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jp0000129

2013/12/07

Who is responsible for a corporate scandal?

Recent scandals involving Japanese businesses have included bank loans to the underworld and misrepresentations of restaurant menus at leading hotels, and many of the media reports have focused on how management takes responsibility for the mess. I would like to highlight three points that need to be taken into account when discussing such issues: First, circumstances change with the passage of time. In these fast-changing economic times, corporations that were once considered top-tier can be forced into bankruptcy. Regarding bank loans to problematic borrowers, it is possible for borrowers to meet all requisite conditions when the loans were initially granted but then find themselves in a different situation over time. In such cases, corporations must be in a position to respond appropriately, which effectively means having established in-house oversight mechanisms already in place. In the case of Mizuho Bank, this mechanism appears to have been corrupted as a result of management problems typical of a bank that’s been created through the merger of multiple financial institutions, where the management structure tends to be vertically laid out along the divisional lines of each original bank. Secondly, who bears responsibility? Regarding loans to the yakuza, the party involved is a corporation — a legal entity as defined by law. Although some responsibility obviously lies with the people at the bank who actually dealt with the loans, it becomes a subject of debate as to who takes the blame for the fiasco as a business entity. In other words, the question is who should take responsibility for an act by a corporation that regularly rotates its management over time? I recall an experience I once had with a Swiss unit of a company I worked for that is related to the bank loan scandal. When approving annual earnings figures and electing members to sit on the board for the next fiscal year in Switzerland, a resolution is adopted that prevents former board members from being liable for anything that happens at the company at any time after they step down. Under the country’s banking laws, a majority of board members need to be Swiss nationals. I initially suspected that this was a measure of self-protection by the local board members. However, the purpose of such a resolution is to confirm that all responsibilities are formally passed on to the succeeding members of the board. As a result, subsequent board members cannot evade responsibility for an illegitimate loan with an excuse that he was not with the board or the bank when the loan was granted. If they do not agree to such a resolution, they have a choice to step down as a board member. Unless this principle is protected, a situation could emerge where nobody at the bank takes responsibility for problems in a long-term loan approved by their predecessors who have already retired. When this principle is applied to Mizuho’s yakuza loans, it’s obvious that the responsibility lies with the current members of the board. The question then becomes, who takes the blame for each specific aspect of the problem? Thirdly, acts of falsification — namely, the menu misrepresentations — can be carried out by corporations and individual businesses. Operators of those restaurants may have had a hard time making money as the cost of ingredients rose with the yen’s depreciation, but that’s no excuse for their actions. In any case, that’s precisely what happens in a competitive market. Market mechanisms can occasionally go too far, but socialism through artificial policy manipulation has historically shown itself to be a failure. In corporate organizations or individual businesses, responsibility falls on the people who actually drive the day-to-day transactions. The basic principles of commerce are tied to the level of trust that is ultimately formed with your customers, and this relationship of trust is maintained by the people in charge. As economies around the world become increasingly integrated, such acts as menu falsifications represent a betrayal of trust for consumers. We should remember that such actions are not just something individuals or corporations need to be aware of — they can also damage the international credibility of Japan as a whole. Teruhiko Mano is an international economic analyst.

mizuho bank;mislabeling;corporate responsibility

jp0000130

2013/12/01

In touristy Tokyo, Harajuku still stands out from the crowd

Harajuku, one of the most popular tourist spots for foreign visitors to Tokyo, is best known for Takeshita-dori, the narrow lane crammed with shops that runs for about 350 meters from JR Harajuku Station toward Meiji-dori. In a survey earlier this year by global travel information website TripAdvisor, Harajuku was voted the most popular tourist destination in the country. The street has become famous for its large number of shops and boutiques targeting youths, especially high school girls, with fashion items having unique — even peculiar — tastes. Since Takeshita-dori has been designated by Shibuya Ward as an adult entertainment-free district, there are no pachinko parlors or “fuzoku” sex shops nearby. That is one of the reasons why schools from across the country choose the area as a major destination during their traditional trips to Tokyo. The number of visitors peaks during spring break in March and Golden Week in late April and early May. According to data compiled by JR and Tokyo subway companies, an average of around 110,000 people visit the area every day. After World War II, the Washington Heights housing facility for high-ranking U.S. servicemen was built in what is now Yoyogi Park. Not long after, shops selling furniture and toys to the U.S. residents began to spring up around Harajuku. Local merchants say the current shape of Takeshita-dori based on youth fashion was formed in 1974, when a nine-story commercial complex called Palais France was built at the end of the street near Meiji-dori. The complex was demolished about a decade ago. Kazuhiro Osozawa, head of the Takeshita-dori merchants association, said he hopes the shops in the area will make young people’s dreams come true.

fashion;harajuku;youths

jp0000131

2013/12/01

Crusader for social activism brings Change.org to Japan

It was a victorious moment for Emmy Suzuki Harris when the Matsue Board of Education in Shimane Prefecture retracted its request to limit students’ access to the manga “Hadashi no Gen” (“Barefoot Gen”). The retraction last summer was partly because the ban had gone viral and triggered a controversy after more than 20,000 signatures were collected online against the restriction via Change.org . Suzuki Harris had launched the Japanese edition of the global petition platform in August 2012 . “We had significant victories where people felt like they are part of something that happened,” said Suzuki Harris. “People see something in the news and think, ‘Actually I have an opinion about that,’ and join the petition to make their voices heard.” Suzuki Harris has become a crusader for social change in Japan, where few people are used to wading into social or political activism. The 29-year-old advocate hopes Change.org will offer a place for Japanese to get involved in the democratic process by making their voices heard, as the world’s biggest online petition platform allows anybody to take matters into their own hands at any time without the worry of running up big bills. Since its launch in Japan, more than 150,000 people have either started or participated in petitions. This fast growth rate came as a happy surprise to Suzuki Harris, as she was often told this kind of platform wouldn’t work in Japanese society, where most people shy away from being the first one to take action and are afraid of the ramifications it they raise a voice regarding social or political issues. “You have to give people concrete and real examples of things that are working when you use online tools to impact the real world,” said Suzuki Harris. Petitions at Change.org range from the highly political, such as a call to abolish the controversial state secrecy bill or to press Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima not to authorize a landfill operation to build a relocation facility for the U.S. Futenma military base, to very local issues, such as not to do away with a bicycle lane in a neighborhood park. Several petitions have found success, such as a student drive for universities to reduce their fees when they take a leave of absence, while others have failed to produce positive results. “If you talk to petition starters, even if they did not win, they say ‘I am really glad that I did that. It was a really good experience for me,’ ” said Suzuki Harris. “You feel like they have a little bit more confidence and they have a little bit more experience under their belt.” Even though she is now a prominent activist in Japan, Suzuki Harris did not always have a strong bent toward social movements. Born into what she describes as a business-oriented family — an American father and Japanese mother here in Japan — she said she never really followed the news or took an interest in social issues. After graduating from Yale University, she worked for McKinsey & Co., an American-based global consulting company. Her turning point came in 2008 when she heard Barack Obama giving a campaign speech at a warehouse in downtown Seattle when he was running for president. Suzuki Harris said it was the first time that she had listened to a politician speaking and it really felt like he was speaking to her personally, as an individual. “That was the first time I’d ever taken an interest in politics and thought about the importance of the election or contributing to the society in a way more than to have a job and pay taxes,” said Suzuki Harris, who left McKinsey and moved to New York, where she joined Obama’s grass-roots campaign team. While Obama influenced U.S. voters with his campaign slogan of “change” in 2008, which helped him sweep to victory, his philosophy of bringing social change via the power of the Internet inspired Suzuki Harris to get involved in social change campaigns and ultimately help launch Change.org in Japan. This is why she is somewhat disappointed with the way the Japanese media and politicians treated the power of the Internet during the Upper House election in July, when online campaigning was partly deregulated. Suzuki Harris felt that even tech-savvy politicians talked about the Internet in the context of Facebook or Twitter to solicit votes when in reality the Internet could be a powerful platform for constructive policy discussion. Many politicians lost interest in online activities as soon as the election was over, she said, while in contrast Obama kept the communication channels open following his first victory in 2008. “Obama was able to reactivate people, because during those four years he spent money, time and effort in maintaining those communities,” said Suzuki Harris. “I think we are not going to see payoffs of that kind of community organizing done online in Japan for a little bit longer because people need to build the community, maintain it and make it OK for the people to express political will online, but I don’t think the people were there yet this past summer.” Suzuki Harris acknowledges that change takes time, as was demonstrated in the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s and recent victories by the LGBT community over same-sex marriage after many years of struggle. But she said it is now time for the Japanese people to realize that the government can no longer provide what they want when resources are limited, and that the public should not let big government organizations or companies keep control of the decision-making process. She said petitions are the easiest way for people to start taking ownership in their local community. “I think the marketplace for ideas here is limited to folks who already have a standing or who are quote-unquote not afraid of opinion,” she said. “My goal is to help more people believe that their voice matters and that their opinion is worth something, because I think too many Japanese people think their opinion is worthless.” Highlights for Emmy Suzuki Harris 1983 — Born in Tokyo. 2006 — Graduates from Yale University. 2006 — Joins McKinsey & Co. as a business analyst. 2008 — Leaves McKinsey and joins Obama for America as new media deputy. 2009 — Goes to work for the New York State Senate as an online communications manager. 2009 — Joins Purpose, a social movement startup, as a senior strategist. 2012 — Moves back to Japan and launches Change.org .

online petition;change;social change campaign

jp0000133

2013/12/15

No country for small-time rice farmers

ABIKO, CHIBA PREF., Ogata Akita Pref. - In the suburbs of Tokyo, rice farmer Koichi Yuge is weighing how the government’s change of heart on controlling rice prices will impact his 300-year-old family business. Yuge, who grows the Koshihikari brand of rice on 6 hectares of paddies in the city of Abiko, Chiba Prefecture, said he’s worried that the government’s recent decision to scrap traditional controls on rice production could cause supplies to surge amid slipping demand, lowering prices even further. The 48-year-old Yuge is a typical rice grower in Japan: a small-scale, part-time farmer who often finds himself at the whim of changes in government policy. “I don’t make money from farming, especially from rice,” Yuge, who lives with his wife, two school-age children and elderly parents, said. “I make a living from managing rental properties I own, and use that income to supplement my losses in farming.” Yuge said the reason he maintains his loss-incurring farming business is because he feels indebted to his forebears, who passed the land down through the centuries. “It also provides a reason to live for my parents, who like tending the paddies,” he added. For most Japanese farmers, rice farming is not nearly sufficient to earn a living. According to the agriculture ministry, the average arable land per farmer was only 1.8 hectares in 2006, compared with 16.9 hectares in Europe, 180.2 hectares in the United States and a staggering 3,424 hectares in Australia. Among Japan’s 1.2 million rice farming families in 2010, full-time cultivators accounted for only 18.7 percent, while the remainder, such as Yuge, farm part time while holding a second job. Yuge said things were rosier in the old days, when government-controlled rice prices kept going up every year. He pointed to a towel that he proudly hangs on the wall of a farmhouse behind his spacious residence, listing the year-by-year figure for the wholesale price of 60 kg of rice. The list goes all the way back to 1868. It shows that the price of rice grew steadily over the years, peaking in 1984 and plateauing for a few years afterward. By the time he inherited the family business in 1989, after graduating from college, prices had started falling despite the government-set “gentan” production quota, which reduces rice production by controlling farmland in use. The trend continues to this day, with domestic rice consumption waning as lifestyles become more Westernized. “When my dad was in charge, it was a great time for rice farmers,” said Yuge, who also grows corn, carrots and leeks. “If the price falls further, whether through a relaxation of government restrictions on rice production or through Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, I won’t have enough money to replace my old farming equipment.” Despite his emotional attachment to farming, he said he doesn’t want his children to inherit the family tradition: “I tell my son to become a salaryman. It’s too tough to be a farmer.” For Hajime Kobayashi, chairman of the agricultural cooperative of Ogata, Akita Prefecture, the political landscape looks a bit different. His village was developed by the central government with land reclaimed from Japan’s second-largest lake, Hachirogata, and it is one of the few places left in the country with large-scale paddies. Ogata has 510 full-time farming families, and 80 percent of them have young successors ready to continue the family business. The average farmer has 17.2 hectares of paddies. “This is a place where you need to bet your future on rice production,” Kobayashi said. According to Kobayashi, agricultural cooperatives in other areas have maintained strong ties with ruling party politicians, meaning they could rely on the government to keep rice prices high and provide various subsidies to rice farmers. But he argues the state pricing system should now be scrapped to force rice farmers to compete. That would benefit consumers and at the same time create new sales opportunities at home and overseas, and for processed food products made with rice flour, Kobayashi said. But lowering prices means less income for farmers, particularly those who work full time, he said, so the government should provide direct subsidies to them to mitigate those losses and stabilize their income. Toru Wakui, another large-scale farmer in Ogata, largely agreed with Kobayashi. Government financial supports for rice farmers, if any, should be based on a national consensus that Japan needs to maintain its agriculture sector to be prepared for potential global food shortages — not on the vested interests of farmers and politicians, Wakui said. “If the people agree that Japan doesn’t need (domestic) rice, you should just get rid of agriculture,” he said. “But if the people believe Japan needs agriculture, something like direct payment to farmers or a high rice price may be needed. It should be a decision by the people.”

agriculture;rice;maff

jp0000135

2013/12/14

State secrets bill shows Abe's tin ear for local politics

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, one of America’s most influential politicians of the late 20th century, had some sage advice for those who thought about national or international politics. “All politics,” O’Neill warned, “is local.” It’s a lesson Tokyo’s political and media class too often forgets or ignores. In the case of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the negative reaction around Japan to his forcing the state secrets bill through the Diet just adds to the perception he has a tin ear for local politics. Had Abe or his Cabinet listened more and spoken less, they would have discovered the law was not just a “national” issue. From Osaka and Kobe to Fukushima, Fukui and Okinawa, local leaders were skeptical at best and have concerns that are not going to go away. In Osaka, Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) co-leader Toru Hashimoto, of all people, rose to defend freedom of the press and open government from the old, mostly Tokyo-based, nationalist right-wingers in his party who welcomed the law as a way to return the country to the 1930s of their dreams. Hashimoto’s opposition was not political grandstanding. Like many Osakans, he saw the secrecy law as an ill-considered attempt by Tokyo control freaks to roll back government transparency and, Hashimoto believes, government efficiency. In neighboring Kobe, there was a different concern. Since the mid-1970s, the city has required foreign military vessels entering the harbor to declare whether or not they have nuclear weapons. The regulation was aimed at U.S. warships, and none have visited Kobe since the ordinance was passed. But Kobe citizens and local politicians now worry their city will be found guilty of violating the law’s provisions on defense if it continues to enforce the ordinance. In Fukui and Fukushima, the worry is what happens to information about nuclear power plants, rather than technical data. Shimin Ombudsman, a national confederation of government watchdogs, publishes information about the cozy financial relationship between nuclear power and local governments. And all local governments seek more information about the plants to facilitate better cooperation between their operators and local police, fire and emergency rescue teams. Could such information be at least partially classified by paranoid bureaucrats or politicians under the law’s opaque goal of “preventing terrorism”? The Fukushima Prefectural Assembly formally questioned the law, while Fukui Prefecture said it’s not applicable to nuclear power stations. This echoes Tokyo’s assurances. But it’s also a political warning to Abe that Fukui, which hosts 13 commercial atomic power plants, is not going to simply salute and say, “yes sir,” and walk away if told by the central government that whatever nuclear plant-related information it seeks has been classified. And then there’s Okinawa. Some proponents of U.S. military installations might welcome the law as a great way to shut up — and shut out — the anti-base movement’s constant demands for information. But this would be a mistake. Okinawan politicians, especially those in the local Liberal Democratic Party chapter who support the bases, also understand that actions by Tokyo resulting in less, not more, transparency about the bases is only going to create more political headaches for them. In addition, over the past couple of years Okinawa’s anti-base movement has changed tactics. It’s reached out to allies in Washington, with whom it regularly consults for information on what the U.S. government is doing. Just because Tokyo has classified something about Okinawa doesn’t mean it will remain a secret because Okinawans have more of an ability to seek out the same information in the United States, where the information may be publicly available. Whether due to hubris or a genuine belief he can ride out any opposition, Abe believes he’s weathered the storm and that, whatever political price he and his ruling LDP eventually pay for the secrets law, it will be small. He will no doubt continue to assert that the law is a national issue that has no effect on local government. However, as last week’s breakup of the opposition group Your Party showed, and as O’Neill would have known, even if it really is about local government none of the time, it’s about local politics, i.e. the attitude of your voters, all of the time.

shinzo abe;toru hashimoto;osaka;kobe;nuclear power;fukui;secrecy;state secrets;state secrets bill

jp0000136

2013/12/14

Why didn't Japan have a revolution like France's?

Why wasn’t there a revolution in Japan like the one in France? The suffering was as great in 18th-century Japan as in the realm of ill-fated King Louis XVI, the government here as callous and incompetent as the government there. How did Japan’s old order — rotting internally, as its collapse under foreign threat in the 1860s proved — escape being overthrown by the starving and enraged masses? Rage smoldered perpetually and erupted frequently. By one count there were 2,967 peasant ikki (uprisings) during the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867); by another, 6,889. It depends on what degree of violence qualifies as an ikki. The worst of them were very violent indeed, so much so that a mere threat was sometimes enough to make a prudent daimyo (feudal lord) back down. He would have in mind, perhaps, the Shimabara peasant revolt in 1638 in Kyushu’s present-day Nagasaki Prefecture — a victory for the shogunal forces that crushed it, though at the cost of 15,000 casualties. The living conditions in Shimabara were especially harsh. Tax was piled on tax — door tax, shelf tax, hearth tax, cattle tax, birth tax, death tax — all this in addition to the basic tax on produce. Taxes were paid in rice and other grains, so that payment often meant starvation. Punishment for nonpayment had to be worse in order to be effective. Various lesser tortures culminated in the “ mino dance,” mino being the name of the straw raincoat in which offenders were burned alive as an example to others. Cruelty this grotesque is rare in the annals. Oppression beyond a certain point hinders production. Peasant toil requires a degree of health and strength. If not human sympathy, simple self-interest inclined most daimyo to a measure of lenience. Only a measure, however. The nativist philosopher Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) expressed the prevailing attitude, warning in 1771, “If the people below do not fear those above, this is the root of disorder.” Had Motoori and other mainstream Japanese thinkers of the day ever even heard of France? China and India are the only foreign countries they mention. France would have rewarded scrutiny, however. “Disorder” there was acquiring a new meaning, soon to be encapsulated in a new political term: revolution. It means many things and arouses many emotions, from dread to exultation, but it boils down to this blunt observation by one of its early philosophers, Louis de Saint-Just (1764-94): “The wretched are the power of the Earth.” The Confucian theory then prevailing in Japan accorded peasants high honor. They ranked second in the class hierarchy, below the samurai but above artisans and merchants. So much for theory. Practice is summed up by two proverbs of the day: “The peasants are a tool for the extraction of rice tax,” and “Peasants are like sesame seeds. The harder you squeeze them the more they give.” That conveys their wretchedness. What about their power? They had it and often wielded it, frequently suffering torture and execution, sometimes carrying their point. The earliest ikki date back to the 15th century. In 1441, Kyoto, the Imperial capital, was besieged by peasants demanding nullification of crushing debt. “Now (the peasants) have blocked the seven gateways into the capital,” a government minister confided to his diary. “There is nothing on sale anymore, and the capital is doomed to starve. An unspeakable state of affairs!” Unspeakable but irresistible. “This was the first time in the history of Japan,” notes historian Donald Keene (in “Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion,” 2003), “that the government had bowed in this manner to demands of the common people.” The first time; not the last. In December 1707 Mount Fuji erupted, burying nearby villages in 4 meters of volcanic ash. Homes were lost, harvests destroyed, spring planting jeopardized. When officials of the Odawara domain (in present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) were slow to respond to appeals for relief, the desperate farmers hastily organized a march to Edo (present-day Tokyo). Cornered, the daimyo backed down. The last thing he wanted was thousands of his peasants swarming the metropolis and showing the world the breakdown of his local rule. Famine was the curse of preindustrial Japan, as of preindustrial France. No region in Japan suffered more down the centuries than Tohoku, the northeastern region of Honshu, and no part of Tohoku was harder hit than the Nanbu domain, desperately poor at the best of times, centered on Morioka. Begrudging nature and corrupt government share the blame. Here in 1853 there occurred one of the greatest peasant revolts in Japanese history. Some 17,000 farmers massed, marched, smashed property of the rich, crossed the border into the rival Sendai domain and submitted a list of grievances to the Sendai daimyo. The shogun in Edo took notice — and the shogunate took action. The Nanbu daimyo was dispossessed. The peasants were victorious. But not revolutionary. Why not? Where is the line that must be crossed before the aroused fury of the downtrodden masses produces not just destruction, fear and concessions but a true revolution? The best answer is a philosophical one. A revolution alters our deepest thoughts. It makes former ways of thinking almost unthinkable. In 1789, France’s revolutionary National Assembly produced a Declaration of the Rights of Man which proclaimed, “All men are born free and equal.” That’s France’s revolution in a nutshell. Nothing comparable came out of Japan’s peasant violence. Japan’s peasants, even the most progressive among them, never dreamed such a thing. All they demanded was relief from starvation. Sometimes they got it. More often they didn’t. Either way, the feudal system that oppressed and exploited them went practically unchallenged, and when it finally crumbled, a mere 14 years after the Nanbu revolt, the fatal blow was struck by foreign interlopers, not Japanese revolutionaries.

morioka;nanbu domain;motoori norinaga;tokugawa shogunate;french revolution

jp0000137

2013/12/22

Osaka joins rush to attract foreign tourists

If you asked many Kansai-area foreigners, and not a few Tokyoites, to come up with a slogan to promote Osaka internationally, you might get a response along the lines of: “Osaka: When You Can’t Get a Hotel in Kyoto.” Proximity to the ancient capital (station to station it is only 30 minutes on an express train) is one of many issues Osaka faces in its renewed quest to lure foreign tourists. But that’s not to say they are avoiding the city. Indeed, the opposite is true, especially for those traveling here from other countries in the region. Recent statistics released by the Osaka Government Tourism Bureau show that in 2012, about 8.36 million people visited Japan, with 5.42 million, or 65 percent, coming from four Asian countries and cities: South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. Of these, around 52 percent from Taiwan, 50 percent from Hong Kong, 30 percent from South Korea and 20 percent from China passed through Kansai airport, as opposed to only 11 percent of those from North America. This year, foreign visitors to Osaka are expected to hit about 2.6 million, up from 2.1 million in 2012. Past attempts to sell Osaka abroad have focused on bringing people to aquariums or landmarks that city planners mistakenly thought would be of interest. Now, however, the focus is on marketing Osaka as an entertainment destination and providing a more personal, interactive experience. Among the promotional activities planned for 2014 are the Osaka Pop International Cool Japan Awards, scheduled to take place in March, and the UNESCO-sponsored International Jazz Day, which is actually five days of concerts and workshops that kick off on April 25. The pop festival in late March includes events on manga, anime, food, music and other cultural curiosities. The awards will honor the most creative entries from around the world in a variety of pop culture fields and will become an annual event. On the other hand, promoting jazz in Osaka sounds strange to Kansai-area residents, who have long associated that particular genre of music with its western neighbor Kobe, the venue for one of the nation’s largest jazz festivals for over 30 years. But Osaka tourism bureau Executive Director Kunio Kano says efforts are bearing fruit. “In November, we hosted the first Osaka Asian Dream Jazz Competition. Thelonious Monk Jr. attended, and we had support from the Monk Institute of Jazz. With the International Jazz Day planned for April, we think Osaka will become a major Asian hub for jazz,” he said. Osaka officials have also, finally, begun to offer themed walking tours. Six tours are offered on the bureau’s website, covering the city’s northern and southern areas and focusing on Osaka Castle, Sumiyoshi Shrine, the city’s various waterways, the throbbing Dotonbori district and the more down-to-earth (traditionally, at least) Tennoji district. Residents have long been proud of their food and boast about the “takoyaki” (octopus dumplings) and okonomiyaki (as-you-like pancakes) as reasons to visit. However, Kyoto, Sapporo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Okinawa and, of course, Tokyo, have restaurants of all kinds offering food that is similar in quality or better than what one can find in Osaka. The response to such regional competition has been to boost emphasis on the creation and enjoyment of simple foods via tours to local markets, highlight the part of town that sells kitchen and restaurant supplies, and offer home cooking experiences where tourists can learn to make dishes like sushi, okonomiyaki, and tempura. This overall strategy might be working, given the rise in visitors. But Osaka’s goal is to attract 4.5 million of them by 2016, and 6.5 million by 2020 — ambitious figures, to be sure. Additional flights from Asian cities into Kansai airport these past few years, plus the fact that more tour companies are bringing visitors in through Tokyo and out through Kansai, will help meet these targets. Additionally, if Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government legalizes casino resorts next year, those who with a yen for gambling will also have a reason to come. At the same time, private entrepreneurs are targeting the kind of visitor officials and big travel agencies tend to ignore: intelligent and curious individuals who hate guided bus tours and prefer to take things at their own pace. Osaka resident Sam Crofts conducts bicycle tours of Osaka through his company Cycle Osaka. Limited to six people, he takes visitors on a leisurely journey through the city, where they see the sites and stop occasionally for snacks, drinks, pictures and chit-chat. Many of those who sign up, Crofts says, are from Asia. “I get the impression that (my customers) want to see something real, not the old world perfection of Kyoto or the endless glass of Tokyo. They love the Osaka Castle grounds, and most are surprised by the amount of greenery, though my route is careful to exploit every square inch of it. They also like Nakanoshima’s European-style buildings and when random people stop and say hi, which happens all the time on our tours but much less outside of Osaka, apparently,” Crofts said. “On the less positive side, I get a lot of questions about homeless people. Many say it’s the only time in Japan they have seen people sleeping on the floor in the middle of town,” he added. His advice for luring more tourists was specific and critical to travelers in the digital age. “I’d like to see the implementation, as opposed to general discussion, of initiatives — such as Wi-Fi in tourism spots — it would be great for Osaka to take the lead nationally in that,” Crofts said A tourism bureau survey conducted between April and July of 4,600 foreigners who used Kansai airport also revealed the need for practical initiatives like better Wi-Fi access, rather than grand projects. But such requests are often ignored by bureaucrats who prefer to focus on the “big picture.” Thus, whether the latest effort to promote Osaka will address such practical needs is something that remains to be seen.

osaka;kyoto;tourism;kansai

jp0000138

2013/12/22

Kyoto aims to be Muslim-friendly city

KYOTO - Kyoto, a city known worldwide as a major center for Buddhism and as the home of some of the country’s most famous Shinto shrines, is stepping up efforts to better welcome one particular group of foreign visitors: Muslims. With the number of Muslim tourists from Malaysia on the rise, thanks to visa restrictions that were eased last July and the growing number of international conferences in the ancient capital being attended by Muslims from Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, the city decided earlier this year to formally research better ways meet their needs. Of the nearly 845,000 foreign visitors to Kyoto in 2012 who spent at least one night at a hotel, only about 13,000 were from Malaysia and Indonesia. But that was up from the combined 8,000 or so who visited in 2011, and the figure is expected to grow. In response, Kyoto established a study group to make the city more Muslim-friendly. It consists of hotel managers, convention bureau officials, restaurateurs and others interested in attracting more Muslims. The group receives advice from the Kyoto Muslim Association, which allows Muslims to visit and pray at the mosque inside and which provides information on halal and Muslim-friendly restaurants in Kyoto. Some hotels, such as Hotel Granvia and Kyoto Century Hotel, already offer Muslim-friendly meals, while the Kyoto Rose Café, not far from the association’s headquarters, offers halal meals. There are also Japanese- and English-language websites that list halal and Muslim-friendly establishments in Kyoto. But one idea that the group, under the direction of the Kyoto Muslim Association, is looking at is a more detailed guide to restaurants that are classified as not only “Muslim-friendly” but also “halal,” “Muslim-welcome” and “pork-free.” A restaurant is designated halal when all of its menu items are halal-certified and contain no pork or pork products, and when no alcohol, including cooking wine or mirin (a sweet cooking wine made from rice), is used during the cooking process. Muslim-friendly means the restaurant has both halal and non-halal menus. Muslim-welcome means no pork or alcohol was used in the cooking, but non-halal meats and alcohol are available. Pork-free means just that, but alcohol may have been used in the cooking and the menu is non-halal. In addition to offering prayer rooms facing toward Mecca or taking care to ensure the food served meets the requirements of Muslim customers, there are other issues. Rie Doi, director of tourism promotion at the Kyoto Convention Bureau, notes it is especially important that Kyoto businesses interested in selling their wares to Muslim tourists understand the cultural background of their customers. “For example, some companies may wish to offer certain kinds of souvenirs in colors that are particularly popular in the Muslim world and different from (those) other foreign customers might want,” she said. At the same time, Muslim tourists, no matter where they’re from, ask the same kinds of questions any tourist might ask. A recent report presented to the study group noted that Malaysian Muslims asked their travel agents why they were going to a particular Kyoto temple or shrine and what, exactly, they could do while there. The report said addressing these questions was extremely important to Muslim visitors. But not a few tourists — most with limited time, little or no understanding of Japanese, and a minimal understanding of Kyoto’s history — are likely to want the answers as well.

kyoto;tourism;kansai;muslim

jp0000139

2013/12/25

Mizuho Bank to face one-month suspension of some affiliated loans

The Financial Services Agency will order Mizuho Bank to suspend some of its affiliated loans for a month over its involvement in lending to members of organized crime groups, FSA sources said Wednesday. The FSA will also issue business improvement orders to the Mizuho Financial Group Inc., the sources said, adding the official announcement will likely come Thursday. The order by the financial watchdog will follow one issued to Mizuho Bank in September to improve operations after it left the problem unattended for more than two years despite its knowledge of the matter. The FSA decided to take additional punitive action over the loans to crime groups as the holding company was considered responsible for failing to prevent a false report from being submitted to regulators by the unit bank, the sources said. Mizuho Bank originally said its top management had not been aware of the issue, but it later reversed its claim, with President Yasuhiro Sato saying at a news conference that he and former President Satoru Nishibori were in a position to know about the loans. In late October, the bank submitted a report compiled by a third-party panel that said it found no evidence of a coverup. The FSA launched an additional probe into Mizuho Financial Group and Mizuho Bank on Nov. 5 to verify the contents of the report.

financial service agency;mizuho bank;punitive action

jp0000140

2014/03/05

Sacred dance helps preserve community spirit in Tohoku

When Masayuki Sasayama’s house was swept away by the tsunami three years ago, he was temporarily separated from his family and forced to stay in an evacuation shelter, but the tragedy did not stop him from helping preserve his hometown’s “kagura,” a traditional performance art dedicated to Shinto gods. Sasayama, who has been reunited with his family but still lives in temporary housing, is a member of Nanbuhan Jushoin Nengyoji Shihaidaikagura, a group that performs a Shinto dance and plays music dating back to 1699 and which is a vital part of an annual festival in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture. Kamaishi is one of the coastal communities devastated by the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. Seven months after the disasters, the group began performing the dance again on a regular basis, even if it meant having to borrow vital supplies, including drums. Their passion to keep the tradition alive resonated with the private sector and officialdom, both of which have been shifting from post-disaster emergency aid to the long-term rebuilding process that focuses on addressing the psychological care of the affected communities. As a result, financial help has been extended to intangible cultural assets such as festivals, which are abundant in the Tohoku region. Last year, the Iwate Prefectural Government officially recognized the local kagura as an intangible cultural asset. Private organizations such as the Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research have offered aid to ensure that the art is protected, giving the final push for Sasayama’s group to make a “full-fledged comeback.” Aid to intangible cultural assets is part of the foundation’s 2011 “Save our Culture” program launched in the aftermath of the tsunami. Working in cooperation with the New York-based World Monuments Fund, the aim is to preserve and restore cultural heritage, including historic sites and objects damaged on March 11. “Once a disaster strikes, the focus is on securing food items, medical supplies and shelter, but just as important is the emotional care to the affected people,” said the foundation’s executive director, Hiroshi Komiya. The project also has support from the Cultural Affairs Agency. “In the face of a disaster of unprecedented scale, it becomes all the more compelling (for us) to support traditional art and festivals which carry the wishes of reconstruction,” said Satoshi Yamato, the agency’s councilor on cultural properties. Sasayama, whose group is based in the Tadakoe neighborhood in Kamaishi, recounted how he and other members, while still in the evacuation centers and only two days after the disaster, started looking for their instruments and other materials that were washed away by the tsunami. Five lion masks, which are central to the dance, were initially lost, although four were later retrieved. Despite the tragedy and time constraints in preparing for the annual October festival at Ozaki Shrine in Kamaishi, the group pushed through with it. The 46-year-old Sasayama, who learned the art as a child, felt the festival could not begin without their group, which is responsible for carrying the “goshintai,” or “sacred body of the deity,” from an island via ship to the Shinto shrine where the festival is held. “The festival is an important opportunity once a year to bring the community together,” he said. Sasayama, who is self-employed but spends a great deal of time promoting the performance art, said the 3/11 disaster “gave us an even greater sense of crisis that we should be prepared to protect our art just like our forefathers have done.” “We hope that the full-fledged comeback of this traditional performing art could somewhat serve as a source of strength and inspiration to people,” he said. And he is hopeful he can pass on the art to future generations. Tomoya Kikuchi, 15, is one of the youngest performers of the kagura dance. He is ready to inherit the legacy. “I like everything about this art, the dance, the sound of the drums and flute,” said Kikuchi, a Kamaishi-based junior high school student. “Right now, Kamaishi is doing its best to rebuild and I hope our dance can brighten up the spirits of the people here,” he said.

3/11;iwate;3.11;kagura performance;kamaishi;3/11 anniversary

jp0000142

2014/03/02

Top kitchenware, plastic sushi lure cooks, tourists alike to Kappabashi

If you want to open a restaurant, the Kappabashi district in Tokyo’s Taito Ward is the place to go because it has everything you need, and more. Situated between the popular Ueno and Asakusa districts, Kappabashi boasts more than 180 shops selling tableware and kitchen equipment for business use and store fixtures. The shops stretch for almost 1 km along the shopping arcade linking Kototoidori Street in the north with Asakusadori Street in the south, showcasing not only kitchenware but also lifelike plastic models of food. Although the arcade is dedicated to the food industry, Kappabashi has in recent years become popular with amateur cooks and tourists, who throw in a visit because of its close proximity to Asakusa. One of the main draws is the skillfully crafted plastic samples of ramen, sushi, tempura, cakes and other food displayed at restaurant entrances throughout Japan. But many also come to purchase top-notch “hocho” (kitchen knives). Some are chefs at Japanese restaurants overseas, but others are merely housewives and husbands with a strong preference for quality cooking utensils and an interest in maintaining them, shop owners said. The origins of Kappabashi date back to the Taisho Era about 100 years ago, when a small group of shops began selling kitchenware. As other shops followed suit, the merchant community gradually grew. Despite the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and the devastating Tokyo air raids of World War II, Kappabashi never died out. As Japan rebuilt from the war, its food culture diversified, increasing the need for different kinds of kitchenware and handing the industry a big chance. Kappabashi’s merchants thrived. Unlike decades ago, many shops here now cater to general consumers. Each autumn, Kappabashi organizes a bargain event that draws as many as 300,000 people from across the nation. As long as Japan’s food culture grows, Kappabashi will continue to thrive.

tourism;ueno;tableware;asakusa;kappabashi;kitchenware

jp0000143

2014/03/18

Despite hurdles, businesses bring jobs, opportunities back to Tohoku

KAMAISHI, IWATE PREF. - When the March 2011 tsunami smashed the seafood processing factory where Shoichi Sato was working, he lost his job but eventually found a new life. Three years later, Sato is among the businessmen helping to bring back the fishing industry, long a mainstay livelihood for coastal towns dotted along the Tohoku coastline. Sato’s company, Kamaishi Hikari Foods, employs only 25 people but supports hundreds more who sell their catches of octopus, squid, salmon and mackerel for processing right at the water’s edge. In Kamaishi’s Toni district, whose entire port was wrecked by the tsunami, it’s about the only game in town. Businesses throughout the northeast face a reality TV show’s worth of obstacles to setting up shop, from shortages of financing and construction workers and materials, to lengthy delays in administrative approvals and overburdened transport networks. For Sato, it was the Qatar Fund Foundation, established by the Qatari government to help tsunami-damaged areas in Tohoku, and other groups that pitched in with money to buy equipment and advice on how to best run his new business. Sitting in his second-floor office overlooking a wharf under reconstruction, Sato said he got “zero” financial help from the government, which until recently would not approve subsidies for new businesses. Across the region, the government says nearly two-thirds of damaged land has been reclaimed and 78 percent of fishery processing restarted. But for the majority, sales are well below pre-disaster levels. Most damaged stores and other businesses are operating from temporary quarters such as shipping containers and prefabricated huts. The regional economy was in trouble even before the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster that contaminated chunks of the coast with radiation. The 18,520 people dead or missing as a result of the natural disasters were remembered last week as the country marked the third anniversary of the tsunami. Tens of thousands of people are in limbo following the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, unsure if they ever will be able to resume farming, fishing or other businesses, or even return home. To the north, the seven biggest fish markets in Iwate and Miyagi, the two other prefectures that suffered massive damage from the tsunami, but not radiation, reported a combined catch of 303,629 tons in 2013, down from 444,894 tons in 2010 before the disaster, but up from 169,786 in 2011. It took the prefectural government more than a year to approve Sato’s tiny factory, which uses an innovative freezing process to package fish, seafood and seaweed for direct sales to a Tokyo supermarket and a sushi chain, his main customers. The process causes less damage to cells in the frozen food, improving quality when they are thawed for use in sushi and sashimi. In the Tohoku region, young workers tend to leave to seek work in bigger cities. Fishing pays poorly, costs are rising and there are few other jobs. At the same time, the jobs that do exist go begging: Sato employs three generations of women from one family, from the 63-year-old grandmother to the 18-year-old granddaughter. Some of his employees travel from homes far up the coast to get to work. As in much of the region, about half of Toni’s 1,800 residents are still living in temporary, prefabricated huts. Fed up with delays being resettled in new homes on higher ground, many residents are leaving. “I need to be able to pay the fishermen more for their fish, or they won’t manage to stay in business. That’s apart from making any money here ourselves,” said Sato. He is keen to improve quality through innovations such as testing the salt content of his ice and water for optimal levels for freshness. He works with Japan Fisheries Cooperatives, the alliance of fishery cooperatives that oversees the industry, and helped coordinate the transfer of seed oysters and seaweed beds to tsunami-damaged areas, hurrying along the recovery process. Still, nearly a quarter of fishing-related businesses have closed since the tsunami. In Miyagi Prefecture alone, only 18 of the 142 ports wiped out in the disaster have reopened. In the port of Ogatsu, Miyagi Prefecture, oyster farmer Hiromitsu Ito lost his home, his fishing boats and his oyster beds soon after he had taken out a loan to begin oyster processing. Like Sato, he restarted from scratch. But Ito is innovating with an online business model. His customers pay a membership fee and can buy a share of the catch directly from Ito’s business. Ito and his business partners used funds from the membership fees to help fishermen get back up and running. They are also training newcomers like 23-year-old Yuuki Miura, a fisherman apprentice, hoping to keep the industry alive. “When I was small, I lived with my grandfather and I grew up watching him work,” said Miura. In a region whose population is fast declining and aging, time pressures are felt by all, said Ito, the oyster farmer. “This year is the real deal, it’s the make-it-or-break-it year,” he said.

tsunami;3/11;fisheries;kamaishi;3/11 anniversary;kamaishi hikari foods

jp0000144

2014/03/28

Are mandatory Kim haircuts a baldfaced lie?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s distinctive hairstyle is the ‘do of the day on the Internet, thanks to a viral report that every male university student in the capital is now under orders to get a buzz just like it. But it appears the barbers of Pyongyang aren’t exactly sharpening their scissors. Recent visitors to the country say they have seen no evidence of any mass haircutting. North Korea watchers smell another imaginative but uncorroborated rumor. The thinly sourced reports say an order went out a few weeks ago for university students to buzz-cut the sides of their heads just like Kim. U.S.-based Radio Free Asia cited unnamed sources as saying an unwritten directive from within the ruling Workers’ Party went out this month, causing consternation among students who didn’t think the hairdo would suit them. “I was there just a few days ago, and no sign of that,” said Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours, which brings foreign tourists to North Korea. “It’s definitely not true.” An AP journalist in Pyongyang also said he had not seen any recent changes in hairstyles among college students. Though the forced grooming story may be one of many reported oddities about North Korean life that turn out to be false, it is true that the government has its own “fashion police.” Choe Cheong-ha, a defector who left North Korea in 2004, said members of a government-run youth organization routinely check for people who are not dressed appropriately. They look for whether people are wearing the mandatory lapel pins with the images of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, or for violations such as blue jeans, clothes with English words or short dresses. But Choe said directives on hairstyles aren’t much of an issue, since most people voluntarily keep their hair neat and conservatively styled.

north korea;kim jong un

jp0000145

2014/03/01

Economic figures reveal more than you see

The Cabinet Office’s Economic and Social Research Institute on Jan. 17 released the finalized figures on the country’s economy’s stocks (the net value of accumulated assets at a balance date) and flows (net transactions, including income and expenditure, during an accounting period) that were recorded in national accounts in 2012. The preliminary value of transactions covering the October-December period last year has already been released in the form of gross domestic product figures, but the total value of assets in the economy is only disclosed once a year — and almost a year later — because it takes time to confirm the figures. Therefore, the recorded value of assets in the economy as of the end of 2012 is the latest available. As the adjusted totals now go back to 1994, I’d like to review the figures over the past 19 years and highlight a few salient points: First, Japan’s net assets (or national wealth) — calculated by deducting national debt from assets — fell from ¥3,398.9 trillion at the end of 1994 to ¥3,000.3 trillion at the end of 2012 — a loss of ¥398.6 trillion over the past 19 years. Given that the nation’s nominal GDP was ¥472.6 trillion in 2012, the data shows that national wealth equivalent to as much as 84.3 percent of the year’s GDP was lost over the same period. If this is likened to a household’s finances, by extension the value of a family’s assets are 84 percent less than what they were 19 years ago. These figures clearly illustrate the impact of Japan’s “lost decades.” This subsequently raises the question of what has been lost over the past 19 years? Assets are generally divided into financial and nonfinancial assets. Tangible nonproduced assets have comprised the biggest component of the loss — mainly land, which is usually classified as a nonfinancial asset. The net worth of such assets fell by ¥813.9 trillion — from ¥1,958.6 trillion to ¥1,144.7 trillion — over 19 years. One of the two main factors behind the decline is of course the ongoing hangover from the asset-inflated bubble economy of the late 1980s and early ’90s. In addition, land has been exposed to market competition across national borders in such forms as the overseas transfer of manufacturing plants. In other words, Japanese land is still expensive by international standards. Finally, I’d like to highlight the changes in the ratio between financial and nonfinancial assets. In 1996, financial assets accounted for 59.7 percent of the total versus 40.3 percent for nonfinancial assets. In 2012, the ratio of financial assets was up nearly 10 percentage points to 68.9 percent, with the nonfinancial assets accounting for 31.1 percent. What these changes signify is that Japanese companies and households have become more defensive in a bid to maintain the liquidity of their assets. On the other hand, expenditure in Japan’s public sector has increased, with the private sector investing in most of the public bonds that have been issued to finance that expenditure. Needless to say, this has led to a stalemate in public-sector finances and fluctuations in currency exchange rates. People tend to pay attention to GDP — statistics of short-term transactions — as an indicator of economic trends. However, it is also important to watch figures pertaining to economic assets that reflect the accumulation of the total value of such transactions. Teruhiko Mano is an international economics analyst.

debt;gdp;land;assets;finances

jp0000146

2014/03/01

Bitcoin believers unfazed by losses in Mt. Gox collapse

Like other bitcoin evangelists, Ken Shishido is ready to write off the money he lost in the bankruptcy of Tokyo-based virtual currency exchange Mt. Gox as the price of revolutionizing global finance. “In the early days of the automobile, there were traffic accidents because you didn’t have traffic lights or pedestrian crossings,” he said Friday, hours after Mt. Gox said it had lost up to half a billion dollars of investor funds, including some of his. “But we didn’t ban automobiles.” Shishido, who lives in Tokyo, was one of about 10,000 investors in Japan who became creditors in Mt. Gox’s bankruptcy when the company capped a tumultuous period of weeks by filing for bankruptcy on Friday. He lost about a tenth of his investment in bitcoin in Mt. Gox, he said, and expected none of that money to come back. Early enthusiasts for the 5-year-old crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. There was also a heady mix of geek chic — the currency is “mined” through a process involving complex computer math — and laissez-faire Austrian economics. Mt. Gox’s loss is eye-popping, but so too is the number of creditors — 127,000 — in what had been the world’s biggest exchange. That means the average trader lost the equivalent of $3,500 in the bankruptcy at current bitcoin prices, assuming no money is recovered in the court-supervised restructuring that is set to play out in Tokyo over the coming months. Bitcoin’s value spiked in April 2013 as the crisis-racked Cyprus government clamped down on withdrawals and seized deposits, rattling faith in “fiat” currencies created by government declaration. The crypto-currency soon crashed back. Late last year, as the number of exchanges and its name recognition grew, it took off again. It gained wider acceptance and attracted speculators and high-profile proponents such as the investor twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Facebook fame. Investors interviewed after the exchange collapsed faulted Mt. Gox and its French CEO, Mark Karpeles, but they remained committed to the bitcoin idea. Roger Ver, a big investor in Mt. Gox, said he did not know if he would ever get any of his lost bitcoin back. “But the important thing to realize is that Mt. Gox is just one company using bitcoin. The bitcoin technology itself is still absolutely amazing,” he said. “Even if one email service provider is having a problem, that doesn’t mean people are going to stop using email. It’s the same with bitcoin.” Ver spoke of “all of the positive ways in which bitcoin is going to change the world. . . . If anything, it is kind of for the better of bitcoin that the irresponsible players are going out of business.” Shishido said he does not expect to get his virtual money back, but that the rest of his bitcoin investments had soared 10-fold in value. Keiichi Hida, a bitcoin investor and member of the Japan Digital Money Association, lost ¥100,000 worth of bitcoins, which he got involved with as a form of “study.” But he was unfazed. “We should make it a national project to have bitcoin used nationwide at the time of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics,” he said. “I think then everyone would come to Tokyo in an instant.” Mt. Gox CEO Karpeles, even after bowing to apologize for the exchange’s bankruptcy, later said the currency will endure. “The bitcoin industry is continuing, and the most important thing now is to limit the impact of (Mt. Gox’s collapse) on that,” he said.

internet;theft;bitcoin;currency;mt . gox;mark karpeles

jp0000149

2014/03/23

When it comes to tourism, image is everything

During his re-election campaign these past two weeks, one of the lesser-known successes touted by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto was the Osaka Government Tourism Bureau, which he set up to promote the area to tourists and convention organizers. The new bureau marks the latest effort by a town, city or prefecture in Kansai to distinguish itself and grab a piece of the domestic and international tourism pie. But when promoting themselves overseas and, to a lesser extent, within Japan, the first and most fundamental problem is the region’s weak or nonexistent presence in the minds of would-be visitors. Despite recent efforts to coordinate tourism efforts, politicians are still very much in competition with each other, and even well-known Kansai cities are seeking new ways to re-brand themselves. One way is through food. Not too long ago, relatively little thought was given to Kansai cuisine’s potential as a tourist draw. But now fussy foodies in search of the perfect can’t-find-it-in-Tokyo-or-anywhere-else meal, made with fresh ingredients grown locally, are being targeted by promotion campaigns. These efforts are only expected to grow after “washoku,” or traditional Japanese cuisine, was added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in December. In Kansai, Kyoto’s restaurant industry played an influential role in pushing for the listing. Japan’s well-known cultural capital appears to have the least to be concerned about when it comes to image. But thanks to the renewed attention Japanese food has received from the UNESCO heritage listing, Kyoto is re-branding itself as a source of health food cuisine by touting local ingredients like “kujo negi,” a kind of leek. Restaurants specializing in the use of local produce have been springing up in and around the touristy Kiyomachi area. Other prefectures are also promoting their food and drinks. In Nara, long thought of as the one place in Kansai with an undistinguished cuisine, city officials now proudly boast of local strawberries. In Wakayama Prefecture, plum-based products, especially homemade “ume-shu” liquor, are proliferating at shops in Kansai that cater to tourists. And Tottori hopes beef-eaters in Kansai, after they’ve paid a visit to Kobe, will come up to their prefecture and sample the local Olein 55 beef that, despite its rather unappetizing name, enjoys the promotional support of the central government. Yet efforts in and around Kansai to create an image via food are likely to see limited success overseas. For starters, there is a severe lack of information in English about restaurants in the localities where the touted food originates, or even about restaurants in major Kansai cities dedicated to a particular delicacy or cuisine. In addition, unless you are as obsessed as those promoting their cuisine and its distinctive characteristics, it’s unlikely you’ll remember, for example, that the soup you ate contained Kyoto, not Shiga, leeks after you’ve returned home, or care much about the difference between Kobe beef and Tottori beef. And what about Osaka? After years of trying to promote the city as the “kitchen of Japan” — an effort that met with only mixed success — officials have switched gears somewhat and are trying to promote the city as an entertainment center. Music is a big part of this campaign. When it comes to Western, or American, music, Kobe has long been known as the heart of Kansai’s jazz scene, while back in the 1970s Kyoto was famous for its blues bars. Today, however, Osaka is attempting to reinvent itself as a major international jazz center. To that end, it will host its Third International Jazz Day, another UNESCO-endorsed project, on April 30. Presented in partnership with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the event features workshops with famous musicians from around the world, and concludes with a concert in Osaka Castle Park that evening. Even as Osaka aspires to become an international jazz mecca like Paris or Stockholm, the region will continue to promote itself as an Asian gateway. Indeed, since Kansai International Airport opened in 1994, touting its Asian connections has been the one consistent theme in the otherwise numerous, and at times schizophrenic, efforts to create a lasting domestic and international image. Yet what those connections are, beyond trade relations, or why Asian tourists should automatically prefer modern Kansai over the more traditional parts of Japan is never made clear. With the central government announcing earlier this year that it hopes to attract 20 million foreign visitors to Japan by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — about double last year’s number — promotional efforts throughout Japan are expected to increase. Over the next six years, we can look forward to all manner of attempts by prefectures, towns and even villages to create a recognizable image that will lead to increased tourism revenue or at least sales of local products. PR efforts resulting from such attempts may appear a bit desperate at times. But Kansai-area officials in particular worry that unless foreigners form a strong image of the region as a whole by then, those who do venture outside of Tokyo in search of adventure will go to a part of the country that has managed to create not only a good image, but also a unique one promising something other than the same kind of food, music and entertainment that can be found pretty much anywhere in Japan. Or the world.

toru hashimoto;osaka;washoku;foods

jp0000151

2014/03/15

Historical ifs and weathers or not

To suggest that history is shaped by chance weather events and climatic variation doesn’t lend it quite the same gravitas as if it were wrought by great leaders. It certainly isn’t as inspirational. But such processes can be just as important — and the weather can sometimes foil even the best-laid plans for world domination. Take the storms that blew up off Kyushu in 1274 and 1281. Luckily for Japan, they happened just as Kublai Khan and his Mongol horde were trying to invade. Later named kamikaze (divine winds), the storms helped repel the Mongols — but what has not been appreciated is that climate change had helped them to expand their empire in the first place. Mongolia is a country of extremes, with short, hot summers and long winters in which temperatures of minus 30 degrees are not unusual. It doesn’t rain much, and during most of the year — on average for 257 days — the sky is cloudless. But it hasn’t always been so across those boundless tracts of central Asia. Amy Hessl from the department of geology and geography at West Virginia University, and colleagues, studied tree-ring data from 107 living and dead Siberian pines in central Mongolia stretching back more than 1,100 years. The rings — made by new growth each year — can be used for dating, but also to make inferences, mainly from their widths, about the climate. Hessl, working with Neil Pederson of the Tree Ring Lab at Columbia University, New York, found they could pick out the big climatic events of the past 1,000 years. From 950-1250 there was an unusual warming called the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Then, from around 1350-1850, there was a cold snap that’s now dubbed the Little Ice Age. But the most unusual thing the team found was a persistent wet period in Mongolia from 1211-25 which, they suggest, boosted grassland productivity. For a culture based on horses and other livestock, this was incredibly beneficial. At the time of this sudden increase in fodder, the ruler of Mongolia was one Genghis Khan. Under him, the empire grew to reach as far west as central Europe and as far east as the shores of Japan, becoming the largest — in terms of contiguous land area — that the world has ever seen. Adverse climate events such as drought are often linked with the decline of complex societies, said Hessl. But what hasn’t been much studied is the opposite: The link between beneficial conditions and a rise in the complexity of a society. (The work is published in the journal PNAS, DOI reference: 10.1073/pnas.1318677111.) By the time Genghis Khan’s grandson, Kublai, came to power in 1260, Korea was a tributary state of the Mongols known as Goryeo. But Kublai Khan wanted Japan, too, and he amassed huge fleets for his invasion attempts in both 1274 and ’81 — with an arsenal that included devastating gunpowder bombs. Faced with this common foe, on both occasions Japan’s samurai fought together rather than battling among themselves as they had always done. For all their fabled prowess, though, they were stymied by their age-old rules of engagement which involved warriors calling out the name of an enemy with whom to engage in single combat. Similarly, archers would take aim at just one target, and fight in single combat by firing arrows at each other. The Mongols paid no heed to such stuff, instead sweeping into the Japanese en masse, killing and maiming any which way they could — including by loosing fire arrows, poison arrows or ceramic shells filled with gunpowder into their ranks. It was only a storm in 1274 and a typhoon in 1281 that led to the Mongols’ defeats, as their fleets were scattered and sunk. Yet the Japanese victories engendered a sense of invincibility that persisted until 1945. But it’s not all ancient history. The tree-ring data also show the effect of a drought afflicting Mongolia in the present century. This is a mark of the Anthropocene, the era of history in which human activities themselves influence the climate and impact Earth’s ecosystems. The warming we’ve seen over central Asia of late is related to human activity, said team member Kevin Anchukaitis of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. But that doesn’t mean it is possible to state scientifically that particular events — such as Mongolia’s drought — are caused by global warming. “It is difficult to attribute the 21st-century drought in Mongolia to climate change,” he said. But he expects warming to “become even more of a factor in future droughts.” Hessl agreed that droughts are going to be more likely. “We would expect to see similar events in the future based on past moisture variation in Mongolia and predictions of warming in the region,” she said. The contention that history is shaped by climate — with the British Empire, for instance, said to have been built by a people escaping their homeland’s grim weather — may not be so wide of the mark after all.

mongolia;kublai khan;kamikaze

jp0000152

2014/03/15

Trade deals trump sex slave issue for Osakans

When Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) co-leader Toru Hashimoto uttered his infamous remarks last May that Japan’s wartime sex slave system was necessary at the time, he was roundly — and rightly — condemned at home and abroad. It was clear then, and clearer today, that the real reason he got in trouble was because he was caught saying out loud what many Japanese of his generation, and not a few elders in the government — including, perhaps, at the highest levels — truly believe but refuse to say directly. However, recent events have loosened the floodgates of candor. Today, Abe’s government is locked in a tense standoff with South Korea over the “comfort women” issue. Every ambitious right-wing politician in Japan who can find a microphone is now repeating at full volume what Hashimoto said 10 months ago. Compared to the spit and venom coming out of sex slave deniers in Tokyo and elsewhere, Hashimoto’s comments last year are increasingly sounding intelligent and restrained. Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten. But what Hashimoto’s critics have never fully appreciated is that while he opened a Pandora’s box with his comfort women comments, it was a topic an entire generation was curious about. Raised on historical revisionist manga, ignorant of either the facts or the morality of the issue, the “Hashimoto Generation” became angry and confused when confronted by a past they never knew and the vague replies of their elders in the political and social mainstream when they tried to learn. Only the historical revisionist camp seemed to have, conveniently enough, all of the “facts.” The young Hashimoto Generation’s anger warmed the hearts of Japan’s old right-wingers. It also allowed them to now pose as wise, experienced leaders who were — depending on which think tank audience or television camera they or their foreign apologists were addressing — “realists,” “moderates,” or “pragmatists” who would, in the end, rein in the young hotheads so as not to upset the status quo. Today, however, nobody seems to know how to handle either the comfort women controversy or the younger generation. Hashimoto may have started the current fire. But to lump him in with the crude right-wing politicians now fanning the flames risks misunderstanding the mayor and, more generally, his Osaka followers and how they see the broader relationship with the Korean people. Nearly 1,000 years before political power shifted to Tokyo in the 17th century, Korean and Chinese merchants were trading in Osaka. In the late 20th century, a strong community of Korean residents led the way in local human rights education. Many Osakans who support Hashimoto’s economic policies grew up with Korean neighbors, friends and colleagues. Of course, it’s not surprising that they feel they “know” Koreans quite well. Such supporters have little if any true love for all the yelling about the comfort women issue and they are particularly disgusted by anti-Korean hate speech. Those politicians elsewhere banging on about the sex slave issue are increasingly seen in Osaka as opportunists who have no real interest in pursuing a lasting solution or listening to Korean concerns. Thus, the Hashimoto Generation as a whole may have wanted answers to the comfort women issue and now believes revisionist claims the historical facts are not “settled.” But in Osaka, you can also find those who believe, rightly or wrongly, that their city’s trade and cultural history with Korea combined with a traditional merchant’s disdain for rigid politics means their odds of success in “doing a deal” — quietly, behind the scenes — with South Korea are better than anybody shouting in the streets of other cities, especially Tokyo’s. View from Osaka is a monthly column that examines the latest news from a Kansai perspective.

toru hashimoto;south korea

jp0000153

2014/03/12

Key firms agree to hike pay scales

Many major firms notified their labor unions Wednesday that they will raise pay scales to conclude this year’s spring wage negotiations, responding to strong calls from the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to help end long-standing deflation. Toyota Motor Corp., which has huge influence over other companies, will raise its average monthly pay scale by ¥2,700, while Honda Motor Co. is planning a ¥2,200 increase. Likewise, six major electronics firms, including Hitachi Ltd. and Panasonic Corp., will raise their wage scales by ¥2,000 per month, the highest on record for the sector. Although management in many of these companies failed to fully meet labor unions’ demands, these will be the first hikes in six years, reflecting significant improvement in their business performances partly stemming from the yen’s weakness, which benefits exporters. A pay scale hike involves uniformly lifting a company’s basic wage other than a seniority-based regular wage increase. It often results in a rise in labor costs, as pension benefits are calculated based on the basic wage. Realizing wage hikes is considered a key for success of Abe’s economic policies dubbed “Abenomics,” which aim to bring about a “virtuous cycle” of increases in corporate earnings, wages and consumption to conquer nearly two decades of deflation. Some companies plan to fully accept labor unions’ demands over annual bonuses, while Nissan Motor Co. will also raise the monthly pay scale by ¥3,500 to fully satisfy the demand. The moves are thanks to the administration’s rare and strong calls on companies to hike wages. Unions have seen some success during negotiations in this year’s “shunto” spring pay talks, with many of them winning a pay-scale increase. “This will be a major driving force for our country to exit from deflation and achieve economic revival,” economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari told reporters, adding the response of management was “beyond expectations.” Hiromasa Yonekura, the head Keidanren, the nation’s most influential business lobby, said the move by major companies is a “result of firms sharing recognition that (a wage increase) is needed to overcome deflation and realize a virtuous economic cycle.” The focus now shifts to whether such moves will spread to medium-size and small companies as well as nonregular workers, a development considered necessary if the economy is to withstand a possible downturn in demand as a result of the consumption tax hike that is coming April 1. On top of manufacturing companies, many firms in the service industry will raise wages, with convenience store chain Lawson Inc. moving to increase its pay scale for the first time in 12 years after agreeing to fully meet its labor union’s demand for an average pay scale hike of ¥3,000 per month. Meanwhile, Suzuki Motor Corp. decided to forgo a pay scale hike due to concerns about the business environment, including the uncertain outlook for emerging economies. Struggling electronics makers Sharp Corp. and Pioneer Corp. will also skip a pay scale increase as their labor unions refrained from submitting demands, effectively withdrawing from the unified labor talks of major electronics companies. In addition to export-oriented manufacturing firms that benefit from a weak yen, nonmanufacturers such as restaurant operators and retailers, which enjoy brisk business thanks to robust domestic demand, will raise their pay scales. This will help mitigate the adverse impact of the consumption tax hike, said Koya Miyamae, senior economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. “The government now needs to promote a growth strategy, including a corporate tax cut as well as tax breaks to support families with children, in order to prevent a further decline in population and bolster domestic demand,” Miyamae said. At a news conference in Tokyo, labor leaders welcomed the pay hikes, saying unions were able to meet their goals to a certain extent. “We considered (the wage hikes) as a concrete step for pulling Japan out of deflation and realizing a virtuous economic cycle,” said Yasunobu Aihara, president of the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers’ Unions.

shinzo abe;toyota;shunto;labor unions;wage talks;electronics manufacturers

jp0000154

2014/04/03

Back on track: Sanriku Railway's long road to recovery

OFUNATO, IWATE PREF. - A little more than three years after the devastating earthquake paralyzed the northeast, coastal communities shattered by the ensuing tsunami are slowly returning to normal. Shops that were destroyed are gradually reopening. Residents forced to evacuate to distant parts are returning to their hometowns. And soon, communities along the coast of Iwate Prefecture will take another step toward recovery: Sanriku Railway Co. is set to restart full-scale operation of its South Rias and North Rias lines. Train runs are set to resume on a 15-km stretch between Yoshihama and Kamaishi stations on the southern line Saturday, and on a 10.5-km stretch between Omoto and Tanohata stations on the northern line Sunday. Covering most of Iwate’s coastline, Sanriku Railway’s two lines were a central part of life for many residents before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. But the railway was crippled by the tsunami after its train cars were flooded beyond repair and entire sections of track were swallowed whole. “Seeing the state the tracks were in, I thought we would never recover,” said Shoichi Kumagai, a 30-year veteran at Sanriku Railway. “It seemed like the world was about to break apart,” he said, recalling the magnitude-9.0 earthquake. “Immediately following the disasters, everyone was just trying to survive,” he said. “But as soon as things settled down, I had people come up to me and ask, ‘Can we ride the train yet?’ “ With roads destroyed or blocked by rubble, the people at Sanriku Railway knew they had to act quickly. The North Rias Line resumed operation just five days after the quake, carrying passengers free of charge across the small portion of tracks that was left undamaged. The South Rias Line, however, was more severely damaged and took more than two years for partial operations to resume. It was not just the trains and tracks, however, that needed to be repaired. The station buildings and bridges also took severe damage, and the South Rias Line’s main office in the city of Ofunato was flooded by tsunami. “The seawater filled the first floor, so all of the employees fled to the second floor office,” Kumagai said. Many of Sanriku Railway’s employees were themselves victims of the disaster. Taiki Sato, 28, had been working there as an engineer for less than a year when the quake and tidal waves hit. “My wife was pregnant then, and her parents’ house got washed away in the tsunami. We both lived out of our workplaces after that, on constant standby.” “Now that all operations are going back online, it’s really hitting home that things are returning back to normal,” Saito said. For the past three years, Sanriku Railway has worked with the government-backed Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency to rebuild its facilities. The roughly ¥10 billion in rebuilding costs were originally to be shared by the railway, the Iwate Prefectural Government and the central government. But the central government ended up shouldering the entire cost. The railway also received support from outside Japan. Kuwait donated roughly ¥40 billion in crude oil to the three prefectures most heavily damaged by the disasters, and Iwate used part of its share to buy five new train cars for Sanriku Railway. Residents along the lines are more than eager for the trains to be restored. “I used to take my children on the southern line all the time when they were little,” said Kuniko Minawa, 65. “It was sad having train tracks but no train running on them. Once it starts back up, I’d like to take the train to see my husband’s old house.” Haruka Mori, 18, said: “I always use Sanriku Railway to come to Ofunato to hang out. I want to ride the entire length of the southern line when it starts up again.” “There’s still a lot of rebuilding to do, but the resumption of the Sanriku lines makes me think progress is becoming more visible,” Mori said. Starting full operation is only the first step in Sanriku Railway’s rebirth, however. Like many other small regional train lines, the North Rias and South Rias lines suffer from a dearth of regular customers. Populations in the countryside are on the decline, and more and more people use cars to get around. Sanriku Railway has worked to cover those losses by attracting tourists from other prefectures, operating special event trains, such as the Disaster Education Train, in which company employees lecture passengers on the damage the Great East Japan Earthquake wreaked on the railway and surrounding areas, and the Omiai Train, where passengers sit face to face in search of a potential marriage partner. The number of tourists riding the Sanriku lines also got a boost from a cameo appearance by the North Rias Line in the hugely popular TV drama “Amachan.” But with the six-day-a-week, half-year-long show ending six months ago, it remains to be seen whether the railway lines can sustain the growth in popularity. “We received kind words and support from people all over Japan, and I think the only way we can show our thankfulness is to show that we have more passengers now than ever,” said Sanriku Railway’s Kumagai. “Of course we want local passengers, but we want to plan all kinds of events so that people from outside Iwate will visit disaster-struck areas,” he said.

tsunami;3/11;tohoku;earthquakes;3.11;sanriku railway co .

jp0000155

2014/04/05

Pulmonary pest ravages; study of racial hygienics urged; Japan mourns Gen. MacArthur; Takeshita resigns over Recruit scandal

100 YEARS AGO Tuesday, April 21, 1914 Chiba ravaged by pulmonary pest The dreadful pulmonary pest (pneumonic plague) has plunged districts of Omikawa and Moriyama-mura, Chiba, into consternation. The physicians and police officials, who are working to check the spread of the disease, facing imminent danger almost every minute, are greatly hampered in their efforts by a scarcity of workmen, even when offered tempting wages, and the unwillingness of local physicians and nurses to assist them. All physicians and police officers engaged in quarantine work are dreaded by the local people as the pest itself. They are shunned on the road and refused lodging. The sixth death from the plague in the district occurred Saturday. At present two adults and a child are lying near death, suspected of the disease, in a temporary shed. The crude asylum has been prepared in an isolated spot and enclosed with a fence of tin sheets. Police-Inspector Mano and other officers, refused lodging in Omikawa and Moriyama, are obliged to lodge in Sawara. Only a few workmen agreed to help build the isolation asylum. A cask of sake was always placed in the workshop to spur on the men, who drew the liquor freely from it during their work to inspire them with courage. Since the initial outbreak of the plague in Tokyo’s Fukagawa district, 72 fatal cases have been reported. At present, 1,315 patients are in hospitals. The quarantine director, Mr. Kunizawa, says that there is no positive way of putting an end to the plague, but it will die out of itself when more regular weather sets in. 75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, April 12, 1939 Racial hygienic course at universities urged Supporting a suggestion by Dr. Koichi Miyake, Professor of Tokyo Imperial University’s Medical College, the Gakujitsu Shinko-kai (Academic Promotion Society) is planning to propose to the Education Ministry the opening of a course on racial hygienics at various medical colleges. The proposed course would offer study on inter-racial blood mixture, heredity, mental and hygienic problems between races. Should it be brought to existence, the course will be the first of its kind in this country. Dr. Miyake has been studying various problems pertaining to blood mixture among the Oriental races, particularly among Japanese, Chinese, Manchous (people from the then-extant state of Manchukuo) and Chosenese (Koreans). He is an ardent advocate of inter-racial marriage for the solution of the problems of the East. 50 YEARS AGO Tuesday, April 7, 1964 U.S. Gen. MacArthur mourned by Japan A cable conveying the condolence of Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako on the death of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sent to Mrs. MacArthur, widow of the deceased five-star general, Monday. MacArthur died of acute kidney and liver failure at Walter Reed Medical Center, Maryland, early Monday morning Japan time. He was 84. Japanese political leaders were also quick to send messages. In a message to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda said: “I wish to express to the American people my deepest sympathies over the passing of Gen. MacArthur. The general, as a courageous patriot and a loyal citizen, served his country brilliantly throughout his life. The Japanese people remember him with affection not only a great soldier but also a friend of this country. “Gen. MacArthur, representing the victors, dedicated himself with sympathy and farsightedness to the reconstruction of Japan after World War II. I wish to express my grief on the occasion of his death.” Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira, in a cable to Mrs. MacArthur, said: “The passing of your beloved husband is a source of painful sorrow for us in Japan. Now that he has performed his duties in this world, we pray that he will rest in peace.” 25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, April 26, 1989 Takeshita says he will resign over scandal Noboru Takeshita announced Tuesday he will step down as prime minister after the Diet passes the nation’s 1989 budget. In a nationally televised news conference, Takeshita, 65, expressed “profound apologies” to the nation for the loss of faith caused by the Recruit influence-buying scandal. The prime minister declined to disclose whom he had in mind as his successor. He said he did not want to influence the ruling party’s selection of a new president — a position that carries with it the prime ministership because of the LDP’s majority in the Diet. At the start of his 30-minute news conference, Takeshita read a message addressed to the nation. “The widespread public distrust of politics triggered by the Recruit case has created a very serious crisis for parliamentary democracy in our country,” he said. Takeshita has been under intensive criticism because large amounts of funds were provided to him by Hiromasa Ezoe, former chairman of Recruit Co. Ezoe is now under indictment on charges of bribing government officials. Takeshita admitted in the Diet earlier that he and his associates had accepted ¥151 million in political donations, fundraiser ticket sales and share-sale profits from the Recruit group. Last week it came to light that he borrowed ¥50 million more from Ezoe in 1987 in the name of an aide, Ihei Aoki. Takeshita and his rivals were then vying for the LDP presidency before the term of former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone ended in November. Takeshita’s planned resignation comes as public approval for his Cabinet has hit a historic low. Analysts tie the reaction not only to the Recruit case but to the controversial 3 percent sales tax that was implemented April 1.

medicine;douglas macarthur;disease;discrimination;chiba;pneumonic plague;noboru takeshita

jp0000157

2014/04/27

Atrophied Osaka changes mindset toward entrepreneurs

Osaka has long been known as a merchant city, home to small but innovative businesses ranging from consumer electronics to processed foods. But the city where young entrepreneurs once flourished has recently found itself playing second fiddle to Tokyo. No matter where they’re from, Japanese — especially younger ones who come up with hit ideas — end up taking them to Tokyo because its sheer size means new thinking gets embraced in ways that Osaka and, indeed, the Kansai region, just do not. College graduates from western Japan often prefer to remain in Kansai, especially if they know they will have to help take care of their elderly parents soon. Many have dreams of starting their own business. But if they’re operating in the popular IT sector or the service industry, Kansai is just too small, or too conservative, for most young entrepreneurs, — even if they have a good idea and can find funding. In addition, long-established ties, family connections with customers and suppliers, and a host of other hidden realities can make it difficult for outsiders, especially in the service industry, to succeed. Newcomers are viewed less as potential partners with ideas for increasing profit, and more as potential rivals with ideas that can put the established players out of business. In recent years, the city of Osaka has begun to recognize that such thinking is killing the local economy and tax base. Whatever one thinks of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, he is surrounded by younger supporters, many of them entrepreneurs or self-employed professionals fed up with the area’s fossilized attitudes toward developing entrepreneurs. At Business Innovation Center Osaka, Chie Yamano is aware of the need to encourage budding businesspeople. “People can come in off the street and get advice about starting a business in Osaka. We can look at their business plans, provide advice on where to find local lawyers, accountants and real estate agents. We hold seminars for startup businesses, and can make introductions to potential business partners,” Yamano said. Real estate in parts of Osaka is dirt cheap, and the cost of living is generally less than that of Tokyo. But costs are not everything. Contacts and access to startup capital are also crucial. Unlike Tokyo, Osaka and the Kansai region in general lack the number and types of groups needed to match entrepreneurs with investors. One place getting attention for its attempt to unite young entrepreneurs in Osaka is Knowledge Salon. The organization, based in the Grand Front Osaka building that opened last year, is part of the larger Knowledge Capital facility and holds lectures, workshops and other business-related events. “Our members come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and have a broad range of interests, but there are many here who have an interest in forming their own business and are looking for potential partners or collaborators,” said Yu Sekiguchi, an assistant manager at Knowledge Capital. Virtually all official interest in, and attention to, nurturing entrepreneurship in Kansai is focused on sectors that the central and local governments and Kansai business organizations run by huge corporations have deemed priorities. These include pharmaceuticals, biotech, medicine and even tourism, if Kyoto is included. But what about the service industries? Food is an especially cutthroat business in Kansai. Any chef, wannabe chef, or budding restaurateur with dreams of becoming Japan’s version of Wolfgang Puck or Jamie Oliver will find that, while it’s fairly easy to set up a restaurant, keeping it going is another matter. While Osaka claims it’s the kitchen of Japan, outsiders often see Kyoto, a huge destination for domestic and international tourists, as the potentially better market. However, the Kyoto restaurant industry is quite closed, and despite efforts on the part of the city to promote Kyoto cuisine nationally and internationally, only entrepreneurs with unique ideas and an ability to adjust to the “Kyoto standard” of preparing and serving food — regardless of whether that food is traditional Japanese fare or not — are likely to succeed. That said, compared to just a decade ago, one can see a greater number of younger restaurateurs in Kyoto today, many of whom are focusing on specialized cuisine, especially macrobiotic, vegetarian and organic dishes prepared with locally grown produce. “There are definitely opportunities for a certain type of restaurant owner in Kyoto. The food has to be unique, but not too unique, of high quality, but still affordable and adjusted to Kansai tastes, which are different from Tokyo tastes and often less spicy. It also helps if you can create a cozy or even exclusive atmosphere,” said Jiro Fujii, an Osaka-based restaurant consultant who advises potential clients about Kansai. After the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Kansai’s leaders hoped concerns about further damage would lead to an influx of younger people who wanted to escape Tokyo and start over. That has not happened to the extent some predicted. In fact, the worry among Kansai politicians and business leaders is that, given the rapidly aging population, declining birth rate and a possible accelerated shift to Tokyo ahead of the 2020 Olympics, the region, especially Osaka, will continue to lose business. Freelance journalist Yuji Yoshitomi, in a recent book about Osaka, warned that without an economic recovery, the city will likely go the way of Detroit — run-down and bankrupt. Yamano admits the city needs to do more to bring in young entrepreneurs. But she said there is an understanding among the younger generation of Osaka leaders that they need to do more to encourage entrepreneurs and that now, actually, is the time for Japanese with an entrepreneurial bent to get established. It’s a message Osaka has paid lip service to for decades, though. Despite a myriad of competitive advantages on paper (excellent transportation systems, good living environment, lower cost of living, access to a huge pool of young labor via the universities), only time will tell if the latest message of “Come west, young entrepreneur” marks the beginning of the long-awaited, much-promised, and not yet realized Osaka, and Kansai, renaissance.

restaurant;kansai;entrepreneurship;service industry

jp0000158

2014/04/17

Asia's worst-smelling fish a South Korean delicacy

MOKPO, SOUTH KOREA - The aroma of one of South Korea’s most popular delicacies is regularly compared to rotting garbage and filthy bathrooms — and that is by its fans. The unusual dish is typically made by taking dozens of fresh skates, a cartilage-rich fish that looks like a stingray, stacking them up in a walk-in refrigerator and waiting — up to a month in some cases. “You know when it’s done by the smell,” said Kang Han-joo, co-owner of a seafood store in the bustling fish market of Mokpo, a port city on the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula, a region that is considered the food’s spiritual home. As Kang spoke, he sliced small, stinking, glistening dark-pink fish steaks with a large knife and laid them in plastic foam boxes for shipment to customers around South Korea. The smell of the fish, which is called “hongeo” in Korean and usually eaten uncooked, is unmistakable, unavoidable and a deal breaker for many. A profound, pungent stink of ammonia radiates from the animal after it has been ripening for weeks. First-timers often squeeze their eyes shut as they chew. Tears stream down the cheeks. The throat constricts with the effort of swallowing. Kang notes, in a dramatic understatement, “When it’s fermented a long time, the smell becomes deeper.” Americans are still getting used to gentler fermented Asian foods — spicy Korean kimchi and Japanese miso, for example — yet many South Koreans claim a love — an addiction, even — for this extreme form of fermentation. Restaurants specializing in the fish can be found throughout the United States. One online hongeo appreciation society boasts more than 1,300 members. “Some people start to crave it as soon as they smell the ammonia,” said Shin Jin-woo, a seafood store worker in Mokpo. “There’s no need to advertise how intense the smell is. Everyone already knows.” Shin’s store has two fermentation refrigerators. Walk into one and a blast of ammonia burns the eyes, the nose and sinuses, the tongue, throat and lungs. Skates are fermented up to 15 days in the first refrigerator, where the temperature is 2.5 degrees Celsius (36.5 Fahrenheit), and up to another 15 days in the second refrigerator at 1 C (34 F). Shops in Mokpo custom-ferment the fish and ship the results to restaurants and hongeo fans around South Korea. The vast majority of the more than 11,000 tons of hongeo consumed in the country comes not from South Korean-caught fish but from cheaper frozen imports. Shop owners thaw and clean the imported fish, which can cost up to five times less than the local version, and place the hongeo in refrigerators to ferment. Hongeo’s history is murky, but it emerged in the days before refrigeration, when food that could keep for a long time without rotting was prized. Someone — maybe a fisherman on a long voyage or a clever, hungry or desperate farmer — discovered that skate didn’t spoil as easily as other fish, and a dish was born. Shop owners say the traditional method of making hongeo is to put the fish on a bed of hay in a clay pot, pile more hay on top and leave it. Learning to love, or at least tolerate, what many consider the smelliest fish in Asia takes perseverance. Fans commonly say that if you try it four times, you will be hooked. People who aren’t fans may be mystified by how anyone could meet that threshold. “It’s a freaking punch in the face,” said Joe McPherson, the founder of ZenKimchi, a Korean food blog, and an eventual devotee of the fish. “Like everyone else, I gagged the first time.” Natives of the southwest say hongeo should be eaten plain. They sometimes complain that the copious garnishes provided at restaurants disguise the taste and smell. Most first-timers, however, tend to embrace all the extras they can, creating a hongeo “sandwich” with garnishes that can include red pepper paste, salty miniature shrimp, raw garlic, chili salt, slices of fatty boiled pork and some extraordinarily strong kimchi. Even with “some of the most powerful flavors in the world to put up against it . . . it does not cover up the flavor at all,” McPherson said. The extremely chewy texture — spongy flesh and hard cartilage — also makes for tough swallowing. And the smell of ammonia is so powerful it lingers for hours on clothes, skin and hair. The second time, if there is one, is usually a little better. One trick is to inhale through the mouth and exhale through the nose while eating. This helps fight the smell some and also intensifies a surprising tingling and cooling — almost minty — sensation in the mouth, throat and face. There are various theories explaining the food’s popularity. Some Koreans describe their craving as similar to the desire for a cigarette: You want it despite its obvious negatives of doing so. McPherson says the fish is also valued for its interesting texture and the sensation it produces in the mouth — two things that can be as important to Koreans as flavor. There is also something convivial about hongeo restaurants, where large amounts of strong Korean booze are as ubiquitous as the fish. Still, while some Korean restaurants in the United States serve hongeo, it is unlikely to catch on except “in hard-core foodie circles,” McPherson said. “I can see maybe college fraternities hazing their freshmen with this, but it’s very much a ‘dare’ food, like live octopus.”

restaurants;south korea

jp0000159

2014/04/19

Now is the time to research Alzheimer's

The team leader at the Laboratory for Proteolytic Neuroscience at Riken’s Brain Science Institute is not a man usually given to making apocalyptic statements. Yet when I asked him whether Japan should be investing more money in Alzheimer’s research, he responded with more than the usual academic plea for more money. “Alzheimer’s disease,” said Takaomi Saido, “will destroy Japan’s social-welfare mechanisms in the near future.” Saido, based in Wako, Saitama, is on a twin social and scientific mission: to protect Japanese society from the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease, and to uncover the secrets of how the brain ages. It’s interesting that he emphasizes that his mission is about protecting society. Alzheimer’s is already one of the most expensive diseases in developed countries. In the United States, it costs more than $100 billion a year. Saido is only too aware of how this will increase. “My social mission is to protect social-welfare mechanisms,” he told me, “because the socioeconomical cost of Alzheimer’s disease will be greater than the government’s annual income by 2050 unless the disease becomes preventable.” That sounds like a lot of money. But the estimate for the financial burden caused by Alzheimer’s in Japan by 2050 is $500 billion a year, which is about the same as the government’s annual revenues. Why is the cost going to increase so much? “People will be receiving much less pension after retirement and paying more taxes and hospital costs,” Saido said. So the government should invest now to save in the future. If we can find a way to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s, the number of people who suffer from dementia and the burden on caregivers will be smaller. “Alzheimer’s research is much more cost-effective than any other research field, including stem-cell research,” Saido assured me. As an example, Saido offered his new mice. Years in the making, these are no ordinary mice. The Riken team thinks it may revolutionize research into Alzheimer’s, and this is the scientific part of Saido’s twin mission. “My scientific mission is to uncover the essence of brain aging, one manifestation of which leads to Alzheimer’s disease development.” Much of the research conducted into Alzheimer’s uses mice as “models” of humans. Scientists use strains of mice that have a genetic propensity to develop Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, and it might go without saying, but mice are not the same as people, and the models are not perfect. In particular, the strain of mouse commonly used in Alzheimer’s research makes too much of a particular protein, known as amyloid precursor protein. This APP leads to the production of amyloid deposits, which are thought to cause the breakdown of neurons in the brain and which are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. But since the mouse makes too much APP, Saido thinks much of the work done on that mouse strain — and there has been a lot — is flawed, and won’t help our understanding of the disease in humans. The new mouse model is a strain that produces APP and the subsequent amyloid deposits in a way that is more realistic for the actual human disease. The details have just been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. “The generation of appropriate mouse models will be a major breakthrough for understanding the mechanism of the disease,” said Saido, “which will lead to the establishment of presymptomatic diagnosis, prevention and treatment of the disease.” I asked Saido for any preventative advice. “To my knowledge, the only scientifically proven measure is a daily exercise, like one hour of walking,” he said. Much remains to be discovered about this insidious disease. But there is hope. Two recent papers in the British journal the Lancet show that in the U.K. and Denmark there is a decrease in the number of people getting Alzheimer’s disease. The first paper shows details of two surveys of people with Alzheimer’s in the U.K., one in 1994 and the other in 2014. The researchers expected that the second survey would show more people with Alzheimer’s, since the average age of the population had increased over the intervening 20 years. But the numbers came up some 200,000 short. The evidence suggests that people are developing Alzheimer’s at an increased age. Something appears to be delaying the onset of the disease. (The DOI reference for this paper is 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61570-6.) The Danish study shows that people in their 90s born in 1915 were healthier and smarter — they performed better on cognitive tests — than people in their 90s born in 1905. So something improved in the lifestyle or diet of people born in 1915 that seems to have protected them. (The DOI reference for this paper is 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60777-1.) What are we to make of this? Some might say that it shows, for developed countries at least, that better nutrition, fitness and education may be helping to reduce the reach of Alzheimer’s. Maybe that’s true — but only slightly. “To conquer Alzheimer’s disease, it is essential to establish presymptomatic diagnosis and preventive medicine,” said Saido. He also suggests that the apparent decrease in Alzheimer’s seen in the U.K. may be due to a decrease in the consumption of fish and chips. That’s not as glib as it might seem, as an improved diet could reduce vascular forms of dementia, which would also reduce Alzheimer’s. But even if you doubt that the fabric of society is at risk — or that fish and chips have much to do with it — he’s right that we need to conquer the disease.

science;elderly;alzheimer 's disease;healthcare;aging japan

jp0000160

2014/04/19

America: the superpower ally that's far, far away

Japan is, at heart, politically as well as geographically, a country of small towns. One of these is home to the Japanese-American political relationship. Populated by distinguished elders and ambitious young courtiers from government and academia on both sides of the Pacific, this village has its own lexicon, holds town meetings at think tanks and issues nonbinding resolutions promoting the status quo. To become a permanent resident of the nichibei kankei mura (Japan-U.S. relations village), one must first have the right resume. Like homes, restaurants and gas stations, it’s first about “location, location, location.” That means having an address in either one of America’s two cities (New York or Washington — are there any others?), or in Japan (this merely being a synonym for Tokyo, of course). Thus, it’s not surprising to discover that, compared with Tokyo, serious and informed interest in, and conversation about, the Japan-U.S. relationship in Kansai is somewhat lacking, to be polite. It’s not that people in Kyoto, Osaka, Nara or Kobe like or dislike Americans more than people in Tokyo. Rather, they’re just indifferent because of their location. For most Kansai residents, politically, economically, and in terms of individual relations, America is a distant country indeed. In 2011, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, more than 67 percent of Kansai’s exports went to Asia, with 24 percent sent to China alone. By contrast, just under 11 percent went to the United States. Also almost 57 percent of Kansai’s imports came from Asia, as well one-third from China, as opposed to just under 7 percent from the United States. Less than 8,000 people from North America, including Canada, were registered as living in Kansai’s three main prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, and Hyogo in 2011. By contrast, Tokyo alone had more than 35,000 North Americans, excluding U.S. service members. At Kansai airport, just how distant America is can easily be grasped. This month, there is one direct daily flight to the U.S. mainland, to San Francisco, from Kansai airport. Another flight to New York, three times weekly, originates in Taiwan. Narita alone flies to 16 U.S. mainland cities daily, in many cases more than once. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have given up on Kansai as a North American hub, and with Haneda adding even more U.S.-bound flights, most Kansai travelers going to the United States on these airlines fly out of Itami to one of the two Tokyo airports to catch a connecting flight. All of the above means it’s very hard to get Kansai people strongly interested in discussing the upcoming visit of President Barack Obama, Japan-U.S. politics or the role of the American military, especially since there are no U.S. bases in Kansai. So, people in Kansai think, what is the point in raising such complicated and controversial issues about a country whose people I don’t see? Better to just talk about food, television programs or office gossip. Kansai’s exception to this indifference to politics is arguably Kyoto. After Tokyo, it’s the most popular tourist destination for American tourists, which means opportunities to interact with Americans the rest of Kansai doesn’t have. But those are short-term encounters rather than long-term relationships with people who have personal or professional reasons for being in Japan. The ancient capital is also a draw for academic or cultural specialists who have a distinct lack of interest in anything outside their field of study. Thus, the Japan-U.S. relationship, especially the political aspect, is of less interest than in Tokyo because while everyone understands that it’s important, the small American presence in Kansai means the politics are quite removed from the way people here live their lives. Out of sight, therefore, out of mind. View from Osaka is a monthly column that examines the latest news from a Kansai perspective.

tokyo;osaka;kyoto;kobe;diplomacy;nara

jp0000161

2014/04/01

New arms export principles, guidelines are adopted by Abe Cabinet

Japan on Tuesday adopted new principles and guidelines on arms exports, the first major overhaul in nearly half a century of its arms embargo policy, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set the stage for the country to play a more active role in global security. Despite concern that the new policy change will hurt the country’s status as a pacifist state, the Cabinet approved the rules that update the so-called “three principles” on restricting arms exports in the Cold War era, and give more clarity and leeway to the country’s weapons export policy. The newly adopted three principles on the transfer of defense equipment state that Japan will continue to embrace the basic philosophy of a pacifist state that abides by the U.N. Charter. Under the new principles, Japan will prohibit the export of weapons to countries involved in conflicts. The ban will also apply when exports violate U.N. resolutions. Japan will allow arms exports only if they serve the purpose of contributing to international cooperation and its security interests. Even when exports are allowed, Japan plans to impose strict screenings and make the process transparent. The unstated use and transfer of Japanese equipment to third parties will also be kept in check. Abe is reworking the country’s defense and security policy to deal with new security threats, and the new guidelines are one of his major policy goals. He is expected to decide whether to reinterpret the war-renouncing Constitution to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense and defend an ally under armed attack, namely the United States. Before Tuesday’s approval, the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party called on the government to ensure Japan would not help countries involved in conflicts, and would disclose information on arms export deals to the public. Opinion polls have indicated the public in Japan is unsure about the decades-old guidelines being changed, fearing a lack of clear limits on arms exports could undermine the pacifist stance. Under the new scheme, the defense, foreign and trade ministries will normally conduct screenings. The National Security Council, a body launched in December to speed up decision-making on defense and foreign policy, will decide whether to allow exports when deals are considered important and require caution. The government will publish annual reports on defense equipment approved by the ministries for exports, and also disclose information on deals discussed by the NSC. Adopted in 1967, and turned into a virtual blanket ban in 1976, the “three principles” on arms exports have turned into a symbol of the country’s pacifist stance. As the security environment has changed since the end of the Cold War, there have been calls for Japan to review its arms embargo policy rather than making “exceptions” to the rules. Japan has long banned the transfer of weapons to communist states, countries subject to embargoes under U.N. resolutions and those involved in international conflicts. In 2011, Japan relaxed the rules to allow exports for humanitarian and peaceful purposes, and to make it easier to participate in the joint development and production of weapons.

collective self-defense;arms exports

jp0000162

2014/04/01

Ruling puts whaling in doubt

THE HAGUE - The future of Japan’s whaling was thrown into doubt after the International Court of Justice ruled Monday that the nation’s annual hunt in the Antarctic was not really for scientific purposes — as Tokyo had claimed — and ordered it halted. The ruling was a major victory for whaling opponents, as it ends for now one of the world’s biggest whale hunts, for minkes in the icy Southern Ocean. The judgment was praised by Australia, which brought the case against Japan in 2010, and by environmentalists, who have been seeking an end to whaling since the 1970s on ethical grounds. The world court’s decision leaves Japan with a tough choice between ending whaling outright — despite past claims that it would never abandon such a deep-seated cultural practice — or redesigning its program to make it a scientific endeavor after all. Japan has previously all but ruled out joining Norway and Iceland in openly flouting the international consensus against commercial whaling. Australia’s former environment minister, Peter Garrett, who oversaw the suit’s launch, said he felt vindicated. “I’m absolutely over the moon, for all those people who wanted to see the charade of scientific whaling cease once and for all,” Garrett told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “I think (this) means without any shadow of a doubt that we won’t see the taking of whales in the Southern Ocean in the name of science.” In a 12-4 majority judgment, the U.N. court sided with Australia, finding that Japan’s program fell short of following scientific methods. For instance, judges said Japan had given no reason for its target of 850 minke whales annually and often failed to meet the target. It gave no defense of why it needed to kill that many to study them. And the “research” program had produced just two peer-reviewed scientific papers since 2005. “The court concludes that the special permits granted by Japan for the killing, taking, and treating of whales . . . are not ‘for purposes of scientific research,’ ” presiding Judge Peter Tomka said. The court ordered Japan to grant no further permits for its current Antarctic program. Japan had argued its study was aimed at determining whether commercial hunting could be conducted on a sustainable basis. The International Court of Justice is the U.N.’s court for resolving disputes between nations and its rulings are binding and not subject to appeal. Although sovereign countries can and occasionally do ignore them, both Japan and Australia had pledged to abide by this decision. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday the government will keep its word and obey the court “as a state that places a great importance on the international legal order.” However, he criticized the International Whaling Commission, the main international body that regulates whaling, which ordered a moratorium on all commercial whaling in 1986. That moratorium has remained in place despite recommendations from its own scientific committee that some whale species are robust enough to support a whaling industry. Suga said Japan has cooperated with the IWC for decades “despite the deep divisions within the commission, and its inability in recent years to function effectively.” He left the question of what Japan will do next unanswered. But the daily Asahi Shimbun reported Tuesday that Japan could try to rescue its Antarctic whaling program by sharply reducing catch quotas under a revamped “scientific whaling” program. The outlook is tough, however, with more than half of the IWC members now opposed to whaling, the daily said. Membership in the IWC is voluntary and Norway and Iceland have simply decided to ignore its mandates while remaining members. Under IWC rules, countries are allowed to issue themselves as many permits as they see fit to kill whales for scientific purposes. The permits are subject to a nonbinding review by a 200-member scientific committee that has been critical of Japan for many of the same reasons outlined by the world court’s ruling. Norway hunts around 500 minke whales in the Northeast Atlantic each year, while Iceland hunts roughly 50. Japan has a second scientific program in the North Pacific that culls around 100 minke whales annually. That program may now also be open to challenge because it was not covered in the Australian suit. Activist Pete Bethune, a New Zealander who has clashed frequently with Japanese whalers in attempts to stop their hunt, said, “justice was served” by Monday’s ruling. “The court dissected their scientific program, pulled it to bits and it proved that the amount of science is tiny relative to the commercial aspects,” he said outside the courtroom. The ruling left the door open for Japan to launch a new scientific hunt, though any new program would face intense scrutiny and would presumably need to be better designed. Judges said explicitly there was nothing in international law that forbids killing whales as part of a scientific study. It also noted that whales culled for scientific purposes may be slaughtered and sold — although that could not be the primary purpose of a scientific study. Consumption of whale meat has declined in popularity in Japan in recent years but it is still considered a delicacy by some. Most of the whale meat from Japanese hunts ends up being sold. Mitsumasa Kamiota, an official with the Fisheries Agency, underlined that Japan has not said it will quit research whaling altogether. He said Monday’s ruling only affects the country’s Antarctic program, and whaling in the North Pacific will continue. Kamiota also hinted that Japan may eventually come up with a new research program in the Antarctic. He said Japan does not intend to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission. “There is no change to our commitment to continue scientific research whaling under the international rules,” he said. “We will carefully examine what is allowed and what is not allowed under the ruling.” Japan had argued that Australia’s suit was an attempt to force its cultural norms on Japan, saying it was equivalent to Hindus demanding an international ban on killing cows.

sea shepherd;whaling;hague;nisshin maru;whalers;international court of justice;icj;australia-japan relations;whale hunts;iwc

jp0000163

2014/04/01

Declining appetites are bigger threat to whaling

The greatest threat to Japan’s whaling industry may not be the environmentalists harassing its ships or the countries demanding its abolishment, but consumers who have lost their appetite for the delicacy. The amount of whale meat stockpiled for lack of buyers has nearly doubled over the last decade, even as anti-whaling protests helped drive catches to record lows. Meat equivalent to more than 2,300 minke whales is sitting in freezers while whalers still plan to catch another 1,300 per year. Low demand will unlikely recover given Monday’s ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that Japan should stop its research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean because it isn’t really for scientific purposes. The ruling was a major victory for whaling opponents such as Australia, which argued that it is a cover for commercial hunts. The stated goal of the research, which began in 1987, is to show that commercial whaling is environmentally sustainable, but a growing question is whether it is economically sustainable. The government-subsidized whaling program is sinking deeper into debt and faces an imminent, costly renovation of its 27-year-old mother ship, the Nisshin Maru. “A resumption of commercial whaling is not a realistic option anymore, and the goal has become a mere excuse to continue research hunts,” said Ayako Okubo, a marine science researcher at Tokai University. “The program is used for the vested interests.” The research program began a year after an international ban on commercial hunting took effect. Japan is one of a handful of countries, including Norway and Iceland, that continue to hunt whales despite the moratorium. Activists from the Sea Shepherd group try to block the whalers by dragging ropes in the water to damage their propellers, lobbing smoke bombs at the ships and other methods. Whale meat not used for study is sold as food in Japan. But according to Fisheries Agency statistics, the amount of whale meat stockpiled in freezers at major ports around the country totaled about 4,600 tons at the end of 2012, from less than 2,500 tons in 2002. A Fisheries Agency official conceded that Sea Shepherd’s efforts to harass whaling ships have kept the stockpile from growing even bigger. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. Whale meat supplied half of protein needs for Japanese people 50 years ago, but today it is limited in most of the country to specialty restaurants and school lunches. It is a bigger part of the local diet in several coastal whaling towns that are allowed to conduct small-scale coastal whaling outside of International Whaling Commission oversight. The number of whale meat distributors and processors declined by half between 1999 and 2012, according to industry statistics. Distributors have said whale meat is unpopular largely because of the high price it commands, a lack of recipe varieties and negative image. Once a cheaper substitute for beef, it’s now about the same price. Whale bacon is sold as a delicacy, priced at about ¥2,000 per 100 grams, several times the cost of regular bacon. The Institute of Cetacean Research, a nonprofit entity overseen by the government that runs the program, made ¥2 billion from sales of whale meat last year, down from more than ¥7 billion in 2004, according to a financial report viewed by The Associated Press. The institute rejected repeated requests for comment on whaling and its future, citing concerns about possible repercussions and violence by Sea Shepherd environmentalists on Japanese whalers. The five-ship fleet is expected to return home within weeks, though the institute did not give any details. Its website is filled with press releases related to Sea Shepherd instead of its research. Initially, the government injected about ¥500 million a year into the program, or about 10 percent of its costs. By 2007, the subsidy had grown to about ¥900 million, and is projected to exceed ¥5 billion for the current fiscal year ending in September. That includes money for anti-Sea Shepherd measures, such as repairs for damage and dispatch of a patrol ship. In 2011, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry used an earthquake and tsunami disaster reconstruction fund to help cover whaling debts. The ministry later acknowledged funneling ¥2.3 billion of the fund into whaling, triggering a public outcry. The whaling subsidy, now part of a broader package of fisheries issues, will expire next year. Okubo, the marine researcher, says the research has been a comfortable option for Japan to keep the embattled industry alive without taking drastic restructuring needed if they are serious about going commercial again. The research has justified subsidies, kept jobs for whalers and allowed Japan to catch up to the ambitious catch quota. The industry at its peak in the 1960s had more than 10,000 crew members and fishermen, but that number has dropped to fewer than 200, plus a small number of coastal whalers. The only commercial whaling operator still in business in Japan is Kyodo Sempaku Kaisha, which is affiliated with the Institute of Cetacean Research and manages whaling ships and meat sales. Monday’s ruling in The Hague could cost Japan the roughly 1,000 whales it takes in the Antarctic each year, or its catch quota could be reduced. Other Japanese whaling programs in the North Pacific and off the coast of Japan will not be affected. Masayuki Komatsu, a former Fisheries Agency official who served as a negotiator at International Whaling Commission annual meetings, says Antarctic whaling is legal under international rules. “What’s at stake is not just whales. It’s a matter of territorial rights, in a way,” said Komatsu, now a fisheries professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “The Antarctic is an open sea that everyone is entitled to its rich resources. There is no need to concede to nationalistic confrontation.” But a 2011 report by a Fisheries Agency panel of outside experts recommended scaling back or terminating the Antarctic hunts, suggesting that coastal whaling could be enough for Japan’s tiny appetite for whale meat. It was supposed to be an interim report, but no final report was ever published.

sea shepherd;whaling;consumers;icj;australia-japan relations;research hunts;whale meat

jp0000164

2014/04/06

Tokyo jumps on theme bar bandwagon

Tokyo and its surrounding areas provide an array of entertainment spots to serve the varied interests of its inhabitants, day or night. The latest fads are theme bars and restaurants for those seeking an unusual drinking or dining experience. Guys who were fascinated by Ultraman in the heady high-growth 1960s can lose themselves in nostalgia at Kaiju Sakaba , a Kawasaki restaurant-bar themed on the space monsters the hero battled in the sci-fi TV series, whose popularity with kids pushed its viewer rating as high as 45 percent. Supervised by the famed Tsuburaya Productions Co., which still produces the show, the establishment is based on a make-believe story in which the operator, space invader Alien Baltan, serves “kaiju” (monsters), who gather for a pint after losing to the space heroes. It is now open to Earth inhabitants, as the story goes. In addition to more than 200 kaiju figures and photos on display, the bar, which opened March 14 and will stay open for a year, offers kaiju-themed dishes that stir memories of old “Ultraman” episodes. For “tetsuota,” short for “tetsudo otaku” (railway geeks), Tetsudo-Izakaya Little TGV in Tokyo’s Akihabara district provides an ideal setting for tipple-loving rail enthusiasts. On typical weekday evenings, suit-clad businessmen gather here to discuss their obsession by a large “N-scale” railway layout decorated with photo displays and rail memorabilia such as engine name plates in real train seats. While the above two restaurants target mainly hobbyists, the restaurant Ninja Akasaka is for those looking for more of a show. Its mysterious, dimly lit decor resembles old “ninja houses” with a creaky wooden floor, staircases and secret doors. The eatery resembles an amusement park attraction filled with lots of fun ideas. It also offers ninja shows by professional magicians and serves dishes in a unique, fun presentation style.

bars;kaiju sakaba;tetsudo-izakaya little tgv;ninja akasaka

jp0000167

2014/04/15

Chilean city still besieged by fire as toll rises to 15 dead, 500 hurt

VALPARAISO, CHILE - Helicopters and airplanes dumped water on wildfires and the smoldering wreckage of hilltop neighborhoods around Valparaiso for a third straight day Monday as sailors in riot gear stood ready to evacuate 700 more families whose homes could be lost if the winds shifted. At least 11,000 people have already been made homeless by wildfires that sent burning embers flying from hilltop to hilltop. A 15th body has also been discovered, while the toll of destroyed homes has risen to more than 2,500. As smoke rose from smoldering ruins all over the picturesque coastal city, many compared the scene to Dante’s “Inferno.” Some people made their way home after days without sleep, only to discover ruins. The fires — so hot they created their own fierce winds — consumed a few entire neighborhoods. In other districts, some houses stood unscathed but remained in danger from glowing embers carried by the shifting winds. “We are looking at the largest air operation ever assembled against a fire like this,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said. She said the blazes had grown to “dimensions never before seen.” Chile’s forestry agency predicted it would take three weeks to completely stamp out the fires, which began Saturday in a forested ravine and quickly spread into ramshackle housing on one of Valparaiso’s 42 hills. Hot dry winds blowing out to sea whipped embers onto other neighborhoods on six densely populated hills where people live in poorly constructed homes without municipal water or sewer connections, fire hydrants or streets wide enough for emergency vehicles. As of Monday, there appeared to be no end in sight. Helicopters were flying without pause, dumping water on hot spots. Aid was flowing in from all over Chile to Valparaiso, where evacuees crowded into eight shelters. Hundreds of young volunteers climbed hills carrying bottles of water and shovels to help victims search the ruins of their homes. “We’re going to rebuild right here. Where else would we go?” said Carolina Ovando, 22, who lost the humble home she kept with three small children. Schools were closed, some of them damaged by fires and others jammed with evacuees. Navy officer Julio Leiva said Monday that the death toll had risen to 15, with most of the bodies too badly burned to identify without DNA tests, according to the national forensics service. More than 500 people were also being treated at hospitals, mostly for smoke inhalation. Bachelet coordinated the emergency response with her Cabinet, canceling a trip to Argentina and Uruguay. She asked Chile’s neighbors for backup in case of other fires, freeing Chilean planes and helicopters to join the fleet in Valparaiso. Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman promised to collaborate with rescue teams and water-dumping planes. From the Vatican, Pope Francis sent a message sharing his prayers. Bachelet put the entire city under military rule, and 5,000 firefighters, police, forest rangers, soldiers, sailors and civil defense workers joined the response. Cars were banned from streets leading up eight of the Valparaiso’s hills so emergency vehicles could get through. Valparaiso is an oceanside city of 250,000 people surrounded by hills that form a natural amphitheater. The compact downtown includes Chile’s congress and its second-largest port, and the city owes its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site to the colorful homes built on slopes so steep that many people commute using stairs and cable cars. But what’s beautiful on postcards can be dangerous for those who live there: Many people have built on land not fit for housing. “We are too vulnerable as a city. We have been the builders and architects of our own danger,” Valparaiso Mayor Jorge Castro said Sunday in an interview with Chile’s 24H channel.

military;weather;fires;chile;michelle bachelet

jp0000168

2014/04/13

Government plans to resume 'research whaling' in 2015

LOS ANGELES - The nation’s Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) has filed briefs in the U.S. District Court in Seattle stating its intent to resume whale hunting in the Southern Ocean as early as fiscal 2015. The move, made Friday, immediately faced strong opposition from conservation group Sea Shepherd as it came less than two weeks after the International Court of Justice ordered Japan on March 31 to halt its so-called research whaling. The government plans to resume whale hunting as soon as the fiscal year starting April 2015 by tweaking parts of its research program, including reducing the number of whales taken. The ICR has said that the new program will not run counter to the ICJ ruling. The ICR and Sea Shepherd have been locked in a legal dispute in the United States, with the institute seeking an end to the anti-whaling group’s interference in its hunt. “The statement that Japan issued that they would comply with the ICJ ruling was I believe insincere,” Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said. “Japan has a history of duplicity with regard to whaling. I fully expect that Sea Shepherd Global will be prepared to return to the Southern Ocean in December 2015 to once again defend the integrity of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary,” Watson said.

sea shepherd;whaling;icj;southern ocean;research whaling

jp0000170

2014/04/14

Tetrapod

Dear Alice, I have always wondered about the curious cement structures you see up and down the coast of Japan, the ones that look like the toy jacks I played with as a child, except that they’re massive in size. I assume they are placed to protect the coast from weather and waves, but what are they called? Who makes them? And how the heck are they transported to the shore? Even more perplexing is that I recently I saw a pile of them inland, in a peaceful canal in Tokyo where I can’t imagine waves are an issue. So, why the heck are they there? Galen S., Tokyo Dear Galen, Let’s start with the first part of your question. Those crazy jack-like structures are called tetrapods, from the Greek meaning “four-legged.” “Tetrapod” is actually a trade name registered to Fudo Tetra Corporation, a major supplier, but people tend to use the term generically. The proper generic nomenclature, for readers who like to know that kind of thing, is shōha block (wave-dissipation block) in Japanese and armor unit in English. Armor units are used all over the world — not just in Japan — to protect man-made constructions that get in the way of moving water, such as seawalls, breakwaters and land-reclamation projects like Kansai International Airport, which was built completely out in the water. Whether placed only on the open-sea side of a construction or all around it, armor units break the force of incoming waves and redirect the water so it doesn’t crash full-force against the construction. Tetrapods work particularly well as armor units because when arranged in lines or heaps, the legs lock together to create a stable, porous barrier that holds up well under even extreme conditions. To find out more, I paid a visit to Fudo Tetra’s Tokyo office, where public relations manager Takatoshi Matsubuchi explained that the tetrapod was invented in France in 1949. Up until then, coastal engineers typically used piles of stones or rubble to protect marine constructions, but the problem with that method is that loose pieces are easily scattered or washed away. The advantages of the tetrapod were obvious, particularly in Japan, which had 33,000 km of coast and more than 4,000 harbors and fishing ports to protect. In fact, Japanese engineers were so excited about the tetrapod that they didn’t wait for such niceties as contracts or licensing agreements. A patent dispute ensued and the Japanese government, eager to protect the country from kaigan shinshoku (coastal erosion), helped broker a swift settlement. In the following decades, and especially during Japan’s period of high economic growth, tetrapods and other concrete armor units were widely adopted. If you look up tetrapods online, you’ll see the widely repeated assertion that a full half of the coastline of Japan has been artificially altered with cement constructions. That’s a pretty shocking claim if true, but unfortunately none of the sites posting it provided a source. I did search for primary data but did not turn up statistics that could support or dispute it. But it’s safe to say that tetrapods are a common sight near the water in Japan and that supplying them is big business. You were right to wonder how tetrapods are transported. I looked up the specs, and even a small tetrapod weighs nearly half a ton, while the big boys can top 80 tons. This is obviously not the sort of product that can be shipped around the country. So what happens is that companies such as Fudo Tetra lease steel molds to local contractors which pour the concrete on-site where the tetrapods are to be used. Even the molds are huge — far too big to be transported intact on Japan’s narrow roads — so they are delivered in pieces and assembled before the pouring work begins. When the cement is dry, the molds are removed and the tetrapods are lifted into place with cranes. Matsubuchi couldn’t speak specifically about your inland tetrapods, so I set off to find out who manages the canal where you saw them. You couldn’t remember the exact location but the photograph you sent contained a critical clue: a bridge with visible writing. As loyal readers know (because this was the subject of a “What the Heck” in May 2011), all bridges in Japan have names. Using the bridge name, I was able to pinpoint the location to the Takahama Canal, which is managed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Bureau of Sewerage. A spokesman explained that treated water is released into the canal at regular periods. The tetrapods were placed near the release points to lessen the impact of waves on small boats. Tetrapods surfaced on television last year, making an appearance during the theme-song opening of NHK’s hit morning drama “Ama-chan.” The tetrapod shots were taken at the Kosode fishing port in Kuji, Iwate Prefecture, a location used throughout the show. When you consider that the theme-song footage aired six mornings a week from April until September, on a show that enjoyed over 20 percent national viewership, that’s the sort of exposure marketers would kill for. But Matsubuchi said it didn’t have a big impact on business. “We are of course very pleased that tetrapods were featured so prominently on such a popular show,” he told me. “And the city of Kuji did order more tetrapods to repair the damage sustained during the 2011 tsunami. But it’s not like the average television viewer buys tetrapods.” True, but there are a surprising number of people who think tetrapods are oddly beautiful, and other companies that can cater to their tastes. A company called Maniapparel, for example, makes T-shirts and sweatshirts with tetrapod designs, as well as grey felt stuffed-toy versions to strew around your sofa to bolster you from the shock waves of life.

nature;tetrapods

jp0000171

2014/05/03

Empress-Dowager Shoken laid to rest; crackdown in Shanghai's foreign quarters; Olympic preparations; Lebanese businessman Japan's top tax-payer

100 YEARS AGO Tuesday, May 26, 1914 Nation bids farewell to late Empress-Dowager One of the notable landmarks in the modern history of Japan was the funeral ceremony held Saturday night for Her Majesty, the late Empress-Dowager (Shoken, empress consort of Emperor Meiji), who passed away on April 9. The augury of fine weather that was afforded by the afternoon’s sunshine was belied by a slight rainfall at night. At about six o’clock the searchlights began to play on the Yoyogi parade ground, which was also surrounded by electric illuminations; while the large black and white paper lanterns appropriate to such occasions, bearing the imperial crest, were freely interspersed. Ambassadors and Ministers began to arrive at half past seven, in Imperial Household carriages with military escorts. Their Imperial Majesties arrived at 8:40, and at once retired to the rest-rooms behind the Imperial pavilion. A bugle fanfare at 9:25 announced the approach of the funeral cortege. Their Imperial Majesties met the procession at the second torii (gate). The coffin being deposited in the center of the Sanctuary, in the pavilion especially erected, the curtain was withdrawn, revealing a blaze of light. The Ritualists made the traditional offerings, the Chief Ritualist reading the appointed address. His Imperial Majesty (Yoshihito, now known as Taisho) then paid homage, and read an address as follows: “I, Yoshihito, reverently address the Spirit of the late Emperor-Mother. Only a year and a half has elapsed since the conclusion of the national mourning for His Majesty the late Emperor, and our tears are barely dry when, alas, We again suffer a great loss. How unpitying, alas, is Heaven to Yoshihito! We have in person performed ceremonies while Her Late Majesty lay in state, sanctified, in a temporary shrine for several days past; and we are now about to lay the August Remains beside those of the late Imperial Father. We have now come to say farewell. Alas! At this moment Our sorrow is unbelievable.” 75 YEARS AGO Saturday, May 13, 1939 Political activities in Shanghai banned The following joint proclamation was issued this afternoon by the French Concession and the Shanghai Municipal Council, stressing their neutrality and banning associations of political nature: “From the beginning of the hostilities (between China and Japan), the authorities of the French Concession and the International Settlement have striven continuously to preserve their neutrality in the areas under their control so that the law-abiding residents may continue with security to carry on their lawful occupations and that the safety of life and property might be preserved for all persons irrespective of their nationality. “The activities of political nature, though they may be regarded by those participating as being of patriotic character, cannot legitimately be carried on in the neutral areas. Associations of a political nature accordingly cannot be allowed to operate in the areas under the control of the authorities of the French Concession and the International Settlement. Such activities would, in the opinion of the authorities concerned, be inconsistent with absolute neutrality which, it is their common object to preserve. It is accordingly, hereby, proclaimed that any person participating in activities of such association either directly or indirectly may be denied the sanctuary of the concession and the settlement and be liable to expulsion.” Shanghai had fallen under Japanese control in 1937 after the Battle of Shanghai. 50 YEARS AGO Sunday, May 3, 1964 Goodwill on show in buildup to Olympics At 10 a.m. Saturday, a small but important signboard was added to Tokyo’s jungle of glaring signs. The new sign, put up in front of 22 department stores of the Japanese capital shows three initials, IGS, which stand for International Goodwill Shop. It symbolizes a campaign to give a good and lasting impression to visitors from abroad to the Tokyo Olympic Games. The drive, initiated by the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is symbolic of the current nationwide movement to enhance the international reputation of Japan at the grass-roots level by making the Olympic visitors’ stay in Japan comfortable. The IGS signs will be distributed to all retail shops, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, hotels, barbers and beauty shops and laundries which meet the required standard. The standard differs according to the business establishment. Common to all are that prices must be written in Arabic figures, the shop must be sanitary and no undue price increase is to be practiced to take advantage of temporary visitors. A spokesman for the chamber said that the chamber hoped to have some 2,000 IGS shops in Tokyo and about 3,000 more elsewhere in Japan. 25 YEARS AGO Tuesday, May 2, 1989 Tokyo land sale hands trader top earnings title Abdel Hadi Debs, a Lebanese national, topped the tax agency’s list of income earners in Japan last year after selling a tract of land in Tokyo. Debs, 70, a trading company representative in Japan, earned an estimated ¥43 billion after selling an 8,600-sq.-meter plot of land in Oyama, Shibuya Ward, an official of the National Tax Administration Agency said Monday. Debs paid ¥6.854 billion in tax, Japan’s all-time record for income tax paid by an individual. Debs was followed in the list of biggest taxpayers by Mitsuo Akiyama, 51, owner of a gasoline station in Fukuzawa, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. Akiyama sold a 4,000-sq.-meter plot of land in Tokyo for about ¥12 billion and paid about ¥3.358 billion in tax. Mitsuo Sakaguchi, 60, was ranked third. He sold a 900-sq.-meter plot of land in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward for about ¥9 billion.

tokyo;funerals;income;shanghai;real estate;1964 tokyo olympics

jp0000172

2014/05/04

Fashionable Shibuya is a magnet for youths

Known as the town for young people, Tokyo’s Shibuya district is the capital’s center of youth fashion and culture. It also attracts crowds of tourists from home and abroad. Shibuya is best known for its “scramble crossing” near the north exit of JR Shibuya Station, where as many as 3,000 pedestrians coming from mainly four different directions calmly dodge each other in the large intersection when the crossing lights turn green. Around 500,000 people cross the intersection every day. Nearby stands the statue of Hachiko, the faithful dog praised for its loyalty to its master. The plaza around the statue is a popular meeting point and photo spot for tourists. Last year, a tourist information booth was set up near the statue to dispense information on the area’s shops and restaurants, including the famous Shibuya 109 fashion complex. Shibuya literally means “Shibu valley,” suggesting it was once low-lying land. Indeed, Shibuya Station stands where the Shibuya and Uda rivers formerly converged. However, due to urban development, the landscape has changed significantly in recent decades. Tokyu railway led Shibuya’s postwar development, opening Tokyu Department Store and other key facilities in the 1950s. Then, in the 1970s, Seibu railway established a foothold with its own department store and the Parco fashion complex, bringing a fresh vibe to the town. Those who see Shibuya merely as the center of youth fashion and culture may be surprised if they venture into Nonbei Yokocho, an alley lined with small “izakaya” (pubs) and yakitori eateries beside the JR Yamanote Line. Most of the bars are so small they only hold four to six people, and the seats are usually taken by those seeking a break from the hustle and bustle of the streets. People visiting the alley often feel nostalgic for the Showa Period. But the redevelopment of Shibuya never stops. In 2008, Tokyo Metro’s Fukutoshin Line reached Shibuya, and the 2012 opening of the Shibuya Hikarie commercial complex linked the Tokyu Toyoko Line with the Fukutoshin, making the already busy hub station even larger. Next on the horizon is the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. A 230-meter-tall hotel is scheduled to open in time for the event, and a major office complex is to be built by 2027.

shibuya;photos;at a glance

jp0000174

2014/05/05

Australian billionaire Packer in Bondi Beach street brawl with longtime friend

SYDNEY - Billionaire Australian gaming mogul James Packer was seen brawling on a Bondi Beach street with a fellow businessman, David Gyngell, a lifelong friend, former best man and chief executive of the Nine Entertainment Group, media reported on Monday. At least 50 photos of Packer, owner of Australia’s Crown Resorts Ltd., and Gyngell viciously fighting outside Packer’s home on Sunday are circulating for sale, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Packer and Gyngell released a joint statement on Monday, which did not confirm the fight, but said they remained friends. A Facebook page purportedly belonging to a neighbor of Packer’s, whose name is given as Chris Walker, provided an unconfirmed but detailed report of the fight. Walker did not respond to attempts by Reuters to verify his posting. “Holy crap, big street fight outside my house … Not thugs, James Packer … And some other angry bloke going toe to toe — total brawl .. Wow,” he wrote on the social networking site. “Packer packed a punch but copped a couple of hits straight to the jaw… Then they all fell on the concrete fence and I think the other guy broke his face … They were looking for teeth after he left.” Packer is one of Australia’s richest men, with Forbes recently estimating his net worth at $6.4 billion, and he has aggressively sought to expand his casino business into Asia and the United States. “We have been friends for 35 years and still are,” Gyngell and Packer said in a joint statement released by Nine Entertainment and Crown. “In that time we have had our fair share of ups and downs. We respect each other and neither of us will be commenting further.” Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings is the owner of Australia’s Nine TV network, one of the nation’s largest broadcasters. Packer has a stake in rival Ten Network Holdings, although the fight was not believed to be connected to their entertainment holdings. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that 50 photos exist showing the two men squaring off, pulling at each other’s shirts and grappling before falling and wrestling on the ground before other men, possibly Packer’s bodyguards, intervened. The newspaper said that the pair’s long-term friendship had soured after Gyngell tried to intervene on behalf of Packer’s second wife, Erica, from whom he announced his separation around six months ago.

media;celebrities;violence;australia

jp0000176

2014/05/18

Icho's ethnic vitality poses future model for Japan

If Japan throws its doors open to immigrants it might start looking like a certain neighborhood in Yokohama with multilingual street signs, ethnic eateries, and a babel of languages spoken in the streets. At the heart of this unconventional neighborhood is the so-called Icho housing complex less than 1 km east of Koza Shibuya Station on the Odakyu Enoshima Line. Roughly 20 percent of the 3,500 or so households here have foreign backgrounds, many having arrived in the past few decades from Vietnam, China and Cambodia. “One good thing about this area is that people are ethnically very diverse. Here, it’s normal for you to be different from others,” said Hoang Ha Nguyen Phan, a 28-year-old Vietnamese who came to Japan with her family in 1995 to seek political asylum. Experts say the neighborhood epitomizes the idea of interculturalism, which could be essential to Japan’s survival as an economic power at a time when its birthrate and labor force are in decline. The Icho complex, run by the Kanagawa Prefectural Government, became a magnet for foreigners after the establishment in 1980 of a reception center in the neighborhood for refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Many decided to live in the complex because of its proximity to the reception center, which closed in 1997. Other residents include factory workers from Brazil and Japanese orphans who were left behind in China after World War II and began to be repatriated in the 1980s. The Cabinet Office in February released figures projecting that Japan’s population of 120 million will fall to 87 million by 2060, and to 43 million by 2110. “The biggest problem we have around here is that residents, especially the Japanese ones, are getting older and older,” said Hideki Hayakawa, who runs a volunteer organization that helps local foreign residents with daily tasks. Hayakawa said that while foreigners continue to move into the Icho complex, Japanese tend to balk at the tiny apartments and inconvenient location. As a result, there is an odd demographic gap: The Japanese residents are graying and the foreigners are providing the dynamism. “A neighborhood faces a crisis if there are few kids. So I believe foreign families with children will play an important role in keeping this area alive,” Hayakawa said. Hayakawa’s group, Tabunka Machizukuri Kobo, or Studio to Create a Multicultural Neighborhood, organizes Japanese lessons, arranges interpreters for a nominal fee and runs errands for foreigners who don’t understand Japanese well. He set up the group in 2000. Hayakawa has watched the complex’s fortunes evolve for longer than that. He said there were problems in the 1990s, when some Japanese residents came to resent the rapid influx of foreigners. Some complained that the newcomers ignored rules on taking out the garbage, for example, or that they would disturb the block with karaoke bouts late at night. In 1999, the frustrations resulted in some Japanese petitioning the Kanagawa government to bar more foreigners from moving in. But their animosity subsided in time, thanks to the immigrants’ own children. Raised in Japanese schools, when the youngsters grew up they taught their parents how to go local. More than a decade later, the neighborhood could be facing yet another crossroads. In April, the nearby Icho Elementary School, where many immigrants used to send their children, merged with the neighboring Iida-kita School because the Icho school had suffered a decline in enrollment. At its peak, it boasted a staggering 75 percent of pupils with foreign roots. The merged and rebranded Iida-kita Icho School now has equal numbers of foreign and Japanese pupils, said Satoshi Kikuchi, a teacher in charge of intercultural education. But not everyone is happy. Kikuchi said some Japanese parents from the Iida-kita school are worried that foreign children from the Icho school might be disruptive and force staff to pay them more attention than the Japanese pupils. “We can’t give those foreign children the same amount of attention that the teachers at the old Icho school did,” Kikuchi said. “For now, we are focusing on educating both kids and parents on the need for interculturalism and asking for their understanding.” One way the school may do this is by asking politicians or immigration experts to speak to parents about the values foreign residents bring to the community, and to explain that without them Japan will no longer be able to function as a strong economy, Kikuchi said. “We’re no longer doing foreigners a favor by accepting them. We’re living in an age when we rely on them to maintain our economy,” he said. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it appears, shares Kikuchi’s view — at least partially. Last month, it announced it will expand the controversial foreign trainee program by granting participants longer stays, extending their visa terms from three to five years. Although Japan rejects unskilled laborers from abroad under current government policy, unscrupulous employers often exploit the trainees as cheap labor. The program is being extended to lure more foreigners to bolster Japan’s shrinking workforce at a time when the nation is gearing up to build new facilities and infrastructure for the 2020 Olympics. But speaking on television in April, Abe denied that Japan would ease its immigration policies soon, saying foreign countries have found that it causes friction with local residents. Open-door policies have led to “many unfortunate incidents,” he said. Abe conceded, however, that there is a need for more foreigner workers to meet strong demand for labor in the construction industry. Keizo Yamawaki, a professor at Meiji University who specializes in immigration policy, said that while he himself is not opposed to expanding immigration, Abe’s plan to admit more foreigners merely to meet a labor shortage is shortsighted. He said it is almost inevitable, judging from Europe’s experience with so-called guest workers, that some trainees will end up staying in Japan semi-permanently by overstaying their visas or that some may marry Japanese citizens and automatically acquire the right to stay. Therefore, he said, Abe may be opening the door to immigration anyway. “Japan’s shrinking population is a problem that will persist even after 2020. In fact, the pace of the population decline will only accelerate. So admitting foreigners merely as a temporary, stopgap labor force misses the point,” he said.

immigration;war orphans;icho;indochina refugees

jp0000177

2014/05/27

Abe moves to boost control of bureaucrats

The government formally decided Tuesday to launch the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs on Friday and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato will serve as its director general, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. The creation of the new bureau and the appointment of Kato, one of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s the closest aides, is seen as another political maneuver by Abe to tighten his grip on powerful government bureaucrats. The bureau will serve as the secretariat for the prime minister to decide the appointments of about 600 elite bureaucrats at ministries and agencies of the central government, including vice ministers and bureau chiefs. Under the current system, the prime minister and chief Cabinet secretary have overseen appointments of about 200 elite bureaucrats. The new personnel bureau will greatly expand the clout of politicians in power. “We’d like to establish a system to cope with various issues quickly and in a united manner” through “strategic appointments of personnel,” Suga told a news conference. Suga announced that Tomomi Inada, now minister in charge of administrative reforms, will also oversee the bureau. But Abe and Suga himself will be directly in charge of screening and appointing those senior bureaucrats, while Inada will oversee other aspects of the bureau’s work, Suga said. Since Abe’s inauguration in December 2012, the prime minister and Suga have interfered in the appointments of a number of key elite officials to strengthen their power base, while past Cabinets have largely avoided doing that to maintain political neutrality over the autonomy of the powerful bureaucratic system. For example, last August Abe tapped Ichiro Komatsu, a former Foreign Ministry official, as director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, to push for his drive to reinterpret the war-renouncing Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defense. Under the long-held government custom, a senior official of the bureau has been promoted to the director general’s post, but Abe broke this tacit arrangement to push for his ambition to change the interpretation of the Constitution. Then, last fall, Abe appointed four right-leaning people whose political interests are close to his to the 12-member board of governors of NHK, the country’s influential public broadcasting organization. The four then helped appoint Katsuto Momii as NHK’s new chairman, who later caused a big stir by saying he will not challenge government policies as far as territorial issues are concerned and by defending Japan’s wartime “comfort women” brothel system. Suga, a former internal affairs minister and Abe’s right-hand man, is known for his keen interest in controlling bureaucrats by meddling in personnel affairs. In June last year, Suga forced Atsuo Saka, a former top Finance Ministry official, to step down as president and CEO of Japan Post Holdings Co. Suga’s move was seen as his drive to strengthen his control over the giant government-owned Japan Post conglomerate.

bureaucrats;tomomi inada;katsunobu kato;cabinet bureau of personnel affairs

jp0000178

2014/05/29

City of Chiba aims to be Japan's Muslim center

CHIBA - The city of Chiba is seeking to become the center of Muslim culture in Japan, aiming to attract Southeast Asian tourists to visit and stay in the city. The municipal government has been prompting businesses in the city to attain the status of “Japan’s first Muslim-friendly facility” in a variety of fields. In January, Japan’s first halal-certified food-processing facility opened in the Makuhari area in central Chiba. The operator, Sato Chohachi-Shoji Co., a Tokyo-based food trading firm, said the plant is working on research and development, with commercial production to begin in July. A few hundred meters away, the private Kanda University of International Studies opened a Muslim-friendly cafeteria earlier this month as the first of its kind among Japanese colleges, while retail giant Aeon Co.’s new flagship mall, which opened last December at a nearby site, has a prayer room for Muslim shoppers — the first such facility in its domestic network of 135 outlets. The efforts by the private sector follow last September’s relocation of the headquarters of the certifying organization Nippon Asia Halal Association from Tokyo to the city. The Chiba Municipal Government in November invited a representative from the nonprofit group to participate in a city committee on inbound tourism, where members agreed to designate travelers from Asia and Muslims as top promotion targets. The Muslim-friendly initiative was proposed by Mayor Toshihito Kumagai in line with the city’s efforts to host more international conventions at its huge Makuhari Messe convention complex. A spokesman for Sato Chohachi-Shoji said the company will promote its Chiba-made halal products to enter the Middle East and Southeast Asia markets after expanding business with Japanese hotels that accommodate Muslim tourists. “We would like to promote ‘Made in Japan’ as a brand in the global halal market,” he added.

inbound tourism;halal;muslim culture

jp0000180

2014/05/17

Alien invasion threatening native species

An invasion has been going on under our noses. It is multipronged, ruthless and very difficult to repel. It has been called an “ecological apocalypse.” If you look out your window you may be able to see evidence of it. That pigeon flying past? An invader. Likewise, the cat by the garbage. Most are so familiar we don’t even think of them as invaders, but they are not native to Japan. There are many more, and most are far less obvious. “Non-native invasive species have been popularly described as one of the four horsemen of the ecological apocalypse,” says Nisha Owen, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London. “They are a real and pressing danger to biodiversity and ecosystems.” Outside of my window in London I can see two ring-necked parakeets in a tree in my garden. Their bright-green plumage and raucous squawking call are not typical of the English garden — these birds are native to Africa and South Asia — but they live now in large numbers in southeastern England, and in the rest of Europe. The parakeets of London nest early in the year and occupy holes in trees that native species such as woodpeckers would use. Pretty though they are, there are thousands in London alone and they are now classified as a pest. In Japan, alien species are widespread and well-established. Some of the native species threatened by invaders are well-known. There is the Amami rabbit, an extremely unusual species of rabbit sometimes called a living fossil as it is so different from other species of rabbit and hare. Carnivores that have been introduced by humans — sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally — now threaten the very existence of the Amami rabbit. “The Amami rabbit is one of the most evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered mammals in the world,” says Owen, who works on the EDGE of Existence Program ( www.edgeofexistence.org ), which highlights and conserves evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered animals in the world. “Although declared a Japanese national monument, this species is under threat from the introduced small Asian mongoose — one of the world’s most invasive species — which has killed large numbers of rabbits since their introduction in 1979 to control snakes,” she says. OK, you might be thinking, but the establishment of parakeets in England and Asian mongooses in Japan is hardly enough to qualify as an “apocalyptic” invasion. Even if you add pigeons and cats, it’s not the end of the world. However, there are many thousands more invasive species and, added together, you start to see the scale of the problem. For example, in Europe there are more than 13,000 non-European species that live in the wild. There are hundreds of non-native insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals breeding regularly in Japan — so many that I couldn’t count them all in the database. For anyone interested, Dr. Koichi Goka of the Invasive Species Research Team at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba (my old research institute) has put together a great online resource in English: www.nies.go.jp/biodiversity/invasive/index_en.html . Here are a few of the invaders Japanese biologists are most concerned about. They are classed as “100J” species, the list of Japan’s top 100 worst invasive pests. In Wakayama and Aomori prefectures, Taiwanese macaques have established themselves. They hybridize with native Japanese macaques, so “contaminating” the gene pool of the native species. In Tokyo and Chiba Prefecture, there are populations of snapping turtles, released by people who purchased them as pets. These turtles attack and eat native freshwater animals. There is a moth — the fall webworm — the caterpillars of which devastate native trees. There is even a cane toad. Notorious as one of the worst invasive species in Australia, there are cane toad populations on some Okinawa and Ogasawara islands. The invasion situation is so bad that biologists are proposing a new way of tackling the problem: create a “Black List” of invasive species — the opposite of the Red List of endangered species that is collated by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It’s not a simple problem to solve. Even if it was easy to catch or kill all the individuals in the wild of the species you were interested in, sometimes a species that is an invader to Japan may be rare elsewhere. This is best illustrated by an exotic and dramatic-looking species that has established itself in Kamogawa and part of the Katsuragawa river network in Kyoto, the Chinese giant salamander. You’ll know it if you see it — they are monsters, growing up to 1.8 meters long. “The Chinese giant salamander (is) another evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered species that is desperately in need of conservation attention in China,” Owen says. “Unfortunately, this species happens to be a major problem in Japan, threatening the native Japanese giant salamander through competition and hybridization.” The biologists proposing the creation of a Black List of invasive species say it can be used to prioritize species for action, as required by international policies on biological invasions. The Convention on Biological Diversity was signed in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and requires that “By 2020, invasive alien species and pathways are identified and prioritized, priority species are controlled or eradicated, and measures are in place to manage pathways to prevent their introduction and establishment.” The paper about the Black List is published in PLOS Biology. Humans are, of course, the most dangerous of all species, and could easily be given the No. 1 spot on the Black List. Many scientists are in agreement that the sheer impact of humans on the planet means we have initiated a new geological era: the Anthropocene — the age of human impact. For more on this, I recommend “Adventures in the Anthropocene,” by Gaia Vince (published by Chatto and Windus), an epic, global account of our impact on the biosphere.

ecology;amami rabbits;snakes;taiwanese macaques;snapping turtles;fall webworms;cane toads;chinese giant salamanders;small asian mongooses

jp0000181

2014/05/17

Pop duo's Aska held on drug possession charge

Singer-songwriter Aska, half of the famous pop duo Chage and Aska, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of possessing stimulants, the police said. Aska, 56, denied the allegations, saying, “I have never used kakuseizai.” According to the police, Aska, whose real name is Shigeaki Miyazaki, is suspected of having been in possession of a small amount of “kakuseizai” (stimulants) in April. Also arrested Thursday was Kasumi Tochinai, 37, an acquaintance. The two are suspected of having the drug in Tochinai’s apartment. The powerful drug’s main ingredient is usually amphetamine or methamphetamine. Later in the day, police sources said stimulants had been detected in Aska’s urine. They also found what appear to be illegal drugs in his apartment, the sources said. After debuting in 1979, Chage and Aska produced several hit songs from the 1980s through the 1990s before taking a break in 2009. Their hits, also popular in China and other countries, include “Banri no Kawa,” “Say Yes,”and “Yah Yah Yah.” Aska also launched a solo career in the midst of the duo’s stardom. After suspending their activities in 2009, the pair reunited in January last year only to withdraw from the spotlight in October after a weekly magazine reported Aska had allegedly used illegal drugs, which he denied.

drug;stimulant;chage & aska;aska

jp0000182

2014/05/19

Shocking baths of Japan

Dear Alice, On my first trip to Japan, my host took me to an up-market hot-springs resort on the island of Awajishima. There I was introduced to a small tiled “box” within the large soaking tub. I noticed there were small panels along the sides, but didn’t think anything of it until I entered the water and felt as if I’d been zapped with a cattle prod — an electric current was running through the water! After my initial horror, I discovered the sensation was tolerable as long as I remained in the middle of the space. I have since seen a similar bath in Kyoto. So, what the heck is this and what is its purpose? Ross L., South Australia Dear Ross, I have to say, I’m a little horrified too. Where I grew up, we were taught that water and electricity don’t mix. As a child, I distinctly remember feeling uneasy whenever I took a bath, painfully aware that a total stranger might burst in at any moment, toss a radio or hair dryer into my bath water, and I’d be toast. Bath-time electrocutions were reported regularly in the police-blotter in my hometown newspaper, and were a staple of television throughout my impressionable years. It wasn’t easy to shake such images from my mind as I went to work on your question, but the topic was so electrifying that I was soon fully immersed. I established that the baths you described are called “ denkiburo ” (“electricity baths”) and are also found in public baths, saunas and sports clubs throughout Japan. It’s a wonder I evaded them all these years. Here’s how a denkiburo works: a low-level electric current runs between electrode plates installed below the water surface on either side of the bath. The bather experiences the electric current as a pins-and-needles tingling, expressed in Japanese as piri piri . Some people seem to find this sensation relaxing, while others describe it as downright frightening. Either way, the supposed benefit is relief from katakori (stiff shoulders) and back pain. There’s no scientific proof for this, as far as I could determine, and manufacturers and bath owners are careful not to make health claims. There’s also a rumor that denkiburo reduces sperm count, but I couldn’t find evidence to support that either. So how much electricity actually passes through the body? That depends on many factors, including the mineral composition of the water and how close you get to the electrodes, but it’s less than you can expect from a stun gun. The denkiburo at the Kintoki-yu in Nagoya, according to that bathhouse’s website, delivers “less than 2 volts and 1 ampere, for moderate numbness.” Stay clear of denkiburo if you’ve got a pacemaker installed; even a small jolt of electricity can cause it to malfunction. They’re also not recommended for people with heart murmurs and any of a number of other medical conditions. The history of denkiburo is a bit murky, but they’ve clearly been around since at least 1928, the year mystery writer Juza Unno published a story called “Denkiburo no Kaishi Jiken” (“The Case of the Suspicious Death in the Electricity Bath”). Early denkiburo were crude devices, and completely unregulated, but as far as I can tell, in real life no one has ever kicked the bucket in a denkiburo. As a general rule, I keep my clothes on when I’m working on a column, but if there was ever a question that demanded I get naked, watt the heck, this was it. I couldn’t, in good conscience, write about denkiburo without experiencing one for myself. So I went on the Internet and discovered there was a denkiburo not 10 minutes from my apartment in Tokyo. (And all this time I thought our neighborhood was safe.) I paid my ¥450, left my clothes in a locker and opened the sliding glass door into the baths. After a good wash at the faucets, I wandered through the tub area until I located the denkiburo in a corner of the soaking bath. It was a U-shape partition, open at the front. This allowed me to sit just outside it, water up to my neck, while I gingerly extended one hand into the denkiburo, as far from the side-wall electrodes as possible. I didn’t feel much of anything, so I inched forward, putting all four extremities into range. I felt an unpleasant prickling sensation, but it was bearable, so I turned around and began to back my whole body into the space. I got halfway in, enduring maybe three seconds of exposure, when my entire chest contracted painfully and I was sure death was imminent. I shot the heck out of there. As soon as I vacated an elderly lady moved in, and stayed a good long while with no apparent ill effect. Bath owners install denkiburo as an “attraction,” according to a sales representative at Osaka-based Konishi Electric Co. Ltd., the main supplier of such systems. That’s because people today patronize public baths to relax rather than to get clean. “Until the mid 1950s, having a bathroom in one’s home was a luxury few Japanese could afford,” Norihide Watanabe of the National Federation of Public Baths told me. “In those days, there were tens of thousands of public baths. Today, nearly every Japanese home has a private bath and there are fewer than 5,000 public baths left. There is almost no new bath construction, and as aging owners retire, we’re losing 200 to 300 baths every year. People who continue to patronize public baths are particularly interested in the health benefits of bathing, so it’s important to give them what they want.” I had to wonder, however, if a numbness-inducing, skin-prickling bath truly serves as an attraction. So I went back to the bath near my apartment and posed that very question to the lady at the front desk. Does anyone — other than morbidly curious folks like me — turn up just for the denkiburo? “ Sukina hito wa totemo suki desu yo, ” she assured me. People who like them really like them.

lifestyle;bath;denkiburo

jp0000183

2014/05/09

Secrets law far too wide-reaching: U.S. expert

The new state secrets law is so broad that it’s self-defeating and must be amended before it comes into force in December or it will have a chilling effect on free speech, according to U.S. national security and civil liberties expert Morton Halperin. Halperin said in an interview Thursday in Tokyo that the legislation, passed by the Diet last December, is “far out of step with the rest of the world” and should be amended immediately to provide protections for journalists, other private citizens and government whistleblowers. The law’s penalties of up to 10 years in prison for revealing classified information, which applies to private citizens, including journalists, are “dangerous,” and repealing them should be the government’s highest priority, Halperin said. Halperin worked on defense policy and national security in the administrations of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, and is now a senior adviser at the Open Society Foundations in Washington. The secrets law is part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policy of creating a framework to protect intelligence sharing with allies, particularly the United States. Halperin said that although the law is largely modeled after that of the United States, the U.S. legislation is not used to file criminal charges against journalists. But the new Japanese law could be used in this way unless it is amended to be made clearer. “The danger is the effect it has on people’s behavior. Even if nobody’s ever indicted, people worry about being indicted, and therefore they say, ‘I’d better not write this story because I may be indicted,’ ” he said. Every country is entitled to keep some secrets for limited periods of time, but laws as broad as Japan’s actually inhibit the protection of genuine secrets because they allow officials to become complacent, Halperin said. “The notion that the way to protect real secrets is to make much more information secret is just wrong,” he said. “If the Japanese government thinks that there’s some operational information about how to work with the American military that needs to be protected, they should protect that information, not pass a statute which would lead to so much information being kept secret that the real secrets will seem trivial.” The law should, in line with those of comparable countries, require the government to more specifically show the harm classified information would cause if released, and consider whether the public value of the information outweighs that harm, he said. The independent secrets review body, which can make classified information public, can only work if it is made up of people from outside government instead of officials, as under the present law, he said. “People who are committed to public debate when they’re outside the government often lose that commitment when they’re in the government, and so you can’t really trust people in the government to have sound judgments on these issues,” he said. The body should consist of “people who are seen by society to have a genuine commitment to openness as well as to classification,” Halperin said. The Abe administration owes it to the public to engage in further dialogue on the law, he said. “I think what the government should do is what it should have done before it passed the law, which is to consult more widely with experts in Japan, but also with international experts, and look at what international standards are, and consider once again whether it can meet those international standards,” he said.

secrecy law;morton halperin

jp0000185

2014/05/31

Japan called lackadaisical; simple-living laws introduced; tourist recommendations questioned; China's use of force deplored

100 YEARS AGO Tuesday, June 9, 1914 ‘Tokyo is dull, muggy and uninteresting’ “Of course it may be all that you say it is, and all that the guide books assure that it is, but to me Tokyo is insufferably dull, very muggy and generally uninteresting!” This is the opinion of Mr. Fredrick Williams, of Portsmouth, England, who is in Japan for a short time in the interests of a British Electrical concern. The representative of The Japan Times further gathered that Mr. Williams wishes he were almost anywhere but in Tokyo — but for preference he would choose a cottage on the Isle of Wight. “The trouble with the Far East, saving of course at the British ports, is that it is too lackadaisical. I have been trying for nearly three weeks to conclude a very simple little business matter about some motors, and would you believe me, I understand that I may have to stay until the first of August? I mean to say the whole method of conducting business matters here seems to me to be mere child’s play, and a waste of time! No one seems very inclined to make up their minds.” Mr. Williams did admit of the uniform courtesy of the Japanese. “They are too polite, confound it! I am dined and motored about to my heart’s content, but if I even hint at the things that are uppermost in my mind a vaguely distressed expression comes across the faces of my hosts as if to say: ‘Oh dear! Now you have spoiled a very pleasant afternoon — or evening as the case may be.'” Mr. Williams finished the conversation in a typically British way by saying: “I can jolly well assure you that if I ever get home I intend to stay there!” 75 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 15, 1939 Seasonal gifts, long hair for males banned Further curtailment of business hours at cafes and bars, simplification of wedding and funeral ceremonies and abolition of banquets are among the proposals which were adopted Tuesday afternoon by the subsidiary committee of the National Spirit Mobilization Committee. Others adopted were abolition of seasonal presents, prohibition of long hair for male students and serving of alcoholic drinks on trains. The code in question will stipulate early rising, punctuality, economic living and particular assiduity at work. 50 YEARS AGO Saturday, June 27, 1964 Recommended tourist spots questioned The Japan Tourist Bureau (JTB) has been working very hard over the years, and is working even harder this year in view of the Olympic Games. I am not at all reluctant to pay tribute to the fine work being done by JTB. Yet, it seems that as far as JTB’s idea of “the places worth seeing” for foreign tourists is concerned, it is firmly fixed into a narrow, conventional mold. I cannot but feel that it is a pity their “places to show foreigners” are limited in most cases to just Hakone, Atami, Nikko, Kyoto, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and a bit of Kyushu. A friend of mine, an American, was quite disappointed at the program mapped out for him; he went to Kyushu, but Kyushu in his case was Beppu — that noisy uncomfortable place, overcrowd with buses and cars — and Takasaki-yama, famous for its hundreds of monkeys. Takasaki-yama and its monkeys, indeed, mean something to us Japanese because it is the backdrop of one of the masterpieces of postwar literature, “Tadaima Zerohiki” written by the late Ashihei Hino. But for one who has never heard of the novel, it is not an interesting place to see. Instead, he could have visited Kijima-Kogen, which is just one-hour drive from Beppu and is, in my opinion, one of the most restful places Japan can offer today. Surrounded by the graceful Hyuga mountains and facing the black valley created by a stream of lava from Tsurumidake, Kijima lies silently as an oasis. I travel often. And I wonder why the Hokuriku district — the main city of which is Kanazawa — is not considered “officially” by the JTB as a major tourist spot. Also, I have just returned from the Noto Peninsula in Hokuriku and am going again soon for the third time. I have fallen in love with this peninsular, so rich with legends, folklore and epics. The Noto scenery is not spoiled by television towers and antennas; people are not aware as yet of the nature of commercialization. They receive travelers as they did 50 years ago. The quiet beauty of Hiraizumi of Tohoku, the serenity of Teramachi of Yamagata, and the dignity of Kanazawa, famed for its silk and kutani pottery, are among the many places where a foreign visitor may taste something of the richness of this small island nation. (Michiko Inukai) 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 8, 1989 Uno deplores use of force in China protests Prime Minister Sousuke Uno, referring to the armed suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, told the Diet on Wednesday it was extremely regrettable that troops had fired on their fellow citizens. However, he stopped short of openly condemning the Chinese leadership for taking military action. “As the situation of the country is in a state of confusion, with the government, troops and students involved, I’d rather avoid making a black and white judgment,” he said. To justify his reticence, he cited the special nature of Sino-Japanese relations, which are still overshadowed by the war. Because of Japan’s military aggression against China during World War II, government leaders often avoid making remarks that may be seen by the Chinese as interference in their internal affairs, a government source explained. Uno made the remarks in response to a question posed by the Japan Socialist Party’s chairwoman, Takako Doi, in a plenary session of the House of Representatives.

china;tokyo;tourism;alcohol;sousuke uno

jp0000186

2014/05/30

UTme!: Want your own Uniqlo T-shirt? There's an app for that!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4VBfwMwxSE Fast-fashion titan Uniqlo had already ventured into the domain of smartphones applications with not-so-exciting Uniqlo Calendar , fashion-style browsing Uniqlooks or again Uniqlo Wake Up applications. However, the Japan-based brand has finally released something that speaks directly to its target customers with UTme! , an application that lets smartphone users design their own T-shirts. The idea is simple, and all you need is an iPhone or Android device. You input text, a picture or draw some shapes on your screen to make the design to be printed on your T-shirt to-be. But before finalizing, you can add cool effects such as mosaics, splashes and glitches just by shaking your phone to create the final touch. An easy and fun way to give customers more choice in what they wear and attract potential buyers. Be aware, however, that if you’re aiming to become the next fashion phenomenon, UTme! might not be the right place to experiment as all the uploaded designs belong to Uniqlo, and are then available on utme.uniqlo.com for purchase by anyone.

uniqlo;fashion;smartphone;app;japan pulse;utme !

jp0000187

2014/05/22

Abbott apologizes for 'winking' at Aussie sex worker

CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott acknowledged Thursday that he made a mistake by winking with a smile in a talk radio studio while listening to a phone sex worker complain on the air about welfare cutbacks. The gesture, captured Wednesday by a television camera and broadcast prominently in national news bulletins, has proved an unwelcome distraction for Abbott, who is selling unpopular budget cutbacks criticized as betraying his conservative government’s lack of empathy for the poor. A woman who identified herself as Gloria, a chronically ill 67-year-old grandmother, called Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in Melbourne on Wednesday to ask Abbott how she was supposed to pay an extra 850 Australian dollars ($785) a year in medical expenses that she estimated the budget measures would cost her. Abbott winked and smiled after she told him that she survived on a pension and worked for a phone sex service “to make ends meet.” He later explained that he had been reacting to a smile from the show’s host, Jon Faine, varying from the prime minister’s office’s explanation that Abbott had been signaling to a producer that he was willing to answer the question rather than have the call cut short. “Obviously it was an interesting call from someone who had an interesting story,” Abbott told Perth radio station 6PR later Wednesday. But after a storm of criticism on social media and from political opponents, Abbott conceded on Thursday that he had erred. “I shouldn’t have done it. I should have been more focused on the caller and less focused on the interviewer,” Abbott told the Nine Network television. “Mistakes are always regrettable . . . and I will do my best having made a mistake yesterday to make none today.” A woman identifying herself as Gloria called ABC again on Thursday, condemning Abbott’s wink as “slimy” and “sleazy.” It was a sentiment shared by Sarah Hanson-Young, a senator for the minor Greens party, which has vowed to block some of the government toughest budget measures. “Rather than taking seriously her concerns of poverty and illness, he gave a wink and a smirk, and all I have to say to the prime minister on this is: What a creep. What a total creep,” she said Wednesday. After Abbott acknowledged his mistake, Hanson-Young on Thursday called for Abbott to step down. The criticisms come as opinion polls showed this week that Abbott’s 8-month-old coalition government is now less popular among voters than the center-left Labor Party opposition, after the release last week of the least popular deficit-cutting budget Australia has seen in at least 18 years.

australia;sex;women;sex crimes;discrimination;tony abbott

jp0000188

2014/05/25

Mobile-fixated girls easy prey for photo-snapping pervs

KYOTO - With more than 167,000 students studying at 49 universities, junior colleges and technical schools, and with large numbers of high school students visiting on trips, it’s no surprise that Kyoto Prefecture can feel like a giant campus. Downtown Kyoto and neighborhoods near major universities draw huge numbers of young men and women out for a good time, while train and bus stations disgorge teenagers and young adults, sometimes chattering, sometimes sleepy, on their way to or from class or a sightseeing spot with classmates. But as Kyoto police have warned, it’s teenagers who are most at risk from perverts with a camera. The Kyoto Prefectural Police said 51 percent of the victims of illicit photography reported last year were their teens. In 38 percent of the cases, they were photographed on commercial premises, especially shopping malls, while 35 percent were snapped in train and bus stations. In 57 percent of the cases, the alleged perpetrators were charged with illegally taking photos with smartphones. A further 20 percent used regular cell phones and 13 percent used digital cameras. Just over two-thirds of the accused perpetrators were in their 20s and 30s, while one in five was over 40. Only eight percent of the perpetrators were 50 or older. Prefectural governments and police departments, including Kyoto, suggest practical steps high school or college-aged females can take to minimize the chance of becoming an unwitting victim of a pervert with a camera. These include pressing down their skirts when on elevators and staircases, but also being more aware of their surroundings while shopping or using their smartphone while standing. It’s advice so simple some might think it a waste of government time and money to be posting on official government websites. However, a March survey of more than 1,200 teenagers and parents by Digital Arts, a Tokyo-based IT security firm, showed 95 percent of high school girls had mobile devices, and that nearly 30 percent of all high school students were using them between three and six hours a day, checking e-mail, sending text messages, playing games, and so absorbed that they are unaware of their surroundings or what other shoppers, passengers, or people walking or standing behind them might be doing with a smart phone camera.

smartphones;digital camera;illicit photography

jp0000189

2014/05/25

Kyoto law puts 'upskirt' photography in focus

Each spring, Kyoto is at its busiest. The cherry blossoms bring in multitudes of tourists, and the start of the new academic year means not only thousands of local students returning to the classroom, but also busloads of junior high and high school students from around the country arriving at hotels and taking the obligatory tour of Kyoto’s historical and cultural landmarks. At this time in particular, no visitor can fail to escape the clicking of cameras. Be they the semi-professional photographer, with his Canon EOS ID X, Nest Traveller NT-6294AK tripod and telephoto lens longer than your arm, posed on the banks of the Kamo River waiting for the right mix of light and shadow, or the hordes of tourists prowling the backstreets of Gion with their iPhone cameras, searching for Kyoto “geiko” or, really, anything “Kyotoesque” to quickly snap to prove they were there. Everybody is a shutterbug. But in recent years, the Kyoto police have warned, another kind of photography has become a public nuisance: “Upskirting.” Surreptitious filming or taking of pictures up the skirts of high school females has long made headlines throughout Japan. A whole subgenre of magazines exists for Peeping Toms who earn their living by taking photos on the sly, while the Internet has created unprecedented opportunities for getting photos and video out to the peeping public. In an attempt to crack down on sleazy photographers, Kyoto Prefecture has revised an ordinance that expands the scope of protection. Ordinances forbidding covert filming do exist for public places such as shopping centers, railway stations, trains and buses, which fall under the definition of public buildings and transport systems. The problem, however, is that their scope has traditionally been limited, tying the hands of local governments in preventing perverts from shooting illicit pictures or video, while the punishments have been deemed by police and legal experts as often insufficient to deter perpetrators even if they do get caught. In October 2012, a male teacher at a Kyoto city junior high school was caught taking pictures under girls’ skirts. Kyoto police could not make an arrest for illegally filming and had to arrest him on another charge. But the incident sparked local interest in expanding the definition of the ordinance, which had been limited to “public places and transport.” Expanding the definition beyond “public places,” it had long been felt, ran the risk of violating Article 35 of the Constitution, which states that “the right of all persons to be secure in their homes, papers and effects against entries, searches and seizures shall not be impaired.” But police and law enforcement authorities had long complained that “public places” meant limited protection in quasi-public areas. A Kyoto prefectural survey last year of 1,700 people said 63 percent did not know that schools and private workplaces fall outside the definition of a “public place”. A total of 89 percent favored extending the reach of the ordinance. The newly revised ordinance, approved by the assembly in March, now forbids surreptitious filming at “places likely to come under the public eye.” This means public schools, workplaces, and hospitals are now included in places forbidding such filming or photography. In addition, the revision strengthens the penalty for hidden cameras used at public hot spring bathing areas, changing rooms, and public toilets. Moreover, in an effort to discourage illicit photographers everywhere, it creates stricter penalties for those who are caught doing all surreptitious filming. Previously, punishment was up to six months in jail or a ¥500,000 fine. The new penalty is up to one year in prison or a fine of up to ¥1 million. The change in Kyoto has drawn interest from other local governments. Ishikawa Prefecture plans to propose similar revisions at next month’s assembly, and other governments in the Kansai region have contacted Kyoto Prefecture expressing an interest in adopting something similar. “It’s not just Kyoto. Other prefectures also think that their ordinances are insufficient. Twenty-seven prefectures are now considering similar revisions,” said Tokyo-based lawyer Hiromasa Hasegawa in a recent blog on Kyoto’s revisions. The revision also comes amidst growing concern in Kyoto about crime in general, and violent crimes that may result from taking illicit photos or video, in particular. A separate prefectural survey on safety conducted last year showed that fears of home break-ins accounted for the largest share of concern, with 58.4 percent of the 1,957 residents surveyed in June 2013 saying this is what they feared most. However, some 23 percent said that being filmed illicitly was also on their minds, reflecting increased awareness in Kyoto of the problem. In 2008, Kyoto police sent 32 incidents of illegal filming to the prosecutors, but that figure had increased to 84 cases by 2013. With the new revisions now in place, however, Kyoto has stronger weapons to go after those who would use their cameras for illicit purposes.

kyoto;illicit photography;ordinances;public places

jp0000190

2014/05/25

Ultra Hawai’i: Even superheroes need a vacation

In a stroke of genius, travel-deal website TravelZoo , in collaboration with the Hawaii Tourism Authority and tokustasu pioneers Tsuburaya Productions, has enlisted serious star power to promote its current Hawaii travel packages. Targeting a wide range of would-be travelers, the “Ultra Hawai’i ” campaign follows the well-loved characters from the generation-spanning Ultra series as they engage in classic tourist activities on the main Hawaiian islands of Maui, O’ahu, Kaua’i and Hawai’i. For a look at how the Ultra family spends its time off, click over to the campaign site and travel along with Ultra Dad, Ultra Mom (yes, they really do exist in the series), Ultraman Taro and even their alien cohorts — the friendly, spindly-fingered creature Pigmon and the pincer-handed Alien Baltan . Best of all, their special moments have been chronicled on their YouTube channel and set to the Ultraman theme song, played on ukelele no less. In true Japanese fashion, they pack a lot into their vacation, which includes surfing lessons, hula dancing , poolside yoga , a friendly game of golf and a side trip to the volcanic terrain of Kīlauea, which surely must feel like a home away from their extraterrestrial home. The campaign is both hilarious and touching in the way it humanizes the superheroes as they shoot selfies in a gelato shop and are moved by an afternoon of whale watching . In rare moments away from the universe-saving day jobs, the family take in romantic sunsets and even Baltan Seijin, one of Ultraman’s archenemies, can put aside their differences to attend an intimate Ultra wedding on O’ahu. The beauty of Hawaii clearly brings people together. The Ultra Hawai’i campaign runs until July 18. Oh, and there’s an island-hopping stamp rally. Collect ’em all and get a special campaign souvenir . Schwatch! httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVo1SPNd7MY

tourism;hawaii;ultraman;japan pulse

jp0000191

2014/02/03

Whaling fleet being harassed, Japan says

The government on Monday slammed the conservation group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for employing dangerous tactics to obstruct the operations of Japanese whaling vessels in the Antarctic Ocean over the weekend, causing one of them to suffer damage to its stern. “It was a very dangerous act and can never be condoned,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference. Japan has asked the Netherlands to prevent a recurrence, as the Sea Shepherd group’s vessels fly under Dutch flags, he said. According to a statement released by the Japanese fleet engaged in so-called research whaling, the Japanese harpoon vessels Yushin Maru, Yushin Maru No. 2 and Yushin Maru No. 3 “were subject to sabotage” by the Sea Shepherd ships Steve Irwin and Bob Barker. It said inflatable boats sent from the Sea Shepherd vessels deployed ropes in front of the bows of the Japanese vessels, one of which became entangled in the Yushin Maru’s propeller, while the Bob Barker collided with the stern of the Yushin Maru No. 3, bending its rail and denting the hull. Sea Shepherd called Japan’s account of what happened “an absolute lie” and released footage it said shows an “unprovoked, ruthless and premeditated” attack by the Japanese vessels on the Sea Shepherd ships that lasted for nine hours Sunday morning. It said the Japanese vessels crossed the bows of the Sea Shepherd ships dozens of times, towing 300 meter-long steel cables intended to ensnare and damage their propellers.

yoshihide suga;sea shepherd;whaling

jp0000192

2014/02/02

Transformational Akihabara has its finger on the pulse of pop culture

Tokyo’s Akihabara district is always transforming itself. Once promoted as the nation’s largest shopping area for home electronics and computers, where vendors thrived in line with Japan’s postwar surge in prosperity, Akihabara — or “Akiba” for short — is now the center of the nation’s pop culture as well, as typified by pop idol music groups such as AKB48. The groups regularly perform shows at a special “live house” in an entertainment complex called Pasela Resorts Akiba, where an outlet of major electronics vendor Ishimaru Denki once stood. In stark contrast with the chilling cold outside, there was a fiery scene inside earlier this month as young men waving penlights cheered on their favorite idols as they danced to blasting music on a smoky stage bathed in colorful lights. Indeed, the areas around what is now Akihabara, home to lower-ranking samurai warriors in the Edo Period, were prone to fires back then. “Fires and fights are common scenes of Edo,” an old saying goes. After a fire swept through in 1869, the Meiji government built a shrine, later known as Akiba Shrine, to a fire-fighting god. A train station built in 1890 was named Akihabara. Akihabara’s rise to the center of pop culture today, however, has its downsides. The main street was the scene of a tragic killing spree in June 2008, when a truck driven by Tomohiro Kato plowed into a crowded intersection on a busy Sunday. Kato, then 25 years old, got out of the vehicle and began stabbing pedestrians, killing seven and injuring 10 others. Kato, whose death sentence is still pending at the Supreme Court, is said to have nurtured a grudge against his company and society and targeted Akihabara because young people flock there to have fun. After the incident, the vehicle-free “pedestrians’ paradise” on Sundays was suspended, and didn’t resume until 2011. But the closed-off streets where visitors are free to stroll are becoming popular again, according to local merchants. With the help of the nationwide “Cool Japan” campaign to promote anime, “cosplay” (large-scale costume parties) and other things peculiar to Japanese pop culture, Akihabara is drawing the attention not only of young people in Japan, but also overseas. Local residents hope that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will provide a platform to promote Akihabara to the world.

akb48;pop culture;akihabara

jp0000193

2014/02/27

Bitcoin exchange's chief still in Japan

The head of troubled bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox said in a web post that he is still in Japan and “working very hard” to find a solution to the Tokyo-based organization’s problems. The exchange has suspended trading amid accusations it suffered a catastrophic theft, and its website went blank Tuesday, sparking speculation it has collapsed. Bitcoin, created in 2009, is an online currency that allows people to make transactions across borders without involving such third parties as banks or credit card issuers. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was one of the world’s biggest exchanges for bitcoins. CEO Mark Karpeles, who has disappeared from the public eye, said in a two-paragraph post on the Mt. Gox website dated Wednesday that he has the support of different parties in finding a “solution to our recent issues.” He did not say who they were, what the solution might be or when trading might resume. Some bitcoin investors have traveled to Tokyo from abroad to try and reclaim money tied up in bitcoins at Mt. Gox.

bitcoin;mt . gox;mark karpeles

jp0000194

2014/02/27

Mt. Gox bitcoin clients lack options

NEW YORK - What can you do if you deposited bitcoins at Mt. Gox, which shuttered on Tuesday with little explanation? Probably not much. Customers of the bitcoin exchange may have little chance of recovering their funds if they prove to be missing, legal and regulatory experts said. Clients could file lawsuits, claiming negligence or breach of contract, but the virtual currency is subject to very little regulatory oversight and no government guarantees. Japan-based Mt. Gox went dark on Tuesday, weeks after a spate of cyberattacks, leaving customers unable to access their accounts and underscoring the risks associated with bitcoins. Bitcoins, which exist in electronic form, depend on a network of computers to solve complex mathematical problems in order to verify and record every transaction. Investors deposit their bitcoins in digital “wallets” at various exchanges; Mt. Gox had been the largest as recently as Feb. 7, when it and other exchanges were forced to halt withdrawals following several cyberattacks. Unlike bank accounts in the United States, bitcoin deposits have no government-backed insurance. Instead, customers would have the same avenues of legal redress as anyone who entrusted property to an institution that failed to keep it protected, such as negligence, breach of contract or even fraud, said James Grimmelmann, a professor at the University of Maryland who focuses on Internet law. “To me, the first really important conceptual hurdle to get over is that these things really are property,” he said. “When you take money from the public and store it somewhere you claim is secure, you put property law in play.” If Mt. Gox has no assets, however, individual claims would fail to recover any funds, said Daniel Friedberg, a lawyer with Riddell Williams in Seattle who specializes in financial regulatory matters. “The practical reality is, even if you do get a judgment against Mt. Gox, do they have the ability to pay?” Friedberg said. A document circulating online that purports to be a crisis plan for Mt. Gox indicated that the exchange had $174 million in liabilities against $32.75 million in assets, though its veracity could not be confirmed. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox could also file for bankruptcy in Japan, leaving it up to a court to distribute any remaining assets to its creditors. Several regulatory and legal experts said they think the Mt. Gox shutdown could spur regulators to take more immediate steps to protect future customers. Jeffrey Matsuura, a lawyer at Alliance Law Group in Virginia who specializes in online commerce issues, said he wouldn’t be surprised if state or federal consumer protection agencies eventually take some kind of action regarding Mt. Gox and other exchanges. But Jerry Brito, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said people who deposited bitcoins with Mt. Gox knew that the exchange had experienced problems in recent months. “At this point, bitcoin is speculative,” he said. “People are going in with eyes wide open.” Thus far, the only U.S. regulatory agency with specific oversight on Mt. Gox is the U.S. Treasury Department’s anti-money laundering unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. This came about after the exchange agreed to register as a money services business last summer.

bitcoin;mt . gox;customers

jp0000195

2014/02/16

Local startup SoftBank on course to become global player

In 2010, three decades after founding telecom giant SoftBank Corp., CEO Masayoshi Son took the stage at the company’s June shareholders’ meeting and made what he thought would be “the most important speech in my life.” The subject? His 30-year vision for the company. As grand as that sounds, SoftBank’s recent moves indicate that the firm is on course, as it spreads its wings and takes flight in the global telecommunications market. Son’s vision included expanding the number of group firms to 5,000 from 800, and breaching the top 10 list of the world’s most valuable companies with a market value of at least ¥200 trillion. The bold acquisition of Sprint Nextel Corp., the third-biggest mobile phone company in the United States, best represents Son’s global ambitions. The deal turned SoftBank, long known as Japan’s No. 3 cellphone company, into a behemoth with about 100 million subscribers worldwide. This means SoftBank is no longer No. 3 in Japan, but in the world. “The domestic market won’t grow as much as it has, so (SoftBank) is making a pre-emptive move to secure growth opportunities,” said Naoki Yokota, chief analyst at SMBC Friend Research Center. Ever since it bought Vodafone’s Japan unit in 2006 and became a cellphone carrier, SoftBank has been on the rise, capitalizing on an almighty lift from the iPhone in 2008 to kick off the smartphone boom in Japan while rival carriers NTT Docomo Inc. and KDDI Corp. dallied before jumping on the bandwagon. SoftBank led in annual subscriber gains for six years in a row and hiked its market share to 22 percent in 2013 from 16 percent in 2006. Its sales and operating profit are constantly on the rise. Yet competition remains tough in Japan, with both Docomo and KDDI both selling Apple’s iPhones, making it difficult for the carriers to differentiate themselves to consumers. Son said there is a risk in sticking to the shrinking Japanese market but admitted competing in the U.S. will also be tough. “We are not sure if our experiences in Japan will work in a different market with different cultures. It’s like a challenge where we are going to have to start from zero,” he said at a news conference for the Spring acquisition in October 2012. “But we may be courting a bigger risk by not challenging” ourselves and staying in Japan, he said. SoftBank’s mission in the U.S. is quite clear: replicate what it did with Vodafone, the struggling third-place carrier SoftBank rebuilt. Since Sprint is far behind top rivals Verizon and AT&T, Son said his firm can re-create the Vodafone scenario in the U.S. as well. Verizon has 32 percent of the U.S. market in terms of subscribers, while AT&T has 30 percent and Sprint just 16 percent. But SoftBank’s prospects for a Sprint turnaround remain unclear as the trio’s handset lineups differ little and all sell the iPhone. Last October, Son said it will take another year to get Sprint ready to compete because its communications networks are weak, and SoftBank needs to provide it with new sales and marketing strategies. SoftBank is also reportedly in talks to acquire T-Mobile, the fourth-biggest U.S. carrier, to further bolster its position. But a Sprint-T-Mobile merger will face scrutiny from the U.S. government over fair competition issues. Son declined to comment on T-Mobile during a news conference last week. “The only thing I can say is that the competition among carriers in the U.S. is not that intense” in terms of networks and prices, said Son. “It is in a state of duopoly under the top two companies (Verizon and AT&T),” he said. While SoftBank is betting big on the U.S. market, this is actually not the first time it has entered America. Back in 1995, it acquired the Comdex computer trade show and Ziff-Davis Publishing, the largest publisher of computer-related magazines, with ambitions for global expansion. But the foray flopped. When SoftBank buys or invests in foreign companies, management is left largely untouched, as was the case with Comdex and Ziff-Davis. Son admitted that approach failed and said he intends to get more involved with Sprint’s management as chairman. “I won’t be just sitting in a chair. . . . I plan to be actively involved with the management,” Son said in October 2012. Last September, SoftBank even built an office in Silicon Valley where executives from both SoftBank and Sprint hold a monthly meeting. The California office is expected be the SoftBank group’s technology hub and have a staff of 1,000. While Sprint is a major part of SoftBank’s overseas strategy, it has been investing and teaming up with other foreign companies as well, such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which runs China’s largest e-commerce site, Ustream Inc., a major video streaming service, and PayPal, the world’s top online payment service. Yet recent investments show that SoftBank is apparently making bid to secure an advantage in the global smartphone arena. For instance, SoftBank spent ¥151 billion in October to buy Supercell, a Finland-based game maker that has produced major smartphone hits, and ¥123 billion to acquire Brightstar, the world’s largest cellphone distributor. Experts say SoftBank is not only aiming to become a global mega-carrier that provides basic communications infrastructure, but a controller of content and distribution networks as well. With smartphones in wide use in developed countries, the handset market has little upside, but the content market will continue to expand, said Yokota of SMBC. The landscape of the communications industry changes so quickly it is hard to project what it will look like in a few years. But Takenobu Miki, who used to head the president’s office at SoftBank and worked side by side with Son, said Softbank’s global strategy seems to be right on track. “For a long time, Son has believed that everything will eventually be communicated through wireless technology,” Miki said. As technology keeps evolving, people are likely to have extremely small but powerful devices that will allow them to communicate wirelessly, said Miki, who now runs Tokyo-based consultancy Japan Flagship Project Co. “If that’s the case, it is natural to secure wireless communication infrastructure and content. Radio waves are limited. It’s a real good investment to secure the best radio waves,” Miki said.

softbank;sprint;smartphone;mobile phone

jp0000196

2014/02/17

Coastal shipping

Dear Alice, I spotted what I think must be a very unusual ship while riding my bike along the Tokyo waterfront near Wakasu Park. It was like a ferry, in that trucks were driving up a ramp right into the boat. But at the same time a crane was loading shipping containers onto the deck, like a cargo ship. The ship was sizeable but didn’t seem big enough for cross-ocean travel. So where the heck does it go? And what the heck does it carry? Are goods transported within Japan by ship? That would make sense, when you consider this country’s geography, but I admit I’ve never thought about it before. Richard M., Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture Dear Richard, It took a little sleuthing to find out what ships call at Wakasu, and then to narrow the list down to a vessel meeting that description, but I can now say definitively that the ship you saw was the Himawari 1, which travels twice a week between Tokyo and Hokkaido. On a typical voyage, the ship departs Tokyo at 9 p.m. with a mixed load of daily necessities, beverages and old newspapers bound for recycling. It arrives two days later in the port of Tomakomai. By evening, it’s ready to head back to Tokyo with a new cargo of agricultural goods and paper products made from the recycled newspapers. This kind of shipping, in which cargo is moved by water without crossing a major ocean, is called “coastal shipping” in English and “ naikō kaiun ” in Japanese. To find out more, I paid a visit to the Japan Federation of Coastal Shipping Associations (JFCSA) headquarters in Tokyo, where I learned that coastal shipping accounts for about 40 percent of Japan’s domestic cargo transportation. That’s on what’s called a “tonnage kilometer” basis, which means you factor in both weight and distance. About 80 percent of the raw materials used by Japanese industry, including petroleum products, iron, steel, cement and limestone are transported by coastal shipping, according to JFCSA. Japan’s geography does indeed seem to favor coastal shipping, since it is long and narrow and surrounded by ocean. The center of the country is mountainous, which makes land travel difficult, and most of the population lives near coastal ports. During the Edo Period (1603-1868), the Tokugawa shogunate set up sophisticated systems for moving large quantities of goods by boats that sailed up and down the coasts. But in the 19th and 20th centuries, coastal shipping gradually lost ground to railroads and trucks. Currently, more goods are moved within Japan by trucks than any other method, accounting for about 55 percent of shipments on that same tonnage kilometer basis, and more when calculated in other ways. Shipments by rail and air make up only a small percentage of shipments within Japan. Trucking is convenient because goods can be delivered door-to-door, without the need to load and unload at intermediate points along the way. But Japan’s highways are congested and the trucking industry suffers from a severe shortage of drivers, as experienced drivers age and young people shun the work as too difficult. To help ensure the smooth movement of goods, the government is now encouraging a “modal shift” to move a portion of the freight carried by trucks to coastal shipping. That would not only ease the pressure on the trucking industry, but would also help the country meet its goals for reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions, because coastal shipping is more energy efficient. Moving one ton of freight by sea creates one-fifth the CO₂ emissions produced by moving the same weight by truck. But let me steer us back to the specific ship you saw, which is operated by Nippon Express, a major player in domestic and international logistics. Shigenori Makino of the company’s coastal shipping group confirmed that the Himawari 1 is an unusual combination of a container ship and what’s called a “roll on/roll off” (RORO) ship, or roro-sen in Japanese. RORO ships are designed to carry cargo vehicles that are driven on and off the ship. This is in contrast to lift-on/lift-off (LOLO) vessels, which use a crane to load and unload cargo. Small ferries that operate across short distances also have built-in ramps, but the term RORO is generally reserved for larger, ocean-going vessels. “Himawari 1 can accommodate 50 12-meter truck trailers in a section we call the ‘chassis hold,’ but it can also carry 400 shipping containers in the container holds toward the front of the ship,” Makino told me. The other special feature that distinguishes this ship, he said, is that it has an onboard gantry crane. “Normally, containers are loaded on and off ships with cranes that are built as part of the port facilities. But because the Himawari 1 has its own crane on board, it has more flexibility in loading and unloading and can call at ports that don’t have cranes.” This flexibility was a saving grace immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, when the Himawari 1 was sent to Tohoku on a special relief mission to carry emergency supplies of heating fuel to the disaster area. At the time, it was difficult for trucks to reach the area because of massive damage to the road systems, and it was unclear what damage the facilities in the port of Sendai had suffered. “There were many lessons learned as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake, but one of those was the importance of maintaining a healthy coastal shipping network so that goods can be moved by sea when a disaster interrupts other modes of transportation,” Hideo Fujii of the JFCSA told me. “We in the industry are preparing for future disasters, and will work with national and local governments to ensure that food, fuel and supplies can be transported quickly and safely to affected areas.”

coastal shipping;himawari 1

jp0000197

2014/02/07

Bandai's projection-mapping candy toy: Hako Vision

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5817g-2szzk Bandai’s Candy Toy division is known for those inexpensive character-driven toys packaged with just enough sugar to score shelf space where food is sold so that parents can use them to reward kids for being good at the grocery store. Their anime tie-up rosters includes Kamen Rider, Pokémon, Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger, One Piece, Yokai Watch and more. With the initial round of Hako Vision releases, however, they’re doing something a little different. Did you ever imagine you’d be watching recreations of popular projection-mapping shows rigged up with your smartphone and a cardboard box? While chewing grape-flavored gum?! You can think of it as the latest evolution of shokugan (“candy toy”) culture that supposedly has its roots in Meiji Era collectible cards that came packed in cigarettes (definitely not for kids), or a new direction in diorama construction for the 21st century. As of Jan. 27, there are two kits available for ¥500 each: Tokyo Michiterasu 2012 “Tokyo Hikari Vision” and the Tokyo National Museum’s “Karakuri” (2013). The package itself is the stage for the miniaturized versions of these special events (“hako” means “box”), so don’t go tearing it up to get inside. Once you set up the scale model of the building to be projected on and the reflecting panel, all you need is the lighting, which you provide by pulling up a specially made video on your smartphone and laying it on top like a roof to your cardboard theater. Projection-mapping itself seems to be all over the place lately. Even just in the past several months The Japan Times has noted Tower of the Sun Beam Painting, Art Aquarium 2013 , “live” Hatsune Miku shows presented by NTT Docomo, and Yokohama Odyssey . On the horizon, Disney (pioneering projection-mapping tech for years — since building the Haunted Mansion ride in 1969 according to Projection Mapping Central ) is debuting a new show mapped to Cinderella’s Castle at Tokyo Disneyland May 29th . As for the future of Hako Vision itself, Bandai already has big plans. Instead of just continuing to reproduce shows people have already seen life size, they’re creating original videos to go with Mobile Suit Gundam figures. Giant mecha familiar to fans of the anime, Gundam and Zaku II, each get their own video helmed by creative director Ryotaro Muromatsu of Naked Inc., the same company that produced the video for “Tokyo Hikari Vision.” The new kits go on sale April 14. Needless to say, if Hako Vision catches on, the licensing possibilities at Bandai are nearly endless. And now that the kits are out in the wild it’s not hard to imagine fans of the tech creating their own models and fantastic videos to go with them.

bandai;disney;gundam;hako vision;japan pulse

jp0000198

2014/02/07

Female scientists push for breakthrough in equality

Recent news that Haruko Obokata of Riken’s Center for Developmental Biology found a new way to generate pluripotent cells cast a spotlight on women in the male-dominant field of science. While figures show they are still a minority, Nagoya University is actively hiring women with hidden talents, and its efforts are bearing fruit. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry conducted a survey in 2012 and found that women constitute a mere 14 percent of all researchers in Japan. By comparison, more than 30 percent of the researchers in the United States and United Kingdom are women. In Japan, women’s numbers are particularly low in the physical sciences, engineering and agriculture. Nagoya University, which has gained a reputation for scientific research, is no exception. These fields are largely dominated by men at the university, which has only 45 female professors, excluding contract faculty. This translates into a ratio of around 4.8 percent. “You aren’t actually thinking of becoming a professor, are you?’ That’s what some of us have been asked just because we are women,” said Ikue Mori, who was promoted to professor in the biological science division at Nagoya University in 2004. “I hope that Haruko Obokata and her research work can improve the tough situation for women here,” she said. The general lack of understanding of what a woman goes through during pregnancy or when giving birth is another reason women tend to avoid careers in research. One female researcher had to be hospitalized suddenly because she was at risk of premature delivery. When she came back to the laboratory, she allegedly found all her research equipment left outside in the corridor and her desk gone. To help change attitudes in this male-dominant workplace, Nagoya University launched a program in 2010 to train female researchers in the sciences. It also set a quota for female researchers and publicly advertised for them. It also started to offer support for female professors and associate professors, such as research grants and personnel expenses to hire assistants for those who are pregnant or have children. As a result, as of July 2012, the number of female researchers in the science, technology and agriculture fields has climbed to 6.2 percent, and two women in their 30s were promoted to professors. One of them is Azusa Kamikochi, a researcher from Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences who gained attention for her work in brain research. She is also the mother of a 3-year-old daughter. “Obokata’s research has produced brilliant results. I hope the time will come when she will be recognized for her astounding work and not because she is a young female researcher,” said Kamikochi. The program was originally scheduled to end in 2015, but Nagoya University has decided to continue it. “Female researches have great potential for growth. Their talents have remained overshadowed by male researchers, but I think it’s their time to shine now,” said President Michinari Hamaguchi.

nagoya university;haruko obokata;female researchers

jp0000199

2014/02/09

Russian poachers plaguing parks as Moscow goes nuts for squirrels

MOSCOW - One by one, the bushy-tailed residents of Moscow’s parks have been disappearing. The problem: Russians have gone nuts for pet squirrels. Moscow authorities bolstered security early this month for all of the city’s green areas after city official Alexei Gorelov said he had received multiple reports of squirrel poaching. Gorelov, who heads an Ecological Control unit, said more police patrols are being dispatched to fend off the poachers, who can be fined up to 20,000 rubles ($573). Noting that squirrels are of little use for their meat or their fur, he said that most of the poached park squirrels were resold to people as pets for 5,000 rubles ($144) each. “(Wild) animals have to be enjoyed from a distance,” said Gorelov as he scrolled through a Russian website selling squirrel pets. Despite the website’s claims that squirrels are a “friendly and gentle” animal that can be kept around the house, they can bite and are not domesticated. Some animal lovers were outraged at the poaching. “The fine should not be 5,000 rubles, it should be 500,000 rubles for this kind of poaching,” said Alexandra Mishenko, a retiree who feeds the squirrels in Moscow’s parks. “We should gather people together and pelt the person who does that with snow,” she said, her eyes welling with tears.

russia;animals;crime

jp0000201

2014/02/01

Steamer surveys new island; Forces land on Hainan Island; Kyu Sakamoto profiled; Leftists suspected in shrine bombing

Steamer discovers newly formed island 100 YEARS AGO THURSDAY, FEB. 26 1914 — The N.Y.K. Bonin liner Chefoo, which returned to Yokohama yesterday, gave an interesting account of her exploration of the newly formed island near Minami Iwojima. On its northeastern side, the island, which has been created by a recent volcanic eruption, has precipices that have collapsed or washed away at places. From the crumpled earth in the sea shot up smoke, and the scene presents a most entertaining spectacle. On the western side of the island is a flat beach. The crew landed by canoe and stayed ashore one hour, then came to the southeast of the island whence they could plainly see the crater. Ash, pumice-stones and steam were being sent up in immense volume to a height of some 500 feet (150 meters). The new island is located two miles and a half to the south of Minami Iwojima. It stands 590 feet (180 meters) above sea level, and extends three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) from south to north. The water in the sea surrounding the new island is tepidly warm. The heap of ash on the island is knee-deep. The island described here has since disappeared. 75 YEARS AGO Saturday, Feb. 11, 1939 Japanese forces land on Hainan Island Japanese Army and Navy forces, operating in close collaboration, at daybreak yesterday succeeded in making a surprise landing on Hainan Island off the South China coast, and have been continuing an advance, an official communique by the Imperial Headquarters revealed. The occupation of Hainan Island, it is believed, will further strengthen the naval blockade now enforced all over China’s water by the Japanese Navy, and will simultaneously cause a heavy blow to munitions transportation by various routes in south China. Tatsuo Kawai, spokesman of the Foreign Office, told journalists the operation does not violate the Franco-Japanese Agreement of 1907. “The present Japanese operation is for the purpose of exterminating the Chinese military forces in the island and is therefore an affair which has nothing to do with the question of assuring peace and security envisaged by the Japanese-French Agreement.” 50 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1964 Personality profile: Kyu Sakamoto The coffee shop in the neon-lit Shibuya alley shook with the flamboyant jazz of the five-piece band. Every seat on two floors was taken, and the teenage audience tapped its toes while waiters whisked around with ice cream and red and green sodas. Desultory applause changed to enthusiasm when the idol stepped forward to the microphone, the one-of-their-kind, Kyu Sakamoto. Kyu-chan, 22 years old, international star with fan mail from across the world, smiled his natural impish smile. He has the gift all right. “Good-bye, Joe,” he sang in his breathy voice, and his rhythm was infectious and irresistible. But back-stage, Kyu-chan looked wan. His life keeps him on the run between rehearsals, recording studios, TV studios. “I love fast cars,” he said. “But — no time.” Kyu, ninth and last child in his family, is the son of a Kawasaki restaurateur. “I was a very naughty little boy,” he volunteered. Six years ago, inspired by Elvis Presley, he decided to be a singer, and his efforts filled his life to the extent that his high school education remained uncompleted. His rendition of the song that became known overseas as “Sukiyaki” put him at the top of the American hit parade, the first Japanese ever to win such distinction. “Then,” he said, “my mother was happy, so I was happy.” He is happier still now that he has built a new house for his mother, and lives with her in it. During a half-hour break before going on stage again, he recalled his trips abroad. “Rome is like Tokyo, but Hollywood — wonderful! I flew over Hollywood in a helicopter. Wonderful!” In the late spring he is scheduled to go to America again for a series of appearances. He then explained that he hopes to build a steady future as an actor in moving pictures. And marriage? “Later,” said Kyu-chan seriously. “Much, much later.” Modern young people come in for a lot of criticism in one way and another. A boy like Kyu-chan makes you feel that the generation is not a lost one. To have known his success and to have come through unspoiled and likeable says a lot for the stuff of which he is made. 25 YEARS AGO Saturday, Feb. 4, 1989 Anti-Emperor leftists suspected in bombing An explosion rocked the main building of Togo Shrine in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward early Friday morning, causing damage to the front door and ceiling. Police are investigating the incident as a suspected bomb attack by leftist anti-establishment radicals aiming to obstruct the Feb. 24 funeral for Emperor Showa. The explosion occurred shortly after 4 a.m. Police officers dispatched to the shrine found the front door to the main building shattered and part of the ceiling collapsed. The explosion triggered a fire that scorched the pillars of an outdoor passage connecting the main building and a room for the tea ceremony. The shrine was established in 1940 in memory of Adm. Heihachiro Togo, the victor of the sea Battle of Tsushima over a tsarist Russian armada in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Togo served in the 1920s as chief tutor to the late monarch, who was then the Crown Prince. There have been seven similar incidents. Police believe all are linked to organizations that have voiced opposition to the emperor system since the Jan. 7 death of Emperor Showa. In this feature, which appears on the first Sunday of each month, we delve into The Japan Times’ 117-year archive to present a selection of stories from the past. Stories may be edited for brevity. Readers may be interested to know that The Japan Times’ entire archive is now available on Blu-ray Disc. For more details, see jtimes.jp/de .

kyu sakamoto;sukiyaki;emperor hirohito;togo shrine;hainan

jp0000202

2014/02/23

'Warring States' turmoil alive and well

OSAKA - Japanese historians date the Warring States Period roughly from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century. But when it comes to Kansai politics, modern observers could be forgiven for thinking the ancient feuds and jealous rivalries of the regional lords are not yet over. That’s because the daimyo of Osaka Castle (i.e. Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto) is attempting to lead the region’s most prosperous city on a quest to unify the surrounding fiefdoms (Hyogo, Kyoto, Wakayama, Shiga, Tokushima, and Tottori prefectures) under a single banner (a Kansai regional block system) so as to challenge the dominant samurai and mandarins far to the east in what was once mosquito-infested swampland but is now the capital city of Edo (Tokyo). Unfortunately for Hashimoto, his attempts are being thwarted as rivals plot against him. Not in Edo Castle, where the courtiers must be looking upon Kansai politics with a combination of amusement and, possibly, disbelief, but in nearby Hyogo. Hyogo Gov. Toshizo Ido, a Hashimoto critic, is the nominal head of the Union of Kansai Governments, which, in theory, supports a regional block system. But he’s made it clear he does not favor a more powerful Osaka at the expense of Hyogo. On the other hand, Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada appears to be a Hashimoto fan. But for many in cultured, refined Kyoto, Osaka is town of coarse merchants best avoided, so there are limits on how much cooperation will be offered to Osaka. Meanwhile, Nara Gov. Shogo Arai prefers neutrality, keeping his prefecture out of the union and saying there is no benefit to his rural prefecture in competing with urban Osaka. Other governors are more supportive, but that’s because they lack major cities vying with Osaka for power and prominence. Historically, Kansai’s prefectures have fought among themselves for state funding, resulting in massive duplicity. Should Kansai airport be built in Osaka Prefecture? It eventually was. Kobe in Hyogo then followed by pursuing its own airport. From tourism promotion to public works projects, if one gets money from Tokyo, you can bet the others will ask for the same. A “republic of Kansai” is supposed to end the Kansai Warring States Period. But given that Hashimoto can’t even reorganize his own city, it will likely be a long while before some historian writes the saga’s final chapter.

toru hashimoto;kansai integration

jp0000203

2014/02/23

Final season for 'Toru Hashimoto Show'?

Is “The Toru Hashimoto Show,” the long-running Osaka political drama — which some might call a farce and others a tragedy — entering its final season? That’s the question Osakans of all political stripes are asking with the mercurial mayor set to leave office at the end of this month, only to stand for re-election March 23 for reasons not even Hashimoto’s most ardent supporters can fully explain. Officially, his resignation was prompted by anger at the lack of progress a committee of local politicians made in discussing his and his Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) political group’s goal of integrating the city of Osaka with Osaka Prefecture by April next year. The snap election is unlikely to change anything because Osaka Ishin does not have a majority in the municipal assembly and all other parties oppose Hashimoto’s integration schedule. Integration plans must be approved by the city assembly before a referendum can be held. But that has not stopped the mayor from deciding that the only way to bring about a citizen’s vote on a final plan, scheduled for October, is to hold an election now. “This election is about whether Osaka should be given the chance to vote this autumn in a referendum on an integration plan that needs to be finished by summer,” Hashimoto said earlier this month. In 13 committee meetings, four plans have emerged. The one favored by Hashimoto consolidates the city of Osaka’s 24 wards into five large districts. Each will enjoy much more power, especially of the purse, while Osaka City Hall would cease to function in its current capacity. That is just the first step toward integrating the rest of the prefecture into a single political and bureaucratic entity similar, in many respects, to Tokyo. Then, Hashimoto hopes, the stage will be set to achieve his ultimate goal, a “republic of Kansai” that would turn the region into a large, powerful entity akin to a Swiss canton, a Canadian province or a U.S. state. All of these ideas have long been greeted with varying degrees of opposition by the central government’s ministries in Tokyo, which are loathe to cede any financial or bureaucratic control over the local governments. But what prompted Hashimoto to resign earlier this month was not the resistance in Tokyo, but in Osaka, especially from then-ally New Komeito. When New Komeito, which forms a majority with Osaka Ishin in the municipal and prefectural assemblies, opposed combining the four integration proposals into one at the late January meeting, it was, for Hashimoto, the last straw. He launched a verbal tirade against New Komeito. In a remark aimed at the party’s Buddhist support group Soka Gakkai, the mayor implied that New Komeito politicians were behaving like religious followers. He also charged that New Komeito’s opposition broke an agreement with Osaka Ishin made before the 2012 Lower House election to support the Osaka integration plan in exchange for a promise from Hashimoto that his national Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) would not field candidates against New Komeito in six districts. All six New Komeito candidates won. But the party says it remembers what it promised Hashimoto quite differently. Regardless, it was clear long before 2012 that New Komeito’s Osaka branch had doubts about the integration plan, particularly the timetable that was attached to it. “What’s important is not to adhere to some schedule for integration but to deepen discussion of creating a system by looking at a variety of angles. We want to continue careful talks on the matter,” New Komeito Osaka prefectural assemblyman Yoshito Shimizu told the joint city-prefecture committee, a comment that angered Hashimoto and led to his resignation. Since then, the rift between New Komeito and Hashimoto has become a chasm, with Hashimoto threatening to personally run against New Komeito candidates in the next Lower House election and creating worries in Osaka that the lack of trust between the two now means that little or nothing will get done in the municipal and prefectural assemblies until local elections next year. In Tokyo, some Liberal Democratic Party members sense an opportunity, and are hoping the party’s Osaka chapter work out a deal with Osaka Ishin. Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui was with the LDP before he defected to Hashimoto’s movement. Matsui continues to stay in touch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s team and briefly met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga in mid-February. The meeting was ostensibly about legislation for a casino proposal. But Matsui and the fellow LDP lawmakers who joined him in defecting to Hashimoto’s movement must also be wondering if it isn’t time to consider a rapprochement with their old party. In mid-February, polls by the Yomiuri and Sankei newspapers, normally Hashimoto’s strongest media allies, showed that more than 60 percent of Osaka voters disagreed with Hashimoto’s desire for a snap election. And the percentage of Osakans who backed Hashimoto — once between 80 and 90 percent — had dropped to under 50 percent. Yet despite Hashimoto’s sinking popularity and a growing sense of disappointment over his actions, no political party is currently challenging him in the election, slated for March 23. The likely exception, as of last week, might be Makoto Tonami, aka “Mack” Akasaka, leader of the Smile Party. A 10-time candidate in various elections, including the recent Tokyo gubernatorial election, the 65-year-old Akasaka has appeared in campaign commercials dressed variously as an angel (while wearing a “Hooters” T-shirt), Superman or a Gandhi look-alike. He advocates a healthier lifestyle through “smile therapy” and gets up to dance during staid NHK campaign videos. He advocates complete unarmed neutrality for Japan and mandatory voting. Hashimoto claims to welcome Akasaka as an opponent, even as he criticized the established parties for sitting out the election. But as one observer said jokingly, given the state of Osaka politics today, perhaps Akasaka’s most appropriate campaign poster might just be a photo of him grinning madly in an outrageous costume under a caption that reads: “Don’t Vote for the Fool in This Election.”

toru hashimoto;new komeito;osaka integration

jp0000204

2014/02/15

Leave Article 9 alone: New Komeito's Osaka women

Political alliances often resemble shotgun weddings. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and smaller opposition forces such as Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) that are pushing to amend the Constitution are now wondering if their efforts will fail due to a group of Osaka women who have made it clear some things will not be compromised for the sake of marriage. New Komeito is in the odd position of serving as the LDP’s coalition partner in the Diet, where Nippon Ishin is officially the opposition. Yet New Komeito — at least for the moment — is also Nippon Ishin’s partner in the Osaka Municipal and Prefectural assemblies, where the LDP is the opposition. Of course, New Komeito’s strongest supporters are in Soka Gakkai, the lay Buddhist group whose critics accuse it of being a powerful cult. But there is no doubt about two things. First, Soka Gakkai and New Komeito oppose revoking Article 9 of the Constitution, the “no-war clause,” along the lines Abe and Nippon Ishin co-leader Shintaro Ishihara envision. Second, New Komeito and Soka Gakkai are strong in Osaka. In particular, the women of Soka Gakkai who support New Komeito are organized, disciplined, and, in the grand tradition of Osaka, not afraid to speak their minds. Of New Komeito’s 51 Diet members, nine are from Osaka, the largest concentration of the party’s politicians in the country. In short, when New Komeito’s Osaka supporters talk, regardless of whether they belong to Soka Gakkai, the party listens. That’s what frustrates Takeo Hiranuma, co-leader of Nippon Ishin’s Diet group. Last year, he was quoted as saying the constitutional revision was being blocked “by a group of ladies in Osaka,” a not-so-subtle reference to New Komeito female voters there who like Article 9 just the way it is, thank you very much. However, Hiranuma’s view ignores two realities: The first is numbers-based, while the second has to do with history, myth and stereotypes that play a role in broader Osaka attitudes toward itself, Article 9 and those who would scrap it. First, Abe and the LDP want to change Article 9 by first revising Article 96, which stipulates a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Diet is needed to amend the Constitution. The LDP, Nippon Ishin and Your Party want to lower that to a simple majority. New Komeito is cautious, to say the least, about changing Article 96. Theoretically, Abe could team up with Nippon Ishin. But that likely means ditching New Komeito as a coalition partner — a heavy price to pay. The party’s ability to get things done for its voters and for those in LDP districts is widely respected in and out of the LDP, while Nippon Ishin Diet members are, by and large, inexperienced amateurs detested by the bureaucrats. Nor is opposition to revising Article 9 limited to New Komeito voters who belong to Soka Gakkai. As an ancient merchant city that was trading with Korea and China when Tokyo was nothing but swampland, Osaka’s historical mindset has traditionally been one of “war is bad for business.” During the Edo Period, the ruling samurai were seen by Osaka’s merchants less as loyal and honorable guardians and more as lazy braggarts who got drunk and were easily fleeced at the gaming tables. In the 1930s, Osaka had a reputation as being a particularly difficult place to recruit soldiers and sailors. Thus, with its long history of Asian ties, a preference for commerce over military adventures, and a strong contempt for Tokyo’s bureaucratic politics, large numbers of Osakans, not just a few Osaka women in one political party, do not share, even today, an inclination to revise Article 9 simply because Tokyo politicians say it’s necessary.

shinzo abe;toru hashimoto;osaka;ldp;new komeito;soka gakkai

jp0000205

2014/02/15

Stem-cell leap defied Japanese norms

It’s not surprising that last week Haruko Obokata issued a plea for privacy. On Jan. 29 she published a scientific paper on stem cells that could revolutionize medicine, and overnight the researcher based at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology (CDB) in Kobe became a domestic and international star. The onslaught of media attention went beyond what Obokata had discovered — a way to revert ordinary cells from the body into kansaibō (stem cells), cells with the ability to develop into any cell type. These cells, known as pluripotent stem cells, have long been seen as the key to regenerative medicine, because in theory they can be grown into new organs and tissues. As a young female scientist, Obokata is something of a rarity in Japan, and many reports included details of her life it’s hard to imagine being discussed if she was a man. Her laboratory is painted pink and yellow, and is decorated with pictures of Moomin characters from children’s books. She is 30, has a pet turtle — and a boyfriend. Instead of a lab coat, she wears a Japanese apron, a kappogi , originally designed to be worn over a kimono. The Internet shopping service Rakuten Ichiba reported a sharp increase in kappogi sales after the publicity. But none of this would have been news had Obokata’s work not been so amazing. When we heard of it in the New Scientist office here in London, where I am the news editor, we just couldn’t believe it. It is certainly possible to make pluripotent stem cells, and I’ve reported here about the work of another Japanese pioneer in that field, Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. But Obokata’s method was so incredible in its simplicity that it almost sounded too good to be true. Yamanaka had identified four genetic factors that, when transferred into an adult cell using a virus, could cause it to revert to a pluripotent stem cell. This breakthrough work won Yamanaka a share of a Nobel Prize — but one of the inherent problems there is that transferring the four genetic factors can also cause cancer. Obokata’s work seems to avoid this completely. Rather than using a virus and infecting cells with genetic factors, she simply stresses them. Squeezing cells through narrow tubes or bathing them in an acidic solution turns them pluripotent. Surely, we thought, it can’t be so easy? It turns out that the editors at Nature, the British journal where Obokata’s work was published, couldn’t believe it either. When she and her colleagues submitted the work for publication in 2012, it was rejected. She went away, worked on more experiments and resubmitted. This time, after yet more extensive checks, the journal accepted the paper. And the scientific — and general — media deluge began. Other labs are already trying to replicate the work, and some scientists remain skeptical despite the extra-stringent review process prior to publication. One of the first things I wondered was whether, if this is the real thing, Obokata and her team have patented the discovery. The secret to a simple method for making pluripotent stem cells could be worth a fortune. At a press conference just before publication, where she was asked about this, Obokata replied: “Yes, we have a patent” — before abruptly stopping. “Actually, I have to say ‘no comment,’ ” she said. Clearly there are plans in motion behind the scenes. The Asahi Shimbun then reported that Obokata’s group had started with patent applications in April 2013. We can expect big things. One of the reasons this has caused such a sensation is that it comes out of left field. Her work is a great advert for thinking and working differently from the crowd — not a traditional approach for a Japanese scientist. Obokata’s co-author, Yoshiki Sasai, also at the Riken CDB, praised the approach, saying, “She held her own view backed by data.” Riken CDB is abuzz with important work at the moment. As I reported here in December, another stem-cell biologist there, Masayo Takahashi, is about to conduct the world’s first stem-cell trial on humans. In an interview with New Scientist, she praised Obokata’s discovery, saying, “I feel joyful that we are both working in this wonderful area of science.” So it’s a fascinating time — and fantastic to see women pioneering this research. However, Japan’s media still has a long way to go regarding its portrayal of women. After all, a piece in the Yomiuri Shimbun soon after Obokata’s paper was published ended with the cheesy observation that “she always strives to be fashionable as well.”

nature;kyoto university;stem cells;shinya yamanaka;masayo takahashi;haruko obokata;yoshiki sasai;riken center for developmental biology

jp0000206

2014/02/15

Once upon a time, China anointed a 'King of Japan'

In 1401, barely a century after the Mongols’ aborted invasions of Japan, and 600-odd years before Japan and China fell out over the Senkaku islets, a Chinese emperor conferred upon a Japanese shogun the title “King of Japan.” Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408) was overjoyed at this mark of distinction. In a letter he sent via a trading delegation to Emperor Hung Wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Shogun Yoshimitsu willingly struck the pose expected of him: “In fear and dread, kneeling again and again, I respectfully state … ” The Chinese reply rewarded flattery with flattery, noting: “Japan has always been known as a country of poems and books.” In the lively correspondence that followed, Yoshimitsu signed himself, “King of Japan, Your Subject.” Future generations were appalled. How low had Japan sunk? In accepting vassalage, Yoshimitsu had betrayed his country; in accepting a royal title he had betrayed his Emperor, Japan’s true (if politically impotent) “king.” Sino-Japanese relations lose much of their savor if we view them only in the present. The current confrontation — dramatic and ominous enough, by modern standards — has a deep, deep background. China was Japan’s primary school teacher in the arts of civilization — religion (Buddhism), government (Confucianism) and so on. In the ninth century, after 400 years of intense discipleship, Japan turned inward. It stopped sending missions to China’s court and its monasteries. It needed to digest, to “Japanize” its acquisitions. The Heian Period (794-1185) is often called Japan’s first “Japanese” culture. China continued to loom large, an influence and a point of reference, but classical Heian literature constitutes in effect a declaration of cultural independence. Barbarian hordes from Mongolia conquered China in the 13th century. From their new capital at Peking they subjugated Russia and penetrated Poland and Hungary. The Mongol Empire at its peak was twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak. When Kublai Khan, who ruled from 1259 to 1294, turned his hungry gaze on the remote islands of Japan, they must have looked like sitting ducks. The two invasions he launched, in 1274 and 1281, came to grief, casualties of fierce Japanese resistance and storms at sea that the Japanese mythologized as kamikaze — divine winds. Yoshimitsu, age 9, became shogun in 1367. The following year, the Chinese overthrew the Mongols. Then, in 1369, an envoy from Ming China arrived in Kyushu to discuss a persistent irritation — Japanese pirates. For centuries these marauders were the scourge of eastern Asia. China seemed helpless against their relentless attacks on its coast. Why Kyushu? The situation in Japan was confused. The country was divided. Two Imperial lines vied for supremacy — the Northern Court based in Kyoto and the Southern Court based in the mountains of Yoshino, some 100 km south. The Northern Court had the support of the shogunate, but the Southern Court controlled Kyushu, whose western coast was a veritable pirates’ nest — and Chinese information had it that the potentate in those parts, one Prince Kanenaga, was “King of Japan.” The “king” gave the envoy short shrift — in fact he put him under arrest. But the domestic tide was turning against him, and he changed his mind. A Chinese ally would be useful. He agreed to curb the pirates in return for Chinese support. It all came to naught. Yoshimitsu’s armies toppled Kanenaga, seized Kyushu, and at last brought the two courts together. That was in 1392. Now Yoshimitsu could turn to what he liked best. He was an effervescent, extravagant man, a great builder and a great spender. He sponsored noh theater, then in its infancy, and supported Zen Buddhism, to which he was deeply devoted. The project for which posterity best remembers him is Kyoto’s Kinkakuji — the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, built as a private retreat in 1394. No expense was spared. Where was the money to come from? From trade with China, he hoped. Ming China had a curious attitude to foreign trade. China was an ancient civilization, and a haughty one. China (in its own mind) was the “middle kingdom,” the center of the world. China had everything; it needed nothing. Trade, in the traditional Chinese view, meant China loftily accepting humbly presented “tribute.” The gifts it offered in return were not by way of commerce but symbols of China’s overflowing generosity. The master-disciple, lord-vassal relationship was implicit — taken for granted by China, swallowed with grace or resentment by “tributary” states. The Mongol interlude had been a deep humiliation which the early Ming emperors were determined to efface. Doing business with them meant kowtowing. Yoshimitsu could take it or leave it. He took it. He accepted the “King of Japan” title, despite the implied vassalage, and even brandished it against those Kyushu nobles who retained a menacing independence of spirit. As part of the agreement, he suppressed the rapacious pirates — boiling alive is one punishment mentioned in grateful Chinese records. The trade, under a licensing system whose limits were largely ignored, was lucrative. Japan sent laquerware, bronze vessels, fans, sulfur (used in papermaking) and — perhaps its most famous export — swords. In return it imported silk, drugs, books, porcelain and (most significantly) copper coins, representing the birth of a money economy. The story has a surprising sequel. In 1863, 455 years after Yoshimitsu’s death, a band of imperial loyalists burst into the Toji-in Temple in Kyoto and furiously “beheaded” three statues — Yoshimitsu’s and those of his two Ashikaga shogun predecessors. The wooden heads were displayed on a Kyoto riverbank, over a placard reading: “These three traitors having done the worst evil, their vile statues have been visited with the vengeance of heaven.” What would Yoshimitsu, “King of Japan,” have made of that?

mongol empire;kublai khan;kamikaze;heian period

jp0000207

2014/02/13

New Zealand bans rappers Odd Future

WELLINGTON - New Zealand immigration authorities on Thursday banned Los Angeles rappers Odd Future from entering the country after deciding they pose a threat to public order. The group was due to play an open-air concert with headline act Eminem on Saturday in Auckland. Border Operations Manager Karen Urwin said that authorities decided to decline visas to six group members after becoming aware of a 2011 incident in Boston in which some witnesses claimed group members incited fans to attack police officers. “It’s not a decision we take lightly and not one that happens often,” Urwin said. Group member Tyler, The Creator vented his frustration on Twitter on Thursday. “They said we were ‘terrorist threats and bad for the society’ or whatever. Sick,” he wrote. He later tweeted, “I love NZ tho.” The hip-hop group, which is also known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, is known for its anarchic style and lyrics that canvas drugs, killing and rape. Urwin said the six rappers had intended to stay in New Zealand just a few days before leaving for Australia. She said it is rare to ban musicians under rules that cover character concerns. She said those provisions have been used in the past to stop people like white supremacist leaders and high-profile Holocaust deniers. She said some people have wrongly assumed that authorities considered the group’s lyrics in imposing the ban. “If we banned people who used swear words, we wouldn’t have many people left in New Zealand,” she said.

u.s .;new zealand

jp0000208

2014/02/22

Return of shunto is hollow triumph for unions

S hunto is in full swing. Or so it should be. Or so they say. Shunto is the Japanese word for the annual spring round of wage negotiations conducted between big business and trade unions. This “spring offensive” used to feature large in the annual economic calendar. As the deflationary 1990s and beyond set in, this offensive became an offensive no more. Faced with the prospect of corporate bankruptcies and accompanying job losses, labor unions rapidly lost their teeth. Gone are the days when the leaders of the large industry-wide unions were referred to as kings and emperors. In such times, a mere prime minister would balk at face-to-face meetings with those elites of the working classes. A head of government could not possibly compete with the clout and influence enjoyed by the captains of the labor movement. Media reports suggest that shunto is back. Given the pressure that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has brought to bear on both businesses as well as the unions, it is widely held that the unions are in a good position to go for monthly wage increases rather than just one-off bonus payments. At long last the time has come for labor unions to claw back some of the power that they have let slip through their fingers over past years. Yet again, or so they say. Is any of this true? Are we about to see union power on the rise again? Would that it were so. Yet the reality seems to be far from the case. Even if the large unions manage to secure some wage increases for regular employees of large corporations, that is not going to help alleviate the economic difficulties faced by the irregular working poor. Indeed if companies try to compensate for the cost increases they incur by raising full-time employee wages, this is liable to lead to even more greater hardship for workers on part-time contracts. Such a development surely cannot be counted as a triumph for the unions. Shunto is a word that held meaning and resonance when all working people were permanent employees on company payrolls. Under those circumstances labor unions could say that they were campaigning for workers’ rights merely by negotiating wage increases. That is no longer so. Indeed mere wage bargaining has never really been the basic function of labor unions. That is really not what labor unions are for. Their single most important function is to stand up for workers’ basic human rights. To the extent that securing wage increases for the salarymen of big businesses helped that cause, that was fine. But the world is a very different place now. Somewhere along the line, labor unions seem to have left behind their role as upholders of human rights and the labor movement. Labor unions that do not engage in the labor movement are a strange species of being indeed. Unless and until they start to remember what they really stand for, there is not a hope in a million that the return of the shunto will make any meaningful difference. It is very odd that unionization rates should be falling at a time when the poverty rate is rising and less and less people are able to secure decent wages in Japan. Now, if at any time, unions should come to the fore as defenders of the working poor. The shunto ought to be fought for all working people. And all working people is an increasingly nonuniform concept in the Japan of today. Shunto is not just about economic point scoring, it is about the right to live. Unions should be united in that awareness. Noriko Hama is an economist and a professor at Doshisha University Graduate School of Business.

shinzo abe;labor;employment;wages;shunto;trade unions

jp0000211

2014/11/02

Tokyo Station's iconic brick building, witness to war, stands test of time

Approaching its 100th anniversary in December, the red brick building of JR Tokyo Station in the Marunouchi business district is a symbol of the capital that continues to defy the high-rises around it with its classical architecture and stately appearance. The huge terminal, where trains arrive and depart 4,100 times a day, witnessed the war and Tokyo’s modernization and remains one of its main landmarks. Stretching 335 meters north to south, the station building is one of the biggest in the world. It has a symmetrical design, with identically shaped wings flanking its entrance, which was constructed for the Imperial family. Each wing has passenger entrance halls crowned with domes, and their walls are adorned with red bricks punctuated by white bands. The majestic appearance of the building is said to stem from late 19th century designs that were popular in Britain. Japan’s first railway started in 1872 as a line connecting the Shinbashi district with Yokohama. Forty years later, the Meiji government initiated a project to build an intermediary station in the capital. Construction took 6½ years, and the red brick building itself was completed in 1914. The structure is a masterpiece by Kingo Tatsuno, who is called the father of modern Japanese architecture and designed prominent buildings during the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) eras, including the Bank of Japan’s headquarters, completed in 1896. The sturdy structure, built with the leading-edge technology of the day, survived the magnitude-7.9 Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 with little damage. But even such a strong building couldn’t escape the ravages of World War II unscathed. In 1945, just a few months before the war’s end, a firebombing campaign by the United States destroyed much of the top, third floor and the domes. The building was renovated after the war, but a shortage of resources forced it to be rebuilt as a two-floor structure with the domes replaced by eight-cornered roofs, an appearance that would be retained for some 60 years. Currently, much of the brick building is composed of offices for railway operations, but about half is occupied by the Tokyo Station Hotel, which opened a year after the station opened for business and has been used to accommodate many state guests and well-known authors. Among the most notable guests were late novelist Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), a Nobel laureate in literature, and Hyakken Uchida (1889-1971), another renowned author and academic. Both were known to have written some of their works while staying at the hotel. Acclaimed writer Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), whose works include the 1958 detective novel “Ten to Sen” (“Points and Lines”), is another celebrity who is said to have loved the hotel, particularly for the view it provided of the railway tracks. In 1987, the historic building faced a crisis when a plan was hatched to replace it with a modern high-rise. But citizens stood up for its preservation, causing the plan to be altered to include the restoration of its original design and reinforcement against earthquakes. The building was thus restored in a five-year project that included reconstruction of the third floor lost 67 years before. Thanks to the completion of a new in-station facility that includes restaurants and shops, the building has become a popular tourist spot. To mark the building’s centenary, East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) plans to hold several commemorative events that include decorating train cars with a red brick motif and a special exhibition in the station’s gallery explaining the building’s history. In December, the red brick building will be illuminated in “fancy colors” to spark the celebratory spirit. The interiors of the domes that adorn JR Tokyo Station were recently refurbished. | SATOKO KAWASAKI Tourists walk past the front of the JR Tokyo Station building in the Marunouchi business district. | SATOKO KAWASAKI Parts of the landmark building can be viewed from windows in The Tokyo Station Hotel. | SATOKO KAWASAKI A child looks at a large, glass-covered silver bell that has become a popular meeting spot in JR Tokyo Station. | SATOKO KAWASAKI An old brick wall saved from the renovation of the Tokyo Station building is shown on public display. Some bricks were made of wood and burned during the U.S. firebombing of Tokyo during the war. | SATOKO KAWASAKI

architecture;tokyo station;trains;railways;jr

jp0000212

2014/11/20

Kyoto widow held over spouse's death may be a serial husband killer

KYOTO - Suspicion is mounting that a Kyoto Prefecture woman under arrest for allegedly killing her husband may have also killed previous spouses and lovers. Chisako Kakehi, 67, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murdering Isao Kakehi, 75, who died last December in his home in Muko, Kyoto Prefecture. The Kyoto Prefectural Police found traces of cyanide in his body. Investigators said they also detected a trace of cyanide in personal belongings that Chisako Kakehi disposed of, and suspect she used the poisonous substance to kill her husband. They are searching to determine how she obtained the cyanide. She has denied the allegation. Police quoted her as saying, “I absolutely didn’t kill (my husband).” Despite Kakehi’s denial, mysterious deaths surround her. Investigative sources said Thursday they have found empty medicine capsules and thin papers for taking medicinal powder in a separate residence she maintains in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. The police suspect she may have used them to wrap cyanide or laced food with the substance so that her husband would not notice the poison. They said they also found several books on medicine in the home. The sources said Kakehi tried to buy sleeping pills for her husband at a drug store before his death in late December, but eventually bought Chinese herbs with similar effects because she did not have a prescription for the pills. The police suspect that she had the husband take the Chinese herbs, followed by a capsule of cyanide. Kakehi is believed to have been married four times. The police said that in addition to her latest husband, five men in Osaka, Hyogo and Nara prefectures related to her have died since 2006. All four of the husbands and the two men she was dating died several years after they married her or became acquainted with her, they said. She is believed to have inherited assets totaling more than ¥100 million from the deaths. Police have already found a trace of cyanide in the body of a 71-year-old man in Kaizuka, Osaka Prefecture, who died in March 2012. They allege the man had a close relationship with Kakehi and are trying to determine how he died. Investigators say the man fell down on a road in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture while he was riding a small motorcycle and subsequently died. Heart failure was blamed, but after Isao Kakehi’s suspicious death, police re-examined a blood sample taken from the Kaizuka man and found traces of cyanide. They suspect she induced Isao to take cyanide on Dec. 28. He he died that day at about 9 p.m. The police suspect Chisako Kakehi induced her latest husband, Isao Kakehi, to take cyanide at home in a yet-to-be determined method last Dec. 28, causing him to die at about 9 p.m. that day. According to Chisako Kakehi’s account to the police, she found him collapsed near the entrance to the room, and she called for an ambulance about 50 minutes later. The police detected an amount of cyanide far exceeding a fatal dose in his stomach and blood but did not find any traces around his mouth. This has led the police to believe Chisako Kakehi may have tricked him into ingesting the cyanide without being aware of it. After they started to search various locations, one of her acquaintances said she may commit suicide. The police arrested her on Wednesday morning.

serial killer;poison;cyanide

jp0000215

2014/11/28

Australian display of 1.2 million Christmas lights sets world record

An Australian lawyer has set a world record by stringing up almost 1.2 million Christmas lights in the center of the national capital. Guinness World Records on Friday confirmed that the 120 km of multicolored wire strung in the shape of three interconnected giant, wrapped Christmas gifts in a downtown Canberra mall was the largest ever image made of LED lights. Lawyer David Richards assembled the Canberra light show with the help of an army of volunteers and powers it with electricity donated by a local power company. He set a Guinness World Record a year ago for the most Christmas lights on a residential property by cocooning his Canberra home with 502,165 bulbs. However, traffic snarls in his neighborhood created by 75,000 sightseers who visited the display over four weeks made it difficult for his family to get to and from their home. “I couldn’t do it again to my neighbors or my family,” Richards said, explaining the move to the city center. The latest light show will be open to the public free of charge from Friday until New Year’s Eve. Visitors to the 2013 light show donated 138,000 Australian dollars ($117,000) to a local Canberra Sudden Infant Death Syndrome counselling and support service. Richards said he expects donations to the SIDS and Kids ACT charity will be higher with the bigger and more spacious display. The 1,194,380 twinkling bulbs arranged since Wednesday beat the previous record set in Shurtan, southern Uzbekistan, by 181,540 lights.

australia;records

jp0000216

2014/11/17

Are Japan's public school teachers paid too much?

Last month the Ministry of Finance presented a policy recommendation based on studies made by an advisory group. Such recommendations are fairly common, but this one caught more than the usual amount of attention because of where it was directed. The ministry thinks that the maximum class size for first year elementary school students should be increased from 35 to 40 . In purely economic terms, such a change would result in a reduction of as many as 4,000 teachers, which would translate as ¥8.6 billion in savings for the central government alone. However, the ministry’s explanation for why the change should be implemented was not made in fiscal terms. It was made in educational terms. Until the Democratic Party of Japan became the ruling party, maximum class size was 40, and the DPJ changed it to 35 in order to address the bullying problem. But the finance ministry says that bullying incidents have increased slightly since class sizes were reduced, so obviously it has had no effect. Obviously, this sounds more like something the education ministry should tackle, and, predictably, the education ministry objects to the recommendation, saying that increasing class number back to 40 runs counter to world trends , which favor smaller class sizes so that students can get more individual attention from teachers. The finance ministry has countered the objection by saying that the money saved by increasing class size can be spent on “pre-schoolers,” since the education ministry is now promoting tuition-free pre-schools for some households but have no budget for it. As several other media have pointed out, the finance ministry isn’t really interested in education programs. It is simply moving the money from one area to another. It’s a matter of bookkeeping. The ministry’s justification for cutting teachers is also problematic. It says that Japanese public school teachers’ salaries are higher than they are in other countries, which is a conveniently misleading truth. The salary of a median age 45-year-old full-time public school teacher in Japan is about ¥7 million, though a 2010 OECD survey found that Japanese teachers made on average the equivalent of $44,337 a year, which is $7,000 more than the OECD average. That’s probably what the finance ministry is talking about. What the ministry doesn’t mention is that this average salary was 8.6 percent less than it was in 2000, which is perhaps a reflection of the fact that more teachers are now non-regular part-timers . Moreover, as a percentage of total public spending on education, teachers’ pay in Japan is higher than it is in other developed countries — 86 percent compared to 81 percent in the U.S. and 67 percent in the U.K. — and as a portion of GDP Japan’s spending on education is the lowest of the 31 OECD countries, and has been for five years running. But the most significant statistic is work load . The average number of hours worked by a teacher in OECD countries is 39 a week, 20 of which are spent actually teaching. In Japan it’s 52 and 19 , respectively. Also, unlike in the U.S., where teachers can get two months off due to summer vacation, Japanese teachers have no time off other than mandatory paid vacation, which means when school is out they are required to show up for work. And Japanese public school teachers do not get paid overtime. Consequently, the finance ministry’s various justifications for increasing class size seems disingenuous, but they will probably play well with local governments, which pay two-thirds of education costs and stand to save more if class sizes are increased. However, it should be noted that in the larger scheme of things, class size reduction was never much of a policy. The DPJ wanted to reduce class sizes for all grades of elementary and junior high school, but it became fiscally and politically unfeasible, and so they limited the decrease to only Grade 1, with the hope that later they could extend it to upper grades. But then the Liberal Democratic Party regained power. As the Asahi Shimbun pointed out in an editorial, the policy has only been in place for three years, so it’s too early to judge its effects, either on bullying or on the quality of education in general. Since enrollment is dropping, the number of teachers will also naturally drop due to attrition. Basically, the finance ministry wants to cut expenditures and sees education as the easiest way to do it by resorting to “bureaucratic hocus-pocus,” as one part-time teacher put it in a letter to Tokyo Shimbun.

teachers;finance ministry;schools;mext

jp0000217

2014/11/19

Italian mobsters take secret oath in police video

ROME - Recruits for Italy’s ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate have been caught on video taking a loyalty oath, swearing “under the splendor of the moon,” in a ceremony secretly recorded by police in what investigators called authorities’ first such glimpse of the ritual. Carabinieri paramilitary police in Milan on Tuesday released video of what they said were two “convivial” get-togethers of suspected mobsters at a farmhouse in Castello di Brianza, northern Italy, with one recruit as young as 17. The oath reminds the recruits that traitors are expected to kill themselves and to keep an extra bullet handy in case it comes to that. Investigators didn’t explain how they managed to film at the ceremony. Prosecutors said it was the first time authorities have obtained video of an ‘ndrangheta initiation ritual. The same investigation led to 38 arrests. The probe concentrated on loans mobsters made to businesses in northern Italy and Switzerland that were unable to get credit otherwise. In a separate intercepted phone call, one suspect says to tell someone reluctant to repay money: “I will cut his head off.'” Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said the video shows how “the force of tradition” helps the ‘ndrangheta, a global cocaine trafficking organization, to thrive. Suspected mobsters are seen kissing each other on the cheek in greeting. The ‘ndrangheta, rooted in the southern Calabrian region, has spread north as it invested illicit revenues. In another scene, four males huddle together as words of a loyalty oath are repeated. “Right in this holy evening, in the silence of the night, under the light of the stars and under the splendor of the moon, I create the holy chain … the holy society,” one man says.

italy;mobsters;'ndrangheta;loyalty oath;police video

jp0000218

2014/11/26

JCP releases campaign platform, vows to cancel consumption tax hike to 10%

The Japanese Communist Party has announced a set of campaign pledges for the Dec. 14 lower house election, promising to “cancel” the planned consumption tax hike and seek other ways to secure funds for social security. The party also took aim at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” policy package of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and a pro-growth reforms, saying it has caused the country’s income gap to widen and the economy to worsen. As alternatives to raising the spending tax to 10 percent from the current 8 percent, it offered to increase taxes on the wealthy and big companies, and cut spending on wasteful public works projects. The party also reiterated its anti-nuclear stance. The JCP expressed opposition to ongoing talks on a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that would create a free trade area among Pacific Rim countries, and to the secrecy law that will impose tougher penalties on leakers of state secrets as a way to bolster information protection. The law is set to take effect Dec. 10. On other contentious issues, the opposition party said it would “retract” a Cabinet decision in July to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution to enable the use of the right to collective self-defense, and will unconditionally remove U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture. Abe is promoting the relocation of the base to the Henoko district of Nago from a densely populated area in Ginowan, both in Okinawa, which hosts the bulk of U.S. military installations in Japan.

election;consumption tax;consumption tax hike;japanese communist party;platform

jp0000220

2014/11/30

Shinagawa, a gateway to old and new Tokyo

In the Edo Period, Shinagawa was the first “shukuba machi,” or “post station town” to be built on the Tokaido, the coastal road linking the bustling Nihonbashi district in Edo, then the de facto capital under the Tokugawa shogunate, to Kyoto, which remained the nominal capital in the west. Men dressed as an Edo wanderer (left) and a ‘kawaraban’ (handbill) peddler pose at the Edo Fuzoku Gyoretsu (Edo Culture Parade) near the former Tokaido Road between the Yatsuyama and Aomonoyokocho districts in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward on Sept. 28. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Shinagawa prospered as the gateway to Edo, as Tokyo was then known, with both visitors and westbound travelers stopping there to rest and buy supplies. At the time, the area was said to have 7,000 residents and 1,600 homes. Even today, traces of Shinagawa’s early prosperity can be seen in its cityscape. To help preserve and pass on its traditions, a special 2-km parade was launched between the Minami-Shinagawa and Aomonoyokocho neighborhoods in late September. Women immaculately dressed as “oiran” (high-class prostitutes and courtesans), caught spectators’ eyes while others decked out as merchants, policemen and townsfolk from the period depicted its rich history. Today, Shinagawa is a place where old meets new. Visitors can deviate from the old Tokaido road near Keikyu Railway’s Kita-Shinagawa Station by walking along a street south of it that will show how close Shinagawa once stood to the coastline before additional land was reclaimed from Tokyo Bay. Historical evidence of this can be seen in old houses facing a canal where several “yakatabune” party boats are docked. The houses contrast heavily with several modern buildings nearby. Another historic spot is the Kujirazuka (whale mound) where the remains of a 16.5-meter whale were buried after it created a stir by beaching itself one stormy day in 1798, documents say. Shinagawa evolved into a major train station during the modernization drive of the Meiji Era that began in 1868. Shinagawa, now a crucial link to both Haneda and Narita airports, will likely see its role as international gateway grow ahead of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. People in period costumes take part in the Edo Fuzoku Gyoretsu (Edo Culture Parade) near part of the former Tokaido Road between the Yatsuyama and Aomonoyokocho districts of Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 28. | YOSHIAKI MIURA A traditional ‘yakatabune’ (party boat) contrasts with modern buildings in the background near Keikyu Kita-Shinagawa Station in Tokyo on Nov. 15. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Girls offer silent prayers to the Kujirazuka (whale mound), where the remains of a 16.5-meter whale that beached itself on the coast of Shinagawa on a stormy day in 1798 are buried. | YOSHIAKI MIURA

tourists;tourism;shinagawa;edo;traditions

jp0000223

2014/11/01

That vexatious 'so desu ka'; Dalai Lama installed; Ikeda picked to be prime minister; Shibuya police box top lender nationwide

100 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1914 Journalist irritated by the words sō desu ka Writing from the Savage Club, London, the Tokyo Asahi’s war correspondent, Mr. Sugimura, describes his luncheon there with Mr. Mackenzie of the Times as host. Mr. Mackenzie, while in Japan in the same capacity, learned to hate the words sō desu ka ( Is that so?). Applying to the military authorities for permission to go to the front, the staff officer in charge says, sō desu ka! Day after day passes on without any news, and he goes to the same office to hurry them up, but only the same word is repeated by the same party. I can’t wait any longer — sō desu ka. Please try and let me go at once — sō desu ka. What are you going to do for me after all? — sō desu ka. I must say goodbye to you, then — sō desu ka! Certainly that was the most tantalizing phrase in the whole world, he says. And Mr. Sugimura in great sympathy but without thinking of it says, “sō desu ka!” — much to the disgust of his host. 75 YEARS AGO Monday, Nov. 27, 1939 Fourteenth Dalai Lama installed in Tibet A living “baby” Buddha now accepting homage from the 2 million people he will rule till death, and believed by his followers to have the same soul possessed by the ruler who preceded him, is the subject of a strange story being unfolded in fragmentary news from Tibet. “The small boy in knee-boots and yellow robes, recently installed in Lhasa’s hilltop palace, is Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama, just identified after more than five years of search for the thirteenth Lama’s successor,” says a bulletin from the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Geographic Society. “Until he reaches his majority, regents will rule in his name.” “Tibet, secluded between the world’s highest mountain barriers and the gloomiest windswept desert of Asia, is one of the last theocracies surviving in the modern world. The Dalai Lama, head of both church and state, is acclaimed as a living embodiment of Buddha. His succession is determined by no commonplace father-and-son hereditary arrangement, but by the principle of reincarnation. When a Dalai Lama dies, oracles fall into trances for guidance, and priests search the country for a boy born at the instant of the ruler’s death. The spirit of the former Dalai Lama is accepted as having entered the baby, who thereupon becomes ruler of a land one-sixth as large as the United States, and head of a priesthood numbering between one-fifth and one-seventh of the entire population. The young Dalai Lama referred to is Tenzin Gyatso, who continues to hold the position today. 50 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Nov. 10, 1964 Ikeda picks Sato to be next prime minister Ailing Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda picked former State Minister Eisaku Sato as the man to succeed him Monday morning. The verdict, in the form of a message addressed to a general meeting of Liberal-Democratic members of both Houses of the Diet, was entrusted to two Tory president-makers at the National Cancer Center at Tsukiji, Tokyo, where Ikeda is receiving treatment for cancer. Ikeda handed the message to Tory Vice President Shojiro Kawashima and Secretary General Takeo Miki immediately after they briefed him on their latest round of negotiations to single out his successor. Kawashima and Miki read the message at the Dietmen’s caucus held in the Diet building hours later. The caucus then voted on Ikeda’s recommendation. In a brief address to the party caucus, Sato said he fully realized the gravity of his new duties as well as that of the situation both in and outside of Japan. He pledged his efforts to further strengthen Tory unity and resolutely tackle his political tasks. He then solicited massive Tory support for this endeavor. Ikeda had announced his resignation, due to ongoing cancer treatment, the day after the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. He died on Aug. 13, 1965. 25 YEARS AGO Saturday, Nov. 4, 1989 Shibuya police box is top lender nationwide The police box in front of Shibuya Station, besides being one of the busiest in Tokyo, is the top money lender among Japanese police boxes. When people in Shibuya spend more than their budgets allow, or lose their purse or wallet, they come to this police box to borrow enough money to get home. Last year, 2,925 loans totaling ¥753,858 were recorded by Shibuya police. The average loan was about ¥257. “We have a budget for it. The budget is mainly based on how much we gave out the year before,” said Shiro Sakurai, the station chief. “When people come to borrow money, we usually ask them to show us their IDs, but even if they don’t have IDs with them we lend them money sometimes,” another policeman said. “From our experience, we can usually tell if a person is reliable or not. “But there are people who take advantage of our system. They borrow money from several police boxes and disappear,” he added. Loans are also provided to those who are injured or do not have enough money to go home because they have lost their way, as well as those who left home without money. “The appearance of the borrowers is not a factor in our decision to lend them money or not,” the officer said. “We don’t discriminate against them. Also, we have never had foreigners asking to borrow money,” the officer said. “But if they come, we’ll lend them money, too. “We can lend as much as ¥1,000 at a time,” he added. “More than that, we have to get permission from our superior.” The police box money-lending policy is still in effect today.

shibuya;tibet;dalai lama;eisaku sato;hayato ikeda;police box

jp0000225

2014/11/24

Chinese tourists step up for Abe as Japanese tighten belts

When Jingyan Hou made her first trip to Japan in 1997, the office worker from Beijing spent ¥200,000 during a weeklong stay on accommodations, meals, transport and souvenirs. On her second visit this year, she spent that much on just one Louis Vuitton handbag in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district. The increasing wealth of travelers like Hou, 45, underscores the opportunity for Japan to expand its tourism industry as China’s burgeoning middle class goes on vacations abroad. The yen’s slump to a seven-year low against the dollar is also broadening the country’s appeal globally and bolstering the Abe administration’s effort to double visitors by the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “There’s a lot of room to boost the number of foreign tourists coming to Japan with these growing economies in our neighborhood,” said Daiki Takahashi, an economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. “They’ll have a big impact if the current trend continues.” While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s growth strategy faces opposition on many fronts — from farmers fighting tariff cuts to corporations against outsiders on their boards — fostering tourism has few detractors. It is a bright spot in an economy that dropped into recession last quarter as consumers cut spending after the government increased the consumption tax in April to help rein in the world’s biggest debt burden. Foreign visitors spent ¥1.5 trillion in Japan in the nine months through September, more than all of 2013, according to the Japan Tourism Agency. Money from inbound tourists is on course to surpass spending by Japanese travelers overseas next year for the first time in at least three decades, said Takahashi. Hou is doing her part, spending about ¥1 million over a week in October, half of it on shopping. “I can get more stylish products in Japan than what I can find back in China,” she said, with shopping bags in each hand at the Mitsukoshi department store in Ginza. Her purchases ranged from clothes and accessories to cosmetics and Pokemon figures. Chinese tourists are now the world’s top spenders, forking out $129 billion in 2013, World Tourism Organization figures show. Around 2 million mainlanders visited Japan in the first 10 months of 2014, more than double the number from 2006, according to the Japan Tourism Agency. And yet for visitors to Japan, they remain behind South Koreans and Taiwanese. In all, more than 10 million foreigners traveled to the third-largest economy last year. While the Japanese economy has struggled after the consumption tax bump in April and the yen has slumped 12 percent, duty-free sales at Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd.’s Ginza outlet have almost doubled compared with the same period a year ago, said Kayo Yoshida, one of its customer service managers. Mitsukoshi nearly tripled bilingual sales assistants at its Ginza store to 21 this year and is expanding its range of duty free products, Yoshida said. As Abe seeks to revitalize regional areas, Japan is also attracting foreign tourists to destinations outside the well-trodden corridor from Tokyo to Mount Fuji and on to Kyoto. The city of Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, population 36,000, is one of the beneficiaries. The port is rebuilding some of the older infrastructure at its harbor as tourists visiting on cruise ships increase to a projected 16,000 this year. On one day last month, 3,600 Chinese visitors disembarked from a liner, boarded 100 buses and set out sightseeing and shopping, said Tsuyoshi Furuhashi, a spokesman at the local tourism association. “We need to attract tourists like this as our population declines in Japan,” Furuhashi said. Japan lowered the minimum income requirements for Chinese seeking tourist visas in 2010 and might extend the use of multiple-entry visas to the whole country rather than just Okinawa, as it is now, according to the Foreign Ministry. Indian tourists became eligible for multiple-entry visas for short sightseeing stays in July and waivers are in place for people from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. While Japan is well rated for customer service, transport and cultural attractions, it has a reputation for expensive accommodations. Manryo Inc., the operator of nine hostels for foreign tourists in Tokyo and Kyoto, has found one solution for visitors trying to keep lodging costs low. Three of its hostels are former love hotels. Manryo’s hostel in Tokyo’s Asakusa district offers its cheapest rooms at ¥2,200 per day, versus about ¥5,500 to ¥10,000 for a business hotel. “We had only 350,000 foreign tourists when Japan hosted the Olympics for the first time in 1964,” said Masataka Ota, chief consultant at Japan Tourism Marketing Co. “It’s amazing to think we may have 20 million next time.”

china;tourism;tokyo 2020;2020 olympics;inbound tourism

jp0000226

2014/11/23

LDP incumbents look to have electoral lock on nation's nuclear heartland

OSAKA - Political decisions over the fate of Fukui’s aging reactors have long been in the hands of powerful pro-nuclear Diet members who represent the prefecture. The Dec. 14 poll is not expected to change that, although it will be the first in which only two Fukui Lower House members are up for re-election. The loss of one seat stems from electoral district reforms that went into effect last year. Currently, the prefecture has three districts. The No. 1 district, which mostly encompasses the city of Fukui in the north of the prefecture, is represented by Tomomi Inada, a right-wing Liberal Democratic Party policy chief and close ideological confidant of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The No. 2 district includes the inland town of Ono on the eastern flank of the prefecture, as well as municipalities just north of the city of Fukui on the border with Ishikawa. It’s represented by Taku Yamamoto, also of the LDP and the husband of internal affairs minister Sanae Takaichi, another close right-wing Abe confidant. Fukui No. 3 is the nuclear power district. It includes the towns of Tsuruga, home to two reactors, one of which is 44 years old; Mihama, which hosts three reactors, two of them over 40 years old; Oi, where there are four reactors, two in excess of 35 years old; and Akahama, two of whose four reactors are, or soon will be, 40 years old. The No. 3 district is represented by the LDP’s Tsuyoshi Takagi, who appears to be less of an ideologue than Inada, although he once lent his support to a film denying the occurrence of the Rape of Nanking. But more importantly for local pro-nuclear voters and Kansai Electric Power Co., which operates the above reactors, Takagi has always been a fierce supporter of atomic energy and played an influential Diet role in getting two of the Oi reactors restarted in 2012 despite nationwide opposition. Those units were shut down for inspection last year. For the coming election, however, Fukui will have only two districts. The first is a nonnuclear zone, incorporating the city of Fukui and the towns in the north. The other covers the middle and southern part of the prefecture, where all of the nuclear plants are located, near the borders of Shiga and Kyoto prefectures. The LDP has been weighing a plan to field Inada in the first district, Takagi in the second, and Yamamoto as a proportional representation candidate. As of late last week, discussions were ongoing. At the moment, none of the opposition parties has announced any candidates. In the 2012 Lower House election, Takagi won the No. 3 district by nearly 50,000 votes against his Democratic Party of Japan rival, who ran on a mildly anti-nuclear platform. How Takagi will fare under the revised districts is uncertain. But unless strong anti-nuclear candidates emerge in the coming days, it appears Takagi, Inada and Yamamoto will continue to represent Fukui in Diet deliberations over the prefecture’s old atomic plants for years to come.

fukui;nuclear reactors;lower house elections

jp0000227

2014/11/23

Kepco weighs new lease of life for geriatric reactors

In a decision that will set a precedent for Japan’s rapidly aging nuclear reactors, Kansai Electric Power Co. must soon choose whether to restart reactors 1 and 2 at its Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture and operate them beyond the 40-year threshold, the first time a Japanese utility has faced such a dilemma. Under new government guidelines adopted in 2012, 40 years is the maximum limit, in principle, on how long the nation’s reactors are allowed to operate. After that, they are supposed to be decommissioned, a process that can take decades. However, if a utility decides to continue to use them, it can apply for a one-time-only extension of 20 years if it meets a series of additional safety tests the government describes as “stringent.” Currently, all of Japan’s 48 commercial reactors are idled. To apply for a two-decade extension on those now at or close age 40, their operators have to apply for special government inspections by no later than next July. These checks will be more expensive than the inspections currently being carried out on younger reactors. Of Fukui’s 13 commercial reactors, 11 of which are operated by Kansai Electric, five are, or soon will be, at the 40-year limit. Another three are over 35 years old, and the utility will have to decide their fate in the next few years. The two Takahama reactors went into operation in November 1974 and November 1975, with a capacity of 826,000 kilowatts each. Earlier this month, Kansai Electric President Makoto Yagi said the utility would consider whether to decommission units based on whether they could still turn a profit if granted a 20-year extension. But Fukui politicians have cautioned the company to think about more than just the bottom line. “What’s important is to think about plant operation and decommissioning at the same time. Local governments, as well as utilities, have to check the decommissioning process and this will require funding,” Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa said last month. “Where will midterm storage facilities be built? Where will a final storage facility for the spent fuel and nuclear waste be located? It’s necessary for the central government to be deeply involved.” In September, Fukui Vice Gov. Tatsuji Sugimoto warned Kansai Electric Vice President Shigeki Iwane that “if you’re going to discuss decommissioning, you won’t get anywhere unless you treat finding a midterm storage facility for the spent fuel, the problem of disposing of nuclear contaminated materials, and how decommissioning will impact the local economy as one set of issues.” Decommissioning is of special concern to Fukui because it threatens the state subsidies that have been flowing into the prefecture for four decades. Between the 2007 and 2012 fiscal years, Fukui received at least ¥20 billion annually. From 1974 to 2012, prefectural data show Fukui received about ¥390 billion under three laws designed to reward local governments if they agreed to host nuclear plants. Much of this has gone into roads, bridges, dams and other projects that keep the coffers of local construction companies full, provide employment for their workers as well as in local service industries, who then return the money via donations for local and national pro-nuclear lawmakers of the Liberal Democratic Party. But while Kansai Electric, local governments in Fukui, the governor and major corporations in the region support both the restart of the prefecture’s newer reactors and, if possible, extending the Takahama units for another 20 years, at least one survey shows the rest of Kansai appears to be generally fine without nuclear power. The Institute of Nuclear Safety System Inc., established and owned by Kansai Electric in Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, conducted a multiple choice survey last fall on how people in six Kansai prefectures and the southern part of Fukui felt about power generation, especially nuclear energy. The results showed that, despite pressure from the pro-nuclear lobby for reactor restarts and higher electricity bills, 46 percent of the respondents felt either that atomic power should not be used or that other sources of electricity should be tapped. Although another 45 percent believed the use of nuclear energy was “inevitable,” only 8 percent replied it would be a “good” source of power. In addition, the survey indicated that, despite Kansai Electric jacking up its power rates by 10 percent overall in spring 2013, not many of the respondents were overly concerned. “The negative effects of the long-term suspension of nuclear power generation have not been recognized,” said institute official Atsuko Kitada. Then there is a question the survey did not address: to what extent should the rest of Kansai be involved in decisions to restart or extend the operational life of the Fukui reactors. Since the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns, relations between Fukui and other Kansai prefectures that rely on its nuclear power plants have often been tense. Leaders in neighboring Kyoto and Shiga whose towns lie within a 30-km radius of the Fukui reactors want more of a say in their future. Anti-nuclear groups add that talk of extensions is underway even as the nation has yet to end the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant. “It is particularly unconscionable for the Abe government to open the way for old reactors to operate when the Fukushima accident is ongoing,” said Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action, a Kyoto-based anti-nuclear lobby. In October, Maizuru, a port city in Kyoto Prefecture that lies less than 10 km from the Takahama plant in Fukui, called for the definition of “local government consent” to be expanded to those municipalities within a 30-km radius of the facility since, by law, they have to draw up evacuation plans in case of a disaster. Around 144,000 people, including Maizuru’s 88,600 residents, live within 30 km of Takahama. But Nishikawa rejects such calls. “I recognize the definition of local consent as meaning Fukui Prefecture and the towns and villages that host the power plants,” he told reporters last month. “Since it’s been those areas closest to the nuclear plants that have borne the greatest risks over the past 40 or 50 years, there is a natural difference between them and other areas (outside Fukui).”

fukui prefecture;kansai electric power co .;nuclear reactors

jp0000228

2014/11/15

Eels face the slippery slope to extinction

Last week I was crossing the River Thames on the way to work in London, and I happened to see a cormorant emerge from the water with a thrashing eel in its mouth. The bird juggled the fish, skillfully managing to position it so it could swallow the wriggling animal headfirst. While it was a disaster from the eel’s point of view — after all, they can live for up to 20 years before breeding — it was for me quite an encouraging sight. The number of European eels has crashed in recent years, so to see one in the Thames is a good sign. Even if it was being eaten. Eels — whether European or Japanese — are elusive, mysterious creatures. We have eaten them for millenniums, but we still don’t understand the basic details of their reproductive behavior. They spend most of their lives in freshwater rivers, but then migrate in vast numbers, with Japanese eels swimming thousands of kilometers to spawn at an unknown location near Guam and the Mariana Islands. European eels have a similarly mysterious spawning ground somewhere in the Sargasso Sea. That ignorance is now more pressing than ever, as both Japanese and European eels are officially classed as being in danger of extinction. To foodies, unagi (Japanese eels) need no introduction. A famous, cherished national dish, some 100,000 tons of the animal are eaten in Japan each year. (This accounts for around 70 percent of the worldwide consumption.) The “u” of unagi is often written in hiragana on shop signs in the shape of an eel. When I worked at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, one of my colleagues was famous for his love of eel. He couldn’t wait for Doyo no Ushi no Hi (Midsummer Day of the Ox), the traditional day when eel is consumed, supposedly to counteract the summer heat. But consumption of eel is now year-round, and as a result, supplies are becoming scarce. By some counts, numbers have crashed by around 95 percent from the 1960s. In response, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has now put Japanese eels on its Red List of Threatened Species. People may be becoming aware that the amount of eel being consumed is unsustainable, and even the slow-moving Fisheries Agency might act to protect the animal. What people don’t seem to appreciate, however, is just how mysterious the eel is. “Although our ecological research is often covered by the media and we have public lectures and symposiums, many Japanese people don’t know about much of the mystery of eels,” says eel biologist Mari Kuroki, of the Department of Aquatic Bioscience at the University of Tokyo. Kuroki has written a book for children, “Unagi no U-chan: Daiboken” (“Adventures of U-chan the Eel”), so that they will at least learn of the dangers faced by eels. Foodies may know that the best eels are held to come from Lake Hamana in Shizuoka Prefecture, and some people think this is also where they reproduce. Not so. Eels live for some years in freshwater lakes and brackish estuaries before they mature and become “silver eels.” Then, no longer feeding, the eels start heading out to the ocean. All over East Asia eels leave their rivers and start swimming. They swim for weeks, covering thousands of kilometers. How do they know where to go? How do the baby eels, when they are hatched in the depths of the ocean, get back to freshwater? We don’t know. “The spawning behavior and the spawning migration route still remains a mystery,” says Kuroki. Some facts are known. The baby eels feed on something called marine snow — a shower of dead plants and animals that slowly and continuously drifts down through the ocean. The peculiar nature of this food makes raising baby eels a tricky business. The route of the journey back is unclear. Some part of the route is determined by ocean currents, and some by active swimming. “Overfishing is apparently the main threat,” says Kuroki. Overfishing affects the numbers of young eels that can establish themselves in rivers, because commercial fisheries remove young eels to raise them in farms. But fishing also affects the mature animals — these are caught by fishermen (in the olden days by men using cormorants to catch the eels for them) as the eels migrate back out to sea. “Also, the degradation of the river environment is a serious factor,” she adds. Kuroki and her colleagues are tagging eels with radio transmitters in order to better understand the route taken by these unusual animals. One thing recently discovered about European eels is that they can be eaten by whales. To some extent, eels are at the mercy of ocean currents. And these are known to be changing as the ocean gets warmer as a result of climate change. “The return route to the ocean and the mechanism of adult eel migration is still not well validated,” Kuroki says. “If they use ocean currents, a slight global climate change could have a big influence.” One of the things I love about Japan is how a respect for nature is deeply woven into society, culture and legend. Eels are a prime example. They appear in many rakugo comic stories, and lend themselves to various idioms. And the famous legend of the country being balanced on the back of a catfish, whose wiggling is supposed to account for earthquakes? In some regions the foundation animal is said to be an eel. So in that sense the animal is the literal foundation of the entire country. The species must be preserved!

wildlife;environment

jp0000229

2014/11/15

At Kyoto University, police blitz line of legal protests

On Nov. 4, a man in his 30s stepped onto the grounds of Kyoto University. A couple of days earlier, in Tokyo, two Kyoto University students had been arrested at a demonstration after an alleged scuffle with police. Those arrested were allegedly connected to the radical left-wing group Chukaku-ha (Middle Core Faction). What happened next remains the subject of some dispute. The man was forced to admit that he was a plainclothes police officer and “escorted” by the students to a classroom, where he was detained and questioned by school officials for three hours. Kyoto University was angry that the sanctity of its campus had been violated. Critics warned the incident was yet another sign that Japan under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his right-wing henchmen (and women) was out of control, and that fundamental academic freedoms were being threatened. Then late last week, as if to prove the critics were right, police decked out in full riot gear raided a Kyoto University dormitory as part of the investigation into the students who were arrested in Tokyo. Why call out the riot police? To “prevent confusion,” according to a Jiji Press report. Police forces and college campuses in Japan have a complex relationship. In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that “the autonomy of a university has traditionally been recognized as a way to guard academic freedom.” This has been interpreted by pretty much everybody as meaning police officers do not have the right to invade a college campus and target students for questioning or surveillance without due cause. In the Kyoto University incident, there was no apparent due cause. Even if there was, the university has an agreement with the police in Kyoto that it be notified in advance before any officer steps foot on campus grounds, and this was not done. Chukaku-ha, an extreme leftist group that has a history of detonating bombs at police stations and firing rockets onto the grounds of Kyoto Imperial Palace, has long been a target of police monitoring. Exact figures are hard to come by. Media reports indicate the group has up to 200 hard-core members and an unknown number of supporters, ranging from the low hundreds to as many as 3,500. It traditionally recruits from the ranks of labor leaders and college students. While some members are violent, official reports tend to hint that Chukaku-ha is just one group among many posing a danger to “public order.” A 19-page document released in January by the Public Security Intelligence Agency includes a section on groups in the public spotlight. It lumps the generally low-profile Chukaku-ha in with all of those who oppose the Futenma base relocation plan for U.S. forces in Okinawa, the deployment of the MV-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft to the prefecture, constitutional revision, the state secrets law and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. The report also has a separate section labeled “extremist” groups, where Chukaku-ha and other “left-wing” groups are again included. Interestingly, another section is labeled only “right-wing groups,” the presumption, one assumes, being that “right-wing” groups are not “extremist.” No doubt Chukaku-ha members are involved with — or, at least, intellectually support — the legal protests mentioned above. As Japanese citizens they have that right. However, readers can be forgiven for wondering if authorities are blurring the line between legal demonstrations by the many with the illegal actions of a few in one group in order to justify their monitoring of anyone they choose, no matter where they are located — including on college campuses. View from Osaka is a monthly column that examines the latest news from a Kansai perspective. Announcement Eric Johnston will speak in Kyoto on how The Japan Times and the foreign media covered the Fukushima meltdowns crisis, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Nov. 22 at Foodelica. Web: foodelica.com Tel: 075-703-5208 (Space is limited. Please RSVP) Cost: ¥1,000 (includes one drink and small sweet) Speech is in Japanese, with an English-language Powerpoint presentation; Q&A in Japanese and English.

kyoto university;academic freedom;public protest

jp0000231

2014/11/13

More abandoned dogs reported in three prefectures

Amid a rash of dog abandonment cases across the nation, 80 additional instances have been reported since October 2013 in Saitama, Yamanashi and Saga prefectures, according to local communities and animal welfare groups. Officials in Saitama Prefecture said 46 abandoned dogs of various breeds, mainly small ones including Chihuahuas, were found between October 2013 and July of this year. Eight of the cases involved Chihuahuas abandoned in a single park in the city of Saitama. Seven dogs were discovered in the park on Oct. 27, 2013, two of which were found dead. Between then and July, 31 abandoned dogs were found in the same park, none of which were wearing a collar. “The dogs may have been deliberately disposed of by a breeder,” a prefectural official said. The Saitama Prefectural Police are looking into the cases as possible violations of the Act on Welfare and Management of Animals. On June 2 and June 30, six Chihuahuas were found abandoned near the river that divides the cities of Asaka and Shiki in Saitama Prefecture. The city of Higashimatsuyama, also in Saitama Prefecture, said nine miniature dachshunds were abandoned in July. In Yamanashi Prefecture, as many as 26 mature small breed dogs including Yorkshire terriers were found in the town of Nanbu in March and April. The prefecture said another eight dogs were found roaming the town’s streets earlier in the year. Yamanashi Prefecture launched an investigation and inspected about 100 dog breeders but found no evidence of violations. According to Happy Voice, an animal welfare group based in Saga Prefecture, 18 abandoned Maltese dogs were found in October and November in that prefecture, in addition to an earlier case in which seven dogs were either caught alive or found dead. In some of the cases, people who picked up the animals did not report to local authorities but had taken them in, the group said. On Wednesday, prefectural officials spotted a stray dog, believed to have been abandoned, in a parking lot in Takeo and took it to a shelter.

animal welfare;dogs

jp0000232

2014/11/22

Two Chilans sentenced for 1974 torture of president's father

SANTIAGO - Two retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to prison Friday for the torture death of the father of President Michelle Bachelet. Judge Mario Carroza ordered Cols. Ramon Caceres Jorquera and Edgar Cevallos Jones to serve three years and two years, respectively, for the 1974 torture of Gen. Alberto Bachelet. The maximum possible sentence was five years. Gen. Bachelet was imprisoned for treason during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet because he had opposed the coup that ousted socialist President Salvador Allende. The regime also arrested Michelle, who was 23 years old, and her mother, Angela Jeria. The women were tortured in a secret prison for two weeks before they fled into exile. “The fact that the trial ended and the truth that we knew from the start is finally known gives me lots of tranquility,” Jeria told local TV after the judge’s decision. “At the same time, it gives me hope that justice will come for all of those who were held with my husband … and everyone else who suffered torture and repression.” Gen. Bachelet remained loyal to Allende, refusing to endorse the coup of Sept. 11, 1973, even after Allende committed suicide while making his last stand in the bombed-out presidential palace. Court documents say officers held Gen. Bachelet at the Air Force War Academy, keeping him tied and blindfolded, withholding water and ordering him at gunpoint to remain motionless for hours. The stress aggravated the 50-year-old general’s heart problems, causing his death in March 1974. The day before his death, he left a note to his wife saying he had been brutally “softened” by his interrogators. Michelle Bachelet returned from exile in 1979. She became a doctor and rose through the ranks of the Socialist party. Chile transitioned to democracy in 1990. Bachelet was elected to her first term as president in 2006. She then ran the U.N.’s agency for women until she was elected president again last year.

history;courts;military;torture;chile;michelle bachelet

jp0000234

2014/10/04

Mao Tse-tung seeks to quell internal friction; Shinkansen starts operations; Tokyo Olympics open; America's No. 1 threat?

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Oct. 25 1939 Mao Tse-tung seeks to quell internal friction Mao Tse-tung, an executive member of the Communist Party, issued an important article in the Hsin Hwa Ji Pao, an organ of the Chinese Communist Party in Chungking, of Oct. 19 under the caption “New Stage in Campaign of Resistance (by) Chinese Communist Party,” wherein he emphasized “thoroughgoing resistance” and manifested a vigorous attitude among the communists against internal friction, urging a united national front and voicing a strict warning to the Kuomintang. The article in substance reads as follows: “The (war with Japan) recently entered the stage of ‘inactive confronting’ which proves complete validity of the foresight which was declared at the sixth enlarged plenary session of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in December last year. We should take advantage of (these circumstances) to prepare ourselves for a counter-offensive. “Regarding the issue of the democratic government, the National People’s Congress should be immediately convoked to enforce genuine democracy. There are some people who talk of ‘plots of the Chinese Communists Party’ in an attempt to prejudice against the party’s progressive theory of resistance, which is (in fact) at the vanguard of the move towards liberation from the Japanese.” Mao Tse-tung, who is in the executive position of the Chinese Communist Party, boldly and straightforwardly declared in the article the communists’ readiness to counteract any attempts to reject the Communist Party and voiced a strict warning against the possibility of separation of the Kuomintang from the Communist Party. 50 YEARS AGO Friday, Oct. 2, 1964 World’s fastest trains inaugurate operations The world’s fastest trains began operations Thursday as the Japanese National Railways’ ¥380,000 million New Tokaido Line opened between Tokyo and Osaka. Opening of the 515-km railroad that connects the two cities in four hours was celebrated in a ceremony Thursday morning at the JNR head office in Marunouchi, Tokyo with the Emperor and Empress in attendance. The Emperor said in a congratulatory speech: “May I express my great pleasure at the inauguration today of the New Tokaido Line that has been completed despite many difficulties. I hope for JNR’s continued efforts for increased transportation capacities and improved safety.” Earlier this morning, the all-electrified New Tokaido Line’s first trains, Hikari No. 1 and 2, left Tokyo and Osaka at 6 a.m. simultaneously after gala ceremonies. The Hikari No. 1, packed with nearly 1,000 people, first hit the maximum speed of 210 kph between Shin-Yokohama and Odawara as passengers cheered. Both the first inbound and outbound trains arrived at their destination at 10 a.m. as scheduled. 50 YEARS AGO Sunday, Oct. 11, 1964 XVIII Olympiad opens with pomp in Tokyo The XVIII Olympiad, the first to be held in Asia, opened Saturday afternoon amid a profusion of pomp and youthful enthusiasm at the National Stadium before an over-capacity crowd of 80,000 spectators. It was a flawlessly executed, color-splashed ceremony under a sparkling blue autumn sky. Eager holders of opening ceremony tickets began to arrive at the stadium hours before the gates opened at 10 a.m. The huge oval was filled by 12:45 p.m., an hour before the ceremony began. Cannons boomed, 10,000 homing pigeons soared above the stadium, a choir sang stirring music specially composed for the Olympiad and the drama of the world’s greatest international athletic event was climaxed by the lighting of the Olympic flame atop the stadium. The Emperor, the patron of the Tokyo Olympic Games, proclaimed the Olympiad open at 2.58 p.m. Before the Emperor read his message, 6,500 athletes and officials from 94 nations, including 18 nations participating in the Olympics for the first time, marched into the stadium. 25 YEARS AGO Sunday, Oct. 8, 1989 Japan ‘greater threat’ to U.S. than Soviet Union It came as a shock to many Japanese to learn through a Newsweek poll, conducted by the Gallup Organization in the U.S., that 52 percent of the 600 people interviewed by telephone on Sept. 28-29 thought “the economic power of Japan” was a “greater threat” to the U.S. than “the military power of the Soviet Union.” The obvious conclusion is that Soviet strongman Mikhail Gorbachev and his cohorts have performed a good job of selling their disarmament promises. At the same time, the emergence of freedom-seekers inside the Soviet Union has been augmented by the movements among the Soviet satellite countries to shake off the Communist Party yoke. But Foreign Office spokesman Taizo Watanabe saw the charges made against Japan in the magazine article to be serious enough to require a comment. He reportedly defined the word “threat” as meaning a combination of an intention to invade and the capability of doing so. Watanabe said it was not a “threat” but rather a “challenge” which Japan was presenting—to produce higher quality goods at better prices for the satisfaction of consumers. This reminds one of the old story about building a better mousetrap and having the world beating a path to your door.

china;soviet union;shinkansen;bullet trains;tokyo olympics;tokaido shinkansen;mao tse-tung

jp0000235

2014/10/05

South Korea rumor crackdown jolts social media users

SEOUL - South Korea’s president is cracking down on rumors in cyberspace in a campaign that threatens the popularity of Kakao Talk, the leading social media service in a country with ambitions to become a global technology leader. Prosecutors announced the crackdown two weeks ago after President Park Geun-hye complained about insults directed at her and said false rumors “divided the society.” That rattled users of smartphone-based Kakao Talk used by 35 million of South Korea’s 50 million people. It prompted a surge of interest in a previously little-known German competitor, Telegram. Rankey.com , a research firm, said an estimated 610,000 South Korean smartphone users visited Telegram on Wednesday, a 40-fold increase over Sept. 14, before the crackdown was announced. The company said its estimate was based on a randomly selected group of 60,000 people it follows regularly. On Friday, Telegram was the most downloaded free app in Apple Inc.’s App Store in South Korea. On Google Inc.’s store, Telegram was the No. 2 downloaded free communications app, behind only Kakao Talk. South Korean users left reviews on Telegram saying they left Kakao Talk to seek “asylum.” They asked Telegram to add a Korean language service. The uproar threatens to slow adoption of social media or send South Korean users to foreign services, undercutting government ambitions to build a high-tech “creative economy.” “It will definitely limit the number of new signups, as users opt for services which are not subject to monitoring,” said Jon Bradford, a managing director at startup accelerator TechStars in London. “Any policies that the Korean authorities only impose upon local businesses will damage their competitiveness both at home and abroad.” South Korea is one of the most wired societies, with 85 percent of its people online and 40 million smartphones. The government has promised to step up financial support for tech startups. Kakao Talk’s dilemma echoes criticism of U.S. technology companies following disclosures of widespread government surveillance. Internet and other companies have struggled to reassure users while saying they are legally obligated to cooperate with authorities. Last week, China’s telephone regulator said it approved Apple’s new iPhone 6 for use on Chinese networks after the company promised never to allow other governments secret “backdoor” access to users’ data. In Germany, the consumer privacy regulator of the major city of Hamburg told Google it must obtain Germans’ permission before using information about them to create profiles for email and other services. Park has been sensitive about the Web and social media after her government came under criticism following a ferry sinking in April that killed 300 people, most of them high school students. Yong Hye-in, a 24-year-old college student, complained her friends were targeted for unjustified data collection after she was detained during a protest in May demanding government action over the ferry disaster. She received a notice that her house and her Kakao Talk account had been searched with a court’s approval. Yong was alarmed to find investigators obtained personal information of people she contacted. That included messages, photos and videos and network addresses. “It was an indiscriminate collection of data of people around me,” she said. “They should weigh how much (my friends) were involved in the case.” Jung Jinu, an opposition politician, complained investigators who looked into his role in a protest over the ferry tragedy collected messages and phone numbers from his 3,000 contacts on the service. He said many used Kakao Talk to discuss social, labor and political issues. “It is no different from eavesdropping,” Jung said. Kakao Talk, owned by Daum Kakao, an Internet portal and app developer, denied it gave authorities data of Jung’s friends. But the court warrant that Jung showed said all messages he sent and received between May 1 and June 10 were subject to search. Park ordered the justice ministry last month to investigate unfounded stories in cyberspace. At a Cabinet meeting on Sept. 16, she complained about insults about her and said online rumors have “gone too far and divided the society,” according to the presidential office’s website. Two days later, prosecutors announced the launch of a team to monitor online information. They said anyone who posts or passes on information deemed false will face punishment. They said that for “grave matters,” investigations will begin without waiting for complaints and offending information will be deleted. The Seoul prosecutors’ office did not respond to repeated phone calls seeking comment. News reports say authorities will only monitor public posts on Twitter, Facebook, online forums and Web portals, not private messages exchanged on online messengers. Officials at Kakao Talk said authorities cannot look at users’ messages without a court order. “We are aware of such concerns,” the co-CEO of Daum Kakao, Lee Sirgoo, told reporters on Wednesday. Lee said the company had “top security technology” to prevent leaks and only stored messages for a short time. However, he said, Kakao Talk is “subject to South Korean law” and “when there is a fair execution of law, we cooperate with prosecutors” by handing over information. So far, the potential for users to migrate to Telegram, which has fewer features such as emoticons, or other messaging providers is unclear. Rankey.com ‘s survey showed about 90 percent of users of devices that run Google’s Android, the most popular operating system in South Korea, visited Kakao Talk every day. Only 2 percent launched the Telegram app at least once on Wednesday. Some people say Kakao Talk could protect users by encrypting their data. But the company said it saves messages for up to five days in unencrypted form to allow users to copy them onto multiple devices. Responding to growing surveillance concerns, Kakao Talk said Thursday it would reduce the storage period to three days. Yong, the college student, said she has joined Telegram. She also tries to meet people in person instead of using messengers. But she said too many people still use Kakao Talk, so she cannot stop using it completely.

internet;south korea;social media;park geun hye

jp0000236

2014/10/05

Parasite museum aside, you won't be saury for visiting Meguro

When Japanese hear the word Meguro, some might recall the old “rakugo” comedy “Meguro no Sanma” (“Meguro’s Saury”), about a samurai lord in the Edo Period who fell in love with the taste of saury, the fish that was considered humble fare for peasants and others on the lower rungs of Japan’s social ladder. In the story, the lord and his men are starving while hunting in an area now occupied by modern Meguro and decided to eat saury grilled in a coarse manner by peasants in a desperate bid to end their hunger. But the taste was so spectacular the lord repeatedly ordered the fish after returning to his castle. But the saury, cooked in a refined manner by servants, never tasted as good, the story goes. Eventually, the lord came to believe that only Meguro’s saury was good, although there was hardly a way to get fresh fish in the inland district. Centuries later, Meguro, now part of central Tokyo, is still famous for saury. Last month, 7,000 saury caught in the Pacific off Iwate Prefecture were shipped in for the annual Meguro saury festival, which sees dozens of vendors grilling the fish over charcoal briquets to serve to visitors for free. Apart from saury, Meguro is also known for Meguro Gajoen, a famed wedding hall that opened in 1931. The hall, designed to embody modern design and traditional beauty, was designated a cultural asset by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The owner founded the building as a first-class Japanese restaurant, but later added an annex with banquet rooms, guest rooms, a shrine, church and photo studio to create an “all-in-one” hall. If you’d like to add a twist to your visit to Meguro, you may want to take a look at Meguro Parasitological Museum, which touts itself as the world’s only museum of the kind. Unexpectedly, many young couples and girls patronize the museum, which showcases some 60,000 parasite species. One of the main exhibits is an 8.8-m tapeworm. Beside it is a string of the same length placed for comparison. A young man visiting with his girlfriend kept his distance from the worm while she scrutinized it. Two other visitors, Ayumi Goto, 19, and Shizuka Kameda, 20, said they were impressed by the vast collection.

tourism;meguro

jp0000238

2014/10/20

Bear in Chinese zoo bites arm off boy trying to feed it

BEIJING - A bear in China has bitten off the arm of a 9-year-old boy who tried to feed it through the cage. Media reports say the attack happened Saturday afternoon at Pingdingshan Hebin Park in central China, which has a zoo inside. The boy managed to push his arm into the cage to feed it when the bear bit him. A doctor at the Pingdingshan No. 152 Hospital, who treated the boy, said Sunday that he lost his entire right arm, which had to be amputated.

china;violence;children;animals

jp0000239

2014/10/18

Suicidal cells and the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks

You may not have heard of Henrietta Lacks — an African-American woman from Baltimore who died of cervical cancer in 1951 — but you have benefited from her. A few months before she died, doctors took tissue from Lacks’ tumor and grew cells from it. The cells grew and grew. They wouldn’t stop growing. Until then, there hadn’t been a “line” of human cells that scientists could test drugs on. Lacks’ cells were perfect. There was huge demand for them, and samples were mailed to labs all around the world for testing. The so-called HeLa cells became one of the most important contributions to medical science ever seen. “They helped develop drugs for treating herpes, leukemia, influenza, hemophilia and Parkinson’s disease,” says journalist Rebecca Skloot in her fascinating book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Skloot’s book is the main reason you may actually have heard of Lacks. You see, her tissue was taken without her knowledge or consent. Nor, after she died, was her family informed that HeLa cells were being used around the world to develop new drugs. A lot of people made a lot of money out of the things they discovered with HeLa cells — but the Lacks family never saw a penny. Skloot’s book became a bestseller, and brought her story to the public’s attention. HeLa cells are still helping scientists to make discoveries. At Kyoto University, Kazuhiro Sakamaki, of the department of animal development and physiology, has used them to investigate a mysterious and seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon: the fact that some cells in our bodies are programmed to die. They don’t die of old age or because they become infected — they die because that is their job. This kind of programmed cell suicide is called apoptosis. By coincidence, this process was first outlined in detail by German developmental biologist Alfred Glucksmann — in 1951, the same year HeLa cells were first cultured. What Sakamaki and his team have done is to investigate how apoptosis evolved. To do so, they looked at a protein called caspase-8, which is a key player in the initiation of cell death. When a cell is ready to die, caspase swings into action. It is like the wrecking ball that knocks down a building that is no longer needed. Sakamaki’s team performed an extensive evolutionary analysis of the protein and found that its role in cell death originated very early in the evolution of life — more than 500 million years ago. Not only that, it is universal: All animals use it in the same way. “It is of great significance that the programmed cell death system is established in simpler animals,” says Sakamaki. To demonstrate this, the team used HeLa cells. They took caspase-8 proteins from a range of different animals and put them into HeLa cells. They showed that programmed cell death still occurred, even with proteins from fish and other more “primitive” animals. It may even be the same in insects. “Our study suggests that caspase-8 may be involved in apoptosis in invertebrates as well as vertebrates,” says Sakamaki. His work is published this week in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. But why should cells be required to commit suicide? Well, in many cases tissue that grows for one reason is no longer required. When we are in the womb, our fingers and toes are joined together, like a duck’s webbed feet. Apoptosis ensures that the webbing joining our digits breaks down, leaving us with separate fingers and toes. In the brain, there are millions upon millions of unwanted cells — these kill themselves off during development in the womb and in early years. And when a woman menstruates, apoptosis is the process that causes the womb lining to shed. Controlled apoptosis is an ability scientists would dearly love to master. Sometimes cells commit suicide when they shouldn’t — this happens in AIDS patients, and with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease too. On the other hand, sometimes it doesn’t work when it should — cells grow out of control. This is a hallmark of cancer. And that, remember, is what killed Henrietta Lacks. Back in the 1950s, doctors didn’t consider such things as informed consent. They took tissue from Lacks, and when it proved useful, they used it. HeLa cells have been used in more than 70,000 studies. But that’s not to say things are completely different today. Last year, Lacks’ genome was sequenced and the results published, without anyone asking the consent of her family. This was a violation of their privacy, because Lacks’ descendants obviously share her genes, so making them public would allow strangers to assess their genetic health. The National Institutes of Health in the United States finally invited the Lacks family in for consultation. Now they are closely involved in helping communicate to the public how science is done. So it’s somehow fitting that Sakamaki used Lacks’ cells to help investigate the process that was involved in her death.

health;science;henrietta lacks

jp0000241

2014/10/18

Osaka looks to swim with the 'whales' in casino bid

Osaka faces a challenge: What to do about the whales? No, there’s nothing the International Whaling Commission can do and don’t bother calling Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd, for catching these whales is a form of hunting far more difficult than firing harpoons into a leviathan. In the gambling industry, “whales” generally refers to the high rollers. The top whales — the Moby Dicks, if you will — are the ones who blow into town on private jets, rent the top suites in the best hotels, run up a bar bill greater than the GDP of several developing nations, and shop until they drop at the plethora of Italian and French fashion houses near the casino. You can catch a glimpse of them in the roped-off VIP room, reeking of expensive cologne and dressed like George Clooney or Julia Roberts, sipping a glass of premium Champagne or a 1963 Warre vintage port and placing large amounts of money on a single bet. Without whales, a casino can earn a reputation as being a dull backwater full of “sardines.” You know the type — rubes in loud polyester clothing, traveling on a cheap package tour, and hoping they’ll get lucky at the ¥100 slot machines and win enough money to visit a fancy restaurant, the kind where napkins are made of linen and the utensils are metal, not plastic. Which brings us to Osaka. Japan continues to debate whether to allow legalized gambling. In Osaka, however, the pro-casino lobby (the “sharks”) is looking ahead to what kind of customers might patronize a local casino. There is a gleam in the eyes of politicians convinced that if they build it, customers — especially whales — will come. Particularly Chinese whales, which raises a number of questions. Current plans call for a casino resort on Yumeshima, a man-made island in Osaka harbor, a good distance from the nearest airports. The city hopes Chinese gamblers will make a good percentage of the customer base. But will high-end customers fly into Kansai or Itami airports on their private jets and endure a one-hour ride (or more) through city traffic just to play at a casino? Of course, they could go by helicopter, but is the trip to Osaka itself worth it? The second question is about casino service. The push to legalize “integrated resorts” — a cluster of hotels, convention centers and gambling halls — is supported by politically connected firms that manufacture slot machines used overseas. Whales, however, tend to prefer lower-tech games that have a much higher payoff. That requires card dealers, dice rollers, employees and managers who are linguistically and culturally fluent in the needs of their customers. If Osaka’s casino ends up being slot-machine heavy and its mentality is more tailored toward herding the sardines than in catering to the whales, problems will arise. Finally, there’s the question of location. Past commentators have suggested Kansai airport, in southern Osaka Prefecture, rather than Yumeshima would be a more profitable venue for a casino resort. For drawing foreign whales, who want to fly in and out quickly, that might be the case. However that would also mean less revenue for the city of Osaka. Last week, it was announced Japan might ease requirements for issuing multiple-entry visas to wealthy Chinese. This is a clear message to Chinese high-end gamblers that Japanese casinos, should they come into being, want their business. However, Osaka politicians have yet to show, through detailed, unbiased marketing research, that their plans to catch wealthy Chinese or other whales, or even sardines, are based on something other than a shark-like grin of confidence. Until they do, Osaka voters and gambling opponents will always smell something fishy about official assurances a casino will turn a profit. View from Osaka is a monthly column that examines the latest news from a Kansai perspective.

osaka;gambling;casinos

jp0000242

2014/10/19

Abe's shift to regional woes fails to erase mistrust in LDP

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is putting priority on his new policy of rejuvenating the stalled economies of regions outside Tokyo, many of which are stuck in long-term slumps and suffering from rapid depopulation. Abe plans to draw up a road map by the end of the year for tackling rural depopulation through 2020. His government also intends to set up a special fund that can be flexibly used by stagnant municipalities. But the new initiative is being panned by experts and former bureaucrats from the areas, who say the plan just looks like another half-baked economic initiative from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. LDP-led governments have injected trillions of yen into gigantic public work projects to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure over some five decades of nearly uninterrupted rule, but the party’s traditional emphasis on public works has failed to stop the long-term decline underway outside Tokyo, Osaka and other big cities. Hundreds of towns, villages and smaller cities are considered by experts to be on the verge of “extinction.” “Basically it’s good to emphasize the promotion of provincial economies . . . but (the government) should be extremely careful about implementation,” said Takao Komine, an economics professor at Hosei University who was formerly a senior official in the now-defunct Economic Planning Agency. “Otherwise, it will just repeat the (LDP’s) past failures,” Komine warned. Komine argued it’s impossible to save all of the towns in decline nationwide. The Abe administration should thus concentrate on investing public funds in certain “core cities” — an extremely difficult political task. “You can’t save everybody. It’d be very difficult to choose which municipalities to concentrate on,” Komine said. “If you follow the past pattern, it would just mean scattering money around.” He was referring to the LDP’s reputation for relying on pork-barrel politics in rural areas. One of the most notorious cases was Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita’s Hometown Creation initiative in 1988 and 1989, which doled out ¥100 million each to about 3,300 municipalities nationwide to fund promotional efforts. Most of the towns had no idea what to do with the cash, so many blew it on building unnecessary public facilities. Takeshita’s Hometown Creation project is now considered a landmark LDP policy failure. According to the Finance Ministry, the other ministries have requested a total of ¥3.8 trillion for a special budget fund for fiscal 2015. A large chunk of that would go toward public work projects, one of the tools most favored by LDP politicians eager to grease palms in their electoral districts. Abe, who seems to be well-aware of the criticism, has repeatedly stressed that his administration will not engage in pork-barrel spending. “By eliminating the sectionalism in ministries and the practice of doling out funds, I’d like you to work on policies of a different dimension,” Abe told his ministers and economic revitalization experts during his reshuffled Cabinet’s inaugural meeting on Sept. 19. But former Tottori Gov. Yoshihiro Katayama, a Keio University professor who is an expert on local governments, argued that Abe’s plan is still grounded in the LDP’s postwar paradigm of centrally controlling and dishing out money for local projects. Abe instead should first decentralize decision-making and financial resources so rural municipalities can use funds at their own discretion, Katayama said. “The central government should stop assigning money (to municipalities), while (local governments) shouldn’t have to beg for money from the state. Such methods have totally failed in the past,” Katayama said. “But it seems (Abe) hasn’t understood that at all. I believe (his new policy) will end being a failure, too.” One thing, if any, that differentiates Abe’s policy from the past LDP strategies is its focus on the depopulation problem. The government plans to develop a vision for keeping Japan’s population above 100 million for the next 50 years. According to an estimate released in May by the Japan Policy Council, an influential Tokyo-based think tank, nearly half of the nation’s municipalities could face extinction by 2040 from rapid aging and an exodus to urban areas, notably Tokyo and Osaka. The ratio of job offers to job-seekers in Tokyo stood at 1.62 in July, but it was much lower outside the capital, with figures of 0.87 in Hokkaido and 0.74 in Kagoshima, for example, meaning that workers in rural areas have fewer job opportunities than those in Tokyo. This gap is the main driver behind the migration of the younger generations to big cities, officials said. Yet couples in urban areas tend to have lower birth rates, which is consequently driving down the nation’s overall birth rate, they added. For example, Tokyo’s total fertility rate, a key indicator of birth trends in a given year, stood at 1.06 in 2011, versus the national average of 1.39. TFR is the number of children a woman would have if she were to bear children throughout her life in line with age-specific birth rates of a given year. A state-sponsored bill in the Diet would oblige the central and local governments to draw up programs and specific targets for “correcting excessive population concentration” in the Tokyo metropolitan area by creating social infrastructure and job opportunities in rural districts. But Komine of Hosei University argued that depopulation and rural revitalization should be treated separately. People are migrating for the potential economic benefits, and the government should not try to stop them, he said. “If you want to stem the decline of the birth rate, you should take countermeasures in Tokyo, where the birth rate is low,” instead of promoting rural economies, Komine said. For example, the Abe government should build more day care centers to help working women in Tokyo, he said, because Tokyo has more young women than provincial areas and thus would be more effective in pushing up the overall birth rate.

shinzo abe;abenomics;revitalization;provincial economies

jp0000243

2014/10/26

Kansai's fears of new law no state secret

With less than two months to go until the new designated state secrets law comes into force, how, exactly, it will work in practice is the subject of extensive debate and concern. Much of the commentary focuses on how the fundamental rights of individuals will be affected. But municipal and prefectural governments, especially in Kansai, are also concerned about what the new law might mean for local autonomy and access to central government information, and whether that will have repercussions for their residents. Nationwide, nearly 200 local cities and towns have passed statements condemning the new law. As of September, at least a half dozen assemblies in Kyoto, Nara and Osaka prefectures had voiced their opposition. One of the largest bodies in Kansai to oppose the new law was Ikoma, in Nara. Ikoma is the main city in the electoral district of Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Sanae Takaichi, a close ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “What, precisely, is to be designated as secret is not clear, leading to a situation of ‘what will become secret is secret.’ Because of this, even in cases of arrests and prosecutions that are connected to law, it won’t be clear as to why the accused is being arrested or prosecuted because the lawyers won’t be able to reveal the evidence in court,” the city assembly said in June. Muko, a small city in Kyoto, expressed similar concerns but added that the vague law could also be used to punish public servants who unknowingly release “secret” information, and that not only the mass media but also scholars, researchers, elected representatives, legal professionals and ordinary citizens would be unable to freely collect information under such constraints. Taro Yamada, a House of Councilors member from Your Party, said that while police departments may be able to get information classified, prefectural governors and assemblies will not have the same privilege. This has created two concerns in Kansai. The first has to do with information sharing between the local and central governments. “Kyoto and Osaka in particular host international summits and the like, which require coordination between local authorities and the Prime Minister’s Office, the Foreign Ministry, the National Police Agency, and other central government organs. Communication between Kansai and national officials can be difficult because too often local authorities are given only the minimum of information by central government officials,” said one Kyoto municipal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Under the new law, the central government now has an excuse and can say, ‘Sorry, that’s a state secret’ if local officials get angry about being left out of the loop,” the official said. The second cause of concern in Kansai has to do with nuclear power. Fukui Prefecture’s 13 commercial reactors, including 11 operated by Kansai Electric Power Co., provide electricity to the region. But Kyoto and Osaka are also home to groups of anti-nuclear protesters who are well-organized and tenacious compared with other parts of the country. At anti-nuclear rallies in both cities, police keep close tabs on those participating. Under the secrets law, such demonstrations might be considered a threat to national security. Anti-nuclear groups in Kansai and nationwide fear that official harassment will grow against anyone who speaks out against atomic power, and that the officials and their minions will then hide behind the law if and when they are sued in the Osaka or Kyoto district courts. Additionally, though not the issue it is elsewhere, some Kansai leaders have expressed concern about what the new law means for keeping tabs on Self-Defense Forces or U.S. military activity in the region. As both countries deepen cooperation under the new collective self-defense stance adopted by the Cabinet in July, there is local concern that obtaining information on U.S. military operations, one of the main areas targeted by the state secrets law, will become more difficult. “At a military base in Kyotango, Kyoto Prefecture, the United States has installed X-band radar for tracking ballistic missiles. But what the effect of radio waves from the radar might be is unknown. Even if we ask, the government won’t provide the information under the new law,” said Ryoichi Hattori, an Osaka-based activist who opposes the secrets law. The town of Sennan, Osaka Prefecture, near Kansai airport, has already expressed opposition to any attempt by the U.S. military to use it. Any plans by Tokyo or Washington to operate more radar installations in Kansai is sure to be met by local opposition not only from traditional anti-base activists, but also from residents whose attitude is “not in my backyard.” But if information on plans for joint training exercises turns out to be designated a state secret, Tokyo and Washington may find that even those national politicians and political parties who back the security alliance in public may constantly urge caution when it comes to specific operational plans that run the risk of further inflaming residents, and local assemblies, in Kansai or anywhere else. Especially if they are already angry because the plans can’t be made public. At present, most Kansai politicians in the Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito ruling coalition and their corporate backers support the state secrets law. At the same time, the region’s traditional attitude of independence from Tokyo, combined with fierce local pride, mean that towns, cities and leaders, regardless of party ties, are less likely to simply accept excuses about national security if the information local residents want is not made available.

defense;nuclear plant;state secrets;state secrets law

jp0000244

2014/10/26

More distrust, less harmony if law pits local patriarchs against Tokyo secrecy fetishists

KYOTO - The state secrets law allows for the designation of 55 items related to national security. But as the new law prepares to go into effect, it’s not clear if municipal and prefectural authorities are on the same page as the central government about the need for it or what will happen if classification creates political problems at the local level. Nineteen of the 55 items deal with defense and target for classification such things as operational plans and research, both for the Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military in Japan, as well as related intelligence received from foreign governments and international organizations. There are 17 diplomacy-related areas in which information could be classified. These include negotiations on plans and cooperation agreements between Japan and foreign governments and organizations. Another 10 items cover something called “specially designated harmful activities.” They include research and plans related to measures to stop activities so designated from spreading, initiatives to stop cybercrime, and efforts to prevent of nuclear, chemical or biological agents from entering the country. The last nine items include information about halting the spread of terrorism. If many of the items on the list have a less immediately visible impact on local politics, with the exception of areas like Okinawa, where there is an overbearing U.S. military presence, the justification for the last 19 in particular holds the potential for turmoil. Beyond the obvious questions of what is meant by “harmful activities” or “terrorism” lies a more fundamental issue: At what point is a “state” secret no longer merely national in nature but one that infringes upon “local” autonomy? Tokyo bureaucrats with a fetish for secrecy and a taste for power are apt to see “terrorists” everywhere they look, and to view any unauthorized activity — that is, activity not conducted by themselves — as “harmful.” But local police, assemblies and town heads don’t always share such views, and this is where concerns of effective cooperation between state and local authorities arise. Skeptical local governments may not wish to provide such information to Tokyo, especially about local residents, out of a belief that it falls outside the realm of the state secrets law. Likewise, they may request information about defense, diplomacy, or anti-terrorism measures in their prefecture or municipality that they deem necessary to enact local policies, only to be told it is classified and off-limits. In either case, there is a danger the result will be less cooperation and heightened distrust between local and central government politicians and bureaucrats, which in turn could lead to communication breakdowns. The stated official purpose of the secrets law is the protection of Japan against foreign and domestic threats by withholding information that could jeopardize efforts to realize this goal. But the massive national opposition toward the passage of the law may be a sign, with local elections looming next spring, of the more local political, legal and bureaucratic skirmishes to come once the law goes into force in December.

defense;terrorism;diplomacy;state secrets;state secrets law

jp0000245

2014/10/07

Turner Broadcasting cutting 1,475 jobs

NEW YORK - Turner Broadcasting, the parent of the CNN, TBS and TNT networks, is eliminating about 1,475 jobs, or about 10 percent of its total employees. Monday’s announcement follows an offer of voluntary buyouts to 600 veteran employees in August, part of an overall cost-cutting effort at the Atlanta-based broadcasting company founded by Ted Turner. Turner said Monday that the restructuring includes cutting jobs, eliminating unfilled positions and voluntary departures. The eliminations will affect 18 different locations and will come from its news, entertainment, sports and business units as well as corporate positions. A spokesman said Turner is eliminating 975 jobs in Atlanta, where it is based. That will reduce its workforce in that city to about 5,500. The company also plans to add about 150 new positions in areas of investment and growth. Turner’s CNN division has struggled in recent years to find a programming strategy that will allow it to get and keep viewers as it competes with cable news rivals Fox News and MSNBC. And TNT and TBS, which once relied heavily on reruns of old broadcast shows to fill their schedules, are under increased pressure to create more original programming. Turner Broadcasting System, which also owns The Cartoon Network, HLN, TruTV and Turner Classic Movies, is a unit of New York-based Time Warner Inc., the company behind HBO and Warner Bros. studios. Shares of Time Warner fell 90 cents to close at $73.82 Monday, and were unchanged in after-hours trading.

cnn;job cuts;turner broadcasting

jp0000246

2014/10/09

J-blip: You TOO can be a 'konbini' manager of your dreams

Ever have the urge to shriek “ Irasshaimase !” and microwave meals for salarymen? You’re in luck as you can now control a Japanese convenience store right in the palm of your hands. “Konbini Dream” lets users manage a typical Japanese konbini — complete with bowing employees and cheap snacks. Players can hire workers, rearrange the layout of the store and decide which items are up for sale for your anime-inspired customers with big eyes and stubby legs. In addition, players receive experience points for every successful purchase. After leveling up, part-time workers and new merchandise become available, including seasonal items for Halloween and Christmas. “Konbini Dream” was released for Nintendo 3DS on Sept. 24 as a downloadable title and only costs the price of a few pieces of convenience store chicken at just ¥800. Perhaps in the future this will be how Lawson, Sunkus, et al. train their staff? Go to Arc System Works’ website to learn more about the game.

simulation;video game;nintendo 3ds;japan pulse

jp0000249

2014/07/05

Figuring out the science behind research whaling

Japan has a unique concept of science that doesn’t seem to be accepted in the Western world. Both the esteemed academic journal Nature and the International Court of Justice have essentially handed down rulings over the past year that question the standards of research in Japan. As far as the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems to be concerned, science requires that you kill the subject of your study and then sell the meat for consumption — especially when talking about whales. This doesn’t bode well for any plans to measure the general fitness of the country’s youth and, perhaps more worringly, one hopes the Institute of Cetacean Research doesn’t start studying the country’s aging population. It’s also worth noting that scientific truth seems to depend on how bad you want it to be true. The last two scientific papers that allegedly reported the discovery of an easy way to make stem cells were retracted by Nature, the academic journal that published them. The papers were found to be full of errors. The research had been done at the government-backed Riken. The lead scientist, Haruko Obokata, became a major celebrity, until problems with the research started coming to light. Obokata says she will prove the methodology is real even though independent scientists have not been able to reproduce the work described in her articles. The inability of scientists to replicate the results calls into question the veracity of any of the claims she has made. The incident has also raised questions over the rigor of scientific research in general in Japan. Similarly, the International Court of Justice ruled in March that the country’s whaling expeditions in the Antarctic lacked scientific vigor and was not scientific research. In other words, to study the whale population and its health by killing whales and then selling the meat isn’t scientific research. The court ruled it was akin to commercial whaling disguised as whale research. At first Japan seemed to accept the decision as it didn’t inflict too much damage on its overall catch figures. Indeed, the Antarctic whale catch represents only 20 percent of the country’s total annual whale take. But then, as always, Abe couldn’t resist a chance to harpoon himself in the foot. Last month, he told a parliamentary committee he wanted to resume commercial whaling “so we may obtain scientific information indispensable to the management of whale resources” — which you have to admit is new tactic. It’s like saying, “Up until now our research whaling was actually commercial whaling but we can do commercial whaling and make it more scientific.” The Japan Whaling Association recognizes that nonlethal research can provide some data but claims whales have to be killed in order to really understand what’s happening with them. “A large range of information is needed for the management and conservation of whales, such as population, age structure, growth rates, age of maturity, reproductive rates, feeding, nutrition and levels of contaminants,” it says on its website. “This type of important information cannot be obtained through small DNA samples or analysis of organochlorine, but only through lethal research.” Lethal Research. It sounds like a movie that will be opening this Halloween. The same institute also concluded that whales eat up to 500 tons of fish a year — that’s five times the amount we humans eat. The ultimate conclusion is simple: The whales are eating all of our fish. If we don’t kill whales, we will have no blue fin tuna, no sushi and we will all starve to death. I’m sure the whales are probably responsible for the eel shortage as well. And damn those whales that sneak into freshwater rivers and devour our unagi! The main problem with whale research — funded mostly with taxpayer dollars — is that the data is dubious. There are no third parties overseeing the experiments, nor has much of it been subject to peer review or been published in scientific journals. I have a feeling that if it were published, it would end up being retracted only a few months later. Japanese officials have suggested making the whale hunts “more scientific” to satisfy the International Court of Justice. Isn’t that pretty much the equivalent of putting a giant altimeter in the cars at Disney’s “Tower of Terror” ride and renaming it “Tower of Altitude and Terror Study”? Every year the amount of whale consumption in the country declines, while the stockpile of whale meat now is close to 5,000 tons. Considering the declining demand and abundance of supply, why does Japan still spend millions of dollars sustaining this industry? The whale research that would be of most interest to me is an investigative piece into which politicians are getting donations from the whaling industry, the relationship between retiring Ministry of Fisheries bureaucrats and the industry, and a full account of who gets government subsidies for research. While we’re at it, perhaps the government could ask its citizens if they wish to pay taxes to sustain the whale industry? (We live in a democracy, allegedly). The Institute of Cetacean Research, supported by Japan, has written several papers on the “health benefits” of balenine (midazole dipeptides) found abundantly in whale meat that are supposed to cure fatigue. That’s part of Japan’s scientific research and a mascot has even been created to represent this incredible substance. If it’s valid research, perhaps they should submit it to Nature magazine? I’m sure it would stand up to peer review. As an omnivore, I can’t say I’m opposed to eating whales. Endangered animals should obviously not be eaten, but I am opposed to breaking international law in the name of science. And just maybe, given enough time, the government will once again redeem its stature in the science world by finding an easy way to make stem cells. Perhaps even from whales? But only after they have been killed and eaten. You just have to believe.

shinzo abe;stem cells;whaling;haruko obokata

jp0000250

2014/07/05

Servia strikes first blow; first private air raid shelter unveiled in Tokyo; torrential rain kills 106; LDP loses Upper House

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, July 30 1914 Servia strikes first blow in World War I Servian troops on board a steamer on the river Danube today opened fire on Austrian soldiers on the north bank of the river near Temeskub. The Austrians returned the fire and an engagement of some importance ensued. The point mentioned as that at which the first gun of the war between Austria and Servia was fired may become historic as the scene of the opening of the greatest war known in history. Temeskub is not given on the available maps, but is probably a small place on the Danube south of Temesvar, a town of considerable importance in Hungary about 80 miles north of the river which is the boundary between Servia and Hungary. War now having been declared by Austria against Servia, the Japanese Army authorities will dispatch military attaches to the scene of the hostilities if the war seems going to be of long duration. The attaches to be dispatched will be appointed at the Japanese Embassies at Vienna and St. Petersburg. 75 YEARS AGO Monday, July 17, 1939 Tokyo unveils first private air raid shelter With the annual summer air defense drills just around the corner, and in tune with the embattled times, an air raid shelter for a private home has made its appearance in Tokyo. The underground bomb-proof chamber, completed recently in the garden of Hiroshi Matsudaira, a businessman of Shibuya, is probably the first and, as yet, the only one of its kind in Japan. The idea was suddenly born in the mind of the owner while work was underway on an 11-foot terrace along one side of his garden this spring and consists of three Hume pipes eight feet in length and six feet in diameter placed end to end, convertible into three separate chambers. Buried underground, they are enclosed by walls of concrete four inches thick. Entering the cavernous structure guarded by an airtight door, one comes upon racks for gas masks and garments for protection against poison gas. A poison-proof water compartment is also found here while ranged along the walls are seats capable of accommodating 20 at a pinch. Underneath the seats are store spaces for food as well as compartments for shovels, picks and other paraphernalia and even a space for a radio. A ventilator at one end of the cave assures plentiful supply of air and switches for electric light have also been installed. The seats are capable of being utilized as a ping-pong table so that it also serves as a nice cooling-off place in summer when the rest of the world above is steaming. The cost is said to have been around ¥4,000 — no small sum. But, being 8 feet below the surface, it is practically safe from any wandering bomb that might drop earthward, proving an adequate recompense for the outlay required. 50 YEARS AGO Monday, July 20, 1964 Torrential rain kills 106 in Sanin, Hokuriku One hundred and six persons were reported dead, 34 missing and 137 others injured as houses collapsed and landslides occurred following torrential rains which swept the Sanin and Hokuriku areas from Saturday through Sunday morning. About 583 houses were destroyed, washed away or damaged, and more than 40,000 others flooded. Hardest hit was Shimane Prefecture where 87 persons were reported dead, 27 missing and 105 others injured. The rainfall reached 54 cm in Matsue, a new record since the local observatory was established in 1941. Dikes were broken for a space of about 20 meters on the Akagawa River in Kamo-machi, Ohara-gun, Shimane Prefecture at about 3 a.m. Sunday and roaring waters flooded 1,200 out of 1,500 houses of the town almost up to their roofs. Two persons were killed when their house collapsed and pinned them under its debris at Otamachi, Ota, Sunday morning. Eight others were feared dead when a similar accident happened at Shizuma-machi in the same city. 25 YEARS AGO Monday, July 24, 1989 LDP loses Upper House to socialists in election The Liberal-Democratic Party was certain to lose its majority in the House of Councilors for the first time since the party’s founding in 1955 as the Japan Socialist Party coasted to a landslide victory in Sunday’s national election. The JSP, the largest opposition party, is expected to have won more seats than the LDP in the voting when the final outcome is made known this evening. There are 126 seats up for grabs, one-half of the 252-member Upper House. By 1:30 a.m. today, 105 candidates had been declared successful. They included 40 members of the JSP, which previously held 22 of the seats being contested, and 32 members of the LDP, which went into the contest with 66 seats. The LDP would have had to clinch at least 54 seats to retain a simple majority of 127 in the Upper House, but it was expected to emerge with only about 35 seats. Ryutaro Hashimoto, the LDP’s secretary general, and Prime Minister Sousuke Uno, who is president of the LDP, as well as all other leaders of the conservative party, had expected a major setback stemming from widespread voter criticism of the consumption tax, the Recruit influence-buying scandal and the opening of the country’s agriculture markets to foreign products. Owing to the LDP’s fall in popularity, candidates backed by the JSP or Rengo, the Japanese Private Sector Trade Union Confederation, ousted incumbent LDP candidates in most of the 26 single-seat constituencies, most of which were traditional LDP strongholds. The JSP’s landslide is expected to enhance the party’s position in spearheading anti-LDP movements in the Diet as well as moves toward a coalition government among the opposition parties.

ldp;world war i;air raid shelter

jp0000253

2014/07/27

Is 'Kobe Formula' spanner in works?

On March 18, 1975, in a show of defiance against Japan-U.S. military policy, the Kobe Municipal Assembly passed a resolution that became known as the “Kobe Formula.” From that day forward, the resolution said, any ship carrying nuclear weapons would not be allowed to enter Kobe harbor, and would have to officially declare it did not have any nukes on board. French, Indian and Italian naval vessels agreed to cooperate, but the U.S. Navy refused. In the nearly four decades since, there has been little pressure on the part of the United States to change it. Following the Great Kobe Earthquake of January 1995, the U.S. offered to dispatch its navy to Kobe for humanitarian assistance. Partially due to the Kobe resolution, the various offers were mostly declined. In the late 1990s, there was a half-hearted push by some American diplomats in Kansai to overturn the resolution (U.S. Navy officials, by contrast, said that was not something they were seeking). Due to stiff opposition in the Kobe assembly, however, the effort went nowhere. Today, while many Kobe politicians, especially in the Liberal Democratic Party, say the resolution is outdated, none see the advantage of fighting to overturn it. Those who back it, including opposition parties and their supporters, gather each March 18 to commemorate the resolution’s passage and to call for an end to nuclear weapons. What will happen, though, to the resolution under the new rules for collective self-defense? Given the emphasis Hyogo Prefecture in particular is putting on the need to have a comprehensive disaster plan in place for major earthquakes, and given the fact that Tokyo and Washington are moving forward with plans to increase U.S. participation in disaster relief efforts based on the lessons both sides learned from “Operation Tomodachi” after the March 11, 2011, mega-quake and tsunami, it seems fair to conclude that ports near Kobe, such as Osaka and Himeji, might see more military activity in the name of joint training for natural disasters. Under Article VI of the 1960 U.S.-Japan security treaty, the United States is granted use by its land, air and naval forces of facilities and areas in Japan. A natural disaster or military emergency in which Kobe harbor is ordered by the Japanese government to serve as a major base for relief operations might lead to a U.S.-Japan naval presence in the port. Short of that, however, it appears Tokyo and Washington are, for the moment, content to sail past Kobe and its rough political waters as they navigate a new relationship based on Japan’s reinterpretation of collective self-defense.

defense;kobe harbor;kobe formula

jp0000254

2014/07/27

Ten people die, 1,400 rushed to hospital amid heat wave

Ten people died and around 1,400 people were taken by ambulance to hospitals nationwide due to heatstroke or heat exhaustion, a tally showed Saturday, as temperatures soared across much of Japan. The rising mercury prompted the Meteorological Agency to issue heat wave advisories for 41 of the 47 prefectures. The preliminary figure of people being rushed to hospitals came to 1,389, of whom 10 died and 20 were in a serious condition, according to the tally. Of 927 observation points of the agency nationwide, 702 — more than 70 percent — logged highs of at least 30 degrees Celsius, while about a quarter of all locations topped 35 degrees. The city of Higashiomi in Shiga Prefecture clocked a record-breaking 38.8 degrees, and the mercury reached new all-time highs at 13 other locations, including Obama in Fukui Prefecture, at 38.6 degrees. According to the agency, a high-pressure system in the Pacific Ocean sent a blanket of warm air over a wide swath of the archipelago, from the Tohoku region in the northeast down to Okinawa at the southern tip. A cold front heading south is forecast to bring the possibility of cooling rain over the country on Sunday, but the stifling heat will likely return on Monday and is expected to continue, the agency said. The tally of hospital cases was conducted by Kyodo News.

meteorological agency;heatwave;higashiomi

jp0000255

2014/07/27

Self-defense less collective at local level

After the Shiga gubernatorial election earlier this month, in which Taizo Mikazuki, the hand-picked successor to former Gov. Yukiko Kada, defeated the ruling coalition’s candidate, certain media agencies and pundits suggested that collective self-defense had no impact on the race. Such arguments were factually correct. Exit polls showed that pocketbook issues, name recognition and even questions about nuclear power weighed more heavily on voters’ minds than collective self-defense, per se. But what the analysts overlooked was how Abe’s handling of the sensitive debate and his push for a Cabinet decision impacted the election. Voters objected to Abe’s strong-arm tactics, as did his Liberal Democratic Party’s coalition partner, pacifist New Komeito. Shiga’s LDP officials admitted that New Komeito was not as helpful as it could have been in stumping for their preferred candidate. Even Abe told reporters after the election that he did not intend to deny the influence that collective defense had on the final result. Yet the Shiga election is also important because it may foreshadow the kinds of practical issues and local attitudes central government officials and local leaders in Kansai and elsewhere will face as a result of the Cabinet’s decision to reinterpret the war-renouncing Constitution. In Kansai, official discussion of what the repercussions will be at the local level hasn’t really begun. Partially, this is because nobody is quite sure what will happen. But it’s also the case that, compared with Kanto, Okinawa and even parts of Hokkaido, the presence of the military in Kansai is not as visible. Thus, dealing with base-related issues that may arise from the Cabinet decision is not really on the region’s political radar. The Self-Defense Forces’ main Kansai-area bases are in and around Itami and Yao airports in Osaka Prefecture, at the ports of Kobe and Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, and in smaller administrative support facilities and supply depots in Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Wakayama and Nara prefectures. But at least two Kansai communities are thinking about what the Cabinet’s reinterpretation might mean. Last October, the Aibano Training Area in Takashima, Shiga Prefecture, became the first place in Honshu to host MV-22 Ospreys when the Ground Self-Defense Force and the U.S. Marines held a joint exercise. Under the new collective self-defense guidelines, those living beside the base want to know if such training missions at Aibano will grow, especially given past and present concerns and questions about the Osprey’s safety. In addition, the Air Self-Defense Force’s auxiliary base at Kyogamisaki, in Kyotango, Kyoto Prefecture, will host a U.S. X-band radar facility. The prefectural government says up to 160 U.S. service members and technicians will be assigned to the facility, which will serve as a front-line defense against North Korean missiles. In the corporate community, there is general support for Abe’s decision. Kansai business groups, whose top members include representatives from defense contractors, extended support but urged Abe to convince the world that Japan was not going to invade or go to war with another country. “We agree with the thinking behind the Cabinet decision to reinterpret collective self-defense. But under what conditions it will be carried out, including the geographical limitations, needs to be clarified,” said Kazutoshi Murao, an executive director of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). What the local impact might be from increased deployments of either SDF or U.S. military units to larger facilities such as Maizuru, which might serve as a critical naval base if a crisis erupts on the Korean Peninsula, has long been on the minds of politicians in northern Kyoto, though they always insist it’s an issue they have little control over. On the other hand, Toru Hashimoto, while Osaka governor, suggested that Kansai airport might host the U.S. Marines currently deployed at the Futenma air station in Okinawa, an idea he pitched and then quickly dropped. But if Kansai officials are only making vague noises about what they can do for collective self-defense, a few are more clear about bolstering cooperation with the U.S. military in another area: local disaster response drills. On Aug. 31, the U.S. military will join a disaster response drill conducted by seven cities and one town in Hyogo. The details remain sketchy, with Hyogo officials saying last week they were waiting to find out who, exactly, from the U.S. side will be coming and what they’ll be doing. “This training exercise will involve the U.S. military, the Self-Defense Forces, the coast guard, local police and fire departments, and local bureaucrats. It aims to have the U.S. military and the SDF work together, and the U.S. role will be to participate in drills involving the use of helicopters,” Hyogo Gov. Tetsuzo Ido told reporters last month. “However, what the exact role of the U.S. will be is still under discussion.” He added that Ospreys would not take part, but that the aircraft might be used in a separate drill involving the seven-prefecture, four-city Union of Kansai Governments. Over the coming months, as the Diet discusses further legislation related to the collective defense reinterpretation, questions about what the local impact might be are likely to arise. With nationwide local elections scheduled for next spring, there will be pressure on Abe by local LDP chapters to be more attuned to local voter attitudes not only toward self-defense, but also toward a range of issues on which the prime minister and his Cabinet are increasingly perceived as being too Tokyo-centric. At the same time, more Kansai leaders are starting to view recent events as a chance to push for, or at least discuss, greater SDF and U.S. military involvement in local disaster preparation drills and response planning. From their point of view, such moves constitute a local version of “reinterpreting collective self-defense,” one that is much more immediately visible than the one approved by Abe’s Cabinet.

kyoto;shiga;collective self-defense;kansai

jp0000256

2014/07/16

Mitsubishi Estate to tap Otemachi for new hot spring facility

Tourists and local residents in the Otemachi business district will soon be able to enjoy a natural hot spring bath in the heart of Tokyo, after real-estate giant Mitsubishi Estate Co. confirmed Tuesday it had successfully tapped a hot spring source and would proceed with plans to build a bathing facility. Mitsubishi Estate hopes the authentic hot spring baths will provide visitors with insight into Japanese culture, and lure a multitude of foreign visitors to the area during the 2020 Olympic Games. The “Otemachi Onsen” is the first natural hot spring dug up in the area. The source was discovered at a 11.2-sq.-kilometer site originally designated for the construction of a hotel and office complex. The area has recently undergone a wave of development aimed at cementing its status as a business center and strengthening industry support services. Work on the site began this year and is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2016. The baths will be offered at a facility fed by water pumped up from 1,500 meters below the ground at a rate of 240 liters per minute. The company said it plans to route the hot spring water to other sports and housing facilities within the district at a later date, and will disclose which facilities are fed by the hot spring source to volunteers and disaster relief teams in the event of emergency situations. Mitsubishi Estate said the water will be pumped at a temperature of 36.5 degrees Celsius and contains high levels of sodium chloride. The company claims it can provide visitors with relief from muscle and joint pains, as well as provide other therapeutic benefits such as alleviating digestive disorders and helping to regulate the autonomic nervous system.

mitsubishi estate;otemachi

jp0000257

2014/07/17

Microsoft expected to announce huge job cuts this week

NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp is planning its biggest round of job cuts in five years as the software maker looks to integrate Nokia Oyj’s handset unit, Bloomberg reported, citing sources with knowledge of the company’s plans. The reductions, expected to be announced as soon as this week, could be in the Nokia unit and the parts of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as in marketing and engineering, Bloomberg reported. Since absorbing the handset business of Nokia this spring, Microsoft has 127,000 employees, far more than rivals Apple Inc and Google Inc. Wall Street is expecting Chief Executive Satya Nadella to make some cuts, which would represent Microsoft’s first major layoffs since 2009. The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, the report said. Some of the job cuts will be in marketing departments for businesses such as the global Xbox team, and among software testers, while other job cuts may result from changes Nadella is making to the engineering organization, Bloomberg reported. Last week, Nadella circulated a memo to employees promising to “flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes” but deferred any comment on widely expected job cuts at the software company. Nadella said he would address detailed organizational and financial issues for the company’s new financial year, which started at the beginning of this month, when Microsoft reports quarterly results on July 22. Microsoft could not be immediately reached for comment outside regular business hours.

microsoft;nokia;job cuts;overlap

jp0000260

2014/07/19

If chimps inherit their intelligence, does that prove humans do, too?

Some people are smarter than others. And though animal intelligence is far less well studied, it turns out that within a particular population, say of chimpanzees, some animals are smarter than others, too — and these differences are heritable. To put it another way, some chimps’ mothers are smarter than other chimps’ mothers. There are few thornier subjects than human intelligence, and specifically, the idea that it has a genetic basis. If we have been concerned by facing up to the evidence in humans, will we accept it any more easily in our chimp cousins? That’s the question posed by biologists who have studied the heritability of intelligence in chimps. It’s an interesting question. While we are relatively happy to accept that traits such as height and eye color come from our parents, it makes us uncomfortable to conclude that the same is true of intelligence. The role of genetics in animal intelligence has been even less fully investigated. We are right to be uncomfortable about humans. Intelligence is a much more complicated trait than height, so it will be harder to find evidence that it has a heritable component. Even setting that aside, the idea that we are stuck with the cards we’ve been dealt at birth is a hard one to swallow. We like to think that we are all equal and we get where we are through hard work. There’s another issue: The most commonly used test for intelligence, IQ, is itself rife with problems. And there are still worse taboos. If we were to allow that intelligence was genetic, the very real fear is that some people would start arguing that (say) men are smarter than women, or that some races are intellectually superior to others. It is by no means an idle worry. The former president of Harvard University had to resign in 2006 after saying that there weren’t enough high-IQ women around. And a book in the 1990s, “The Bell Curve,” generated huge controversy with its linkage of racial groups and intelligence. Going back further, the examples become worse. In the late 19th century, Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton founded the Eugenics Education Society. Believing that intelligence was strongly genetically determined, he suggested that genetically “superior” people should be allowed to have children, while “inferior” people should be sterilized. The idea did huge damage, catching on in the United States, where thousands of people were sterilized, and in Germany, where it was embraced by the Nazis. So you can see why evidence that there is indeed a genetic component to intelligence has been viewed with suspicion. Many studies, and in particular comparisons of identical and nonidentical twins raised together and raised apart, have found that there is a strongly heritable component to intelligence. IQ turns out to be about 50 percent heritable. This means that half of the differences in intelligence between different people can be put down to genetic factors. For height, the proportion is 90 percent. This view seems to have percolated down into general knowledge. Most people would take the common-sense view that if you have clever parents, you’re already on the road to being clever yourself, but also that the opportunities you get during your childhood and youth will go a long way to influencing how smart you become. It turns out that a similar proportion of chimp intelligence is now known to be heritable. The last time I spoke with Tetsuro Matsuzawa — the renowned head of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University — he emphasized how smart chimps are. “We underestimate chimpanzee intelligence,” he said. Now a new paper demonstrates what Matsuzawa knows to be true from his close work with wild and captive chimps: Some are smarter than others. William Hopkins, of Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, and colleagues studied 99 captive chimps (from age 9 to 54) and had them perform 13 different tasks. Because the chimps’ backgrounds are known, the researchers are able to account for genetics and the environment in which each animal was raised, and so are able to separate out the proportion of ability that is down to genetics. They found that about 50 percent of the variation in chimp ability is down to their genes. (The results are in the journal Current Biology, DOI reference 10.1016/j.cub.2014.05.076.) “As is the case in humans, genes matter when it comes to cognitive abilities in chimpanzees,” says Hopkins. “It doesn’t mean that they are the only factor determining cognitive abilities, but they cannot be ignored.” Another interesting spinoff of this research is that it could illuminate our understanding of human intelligence. In chimps we don’t have to worry about what socioeconomic background they came from, or which school they attended. Eventually, the Yerkes team says, the work may uncover particular genes that are related to intelligence. This is an intensely debated subject. So far, no genes have been definitively linked to intelligence. (There have, on the other hand, been genes linked to adult weight and, of course, to many different genetic diseases.) Even the thought of it is enough to make people invoke “Brave New World” and “Gattaca” — fictional explorations of societies where people are stratified according to their genes. I spoke to Matsuzawa again this week, and he is not surprised by the Yerkes results. “Genetic and environmental factors both must be important,” he says. “The question is, how?” Matsuzawa says his team have sequenced the genome of one of their “prodigy” chimps, Ayumu, and that of Ayumu’s super-smart mother, Ai, and his father, Akira. “You can see what is inherited from the father and what is from the mother,” says Matsuzawa. “That’s exciting.” Hopkins says, “What specific genes underlie the observed individual differences in cognition is not clear, but pursuing this question may lead to candidate genes that changed in human evolution and allowed for the emergence of some human-specific specializations in cognition.” He stops short of suggesting that we might actually find genes underlying differences in human intelligence. But candidate genes will no doubt be found. And then we can expect an intense burst of controversy and soul-searching.

nature;genetics

jp0000263

2014/07/07

Asakusa paints traditional Tokyo in a popular light

As one of Japan’s representative tourist destinations, the Asakusa district never ceases to attract people looking for a taste of traditional downtown Tokyo. The 30 million visitors it draws each year are a testament to its popularity. Typically, an Asakusa tour starts by entering the Kaminarimon Gate of Sensoji Temple, the district’s definitive symbol and landmark. With its enormous red paper lantern hanging from the middle beam, it is one of the most recognizable sites in Japanese travel photos. Inside is Nakamise, one of the city’s oldest surviving arcades, with a history dating back to the Edo Period (1603-1868). While some shops sell tacky souvenirs targeting tourists, others are more established and have been in place for more than a century. At the end of the long row of shops is the main building of Tokyo’s oldest temple, which, according to legend, was built in 628 to enshrine a statue of the Buddhist goddess of mercy that had been salvaged from the nearby Sumida River. The area flourished through the Meiji and Showa eras and played an important role in spreading popular forms of entertainment, including kabuki and “yose rakugo” houses, but gradually lost its sheen as a cultural center after 1964, the year Tokyo hosted Japan’s first Olympics. Alarmed by its declining popularity, residents have made various attempts to revitalize Asakusa, including holding an annual Samba Carnival and lighting up Kaminarimon and Sensoji. Thanks to these efforts, as well as the 2012 opening of nearby Tokyo Skytree, the world’s tallest broadcasting tower, Asakusa’s popularity is now back on an upward trajectory. The area is undergoing redevelopment targeted at the increase in international tourism expected ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

sensoji;asakusa;skytree;kaminarimon