Japan's bears are widely vilified and little understood

Abstract: On Aug. 6, the BBC aired a story about four Ussuri brown bears being successfully transported from a museum in Hokkaido to a wildlife park in England. In the story, a British organization called Wild Welfare said it had become “concerned” about the animals’ living situation at the Ainu Museum, where they had been kept in old, cramped cages for most of their lives, which one member said is “sadly reflective of the conditions that many captive bears in Japan are in.” The BBC treated the story as breaking news, but in Japan few news organizations covered it. Jiji Press , which reported the story from the United Kingdom, mentioned that Ussuri bears are “endangered,” and explained that the museum was incapable of caring properly for them. The Hokkaido Shimbun reported that foreign visitors to the facility had complained about the small enclosures for the bears, and that the museum decided to give them to the wildlife park because it has a “better environment.” The newspaper also mentioned that the museum was closed in March for long-term renovations, and NHK said the bears would not be part of the new exhibits. They also pointed out that Ainu, the indigenous people of Hokkaido, look on bears as a kind of deity. Of the top 10 search results for the word “bear” recently seen on the Hokkaido Shimbun website, nine are articles that present the animals in a more or less negative light. Bears are the largest land mammals in Japan and have been known to attack humans and pets, although experts insist they instinctively avoid people and only become aggressive when their cubs are threatened or they are cornered or attacked themselves. Bear attacks are always big news in Japan — even sightings of bears are worthy of national attention . In the past few weeks there have been several reports of bears possibly killing domestic animals in eastern Hokkaido. A dairy farmer in the coastal town of Rausu said one of his goats was missing, presumably dragged away by a bear. A fisherman in the same town told police he saw a bear “burying” his dead dog. A different bear entered a village in southern Hokkaido earlier this month and wouldn’t leave even when authorities “ shone floodlights on it .” Eventually, they used fireworks to scare it back into the woods. That bear was lucky. Usually, if one shows up in a populated area it is summarily killed. According to the Japan Bear and Forest Society , 3,779 bears were killed nationwide last year. In contrast, 108 persons were injured in bear attacks and two killed. A July 26 article in the Hokkaido Shimbun reported on an “emergency meeting” in Sapporo where various local governments discussed the sightings. Apparently, bear sightings have increased in and around Sapporo, although it’s possible that everyone is seeing the same bear. As one participant pointed out, a local ordinance in 1990 made it illegal to kill bears that were just coming out of hibernation, so since then it’s possible that bear numbers have increased. Or maybe these are juvenile bears who are trying to avoid adult bears. Or maybe they are attracted by human refuse, even if bear droppings found in the mountains indicate that there is enough food in the wild — bears almost never come to town when they have enough berries and acorns and salmon. In the end, no one could answer these questions definitively because no proper studies of bear activity had been carried out and no dedicated bear experts were present at the meeting. Nevertheless, a representative of the Hokkaido Research Organization recommended that the city “regularly exterminate” bears, while also suggesting that measures be carried out to “prevent bears from raiding garbage stations.” The point of the meeting was to collect information in order to come up with solutions to the perceived bear infestation problem and enlighten the public about it, but it may have had the opposite effect. Anyone who reads the article will come away thinking that bears are a menace, and, as a matter of fact, the media seem to have a stake in keeping it that way. The only good bear is a dead or captive one, and in the latter case the state of captivity doesn’t seem to matter, as the situation at the Ainu museum showed. The Japan Bear and Forest Society is dedicated to fighting these prejudices, starting with the fact that certain species of Japanese bears are on “vulnerable” or “endangered” lists, something the press rarely talks about. The group polices the media on these matters. Last month, they sent a letter to Fuji TV about its long-running variety show “Unbelievable,” which dramatizes and analyzes shockingly true tales. The Japan Bear and Forest Society read a preview of a segment to be aired on July 19 about a famous 2009 bear attack in Gifu Prefecture that left nine people injured. The group feared that the segment would “spread bias and misunderstanding” about bears and asked the producers to either cancel it or ensure that the content was balanced and complete. The segment was ominous in places, with newspaper accounts of bear attacks and footage of enraged, caged animals. And the reenactment of the incident itself was dramatic and violent — more like “Jaws” than an episode of “BBC Earth.” A clumsily rendered CGI bear is shown viciously attacking one tourist after another at a remote mountain lodge before being trapped and killed by hunters. Celebrities watching the drama in the studio made distressed, fearful noises throughout. To its credit, the segment did end with an expert theorizing about this particular bear’s unusual behavior, saying that its panic was caused by a unique cascade of factors. And the celebrities, in the end, expressed more sympathy for the bear than they did for its human victims, all of whom survived. The bear, as one of them said, acted according to its nature. The trouble is, so were the show’s producers.


Japanese and South Korean firms look to tap global hearing aid market

Abstract: SEOUL - Litalico Inc., a Japanese social enterprise, will use a South Korean startup’s technology to tap the global hearing aid market and provide hearing aids at a much more affordable price. Litalico has acquired an equity stake in Olive Union Inc., which has developed a wireless earphone — linked to a smartphone app — that functions as a hearing aid, and plans to launch it in South Korea and the United States next month as well as in Japan next year. The social enterprise did not disclose the value of the strategic investment, but Olive reportedly has raised 500 million won ($447,000) through the share sale, according to local media reports. The new hearing aid, which resembles an earbud, will carry a price tag ranging from 200,000 to 250,000 won ($179 to $224) per piece, about one-tenth the price of a conventional product, an Olive spokesman said. The number of people with hearing impairments is estimated at about 700 million globally, according to Litalico. In Europe’s major advanced economies and the United States, they account for around 10 percent of each country’s population, according to the 2015 Euro Trak, a survey by the European Hearing Instrument Manufacturers Association. Last year, the South Korean firm raised more than $800,000 through Indiegogo, a crowdfunding site, to finance its business, Litalico said. In Japan, the self-reported hearing-impaired population is estimated at 14.3 million, or 11.3 percent of the total. Of those, 13.5 percent use a hearing aid, compared with usage rates of 42.4 percent in Britain and 30.2 percent in the United States, according to a similar collaborative survey by Japan’s hearing aid industry body and its European counterpart. Litalico, which was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2017, offers job-hunting support and educational assistance for physically disabled or disadvantaged people. It has also invested in Whill Inc., a Yokohama-based company developing electronic wheelchairs.

south korea
hearing
litalico
olive union
crowdfunding


Myanmar court postpones verdict for Reuters journalists

Abstract: YANGON - A Myanmar court postponed its ruling Monday on whether two Reuters journalists violated a state secrets law while reporting on a massacre of Rohingya Muslims, delaying the decision for a week. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, have been detained in Myanmar’s infamous Insein prison since December in the case which has ignited a global outcry. The two journalists had been investigating the September 2017 killings of 10 Rohingya Muslims in conflict-scarred Rakhine state. They were invited to dinner with police in Yangon, handed some documents, and then arrested as they left the meeting, accused of possessing classified material on operations in the area. They were charged with violating the colonial-era state secrets act which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years, and the expected ruling had drawn a crowd of diplomats, media and well-wishers to the court in northern Yangon. But district judge Khin Maung Maung said in a brief hearing that the presiding judge was ill and that the verdict would be announced on September 3. Wa Lone told reporters as he left the courthouse that they were not afraid, whatever the decision. “We have the truth with us and we did not do anything wrong,” he said. The case has sparked fears of eroding press freedoms under civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose international reputation has been shattered over the treatment of the Rohingya. Defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said the delay could be tied to global developments on Myanmar. A U.N. fact-finding mission on rights abuses in Myanmar is due to release a report Monday and the U.N. Security Council will discuss the Rohingya crisis Tuesday. “If the verdict is today and it’s negative for the defense, it may be seen as a negative approach to democracy,” he said. Reuters has robustly denied the charges. The defense said that the supposedly secret documents had already been published, and the prosecution case hit a hurdle when a police witness said his superior had ordered his men to entrap the pair. The journalists said after their arrest that they were hooded and deprived of sleep in initial interrogations, which included questions about their work on Rakhine. The news wire launched a worldwide advocacy campaign that included diplomats, celebrities and the legal assistance of prominent rights attorney Amal Clooney. But it was not enough to keep the court in the Buddhist-majority country from pursuing the charges. Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were probing the massacre of 10 Rohingya men and boys in Rakhine state’s Inn Din village a week after the military launched a sweeping crackdown on members of the stateless Muslim minority. The United Nations and Washington have called the campaign “ethnic cleansing,” after some 700,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine to Bangladesh, bringing with them testimonies of rape, arson and killings in the northern part of the state. Myanmar rejects the charges but has admitted the killings investigated by Reuters took place and sentenced seven soldiers for the crime. Rights groups say security forces should be investigated for crimes against humanity in Rakhine but so far only a handful of targeted sanctions have hit figures in Myanmar’s armed forces.

myanmar
rohingya
wa lone
kyaw soe oo
rakhine
media
ethnic cleansing


University student cycles from Aichi to Miyagi to spread messages of hope from disaster victims

Abstract: Kenshi Yamamoto, a 20-year-old university student from Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, made a 1,746 kilometer round-trip bicycle journey earlier this month to Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, to challenge post-disaster media coverage that he believes focuses excessively on depressing news. Yamamoto visited the Tohoku region three times while in high school as a volunteer in the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake disaster, in which Kesennuma was hit hard by tsunami. A second-year student at Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, he returned on Aug. 15 — sporting a new suntan — to Toyohashi Park in the city of Toyohashi, which had been his point of departure on Aug. 1, with a notebook filled with messages of hope from disaster victims. Along with his luggage, he had placed a sign on the back of his bike with a message handwritten in Japanese: “Seven years on: Conveying the situation in disaster-hit regions.” As a volunteer he had seen the disaster-hit areas gradually being restored, but was concerned that media reports on the areas mostly focused on discouraging stories. “If people knew how their support has led to good results, all of them would think they did the right thing,” Yamamoto said, adding that he decided to go on the bike trip because of his experience cycling last year to Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by strong earthquakes in 2016. The trip in Tohoku was no easy ride. Salt stains appeared on his skin as he traveled under the scorching sun. When passing through Fukushima Prefecture, he found that he could not access some roads near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, which suffered fuel meltdowns following the quake-triggered tsunami. But he rode on, handing his notebook to those he met along the way and asking them to write down what they had newly achieved following the disaster. One wrote “We now laugh more.” Another said: “My daughter, who was 2 years old at the time, is now studying about the disaster in her social studies class.” Collecting messages one by one, he reached Kesennuma on Aug. 7. A man whose house was swept away by tsunami thanked Yamamoto for giving him the chance to express his gratitude, saying he didn’t know how to thank all the volunteers from all over the world who had helped him. As Yamamoto was leaving, disaster victims told him they were counting on him. Although he initially set out to collect messages to bring back to his own supporters, Yamamoto realized he was now tasked with giving the victims a wider voice. “I felt I had twice as much responsibility and that I should complete my task,” he said. During his journey, Yamamoto showed the messages to people with whom he struck up conversations during breaks or even while waiting for traffic lights to turn green. Some were surprised to hear about recent developments in the disaster-hit regions, such as the fact that a beach in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, opened to the public last month for the first time since the 2011 events. Yamamoto said he plans to convey the victims’ messages, along with what he saw and heard during the journey, via social media and lectures. “There are things you won’t know unless you go there,” he said. “I want people to learn what is happening now, realize that support is bearing fruit, and be motivated to give more support.”

disasters kesennuma earthquakes tsunami fukushima 3.11


U.N. approves Chile's Michelle Bachelet as new human rights chief

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS - Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s unanimous approval as the next U.N. human rights chief on Friday sparked a sharp exchange between the United States and several key opponents over rights abuses — a foretaste of some of the issues Bachelet will confront. With a bang of his gavel, General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak gave official approval by acclamation to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ selection of Bachelet. Diplomats from the U.N.’s 193 member states burst into applause. “Deeply humbled and honored to announce my acceptance as the @UN’s new High Commissioner for Human Rights. I thank Secretary General @antonioguterres and the General Assembly for entrusting me this important task,” Bachelet tweeted shortly after the assembly’s approval. Guterres then touted Bachelet’s qualifications: the first female president of Chile, first head of the gender equality agency known as U.N. Women, “a survivor of brutality” by a Chilean dictator, and a physician who understands people’s thirst for health and economic and social rights. She has also “lived under the darkness of dictatorship,” he said. Bachelet’s father was imprisoned for treason for opposing the coup that ousted Marxist President Salvador Allende in September 1973. She and her mother were tortured in a secret prison for two weeks before they fled into exile. Her father, Gen. Alberto Bachelet, died of cardiac arrest following months of torture. Guterres told reporters Bachelet will take office “at a time of grave consequence for human rights.” “Hatred and inequality are on the rise,” he said. “Respect for international humanitarian and human rights law is on the decline. Space for civil society is shrinking. Press freedoms are under pressure.” But some of the pressures that Bachelet will face were immediately evident in several speeches following her approval by the General Assembly. U.S. Minister-Counselor Stefaine Amadeo, speaking on behalf of the U.N.’s host country, said “it is incumbent” on Bachelet to avoid what the United States called the failure of the U.N. human rights system. She singled out the Geneva-based Human Rights Council’s “consistent failure to address extreme human rights abuses in the Western hemisphere, in Venezuela and Cuba in particular.” She also cited U.N. failures “to adequately address major human rights crises” in Iran, North Korea and Congo. Mohammad Hassani Nejad, a counselor in Iran’s U.N. Mission, retorted that the biggest challenge for Bachelet “is to make it clear that human rights is not a means in the foreign policy toolbox of policies against who they dislike.” He said the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights should speak out “for all victims,” citing “migrant kids in cages, or the U.S.-made bombs that kill kids on a daily basis.” Cuba’s deputy U.N. ambassador Ana Silvia Rodriguez, echoed Nejad in speaking out against the polarization and politicization of human rights. She accused the U.S. of “flagrantly” violating human rights by imposing an economic and financial embargo on Cuba for decades, separating migrant parents and children and causing civilian deaths “by bombs and drone wars,” as well as by “brutality and police abuse, particularly against the African-American population.” Venezuela’s U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada said his country will only believe the United States supports human rights when it stops separating Latin American children and parents, stops using drones and “claiming the use of torture as legitimate practice,” ends discrimination against the people of Puerto Rico, and “stops insulting entire nations” Moncada called U.S. threats to use military force against Venezuela “the expression of the most racist and cruel government in the recent history of this country.” “They have no moral right to talk about this topic (human rights) because this hatred has led them to be a threat to international peace and security,” he stressed. Amadeo, the American diplomat, then took the floor saying the United States “notes with disappointment the incorrect misconstructions, fabrications and false criticism of the delegations of Cuba and Venezuela.” Bachelet will replace Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, a Jordanian diplomat and member of the country’s royal family whose four-year term ends Aug. 31. Secretary-General Gutteres paid tribute to Zeid Friday “for his leadership, passion, courage and skill” as high commissioner. Zeid, who has faced criticism from many quarters for being too outspoken, told a farewell news conference last week that his office doesn’t “bring shame on governments, they shame themselves.” He stressed that “silence does not earn you any respect — none.” Zeid said he will give his successor the same advice that his predecessor, Navi Pillay, gave him: “Be fair and don’t discriminate against any country” and “just come out swinging.”


'Suicidal' mechanic steals plane in Seattle, does stunts before crashing

Abstract: SEATAC, WASHINGTON - A “suicidal” airline employee stole an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane, took off from Sea-Tac International Airport and was chased by military jets before crashing into a small island in the Puget Sound on Friday night, officials said. Preliminary information suggests the crash occurred because the 29-year-old man was “doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills,” the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said. Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, said on Twitter the man was suicidal and there was no connection to terrorism. Video showed the Horizon Air Q400 doing large loops and other dangerous maneuvers as the sun set on the Puget Sound. There were no passengers aboard. Authorities initially said the man was a mechanic but Alaska Airlines later said he was believed to be a ground service agent employed by Horizon. Those employees direct aircraft for takeoff and gate approach and de-ice planes. Witnesses reported seeing the plane being chased by military aircraft before it crashed on Ketron Island, southwest of Tacoma, Washington. Troyer said F-15 aircraft scrambled out of Portland, Oregon, and were in the air “within a few minutes” and the pilots kept “people on the ground safe.” The sheriff’s department said they were working to conduct a background investigation on the Pierce County resident, whose name was not immediately released. The aircraft was stolen about 8 p.m. Alaska Airlines said it was in a “maintenance position” and not scheduled for a passenger flight. Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the U.S. West. The Q400 is a turboprop aircraft with 76 seats. Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said the man “did something foolish and may well have paid with his life.” The man could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is “just a broken guy.” An air traffic controller called the man “Rich,” and tried to convince the man to land the airplane. “There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile,” the controller says, referring to an airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. “Oh man. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there,” the man responded, later adding “This is probably jail time for life, huh?” Later the man said: “I’ve got a lot of people that care about me. It’s going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. … Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess.” Flights out of Sea-Tac, the largest commercial airport in the Pacific Northwest, were temporarily grounded during the drama. The U.S. Coast Guard sent a 45-foot (14-meter) vessel to the crash scene after witnesses reported seeing a large plume of smoke in the air, Petty Officer Ali Flockerzi said. Video showed fiery flames amidst trees on the island, which is sparsely populated and only accessible by ferry. Alaska Airlines said no structures on the ground were damaged. Royal King told The Seattle Times he was photographing a wedding when he saw the low-flying turboprop being chased by two F-15s. He said he didn’t see the crash but saw smoke. “It was unfathomable, it was something out of a movie,” he told the newspaper. “The smoke lingered. You could still hear the F-15s, which were flying low.” “Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, along with all of our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees,” Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen said in a video posted on Twitter. Spokesmen for the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration directed inquiries to local authorities. Gov. Jay Inslee thanked the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets and said in a statement “there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding tonight’s tragic incident.”


U.N. says it has credible reports China is holding 1 million Uighurs in secret camps

Abstract: GENEVA - A United Nations human rights panel said Friday it has received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.” Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities have been forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region. “We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internship camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of ‘no rights zone,’ ” she told the start of a two-day regular review of China’s record, including Hong Kong and Macau. China has said Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority. A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment on her remarks at the Geneva session, which is to continue Monday. The U.S. mission to the United Nations said on Twitter that it was “deeply troubled by reports of an ongoing crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in China.” “We call on China to end their counterproductive policies and free all of those who have been arbitrarily detained,” the U.S. mission said. The allegations came from multiple sources, including activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which said in a report last month that 21 percent of all arrests recorded in China in 2017 were in Xinjiang. Earlier, Yu Jianhua, China’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said it is working toward equality and solidarity among all ethnic groups. But McDougall said that members of the Uighur community and other Muslims are being treated as “enemies of the state” solely on the basis of their ethno-religious identity. More than 100 Uighur students who returned to China from countries including Egypt and Turkey have been detained, with some dying in custody, she said. Fatima-Binta Dah, a panel member, referred to “arbitrary and mass detention of almost 1 million Uighurs” and asked the Chinese delegation, “What is the level of religious freedom available now to Uighurs in China, what legal protection exists for them to practice their religion?” Panelists also raised reports of mistreatment of Tibetans in the autonomous region, including inadequate use of the Tibetan language in the classroom and at court proceedings. “The U.N. body maintained its integrity, the government got a very clear message,” Golok Jigme, a Tibetan monk and former prisoner living in exile, said at the meeting.

china uighurs ethnicity discrimination xinjiang


Former internment camp victims warn of rise in U.S. racial tensions

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The Japanese-Americans forcibly incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II warn that the administration of President Donald Trump risks repeating this sad chapter in U.S. racial discrimination. On Friday, the United States marked the 30th year since the Civil Liberties Act was enacted to officially apologize for the internment of Japanese-Americans. Labeled as enemies, Japanese-Americans lost jobs and property simply because they were of Japanese ancestry. Their wish for preventing such discrimination from happening again rings hollow in U.S. society, where racial segregation is accelerating. In Seabrook, a New Jersey town with a population of some 46,000, many of the Japanese descendants are still alive, says Stanley Kaneshiki, 82, a third-generation Japanese-American. At the end of the war, a vegetable-processing plant in the town lost workers due to the draft and actively recruited those who were former internees. Some 2,300 Japanese-Americans moved to Seabrook, seeking new lives. The town also attracted many migrants from Europe and Latin America. They worked 12 hours a day and received hourly wages of 35 to 50 cents. Kaneshiki says that with shared bathrooms, the living environment was “not much different from the concentration camps.” “But we were no longer surrounded by barbed wire, and we could go anywhere we wanted to. That freedom is something irreplaceable,” he notes. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the law and apologized for having sent some 120,000 Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast to such camps in rural areas without holding trials, admitting the practice had been a serious error. The government paid $20,000 in compensation to each living former internee. The memory of the event is gradually fading in U.S. society, however. Trump has banned the entry of people from some Islamic countries and has described African and Latin American nations as “shithole” countries in his quest to toughen regulations on immigration. Such an atmosphere is expanding into society, helping increase the number of hate crimes. Irene Kaneshiki, 78, also a third-generation Japanese-American, said: “(Trump’s Muslim ban) is pretty much the same as what the past administration did to Japanese-Americans. This is a country which is made of immigrants. Seabrook is a very good example of that.”

japanese-americans discrimination immigration wwii history


Social media takes a dim view of the daylight saving proposal for the 2020 Olympics

Abstract: People in Japan have been complaining about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics since Japan’s capital was awarded the games. Netizens have railed against everything from the apparent insensitivity of hosting the two-week competition while the Tohoku region continues to recover from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake to the mascots that look like cartoons characters. With just under two years to go before the opening ceremony, the online gripes are only picking up. They are aided by the government’s decision to weigh solutions to the country’s hot summers that come across as verging on the ridiculous. Last week, the government said it would consider introducing daylight saving time ahead of the Olympics to mitigate the effects of the expected high temperatures. Early thinking would see clocks nationwide moved forward two hours. When this news broke last Monday morning, the Japanese phrase for daylight saving time, samā taimu (サマータイム, or “summer time”), almost instantly jumped to the top of Twitter’s trending list . The general consensus from netizens could best be summed up by the top comment on a matome site about the topic — “ stupid .” An immediate concern from those online was the sheer logistics of pulling this off. University professor Tetsutaro Uehara expressed surprise at the announcement, primarily because a decision would have to be made this year and then implemented starting in 2019 (“I hope it’s fake,” one person replied ). Twitter user @ginlime poked fun at the idea of such a radical change to the system for all of Japan when only Tokyo was getting the games, and wondered why the government didn’t just move the games to October. In the days that followed, an increasing number of people took to social media to express why they thought daylight saving time was a bad idea. The hashtag “ summer time hantai ” (“summer time opposition”) attracted myriad comments, with users bringing up slightly corny arguments such as children being unable to look up at the night sky to far more substantial arguments such as the negative impact it would have on people’s sleep schedules , health issues and the increased burden it would place on nurseries . And, naturally, some noted that people might even be forced to work longer hours than they already do . Online media outlets generally agreed with popular opinion. Yahoo Japan shared a list of 10 reasons why daylight saving time wouldn’t work . Beyond News also looked at the disadvantages of a time change while also highlighting opposition to the idea as recently as 2007. Buzzfeed, meanwhile, highlighted two very different sides of the argument, running a detailed history of the first time Japan tried out daylight saving time following World War II before posting a “ summer time playlist ” hosted on Spotify just 15 minutes later. Yet nobody lambasted daylight saving time more than social media users working in the IT industry. They argued that the government had no idea how computers worked, and said this would impact systems beyond just Japan . Others pointed out that daylight saving time is the hardest time of the year for IT workers in Europe and the United States. One of the most popular tweets came from user @integra, who declared that all of this daylight saving time discussion was in fact the act of an “ IT terrorist .” And that’s just scratching the surface . A majority of social media users expressed reservation about the government’s proposal. Yet step outside of the digital realm for a second and reaction appears a little different. An NHK poll found 51 percent of respondents were in favor of daylight saving time, while the Asahi Shimbun put that figure at 53 percent . Maybe it’s a case of the internet not reflecting reality in the outside world? Not quite. A Yahoo poll found 61 percent against the move, while plenty on Twitter pointed out that the NHK poll had asked if people approved of daylight saving time as a measure against the heat and, well, ignoring the other things it would impact. The introduction of daylight saving time might not even be an Olympic-only measure. The Hochi Shimbun said Wednesday the government might be eyeing this as a permanent change (although the report was based largely on hearsay). People reacted to the this news about as well as you’d expect , with some even claiming that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ran a trial of this in the Diet a few years back. Even if this debate doesn’t last beyond the games, expect to see plenty more opposition to the introduction of daylight saving time online over the next couple of years.

2020 tokyo olympics
daylight saving time
japan pulse


Hoarding in Japan isn't as dark as NHK makes it out to be

Abstract: Thanks to Marie Kondo , everyone knows about the Japanese art of katazuke , or “tidying up.” Kondo’s books on organizing your things and deciding what items you should throw away have been translated into numerous languages and she’s been interviewed by myriad international media outlets. Katazuke has an evil twin called “hoarding,” an acknowledged psychological condition that describes how individuals cannot let go of possessions, no matter how inessential. The American reality show “ Hoarders ” has been a staple on American cable TV off-and-on for about a decade. Experts visit junk-filled homes and attempt to sort out their owners’ lives. In Japan, such TV shows are also very popular. Titles sometimes incorporate the word “ gomi-yashiki ,” meaning “garbage house.” On May 16, NHK ran a report on “garbage apartments” occupied by single people . In the cases cited, the individuals are faced with stressful situations that manifest as total neglect of their personal space. Their apartments fill up with junk to the point where they can’t even move around. Experts say this behavior is the product of loneliness and forced “individualism.” Without the balancing effect of social interaction, people can fall into patterns of apathy that lead to depression. However, hoarding is not always a sign of anxiety. Another word that pops up in relation to messy homes is “ danshari ,” a neologism coined by the woman who popularized the katazuke movement. Hideko Yamashita has been a consultant longer than Kondo has. The word danshari incorporates three Chinese characters taken from yoga teachings: “ dan ,” which means “to prohibit,” “ sha ,” which stands for “the disposal of unnecessary things,” and “ ri ,” which implies “leaving obsessions behind.” But if the word turns katazuke into a philosophy, Yamashita’s methods are practical to a fault. BS Asahi airs an occasional series dedicated to Yamashita’s ministrations called “ Uchi, Danshari Shimashita! ” People with hoarding or storage problems write to the producers and ask for Yamashita’s help. She shows up with a video crew and surveys the damage, explains to the subject how her methods can solve their problem and leaves, promising to come back in several weeks to see how well the person carried out her advice. The crew, however, hangs around. The most recent episode featured a 47-year-old woman who lives in a four-bedroom house in Chiba Prefecture with her husband and two children. The woman works a part-time job two days a week and says she doesn’t have time to sort through the clutter, and when she does she is overcome with indecision because she believes some of these things “might be useful someday.” Yamashita has heard it before, but unlike Kondo, who approaches the matter from the positive side — which things do you love? — Yamashita starts off by telling the woman she must figure out how much she should reduce to live comfortably: When in doubt, toss it out. Left to their own devices, the people on “Danshari” rarely get that concept initially and usually require intervention by Yamashita or the video crew to actually start putting things in garbage bags. In another segment, a 54-year-old woman who lives in the penthouse of a condo in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district she owns tries to cloak her indecision by transferring junk to her bathroom so that when Yamashita returns it looks as if she’d done something. The video crew rats her out. Unlike the NHK program, all “Danshari” segments have happy endings in that some semblance of normality is achieved, but it’s easy to imagine the situation backsliding. The majority of subjects are women whose live-in male relatives, be they husbands or fathers, tend to not get involved. Katazuke is an issue of housekeeping, which is still mostly a female concern. Another contributing aspect is the usual design of many Japanese houses, which often lack sufficient storage space. Closets are smaller. Anything that doesn’t fit ends up on the floor. A different program, TBS’ “ Jikka o Katazuke te Mimasen ka? ” (“Shall We Try to Tidy Up Your Family Home?”), offered a better idea of why such variety shows will not soon disappear. The focus is houses where people grew up and now want to put into order, meaning they don’t necessarily live there anymore but their parents still do. In all three cases shown, the parents are boomers, the first generation of Japanese to acquire stuff indiscriminately. Their children recognize the clutter and want them to set their affairs in order before they die. One of the cases focused on the man of the house. A woman requested help in cleaning up her father’s home in Saitama. The woman’s mother is an invalid, and her father takes good care of her but is averse to cleaning up after himself. The house is not just cluttered but old and filthy. A proud student leftist in his day, he doesn’t suffer from the usual neuroses associated with hoarders. He just has a higher tolerance for disorder. After his daughter forces him to clean up with the help of the production crew, refuse collectors haul away 2 tons of junk. The other two cases were more about specific circumstances than psychology. Former idol singer Tomomi Nishimura helped her parents clean up their house in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which didn’t look like a garbage house because they had lots of storage space, but they discarded 6 tons. Three sisters, two of whom fled their Kyoto home as soon as they could because of their mother’s hoarding, marched in and forced her to dump lots of things. The mother obviously suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder, but she also grew up in a well-to-do home and was never expected to clean house until she married. Say what you will about her uncooperative husband. Hoarding is not informed by a uniform set of personality traits and, as presented by commercial TV, it isn’t as dark as NHK makes it out to be. However, it’s important to remember that these people asked to be on TV in the first place. There may have been an impulse at work other than seeking help.


Historic Tokyo house to become gathering place for executives and entrepreneurs

Abstract: A 91-year-old historic residence in Tokyo will turn into a business hub starting next month with a goal of helping company executives and entrepreneurs cultivate new ideas and communicate freely, operators of the facility announced Wednesday. The Spanish-style house located near Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward is expected to be mainly used for meetings among executives and those tasked with creating new business ideas, according to the three firms — Tokyu Corp., Takenaka Corp. and Toho-Leo Co. — that are jointly working on the project. The facility, named Kudan House, has 850 square meters of floor space and boasts a number of classic rooms with vintage furniture. It also has a terrace, a Japanese-style tatami-floored room and a cozy space for tea ceremony. The three-story residence with a basement was built in 1927 and lived in by Mankichi Yamaguchi, a wealthy businessman from Niigata Prefecture. The top architects of the day, including Tachu Naito, who was known for designing quake-resistant structures, were involved with the construction. It is recognized as a tangible cultural property by the government. Yamaguchi’s family members are hoping the project will tap the historic house’s value while also allowing it to be preserved. “This place has a different atmosphere, much like a salon, compared to rental meeting rooms in ordinary buildings or those at hotels,” said Jun Kumahara, who heads the brand communication team at Toho-Leo, an Osaka-based firm that provides environment-related technologies to houses and buildings. Taking advantage of this historic, classic and quiet atmosphere in the middle of bustling Tokyo, people may be inspired to come up with fresh ideas more often, Kumahara added. The operators said they have not come up with a clear plan to monetize the venture and they haven’t decided if they should charge members monthly or hourly.

entrepreneurs
buildings
tokyu corp .
takenaka corp .
toho-leo co .


Given the right to larger families, Chinese may hold off

Abstract: BEIJING - China’s moves to combat an aging population by relaxing decades-old curbs on family size have hit an unexpected snag: Many parents are no longer interested in having more babies. The government has indicated it will scrap its policy which limits the number of children per family through tough fines — and sometimes through forced abortions and sterilizations. The world’s most populous country introduced its one-child policy in 1979 and last tweaked it in early 2016, raising the limit to two children as the nation scrambled to rejuvenate a graying population of some 1.4 billion. But the pent-up demand for more children has ebbed, experts say. Couples have increasingly delayed having even one child as they devote more time to other goals, such as building their careers. The skyrocketing cost of raising children in booming China has also given many prospective parents pause. “Lots of people want to have a second child, but the biggest problem is the financial burden,” said a mother in the northeastern city of Dalian, who wants a second and even third child but remains hesitant to bear the financial and career costs. The proposed policy change was included in a new civil code being discussed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress this week. The code is set to be completed in 2020. “Canceling the family planning policy would mean that the right to decide how many children to have rests with couples and families,” said Liu Hongyan of the China Population and Development Research Centre, a think tank under the National Health and Family Planning Commission. This is “a manifestation of human rights in the field of reproductive health.” Population trends The official Xinhua News Agency said regulations on family size were omitted from the draft law due to “changes in the country’s demographic situation.” China’s working-age population fell by 5.5 million last year, maintaining a downward trend that began in 2012, according to the statistics bureau. Economists fear the nation will get old before it gets rich, leaving it trapped as a middle-income country burdened with too few workers to support an aging populace. By 2050, the World Bank forecasts the proportion of the population aged over 60 will jump from 15 percent in 2015 to 36.5 percent, with a median age of 49.6. To lesson the pain, Beijing wants its “high-quality” citizens to build larger families, experts say. There is “heavy propaganda aimed at urban educated Han women” urging them to “marry early and have children early,” said Leta Hong Fincher, author of “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China,” referring to the majority Han community. From the government’s perspective, Qiu Chunjuan and Xu Jinhua, who are raising two children in Shanghai, would be ideal candidates for a larger family. But the parents are not considering it. “With the education environment in Shanghai, the economic environment, having two is just right,” said the father, Xu. “We’re saturated now,” he said. His wife Qiu said that with the cost of private school and additional classes, the pressure was already “quite big.” Hu Yanhua, a 38-year-old mother in Shanghai, said she had her hands full with just one six-year-old boy. “I need to work and I have limited energy, so I probably won’t consider it,” she said. Second child boom? When Beijing lifted restrictions and allowed all couples a second child, officials were expecting a flood of new births. They received a trickle, enough to steady the falling birth count, with 17.23 million births in 2017 — but well below an official forecast of over 20 million for the year. Surveys have shown many one-child families harbor little desire for more children. The white-collar mother in Dalian, who asked not to be named, worried she would fall behind in the workplace if she took time off to have a second child. “I don’t want to give up my job and the feeling of self-worth it brings,” she said.


U.S. Rohingya report 'consistent' with U.N. findings of genocide by Myanmar regime: Nikki Haley

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS - Findings of a U.S. State Department investigation into Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis are “consistent” with those of a report by U.N. investigators released this week that called for Myanmar’s commander-in-chief and other generals be tried for genocide, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Tuesday. Addressing the U.N. Security Council, Nikki Haley said “the world can no longer avoid the difficult truth of what happened.” She did not use the term “genocide” and the State Department has said it had not yet concluded whether it shared the determination of “genocidal intent” that Monday’s U.N. report attached to the attacks on Rohingya Muslims. However, Haley said that of the more than 1,000 randomly selected Rohingya Muslims surveyed in the State Department’s own report, “fully one fifth” witnessed more than 100 victims being killed or injured. She said 82 percent had seen a killing, more than half had witnessed sexual violence and 45 percent had witnessed a rape. “The report identifies one group as the perpetrator of the overwhelming majority of these crimes: the Burmese military and security forces,” Haley said, referring to the U.S. report. She said the Security Council must hold those responsible for the violence to account and added, “The whole world is watching what we do next and if we will act.” Haley’s comments provided the first details of the State Department report compiled from 1,024 interviews at refugee camps in Bangladesh and completed in late April. It remained unclear when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo planned to issue the full U.S. report, which could have legal implications of committing Washington to stronger punitive measures against Myanmar, particularly if Washington concluded there was genocide. The findings were originally due to be announced ahead of Monday’s U.N. report but have been held up by internal deliberations. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said “genocidal intent” was “a very specific legal designation.” “It is not one that is easily made,” she told a regular news briefing on Tuesday. Critics have accused Washington of an overly cautious response to the Rohingya crisis, but a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that the U.N. findings could increase pressure for tougher U.S. action. The release of Monday’s U.N. report marked the first explicit U.N. call for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Rohingya. It said the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with “genocidal intent” and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted. Washington, which had previously imposed sanctions on only one regional general over the crisis, targeted four more military and police commanders and two army units this month, but Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was again spared. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the U.N. meeting that the U.N. report deserved serious consideration and that accountability was essential for genuine reconciliation between ethnic groups in Myanmar. Also without using the word genocide, Guterres said the report by the independent U.N. experts found “‘patterns of gross human rights violations and abuses’ committed by the security forces, which it said ‘undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.’ ” He said international cooperation would be “critical” to ensuring accountability. Guterres said the U.N. Security Council needed to continue to press for the release of journalists arrested for reporting on the Rohingya crisis, a reference to two Reuters reporters on trial in Myanmar. Haley said the United States expected to see the two, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, acquitted of all charges. Also on Tuesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who Washington has championed as a voice of democratic change, could not be blamed for atrocities as she did not have the powers necessary to stop military actions. Haley made no mention of Suu Kyi, who the U.N. investigators said had failed to use her “moral authority” to protect civilians. Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled the crackdown in Myanmar and most are living in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. Guterres said an international humanitarian appeal for the refugees remained significantly underfunded at 33 percent and more must be done to alleviate the threats to life from the current and impending monsoons. He said it was clear conditions did not yet exist for the safe return of the Rohingya and called on Security Council members to join him in urging Myanmar to cooperate to ensure access to U.N. agencies and partners. “There can be no excuse for delaying the search for dignified solutions that will allow people to return to their areas of origin in safety and dignity, in line with international standards and human rights,” Guterres said.

rohingya
genocide
myanmar
nikki haley
u.s .
u.n .


Cases of Rubella infection in Japan on the rise

Abstract: The number of rubella patients reported by the country’s medical institutions from Jan. 1 to Aug. 19 totaled 184, nearly double the 93 for the whole of last year, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases said Tuesday. Patients in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures — Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa — accounted for about 70 percent of the cumulative total. The NIID is urging people to get vaccinated against the viral infectious disease. Symptoms of Rubella include fever and rashes that appear after an incubation period of two to three weeks. In some cases, however, no clear symptoms occur, according to the institute. If a pregnant woman is infected, there is a risk of her baby being born with such disorders as hearing impairment, heart problems and cataracts. The number of patients started to increase in late July, with August experiencing the greatest surge. In the week to Aug. 19 alone, the number of patients came to 43. The number of patients since the beginning of this year stood at 62 in Chiba, 47 in Tokyo, 11 in Saitama and nine in Kanagawa. Of all patients, 93 percent were adults, mainly men in their 30s and 40s. The number of people who have been vaccinated against rubella is believed to be relatively small in those age groups. Two doses of vaccine can increase the preventive effect, while pregnant women cannot get the vaccine. “It is important for pre-pregnant women and people around pregnant women to be vaccinated,” the institute said.


Florida university becomes latest to cut ties with China's Confucius Institute

Abstract: BEIJING - The University of North Florida will close a campus branch of a Chinese-run cultural institute, the latest U.S. college to do so amid criticism from U.S. legislators that China uses the institute to influence American higher education. The Jacksonville-based university said on Tuesday it had determined after “careful consideration” that the Confucius Institute, which opened a branch there in 2014 to promote language and culture, did not meet the university’s mission. “After reviewing the classes, activities and events sponsored over the past four years and comparing them with the mission and goals of the university, it was determined that they weren’t aligned,” the university said in a statement. It did not elaborate on the reasons for ending the partnership, but said the institute would be closed in February, fulfilling a legal obligations to provide six months’ notice for ending the contract. The Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The ministry has in the past said the institute is aimed at increasing mutual understanding, and it has urged anyone suspicious of its programs to abandon their “outmoded ideas.” Florida Senator Marco Rubio welcomed the university’s decision. Rubio has been among U.S. lawmakers warning that the Confucius Institute was an effort by China to expand its political influence abroad and had contributed to censorship on U.S. campuses. “I welcome the decision of @UofNorthFlorida to close its Confucius Institute. There is growing & well-founded concern about these Chinese Communist Party-funded Institutes. I continue to urge other FL universities to follow suit,” Rubio said on Twitter. Rubio and other lawmakers have pursued legislation that would require universities to disclose major gifts from foreign sources, at a time when U.S. politicians, including President Donald Trump, but also many Democrats, have been pushing a harder line in dealing with China. U.S.-China relations have suffered in recent months, with the two countries locked in an increasingly bitter trade dispute. Several other universities in Florida still host the Confucius Institute, among more than 100 such centers around the United States. Other major U.S. colleges, including Pennsylvania State University and the University of Chicago, have cut ties with the institute after professors complained its programs were Chinese propaganda wrapped in culture and language education.


Women's trial over Kim Jong Nam killing heads to defense phase

Abstract: SHAH ALAM, MALAYSIA - Two Southeast Asian women on trial for the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother were told to begin their defense Thursday, extending the trial for several more months. Indonesia’s Siti Aisyah and Vietnam’s Doan Thi Huong are accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam’s face in an airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13, 2017. High Court Judge Azmi Ariffin said he was not persuaded by the defense’s argument that the women thought they were taking part in a prank for a hidden-camera show. He said enough evidence had been presented so far in the six-month trial to infer the women and four North Korean suspects had engaged in a “well-planned conspiracy” to kill Kim “systemically.” With the prosecution laying out enough evidence of the women’s guilt for the case against them to proceed, “I therefore call upon them to enter their defense,” the judge said after reading his ruling for more than two hours. Indonesian Ambassador Rusdi Kirana told reporters outside court that he was shocked by the ruling but his government will abide by it. The judge could have acquitted the women. Aisyah, 25, and Huong, 29, appeared to be calm and told the judge they would testify under oath in their defense. They are the only suspects in custody and face the death penalty if convicted. The four North Korean suspects fled the country the same morning Kim was killed. The defense teams have argued that the women are simply scapegoats, with the authorities unable to catch the real killers, the North Koreans, and therefore desperate to secure some kind of conviction in the case. The pair, who face death by hanging if found guilty, claim they fell victim to an elaborate plot hatched by North Korean agents and believed they were taking part in a prank for a reality TV show when they attacked Kim with a chemical classified as a weapon of mass destruction. According to the case presented so far, the four men, known to Aisyah and Huong by code names, recruited and trained the two women to accost strangers in a fashion like that used on the day they attacked Kim. That day the men provided the women with the banned chemical weapon that they smeared on his face. Airport security footage shown in court captured the moment of the attack, and prosecutors also said the camera images linked the women to the four male suspects. Shortly after Kim arrived at the airport, Huong was seen approaching him, clasping her hands on his face from behind and then fleeing. Another blurred figure was also seen running away from Kim and a police investigator testified that it was Aisyah. Kim died within two hours of the attack. The four men — Ri Ji Hyon, Ri Jae Nam, Hong Song Hac and O Jong Gil — fled Malaysia within hours of the incident and are believed to have returned to North Korea. The men have been charged with having “common intention” with the women to murder Kim and are now on an Interpol wanted list. Expert witnesses testified that traces of VX were found on the clothing of both women. Video recordings played in court showed them meeting two of the fugitives at the airport before the attack. Defense lawyers have said the prosecution failed to show the two women had any intention to kill — key to establishing they are guilty of murder. Aisyah’s lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, has called the evidence against his client “flimsy and circumstantial” because it relied only on security footage and the traces of VX on her. Huong’s lawyer, Hisyam Teh, has said his client’s conduct after the incident was that of an innocent person. But the judge said their intention to kill can be inferred from the targeting of Kim’s eyes, where the nerve agent would penetrate faster. He said that evidence pointed to a “simultaneous act” by the women. The judge also said their hurrying to separate bathrooms also established their intention to cause Kim’s death. “I have no slightest doubt that their desperate act of rushing to the toilets is to solely decontaminate the poison on their hands,” Azmi said. He said they seemed worried and tense before washing their hands, but relaxed afterward. “The onus is on the accused to explain their conduct,” he added. Azmi said he “cannot rule out that this could be a political assassination,” but found no concrete evidence of one. The defense has argued the real culprits are the four North Korean suspects and have pointed to an embassy employee who helped arrange their travel as evidence of embassy involvement. Malaysian officials have never officially accused North Korea and have made it clear they don’t want the trial politicized. Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son in the family that has ruled North Korea since its founding, had been living abroad for years after falling out of favor. It is thought he could have been seen as a threat to Kim Jong Un’s rule. Prior to his killing, Kim Jong Nam had voiced fears over his safety. It has been reported that there were earlier unsuccessful attempts on his life in Macau, where he had been living in self-imposed exile. The women’s families had been hopeful they would be acquitted. Huong’s father, Doan Van Thanh, said he could not sleep the previous night, anxious to hear the ruling. He said, “I had thought she would be innocent.” He added: “I don’t know what to do next. I just hope they will announce her innocent so that she can return home.” Aisyah’s father, Asria, said in an interview from the family’s village on Indonesia’s Java island: “She knows nothing, she was fooled. The case (against her) was made up.” Her mother, Benah, added: “This is unfair. I wanted her to be released today but if the court refuses what can I do? I can only pray for the final verdict.”

kim jong nam
malaysia
north korea
kim jong un
indonesia
siti aisyah
vietnam
doan thi huong
courts
murder


Timeline: Seeking justice for Kim Jong Nam

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - Two women charged with assassinating the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader were ordered to enter their defense in their long-running trial Thursday, marking the next chapter in a story that has gripped the world. A Malaysian judge has ruled there is enough evidence to support a murder charge against Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam. The women are accused of smearing a deadly nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam’s face as he waited for a flight at Kuala Lumpur airport. Here is a timeline of key events since the killing: The hit A portly North Korean man, later identified as Kim Jong Nam, dies after being attacked at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13, 2017. Seoul points the finger at its northern neighbor and says it was a political hit aimed at weeding out potential rivals to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Malaysian detectives track down two migrant women — one Vietnamese and one Indonesian — who they say are seen on CCTV carrying out the attack. The two women, who are eventually charged with murder, say they had been paid to carry out what they thought was a prank for a reality TV show. An autopsy reveals Kim died from exposure to the VX nerve agent, an artificial chemical so deadly it is banned under an international treaty and classified by the U.N. as a weapon of mass destruction. The fallout Kuala Lumpur arrests North Korean citizen Ri Jong Chol in connection with the murder. Over the following days investigators say diplomats and airline employees from the isolated regime are also wanted for questioning. All are holed up at the North Korean embassy or have already left the country. North Korea pours scorn on what it calls “absurd” claims that VX was used, saying South Korea and the U.S. are mounting a smear campaign against it. Pyongyang insists the dead man was called Kim Chol and demands his body be returned. Investigators refuse to release the corpse. Malaysia cancels a visa-free travel deal with North Korea and deports North Korea’s ambassador. Pyongyang hits back, expelling Malaysia’s envoy. Tensions escalate after North Korea bans all Malaysians from leaving Pyongyang. Malaysia retaliates and the international community calls for calm amid allegations of detaining “hostages.” The detente In early March 2017, Ri Jong Chol is released from custody and deported from Malaysia. Frustrated Malaysian police say they believed he was involved in the plot but lacked evidence to prove it. At the end of the month, Malaysia’s then-Prime Minister Najib Razak announces an agreement has been reached to return the body to North Korea. Nine Malaysians stuck in Pyongyang will be free to travel and North Koreans in Kuala Lumpur will be allowed to go home. In October, the two women go on trial over the murder. They maintain their innocence. Four men formally accused on a charge sheet of plotting with the women to murder Kim Jong Nam are identified by a police officer as North Koreans who fled Malaysia immediately after the assassination. The women’s lawyers insist they are the real masterminds.

kim jong nam
north korea
malaysia
murder
siti aisyah
indonesia
doan thi huong
vietnam
kim jong un
courts


Malaysia court poised to deliver key ruling in Kim Jong Nam murder trial

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian judge will Thursday deliver a key ruling in the trial of two women accused of the assassination of the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, with their families optimistic they will be cleared. The court will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to support a murder charge against Siti Aisyah from Indonesia and Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, who allegedly killed Kim Jong Nam at Kuala Lumpur airport. If there is, the trial will continue with the court hearing the women’s defense. But if not, the judge could acquit the women or amend the charge to something less serious than murder, which carries a mandatory death sentence in Malaysia. Their families insist they did not carry out the Cold War-style hit that shocked the world, and were hopeful they would be acquitted. Huong “could never be a killer as she had always been a charming, hard-working girl,” Doan Van Thanh, the Vietnamese suspect’s father, told AFP. The women are accused of killing Kim Jong Nam — the estranged relative of the North’s leader Kim Jong Un — by smearing toxic nerve agent VX on his face in February last year as he waited to board a flight to Macau. The pair claim they fell victim to an elaborate murder plot hatched by North Korean agents, and believed they were taking part in a prank for a reality TV show when they attacked Kim with a chemical classified as a weapon of mass destruction. But describing the murder as something out of a James Bond movie, state prosecutors have argued the pair were well-trained assassins who knew exactly what they were doing. The trial at the Shah Alam High Court, outside Kuala Lumpur, heard that four North Koreans recruited the pair and were the masterminds, providing them with the poison on the day of the murder before flying out of the country. The women’s defense teams have argued the pair are simply scapegoats, with the authorities unable to catch the real killers, the North Koreans, and therefore desperate to secure some kind of conviction in the case. The lawyers are confident the pair will be acquitted of murder, insisting that prosecutors have not shown they intended to kill Kim, who was heir apparent to the North Korean leadership before he fell from grace and went on to live in exile. If one or both of the women are cleared, they will not necessarily walk free immediately however. Prosecutors could seek to appeal the ruling, and the authorities could still hold them over alleged visa violations.

malaysia
kim jong nam
assassination
north korea
siti aisyah
doan thi huong
kim jong un
vx


Bucking superstition, Japanese woman tunnels way to top of civil-engineering world

Abstract: For civil engineer Reiko Abe, 55, being competent at her job was never enough. Her sex and the superstitions surrounding it caused her to be turned away from job interviews and construction sites in Japan. After clawing her way to the top of the male-dominated tunnel engineering industry, however, she is now president of Oriental Consultants India Pvt. Ltd., the Indian branch of a Japanese construction consultancy. Abe was no different from any other engineer. The only thing that set her apart was that she had to fight her way to international success by battling the patriarchal and conservative society that runs Japan. “I was told ‘You can’t do it’ all the time, so that’s what made me go out and prove to them that I could. If things had gone smoothly, without any trouble, I would just have been a normal engineer. I had no choice but to break through the walls that stood in front of me,” Abe said in an interview with The Japan Times in Tokyo. The odds were stacked against Abe well before she started. Take her choice to become a tunnel engineer. She didn’t necessarily have an exceptional passion for tunnels — she just entered the profession because female engineers didn’t have much of a choice in the 1980s. At the time, it was standard for juniors at Yamaguchi University, where Abe earned her bachelor’s degree, to ask a professor to mentor them during their final year and help them find a job. But Abe was turned away by most. They knew that, as a woman, Abe would have trouble finding a job after graduation unless she became a civil servant, which she had no intention of becoming. “I wanted to work at a general construction contractor so much. I wanted to create things,” Abe explained. In the end, the only professor who agreed to take her under his wing was a tunnel specialist, and that was how she began molding her career as a tunnel engineer. “I didn’t have the luxury of choosing whether I wanted to build bridges or dams,” Abe said. As expected, Abe was “turned away at the doors of all the companies” she applied to, leaving her with no choice but to further her education in tunnel engineering, resulting in a master’s degree. Even then, she didn’t fare much better with her job hunt — most companies didn’t even bother inviting her for an interview. She only managed to get one interview — near the end of the application process — because her professor put in a good word for her with a former student who happened to be the president of a construction company. At last, she landed a job. But working as a female engineer in the 1990s was just the start of a struggle to gain equal footing with her male peers. Although work was smooth sailing for the first few years of her career, her sex eventually became a hindrance because of a Japanese superstition that prevented her from entering the construction sites. According to the superstition, the god of a mountain is a jealous woman who will cause accidents if a woman enters the construction site of a tunnel. “I’d heard about the oral tradition, maybe when I was in my second year of graduate school . . . but I didn’t take it seriously then,” Abe said. “I didn’t think such a tradition would actually affect me. I only found out that I wouldn’t be allowed to enter tunnels once I started working.” Co-workers had no qualms about her working on open cut tunnel projects, where a trench is dug first in natural daylight and then covered later, forming an actual tunnel. But they wouldn’t allow her to enter places that were being dug completely underground because of superstition. “If natural light could enter the construction site, it didn’t matter so much whether you were a man or a woman . . . so in a way the belief was a bit far-fetched,” Abe said. “I ended up becoming an engineer who couldn’t even enter tunnels,” she recalled. As the years went on, Abe began to feel she was getting left behind as her male peers gained more hands-on experience while she was relegated to her desk. As an engineer, not getting on-site experience was a critical issue. That’s when she felt there was no other choice but to do something to set herself apart. So she applied for a scholarship from the company to study in Norway to gain an international edge over her peers and get experience in a less discriminatory environment. The gamble paid off. After graduating from the Norwegian university, she went global by getting involved in tunnel projects from Ukraine and Taiwan to Indonesia and India. And she shows no sign of slowing down. Abe is hoping a plan to build bullet trains in India will take off. But given a career spanning some 30 years, she also feels she is in position to pass on her knowledge. “Now I’ve come to a point where it’s not about me working for myself, but rather about me passing on my experiences to the younger generations. So I’d like to put a lot more effort into teaching.” And what does she want to pass on? “That you can do anything if you put your heart into it,” she said. “I’ve overcome so many obstacles in my life, but that’s why I am here. So I’m actually very grateful that I was born a woman. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have come this far.”

reiko abe
construction
oriental consultants india
india
gender
women
discrimination


Yokohama kin to receive fallen soldier's second wartime Hinomaru after receiving first flag in 2016

Abstract: LOS ANGELES - Relatives of fallen soldier Masamoto Abe will soon receive a second wartime Hinomaru, which were typically signed by friends and family and carried into battle by Japanese troops during the war. The flag has been mailed from Astoria, Oregon, to Abe’s kin in Yokohama. In April, Ralph Wood, 85, contacted Obon Society — a nonprofit organization that, over the past 9 years, has returned more than 200 flags to Japanese families who lost soldiers in the war — on behalf of the Gold Bar, Washington, post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars to determine whether “the mysterious flag” on the club’s wall was authentic. When Obon Society received the paperwork, they recognized the name on the flag and quickly confirmed with their Japanese scholars that the flag belonged to the same Masamoto Abe of Kanagawa Prefecture whose flag they returned in 2016. Wood, who served in the U.S. Marines during the Korean War, said he is pleased the flag is going back to its place of origin and into the “hands of the people who knew and respected the man who carried it into battle.” Next week Abe’s nephew, Hisashi Abe, 81, will again receive one of his uncle’s flags in the mail. Two years ago this month, he received the first of his uncle’s flags through the cooperation of Obon Society and the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. Masamoto Abe went to war with two Hinomaru flags, which were recovered from his body in New Guinea. A U.S. Army veteran took one of the flags, signed by co-workers at Nippon Carbon Co., to Portland, Oregon. For decades, the second flag, which features signatures from Abe’s family and neighbors, resided in Washington state. “What are the chances of that happening?” wrote Keiko and Rex Ziak, co-founders of Obon Society. “Most families will never receive any items from their missing relative; this family will receive two!”


Mother of toddler found safe in western Japan 'overcome with emotion'

Abstract: YAMAGUCHI - The mother of a 2-year-old boy who was found safe three days after he went missing on an island in Yamaguchi Prefecture expressed her relief and joy at being reunited with her son. “I didn’t think I would be able to meet him alive,” Mio Fujimoto, 37, told reporters Wednesday after her son Yoshiki was rescued by a search volunteer. He was found on a mountain about 560 meters from his great-grandfather’s house, where he had been visiting for the summer. For the past three days, Fujimoto had been clinging to hope that her son could be found safe. On Wednesday morning, Yoshiki’s grandfather rushed to let the family know that the boy had been spotted. As Yoshiki was brought down from the mountain, the mother was overwhelmed with emotion and could only call out her son’s name. “It had been three days and I had pretty much lost hope, so when he opened his eyes and looked at me, I was overcome with emotion,” Fujimoto said at the hospital where the boy was later taken. “I was so scared, though Yoshiki must have been even more scared.” Of the 78-year-old volunteer who found her son barefoot sitting near a stream on the mountain, Fujimoto said, “He had promised me that he would bring back my son alive. It’s amazing that he really found him.” Yoshiki ate a banana and some jelly, and drank apple juice after he was rescued, Fujimoto said. He was found with no notable injuries, but was hospitalized as he showed symptoms of dehydration. Yoshiki turned 2 while he was missing, as his birthday was on Monday. “It turned out to be an unexpected kind of birthday,” his mother said. The family plans to belatedly celebrate Yoshiki’s birthday with an ice cream cake, one of his favorite foods, she added.


Bugs struggle amid Japan's record summer heat

Abstract: People aren’t the only ones affected by heat waves. High temperatures recorded over an extended period this summer have apparently caused insects, such as mosquitoes and beetles, to meet an untimely demise across the country. “I think there are fewer mosquitoes around because of the intense heat,” said Takeo Yamauchi, curator at the Hyogo Prefecture-run Museum of Nature and Human Activities. “Mosquito larvae live in water, especially in small puddles, but if the heat continues and it doesn’t rain for a long time, the puddles dry up and the larvae there all die,” he explained. “There have also been research reports that the activities of mosquitoes slow down when the temperature rises to about 35 degrees or higher.” According to the Meteorological Agency, its 927 weather monitoring locations across the nation marked daily highs of 35 degrees or more a total of 3,127 times in July compared to 812 in 2017. That’s likely had an effect on mosquitoes and why many people might have noticed fewer of them around this year. Yamauchi, who is also an associate professor researching arthropods at the University of Hyogo’s School of Human Science and Environment, said the prolonged heat and lack of rainfall probably affect other insects’ longevity, too, such as beetles, noting that the conditions cause many to die while they are still pupae or larvae. Yoshimi Okamoto, manager of Kabutomushi Dome (Beetle Dome) in the Hyogo Prefecture town of Ichikawa, said: “It’s extremely hot this year and it hasn’t rained in this area, so the ground has dried up. Beetles live in places such as moist soil and underneath leaves, but since the netted area has become all arid, they have nowhere to escape to.” The venue, where children can come in contact with hundreds of Japanese horned beetles inside a 1,020-square meter netted area of forest, closed for the season Thursday, about a week earlier than usual, as many of the beetles were unable to survive the heat. Okamoto said about 3,000 beetles have died since the facility opened for the season on June 23, although the longevity of the facility’s bugs are shortened because children who visit are free to touch them. Katsuhiko Morigami of Kuwachan House, which supplies beetles to the facility, said his company tried to procure the creatures from other parts of the country but they were not available. “We’ve never had a situation like this,” he said. “Normally, if we let the beetles go (inside the netted area) in the morning, we can collect them again in the afternoon, but that didn’t happen this year. They’d all die by the afternoon because of the heat.” But not everyone is convinced that insects can be significantly affected by high temperatures. “It’s probably just an impression or imagination,” Shigehiko Shiyake, curator of the Laboratory of Entomology at the Osaka Museum of Natural History, said of recent news reports that fewer mosquitoes are around this summer due to the heat. “It is true that insects don’t like hot weather. They don’t like the cold either. They’re just like people as we’re all living things on this planet,” he said. “But we can’t say anything for sure unless we gather the necessary data. We can’t be sure that this is something peculiar to this year because it’s essentially hot every summer.” Some facilities showcasing bugs made sure their star attractions were not affected by the natural elements. At Minoo Park Insect Museum in Osaka Prefecture, temperatures are carefully controlled so that the butterflies, beetles and other critters there are safe, according to Hiroshi Nakamine, head of the facility. “We don’t have insects dying here and there at our park,” he said.


Japan to promote use of empty buildings as satellite offices

Abstract: The land ministry aims to support efforts to utilize the country’s empty buildings as satellite offices or shared workspaces, according to informed sources. The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry hopes to have related costs included in its budget request for fiscal 2019, which starts in April next year, the sources said. It expects to provide financial backing for the intangible aspects of such efforts, such as helping with costs related to public relations and the payment of fees for consultations with interior designers about renovation work. Expenses for actual renovation work will not be eligible for ministry assistance. The initiative is intended not only to promote the utilization of vacant properties but also to support efforts to enhance productivity and introduce diversified work styles. The ministry hopes to implement related measures by expanding the scope of a model project it launched in fiscal 2017 for promoting the use of vacant houses. It will solicit space utilization proposals from collaborative bodies set up by real estate agencies and municipalities, and then decide which ones to support. The ministry also aims to support the organization of consultations for owners of empty buildings.


Millionaires jumping ship yet another symptom of Brazil's woes

Abstract: BRASILIA - Two thousand Brazilian millionaires left the country in 2017, according to the New World Wealth, a global market research group based in Johannesburg. For the third year in a row, Latin America’s largest economy featured in the top ten of countries ranked by the outflow of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) — those with assets equal or above $1 million — with over 1,000 millionaires leaving the city of Sao Paulo alone. Their destinations of choice are Portugal, the U.S. and Spain, according to the report. The Global Wealth Migration Review, sponsored by the Mauritius-based AfrAsia Bank, tracks wealth migration trends over the past 10 years. The report argues that wealth figures provide a better gauge of the financial health of an economy than GDP figures. “If a country is losing a large number of HNWIs to migration, it is probably due to serious problems in that country (i.e. crime, lack of business opportunities, religious tensions etc.),” it states. Over the past few years, Brazil suffered its worst recession on record. Its recovery has been anemic, and high levels of violent crime continue to rise. For 2017, Brazil ranked seventh in the world in terms of millionaire emigration, behind China, which lost 10,000 millionaires, followed by India, Turkey, the U.K., France and Russia. Venezuela, with almost one-seventh the population of Brazil, lost 1,000 millionaires in the last year. Figures from Brazil’s tax offices show that 21,701 Brazilians left the country last year, up from 20,571 in 2016 and 14,637 in 2015. On Monday economists consulted by Brazil’s central bank cut their latest forecasts for growth this year once again, to 1.47 percent from 1.49 percent a week earlier.

brazil economy migration gdp recession finances


Get ready for the robot invasion — of our classrooms

Abstract: The idea of using robots in classrooms to teach our children is unsettling to many people. Fumihide Tanaka of the University of Tsukuba’s Department of Intelligent Interaction Technologies, however, uses a technique that cleverly allays fears of robot superiority. He uses robots in the role of novices in the classroom. “Our solutions do not replace humans but help humans to feel, think and act,” he says. Rather than the conventional roles of the robots as the teachers or caretakers of children, in Tanaka’s method, this is reversed. The robots are the slow learners and they are taken care of by children. These are a class of robot known as care-receiving robots (CRR). “Our vision is to unlock, actualize, and empower human abilities with the help of these technologies,” Tanaka says. For much of his work, Tanaka uses the Nao robot from SoftBank Robotics, a small humanoid robot at 58 centimeters tall. When the robot joined Japanese children age 3 to 6 learning English, it deliberately made mistakes that could be corrected by the children. Tests showed this method engaged children far better than using tablet software or some other form of technology. Children, more than adults, take very readily to interacting with robots. In another test, children with poor handwriting worked with a humanoid robot who had even worse trouble writing. Through teaching the robot how to write, the children were forced to confront their own handwriting, and they made efforts to improve it. There are all sorts of fascinating things going on here. Not only were the children learning to self-reflect and consider their own handwriting, the interaction made them interpret the internal state of the robot. It increased each child’s empathy. I love that the things many people fear are completely lacking in empathy — like robots — can be a force for improving it in us. The care-receiving method is considered ethically safer and more acceptable to a wider range of societies, says Tanaka. Not surprisingly, studies have found that human teachers are wary of allowing robots into their classrooms. Teachers tend not to trust them, and insist on full control over robots in the classroom. They also prefer the robots to act as “buddies” to children, rather than as an actual teacher. These findings fit with Tanaka’s approach. Tanaka has just published a wide-ranging review of the benefits of robot tutors in the classroom (see the journal Science Robotics, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.aat). Using robots can help augment teaching when there is growing demand for personalized curriculums even as school budgets are being cut and classrooms are getting bigger Tanaka’s review shows that the physical presence of a robot increased learning efficiency in comparison to other technologies. It was more effective than just using an interactive whiteboard or an educational app on a tablet, since its presence added the skill of social interaction to the class. In some simple teaching tasks, robots were also found to be as good as humans in improving the child’s ability. Small robots such as Nao are encouraged for younger children, while older kids can deal with larger machines such as Pepper (120 centimeters tall), also made by SoftBank Robotics. Pepper can personalize its interaction by remembering students’ names, and by mimicking human behavior. It can tilt its head to indicate that it is listening when a child is speaking, make gestures and utter empathic comments and noises. I’ve seen children and adults interacting with Pepper and Nao. It’s almost impossible not to be charmed by the robots. People talk to them with a smile on their face; there is a sense of wonder in the interaction. With human teachers, however, the feelings may be different if they fear for their jobs. Robots are accepted more in classrooms in South Korea and Japan than in Western countries. In the West, privacy, concerns about unemployment (jobs being lost to robots) and technical deficiencies are cited as reasons to resist the advance of robots into schools. However, as Tanaka’s work is showing, robots are not replacing teachers, but helping them get the best out of children.

robot
fumihide tanaka
university of tsukuba
nao
pepper


Over 50 percent of people in Japan have considered living with or near their parents

Abstract: Over 50 percent of people in Japan have considered living with or close to their parents — nearly double the share of parents who have had similar thoughts regarding their children — a private-sector survey has revealed. According to the survey, which was focused on matters related to inheritance of parents’ homes and was conducted by Asahi Kasei Homes Corp., 51.1 percent of children had examined the possibility of living with their parents or in houses adjacent to their parents. For parents, the share of those who have thought about living with their children and their families or having them reside nearby stood at only 28.7 percent. Many others, however, expressed a willingness to consider such arrangements if asked to do so by their children. The survey also found that 71.2 percent of parents want to talk about the future of their homes with their children and that 63.2 percent of children hope to discuss what to do with their parents’ homes with their parents, as well as with brothers and sisters. The results indicate that the issues of home inheritance, sale and remodeling attract a high degree of interest from both generations. But actually discussing such matters may not be easy, as is suggested by another survey that found the proportion of parents who had discussed the future of their homes with their children was fairly low, at 42.5 percent. The Asahi Kasei Homes survey, conducted primarily in urban areas for three days from July 24, covered 600 parents in their 50s to 70s and 1,600 children in their 30s to 60s with families of their own. Asahi Kasei said it carried out the survey against a backdrop of vacant homes becoming a key housing policy challenge in the country as the population declines and jobs concentrate in big cities. It cited an 2013 internal affairs ministry report showing the number of such homes had risen 1.8-fold to 8.2 million in 20 years.


China to prosecute suspects at scandal-hit vaccine maker, confiscate illegal income

Abstract: BEIJING - Chinese authorities will prosecute all suspects in a safety scandal at vaccine maker Changsheng Biotechnology and confiscate its illegal earnings, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Thursday. The company was accused in July of falsifying data for a rabies vaccine and manufacturing an ineffective vaccine for babies, sparking a safety scandal that has stoked widespread public anger. While there were no known reports of people being harmed by the vaccines, regulators ordered Changsheng to halt their production and recall the rabies vaccine. Changsheng apologized in a regulatory filing. CCTV reported on Thursday that the cabinet said police had concluded an investigation into Changsheng. More than 40 government officials, including seven at the provincial level, had been held accountable for the scandal, according to a report from the official China Daily on Friday. A number of senior provincial officials had been removed from their posts, according to a report from Xinhua news agency on Thursday. Guo Hongzhi, a senior official at the Jilin branch of the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), and Bai Xugui, a senior member of the Jilin branch of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, were removed from their posts, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday. Bai oversaw drug supervision as deputy mayor of Jilin between 2016 and 2018. Zeng Xiangdong and Yan Haijiang, both deputy directors at the Jilin branch of the CFDA, were also removed from their posts, according to Xinhua. Four Changchun city CFDA officials were also removed, Xinhua said, among a number of others. Changsheng Biotechnology did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment. CCTV said a separate meeting of the elite seven-man Politburo Standing Committee chaired by President Xi Jinping on Thursday had found the scandal revealed serious “dereliction of duties” and exposed loopholes in the regulatory system. The broadcaster said several government officials had been punished over the scandal. Changsheng is based in Changchun city in the northeastern province of Jilin. It is China’s second-largest producer of rabies and chickenpox vaccines, the company said in its 2017 annual report. Xinhua said on Wednesday the company had made nearly 500,000 sub-standard vaccines for children, roughly double an earlier estimate by authorities.

china scandals vaccines medicine disease


No children? Pay a tax, Chinese academics suggest

Abstract: BEIJING - Two Chinese academics have proposed a controversial idea to encourage childbirth as their country faces an aging population: Make people with no or fewer than two children pay into a “maternity fund.” The suggestion sparked a furious social media debate in a country whose population has faced drastic family planning policies under the Communist Party, which enforced a one-child policy for decades. The world’s most populous country is now seeking to rejuvenate its greying population as concerns mount that an aging and shrinking workforce could slow down its economy, while gender imbalances could lead to social problems. Beijing loosened the rules in 2016, allowing people to have two children, but childbirths have not increased as much as forecast and there has been speculation the government will further ease restrictions. The two academics made their suggestion in Tuesday’s edition of the state-run Xinhua Daily, saying those below the age of 40 and with fewer than two children should contribute annually to a fund that would offset childbirth costs for others. “When the family has a second child or more, they can apply for relief from the fund as compensation for the income loss the woman and her family sustains during the maternity period,” wrote Nanjing University economics professors Liu Zhibiao and Zhang Ye. Among several other suggestions, including an expansion of childcare options, the authors proposed that those with fewer than two children could withdraw their money at retirement. The suggestion sparked outrage and mockery on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform. One user quipped: “If the government wants to encourage childbirth, why not make artificial inseminations to make us have quintuplets, or authorize polygamy?” State broadcaster CCTV has also hit back in a scathing online commentary calling the suggestion “unfounded, unreasonable, and inconsistent.” “It is contrary to common sense and exposes the lack of professionalism of researchers.” China is also slowly emerging from the shadow of the one-child policy, introduced in the late 1970s to cap population growth. Those with multiple children were heavily fined, and some women were forced to undergo abortions. But couples have been in no rush to grow their families since the policy was loosened, with 17.9 million babies born in 2016, just 1.3 million more than in the previous year and half of what was expected, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Births in 2017 even slipped to 17.23 million, well below the official forecast of over 20 million.


Chinese police detain man for asking why can't Taiwan be called a country

Abstract: BEIJING - Police in China have detained a man who asked on social media what law prevented anyone calling self-ruled Taiwan a country, questioning a fundamental principle of China’s sovereignty. Taiwan is China’s most sensitive diplomatic and political issue. Beijing views the democratic island as merely a wayward province and it has stepped up a campaign against the island as it tries to assert Chinese sovereignty. Police in the northeastern city of Maanshan said an 18-year-old unemployed man, identified by the family name Yang, had used his Weibo social media account to post questions on a police Weibo including: “What law says you can’t call Taiwan a country?” The young man also referenced Japan, saying that Prime Shinzo Abe was his “real father,” the police said in a statement, adding that what he wrote was against the law and “profaned the people’s feelings.” Yang, who police said had previously been warned for making “bad comments” online, had confessed to his crimes and had been detained on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” they said. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists. Beijing has begun ordering foreign companies to label Taiwan as part of China on their websites and is excluding Taiwan from as many international forums as it can.