, more than 300 have passed the exams. Nursing care facility operators welcomed the move, saying it will give more opportunities for them to work. “If they have the ability to pass the test on nursing care and Japanese language, there should be no problem for them to work here,” said Takeshi Kameo, who heads a care facility in the town of Yoichi, Hokkaido, which has accepted six Filipino nurses since 2009. But of the six, two had returned to their home country due to marriage and other reasons, he said, adding that there aren’t many who stay long term.

epa;caregivers;nursing

jp0010737

2016/02/16

Argentine alien festival soars at UFO sighting site hotspot

CAPILLA DEL MONTE, ARGENTINA - Thousands of earthlings descended on Capilla del Monte for an annual international alien festival that has made the town a hotspot for UFO sightings. The weekend festival in Cordoba province included a parade of neon lights with “Star Wars” characters, an alien costume contest and shops selling green stuffed aliens with bulging eyes next to hooded ETs from the 1982 film. Some also attended workshops on everything extraterrestrial held near a local hill that is the site of a purported UFO sighting 30 years ago. The incident reputedly left a large burning mark on the hill’s grass. The sighting also left a mark in the economy of the town, which has flourished with its alien tourism. “People come here for the energy, for the UFO sightings,” said Leonardo Fuentes, a visitor from Chile. “So it’s not just tourism but more about all that you can see.” The festival, now in its fourth year, has become popular among alien enthusiasts worldwide, but some locals are concerned about its fast growth. “The festival is fun, but it can also generate a lack of seriousness toward the issue,” said Luz Mary Lopez, who heads the UFO Investigation Center in Capilla del Monte. Her late husband made the investigation of the town’s UFO sightings his life’s work. Lopez has continued this by offering talks on the events of Jan. 9, 1986, when a local boy saw what many believe to be an alien spaceship. She also has been asking authorities to go beyond tourism to develop the town as a scientific and spiritual hub. One of the most visited sites during the weekend festival was the nearby Uritorco hill. Known as Argentina’s “magic mountain,” it is sought after by star-gazers, seekers of its “special source of energy” credited for the UFO sightings, and even those who believe it is a door to other dimensions.

argentina;tourism;aliens;offbeat

jp0010738

2016/02/17

First U.N. chief from Africa Boutros Boutros-Ghali dies at 93

CAIRO - Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a veteran Egyptian diplomat who helped negotiate his country’s landmark peace deal with Israel but then clashed with the United States when he served a single term as U.N. secretary-general, died Tuesday. He was 93. Boutros-Ghali, the scion of a prominent Egyptian Christian political family, was the first U.N. chief from the African continent. He stepped into the post in 1992 at a time of dramatic world changes, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a unipolar era dominated by the United States. His five years at the helm remain controversial. He worked to establish the U.N.’s independence, particularly from the United States, at a time when the world body was increasingly called on to step into crises with peacekeeping forces, with limited resources. Some blame him for misjudgments in the failures to prevent genocides in Africa and the Balkans and mismanagement of reform in the world body. After years of frictions with the Bill Clinton administration, the United States blocked his renewal in the post in 1996, making him the only U.N. secretary-general to serve a single term. He was replaced by Ghanaian Kofi Annan. In a U.N. Security Council session Tuesday, the 15 members held a moment of silence upon news of his death Tuesday in a hospital in the Egyptian capital. He had been admitted after suffering a broken pelvis, Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper reported last week. “The mark he has left on the organization is indelible,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. He said Boutros-Ghali “brought formidable experience and intellectual power to the task of piloting the United Nations through one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.” Ban pointed to Boutros-Ghali’s landmark 1992 report “An Agenda for Peace,” a proposal for how the U.N. could respond to and prevent conflict. Many of his proposals are still used by the United Nations. In his farewell speech to the U.N., Boutros-Ghali said he had thought when he took the post that the time was right for the United Nations to play an effective role in a world no longer divided into warring Cold War camps. “But the middle years of this half decade were deeply troubled,” he said. “Disillusion set in.” In a 2005 interview with The Associated Press, Boutros-Ghali called the 1994 massacre in Rwanda — in which half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days — “my worst failure at the United Nations.” But he blamed the United States, Britain, France and Belgium for paralyzing action by setting impossible conditions for intervention. Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and other world leaders were opposed to taking strong action to beef up U.N. peacekeepers in the tiny Central African nation or intervening to stop the massacres. “The concept of peacekeeping was turned on its head and worsened by the serious gap between mandates and resources,” he told AP. The Bosnian War also brought the same contentious mix of issues: U.N. peacekeeping, world powers’ intervention and limits, and the need to protect civilians from atrocities. During a December 1992 visit to Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo, under a brutal Serbian siege, he insisted to angry local journalists that upcoming peace talks were the solution and told them he knew of at least 10 places where conditions were far worse than Sarajevo — the sort of answer that deepened his reputation for arrogance. He and the U.N. came under further fire after Serb forces massacred 8,000 Muslims in July 1995 in Srebrenica under the eyes of a U.N. force that was supposed to be enforcing a safe zone. His legacy was also stained by investigations into corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq, which he played a large role in creating. Three suspects in the probe were linked to him either by family relationship or friendship. Boutros-Ghali frequently took vocal stances that angered the Clinton administration — such as his strong criticism of Israel after the 1996 shelling of U.N. camp in Lebanon that killed some 100 refugees. In writings after leaving the U.N., he accused Washington of using the world body for its own political purposes and said U.S. officials often tried to directly control his actions. He wrote in his 1999 book “Unvanquished” that he “mistakenly assumed that the great powers, especially the United States, also trained their representatives in diplomacy and accepted the value of it. But the Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Neither does the United States.” Noted for his dignified bearing and Old World style, Boutros-Ghali was the son of one of Egypt’s most important Coptic Christian families. His grandfather, Boutros Ghali Pasha, was Egypt’s prime minister from 1908 to 1910. Born Nov. 14, 1922, Boutros-Ghali studied in Cairo and Paris and became an academic, specialized in international law. In 1977, then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat named him minister of state without portfolio, shortly before Sadat’s landmark visit to Israel to launch peace negotiations. Sadat’s rapprochement with Israel brought harsh criticism from across Egypt’s political spectrum. His foreign minister, Ismail Fahmi, resigned in protest. So Sadat turned to Boutros-Ghali, naming him acting foreign minister and minister of state for foreign affairs. Boutros-Ghali played a major role in subsequent negotiations that produced the Camp David peace framework agreements in September 1978 and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in March 1979, the first such between an Arab state and Israel. Israelis considered Boutros-Ghali a hawkish negotiator. But he also staunchly defended Egypt’s peace efforts against Arab opposition. At one African summit, he retorted to Algerian criticism, saying, “Algeria wants to fight Israel to the last Egyptian soldier.” President Hosni Mubarak, who succeeded Sadat in October 1981, kept Boutros-Ghali as minister of state but didn’t promote him to foreign minister. Putting a Christian to the post was considered too controversial. After leaving the United Nations, Boutros-Ghali served from 1998 to 2002 as secretary-general of La Francophonie — a grouping of French-speaking nations. In 2004, he was named the president of Egypt’s new human rights council, a body created by Mubarak amid U.S. pressure to adopt democratic reforms. He was married to Lea, an Egyptian Jew. They have no children.

israel;egypt;u.n .;obituary;cold war;bosnia;rwanda;bill clinton;boutros boutros-ghali

jp0010739

2016/02/17

'Grim Sleeper' serial killer trial gets underway in LA with graphic victim photos

LOS ANGELES - Their bodies were dumped in alleys and garbage bins in south Los Angeles, some naked, some covered with mattresses and trash. Most had been fatally shot in the chest after some type of sexual contact, others strangled. As prosecutor Beth Silverman showed photo after photo of the 10 victims to a packed courtroom on Tuesday, family members of the dead young women shook as they wept. Some covered their faces, others had to walk out. It was an emotional beginning to the long-awaited “Grim Sleeper” trial, which comes more than 30 years since the first victim’s death. Lonnie Franklin Jr. has pleaded not guilty to killing nine women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 2007 in one of the city’s most notorious serial killer cases. The “Grim Sleeper” nickname was coined because of an apparent 14-year gap in the murders between 1988 and 2002. Franklin, 63, has been awaiting trial behind bars for nearly six years since his arrest in July 2010. The trial is expected to last up to four months. In opening statements to jurors Tuesday, Silverman said Franklin took advantage of the crack cocaine epidemic in south Los Angeles, targeting women “willing to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their dependency on this powerful drug.” Autopsies showed all but one victim had cocaine in their systems when they were killed, and some had turned to prostitution. “This was the perfect opportunity for someone who preyed on women,” Silverman said. “Someone who knew the streets and the dark alleys by heart, someone who lived there and was able to blend in, someone who knew where the drug-addicted women and perhaps prostitutes would congregate and who knew how to lure potential victims into the darkness and the isolation of a vehicle through the promise of crack.” Silverman continued: “It was the perfect place and time for a serial killer to roam the streets of Los Angeles, really without detection.” Franklin’s attorney, Seymour Amster, won’t deliver his opening statements until later in the trial. Last week, Amster told The Associated Press that “it’s not over until it’s over.” “There’s more to it than people want to believe,” Amster said. “It’s up to the prosecution to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.” As many as 30 detectives investigated the Grim Sleeper killings in the 1980s, but they exhausted leads within a few years. A special squad of detectives was assembled after the most recent known Grim Sleeper killing, the June 2007 shooting of Janecia Peters, 25, whose naked body was found in the fetal position inside a trash bag. Police arrested Franklin in July 2010 after his DNA was connected to more than a dozen crime scenes. An officer posing as a busboy at a pizza parlor got DNA samples from dishes and utensils Franklin had been eating with at a birthday party. Family members of the Grim Sleeper victims and a survivor of the attacks have been frustrated by repeated delays in the case and were eager for the opening statements. The Grim Sleeper was among at least three serial killers who stalked Los Angeles-area women during a crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. The attacks were dubbed the “Southside Slayer” killings before authorities concluded more than one attacker was involved. Chester Turner has been convicted of killing 14 women, including one who was pregnant, and was sentenced to death in 2007. Michael Hughes was sentenced to death in 2012 for strangling a 15-year-old girl and two women. He previously got life for four killings.

serial killer;dna;los angeles;grime sleeper

jp0010740

2016/02/17

No documents confirm military coerced 'comfort women,' Japan envoy tells U.N.

GENEVA - Japan has found no documents confirming that the “comfort women” were forcefully recruited by military or government authorities, a Japanese envoy told a U.N. panel Tuesday. Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama made that claim during a session in Geneva of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The belief that women were forced into sexual servitude is based on the false accounts of the late Seiji Yoshida, Sugiyama said. Yoshida claimed to have forcibly taken women from the island of Jeju, then under Japanese colonial rule and now part of South Korea, and forced them into sexual labor for the Japanese military before and during World War II. The Asahi Shimbun in 2014 retracted articles that reported Yoshida’s accounts, Sugiyama noted. He also briefed the U.N. committee on the historic Japan-South Korean accord reached in December to “finally and irreversibly” resolve the protracted dispute over Korean women who were procured for Japan’s wartime military brothels. At the outset of his statement at the U.N. panel, Sugiyama said Japan will have a leading role in making the 21st century a time when women’s human rights are not violated. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official on Wednesday rebutted Sugiyama’s claims. “It’s a historical fact and has been recognized by the international community that (the comfort women) were forcefully recruited,” the official said. “We urge Japan to refrain from words and deeds that could impair the spirit of the agreement (between South Korea and Japan on the comfort women) late last year,” the official said. The panel is tasked with monitoring nations’ compliance with the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. It is scheduled to issue its findings March 7 regarding Japan and other nations under review.

wwii;u.n .;south korea;comfort women;japan;shinsuke sugiyama

jp0010741

2016/02/10

Do you want fries with that? Man charged with throwing alligator into fast food restaurant

ROYAL PALM BEACH, FLORIDA - A Florida fast food restaurant got a customer it was not expecting when a live alligator was tossed through a drive-thru window by a patron. Joshua James, 23, of Jupiter, Florida, had wanted to play a practical joke on a friend working at the Wendy’s restaurant in Royal Palm Beach when he decided to hurl the reptile into the building, his parents told local broadcaster WPTV. “It was a stupid prank,” Linda James said. James faces charges of aggravated assault, and unlawful possession and transportation of an alligator, WPTV said. The incident took place in October. James found the 3-foot (nearly 1-meter) alligator on the side of the road and led the reptile into his truck, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission incident report cited by the station. He drove to the Wendy’s restaurant and placed an order, received a drink at the drive-thru window, and then threw the alligator through the opening, it said. The report contains a photo of the alligator sitting on the floor of the restaurant, WPTV reported. The alligator was released back into the wild.

u.s .;animals;offbeat

jp0010742

2016/02/19

Japanese team finds new way to create, research Parkinson's stem cells

Researchers from Juntendo and Keio universities have come up with a quicker and easier way to generate iPS cells from people with Parkinson’s disease, a discovery they claim will go a long way in developing a cure for the neurological disease. In a paper published Friday in the journal Stem Cell Reports, researchers led by Nobutaka Hattori and Hideyuki Okano report they have established a technology to study a large number of patients by using iPS cells derived from their blood. The key lies in their success in turning the cells into neural stem cells more efficiently, which lets them monitor how the disease progresses in test tubes. They can also study how they react to chemicals, bringing a cure closer. “This method will allow us to use iPS cells derived from several thousand Parkinson’s disease patients treated at Juntendo University in order to study the disease mechanism,” the universities said in a statement. “We aim to create a ‘Parkinson’s Disease iPS Cell Bank’ at a scale never seen anywhere else in the world.” Induced pluripotent stem cells are traditionally made from skin cells, requiring patients to go through a biopsy. Taking blood samples is less invasive as it leaves no scars, but blood-derived cells are harder to convert to neurons. The researchers said they overcame this by culturing the iPS cells under certain conditions, such as in a low-oxygen environment, and converting them to neurons more efficiently. While traditional methods require 30 to 50 days for iPS cells to become neurons, the new method can achieve this in a week or two, said Wado Akamatsu, a professor at the Center for the Genomic and Regenerative Medicine of Juntendo University. According to the Japan Intractable Diseases Information Center, 100,000 people in Japan have Parkinson’s, and the number is expected to surge as the population grays. While a tremor is the most typical symptom, the disorder is also known to cause stiffness and slow movement. Although there are many theories about the causes, none has ever been proved and many mysteries remain. Around 10 percent of the disorder is genetic, while the rest is caused by environmental factors, Juntendo’s Hattori said.

medicine;ips;disease;parkinson 's disease;keio university;juntendo university

jp0010743

2016/02/19

New treatment keeps liver transplant patients healthy without immunosuppressants: Japanese researchers

Seven out of 10 people who were administered specially treated lymphocytes shortly after undergoing living-donor liver transplants at Hokkaido University Hospital have remained in good health without having to rely on immunosuppressive drugs, researchers said Thursday. Currently, patients who undergo organ transplants have to take immunosuppressants for the rest of their life. Such drugs can bring a variety of side effects, including increased risks of infections, cancers and organ failures. In a pilot study covering 10 people in their 30s through their 60s, researchers at Hokkaido University and Juntendo University drew what’s called “regulatory T cells,” which control autoimmunity and influence the response of the immune system, from patients’ blood, cultured them and injected them back into their bodies. These enriched regulatory T cells worked to maintain the necessary immunological functions for seven of the 10 patients. Of the seven, four have survived without immunosuppressive drugs for more than three years, and the remaining three have survived for more than two years, the researchers told a news conference in Sapporo. The other three have had to be given immunosuppressants because reducing their doses worsened their conditions, but the total amount of drugs used has been smaller than normal, they added. The results of the pilot study were published in the online edition of the journal Hepatology on Jan. 16. “This is great news for organ transplant recipients,” said Hiroshi Shimono, director of Osaka-based nonprofit group Japan Transplant Recipients Organization. “This could greatly improve the quality of life for the patients, who often must use several immunosuppressive drugs. The financial burden for those drugs is huge, too. We want to see more patients try the new therapy, so it would be established as a solid method and eventually expanded to transplantation of organs other than livers.” In Japan, around 400 liver transplants from living donors take place annually for end-stage liver failure patients, according to the research team. The team is also considering collaborating with overseas researchers on the method’s use on liver transplants from brain-dead donors.

hokkaido university;liver transplants;juntendo university;regulatory t cells;lymphocytes;immunosuppressants

jp0010744

2016/02/21

As residents and reactors age, Fukui's fortunes fade

OSAKA - On a gray winter day late last month alternating between rain and sleet, many in the Sea of Japan town of Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, were feeling sunny. For the restart of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama plant No. 3 reactor means not only a return to nuclear power, but a return of the money stream that flows from it. Since 1970, Fukui has been the home of the largest concentration of nuclear power plants in Japan — and possibly the world — hosting a total of 13 commercial reactors. For the past 4½ decades, the plants, spread across the towns of Tsuruga, Mihama, Takahama and Oi, provided local employment and an array of other benefits. When the reactors were shut down every 13-16 months for routine inspections, it was a bonanza for local businesses. A flood of Kepco employees, safety inspectors and nuclear-power related specialists arrived, filling up local hotels and spending money in area cafes, restaurants and bars. At the same time, the plants provided numerous part-time jobs for local farmers and fishermen who wanted to supplement their incomes. Many of these jobs were hard, dirty and dangerous, but welcomed. Of course, there were also the guaranteed subsidies from the central government that came with hosting the plants — money used to build civil engineering infrastructure and sway public opinion. Elderly Fukui residents recall that, 40 years ago, it was not unheard of for the central government and Kepco to subsidize “nuclear power study tours” for select local leaders and citizens, whisking them away to countries embracing atomic energy such as France. But even with the Takahama No. 3 reactor’s restart after sitting idle for years since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster — and with No. 4 waiting in the wings to be rebooted despite a radioactive water leak announced Saturday — Fukui still faces an uncertain economic future. Earlier this month, Kepco announced decommissioning plans for the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at its Mihama plant and Japan Atomic Power Co. announced plans for scrapping the No. 1 reactor at its Tsuruga plant. By 2024, JAPC intends to have removed all fuel from the Tsuruga reactor, and plans to finish tearing down the reactor itself and its associated facilities by 2039. Kepco also announced plans to begin decommissioning its Mihama reactors in the next fiscal year, and expects the work to take three decades. The Tsuruga reactor’s decommissioning will take place in three stages, and is expected to cost just over ¥36 billion. Decommissioning at Kepco’s Mihama reactors is expected to total ¥68 billion. For local governments, decommissioning presents a dilemma. On the one hand, there is the issue of safety, especially the disposal of high-level radioactive material, where pressure is on the utilities to clean up quickly. “We don’t want JAPC to fixate on a schedule for the spent fuel, but, rather get rid of it as soon as possible,” said Tsuruga Mayor Takanobu Fuchikami, following the announcement. On the other hand, even decommissioning work offers the possibility of local employment. However, like the rest of the country, Fukui’s workforce is aging rapidly, raising questions about who will do the often gruelling and dangerous work. A prefectural survey released in January 2015 showed that two-thirds of the workers in Tsuruga, Mihama, Takahama and Oi were employed in the waterworks, gas and utility, and the service industries. The same survey also revealed that between 23 and 29 percent of workers in each of the four cities were over the age of 65. Alarmed at the aging population and worried they will be abandoned, local leaders in Fukui are trying to convince the central government that it must take care of the local economy, and not just the nuclear plants. “After the reactors have finished operating, what’s necessary is not simply to think about decreasing subsidies, but to pass new laws and create a new framework for local industrial revitalization,” Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa told central government officials. The extent, and speed, of economic assistance will at least partially depend on Fukui’s political power in the halls of the Diet — and Fukui does have powerful friends in Tokyo. Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Tomomi Inada, a right-wing heavyweight and close aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, represents Fukui’s No. 1 district — the one without nuclear power plants, including the city of Fukui. There, the major political concern is not nuclear power subsidies but whether Inada can use her influence to get the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line extended from Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, to the city of Fukui by 2020, cutting travel time to Tokyo via Nagano just in time for the Tokyo Olympics. Meanwhile, Abe’s minister for reconstruction in the Tohoku region, and the man in charge of coordinating policy for revival after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, is Tsuyoshi Takagi, who represents Fukui’s No. 2 district, home to all of its power plants. But with Fukui’s reactors aging as fast, if not faster, than its population, the amount of economic assistance required to both care for the elderly and keep the local economy going is likely to increase. Scrapping more reactors will surely be a necessity in the coming years, as the Takahama Nos. 3 and 4 reactors are now over 30 years old. While such work will bring a steady stream of income to the services industries, officials and residents within Fukui are well aware it will not bring back the economic glory days when Fukui was known nationwide as Japan’s Genpatsu (nuclear power) Ginza .

energy;nuclear power;fukui;kansai electric;takahama

jp0010745

2016/02/08

Pakistan military blankets area as China port construction underway

GWADAR, PAKISTAN - A heavy police presence, guarded convoys, new checkpoints and troop reinforcements have turned parts of the southern port city of Gwadar into a fortress, as Pakistan’s powerful military seeks to protect billions of dollars of Chinese investment. Securing the planned $46 billion economic corridor of roads, railways and pipelines from northwest China to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast is a huge challenge in a country where Islamist militants and separatist gunmen are a constant menace. The armed forces and interior ministry have sent hundreds of extra soldiers and police to Gwadar, the southern hub of the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and more are on their way. “Soon we’ll start hiring 700-800 police to be part of a separate security unit dedicated to Chinese security, and at a later stage a new security division would be formed,” Jafer Khan, regional police officer in Gwadar told Reuters. A senior security official in the town of around 100,000 people said a further 400-500 soldiers had been recruited as a temporary measure to protect Chinese nationals. On a recent visit, an SUV carrying Chinese visitors was escorted by two police cars and an army vehicle, while police blocked traffic at every crossroad along the route. It was not clear who the passengers were. Keeping foreign workers and executives safe in Gwadar, which has expanded significantly over the last 15 years largely thanks to Chinese investment, is relatively straightforward. The same cannot be said of the corridor as a whole. Its western branch passes north through Baluchistan province, where ethnic Baluch separatist rebels are opposed to the CPEC project and chafing under a military crackdown. It skirts the tribal belt along the Afghan-Pakistan border where Islamist militant groups including the Pakistan Taliban and al-Qaida have long been based, and takes in Peshawar, scene of some of the worst insurgent atrocities of recent years. The main responsibility for securing the corridor, vital to Pakistan’s long-term prosperity, lies with a new army division established in the last few months and numbering an estimated 13,000 troops. Pakistan’s Planning Ministry does not yet have specific estimates on how many jobs the CPEC will create in Pakistan, although officials believe the project could generate hundreds of billions of dollars for the economy over the long term. Some of the police, army and paramilitary reinforcements deployed in the last year have been stopgap measures while the new Special Security Division builds to full strength. Enhanced security goes beyond Gwadar and across Baluchistan, an arid, sparsely populated province bordering Iran and Afghanistan which sits on substantial deposits of untapped natural gas. “We have tightened our security in those areas where the corridor is supposed to pass. We cannot allow Pakistan’s economic backbone to be held hostage,” Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, the provincial home minister, said. The tough approach means anger is growing among separatist rebels and the broader Baluch community, a potential problem for the military as it pursues a two-pronged approach: amnesty for rebels willing to disarm and hunting down those who are not. “We consider the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as . . . an occupation of Baluch territory,” said rebel spokesman Miran Baluch, a member of the Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF), adding its fighters would attack anyone working on the project. “Thousands of Baluch families have been forced to flee the area where the CPEC route is planned. Baluch will not tolerate such projects on their land.” The low-level insurgency has hit development in the province for decades. In recent violence, five soldiers were killed by a remote-controlled bomb some 50km east of Quetta last month. Also in January, two coast guards died in a bomb blast in Gwadar district, although in both cases it was not possible to determine who was behind the attacks. Army chief General Raheel Sharif, who launched a prolonged assault on Islamist militants after Taliban gunmen massacred 134 pupils at a school in Peshawar in late 2014, will hope a sharp fall in violence nationwide will also benefit the CPEC. Militant, insurgent and sectarian groups carried out 625 attacks across Pakistan in 2015, down 48 percent from 2014, said an independent think tank, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies. “Once people find they have a stake in this progress, the need for check posts and barricades will disappear,” he said this month in Quetta, as he and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif officially launched a new highway linking the city with Gwadar. The Pakistan Taliban recently threatened to target important government and military installations that could inflict economic loss on the country, although they did not talk specifically about the CPEC. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said progress so far on the corridor was “generally speaking, quite smooth.” “The Pakistani government has done a great deal of work to protect the security of Chinese organizations and citizens. China is deeply thankful for this,” Lu added.

china;pakistan;insurgencies

jp0010746

2016/02/08

Glass ceiling yet to be broken in Japan politics

Japan will this year mark 70 years since the nation saw women win Lower House seats for the first time in April 1946. Since then, however, the country has failed to make much progress in increasing female ranks in the Diet and lags far behind other industrialized nations when it comes to closing the political gender gap. Despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pet policy to create a society “where all women can shine,” male chauvinism dominates Japan’s political arena. Here are questions and answers on the gender balance in Nagata-cho, Japan’s political district, and hurdles female candidates face when running for a national election. What is the female representation in the Diet? As of Feb. 2, women held 45 seats in the powerful Lower House, accounting for a mere 9.5 percent in the 475-seat chamber. The figure is only six seats, or 1.1 points up, from the 39 seats won by women in the 1946 Lower House election. By party, the Japanese Communist Party has the highest ratio of female decision-makers, at 28.6 percent of all JCP Lower House members, followed by the Democratic Party of Japan at 12.7 percent and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito at 8.6 percent. In the 242-seat Upper House, the percentage is slightly better with women holding 38 seats, or 15.7 percent of the total. How does this compare with other countries? Japan has one of the worst levels of political gender equality among developed countries. According to a 2015 survey by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the percentage of female lower house members, Japan was ranked 119th among 190 countries — lower than China, at 58th, and North Korea, at 88th. As of December, IPU data show about 22.7 percent of lawmakers around the world were women, about 10 percentage points higher than Japan. Mari Miura, a political science professor at Sophia University and a gender equality expert, said many countries that have a much higher percentage of female lawmakers than Japan have implemented gender quota systems to raise the ratio of women. She said it was about time that Japan followed suit. “Female lawmakers won’t increase by waiting for things to turn around naturally,” she said. Explaining that the latest worldwide push is to bring up the percentage of female lawmakers to 50 percent, Miura said Japan will lag even further behind other countries if it does not take concrete measures to seriously reverse the situation. What are the hurdles to increasing female MP ranks? Observers say one of the major reasons behind the wide gap between female and male decision-makers is the traditional conservative “men at work, women at home” mindset many people still carry today. While married men usually get full-fledged support from their wives during election campaigns, many female candidates find themselves without such help from their spouses, they said. Also, due to a lack of understanding, female candidates often face criticism from voters for running for an election when their priority should be homemaking or raising children. “People have this mindset that politics is the prime example of public work, and that is (the) men’s job,” Miura of Sophia University said. Women also tend to lack the financial resources necessary for running for a national election when compared to men, she said. Koji Nakakita, professor of political science at Hitotsubashi University, also pointed out the lack of enthusiasm among Japan’s major political parties, especially the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to increase female ranks in the Diet. What measures should Japan adopt to close the political gender gap? Experts say a quota system is effective. Although some people criticize this method, saying it would give women an unfair advantage and could possibly field poorly qualified female candidates just to fill a required number, experts said that without such decisive legislative reform Japan will never be able to achieve the global standard for gender equality. Miura of Sophia University also pointed out that men have long enjoyed privileges, such as the full support and understanding of their families and voters, and decisive legislative reform is necessary to change the political landscape. “Parliaments should reflect the diversity of society. Otherwise the decision-making process will be distorted,” Miura said. In the past, Japan New Party, headed by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, adopted a gender quota to make the ratio of female party members more than 20 percent. But the party disbanded in December 1994, about two years after its launch. Is anything being done now in the Diet to rectify the situation? A cross-party group of nearly 60 Diet members, headed by DPJ member Masaharu Nakagawa, is planning to submit a bill revising the election law to the current Diet session ending June 1, before the Upper House election. The bill urges efforts be made to field the same number of female and male candidates. Although it is not an obligation, observers said voters can see how serious each party addresses the issue by looking at the ratio of female candidates, and that could pressure the parties to make an effort on the issue. Whether the bill will get enough support to clear the Diet is yet to be seen.

gender;women;diet;politics;discrimination

jp0010747

2016/02/01

Brazilian pets parade in their own four-footed Carnival

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian canines allowed their people to dress them in masks and costumes Sunday for a four-legged Carnival just days before the humans will hold their own party. A white-haired lap dog was dressed as a court jester for the gathering of dozens of pets in Rio de Janeiro. A medium-sized pooch was the superhero Flash with yellow wings on the side of its head. A tiny black dog wore insect-like antennas. Two beauties with long white hair sported the Olympic rings on their heads. The celebration started with the Banda Vira-lata, which means “Street Dog Band” in Portuguese, announcing the beginning of the festivities. People gathered with their dressed-up dogs at the edge of Copacabana beach for the annual “blocao,” or block party, for pets. While the band played a samba, the four-legged carnival celebrants paraded under Rio’s blazing sun. “Always by their owner’s side, always a loyal friend . . . arf, arf, arf,” a band member sang. “The ‘blocao’ is animal!” the singer added in the song describing how great the party was. People strutted by with dogs costumed as heroes such as Zorro as well as wizards and bees. During the two-hour pet parade, the pooches had the chance to play with their canine friends while the samba band members sang: “It’s carnival and the party is animal!”

brazil;dogs

jp0010748

2016/02/01

U.S. presidential contenders vow status quo in Japan ties

With the Iowa caucus Monday, the primary voting process that will select Democratic and Republican candidates to run in the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election has begun. Over the next four months, American, and international, attention will be focused on the primary races, and who emerges as their party’s standard-bearer. The election is being closely watched in Japan, as well, for its impact on bilateral relations as well as what a new U.S. president might mean for Japan’s role in East Asia, especially in terms of military security and regional trade. Who are the main candidates? For the Democrats, there are two: former Secretary of State and ex-New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. For the Republicans, there are, on any given day, five or six candidates who get a lot of attention in foreign policy circles and/or the media. They include business mogul Donald Trump, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. (and brother of former President George W. Bush) Jeb Bush, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and former CEO of Hewlett Packard Carly Fiorina. What are their policies with regard to Japan? Although none has laid out a detailed proposal for how a given candidate’s administration would work with Japan, the rivals’ general statements so far, with the exception of Trump and, to a lesser extent, Sanders, are probably best described as Washington status-quo thinking on military issues, but divided on trade issues, especially the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement. Clinton is the most experienced candidate in terms of dealing with Japan, and her philosophy differs little from some Republicans. As Secretary of State, she was a strong advocate of a U.S. “rebalance” (formerly a U.S. “pivot”) to Asia, and has called the U.S.-Japan alliance the “cornerstone” of America’s regional engagement. As president, she would seek to strengthen U.S.-Japanese military cooperation, as well as bilateral cooperation on a host of political, strategic, and economic issues. Her main challenger, Sanders, has said little about foreign policy in general, making him the target of criticism by foreign policy experts who want a strong U.S. military presence abroad and charge that he’s an isolationist. On Asia, however, Sanders has indicated that he sees China as a potential threat and has said that the U.S. must work with the international community to stop it from building up its military. On the Republican side, Jeb Bush said he views Japan and South Korea, as well as Australia, as important allies, and that relations with all will need to be strengthened. His foreign policy advisers include a number of people who served with his brother. He has called for increased defense spending to counter China, especially in the area of cyberwarfare. Perhaps the Republican candidate who has said the most about U.S.-Japan relations so far is Rubio. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last April, around the time Prime Minister Shinzo Abe addressed the U.S. Congress, Rubio said the U.S.-Japan alliance was at the center of America’s efforts to counter an increasingly belligerent China, to realize the TPP agreement, and to settle “disputes based on the rule of law, not usurpation of land, military expansionism and conflict.” In August, Rubio said the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea belong to Japan. Cruz, on the other hand, has indicated that while he is concerned, along with other countries in Asia, about China’s territorial ambitions, American allies like Japan need to do more. This suggests his view of U.S. military alliances in Asia, and the U.S. role in them, might be more limited than what either Clinton or some of the other Republicans envision. Fiorina has made comments that indicate she’d take a tough stance toward China, and that she has strongly hawkish foreign policy views. She’s said she would engage in a large military buildup and invest more money in supporting allies like Japan, especially in the area of cybersecurity. Carson has said little about Japan. What about Republican front-runner Trump? Trump has made a number of statements that have infuriated foreign policy experts and raised concern in the U.S. and Japan. In December, he told a group of supporters that the U.S.-Japan relationship was unfair because if somebody attacked Japan, the U.S. would “have to immediately go and start World War III. If (the U.S.) gets attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. Somehow, that doesn’t sound so fair.” Yet despite the criticism from many quarters, that sentiment is widely shared among American politicians and policymakers (and many in Japan) who pushed for Japan to revise its collective self-defense measures last year. How do candidates view the TPP? Trump and Sanders have been the loudest critics, for different reasons, and Fiorina is also opposed. Rubio and Cruz were once supporters, but they began backtracking after the deal was announced in October and the text of the agreement was released, stating concerns about the fine print and indicating they were now taking more of a wait-and-see attitude. Carson has expressed cautious support for TPP, while Bush has expressed strong support for the agreement. Clinton also once indicated she supported the TPP. But after the agreement came out, she said she could not support it “at this time” based on what she’d seen. This earned an angry retort from Japan’s former chief TPP negotiator, Akira Amari, who said she would disgrace the dignity of the American flag if she opposed it as president. There is a widespread belief that Clinton, if president, would find a way to support it. But with a recent report by Tufts University predicating the TPP would mean 448,000 job losses in the U.S. over a decade, and a statement by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, saying that a congressional vote on the TPP should be delayed until after the election, candidates may find themselves under greater pressure over the coming months to take a clearer stance, which will impact both the U.S.-Japan relationship and U.S. allies in the region.

defense;tpp;republicans;democrats;u.s.-japan relations;2016 u.s. presidential election

jp0010749

2016/02/06

Exploitative enterprises continue to menace society

On Dec. 15, the operator of Japanese-style pubs Watami Co. reached a settlement with the parents of a former employee who killed herself due to overwork. In the settlement, Watami admitted that the female employee’s death was caused by excessive work, said Kazunari Tamaki, a lawyer for the woman’s parents. Mina Mori, 26, committed suicide in June 2008, two months after beginning to work for Watami. She was forced to work long shifts until the early hours and often hung around until the first train of the next morning. According to court documents, her overtime was found to be in excess of 140 hours a month. She had four days off in a two-month period. “My body hurts. I feel exhausted,” she wrote in a note in May. “I feel emotionally numb. I can’t move as fast as I want to. Please help me, somebody help me.” Burakku kigyō (so-called black, or dark, enterprises) are probably the epitome of everything that’s wrong in Japan today. In 2013, it was among the top trending words of the year. Haruki Konno, head of Posse, a group that helps young people with problems in their working environment, says black enterprises typically hire young employees and then force them to work large amounts of overtime without extra pay. While specifics may vary from company to company, conditions are generally poor and workers are subject to verbal abuse, sexual harassment and bullying. “Immigrants typically bear the brunt of such treatment,” Konno told me in an interview. “In Japan, young people in particular suffer. Originally the term was popular among college students looking for jobs. It was shorthand for a company that worked its employees into the ground.” Konno says black enterprises are able to flourish due to existing conditions in the labor market. In 1985, regular employees accounted for 85 percent of the workforce. These days, the number is roughly 60 percent, a shift in job security caused by the easing of labor dispatch laws. “Good jobs are hard to find and people are willing to put up with a lot before quitting,” Konno says. It’s worth noting that black enterprises are not exactly a new phenomenon. In July 2000, advertising giant Dentsu Inc. admitted it was responsible for the 1991 suicide of a 24-year-old employee who had become depressed due to overwork. Dentsu agreed to pay his family about ¥168 million in damages. In March 2000, the Supreme Court heard that Ichiro Oshima typically couldn’t leave work before 6 a.m. When Oshima returned home after these shifts, he basically only had time to change his clothes before returning to the office. Following the ruling, Dentsu vowed to take measures to prevent similar deaths by thoroughly monitoring employees’ working and health conditions. For its staff’s sake, I hope it has. I’ve worked for a black enterprise myself. We kept two sets of books: a book in which real working hours were recorded and another to show labor inspectors. Those assigned to night-shift duty were tasked with logging the hours of everyone in the division. It was certainly surreal to see that I was in the middle of a three-day vacation, according to the manual, when I was actually in the office at 2 a.m. In 2013, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare investigated 5,111 companies that were accused of having atrocious labor conditions. Eighty-two percent of the companies examined were found to be in violation of labor laws and almost half of them — 43.8 percent — expected their employees to work overtime illegally. According to the Sankei Shimbun, labor minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki in May last year ordered his department to release the names of these enterprises. So far, not a single one has been named. One would hope Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recognizes that black enterprises are not good for society or the economy. Low-paid workers who don’t have free time or money to spend on consumer goods also generally don’t have time to get married or have children. But even if the government fails to act, there’s something the general public can do to keep black enterprises in check — spend money on companies that don’t mistreat their workers. Backed by the Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Watami’s founder, Miki Watanabe, was elected to the Diet in 2013. That same year, Watami failed to break even for the first time since it listed in 1996. People voted with their feet, eating at other establishments. It could be argued that Watami’s settlement in December is an attempt to address this and improve conditions in the workplace. One can only hope. Perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel after all?

labor law;harassment;abuse;black companies

jp0010750

2016/02/06

Sugar rush of sweet sushi, chocolate fossils and more as Valentine's in Japan approaches

Japan has an uneven track record when it comes to celebrating Western holidays. While many people have started dressing up for Halloween only recently , the country has wholly embraced Valentine’s Day since the 1950s . Annually, women buy premium chocolate and in bulk , generating half the country’s chocolate business being spent in February . (Yes, that’s mostly women. Men repay the confectionary favor on White Day a month later.) While there are mountains of high-end choco tugging at the heart strings, many vendors are trying to stand out with unique packaging and offbeat designs. Here are a few tasty examples. Sushi chocolate If you want to give your partner a gift with a Japanese twist, why not go fishing for some sushi-shaped candy? Instead of heading to Tsukiji’s fish market, go west to Ikebukuro’s Tobu Department Store where you can buy chocolate that looks like egg, shrimp and sea urchin sushi. The set, which costs ¥2,592, includes a dollop of mousse that represent the ginger gari . Chocolate is a girl’s best friend Takashimaya Osaka Store has morphed two favorite gift options: chocolate and diamonds. The department store’s new cake glitters as it’s decorated with diamonds in addition to frosting. You better be in love because the cake, encrusted with 125 diamonds, will set you back more than ¥14 million . ‘Poisoned’ apples Kuromajutsu has a series of “poisoned” apples — but not any old “Snow White” types of fruits. The company claims it has injected “magic” into these apples using a Buddhist prayer that will, supposedly, make your victim — um, that is future spouse — fall in love with you instantly. Kuromajutsu packages the ominous apple in a black box complete with the company’s black cat logo. True love can be yours for just a bite — and ¥10,000. Canned meat Does your man lack a sweet tooth? Meiji has a savory solution by offering up the perfect canned meat for this Valentine’s Day. The company’s web page recommends which canned meat would go well with the men in your life. For example, your hard-working co-worker who likes sake may prefer corn beef, while your red wine-drinking boss might like grilled chicken. We can’t guarantee your Valentine will enjoy this gift, but it is sure to be memorable. Monster cookies At the event Cookieboy event, people can ice monster-shaped cookies designed by textile artist Takehiro Natsuyama to create adorable and delicious treats. Natsuyama wants guests to use his beastly cookies as a canvas and show them how to turn treats into works of art using only frosting and other toppings. Instead of keeping it a secret, you can make your Valentine’s gift with your boyfriend this year at the Cookieboy workshop . Jurassic Fossil Chocolat Instead of searching for the perfect gift, you can make your boyfriend dig it up himself with an archaeological treat. Welcome to Jurassic chocolate. Jurassic Fossil Chocolat by Maquis is a tasty set where people have to unearth the chocolate fossil hidden behind a layer of . . . more chocolate. The set even comes with a tiny hammer and brush to complete the prehistoric experience. Some of the buried dinosaurs include a T-rex, stegosaurus and brachiosaurus. Yahoo! Japan’s Valentine’s Boy Field Guide If none of these options sound appetizing and you’re still unsure as to what kind of sweets to give your sweetie, Yahoo! Japan has a new site where you can (virtually) ask 25 different boys what their dream date and chocolate is. After you input your lover’s face type (dog, monkey, horse) and personality (herbivore, geeky, manly man), you can ask all of your burning Valentine’s questions. It’s a little unnerving watching this uncanny valley version of your boyfriend reveal his private thoughts, but his reaction is actually based on a scientific survey. As you can see, Valentine’s Day in Japan isn’t just about chocolates and flowers. It’s a big business, and companies will continue to reinterpret the day in new and sometimes terrifying ways.

yahoo;valentine 's day;sushi;takashimaya;rakuten;meiji;tobu;japan pulse;kuromajutsu;cookieboy

jp0010751

2016/02/06

Students storm Diet; families flee New York amid tensions; ANA plane crashes; scores volunteer for Mideast mission

100 YEARS AGO Saturday, Feb. 19, 1916 Hundreds of students storm Lower House About 400 students of the four private law colleges in Tokyo, the Meiji, Chuo, Nippon and Hosei University’s, invaded the Lower House on Thursday morning. They were led by a committee and proceeded to the parliamentary building with banners representing the crests of the different schools at the head of the procession. At the House committee they asked to see representative lawmakers of various political parties, in order to hear their opinions on the question of the revision of the system of examination for higher civil service, judicial service and lawyers. The present system of examination provides special treatment for the graduates of government universities, which is regarded as favouritism by the students of private institutions. For several years past, a movement has been carried on by the students of private law colleges aiming at the revision of the regulations so as to remove preferential treatment to the graduates of the government colleges. Several lawmakers’ accepted the request of the committee and made impromptu speeches in the back compound of the parliamentary building. Their utterances were all in favour of the agitation and flattering to the students. Satisfied with the reception, the students dispersed at 3 p.m. 75 YEARS AGO Monday, Feb. 10, 1941 Families flee New York amid war tensions Japanese banks and business establishments in New York have decided to evacuate all members of the families of their employees to Japan shortly in view of the tense and delicate situation in the Far East and in Europe, according to a New York dispatch to Asahi. The directors of the Japanese banks and business establishments in New York have been considering the evacuation of the families of their employees, and recently decided to send back to Japan some 150 women and children. Owing to the tightening of economic measures by America directed against Japan, business between Japan and America has been shrinking markedly of late. The New York agencies of the South Manchuria Railway Co., and the Kanegafuchi Spinning Co. have already decided to close their doors and other Japanese business establishments are leaving for Japan. It is pointed out that when the decree calling for further strengthening of the export license system is enforced by the United States government on Feb. 15, as scheduled, cargoes from America carried by the Japanese ships plying between Yokohama and New York will be cut by 80 percent, as the enforcement of the decree means an embargo on the export of oil from America to Japan in a practical sense. 50 YEARS AGO Saturday, Feb. 5, 1966 Passenger jet crashes in Tokyo Bay; 133 dead An All Nippon Airways (ANA) jetliner carrying 126 passengers and a crew of seven was believed to have crashed in Tokyo Bay Friday night. Authorities concerned in the search and rescue operation held little hope for the plane turning up with the personnel on board safe. The Boeing 727 tri-jet was scheduled to arrive at Tokyo International Airport at 7:05 p.m. from Chitose Airport in Hokkaido. About 40 vessels including fishing boats and patrol boats of the Maritime Safety Agency, Maritime Self-Defense Force and Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Department combed the waters of Tokyo Bay throughout last night. ANA announced last night that the jetliner contacted the airport control tower around 7:01 p.m. for landing permission. The craft was spotted on radar over Kisarazu on Boso Peninsula. The control tower gave the plan clearance to land, but the plane failed to come into sight. A merchant ship, the Kita Maru, cruising off Kisarazu, reported to the Maritime Safety Agency that it had spotted “a fireball falling from the sky.” The same ship radioed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Agency that it had recovered what it believed to be part of an aircraft’s wreckage at around 8:15 p.m. According to ANA, the plane carried fuel enough to fly up to 8:45 p.m. 25 YEARS AGO Friday, Feb. 8, 1991 Scores volunteer for U.N. Mideast mission Nearly 100 Japanese have volunteered at the Tokyo office of the United Nations Development Plan to go to the Persian Gulf region to support people displaced as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. “We would like to dispatch as many Japanese volunteers as possible to the Gulf region to support relief activities for evacuees,” said Makoto Hinei, head of the office. U.N. Volunteer Tokyo has so far received about 600 inquires about how to help relief activities in the region. Of those, nearly 100 people have registered, he said. The ability to comprehend English is a prerequisite for U.N. volunteers, Hinei said, but the Tokyo group does not require volunteers to possess any special skills for relief assistance. The exact number of Japanese volunteers who will go to the Gulf area is not yet finalized, although the Tokyo unit’s budget can cover about 20. Those selected will be assigned to Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iran — countries where no fighting has taken place, Hinei said. The volunteers will receive transportation and living expenses and daily allowances. The organization pays for medical and life insurance. It will also arrange visas.

wwii;accidents;ana;kuwait;world war ii;iraq;tokyo bay

jp0010752

2016/02/24

Amnesty slams Japan's contentious secrecy law, low acceptance of refugees

LONDON - Japan has displayed an “intolerance of public criticism” with the introduction of a contentious new secrecy law, Amnesty International said Wednesday in its annual report for 2015. The London-based rights group said the law on official secrets, which came into effect in December 2014, could “excessively restrict” the right to access information held by the authorities. Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s East Asia director, said Japan is showing “growing intolerance toward criticism and dissent.” Critics of the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets claim public authorities could withhold information without giving a clear justification, according to the report. Amnesty also raises concern about the lack of oversight of the new law and the threat to journalists trying to report on issues that are genuinely in the public interest. Jail terms for those leaking designated secrets could be up to ten years. Elsewhere, the group said concerns continue to be raised at the fact that only 11 people out of more than 5,000 applicants in 2014 were granted refugee status in Japan. The assessment also noted the ruling coalition’s opposition to implementing legislation prohibiting racial discrimination despite a recommendation from the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Regarding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Amnesty says he “expressed grief, but only referred to apologies made by former heads of government.” On Japan taking responsibility for forcing Korean women into Japanese military brothels before and during the war, Amnesty said the deal between Seoul and Tokyo in December to end the dispute was criticized for failing to take into account the views and needs of the victims. On a more positive note, the global organization welcomed moves by Shibuya Ward in Tokyo to acknowledge same-sex unions as equivalent to marriage. Registered same-sex partners will be offered legally nonbinding certification, and have visitation rights in hospitals and the ability to co-sign tenancy agreements. Turning to global issues, Amnesty voiced concern that many governments have “brazenly broken” international law and are “deliberately” undermining institutions meant to protect people’s rights. The group is warning of an “insidious and creeping trend” to undermine human rights coming from governments “deliberately attacking, underfunding or neglecting institutions that have been set up to help protect our rights.” Amnesty claims that in 2015 more than 98 states tortured or otherwise ill-treated people, and 30 or more illegally forced refugees to return to countries where they would be in danger. In at least 18 countries, war crimes or other violations of the “laws of war” were committed by governments or armed groups. The report criticizes the United Nations for a “systemic failure” over its handling of the civil war in Syria that has led to “catastrophic human consequences.”

shinzo abe;refugees;amnesty international;secrecy law;japan

jp0010753

2016/02/23

Mysterious high-pitched tone keeps Oregon residents up at night

PORTLAND, OREGON - An unexplained high-pitched tone has kept residents of a Portland suburb awake at night for at least a week, confounding the best efforts of police and firefighters to pinpoint its source, officials in the community said on Monday. Adding to the mystery is the fact that the noise, a steady, whistle-like note resembling a flute, has only been reported after dark in Forest Grove, a rustic community of 22,500 located about 25 miles (40 km) west of Oregon’s largest city. Former residents say they remember a similar sound echoing through the night air several decades ago, according to reports filed with Forest Grove Fire and Rescue. The tone is unusual for its combination of high pitch and ambiguous point of origin, said audio engineer Tobin Cooley, president of the company Listen Acoustics, who agreed to informally assess the phenomenon for Reuters on Monday. “Higher frequencies like this tone are very directional sounds, versus low-frequency sounds which can seem to come from anywhere or everywhere at once,” Cooley said, cautioning that he had listened to poor-quality recordings but not made a thorough investigation. “What surprises me is that neighbors have not been able to locate where this is coming from,” he said. Cooley speculated that the sound could be coming from a release of compressed air or natural gas, but officials with the local gas company said they had ruled out any of the utility’s equipment or pipelines as a source. “We sent a tech out, and he spent the whole day investigating,” said Melissa Moore, spokeswoman for Northwest Natural Gas. She added that a gas leak would also produce an odor, which has not been reported. Although the Forest Grove fire department is collecting information about the sound, firefighters do not know what to do about it, a spokeswoman for the agency said. She added, “We aren’t waiting for it to make a noise. We are going about our duties.”

u.s .;offbeat

jp0010754

2016/02/23

Pokémon catches nostalgia fever for its 20th anniversary

It’s hard to believe, but Pokémaniacs have been trying to catch ’em all for two decades. Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Pokémon with a year full of new products, re-releases and huge doses of nostalgia around the world. Up first is a re-release of the very first Game Boy games (“Red,” “Blue,” “Green” and “Yellow”), which will be available for purchase on “Pokémon Day,” Feb. 27, exactly 20 years since their initial launch. Trainers can download digital copies of the game for their Nintendo 3DS or 2DS, or they can buy a special edition of the Nintendo 2DS . The anniversary bundle comes with a colored, clear-plastic handheld system, a digital copy of the game, stickers, a town map and a code to download the legendary Pokémon Mew. Those wanting something a little more modern should check out the other games coming to the Wii U and smartphones later this year. If the original game’s 8-bit music doesn’t hold up, you can always hear an orchestrated version of the Pokémon soundtrack in person with the Pokémon Symphonic Evolutions concert. The North American show will feature a live orchestra performing many fan favorites from various entries in the series. Currently the website only features a listing for St. Louis of all places, but promises more dates and locations in the future. And when there is a Pokémon celebration, there must be gratuitous amounts of Pokémon swag. U.S. fans can buy a variety of 20th anniversary apparel , featuring a special logo, along with an updated version of “ Pokémon: The First Movie .” There will also be limited edition trading cards , featuring some of the original Pocket Monsters, as well as Kyoto-themed toys to commemorate the newest Pokémon Center in Japan’s ancient capital. For some gamers, this will definitely pull up memories of watching the cartoon after school and demanding that Mom buy new batteries for the Game Boy. If you’re one of them, feel free to join the nostalgia fest with the #Pokemon20 hashtag on Twitter and Instagram. P ost your favorite moments and memories from the Pokémon series, whether it’s Red picking his first Pocket Monster or watching your own kids join the Pokémon fandom . Users are also posting artwork and other DIY projects to the hashtag. So whether you did indeed catch them all or if you were just content with only Pikachu, the 20th anniversary of Pokémon celebration will have something to make you feel like a kid again.

nintendo;social media;twitter;instagram;pokemon;nintendo 3ds;japan pulse

jp0010755

2016/02/15

As warm winds blow, temperatures in Japan reach record highs for February

Record high temperatures for February were set in parts of central and western Japan on Sunday as warm air from the south moved in over the Japanese archipelago, pushing up temperatures and stoking strong winds across the country. The temperature reached 24.8 C in Tokyo, 23.5 C in Nagoya and 23.3 in Minami, Tokushima Prefecture, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. In the northeastern prefecture of Iwate, the mercury climbed to 22 C in Kuji and 21.3 C in Iwaizumi, levels more typical of July. The warm air brought strong winds and heavy rain to many parts of the country, causing traffic disruption. All Nippon Airways Co. and Japan Airlines Co. canceled over 70 domestic flights altogether Sunday and a bullet train service was temporarily suspended in northeastern Japan. Winds of up to 131 kilometers per hour were recorded in the northeastern prefecture of Aomori. Temperatures are expected to drop back Monday as atmospheric pressure pattern typical of winter returns, the weather agency said.

weather;temperature

jp0010758

2016/02/12

South Korean firms fear heavy losses from North's seizure of Kaesong

Seoul cut water and power supplies to the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea on Friday, a day after the North deported all 280 South Korean managers from the site. North Korea prevented them from taking equipment and finished products, saying it has seized the site and its assets. “I was told not to bring anything but personal goods, so I’ve got nothing but my clothes to take back,” a manager at an apparel company said. Seoul’s unification minister warned the North not to damage South Korean property in Kaesong, but there was a despondent atmosphere as managers gathered for a meeting on Friday, fearing they have lost everything. A suspension at the park for five months in 2013 cost South Korean firms 1.05 trillion won ($8.7 million), the Yonhap news agency said. This time, the loss of property, trade and contracts could exact a much higher toll on the 124 companies in Kaesong, Yonhap quoted factory bosses as saying. On Friday, Seoul said it will help the firms with emergency loans and let them pay taxes and utility bills late. Factories at the industrial park, which opened in 2004, made a range of labor-intensive products, ranging from clothes and watches to utensils. They employed around 54,000 workers last year, paying the salaries to the state — a fact that rankled with South Koreans as the North plows cash into its military. An entrepreneur based in Japan who had planned to travel to Kaesong this month has criticized the decision to close the site. Zainichi business owner Do Sangtae, 74, of Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, has been working on improvements to cross-border rail links. “We were searching for ways to contribute to improve relations,” he said Friday by phone. He questioned whether tougher sanctions against North Korea by Japan, announced Wednesday, are the right answer. “I think that first we need to continue to look for ways to improve communications,” Do said.

north korea;south korea;north korean nuclear crisis;kaesong

jp0010760

2016/02/22

Denso, NTT Docomo to cooperate on self-driving technology

Auto parts maker Denso Corp. and mobile phone carrier NTT Docomo Inc. will work together in developing a vehicle control system for automated driving and advanced driver assistance. They said Monday that the LTE and next-generation 5G mobile standards will be used to develop a system that lets vehicles merge onto expressways and cross intersections with poor visibility. The partnership will pair Denso’s strength in vehicle control systems and Docomo’s expertise in vehicle communication networks, the two companies said. Denso, a group unit of Toyota Motor Corp., has been working on technology that avoids traffic accidents by connecting vehicles wirelessly to traffic lights and other infrastructure. Many Japanese automakers are stepping development of self-driving technology in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

docomo;denso;automated driving

jp0010761

2016/02/22

Socialists vow to fight Constitution revision, urge unity between opposition parties

Wrapping up a two-day convention in Tokyo, the Social Democratic Party vowed to fight Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to amend the war-renouncing Constitution. The SDP on Sunday adopted an action plan calling for “bold” cooperation among opposition forces to fight the ruling bloc in this summer’s Upper House election. On Friday, five opposition parties — including the Democratic Party of Japan, the Japanese Communist Party and the smaller SDP — submitted to the Diet two bills that would scrap the contentious security laws that were enacted last year. Senior executives of the four other parties attended the first day of the SDP’s convention Saturday as guests, during which they urged unity. Under the security legislation that is to take effect March 29, Japan will be allowed to exercise the right to collective self-defense. The legislation will also expand the range of missions the Self-Defense Forces can be sent on overseas. Meanwhile, in early February Abe called for public debate about amending the Constitution. He has said this will be a central issue in the campaign for the Upper House election. The SDP action plan expresses alarm about an existential showdown the venerable party may face in this election. It currently has two lawmakers in the Lower House and three in the Upper House — of whom, the seats of SDP leader Tadatomo Yoshida and former leader Mizuho Fukushima are up for grabs. The SDP began life in 1955 as the Japan Socialist Party and at one time was the largest opposition force.

election;sdp;upper house;opposition

jp0010762

2016/02/22

Cellphone cease-fire signals change

The Japanese mobile phone industry recently came under fire from the government for using ambiguous price-setting schemes and excessive handset discounts that stole customers from rivals but penalized loyalty. This has prompted the three major carriers — NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. — to roll out new monthly plans that are more affordable to infrequent users and rein in their outrageous handset discounts. How is the system changing and how will it affect your cellphone payments? Below are some questions and answers on the new pricing schemes: Why did the government intervene in the private sector on this issue? It started in September when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe signaled that mobile phone fees accounted for too much of household spending. After the communications ministry issued a report on the issue in December, minister Sanae Takaichi faced the presidents of the three carriers and told them to come up with cheaper pricing plans. She also asked them to tone down their customer-stealing campaigns, which were based on huge discounts or cash-back programs. “Ideally, it would be best if the price plans fall under free competition. But the competition has focused too much on handset price discounts. I have to say it is unhealthy,” Takaichi said on TV in November. The ministry is also planning to dispatch bogus shoppers to cellphone shops to check on the carriers discount plans. This has led some experts to question the government’s apparent decision to intervene, on the taxpayer tab, in free competition. What are the new monthly plans being offered? Basically, people who don’t spend much time surfing the Internet with their mobile phones will be able to lower their monthly charges by around ¥1,500. SoftBank and KDDI, which runs the au brand, came up with a ¥2,900 data fee that allows smartphone customers to use up to 1 gigabyte per month. If voice calls are included, one’s bill might rise to around ¥4,900. Before, the cheapest rate the two carriers offered was around ¥6,500 for joint data and voice call service, including 2 GB of data. KDDI’s new rate starts in March and SoftBank’s in April. Docomo’s new plan, which starts in March, is slightly different because it caters to families. It charges a family of three ¥13,500 a month, including a ¥6,500 data-sharing plan that allows up to 5 GB to be used by the family in total. Docomo, which has the largest market share in Japan, says this means the monthly fee for a family of three can average out to around ¥4,500 each if voice calls are included. Will those who use more than 1 GB of data a month benefit? The carriers have not announced changes for mid-level and heavy users. But Tomoya Tabata, director of corporate strategy and planning at Docomo, said more changes are on the horizon. “It’s not that we are done with the price rate (revision),” he said. What will happen to the handset discounts? In February, handset prices effectively rose, especially for those who switch carriers. Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank were battling fiercely to steal each others’ customers. This led to major incentives, such as bigger monthly discounts for defectors and even cash back schemes. In some cases, they simply handed out phones for free and offered tens of thousands of yen in cash back, triggering what became known as the “cash-back war.” This led the government to raise the red flag. It argued that such incentives, which only benefit new subscribers, were unfair to those who preferred to stay with one carrier. Reducing cash-back offers and monthly discounts may ease the financial burden on carriers who use such incentives, but it is also expected to dent handset sales and make it harder to steal customers. KDDI President Takashi Tanaka said earlier this month that traffic had dropped considerably at au shops since the discounts were stopped. But Tabata of Docomo said the industry knew the excessive cash-back campaigns had to end sometime. “(The intervention) is an opportunity for the industry to change the focus of competition,” he said. How will competition change? Tabata said cellphone carriers are still expected to offer bargains. For instance, as mobile phone operators start selling electricity in April, when the power market is liberalized, they can be expected to offer discounts to those who opt to buy both their power and cellphone services from the same firm. They have also been offering home fiber-optic Internet connection deals. Tabata said more package deals for home-use services might be in the works. “We were too preoccupied with taking users from rivals by (offering) huge discounts on handset prices in a saturated market,” he said. “But I think that the stage of competition (is set to) change.”

smartphones;softbank;ntt docomo;kddi

jp0010763

2016/02/25

Woman bites into pearl at U.S. restaurant

ISSAQUAH, WASHINGTON - A woman bit down on a rare pearl while eating a meal of clams and other seafood at an Italian restaurant in Washington state. Lindsay Hasz and her husband Chris were eating at Montalcino Ristorante Italiano in Issaquah recently when she bit into something hard in her entree. Hasz says she wasn’t sure what it was but put it in her pocket and went home to do research. She took it to a gemologist, who determined it was a Quahog purple pearl worth about $600. Ted Irwin of Northwest Geological Laboratory says the find is rare, with only one in a couple of million being of gem quality. Hasz says she may have the pearl made into a necklace.

restaurants;jewelry

jp0010764

2016/11/03

Japan quietly accepting foreign workers — just don't call it immigration

Send us your construction workers, your care givers, your store clerks — but for a limited time only. That’s the message from Japan, where the number of foreign workers, though still relatively small, has nearly doubled over the past eight years, and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling party is considering policies to speed up arrivals. Just don’t call it immigration. Japan will allow more unskilled workers to enter temporarily, as companies struggle to fill positions in a country with the lowest unemployment rate among the Group of Seven nations. Abe has made it clear that opening the nation to permanent immigration by unskilled labor isn’t an option, reflecting a historic fear among the Japanese that foreign nationals would cause social unrest and erode national identity. “In Japan, the word ‘immigrant’ is not used in policymaking,” former economy minister Heizo Takenaka said in an interview. “The prime minister often says it’s not immigration, it’s guest workers.” Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker and adviser to Abe, is among those testing the boundaries as policymakers seek to meet the needs of a country with a shrinking population. He has called for a guest-worker program that would give five-year visas for sectors suffering labor shortages. Yet he noted that even the recent tourism boom has raised questions among Japanese about how many foreign residents should be here. “For ordinary people, they see the rapid increase in foreign tourists and they see more foreigners downtown, so it’s not strange that some think, ‘Is it good that it’s increasing this much?’ ” Shibayama said in an interview. “I think it’s important to establish a culture that accepts foreign workers. However, in the case of Japan, it’ll be totally different from the large number of refugees that went to Europe, so I don’t think public opinion will be split on the issue.” The cross-border flow of workers has animated politics across the world, including the U.S. presidential election campaign and the U.K. vote to leave the European Union. In Japan, immigration is widely touted as one of the few obvious solutions to its demographic and economic challenges. Economists point to it as a source of growth as well as labor. The government projects Japan’s population of 127 million will shrink by 19 million people by 2040. BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda said in a speech last month in Tokyo that more foreign labor is essential for Japan to achieve sustainable long-term growth. Japan needs the help now. A 2015 Manpower Survey found that 83 percent of Japanese hiring managers had difficulty filling jobs, compared with a global average of 38 percent. The government has taken a more welcoming approach to highly skilled foreign workers who are the objects of a global war for talent. Abe this year vowed to provide them with the world’s fastest path to permanent residency. Currently, a person generally becomes eligible for permanent residency after living in Japan for 10 consecutive years. On the other hand, though it depends on unskilled foreign workers in some sectors, Japan has no visa categories under which they can enter the country to work, never mind become permanent residents or citizens. It instead uses back doors such as a “training” program, ostensibly aimed at training people from developing nations with skills they can use at home, but in practice a guest-worker system that the U.S. State Department has criticized as prone to abuse, including “conditions of forced labor.” Still, the number of foreign workers in Japan has jumped from about 486,000 in 2008 to nearly 908,000 in 2015. About 190,000 work under the training program. Lawmakers in Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party are supporting a bill that will expand the training program to include workers in elder care as well as manufacturing and agriculture. An LDP proposal would allow participants to stay up to five years, compared with three years currently. Japan will also be in need of construction workers as it races to build and renovate facilities for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. To be sure, immigration is no panacea for Japan. Barry Bosworth, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said it would raise growth but cautioned that it was no substitute for the structural reforms needed to overcome the country’s economic stagnation. The influx of workers is already being seen on some streets in Tokyo. In the Ikebukuro district, an emerging Chinatown, the Chinese language is heard frequently and shops advertise favorites such Shanghai’s specialty, fried dumplings. Su Fan, a 27-year-old employee at an auto-sector company, said he moved from China’s Henan province about eight years ago to study. Then he was recruited by a Japanese company. “I never had any worries about a visa. The language was the hardest thing for me,” he said. The Japanese government may see them as a temporary solution, but not all foreign workers will want to leave when their time is up. Lin Zhi Peng and Zhang Shuang Feng, both 25, just moved to Tokyo from Nanjing, China. They both plan to start working as staff at a mobile phone store soon. “It’s wonderful here,” said Feng, in Ikebukuro. “We love the food, the clean environment, the people. Everything.” Asked how long they plan to stay in Japan, Feng quickly answered, “Forever.” Peng nodded. “Probably forever,” he said.

population;immigration;workforce;foreign labor

jp0010766

2016/11/05

The dubious cost of sexual assault in Japan

Two recent domestic cases involving sexual assault illustrate just how far the land of the rising sun is from dealing with crimes against women. Many Americans expressed outrage when former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner was released from prison after spending three months behind bars for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. In Japan, Turner would most likely have never been arrested. If prosecutors were able to secure a conviction, it’s also highly likely he would not have spent a day behind bars. Rape prosecutions in Japan are fairly rare and even if a suspect is found guilty, many dodge prison by apologizing and paying damages. Earlier this year, 22-year-old actor Yuta Takahata was arrested on charges of allegedly raping a 49-year-old hotel worker. Police said Takahata had asked the woman to bring him a toothbrush and then dragged her into his room around 2 a.m. on Aug. 23. He allegedly pinned her down during the attack. Takahata was released on bail on Sept. 9 after prosecutors decided not to pursue charges over the incident. Takahata reportedly admitted raping the woman, according to police and Japanese media reports. However, Takahata is believed to have subsequently agreed on a settlement with the victim and prosecutors dropped the case. Once he had been freed, Takahata’s lawyers released a statement implying that they would have denied the charges if the case had gone to court. Kunitaka Kasai, a criminal defense lawyer from Rei Law Office in Tokyo, says it’s always difficult to know the exact reasons why prosecutors drop charges in a case. “But if a case has been settled out of court, it would be unprecedented for prosecutors to proceed with the case,” Kasai says. “Most settlements usually have the following text included: ‘I (the victim) do not wish him (the assailant) to face criminal punishment.’ This greatly discourages the authorities from pursuing the case.” In Japan, rape (without injury) is categorized as shinkokuzai , an offence that cannot be prosecuted without a complaint by the victim. If a complaint is not made, or later retracted, the case falls apart. Kazuko Tanaka, a female prosecutor and author of “The Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Investigation Handbook,” estimates that only 4 percent of victims of sexual assault go so far as to file a complaint with the police. By comparison, the Justice Ministry estimated in 2012 that only 18.5 percent of sexual assaults were reported to the police over a five-year period. In incidents that had featured an arrest, prosecutors dropped charges in more than half of the cases on average. Legal experts note that first-time offenders often walk away with a suspended sentence — even if they are convicted. Take, for example, the case of Kensuke Matsumi, a University of Tokyo student who was convicted of sexually assaulting a classmate with several of his friends in May. The victim rejected his offer of a settlement. On Sept. 20, the Tokyo District Court ruled that Matsumi’s actions were “despicable and caused unbearable suffering.” However, the 22-year-old student received a sentence of two years in prison, suspended for four years, because he had expressed remorse for his actions and had vowed to refrain from ever drinking alcohol again. On Sept. 12, a Justice Ministry advisory panel recommended that sex crime legislation be revised. The panel recommended that prosecutors should be allowed to indict a suspect regardless of whether a complaint had been filed or not. It also concluded that the minimum penalty for rape convictions should be raised from three years in prison to five, and recommended that police also be empowered to acknowledge male victims of rape. Japan appears to have a serious problem with sexual assault it doesn’t want to face. Even if the lower estimated number of unreported cases is accepted — more than 80 percent — it’s still a colossal figure. “We can conduct great criminal investigations but if we don’t create an environment where women can come forward and press charges, what are we doing?” Tanaka asks in her handbook. The government likes to talk about empowering women and creating a society in which women can “shine.” Yet, how powerful can women be in a society where convicted rapists are able to walk away without spending a day behind bars? Is an apology and financial compensation sufficient punishment for sexual assault? Perhaps these are the first questions the government should be asking.

yuta takahata;kensuke matsumi;kazuko tanaka

jp0010767

2016/11/05

Japan's war against medical marijuana

Former actress Saya Takagi was arrested in Okinawa on Oct. 25 for possession of marijuana , three months after she unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the Upper House election on a platform to legalize pot for medical purposes. She insists the contraband was not hers. Though Takagi, whose real name is Ikue Masudo, is retired from showbiz, reruns of dramas she appeared in are still shown on TV. When a celebrity is involved in a scandal, broadcasters scour their lineups for any ties to the disgraced person. TV Asahi quickly scrubbed from its afternoon schedule old episodes of the popular detective series “Aibo” that featured Takagi . Nikkan Gendai reported that DVDs containing films or shows featuring Takagi are being recalled, and a TV program is removing a theme song partly written by her. Her demonization has intensified with the implication that she was living with two men, also arrested, as lovers , thus branding her as a woman of loose morals. The purpose is to feed a negative image, even if it’s just hearsay. The only facts that Gendai can corroborate are quotes from the police. Gendai is a tabloid and “attack journalism” comes with the territory, but the rest of the media, even the major dailies, have taken its lead, including those that are nominally liberal. Asahi Shimbun mentioned the arrest without elaboration, but Tokyo Shimbun ran an in-depth story on Oct. 27 that cited Takagi’s claims of the benefits of medical marijuana, which are increasingly accepted in North America and Europe. While the article admits marijuana is “less addictive” than cocaine and heroin, it emphasized that it is still illegal in the eyes of the U.S. government and quotes a Japanese health ministry official as saying there is no “definition for medical use” of marijuana in Japan. A professor told the reporter that marijuana is a gateway drug to harder stuff — a cautionary cliche that is difficult to prove. But Tokyo Shimbun’s most egregious failure is its assertion, per the health ministry, that the World Health Organization “does not acknowledge the medical effectiveness” of marijuana and, in fact, points to its “harmful effects.” The WHO has traditionally maintained that habitual use of marijuana can lead to health problems, but it has also supported the idea that cannabis could have pharmacological benefits. This inconsistency has more to do with politics than clumsy rhetoric: the organization receives funding from parties that have a stake in keeping marijuana illegal, and for Tokyo Shimbun to cover the medical aspects of pot without mentioning these details — including the fact that the health ministry has contradicted itself with regard to the WHO’s medical marijuana stance — indicates a predisposition to denigrate it at all costs. The monolithic media movement in Japan against medical marijuana is mostly one of subtraction: Takagi’s July campaign was ignored by the vernacular press and, with the exception of TV Asahi, coverage of the trial of Masamitsu Yamamoto , a man with terminal liver cancer who grew marijuana to alleviate his suffering, went no further than the tiny courtroom where it took place. Also, there was no coverage of former Shinto Kaikaku (New Renaissance Party) president Hiroyuki Arai’s May speech advocating research into medical marijuana, but there were plenty of reports that the man who murdered dozens of disabled people in Sagamihara last summer had smoked pot . Japan’s anti-narcotic laws are notoriously punitive, but marijuana has its own peculiar status. As explained in Hideo Nagayoshi’s book “ Taima Nyumon ” (“An Introduction to Cannabis”), the Hemp Control Law is separate from the Narcotics Control Law. It was implemented by the GHQ during the American Occupation after World War II. Nagayoshi stresses that marijuana could have been added to the NCL, which was already in place at the time, if they wanted to criminalize its usage, but they wanted more. Hemp production has a long history in Japan, and when cultivated the species does not contain much THC, the substance that provides the high. The plant was commercially vital for making textiles and pulp, which American companies one day hoped to export to Japan, mainly in the form of acrylics and other petroleum products. In order to safeguard its hemp industry, the Japanese government threw the Americans a bone by inculcating prohibitions against the medicinal use of hemp, a practice Japan imported from China, where marijuana had been a traditional cure for centuries. In such a way, marijuana was rendered a narcotic. Consequently, it cannot even be researched in Japan. The law theoretically goes beyond possession to cover contact outside Japan’s borders. When a Japanese snowboarder admitted to smoking pot at a camp in Colorado last year, he and another snowboarder were suspended by relevant sports associations but also investigated by Japanese police. Such publicity creates an atmosphere of paranoia. In a survey of online comments about medical marijuana compiled by Nikkan Sports , everyone who said marijuana has benefits, including noted neuroscientist Kenichiro Mogi, also stressed that they would never, ever use it themselves. Even hemp production is cause for suspicion. Last month a hemp farmer in Tottori Prefecture who became famous when the prime minister’s wife, Akie Abe , promoted his product as ecologically and economically important was arrested for marijuana possession and, as a result, all growing licenses in the prefecture were revoked. He — or perhaps Japan’s first lady — had drifted a little too close to the flame. That may have been what happened to Takagi, who ran under the banner of Arai’s now-dissolved party. Regardless of whether or not she was using it, her vocal support for the herb unnerved the authorities, so they made an example of her. But they couldn’t do so without the help of the press, who seemed only too happy to oblige. In Nikkan Sports, radio personality Morley Robertson remarked that Japanese coverage of marijuana has been “lazy,” except when the media is called upon to launch a witch hunt. “That’s the kind of drama they depend on,” he said.

drugs;marijuana;medical marijuana

jp0010768

2016/11/05

Huge gold shipment arrives from U.S.; few Americans living in Tokyo; stowaways return; town eats crow to solve bird woes

100 YEARS AGO Wednesday, NOV. 22 1916 Massive gold shipment arrives from Seattle When the Nippon Yusen Kaisha liner Sado Mura arrived at Yokohama early yesterday morning and was snugly berthed at the Customs Quay, consignees felt relieved. The vessel arrived from Seattle with a large consignment of gold from the United States. The amount of specie is variously estimated from $2 million to $3.6 million. Half the money is consigned to the Yokohama Specie Bank and half to the Mitsui Ginko, but in the first place the entire amount will find its way into the coffers of the Bank of Japan. This is the largest shipment of gold coins that has ever been made to Japan. On Oct. 31 last year, the Yokohama Mura brought ¥2,500,000 in Uncle Sam’s “gold boys.” 75 YEARS AGO Friday Nov. 7, 1941 Few Americans living in Tokyo after U.S. alert American residents in Tokyo number 200 now, a record low since 1912 reveals a survey conducted by the Metropolitan Police Board recently. Most of them are school teachers and college professors who are resolved to remain in this country forever even if worse comes to worst between Japan and America. The survey shows that there were 623 Americans here both in 1932 and 655 in 1934. The figure increased to 736 in 1935, and remained on the 700 mark until 1937. In 1938, however, they totaled 851, and jumped to 1,008 the following year. In June, 1940, the figure reached the record in many years of 1,057 despite the strong anti-Japanese attitude that was assumed by their government at the time. The number declined to 913 in December of the same year. The number of Americans visiting Japan continued to increase steadily since the opening of trade between the two countries in the closing years of the Tokugawa Era. All through the Taisho Period (1912-26) American residents in the capital averaged 400. In October 1940, the United States government notified all American nationals in East Asia of the gravity of the international situation and advised them to come home immediately, but only 140 Americans had left this city for America by December of that year. During the first half of this year, Americans disappeared from this city increased as the diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States drifted from bad to worse. At the end of the first half period there were only 533 Americans here, which dropped further to 200 within four months. 50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Nov. 9, 1966 Teenage stowaways return from Honolulu Three young stowaways, who smuggled out of Japan on a Liberian ship last month, returned Tuesday. They arrived aboard the 12,611-ton Sakura Maru of the Mitsui OSK Lines, and immediately were placed under the custody of immigration authorities. The boys, all third-year students of the Ikebukuro Junior High School, were found aboard the 9,644-ton Oriental Jade Oct. 18. They had boarded the ship at Yokohama on Oct. 15 just before it departed for Honolulu and the United States. The minors were put ashore at Honolulu on Oct. 24. They were held by Honolulu immigration authorities and deported to Japan aboard the Sakura Maru, which left Honolulu Oct. 29. Under the immigration law, the stowaways will each be punishable to a prison term of one year or less or fined ¥100,000 or less. The three boys’ parents will be asked by the Mitsui OSK Lines to pay the passage fare from Honolulu to Yokohama amounting to ¥90,000 each. If the parents are not able to pay the fare within three months, the government will put up the amount, which will be repaid in the future. 25 YEARS AGO Sunday Nov. 17, 1991 Town eats crow to solve bird problems Does crispy crow meat tickle your taste buds? If so, a little town in northern Japan may be worth a gastronomic detour. Residents in Kisakata, Akita Prefecture, have long been plagued by crows, which damage local soybean and rice crops to the tune of about ¥1 million a year. Three years ago they started capturing and killing the birds, sometimes as many as 200 a month. Then the canny countrymen got to thinking about how to make a profit out of them. And so it came to pass that one evening recently, 11 residents got together for a taste test. Faced with a selection of finely sliced fried beef, pork, lamb and crow meat, only four of the 11 could identify the crow, Shigeo Furuta, head of Kisakata’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Division, said Friday. So far so good. The problem now is whether the town can convince its residents, and maybe the rest of Japan, to eat lean healthy crow meat — and somehow avoid the distinctive smell. “I myself have eaten crow for a long time now. It was so-so,” Furuta said. “The next step is to see if we can sell crow meat. It would sell best roasted on skewers, I think.” “The first time I heard the story I couldn’t believe it, said professor Shinichi Hayama at Nippon Veterinary and Animal Science University. “I never heard of anyone eating crow meat.” Crows aren’t the only pests causing headaches for the nation’s farmers. Faced with a fast-growing deer population ravaging crops and pastures, a group of farmers said recently they are weighing the merits of venison burgers and sausages.

gold;birds;pests;crows;foreign residents;stowaways

jp0010770

2016/11/27

Haute cuisine? Santa serves up sleigh-borne dinner in the sky

BRUSSELS - Not waiting at home for Santa Claus, gourmets in Brussels are flying off aboard his sleigh to dine with him above the city’s rooftops and twinkling Christmas lights. Santa in the Sky is a novel twist on the Belgian capital’s Dinner in the Sky venture, where diners and the chefs cooking for them are lifted high in the air on an open platform suspended from a construction crane. This weekend on the city’s chic Sablon square shopping district, a bell-ringing Santa Claus is welcoming people aboard the “restaurant” fitted out as a sleigh decked with lights and drawn through the air by four theater-prop reindeer. Diners, who sit strapped to chairs to eat at a bar running round the open kitchen, can pay up to €250 ($265) for a gastronomic four-course supper with wine, or go for options starting at €55 for tea — of course, it’s “high tea.” Free to marvel at Brussels’ Flemish Renaissance grandeur and medieval churches, customers can savor haute cuisine from distinguished chefs, some with Michelin stars to their name. On Friday evening, Maxime Mazier’s menu included a lobster and artichoke starter, line-caught sea bass with shellfish and coconut marshmallow with mango. The trick, he said, was coping with the gusts of winter night air that whip around the sleigh. “It’s not that warm,” he said. “Just as you’re serving, if the wind gets up, for the fish, which has to be served just right, it’s the timing that’s important.” Michael Chiche, who helps run the Brussels-based firm that over the past 10 years has brought the sky-dining experience to 58 countries, said he was confident the four-day Christmas event that was to wrap up Sunday, would be repeated next year. “To be in the air, first, it’s the view,” he said. “Secondly, you’re blocked. It means that you are with your guests, you are with the chef and all the flavors, everything, you’re going to experience it completely differently.” Helene Ziegler, 19, an art history student, said it had been worth a moment of panic: “As we were on the way up, I got a bit scared. It was moving. But once on top, it became very quiet. “It’s great to see the entire city. The food is very good. The chefs prepare it in front of us. It’s wonderful.” The evening, she said, was a gift to her and her sister from their father — though he found a convenient excuse not to join them 35 metres (100 feet) above the cold cobbles of the Sablon.

restaurants;christmas;holidays;belgium;stunts

jp0010771

2016/11/27

Fukushima aftershock renews public concern about restarting Kansai's aging nuclear reactors

KYOTO - The magnitude-7.4 aftershock that rocked Fukushima Prefecture and its vicinity last week, more than five years after the mega-quake and tsunami of March 2011, triggered fresh nuclear concerns in the Kansai region, which hosts Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Mihama plant in Fukui Prefecture. The aftershock came as the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved a two-decade extension for Mihama’s No. 3 reactor on Nov. 16, allowing it and two others that have already been approved to run for as long as 60 years to provide electricity to the Kansai region. Residents need to live with the fact that they are close to the Fukui reactors, which are at least 40 years old. Despite reassurances by Kepco, its operator, and the nuclear watchdog, worries remain over what would happen if an earthquake similar to the one in 2011, or even last week, hit the Kansai region. Kyoto lies about 60 km and Osaka about 110 km from the old Fukui plants. Lake Biwa, which provides water to about 13 million people, is less than 60 km away. In addition to Kepco’s 40-year-old Mihama No. 3, reactors 1 and 2 at the Takahama nuclear power plant in Fukui are 42 and 41 years old, respectively. In the event of an accident, evacuation procedures for about 253,000 residents of Fukui, Shiga, and Kyoto prefectures who are within 30 km of the plants would go into effect. But how effective might they be? The majority does not live in Fukui. Just over half, or 128,500, live in neighboring Kyoto, especially in and around the port city of Maizuru, home to a Self-Defense Forces base. Another 67,000 live in four towns in Fukui and about 58,000 live in northern Shiga Prefecture. Plans call for Fukui and Kyoto prefecture residents to evacuate to 29 cities and 12 towns in Hyogo Prefecture and, if facilities there are overwhelmed, to Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku. Those in Shiga are supposed to evacuate to cities and towns in Osaka Prefecture. In a scenario put together by Kyoto Prefecture three years ago, it was predicted that tens of thousands of people would take to available roads in the event of an nuclear accident. A 100 percent evacuation of everyone within 30 km of a stricken Fukui plant was estimated to take between 15 and 29 hours, depending on how much damage there was to the transportation infrastructure. But Kansai-based anti-nuclear activists have criticized local evacuation plans as being unrealistic for several reasons. First, they note that the region around the plants gets a lot of snow in the winter, which could render roads, even if still intact after a quake or other disaster, much more difficult to navigate, slowing evacuations even further. Second is the radiation screening process that has been announced in official local plans drawn up by Kyoto and Hyogo prefectures. While automobiles would be stopped at various checkpoints along the roads leading out of Fukui and given radiation tests, those inside would not be tested if the vehicle itself has radiation levels below the standard. If the radiation is above standard, one person, a “representative” of everyone in the car, would be checked and, if approved, the car would be allowed to continue on its way under the assumption that the others had also been exposed to levels below standard. This policy stands even if those levels might be more dangerous to children than adults. Finally, there is the question of whether bus drivers would cooperate by going in and out of radioactive zones to help those who lack quick access to a car, especially senior citizens in need of assistance. None of the concerns about the evacuation plans is new, and most have been pointed out by safety experts, medical professionals and anti-nuclear groups. But with the NRA having approved restarts for three Kansai-area reactors that are over 40 years old, Kansai leaders are responding more cautiously to efforts to restart Mihama No. 3 in particular. “It is absolutely crucial that local understanding for Mihama’s restart be obtained,” said pro-nuclear Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa in July, after a local newspaper survey showed that only about 37 percent of Fukui residents agree with the decision to restart old reactors. Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki, who is generally against nuclear power, was even more critical of the NRA’s decision to restart Mihama. “There are major doubts about the law that regulates the use of nuclear reactors more than 40 years old. The central government and Kepco need to explain safety countermeasures to residents who are uneasy. People are extremely uneasy about continuing to run old reactors,” the governor said earlier this month.

nra;evacuation;safety;fukui;mihama nuclear power plant

jp0010772

2016/11/27

Kansai firms more concerned with Asian markets than Trump's TPP pullout

OSAKA - For Kansai business leaders, Asia, particularly East Asia, has long been far more important economically than the United States. So it was understandable when they reacted coolly to Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election, with some suggesting it was time to start entertaining the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement without the U.S. Yet while senior executives at major corporations who stand to hugely benefit from the trade deal are unhappy, most small and midsize firms who either do business domestically or primarily in non-American markets, remain ambivalent. Many say they expect Trump’s election to have little, if any, impact on the Kansai region, at least in the short term. Still, at a news conference earlier this month, the Osaka branch manager of the Bank of Japan, Atsushi Miyanoya, sounded hopeful, saying that Trump as U.S. president could be a plus for Japan because of his promise to rebuild America’s infrastructure and reduce taxes. “If the U.S. economy is revitalized, this will lead to a positive effect on those Kansai firms that export to the U.S. or have production facilities there,” Miyanoya said. In the immediate aftermath of the election, Kansai’s top business leaders all expressed concern over Trump’s fierce opposition to the TPP. He even said last week that he would cancel it on his first day in office. “Trump should aim for economic development under open markets by participating in the TPP and revise his closed economic policy,” said Hiroyuki Suzuki, head of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives (Kansai Keizai Doyukai), in a statement after the election. But a week later, when it became clear TPP would not be voted on by the U.S. Congress due to Trump’s victory and opposition in both the Republican and Democratic parties over its final wording, Suzuki suggested it was time to pursue the TPP without its leader. “First, let’s discuss an agreement without the U.S. It’s fine if they want to join later,” Suzuki told the Kansai Press Club on Nov. 16. Trump announced last week the U.S. would withdraw from the TPP when he assumes office. Trump’s victory comes at a time when exports from the Kansai region to the U.S. are down nearly 13 percent over the past year, according to data released by the trade ministry’s regional bureau last week. But smaller firms that deal with either the domestic market or other markets in Asia were more concerned with economic conditions closer to home. “Those in the local retail and service industries in particular are probably more worried about an economic downturn in, or political problems with, Asian countries that could mean fewer tourists coming to Kansai,” said Tatsuya Uchida, who works for a tour company in Osaka.

osaka;tpp;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election

jp0010773

2016/11/28

Half a million societal drop-outs drag on Abe's economic dreams

Nagisa Hirai was an active child who loved playing soccer with the boys. But that early happiness dissipated on her first day at elementary school when she became frightened after being unable to find her classroom. Over time, she became a hikikomori , a Japanese term used to describe the more than half a million young people in the country who stay at home and shun interaction with people outside their family. She would suffer anxiety attacks over anything unfamiliar — even forgetting stuff for school could cause her to panic. She became increasingly uncomfortable going to school, pushing her strict parents to force her to attend. The 30-year-old now says she’s recovering, but there are still days when she can’t drag herself out of bed for her part-time job at a university. While the hikikomori issue isn’t new, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s now plans to mobilize them as part of a broader drive to bolster the aging workforce. The prime minister has vowed to stop the population from falling below 100 million from the current 127 million, and have all members of society make an active contribution to the world’s third-biggest economy. There is no single cause for the phenomenon. Hikikomori can stem from factors such bullying at school or work, or pressure from parents or other family members to succeed in entrance examinations or job interviews. In Hirai’s case, she was both scared of people and felt bad about not being able to go to school. She became anorexic during her time at a part-time high school as she struggled to find a solution — her weight dropping to around 30 kg (66 pounds). “I could suppress my emotions by restraining my appetite,” Hirai says. While it allowed her to go out and meet people, she was never able to attend classes and dropped out when her classmates graduated. Hirai received support from Shure University, a nonprofit that provides pressure-free space for people like her that want to continue their education. She’s now been living by herself for nearly 10 years and says that although she’s getting better she still gets tense around some people. “I’m afraid of shutting myself off again from society,” she says of her career plans. “What’s more important to me is the kind of people I’m with rather than what I want to do. My parents are already old and I’m only a junior high school graduate. I’m always anxious about how I can live my life.” Kageki Asakura, a member of the Shure University, says a lack of self respect is a reason why many people become hikikomori. Negative perceptions toward those who drop out of society make the situation worse, he says. In a government survey published in 2014 of young people in seven countries including Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, Japanese were ranked lowest in terms of self satisfaction. Only 7.5 percent said they were content. About 541,000 people aged between 15 and 39 — or 1.6 percent of the population in that age group — were estimated to be hikikomori in a Cabinet Office report published in September. The government defines them as people who have stayed at home and avoided interaction with nonfamily members for at least six months. As society ages, hikikomori are also getting older. About 53 percent of them in Shimane Prefecture were aged 40 or older, with the figure at 44 percent in Yamagata Prefecture. This in turn raises questions about how the older dropouts will support themselves when their aging parents die. Appropriate policies such as financial assistance and counseling could help transform hikikomori into members of the labor force, says Eriko Ito, a consultant at Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo. This would boost overall economic output as well as help reduce spending on social welfare. “We should change our thinking about supporting then,” Ito says. “It’s an investment, not a cost.” Each welfare recipient turned into a taxpayer would add between ¥78 million ($702,000) and ¥98 million to the nation’s finances over their lifetime, according to calculations based on the latest available data from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The government’s plan is to support hikikomori and other young people with difficulties by making them more “independent.” It has set up counseling centers nationwide, and has support workers visiting those reluctant to leave home. But reaching out may prove tricky. More than 65 percent of the hikikomori surveyed said they weren’t keen on these services as they were concerned about not being able to communicate or reluctant to have other people notice them. “Abe’s labor policy is putting pressure on hikikomori,” the NPO’s Asakura says. “Abe wants them to be great and achieve great results. Why can’t they just pursue happiness instead?”

shinzo abe;depopulation;workforce;nagisa hirai

jp0010774

2016/11/28

Aska arrested for alleged stimulant use during parole

Pop singer-songwriter Aska was arrested Monday for allegedly using illegal stimulants, which would violate the parole terms of his suspended 2014 prison sentence. The 58-year-old Aska, whose real name is Shigeaki Miyazaki, had posted a number of comments on his blog on Monday afternoon before he was arrested, saying media reports on his looming arrest were wrong and that he was very surprised by them. His fans had mixed reactions to the denials. Some fans wrote, “That is a lie, isn’t it?” and “We believe in you,” while another wrote, “You betrayed us again.” Miyazaki called the police at around 7 p.m. Friday and was incoherent when officers arrived at his house in Tokyo’s Meguro Ward, the police said . He was with his wife when they arrived, and asked the officers to check whether he was being secretly monitored. The singer then voluntarily submitted a urine sample that tested positive for stimulants, the police said. The police allege that Miyazaki abused methamphetamines in Tokyo or a surrounding area between the middle of this month and Friday. In September 2014, Aska received a three-year prison sentence, suspended for four years, for drug possession and use after being arrested in May that year.

drug;arrest;aska

jp0010775

2016/11/28

Slew of redevelopment projects give Ginza a face-lift

Tokyo’s Ginza district has established itself as Japan’s shopping mecca, drawing in people from all over the world. Yet the bustling area is further evolving, with several major redevelopment projects taking place this year and beyond. But how exactly is Ginza being transformed? In this week’s FYI, we look at Ginza’s redevelopment projects. What projects were recently completed and what is coming up? Two major shopping complexes have opened in Ginza this year. Tokyu Land Corp. opened the Tokyu Plaza shopping facility with 125 shops in March, while Sapporo Breweries unveiled its Ginza Place complex, which has a Nissan Motor Corp. showroom and official store in September. Next April, the Ginza Six mall will debut where the Matsuzakaya department store, which was Ginza’s oldest emporium, formerly stood. The 147,900-sq.-meter shopping facility will be the biggest of its kind in Ginza, featuring 241 stores, a rooftop garden and traditional noh performance theater. The Sony Building, another landmark of Ginza, will be demolished next year, with the site to become a temporary park. Sony eventually plans to open a new building on the site, sometime around 2022. Major newspaper company Asahi Shimbun Co. also plans to open a 12-story building that will house the Hyatt Centric Hotel in 2018. Why are the redevelopments happening now? While some big projects have been in the planning for up to a decade, aging structures are one major factor for the flurry of development, said Eriko Takezawa, secretary-general of Ginza Machidukuri Council, which consists of dozens of store representatives and discusses the district’s development. She said many buildings in Ginza date back to the 1960s, so they need to be rebuilt, especially to improve their earthquake resistance. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics and rapidly increasing numbers of international visitors may be stimulating investment in Ginza as well, Takezawa said. Are there any similarities in the new redevelopment projects? Some of the new shopping complex designs are quite new to Ginza. While Ginza is famous for traditional department stores, such as Mitsukoshi and Matsuya, as well as fast fashion brands like Uniqlo and luxury overseas brands, it did not have a huge modern shopping mall. The new Tokyu Plaza building boasts a modern exterior and interior design, while the under-construction Ginza Six has a similar concept. “People from various generations have different needs for where they want to go and how they want to spend time,” so Ginza welcomes these new shopping malls since they can attract new customers, said Keisuke Okamoto, an executive of the Ginza Machidukuri Council. Launching something new is important for developers to pull more shoppers back from online stores, as well as to appeal to the growing ranks of overseas travelers. “We think now is the time for Ginza to meet the changing environment and evolve. We want to be a front-runner in global trends and attract people from around the world by providing new types of commercial complexes,” Ginza Six Retail Management, which is overseeing the Ginza Six project, said. Another characteristic of the new projects is that they involve players not traditionally involved with the district. For example, Mori Building Co., which is involved with the Ginza Six project, may be best known as the developer around the Roppongi district, including the Roppongi Hills complex. Tokyu group’s home territory, meanwhile, is Shibuya. Okamoto said that unlike other areas of Tokyo where major builders lead urban development projects, Ginza has many stakeholders involved in small to large shopping projects, making its diversity one of the district’s strengths. Does Ginza have special rules that developers must follow? Okamoto said his council asks new developers to respect the district’s harmony. Initially, the Ginza Six shopping complex was planned to be a nearly 200-meter-tall skyscraper, but the idea was not welcomed by other merchants in the area. “It would be awkward” to have such a high-rise building in Ginza, said Okamoto, adding that Ginza values the ginbura concept, in which shoppers can walk around the district and visit a variety of stores. Existing stores worried that if such a tall complex was built, visitors would be tempted to stay there and not experience other options on offer, he said. As a result, Ginza Six followed the local guidelines of keeping the building’s height to 66 meters or less. What does Ginza want to improve? Although Ginza’s image as a shopping district is already well-established, Okamoto said there is still a lot more to do to improve the district. “We are hoping to do something with traffic to make it safer for pedestrians,” since the area has many narrow streets open to cars, he said. While the Ginza Six building will have office space to accommodate 3,000 workers, Okamoto said Ginza overall still lacks office space. If more companies come to Ginza, it would further stimulate shopping demand, he said. Ginza Six Retail Management also pointed out that more offices will improve the Ginza brand. “By actively inviting international major companies, Ginza could add more value to its brand as an area for creative workers, on top of its cultural and commercial value,” the company said.

tourism;property;real estate;ginza;ginza six;hyatt centric hotel;tokyu plaza

jp0010776

2016/11/19

Pheasant-elect: Bird with Trump's quiff draws crowds in China

HANGZHOU, CHINA - A pheasant has become a star attraction at a Chinese safari park after visitors said its golden head feathers resembled U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s famous blond quiff. A picture of a 5-year-old golden pheasant called “Little Red” went viral this week after a journalist from the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou pointed out the “striking similarity” between the male bird and Trump, China’s ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily reported. The resemblance doesn’t stop at the feathers, said Gao Hongqiang, the park’s head bird feeder. “After comparing it with the photos … we’ve found that not only are their hairstyles alike, their eyes’ expressions are pretty similar,” Gao said. Visitors at the park said they saw the similarity. “I think this pheasant is very beautiful and Trump’s hairstyle in the U.S. presidential election sprang to mind when I first saw the bird,” Jin Huofeng, 34, said. “I was wondering whether Trump’s hairstylists got inspired by the golden pheasant.”

animals;elections;republicans;offbeat;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election

jp0010777

2016/11/19

Don't rule out a Trump-style revolt against Tokyo

The shock of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election has people both in that country and overseas trying to figure out what happened. Plenty of praise — and blame — is being directed at individuals in both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, as experts point to a host of social and economic trends inside the United States as the factors for Trump’s triumph — or Hillary Clinton’s loss. Like most of the world, Japan’s political, corporate and media establishments were totally unprepared for Trump’s win. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made sure to grab a photo with Clinton on his trip to New York before the election. But Abe and his advisers spent too much time listening to all of those in Japanese government, business and media circles who, after consulting their American sources (who were more often than not wealthy residents of New York or Washington, D.C.) assured them there was no need for a photo op with Trump. He wouldn’t win, so why bother meeting him? There is one influential figure in Japan, however, whose instincts seemed to be far better than Abe’s: former Osaka Mayor, Gov. and Osaka Ishin no Kai co-leader Toru Hashimoto. Throughout the presidential campaign, Hashimoto repeatedly tried to explain, and sometimes defend, Trump’s policies and his message of change via social media and on various TV programs. Trump’s calculated populist appeal was something Hashimoto, himself a calculating populist, understood well. Birds of a feather and all that. Prior to the United Kingdom’s Brexit vote in June, Hashimoto traveled to London for a TV program to report what was going on. In the days before the U.S. election, he spoke to a number of Americans about their votes and the Republican candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric. The responses he got from those he interviewed were often more candid than the watered-down exchanges that appeared on mainstream TV news. While it looked like he was enjoying the drama and public spectacle of American politics, it was also clear Hashimoto recognized among Trump supporters the same kind of emotions, hopes and prejudices that many of his supporters in Osaka had expressed. Those who back Hashimoto and the Nippon Ishin movement have no love for the bureaucrats and politicians in Tokyo, and the centralized power they enjoy. They feel like the government no longer works for them, that they’re disdained and ignored by Tokyo. Sound familiar? Trump supporters have voiced a visceral hatred for those same figures in Washington, D.C. They feel like they are the “forgotten men and women” of America (a term Trump used in his victory speech), disregarded by elites who label them “deplorable” (a word Clinton used in one regrettable campaign speech). In New York last week, Abe and Trump spoke about maintaining trust in the U.S.-Japan relationship, and Abe said he had “great confidence” in the president-elect. But one gets the impression that, if they were to ever meet, Trump may prefer the company of Hashimoto. Trump admires toughness and plain-speaking, and may quickly grow bored and irritated with the way Japan’s politicians operate. If he were to find a soul mate in Hashimoto — two giant egos who never met a television camera they didn’t love, and like to think of themselves as brash populists who can get things done — the Osakan might find himself asked by somebody connected to Abe to serve as a liaison between Trump and the Prime Minister’s Office. That carries its own risks, of course. It assumes Hashimoto would accept such a role (which is uncertain), and that he could be an effective liaison (which is even more uncertain). The last thing anybody in the LDP or those who deal with U.S.-Japan relations wants is for Hashimoto to go on TV and veer from whatever carefully scripted talking points he was supposed to say about either leader. There are currently many unknowns about the future of the bilateral relationship. And some sort of a Hashimoto-Trump alliance, however unlikely and frightening it might appear, no longer seems impossible in these unlikely, and frightening, times.

toru hashimoto;donald trump;trumpism

jp0010778

2016/11/19

Manipulating the brain to hasten learning

For some athletes, success has come from a dedication to practice and the repetition of a particular routine. Baseball icon Ichiro Suzuki or English soccer star David Beckham are two examples that immediately spring to mind. Ichiro, for example, recalls hitting around 500 pitches per day as a child practicing with his father. These days, his daily routine includes weight training to maintain strength and flexibility. Beckham, meanwhile, says he must have practiced taking tens of thousands of free kicks as a child. Author Malcom Gladwell popularized the idea that a person can perfect a technique if they practice a particular task for 10,000 hours. Others, however, argue that such practice needs to be concentrated on a particular task in order to improve. What’s more, they say, 10,000 hours is the average amount of time that people spend perfecting a technique. University of Tokyo neuroscientist Daichi Nozaki has been attempting to discover how the brain learns new skills. His research shows that “motor memories” — also called “muscle memories” — are associated with specific skills and formed according to the state of the brain at the time of learning. Nozaki can also show that such muscle memories can be manipulated. “I guess the reason why a lot of athletes try to perform a routine is to put the brain into a particular state,” Nozaki says. His latest work could point to a method of training motor skills by manipulating the brain state and, therefore, improving performance. Motor memories are almost impossible for the human body to forget. Riding a bicycle is the most obvious example of this at work — but once you’ve learned how to ride a bike, you never forget. The other kind of memories — details such as people’s names, historical events or even the facts in this story — are called “episodic memories.” They can be emotionally important to us, but are ultimately forgettable. It wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t know there was a difference in the brain between these two kinds of memory. The breakthrough was made in 1962 when a Canadian psychologist from McGill University in Montreal published one of the 20th century’s most important papers on the human brain. Brenda Milner had been working with a man called Henry Molaison, known in the scientific literature as “patient HM.” Molaison suffered from severe epilepsy and, as a last-resort, a surgeon removed part of the temporal lobe of Molaison’s brain in 1953. The epilepsy disappeared, but so did Henry’s ability to form new memories. Each day, he said, “was like waking from a dream … every day is alone in itself.” Milner had Molaison draw a line between two outlines of a star while watching his hand and the page in a mirror. She had him do this several times over different days but since he couldn’t form any new memories, he had no memory of being asked to do this test. Molaison wasn’t consciously aware of having performed the drawing task for Milner, but his ability at completing the task improved each time. His body was learning and he was acquiring some kind of muscle memory. Milner concluded that muscle memory could be formed independently from a person’s regular memory. Molaison had lost the ability to store specific details, but the part of his brain where muscle memory was kept remained intact. Nozaki hypothesized that if the state of the brain varies according to the specific motor skills being learned, then different motor memories would be created. To test this, he used a technique called tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation), in which electrodes are placed on the scalp and a mild current is passed through the brain that triggers muscle movement. I’ve experienced this myself and it’s an odd sensation. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s strange to feel your brain do something you didn’t authorize. The tDCS was used to create two different brain states. Volunteers in Nozaki’s lab performed a movement-based task while a different stimulation was applied to the brain. It was a simple task: They had to push a lever forward while simultaneously applying a left- or right-side force to the handle. Once they had learned the task, the volunteers performed it again without interference, but re-created the same brain state using tDCS. The test subjects moved the lever in a direction to counteract the force they experienced during their training, even if no actual force was being applied. This indicates that they were automatically recalling the motor memory linked to that brain state. Nozaki’s work shows that motor memories are “tagged” to specific episodes. Performing a motor-learning task under different brain states could make motor memory stronger, he says. “The technique cannot be used to create motor memory itself,” he says. “However, it can be used to make the memory more reliable or robust.” Nozaki’s team is now examining this question, testing, among other things, whether applying tDCS and learning during sleep enhances motor memories. Practicing while asleep? That’s great news for those of us who don’t have the dedication to practice as often as either Ichiro or Beckham.

learning;motor skills

jp0010779

2016/11/19

Is Japanese pop music losing its relevance?

Shukan Bunshun recently ran some articles describing how last year the talent management company LDH allegedly paid entertainment behemoth Burning Productions to ensure that one of LDH’s acts would win the top prize at the 2015 Japan Record Awards (JRA). Accompanying one of the articles was a photo of an invoice on Burning stationery showing that LDH owed it ¥108 million for “end-of-year business promotion expenses.” LDH manages the all-male R&B collective Exile and its side projects, one of which, Sandaime J Soul Brothers, was the subject of LDH’s under-the-radar largesse and won the JRA last year. They also won it the year before, and their senpai (senior) group, Exile, won it in 2008, 2010 and 2013. Though Burning does not run the JRA — that’s done by the Japan Composers Association (JCA) — it plays a central role, in selecting the winners along with two other major entertainment companies: Avex Holdings, which owns Avex Records; and TBS, the television network that sponsors and broadcasts the JRA ceremony. The jury is made up of employees of these three companies, as well as journalists and industry insiders. Following its investigation, Bunshun contacted the related organizations. Gendai Kano, the 78-year-old chairman of JCA, apologized and told the magazine the payment was “unacceptable” without admitting that it actually occurred. Ryotaro Konishi, the chairman of the jury and a former executive of tabloid Sports Nippon, said he would have to “scrutinize what really happened.” The TBS producer in charge of JRA, Yoji Ochiai, said his company had nothing to do with the award selection, only the broadcast, but there were seven TBS staff on the jury. This confluence of denial in the face of arguably strong evidence would normally spark its own media circus, but as entertainment writer Takashi Odajima wrote in a Nov. 4 blog post for Nikkei Business Online , there has been no secondary coverage of the scandal. Odajima explains that rumors of JRA bribery have been circulating for years, “but this was the first time a related article was published with evidence, and I expected a lot of noise.” In the end, Bunshun’s bombshell “turned out to be a dud,” says Odajima. TV ignored the story completely. Odajima says that’s because broadcasters are beholden to a handful of “dons” who head the country’s major talent agencies and control which stars are available for TV appearances. What perplexes Odajima is that this corporate dynamic remains unchanged as the JRA declines in significance. Since the 1990s, an increasing number of popular artists have shown less interest in the award, and every year “the ceremony itself becomes increasingly insular, more irrelevant to viewers.” He predicts the award will not last “10 more years, after all the dons are dead.” Odajima hears the organizers are “struggling” just to find a winner this year, partly due to the scandal but also because one of the unmentioned conditions for receiving the award is that the recipient show up at the ceremony, which is broadcast live. That’s why it was moved a decade ago from Dec. 31 to Dec. 30. Formerly, the JRA acted as a prelude to NHK’s much more prestigious New Year’s Eve song contest, “Kohaku Uta Gassen,” but when NHK started airing the show an hour earlier, it overlapped with the JRA, and traditionally the victors at JRA also appeared on “Kohaku.” Consequently, JRA winners opted to forego the ceremony to sing on NHK. Also, some best-selling artists are disinclined to appear on TV at all. Three of the biggest songs this year have been by Hikaru Utada, Namie Amuro and Radwimps, none of whom have shown much interest in TV lately, so they probably won’t make the JRA’s shortlist. The JRA was launched in 1959 as the Japanese answer to the Grammys and used sales as the main selection criterion. Ratings peaked in 1977 at 51 percent, but by 2005 audience share had dropped to 10 percent. It rose a little after the live broadcast moved to Dec. 30, but last year it was still only 13 percent. Music consumption in Japan has become atomized. There is no national consensus on the year’s “best song” as there was when everyone watched the same TV shows and adored the same singing stars. The late songwriter Eiichi Otaki once told the Asahi Shimbun that in the golden age of pop “certain songs really represented entire years to the Japanese public.” Those days are long gone. According to web magazine Litera , Burning has exploited its considerable power to dominate the JRA since the early 1990s, when the award was no longer a big deal to the public and had merely become a promotional tool. At that time, TV was still the main means for selling records, and every TV network had its own music publishing subsidiary. As advertising dried up, TV stations relied more on publishing for revenue. They have been known to give money to record companies to cover the high costs of recording and promoting their artists in exchange for rights to those artists’ songs, which they would then use on their programs. The songs became hits due to TV exposure and, in turn, generated more money through ancillary products such as ringtones and karaoke tracks. The TV stations would share in the profits. Burning and Avex are major beneficiaries of this system, since Avex controls many top artists and Burning has the nation’s best PR resources. In addition, both companies administer the song rights of their charges, such as top ’90s dance music producer Tetsuya Komuro, who was eventually arrested for fraud because he tried to sell rights he didn’t own. In order to increase sales, LDH sought Burning’s help in winning the JRA. Burning was simply providing a professional service, though one that isn’t known to the general public, since that would demean whatever cachet of prestige the JRA enjoys. At this point perhaps no one genuinely thinks the JRA acknowledges quality — maybe no one ever did — so to most people the LDH payment doesn’t count as a scandal. It’s just business as usual, and as such helps explain why the state of Japanese pop music, not to mention Japanese TV, is as bad as it is.

j-pop;boy band;exile;tetsuya komuro;sandaime j soul brothers;jca

jp0010781

2016/11/19

Vileness is a quality more repugnant than evil

There is a kind of moral ugliness that, without being quite evil, may be even more repellant than evil because evil — genuine evil — has, sometimes, a certain romantic appeal. You can admire the villain’s strength, or courage, or dash, or reckless defiance of that which we all, sometimes, wish we could defy — the smug, complacent society that bears down on the individual with all its stifling weight and ruthless indifference. More repugnant than evil is a quality aptly named vileness. Individuals who embody its most insidious form are guilty of no crime, are respectable and respected members of society, support their families, work diligently for their employers, are promoted, honored, esteemed — and hateful. Novelist Futabatei Shimei (1864-1909) captures their essence in the opening paragraph of “Ukigumo” (“Drifting Cloud”). Published in 1889, it is considered Japan’s first “modern” novel. “A swirling mass of men,” the narrator observes, “stream out of (Tokyo’s) Kanda gate, marching first in ant-like formation, then scuttling busily off in every direction. Each and every one of these fine gentlemen is primarily interested in getting enough to eat.” The vile character, the vile demeanor, the vile act, are staples of modern literature. Earlier literature shied away from them. “The Tale of Genji,” for example — the world’s first, quite possibly longest, arguably greatest novel, written a millennium ago by court lady Murasaki Shikibu — portrays 430-odd characters, not one of whom is vile. The worst you can say about the worst of them is that they are “insensitive.” They are not poets, they know nothing of the poignant beauty and sadness of things. Too bad for them, and certainly the world would be the better for their absence, but a little laughter at their expense blunts whatever small sting they wield. Murasaki Shikibu, and pre-modern authors in general, preferred to focus on the good in people, idealizing it with little regard for humdrum, unideal reality. When her peaceful, refined, aristocratic era faded in the late 12th century, the warrior society that replaced it, for all its bellicose crudity, inherited that tendency at least, and one of its most famous war tales is of a hard-bitten old soldier shedding tears of remorse over having to kill a beautiful enemy youth — a curious variation, in this most un-Christian time and place, on the Christian injunction to “love your enemy.” Vileness — cringing, unctuous sycophancy to those above in the hope of career advancement; shrill, merciless bullying of those below as a sign that one’s career has advanced — is an unfortunate concomitant of social mobility, of which ancient society knew little. What ancient society did know was absolute fear of absolute power. It hardly brought out the best in people. Historian Donald Keene, in “Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion,” describes a reign of terror under Shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori (ruled 1429-41): “(Yoshinori’s) first response to any act that seemed disloyal was an order to kill. When the heads of his enemies were sent to the capital, he personally inspected them. … Although they had been pickled in sake, in the intense heat of the Kyoto summer their features had decomposed … The nobles had little desire to participate in the head inspection or even to get a glimpse of the unspeakably horrible sight, but they hurried to the spot … each trying to be among the first to offer congratulations and fearful of incurring the shogun’s wrath if he arrived late.” In the warrior culture that dominated Japan for 600 years until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, no quality was more esteemed than sincerity — not even loyalty. Saigo Takamori (1828-77) characterized the sincere man as “he who cares nothing about his life, nor about his fame, nor about rank or money.” Only such a man, he said, “will undergo every hardship with his companions in order to carry out great work for the country.” Saigo himself, leader of a high-minded but doomed rebellion against the infant Meiji government, proved his sincerity on the battlefield, ritually disemboweling himself as defeat closed in. The scene Futabatei describes in “Ukigumo” with such loathing would have occurred barely a decade after Saigo’s death. The Meiji Restoration flung Japan headlong out of its traditional culture into modern times. Sincerity and the other samurai virtues had no place here. Among Futabatei’s “swirling mass of men” — bureaucrats at quitting time, heroes of the new age — is young Noboru, whose name defines him — it means “to climb.” He’ll do anything to advance his career — toady, flatter, obey stupid orders, laugh at stupid jokes — anything. Far from being ashamed, he boasts of it, knowing the ambition it reflects will boost his chances with a certain young lady who would make a good match. Saigo personifies the pre-modern spirit, Noboru the modern. Imagine Noboru 20 years later. Futabatei’s successor as a chronicler of (among other things) smiling hatefulness is Shimazaki Toson (1872-1943). His novel “Hakai” (“The Broken Commandment,” 1906) is set in rural, mountainous Shinshu (present-day Nagano Prefecture). A subplot involves a genial little conspiracy by school administrators to get rid of a young teacher whose crime, in their eyes, is his dedication and popularity. They are jealous. Their surgery is successful; the young man is driven out. The children troop into the principal’s office to protest. The principal is the Noboru type grown middle-aged. His education philosophy is: “Rules are rules.” “In recognition of meritorious service,” reads the gold medal he has just won. “Now listen, all of you,” he tells the children. “However much I myself may want to keep Segawa- sensei on” — this after having played the leading role in axing him — “I can do nothing … I understand how you feel. Go home, all of you, and be sure you don’t neglect your studies. The most important thing for you is (to) study” — and grow up to be worthy servants of a new and rising nation, like himself, and like Noboru.

donald keene;murasaki shikibu;evil;futabatei shimei;saigo takamori;vileness

jp0010783

2016/11/26

Hand over the keys: getting Japan's elderly drivers off the road

On Nov. 12, in the city of Tachikawa in western Tokyo, an 83-year-old female driver — while reaching out her car window to insert a parking ticket into the toll gate machine in a hospital parking lot — accidentally pushed down on the accelerator and lost control of her vehicle. It crossed the road and ran down a man and woman, killing them both. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, four days later Prime Minister Shinzo Abe presided over an emergency conference to discuss accidents by elderly drivers, which were described as an “urgent issue.” There was a time when the elderly made up a preponderant share of Japan’s traffic accident victims . They crossed streets too slowly, veered their bicycles into moving traffic or wore dark clothing that made them hard to see at night, and so on. However, now the number of drivers aged 65 or older is estimated to be more than 17 million, and license holders aged 75 or older doubled from 2.36 million in 2005 to 4.77 million last year. While overall traffic fatalities have been on the decline, the National Police Agency has noted with alarm that, over the previous decade, the proportion of fatalities involving drivers in the latter age group rose from 7.4 to 12.8 percent. One type of accident that seems particularly common among elderly drivers is so-called gyakusou (wrong-way driving), such as mistakenly entering an expressway via an exit ramp and driving into the oncoming traffic. Elderly drivers are said to be responsible for around 70 percent of such mishaps, of which about 200 reportedly occur each year. In one of the more extreme cases, a 77-year-old man on Nov. 20 drove some 20 kilometers in the wrong direction on the Chugoku Expressway. On Nov. 14 a rash of accidents occured: in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, a 77-year-old driver collided head-on with a light truck, killing one; in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, a 72-year-old driver was arrested fleeing the scene after running down a female pedestrian, who remains hospitalized with serious injuries; and in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, an 82-year-old man rammed a local post office building — fortunately no one was hurt. “In principle, if an elderly person causes an accident, he or she is considered responsible,” attorney Hisato Fujiwara is quoted as saying in Friday magazine (Dec. 2). “But should the person involved be suffering from a cognitive disorder such as senile dementia, then the responsibility falls on a family member or appointed guardian. In the event of a fatality, the liability can run from several tens of million yen upwards to ¥100 million,” he adds. “If found guilty of negligent driving resulting in death, a sentence of seven years imprisonment or a shorter sentence plus a fine of up to ¥1 million is possible.” The license issuing authorities have not exactly been standing still. From June 2009 the requirements for elderly drivers were further heightened, requiring a test for cognitive functions (e.g., naming the date, day of week and time; drawing the image of a clock; and a short-term memory test). An English-language example of the Cognitive Impairment Screening Test can be found here: www.npa.go.jp/annai/license_renewal/ninti/index2.htm . The recent spate of accidents has given new impetus to encourage the elderly to voluntarily surrender their licenses. In 2015 some 270,000 did so, but that, however, only amounted to an estimated 2 percent of the total number of license holders in that demographic. For the reasonable outlay of ¥1,000, a person who decides to relinquish his or her license can be issued a nondriver ID card, called unten keireki shomeisho (driving history certificate), which can be utilized as a photo ID. In some localities, showing the card also entitles a bearer to certain services, ranging from senior discounts to taxi vouchers and free delivery of goods purchased at department stores. In the meantime, more ideas to reduce accidents are being proposed. “As the driving capabilities of elderly people can decline rapidly, it might be a good idea to require them to undergo a test every month,” Dr. Kaechang Park, professor at Kochi University of Technology and an authority on the problems of elderly drivers, tells Shukan Taishu magazine (Dec. 5). Park conducted experiments in which elderly subjects underwent MRI brain scans. The findings indicated those involved in accidents had decreased density in their cerebral white matter, a condition known as Leukoaraiosis, six times greater than those who did not. It goes without saying that if everyone above age 65 were to abruptly give up their vehicles, the impact on the economy would be profound. The Japanese Automobile Manufacturers’ Association calculates that at least 8.3 percent of the total Japanese workforce is involved in some aspect of motor vehicle production, sales, servicing or operation. In the short term, more elderly drivers may be persuaded to give up driving if they can be convinced it’s economically practical to use alternative means of transportation. “Due to the characteristics of their locales and their customary practices, some people may feel that driving a car is ‘an absolute necessity,’ ” an unnamed automotive journalist is quoted as saying in Shukan Taishu. “But if they cause an accident, they risk losing everything. And what’s more, if they use what they would otherwise pay for car maintenance and upkeep and ride in taxis instead, there’s a good chance the financial disadvantages would be minimal.” The best option of all might be to just let the cars have their own way: Once models with automated driving functions arrive on the market, they will almost certainly find strong demand among Japan’s elderly.

national police agency;aging society;car accidents;elderly drivers

jp0010784

2016/11/26

Hopes of stopping Tokyo 2020 are fading

NHK has announced that its yearlong historical drama series for 2019 will be about Japan’s involvement in the Olympic movement, focusing on the nation’s first foray to the games in 1912 and its first time hosting them in 1964. The story will also, according to Kyodo News , cover “events that took place in-between.” It will be interesting to see how the show handles the 1940 Summer Games , which were to be held in Tokyo. The city was announced as the winner in 1936, but by the following year Japan was fighting in China: it forfeited hosting the event in 1938 as the government decided the country’s resources should go toward the war effort. For their part, the games’ organizers in Japan had wanted to celebrate the 2,600th anniversary of the birth of the Imperial line in 1940 and thought the Olympics were the perfect opportunity to promote the celebration internationally and also fortify nationalistic pride to help Japan in its Asian crusade. The government, apparently, felt it could accomplish that mission without the Olympics. That was 76 years ago. At this juncture, it’s useless to point out that encouraging patriotism contradicts the International Olympic Committee’s goal of celebrating individual athletic achievement; every country that participates has always gotten into the jingoistic swing of things, even when they’re not the host. When former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara proposed bringing the Olympics back to Tokyo for 2016, his ostensible reason was similar to that of the 1940 organizers: Japan needed a morale booster. The people behind the 2020 Games are saying they want to revive the spirit that made the 1964 Tokyo Olympics a success. As sociologist Kiyoshi Abe said recently on a TBS radio talk show hosted by former TV Asahi news anchor Hiroshi Kume — who is notorious for his opposition to the Tokyo Games — Abe’s students, born in the mid-1990s, “have no optimism for the future because they were never told that things will get better.” But the Olympics gives them something to look forward to, at least in the short run. Abe contributed to a book of essays whose theme is the cancellation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It’s a movement that seems quaint at best. He told Kume that it was difficult to find a publisher for the book because “once the matter (of hosting the Olympics) is decided, it’s assumed everyone will work together” to make it the best it can be. Kume responded, “Then, as long as we discuss (canceling the Olympics) in that context, it’s OK, right?” Everybody in the studio laughed. Abe and Kume are not opposed to the games because of its nationalistic bent. They have other reasons — including cost, inconvenience, earthquakes — as do many people who would prefer the event does not take place in Tokyo. But hosting the Olympics is a foregone conclusion. Still, some media haven’t reached that conclusion. In a recent issue, Shukan Gendai says that new Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike has “the authority and the precedent” to stop the games, and might even do so under certain circumstances. The precedent is Denver, which won the right to host the Winter Olympics in 1976, a year that was the centennial of Colorado’s statehood and the bicentennial of America’s founding. Denver’s situation at the time is similar to Tokyo’s now. In order to win the bid, the organizers submitted a plan that emphasized conservation and a streamlined budget, but eventually they realized that the amount of money they proposed was too small, and construction of some venues would necessitate destroying mountains. Once these facts became known to residents, a referendum was called and voters chose to reject the games, which ended up going to Innsbruck, Austria, for the second time. Tokyo’s winning bid was also low. It’s one of the reasons the city won, along with the pledge to keep the games “compact.” The current estimate of “team Koike,” as Gendai calls the people addressing the ongoing budget crisis, is that the Olympics will cost ¥3 trillion — more than three times the bid estimate. The “compact” feature was abandoned as soon as the victory cheers died down. Koike is currently riding a wave of public approval due to her decisive handling of the botched Tsukiji fish market move . The public expects her to cut the Olympic budget by a third, and other interested parties have agreed to meet this target , but in order to do that she must convince various sports associations to hold their events at existing venues outside of Tokyo. Gendai says that even if she wins that battle, she’ll only save about ¥40 billion, which won’t be enough as far as the public is concerned. Right now the media loves Koike because whenever TV news programs cover her, ratings go up, but if she loses in her standoff with the forces of the Olympics, her support numbers will drop. In such a situation, Gendai thinks she could cancel the Olympics, which would shock and humiliate many people but also make her “the most powerful politician in Japan.” As one Tokyo government official told the magazine — likening the situation to that of Americans who supported Donald Trump during the recent presidential campaign — there are many Tokyo citizens who want to see arrogant Olympic stakeholders such as Ishihara and former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori “lose face.” By giving up the games, Koike would be gambling with her career, but it’s a risk with enormous potential benefits for her politically. Gendai understands how unlikely this scenario is, but as a magazine whose aim is to be provocative, it purposely ignores the received wisdom that says the Olympics is a foregone conclusion, since that prevents them from saying anything negative about the games at all. In his column for Nikkei Business Online , Takashi Odajima writes that he will no longer say anything against the games because he doesn’t have the stomach to counter the backlash. And the nearer we get to 2020, the harsher that backlash becomes. “Four years from now,” said Kume on his show, “we’ll look back on this time nostalgically, because we could still talk about it.”

tokyo 2020;tokyo metropolitan government;yuriko koike

jp0010785

2016/11/21

VR wave to leave Japan awash in business opportunities

New technological innovations have a tendency to create new business opportunities, and the latest craze, virtual reality, is no exception. With the debut of cutting-edge VR headsets this year, many firms from video game makers, 360-degree-video distributors , arcade operators and cellphone carriers are gearing up to position themselves ahead of the curve so they can grab their slice of the VR pie. One of the pioneering firms in Japan is Tokyo-based Gree Inc., originally a maker of cellphone games. “When the wave of a platform shift is building, it will be too late to prepare once the wave has come,” said Eiji Araki, a vice president at Gree, which missed the arrival of the smartphone wave in Japan several years ago. Founded in 2004, Gree grew rapidly thanks to the popularity of its social network and gaming platform based on conventional cellphones. But it was slow to enter the market for smartphone apps. “The VR market is still in a very early stage, but we are already preparing to accumulate the know-how,” said Araki, who spearheaded a VR project at Gree in April 2015. The purpose was to showcase its new maze game at the Tokyo Game Show that September. “The reaction from people who tried the game was very positive, with media outlets praising our display,” he said. “The experience made me realize VR could really become a viable business and that we should get on with it.” Gree is making VR games for both smartphones and high-end video game consoles. Among the few finished titles are “Tomb of the Golems,” a game where players explore the ruins of an ancient temple. Since the VR video game market is in its infancy, it will probably take two to three years for game makers to earn sizable profits, Araki said. Gree also sees the potential for using VR in arcades. “It will still take another year or two for the headsets to spread throughout the general public. Until then, facilities that provide VR attractions will be the most likely venues to provide the first opportunity for many to enjoy and experience the new medium,” he said, adding that arcades are perfect for that. Gree is teaming up with Adores Inc., a Tokyo-based arcade operator, to open a Tokyo VR Park in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Others are jumping on the bandwagon. Capcom Co. is about to launch the latest in its popular “Resident Evil” series, which will be VR-ready, and Square Enix Co., maker of “Final Fantasy,” will release the latest iteration of the series this month that will include a version in VR. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, the VR software market is expected to be worth $45.4 billion by 2025, with 46 percent of the sales coming from video games. VR, however, won’t be limited to gamers. To take advantage of VR’s immersive features, mobile carrier KDDI Corp. launched a live experiment this month to simulate overseas travel using the technology. The carrier dispatched tour guides in Bangkok, London and Sydney who, through the use of 360-degree video cameras, live-streamed their experiences to headset wearers back in Tokyo. The guides walked around various spots while the viewers in Tokyo spoke with them, even asking them to buy things to ship back to Japan. “If we were to choose between being just a communication infrastructure firm or make the best of our infrastructure to provide something valuable, we choose the latter,” said Yoichi Tsukamoto, general manager of KDDI’s digital marketing department. While KDDI has yet to decide if it will actually launch a VR travel service, Tsukamoto said a real-time VR system could become a key communication platform in the future that his company would be in position to take advantage of. VR video, a new medium that provides 360-degree views, is another field that has emerged from the technology. Sony Music Entertainment Inc. announced in August that it had invested in Little Star Media Inc., a U.S.-based 360-degree video platform, with the aim of starting a VR video service in Japan. It did not disclose the size of its investment. Little Star has more than 7,000 360-degree video titles, with many made by ABC News, Disney and National Geographic. Tony Mugavero, founder and CEO of Little Star, said 360-degree videos are already taking off in fields such as journalism and education. The company expects VR content to surge next year and hopes it will be able to run a subscription-based business model in the coming years, Mugavero said. The VR market is a big opportunity for startups, too. But while newcomers in the field are flourishing in the United States, Japanese startups have been so slow to catch on, according to some investors. “This is a problem,” said Yoshihiko Kinoshita, head of Skyland Ventures, a Tokyo-based venture capital firm. “The VR market is only going to grow and it’s really important for startups to enter and compete in the growing market.” Developing VR games requires a know-how and experience, so it may be difficult for startups to just jump in, he said. “There is a clear need for 360-degree or VR video production from now on, and startups might have a better chance in this field,” Kinoshita added.

virtual reality;kddi;capcom;video game;gree inc .

jp0010786

2016/11/21

Porn makers want sexual fantasies to become virtual realities

In June, hundreds of people thronged a small virtual reality event in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, forcing the organizer to cancel it halfway through. What drew such a big crowd so quickly? A VR-based porn demonstration. “It was unexpected,” said Kento Yoshida, head of the group that organized the event. “But it proved that many people have expectations for VR adult content.” Industry insiders claim that adult VR content may be the key to spreading the technology to the general public, just as it did with videotapes and the internet. They said VR’s potential is huge because it could eventually lead to virtual sex, either with a digital character or a real person in a different location. The technology can also be used to fulfill one’s secret fantasies more easily. While admitting that the erotic possibilities made possible by VR will provoke critics of adult content, they said it will still be meaningful to have a new option for sex. Yoshida, who is also president of Tokyo-based adult video maker VRG, said most people remain unaware of VR’s potential, which is why he held the Akihabara event. “At that time, people didn’t really know what VR was . . . so I thought that adult content would be the most catchy topic to use to get people more familiarized with VR,” he said. The technology opens up a whole new horizon for people with sexual fantasies, he said. For instance, if people harbor a desire for abnormal or illicit sex, fulfilling that desire may be difficult or risky in real life, to say the least. But VR can make it all possible, Yoshida said. It can also help others who are too shy to express their feelings or start a relationship. “VR is the best way to satisfy their sexual needs,” he said. VR headsets allow people to effectively jump into whatever they see, so this kind of immersive experience could lead to virtual sex with digital characters or other people, Yoshida said. But achieving high-quality virtual sex means conquering several technological barriers, including the lack of physical sensation, he said. Other Japanese firms are already cashing in on the trend. The DMM.com Group, which runs a major video streaming and downloading service, started offering VR and 360-degree porn videos on Nov. 10. As of Monday, the website had 146 VR-ready porn titles available for download. They can be viewed by smartphone simply by putting the handsets into VR goggles. Several other firms provide VR porn videos as well. Game maker Illusion, based in Kanagawa Prefecture, is developing a VR title for next year. General Producer Naoyuki Otsuru acknowledges that the adult entertainment industry will help spread VR but fears that the content has been getting a little too much media coverage recently. “There’s a certain degree of adverse reaction to adult content. I’m concerned that it might damage the image of VR,” he said. Illusion plans to release a game called “VR Kanojo” (“VR Girlfriend”) that lets players virtually enter an imaginary girlfriend’s room to have sex. The producers say they are focused on making players feel the girlfriend is really there. Otsuru also said that VR has the potential to expand the human sexual experience but that the content must be tightly controlled. “I’m concerned that when it spreads more widely, it might end up in the hands of those who aren’t supposed to have it, or won’t like to see it,” Otsuru said. In the future, some say we might see people giving up on real-life relationships in favor of virtual romance — a possibility that could emerge as the technology becomes more immersive, which is likely to raise a moral question. “It’s impossible to eliminate adult content forever, so we need to think about how we should use it,” Otsuru said. Yoshida of VRG said the decision on whether to engage in virtual romance or real romance should be left to each individual. “It will give us a new option in our sexual life,” he said. “Getting a new option itself is great.”

games;sex;virtual reality;technology;porn

jp0010787

2016/11/07

Clinton tailwind seen as Latinos in large numbers vote early in Florida, Nevada

MIAMI - The man answering a volunteer’s knock on the door in the Kendall section of Miami-Dade County on Saturday was emphatic: Not only would he vote but “esperamos que la presidenta gane” — Spanish for “we hope Madam President wins.” Volunteers across Florida made a last-minute push to get voters to the polls this weekend with early voting ending on Sunday ahead of Election Day on Tuesday, pitting Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton, or “la presidenta,” as the man at the door called her. Latino voters like the man in Kendall and elsewhere could have an outsized influence in Tuesday’s election. Early voting data may portend a jump in the number of Hispanic voters this year, especially in the key swing states of Florida and Nevada. Clinton has polled much stronger among Latino voters nationwide, suggesting she would benefit more from a surge in early voting in those two states, voting experts say. Trump has fared poorly in that demographic, having repeatedly angered Hispanics with disparaging comments about their communities. A recent poll conducted by the firms The Tarrance Group and Bendixen and Amandi found that Hispanic registered voters in Florida favor Clinton 60 percent to 30 percent. In Nevada the gap was even wider — 72 percent for Clinton and 19 percent for Trump. In Florida, the Clinton campaign estimates early Latino voting is up 139 percent, or more than twice as much, compared to 2012, according to a field report dated Wednesday. Democratic strategist Steve Schale, a Florida expert, estimated that 170,000 more Hispanics had voted early or by mail as of Wednesday than had voted early or by mail in the entire 2012 election, according to a post on his blog. “And keep in mind, because Hispanic is a self-identifying marker, studies have found that the real Hispanic vote is larger than the registration. So while Hispanics might make up 14.2 percent of the voters who have voted so far, in reality, the number is larger,” he wrote. But the raw data leave a number of questions. Will Latinos keep up the higher turnout rates on Election Day? For which candidate did they vote? Will turnout from Latinos and other minorities make enough of a difference to swing Florida and other states? Trump kicked off his maverick campaign last year by calling many Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, and his relationship with Latinos hardly improved from there. From his calls to build a wall on the border and have Mexico pay for it, to comments that an American-born judge could not do his job because of his Mexican heritage, Trump has consistently had low polling figures with Latinos across the country. Nevada does not note race or ethnicity on its voter registration but other data there suggest Latinos also are turning out in force. For one thing, Clark County has seen a surge in early voting. Between in-person and absentee voting, registered Democrats have now returned over 72,000 more ballots than registered Republicans there. Those figures do not indicate which candidate voters picked, only the party with which the voters are registered. Friday alone saw 57,172 votes in person in Clark County. Photos making the rounds on social media showed especially long lines at a Cardenas market voting site, which stayed open late to accommodate the surge of voters. Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, has a large Latino population — 30.6 percent, compared to 28.1 percent for Nevada as a whole, according to the U.S. Census. Even more Republican votes elsewhere in the state are so far not enough to counterbalance that Democratic lead in Clark County. Overall, the Democrats have cast around 46,000 more ballots in Nevada than Republicans. That’s not an accident, said Artie Blanco, the Nevada state coordinator for the progressive group For Our Future. Her organization and others banded together in a major get-out-the-vote push, especially among voters of color, and the coalition’s data suggest that the effort paid off. Twenty-two percent of Democrats who voted on Friday had a conversation with someone from that progressive coalition at some point after Oct. 15, Blanco said. Among Latino voters on the last three voting days, the coalition had conversations with 14 percent of them after Oct. 15, according to the group’s data. Trump on Saturday hit out at the early voters in Nevada, looking to undermine the state’s results before Election Day. “They didn’t get the kind of vote that they needed to stop us on Tuesday,” Trump said in Reno. “Tuesday is our day in this state.” He said Reno and northern Nevada could “carry us all the way to Washington.” But Blanco said the votes were instead the result of major work to bring out voters, especially people of color and that progressive organizations were not done yet. “We have all these voters that we need to now go back and say, ‘You’ve got one day,'” she said of those who had not yet cast ballots.

hillary clinton;florida;nevada;latinos;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election;hispanic voters

jp0010788

2016/11/07

From Operation Tomodachi to Hiroshima visit, exiting Obama viewed favorably in Japan

On Tuesday, the whole world will be watching as Americans choose their next president. This year’s election has been one of the most bitter and controversial ever, with opinion polls showing that a majority of voters strongly dislike both Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump. But while many Americans will also not miss departing President Barack Obama, he will leave office as a fairly popular leader in many parts of the world, including Japan. How do Japanese today generally view Barack Obama? When Obama was elected in 2008, there was great excitement in Japan, especially in the town of Obama, Fukui Prefecture, which shares his name. There, the election was broadcast live and local merchants created T-shirts and other goods emblazoned with the face of their town’s namesake. Despite a number of ups and downs over the past eight years, public opinion polls consistently show Obama remains liked in Japan. A survey of 1,000 Japanese conducted in April and May by the Washington-based Pew Research Center and released last week said 17 percent of the respondents had high confidence in Obama to do the right thing regarding world affairs, and that 61 percent had at least some confidence. Only 2 percent said they had no confidence at all in the president. The Pew poll is conducted annually, and since 2009, between 60 and 85 percent of the respondents have expressed confidence in Obama. His least popular period in Japan, according to the survey, was in spring 2014, when 36 percent of the respondents said they had little or no, if any, confidence he would do the right thing. That was when Sino-Japanese tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands had many Japanese wondering if the United States would back Japan. Obama visited Tokyo in April 2014 and said for the first time that the U.S. would defend Japan if the isles, long administered by Japan but claimed by Taiwan and China, come under attack. By the spring of 2015, however, the Pew Center found that two-thirds of those surveyed had confidence in Obama and that 29 percent had little or none. While those numbers were not as impressive as when the president first entered office in 2009, when 85 percent of the respondents express confidence in his abilities, it indicates a majority of Japan approves of what he has done regarding U.S.-Japan relations. What is likely to be remembered in Japan as Obama’s most significant accomplishment? Without doubt, it will be his trip to Hiroshima in May, the first ever made to that city by a sitting U.S. president. Japanese media polls held after the visit showed that anywhere between 80 and 90 percent of the public approved of what they saw as a historic moment in Japan’s relations with the U.S. The assistance the U.S. provided during Operation Tomodachi after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant was considered a high point in U.S.-Japan relations under Obama’s presidency, especially in the Tohoku region. What are some of the controversial issues regarding Obama’s legacy in Japan? While the Hiroshima visit was appreciated for its historical value, the fact that Obama did not formally apologize for the atomic bombing disappointed some. In addition, the fact the U.S. continues to deploy nuclear weapons and, along with Japan, voted late last month against the United Nations starting negotiations on a new treaty to ban nuclear weapons angered and disappointed those who have long campaigned against them. In late October, a U.N. General Assembly committee voted to launch negotiations on a new treaty next March to ban atomic weapons, one that would supersede the nearly half-century-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Japan was pressured by the U.S. to vote against the proposal. Many Japanese felt that Obama, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for advocating a world without the nuclear weapons, should have worked harder to realize that goal. Another area where Obama raised expectations in parts of Japan but failed to deliver was in trade, via the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Making the free trade pact a pillar of his Asian policy, it was part of an effort by the U.S. to concentrate more military and commercial power in Asia. Obama has spent the last few years lobbying hard for the TPP and still hopes for its passage by Congress before the end of his term. But with both Clinton and Trump opposed to the agreement, at least in its current form, and with U.S. polls showing that pro-TPP senators are losing to anti-TPP challengers in several key states, the TPP appears unlikely to be completed before Obama leaves office in January, and its future under a new president, and new Congress, is uncertain. Obama will also be remembered for his jerky relationship with Yukio Hatoyama regarding the relocation of U.S. bases in Okinawa. Hatoyama said during the 2009 Lower House election campaign that the operations of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma should be moved off Okinawa. Hatoyama became prime minister after the former Democratic Party of Japan took power. Although he urged Obama to trust him, in the end Hatoyama’s idea went nowhere, prompting an unnamed White House official to describe him as “loopy.” Obama is the third U.S. president to be stymied by the long-stalled Futenma relocation plan. Compared with past presidents, how does Obama fare? While Obama may not have had the kind of personal rapport with prime ministers that Ronald Reagan enjoyed in the 1980s with Yasuhiro Nakasone, or that George W. Bush had with Junichiro Koizumi a decade ago, his efforts to forge a closer military and trade relationship with Japan won him applause from Japan’s leadership. As to his legacy in Japan, that is likely to depend at least partially on who Americans choose on Tuesday to be his successor.

barack obama;hiroshima;elections;hillary clinton;republicans;fukui;democrats;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election

jp0010789

2016/11/09

Judge foils Trump suit over Las Vegas early polling place that stayed open late

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK - A Nevada judge rejected a request by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for an immediate order to be issued in its lawsuit over concerns about voting at a polling place in Las Vegas that remained open late last week. Judge Gloria Sturman at the Clark County Court said that the order would potentially make public the identities of poll workers, which could put them at risk of harassment. Most voters are casting their ballots across the United States on Tuesday in the general election but Nevada and several other states allow early voting. The Trump camp sued the registrar of voters in Clark County over the polling place in Las Vegas that had been allowed to remain open late last week to accommodate people who were lined up to vote. Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are in a close contest to win Nevada in Tuesday’s election after a long and contentious campaign. Nevada is one of several states that permits early voting and Las Vegas is viewed as a base of support for Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York and former secretary of state. Nevada state law says voters who are in line at 8 p.m., when the polls close, must be allowed to cast their ballots. The lawsuit, filed in a Nevada state court on Monday, said election officials violated state law because they allowed people to join the line after 8 p.m. at a polling location at a Latino market. Representatives for Clark County could not immediately be reached for comment. Representatives for the Clinton campaign also could not immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit. In the lawsuit Trump, a New York businessman and reality TV personality who has never previously run for political office, asked that the ballots from that polling place be kept separate from other votes, pending any future legal challenges to the results in the state. David Bossie, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said on MSNBC that the lawsuit was not aimed at suppressing the Hispanic vote. “This is a lawsuit about the rules of the game,” he said.

nevada;donald trump;2016 u.s. presidential election

jp0010790

2016/11/01

Tokyo's last streetcar line still rolling strong, after 105 years in operation

In all of Tokyo, the Toden Arakawa Line is the last remaining streetcar. The single-car train covers a 12-km route between Minowa in Arakawa Ward and Waseda in Shinjuku Ward, a leisurely ride that takes 50 minutes. Marking the 105th anniversary of its launch this year, the streetcar, known as chin-chin densha for the sound of its bell, is a nostalgic reminder of the postwar era, when such trains were a common sight all over Tokyo. The streetcar was a major means of transportation in the 1960s as the city recovered from the ravages of World War II and redeveloped. During their heyday in the mid-1960s, they were used by 1.93 million people per day. With the motorization of the metropolis in the late 1960s, however, the number of streetcar users dropped and lines were closed. Today, the Arakawa Line is back in the spotlight as a tourist attraction. It runs through shitamachi (traditionally working-class neighborhoods in the city’s northeast), which is rich in historical sites. If you buy a one-day ticket, you can get on and off the line as many times as you want, enjoying stopovers at such sightseeing spots as Asukayama Park in Kita Ward, famous for centuries-old cherry blossoms, and the Togenuki-Jizo Statue in Sugamo, dubbed the Harajuku of the elderly, in Toshima Ward. You can also rent a whole car: A one-way ride is all yours for ¥13,820. Rakugo storytelling and other live performance events are often organized on the train, and recently, fans of the all-male pop group SMAP held an event on the train marking the 25th anniversary of their launch. A mother pushes a baby cart across streetcar tracks in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward on Oct. 20. | SATOKO KAWASAKI A boy peeks out from the window of a streetcar on Oct. 20. | SATOKO KAWASAKI Passengers take a slow ride on the Toden Arakawa Line. | SATOKO KAWASAKI A streetcar passes Oguhachiman Shrine in Tokyo’s Arakawa Ward. | SATOKO KAWASAKI

tokyo;tourism;trains;todan arakawa

jp0010793

2016/11/12

Poverty coverage reinforces prejudice

In the middle of August, NHK ran a feature on its evening news show about a high school girl as part of its coverage of child poverty. The girl’s name and face were revealed in the report, which described how her educational future was at risk because of her financial situation. In one scene, she was in her room practicing how to use a computer with only a keyboard, which her mother had purchased for her, because she couldn’t afford a real PC. Almost immediately, people began complaining on Twitter and other social media sites: Was this girl really poor? Behind her viewers could see anime-related products, and she seemed to watch a lot of movies, according to her own Twitter feed. Even politician Satsuki Katayama of the Liberal Democratic Party got into the act, requesting an “explanation” from NHK and saying that the girl could easily buy a used computer if she saved more, which wouldn’t be difficult if she stopped eating expensive lunches. This “poor-bashing,” as the Asahi Shimbun called it, has become common in Japan, what with greater attention being paid to the widening income gap and more press coverage of people living below the poverty line. Although it’s a phenomenon evident in other countries, Japan seems to have less sympathy for those who reveal themselves as being poor. In a Pew Global Attitudes Project survey conducted in 2007, 38 percent of Japanese respondents said that the government is not responsible for helping people who fell behind financially, the highest portion of any country polled. The United States was second at 28 percent. Some Japanese people have a stereotyped view of poverty. To them a person isn’t really poor unless they are hungry, wear shabby clothes and live in hovels or on the street. What’s missing from this world view is the idea of relative poverty, which takes into consideration the standard of living in the particular place where a person lives. Absolute poverty is defined by the World Bank as living on less than the equivalent of $1.25 a day. By that standard, 900 million people on the planet fall into the category, almost all in the developing world. However, due to progress being made in those countries, the standard will soon be increased to $1.90 a day. Except for the homeless, there is almost no one in Japan who qualifies as living in absolute poverty, and the government defines relative poverty as a function of income that takes into consideration wages, taxes, social security payments and living expenses. According to these criteria, 1 in 6 Japanese live below the poverty line, but if you compared these people to the “poor” of 50 years ago, you would see obvious differences in material circumstances. Invariably, the anti-poor sentiments evinced by the NHK report redound on the media that cover child poverty, in turn affecting how they approach the issue and, last month, the Chunichi Shimbun was forced to investigate some pieces that were found to contain exaggerations and staged situations. The series was about “new poverty,” and the investigation targeted two articles, which were published in the Chunichi Shimbun in May and in affiliated newspapers such as Tokyo Shimbun in June. The series covered such problems as young people who are unable to pay back student loans and seniors who are not receiving pensions for whatever reason. One of the articles in question centered on a 10-year-old boy whose single mother ran a mobile bread-vending business. The boy went door to door to sell his mother’s wares. After the article appeared in the Chunichi Shimbun (but before it appeared in affiliate papers), the editor in charge of the series learned that the photo accompanying the article had been staged. It showed the boy in front of an apartment door taking money in exchange for bread. Apparently the reporter and the photographer couldn’t get a good enough picture so the reporter himself stood in a doorway and acted the part of a customer, though only his hand is seen in the shot. Then, in August, the editor discovered that another article in the series — focusing on the school-age daughter of a man who couldn’t work due to illness, which was written by the same reporter — was filled with fabrications regarding bills the family had to pay and how its straitened circumstances interfered with the girl’s education. Eventually the reporter admitted he had made up some things because he thought the story needed a more dramatic portrayal of the girl’s hardships; otherwise the editor might have rejected it. “I used my imagination to make the story stronger,” he said, according to a summary of the investigation published by the Chunichi Shimbun. Yasuhiko Oishi, a professor of media studies interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun for a related feature, said part of the problem was that all of the subjects in the articles are pseudonymous. Most subjects of stories about poverty don’t want their names publicized because they think it will lead to discrimination, but that makes it difficult to fact-check the stories. It also makes it easier for reporters to stretch the truth. The Asahi Shimbun also interviewed Chieko Akaishi, who, as head of the nonprofit organization Single Mothers Forum, is frequently sought out for quotes about rising poverty. Although she appreciates the fact that the media is earnestly covering this topic, many of the reporters who contact her want more “tragedy” than what she can give them. “They are always looking for stories that are immediately understandable,” she said, but the truth is that poverty comes in many ways and forms. Also, TV reporters need visuals, and sometimes what they see doesn’t look “poor” enough, so they manipulate settings and camera shots. Obviously NHK didn’t do that in its report on the girl with the paper keyboard. The scandal illustrates how a certain image of poverty feeds the prejudice and vice versa, since reporters don’t think they can be convincing on poverty unless they present it in a way that conforms to expectations. By doing so, they only reinforce such expectations.

poverty;satsuki katayama

jp0010794

2016/11/12

South Sudan and Japan: a tale of love and civil war

If you can call South Sudan “stable,” you can call anything stable. You can call anything anything. Defense Minister Tomomi Inada’s sunny assessment of this infant African nation in the throes of civil war followed her whirlwind tour last month. What did she see? Stability, obviously. She saw more of that in seven hours than veteran aid worker Takaki Imai of the Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC) has seen in the nine years he’s been posted there. Inada saw what she wanted to see, Imai tells Weekly Playboy magazine. She has her reasons. The government is eager to expand the scope of Japan’s participation in a U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan. The Self-Defense Forces (SDF) have been part of this mission since 2012. Japan’s pacifist Constitution limits them to nonmilitary functions like building roads. Such a modest role is unworthy of a great nation, say those determined to make Japan a great nation. Security legislation rammed through the Diet last year would in effect re-militarize Japan’s military and arm its peacekeepers — in South Sudan to start with, elsewhere once the precedent has been set. With Japan’s future course and its place in the world at stake, Inada could hardly have come home to her skeptical and peace-loving constituents with descriptions of South Sudan as Imai sees it. “Children were being slaughtered like chickens, with axes, one after another,” he tells Weekly Playboy, describing an outbreak in July of simmering tribal and political hatred. That was in a remote region. Inada didn’t go there. She stayed in Juba, the capital, which is relatively, precariously calm — for now; though it wasn’t in July, when mob violence, apparently abetted by government troops, overwhelmed a hotel frequented by foreign journalists and aid workers. That hardly exhausts the short, tragic history of South Sudan, which broke away from Sudan in 2011. There’s its 600 percent inflation rate, whose impact Inada failed to observe; the grim life in refugee camps she did not visit; and so on. When truth subverts a higher cause, it may seem only right to veil the truth with words like “stable.” The higher cause in this case is convincing Japanese voters that a radical policy departure into a potential maelstrom is more or less business as usual under “stable” conditions. Japan’s weekly magazines, the prime sources for this column, rarely venture abroad. Japan is big enough for them and, compared to some other places, decidedly stable. At least it seems to be, natural disasters aside. Might appearances be deceptive? A headline in the weekly Shukan Gendai reads, “At this rate (Japan’s) banks will collapse.” “This rate” refers to the failure — despite the drastic monetary easing that is the crux of the economic stimulus package known as Abenomics — of money to adequately circulate through the banking system to entrepreneurs and consumers. “There are too many banks in this country,” Shukan Gendai quotes Nobuchika Mori, commissioner of the government’s Financial Services Agency, as writing in a September report. “They lack imagination and wisdom. They’re not doing their job, which is why Japan doesn’t spawn innovative companies like Apple. If all that these idiotic financial institutions can think about is protecting themselves, Japan will fall apart.” Not like South Sudan is falling apart, but still. Japan’s defense minister looks at South Sudan and sees stability. A top finance official looks at banks in the world’s third largest economy and sees instability. Marriage counselor Shuichi Shimoki looks at marriage in Japan and sees a curious fact, which he shares with Shukan Josei magazine: “Seventy percent of the wives who come to me because their husbands want to divorce them say, ‘Until yesterday everything was fine!’ “ Stable, in other words. The point, of course, is that until yesterday everything wasn’t fine, it only seemed that way. If your country is not at war, if you’re not wracked by a deadly disease, if national or personal economic failure isn’t driving you into abject poverty, arguably the worst thing that can happen to you is a soured marriage. “For 16 years I’ve been a slave!” cried the husband of one of Shimoki’s clients. To the wife this came out of the blue. She gaped at him, dumbfounded. A slave? She’d had no idea he was even unhappy. But he was — bitterly, and maybe the more so because he knew she didn’t know. If she loved him, wouldn’t she know? At least suspect? Therefore she didn’t love him, never had. His work was futile, his sacrifices were pointless, his life meant nothing. All this is very melodramatic and may mean no more, Shimoki says, than a desire for a husband to be loved by his wife as he had been loved by his mother in childhood. How stupid, how puerile. But our deepest feelings don’t yield to name-calling. They can’t be driven away so easily. Is marriage an insult to our deepest feelings? There’s the suggestive fact that one-third of recent Japanese marriages end in divorce. Love mutates into hate as easily as stability does into instability. “Living with you is like living with a stalker!” is a typical complaint Shukan Josei hears. Others concern disgust with malodorous and flabby bodies, real and imaginary infidelities, real and imaginary insults, slights, what have you, the gamut. A failed marriage is like a failed state: Two people become two tribes who have lived together so long they no longer know or care why they hate each other. A South Sudanese seeing Japanese people in the throes of their little domestic hells could hardly be blamed for being more envious than sympathetic. They have larger hells to cope with. When “stability” comes, things will be different.

japan;south sudan;tomomi inada;u.n. peacekeeping

jp0010795

2016/11/22

Lawyers debate Japan's capital punishment system at EU-organized symposium

Two prominent lawyers, one for the death penalty and the other against it, held a heated debate last Thursday at a symposium in Tokyo that sought to deepen discussion on Japan’s capital punishment system. Yuji Ogawara, a Tokyo-based lawyer, contended that the death penalty should be abolished because of the possibility of a miscarriage of justice. “In Japan, a suspect is interrogated, for example, by investigators without a defense lawyer present,” he said. “Given the shortcomings of a judicial system handled by human beings, wrong judgments cannot be avoided.” He cited the exoneration of four death-row inmates through retrials in the 1980s. In 2014, another death-row inmate was released following 48 years behind bars after a court reopened his case. The decision has been appealed by prosecutors. Ogawara, secretary-general of a Japan Federation of Bar Associations committee that seeks a moratorium on capital punishment, also said that a democratic society that respects human rights and justice cannot cling forever to a punishment system that allows some offenders to be killed. Ogawara was involved in drafting a declaration by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations seeking the abolition of the death penalty by 2020. The symposium was organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Japan following that declaration, and was attended by around 120 people. The European Union regularly releases statements of protest after executions in Japan. Countering Ogawara, Masato Takahashi, vice president of the National Association of Crime Victims and Surviving Families, said those victimized by murders “want offenders to pay for their crimes with death.” Their feelings of retribution must be satisfied legally, Takahashi argued. “Criminal courts were controlled by judges, prosecutors, defense counsels and defenders, while victims and bereaved families were kept out of the loop and were used merely as ‘evidence’ to be examined,” he said. “But they are now guaranteed the opportunity to raise their voices in court. … It is their right to demand that the state hang offenders on their behalf.” Japan introduced the lay judge system in 2009, in which a panel of six citizens and three professional judges deliberate serious crimes, including capital cases. Given that development, calls have grown that the government should disclose more information on the execution process, including the process by which the order of executions is decided. The secrecy surrounding executions in Japan has been criticized at home and abroad, with neither death-row inmates nor their lawyers and families being given advance notice of hangings. It also remains unclear what criteria authorities use in deciding when inmates are to be executed. “We need to promote further debate on capital punishment as part of our effort to create a better society, and we need to have more information for that purpose,” Ogawara said. After the Japan Federation of Bar Associations last month adopted the declaration calling for abolition of the death penalty, the government executed a death-row inmate on Nov. 11 — the 17th execution in the almost four years since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to office in December 2012. After the hanging, the EU Delegation issued a statement, together with the heads of mission of EU member states and the heads of mission of Norway and Switzerland, noting, “We hold a strong and principled position against the death penalty and we are opposed to the use of capital punishment under any circumstances.” While a government survey shows more than 80 percent of the people support capital punishment, Japan has faced international criticism, with the U.N. Human Rights Committee in 2014 urging Japan to “give due consideration to the abolition of the death penalty.” “I think Japan should make efforts to maintain international solidarity with other nations sharing the same democratic values, including those in the European Union, rather than keeping the death penalty,” Ogawara said.

eu;lawyers;dealth penalty

jp0010796

2016/11/22

Overwork sanctioned by both firms and unions, with dim prospects for state intervention: expert

When the suicide of a female worker at ad giant Dentsu Inc. was recognized as karoshi , or death from overwork, many blamed a corporate culture that glorifies the “warrior” workers who sacrifice themselves for the good of the firm. But the true problem behind the suicide at 24 of Matsuri Takahashi, who had clocked more than 100 hours of overtime in October 2015 before jumping from a corporate dorm on Christmas, is legal loopholes that allow employees to effectively work unlimited hours, according to an expert. Takahashi’s mother, Yukimi, is demanding that the government abolish those loopholes and create a better overall working environment. “No work is important enough to sacrifice one’s life for,” she told a news conference in October. What follows is an overview of Japan’s work-hour regulations and the loopholes that exist today in the law: What is the cap on working hours in Japan? Under the Labor Standard Law, work hours are capped at eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. An employer that violates this law could face up to ¥300,000 in fines or up to six months in prison. That said, there are exceptions. If the company and labor unions, or representatives of more than half of a firm’s employees, sign an agreement based on Article 36 of the law, which allows overtime, and submit it to a local labor bureau, employees become able to work overtime, or more than 40 hours a week. Called saburoku kyotei — which literally means “36 agreement,” with 36 referring to Article 36 — such accords are regarded as the major culprits behind the problem of protracted overtime. What does an Article 36 agreement stipulate? If the two sides ink a standard Article 36 deal, employees can do overtime within limits set by the labor ministry, such as 45 hours a month or 360 hours a year. But if the agreement contains a special provision, the overtime available to workers becomes effectively unlimited for up to six months a year, with the cap being at the discretion of the employers and employees themselves. For overtime hours between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., employers are obliged to pay their workers 125 percent or more of regular base pay. For overtime exceeding 60 hours a month, large companies must pay 150 percent or more of the hourly wage. According to the labor ministry, nearly 60 percent of large businesses and 11 percent of small and medium-size companies had Article 36 agreements containing special provisions in 2013. Among the large companies, 14.6 percent had placed their monthly overtime cap above 80 hours — a threshold recognized as karoshi territory by the labor ministry. Why are Article 36 agreements still allowed? Simply put, employers want more work to be done, and employees want more money, so such agreements remain in place, according to Koji Morioka, a professor emeritus at Kansai University who is well-versed in labor issues. For employers, the 125 percent in extra hourly wages is a relatively small price to pay, compared with 150 percent in the U.S., he said. Labor unions, meanwhile, are toothless, he added, as many among their memberships want the extra money that comes with overtime. “Rather than seeking to place strict caps on working hours, unions have accepted long overtime. That’s the reality,” Morioka said. In short, the government has essentially left the matter in the hands of management and unions for nearly 70 years since the law took effect in 1947. Have working hours changed in recent decades? Overall annual average working hours, including those of part-timers, have declined to 1,734 in 2015 from 1,910 in 1994, according to labor ministry data. The decline, however, is due mainly to the increasing number of part-time workers. The ministry data also show the annual working hours of regular employees stood at 2,026 in 2015, compared to 2,036 in 1994. Even though more people today acknowledge the importance of work-life balance, a 2014 Cabinet Office survey showed that many still regarded employees who worked longer hours in a favorable light. The survey found that more than 50 percent of respondents had a positive image of workers who clocked more than 12 hours a day, compared to 38 percent for those who worked less than 10 hours. How does Japan compare with other industrialized countries? According to the Japan Institution for Labor Policy and Training, in 2014, Japan’s work hours exceeded those of many European countries. The data say annual average working hours in Japan stood at 1,729, compared with 1,371 in Germany, 1,473 in France and 1,677 in the U.K. However, Americans worked a little longer, averaging 1,789 hours a year, it said. But when it comes to the percentage of people who worked more than 49 hours a week, or nine hours of weekly overtime, Japan was the highest, at 21 percent, compared to 16.4 percent in the U.S. and 12.5 percent in the U.K., according to the data. Is the government taking measures to reduce excessive overtime? The government set up a task force, headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in September to discuss ways to slash work hours, including revision of Article 36 agreements, as part of its “work-style reforms.” It is expected to draw up action plans by the end of March, but whether it will lay out truly meaningful measures remains to be seen. Morioka of Kansai University predicted the government will probably place nonbinding overtime caps at around 80 to 100 hours a month for workplaces operating under Article 36 agreements with special provisions. But the pro-business Abe administration isn’t likely to place a binding cap on overtime, as it would likely spark strong opposition from Japan Inc., namely Keidanren, the major business lobby. In fact, Keidanren chief Sadayuki Sakakibara warned the government back in September, saying it should consider the distinct nature of each industry when discussing placing such limits. Otherwise, he said, it could have a huge impact on the nation’s economy. “It is not wrong to revise (the Article 36 agreement), including placing a cap on overtime,” Sakakibara said at a news conference on Sept. 26. “But that should not result in a delay of business operations.” Morioka of Kansai University takes a dim view of the prospect of significant reform, saying that serious change isn’t likely unless the labor side engages in a sweeping mass movement, collectively demanding that the government restrict excessive working hours.

labor law;labor;overtime;dentsu;karoshi

jp0010797

2016/11/25

'Sailor Moon' condoms combat syphilis but heroine's fans flustered by age issue

The superheroine from the popular manga and anime series “Sailor Moon” has emerged once again to fight another evil — syphilis. As a part of its campaign to raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases, the health ministry will distribute 60,000 condoms wrapped in pink, heart-shaped packages adorned with the blond, doe-eyed character Usagi Tsukino. The condoms, which call for STD testing on the wrappers, will be sent to 142 municipalities for distribution at events like World AIDS Day on Thursday and at Coming-of-Age-Day ceremonies in January, ministry officials said. The ministry will also distribute 5,000 posters and 156,000 leaflets illustrated with the junior high school character and a slogan that says: “I will punish you if you don’t get tested!” By turning to the popular character, the ministry aims to regain control over syphilis, which has made a rapid return among young people, said Kazunari Asanuma, head of the ministry’s Tuberculosis and Infectious Disease Control Division. He said the STD outbreak is especially serious among women in their 20s and men in their 20s to 40s. According to the ministry, syphilis cases hit 2,697 in 2015, which is more than four times the 2010 level and the highest since the survey began in 1999. As of Nov. 6, cases were at 3,779 and climbing. Patients infected with STDs like syphilis and AIDS usually don’t notice the symptoms for weeks or even years. The ministry believes early testing and appropriate use of condoms are effective means of prevention. Although Asanuma says that “Sailor Moon” is popular with people of all sexual orientations and may prove useful in bringing up STDs among those too shy to discuss them, some Usagi Tsukino fans are upset the junior high school student is being used as the “campaign girl” to broach the topic. “I don’t like it a bit. ‘Sailor Moon’ was a childhood heroine and a sacred figure for me. I still want her to be distant from this issue,” Twitter user @akaimihajiketa wrote Monday. “But I want the leaflet … I am still looking for words to explain my mixed feelings.” “Sailor Moon,” created by Naoko Takeuchi, made its TV debut in 1992. The tale of magical schoolgirls has been aired in more than 50 countries and attracted millions of fans from around the world.

sex;anime;condoms;sailor moon;sexually transmitted infections

jp0010798

2016/10/03

Nuclear-power advocate elected Ikata mayor in landslide

An advocate of atomic power plants has steamrolled his anti-nuclear rival in the Ikata, Ehime Prefecture, mayoral election, garnering more than seven times as many votes as his opponent. Sunday’s election followed the resignation of the former mayor, who had backed the recent restart of the Ikata nuclear power plant’s No. 3 reactor. The previous mayor resigned in August after being hospitalized. New Mayor Kiyohiko Takakado, a 58-year-old former member of the prefectural assembly, had the backing of the former mayor and all 16 members of the town’s assembly. During the campaign he vowed to continue the policies of his predecessor, Kazuhiko Yamashika. His rival, 59-year-old Naohito Nishii of the Japanese Communist Party, had urged the town not remain dependent on nuclear power. He was backed by the JCP’s local chapter as well as anti-nuclear citizens’ groups. Nishii was trounced in the election, garnering just 765 votes to Takakado’s 5,451 in a race with 71.45 percent voter turnout. “I will completely carry out safety measures for the nuclear power plant,” Takakado said after his victory was assured. “I will also tackle the issues of the town’s aging population and depopulation.” Shikoku Electric Power Co. reactivated the Ikata plant’s No. 3 reactor in August. It was the first time in more than five years that the reactor was switched on since it was suspended for a routine safety inspection in April 2011. It is the only reactor in Japan currently burning mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel. It was the nation’s fifth reactor that was rebooted under the stricter safety regulations introduced in July 2013 based on the 2011 catastrophe at the Fukushima No. 1 plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. Besides Ikata, the only nuclear plant currently in operation in Japan is Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Sendai facility in Kagoshima Prefecture. Yamashita, the former mayor, resigned Aug. 29 after being hospitalized in April. The Ehime Shimbun reported at the time that he had suffered a stroke that resulted in him having problems speaking.

nuclear energy;mayoral election;restarts;shikoku electric power;ikata

jp0010799

2016/10/03

Looming Tokyo, Fukuoka by-elections may set stage for Lower House dissolution

From Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to newly elected opposition leader Renho and Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, political leaders in Japan are setting their eyes on two key by-elections slated for later this month. The Oct. 23 polls will take place in the electoral districts of Tokyo No. 10 and Fukuoka No. 6, to fill the seats vacated by Koike, who became governor in July, and former internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama, who died in June. Campaigning will kick off on Oct. 11. We look the significance of the by-elections and the current political tug-of-war: Why are the elections important? The two by-elections come on the heels of intensifying speculation that Abe may dissolve the Lower House for a snap election as early as January. In a break with tradition, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party announced last week that it will hold its annual party convention in March, instead of January. Some interpreted the delay as strategic and designed to give Abe the option to go ahead with a snap election early next year. Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the LDP’s junior coalition partner, Komeito, said last week at a Tokyo event that the dissolution of the Lower House “could happen anytime.” Winning a Lower House election will further consolidate Abe’s power and even give momentum to an ongoing debate within the LDP to extend his stint as party head beyond September 2018 — a scenario that would make him one of the longest-serving prime ministers in postwar history. If LDP candidates win the by-elections, it will likely add to Abe’s confidence in his party’s popularity and more momentum to call a snap election, Norihiko Narita, a professor of political science at Surugadai University, said. “So the by-elections are very important for Abe,” he said. Who besides Abe has a stake in the race? For Toshihiro Nikai, an LDP veteran recently tapped as the party’s secretary-general, the by-elections will be the first national poll after he took up the No. 2 post in the LDP shake-up in August. The same goes for Renho, who became president of main opposition force, the Democratic Party, last month. The outcome of the two elections will affect their political influence within their parties. But the stakes are perhaps higher for Renho, who has gotten off to a rocky start amid criticism over her dual citizenship flip-flop and what some call her “biased” choice in new DP executives. Observers say losing big both in Tokyo and Fukuoka would destabilize her already shaky grip on power. Are things going smoothly with the Tokyo by-election? No. In fact, things are chaotic at best. At the heart of controversy is LDP lawmaker Masaru Wakasa, who just weeks ago won his party’s endorsement to run for the Tokyo race. The move came despite his recent clash with party executives over his controversial support of Tokyo Gov. Koike during her campaign for the July gubernatorial election. Wakasa, a longtime ally of Koike, stuck up for her despite criticism from party leaders who backed the party’s official candidate, Hiroya Masuda, a former Iwate governor. But despite the LDP’s endorsement of Wakasa, which had been considered a sign of reconciliation, Wakasa says he remains deeply irked by the LDP Tokyo chapter’s “outrageous” threat to expel seven assembly members who stood up for Koike during her campaign. He is now threatening to quit the party even if he wins the by-election as an LDP-backed candidate. “If the seven members are to be expelled, I — in light of my philosophy, sense of justice and identity as a politician — can’t possibly continue to be an LDP lawmaker,” Wakasa, a lawyer-turned politician, fumed in his Sept. 27 blog post. Does the LDP have anything to worry about in Fukuoka, too? Yes. Despite efforts by LDP election strategy committee chief Keiji Furuya, the party has failed to field a unified candidate for the Fukuoka No. 6 district, risking a split in conservative votes between two proteges of LDP heavyweights. One is Jiro Hatoyama, son of the late Hatoyama, who is backed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. The other is Ken Kurauchi, son of a local LDP chapter executive, who is supported by Finance Minister Taro Aso. With Suga and Aso both unwilling to pull out, the two will most likely run as independents, local media reports say. A plan is also being floated to have the LDP endorse the candidate who wins. Behind the clash is what local media call Aso’s lingering enmity against the late Hatoyama, who stepped down as internal affairs minister in June 2009 after fighting with then-Prime Minister Aso over whether to reappoint the president of scandal-hit Japan Post Holdings. Hatoyama’s exit dealt a heavy blow to the Aso administration, partly triggering the LDP’s historic defeat three months later and its brief fall from power. Will these power struggles hinder the LDP from winning the by-elections? Experts say no. LDP candidates in both the Tokyo and Fukuoka by-elections still appear to be the favorites, said Koji Nakakita, professor of political science at Hitotsubashi University. In Tokyo, Wakasa faces off against DP-endorsed Yosuke Suzuki, a former NHK reporter. Suzuki’s campaign pledges include boosting tourism, solving the shortage of child day care centers and bolstering wages for nonregular workers. Suzuki will almost certainly be campaigning with Renho, who herself garnered more than 1 million votes in an overwhelming victory in the July Upper House election in Tokyo. But Renho, Nakakita said, will somewhat be eclipsed by Koike, who is likely to give all-out support to Wakasa. In Fukuoka, DP-backed Fumiko Arai, a former staffer at the Japanese Consulate-General in Chennai in southern India, expects a difficult ride, too. Despite the split in LDP votes, she still has to compete against front-runner Hatoyama, who enjoys high name-recognition in addition to organizational votes. “The DP probably understands it is headed for a double defeat,” Nakakita said.

shinzo abe;tokyo;ldp;fukuoka;yuriko koike;renho;dp;by-elections

jp0010800

2016/10/04

Delay in expanding traineeship program leaves Vietnamese caregivers in limbo

HANOI - Vietnam is now the biggest provider of labor to Japan under a government-sponsored training program for foreign workers. However, delays in expanding the system to include nursing care have made some young Vietnamese rethink their plans. Do Thi Hang is among them. At 23 and with nursing experience already on her resume, she hoped to work in Japan as a caregiver under the Technical Intern Training Program, which accepts workers from developing countries for on-the-job training. Hang is now working at a restaurant while studying Japanese on her own, having quit language classes at a Hanoi language school in April. She still wants to find work in Japan, despite her parents’ urging to return to her home town in Vinh Phuc province, north of the capital, and get married. In the period from January to May, Vietnam overtook China as the biggest provider of participants to the program that started in 1993 and covers skills in roughly 70 professional categories, including textiles, machinery and agriculture. During the five-month stretch, Vietnam sent 8,420 trainees, compared with 7,815 Chinese, according to the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, which oversees the program. Trainees also come from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. In March 2015, the Japanese government decided to add nursing-care services to the training program to address staffing shortages. Lawmakers then sat on the legislation. They began deliberating the changes but then got distracted by more urgent bills. One reason for the changes was a need to address problems with the program, which critics say provides cover for low-cost labor. They also allege abuses relating to harsh living and working conditions, and some hirers have been accused of restricting the liberty of their trainees. Hang was working as a nurse in her hometown when a staffing agency asked her to go to Japan. This presupposed the legislation’s imminent passage. She enrolled in the school in Hanoi in August last year to prepare for work at a nursing facility for the elderly in Nara Prefecture. The posting was supposed to begin in April this year. But the program’s changes were never approved. Instead, legislators prioritized deliberations about national security bills, some of the most contentious pieces of legislation in recent years. Realizing that it was no longer possible to participate in the trainee program and that she could no longer rely financially on her farmer parents, Hang decided to pursue a Japanese nursing license under an economic partnership agreement between Tokyo and Hanoi. Japan has been receiving workers aiming to be licensed as nurses and caregivers under the agreement, which it has with Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The agreement imposes tougher eligibility requirements in language competency and other areas than the trainee program. Two former classmates of Hang’s have abandoned their nursing care ambitions and have gone to Japan to work in unrelated fields, including food processing, under the training program. But Pham Anh Nguyet, 22, who also wants to become a caregiver in Japan, quit the school and now works at a restaurant in Hanoi. This is a preliminary step before embarking for Japan, as she has decided to take matters into her own hands. With little prospect of getting on the program as a trainee nurse, Nguyet decided to go to Japan to learn the language and nursing care skills on her own. Nguyet said her elder brother will raise some ¥900,000 to cover tuition for the first year and living expenses for the first three months. The sum is four times what an average factory worker in Vietnam earns in a year. “I will work, like other students, between classes to pay for expenses in the subsequent period,” she said. Thousands of young Vietnamese are thought to have planned to join the skills program but many are believed to have abandoned their plans because of the legislation logjam. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry says it hopes the measures will sail through the Diet this autumn at the earliest.

vietnam;nurses;trainees;caregiver

jp0010801

2016/10/02

Engineer's programming workshops help kids get expressive about coding

On weekdays, Daisuke Kuramoto, 36, is just another computer engineer who develops education materials for an e-learning content provider. But once a month, he becomes Qramo, organizer of a computer programming workshop for children. “If you say I am ‘teaching’ programming, that’s incorrect,” said Kuramoto, who heads the Tokyo-based volunteer group Otomo. “At the workshop, I’m just a participant who loves to play around with programming.” Kuramoto started the workshop in 2008 and launched Otomo the following year, recruiting professional programmers, computer science students, parents and others with a knack for the activity. Demand for computer programming classes has been climbing ever since the education ministry announced it would become a mandatory subject for grade school by 2020. Most of the classes available today are offered at cram schools and other organizations as an extracurricular activity. Otomo is one of those organizations. Otomo invites about five to 10 elementary and junior high school students to his weekend workshops so they can write their own programs. When they have questions, volunteers drop clues to help them solve the problems on their own. For Kuramoto, the key is for teachers to engage the students and work with them instead of just issuing instructions. And that’s what he hopes will be the case when the school system finally takes up computer programming. “The important thing about programming education is to give them freedom and be creative about what they want to make, not to instruct them on how and what to do.” The group’s name, in fact, was formed by combining the word otona (adult) with kodomo (child). Kuramoto said this refers to its goal — to have adults and children work together on an equal footing. Admission to Otomo’s workshops is usually ¥1,000 — just enough to cover the facility costs. Computers and other devices used at the sessions are often borrowed for free from other organizations in the field. Asked why has kept doing the workshop for the past eight years, Kuramoto simply said: “It’s just fun. “We just like to see children having fun using computers,” he said. “When they get stuck, we give them a little clue. That helps them figure out the coding to create programs as they like. … That is pleasing enough for us to continue this activity.” In September, Otomo invited seven elementary school students to Yoyogi Park in Tokyo for the group’s first open-air workshop session. They were given tablet devices and told to compile a program to create a stop-motion picture from multiple images by using a graphical programming app called Pyonkee. The app is a derivative of Scratch, a visual programming tool developed by MIT Media Lab, a research arm of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the beginning of the workshop, Kuramoto showed the children how to use the device and the app. After that, they were left to make their own decisions on what to film. “If they consider me as a teacher even once, they may think I’m the person who is supposed to teach them programming from A to Z. That’s why I want them to call me Qramo, not Mr. Kuramoto,” he said. “It’s easy for children to create a program just as the teachers tell them to. But that doesn’t allow them to create what they want to make after the workshop,” he said. “I want children to realize that a computer is a tool that allows them to be free in expressing their maximum creativity.” Kuramoto formed this philosophy from his experience growing up as a self-motivated creator. Born in 1980, Kuramoto’s first experience with computer programming was when he was 8 years old. While playing with the computer owned by his father, a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer, he found he liked creating computer games. Despite his love of computers, however, Kuramoto’s dream was to become a doctor, carpenter or archaeologist. “Programming was just one of my toys,” he said. “I love making things with my own hands. I loved to play with Lego blocks, and I even created a shelf to use at home … The only difference was whether it was a real object or computer code.” His love for creation prompted him to enroll in the University of Tsukuba’s art program in 1999, where he used programming to create artwork. By then, it was an integral part of his life. During his university years, Kuramoto worked as a visual disk jockey, arranging videos for nightclubs. During this time, he developed software that let him easily change visuals on screen. Looking back, “all of these things have been a pleasure for me,” Kuramoto recalled. “I’ve always wanted to create something with my own hands . . . and programming was the easiest and the most convenient way to express myself.” Kuramoto hopes the children who attend his workshops will view computer programming as a happy experience. “It would be tragic if they are forced to learn programming only to achieve good scores on an exam or to find a job,” he said. “If you want to be a professional programmer, maybe Otomo is not for you. … We want children to realize that computers and smartphones are tools to express themselves, not merely to consume what others create. “If you aren’t satisfied with things around you, you can always create things on your own. And that’s not difficult in today’s society, where everything is controlled by computers,” he said. Key events in Kuramoto’s life 1988 – Begins programming on his father’s computer. April 1993 – Joins junior high school computer club. April 1999 – Enrolls in University of Tsukuba, School of Art and Design. March 2004 – Enters Tokyo-based e-learning content producer Shubiki Corp. August 2009 – Launches Otomo, a volunteer group that holds computer programming workshops for elementary and junior high school students. May 2016 – Publishes computer programming textbook for elementary school students.

otomo;computer programming;daisuke kuramoto

jp0010802

2016/10/11

Toxin levels are low, but jury out on long-term risks at Toyosu market

A storm over soil pollution and corner-cutting at the site chosen to host the Toyosu wholesale food market has centered on the presence of toxins in water that could be hazardous to human health. On Sept. 29, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said it had sampled two carcinogens at levels slightly above the legal limit for drinking water. The toxins were found in groundwater at three locations at the planned food market in Tokyo’s Koto Ward. What do the regulated limits mean? Does exceeding them pose a hazard to human health? Following are questions and answers about conditions at the complex that is slated to replace the renowned Tsukiji fish market in Chuo Ward. What chemicals were detected and at what levels? Traces of benzene and arsenic were detected in groundwater at three locations at the 40-hectare site, which is earmarked for sales of fish, fruit and vegetables. However, the samples were not in the building basements. The density of benzene was 0.014 mg and 0.011 mg per liter at two locations in the section for fruit and vegetable dealers, slightly exceeding the regulation limit of 0.010 mg for benzene, the standard set for groundwater under the Soil Contamination Countermeasures Act. Groundwater at one location in the same area was found to have an arsenic level of 0.019 mg per liter, above the 0.010 mg regulation limit. Legally speaking, the metropolitan government is not obliged to apply those limits to the Toyosu site because the groundwater would not be used for drinking or washing produce. It has instead conducted water sampling tests voluntarily under a two-year monitoring survey to ease public concerns over a former industrial site that is being repurposed for food. So far it has conducted eight groundwater tests, and this is the first time chemicals were found to exceed the mandated limit. The Tokyo government plans to conduct a final round of water sampling next month and to release the results in January. Do the levels pose a danger to humans? Experts believe not. However, the report has fueled anxiety and has made it politically more difficult for the metropolitan government to close Tsukiji and shift its operations to Toyosu. The regulation limits for potentially toxic chemicals for groundwater are as strict as those for tap water. The levels are set to ensure safety even in the worst case scenario of drinking 2 liters of the contaminated water every day for over 70 years, which would be impossible at the Toyosu site. The scenario is therefore unrealistic. And even if someone were to exceed the limit over seven decades, it would increase their risk of cancer by only 0.001 percent, according to the Environment Ministry. Is it excessive to apply tap water standards to Toyosu? It depends on one’s view of the risk. “I personally believe the levels do not pose any safety problems, but how people feel about it is another matter,” said environmental safety expert Kohei Urano, a professor emeritus at Yokohama National University. He said people have become particularly sensitive about the Toyosu site because they know it will handle food. Tatemasa Hirata, director of the Open University of Japan’s Wakayama Study Center and the chairman of an expert panel on soil contamination set up by Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike, released a statement on Oct. 3 saying judgment should not be based on a one-time spike in levels. Hirata added, it is common for contamination levels of newly scrubbed soil to show ups and downs while continuing on a trend of decline. Could levels rise in future? Experts are split on this. Metropolitan government officials insist that it will not happen. Akio Hata, former president of the Japan Association on Environmental Studies, argues that more contaminated groundwater may seep to the surface, particularly if freed by an event large enough to cause liquefaction, as was seen at some Toyosu locations — a site built on reclaimed land — after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. The metropolitan government maintains that liquefaction can be prevented by lowering the groundwater level with pumps and by hardening the soil. It said this was applied to some parts of the Toyosu site before the 2011 quake, and the tremor caused no observable liquefaction at those locations. Takeshi Hasegawa, a former member of a technical expert panel for the Toyosu project under the metropolitan government, argued that the groundwater level can be lowered to prevent any contact with humans. He added, toxins can also be flushed out. “In Toyosu, if you want to lower the densities of chemicals below the regulation levels, you can pump in lots of tap water and pump out groundwater from wells. That was the method used before construction to lower the soil contamination level,” Hasegawa said. At the Toyosu site, 19 wells have been dug for pumps to control the groundwater level, and 21 other wells have been drilled for use in monitoring toxin levels. Using those wells and the pumping system, the groundwater level can be lowered to prevent water from seeping into the basements at the market buildings, Hasegawa said. The metropolitan government was not pumping the system at its full capacity when assembly members visited the underground space last month and revealed that a thick layer of clean soil — recommended by outside experts — had not been laid as planned. When will the pumps reach full speed? The metropolitan government will put the system into full operation in mid-October, with the aim of keeping Toyosu groundwater less than 1.8 meters above the level in Tokyo’s Arakawa River, a standard used by the metro government. This means the water level will be maintained well below basement floors. Since Oct. 4, the metropolitan government has been posting data on the recorded groundwater levels at Toyosu, measured twice a day, on its website .

groundwater;contamination;arsenic;market;tsukiji;toyosu;benzene

jp0010803

2016/10/29

Japanese media cautiously tackle the U.S. election

During the first half of this year, coverage by Japan’s print and broadcast media of America’s presidential primary campaigns and debates was heavier than usual. But as the two remaining contenders stagger toward the finish line, one gets the impression that Japanese are just as weary as their American counterparts — if not more so. Where’s the outrage? More specifically, has the media here toned down the most controversial revelations concerning Donald Trump — and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton? I posed that question to Dave Spector, a veteran TV personality and Chicago native who has been giving regular talks about the election on local TV shows. “I don’t believe there have been any conscious efforts here to downplay or avoid any level of sexual innuendos concerning Trump, at least within the parameters allowed in broadcasting,” Spector responded. “The now-infamous leaked audio excerpts from ‘Access Hollywood’ were shown repeatedly on television here with only a few words disguised or bleeped out. I myself had no problem airing the material and there was no suggestion it might be too strong, even for the morning programs. As for the now notorious line, ‘Grab them by the pussy,’ no exact equivalent really exists in Japanese, so if translated literally it wouldn’t have the same meaning as Trump intended,” Spector says. “Naturally TV must deal with time constraints, so viewers here are not going to be exposed to anything near the level of U.S. TV coverage.” For Spector, this is “the first time in memory” that a U.S. election has received such heavy coverage in Japan — and just about all the candidates’ “dirty laundry has been aired,” he says. One of the more disparaging stories concerning Trump appeared in Aera (Oct. 31), a weekly newsmagazine with a feminist slant. Under a headline describing Trump as the “unrepentant king of sexual harassment,” journalist Keiko Tsuyama went into some of the details claimed by his victims (“He was like an octopus”). “While there are many criticisms of Trump aside from his apparent contempt for women,” concluded Tsuyama, “there can be no doubt that his past acts of sexual harassment should make people reconsider voting for him.” On the day of the 9/11 memorial ceremonies in New York, Clinton developed pneumonia and was shown needing assistance to walk to her car. A U.S.-based Japanese reporter, Sachiko Hijikata, reported in Sunday Mainichi (Oct. 2) that the so-called alt-right, a nascent right-wing group often concerned with preserving “white identity,” accused Clinton of concealing serious health issues, ranging from Parkinson’s disease to the after-effects of a brain injury. (Those are rather mild, compared to what bloggers on the lunatic fringe have been posting. Some have gone as far as to assert she is actually dead, and that the person shown on TV is an impersonator.) “The election strategies being adopted by both sides are becoming increasingly chaotic,” Hijikata remarked. It goes without saying, but many issues judged important by Americans — such as gun rights, abortion, illegal immigration and appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court — don’t resonate much with most Japanese and tend to be glossed over by the media here, whereas Japanese writers seldom shirk from commentary on America’s ethnic and racial dynamics. It would appear that some Japanese journalists reporting from America find it safer to choose selectively from what they see in the U.S. media and quote it, sometimes almost verbatim. The Washington Post boasts one of the most hostile editorial stances toward Trump and has been widely cited by Japanese media during the 2016 campaign. This includes the lead story in an eight-page section on the U.S. elections in Shukan Economist (Oct.25) by Akihiko Yasui, a division manager at Mizuho Bank’s research arm. In the article, titled “Clinton maintains her advantage; Trump’s scenario for a come-from-behind victory,” Yasui quotes from the Post, writing that “Votes by nonwhites are Trump’s weak point.” He then went on to explain how shifts in U.S. voter demographics have made Hispanics a key factor to winning in New Mexico, as well as in so-called swing states such as Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and Nevada. Yasui echoed U.S. predictions that, whether Trump wins or loses, the Republican party’s dilemma — dependence on America’s shrinking base of white voters — is likely to persist. In addition to Yasui’s essay, Shukan Economist ran four other articles. Three focused on specific political points: the televised debates; American concerns over unemployment that might impact on ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement; and differences in the candidates’ policies toward foreign military intervention, with Trump reportedly supported by members of the military by a margin of 49 percent versus 34 percent for Clinton. The fourth was an essay by Surugadai University lecturer Masayuki Hatta on the alt-right. Made up of mostly Caucasian voters, it has formed a key segment of Trump supporters. “Even if Trump wins, curbs immigration and halts free trade, it will bring no immediate improvement in whites’ condition,” Hatta writes. “Their decline is due to other factors, such as their shrinking demographic and the technological revolution. I suppose a Trump presidency will fail to dispel the dissatisfaction being voiced by members of the alt-right.” With the election just over a week away, the Japanese media seem to have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, conserving energy for election night coverage. Whatever the outcome — whether America elects its first female president or a flamboyant, outspoken political outsider — more excitement is in the cards.

hillary clinton;donald trump;u.s. presidential election 2016

jp0010804

2016/10/29

SDF activity in South Sudan is sidestepping security debate

Governments are adept at using indirection and euphemism, and right now Japan’s is struggling with an issue whose terminology is exacerbating that struggle. When translated directly, “kaketsuke keigo” means “rushing to provide security,” a phrase whose implied action begs for clarification. It’s being used by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to describe possible new capabilities of Self-Defense Force troops being sent abroad on peacekeeping missions, specifically those who will replace current SDF members stationed in South Sudan if that mission is extended to March. Unlike their predecessors, the new troops will be able to come to the rescue of parties in danger when those parties request assistance, and they would presumably need weapon to execute such rescues. The difficulty stems partly from the fact that the Japanese press has never sufficiently explained the SDF’s mission in South Sudan, not to mention the situation in the country itself. New Defense Minister Tomomi Inada went there earlier this month to study the situation so as to determine whether or not replacement personnel will be allowed to carry out kaketsuke keigo, but Inada herself didn’t seem to understand what she was doing. Since she was only in country for seven hours, accompanying media didn’t have time to leave her orbit and find out about the situation for themselves. They went all the way to Africa and all they came back with was a sound bite . Matters became more confused during a subsequent Diet discussion about the friction between South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s government forces and rebel soldiers under the sway of former Vice President Riek Machar. The SDF can only join peacekeeping operations in conflict-free zones, and an opposition lawmaker asked Inada if killings that occurred between armed groups associated with the South Sudan government in August didn’t constitute “fighting.” Inada preferred to call the violence a “clash.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe backed her up on this interpretation while acknowledging that killings took place and property had been destroyed, which would seem to indicate that war-like intentions were involved. Then last week, the media were invited to observe training exercises by the SDF personnel who will be replacing the current ones in South Sudan. Although it’s assumed these troops could be permitted to carry out kaketsuke keigo, they didn’t bear arms during the exercise, which simulated the rescue of U.N. workers from a mob of demonstrators. An SDF official told TV Asahi that the personnel were originally going to carry weapons during the exercise but that the government then told them not to. Another SDF official went further in an interview with Tokyo Shimbun , saying that the personnel didn’t carry arms “because (the government) doesn’t want the public to see any weapons.” It’s obvious the government wants the SDF to do more than build roads, which is all they’re authorized to do now, but they are still nervous about suggesting SDF personnel could be in harm’s way. By and large the media didn’t say anything to make the government more nervous. However, in the Oct. 15 edition of its in-depth news magazine, “Hodo Tokushu,” TBS reported on the attack by alleged government soldiers at a hotel where U.N. personnel, journalists and nongovernment organizations were staying. The attack happened July 11, so TBS was a bit late covering it. The incident relates directly to kaketsuke keigo, since the people under attack sent out many calls for help, none of which were answered. One local journalist died and several women were gang-raped. TBS presented the attack as the kind of thing peacekeeping forces are supposed to respond to, but even if the SDF had authorization to carry out rescues, they would have been prevented from doing so in this case because they would have been in conflict with presumed soldiers of a government they are supposed to be helping. No other members of the multinational peacekeeping forces “rushed to provide security” in this case. If SDF personnel discharged their weapons in the execution of a rescue and government soldiers were killed, the SDF would be liable for criminal charges in South Sudan. So why is the government so keen on authorizing the SDF to carry out kaketsuke keigo in South Sudan if, in fact, they can’t legally do so in the most likely instances that call for it? When the LDP got the new security laws passed to expand SDF activities abroad, it changed the SDF from a purely defensive body to something more proactive, and allowing rescue missions fits that posture. During a discussion of the matter on Nippon TV in August , Masahisa Sato, a former SDF commander and current LDP lawmaker, pointed out that presently SDF personnel must “avoid conflict at all costs,” a directive easy to follow since the personnel sent overseas so far were only involved in constructing infrastructure such as roads. “They are not combat troops,” said former U.N. official Kenji Isezaki during the same discussion. “And when they are stationed abroad, they are treated as guests.” This exceptionalism has always bothered Abe, who believes the rest of the world thinks it unfair that Japan doesn’t share in the risk. But while everyone recognizes that South Sudan, the world’s newest country, is in a de facto state of civil war, Japan officially does not even acknowledge it is in a state of conflict. SDF forces may be allowed to bear arms in case they need to defend themselves or carry out a rescue mission but the government wants the public to think there will be no situation in which either action would be a proper response. The media is finally questioning these semantic gymnastics, and say that kaketsuke keigo is not as much of a done deal as it was thought to be. Kenji Goto, the regular commentator on TV Asahi’s nightly news show “Hodo Station” and normally a staunch Abe supporter, concluded that the SDF’s mission in South Sudan was not a humanitarian one. They’re just there so the government can make a point, he said. If Goto won’t defend the administration, then who will?

defense;security;south sudan;tomomi inada

jp0010806

2016/10/17

Tourists in Pyongyang offered ultralight aircraft tours for $150

PYONGYANG - Until a few months ago, if you wanted a bird’s eye view of North Korea’s capital, there was basically only one option: a 150-meter-tall tower across the river from Kim Il Sung Square. Now, if you have the cash, you can climb into the back seat of an ultralight aircraft. With the support of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has vowed to give North Koreans more modern and “cultured” ways to spend their leisure time, and with foreign tourism companies looking to entice visitors with unique things to do besides visit war museums and political monuments, a Pyongyang flying club has started offering short flights over some of the capital’s major sights. The tours, which began in late July, are operated by the Mirim flying club out of a fancy new facility on an old airfield adjacent to another of Kim’s signature modernization projects: a sprawling equestrian club and horse racetrack. Officials say more than 4,000 North Koreans have gone up in the ultralight fleet since, along with “hundreds of foreigners” from 12 countries. The flights go directly over some of Pyongyang’s most iconic spots, including the gargantuan May Day stadium, the torch-tipped Juche Tower and Kim Il Sung Square area, and the Munsu Water Park, yet another of Kim’s leisure spot “gifts” to the city. Flights start off over a typically rural setting, with a mixture of farmland and small hamlets. But that quickly transforms into what one would expect from a city of about 2.5 million: block after block of densely concentrated high-rise residential buildings, some in the drab gray color of concrete but many painted over in pink, beige or blue pastels. Toward the center of the city, spaces open up once again with large public plazas and the parks that surround Pyongyang’s many monuments to its leaders and war memorials. Considerations of places best not subjected to flyovers were almost certainly a factor before the tours could get off the ground. And, just to be safe, photographs taken from the air are screened by club officials after each flight. But seeing the city from a height of 2,000 meters or less while slowly puttering through the skies provides quite a different perspective from anything tourists, and even most Pyongyang residents, had ever been able to get before. The flights aren’t cheap — a 25-minute ride from the airstrip on the outskirts of the city to Kim Il Sung Square and the Juche Tower, which had previously been the best place to get an urban panorama, goes for around $150. Shorter flights are offered at cheaper prices, starting from about $65, but those only fly around the immediate vicinity of the flight club. Prices for North Koreans are much cheaper, though club officials wouldn’t say exactly how much. Officials say the ultralight aircraft used for the flights were made in North Korea.

north korea;aircraft;sightseeing

jp0010807

2016/10/17

Japan denies reported plan to jointly administer Russian-held islands

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Monday denied a media report that the government is discussing jointly administering with Russia the disputed islands off Hokkaido as it seeks a breakthrough deal on a row that has prevented the two nations from inking a peace treaty to formally end World War II. The Nikkei financial daily reported Monday that Moscow has already been informed of some details about such a proposal, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hoping to kick off negotiations on the plan with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a summit slated for Dec. 15 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Abe’s home turf. The dispute has long been an obstacle to the two nations signing a peace deal. The four islands have been under the administration of Russia, where they are known as the Southern Kurils, since the former Soviet Union took control of them at the war’s end. Suga denied the Nikkei report, and maintained the government’s stance that Japan will sign a peace treaty only after resolving the fate of all four islands. While the Nikkei said it was unclear which islands would be put under joint administration, the treatment of the bigger islands of Etorofu and Kunashiri has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the dispute. While Russia upholds the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration — in which Russia agreed to hand over the smaller Habomai islet group and the island of Shikotan — Japan has argues that the status of all four islands must be settled before a peace treaty can be signed. To break this diplomatic deadlock, Abe and Putin agreed that “a new approach” was needed when they met at the southern Russian resort town of Sochi in May. Whether Russia would even accept a joint-administration plan remains unknown. In 2012, Putin said that the dispute must end in a hikiwake , the Japanese term for a draw in judo parlance. But putting any island under a joint-administration system might not appeal to Russia, which claims lawful control of the four islands. Meanwhile, Russian Ambassador to Japan Evgeny Afanasiev on Monday introduced a message from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said that more cooperation between the two countries will be seen at the summit talks, including development and economic tie-ups. The ambassador read the message during a forum at the Russian Embassy ahead of celebrations marking the 60th anniversary Wednesday of the 1956 joint declaration that normalized the two countries’ diplomatic relations. Lavrov’s comments came after Abe proposed an eight-point economic plan, which has been a driving force in the peace treaty negotiations, during the May talks with Putin in Sochi. Liberal Democratic Party Vice President Masahiko Komura also indicated he has high hopes for the summit and said Abe and Putin have forged a personal relationship, which is necessary for the negotiations go move forward.

shinzo abe;vladimir putin;disputed islands;russia-japan relations

jp0010808

2016/10/17

Abe-Putin summit to open door to isle row solution

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in the Russian resort town of Sochi in May, they agreed on one thing: the need for a new approach to settling the dispute over four islands off Hokkaido. The islands, which the Soviet Union seized toward the end of World War II, stretch to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula and are the subject of a 71-year-old dispute that has prevented the two countries from signing a peace treaty to formally end the war. Because Putin finally plans to visit Japan in December, speculation is growing the two sides might start the process of resolving the dispute. Critics say the two leaders, both boasting strong electoral mandates, are expected to make progress as Russia and Japan mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year. Let’s take a closer look at what could happen when Abe hosts Putin in his hometown of Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture. How is Tokyo trying to resolve the territorial dispute? According to several reports, Japan has a two-track approach that entails accepting the return of the Habomai islets and Shikotan while continuing negotiations for the return of the two larger islands, Kunashiri and Etorofu. Tokyo might also propose putting Kunashiri and Etorofu under tentative joint administration while offering economic cooperation and seeking visa-free visits to the islands by Japanese, some reports say. Some 17,000 Russians reside on the four isles, according to the Foreign Ministry, and Russia has built hundreds of military structures on Kunashiri and Etorofu. Is this approach new? Not really. Tokyo’s official stance is that the two countries should settle who owns all four isles before signing a peace treaty. But in the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration that normalized diplomatic relations, the former Soviet Union agreed to hand over Habomai and Shikotan only after a peace treaty was signed. The two-track approach has been supported by politicians including Muneo Suzuki, an influential former Diet member from Hokkaido. Suzuki, who has an extensive network of contacts in the Kremlin, has been advising Abe on the matter since the end of last year. Officially speaking, Abe says Japan’s stance is that the four islands must be returned. But a source close to him says he is not necessarily sticking to this stance in order to break the stalemate. Other top figures, including Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Nobuo Kishi, senior vice foreign minister and Abe’s younger brother, said Tokyo will mull as many options as possible to end the dispute. Will Putin accept this? It is uncertain, but Putin has shown a willingness to adhere to the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration. In 2001, he and then-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori signed the Irkutsk Statement, the first official document to recognize the 1956 declaration as a basic legal document. Nobuo Shimotomai, a Hosei University professor and specialist in Japan-Russia relations, said the two-track scenario somewhat follows the Irkutsk Statement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov hinted last week that the gradual approach was still viable. “With regard to the territorial dispute, it requires more patience, and a phased approach is needed,” Peskov told Russian news agency RIA Novosti. “Most importantly, it requires a reliable base in terms of mutual trust, which arises during the development of trade and economic relations.” “Peskov’s message can be interpreted as meaning both sides can agree to settle the issue if they take a gradual approach over a longer time span,” Shimotomai said. Economic cooperation could be key. When Abe visited Sochi in May, he proposed an eight-point economic cooperation plan that reportedly amounts to nearly ¥1 trillion. He also tasked Hiroshige Seko, minister of economy, trade and industry, with pursuing economic cooperation with Russia, indicating he is serious about moving the issue forward. Seko said last week that he aims to visit Moscow before Abe meets with Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meeting in Peru in November and flesh out the plan. James Brown, an associate professor at Temple University, said he is skeptical the Kremlin will accept the plan because leaving room for negotiations over Etorofu and Kunashiri does not resolve the problem for the Russians. “The Putin administration would be willing to transfer Habomai and Shikotan in exchange for the peace treaty and put an end to this issue, if Japan gives up on the other two islands,” said Brown. Brown also said that at the summit in December, it might be more realistic for both sides to agree on less critical issues, such as visa-free access to the islands by Japanese citizens. This would benefit Abe by producing progress for Japan and help Putin by bringing much needed economic assistance and development to the islands, he said. What factors could hamper their efforts to reach a deal? One risk that could spoil Abe’s delicate balancing act with Russia is the United States. President Barack Obama was wary of Abe’s visit to Sochi in May, when Russia was still under international sanctions for its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Obama reportedly told Abe not to go to Sochi but was rebuffed. Abe maintains that Crimea and the isles off Hokkaido are separate issues, and his government has sought to allay U.S. officials by saying that improving Japan-Russia ties would benefit regional security. Abe is also thinking post-Obama. When Abe met with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton last month in New York, the former secretary of state accepted Abe’s engagement with Russia, according to Kurt Campbell, who was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under Clinton. Yet Brown of Temple University warns that the international climate surrounding Syria could be risky for Abe. He said any aggressive actions by Russia in Syria — including the bombing of hospitals or U.S. assets close to the December summit — will put Abe in a difficult situation. Engagement with Russia could anger Japan’s Group of Seven colleagues, especially with U.S.-Russia relations hitting rock bottom over Syria.

shinzo abe;vladimir putin;northern territories;russia-japan relations

jp0010809

2016/10/26

Japan slides to 111th in WEF gender equality rankings

Japan’s efforts to bridge the gender divide have failed to translate into substantial change, with the nation sliding to 111th in a global inequality ranking report released Wednesday. The Global Gender Gap Report 2016, an annual benchmarking exercise by the World Economic Forum (WEF), found that despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s push for women to play a greater role in society, the nation had done little to make more use of its female talent since its ranking at 101st last year. Contributing most to the drop, the WEF said, was the gender gap for professional and technical workers, with Japan ranking 118th for economic participation and opportunity — down from 106th last year. However, it had made progress in reducing the gender gap in areas such as tertiary education enrolment and women’s representation among lawmakers, senior officials and managers, and in improving wage equality for similar work, the WEF said. Japan also ranked higher this year in the key areas of education attainment and health and survival. Regionally, the report, which ranks 144 countries, showed that East Asia and the Pacific has closed 68 percent of its gender gap. But the WEF said the region contains stark contrasts, with a large distance between the most gender-equal societies such as the Philippines (7), which ranked highest among Asian nations, and New Zealand (9), and economic heavyweights China (99), Japan and South Korea (116). “The sluggish pace of change in these larger nations in part explains why current projections suggest the region will not close its economic gap for another 111 years,” the WEF said. The organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland, said on a global scale a slowdown in progress meant economic parity between the sexes could take 170 years, noting chronic imbalances in salaries and workforce participation despite women attending university in equal or higher numbers than men in 95 countries. Nordic nations, meanwhile, remain the world’s most gender-equal societies, led by Iceland (1), Finland (2), Norway (3) and Sweden (4). Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that while the overall ranking went down, individual areas such as education, health care and political participation improved. “The government is promoting female power as the biggest potential driver for economic growth,” he said. “Under the government of Abe, about 1 million jobs have been created for women, and the number of female board members of companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange has more than doubled. “We will keep continuing with these efforts,” he added.

gender equality;abenomics;wef;japan

jp0010810

2016/10/07

Japan, Russia diplomats to meet Thursday to prepare for Abe-Putin summit

Senior Japanese and Russian diplomats will meet next Thursday in Moscow to prepare for a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Vladimir Putin in December, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday. Vice Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama and First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov are expected to discuss a decades-old dispute over four Russian-administered, Japanese-claimed islets off Hokkaido. “The dialogue will focus on global issues the two sides have strategic interests in, such as the North Korean and Syrian issues. At the same time, they will also discuss bilateral issues,” Kishida told reporters. Abe has shown strong enthusiasm to make progress on the territorial talks when he meets Putin on Dec. 15 in his home prefecture of Yamaguchi. The territorial row has prevented the two neighbors from concluding a post-World War II peace treaty. The strategic dialogue between Sugiyama and Titov will be the first such talks for the countries since February 2013. They will also discuss responses to North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests and missile launches despite global calls for the reclusive state to refrain from provocative acts. Following a fifth nuclear test by Pyongyang last month, Japan is seeking cooperation from Russia and other countries to adopt a new U.N. Security Council resolution to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea.

shinzo abe;vladimir putin;russia;disputed islands;shinsuke sugiyama;vladimir titov

jp0010811

2016/10/07

Japan, U.S. to sign pact limiting SOFA coverage of 'civilian component' base workers

The Japanese and U.S. governments have agreed to sign a new pact to narrow the scope of U.S. military base workers provided limited legal immunity under the bilateral status of forces agreement, diplomatic sources said Thursday. The new pact is aimed at assuaging the anti-U.S. base sentiment in Okinawa triggered by the arrest of a civilian U.S. base worker for the murder in April of a local woman. It is expected to be signed by year’s end by Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, the sources said. The pact will supplement the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, under which U.S. base workers classified as the “civilian component” and U.S. military personnel are entitled to U.S. primary jurisdiction if accused of a crime while on duty. The supplementary pact is expected to exclude from the “civilian component” category civilian base contractors without a high degree of skills or knowledge and place them under Japanese jurisdiction, the sources said. It would likely exclude the U.S. base contractor, Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, who is to be tried for the murder last April of a 20-year-old woman while working for an internet firm at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The government of Okinawa, where the bulk of U.S. bases are concentrated, has said the definition of “civilian component” is unclear. Responding to the public outrage in Okinawa sparked by the murder, the Japanese and U.S. governments said in July they had agreed to group U.S. base civilian personnel into four categories: Civilians paid by the U.S. government to work for the U.S. military in Japan; civilians working on U.S. military-operated vessels and aircraft; U.S. government employees staying in Japan for official purposes related to the military; and technical advisers and consultants staying in Japan at the invitation of the military. As of March, there were about 7,000 U.S. civilian workers at U.S. military bases in Japan, U.S. officials said. At a working-level meeting in September, the two governments agreed to sign the supplementary pact before U.S. President Barack Obama leaves office next January, after which Kennedy is also expected to be replaced as the U.S. ambassador to Japan, the sources said.

okinawa;u.s .;fumio kishida;caroline kennedy;sofa;crimes;japan