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jp0010938

2016/01/20

Diet OK looms on bill to rectify rules that currently would prevent some young people from voting

Ruling and opposition parties agreed Tuesday to pass a bill soon to enable people aged 18 or 19 to vote in the House of Councilors election this summer even if they change their address shortly before the election. Japan is set to lower the voting age from 20 to 18 on June 19, and the Upper House election, likely to take place in July, will be the first national election in which voters under 20 cast a ballot. Under the current election system, municipal offices compile voter lists based on data of residents who live at the same address for more than three months. As a result, young new voters who move to a different address shortly before the election would not be able to exercise their right to vote. Lawmakers from ruling and opposition parties agreed to pass the bill to correct the election system through the House of Representatives on Thursday, making it certain the legislation will be enacted by the end of this month. Around 2.4 million people aged 18 or 19 will be newly given voting rights before the upcoming national election this summer. But some 70,000 are expected to be unable to vote unless the bill is enacted, according to an estimate by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Since Japan’s academic year starts in April, many high school graduates tend to move in the spring to start further education or work. “We intend to have voices of the youth reflected in politics,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a news conference. “The government will watch closely to see how deliberations (on the bill) will go.” Under the current election system, if the next Upper House election is set for July 10, the list of voters will be set on June 22, the day before the official election campaign starts. That would mean new voters aged 18 and 19 would not be registered in the voter list if they change their address in the three months through June 22, rendering them ineligible to vote. The envisioned bill would enable young people freshly given the voting right to exercise it in the voting district of their previous residence as long as they lived there for over three months, regardless of their age at the time.

upper house election;voters;japan;voting age;ruling bloc;addresses;voter lists

jp0010939

2016/01/18

Several U.S. contractors missing in Iraq

BAGHDAD - The U.S. Embassy said Sunday that “several” Americans have gone missing in Iraq, after local media reported that three Americans had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital. U.S. Embassy spokesman Scott Bolz said, “We are working in full cooperation with Iraqi authorities to locate the missing Americans.” Bolz did not identify the missing Americans or say what they were doing in Iraq. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that “due to privacy considerations” he had nothing further to add about the missing Americans. “The safety and security of Americans abroad is our highest priority,” Kirby said. The comments by U.S. officials came after the Arab news channel al-Arabiya, citing its own sources, reported that three Americans had been kidnapped by militias in Baghdad. Iraqi media reports said the Americans went missing in south Baghdad on their way to Baghdad International Airport. A Western security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said Sunday that he had been told that three Americans went missing 24 to 48 hours ago. There were no immediate claims of responsibility. Kidnappings in Iraq have been carried out by the Islamic State group and Shiite militias as well as criminal gangs demanding ransom payments or disgruntled employees seeking to resolve workplace disputes. The incident comes after a week that has seen a deterioration of security in and around the Iraqi capital after months of relative calm. The Islamic State group claimed a number of attacks in Baghdad and neighboring Diyala province last week that killed more than 50 people, including a high profile attack on a mall in the Iraqi capital. The string of Islamic State attacks on civilian targets within areas of Iraqi government control follow battlefield losses, most recently in western Iraq. Last month, Iraqi troops pushed Islamic State fighters out of the center of Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province in Iraq’s Sunni heartland. In acts of apparent reprisal, armed gangs residents identified as Shiite militias, attacked Sunni owned businesses and mosques in Diyala province just north of Baghdad. After Islamic State was pushed out of the province, security there was left almost entirely in the hands of Shiite militias. Responding to a call to arms from Shiite clerics in Iraq after the Islamic State group swept across the country’s northern and western provinces in the summer of 2014, Shiite militias in Iraq now wield more power than the country’s regular security forces and military.

u.s .;iraq;insurgencies

jp0010940

2016/01/18

Hun Sen chooses Singapore for checkup but says it's no comment on Cambodian health care

PHNOM PENH - Cambodia’s leader has gone to Singapore for an annual medical checkup, but has pointed out that this doesn’t mean he doesn’t trust the Cambodian health care system. In a message on his Facebook page Monday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said he has no critical illness and sought a checkup after spending “day and night” at work, leaving him little time to rest. Hun Sen said his presence in Singapore doesn’t mean “that I do not trust Cambodian physicians.” He says it was in fact advised by Singaporean and Cambodian doctors. Hun Sen has been in office for more than three decades, is known to often boast about his work and achievements. Thousands of Cambodians travel to neighboring Vietnam and Thailand every year because Cambodia lacks good medical facilities.

singapore;cambodia;hun sen

jp0010941

2016/01/18

Rescues point to dangers of searching out backcountry powder

Backcountry skiing and snowboarding have come under scrutiny after the recent rescue of two groups of skiers stranded in mountains in Nagano and Fukushima prefectures. Japan’s powder-covered mountains are attracting skiers and snowboarders from overseas, but the risk of being stranded, injured, or killed by an avalanche has prompted safety warnings from experts. The Japan Times looked into the situation surrounding the increasingly popular winter sports and the precautions needed. What happened to the skiers who were stranded in Nagano and Fukushima? Last week, two separate groups of six skiers were stranded while skiing outside regular trails, highlighting the risk of backcountry skiing. On Jan. 12, a group of six males from Finland were trapped in the mountains of the Nozawa Onsen ski resort in Nagano Prefecture after they were unable to climb back up a steep slope they had skied down, away from marked ski runs. Later the same afternoon, while the Finns were still missing, news broke about a group of six Australian men and women similarly trapped in snow after they became lost while backcountry skiing outside the Urabandai Nekoma ski resort in the village of Kitashiobara, Fukushima Prefecture. The Australians were found later that night, while the Finnish group were rescued by helicopter the following morning. The reports stood out because of their coincidence — two groups of the same number of overseas tourists stranded on the same day — the risks they faced are the same for everyone, said Hiroyuki Ogawa, a Nagano Prefecture tourism promotion official. “There were about 20 incidents involving backcountry activity at Nozawa Onsen resort alone (last season), and six or seven foreign nationals were among them,” Ogawa said. Why were they skiing off-piste? They were backcountry skiing, taking advantage of fresh powder snow, as opposed to the groomed slopes common on marked ski runs. “In a way, it’s the root of skiing as we know it,” said Toshio Mizutani, a licensed professional skier who operates outdoor adventure company PowerZone Co. in Nagoya, which operates skiing and snowboarding tours, including backcountry outings. “In the old days, we called it ‘mountain skiing,’ and it has since been enjoyed for a long time ago,” Mizutani said. “Just like in alpine skiing, backcountry skiers go down slopes, but they need to climb back up on foot, because there are no lifts or cable cars like the ones you use at regular skiing trails. That way, it combines elements of both skiing and mountaineering.” What are the risks of backcountry skiing? Backcountry skiers seek out untouched mountains, but in doing so they expose themselves to the same risks faced by winter mountaineers. As the latest incidents indicate, a major risk is getting stranded in snow and being unable to return to the point of departure. Getting caught up in an avalanche is another danger. Why is backcountry skiing and snowboarding popular? Gliding down untamed snow is something skilled skiers and snowboarders crave, said Gota Miura, a professional skier and sports commentator. “When you have advanced skills, you dream of gliding down untouched powder snow, and there are snowboards and skis designed specifically for such snow,” said Miura. “You can experience this feeling of floating in the air, which is so much different from the artificially prepared surface of a skiing course.” “It’s more like you’re on a cloud than snow,” said Miura, who famously accompanied his father, Yuichiro, 80, on a trek to reach the top of Mount Everest where he reclaimed his record of the oldest person to conquer the world’s highest summit. Mizutani of PowerZone described it as a “feeling of weightlessness,” adding, “It’s like what differentiates mountain climbing from just climbing up a steep road. Nothing can replace the feeling of being exposed to the majesty of nature.” How are ski resorts and local governments dealing with the surge in backcountry skiing and snowboarding? “Most skiing course operators separate the designated courses with ropes and discourage skiers and snowboarders from going into areas that are off-limits. But there are many people who go . . . into backcountry areas,” Miura said. “Given this situation, there are still few places that have addressed the risks of backcountry skiing.” Miura mentioned Mount Hakkoda in Aomori Prefecture and Tateyama in Toyama Prefecture as popular resorts for backcountry skiers and snowboarders. In Nagano Prefecture, which hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, measures to discourage backcountry activities vary by municipality, according to prefectural official Ogawa. “In the Nozawa Onsen resort . . . the village of Nozawa Onsen has introduced an ordinance to ban activities outside of designated courses, and they charge anyone who has used the local rescue squad,” he said. In Nagano, however, more and more resorts are intentionally encouraging the backcountry powder experience, he said. Elsewhere, Miura cited Niigata Prefecture’s Kagura resort and Hokkaido’s Niseko resort as two examples of places where backcountry skiing is allowed, but measures have been taken to improve safety for those people. They typically use a gate to limit people exiting regular courses at times of risky snow conditions or bad weather, and some monitor emergency locator beacons carried by those in backcountry areas. Recent years have seen an increase in foreign tourists at Japan’s ski resorts, such as the Finns and Australians who were rescued last week, making it necessary to warn non-Japanese of the dangers of backcountry skiing, said Hisato Okabe, a spokesman for travel agency JTB Corp. Tourists from Australia, in particular, have grown in number as they come to Japan to ski during their summer holidays. Their numbers grew rapidly after Australian Ross Findlay, a pioneer of the outdoor recreation business in Hokkaido, promoted Hokkaido’s Niseko resort back home. “Municipalities are warning foreign tourists, but we are feeling we also should do something about it,” Okabe said. What safety preparations should backcountry skiers and snowboarders take? People venturing outside regular ski slopes, where rescuers are routinely on standby, should carry adequate safety equipment. Miura recommends a locator beacon, which can transmit its position even if the wearer has been buried in an avalanche, a folding probe to pierce snow when trying to find someone buried, and a shovel to remove snow, as the minimum amount of equipment for backcountry skiers or snowboarders.

fukushima;nagano;skiing;snow;fyi;snowboarding;rescues;backcountry

jp0010942

2016/01/27

Syrian opposition sets new conditions, casting uncertainty on peace talks slated for Friday

BEIRUT - One of the major opposition blocs in the Syrian war said Wednesday that it was unlikely to attend imminent Geneva peace talks, specifying it would only join negotiations if sieges in the country are lifted and other conditions are met. The announcement cast further uncertainty on peace talks scheduled to begin in two days. Expectations are already low for any breakthroughs during talks that U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura has described as the start of a drawn-out process of consultation between various parties to the conflict, rather than actual peace negotiations between the warring sides. Khaled Nasser, a member of the Syrian National Coalition — one of the main opposition groups in the bloc — said Wednesday that he believed negotiations with limited ambitions would “waste time.” “Friday was never going to be the start of negotiations,” said Nasser. “De Mistura said it is for consultations and discussions…. We don’t want to waste time with consultations and discussions.” The talks are intended to start a political process to end the conflict that began in 2011 as a largely peaceful uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule but escalated into an all-out war after a harsh state crackdown. The plan calls for cease-fires in parallel to the talks, a new constitution and elections in a year and a half. In a sign of the complexity of the task, de Mistura said the delegations in Geneva would be sitting in separate rooms and he would shuttle between them to begin with. There have also been major tensions over who would be invited to the talks, and the opposition has demanded confidence-building measures from the government on humanitarian issues. In a statement released at the end of daylong meetings in Saudi Arabia late Tuesday, the opposition coalition known as the Higher Negotiating Committee referred to the “necessity of realizing genuine improvements on the ground before starting in the negotiating process.” The Saudi-backed committee is headed by Riyad Hijab, a former prime minister who defected to the opposition in 2012. It represents a bloc that includes the Syrian National Coalition, and many of the major rebel factions fighting in Syria. As well as the public statement released Tuesday, the bloc outlined its conditions for participating in the talks in a letter to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. While the group left open the possibility of its eventual participation in the talks scheduled to begin Friday, it said it awaits a reply from him on its conditions. The opposition has also accused Russia, a key backer of the Syrian government, of trying to “dictate” who from the opposition would participate. Moscow has insisted on the participation of the main Syrian Kurdish group — the Democratic Union Party, or PYD — which plays an important role in fighting the Islamic State group and is an essential part of any political settlement in Syria. Turkey, a major backer of the rebels, sees the PYD and its YPG militia as branches of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, which has waged a long insurgency against Ankara. Turkey has threatened to boycott the talks if the PYD is represented. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France-Culture radio on Wednesday that the PYD was not invited and acknowledged there are several hurdles facing the talks, including determining who will be present. “The PYD group, the Kurdish group, was causing the most problems, and Mr. de Mistura told me he had not sent them an invitation letter,” Fabius said. He said the Riyad-backed Higher Negotiating Committee should be the primary negotiator for the rebels. The Riyadh bloc is a broad coalition that includes several armed Islamic groups, such as the powerful Jaish al-Islam, which the Russian and Syrian governments consider as a terrorist group. It does not, however, include the Islamic State group or Nusra Front, two militant factions that control large areas of Syria and are not participating in peace talks.

syria;opposition;talks

jp0010943

2016/01/27

Man unwittingly triggers Rome security alert with toy gun

ROME - A man who unwittingly caused a major alert at Rome’s central station by wandering through the terminus holding a toy gun handed himself into police on Tuesday after his mother recognized him from security video. Police evacuated the vast station on Monday evening after receiving panicked calls that a lone gunman was on the loose. Heavily armed special forces were sent in but failed to find the suspect and called off the alert. Unknown to them, the man had caught a train home. “I had absolutely no idea that I had caused such a mess,” the 44-year-old man, who has not been named, was quoted as saying by Italian media. He told police a friend had given him the plastic machine gun for his young son. “It is for carnival,” he said. He went to the police after his mother recognized him from a picture that was shown on television and on the front pages of several dailies. “She said to me ‘they are looking for you.’ ” Italian media said the man does not face any charges.

terrorism;rome

jp0010944

2016/01/27

JR West chief gives blessing to Obama-Kyoto extension of Hokuriku Shinkansen Line

OSAKA - A plan by West Japan Railway Co. to the build an extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line between Obama, Fukui Prefecture, and the city of Kyoto has emerged as the front-runner in a tightly contested race, after the railway firm’s president gave it his blessing. However, with July’s Upper House election looming — and local leaders in Kansai all grappling to get the train to pass through their electoral districts — JR West’s preference may be but one factor in any final decision. Three possible routes between Tsuruga and Shin-Osaka were under formal review by a ruling project team. These included one that would bypass the city of Kyoto entirely, one that would go to Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, and one that would have to travel down the western shore of Lake Biwa to Kyoto, where passengers could change to the Tokaido Shinkansen. However, citing those routes’ rising costs and seeking one that would maximize passengers, JR West began informally discussing a fourth option. On Tuesday, the company announced this option as its preferred one. “We want the line to go through Kyoto Prefecture before extending to Osaka, and the foundation of the plan is for the train to pass through Kyoto Station,” said JR West President Seiji Manabe. His announcement sparked different reactions among local leaders. Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki, whose prefecture would be bypassed under the new plan, expressed concern, noting that JR West had yet to provide construction cost estimates for the plan. Mikazuki also noted that Tuesday’s announcement had come despite most Kansai prefectural governors — as well as the mayors of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe — having all backed the Maibara route in 2013. Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada was also apprehensive since the Obama-Kyoto route would not extend the line to Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast. Yamada has already begun soliciting local support in northern Kyoto for a Tsuruga-Kyoto route that would extend the line to Maizuru and then pass through seven prefectural cities and towns. The Kyoto Chamber of Commerce is also leaning toward this plan. The envisaged Maizuru route, however, lacks details — especially as regards associated costs. Still, much of this route lies within the electoral district of Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki, which could influence discussions within the ruling party’s project team in the coming months. The team hopes to whittle the proposals down to at least two final candidates before the Upper House election. What happens after that, though, remains unclear.

bullet trains;hokuriku shinkansen

jp0010945

2016/01/11

Public transit riders in 60 countries strip to undies for No Pants Day

NEW YORK - Thousands of New Yorkers thought it was a hot thing Sunday to strip to their underwear during winter and ride on public transportation, along with pantsless crowds in about 60 countries. “I’m a no-pant virgin,” declared a grinning Miguel Ramos amid New York’s No Pants Subway Ride. It was the Mexican-born restaurant worker’s first foray into the “international celebration of silliness,” as organizers billed it. The laughter-filled ritual started in the largest U.S. city in 2002 and has expanded nationwide and overseas, from Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas to London, Berlin, Prague and Vienna. It’s coordinated by Improve Everywhere, a global flash mob. New York participants were assigned personal numbers for central gathering spots in each city borough. “And then at, say, the third stop in Brooklyn, you take off your pants in the train,” explained Latesha Mack, who made it to Manhattan’s Union Square station in fishnet stockings below her panties. “So it’s not like, a bunch of people on one train with no pants.” While most clothed straphangers weaved their way through bare flesh, some were left shocked. A tall, elegant man — totally clothed — stopped in his tracks as he entered the station. “I asked the police, ‘What’s going on?’ and he said, ‘It’s no pants day,’ ” said Manhattan entrepreneur Mark Francis. “And I said, ‘what?’ “ The cop told him it was a “tradition.” More than 4,000 New Yorkers participated. In Phoenix, the city’s light rail system party included a pantsless outing to a pub. Nicole Black brought her Superman underwear from 40 miles (64 km) away for “a day off to have fun and enjoy and see what Phoenix has to offer” — including temperatures in the 50s (10 to 15 C) making the attire reasonably comfortable. Boston also enjoyed spring-like weather, with rain causing some riders to wipe the drops off their legs as they boarded trains. Even families took part everywhere, carrying babies bared to their diapers. And a Berlin woman had a cat’s face splashed across her — well, cheeks. At a London station, coats and scarves warded off the chill — at least from the waist up. Then there were the once shy types. Bill Murphy, a New York translator, said he didn’t realize he had certain talents until Sunday — wearing only a red bikini as he burst out gyrating amid the Union Square station crowd. “I’m 56 and I’m kind of proud of myself. At a senior age, it’s supposed to be not acceptable, but I want to change the perception of that: I’ve become an exhibitionist today,” he said.

transportation;stunts

jp0010946

2016/01/11

Abe goes home to meet with supporters

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went home Monday to Yamaguchi Prefecture to whip up support from his base, telling them he plans to win the Upper House election this summer and underscored the importance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “In order to achieve results, we need a stable basis. We have to win the Upper House election,” Abe told a meeting of his supporters in Shimonoseki. He said the TPP free trade deal, which was broadly agreed to in October by 12 nations accounting for 40 percent of the world economy, will bring a “significant chance for Japan.” While expected to help boost exports, the trade liberalization deal will also likely expose Japanese farmers to fierce competition with cheaper imports, sparking criticism of the government in rural areas where agriculture is a key industry. Abe arrived in his home district Sunday and attended meetings with supporters, during which he said he will continue pushing his economic stimulus policy. He also indicated he will step up unilateral sanctions against North Korea following its fourth nuclear test last week.

shinzo abe;tpp;upper house election

jp0010947

2016/01/11

Abe's constitutional revision hopes ride on July election, right-leaning opposition cooperation

Japan’s postwar pacifism will face a critical challenge this year that could drastically change the course of this country forever: the July Upper House election. Right-leaning parties, most notably the ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will try to capture more than two-thirds of the 242-seat chamber in the election, and thus have the seats required to initiate a national referendum to revise the war-renouncing Constitution. But which parties currently advocate constitutional revision? And how many seats are those parties likely to win in the election? The following are questions and answers on the numbers in the election and the prospects for the political battle over the Constitution. Why is the Upper House election regarded as critical to the fate of the Constitution? Article 96 of the Constitution states that it can only be amended through a national referendum that is to be initiated by the Diet with support of two-thirds or more of all members of both the Lower and Upper houses. Abe’s ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito now holds more than two-thirds of the 475-seat Lower House but doesn’t boast the same majority in the 242-seat Upper House. Abe, who is still personally popular with voters thanks to his economic policies, is the first-ever prime minister to openly express a willingness to revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. Believing now is a golden opportunity, right-leaning politicians and activists have been campaigning to help the LDP win as many seats as possible in the Upper House election to gain the political momentum for constitutional change. What chance does the ruling coalition have to win more than two-thirds of the 242-seat Upper House outright? Many observers believe the chances are slim now based on the current support rate for Abe’s Cabinet and the LDP in media polls. But together with other opposition forces that support revising Article 9, the coalition might altogether win more than two-thirds of the chamber, they said. Every three years, half of the 242 Upper House seats are contested in a summer election. Currently, the LDP holds 115 seats and Komeito 20, which adds up to 135 seats, including that of Upper House President and LDP member Masaaki Yamazaki. Of those, 76 LDP and Komeito members are not facing re-election in the summer poll. This means the LDP-Komeito coalition needs to win 86 seats to occupy more than two-thirds — or 162 seats or more — of the chamber. This hurdle seems to be rather high when compared with the results of the 2013 Upper House poll. Back then, the LDP-Komeito coalition enjoyed a victory by winning 76 seats in total. At that time, the support rate for Abe’s Cabinet stood at 57 percent and that of the LDP was 42.4 percent, according to a poll conducted by NHK shortly before the election. The latest NHK poll in December showed the support rate for Abe’s Cabinet stood at 46 percent in December, and that for the LDP was 37.5 percent. This may be why Abe is desperately trying to focus on economic issues to keep voters happy ahead of the election, while maintaining a low-profile on other contentious issues that could dent his popularity. Will any opposition parties cooperate with the LDP on the Constitution revision? How those parties fare in the July poll may be key to whether they can help Abe accomplish his referendum goal. In the Upper House there are three minor parties willing to revise some articles of the Constitution, possibly including Article 9. They are Osaka Ishin no Kai, which now has seven Upper House members; Nippon wo Genki ni Suru Kai (The Assembly to Energize Japan ) with six and Nihon no Kokoro wo Taisetsu ni suru To (Party for Japanese Kokoro) with four, making up 17 seats altogether. “If you add those parties (to the ruling bloc), (the pro-revision) forces could occupy more than two-thirds in total, which would open the way for constitutional revision,” said Koji Nakakita, professor of politics at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. Will revising Article 9 be a focal issue in the July poll campaigns? This remains to be seen, as the situation is a complex one. To revise the Constitution, it is necessary to gain a majority of all votes cast for the national referendum, but various polls have suggested most voters oppose changing the charter. A poll by the Yomiuri Shimbun taken in March suggested 60 percent of respondents want Article 9 left as is, while only 35 percent said it should be revised. This ratio has not changed significantly in the past decade. Pro-revision lawmakers say they will first advocate revising other articles in a bid to remove the psychological barrier for amending the 69-year-old Constitution, which has remained intact since its promulgation in November 1946. When it comes to revising the Constitution, rather than trying to revise Article 9, LDP lawmakers have suggested the party first propose creating a new article to give the prime minister extraordinary powers in emergencies. Komeito is likely to agree to that revision, although the party is reluctant to support the LDP’s drive to rewrite Article 9. The Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties, however, would oppose any revision of the Constitution, believing it could be a Trojan horse to open the way for revising Article 9.

shinzo abe;liberal democratic party;constitution;upper house election

jp0010948

2016/01/29

Japan at risk if West unable to confront growing geopolitical threats, says analyst

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - The world can expect more geopolitical conflicts that will also impact Japan if Western powers fail to tackle global issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis and the rise of terrorism, according to leading political risk analyst Ian Bremmer. “I think the real worry about the geopolitical environment is that we are setting in motion a world that is much more fragmented, a world where conflicts will grow and no one will respond to it effectively,” Bremmer, who heads research and consulting firm the Eurasia Group, told The Japan Times during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week. “I believe we are in this ‘G-zero world,’ so we are going to see much more geopolitical conflict,” said Bremmer, who coined the word “G-zero world,” which refers to a vacuum of power in international politics due to a decline in Western powers the G-7 and G-20. Dominating last week’s discussion among leaders who gathered in Davos was the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, declining oil prices after Iran’s re-entry into the oil market, Britain’s possible exit from the European Union and China’s economic slowdown. Due to growing opposition against its refugee intake, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a regular at the WEF’s annual meeting, canceled her trip to Davos. In her place German President Joachim Gauck delivered a speech, saying Germany may introduce measures to limit the number of refugees entering the country in the near future. Such a strategy is “morally and politically necessary” to preserve the state’s ability to function, he said. “Merkel is really losing leadership on refugees. . . (Gauck) basically gave permission to everyone in Merkel’s coalition to come out against her. This is a real problem,” Bremmer, who lives in New York and Washington, said. He also pointed out that unlike the time when East and West Germany reunited in 1989, the U.S. was not providing enough support for Germany. “Americans were there for Germany when the (Berlin) Wall came down. We were there, and the entire alliance really responded,” Bremmer said. “This was a tough thing to do and it took a lot of courage. It was enormously expensive, but everyone supported it. Now, we are not there and the walls are going up. Nobody is there for Merkel.” Without a unifying sense of crisis among the U.S. and European countries, Japan’s biggest partners as industrial democracies, Japan will also be vulnerable in the long term, he warned. China may be flexing its political muscle, but Beijing isn’t in the driver’s seat to tackle global issues, he said. Bremmer said China may become a big risk to Japan in the next five to 10 years. China’s growth will be open to question, as it has many internal problems, including weak exports and investment, he said, questioning the Chinese government’s ability to control its economy and political forces in order to open its market. China gross domestic product grew 6.9 percent in 2015, figures released last week show, slightly lower than the government’s forecast of 7 percent but a significant drop from the 7.3 percent growth in 2014. “If China starts having serious problems in the medium to long term, not only will the Japanese economy be exposed to that, but you could also see the real rise of nationalism in China, which is very dangerous to (Japan),” he said. Because of these uncertainties, Bremmer welcomed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s recent diplomatic efforts to reach out to India, Southeast Asia and other regions that provide alternatives to China. In December, Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to introduce Japan’s bullet train technology to India, and formalized a civil nuclear cooperation pact. “Abe really is reaching out to the Indian government at the recent summit, and I thought it was a big win for Japan,” Bremmer said . “I think it is really important for the Japanese to get India right. It’s a great edge and it’s also a great market for the Japanese in the long term.”

india;terrorism;syria;davos;refugees;wef;ian bremmer;eurasia group

jp0010949

2016/01/29

Rules fixed for new voters deprived of chance to cast ballot due to changes of address

A law addressing a flaw in Japan’s voting rules was enacted in the Diet Thursday ahead of the lowering of the voting age to 18 from 20, ensuring new voters will not miss the chance to cast ballots just because they have changed their addresses before an election. The revised Public Offices Election Law is expected to go into force on June 19, when the voting age will also be lowered. The rules are likely to be first applied to an Upper House election scheduled in the summer. The House of Councilors passed a bill to revise the law on Thursday after the House of Representatives cleared it last week. According to a government estimate, some 70,000 of the 2.4 million new voters aged 18 or 19 were expected to become ineligible to vote in the Upper House election as voting rules had prevented those who move to a different municipality less than three months before an election from casting a ballot. Since Japan’s academic year runs from April to March, many high school graduates tend to move in the spring to start further education or work. That has raised concerns that the number of votes cast by young people would be limited in the upcoming election, while the government seeks to raise their interest in and increase their participation in politics. The latest revision will allow people who have moved to different municipalities to vote in their old municipalities as long as they had lived in the latter for at least three months, but no longer than four months have passed since they moved out. If, as floated by some political pundits, the Upper House election is set for July 10 with official campaigning starting on June 23, voters who move out on March 23 or later would have been deprived of their chance to vote if the law had not been revised. The voting age in Japan was last changed in 1945, when it was lowered to 20 from 25.

diet;upper house election;japan;voting age

jp0010950

2016/01/29

Rengo to focus on monthly pay in wage-hike talks, not annual income

This year’s shunto spring wage talks should focus on raising monthly pay rather than annual pay, Rikio Kozu, president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), said in an interview Thursday. Keidanren called on member companies to raise annual pay, including bonuses and allowances. Kozu said higher monthly pay will encourage consumers to spend more than higher bonuses do, calling on employers to raise monthly pay scales. The last two years of shunto talks “reaped certain results,” said Kozu, head of the largest labor union group in Japan, citing high levels of pay scale increase. A pay scale increase should continue for more years to come so that consumers will think wages will continue to rise, he said. Kozu also sought to narrow wage gaps between large and smaller companies. Rengo hosted meetings in some regions last year that brought together employers and municipal officials to discuss labor conditions at small and midsize companies. The meetings were based on the belief that improving labor conditions at small and midsize companies is essential for regional revitalization, Kozu said. This year, Rengo plans to hold such meetings in all 47 prefectures. “We will remain active in exchanging opinions with small companies,” Kozu said.

keidanren;rengo;shunto;wage talks;rikio kozu

jp0010951

2016/01/16

Murakami is right about jazz and the brain

“Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering.” The above line is from the English translation of Haruki Murakami’s 1985 novel, “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.” It offers a theory on the way in which the brain perceives the world. Famous for his wildly successful experimental fiction, Murakami is also crazy about jazz. So it’s fascinating to learn that what Murakami has intuitively written about composing music — that the creative process of making music, particularly jazz, is linked to emotion — has now been confirmed by brain scans. U.S. neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, scanned the brains of jazz pianists while the musicians were improvising songs on a small keyboard. The scientists found that brain circuits known to be involved in creativity changed their activity when different emotions are expressed. In other words, emotion — in this case, simply whether the musician was creating happy or sad music — caused different parts of the brain’s “creativity network” to operate. “The bottom line is that emotion matters,” says Charles Limb, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. “It can’t just be a binary situation in which your brain is one way when you’re being creative and another way when you’re not. Instead, there are greater and lesser degrees of creative states, and different versions. And emotion plays a crucially important role in these differences.” This might sound obvious. You might imagine that sometimes you may be feeling incredibly creative and inspired, and other times less so, and that these periods of varying creativity are linked to emotion. That may indeed be the case, but it doesn’t mean that it’s the same creativity circuit just operating at different speeds. As Limb says, the new research suggests that creativity cannot be fully explained in terms of the activation or deactivation of a fixed network of brain regions. Instead, when creative acts engage brain areas involved in emotional expression, activity in these regions strongly influences which parts of the brain’s creativity network are activated and to what extent. Scientitsts have conducted a number of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study creativity. Musical improvisation, freestyle rapping and the rendering of caricatures are creative acts that occur in real time. They primarily don’t draw on planned or stored ideas, but on spontaneous thoughts. They are, therefore, perfect behaviors to study in a lab. We already know from previous experiments that this sort of spontaneous creation deactivates a brain region known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which is involved in planning and monitoring behavior. You can imagine that when this constraint is taken away, ideas can flow more easily. This is why pyschologists sometimes talk about artists getting into a “groove” when they are working. In the new study, published in the January issue of the journal Scientific Reports, researchers had jazz pianists playing a small keyboard while looking at a photograph. They were asked to improvise melodies to capture the emotion shown in the photograph, which was either a woman smiling or the same woman looking sad. The results showed that deactivation of the DLPFC was greater when the musicians were creating happy music. In other words, the state of flow could be entered more easily when working on positive creations. When working on sad tunes, however, the brain’s reward centers were more active. These regions reinforce behaviors that lead to pleasurable outcomes. “There’s more deactivation of the DLPFC during happy improvisations, perhaps indicating that people are getting into more of a ‘groove’ or ‘zone,'” says lead author Malinda McPherson, “but during sad improvisations there’s more recruitment of areas of the brain related to reward.” McPherson, who is herself a violist, says this suggests there may be different mechanisms that determine why it’s pleasurable to create happy versus sad music. Brain-scanning studies are extremely difficult to interpret correctly. For example, just looking at a happy or sad image of a woman will induce all sorts of different kinds of brain activity. So to attempt to control for this the researchers also scanned the musicians’ brains while they just passively looked at the photos. They then subtracted the resulting brain patterns from what was recorded when the musicians were improvising. The results should give scientists a better idea of the components of brain activity in emotional regions that are strongly associated with creating improvisations. The musicians were not prompted to make happy or sad music, but just to try and convey the emotion in the image they saw. “The notion that we can study complex creativity in artists and musicians from a neuroscientific perspective is an audacious one, but it’s one that we’re increasingly comfortable with,” Limb says. Murakami has spoken in the past about how he first got into jazz. He saw a jazz band in Kobe when he was 15 and was “thunderstruck.” “Inside my head,” he wrote in The New York Times in 2007, “I did often feel as though something like my own music was swirling around in a rich, strong surge. I wondered if it might be possible for me to transfer that music into writing. That was how my style got started.” Murakami wrote that he enjoyed free improvisation the best. “Through some special channel,” he said, “the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow.” That we are now starting to understand the process of human creativity is like exploring the “hard-boiled wonderland” in us all. I would love to know what Murakami thinks about this.

music;creativity

jp0010953

2016/01/28

Japan unveils first homegrown stealth fighter prototype

A prototype of the first Japan-made stealth fighter was unveiled to the media Thursday at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. factory in central Japan. The Defense Ministry’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency displayed the prototype, which was developed by a consortium of domestic companies led by Mitsubishi Heavy, at the plant in the town of Toyoyama, Aichi Prefecture. The fighter will first undergo ground tests before making its maiden flight in mid-February or later. The country’s first domestically made stealth fighter — 14.2 meters long, 9.1 meters wide and 4.5 meters high — is scheduled to fly from Nagoya airport, which is adjacent to the factory, to the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force’s Gifu Air Base in Kakamigahara in neighboring Gifu Prefecture. The agency said the development of a full-scale test model began in fiscal 2009, with costs for the program totaling about ¥39.4 billion (about $331 million). The fighter features stealth capabilities, with the use of carbon fiber absorbing radio waves and making it difficult for radar to detect the aircraft. The agency plans to assess data obtained from the prototype and decide by fiscal 2018 whether to develop domestically or engage in joint international development of aircraft to replace the ASDF’s F-2 fighter.

mitsubishi heavy industries;mhi;stealth fighter

jp0010955

2016/01/10

Musician leaves $2.6 million violin on German train, and gets it back

BERLIN - German police say they have recovered a violin worth $2.6 million that a musician had mistakenly left on a train. A spokesman for German federal police says the woman forgot the violin when she stepped off a local train between Mannheim and Saarbruecken in the west of the country. She alerted police who were able to recover the instrument, described as a General Dupont Grumiaux Stradivarius made in 1727. Police spokesman Dieter Schwan said in an email that the unidentified musician was American.

music;accidents;history;germany

jp0010956

2016/01/19

Court rules pop idol has right to pursue happiness, can date

The Tokyo District Court has rejected a damages suit filed by a talent agency against a former member of an idol pop group for breach of contract because she dated a fan. The court ruled Monday that the contract restricted her freedom to pursue happiness. The same court in September ruled that a different former teen group member should pay compensation for having a romance in defiance of the ban on dating imposed on many idol entertainers. In the latest lawsuit, the talent agency based in Tokyo argued it could seek compensation from the 23-year-old woman based on a clause in the contract. The clause stated that compensation can be requested when losses stem from an idol group member dating a fan. But Judge Katsuya Hara said that the contract “significantly restricts the freedom to pursue happiness” and that whether to go out on a date falls under “the right to self-determination,” which is equal to “living in a way one wants to.” He also said cases in which compensation can be requested are limited. The woman signed the contract with the talent agency in April 2012. After she started going out with the male fan, she told the agency in July 2014 that she wanted to annul the contract. In the other ruling in September, the Tokyo District Court said revelation of a love affair “deteriorates the image of idols” and ordered the former female teenage idol group member to pay ¥650,000 in compensation. Judge Akitomo Kojima also said in that case that the dating ban clause was “necessary for idols to win the support of male fans.” The six-member idol group, which debuted in July 2013, disbanded that October after the woman was found to have dated a male fan. The judgment was finalized in the following month as the woman did not appeal the ruling.

courts;idols;fans;dating

jp0010957

2016/01/19

Dollar-savvy Yokosuka businesses targeting Japanese currency stashes

The city of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, home to the U.S. 7th Fleet, has no problem extracting dollars from the hands of American sailors. What it really wants to do is prize greenbacks from the pockets of Japanese customers. A private-sector estimate puts that amount at more than ¥1 trillion, in bills and loose change left over from trips overseas. In 2013, the Yokosuka city office began a campaign offering gifts to Japanese tourists who collect stamps at shops in the area after paying for goods in dollars. The campaign initially involved some 50 shops, mainly those on the Dobuita-dori shopping street. That’s the strip near the main gate of the military base that is flanked by restaurants and bars with English signs. The 2015 campaign saw about 90 shops participate. The stores receive payment in dollars and convert it into yen at banks or at currency exchanges across the city. Three years ago, a knife shop put up a sign that read “U.S. Dollars Here!” But few Japanese use their dollars there: It is foreign tourists who tend to buy Japanese-made kitchen knives with the U.S. currency, a female employee, 64, said. In October, when the campaign was underway, the city conducted a survey, finding that sales remained level from a year earlier at 48 shops, decreased at nine and increased at 23. The government prepared a new pamphlet in December to enhance public recognition of shops accepting payment in dollars. It also runs a campaign promotion bus. “We will expand it by stages,” said a city official in charge. But some say what is poorly known is the fact that the cash is always accepted there. “Few people probably know that payment in dollars is accepted all year round instead of during the campaign,” said a 47-year-old restaurant owner. The municipal government should make the U.S. currency acceptable “not only on the Dobuita-dori street area but also in the rest of the city,” he added.

tourism;yokosuka;shopping;currencies

jp0010958

2016/01/26

Diamond-topped chocolate cake on sale as Japan gears up for Valentine's Day

OSAKA - It would break your teeth and your wallet. A diamond-topped chocolate cake is among the more extravagant marketing gimmicks on offer this year as Osaka department stores kicked off their Valentine’s Day confectionery sales campaigns on Tuesday. The cake is topped with 125 diamonds and has a price tag of ¥14.1 million. It will be available from Wednesday at Takashimaya Osaka Store, when the store launches its range of Valentine’s products. The Kintetsu department store at Abeno Harukas, Japan’s tallest building, has some 120 different brands of chocolate on offer, including truffles at ¥1,800 apiece. The Hankyu Department Store in central Osaka, which will also start its Valentine’s sales on Wednesday, touted a range of domestic and imported chocolate that it says is exclusive to the store. A tradition has arise in Japan — fueled by the tireless efforts of marketers — that it is women who must purchase chocolate for Valentine’s Day for the men in their lives. It is the men’s turn later in the year. This year, the department stores have focused their lineups on products for women buying for themselves. This is because Feb. 14 this year is a Sunday and they expect a drop in sales of chocolates intended to be given out at workplaces.

valentine 's day;chocolate

jp0010959

2016/01/21

Sharp gets ¥600 billion offer from Foxconn

TAIPEI - Foxconn Technology Group has offered about ¥600 billion to buy struggling electronics maker Sharp Corp., according to a person familiar with the talks, in what could mark the largest acquisition since 2009 for the assembler of Apple Inc.’s iPhones. A decision to accept or reject the bid is expected before the end of January, the source said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. However, Sharp is leaning toward accepting a rescue bid by the government-backed Innovation Network Corp. of Japan despite its reportedly lower offer, according to two people familiar with the talks. A deal with INCJ would allow Sharp to keep its technology within Japan and cooperate more closely with domestic companies, said the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Chu Wen-min, a spokesman for Foxconn’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., declined to comment Thursday. In 2012, Foxconn offered ¥66.9 billion for a 9.88 percent stake in the supplier of electronics and components. Those discussions foundered after both sides failed to agree on management control, but they were said to have been revived in the past year after Sharp turned to INCJ for possible funding as a new round of debt payments approaches. Foxconn is interested in expanding its business beyond the assembly of products and logistics by adding a wider array of components to its offerings. Sharp, one of the world’s largest makers of displays for smartphones and tablets, could gain more business from Apple and other Foxconn customers like Amazon.com Inc. and Xiaomi Corp. “There need to be core products around which Sharp can build a market position. What those will be isn’t clear, regardless of which side they join,” said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co. in Tokyo. “Outside of short-term speculators, most investors will stay away from Sharp’s shares until the final details are settled.” The Japanese company’s shares surged as much as 25 percent in Tokyo. They closed 6 percent higher on Thursday, taking the firm’s market value to about ¥218 billion. The stock dropped 53 percent last year and 20 percent in 2014. Sharp is considering a $5.3 billion offer from Foxconn and a competing bid from INCJ, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Sharp had a total debt of ¥791.8 billion as of Sept. 30, data show. The Osaka-based company has booked more than ¥1.1 trillion in losses over the past four fiscal years..

sharp;foxconn technology group;hon hai precision industry

jp0010960

2016/01/09

Low wages at the heart of foreign labor shortage woes

There has been a lot of discussion recently about allowing more foreign workers into Japan to make up for severe labor shortages in some fields. As of the end of 2014, the labor ministry estimated there were 790,000 foreign nationals working in Japan legally, which is more than the number of national civil servants (640,000). However, the Japan Civil Liberties Union believes that many employers don’t report the number of foreign workers they use, so the number could be more than 1 million if you go by Ministry of Justice statistics about immigration. A question that is rarely asked, however, is what sort of conditions and wages can foreign workers expect if more were permitted to immigrate? Officially, the government has said that before it accepts foreign labor it needs to maximize the use of the current potential Japanese workforce, then it will decide which kind of foreign labor is best for boosting the domestic economy. The most favored demographic is foreign workers with good education and needed skills. However, it’s likely that such people are just as valued, if not more so, in their native countries, so it seems unlikely they would go out of their way to seek employment in Japan. After that, the government says it will bring in workers as caregivers for the aging population. The main question about these workers is: How long will they be permitted to stay, and will they be allowed to bring dependents or family members? The principal sticking point is manual laborers who will do the work that Japanese people don’t appear to want to do. At the moment, the only non-Japanese who take on this sort of work legally are those who are already allowed to be in Japan for other reasons, as well as so-called trainees, who are supposed to be here to learn a skill they can take back to their respective countries. However, it’s generally assumed that they are here mainly to fill manual labor positions in factories or on farms, and for pay that is below the minimum wage. As part of its business growth strategy, the government is now considering extending trainee visas from three to five years. But even non-Japanese who are legal immigrants and can work freely are often taken advantage of by the system. A recent article in the Asahi Shimbun profiled a man from Bolivia with Japanese ancestry who came to Japan 18 years ago. He currently works for a temporary agency that has dispatched him to Fukushima Prefecture to clean up areas contaminated by radiation. He makes ¥16,000 a day, and says it is the most money he has ever made. However, the environment ministry has “instructed” companies who provide this type of work to pay ¥25,000 a day, although they aren’t required to do so. And while the Bolivian man says that he is satisfied with his pay and the work situation, he had to go to an outside labor union to help him collect wages that weren’t paid to him last summer. He mentions three other non-Japanese colleagues who have had the same problem. This isn’t to say that these men are being exploited simply because they are not Japanese. But the kinds of jobs they can expect to get are often open to exploitation because the workers don’t have much power nor the ability to communicate readily with employers. The company they work for in Fukushima first told the temporary agency that dispatched them that it didn’t want foreign workers because it thought they would “cause problems.” The only reason they ended up taking them was because they couldn’t find anyone else for the job. Another sector that the government is talking about in relation to using foreign labor is housekeeping, which traditionally was not a recognized occupation in Japan except when it comes to the hotel industry. The reasoning given by the government for opening up this field to immigration is that it could help more Japanese women enter the workforce. The government is expected to start accepting non-Japanese for housekeeping work this March, at least in specially designated “economic zones,” on condition that they stay for no longer than three years. In order to get an idea of what this situation might turn into, the Asahi interviewed some foreign housekeepers who are already working here. Usually, they are Southeast Asian women married to Japanese men. A 42-year-old Filipino woman who speaks Japanese that is “good enough for everyday communication” works for a woman in Shibuya, Tokyo, for two shifts a week, three hours per shift. She is paid ¥1,500 an hour plus transportation expenses. The housekeeper actually works for a service, which says it has 3,000 customers at the moment and is now looking for more workers as the government increases the number of special economic zones. Another temporary employment agency, Pasona, is planning to bring 30 women from the Philippines to Japan under the new program and is currently training them in Japanese language and housekeeping skills in Manila. However, their visas will essentially be the same as a trainee’s, which means they will be limited in scope and period of stay. Pasona’s long-term idea is to provide housekeepers for companies where employees may need extra help with housework due to work obligations. The companies would call Pasona on a needs basis. The problem here is that such solutions may simply exacerbate the problem of overwork that tends to be endemic in Japanese companies. The main difference between housekeepers in Japan and those overseas is that the law in Japan prohibits live-in maids. Nevertheless, as one lawyer interviewed by the Asahi points out, if the employment of housekeepers becomes more widespread they could supplant more dedicated workers in other occupations, such as day care personnel and caregivers, since housekeepers could mind children and the elderly in the home, thus driving down wages for those occupations. One of the main problems in the field of day care and elderly care is that turnover is high because the pay is already considered too low. If the government really wants to maximize the untapped Japanese workforce before hiring more foreign workers, it has to get wages up.

foreign workers;day care;hospitality;housekeeping;manual labor

jp0010961

2016/01/31

Myanmar, Japan-linked consortium reach agreement on new airport plan

YANGON - The Myanmar government and a consortium that includes Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. has reached a broad agreement over a plan to construct a new airport on the outskirts of the country’s largest city, Yangon. With the deal, the consortium, which also includes Singapore’s Changi Airport Group, came a step closer Saturday to receiving a formal order for the airport construction project and its estimated $1.5 billion price tag. In October 2014, Myanmar granted preferential negotiating rights for the project to the consortium. The Myanmar government plans to build the new Hanthawaddy international airport, which can handle up to 12 million passengers a year, in the Bago region, north of Yangon. It hopes that about half of the total costs will be covered by the official development assistance from the Japanese government. The new airport is set to become operational in 2022, four years later than the original plan. Transportation systems linking the new airport with Yangon must also be constructed, prompting the Japan International Cooperation Agency to survey the situation to gauge whether it can offer help in this area through fresh ODA funds. The new airport is intended to accommodate a surge in foreign visitors to Myanmar — one of Southeast Asia’s biggest attractions for foreign investors — as it makes the transition to democracy after years of junta rule. Yangon International Airport, the country’s busiest, has far surpassed its annual capacity.

airlines;myanmar;aid;development;construction industry

jp0010963

2016/01/30

After one butt too many, tiger tosses goat in Russian odd-couple partnership

MOSCOW - A “romance” that enchanted Russia may be over: Timur the goat and Amur the tiger have had a fight and aren’t together anymore. In November, the goat was placed in the tiger’s compound in a wildlife park near Vladivostok with the expectation that the big cat would eventually kill and eat him. But the two not only tolerated each other, they appeared to become friends. The odd couple became a popular topic on social media, and T-shirts celebrating them went on sale. But Timur started pushing it, constantly annoying and butting the tiger. “Finally, the tiger couldn’t hold back, grabbed the goat by the withers and tossed him,” park director Dmitry Mezentsev told state news agency Tass on Friday. “We decided to put them in different enclosures for a while,” he said.

russia;animals;offbeat

jp0010964

2016/01/30

DPJ looks to block LDP blitz

Lawmakers in Japan’s struggling main opposition party pledged Saturday to stop the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, from winning a critical election they see as the last chance to preserve the postwar pacifist Constitution. “This summer’s Upper House election is of paramount importance to Japan,” Katsuya Okada, president of Democratic Party of Japan, told fellow lawmakers from across the nation at the party’s annual convention. A sense of urgency filled the air at this year’s gathering, because Japan, in Okada’s words, “is at a crossroads” in defending the supreme code against the right-leaning plans of Abe. Letting the ruling coalition win a two-thirds majority in the 242-seat Upper House would give Abe a huge chance to amend the Constitution — his long-held goal and one that Okada says threatens Japan’s pacifist philosophy and basic human rights. “We must not lose this fight. We must not let the Abe administration have its way. We need to win back power,” Okada said. The DPJ, however, is likely to face an uphill battle. The party suffers from lackluster public support stemming from its first — and only — stint in power from 2009 to 2012, which was fraught with broken promises, hazardous foreign diplomacy and an unprecedented triple calamity. When public anger heated up as the ruling LDP-led coalition bulldozed controversial security bills last year, the DPJ tapped anti-Abe sentiment to oppose them but didn’t make any gains. In a dig at Abe’s much-hyped goal to “create a society where all 100 million people can play an active role,” Okada said the government’s conservative policies appear contradictory. “How can a nation that easily abandons one person make all 100 million people happy?” he asked. “We, on the other hand, aim to create a coexistent society where no one is marginalized.”

shinzo abe;dpj;upper house election;katsuya okada

jp0010965

2016/01/08

U.S. House may see bipartisan vote next week on North Korea sanctions bill with added financial squeeze

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives could vote in the coming days on legislation backed by Republican and Democratic lawmakers to broaden U.S. sanctions on North Korea, House leaders said on Thursday, a day after Pyongyang announced it had tested a hydrogen nuclear device. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan did not provide a timeline for the vote on the long-delayed legislation but a congressional source said it was expected as soon as Monday. Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, told reporters that Republicans, who control the House, were likely to move a bill as early as next week and that Democrats would support it. She said there was strong backing in both parties for the legislation. The measure would target banks facilitating North Korea’s nuclear program and authorize freezing of U.S. assets of those directly linked to illicit North Korean activities. It would also penalize those involved in business providing North Korea with hard currency. Congressional sources told Reuters on Wednesday that Republican House leaders were discussing the sanctions bill and planned a vote as soon as next week. Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Eliot Engel, the panel’s top Democrat, introduced the measure last year, and it was passed by the committee in February. House Republican leaders did not bring the measure up for a vote in 2015, but North Korea’s announcement on Wednesday left lawmakers clamoring for a strong U.S. response. The vast majority of North Korea’s business dealings are with its ally China, which bought 90 percent of the isolated country’s exports in 2013, according to data compiled by South Korea’s International Trade Association. There was no immediate word on whether the U.S. Senate planned to consider similar legislation. Senators do not return from their year-end recess until next week. For the measure to become law, it would have to pass both the House and Senate and be signed by President Barack Obama. U.S. lawmakers from both parties expressed outrage over North Korea’s action and called for an international response.

north korea;banks;republicans;assets;u.s. house;democats;sanctions bill;h-bomb test

jp0010966

2016/01/06

DPJ to submit bill to lower minimum age of election candidates

Democratic Party of Japan leader Katsuya Okada said Tuesday the main opposition party plans to submit to the regular Diet session a bill to lower the minimum age of people running for elections. Speaking at a news conference a day after the Diet convened the 150-day session, Okada said the DPJ will discuss specific rates of reduction, but that the party intends to include the idea in its pledges for the House of Councilors election this summer. “The minimum age of candidates should be lowered,” he said, citing similar instances in other countries. According to the Public Offices Election Law, candidates must be at least 25 years old to run for House of Representatives, mayoral, town and village head elections, and at least 30 years old to run for Upper House and prefectural governorship elections. “It is strange that young people in their 20s cannot become prefectural governors or Upper House members,” Okada said. “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said (this year) is a year of challenge, but I would like to stress that this is a year for young people.” In the wake of last year’s revision to the law to lower the minimum voting age to 18 from 20, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has referred to the need to consider lowering the minimum age of candidates.

dpj;upper house election;candidates;katsuya okada;election age

jp0010967

2016/01/24

Opposition makes plans to grill economy chief Amari

Davos, Switzerland - The opposition Democratic Party of Japan plans to urge embattled economy minister Akira Amari, who attended the World Economic Forum in Davos this weekend, to clarify graft allegations made against him in a tabloid magazine. A key architect of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s deflation-busting “Abenomics” program, Amari and his secretary have been accused by the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun of taking money from an unidentified construction company in an alleged violation of political funding law. “I want him to show good faith and clear up the graft allegations,” Tetsuro Fukuyama, the DPJ’s vice secretary-general, said on NHK Sunday. The party wants to hear from Amari on Monday before the start of the Lower House plenary session, which is scheduled to kick off a day later, Fukuyama said. “I feel that this is not the place to talk about my personal scandal,” Amari said in Davos on Saturday, when asked about the magazine’s allegations. “In the course of the next week I should be in a position to give a news conference.” Earlier, Amari had expressed regret over the outbreak of the scandal. “I apologize for causing the prime minister trouble when I’m one of the key ministers of the Abe Cabinet,” Amari said. “I have caused such a commotion. I really wish I could have come here happier.” Amari has so far taken great pains to avoid answering questions over the scandal, saying he must first thoroughly look into what has been reported. Shukan Bunshun reported Thursday that the total cash and expenses Amari and his aides received from the company amounted to ¥12 million ($101,000). But not all the payments were apparently logged in the minister’s political funds report. Amari was scheduled to return home from Davos on Sunday. He is one of the key ministers in Abe’s Cabinet and negotiated the TPP deal reached in October with 11 other Pacific Rim countries.

world economic forum;tpp;akira amari;democratic party of japan;opposition;tetsuro furukawa

jp0010968

2016/01/24

Barring the unforeseen, Kyoto's dwindling voters look set to keep kimono-clad mayor

KYOTO - Given Kyoto’s prosperous domestic and international tourism industry, the mayoral election on Feb. 7 is widely expected to be an easy win for incumbent Daisaku Kadokawa, 65, who is backed by the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and the Democratic Party of Japan. His main challenger, Kumiko Honda, 66, is supported by the Japanese Communist Party, and the third candidate, running with no party support, is former prefectural assemblyman Takashi Mikami, 85. The kimono-clad Kadokawa has been a distinctive presence since becoming mayor in 2008, and not just in the city. While other Kansai region politicians, notably Toru Hashimoto, the former Osaka mayor and governor, often seem to go out of their way to avoid foreign residents and VIPs, Kadokawa has been a highly visible ambassador within and without the city, promoting not only Kyoto’s traditions, but also environmental issues and the local economy. He is seeking a third term at a time when the home of the Kyoto Protocol is in the international spotlight more than ever. Thanks to a favorable exchange rate, strong tourism efforts, and good publicity that saw Kyoto ranked as the world’s top city for travel, according to one U.S. magazine, over 55 million tourists visited Japan’s ancient capital in 2014, including 1.8 million from overseas. Although Kadokawa is the clear favorite, there is growing unease about the tourist boom he has helped create. It starts with the fact that the ancient city was never designed to handle the huge number of tourists it’s getting. Traffic jams are creating not only commuter headaches, but also concerns about whether fire trucks and ambulances can respond to emergencies in a timely manner. Another issue that has many in Kyoto concerned is whether there are sufficient plans to deal with a disaster at one of the nuclear power plants in nearby Fukui Prefecture. Much of the city lies within about 60 km of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama reactors, two of which are set to be restarted later this week. Parts of eastern Kyoto have been designated to receive a few Fukui evacuees in the event of a nuclear accident. But what to do about Kyoto residents who may try to flee along with them, and how to evacuate large numbers of foreign tourists, if need be, are also questions on the minds of voters. On these issues, Kadokawa has promised efforts to strengthen municipal disaster drills and radiation monitoring but has not put up any official resistance to restarting the reactors in Fukui, unlike his main challenger Honda. Only the dark horse, Mikami, says roads would have to be widened for evacuation purposes. Despite these concerns, voter turnout could once again prove low: Since 2004, less than 40 percent of the city’s roughly 1.1 million voters have cast ballots. Kadokawa won the 2012 election, when about 37 percent went to the polls, by about 32,000 votes. While not a large margin, barring some last-minute crisis, a combination of a booming local economy and an apparent lack of strong opposition are expected to put Kyoto on track for another four years of the kimono-clad incumbent.

kyoto;mayoral election;daisaku kadokawa

jp0010971

2016/01/23

In obituary, Pittsburgh man's sons ask mourners not to vote for Trump

PITTSBURGH - A Pittsburgh chiropractor’s obituary is asking people not to vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, in lieu of sending flowers. Jason Brown tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette he and his brother decided to include the line in their father’s obituary after recalling one published in August for a New Jersey woman: Elaine Fydrych had urged her loved ones not to vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Brown’s father, Jeffrey Cohen, died Sunday at age 70. Brown says his father didn’t request the line in his obit. Brown and his brother included it in their light-hearted remembrance thinking it would be “the perfect joke.” Brown doesn’t know whether his dad was a Democrat or an independent. But he’s virtually certain his dad was not a Republican and didn’t like Trump.

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

jp0010972

2016/01/23

China punishes man who altered headline to 'two-wife' policy

BEIJING - A Chinese man was detained after he altered an image of a newspaper front page to add a headline declaring the official adoption of a “two-wife” policy, a joke on the country’s new “two-child” policy, the state-owned Yangjiang Daily said Friday. The newspaper from the southern province of Guangdong fell victim to the prank and reported the incident to local police Tuesday. The Yangjiang Daily said the altered image spread quickly on social media, causing an “ill impact.” Chinese authorities have been cracking down on rumors and false information circulating online, saying they disrupt the proper flow of information on the Internet. The Yangjiang Daily said the man, identified only by his family name, Lin, altered the image of the newspaper as a joke with colleagues but that it was shared online. Lin was detained on the charge of fabricating a rumor, the newspaper said. It did not say how long he would be held. The original headline was about the opening of a city meeting.

china;internet;social media;offbeat

jp0010973

2016/01/23

SMAP dodges bullet; Becky isn't so lucky

When media leaked intelligence on Jan. 10 that eternal boy band SMAP might be dissolving, the outpouring of fan emotion overwhelmed anything else that was happening in the show business world. One person who was probably grateful for the distraction was Rebecca Eri Ray Vaughan, the TV personality better known by her nickname, Becky. Since the beginning of the year, Becky’s storied charms had been sullied by her alleged affair with married pop singer Enon Kawatani of the group Gesu no Kiwami Otome, a scandal the press gleefully pursued. Then the SMAP news broke. To tabloid reporters, two stories of this scale happening at the same time created an overabundance of riches, and SMAP monopolized the attention — well, in the print media it did. TV was interested but cautious, since the story was still in flux. The group’s presumed split — or, at least, the departure of four of its five members — from their longtime management company, Johnny & Associates, was related as hearsay, the fallout from an internal struggle between SMAP’s manager, Michi Iijima, who is credited with turning the group into superstars, and Mary Kitagawa, older sister of the company’s imperious president and namesake. Since Johnny’s is the most powerful talent agency in Japan, TV producers are reluctant to air anything that might upset the company, which is notoriously protective of its commercial prerogatives. If SMAP decided to leave, the agency still had a stable of male idols on whom the industry already relied, so if you listened carefully you could hear a huge collective sigh of relief last Monday night when SMAP’s members appeared live on the air just before their weekly Fuji TV variety show to assure the public that they weren’t breaking up. Many fans were overjoyed at the news, but others were perplexed . The usual spoilsports took to social media to express their frustration, saying the group had squandered its chance to make a statement about the sclerotic nature of the Japanese entertainment production system, which relies completely on manufactured talent. Rumor has it the four members planning to quit were doing so in solidarity with Iijima, who has reportedly been at odds with another manager regarding bookings. That other manager happens to be Mary Kitagawa’s daughter, who is set to inherit the company, and the pressure was such that Iijima has been forced out of Johnny’s. Her four charges pledged to leave with her, which, in the scheme of things, sounds like a noble act. Changing their minds thus comes across as a cowardly act . Though the group says they are sticking together for the fans, more likely they thought that their positions in show business away from Kitagawa’s care were not assured. In any event, Iijima’s career would have been over regardless of what they decided. In that regard, Becky’s fate within this system is instructive, even if the circumstances of her leaving it are different. Her value to her management company, Sun Music, is wholly contained in her image, which is that of a cheerful “good girl” ( ii ko ). Publicly she has said that she lives to work, and since that work amounts to being chipper and agreeable on television, anything that diminishes the image is seen as a liability by the people who hire her. Sure, she sings and acts, too, but those activities mean nothing without her reputation as a TV personality. Before the scandal, she was appearing in 10 commercials, which is more of a yardstick for gauging success in Japanese show business than CD sales or movie roles. So when Becky was outed as an adulterer, it negated her image and, in turn, made her less appealing to those who buy it — meaning TV producers and, more significantly, advertisers, whose contracts with Sun Music include clauses regarding the safeguarding of her image, as well as consequences should it deteriorate. Some magazines said she has already been dumped by several companies, and Sun Music will have to pay each one tens of millions of yen in damages. Becky’s perfunctory press conference earlier this month, where she apologized without specifying why, was covered extensively and ridiculed as being insincere , thus making matters even worse. It’s too soon to declare her career over, but much will depend on how Kawatani addresses his side of the romance . For what it’s worth, he seems to want to divorce his wife of six months so that he can be with Becky, but given that he’s a man and relatively independent as a musician, it’s no skin off his nose if he doesn’t. If Becky were more savvy as a self-promoter she could exploit the public’s sympathy for idols whose handlers contractually limit their love lives, but since she’s bet the farm on her image as a pure young thing (for the record, she’s 31), her value to the industry is already diminished. It has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with the commodification of personality. SMAP, on the other hand, has actual fans, which means its members could theoretically break from Johnny’s and still be viable as money-makers. The tyranny of the system Johnny’s exemplifies is that it denies the agency of its charges in selling themselves as “products” on the free market. It threatens them with blacklisting, because the people who would buy their product will continue to want other product from Johnny’s, who could withhold it as a means of retribution. That’s why so many people were hoping those SMAP members would quit Johnny’s. It would have been interesting to see how the entertainment industry adjusted to such a major challenge to its basic attitude toward talent. And that’s “talent” in production jargon, as in bodies to place before cameras and microphones, not as a wellspring of performance or thought, because what Becky and SMAP have in common is that they toil in a world where their ideas — if, in fact, they have any — are immaterial. Becky is nothing without Sun Music, and SMAP proved by sticking together at their age that they realize Johnny & Associates is as good as it’s ever going to get.

smap;celebrity;becky;gesu no kiwami otome

jp0010974

2016/01/15

Japan honors Hank Aaron with Order of the Rising Sun

ATLANTA - Japan has honored former home-run king Hank Aaron with one of its highest awards on Thursday, saying he is a symbol of its close relationship with the United States and their shared love of baseball. The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette was presented during a ceremony and reception at the home of Japan’s consul general in Atlanta, Takashi Shinozuka. “It is an honor for Japan to have such a wonderful friend,” Shinozuka said. The 81-year-old Aaron was singled out for his long relationship with Japan’s home-run leader, Sadaharu Oh, and their efforts to bring young people together through the World Children Baseball’s Fair, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Oh was unable to travel to Atlanta, but the 75-year-old sent videotaped remarks. Aaron sat through most of the ceremony, next to his wife, Billye. He now must use a cane to get around after undergoing hip replacement surgery. “The communication between the two countries is great,” Aaron said. “Baseball has always played a pivotal role in whatever happens in everyday life.” Aaron first met Oh shortly after breaking Babe Ruth’s record for most career homers in 1974. Aaron went on to hit 755 homers in his career, a major league mark that has since been eclipsed by Barry Bonds. Oh, who played his entire career in Japan, has more homers than any professional player in baseball history, finishing with 868. Aaron and Oh are co-founders and honorary directors of the World Children’s Baseball Fair, a weeklong event held each summer that brings together children from Japan, the U.S. and countries around the world for clinics and cultural exchanges. “For 25 years, we’ve been going back and forth trying to help young kids,” Aaron said. “Not to make them home-run hitters, but just to make them pen pals. By that, I mean someone that can write letters and be able to communicate with each other. The Japanese people have helped me out quite a bit. I want to thank them for all they do.” Aaron’s brother-in-law, U.S. Rep. David Scott, called the Hall of Famer a “God-blessed man and a God-sent man” who overcame racial prejudice to break one of the most hallowed records in sports and helped bring Atlanta together during the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s. “Atlanta would not be Atlanta if not for Hank Aaron,” said Scott, a Georgia Democrat. Coming out of the bitterness of World War II, baseball helped forge a tight bond between the U.S. and Japan, Scott added, calling that relationship particularly important in today’s world, given the tensions with North Korea. “Baseball has kept our two nations together,” the congressman said. Shinozuka pinned the medal to the lapel of Aaron’s jacket, then played a three-minute video made by Oh. “This makes me happier than if I had received the decoration myself,” said Oh, who spoke in Japanese with English subtitles. Derek Schiller, an executive vice president for the Braves, toasted Aaron with a glass of sake. A longtime executive in the Braves front office, Aaron has played a largely ceremonial role with the team in recent years, though he has used his stature to push for more African-Americans in the game. He said he is pleased by the recent hiring of two minority managers, former teammate Dusty Baker by the Washington Nationals and Dave Roberts by the Los Angeles Dodgers. After the toast by Schiller, Aaron took a small sip of sake and smiled. “You’re forever an Atlanta Brave,” Schiller said. “We’re very proud of that, everything you mean for us. You’re our hero. You’re our champion.”

baseball;award;sadaharu oh;hank aaron;atlanta

jp0010975

2016/01/12

Mayoral candidates in Okinawa face off over U.S. base

OSAKA - Less than two weeks remain until a local election that may influence both the planned relocation of the Futenma military base and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s effort to secure a two-thirds majority in this summer’s Upper House election. The Jan. 24 mayoral election in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, pits incumbent Atsushi Sakima, 51, against challenger Keiichiro Shimura, 62, a former prefectural official. Sakima has the support of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, while Shimura is the favorite of the opposition parties, and is backed by Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga. Dominating the issues is the question of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma and whether it should be moved to northern Okinawa as agreed by Tokyo and Washington or whether it should be relocated out of Japan, as Onaga and a majority of Okinawans prefer. Sakima’s main campaign strategy has been to argue for its closure and the return of its land. “The U.S. and Japanese governments have taken a strong position of absolutely not letting the Futenma base remain stuck in Ginowan, and we have to make sure this moves forward,” he said during a recent debate with Shimura. Shimura, however, has made it clear that he will press the central government to get Futenma out of Okinawa — and that he opposes the Henoko plan. “What’s important is to deal with the danger posed by the presence of Futenma by getting rid of the MV-22 Ospreys and seeking the closure and return of Futenma without approving relocation within Okinawa,” he said. The race could be quite close. In the 2012 election, Sakima defeated a challenger backed by all of the opposition parties by just 900 votes out of nearly 45,000 cast. A win by Shimura would mean that the governor’s office and the mayoral seats in Nago, where Henoko is located, and Ginowan would be in the hands of leaders opposed to the Henoko plan. That, in turn, could create political problems for Abe and the local LDP chapter, especially Upper House member Aiko Shimajiri, Abe’s minister of state for Okinawa and Northern Territories affairs. She is up for re-election in this summer’s Upper House election at a time when Abe needs every LDP ally he can keep to achieve the supermajority needed for his goal of constitutional revision. At a Lower House Budget Committee meeting Tuesday, Abe insisted that the Ginowan election will have no effect on the plan to move Futenma to Henoko. However, late last week, the government announced it would suspend construction on the seabed in Henoko Bay until after the election to help Sakima’s chances. With no solution to the standoff between Okinawa and the central government over Henoko in sight, there are efforts in Okinawa to check with other prefectures about hosting Futenma. A poll by the Okinawa Times last month, however, showed that only Akita and Shiga prefectures might have even vague interest in discussing that possibility if sounded out by the central government. Akita Gov. Norihisa Satake said only that he would make an inquiry as to what hosting the base would involve, if approached, while Shiga Gov. Taizo Mikazuki said his decision would depend on the details and the purpose of the request.

shinzo abe;okinawa;futenma;ginowan;upper house election;mayoral election

jp0010976

2016/01/13

Tilting-condo companies slapped with malpractice penalties

Contractors of a tilting condominium in Yokohama were given business suspension orders and other administrative dispositions on Wednesday for malpractices at the site, the land ministry said. As the condo’s subcontractor Hitachi High-Technologies Corp. was found to have handed the main part of the construction work to its subcontractor Asahi Kasei Construction Materials Corp. in violation of the construction industry act, both companies were ordered to suspend business for 15 days and improve operations, the ministry said. The two also failed to have full-time chief engineers at the construction site, and engineers were rarely present at the site as they were also working on other projects at the same time. The prime contractor Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co., responsible for overlooking the subcontractors, will also be banned from receiving orders from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism for one month as it failed to instruct the subcontractors to correct such practices or report them to the authorities, the ministry said. After one of the buildings at the Yokohama condominium complex was found to be tilting in October, Asahi Kasei Construction Materials admitted to data fabrication in 360 out of the 3,052 projects it worked on over the past decade, including in piling works for the condo, sparking public concern over the safety of buildings in general. The scandal prompted an industry-wide probe, and eight other constructors have been found to have falsified piling work data in other projects. The ministry will also order the companies to prevent a recurrence. The Yokohama condominium is still under investigation for possible violation of the building standards act. The scandal over piling work data for building foundation projects has been spreading industrywide. In November, Japan Pile Corp. became the first found to have engaged in piling data manipulation since the scandal involving Asahi Kasei Construction Materials.

housing;scandals;real estate;asahi kasei;condominium;construction industry

jp0010977

2016/01/25

Paris attackers seen committing earlier murders in Islamic State video

PARIS - New video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday shows the extremists who carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris committing atrocities in territory controlled by the group, while plotting the slaughter in the French capital that left 130 people dead and hundreds injured. The group also threatened to attack Britain. The 17-minute video shows the extent of the planning that went into the multiple attacks in Paris, which French authorities have said from the beginning was planned in Syria. The video was provided online by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites. All nine militants seen in the video died in the Paris attacks or their aftermath. Seven of the attackers — four from Belgium and three from France — spoke fluent French. The two others — identified by their noms de guerre as Iraqis — spoke in Arabic. Seven of the militants, including a 20-year-old who was the youngest of the group, were filmed standing behind bound captives, described as “apostates,” who were either beheaded or shot. “Soon on the Champs-Elysees,” says Samy Amimour, who was raised in a Paris suburb near the French national stadium, as he holds a captive’s head aloft. The Nov. 13 attacks targeted a packed concert hall, a restaurant and cafe, and a soccer match at the national stadium. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said the government is studying the video but would not comment on its contents. France’s Interior Ministry and the Paris prosecutor’s office had no immediate comment. The video was filmed before the men sneaked back into Europe and contains no footage shot by the attackers during the days of terror that began Nov. 13 and ended only on Nov. 18 with the death of Abdelhamid Abbaoud, who was believed to be the leader of the attacks. Instead, it was assembled from material shot before the men left for Paris, news video and amateur video. The video did not specify where the nine men were filmed, but it was believed to have been in Syria. Abbaoud is seen simply speaking in a room One militant, Brahim Abdeslam, is seen at a makeshift shooting range. Abdeslam, whose brother Salah fled Paris that night and remains at large, blew himself up at a Paris cafe where he was the only victim. Salah Abdeslam is not seen in the video. According to the anti-Islamic State activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, Brahim Abdeslam and two other attackers were trained in Raqqa, the extremist group’s stronghold and the capital of its self-proclaimed caliphate. In the video, as in other Islamic State propaganda trying to drive a wedge between European Muslims and their governments, the men say it is a religious duty to join them. They threaten more attacks in Europe, and the footage closes with one of the militants holding a severed head and footage of Cameron giving a speech — with a text in English warning that whoever stands with the unbelievers “will be a target for our swords.”

terrorism;islamic state;insurgencies

jp0010978

2016/01/25

Malaysia warns of threat after alleged Islamic State-linked video vows attacks

KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the Islamic State group is a “very real” threat to the country, hours after a video claiming to be from the militants’ regional wing warned of attacks in the Muslim-majority nation for arresting its supporters. Police said the video, believed to feature operatives from the extremist group Katibah Nusantara speaking under the IS logo, was significant because, if confirmed, it was the first from the Islamic State in Malay. “This threat is very real and my government takes it very seriously,” Najib told a conference on extremism. “This is a challenge that faces us all around the world. We are far from immune to this danger in Malaysia.” Police said on Sunday they had arrested seven members of an Islamic State cell who were planning attacks across the country. The suspected militants — including one linked to Bahrom Naim, the alleged mastermind of the recent terrorist attacks in Indonesia — were carrying bullets, books on jihad, Islamic State flags and propaganda videos. Katibah Nusantara is believed to be led by Naim, an Indonesian who police have said is pulling strings from Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. Ten days ago, Malaysia also arrested a suspected militant believed to have been planning a suicide attack in Kuala Lumpur. The video that surfaced online warned Malaysia against the crackdown on Islamic State supporters and featured two Malaysians based in Syria, said Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, director of the police counterterrorism unit. “They threatened to carry out an attack if police did not stop the arrests and release detainees immediately,” said Ayob, adding that the video showed militants in the country were becoming more organized. “Perhaps they didn’t have a direct link with IS before, but now they do, so they can use the IS logo on their videos.” The video could not be independently verified. “If you catch us, we will only increase in number but if you let us be, we will be closer to our goal of bringing back the rule of the Khalifah (caliph),” said a message on the video, according to Malaysian newspaper the Star. Security experts in the region believe the Islamic State group’s footprint is still light in Southeast Asia because militants are jostling to be its regional leader. Like Indonesia, Malaysia is grappling with the rising influence of the Islamic State group, as scores from the countries have found their way into Syria and Iraq to fight for the extremists. Authorities noted that at least 17 of them have died there, including six who perished in suicide bombing missions. Since February 2013, the Malaysian police have arrested more than 150 suspected Islamic State followers.

malaysia;terrorism;islamic state;insurgencies

jp0010979

2016/01/25

Changes in store for TOEIC, but test still not total gauge of fluency: experts

In Japan, having high English proficiency can be a strong advantage for students wishing to get into prestigious universities and companies and for businesspeople seeking a promotion. As such, obtaining high scores in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), an internationally standardized English test, has become a must-have for people to prove their language ability. Some people even take a week or two off from work and fly to countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines to attend English courses specifically designed to raise their TOEIC score. However, some experts say that relying only on this score is not the best way to assess a person’s English proficiency. Meanwhile, the U.S.-based organizer of the TOEIC said it was remodeling the test in May for the first time in a decade to reflect changes in English communication. Following are questions and answers about the current situation surrounding the TOEIC. What is the TOEIC? The TOEIC is an international English proficiency exam taken in 150 countries. It is made up of 200 multiple-choice questions and the score ranges from 10 to 990. It was developed in 1977 by U.S.-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) at the request of Japan to develop a standard test to measure English language ability. Since the test was launched in 1979, it has become perhaps the most popular measure of English proficiency in Japan, with about 2.4 million people taking the test in fiscal 2014. ETS also created the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), another well-known English exam that is used widely for applications to academic and other professional institutions. The TOEIC is particularly popular for business use. According to the Institute for International Business Communication (IIBC), which organizes the TOEIC in Japan, test participants are classified into five levels based on their scores, with those who score 860 and above graded as level A, meaning they can fluently communicate in English. According to ETS statistics for 2014, the average score in Japan was 512 — ranking 35th out of 44 countries with more than 500 test takers in a year and lagging behind other Asian countries such as South Korea (646), China (671) and India (769). How will the test be changed? According to the IIBC, the new format will include questions about English communication via text messaging. It will also include elisions, such as using “gonna” instead of “going to,” and fragmented sentences in a dialogue. The new format will also feature new types of questions that require test takers to use several sources, including visual representations such as maps and graphs, and relate them to a dialogue. A dialogue involving three people will also be included in the listening section. Will the changes affect the test’s difficulty? Despite some changes, IIBC claims the quality and difficulty of the TOEIC will remain the same, with the score derived in a manner comparable with the previous format. But experts warn the change could make the test considerably more difficult for many people. Sumiko Nakamura, who has been teaching TOEIC-related studies for 12 years, said the new test will require the ability to read faster and more precisely in a short amount of time. Many questions in the new format will take a considerable amount of time to answer, as their structure is more complicated, she said. Nakamura also said the dialogue comprising three people could be troublesome for those not used to communicating with native English speakers, because it may be difficult for them to tell who is speaking if there is more than one person of the same sex. How are TOEIC scores used in Japan? A TOEIC score has been indispensable to university students who want to stand out from other job-seekers during the shukatsu (job-hunting) season. According to an IICB survey conducted in 2013, about 70 percent of personnel management officials from 228 companies that use English in their business said they looked at applicants’ TOEIC scores when hiring. The survey also showed they expected an average score of 565 for new employees. Also, some universities use TOEIC scores as part of their requirements for admission. The department of English at Tokyo’s Aoyama Gakuin University, for example, set TOEIC score of 730 or more as one of qualifications for applying to its so-called self-recommendation admission. Many universities are also starting to offer English education courses focused on raising students’ TOEIC scores so as to attract more students in what is a declining youth pool in aging Japan. Is relying on TOEIC scores problematic? Some experts say TOEIC scores don’t always reflect true English proficiency. Yukio Otsu, a professor of language education at Meikai University in Chiba Prefecture, said there were strategies for achieving good TOEIC scores that focus on patterns in test questions. “It is possible to teach people how to choose the correct answers just by reading the pattern,” Otsu said. “A high score achieved as such doesn’t reflect one’s real English proficiency.” As a result, “some companies complain their new employees can’t speak English fluently, even though they score high in TOEIC,” Otsu said, adding that the revision would not really help to change the situation so long as there remained patterns in questions and answers. Otsu also said that although TOEIC is recognized worldwide, it has actually been taken mostly by people in Japan and South Korea. “I’m not saying TOEIC is meaningless; the test itself is well-developed and it can help people improve their English if used effectively,” Otsu said. But he warned that people were concentrating too much on achieving a good score. “It is not realistic to believe one kind of test can measure one’s English ability for every situation. I don’t think it is right for everyone to depend on TOEIC,” he said.

toeic;students;english proficiency

jp0010980

2016/06/03

Police to step up patrols in Okinawa after woman's murder

The government pledged Friday to bolster patrols in Okinawa Prefecture as it works to allay ongoing fears about crimes by U.S. military personnel, following the alleged rape and murder of a local woman by an ex-marine. According to the plan that was hammered out in a government meeting the same day, Okinawa police will deploy an additional 100 officers to local police stations as well as 20 extra patrol cars by the end of this year to enhance security. The plan also provides for the creation of the so-called Okinawa community security patrol unit comprising 100 patrol cars. “It’s the government’s job to protect the lives and assets of Japanese citizens,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference. The announcement comes amid renewed anti-base sentiment in the prefecture after Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, 32, a civilian worker at Kadena Air Base, allegedly raped and murdered Rina Shimabukuro, 20. A large rally against the U.S. base is also scheduled for later this month. Tokyo apparently hammered out the countermeasures to mitigate an expected backlash against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party from locals in the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly election on Sunday. Ahead of Tokyo’s announcement, the U.S. military on May 28 imposed a 30-day midnight curfew on all Okinawa-based service members, as well as a ban on consuming alcohol outside bases. The new rules also prohibit festivals, celebrations and concerts. Yet, Okinawans are reportedly not satisfied by the action, given that similar countermeasures imposed by the U.S. military in the past have failed to prevent the reoccurrence of such crimes. This sentiment was highlighted in a opinion poll this week by local newspaper Ryukyu Shimpo and Okinawa Television Broadcasting Co. According to the survey results, 42.9 percent of respondents said a full withdrawal of the U.S. military from Okinawa is the best solution to prevent crimes by U.S. military service members and base workers. The poll also found that 79.2 percent of respondents supported the revision or abolition of the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, which currently gives jurisdiction to the U.S. if service members or base workers violate Japanese laws while on duty. Even though Shinzato was not on duty when he is alleged to have murdered the Okinawan woman, the SOFA has still been stoking anger among Okinawans. U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on Thursday said he was considering possible changes to how the SOFA is implemented. But he stopped short of saying the U.S. would revise the agreement. Carter, who is in Singapore attending the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri La Dialogue, is scheduled to have bilateral talks with Defense Minister Gen Nakatani on Saturday on the sidelines of the Asian security summit. Tokyo and Washington have previously agreed to some leeway in their enforcement of the almost 60-year-old agreement. For example, under Article 17 of the SOFA, custody of a base worker or service member over whom Japan will exercise jurisdiction remains with the U.S. until the person is charged by Japan. However, after the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three American service members, the U.S. agreed to give “sympathetic consideration” to any request to transfer custody in specific cases of “heinous crimes of murder or rape.”

okinawa;security;u.s. military;sofa

jp0010981

2016/06/03

Following the 'Girls' to Japan

Two episodes of the fifth season of HBO’s hit show “Girls” turned its lens to Japan. While the show focuses on four millennials trying to make it in New York, season five takes plucky Shoshanna Shapiro out of the Big Apple and sends her to Tokyo for a new marketing position. Here, she experiences both real and surreal aspects of life in Japan. At times, her itinerary feels like Buzzfeed clickbait (think “10 crayzee things to do in Tokyo!”), including highlights such as feet-eating fish, cat cafes and S&M bars. In its defense, the show also highlights normal points of life in Japan, including buying onigiri snacks for work, slurping ramen after drinks and chilling at an urban hot spring with friends. And even Shoshanna, who is essentially kawaii incarnate, can get bogged down by the realities of expat life in Tokyo. She’s not exactly fluent in Japanese, her friends constantly remind her about her foreigner status and she has to deal with cultural differences in the dating scene. But during her stay in Japan, Shoshanna visits a variety of classic tourist spots and experiences traditional pastimes. Now that season five is finally airing in Japan on Star Channel, we’ve mapped out her time abroad so you can see where the Tokyo adventures took place. Mitaka house Since Shoshanna is the quirkiest character on the show, it’s only natural that she stays in one of the quirkiest condos complexes in Japan, titled “ Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka in Memory of Helen Keller. ” Located in Mitaka, less than an hour from inner Tokyo, Shusaku Arakawa’s famous complex features a brightly colored facade and ball-shaped rooms. The architect has said he designed the building, which was completed in 2005, to keep tenants alert and forestall the inevitable: death. Shibuya Crossing This sight will be familiar to anyone who has been to Tokyo, and even those who haven’t. Millions of people brave the Shibuya “scramble crossing” every year. Surrounded by giant video billboards evoking scenes out of “Blade Runner,” the crossing is the city’s top selfie spot. Naturally, Shosh, wearing Hello Kitty headphones, navigates the five-way intersection with aplomb. Taketori-no-Yu Spa Shoshanna takes like a fish to water by embracing Japan’s bathing tradition. This “super sento ” in the Tokyo suburb of Tama, which has giant baths, massages and dining halls, is not exactly your typical neighborhood bath. For Shoshanna’s second visit, she and her former boss Abigail (played by “Saturday Night Live” cast member Aidy Bryant) indulge in “Doctor Fish” foot baths, where little fish actually nibble the dead skin on your feet (for ¥500). Actress Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna) said that “it doesn’t just tickle, it kinda really hurts.” Moon Romantic Shoshanna makes her move on shy work colleague Yoshi at the aptly named Moon Romantic (青山 月見ル君想フ) while her and her friends see the Japanese band Flip . The venue features a variety of performers throughout the year, ranging from piano players to up-and-coming rock stars. Unlike the more famous and slightly grungier “live houses” in the city, Moon Romantic, located in the up-market Minami Aoyama, is decidedly more clean-cut. Trump Room Shoshanna gets a first-hand taste of S&M at Shibuya’s Trump Room, a nexus for trendy scenesters that boasts dozens of chintzy chandeliers and mirrors. As the bar has a revolving door of DJs and themed nights, don’t show up looking for latex-clad dominatrixes on any night of the week. Golden Gai After a long day, Shoshanna and her gal pals go out for drinks in a small hole-in-the-wall izakaya in what looks like the Golden Gai area, a sliver of Shinjuku that is jam-packed with tiny bars and has been a magnet for tipplers since the 1960s. Pro tip: Most places have only a few counter seats each, so don’t bring a large group of friends along for your pub crawl. Takeshita Dori One location that should be obvious to any visitor of Japan is Harajuku’s Takeshita Dori, where Shoshanna takes Abigail on a trek through what she calls “Katy Perry’s vagina.” The street’s pink-centric fashion shops and creperies attract hordes of young people and tourists. Pro tip: If you’re allergic to crowds, squeals and pink, steer clear. Temari no Ouchi Cat Cafe After being laid off from her marketing job, Shoshanna does the responsible thing and becomes an assistant manager at Temari no Ouchi Cat Cafe. Located in Kichijoi, this cat cafe is one of the most elaborate in the city with its Ghibli-like decor. And while other cat cafes simply serve tea or coffee, Temari no Ouchi has full meal sets along with cat-shaped cookies. Afuri Ramen Ebisu If the ramen at Afuri looked delicious, the good news is that you can go ahead and try it yourself. Not your average fat-laden ramen, the noodles here are on the lighter end of the spectrum. The signature bowl of yuzu shio ramen is not be missed. You can slurp on Afuri’s ramen at seven locations, but we’re impressed that Shoshanna chose the flagship shop in Ebisu. Nishi Shinjuku Shoshanna’s final moments in Japan have her walking in the early morning hours through Nishi Shinjuku. The street has all of the things you’d expect from a jaunt through Tokyo, except people. And if you want to peer even further behind the camera, you can view these behind-the-scenes videos the first Japan episode and the second Japan episode of “Girls.” Bonus: Are you jealous of Shoshanna’s talking alarm clock? Well, you can now buy it on Amazon .

girls;hbo;lena dunham;zosia mamet;japan pulse

jp0010982

2016/06/04

The struggles of a local sumo hero

An oft-repeated question these days, and one not necessarily confined to sports media, is whether 29-year-old wrestler Kisenosato will make it to sumo’s highest rank. Or is he destined to remain a perennial bridesmaid? Clearly at the peak of his career, the ozeki (champion) and Ibaraki Prefecture native finished the previous tournament in March in Osaka as runner-up, with a strong 13-2 record. A tournament victory would have guaranteed his promotion to yokozuna (grand champion). It matters to many fans, because sumo, the quintessential Japanese sport, hasn’t had a native-born grand champion since Takanohana retired in 2003. The last five to be promoted to the top rank — one born in American Samoa; all others, Mongolia — were Musashimaru (promoted in 1999), Asashoryu (2003), Hakuho (2007), Harumafuji (2012), and Kakuryu (2014). The latter three are still active. Sumo being Japan’s native sport, it goes without saying that many fans are becoming impatient to see this insufficiency addressed — and soon. That’s why the media’s attention had been directed at Kisenosato, who got off to a brilliant start in the May tournament. He defeated all comers up to the 13th day, when he was solidly trounced by Hakuho. His hopes of tournament victory and possible promotion were then dashed beyond redemption when he lost to yokozuna Kakuryu the following day. Hakuho, meanwhile, went on to achieve a perfect score of 15 wins, while also extending his all-time record to 37 tournament victories. Though disappointing to many, Kisenosato’s failure to win the tournament, and thereby gain promotion, should not diminish the fact that his rivalry with Hakuho has become legendary. Flash magazine (June 7) noted that on the second day of the 2010 Kyushu tournament, it was Kisenosato who ended Hakuho’s string of consecutive victories at 63 — just six wins short of sumo’s all-time record set in the 1930s by the late Futabayama. Kisenosato also halted another string of Hakuho’s consecutive victories at 23 in the January 2011 tournament and again, in July 2013, at 43. If Kisenosato was devastated by his failure to win the Emperor’s trophy in the May tournament, at least he didn’t let on in public. On the night the tournament ended, May 22, Friday magazine (June 10) reported that about 120 of Kisenosato’s supporters gathered to fete his runner-up performance at a hotel in the city of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. Mounting the stage, he crooned a practiced version of “Shimanchu nu Takara,” a song recorded by the Okinawan trio Begin. But later that evening in the privacy of Tagonoura stable, his home base in Tokyo, he reportedly cast off his typically stoic mien. According to an unnamed source at the stable, “After Kisenosato came back, we heard noises from his room during the night that sounded like things were being kicked around.” Friday noted that after Kisenosato narrowly missed a tournament victory at the Kyushu competition in November 2013, he cut back on his alcohol consumption and trained even more rigorously, while refraining from extracurricular activities such as TV variety show performances. In his 27 tournaments at the rank of ozeki, his win-to-loss percentage is an outstanding .701 — said to be highest of all the ozeki during the postwar period. Yet up to now, he still hasn’t managed to win a single tournament. “Each tournament, Kisenosato feels ‘This is going to be the one,’ but then suffers a letdown,” sumo critic Kiyoshi Nakazawa told Friday. “He goes all-out during practice, but the workouts are mostly with lower-ranked wrestlers in his own stable, which is no good. He won’t be able to defeat yokozuna unless he works out with stronger wrestlers. He needs to work out with stronger partners, to give him the self-assurance and mental strength; otherwise, he’s not going to win a tournament.” While sumo deserves credit for its remarkable achievements in assimilating foreigners into its ranks, nationalistic sentiments surface as occasional irritants. Shukan Bunshun (June 2) noted that in “Nippon Kaigi no Kenkyu” (“Study of the Japan Conference”), a current best-seller about a nonpartisan conservative group, author Tamotsu Sugano quoted remarks by former komusubi (sumo’s fourth-highest rank) Mainoumi, who appears frequently as a sumo commentator on NHK. In the Feb. 2015 issue of Nippon no Ibuki (Breath of Japan), a monthly publication produced by nationalist political organization Nippon Kaigi, Mainoumi had supposedly said, “Japan’s complacency toward peace and disinclination to fight is also demonstrated in sumo.” Such weakness, he suggested, stemmed from “Japan’s masochistic education system and brainwashing by the postwar military occupation.” But when the magazine asked, “In the tournament that just ended, it was too bad about Kisenosato (not winning), wasn’t it?” Mainoumi — perhaps out of deference to NHK’s policy of political neutrality — did a 180-degree flip-flop, replying: “Yes, that’s right. Foreign wrestlers harness know-how and techniques when they fight. I’d like to see Japanese follow their example.” Tokyo resident David Shapiro, a long-time sumo commentator and author of “Sumo: A Pocket Guide,” disputes the notion that the powers that be in sumo are under that much pressure to bend the rules on the basis of nationality. “They’re not all that concerned with the birth of a Japanese-born yokozuna,” Shapiro told The Japan Times. “The gate at all of the annual tournaments is once again quite strong. Daily TV ratings during said tournaments are equally so. Applications to host the jungyo (provincial tours that take place between the tournaments) are coming in left, right and center. “A Japanese-born yokozuna would be nice, but one is not absolutely essential as far as the greater good goes,” Shapiro said. “Is Kisenosato close to promotion? Absolutely. Will he make it? As improved as he is over the past two tournaments, it still remains a 50-50 proposition. As yokozuna Hakuho so aptly put it, ‘Those who are strong, become ozeki. Those who are destined, become yokozuna.’ “

hakuho;kisenosato;yokozuna;sumo

jp0010983

2016/06/04

Legal reform may start rooting out gangsters

Lawmakers in the Diet approved reform to the country’s criminal justice system last month, mandating the recording of police interrogations in certain circumstances, revamping the existing wiretap law and introducing a plea bargain system for the first time. While it’s hard to imagine the reform will prevent the miscarriages of justice that spurred the legislation in the first place, it could play a role in helping to dismantle organized crime. The National Police Agency’s Academic Journal noted as far back as 2008 that Japan lacked the enforcement tools needed to deal with organized crime: wiretaps, legal undercover work and, of course, plea bargains. In essence, a plea bargain allows suspects to plead guilty to a lesser criminal offense in exchange for a concession from prosecutors, such as dismissal of more serious charges. The revised legislation now allows prosecutors to use this tool as they see fit when seeking guilty verdicts of syndicates’ leadership. Many police investigations on organized crime ultimately don’t go very far because underlings in a criminal case are quick to take the rap. Why does this happen? Imagine you are a low-ranking gangster who has been caught trying to set fire to a property after its owners refused to pay protection money. What would you do: confess to the crime or snitch on the people who ordered you to do it? It’s worth remembering that your lawyer is likely to be provided by the syndicate, with any statements you make being reported back to headquarters. Should you talk, the possibility of retaliation is very real. If, however, you keep your mouth shut and complete your sentence, the organization is more likely to look after your family, and reward you with a bonus and promotion upon your release. It’s a fairly straightforward choice. Crime syndicates have allegedly been connected to several high-profile cases over the years, although prosecutors have only been able to acquire guilty verdicts on the individuals involved. On April 17, 2007, Tetsuya Shiro, a senior member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, shot Nagasaki Mayor Itcho Ito near his campaign office in front of JR Nagasaki Station. Ito died the following morning. Shiro claimed to have acted alone but police suspected he was acting on orders from higher up. Police officially claimed Ito was assassinated because of a grudge over an insurance claim, but there were also rumors that it was related to city construction projects. In 1995, Hideo Murai, a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, was stabbed repeatedly in front of reporters. The assailant, Hiroyuki Jo, first claimed to be a right-wing activist but was later revealed to be a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate. His boss, Kenji Kamimine, a former leader of the Mie Prefecture-based Hane-gumi, was charged with ordering the hit but was later cleared by the courts. In April 2006, real-estate agent Kazuo Nozaki was stabbed to death after being embroiled in a legal dispute with a Goto-gumi front company over the property rights to a building in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Between 2010 and 2013, a Metropolitan Police Department investigation resulted in the conviction of two members of the Goto-gumi syndicate for the murder. However, criminal charges have never been filed against Tadamasa Goto, the syndicate’s leader at the time. While the killings described above would probably not have been prevented if prosecutors were able to dangle a plea bargain in front of the suspects that sat in police cells at the time, the ultimate outcome might have been different. It is expected to take another two years or so for police to formally introduce a system of plea bargains that they might find helpful. Once this is in place, however, prosecutors may adopt a different approach to organized crime. Police officers sometimes say, “We are like bonsai gardeners — we trim the branches but never pull up the roots.” The latest changes to the country’s criminal justice system are at least a step in the right direction.

aum shinrikyo;yakuza;organized crime;wiretaps;plea bargains;itcho ito;police

jp0010984

2016/06/04

Aviator dazzles Emperor; Poets inaugurate new national association; Beatles face press; Mount Unzen erupts

100 YEARS AGO Wednesday, June 7, 1916 Aviation ace dazzles with flight over palace Aviator Art Smith carried out another flight yesterday afternoon. He flew from Aoyama at about 3 o’clock and steered his machine in the direction of the Imperial Palace flying at an altitude of 1,000 meters. When Mr. Smith came over the Sakurada Gate he rose to the height of about 1,300 meters and after encircling the Imperial Palace grounds looped the loop eight times in succession over Fukiage garden in the palace compound. Following a dead dive he descended about 200 meters in a spiral flight and then, crossing over the palace in the direction of the Hanzo Gate, he changed his course and returned to Aoyama after about 10 minutes. The day’s flight was carried out to enable Mr. Smith to pay his respects to the Imperial Palace, and was an unqualified success. From the palace grounds H.I.M. the Emperor was pleased to witness Mr. Smith’s flight. His Majesty was attended by chamberlains, Viscount Kaneko and Lt. Gen. Nagaoka, who explained the art of flying to His Majesty. His Majesty, it is understood, admires the dexterous flight and aeronautical feats of the visiting American aviator, remaining in the garden watching the course of the aircraft with keen interest. 75 YEARS AGO Monday, June 2, 1941 Poets inaugurate new national association Falling in step with the new national structure, the Japan Poets’ Association held its inaugural ceremony Sunday afternoon at the Kyoiku Kaikan in Tokyo’s Kanda Ward. The new association is composed of more than 700 persons including such leaders of the Japanese poet circles as Hakushu Kitahara, Saishu Onoye, Nobutsuna Sasaki, Utsuho Kubota, Yugure Mayeda, Mokichi Saito and Akiko Yosano. It is recalled that the former Poets’ Association of Japan was forced to disband last October, because it was thought that it had too much individualistic and liberalistic tendency. The members of the new association have been selected on the condition that not only should they be excellent as poets but at the same time, they should have thorough knowledge of the current national situation. The chief aim of the association is to promote knowledge and thought, as well as practical activities of poets in line with new national structure. As for the practical program, the association intends to send its members throughout the country to give lectures on Japanese poetry, to help disabled soldiers in composing poems and to compile poems to be sent to the soldiers on the fronts. 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 30, 1966 Beatles field questions at press conference About 500 Japanese and foreign reporters and photographers sat in on the Beatles’ initial press conference Wednesday in the Pearl Ballroom of the Tokyo Hilton Hotel. The four Liverpool entertainers, in appearance at least, were somewhat startling. John Lennon wore a baby pink two-piece suit. Drummer Ringo Starr wore a yellow jacket with dark pinstripes. Paul McCartney and George Harrison were somewhat more conservative in dark green and maroon jackets, respectively. As the battery of photographers clicked away from a distance, the Beatles deftly fielded questions from reporters that ranged from simple to one, at least, that was put forward by a member of the foreign press contingent, that caused most people present who understood it to look at each other with raised eyebrows. The Beatles answered the questions put to them politely and, in most cases, humorously. Paul McCartney and John Lennon did most of the talking with Ringo and George apparently content to sit back and listen. Sample questions: (From Japanese press, literal translation) “How do you understand Japan?” Answer: (From Paul McCartney) “We don’t know much about Japan, except what we’ve read.” Q. “An old man in England was recently quoted saying that there were two things he didn’t like: The Rolls-Royce changing models and the Beatles receiving medals. What do you think about that?” A. (From John Lennon) “We don’t like old men. However, we do tolerate them. But they don’t tolerate us.” Other Beatle reactions included their opinion of the war in Vietnam. From John Lennon: “We don’t like the war in Vietnam. But that’s about all we can do about it. Just not like it.” Paul McCartney, soft-spoken and pensive, told the press: “We’re not very good musicians. We consider ourselves only adequate. However, we’re happy if we can bring happiness to some people.” 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 6, 1991 Mount Unzen eruption damage ‘a view of hell’ The nation was jolted from its complacency by the violence with which long-dormant Mount Unzen in Nagasaki Prefecture, which first stirred to renewed life last November, forcefully erupted on Monday. It spewed forth a pyroclastic flow, a combination of superhot rocks, gas, lava and ash that roared down the slopes at thunderous speeds of 100 kph, leaving death and destruction in its wake. To one dazed resident of the stricken city of Shimabara, site of the worst damage, the fiery devastation was like a view of hell. The horror he witnessed — and luckily escaped — is only partly conveyed by news photographs and television footage. Yet the scenes of the bleak, ash-covered landscape dotted with burned and burning buildings, twisted and abandoned vehicles and the bodies of trapped victims offer evidence of humanity’s helplessness in the face of nature’s destructive force.

john lennon;nagasaki;poetry;beatles;paul mccartney;ringo starr;george harrison;mount unzen;art smith

jp0010985

2016/06/05

Beer pipeline sought to help protect medieval Belgian city of Bruges

BRUGES, BELGIUM - The idea may have seemed mad, but after all, the beer is called the Madman of Bruges — or Brugse Zot in Dutch. With the help of crowdfunding efforts among some 400 Madman fans, the dream of building a beer pipeline through the Belgian city of Bruges is becoming real. “You have to be a bit crazy — like the beer — to do such a project. I just had the money for that, and I liked it. So I went crazy and gave the money to the brewery,” said restaurant owner Philippe Le Loup, who poured $11,000 into the pipeline. Brewer Xavier Vanneste got the idea four years ago to pump beer from his Bruges brewery to a bottling plant outside of town in a pipeline instead of having hundreds of trucks blighting the cobblestoned streets of the UNESCO-protected medieval city. What at first seemed like an outrageous dream, began to seem possible when Vanneste started talking to local beer enthusiasts. Jokes were coming in fast, with people saying “we are willing to invest as long as we can have a tapping point on the pipeline,” Vanneste said. “That gave us the idea to crowdfund the project.” Thanks to Le Loup and others, he is now staring at the one end of the pipeline, which beginning in the fall will start pumping some 4,000 liters (1,060 gallons) of beer an hour toward the bottling plant, 3 kilometers (2 miles) away in an industrial zone. “That is a lot of beer, more than you can drink in a lifetime,” said the owner of De Halve Maan brewery, which in addition to Brugse Zot is also famous for its Straffe Hendrik beer brand. Sending the pipeline along streets where customers could siphon off their favorite suds was too utopian even for Vanneste, but he came up with the next best thing: IOUs with a lifelong drinking guarantee. “We have several formulas: bronze, silver and gold,” he said. “If you put in €7,500 ($8,350), you will receive for the rest of your days, every day one bottle of Brugse Zot.” For many, that offer was hard to refuse. About 10 percent of the total €4 million ($4.5 million) investment for the pipeline has been financed through crowdfunding. With it came a popular surge of support that has stood Vanneste in good stead. With a warren of municipal, regional and federal laws governing the picturesque city, building approvals are often laborious to get. Not, however, for a beer pipeline as authorities realized the whole community was backing it. The city also stood to gain. In between the city’s beguinage houses and Our Lady’s Cathedral, the De Halve Maan brewery has given the sometimes overly touristy city a sense of real life. Vanneste could have done what so many others have — moved out of the city with its canals, gabled Gothic houses, horse-drawn carriages and restaurants with menus in six languages. Now, he looks forward to the best of both worlds — a historic brewery in a gorgeous location and an environmentally friendly way of transporting his brews out to the bottling plant, which will allow him to continue to grow without damaging the city. But it’s not only Vanneste’s family business that is growing. The generous contributor to the project, Le Loup, sighed as he glanced at his own paunch. In broken English, he said, “You can see that in my belly, I am a bit more beer fan.”

pollution;social media;belgium;beer

jp0010987

2016/06/05

U.S. sailor held on suspicion of drunk driving after collision in Okinawa

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - A U.S. sailor was arrested Sunday on suspicion of drunk driving in Okinawa, where a U.S. base worker’s alleged involvement in the death of a local woman last month has reignited anger among residents. The three-vehicle accident, which injured two people, prompted the Defense Ministry to lodge a protest with Lt. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, the U.S. military commander in Okinawa, and occurred on the same day as the prefectural assembly election. Arrested by the Okinawa Prefectural Police was Petty Officer 2nd Class Aimee Mejia, 21, who is stationed at Kadena Air Base. Mejia is suspected of driving under the influence in the town of Kadena late Saturday, crossing into the opposite lane and colliding with two vehicles at around 11:40 p.m., the police said. A 35-year-old woman in one of the vehicles struck by the suspect’s car suffered a broken breast bone, while a 30-year-old man in the other vehicle was left with a bruised arm. The suspect was unhurt. According to a breath test, Mejia’s blood alcohol reading was six times the legal limit, the police said. The incident took place after U.S. forces in Okinawa imposed a midnight curfew and off-base drinking ban last month following the arrest of Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a former marine who worked as a civilian at the base, on suspicion of dumping the body of a 20-year-old Japanese woman he has reportedly admitted to raping and killing. The ban is to be in place for roughly a month. In light of the slaying, Gov. Takeshi Onaga has called for revising the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, which grants virtual extraterritorial rights to U.S. military service members. Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, who is currently visiting Singapore, told reporters that the drunken driving incident, coming despite the measures to tighten discipline among U.S. military personnel in Okinawa, is “extremely regrettable.” Japan will continue to urge U.S. forces to ensure that all personnel stationed in Japan abide by Japanese laws, Nakatani said.

u.s. military;sofa;gen nakatani

jp0010988

2016/06/02

Foreign Ministry's deputy chief Sugiyama to become new top bureaucrat

The government plans to appoint Deputy Foreign Minister Shinsuke Sugiyama as new vice foreign minister, the top bureaucrat at the Foreign Ministry, a government source said Thursday. Sugiyama, 63, who will replace Akitaka Saiki, 63, formerly served as director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau and is known for his negotiating skills and expertise in international law. Deputy Vice Minister for Foreign Policy Takeo Akiba, 57, is likely to succeed Sugiyama in the personnel change, which is soon to be made official, the source said. As deputy minister in charge of political affairs, Sugiyama helped organize the Group of Seven foreign ministers’ meeting in Hiroshima in April and the G-7 leaders’ summit in Mie Prefecture in May. He was credited with realizing the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to the atomic-bombed city of Hiroshima. In a symbolic gesture, John Kerry offered flowers at the cenotaph in Peace Memorial Park. Sugiyama will be the first person to reach the ministry’s top bureaucratic post from a private university; the others attended the elite University of Tokyo or other national universities. Sugiyama passed the Foreign Ministry’s exam in October 1976 while at Waseda University and joined the ministry the following April before graduation. Among other achievements that apparently led him to win the trust of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida was the registration on the U.N. World Cultural Heritage list in July 2015 of sites commemorating Japan’s industrial revolution in the Meiji Era, which began in the late 1800s. Sugiyama, who formerly served as a minister at the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, conducted negotiations on the issue with Seoul, which was opposed to adding the sites to the World Heritage list because Koreans were forced to work at some of them when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945. Since entering the ministry in 1977, Sugiyama has worked as director of the Treaties Division and director-general for global issues before becoming deputy foreign minister in charge of political affairs in June 2013.

shinzo abe;foreign ministry;akitaka saiki;shinsuke sugiyama

jp0010989

2016/06/20

Latest base-linked crime drags SOFA pact back into spotlight

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - A pact governing the legal status and conduct of U.S. military and nonmilitary personnel in Japan is back under the spotlight following last month’s arrest of an American civilian base worker in Okinawa Prefecture suspected of raping and killing a local Japanese woman. Fueled by the murder of the 20-year-old woman, tens of thousands of protesters in Okinawa rallied Sunday to vent their frustration at the way the Japanese and U.S. governments have dealt with crimes committed by U.S. service personnel and base workers. Rather than revising the 1960 Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement to better deal with such crimes, the two governments have just tinkered with its implementation, Okinawa officials say. When the gang rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 set off a firestorm of protest in Okinawa, an agreement was struck the following year to return land occupied by one of the U.S. bases in the prefecture to Japanese control. The United States also said it would give “sympathetic consideration” to Japanese requests to hand over suspects in heinous crimes such as murder and rape. But Sueko Yamauchi, an Okinawa Prefectural Assembly member from the city of Uruma, where the murdered woman lived, says taking a case-by-case approach to how crimes are handled gives too much discretion to the U.S. military. In last month’s case, Japanese police were able to arrest Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a Kadena Air Base worker who was off-duty when the murder of Rina Shimabukuro allegedly occurred. But if the U.S. had taken custody of him, his handover to Japanese authorities could have been delayed until after his indictment. “It is absurd to completely entrust (decisions) to the U.S. military as if Japan is a subordinate or Okinawa is still under military occupation. Revising the pact, which has never been done, is naturally our right,” she said. Yamauchi said her city, which hosts such U.S. bases as Camp Courtney, is no stranger to incidents and crimes involving U.S. service personnel. Uruma’s history includes a tragic incident in 1959 when a U.S. fighter jet crashed into Miyamori Elementary School, killing some of its pupils. “Every time an incident occurs, the U.S. side talks about enforcing stricter discipline and re-educating personnel, but then another incident happens,” she said. Residents have complained that the accord gives undue protection to U.S. service personnel and can create a “sense of privilege” that makes offenders believe they can get away with crimes if they make it back to their bases, Yamauchi said. Toru Aketagawa, a lecturer at Hosei University’s faculty of law who is knowledgeable about SOFA, said there are limits to the effectiveness of the pact and to the current changes in the way it is implemented. He proposed that the agreement stipulate that the United States is “required” to hand over suspects to Japanese authorities, rather than just allowing for “sympathetic consideration.” Every time a U.S. military-linked crime occurs, Tokyo and Washington issue documents including new guidelines to refine SOFA in terms of operational arrangements. But while the United States and Japan have not rewritten their accord, Washington has done so with South Korea, where it also has bases. Apart from reworking SOFA’s contentious Article 17, which gives the U.S. military the right to jurisdiction over personnel and civilian employees if they break Japanese laws while engaged in official duties, experts say Japanese authorities should be allowed more access to U.S. bases. Experts also say there is a need to make U.S. forces subject to stricter immigration controls because the exact number of service personnel stationed in Japan and whether any are previous criminal offenders is often unclear. The murder case became an issue just before President Barack Obama visited Japan to attend the Group of Seven summit in Mie Prefecture in May. During summit talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Obama said the incident was “inexcusable” and vowed to do “everything that we can to prevent any crimes of this sort from taking place.” Abe, however, did not raise the issue of revising SOFA, stirring a protest from Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga, who was denied a requested meeting with Obama. Tokyo and Washington have begun working out details to clarify the scope of civilians working at bases under the accord, which defines the legal status of U.S. service members and nonmilitary personnel at bases in the country. Aketagawa and Yamauchi stress that revision alone is not a silver bullet and will only be effective if undertaken in tandem with steps to prevent recurrences, such as re-education of U.S. personnel. Citing Okinawa police data, a resolution of protest adopted at Sunday’s massive rally in Naha stated that since the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S. control, there have been 5,862 criminal incidents involving U.S. military personnel, with 571 classified as heinous crimes. “I do not feel safe walking outside, knowing there are incidents like the recent one,” said a woman in her 40s from Ginowan, the city that hosts unpopular U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Okinawa International University professor Hiromori Maedomari, an expert on SOFA and U.S. base issue, says even getting rid of the agreement altogether should be considered. “In the context of SOFA, why not put in a clause about imposing penalties for violations? Or why not simply enforce Japanese laws on all incidents and cases, regardless of their status?” Maedomari said it is counterproductive to continue seeking revisions, calling it unrealistic given the positions of the Japanese and U.S. governments. “There are obstacles as to why it is hard to revise SOFA. One is disinterest and lack of knowledge among the public and officials in Japan about the accord. There is also a lack of political will to carry out changes to SOFA, which is a complex issue linked to Japan-U.S. security. Until these and other hurdles are cleared, changing SOFA has a long way to go,” Maedomari said. He also pointed to the double standard Japan would face if it pushed to impose its laws on U.S. servicemen when it has similar agreements protecting Self-Defense Forces personnel operating outside of Japan. For instance, in Djibouti in East Africa, Japan has the primary right to exercise jurisdiction, whether its personnel are on or off duty.

okinawa;u.s. bases;sofa;crimes

jp0010990

2016/06/20

Regional papers reach out to voters in fight to stay relevant, solvent

OSAKA - With the July 10 Upper House election just around the corner, politics is once again in the air as Diet members head back to their local constituencies to campaign and promote their party platforms. In the process, they have to deal with local views on local, national and even international issues. Such attitudes are often shaped less by the national, Tokyo-based media and more by community or regional reporting. What are Japan’s major influential community and regional newspapers? In Hokkaido, there’s the Hokkaido Shimbun, while major newspapers serving the Tohoku region include the To-o Nippo, the Kahoku Shimpo and the Fukushima Minpo. The Tokyo region has the Tokyo Shimbun, which is actually part of the Nagoya-based Chunichi Shimbun newspaper. The Kyoto Shimbun and Kobe Shimbun newspapers serve those major cities, while the Chugoku Shimbun covers the Hiroshima area. In Kyushu, the Nishinippon Shimbun covers the island, while Okinawa has the Ryukyu Shimpo and the Okinawa Times. How big are they in terms of circulation and market share? According to Japan Audit Bureau of Circulations data for April, while major national newspapers sell a large number of copies each day — 9 million for the Yomiuri Shimbun and 6.6 million for the Asahi Shimbun — the regional newspaper with the largest daily circulation was the Chunichi Shimbun, selling around 2.4 million copies, followed by the Hokkaido Shimbun’s circulation of just over 1 million. However, in terms of market share, a Yomiuri Shimbun report, based on JABC figures, said local newspapers held the top share in 37 of the 47 prefectures nationwide in the first half of 2015. The Chunichi Shimbun had a 50 percent share in Aichi Prefecture, and the Fukui Shimbun and the Tokushima Shimbun each held a more than 70 percent share within their prefectures, respectively. The Nihonkai Shimbun had a 69 percent share in Tottori Prefecture, while the Yamanashi Nichinichi Shimbun held a 58 percent share in Yamanashi Prefecture. In Okinawa, the Ryukyu Shimpo and the Okinawa Times are virtually tied, together occupying more than 50 percent of the local market. Although their shares have declined in the past decade, the figures indicate locally produced newspapers remain the most widely read in most prefectures excluding the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas. What sets regional and metro daily newspapers apart? Although local-level newspapers depend largely on wire services for national and international news, their depth of reporting, and often the tone, on issues related to their regions is often different from that of national newspapers. After Japan entered negotiations for the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, the Hokkaido Shimbun researched in great detail the projected impact the TPP would have on Hokkaido’s agriculture and economy. The end result was a broader, more nuanced and often skeptical picture than the one often painted by purely pro- or anti-TPP national media reports. On the other end of Japan, the Ryukyu Shimpo and Okinawa Times have long been praised by traditional left-wing parties and supporters as feisty, truly independent voices for Okinawa, and attacked by right-wing and pro-U.S. military advocates as being anti-American for the critical way they report on local base issues and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. Last summer, editor-in-chiefs of the two newspapers said freedom of the press and democracy itself may be at stake after verbal attacks on their work and on that of other media at a meeting of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers. At the gathering of junior LDP lawmakers close to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, guest speaker Naoki Hyakuta, a novelist and former NHK governor, reportedly said local newspapers in Okinawa that were critical of the government “must be destroyed.” How do regional newspapers view the coming Upper House election? Editorials recently published by some of the larger regional block papers suggest the general issues of the economy and collective self-defense are still very much on the minds of voters. In a June 18 editorial, the Hokkaido Shimbun noted next month’s election takes place just over nine months after the new security legislation went into effect. It warned that if the Self-Defense Forces, which have a large presence in Hokkaido, are sent abroad for peacekeeping duties, they could quickly find themselves under fire, and pondered whether a purely Japanese peacekeeping effort could somehow turn into a full-fledged battle to protect U.S. forces, resulting in SDF casualties. A June 10 Chunichi Shimbun editorial on the election also talked about the security legislation, and the way Prime Minister Abe’s government forced it through the Diet by claiming it did not violate the Constitution. The paper added that voters would have to judge if Abe made a wise decision in postponing until 2019 the consumption tax rise to 10 percent. Meanwhile, the Nishinippon Shimbun editorialized that the election would be a referendum on public trust in Abe and the increased power of the Prime Minister’s Office in decision-making, but that it should not be forgotten that recent media polls show more than half of Japanese oppose his attempt to revise the Constitution. What is the major challenge facing community and regional newspapers? In a nutshell, it’s ensuring their own survival at a time when Japan’s regions face depopulation and as fewer young people read traditional newspapers. Surveys of public attitudes toward the media, such as one conducted last August by the Press and Telecommunications Association, show that people who read printed newspapers read community news articles most, but that those who check the internet for news read mostly sports and celebrity news. That makes a coordinated, and profitable, strategy between “hard” print and softer online news difficult for smaller regional newspapers. In response, they are increasingly banding together and offering a variety of package deals, sharing resources, and entering into joint marketing efforts that target a set of readers in different regions that they believe share common interests. For example, the Okinawa Times and the Fukui Shimbun have teamed up to offer “Fukunawa,” a free website that offers readers news from both papers, in the hope of increasing subscriptions. As local advertising revenue shrinks, more online tie-ups between various regional news outlets are expected, offering local readers a mixture of hometown news and news from other regions for one price. And in some cases, the print editions of local newspapers are becoming available in other parts of the country. The Tokyo Shimbun is now available at Naha airport.

media;local newspapers;2016 upper house election

jp0010991

2016/06/18

Autism may not be confined to the brain

Thirteen-year-old Naoki Higashida describes his own personal feelings about having autism as follows: “I feel a deep envy of people who can know what their own minds are saying, and who have the power to act accordingly. My brain is always sending me off on little missions, whether or not I want to do them. And if I don’t obey, then I have to fight a feeling of horror. Really, it’s like I’m being pushed over the brink into a kind of hell. For people with autism, living itself is a battle.” Naoki’s book, “The Reason I Jump,” was published in Japanese in 2007. The book, a memoir and personal insight into what life is like with autism, came to international attention when it was published in English in 2013, having been translated by Keiko Yoshida, the wife of English novelist David Mitchell. The book has been successful, deservedly so, because it offers “neurotypicals” — that is, people not on the autism spectrum — a flavor of what it is like to be on the spectrum. However, it has also changed perceptions of what it means to have autism. If you’ve ever read the book or have personal experience with autism, you may assume that the condition is entirely connected with how the brain is wired. Certainly that was my assumption. However, a new study suggests that autism may be more complex. It turns out that some aspects of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — notably, how the sensation of touch is perceived, how anxiety is generated and certain aspects of social interaction — seem to be linked to defects not in central but in the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system contains nerves outside of the brain — in our hands and feet, in our limbs, and in all the regions that communicate sensory data to the brain. The new work has been done at Harvard Medical School, using a mouse model for autism. This method is used to study diseases and disorders that have genetic elements. A mouse strain is made with gene mutations known to be associated with ASD in people, and researchers then study the effects of the genes. “Advances in mouse genetics have made it possible for us to study genes linked to ASD by altering them only in certain types of nerve cells and studying the effects,” says David Ginty, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Autism is a complex condition and the causes are not completely understood. There are several genes that have been linked to ASD, however, including one called “Mecp2,” and another called “Gabrb3.” These, as well as a couple more the study looked at, are important for the normal function of nerve cells. The scientists knew from previous work that mutations in these genes prevent neurons from properly communicating with each other. “Although we know about several genes associated with ASD, a challenge and a major goal has been to find where in the nervous system the problems occur,” Ginty says. “By engineering mice that have these mutations only in their peripheral sensory neurons, which detect light touch stimuli acting on the skin, we’ve shown that mutations there are both necessary and sufficient for creating mice with an abnormal hypersensitivity to touch.” People with autism and their friends and families will be well aware of this. People with ASD often report discomfort with certain textures. Simon Baron-Cohen, an autism researcher at Cambridge University in Britain calls this “sensory hypersensitivity.” For children with autism, their bodies are on constant red alert for irritations, which can be triggered by touch and the feeling of clothes that neurotypicals tolerate without a thought. Ginty and his colleagues measured how the mice reacted to different stimuli, such as a light puff of air on their backs, and they tested whether the mice could discriminate between objects with different textures. Mice with the gene mutations in only their sensory neurons showed heightened sensitivity to touch and weren’t able to discriminate between textures. Another thing that is commonly commented on about people with autism is their anxiety with social interactions. “What we’re anxious about is that we’re causing trouble for the rest of you, or even getting on your nerves,” Naoki says. The Harvard team examined anxiety in the mice by looking at how much mice avoided being out in the open and how much they interacted with mice they’d never seen before. An unexpected result was that the mice with the gene mutations only in peripheral neurons were more anxious and interacted less with other mice. Of course, all these results come with the not inconsiderable caveat that they apply to mice. “How closely these behaviors mimic anxiety seen in ASD in humans is up for debate,” says Ginty, “but in our field, these are well-established measures of what we consider to be anxiety-like behavior and social interaction deficits.” One way of thinking about what is causing this behavior in the mice is that they have a problem with the “volume control” in their peripheral sensory neurons. What this means, says Lauren Orefice, a colleague of Ginty’s, is that the volume is turned up all the way in these neurons, leading the animals to feel touch at an exaggerated, heightened level. Again, this will be familiar to parents of children with autism, who are often extremely sensitive to noise. “We think it works the same way in humans with ASD,” Ginty says. If they are right, they could look for ways to turn the volume switch back down to normal levels, perhaps through drugs. Naoki is now 23 and the author of more than 20 books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. It seems fitting to close this month’s column with another extract from his memoir: “Criticizing people, winding them up, making idiots of them or fooling them doesn’t make people with autism laugh. What makes us smile from the inside is seeing something beautiful or a memory that makes us laugh.”

autism;naoki higashida;the reason i jump;nervous system

jp0010992

2016/06/18

Absolutism: an acceptable price to pay for order

His contemporaries hardly knew what to make of him. Their bewilderment is reflected in the name by which he is best known to us: the “dog shogun.” Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, born in 1646, became shogun by accident. He ruled from 1680 until his death in 1709. If global politics in his day had been what they are in ours, he would no doubt have met and conferred with his contemporary, King Louis XIV of France — and found, though professing Confucianism as against Louis’ Christianity, that they had much in common: absolutism, most notably. But there were no global politics back then — Japan was 40 years into a self-imposed isolation that was to last deep into the 19th century — and neither is likely to have known of the other’s existence. Absolutism is much damned today. It’s undemocratic — damnable for that reason alone, even if its modern exemplars did not include genocidal tyrants the likes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. But Tsunayoshi and Louis were shaped by different times. A danger more dreadful than oppression loomed — anarchy. Absolutism, to many, seemed an acceptable price to pay for order. There are strange parallels between early modern Europe and early modern Japan. Both had been slaughterhouses. Europeans slaughtered each other for God, Japanese for territory. The 17th century in both places marks the beginning of the end of the carnage as, from its ashes, there arose absolute states powerful enough to impose peace. Louis tamed his unruly nobles, Tsunayoshi his unruly samurai. Little loved in his own day, Tsunayoshi is not fondly remembered in ours either. His lasting fame rests mainly on his “Laws of Compassion” — “the worst laws in the feudal history of mankind,” wrote historian Shinzaburo Oishi in 1970, summing up the general consensus. How bad in fact were they? The legend has Tsunayoshi following to perverse extremes the advice of a Buddhist monk named Ryuko, who attributed the shogun’s failure to beget an heir to killings committed in past lives. Atonement, said Ryuko, should take the form of compassion towards all living things — dogs especially, Tsunayoshi having been born in the Chinese Year of the Dog. Thus the notorious laws — good news for dogs, who subsequently ran wild and unmolested, but disastrous for human beings, prohibited on pain of death from taking measures to protect their persons and harvests from the proliferating and ravenous beasts. “Men were killed for the sake of dogs,” is a characteristic complaint of the time. Nonsense, protests historian Beatrice Bodart-Bailey in “The Dog Shogun: The Personality and Policies of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi.” The contemporary documents on which subsequent historians based their biased judgments, she argues, were written by the very samurai whose power Tsunayoshi curbed; they pursued such revenge as malicious chronicling affords. In fact, Bodart-Bailey asserts, the Laws of Compassion, grounded in Confucianism, amounted to Japan’s first ever recognition that what we today call “human rights” extended even to commoners. Dogs were protected, and living things generally, but the prime beneficiaries of the unprecedented official “compassion” were low-status human beings whom custom had left utterly at the mercy of the 7-odd percent of the population constituting the samurai class — as cruel and unrestrained a breed, in early 17th century Japan, as ever roamed a civilized nation in peacetime. “The people,” decreed Tsunayoshi, “are the foundation of the state. Each and every one of the (officials) must be attentive to the hardships of the people, and is hereby ordered to see that they do not suffer misfortunes such as hunger or cold.” He’d had an unusual childhood. His father was the ineffectual third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu; his mother, a Kyoto grocer’s daughter who entered the shogun’s castle as a servant and rose to concubine. Not destined for power but more gifted than the elder brother who was, Tsunayoshi, to keep him harmlessly occupied, was fed on Confucian studies as a child. His elder brother succeeded to the shogunate but died young, clearing the way for the unintended reign of a Confucian ruler who took his Confucianism seriously. Confucianism is a richly ambiguous doctrine that down the centuries has spawned a vast body of interpretive literature — but the basic prescription for Confucian-style government boils down to: absolutism plus benevolence. Citing a contemporary chronicle, Bodart-Bailey tells the story of a high official who, seeing two wretched street urchins, wanted to help them but repressed the impulse — “it not being the duty of the shogun’s highest minister to attend to such a trifling matter.” Tsunayoshi rebuked him: “Why should a truly benevolent man ask whether a matter is great or small? The rays of the sun and moon light up even the smallest object.” At Tsunayoshi’s instigation, signboards were posted throughout the land, admonishing the people to “diligently practice loyalty and filial piety. Be close to your husbands and wives, siblings, and relatives and show compassion and forgiveness even toward your servants. Those who are disloyal and unfilial,” he added ominously — benevolent absolutism baring its absolute fangs — “should be severely punished.” And so they were. Tsunayoshi was an autocrat; his rule would not pass muster among us, educated as we are to despise autocracy of all stripes, even benevolent autocracy. But then, we don’t live with the conditions that had prevailed in Tsunayoshi’s childhood, conditions portrayed — idealized — in the “Hagakure,” an early 18th-century military treatise by a samurai named Yamamoto Tsunetomo, who was far from alone in regarding peace as spiritual death. “A real man,” he wrote, “does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death.” That’s the spirit against which Tsunayoshi, for better and/or worse, brought his autocracy to bear.

tokugawa tsunayoshi;absolutism;yamamoto tsunetomo

jp0010993

2016/06/27

Calabrian mob boss captured in sleep after 20-year flight, faces life term

ROME/MILAN, ITALY - Italy’s second most sought-after fugitive, a convicted, ruthless ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate boss, was captured Sunday as he slept in his bed in a hideout in the rugged Calabrian mountains, police and prosecutors said. Ernesto Fazzalari “went from his sleep to the handcuffs of the Carabinieri” paramilitary police after 20 years on the run, Col. Lorenzo Falferi told reporters in Reggio Calabria. Reggio Calabria Prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho described Fazzalari as “a merciless killer” and a protagonist of the 1991-1992 turf feud between ‘ndrangheta clans that bloodied the Taurianova town area of Calabria in the “toe” of the Italian peninsula. In one macabre episode in the feud, a victim’s head was tossed into the air and shot at as a target. Falferi called Fazzalari, 46, one of Italy’s most dangerous fugitives from the ‘ndrangheta. One of the world’s most powerful crime syndicates, the ‘ndrangheta has spread its tentacles from its Calabria base up through northern Italy. Investigators say it also has clansmen and logistics bases in much of Europe, as well as in South America, where it protects its interests in international cocaine trafficking rings. Hanging over Fazzalari’s head is a life sentence. He has been convicted of two murders, attempted murder, extortion and being a member of a Mafia-like organization. He went into hiding when an arrest warrant was issued as part of an investigation that ultimately led to his conviction. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano noted that Fazzalari was also wanted for drug trafficking and robbery. Authorities said Fazzalari was sleeping alongside his companion, a 41-year-old woman. He had a pistol and two loaded magazines but didn’t get a chance to use them, said Lt. Col. Alessandro Mucci. The woman was arrested for investigation of weapons possession, authorities said. The No. 1 wanted fugitive in Italy is Matteo Messina Denaro, a Sicilian Cosa Nostra chieftain whose power base is in Trapani in western Sicily. In the Italian organized crime world, the expression “on the run,” has limited meaning. Many fugitives when captured are still living and conducting business in their own turf. Two of Messina Denaro’s predecessors at the top of the most-wanted list were nabbed smack in their power bases: Salvatore “Toto” Riina, captured in 1993 in Palermo after 23 years as a fugitive, and Bernardo Provenzano, arrested in 2006 near his Corleone stronghold after some 43 years on the lam. Fazzalari’s two decades spent eluding capture were aided by a combination of a widely followed code of silence known as “omerta” and complicity from local citizens, authorities said. He and his ‘ndrangheta allies “controlled every clod of dirt,” Prosecutor Cafiero De Raho said. “He was feeling protected in his territory, by his people.” Fazzalari, 46, faces a life sentence, having already been tried in absentia and found guilty of murder, Mafia crimes, drug trafficking, robbery and illegal possession of weapons. Fazzalari was at the head of one of the many family-based groups that control much of Calabrian society and make vast profits through the import and sale of drugs. Federico Cafiero de Raho, of the DDA national organization of anti-Mafia prosecutors, described the arrest as “historic.” He said Fazzalari was found close to his last known home, indicating that he relied on an extensive network of local contacts to protect him. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi thanked the police and prosecutors involved, tweeting “Hurrah for Italy #Happy Sunday.” Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said: “These are the victories that comfort and support us in the difficult path against organized crime … There is no fleeing from justice.”

drugs;italy;mafia;calabria

jp0010994

2016/06/27

Nursing care workers hard to find but in demand in aging Japan

As the nation’s population rapidly grays, ensuring there are enough nursing care workers to meet growing demand has become a pressing issue. In 2025, 1 in 5 people will be aged over 75, and 1 in 5 seniors aged over 65 will have dementia, according to Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry estimates. Given the urgency of the situation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration released an action plan earlier this month outlining measures to secure enough nursing care workers for Japan. Here are questions and answers about the current nursing care industry and the worker shortage: Is the number of nursing care workers on the decline? No. It has actually tripled to 1.71 million in 2013 from 550,000 in 2000, according to welfare ministry statistics. The increase, however, has failed to keep pace with the rapidly growing demand, resulting in a nursing care industry with a chronic shortage of manpower. The ratio of job openings to job-seekers in care services stood at 2.69 in April, while it was 1.12 for all industries, according to the ministry. The ratio means there were 269 positions available for every 100 job-seekers. Considering Japan’s declining workforce, the labor shortage in the industry is expected to worsen over time. According to the ministry’s estimate, Japan will need 2.53 million care workers in fiscal 2025, but the number will fall short of demand by 377,000. Why is there a shortage of care workers? The job is generally low-paying and physically demanding. A government survey released last year said the average monthly wage of full-time care workers was around ¥220,000, roughly ¥110,000 lower than the all-industry average. A care worker job can be physically and mentally tough. Such workers have to provide physical support to the elderly and be on alert throughout their working hours, especially when looking after senile dementia patients. Care workers also cover overnight shifts about four to six times a month, when there are even fewer workers on hand, said Shinichi Nakatani, a care worker at Yushima no Sato, an intensive nursing home for the elderly in Tokyo’s Bunkyo Ward. “Overnight shifts are nerve-wracking because you basically have to look after about 14 to 25 people all by yourself,” Nakatani said. “You never know what trouble or emergencies will occur during those hours. It’s psychologically draining.” According to the welfare ministry, care workers who applied for worker compensation due to mental illness more than doubled in five years to 140 in fiscal 2014 from 66 in fiscal 2009, marking the largest increase among industrial sectors. If demand is growing, why do wages remain low? The government reduced the nursing care benefits — the subsidies for services provided by care facilities — because the ballooning costs were taking a toll on national finances. The welfare ministry announced earlier this month that the cost of nursing care in fiscal 2014 more than doubled from ¥3.6 trillion in 2000 to a record ¥8.9 trillion. The rise reflected the increase in those receiving nursing care services. The subsidies, coming from tax revenue and nursing care insurance premiums, cover 90 percent of the payments while those in need of such services pay the remaining 10 percent. The government reviews the benefit rates once every three years. In the latest review, which took effect in April last year, the government lowered its overall payments by 2.27 percent while raising the basic salary for care workers by 1.65 percent — an average monthly hike of ¥12,000 per worker. After the benefits were cut, 57.6 percent of nursing care companies said their earnings fell and over 40 percent were in the red, according to a survey conducted in October by the Japan Finance Corp. Research Institute. Experts said such subsidy cuts will force care facilities to potentially cut wages, possibly by reducing overtime pay or paring bonuses. How does the government plan to turn the situation around? The government seeks to add 250,000 more nursing care workers to the system by improving their working conditions and increasing their average monthly pay by ¥10,000 from fiscal 2017. But the state has not made clear how it will finance this. The government also plans to create new nursing care facilities to accommodate 500,000 more users by the beginning of 2020. This, however, has been questioned by industry experts who argue that in densely populated urban areas, the lack of workers is more acute than the shortage of facilities. The increasing difficulty in finding enough workers has led more facilities to rely on temporary staff dispatched from agencies, and some have reduced services. Are there other remedial measures in the pipeline? To lessen the burden on staff, some nursing care facilities are starting to use robotics, including wearable units for elderly people and care workers. The government is also eyeing an increase in non-Japanese nursing care workers by creating a new resident status category for those who graduated from schools in Japan and passed the national care worker license exam. Japan has also accepted candidates from Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam under economic partnership agreements. Under the EPA program, people who passed the national exam to qualify as nurses and caregivers can continue working in Japan. By the end of fiscal 2015, Japan had accepted 2,069, out of which 317 passed the exam.

elderly;nursing care;social welfare

jp0010996

2016/06/11

Seagull masala? Bird falls in vat of curry, turns orange

LONDON - Officials at a wildlife hospital say a seagull turned bright orange after falling into a vat of chicken tikka masala in Wales. The gull was likely scavenging for food when it became stuck in the thick sauce on Monday. The bird was rescued and taken to Vale Wildlife Hospital near Tewkesbury, a town in the country of Gloucestershire, about 110 miles (177 km) west of London. Staffers cleaned the seagull until it returned to its original color, but said it still smelled spicy the following day. Caroline Gould, who founded the wildlife hospital, has nicknamed the gull David Dickinson, after a British TV presenter known for his tanned complexion.

animals;u.k .;offbeat

jp0010997

2016/06/11

Rancher on horseback lassos bike thief in Oregon

EAGLE POINT, OREGON - A rancher jumped on his horse Friday morning and lassoed a man who was trying to steal a bicycle in the parking lot of an Oregon Wal-Mart, police said. Robert Borba was at the Eagle Point store loading dog food and a camping tent into his truck when he heard a woman screaming that someone was trying to steal her bike, the Medford Mail Tribune reported. The 28-year-old said he quickly got his horse, Long John, out of its trailer. He grabbed a rope, rode over to the man who was reportedly struggling with the bike gears and attempting to flee on foot. Borba lassoed the man around the legs and when he dropped, Borba dragged him to one end of the parking lot. “I seen this fella trying to get up to speed on a bicycle,” Borba told the Tribune. “I wasn’t going to catch him on foot. I just don’t run very fast.” Borba said the man tried to grab a tree and get away, but he kept the rope tight and the man in place. “I use a rope every day, that’s how I make my living,” Borba said. “If it catches cattle pretty good, it catches a bandit pretty good.” Eagle Point police Sgt. Darin May said officers arrived and found the lassoed man and bike on the ground in the parking lot. “We’ve never had anyone lassoed and held until we got there,” May said. “That’s a first for me.” Police arrested Victorino Arellano-Sanchez, whom they described as a transient from the Seattle area, on a theft charge.

u.s .;theft;offbeat

jp0010998

2016/06/10

Chiba municipality to offer young women subsidies to freeze their eggs

CHIBA - A city in Chiba Prefecture plans to help young women freeze their eggs in the largest publicly funded project of its kind and one of the first aimed at healthy women rather than those facing sterility from chemotherapy. The Urayasu Municipal Government will cooperate with Juntendo University Urayasu Hospital to extract eggs and freeze them to help address the nation’s declining birth rate. The two organizations will formally announce the initiative on Thursday, sources said Friday. In March, the hospital’s ethics committee approved freezing eggs from four women who are the first to take part. Explorative work began last July to determine how such a program might work, and whether a publicly funded campaign might help address Japan’s low birthrate. It is rare for a government body to subsidize the freezing of women’s eggs. Urayasu is budgeting ¥90 million over the three years to March 2018 to help potential mothers preserve eggs for future use. The subsidies are available to female residents of the city aged 20 to 34, and the frozen eggs are intended to be used by the time they are 45. A woman would typically pay ¥500,000 to ¥600,000 to have her eggs removed, frozen and preserved. The city will subsidize most of that sum, leaving women to cover about ¥100,000 of the total, a sum that includes the costs of injections and medication. Since last July, the hospital has been conducting monthly sessions for potential mothers to explain what is involved. More than 40 women have attended the meetings. Participants cite the fear that they will find themselves unable to conceive after spending years focused on their careers. “I have been prioritizing my work until now. But I want to prepare myself if I won’t be able to become pregnant,” said one woman in her 30s. Meanwhile, the women are not just those with age-related worries. Women with potential infertility-causing diseases of the uterus, including endometriosis, have also attended. “People who are concerned about their health are worried about whether they can become pregnant. I came here because my older sister has suffered from infertility,” said a woman at one session. “I want the government to create an environment where I will be able to give birth to a baby.” Egg freezing began as a way to help women at risk of permanent sterility for reasons such as cancer treatment. It has since been seen as a way for all women to preserve ova at a young age, when they are typically healthy and at peak fertility. The Urayasu program is seen as an aggressive approach to population decline, but Japan already has public subsidy programs for fertility treatment. The central government offers ¥300,000 for the first treatment and ¥150,000 for subsequent rounds, up to a maximum of six sessions. Women are eligible to apply up to the age of 42.

birthrate;chiba;urayasu;juntendo university;ova

jp0010999

2016/06/10

G-strings on the menu at Amrita’s naked dining pop-up

Following in the shoeless footsteps of restaurants in London and Melbourne , the pop-up Amrita has a simple premise: diners must be naked before they are seated. Well, almost naked. Unlike other such pop-ups, guests in Tokyo will be provided with “paper underwear.” Whether this fig leaf is to satisfy patrons’ modesty or satisfy local hygiene laws is yet to be seen. It’s also worth mentioning that Amrita isn’t the first restaurant made for the senses. Dark Dinner events involved blindfolded patrons trying food and having no idea what they are eating. But where Dark Dinner makes you dine blind, Amrita is truly an eyeful. There are a couple of other rules as well. No phones or cameras, no tattoos (oh, Japan), and people can’t be “15 kg overweight.” Exactly what is the tipping point on the scale though is unclear. So yes, Amrita wants to celebrate the human body — as long as the body looks in shape. Oh, and nobody over 60 years old, please. The restaurant’s website says that Amrita wants guests to have an au naturel experience where they can focus on the food, which happens to be organic, and nothing else — except maybe the waiters. According the event’s website, the pop-up is bringing in “top class” male dancers, dressed only in G-strings, who will be serving up meals and muscles. If naked dining doesn’t seem intimidating, the prices may shock you. There are several different meals ranging from ¥12,000-80,000. Sadly for those emperors with no clothes, the ¥80K seats are all sold out during its three-day run from July 29-31. No details on what the top-drawer plans entail, however. And if that wasn’t clear enough, Amrita’s website breaks down the process in eight simple steps, liberally translated here: 1. Show up, your heart pounding 2. ID check (making sure you are over 18 but under 60) 3. Strip — but don’t forget the paper undies 4. Hand over all cameras and cell phones 5. Strut to your table 6. Eat, or that is try to eat 7. Change back into your clothes 8. Go back into the sad, clothed world

restaurants;japan pulse;pop-up;amrita

jp0011000

2016/06/10

AKB48 spends summer vacation at USJ

Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan is getting a new attraction this summer. It’s not a new roller coaster — instead it’s the members of everyone’s favorite J-pop cluster, AKB48. During a special show on June 2 at USJ, the band announced that certain members will be performing not for one day, not for two days, but for over a month straight. #USJ にこの夏、 #AKB48 グループが常駐！ https://t.co/vBIvqyU5x0 を更新。本日開催されたステージ「やり過ぎ！サマーLIVE」の写真を追加！ pic.twitter.com/gb8Z118Es1 — コンフェティ(conфetti) (@conpetti) June 2, 2016 Visitors will be able to see the girls in the flesh from July 21 through Sept. 4, just in time for summer vacation for students. (No word on whether or not middle-age salarymen will be able to take off work to cheer on their favorite members.) The daily show will feature 16 girls from its gaggle of singers, including Mayu Watanabe and Haruna Kojima , as they form the limited-time only “USJ48.” If that isn’t enough, concerts will also share the stage with members from sister groups from around Japan, including NMB48, HKT48 and NGT48. Make sure to line up early this summer as groups of fans will surely make the trip from Akihabara to Osaka.

akb48;nmb48;usj;hkt48;mayu watanabe;theme parks;japan pulse;ngt48;haruna kojima

jp0011001

2016/06/19

Shigaraki potters' hand-made ceramic tubs brimming with interest

OTSU, SHIGA PREFECTURE - Owners of lodging facilities aiming to attract more visitors amid the tourist boom and preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics have been attracting people from Japan and overseas with a new cultural draw — ceramic bathtubs made with traditional Shigaraki pottery. The tubs, which have become not only a local attraction but also hot-selling items, are made by ceramics companies in and around Shigaraki, an area in southern Shiga Prefecture centered on the city of Koka, the home of the traditional ware. Shigaraki ware is one of Japan’s six oldest potteries, according to the Japan National Tourist Organization. Two potters at Marumoto Co., based in Koka, were preparing a new product this month that had just gone through a week-long firing process in a high-temperature kiln for further treatment. Since all bathtubs are hand-made, customers need to patiently wait for over a month until the process of molding, drying, firing and glazing is completed. The business isn’t new. Marumoto has been producing the bathtubs for about two decades. Following the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, bathtubs made of Japanese cypress grew popular and became a standard feature in inns and spas. So Marumoto decided to take a shot at ceramic bathtubs. As the clay of Shigaraki, known for its fire-resistance and elastic properties, is believed to be well-suited for large items, the company figured the technique would also be suited for bathtubs. The tubs are expensive. As the price for one tub ranges from ¥300,000 to ¥2.5 million, Marumoto got only 60 to 70 orders a year in the first few years after development. But orders have gradually grown and the firm now gets more than 10 times the initial figure. In one recent year, the firm received as many as 1,300 orders. “I never expected the tubs would become such hot sellers,” Marumoto President Ikuo Muraki, 52, said. It is often the case that orders are placed when ryokan (traditional inns) and hotels refurbish their facilities for the 2020 Olympics. The most popular type is the round tub 60 cm high and 1.2 meters in diameter. The bathtubs became so popular with foreign travelers that some even ordered them after going home, Muraki said. Compared with cypress tubs, Shigaraki ceramic bathtubs are much heavier but can be easily installed and cleaned. The ceramics also keep the water warm much longer, also lending to the tubs’ popularity. “It’s really good you can make orders in various shapes and colors to match it with an interior design,” said Shuichi Kawahara, 62, manager of Kotohira Grand Hotel Sakuranosho in Kagawa Prefecture. Kawahara bought eight Shigaraki bathtubs for the hotel’s private rooms and said they have been well received. Marumoto’s Kimura said the company has been producing bathtubs so that people can feel bathing is worthwhile. “We would like to pass down this Japanese tradition of using tubs for relaxation,” he said.

tourism;bathtub;shigaraki

jp0011002

2016/06/26

Atomic safety, shinkansen issues complicate Upper House equation for Kansai voters

OSAKA - Nuclear safety, route plans for new shinkansen and maglev lines, and the ruling coalition’s economic policies are some of the top local issues on the minds of Kansai voters as they head into the pivotal Upper House election next month. With last week’s announcement that the Nuclear Regulation Authority approved restarting reactors 1 and 2 at the Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture, both of which are over 40 years old, Kansai voters face the prospect of choosing pro-nuclear politicians from the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito who are pushing the restart of the region’s reactors — or opposition party candidates who are against restarts and seeking a fundamental change in the government’s energy policy, which calls for atomic power to provide 20 to 22 percent of Japan’s electricity by 2030. To restart the Takahama reactors, Kansai Electric Power Co. needs political permission from Fukui, and, most likely, neighboring Kyoto and Shiga prefectures. But the Kepco predicts it won’t be until autumn 2019 at the earliest before the units could go back online. Politically, this means that over the next few years the Kansai-area winners in the election will likely have to deal with pressure from pro-nuclear governors, mayors and business leaders to approve funds for various pet projects in Fukui and surrounding areas in return for permission to restart the aging reactors, which just received 20-year extensions. “There are still issues related to the procedures (for running the two Takahama reactors) and other problems that must be clearly addressed,” said Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa after the NRA’s approval last week, signaling that his consent for restarts, which he has never withheld, would not be automatic. Other Kansai-region nuclear issues that Upper House candidates face include clarifying policy and central government funding for three other 40-year-old reactors in Fukui that are destined to be scrapped instead of restarted. That includes figuring out where to permanently store all of the nuclear waste that decommissioning will generate. On other fronts, political and local economic attention in Kansai is increasingly focusing on finalizing the routes for the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line extension and a high-speed line for magnetically levitated trains. By the end of October, Tokyo is expected to announce the results of its feasibility study on three proposals to guide the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line from Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, to Osaka. The line, which currently runs from Nagano to Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, is scheduled to be extended to Tsuruga by 2023. Fukui LDP politicians, including the governor, want the route to run southwest through the prefecture to Obama and then turn south and head to Kyoto, rather than going from Tsuruga to Kyoto via Maibara in Shiga Prefecture on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa. Needless to say, ruling party members in Shiga favor routing it through Maibara. And Kyoto Prefecture has its own plan, put forward by LDP Upper House Diet member Shoji Nishida, who is not up for election this time, and backed by the governor and many Kyoto LDP members. This plan would extend the shinkansen past Obama, through all the towns hosting Fukui’s 11 commercial nuclear reactors, and to the port of Maizuru in Kyoto, just over the Fukui border. Then it would head south-southeast to Kyoto before terminating in Osaka. The Hokuriku shinkansen thus means contracts for local construction companies, jobs and a guaranteed revenue stream for all governments along the route. The other train-related subject of a local political drama is the final route between Nagoya and Osaka for the maglev line, which Kansai leaders also hope will be finished by midcentury, speeding residents between Tokyo and Osaka in just an hour, rather than the current 2½ hours. The announced route, one originally favored years ago by the central government, takes the maglev through northern Nara Prefecture, bypassing Kyoto entirely. But in recent years, as political efforts to finalize the route grew, Kyoto’s municipal and prefectural officials, and the business community, began pushing the rest of Kansai to urge Tokyo to consider a new route that would take it through their city. Last month, municipal governments in Kyoto petitioned Tokyo officials to alter the route, drawing the wrath of Nara Gov. Shogo Arai, a former transport ministry bureaucrat with deep connections to the railway industry. “Kyoto continues to battle for the maglev, while the city, the prefecture and other Kansai local governments are challenging the central government’s plans,” Arai, supported by the LDP, warned a group of Nara politicians in late May. Finally, as with the rest of the nation, the Upper House election is something of a verdict on the Abenomics program and its impact on the Kansai economy, especially the recent decision by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to again postpone the second stage of the consumption tax hike to 10 percent until October 2019 instead of next year. Kansai business leaders and politicians are worried the ruling coalition is playing politics with the region’s, and the country’s, financial security at a time when voter concerns about the aging population are stronger than ever, and that postponing the tax hike means less money to deal with the rising demand for elderly care. For example, in Osaka Prefecture, official predictions state that over a third of residents will be at least 65 years old in 2040 (compared with about 22 percent in 2010), while 20 percent will be at least 75 (just 10 percent in 2010). Less-urbanized parts of the region will have even high ratios. “Politicians shouldn’t just undertake scattered measures because of an election, and, with a view toward the next generation, things that need to be done now should not be put off,” said Shuichi Kageyama, an executive member of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives, after Abe announced he was postponing the tax hike.

nuclear power;kansai;nuclear energy;shinkansen;takahama;maglev;2016 upper house election

jp0011003

2016/06/26

Cities take cutesy tack to get youths to go to the polls

OSAKA - For town, city and prefectural government offices around Japan, the key issue in next month’s Upper House election is not constitutional revision or the economy. It’s persuading 18-year-olds to go to the polls. While political pundits pointedly pontificate about the 2.4 million new youth votes, local election commissions are making efforts to explain to 18- and 19-year-olds why casting a ballot is critical to Japan’s future, especially now that some candidates are as old as their grandparents and taking up unfamiliar topics. To this end, a couple of Kansai regional governments have wisely dispensed with the bureaucratic discourse to produce manga and anime that promote the election process. Although they might appear amusing at times, they carry a serious message. The city of Nara’s website offers a five-minute anime about three women (voiced by what sound like men) celebrating their 18th birthdays. When one says she now wants to vote, the other two reply they have no interest or don’t know anything about voting. After threatened by a character who warns of the dangers of voting in ignorance, a character named Naranara appears, telling the teens that, yes, many younger Japanese don’t vote , perhaps because they don’t know much about politics. But with Japan facing a declining birthrate and rapidly graying population, Naranara adds that it’s more critical than ever for 18-year-olds to vote. The video then breaks into a musical number in which the three ladies sing a perky, off-key song about being 18, on the edge of adulthood, and the need to think about politics and for themselves. It ends by urging viewers to do their homework. Nearby, the city of Ikoma has made a more serious four-page flier that includes a two-page manga of its mascot Takemaru-kun. Takemaru-kun tells a group of 18-year-olds that because they didn’t have the right to vote before now, it was difficult for society to reflect their views. But if young people vote, even older politicians will be forced to listen, the mascot adds. The other two pages explain that voting is important because you pay tax whenever you buy something or earn income. It’s money the Diet members decide how to use, and how they do so directly impacts your lifestyle, the flier says. Whether such efforts will attract younger voters to the July 10 poll remains to be seen. But the Nara and Ikoma examples show that some local governments are at least trying to get out the youth vote.

voters;2016 upper house election

jp0011004

2016/06/21

Hokkaido eatery encourages diners to treat the needy

A small restaurant in the city of Obihiro, Hokkaido, boasts an eye-catching sign out front that says “Eat here for free.” It’s not that the restaurant pays for the meal. The other customers do. Inspired by an Italian movement known as “suspended coffee,” which offers pre-paid drinks for those in need, soba restaurant Yui offers noodles, curry rice dishes and other fare on the menu paid in advance by other customers willing to cover the cost. A sign shows what food is available free of charge on any one day. “I’m urging young people, mainly students, to use the service. Roughly 20 to 30 people a month are eating at no charge,” said Tatsuo Honma, the owner of Yui. “I wish there had been such a service when I was a student.” Honma calls the service gochi meshi , which means a meal treated by someone else. The donors are customers who are offered the option of paying only for their own meal or paying extra, to treat an unknown beneficiary. Honma opened in March 2014. It kicked off the service that November to promote local products. Obihiro is known for dairy products, including milk, cheese and butter, but many local farmers also grow organic vegetables and cereals such as buckwheat. “Being a farmer myself, I wanted to offer an opportunity for young people to eat the vegetables that are grown in their own hometown,” he said. “Since supermarkets are selling cheap food, it’s becoming rare for them to consume local products.” He said recent media coverage has resulted in a rise in donations, and other restaurants have been asking for advice on starting such a service. “It used to be the regulars who donated, but now, many tourists are eating here and doing it after reading about us,” he said. He added: “It’s hard to say that this shopping street is becoming a busy thoroughfare, but at least I can say I was able to contribute a little to promoting local products.”

restaurant;hokkaido;obihiro

jp0011005

2016/06/21

Abe to 'take responsibility' if ruling bloc fails to win 61 seats in Upper House election

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he will take responsibility should his ruling Liberal Democratic Party and junior coalition partner Komeito fail to achieve his self-imposed goal of securing more than a majority in July’s Upper House election. In a public debate with other party leaders at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, Abe renewed his pledge for the LDP-Komeito coalition to win 61 of the 121 seats up for grabs in the crucial summer poll. “As both prime minister and leader of the LDP, I will make an all-out effort toward this goal,” Abe said. Asked what consequences will arise if the coalition fails to reach the 61-seat goal, he said: “Of course, the goal involves responsibility being taken.” He didn’t elaborate. Abe’s remark nonetheless differed from the more diplomatic stances taken by his political allies on the question of whether Abe should quit if he fails. In interviews with the media last week, both LDP Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki and Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi avoided clarifying what they think Abe should do in that eventuality and only repeated they will do their best to win. In the meantime, Abe acknowledged that his Abenomics policy has yet to achieve full effect and termed it “halfway through.” “But we will kick-start its engine and make sure the public will feel the economy has improved,” he said. Backpedaling from a campaign pledge of two years ago, Abe was forced to make the tough decision earlier this month to delay a scheduled sales tax hike for a second time because the economy didn’t recover as much as he thought it would. He and Yamaguchi were also gung-ho about assailing Katsuya Okada, head of the main opposition Democratic Party, over what they called a flawed electoral tie-up with the radical Japanese Communist Party. The DP and JCP are fielding joint candidates for the election to oust Abe. But while the JCP is eager to deepen the tie-up into a coalition government, Okada has steadfastly ruled out that possibility, saying some of the JCP’s extreme leftist policies — such as abolishing the Japan-U.S. security treaty — are unacceptable. The ruling camp sneers at the discrepancies. “Forming a coalition government with the JCP is impossible at this point,” Okada repeated. “But I’m not saying it won’t happen forever. It may take years or even decades, but our polices may eventually fall into line with each other.”

ldp;sdp;komeito;jcp;2016 upper house election;dp

jp0011006

2016/06/30

U.S. swimmers using therapy dogs to relax before races

OMAHA, NEBRASKA - Kacey Oberlander is missing her dogs back home, and she’s more than a little stressed competing in the high-pressure environment at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials. That’s where Holly comes in. The adorable, 4-year-old Havanese is available for petting and furry hugs. “It just calms me down a lot,” said Oberlander, who swims for York YMCA in Pennsylvania and will be attending the University of Alabama in the fall. “It’s nice to see the happy puppy dogs running around when everything is so intense and everyone’s so serious. The dogs are very happy all the time. It makes me calm.” Yep, these Olympic trials have gone to the dogs — and the athletes are loving it. USA Swimming, in an effort to ease some of the anxiety accompanying such a major meet, has partnered with Domesti-PUPS — a nonprofit organization based in Lincoln, Nebraska, that is providing four-legged companions for the athletes lounge at CenturyLink Center. In a section of the arena that is generally off-limits to everyone except the swimmers, dogs such as Holly and Larry, a Goldendoodle who will readily pose for a picture or pause for a pat on the head, have been welcomed with open arms. If anyone doubts their purpose, each pooch wears a collar that says, “Please ask to pet me. I’m friendly.” “There’s a lot of pressure,” said Leah Braswell, a teammate of Oberlander’s. “Having the dogs here is a great distraction, a way to take a break from all of that. They’re happy all the time. It just makes you happier. You can forget about whatever race you just had.” Given their gentle, soothing nature, “therapy dogs” have become more and more familiar around hospitals, retirement homes, hospice centers and disaster areas. They’ve provided comfort to veterans and those suffering from autism. They’ve even done time in prisons, nudging inmates along the road to rehabilitation. There’s no judgment from these animals. Fido merely wants to love and be loved. For someone in pain or anguish, they can be an invaluable companion. At the Olympic trials, their role is a bit different. But it’s really in keeping with the extensive training that Domesti-PUPS puts its animals through before sending them out into the world. “Anywhere there’s an elevated level of stress, we can take our dogs and try to de-stress them,” said Sandy Ludwig, who works with the organization. “These dogs are just lying there, waiting to have their bellies rubbed or their ears scratched.” That’s what Morgan Weinberg had in mind for the trials, an all-or-nothing meet that not only determines the powerful American team for the Rio Games, but also serves as a chance for many up-and-coming athletes to get their taste of a big-league atmosphere. There are more than 1,700 swimmers in Omaha, most of whom have no chance of qualifying for the Olympics. Yet the burden of competing weighs on all of them to some degree. “This is the first time we’ve ever done it,” said Weinberg, the program and services manager for USA Swimming. “I’m an animal lover myself, and I was trying to think of different ways in the athlete lounge that they would calm down and kind of just relax and have fun. I like dogs, I thought about dogs, and it just kind of evolved into therapy dogs.” She got in touch with Domesti-PUPS, which is providing about 30 dogs for all but the final night of the eight-day meet, which runs through Sunday. Four dogs at a time work in three-hour shifts — some rotating through during the morning preliminaries, others stopping by for the evening finals. They even have their own security credentials, complete with a photo. On the very first night of the trials, Ludwig knew she was on to something when a swimmer spent 20 minutes petting one of her pups. “About an hour later, she came back and said, ‘That was a best swim I ever had,’ ” Ludwig recalled. “She said, ‘I was so relaxed when I went and jumped in the pool.’ “ That’s not all. Many swimmers are missing their own dogs, the ones they had to leave at home, so they’re eager to just roll around on the floor with a canine they can at least temporarily call their own. Oberlander is one of those going through pet withdrawal. She has a pair of miniature dachshunds, Biscuit and Bella. “I miss them soooo much,” Oberlander said. “When I come in here and see the dogs, it’s just like home.” There’s one Labradoodle in particular who caught her eye — and her heart. “He’s very fluffy. I like him the best,” she said, breaking into a big grin. “It’s like bringing a piece of Pennsylvania here to Nebraska with me.”

u.s .;olympics;swimming;dogs;therapy

jp0011007

2016/06/01

Calls to revise SOFA in wake of Okinawa murder unlikely to bear fruit

OSAKA - As a result of the recent murder of a 20-year-old woman in Okinawa, allegedly at the hands of a U.S. base worker and former marine, calls are once again growing for a revision to the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA. On Tuesday, Aiko Shimajiri, the minister in charge of Okinawa’s affairs, and other LDP lawmakers from the prefecture submitted a request to LDP Secretary-General Sadakazu Tanigaki calling for revision of the agreement. Tanigaki reportedly told the group that “the party will make every effort” regarding the issue. And elsewhere, in Kanagawa Prefecture, which hosts the U.S.’s Yokosuka naval base, the prefectural assembly on the same day unanimously called for the revision of the agreement to prevent recurrences of crimes like the latest in Okinawa, which is linked with the American military presence. What is SOFA? The agreement was originally signed by the United States and Japan in 1960. Among other things, it governs how U.S. military forces and related civilians, including the families of U.S. service personnel and civilian contractors, are to be treated in everything from minor traffic accidents to more serious crimes, by Japanese authorities while in Japan. Following the 1995 case where a 12-year-old girl was gang raped by three American servicemen in Okinawa, Tokyo and Washington reached an informal deal under which the U.S. side agreed to give “favorable consideration” to Japanese requests that it hand over suspects if they are suspected of having committed heinous crimes such as murder and rape. Still, the agreement has never been formally revised since its 1960 inception. Why has the issue come up again? The murder earlier this month of 20-year-old Okinawan office worker Rina Shimabukuro, allegedly at the hands of Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, a 32-year-old American working at Kadena Air Base, has sparked fresh ire in Okinawa. Many residents want Tokyo and Washington to formally revise SOFA to give local authorities nationwide more authority in questioning, and if necessary, prosecuting U.S. military personnel or civilians like Shinzato. An association of 14 governors whose prefectures host U.S. bases has called for SOFA’s revision to grant them more authority when such incidents occur. However, neither Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nor U.S. President Barack Obama raised the issue during their bilateral meeting at the G-7 summit in Japan last week. Why are both sides reluctant to revise? The U.S. and Japanese legal systems are very different. The U.S. side in particular is concerned about whether an accused U.S. citizen, especially a member of the military who is subject to U.S. military law, will receive a fair trial by U.S. standards in a Japanese court. This is interpreted by the U.S. side to mean a lawyer being present during questioning of suspects, and the interview process being recorded, all conditions Japan has found difficult to accept. But as a January 2015 State Department report on America’s SOFA agreements worldwide made clear, agreeing to hand over American suspects to foreign countries with drastically different legal systems could end up becoming problematic. “U.S. willingness to deploy forces overseas, and public support for such deployments, could suffer significant setbacks if U.S. personnel were at risk of being tried in an inherently unfair system, or at any rate, one that departs fundamentally from U.S. concepts of basic procedural fairness,” the report said. Thus, until the U.S. is satisfied that the Japanese legal system will treat those under the SOFA agreement in a way similar to how they would be treated under the U.S. system, the revisions Okinawa and local governments are seeking remain unlikely, and such alleged crimes will continue to be handled on a case-by-case basis.

okinawa;status of forces agreement;kenneth franklin shinzato;military bases

jp0011008

2016/06/06

Okinawa anti-base faction boosts its majority in prefectural assembly election

NAHA, OKINAWA PREF. - Okinawa’s anti-base faction retained and slightly increased its majority in the prefectural assembly following Sunday’s election, representing a victory for Gov. Takeshi Onaga and a setback for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Candidates who supported Onaga and ran in opposition to relocating the U.S. Marine base at Futenma, in central Okinawa Island, to the northern part of the island won 27 of the 48 assembly seats. Of the 21 remaining seats, 14 went to the LDP and four went to Komeito. The rest were taken by candidates who fundamentally oppose Onaga. Voter turnout was 53.31 percent, up 0.82 point from the previous prefectural assembly poll, in 2012. “The election showed that the people of Okinawa support efforts to stop the construction of a new base,” Onaga said at a press briefing early Monday morning. The poll outcome shows Okinawa’s support for Onaga, and it will represent a setback for Abe and the LDP, whose prefectural members are in the opposition. Officially, 71 candidates were vying for the assembly’s 48 seats, although two districts in Nago were uncontested. Before the assembly was dissolved, the LDP and national partner Komeito were in the minority. The majority support Okinawa Gov. Onaga, who took the prefecture’s helm after campaigning against the construction of a replacement facility in Nago’s Henoko district for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, which sits in densely populated Ginowan. Of the 71 candidates, 37 were from a half dozen parties, including the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, that back Onaga. Another 12, including four from Komeito, four independents and three from Osaka Ishin no Kai, officially declared themselves “neutral,” positioning themselves between the Onaga supporters and the LDP. The LDP itself was backing 19 candidates, including three independents. Despite statements from Abe’s administration last week that the election results will have no impact on the Futenma relocation plan, the central government has made numerous efforts to quell Okinawan anger stemming from the murder of Rina Shimabukuro, 20, allegedly by a U.S. civilian worker at the Kadena Air Base. Subsequent promises by senior Abe administration officials to beef up security and take preventive action have largely failed to curb calls to revise the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement, even among local LDP members. A meeting in Singapore on Saturday between Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter produced an agreement to review SOFA implementation practices related to U.S. personnel with SOFA status, including the civilian component. However, Okinawan media were quick to point out that it did not meet growing demands in the prefecture for a formal SOFA revision to give local officials, especially the police, more authority and autonomy when dealing with incidents involving U.S. military personnel, their dependents or civilian workers. With news Sunday that an American sailor attached to Kadena was arrested late Saturday evening after being involved in a drunken driving accident that injured two Japanese, central government officials once again found themselves forced to respond. The Foreign Ministry said Sunday afternoon that Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida had contacted U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy over the incident, expressing deep regret that it occurred while Okinawa was still in mourning over the Shimabukuro slaying. Kennedy extended an apology and expressed concern over the two victims of the incident and said the U.S. will cooperate with the investigation. But Okinawan political resolve for officially revising SOFA is likely to grow stronger in the coming days, regardless of Sunday’s results or central government and U.S. statements.

okinawa;u.s. military;elections;sofa

jp0011009

2016/06/06

Ransomware making costly inroads into online Japan

Advances in technology always come at a price. Once just a hacker’s toy, the computer virus has evolved into something more sinister. Malware called ransomware, which can hold computer files hostage in exchange for a ransom, is increasing as a menace in Japan. According to IT security firm Trend Micro, Japanese companies reported 650 cases of ransomware infections in 2015, a more than 16-fold increase on the previous year. And the spread of malware shows no sign of abating, with a survey in May showing 740 cases in the first three months of this year. The following is a look at the surging cyberattack risk and how it can be prevented: How does ransomware infect a computer? Ransomware often gets into a computer through a malicious email attachment or by a user clicking on a link to a malicious website. According to one case reported to the government-affiliated Information-technology Promotion Agency (IPA), a person received an email notification of a “new invoice,” with a message written in nonnative Japanese urging the recipient to open an attached file to confirm the details. In such an example, if the attachment is opened, it can encrypt a user’s personal files, including Microsoft Office files and photos, that are stored on a computer. To restore the files, a ransom as big as millions of yen can be demanded — with payment made online or using the cryptocurrency bitcoin — in exchange for a decryption key to open the hostage files. Opening a website containing a malicious computer code or loading a malicious online advertisement can allow ransomware to infiltrate a computer. Infected websites are often hard to detect, and even major websites can be hijacked for use in a ransomware attack. How does ransomware differ from other computer viruses? Unlike traditional computer viruses, which are often created and spread by people seeking to show off their computer skills, ransomware has evolved as an organized business product, said Joji Hamada, a senior security response manager at Symantec Japan Inc. Some ransomware viruses are created by hackers and sold on the dark web, the hidden part of the internet that doesn’t appear in a web search, Hamada said. Such viruses are often sold to parties seeking to rob computer users, he added. The buyer of the virus can start a ransomware business without having to develop software, he said. Who is being targeted by ransomware? Recent ransomware targets include companies and institutions such as hospitals, Hamada said. Hospitals are prime targets because they could risk losing medical data, which might endanger patients’ lives, if they don’t pay a ransom, Hamada said, adding that attackers might think hospitals are more vulnerable to cyberattacks compared with private companies. Ransomware can also target individuals who don’t use a PC. In March, ransomware was discovered targeting Android smartphones in a first in Japan. Once a smartphone was infected, the malware locked the device to render it unusable and displayed a countdown timer and message — again written in nonnative Japanese — claiming to be a warning from the Justice Ministry, according to Trend Micro. The message warned the smartphone owner to pay a ¥10,000 “penalty” via an iTunes gift card to unlock the device otherwise a “case file” would be sent to a court. Hamada said ransomware poses a greater threat to society in the future, when more internet-linked devices — from home appliances to vehicles — are used in everyday life. He said hackers might be able to remotely lock the doors of internet-connected cars or even lock the brakes, putting drivers in danger. “Attackers might do anything to force people to pay money,” Hamada said. What can be done if a computer is infected? Unfortunately, once files are encrypted, there is not much victims can do to restore them without paying money, Hamada said. Worse still, paying the ransom won’t guarantee the files can be retrieved successfully, he said. “If you want to restore your files . . . it’s up to you whether to pay the money at your own risk,” he said. But Hamada said he did not recommend paying the ransom because the money will only further fund cybercriminals. How can ransomware attacks be prevented? The most important thing is to always keep computer operating systems and software up-to-date, Hamada said. “Many ransomware infect computers through websites by exploiting bugs in software. It is extremely important to patch security holes,” he said. Routinely backing up computer data is also effective in minimizing damage, so that important files can be restored as of the last backup even after they have been encrypted. Trend Micro recommends the 3-2-1 backup rule. It means making at least three copies of the same data and storing them on at least two different media, such as a DVD disk or an external hard drive, and keeping one of those off-site. Another effective measure is to have reliable anti-virus software installed, so that a dubious email attachment and corrupt websites can be detected and users notified before a ransomware attack, Hamada said.

cybersecurity;cyberattacks;computer viruses;ransomware

jp0011010

2016/06/24

Seven Indonesian sailors kidnapped in Philippines: Jakarta

JAKARTA - Seven Indonesian sailors have been taken hostage in the Sulu Sea in the southern Philippines, Indonesia’s foreign minister said on Friday, the latest in a string of abductions in the waters between the two Southeast Asian neighbors. “We got confirmation of an incident of kidnapping involving Indonesian crew of a ship,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told reporters. He said the hijackings were carried out by two different armed groups. Six of the 13 crew on board were freed, Marsudi said, and were on their way back to Indonesia. The kidnappings come after the governments of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia agreed last month to carry out coordinated patrols to secure the region’s busy waterways. The Abu Sayyaf group in the southern Philippines is known to have seized hostages across the border and held them for ransom. This year it murdered two Canadian men when their ransoms were not paid.

philippines;indonesia;kidnappings;insurgencies

jp0011011

2016/06/23

Family's pain over 2006 Yokosuka murder reflects desire for SOFA rethink

Justice has been a long time coming for Masanori Yamazaki, whose common-law wife was murdered by a drunk U.S. sailor in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, 10 years ago, in an unprovoked assault. Yamazaki, 68, is refusing a U.S. government offer to settle over the death of Yoshie Sato, taking a stand at what he perceives as injustices under the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, the legal framework that sets out criminal procedures for U.S. military offenders in Japan. As work on possible revision of the 56-year-old legal framework gets underway, Yamazaki’s case highlights how hard it can be for victims of crimes committed by troops or U.S. civilian workers to obtain closure. Sato, 56, was on her way to work at a bus company in Yokosuka on the morning of Jan. 3, 2006, when she was approached by William Reese, 21, an off-duty crew member of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. Reese, who had been drinking, asked her directions to the base. He then robbed her of ¥15,000 and beat and kicked her to death. He was convicted of robbery and murder in June that year. Yamazaki and other relatives of Sato sued Reese and the Japanese government in October 2006, demanding a combined ¥124 million in damages. In May 2009, the Yokohama District Court ordered Reese to pay ¥65 million and dismissed the claims against the government. Reese’s compensation order was finalized by the Supreme Court in June 2013. But because of SOFA, following through on the order has been slow and the path murky. In June 2015, the U.S. government informed the Defense Ministry in Tokyo that it would make an “ex gratia payment” of about ¥26 million because Reese is unable to raise the funds. The sum is about 40 percent of the total ordered by the court. Moreover, the U.S. government demanded immunity from further legal action, for it and for Reese. Yamazaki finds this unacceptable after waiting two full years for the U.S. offer. “If you drive a car and hit somebody in an accident, you would first fix the car you damaged, take the person to a hospital, and then ask for forgiveness, right?” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to say you pay money only if you are given immunity. Plus, we have no way of knowing whether Defense Ministry officials are conveying what the U.S. side is saying. We have no idea what the Japanese and U.S. governments are really negotiating.” Retired bus driver Yamazaki and his lawyers now contend they are willing to forgo claims against the U.S. government but not against Reese, since he is not paying. Yamazaki is also indignant at the assumption that the Japanese government should pick up the remainder of the ¥65 million tab. “If a member of the U.S. military commits a crime, the U.S. military should pay for it. Why should the Japanese government spend its taxpayers’ money to pay for U.S. crimes?” In past cases involving crimes committed by U.S. military personnel against Japanese citizens, it has always been up to the U.S. to decide the amount of ex gratia payments, according to Shinsuke Nakamura, a lawyer for Yamazaki. “The Japanese government is supposed to make claims to the U.S. side, but it is the U.S. that ultimately decides the amount. The Japanese government has also told us it will not pay the remaining sum unless we agree to the terms of the settlement.” A clause in the so-called Special Action Committee on Okinawa agreement struck between Japan and the U.S. in 1996 notes that in the past, there have been “only a very few cases” where payment by the U.S. government did not satisfy the full amount awarded by a final court judgment. Nakamura believes this is not so, saying when such cases occur the U.S. government often ends up offering less than half the sum demanded by the court. Unless such “unfair” arrangements are changed, crimes by U.S. troops against Japanese citizens will continue, Yamazaki said. He pointed to the recent rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in Uruma, Okinawa. An American contractor working at the U.S. Kadena Air Base has been arrested in the case. “I cried, watching the news of the Okinawa girl,” Yamazaki said. “It must have been horribly painful for her. It’s always the children and women who are victimized.” Tens of thousands of Okinawa residents took part in a mass protest in Naha on Sunday over the murder and ongoing resentment against the presence of U.S. military bases. But compared with the situation in Okinawa, where anti-base sentiment has reached boiling point, the reactions of Yokosuka citizens to U.S. military-related crimes have been tame, Yamazaki said. He pointed to Yokosuka’s generally accommodating attitudes. His wife, for example, was taken advantage of when she tried to help the perpetrator with directions. Questions of history make the situation even more acute in Okinawa, he said, as people there were “deprived of their land,” and this contrasts with the situation in Yokosuka. “In Yokosuka, the U.S. took over the base of the former Imperial Japanese Navy, not citizens’ properties. Moreover, Yokosuka city officials have long promoted friendship with the naval base, hosting festivals and so on. “Unless SOFA is revised to become an equal treaty, the crimes will never go away. Orders to step up discipline of U.S. military personnel will never reach the rank-and-file, as long as the agreement allows them to take Japanese people lightly.”

u.s. military;compensation;yokosuka;sofa;masanori yamazaki

jp0011012

2016/06/15

LDP and Komeito to boycott massive anti-U.S. rally Sunday in Okinawa

OSAKA - Despite protesting the murder of a local woman and calling for revisions in the U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, local Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito officials will not take part in what may be the biggest Okinawan anti-base rally in nearly two decades. Organizers hope the rally Sunday will draw at least 50,000 people angered by the murder of Rina Shimabukuro, 20, allegedly by Kenneth Franklin Shinzato, an American civilian worker at Kadena Air Base. It will also denounce the construction of a replacement facility for U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma at Henoko in the prefecture. Those expected to attend include Okinawa Gov. Takeshi Onaga, most if not all of the prefecture’s mayors and village heads, and local and national politicians from a broad coalition of opposition parties. Prefectural assembly members loyal to Onaga, who increased their majority in the June 5 local election, will also be present. The rally is expected to adopt a resolution calling for U.S. Marines to leave Okinawa and for Futenma to be closed and not relocated within the prefecture. Protesters are also expected to call for fundamental revision of SOFA, which governs U.S. military personnel, their dependents and civilian workers. Finally, they will demand apologies from Tokyo and Washington to the people of Okinawa and compensation for Shimabukuro’s family. While local LDP members and state minister of Okinawan affairs Aiko Shimajiri have called for SOFA’s revision, they cannot support a resolution that opposes relocating Futenma within the prefecture. Shimajiri represents Okinawa in the Upper House and faces a tough re-election campaign. On Tuesday, Moriyuki Teruya, the local LDP chapter’s vice-chairman, told a news conference his members cannot participate in the rally, given that its resolution cites opposition to Henoko. Komeito has also indicated it would not participate. The ruling coalition has complained about the timing of the rally, which takes place just three days before official campaigning for the Upper House election kicks off.

okinawa;u.s. military;ldp;rally;henoko;sofa

jp0011013

2016/06/13

Minnesota memorial honors Hmong soldiers of 1961-1975 'secret war' in Laos

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA - A new memorial on the Minnesota Capitol grounds honors soldiers of the “secret war” in Laos. Hundreds gathered Saturday for the dedication of the memorial to the U.S. and Alliance Special Forces in Laos, Minnesota Public Radio News ( bit.ly/1PUzN2M ) reported. The 10-foot-tall bronze monument commemorates those who served in the Southeast Asian country, from 1961 and 1975. Laos was neutral during the Vietnam War, but the CIA recruited Hmong soldiers to carry on a covert campaign. After the U.S. pulled out of Laos and Vietnam, tens of thousands fled and lived in refugee camps in Thailand. Many refugees eventually resettled in the U.S. An estimated 66,000 Hmong live in Minnesota. Lt. Gov. Tina Smith praised the veterans at the dedication ceremony. “More than four decades ago, Hmong, Lao and Southeast Asian soldiers served during the Secret War, saved American lives and helped to advance the cause of freedom and democracy,” Smith said. “Your service embodies the ideal of sacrifice.” The memorial resembles a sprouting bamboo shoot, with its leaves bearing images of daily life, war and relocation. The ceremony featured Hmong music, a gun salute and the playing of “Taps.” Several officials including St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke as well as veterans. The Americans recruited Gen. Vang Pao to encourage many in his country to fight. The general, who died in 2011, was represented by his son, Wang Chong Vang. Vang said it was a “special day for all of us to honor the Lao Hmong soldiers who served as the U.S. secret army in Laos.”

vietnam war;laos;minnesota;hmong;vang pao

jp0011014

2016/06/13

Masuzoe clings to office as pressure mounts over funds scandal

Japanese Communist Party representatives in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly announced Monday the party’s decision to submit a no-confidence motion against Tokyo Gov. Yoichi Masuzoe, which could force the embattled governor from office. Since late March, Masuzoe has faced strong criticism for inappropriate, personal use of political funds and public money. And despite promises to correct his “behavior as a politician,” some lawmakers and the public have demanded his resignation. Following are questions and answers about the controversy surrounding Masuzoe’s handling of public funds. What is Masuzoe accused of? The scandal was first exposed by Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun in late March, which revealed the governor had spent taxpayers’ money on expensive and luxurious overseas business trips. The Japanese Communist Party then revealed that Masuzoe had spent ¥213 million during eight trips to foreign capitals since becoming governor in 2014. In Tokyo’s rules on gubernatorial business trips, the governor is allowed to spend up to ¥40,200 per day on hotels, but the cost of his suites significantly exceeded that amount. It later emerged that Masuzoe had also been using public money and political funds since before assuming his post as governor to dine out and holiday with his family, as well as using his official car to travel to his vacation villa. All of the expenses were booked as work-related. Why does Masuzoe’s misuse of political funds continue to spur criticism? In May, Masuzoe asked two highly regarded lawyers, Zenzo Sasaki, who headed the committee that looked into former trade minister Yuko Obuchi’s money scandals, and Tetsuya Morimoto, to look into his use of the funds. The probe, covering the period 2009 to 2014, found that Masuzoe had inappropriately used about ¥802,000 for stays at hotels and resorts and ¥336,000 for dining with his family. They said two New Year holiday trips to a resort hotel in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, where he spent ¥371,000, could not be considered work-related. The lawyers said artworks purchased by Masuzoe could serve to improve cultural exchanges with overseas guests, but the number of items, totaling 106, was too high. Two paintings, among the most expensive items, cost ¥580,420 in total. Other items, such as calligraphy utensils and silk Chinese shirts were deemed “research or work-related materials,” according to Masuzoe. The shirts alone cost ¥35,000. The lawyers accepted his explanation that he needed a new silk shirt because the old one was dirty. However, among the materials were books and comics apparently bought for family members that had nothing to do with Masuzoe’s official duties. But despite reports showing that the documentation of the governor’s expenses was insufficient and incomplete, the lawyers, who accompanied him to a June 6 news conference and were paid by Masuzoe, said there was no illegality in the way the money was handled. How has Masuzoe been countering the allegations? Masuzoe initially refused to take responsibility for handling his expenses, claiming that reservations were made by his assistants and that some “bookings may have been mistakenly made” by his former accountant. Amid the growing criticism, he admitted to diverting ¥455,000 to pay for hotel stays and restaurant dinners before assuming his current post in 2014. He said he would correct related claims and return the money. At the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly’s inaugural 2016 session on June 1, he said he would also refrain from traveling first class and staying in expensive hotel suites when on overseas business trips. Following the scandal, he said he would donate the amount of expenses deemed inappropriate to charity and give some of the artworks to museums or other facilities. He also said he would consider selling his villa. Eventually, due to growing pressure from Tokyo assembly members, he offered to halve his salary to take responsibility for the trouble caused by his actions. Will Masuzoe retain his position? According to a recent Mainichi Shimbun poll, many in the public are dissatisfied with Masuzoe’s explanation and wondered why loopholes in the Public Funds Control Law could be so easily exploited. Some 77 percent said he should resign. On Monday, Masuzoe attended one of two 6.5-hour-long General Affairs Committee sessions, which some lawmakers called his “last chance” to defend himself. According to the Liberal Democratic Party’s Hakubun Shimomura, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Masuzoe’s fate depends on whether he “takes the opportunity … and answers sincerely” to all questions posed to him. He said the party might support the no-confidence motion, to be submitted to the assembly Tuesday. If adopted, Masuzoe could be forced to resign. For the motion to pass, two-thirds of the assembly must be present and more than 75 percent of votes in favor are needed. If passed, the governor will be forced to dissolve his office within 10 days, which will require him to regain his position through re-election. The vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

scandals;yoichi masuzoe;political funds

jp0011015

2016/06/14

Sugiyama appointed top bureaucrat in Foreign Ministry

The Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed a set of key personnel changes at the Foreign Ministry, including the appointment of Shinsuke Sugiyama, deputy foreign minister in charge of political affairs, as the ministry’s top bureaucrat. The 63-year-old Sugiyama, former director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, replaces Akitaka Saiki, 63, as vice foreign minister. Saiki is retiring after holding the top bureaucrat post for three years. Sugiyama is the first person to have attended a private university to assume the top bureaucrat post at the ministry, which has been dominated by graduates of the University of Tokyo and a handful of other national universities. Sugiyama passed the Foreign Ministry’s exam in 1976 while he was a student at Waseda University and joined the ministry the following April before graduation. Takeo Akiba, 57, director-general of the ministry’s Foreign Policy Bureau, succeeds Sugiyama as deputy foreign minister, while Kimihiro Ishikane, 58, director-general of the Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, will take Akiba’s post. All of the appointments were effective Tuesday. Kenji Kanasugi, 56, director-general of the Economic Affairs Bureau, succeeds Ishikane, while Kanji Yamanouchi, 58, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, takes Kanasugi’s post. Keiichi Katakami, 62, ambassador to the European Union, was named deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, replacing Yasumasa Nagamine, 62, who moves to the Minister’s Secretariat. Nagamine is likely to become the new ambassador to South Korea, according to government sources.

foreign ministry;shinsuke sugiyama

jp0011016

2016/06/25

Restaurants slash prices and frills as living standard in Japan drops

According to statistician Ernst Engel (1821-96), the proportion of a person’s income that is spent on food tends to decline as that person’s income itself rises, even if the amount of money being spent on food increases. Engel’s law is usually used to illustrate the relative living standard of a country. If the portion that the average household spends on food is high, then it means the standard of living is relatively poor, since there is less discretionary income as a result. In other words, the more money you spend on food, the harder it is to get by. According to Engel’s law, Japan’s standard of living has fallen since 2012, just before the Liberal Democratic Party regained the reins of government. A Ministry of Internal Affairs survey found that the average household in which at least two people live spent 23.5 percent of its income on food. In 2015, this portion had risen to 25 percent. During that time the consumption tax was raised 3 percentage points and the value of the yen dropped against other currencies, thus making imported foods more expensive. At the same time, salaries did not keep up with the rise in food costs. Between 2012 and 2015, according to the ministry, average wages for “regular employees” rose by 1.7 percent, while the consumer price index (which does not track “fresh food”) rose by 3.9 percent. As a result, “real wages,” which factors in changes in CPI and inflation, actually decreased by 4.6 percent over this three-year period. Consequently, poorer families spent less money on food in 2015 than they did in 2012, even if a greater portion of their income went toward food. Between 2012 and 2015, the Engel Index for lower-income households in Japan, meaning those that make less than ¥3.34 million a year, increased by 1.6 percentage points. The Engel Index for higher-income households, meaning those that made more than 8.23 million, increased by 1.7 percentage points. The increase was the same, reflecting the rise in prices, but the difference in the 2015 index itself is the important factor: 28.7 percent for lower income households, and only 22.6 for higher income households. Certain costs of living, such as rent/mortgage payments and utilities, are nonadjustable. Food expenditures, however, can be reduced by cutting out certain items and looking for bargains, which tends to happen with greater frequency as income drops. In an article about household finances in the June 17 Tokyo Shimbun, a 59-year-old homemaker from Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, said she has adjusted to her family’s straitened financial situation by “not buying as much prepared food and not eating out.” A volunteer for a food bank in Kawasaki told the newspaper that the first thing families usually cut back on when they “fall into poverty” is clothing and household expenses, but the “new poor” — meaning families who are used to a middle-class lifestyle — try to keep up appearances, “so they cut back on food first.” As a researcher for Mizuho Securities told Tokyo Shimbun, people with lower incomes feel more of a burden when food prices rise, and since wages are dropping across the board, Japan’s standard of living is also dropping. What this means for the future is anybody’s guess, but one thing seems to be certain: Anyone who can sell food more cheaply is enjoying a larger pool of dedicated customers. And that goes for the restaurant business as much as it does for grocery stores — maybe even more so, given the primacy of food culture in Japan. Take Yoshinoya, the fast food chain that specializes in gyūdon —stewed beef over rice. In April, the company reintroduced butadon —stewed pork over rice — to its menu for the first time in five years. Over a two-month period, the chain sold 10 million butadon meals, boosting sales to a record ¥3.3 billion. Part of the appeal was nostalgic. Pork bowls were originally put on the menu in 2004 as a substitute for regular beef bowls, which were being discontinued due to the BSE scare in the United States, where Yoshinoya obtained almost all its beef. Once the ban on American beef was eased, Yoshinoya discontinued pork bowls in December 2011 and resumed beef bowl sales fully. However, prices in the meantime had risen due to the weaker yen and Yoshinoya was forced to increase the price of a standard ( nami ) meal from ¥280 to ¥300 in April 2014. In December it increased the price again, to ¥380. Year-on-year monthly sales decreased continually until April of this year, when the pork bowl came back. The price? ¥330 including tax, which, according to Sankei Shimbun, is considered cheap right now. But the chain that has really taken Engel’s law to heart as a business strategy is the relatively new Genkaritsu Kenkyujo, whose very name — which means “Cost Rate Research Center” — reveals its purposes. Genkaritsu sells plates of curry rice for only ¥200. The company has six stores in Niigata Prefecture and earlier this year launched a shop in the Takenozuka area of Tokyo. The place has been mobbed since it opened, despite the fact that the decor is homely (the company’s budget for a new outlet is limited to ¥500,000), there is no free water and curry rice is all you get. The company’s management says it plans to open 1,000 more stores nationwide. This being Japan, fast food does not automatically mean inferior food. Japanese consumers, even those with limited means, tend to demand good food almost as a matter of pride. McDonald’s understands this, and in order to reinvigorate its customer base recently introduced several new items specially designed for the Japanese market. Popular TV economist Takuro Morinaga, who is known as something of a gourmand, was talking about Yoshinoya’s improved fortunes on TBS radio recently and declared its butadon to be “very delicious,” so it’s not as if leaner circumstances mean bad cuisine. It just means restaurants have to be more clever about prices.

shopping;cost of living;budgeting

jp0011017

2016/06/25

Can foreign media pressure force changes in Japan?

Former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara’s first-person “biography” of late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, “Tensai” (“Genius”) , remains atop best-seller lists. It is interesting to note that when Tanaka was alive Ishihara berated him as a crude opportunist. The years have obviously tempered his view, or perhaps Ishihara’s own political career helped him appreciate how an uneducated hick without connections could become the most powerful man in Japan. The incident that caused Tanaka’s downfall, the 1970s Lockheed bribery scandal , received greater coverage overseas than it did in Japan, and one of Ishihara’s favorite themes as a public figure has been how Japan should resist foreign pressure and assert its position as a world power. Takashi Tachibana was the journalist most instrumental in exposing Tanaka’s money politics, but it was foreign press attention that made the former prime minister’s actions impossible to ignore — even in Japan. A similar situation surrounds the rise of the right-wing lobbying group Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi) , which has received close scrutiny by the likes of the U.K. newsweekly The Economist , Australia’s ABC News and other prominent foreign media over the past year. The Japanese press has shown less interest. In April, freelance journalist Osamu Aoki talked about “grass roots conservative movements” on TBS radio , and mentioned the overseas fascination with Nippon Kaigi, which counts among its 38,000 members Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, half his Cabinet and a good portion of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Local reporters tend to think of Japan Conference as a cult, and thus some have characterized the foreign opinion that Abe and his government are “under the thumb of Japan Conference,” as Aoki put it, as being akin to conspiracy theory. Nevertheless, citing how the foreign press helped advance the prosecution of Tanaka, Aoki says Japan Conference could be another big story the Japanese press is missing “even though it’s right there under its nose,” and so he plans to publish a book on the organization next month. If Aoki is hoping for a scoop, he’s too late. In April, a writer named Tamotsu Sugano published “Nippon Kaigi no Kenkyu” (“Nippon Kaigi Research”) which sold 126,000 copies in less than two months. The book purports to be the most detailed study of the group ever written, but its popularity is chiefly due to Japan Conference’s reaction. The organization’s founder, Yuzo Kabashima, wrote to Sugano’s publisher, Fusosha, asking it not to print the book. Fusosha ignored the request. Weekly magazine Shukan Post then called present and past members of Japan Conference asking why they hated the book so much. Most refused to comment. One professor who belongs to another nationalist organization told the magazine that Sugano’s report is “beyond the pale,” a “pile of lies” based on anonymous sources. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he is quoted as saying. “Whatever I say will benefit the book.” That seems to be exactly what happened. Interviewed on the web news channel DemocraTV , Sugano admitted that he is ideologically right-of-center and did not write his book “to be critical” of Japan Conference. He just noticed that the mainstream press was not covering the group. The book is based mainly on a series of articles he wrote for the Japanese Harvard Business Review, which attracted no attention from Japan Conference when they were originally posted online. “Japan Conference members are old men and women who don’t use the internet,” he said. When the book was slated for print publication, Japan Conference finally took notice, but it thought Fusosha was a right-leaning imprint and could thus be easily persuaded. Sugano says Fusosha publishes anything “that can make money for them.” Their biggest-selling book in the same format is a study slamming the nuclear power industry, hardly a conservative position. Sugano chronicles the group’s origins in the early ’70s. Several founding members belonged to the student wing of the religious group Seicho no Ie at the time, and its main purpose was to counterbalance the leftist student movement. After graduation, this group established its own right-wing organization, Nihon Seinen Kyogikai, which eventually merged with another like-minded group in 1977. This organization morphed into Nippon Kaigi in 1997. Japan Conference’s formidable organizational skills have influenced government policy, especially with regard to the legality of the national anthem and flag, the definition of the “Japanese family,” the direction of education and the Constitution, which they want to change. But Japan Conference is not “conservative” in Sugano’s eyes. Its interests are purely reactionary in that they were formulated in response to left-wing interests. So he interrogates its motives. Six lofty goals are listed on Japan Conference’s website. The first is to uphold Japan’s “beautiful traditions,” which he interprets as reestablishing a strict social hierarchy under the Emperor. Japan Conference says it wants to create an education system that “fosters a Japanese sensibility,” which Sugano says means getting rid of the teachers union, Nikkyoso, the Japanese right’s bete noire. Japan Conference aspires to contribute to world peace, which means elevating the Self-Defense Forces to the position of a national military and, according to Sugano, “bullying peace-loving liberals.” The author believes none of these ideas merit deep thought. Except for the Self-Defense Forces’ change, most citizens would probably find them regressive. In fact, that’s the reason Seicho no Ie, which now boasts 520,000 followers, has come out against the LDP in next month’s election. Because of Sugano’s book, the religious group felt compelled to explain that it rejected politics in the ’80s, and told Shukan Post that it doesn’t support the present administration or Japan Conference, which is “stuck in the past.” Sugano doesn’t think Japan Conference is as powerful as foreign media make them out to be, and he may be underestimating them. This lobbying group’s effectiveness lies in its ability to remain cloaked in anodyne sentiments. Sugano’s book reveals it still longs for a Japan that didn’t lose World War II — a country that doesn’t exist.

shinzo abe;japanese constitution;constitutional revision;nippon kaigi

jp0011018

2016/12/03

Working harder to end death by overwork

“When you’re in the office 20 hours a day, you don’t understand what life you’re living for anymore. (It’s so pathetic) you come to laugh.” — Twitter post by Matsuri Takahashi, as reported in the Mainichi Shimbun A week after the above message, Matsuri Takahashi, a 24-year-old first-year worker at Japan’s largest advertising firm, Dentsu, committed suicide on Dec. 25, 2015, by jumping from a corporate dormitory. Takahashi’s mother, suspecting that labor conditions played a role in her daughter’s suicide, lodged a formal complaint with a labor standards inspection office in Tokyo’s Minato Ward. In October, the office recognized that the suicide was related to death by overwork ( karōshi ). The office recognized that Takahashi had worked more than 100 hours of overtime in the month before her death. Takahashi’s suicide recalled a similar incident at Dentsu in 1991, when a 24-year-old employee killed himself, with his suicide also recognized as having resulted from overwork. Dentsu fought the initial ruling until ultimately losing a Supreme Court battle in 2000. The advertising giant vowed that such circumstances would never happen again, promising that it “takes the life and death of its employees seriously.” Dentsu repeated the same assurances after inspectors raided three of its offices last month. In addition, labor standards inspectors earlier this year ruled the 2013 death of a 30-year-old male Dentsu employee from illness as a result of overwork. In the past month, labor standards inspection offices ruled that two other deaths in Japan were also the result of overwork. One was an intern from the Philippines who died of a heart attack in 2014 after close to 120 hours of overtime in a month. The other was a Kansai Electric Co. employee who had spent more than 100 hours of overtime in a month preparing for an inspection of the firm’s nuclear facilities. The government published its first white paper on death from overwork this year, noting that labor accident insurance was paid out in 96 cases where workers died of heart or brain failure, and in 93 cases of suicide or attempted suicide caused by mental health issues in fiscal 2015. While compensation payments in cases where death was caused by heart or brain failure have declined slightly since 2002, payments related to deaths caused by mental health issues have increased. People naturally ask, “If working conditions are that bad, why don’t people just quit instead of killing themselves?” If, like myself, you have ever worked a 120-hour week for a Japanese company, you can perhaps understand their frame of mind. “An abusive boss can exacerbate the problem, but suicide from overwork usually happens when the victim is suffering from extreme sleep deprivation,” says Ichiyo Matsuzaki, an expert on workplace stress at Tsukuba University. “Cerebral fatigue occurs, causing the capacity for decision-making to diminish, and a small incident can lead them to believe that they have no other choice but to die. They aren’t able to see any other option because they can’t.” It’s worth noting that death from overwork isn’t the actual root of the problem; it’s simply an extreme symptom of a society where corporations known as burakku kigyō (so-called black, or dark, enterprises) are operating with relative impunity. The Japan Trade Federation Union suggests that 1 in 4 workers may be employed at such companies. Fatigue isn’t the only reason exhausted workers don’t quit, says Haruki Konno, author of “Dark Corporation,” a seminal book on corporate malfeasance in Japan. “In Japanese society, new graduates must work at least three years in their first company to qualify as having enough of a ‘career’ to change jobs,” he says. “So if you quit sooner than that, you are ‘damaged goods’ on the job market.” Konno highlights another problem. “There are no predetermined agreements on workload,” he says, “so it is impossible for employees to defy orders that come their way.” Konno suggests three simple measures that could be introduced to help fix the problem. “Place a cap on labor hours, enforce penalties when violations occur and increase the number of labor standard inspectors to execute this,” he says. “What’s more, penalize companies for failing to produce work records or for submitting fake data.” They are all excellent suggestions. However, here’s another: punish companies that work their employees to death. Why aren’t people getting married or having children? I’d suggest that it’s because young people are working all the time — unfortunately, that appears to be life for many in Japan. In a tweet posted in November last year, Takahashi herself expresses this sentiment: “Are we working to live or living to work? That’s life.” By now, we should know better. It’s important for Japan to adopt a work-life balance that isn’t tilted toward a tragic end.

black companies;overwork;dentsu;matsuri takahashi

jp0011019

2016/12/03

How Japanese media have failed endangered species

In October, a new documentary produced by Leonardo DiCaprio premiered on Netflix. “ The Ivory Game ” is a dramatic study of the illegal trade in elephant tusks that includes conservationists battling poachers, investigative journalists following the money trail and black market merchants in China. Experts say if the killing of African elephants continues apace, the species will be gone in a decade or so. What’s particularly discouraging is that, despite an intense and very expensive campaign by local authorities in various countries to stop poaching, the demand for ivory is such that policing becomes increasingly difficult because of the huge amount of money involved. The more poaching is suppressed, the more expensive the ivory becomes and thus worth the danger involved in obtaining it. A thousand African law enforcement personnel have been killed in the struggle. The only solution, as one conservationist points out while watching tons of confiscated ivory burn, is to inhibit demand by making the international trade of ivory completely illegal. The end of the documentary shows that this goal seems to be in sight, with China agreeing last summer to eventually phase out its legal ivory trade , which has helped make black market ivory trade possible. And while Chinese authorities did not announce a timetable, the fact that they acknowledge the environmental stakes means something. Ivory’s commercial standing is based on its value as a decorative material, which means only well-off people buy the artwork made from it. While it is possible that Chinese officials are involved somehow in the ivory trade, China has no national interest in sustaining the trade and, with the rise of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly stated his opposition to almost anything having to do with conservation, China has been given an opportunity to take the world lead in such matters. What’s conspicuously absent from “The Ivory Game” is Japan’s role in the issue. With China nominally withdrawing from the game, Japan remains one of the few countries in the world where ivory is traded legally. On a recent installment of TBS radio’s talk show “ Session 22 ,” about the recent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting in South Africa, a listener asked why Japan doesn’t completely close its ivory market. Reporter Tetsuji Ida , who has written extensively on the matter, answered plainly, “Because there is a market.” This market is worth about ¥2 billion a year, consisting mostly of ivory hanko (personal seals) and decorative items sold to Chinese tourists. The Japanese government says it’s OK to import ivory as long as it comes “through legal channels,” meaning from those few countries — South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe — that still export it. Supposedly, this ivory is taken from elephants that have died naturally and from stocks that existed before an international trade ban was enacted. Japan imported a large amount of ivory before it signed on to CITES in 1980, knowing it would become more difficult afterward, and since then it has worked to make ivory imports from South Africa “exceptions” to the limitations imposed by CITES. As “The Ivory Game” shows, using hidden cameras and the like, illegal trade in ivory is rampant in China and Vietnam, so it’s not a stretch to imagine that some of this makes its way to Japan . The government, however, insists there is no evidence that poached ivory is entering the country, but Ida says this assertion is based only on customs inspections. The government doesn’t address the possibility that smuggling could be taking place, which would be easy to determine: Just compare the amount of ivory sold to the amount being imported. “But they don’t do that,” Ida says. So while international trade in ivory is banned, domestic trade isn’t, and many members of CITES are seeking such a ban. Japan opposes this and other actions. It invariably registers “reservations” whenever a species of sea animal is subjected to greater controls, even if the one at issue has no commercial value in Japan. One example is sea horses, which Japan doesn’t import at all. When the species’ status was increased to “endangered,” Japan put in a reservation. Japan, as a matter of course — but not as a matter of record — rejects any limitations on the commercial exploitation of sea animals, since any movement in that direction is seen as a potential threat to its seafood industry. China finally bowed to pressure and has banned the trade in shark products for shark fin soup, a popular delicacy. Japan has not, seemingly because it has a lot of Chinese restaurants. More central to the issue is Japan’s position on eel, which was a major topic when CITES members met this year. Many signatory EU countries want to change the status of eel to Appendix II, which indicates the species will soon be endangered if nothing is done. Under Appendix II, certification is required to import the listed species. Japan is against changing this status, and the decision has been postponed to the next meeting. Something similar happened with bluefin tuna at the CITES members’ meeting held in 2010 . Ida says that the Japanese public knows nothing about these discussions because the media only reports them as matters that concern related industries and bureaucrats. The press reports the impact on markets but not the impact on species. Thus there is no connection made between the sale of hanko and the extinction of the African elephant. The only time such issues come up in relation to Japan is when someone tries to bring in endangered wild animals for pet stores or zoos, activities prohibited by CITES. As a treaty signed by countries with conflicting agendas, CITES itself is limited in its effectiveness. Activists take up the slack, with some calling for the boycott of online retailers such as Japan’s Rakuten , which sells ivory hanko, not to mention shark fin soup. The Japanese media doesn’t report on that, either.

wildlife;endangered species;ivory;cites;poaching

jp0011021

2016/12/03

Steamer missing; Japan declares war on U.S., British Empire; woman wins court case for equality of sexes; anger grows over bullet train noise

100 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1916 Steamer goes missing en route to Calcutta It is feared that the steamer Kaiho Maru, which left Kobe on Nov. 3 for Calcutta with a cargo of 3,500 tons consisting mainly of matches and cotton goods, has met with disaster, as while she was expected to reach Calcutta on Nov. 29, no news has been heard of her. The fear is expressed in some quarters that she might have been sunk by a German submarine, but it is improbable that enemy submarines are in Indian or Oriental waters, and the Nippon Yusen Kaisha officials are led to believe that she met with disaster due to other causes. 75 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Dec. 8, 1941 Japan declares war on U.S., British Empire We hereby declare War on the United States of America and the British Empire. The men and officers of Our Army and Navy shall do their utmost in prosecuting the war. Our public servants of various departments shall perform faithfully and diligently their respective duties; the entire nation with a united will shall mobilize their total strength so that nothing will miscarry in the attainment of Our war aims. To ensure the stability of East Asia and to contribute to world peace is the far-sighted policy which was formulated by Our Great Illustrious Imperial Grandsire [Emperor Meiji] and Our Great Imperial Sire succeeding Him [Emperor Taisho], and which We lay constantly to heart. To cultivate friendship among nations and to enjoy prosperity in common with all nations, has always been the guiding principle of Our Empire’s foreign policy. It has been truly unavoidable and far from Our wishes that Our Empire has been brought to cross swords with America and Britain. More than four years have passed since China, failing to comprehend the true intentions of Our Empire, and recklessly courting trouble, disturbed the peace of East Asia and compelled Our Empire to take up arms. Although there has been reestablished the National Government of China, with which Japan had effected neighborly intercourse and cooperation, the regime which has survived in Chungking, relying upon American and British protection, still continues its fratricidal opposition. Eager for the realization of their inordinate ambition to dominate the Orient, both America and Britain, giving support to the Chungking regime, have aggravated the disturbances in East Asia. Moreover these two Powers, inducing other countries to follow suit, increased military preparations on all sides of Our Empire to challenge Us. They have obstructed by every means Our peaceful commerce and finally resorted to a direct severance of economic relations, menacing gravely the existence of Our Empire. Patiently have We waited and long have We endured, in the hope that Our government might retrieve the situation in peace. But Our adversaries, showing not the least spirit of conciliation, have unduly delayed a settlement; and in the meantime they have intensified the economic and political pressure to compel thereby Our Empire to submission. This trend of affairs, would, if left unchecked, not only nullify Our Empire’s efforts of many years for the sake of the stabilization of East Asia, but also endanger the very existence of Our nation. The situation being such as it is, Our Empire, for its existence and self-defense has no other recourse but to appeal to arms and to crush every obstacle in its path. The hallowed spirits of Our Imperial Ancestors guarding Us from above, We rely upon the loyalty and courage of Our subjects in Our confident expectation that the task bequeathed by Our forefathers will be carried forward and that the sources of evil will be speedily eradicated and an enduring peace immutably established in East Asia, preserving thereby the glory of Our Empire. This declaration was released by the Board of Information on Dec. 8, 1941. 50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1966 Woman wins court case for equality of sexes A 26-year-old woman Tuesday won a two-year-nine-month legal battle at the Tokyo District Court against Sumitomo Cement Co. of Tokyo to annul as unconstitutional her mandatory dismissal by the company in 1963 under its internal regulations that all its female workers must quit if they get married. This was the first time in Japan that a law court verdict invalidated such a business rule as incompatible with the Japanese constitutional guarantee of equality of sexes. The company was ordered to pay Setsuko Suzuki of Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, ¥732,000 in unpaid wages since her dismissal and also to start paying her ¥22,875 in monthly wages by reinstating her to her former job as an office clerk at one of the company’s factories. 25 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1991 Nagoya citizens angry over bullet train noise Last night, Yusuke Nakano, 61, couldn’t sleep until after 11:44, when the last shinkansen train passed his house. This morning, the first bullet train woke him at 6:23. Nakano has been losing sleep since 1964, when the shinkansen line was built by his house. He lives 18 meters from the elevated line, 6 km east of Nagoya Station. At peak times, the trains pass every two minutes, traveling at maximum speeds of 220 kph. Passing trains cause noise levels inside Nakano’s house to reach 78 phons. At 65 decibels, the house begins to shake. A noise level of 78 phons is equivalent to being inside a subway train at its noisiest. In 1974, Nagoya-based Shinkansen Pollution Justice Group sued Japan Railways for compensation from noise pollution and vibration caused by the bullet trains. In 1986, the group won their case against JR and was awarded ¥480 million. During the last 10 years of the trial, JR spent an estimated ¥10 million to sound-proof 7 km of shinkansen track in Nagoya. The carrier was forced to do this by a 1976 government directive that set bullet train noise levels at 70 phons for urban areas and 74 phons for rural areas. “We are only asking one thing of JR — that it abides by the government directive,” Nakano says. “As soon as they do that, there will be no reason for our group to exist.”

transport;pearl harbor;shinkansen;bullet trains;sexism

jp0011025

2016/12/20

Abe administration presents draft guideline for 'equal pay for equal work'

The government has unveiled a draft guideline for a system of “equal pay for equal work” regardless of employment status. The draft, presented Tuesday at a government meeting for promoting employment reforms, stipulates that companies should provide equal payment to nonregular employees who engage in work equal to that of regular employees. It also says bonuses and commuting allowances should be given to nonregular workers. This is the first draft guideline formulated by the Abe administration on treatment of regular and nonregular workers in terms of wages and allowances. The government plans to continue discussing revising laws based on the draft guideline. The term nonregular is generally applied to part-time, contract or any other worker not employed as a regular employee. The inferior employment conditions provided to nonregular employees has grown in political and economic importance as the percentage of such people in the workforce has soared in recent years. But it remains unclear to what extent the disparity is going to be corrected as the draft guideline admits wage differences based on worker backgrounds. The draft says wages can differ depending on workers’ experience and performance outcomes, but employee benefits, in addition to commuting, late-night and holiday allowances, should be equal regardless of the job and performance. As for base pay, nonregular workers should receive the same amount if job experience, achievement and lengths of employment are the same, the draft says. With regard to dispatched workers, their treatment should be equal with that of employees at companies to which they are dispatched, it says.

employment;workforce;equal pay for equal work

jp0011027

2016/12/29

Native Americans hail, Republicans rail at Obama's monument picks in Utah, Nevada

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - President Barack Obama designated two national monuments Wednesday at sites in Utah and Nevada that have become key flashpoints over use of public land in the U.S. West, marking the administration’s latest move to protect environmentally sensitive areas in its final days. The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah will cover 1.35 million acres in the Four Corners region, the White House said. In a victory for Native American tribes and conservationists, the designation protects land that is considered sacred and is home to an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings. It’s a blow for state Republican leaders and many rural residents who fear it will add another layer of unnecessary federal control and close the area to energy development and recreation, a common refrain in the battle over use of the American West’s vast open spaces. In Nevada, a 300,000-acre Gold Butte National Monument outside Las Vegas would protect a scenic and ecologically fragile area near where rancher Cliven Bundy led an armed standoff with government agents in 2014. It includes rock art, artifacts, rare fossils and recently discovered dinosaur tracks. The White House and conservationists said both sites were at risk of looting and vandalism. “Today’s actions will help protect this cultural legacy and will ensure that future generations are able to enjoy and appreciate these scenic and historic landscapes,” Obama said in a statement. His administration has rushed to safeguard vulnerable areas ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. It has blocked new mining claims outside Yellowstone National Park and new oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Obama’s creation and expansion of monuments covers more acreage than any other president. But Trump’s upcoming presidency has tempered the excitement of tribal leaders and conservationists, with some worrying he could try to reverse or reduce some of Obama’s expansive land protections. Utah’s Republican senators vowed to work toward just that. “This arrogant act by a lame duck president will not stand,” U.S. Sen. Mike Lee tweeted about Bears Ears. Sen. Orrin Hatch said Obama showed “an astonishing and egregious abuse of executive power” and that “far-left special interest groups matter more to him than the people who have lived on and cared for Utah’s lands for generations.” Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Antiquities Act that allows a president to create monuments does not give a president authority to undo a designation, a rule the courts have upheld. She acknowledged that Congress could take action, though. Opponents agree the area is a natural treasure worth preserving but worried that the designation would create restrictions on oil and gas development as well residents’ ability to camp, bike, hike and gather wood. New mining or energy development will be banned, but existing operations won’t be affected, federal officials said. Wood and plant gathering is still allowed as well as hunting, fishing and other recreation, they said. Members of Utah’s all-GOP congressional delegation had backed a plan to protect about 1.4 million acres at Bears Ears, while opening up other areas of the state for development. The boundaries of the monument are roughly based on that plan and significantly smaller than what a coalition of tribes had sought. But Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye called it an exciting day for his tribe and people of all cultures. “We have always looked to Bears Ears as a place of refuge, as a place where we can gather herbs and medicinal plants, and a place of prayer and sacredness,” Begaye said. “The rocks, the winds, the land — they are living, breathing things that deserve timely and lasting protection.” The Navajo Nation is one of five tribes that will get an elected official on a first-of-its-kind tribal commission for the Bears Ears monument. The panel will provide federal land managers with tribal expertise and historical knowledge about the area, federal officials said. Tucked between existing national parks and the Navajo reservation, the proposed monument features stunning vistas at every turn, with a mix of cliffs, plateaus, towering rock formations, rivers and canyons across wide expanses covered by sagebrush and juniper trees. In Nevada, retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid pushed for protections at Gold Butte, a remote area northeast of Lake Mead, but GOP members of the state’s congressional delegation have been vocal opponents. The “designation is a wonderful capstone to a career of fighting to protect Nevada’s pristine landscapes,” Reid said in a statement. Republican Nevada Sen. Dean Heller expressed disappointment, saying land designations should be done by Congress and not by presidential decree.

barack obama;republicans;native americans;utah;nevada;donald trump;u.s. monuments

jp0011028

2016/12/29

Canadian man punches cougar attacking a dog near fast food chain

CALGARY, ALBERTA - A Canadian man punched a cougar in the face to stop it from attacking his dog in a wooded area near a fast food chain in Whitecourt, central Alberta, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said on Wednesday. William Gibb, 31, from Red Deer, Alberta, had stopped at a Tim Hortons outlet, a popular Canadian restaurant chain on his 600-kilometer (372-mile) drive to Grand Prairie on the evening of Dec. 26 and let his dog out for a walk, Whitecourt RCMP Sergeant Tom Kalis said. Shortly after Gibb heard the 80-pound (36-kg) female Husky whimpering in pain and found a cougar pinning it to the ground. “He punched the cougar, yelled at it and got it to release the dog. Then he called the police,” Kalis said. “He was quite lucky.” Gibb kept the cougar at bay and tended to his injured dog until police arrived and killed the cougar. The dog need medical attention but Gibb was not seriously injured, RCMP said. Kalis said cougar sightings were not uncommon around Whitecourt because the town is surrounded by forests, but it is unusual for cougars to attack dogs or other animals.

nature;animals;canada

jp0011029

2016/12/28

Shiga man faces attempted murder charge for shoving woman on crowded Kobe train platform

KOBE - A 53-year-old man was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of trying to kill a woman by pushing against her on a crowded train platform at JR Sannomiya Station in Kobe, causing her to lose her balance and brush against a train, police said. The police said Koichi Kubo, an unemployed man from Higashiomi, Shiga Prefecture, pushed Kaoru Akagawa, 43, at around 6:25 p.m. during rush hour after their shoulders touched each other. Akagawa stumbled and brushed against an arriving train, slightly injuring her right palm, they said. Kubo denied trying to kill the woman, claiming he does not remember what happened, according to the police. Akagawa, an artist who lives in Germany, was temporarily back in Japan with her 45-year-old husband, who reported the incident to the police. A station employee said he was shocked that such an incident occurred, because staff had been on alert after a 63-year-old woman was pushed off a train platform in Osaka on Dec. 11. A 23-year-old woman from Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, who was on her way to a relative’s house in Kobe, asked why there are no safety barriers on the platform of a major station like Sannomiya.

kobe;station;platform;sannomiya

jp0011030

2016/12/17

Scientific discoveries inspire amid a turbulent 2016

A number of the notable science stories of the past year are, quite literally, out of this world. For me, the story of the year has to be the August discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting the closest star to our own. The star, Proxima Centauri, is just 4.2 light-years from Earth. The planet circling that star has been named Proxima Centauri b. Proxima Centauri b was discovered by astronomers working on a project called Pale Red Dot, who reported that the planet lies in the star’s habitable zone, meaning that it could possess water and, maybe, life. It’s very exciting but it will be a while before we can confirm any of this. The planet can’t be directly observed with current telescope technology and, indeed, it was only first discovered by inference through the gravitational wobble a planet generates on a star. In November, by the way, astronomers confirmed another peculiar fact about Proxima Centauri. It is located near two other stars, Alpha Centauri A and B, and for a century scientists have wondered whether the stars orbit around each other. The relationship of these three stars was in fact the inspiration for the most extraordinary novel I read this year. “Death’s End,” the final installment of Chinese science-fiction writer Cixin Liu’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy, was published in English this year and it completely blew my mind. Liu knows a lot about cutting-edge science, and the relationship between the Alpha Centauri stars provided him with the name for the first book in the series: “The Three-Body Problem.” All three installments, though, are highly recommended. Fake news has been in the headlines this year but scientists at the National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities in Tokorozawa took this a step further in October with mice. Backing up a little, you might have heard of the “rubber hand illusion.” To produce the illusion, a subject sits next to a rubber hand with their own hand hidden. A scientist then strokes the subject’s hand and the rubber hand at the same time, and the subject’s brain is tricked into thinking the rubber hand is actually their own hand. Kenji Kansaku and his team found that mice can be tricked in the same way, except the researchers used a rubber tail instead of a rubber hand in their tests. Kansaku hopes the discovery might help develop new kinds of prosthetic limbs. In February, meanwhile, scientists confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space and time that are created when massive objects move. Sceintists have suspected that gravitational waves exist ever since Albert Einstein formulated his theory of relativity, but this is the first time they have been directly detected. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory detected the waves with sensors that can measure the expansion of space and time over the distance of a thousandth of the size of a proton. Let’s not also forget that it was a fantastic year for Yoshinori Ohsumi at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his discovery of how autophagy works. This is a fundamental cellular process that allows cells to degrade, recycle and repair themselves. In June, forensic scientists discovered that some genes switch on only after we die, including genes that are involved in cardiac muscle and healing as well as genes linked to cancer. Scientists suspect the genes are activated as part of a last-gasp attempt to survive, despite the fact that the body has already mostly died. It’s sometimes hard to say when death occurs. There is brain death, for example, but this can happen when the body is still technically alive. However, I think it’s extraordinary that there is such a blurring of the lines between life and death. Staying with something almost otherworldly, I was amazed by reports in March from biologists in the Republic of Guinea that they had found evidence for what seemed to be a shrine in the forest — built and used by chimpanzees. Camera traps set up near trees marked with strange scratches revealed that chimps were laying stones in the hollow of certain trees. What’s more, the cameras showed that the chimps would strike the trees with rocks. Biologists suggested that such behavior demonstrated a ritualistic side of chimpanzees, something that could even point to the origins of human religious belief. And there we have it. While 2016 may have been blighted by some miserable news in the fields of politics, economics and entertainment, scientific discoveries have continued to inspire.

religion;genetics;astronomy;gravity;best of 2016

jp0011031

2016/12/17

Undercover journalist infiltrates Uniqlo

In her Dec. 14 Tokyo Shimbun column, media critic Minako Saito mentioned how the press is excited about the buzzword of the year and the kanji of the year. They are much less interested in another annual prize, the Black Company Award for the firm that most egregiously exploits workers. The nominations were announced and Saito says the media, “especially TV,” mostly ignored them, since many of the companies mentioned are advertisers. Consequently, those who have won the dubious honor in the past, like Tokyo Electric and 7-Eleven Japan, have never felt pressured to improve labor conditions. One company that was not nominated this year is Fast Retailing Co., which operates the huge low-price apparel maker Uniqlo, even though it has had a reputation as a black company ever since it sued publisher Bungeishunju in 2011 over a book that claimed Uniqlo forced employees to work long hours for low pay. The book, “ Light and Shadow of the Uniqlo Empire ,” written by Masuo Yokota, was an extension of articles he did for Shukan Bunshun, a magazine also published by Bungeishunju. The plaintiff insisted that Yokota’s investigation of Uniqlo’s labor practices was faulty and incomplete. The suit was dismissed in October 2013 by the Tokyo District Court, and the following year the Supreme Court rejected a second appeal, agreeing with the lower court that “core parts of the book (were) true,” according to a Jiji Press report . The suit was standard spin control for a powerful company such as Uniqlo. In March 2015, Uniqlo’s imperious founder and chairman, Tadashi Yanai, was interviewed for the business magazine President . At one point the interviewer asked him to comment on the opinion that Uniqlo might be a black company. “People who talk behind my back about such things have never met me,” Yanai answered. “They should actually experience working in our company.” Yokota read the interview and decided to do just that, as he explains in the Dec. 8 issue of Shukan Bunshun . In the past, Yokota has “gone undercover” at companies such as Yamato Delivery and Amazon so that he could write about what it was like to work there. He says he stands by his 2011 Uniqlo book, but acknowledges he devoted a small portion to the company’s labor sins — the bulk is about how Uniqlo became such a powerful company. That portion was the only part Yanai had objected to. Yokota felt he needed to know more, and the only way would be, as Yanai suggested in his 2015 interview, if he worked there himself. In the same Bunshun article, Yokota describes how in the fall of 2015 he assumed a new name and went to a Uniqlo outlet in Chiba to apply for a part-time job. At most outlets, the part-time staff is made up of college students, whereas regular employees are in their 20s and 30s. Yokota is in his 50s, so he knew he would stand out and prepared himself for questions about why he wanted to work retail at his age. It wasn’t a problem. Uniqlo is always desperate for help, and they hired Yokota the same day they interviewed him. He immediately started working in the back room, unpacking boxes. He was at Uniqlo for about 13 months, transferring outlets several times within the Tokyo area and paying close attention to the daily newsletters that outlined “directives from the top.” As a result of his earlier book and the attendant lawsuit, Uniqlo had made changes in its labor practices so as to cut down on overwork, but most of these changes seemed cosmetic — guaranteed days off for managers, strict break times. During the two busiest bargain sales — the New Year’s holiday and an anniversary “thank you festival” in November — Uniqlo typically earns half its revenues for the year, and because last year’s “thank you festival” was considered a failure, management extended the sale from four to seven days in order to reach their targets more readily. Head office employees were dispatched to stores to pitch in. Regular and semi-regular employees worked from 9 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. all seven days. “It was like a war zone,” Yokota says in the Bunshun article. He often observed instances of regular employees signing off for the day and then continuing to work for free, since the new rules strictly limited official overtime. These illegal actions were a makeshift response to changing realities on the sales floor. Yanai is overly fond of mid-term plans and sales targets, which are always altered capriciously, and in order to catch up with them employees and the personnel department have to improvise. During peak sales periods Uniqlo would hire temporary workers, who are expensive since the employer is paying a margin to the temp agency. These temps had no sales experience and were mostly worthless. It would have been better to increase the wages of part-timers. They’d likely be able to hire more and keep them, but that sort of logic doesn’t appeal to Yanai, who seems obsessed with short-term results. Even during the 2009 recession, Uniqlo’s profit rate for domestic sales was 20 percent. The average profit rate for a Tokyo listed company was 2 percent. Yanai can’t quite achieve that rate any more, so he is focused on cutting costs — meaning personnel costs. After the first of Yokota’s latest round of reports went public in Bunshun, Uniqlo management figured out who Yokota was and fired him. In the next article in the series that appeared in the Dec. 15 issue, he describes his dismissal, with the reporter asking the personnel chief what company rule he had broken. The official said the “content” of the article wasn’t the point, its very existence was. Yokota took up the gauntlet that Yanai threw down in the President interview, something journalists should do in other industries, including the media, which is notorious for overworking its charges. On Dec. 6, the Labor Standards Bureau warned Asahi Shimbun about falsifying hours for two employees, one a reporter, even while the newspaper was running a series on the changing face of work in Japan. Physician, heal thyself. Correction : This story was modified on Dec. 22, 2016, to reflect the correct spelling of Masuo Yokota.

uniqlo;tadashi yanai

jp0011033

2016/12/17

Kansai towns gear up for the 'Pork Barrel-ympics'

Aware that voters outside of the capital may lack the degree of anticipation for the 2020 Olympics that can be felt among Tokyo politicians and corporations who will directly profit from the games, and sensitive to rumors that taxpayers elsewhere will get stuck with a post-Olympics tax bill, the government has realized it needs to make the event more popular nationwide. As of this month, nearly 200 cities, towns and villages across Japan have registered to become so-called host towns. Cities such as Osaka, Nara and Kobe, as well as towns like Kyotanba, Kyoto Prefecture, have registered to serve as Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic host towns. Elaborate plans have been filed with the Cabinet Office (which is overseeing the initiative) to have athletes from Denmark, New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland and Turkey, among others, pay a visit — even if it is a brief one — to places outside the capital. Of course, there is the obligatory mention in the proposals about promoting international friendship with Olympic athletes, learning about different cultures, teaching visitors local customs and showing the world that, yes indeed, Japan is not just Tokyo. Or Kyoto. Or any of the other well-trodden media stereotypes that we usually encounter. That is fine and dandy. But localities nursing their own dreams of an Olympics at some point were likely more interested in the part of the plan promising central government money for local Olympics-related events. The dash for Tokyo Olympic cash means Liberal Democratic Party-friendly boys and girls will get assistance for everything from printing up environmentally unfriendly glossy paper flyers advertising an Olympic-related event to upgrading their town’s sports facilities in order to hold friendly matches and training sessions with visiting athletes. Let the Pork Barrel-ympics begin! Nobody expects a village or town to bid for the games. But Osaka, badly beaten by Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, has never quite given up on its dream to host the event. That Sapporo has expressed an interest in the 2026 Winter Olympics (it hosted the 1972 Games), and the fact the next three Olympics are being held in South Korea, Japan and China, has some in Kansai worried whether the International Olympic Committee would award an Olympics yet again to an East Asian city — especially if Sapporo is successful in its bid. That hasn’t stopped the flow of rhetoric about how Osaka and the Kansai region are well-suited to hosting not only a few athletes and coaches prior the Tokyo Olympics, but also the games themselves. All that is needed is a bit of central government cash. Not just for Osaka, of course, but for nearby cities and towns. Sure, they might be mere host towns in 2020. If they play their cards right with the LDP and Osaka’s political leadership, however, they could be tapped to host a couple of lesser known, not-made-for-TV events in any future Osaka Olympic bid strategy. Which of course means more tax money for their local infrastructure. Osaka is already bidding to host the 2025 World Expo despite a noticeable lack of public enthusiasm and reports that Paris, which also wants the Expo, enjoys strong support. For 2020, Osaka has registered to host Australian athletes prior to the games, while the city of Izumisano, near Kansai International Airport, wants to host athletes from Uganda, with which locally based organic cotton towel manufacturers have a relationship. It remains uncertain as to whether such efforts to play the gracious host in 2020 will pay off down the road in the form of a formal Olympic bid that comes with the political support of the capital. In the meantime, becoming a host town means extra cash for pet construction projects and more money for LDP-supported politicians and businesses. Oh, and of course some worthwhile international cultural exchange … we hope.

tourism;tokyo 2020;tokyo olympics

jp0011035

2016/12/10

Could easier adoptions stem child abuse in Japan?

The national news has recently reported a number of stories about young children dying at the hands of their parents or guardians , either from neglect or direct physical violence. It’s hard to say if these tragedies constitute a trend since detailed child abuse statistics weren’t really available until 2005, when the welfare ministry starting compiling them in earnest. On Sept. 17, the Asahi Shimbun ran an article reporting that 71 children died of abuse nationwide in 2014, including those who died in so-called family suicides. When murder-suicides are not counted, more than 60 percent of children killed by parents are less than 1 year old. In 2014, 15 died within 24 hours of being born. Asahi’s research found that 90 percent of children who die of abuse are younger than 3 years old, and in 28 of the 39 cases it studied in 2014, the perpetrator was the biological mother. In 24 cases the reason given for the crime was that the child was the result of an unexpected pregnancy. Eighteen of these women said they did not seek medical care and many gave birth alone. Thirteen were not living with the father of the child and five didn’t know who the father was. In his book “Kichiku no Ie” (“ House of Brutality “), Kota Ishii explains that the Japan Pediatric Society assumes that official statistics about infant and toddler killings are the tip of the iceberg. The real number of child killings is probably three to five times higher, because doctors who evaluate the deaths of very young children in emergency situations are reluctant to accuse parents of abuse, even if they suspect as much. An expert on child development told the Asahi that it’s incumbent on social workers and teachers to be aware of this situation, because children who are the result of unexpected pregnancies are more likely to suffer abuse. The welfare ministry is now formulating a plan to “support women who become pregnant but do not want to give birth,” part of which means dispatching social workers to “obstetricians’ offices and midwife facilities.” Some may think the welfare ministry’s plan refers to giving abortions, but in Japan the procedure is illegal . The reason they are performed so often is due to a loophole that allows women to terminate pregnancies because of financial difficulties. The irony is that national insurance doesn’t cover abortions, so women of poorer means, which describes the majority of parents who kill their children, can’t afford them and carry their babies to term — often in secret. This year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government assembled a children’s welfare advisory panel, which has recommended that these children be placed in foster care at younger ages so that they can bond more readily with their new families. Traditionally, social welfare staff ensured children stayed with their biological parents, but this attitude is changing due to greater awareness of the prevalence of parental abuse, especially in the case of unexpected pregnancies. The central government is also trying to make adoptions easier. A different Asahi article , which ran on Dec. 3, reported that the ruling and opposition parties have agreed to pass a bill to “regulate” agents who mediate between expecting mothers who don’t want to keep their babies and couples who wish to adopt. Currently, only public adoption services are subject to government control. Nonprofit organizations that act as go-betweens in such situations only need to “inform” their local governments that they are carrying out such activities. But in September, Chiba Prefecture ordered one such agent to cease activities after they discovered he received ¥2.25 million from a couple to move their name to the top of the list of people waiting to adopt. The bill compels adoption agents to “obtain permission” from authorities so as to prevent “improper business practices,” meaning trafficking. The type of adoptions covered are those of newborns whose names can be immediately placed in a couple’s koseki (family register) upon birth, meaning the child becomes the “natural” offspring of the couple. Because of the stigma of non-blood relations inculcated by the koseki system, these types of “special adoptions,” which can be carried out until a child turns 6, vastly outnumber those involving older children, whose status in the koseki indicates they were adopted. A recent installment of NHK’s news program “ Close-up Gendai ” addressed the Chiba case and the recent pattern of child killings. In one scene, the head of an Osaka NPO is waiting with an adopting couple at a train station for the mother to arrive with her newborn. There are tears, but the handover is completed in nine minutes. This NPO, which launched two years ago, is famous for quick turnovers. Public adoption services take time. Staff ask penetrating, personal questions of both expectant mothers and adopting couples, and there are many meetings before anything is decided. In big cities, the waiting list can be 100 to 200 names long. A couple at the bottom won’t receive a baby for at least five years. Most of the Osaka NPO’s screening work is done online, and they ask the couples matched with mothers to help defray the latter’s living and medical expenses until she gives birth. The Osaka government has complained about the NPO’s claim it will provide up to ¥2 million to mothers, because it makes it sound like a business. Nevertheless, it is the monetary aspect that appeals to mothers looking to give up their babies, since they often can’t afford prenatal care. It’s not a solution that makes people comfortable. A professor of child welfare in the NHK studio watched the video of the train station transaction, and while initially encouraged by the NPO’s streamlined approach he found the informality of the exchange distressing. “Maybe it should be more complicated,” he commented. A gynecologist sitting next to him added, “Every day I see women with unexpected pregnancies choosing either abortion or raising a child on welfare. If they know they can get ¥2 million, I’m afraid they’ll be persuaded to give their baby up too easily.”

adoption;child abuse

jp0011036

2016/12/10

Editors thrive on controversy — but it can bite back

In the early hours of Jan. 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck southern Hyogo Prefecture and the surrounding areas, causing more than 6,000 deaths and seriously damaging infrastructure. For the next several days, most Japanese stayed glued to their TV sets. Few noticed that a monthly magazine named Marco Polo — which had gone on sale the same morning as the Hanshin disaster — had run a 10-page article titled “There were no Nazi gas chambers.” Written by a Japanese physician, based on secondary sources and with virtually no primary research, the article essentially claimed the Holocaust, which culminated in the genocide of some two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, had not occurred. Particularly grating to Jewish groups around the world was the timing of the article, which appeared just 10 days before the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. In protesting the article, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human rights organization whose membership includes Holocaust survivors, angrily pointed out that an editor’s introduction to the article unequivocally endorsed the writer’s arguments, by proclaiming that a young doctor had uncovered “a new historical truth” about the Holocaust. Marco Polo’s editor, Kazuyoshi Hanada, may merely have sought to stir up controversy with the story. If so, he certainly got more than he bargained for. Germany’s Volkswagen Group and a number of other advertisers reacted by withdrawing their ads from Marco Polo, and to apologize, the magazine’s publisher, Bungeishunju-sha, shut the publication down. It’s ironic that in its penultimate issue, Marco Polo had announced a crusade to expose the vested interests of powerful businesses, government organizations and religious groups. Jews, however, were not mentioned. Earlier this year, an interview with Hanada appeared in the online magazine Tocana. He told TV producer Yoshio Koh that, under his guidance, Marco Polo’s circulation had been boosted five-fold, from 30,000 to 150,000 a month. “It was the first time we had ever received a protest from a foreign organization, and the company panicked,” Hanada related, adding that during an internal meeting the question was raised, “What if Japanese embassies around the world get stoned by angry Jews?” Although Bungeishunju-sha’s then-president Kengo Tanaka resigned to take responsibility, Hanada remained on the company payroll in what is described as kanshoku (a do-nothing job). But 18 months later he moved across town to work for the Asahi Shimbun — famous for its adversarial relationship with Bungeishunju-sha — where he became editor of a woman’s magazine called Uno, which folded after two years. Despite the international outcry over Marco Polo, Hanada retained his reputation for being a charismatic and savvy editor, and gradually made a comeback of sorts. Along with editing second-tier magazines, he has been writing a weekly column in the Yukan Fuji tabloid and makes occasional appearances on TV. For the past decade, Hanada, who is now 74, also edited a monthly magazine named WiLL, which has a heavily conservative slant and is not above delving into historical revisionism. Last spring, citing disagreements over editorial policies, Hanada broke off from WiLL to launch his own nearly identical magazine, named Hanada. It is one thing for a famous editor to be closely associated with a publication, but in a country where modesty is seen as a virtue and self-promotion a vice — and where most weekly magazines don’t even include an editorial masthead — the bestowing of a periodical with the founder-cum-editor’s surname is audacious and unprecedented. Hanada magazine’s Jan. 2017 issue went on sale earlier this month and features several articles about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, along with coverage of South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Bob Dylan. It also ran an article by Yasuo Kato titled “The Emperor’s Horses,” about the fates of horses used by the Japanese military during the war years. Of greatest interest in the issue, however, was a 14-page interview personally conducted by Hanada with Manabu Shintani, the current editor of Shukan Bunshun. Before he took the reins of the ill-fated Marco Polo, Hanada had edited Shukan Bunshun from 1988 to 1994. Shintani, once Hanada’s understudy at Marco Polo and currently regarded as the enfant terrible of tabloid magazines, has been in the limelight all year. Like Hanada, 51-year-old Shintani had also greatly displeased his employer — in this case by running several pages of sexually explicit ukiyo-e prints — and was punished by being ordered to take a leave of absence in the last three months of 2015. Some media pundits expected he would not return to Shukan Bunshun, but after his reinstatement Shintani came roaring back with a series of scoops that got everyone’s attention. A three-part series in January led to the resignation of economy minister Akira Amari, and during the next several months Bunshun ran a stream of articles embarrassing various entertainers, politicians and sports figures. So consistent and productive was Bunshun’s output in the past year that magazine’s newly acquired nickname, “Bunshun-ho” (the “Bunshun cannon”), was among the nominees for top buzzword of the year. Hanada takes a cordial tone toward Shintani in the interview and one can’t help wondering if he is a bit envious of Shintani’s success. He asked Shintani how he has managed to generate so many timely scoops. “Having the internet has been really convenient for us,” Shintani replies. “When we read news stories now, the internet makes it easier to observe readers’ reactions. By ignoring this, print newspapers risk becoming boring. “The most essential point for a weekly magazine is an ability to read the direction of the winds in society. In my college days I belonged to the yachting club, and when learning techniques for steering the boat we would say, ‘A big gust is coming.’ Reacting to changes in the wind while steering a yacht is a lot like running a weekly magazine. “Likewise in yachting, as in running a magazine, you also have to develop a sense of avoiding overcompensating if there’s a quick change in the wind’s direction,” Shintani added. It will be interesting to see how Shintani, and Hanada, steer their respective magazines in the coming year.

manabu shintani;kazuyoshi hanada

jp0011039

2016/12/26

Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's low-key Pearl Harbor visit in 1951 recounted

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who will visit Pearl Harbor with U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, wasn’t even born when then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida went there just six years after Japan’s surrender, by himself and feeling awkward. Yoshida is best remembered for signing the San Francisco peace treaty with the U.S. and others in 1951, allowing Japan back into international society after its wartime defeat. His Pearl Harbor visit, which he made on his way home from San Francisco, was largely eclipsed by the historic treaty. Archival writings and photos unearthed by The Associated Press reconstruct Yoshida’s visit, ranging from his aim to win U.S. trust to how he was put at ease by the U.S. Navy commander’s dog. Yoshida arrived at Pearl Harbor on Sept. 12, 1951, shortly after requesting a courtesy visit to the office of Adm. Arthur Radford, commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet. The office overlooked Pearl Harbor, offering a direct view of the site of the Japanese attack early on Dec. 7, 1941. Radford recalled that he thought Yoshida might feel uncomfortable because of his office’s location. “I could almost see the wreck of Arizona” out of the window, he wrote in his memoir, “From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam,” referring to a battleship that sank in the attack. Yoshida, Westernized and fluent in English, showed up in a white suit, wearing his trademark brimmed hat and carrying a cane, apparently looking a bit stiff. Then Radford’s dog broke the ice. His little Scottish terrier, which was stretched out in front of Radford’s desk, walked slowly to Yoshida to be patted, while sniffing around his shoes and ankles. “That started a dog conversation that took most of the visit,” Radford wrote. Yoshida was a dog fancier, and had bought terrier puppies just before leaving San Francisco, according to his grandson, Taro Aso, currently the finance minister in Abe’s Cabinet. Yoshida named the pair “San” and “Fran” after his successful trip. Years later, Yoshida told Radford’s wife how he was embarrassed when he walked into the office after seeing Pearl Harbor, and how happy he was that the dog was able to settle him down. A navy archival photo obtained by AP shows the two men shaking hands, with a smiling Yoshida looking up at the much taller Radford. Yoshida spent about 20 minutes in the office, according to a story from Sept. 13, 1951. Yoshida’s visit to Pearl Harbor was actually on his second Hawaii stopover; he stopped there on his way to San Francisco as well. But he was more relaxed the second time after completing the important mission in San Francisco, where he also signed the original Japan-U.S. security pact. On his way to California, Yoshida landed in Honolulu on Aug. 31, 1951, when Japan was still technically an enemy. During that visit, he laid flowers for the war dead at Honolulu’s National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, a military cemetery better known as Punchbowl. Three other Japanese prime ministers have since followed suit. A local Hawaii newspaper recently reported that two others also visited Pearl Harbor later in the 1950s. Yoshida’s daughter, Kazuko Aso, who was traveling with him, recalled that security was extremely tight in Hawaii on his first stopover, before the peace treaty was signed, and that Yoshida, who stayed on the top floor of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, was instructed not to leave the hotel for safety reasons. “But that old man insisted he wanted to go out … to pay tribute to the war dead,” Aso said in an interview published in the monthly Bungei Shunju magazine some weeks after the trip. She said the Japanese delegation unexpectedly received a warm welcome. Photos in the Mainichi Shimbun showed Yoshida’s face nearly buried in Hawaiian floral leis because he had received so many of them at the airport. At the Sept. 12, 1951, reception attended by U.S. military and Hawaiian officials, Yoshida sought further U.S. economic assistance and cooperation to reconstruct his war-devastated country and pledged to never use aggression. Two days later, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin welcomed his speech as “a notably frank admission of Japan’s war guilt and a pledge that Japan will do everything possible to repair the enormous damage done by her armies, navy and air force.”

wwii;u.s. military;shigeru yoshida;pearl harbor;arthur radford

jp0011040

2016/12/26

Abdication panel leans toward one-off deal after Emperor Akihito's rare video

A government panel appears ready to propose that a special temporary law be enacted to allow Emperor Akihito, 83, to abdicate, given his advanced age. But the Emperor reportedly believes a permanent reform law, not a temporary one just for himself, should be enacted so future monarchs can abdicate if they so chose. Why is the panel set to propose something that would go against the Emperor’s wishes? What is the logic behind its thinking? Here are some questions and answers on the long-running debate over the abdication issue: Why did Emperor Akihito suggest the Imperial system be reformed to allow an emperor to abdicate? On Aug. 8, in an unprecedented video message televised nationwide, the Emperor, then 82, expressed concern that he may some day become unable to fully perform his public duties due to his age. Citing two surgeries, the Emperor said his physical strength had weakened recently. The video was widely interpreted as indicating his desire to abdicate within a few years and to see reforms to the Imperial system made so an emperor can step down before death. In response, the government set up a six-member panel headed by Takashi Imai, former head of Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), that is expected to present its reform proposals early next year. What is the panel’s consensus to date? On Dec. 14, Takashi Mikuriya, the panel’s deputy chairman, told reporters all six members were of the opinion that it is technically difficult to clarify in legal terms the conditions under which an elderly emperor should be allowed to abdicate. Mikuriya also said public opinion regarding the conditions and age for abdication can change over time and depend on the prevailing social situation. For example, the retirement age at most Japanese companies was once 50 but is now 60, in light of the growth in average longevity in Japan. Another thorny issue, government officials say, is how select the person who will judge whether the mental and physical condition of an emperor meets the conditions for abdication. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, vaguely warned that “various problems” could arise if an emperor is allowed to abdicate based on his own desire. Many right-leaning, conservative intellectuals and politicians argue that an emperor should not be allowed to abdicate on his own because it could destabilize the Imperial succession system. For example, an emperor might use age or health problems as an excuse to quit for different reasons, including political ones related to his views or those of enemies or political forces arrayed against him, conservative critics say. “If an emperor is allowed to abdicate on his own, it would allow a subsequent emperor to refuse to assume the throne or to abdicate after a short term,” Hidetsugu Yagi, a professor at Reitaku University, wrote in an opinion paper presented to the panel in November. “It would greatly shake the stability of the Imperial Throne,” Yagi wrote, arguing that a regent should be installed in the event an emperor becomes unable to fulfill his public duties due to age. How does Emperor Akihito feel about these issues? The Emperor has not said in public whether he wants a temporary or permanent route to abdication. But Mototsugu Akashi, 82, a longtime friend, quoted the Emperor as saying in private that he wants reform for “which abdication is possible not only for myself, but (for future emperors).” The Emperor also reportedly said he doesn’t think installing a regent is a good idea. When his father, Emperor Hirohito (posthumously known as Emperor Showa), served as regent when Emperor Taisho’s health began failing, the public was split by the issue. “I think a regent is not a good idea,” the Emperor was quoted as telling Akashi. If that account is true, why won’t the panel support the Emperor? It won’t because the Constitution bans emperors from engaging in political activity, and altering the Imperial system is considered the task of the politicians, who are supposed to represent the people. According to the Constitution, the emperor is “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People,” and “shall not have powers related to government.” Thus if the emperor were to play a significant role in reforming the Imperial system, it would be considered a violation of the Constitution, scholars and civil servants say. Government officials have repeatedly emphasized they will draw up an Imperial reform bill on their own, regardless of the “private” views of Emperor Akihito, and are expected to submit one, based on the panel’s recommendations, to the Diet in the first half of next year. How does the public stand on the matter? According to a opinion poll conducted from Dec. 9 to Dec. 12 by Jiji Press, 61 percent of the public backs a permanent law that would allow Emperor Akihito and all future emperors to abdicate, and 21.6 percent support the idea of a special law that would be apply only to him. The poll covered 2,000 voters across the country and drew valid responses from 62.3 percent of those interviewed.

emperor akihito;imperial family;abdication

jp0011041

2016/12/07

Russia long represented in Tokyo by cathedral, eateries

With Russian President Vladimir Putin set to visit Japan next week, expectations are growing as to whether progress will be made on a territorial row that has been a thorn in bilateral ties. But strolling through the streets of Tokyo, a few Russia-linked buildings and restaurants, both old and new, suggest there is history between the two countries that goes beyond the disputed islands off Hokkaido. One is a Byzantine-style Orthodox cathedral founded in 1891 by Russian priest Nicholas Kasatkin — an eye-catching structure that sits among modern Tokyo buildings. The Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo, in the capital’s Chiyoda Ward, boasts Byzantine-style decor. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Visitors walk through the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo on Nov. 6. | YOSHIAKI MIURA A wall painting at the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo, commonly known as Nicolai-do, features Jesus Christ holding a book in Japanese. | YOSHIAKI MIURA The Byzantine-style Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo is seen on Nov. 6. | YOSHIAKI MIURA The Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Tokyo, commonly known as Nicolai-do, however, was burned down during the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. It was restored in 1929 thanks to donations, and subsequently designated one of Japan’s important cultural properties in 1962. A train ride away in Shinjuku Ward is the Russian restaurant Chaika, or seagull, which opened in the Cold War era of 1972. Matryoshka dolls dot the windowsill at Chaika, a Russian restaurant in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward on Nov. 23. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Chicken pot pie with white sauce is one of the menu items at Chaika, a Russian restaurant in the Takadanobaba district in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. | YOSHIAKI MIURA Russian tea is served at Chaika, a Russian restaurant in Shinjuku Ward, on Nov. 23. | YOSHIAKI MIURA And for those who like to follow the latest trends, ItaCafe, a newly opened cafe in the Waseda district, bills itself as the first Russian maid cafe in Tokyo. Waitresses dressed as Russian maids serve food at ItaCafe in Tokyo’s Waseda district on Nov. 23. | YOSHIAKI MIURA But perhaps the most interesting of all is Russia Tea in Taito Ward, a small shop that offers more than 1,000 Russian products, ranging from matryoshk a dolls featuring past Russian leaders, to cigarettes, military uniforms and night-vision devices. Kazuharu Iwahashi, owner of the Russian Tea specialty shop in Taito Ward, Tokyo, holds matryoshka dolls featuring past Russian leaders on Nov. 23. | YOSHIAKI MIURA

vladimir putin;russia;tokyo holy resurrection cathedral;itacafe

jp0011044

2016/12/31

Japan Times 1992: 'George Bush collapses during official dinner'

100 YEARS AGO SATURDAY, JAN. 6 1917 Aborigines of north are now dying out An account of the customs and manners of the Ainos, the aborigines of the Hokkaido may be of interest to the reader who is still not familiar with them. The number of the Ainos scattered over Hokkaido has remarkably decreased and is less than 20,000. They live in groups of 20 to 40 houses in scattered districts on the island. In spite of ceaseless efforts on the part of colonial government and each prefectural government on their behalf, they nevertheless show no sign of benefiting from the care taken of them. They are an indolent, improvident race. Both men and women are addicted to drinking and appear to regard anything done for their benefit as a nuisance. The male Ainos drone away their time and do nothing at most but hunting and fishing. The women are more inclined to labor and industry and curiously enough the female birthrate gets the better of that of males. Bear hunting best characterizes their courage, but the present scarcity of bears on the island barely rewards their efforts to catch enough to meet their drinking expenses. Ainos keep themselves very dirty and never care to utilize the bath accommodations furnished by the colonial authorities. The hair is held sacred by them and they naturally are not willing to part with it. Most of the Ainos tattoo the parts of their faces above and below their mouths, at ages ranging from 12 to 20, by their own hands. And it is interesting to note that some women are clever in the art of singing “Naniwabushi,” a type of historical and romantic song popular among Japanese. Dr. M. Gordon Munroja later discredited some of the details mentioned in this report. 75 YEARS AGO Sunday, Jan. 2, 1942 Japanese forces enter Philippines capital The United States War Department has admitted the fall of Manila in a war communique, adding, however, that resistance of U.S. forces in the Philippines has not been hampered in the least. U.S. and Philippines forces have formed strong defenses to the north of Manila and are guarding the fortifications in Manila Bay to prevent their falling into Japanese hands, the communique stated. With the occupation of this city by Japanese forces, all Japanese residents — about 15,00 persons — were reported safe today. The Army Department of the Imperial Headquarters at 9 a.m. on Wednesday announced that Imperial Japanese Army units have been entering the city of Manila, capital of the Phillipines, in rapid succession since yesterday afternoon. “Imperial Army units have been entering the city of Manila one after another since the afternoon of Jan. 2.” Manila was the site of arguably the bloodiest battle in the Pacific theater of World War II, with Japanese troops massacring an estimated 100,000 civilians. 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, Jan. 5, 1967 Tokyo aims to give each resident one bedroom One bedroom for one person is possible in Tokyo by 1985, the Metropolitan Government said Wednesday. In a survey titled “Tokyo in 1985” that was released Wednesday, the Metropolitan Government said such a housing dream for Tokyoites can come true under a vigorous program backed by heavy capital outlays of the central government. The new image of Tokyo, drawn by the Metropolitan Government’s Planning and Adjustment Bureau, also said the city population would grow to 13 million by 1985. But, it added, Tokyo by then will have no problems such as a rush-hour jam for commuters, water shortages, street traffic congestion and smog, let alone tight housing space. To realize this dream, the city said it would need ¥23 million from the state Treasury, cooperation of outlying prefectures, vigourous planning and severe legislative measures. It envisioned that, by 1985, annual income of Tokyoites will swell to ¥1,140,000 per person with one out of each three persons driving an automobile. By 1985, it said, Tokyo’s population will consist of 4.3 million families comprised of three persons each, with the city becoming the center of industries requiring high-flung technology such as printing, publication and electronics. Tokyo workers will retire at the age of 60, with his working hours trimmed to 40 hours or five days a week and his income averaging ¥1,140,000 a year, a figure which is three times that of 1964. In spite of all these promised benefits of a modern city life, however, jet noise, fire and traffic accidents are expected to increase, it said. 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, Jan. 9, 1992 George Bush collapses during official dinner U.S. President George Bush collapsed in the middle of an official banquet Wednesday night and returned early to the Government Guesthouse in Tokyo’s Akasaka district. A spokesman later said Bush was suffering from gastric fluid and was “feeling fine.” While the dinner was proceeding, Bush slumped in his chair and was asked by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa how he was feeling, according to reports. NHK showed pictures of Bush then appearing to fall sideways from his chair. Bush regularly jogs and plays tennis and golf. He is on the final leg of a 12-day trade mission that took him earlier to Australia, Singapore and South Korea. Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato said that Bush fell ill about 40 minutes after the start of the banquet and vomited a little. Bush was helped to his feet after lying on the floor for several minutes. He smiled and appeared pale as he waved to other guests before leaving the banquet hall. Bush earlier had complained to the doctor of feeling ill but said he wanted to go on with the dinner, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. “I wanted to get a little attention,” Bush reportedly joked after rising from the floor.

tokyo;wwii;manila;housing;ainu;george bush

jp0011045

2016/12/06

Space oddity as Dr. David Bowie treats 'starman' Buzz Aldrin in New Zealand hospital

WELLINGTON - In what can only be described as a space oddity, former astronaut Buzz Aldrin is being cared for in a New Zealand hospital by Dr. David Bowie after being evacuated from the South Pole. In a truly remarkable coincidence, Aldrin’s doctor shares the name of the late British singer whose greatest hits included songs such as “Starman” and others about space travel that could easily have been penned for the great American astronaut. The coincidence certainly tickled Aldrin’s manager, Christina Korp, who posted a photo on Twitter of Aldrin and Bowie together in a Christchurch hospital. “Thank heaven @TheRealBuzz’s doctor is David Bowie,” Korp said on Twitter. “You can’t make this stuff up.” Bowie, the singer and actor, released his smash hit “Space Oddity” about a fictional astronaut who loses communication with ground control in 1969, just days before Neil Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon. Their moonwalk, part of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, was watched by a then-record television audience of 600 million people worldwide. Bowie, who also adopted the alter ego of Ziggy Stardust, followed the success of “Space Oddity” with the release of “Starman” in 1972. Aldrin, 86, was evacuated from the South Pole at the weekend after falling ill and was flown to Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island, where he remains in quarantine. He has been advised by doctors to remain until fluid in his lungs clears. Bowie, the singer and actor who won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, died earlier this year.

nasa;space;astronomy;offbeat

jp0011046

2016/12/24

Industry divided on government's casino gamble

In its zeal to ramrod some bills into law before the New Years holiday, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party finally legalized casino gambling, a matter that has been in legislative limbo for a number of years. However, the problems that always prevented the bills from advancing in the past have not gone away, the biggest one being Japan’s perceived penchant for gambling addiction. Even the government’s own health ministry reports that more than 5.36 million Japanese suffer from some sort of gambling addiction, and while groups like Gamblers Anonymous say that passage of the casino bill will provide the government with an incentive to tackle the problem, in order to do so the LDP would first need to acknowledge its source. According to the magazine Big Issue, 93 percent of Japanese men who say they gamble cite pachinko as their main form of betting recreation. The problem is, pachinko is not legally recognized as a form of gambling. Strictly speaking, pachinko, a mechanized game based on a crude, vertical species of pinball, is characterized as “entertainment” ( yugi ) in the eyes of the law. As long as winning at some game is not directly compensated with cash, it doesn’t qualify as gambling, or tobaku , which is controlled under the Criminal Code. In theory, pachinko falls into the category of popular amusements commonly found at the kind of neighborhood festivals that popped up in the years after World War II, where participants could win canned goods or chocolate bars by playing lightly competitive games. Eventually, enterprising spirits recognized the loophole in the law that allowed for these games and exploited it by establishing pachinko parlors as havens of recreation. Pachinko “winners” are compensated with prizes such as ballpoint pens that are then sold off-site at special nonrelated “stores” for cash. And because these off-site stores are bureaucratically overseen by the police, the government has a stake in them. This relationship is an open secret unacknowledged by the LDP in its drive to legalize casino gambling, and so the question is: Once casinos are up and running as magnets for so-called Integrated Resorts, will pachinko be allowed to emerge from the shadows? The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported in 2011 that all gambling revenues in Japan amounted to ¥24 trillion, only ¥5.16 trillion of which was amassed through “public” gambling endeavors such as lotteries and various forms of racing. The rest was pachinko. In fact, over the previous 20 years, according to Nikkei, Japanese people spent ¥540 trillion on pachinko. In a year, pachinko brings in more than twice as much money as do all gambling endeavors in the United States. In 2013, the Australian Game Machine Association found that there were 7.67 million “gambling-related” machines in the world, and that 4.59 million, or 60 percent, were located in Japan. In second place was the U.S., with only 889,000. Gambling-related machines were defined as mechanical or electronic vending games that offered a potential return, and included slot machines, video lottery terminals and pachinko. The Caribbean island of Saint Martin had the most machines per capita, one for every 12 inhabitants. Monaco was second, and Japan third, with one for every 28 people. The fact that pachinko remains a business outlier despite its huge earnings is epitomized by the absence of any pachinko-related company on any of Japan’s stock exchanges. It was big news when the pachinko parlor operator Dynam Japan Holdings was listed on the Hong Kong exchange in August 2012 after a Japanese lawyer for the company submitted a 20-page brief to the exchange explaining how pachinko is “not illegal” in Japan because of the three-store system wherein winners at the parlor exchange their metal ball winnings for premiums at a different location and then exchange those premiums for cash at a third location. It was perhaps the only instance in the annals of pachinko where a clear legal explanation of the loophole was given in an above-board manner. In Hong Kong, there was nothing wrong with describing pachinko as a form of gambling. It just can’t be done in Japan. The industry is split about the advent of casinos in Japan. Some operators see it as unwanted competition, while others want to take advantage, thinking wider legal acceptance of gambling will provide them with investment opportunities. With the aging population, pachinko as a pastime is shrinking, and casinos are, by definition, 24-hour operations. Open-ended gaming is integral to the profit motive of gambling. If the gambler is cognizant of a temporal limit to his or her activities, much of the incentive for betting is gone. It’s in the house’s interest to allow the gambler to play as long as possible so as to continue accumulating winnings or recoup losses, whichever the case may be. According to the Public Morals Law, however, which regulates pachinko, parlors must close by 1 a.m. (An exception is Mie Prefecture, where they are allowed to be open all day, but only on New Year’s Eve.) So if casinos are allowed to operate 24 hours a day, pachinko parlor operators may demand they be allowed to operate 24 hours a day as well. When casinos are finally regulated, there will need to be public debate about pachinko parlors’ de facto status as gambling havens, but in any case, it’s not as if gambling is being suddenly thrust upon an innocent citizenry. In 2010, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto tried to make the case for bringing casinos to his city by saying that revenue from local taxes on gambling could be used to fund education, welfare benefits and health care. However, his civic rationale was odd. He said Japanese society was naive about gambling because the authorities prevented them from playing, and that by legalizing casinos the public would become more savvy and, presumably, cosmopolitan. Hashimoto obviously has a romantic image of gamblers, but in any case, he was wrong. Japanese already know a lot about gambling, which may be why they don’t like the new bill.

gambling;casinos

jp0011047

2016/12/24

A realistic view of Japan's island dispute

In the past month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has snuggled up to two of the world’s most distrusted national leaders in an attempt to prove his diplomatic mettle and boost support rates ahead of a rumored snap election next year. Abe was the first country head to gain an audience with President-elect Donald Trump in a meeting whose kitschy setting, prematurity and air of pointlessness highlighted Abe’s desperation. Then, last week, he welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to a hot-spring resort in his home constituency of Yamaguchi Prefecture, thus raising eyebrows in various foreign capitals. Last summer, when Abe hosted the annual summit of leaders of the industrialized world, it was with the G-7, not G-8, because the others had decided to uninvite Putin due to his actions in Ukraine and Syria. Abe is not being a maverick. There were specific national interests tied to these meetings. The confab with Putin was presented as a concerted attempt to get the four islands the Soviets seized at the end of World War II — the so-called Northern Territories — returned to Japan. It didn’t work out that way at all. In fact, it was never going to work out that way, and anyone with any knowledge of the issue knew that, but the Japanese media persuaded the public that there was some possibility Putin could be bent toward Japan’s will, even if that only meant the return of two islands. This concession also wasn’t going to happen. The summit has been called a bust , but the fact that it effectively destroyed the government-sanctioned verities related to the Northern Territories counts as the only progress the matter has seen in 70 years. It’s not apparent if the public picked up on this paradox. According to an Asahi Shimbun survey , 45 percent of respondents thought the summit went well, while 41 percent said it didn’t. Meanwhile, 70 percent thought the meeting produced “nothing or not much,” while 27 percent felt the opposite. People are split as to whether the summit in and of itself was worthwhile, even if the majority thought little was accomplished. These conflicting responses only make sense if you consider the media’s own conflicted approach. Because the official government line is that Russia must acknowledge Japanese sovereignty before a peace treaty can be negotiated, the press has a hard time conveying the truth of the matter, which is that more than 7,000 Russians live on the islands and don’t plan to ever leave. Japanese media relate this reality indistinctly, showing the inhabitants and even interviewing them, but never interpolating such reports into a coherent analysis of government policy, which has always been ahistorical and implausible. If any media outlet indicated the truth — that the sovereignty issue is a nonstarter — right-wingers would immediately arrive in front of their editorial offices and start screaming in protest. But it was a conservative pundit, military affairs writer Sucho Montani, on the website Japan In-Depth , who provided the most lucid explanation of why Japan will never get those islands back. Beyond the presence of Russian nationals, he writes, the Russian military sees the territories as vital to its security. They’ve already set up missiles on two of them, a fact even NHK has acknowledged , though without elaboration. Russia’s English-language site, Sputnik International , describes it plainly: If Russia returned these islands it would “seriously damage (its) global image” and provide a “little tactical victory” for the U.S., which the Japanese Foreign Ministry has admitted would likely commandeer the prodigal territories for its military installations. The difficulty for Abe was to get past these inconvenient truths and arrive at something workable, namely a cooperative development proposal that gives Japan an ongoing stake in the territories. Before he could do that he had to address the claims of hundreds of Japanese who call the islands home. Russia does not deny it ejected them by force, but insists the islands belonged to Imperial Russia before Japan took them over following its victory in the Japan-Russia War. Japan says its people inhabited those islands before the war without mentioning that the inhabitants were indigenous Ainu eventually displaced by the government. As pointed out in a Dec. 18 Asahi Shimbun editorial , Ainu activists have always resented Japanese “negotiations” for the Northern Territories because their claims are ignored. Even under Russia, the names of all four islands — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai — are from the Ainu language. The provisional solution is to allow those former residents, whose average age is more than 80, to return to their old homes to visit, a solution that requires not only simplified visa procedures but an acknowledgment that Russia is in charge, and it’s Abe’s task to break the news gently to the Japanese people. During a heated discussion on the web news service DemocraTV , former Lower House lawmaker Hiroshi Kawauchi stated that the government “has never had a solution” to the Northern Territories problem, and that the sovereignty policy was based on a lie. The 1956 agreement between Japan and Russia regarding future status of the territories says nothing about Japanese sovereignty, only the “possibility” that two islands might be returned “after” a formal peace treaty is signed. Japan gave up sovereignty in the San Francisco Treaty of 1951. The independent journalists in the studio couldn’t hide their awe of Putin. One called him a “master salesman” who “intimidated and impressed” Abe. Like the prime minister, Japan’s mass media only seemed interested in “the show.” The press were obsessed with a 95-minute “secret” meeting between the leaders, whose outcome was already clear, and a communal bath that never took place because Putin wasn’t interested in scrubbing his counterpart’s back. “It was like Japan’s national soccer team,” commented moderator Tsuyoshi Takase. “The media inflames the public’s hopes about their prospects, but in the end they’re always disappointed.”

shinzo abe;vladimir putin;northern territories

jp0011048

2016/12/24

Japan reconsiders and reinterprets the Pearl Harbor attack

In May, U.S. President Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to make a historic visit to Hiroshima, the city that became the birthplace of the age of nuclear warfare. It should come as no surprise that Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is scheduled to make a reciprocal gesture of reconciliation this week, possibly making him the first sitting Japanese prime minister to visit the USS Arizona Memorial. So far, however, news coverage in Japan has been disappointingly spotty, partly because the story has been eclipsed by the usual year-end roundups, interspersed with breaking news stories: the Osprey crash in Okinawa and resulting blowback; the terrorist incident in Berlin; heavy pollution in Beijing; and President-elect Donald Trump’s latest tweet. In December, the January 2017 issue of prestigious monthly magazine Bungei Shunju was released with a 13-page essay by history critic Masayasu Hosaka titled “Pearl Harbor: The true nature of the blunder.” Though written long before the announcement of Abe’s upcoming visit, it nonetheless provides some scholarly insights into how Japanese reacted to news of the attack 75 years ago. At 7 a.m., on Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, a young NHK announcer named Morio Tateno told radio listeners, “The Naval department of Imperial headquarters announced that at 6 a.m. today the Imperial Navy, during predawn hours, initiated hostilities with the British and American navies in the Western Pacific.” On the night of Dec. 8, Prime Minister Hideki Tojo invited the heads of the army and navy to celebrate with a Chinese-style repast at the prime minister’s residence, during which he effused over the “better than anticipated results” of the attack and expressed anticipation of President Franklin Roosevelt’s imminent downfall. Extra editions of newspapers were passed out to pedestrians on the streets and stirring martial tunes such as “Warship March” emanated from loudspeakers. Company workers at their morning assemblies were exhorted to exclaim “ banzai” cheers. Stock prices on the Tokyo exchange shot up by 10 percent. As Hosaka observes in Bungei Shunju, “The exhilaration over the successful attack on Pearl Harbor was the beginning of what was to become a stream of glorified lies on the progression of the war.” But, unlike Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who went to war with the specific goal of recovering their former empires’ lost territories, Japan had no clearly defined purpose for initiating hostilities. “Having gone to war with vague goals,” he wrote, “Japan had no means of determining how to bring the war to an end. Even after Tojo’s Cabinet fell, it could not speedily halt the war.” This year, several magazines chose to run articles about Pearl Harbor with strongly revisionist slants. The January issue of conservative monthly Rekishi-tu featured two, one that accused the wily President Roosevelt of “maneuvering” Japan into attacking the U.S., and another maintaining U.S. intelligence had broken the Japanese naval code before Pearl Harbor and, therefore, had advance knowledge of the attack. The January issue of Shincho 45 magazine ran an article that claimed British leader Winston Churchill knew of the Japanese plans but chose not to inform the Americans. Move on folks, nothing new here. In a live telephone interview on New York’s WABC Radio, Tokyo-based American entertainer Dave Spector remarked, “In America, it’s ‘Remember Pearl Harbor.’ In Japan it’s more like ‘Forget Pearl Harbor.’ “ Nonetheless, in a poll of 959 people conducted earlier this month by NHK, 34 percent of respondents said they “strongly approve” of Abe’s visit, with another 48 percent giving their qualified approval. Only 3 percent voiced completely negative opinions. On the other hand, Sunday Mainichi (Dec. 25) opined, perhaps Abe’s not the right person to go there. After all, over the past several years it has been the Emperor and Empress who traveled to Saipan, Palau and the Philippines to console the war dead. A visitor from the Imperial Family would carry more weight than a prime minister and, Abe’s good intentions notwithstanding, it’s unlikely his visit will erase the lingering U.S. sentiment that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a “cowardly act.” Contradicting most news reports, meanwhile, it appears that Abe might not necessarily be the first sitting Japanese prime minister to visit the USS Arizona Memorial after all. Shukan Post (Jan. 1-6) claims the former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita also went there in June 1988, during his tenure as Japan’s leader. Takeshita, while traveling aboard a government-chartered Japan Airlines DC-10, stopped in Hawaii on the return leg of a summit meeting in Toronto. The magazine’s check of airport flight records notes that Takeshita’s aircraft first flew from Toronto via Chicago to the island of Maui on June 24, for a two-night stay. At 8 a.m. on June 26, he flew to Oahu, and returned to Tokyo’s Haneda at 6:23 p.m. Allowing for a flight of 30 minutes from Maui to Oahu, and the seven to eight hours flying time between Honolulu and Haneda, Takeshita would have had a stopover of from one to two hours in Oahu. No records exist, however, of his having gone to Pearl Harbor. “While no record of such a visit exists, there have been cases where visitors do not go through military channels,” Daniel Martinez, chief historian at the USS Arizona Memorial, explained to Shukan Post. A member of Takeshita’s entourage says that the prime minister slipped away to Pearl Harbor while the others in his entourage went golfing, so only a few Diet members could have accompanied him. Efforts to identify other eyewitnesses were inconclusive, but the story’s source emphasized, “I’ve only been to the Arizona memorial once, so my recollection couldn’t possibly be wrong.” The Dec. 24 Tokyo Shimbun can claim bragging rights for nick-of-time historical research. It has discovered that two other prime ministers, Ichiro Hatoyama and Nobusuke Kishi, also visited Pearl Harbor during their tenures, in 1956 and 1957 respectively. The Hawaii Hochi newspaper covered the events.

shinzo abe;world war ii;pearl harbor

jp0011049

2016/12/23

Trump pick Carl Icahn denies conflict of interest, says EPA, bank regulations hurting U.S. economy

WASHINGTON - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn targeted environmental and banking regulations on Thursday as big drags on U.S. corporate investment and said revamping them would be a priority in his role as adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. Icahn, tapped by Trump on Wednesday as a special adviser for regulatory reform, also said in an interview on CNBC that he was surprised at criticism that his vast business dealings would pose conflicts of interest with his advisory role. “I honestly am sort of surprised that so much is being made of my being named to that,” Icahn said in the wide-ranging interview, in which he also voiced concern about U.S. stock market levels. He said he owns companies in every sector and has no specific duties outlined in his role for Trump. “What I’m going to be doing is basically talk to Donald as I’ve talked before,” said Icahn, an early supporter of Trump’s presidential bid. Saying his business acumen qualified him for such a role in the new administration, Icahn rejected concern that his investments could pose conflicts of interest as “almost a crazy issue.” Icahn refused to speculate on candidates he would recommend to lead the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission, but said the SEC chair should be able to hold U.S. corporate executives and their boards of directors accountable. He said overregulation has strangled corporate investment in the United States and that corporations perceive themselves to be “at war” with the federal government. “I do think it’s extremely important for this country that this absurd regulatory environment is toned down somewhat,” he told CNBC. “I’m not against regulations at all. In fact I sort of believe that you need a rule of law. But it’s become literally absurd in many areas.” Immediate areas he would advise Trump to target would be banking regulations and Environmental Protection Agency regulations, specifically those on what he called “obligated refineries.” So-called obligated parties are refiners without operations dedicated to selling blended fuels to consumers. These “merchant refiners” are required to blend biofuels like ethanol with gasoline or other petroleum products, or else meet those obligations by purchasing paper “credits” called Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) in an opaque market. Icahn owns a major stake in one such refiner, CVR Energy Inc., and its stock surged more than 12 percent on Thursday after Icahn’s appointment as a Trump adviser. Icahn in August called on the EPA to change the market for renewable fuel credits to favor smaller refiners like CVR, a position the Trump campaign later endorsed. The New York investor also said he was surprised by how the stock market has run ahead so fast since Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory and was “very wary” because of uncertainties. The benchmark S&P 500 has rallied more than 5 percent since the election, while some key sectors have surged far more. Bank stocks and small cap shares, for instance, are up 25 percent and 14 percent, respectively, in that period. Icahn said he was now more hedged against a stock market pull back than he was just a couple of weeks ago.

banks;epa;carl icahn;donald trump;cnbc

jp0011050

2016/12/23

After passing written exam, health check, Santa gets pilot's license renewed in the nick of time

OTTAWA - Santa Claus has successfully renewed his commercial pilot’s license, passing a written exam as well as a health check — despite high sugar levels — and is good to fly for Christmas, Canada’s transportation department said Thursday. Santa was given his pilot’s license renewal by Transport Minister Marc Garneau, a former astronaut, according to a video released on Twitter by Transport Canada. “Santa, I’ve got good news for you, once again you’ve aced your pilot’s exam so here is your certificate,” Garneau tells the man, dressed in a fur-trimmed red suit and hat and wearing black gloves. The video shows the elderly gift-giver completing a vision screening test composed entirely of the letters H and O, and handing over a urine sample. “Your health is good. Your sugar levels are a little bit high, but you are cleared to go, so that’s the good news,” Garneau told Santa, who responded with laughter. Garneau also warned Santa against distracted driving: “Just a reminder, don’t use your cellphone, and don’t do any texting while you’re driving your sleigh through the skies.”

christmas;holidays;canada;festivals;tradition

jp0011051

2016/12/23

Ad giant Dentsu declared Most Evil Corporation of the Year

It’s another prize . . . but maybe not one that the management at Dentsu Inc. will be proud of. The major ad agency has been awarded this year’s Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award, also known as the Black Company Award, a corporate raspberry prize given to companies with a culture of overwork, discrimination and harassment, a group of journalists and rights activists announced Friday. The suicide of one of its workers, Matsuri Takahashi, 24, was recognized as work-related in October. After pushing more than 100 hours of overtime per month, she committed suicide in her company dorm on Christmas Day last year. “Dear Dentsu Inc., your 24-year-old new employee, Matsuri Takahashi, committed suicide on Dec. 25, 2015. She worked 105 hours of overtime, which is extremely long. In addition, she was suffering from power harassment from her bosses, and was mentally pressured,” said Tokachi Tsuchiya, a film director who is a member of the selection committee. “On Twitter, she wrote, ‘I don’t want to work,’ and ‘two hours of sleep everyday is extreme.’ Several days before her death, she retweeted a post about the 2015 Black Company Award. She retweeted about this moment right now. It’s regrettable,” he said. Before her death, Takahashi sent a message to her mother saying: “Goodbye, my lovely mother.” Takahashi’s case was the second confirmed work-related suicide of a Dentsu employee. Another worker, Ichiro Oshima, who was also 24, died in 1991. In addition, earlier this year, the 2013 death of a 30-year-old male Dentsu employee from illness was ruled as induced by overwork. Since 1951, the company’s employees were urged to follow “Dentsu’s 10 Principles,” which included such items as “Never give up on your task. Treat it as if it was your own life with utmost determination and responsibility,” according to an English version of the list. But a direct translation of the Japanese edition can be read as: “Never give up on your task, not even if you die, until you accomplish it.” Following requests from her family and lawyer Hiroshi Kawahito to remove all references to the principles from the handbooks it distributes to all employees, Dentsu announced earlier this month that they will be deleted from April next year. Winners in other categories of the award include Japan Post Co., which won both the web vote award and a special award for garnering the highest number of votes online, and DWE Japan, operator of the Shabu Shabu Onyasai chain of izakaya (pubs), for its exploitative work practices for part-timers. The award, which this year marked its fifth anniversary, examines overtime, sexual and power harassment, bullying, low salary, discrimination against temporary workers, and other abuses at dodgy companies. “The purpose of the award is not to simply name names, but to raise awareness that these corporations should not exist in our society,” said lawyer Ryo Sakaki, who was also a member of the selection committee. “The news reports about such companies will be forgotten as time passes. But we’d like everyone to remember once again that these abusive companies do exist by presenting the Most Evil Corporation of the Year Award,” he said.

labor;discrimination;japan post;black companies;overwork;dentsu;karoshi

jp0011052

2016/12/23

Overwork deaths put spotlight on Japan's 'black companies'

The Japanese have no clear term to describe the concept of work-life balance, but they do have one to describe the notion of dying for your company: karoshi . Karoshi made headlines around the world this year after the suicide of a Dentsu Inc. employee was recognized in October as related to her excessive working hours at the powerful ad agency. Matsuri Takahashi, 24, jumped from a company dormitory on Christmas Day in 2015 after logging more than 100 hours of overtime the previous month. The term, often used to describe the Japanese corporate culture of glorifying those who make the ultimate sacrifice for their company, was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. With the 2016 Black Company Award bestowed on Dentsu Inc. on Friday to recognize its exploitative and illicit work practices, here is some background on karoshi. What are the causes of karoshi? Karoshi is defined as death resulting from work-related stress or fatigue. It can be roughly separated into two types — suicide from mental illness and death from heart or vascular disease. According to a white paper on karoshi published by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in October, there were 96 cases of death from mental illness and 93 cases of work-related suicide in 2015 that were deemed eligible for worker’s compensation. The paper said 23 percent of all of the companies surveyed said they have employees log at least 80 hours of overtime a month. Many of the deaths, largely attributed to stroke or heart disease, involved people who worked 80 or more hours of overtime per month. Among the suicides were 26 cases linked to “changes in job description or quantity,” 17 “special cases” that led to extreme mental stress, and eight cases caused by “extreme harassment, bullying and assault.” And more than half logged over 100 hours per month, including 18 who surpassed 160 hours. How much overtime would likely cause karoshi? The labor ministry sets the threshold at 80 hours and considers employee deaths to be “strongly related” to work if that kind of overtime continues for two to six months or exceeds 100 hours in a single month. According to research published in 2008 by Kenji Iwasaki of the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety, doing 60 to 80 hours of overtime per month doubles or even triples the risk of triggering brain- and heart-related diseases. The study also said that working over 80 hours of overtime accompanied by five or less hours of sleep per day will create an extremely high risk of karoshi. For a case to be formally recognized as karoshi, and for workers’ compensation to be awarded, labor offices must confirm whether the deceased employee worked over 100 hours of overtime a month or exceeded an average of 80 hours of overtime in the past six months, according to a blog post by lawyer Ryo Sasaki of Junpo Law Office. Sasaki also wrote that the deceased employee’s working environment and mental condition must be investigated. Isn’t there a law that caps working hours? The Labor Standards Law states that employees must work no more than eight hours a day and that violators face up to ¥300,000 in fines or up to six months in prison. However, employees can work overtime if their company and its labor unions, or representatives of more than half of its employees, sign an agreement based on Article 36 of the law, which permits overtime within the limits set by the labor ministry, generally 45 hours a month or 360 hours a year. But despite the cap, a special provision allows companies to go even further. According to the labor ministry, nearly 60 percent of large firms had set up Article 36 agreements with special provisions in 2013, with 14.6 percent having an overtime cap above 80 hours. Following Takahashi’s death, Dentsu promised to set a cap of 65 hours, and Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike announced in September plans to have officials of the metropolitan government leave work no later than 8 p.m. The central government, however, is still in the process of revising the law to institute a definite overtime cap.

suicide;labor laws;black companies;karoshi

jp0011053

2016/12/14

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim loses final appeal against sodomy conviction

KUALA LUMPUR - Jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim lost his final bid for freedom on Wednesday when the federal court rejected his appeal to set aside his sodomy conviction and five-year prison term. A five-member panel of judges ruled unanimously that there was no merit in Anwar’s application for a review of his 2014 conviction, his final legal option for an acquittal. He will now have to serve out the remaining 16 months of his prison term. “This is not a fit or proper case for this court to exercise its inherent jurisdiction to initiate a review,” Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, the chief judge of Malaya, said as he read excerpts from a 60-page ruling. Anwar, once a rising star in the ruling party, is the greatest threat to Prime Minister Najib Razak and his coalition after leading a three-party opposition alliance to stunning electoral gains in 2013. He was convicted and jailed for sodomizing a former aide, a charge that Anwar and his supporters say was a politically motivated attempt to end his career. “This is not the end of the road. … I have pleaded and reiterated my innocence, but the judiciary has ignored my pleas,” Anwar told reporters in the court after the verdict. “This is a long walk to freedom.” His wife, children and grandchildren were in court. Crowds of supporters gathered outside in a show of support for their 69-year-old leader. A former ruling party deputy prime minister, Anwar’s legal troubles began soon after he fell out with then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the late 1990s and was sacked. He then campaigned against corruption and nepotism and led a nationwide reform movement. He was later jailed for the first time on charges of sodomy and graft.

anwar ibrahim;malaysia;courts;rights;prison;elections

jp0011054

2016/12/22

Major Japanese firms' winter bonuses up for fourth straight year

Winter bonuses at Japanese companies employing more than 500 people averaged ¥880,736 ($7,500), up 0.02 percent from the previous year and rising for the fourth straight year, the country’s major business lobby said Wednesday. Winter bonuses at Japanese manufacturers averaged ¥900,490, up 0.47 percent and topping the ¥900,000 line for the first time since the survey started in 1997, according to a tally of Keidanren. A Keidanren official mainly attributed the rise to an increase in the revenue of manufacturers. Winter bonuses at major companies have recovered to the levels before the global financial crisis in 2008, the official added. The average winter bonuses at nonmanufacturers, however, fell 0.69 percent from a year before to ¥822,518 for the first decrease in three years. Out of 20 industries, 13 including the fiber, automobile and food sectors, showed improvement in winter bonuses, while the remaining seven, such as steel and shipbuilding, declined, compared with a year earlier. Keidanren conducted the survey on 251 companies whose stocks are listed on the Tokyo stock market’s main division. The data are based on conclusion from 145 companies where employers and labor unions reached agreements on winter bonus payments.

employment;bonus;japanese companies;workforce

jp0011055

2016/12/25

Route pick just tip of the iceberg for Hokuriku bullet train project

KYOTO - The decision by the ruling parties to support a Hokuriku Shinkansen Line route from Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, to Kyoto via the town of Obama has sparked relief, hope and disappointment in the Kansai region and western Japan. While supporters of the so-called Obama route hailed the decision, opponents were obviously let down, saying it would bypass a major Kyoto city and likely mean no link with a separate shinkansen route planned for the Chugoku region. A host of issues need resolving before the route opens, starting with how to secure stable funding for the project. In addition, the question of how passengers arriving in Kyoto on the Hokuriku shinkansen would continue on to Osaka is still under discussion. The final route for the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line had long been one of the Kansai region’s most important political battles, with national and local politicians from Kyoto, Shiga, and Fukui prefectures all pushing separate routes that would most benefit their constituencies. Exactly where in Fukui the final route might pass through had been the subject of particularly intense discussion. The Obama-Kyoto route, which actually runs from the city of Tsuruga to Kyoto via Obama, means that northeastern Fukui — including the district of Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, a favorite of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — will get Hokuriku bullet train service. The southwestern part — where 11 aging nuclear power plants sit — will not. After reaching Obama from Tsuruga, the bullet train will turn south and head through Kyoto Prefecture. Where it might stop has yet to be decided, but the transport ministry estimates the construction costs at just over ¥2 trillion. Another option — the Obama-Maizuru route — would have taken the Hokuriku bullet train farther west, past the nuclear power plant towns of Oi, Mihama and Takahama and right across the Fukui border to Maizuru in Kyoto. It would then have turned southeast toward Kyoto. Heavy lobbying for this route had been done by Kyoto Prefecture and Diet members from the Chugoku region who are pushing a separate shin-kansen project along the coast of the Sea of Japan. They envisioned Hokuriku Shinkansen Line passengers pulling into Maizuru, then possibly changing platforms to board the Sanin Shinkansen Line for Tottori, Shimane and Yamaguchi prefectures. However, the huge amounts of money and time such a project demands, plus JR West’s strong support for the Obama-Kyoto route, led to the judgment that the Maizuru route was not the most appropriate. The current plan is to complete the Obama-Kyoto route by around mid-century. That assumes funding can be secured and construction can proceed smoothly. Because much of the route would require tunneling through the mountains and hills of northern Kyoto and Fukui prefectures, there are also concerns, especially in the Kansai business community, about whether the schedule can be met. It seems that while the basic route to Kyoto may have been decided, the political, financial and technical challenges of the train keep chugging along.

osaka;kyoto;fukui;hokuriku shinkansen