Suicidal cells and the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks

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


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

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


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

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

shinzo abe
provincial economies
revitalization
abenomics


Kansai's fears of new law no state secret

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

state secrets
state secrets law
defense
nuclear plant


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

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

state secrets
state secrets law
defense
terrorism
diplomacy


Turner Broadcasting cutting 1,475 jobs

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


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

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

nintendo 3ds
simulation
video game
japan pulse


Figuring out the science behind research whaling

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

whaling
shinzo abe
stem cells
haruko obokata


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

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


Is 'Kobe Formula' spanner in works?

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


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

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

meteorological agency
higashiomi
heatwave


Self-defense less collective at local level

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

shiga
collective self-defense
kansai
kyoto


Mitsubishi Estate to tap Otemachi for new hot spring facility

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


Microsoft expected to announce huge job cuts this week

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


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

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


Asakusa paints traditional Tokyo in a popular light

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


Plane's swastika banner spurs criticism around NYC

Abstract: NEW YORK - A banner aiming to change people’s minds about what swastikas stand for has stirred outrage after it flew over beaches in New York City and on Long Island. Some beachgoers were appalled and officials fielded complaints after a plane toted the banner Saturday. The banner featured swastikas, a peace sign, a Star of David and a “pro-swastika” message. It was arranged by the International Raelian Movement. The group tries annually to remind people that before Adolf Hitler’s rise, the swastika was an ancient symbol of well-being to Hindus and Buddhists, among others. The Raelians — who believe human beings were created by extraterrestrials — have faced controversy over similar swastika banners in summers past. Some beachgoers say there’s just no way to rehabilitate a symbol that provokes such strong feelings.


Store sold inedible gourd seedlings as being safe to eat

Abstract: OSAKA - Decorative calabash gourd seedlings sold at stores nationwide were mislabeled “for edible use,” Royal Home Center Co., run by the Daiwa House Industry Co., said. The mistake came to light after someone in Nara Prefecture was hospitalized after coming down with symptoms of food poisoning, apparently after consuming calabash or bottle gourd grown from the seedlings earlier this month. Company representatives apologized Sunday for “causing so much trouble and inconvenience,” and warned customers not to eat the calabash gourds. Some varieties of calabash are edible, but the three types of seedlings sold by Royal Home Center were not. Customers who purchased any of the three types — clustering gourds, large-sized gourds and “tsurukubi,” or long-necked gourds — can get a refund. The young plants, labeled as “fun to grow and delicious to eat,” were sold at 30 stores in 11 prefectures: Chiba, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Saitama, Aichi, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, Hyogo, Okayama and Hiroshima, between April and June in both 2013 and 2014. The company said 3,072 seedlings were sold. Royal Home Center said the gourds were sold with the same labels the producer — Green Plaza Yamacho — had put on the packages when shipping the seedlings. The company decided to recall the remaining products after receiving a complaint from a consumer who had purchased mislabeled seedlings from a local distributor and grew the gourds. According to the complaint reported July 7, the purchaser’s friend — a woman in her 40s from Nara Prefecture — developed symptoms including diarrhea and vomiting after consuming the fruit. Royal Home Center said the company will take steps to improve procedures for verifying labels and was considering further measures to prevent any reoccurrences. For more information about refunds, call Royal Home Center’s customer center at 0120-256-186. For details on the products offered by Green Plaza Yamacho, consumers can contact the producer at 0743-75-3003.

gourds
osaka
mislabeling
royal home center


China food scandal drags in other chains, spreads to McDonald's Japan

Abstract: SHANGHAI - A toxic food scandal in China is spreading fast, dragging in U.S. coffee chain Starbucks, Burger King Worldwide Inc. and others, as well as products of McDonald’s Corp. as far away as Japan. McDonald’s and KFC’s parent Yum Brands Inc. apologized to Chinese customers Monday after it emerged that Shanghai Husi Food Co. Ltd., a unit of U.S.-based OSI Group LLC, had supplied expired meat to the two chains. In Tokyo, McDonald’s Holdings Japan said Tuesday it gets 20 percent of the chicken it uses for Chicken McNuggets from Shanghai Husi but stopped selling nuggets made with meat purchased from the Chinese firm on Monday. McDonald’s Japan apologized to its customers and said it has switched to another chicken meat supplier. The firm said it has stopped importing chicken meat from Shanghai Husi and said if the reports are true, it is “completely unacceptable.” A spokesman said McDonald’s Japan has been using meat supplied by Shanghai Husi since 2002, but no major problems have occurred so far regarding complaints from customers. On Tuesday, Starbucks in China said some of its stores previously sold products containing chicken originally sourced from Shanghai Husi, a firm that was shut down Sunday by local regulators after a TV report showed staff using expired meat and picking up meat from the floor to add to the mix. Heidi Barker, a U.S. spokeswoman for McDonald’s, said in an email that McNuggets were the only product affected in Japan. Yoshinoya-parent Hop Hing Group Holdings Ltd., convenience store FamilyMart Co. Ltd. and Chinese chain Wallace urged diners not to worry and said they did not currently use any products from Shanghai Husi. Fast-food chain Burger King and Dicos, China’s third-ranked diner owned by Ting Hsin International, said they would remove Shanghai Husi food products from their outlets. Pizza chain Papa John’s International Inc. said on its Weibo blog that it had taken down all meat products supplied by Shanghai Husi and cut ties with the supplier. Food safety is one of the top issues for Chinese consumers after a scandal in 2008 where dairy products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine led to the deaths of six infants and made many thousands sick. Other food scandals have hit the meat and dairy industries in recent years, and many Chinese look to foreign brands as offering higher safety standards. Starbucks said on its Chinese microblog site that it had no direct business relationship with Shanghai Husi, but that some of its chicken acquired from another supplier had originally come from Husi for its Chicken Apple Sauce Panini products. This had been sold in 13 different provinces and major cities. Starbucks added that all the products had already been removed from the shelves. The scare has stirred local consumers and become one of the most discussed topics online by the country’s influential “netizens,” with some users writing and spreading long lists of firms thought to be tarnished. The incident highlights the difficulty in ensuring quality and safety along the supply chain in China. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. came under the spotlight this year after a supplier’s donkey meat product was found to contain fox meat. It also came under fire for selling expired duck meat in 2011. Burger King said in a Weibo statement posted late Monday that it had taken off its shelves all meat products supplied by Shanghai Husi Food and had launched an investigation. Dicos said it pulled all ham products supplied by Shanghai Husi, and would stop serving its ham sandwich product for breakfast. “We will continue to carry out a probe into Shanghai Husi Food and its related firms, to understand whether or not it followed national regulations,” Dicos said in a statement. IKEA said on Weibo that Shanghai Husi had previously been a supplier, but had not provided the firm with products since September last year. Domino’s Pizza Inc. and Doctor’s Associates Inc.’s Subway brand, which were named in online reports as being supplied meat from Shanghai Husi, said their outlets in China did not use meat products from the firm.

china
food
scandals
mcdonald 's
burger king
shanghai husi food
family mart


Ruling hinged on assistance law revamp: summary

Abstract: The following is a rough translation of the text of Supreme Court’s July 18 ruling that found permanent residents ineligible for welfare payments. [FACTS DETERMINED BY THE FUKUOKA HIGH COURT] The old Public Assistance Law (abolished in 1950) stated, in Article 1: “This law is aimed at protecting the lives of people in need equally, without discrimination or preferential treatment, thereby enhancing social welfare.” Article 1 of the current (1950) Public Assistance Law states: “The purpose of this Act is for the State to guarantee a minimum standard of living as well as to promote self-support for all citizens who are living in poverty by providing necessary public assistance according to the level of poverty, based on the principles prescribed in Article 25 of the Constitution of Japan.” Article 2 of the law states: “All citizens (kokumin) may receive public assistance under this Act (hereinafter referred to as “public assistance”) in a nondiscriminatory and equal manner as long as they satisfy the requirements prescribed by this Act.” A 1954 welfare ministry notice to prefectural governments stipulates that, for the time being, foreigners in poverty should be given the same level of assistance as Japanese citizens. The notice further says public assistance applications from foreigners should be processed in the same ways as those from Japanese are, except that when foreigners are given assistance, the (municipal) agencies in charge must report the cases to their prefectural governor and confirm through the governor that the individuals in question are not already eligible to receive such assistance from agencies in the foreigners’ places of origin. In 1990, the welfare ministry released new guidelines, limiting eligibility for foreigners based on its 1954 notice to those with permanent residential status. In 1981, when the Cabinet decided that Japan would join the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as well as the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (hereinafter referred to as “Refugee Convention”), the issue of whether to revise the nationality clause (limiting legal protection to Japanese nationals) in domestic laws such as the Public Assistance Law, National Pension Law and the Child Rearing Allowance Law, arose, as Article 23 of the convention stipulated that: “The Contracting States shall accord to refugees lawfully staying in their territory the same treatment with respect to public relief and assistance as is accorded to their nationals.” With the 1981 enactment of legislation mandating revisions (in Japan, to accommodate the convention’s requirements), various laws, such as the National Pension Law and the Child Rearing Allowance Law, were revised to abolish the nationality clause, but no such revisions were made to the Public Assistance Law. In a joint screening committee set up by the legal affairs, foreign affairs and social and labor committees of the Lower House, a government representative in May 1981 said Japan would not be barred from joining the Refugee Convention for not abolishing the nationality clause in the Public Assistance Law, because ever since the public assistance system was created, foreigners had been treated in the same way as nationals. JUDGEMENT OF THE FUKUOKA HIGH COURT] By joining the Refugee Convention, and from related Diet deliberations, the legislative and administrative arms of the government can be construed as having approved that the nation shoulders a degree of legal responsibility to provide public assistance and therefore accord to a certain group of foreigners the same level of public assistance as is accorded to their nationals. Therefore the status of a certain group of foreigners to receive the aforementioned treatment has been legally established. [JUDGMENT OF THE SUPREME COURT] The old Public Assistance Law did not distinguish, in its application, between “nationals” and others, whereas the current law, in articles 1 and 2, stipulates that it is “citizens” who are eligible. The “citizens” referred to by the law can be interpreted to mean Japanese nationals and exclude foreigners. Since the current law’s enactment, no legal revision has been made to expand eligible persons to include a certain group of foreigners, and no other legal legislation exists to enable the application of the provisions for assistance accorded under the law to a certain group of foreigners. Therefore, there is no ground for the Public Assistance Law to be applied to foreigners. The (1954 welfare ministry) notice is one issued by an administrative body. Even if public assistance has been in reality accorded to a certain group of foreigners as an administrative measure, this cannot be interpreted as meaning that the Public Assistance Law now applies to foreigners in the absence of legislative measures, such as revisions to its articles 1 and 2. It is also clear from the wording of the notice that it is premised on the understanding that the Public Assistance Law does not apply to foreigners, and hence foreigners who are living in poverty should be given necessary protection as an administrative measure for the time being. Therefore, it is through an administrative measure (rather than a legislative measure) that foreigners have, to date, effectively been made eligible for public assistance. Neither the Public Assistance Law as it currently stands nor any other law can be construed as conferring on foreigners eligibility for assistance.

supreme court
permanent residents
welfare
public assistance law
discrimination


A closer look at the Supreme Court's welfare benefits ruling

Abstract: Opinions are divided over how the Supreme Court ruling last week declaring permanent foreign residents of Japan ineligible for welfare payments will affect the foreign communities in Japan. In Japan, welfare benefits comprise public assistance for financially needy people, including monthly stipends for living expenses and housing, as well as free medical and nursery services. Lawyers and foreign rights advocates see the top court’s ruling as a sign that municipalities will grow more hostile to foreigners, while central and local government officials stress the ruling will by no means change the way they scrutinize foreign applicants. Let’s take a look at the facts and some of potential repercussions from the verdict. What was the ruling about? An 82-year-old ethnic Chinese woman in Oita Prefecture who was born and raised in Japan sued the city of Oita in 2009 as she was denied welfare benefits on the grounds that she had some savings. She filed another application later that was accepted and has been claiming welfare benefits since 2011. Her claims aside, the trial was pivotal in that it forced the courts to finally clarify whether foreigners are entitled to welfare benefits — something the judiciary has never had to consider. Last Friday, the Supreme Court clearly ruled for the first time that they are not because foreigners are not considered Japanese citizens, overturning the Fukuoka High Court’s 2011 decision. How did foreigners first start to receive benefits in Japan? The 1950 Public Assistance Law stipulates that the state should take measures to protect every financially struggling “citizen” of Japan from poverty and ensure a minimal standard living. Four years later, the welfare ministry issued a nationwide notice to municipalities explaining that the law does not cover foreign residents due to its allusion to nationality. But poverty-stricken foreigners, it said, should nonetheless be given any assistance deemed necessary by the municipalities. Since then, municipalities have customarily interpreted this to mean that they can decide whether to dole out the benefits at their own discretion. As a result, foreign residents here have received welfare benefits for years — at the mercy of local governments. In 1990, the ministry narrowed the scope of foreigners subject to benefits to those with permanent residency or long-term visas. What about other social security programs? Japan used to exclude foreigners from almost all social security programs, including child-rearing allowances and the national pension system. Laws for all of these programs stipulated its recipients be “Japanese nationals,” until Japan joined a series of U.N.-designated international treaties, such as the International Covenants on Human Rights in 1979, and the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees in 1982. By joining these accords, Japan became treaty-bound to treat foreigners on an equal footing with its own people and pressured into ditching the nationality clauses previously included in these programs. What happened to the benefits? Unlike many other programs, the original 1950 law for welfare benefits has received no tweaks and continues to discriminate against foreigners by stating that legitimate recipients must be Japanese citizens. Upon signing up for the 1982 refugee treaty, the government at the time insisted there was no need to rid the law of the nationality clause, arguing municipalities were already treating foreign applicants in the same way as Japanese in accordance with its 1954 notice. So how will the ruling affect foreign communities here? When contacted by The Japan Times, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said no major policy review is in the works on how to handle claims by foreigners seeking welfare benefits. “We understand the ruling merely endorsed our policy of all these years,” said ministry official Hiroki Morishita. “Foreign residents have never been eligible for the benefits. This will continue to be the case and nothing will change.” Likewise, local governments in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, Kawasaki and Minokamo in Gifu — all of which have large foreign communities than elsewhere in Japan — said they are not considering subjecting foreign applicants to stricter scrutiny. But Hisao Seto, lead defense lawyer for the 82-year-old Chinese woman, is not convinced. He says the government might feel tempted to target foreigners if they pressed with the need to trim budgets amid ever-swelling welfare expenditures. Seto said he considers the Supreme Court ruling a virtual “warning” to foreigners in Japan. “What it’s trying to say,” he said, “is that as a foreigner you shouldn’t consider working or living in Japan because if you were ever to get injured or sick, chances are you will be denied the welfare payments you need, depending on the mood of local officials you deal with,” he said. What part of the foreign community will be hit hardest? Topping the list is probably the Koreans who were forcibly brought to Japan before and during World War II after the 1910 annexation of the Korean Peninsula. Some still live without pensions, because by the time Japan removed the nationality clause from its pension system in 1982, they had turned 35 or older, making it impossible to complete the 25 years of pension premiums payments required to before the age of 60, when individuals were then eligible to tap their pension payments. “For those people welfare benefits have been the last social safety net they could count on, without having to depend financially on their kids to survive,” said Hiroshi Tanaka, professor emeritus of sociology at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. Eriko Suzuki, an associate professor of Kokushikan University in Tokyo who specializes in foreign labor issues, points out that migrant “nikkei” workers from Brazil and so-called Indochina refugees from countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia also need the benefits. Consigned to taking low-paid, dangerous or menial jobs, many of them are often injured and find themselves at great risk of becoming unemployed, she said. “Accepting foreigners as a labor force and then abandoning them once they’ve become useless will clearly look very bad for Japan in the international community,” Suzuki said.

supreme court
welfare
foreigners
public assistance law
nationality clause
discrimination


Dethroned Myanmar beauty queen blasts pageant organizers

Abstract: YANGON - A dethroned 16-year-old beauty queen from Myanmar said Tuesday she won’t return her bejeweled $100,000 crown until pageant organizers apologize for calling her a liar and a thief. May Myat Noe — the country’s first winner of an international beauty contest — lashed back at her accusers at a tightly packed news conference. She said representatives of the Miss Asia Pacific World pageant lied about her age — saying she was 18 instead of 16 — and tried to pressure her into getting plastic surgery “from head to toe.” Noe denied having breast implants as claimed by David Kim, director of media for the South Korean-based pageant. He said the surgery was provided free of charge to help boost the teen into superstardom. Kim said Noe was stripped of her title last week because she was dishonest and unappreciative, and that she ran off with her tiara after learning of the decision. Noe said she boarded a plane for Myanmar before getting word. She said she did not intend to steal the crown, but also wasn’t going to give it back without a “sorry,” not just to her, but also to Myanmar. “I’m not even proud of this crown,” she said after opening a blue box and placing the tiara on the table in front of her. “I don’t want a crown from an organization with such a bad reputation.” The pageant says the Swarovski tiara is worth more than $100,000. Noe’s mother, who accompanied her on the trip to South Korea, cried when asked about the experience. The Miss Asia Pacific World pageant, now in its fourth year, is no stranger to controversy. In 2011, Wales representative Amy Willerton and several other contestants alleged that the contest had been fixed after a woman representing Venezuela was apparently named runner-up of the talent round before competing. The argument with organizers — captured on video and uploaded to YouTube under the title “Confessions of a Beauty Queen” — was widely circulated in the pageant community. Some of the contestants also accused officials of asking the women for sex in return for higher placement in the contest, and charged that the police called into investigate the allegations were bribed. Those allegations were denied by Kim. “It is not true that the girls were sleeping with the organizers or the director,” he said. “The police already announced that these were just rumors. We checked everything, the CCTV in the hotel, everything. It was just rumors.” Myanmar, which only recently emerged from a half century of military rule and self-imposed isolation, started sending contestants to international pageants again in 2012. Noe’s win was widely covered in local media.


Fukushima workers sue Tepco over unpaid hazard wages, reliance on contractors

Abstract: IWAKI, FUKUSHIMA PREF. - A group of Fukushima workers on Wednesday sued Tokyo Electric Power Co. for unpaid wages in a potentially precedent-setting legal challenge to the utility and its reliance on contractors to shut down a nuclear plant destroyed by the industry’s worst accident since Chernobyl. The lawsuit, filed by two current and two former workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, claims that Tepco and its contractors failed to ensure workers are paid promised hazard allowances, a court filing showed. The workers say Tepco, allowed subcontractors to skim funds allocated for wages to bolster their own profits on the decommissioning project at the expense of workers. The lawsuit seeks the equivalent of roughly ¥62 million in unpaid wages from Tepco and related contractors. It marks the first time that the utility has been sued for the labor practices of the construction companies it employs. The lawsuit also asks that the 6,000 workers partaking in the nuclear clean-up project either be made effectively government employees, be put on the Tepco payroll directly or be fairly paid. Tsuguo Hirota, 68, the lawyer coordinating the lawsuit, said he expects two additional workers will join the action immediately and that more could follow. Japanese law allows for additional plaintiffs with related claims to join an existing lawsuit. “A year ago, Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe told the world that Fukushima was under control,” Hirota said in an interview. “But that’s not the case. Workers are not getting promised hazard pay and skilled workers are leaving. It’s becoming a place for amateurs only, and that has to worry anyone who lives near the plant.” Tepco had no immediate comment. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday morning by Hirota, the four plaintiffs and a group of supporters at a branch of Fukushima court in Iwaki, about 60 km south of the wrecked nuclear plant.

unpaid wages
tokyo electric power co .
fukushima nuclear power plant


The feral felines of Cat Heaven Island

Abstract: Cat heaven is a place on Earth — and it’s just 20 minutes by ferry from Fukuoka. To go there, catch a boat from Shingu Port in Fukuoka to Ainoshima Island. It is a small island, some 1¼ sq. km in size, inhabited by around 500 people, most of whom make their living by fishing. You will immediately notice the cats. There are hundreds of them, roaming freely. Almost all are feral, wild-living and battle-hardened. For cat lovers, the place is becoming a tourist attraction. The photographer known as Fubirai has spent several years documenting the cats of the island on his blog , and in 2012 his photos went viral on Buzzfeed. A steady trickle of feline enthusiasts are now making the crossing from Fukuoka — the residents of Ainoshima might soon supplement their income catering to the cat-watchers. Akihiro Yamane has also spent time on the island — seven years. Now a curator at Kitakyushu Museum of Natural History and Human History, Yamane was for many years a leading cat scientist, first at Kyushu University, and then at the Laboratory for Wildlife Conservation at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba — where I met him. Ainoshima has gained the nickname Cat Heaven Island, but while it may be a great place for scientists — and it has taught us a surprising amount about so familiar an animal — it is not perhaps the ideal place for cats. Feral cats are tough, and have tough lives. They live for just three to five years, compared with around 15 years for the average house cat. Yamane studied the cats in a six-hectare area on the south tip of the island, where there were six garbage patches. The cats arrange themselves in groups, based around ownership and control of the garbage patches. There is a strict hierarchy. “Male cats fight rivals to secure priority access to females in estrous (on heat),” Yamane says. “That ensures the males are more successful in mating and reproducing.” By trapping and tagging all the cats, Yamane found that the bigger and heavier a male in a group, the more access to females he secured. Big males also risked incursions into enemy territory — they visited other garbage heaps in attempts to mate with other females. “But these males were beaten there by smaller males of the other group, just like away supporters in a football game.” Very few “away team” copulations were observed. However, Yamane also took DNA samples of cats and kittens. The analysis showed that despite seeing few copulations between intruding males and females, there were actually far more kittens fathered from outside the group than expected. Females have more control over who fathers their kittens than you might think from the male-dominated structure of their society. Yamane says he often saw females dash away from their dominant males while the males were snoozing. “In many trials, females failed to escape, because males noticed the movement, but some attempts were successful,” he says. The reason for this, Yamane suspects, is to reduce the effects of inbreeding. When he started the study, Yamane says he had no special affection for cats. If anything, he had negative feelings about them, because some birds he kept when he was a child had been killed by cats. But he started to change his mind. He saw how different the life of a feral cat is to that of a house cat. Female cats had to compete to get enough food to feed their kittens. Life was tough and many kittens died through starvation, disease and even infanticide, as seen in lions. Male cats had to endure dangerous and damaging fights to get the chance to mate. “I found myself respecting them,” Yamane says. “After a while I grew to love them.” Yamane also observed many instances of male-on-male homosexual behavior. Often this would occur when a fertile female ran away from a courting male; sometimes the male would bite and mount a nearby immature male cat. It is hard to read this as “frustrated” actions on the part of the male — although Yamane says it is not yet fully understood. Yamane has just written a book drawing together his research on cats. “Neko no Himitsu” (“Secrets of the Cat”) was published this weekend by Bunshun Shinsho. Yamane says the book describes the life of both feral and household cats, from birth to death. One of the issues he considers is how to control the spread of feral cats. “Feral cats kill and eat endangered endemic wildlife,” he says, “and may even contribute to extinction.” There are some reports in Japan of feral cats reducing the population of wild birds, and they are suspected of spreading disease to the endemic wildcat, the Iriomote yamaneko . Japan deals with the issue by euthanizing kittens. In 2012 in Japan, some 120,000 cats were euthanized. In some European countries, the problem is tackled by trapping and neutering cats, and then releasing them, but while some local governments have recommended this in Japan, it hasn’t caught on. For Yamane the issue encapsulates other societal problems in Japan. In the olden days, he says — in the Edo Period (1603-1867) and Showa Era (1926-89) — people did not have enough surplus food to feed stray cats. Now they do, and they feed feral cats. We can’t go back to the olden days, but it is easy to stop feeding cats, he says. “A problem is that aged people living alone tend to constantly feed feral cats, because they have little contact with other people and feel lonely,” Yamane says. One of the consequences of a society where older people are lonely is that cats are overfed and reproduce at high rates, and their kittens have to be euthanized. For my part, I love cats, because despite the millenniums of domestic life, they retain impressive predatory characteristics. They are only a whisker away from being wild animals. Yamane feels the same. In his book, he outlines the characteristics of cats that we find so attractive: beauty, adaptability, a capricious nature, a sense of mystery, independence. Each of them, he says, are byproducts of evolution, the force of natural selection that created an efficient killer.


Can simplicity survive contact with complexity?

Abstract: “In the past this spacious Hokkaido was our ancestors’ world of freedom. Living with ease and pleasure in the manner of innocent babes in the embrace of beautiful, vast nature, they were truly beloved children of nature. Oh, what happy people they must have been!” “They have no history, their traditions are scarcely worthy of the name, they claim descent from a dog, their houses and persons swarm with vermin, they are sunk in the grossest ignorance …” “It is a great insult for the people of our prefecture (Okinawa) to be singled out for inclusion with Taiwanese tribesmen and (Hokkaido) Ainu. … We are being portrayed as an inferior race.” Hokkaido and Okinawa, poles apart climatically, have in common the sort of past that begs the question: Can human simplicity survive contact with human complexity? Both territories having failed to do so, and being now part of Japan in consequence, the answer seems clear. Maybe it is. Let’s explore it anyway. Related questions come to mind: Can weak nations coexist with strong ones? Does strength confer rights to which weakness must (and, therefore, should) yield? Is savagery a viable, even preferable alternative to civilization? If so, “savagery,” with its pejorative connotations, hardly seems the right word. What then? “Innocence?” Were Hokkaido and Okinawa “innocent” before Japan got its hands on them? Would they have been better off had Japan never encroached on them? If so, was Japan’s encroachment a crime? A sad truism: nations commit acts in the name of honor, glory and prosperity that, committed by individuals, would be judged criminal, if not monstrous. But nations are not individuals. Does that absolve them? Let’s consider Okinawa first, if only because Okinawa to this day harbors grievances whose modern manifestations have ancient roots. In 1591, Japan’s supreme warlord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, having united most of his fractious country under his personal rule and feeling unabashedly omnipotent, wrote to the Ryukyu court as follows: “Throughout our nation of more than 60 provinces, I have pacified all people and governed with mercy and affection. … Consequently it is my desire to spread my administrations to other regions. … Henceforth, even if a land be thousands of miles distant, I shall … build with foreign lands the spirit of the four seas as one family.” Ryukyu, Okinawa’s original name, means “circle of jewels,” an apt description of a sprawling and lovely archipelago of 160-odd large and small islands, 48 of them inhabited. Agriculture came late — not before the 10th century. Local potentates ruled locally until the 15th century when one, stronger than the others, forced unification on recalcitrant former peers, somewhat staining a claim to moral superiority. Yet early in the 20th century the folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962) professed to see in Okinawa the pristine and divine purity that Japan proper had thrown away in its hell-bent drive to modernization. Traders the Ryukyuans were, their seaborne commerce mainly with China but extending all over East and South Asia. Hideyoshi, boundlessly bumptious, conceived a desire to conquer China. Why? Why not? A letter he wrote in1591 reads, “My country is secure. Nonetheless, it is my intention to govern China,” a feat “as easily done as pointing to the palm of my hand.” From the Ryukyus he demanded troops and provisions. Not daring to refuse outright, the Ryukyu king extended grudging and minimal cooperation — trade with China was his kingdom’s lifeline, after all — no doubt rejoicing when the expedition came to grief. It mattered little in the end. Ryukyu was doomed. It was too prosperous and too feeble to be left alone by a Japan whose newfound unity and burgeoning strength demanded an outlet. In 1609 came the almost effortless invasion — the end (in fact though not in name until 1879) of Ryukyu’s independent existence. Ironically, 30 years after the invasion, Japan, feeling threatened by Western powers, turned deeply inward, not emerging from its shell until the mid-1850s, when those same Western powers, led by the United States, treated Japan much as Japan had treated Okinawa. So that’s power politics. When has it ever been different? Well, take Hokkaido for instance. How could Yanagita have missed it? Here if anywhere primitive simplicity, noble savagery, natural goodness (is there is such a thing?) had a chance. If the ancient Ryukyuans were slow or reluctant to develop agriculture, Hokkaido’s Ainu were much more so, preserving a prehistoric hunting and gathering economy until well into the 19th century. Yukie Chiri, the early 20th-century Ainu writer quoted above (she died of heart disease at 19) was born too late to taste the primordial happiness she wrote about, but the oral tales on which she based herself (she is remembered as the first to have preserved them in writing) are too beautiful and too transparently joyful to be disregarded as evidence of the possibility that civilization may be more corrupting than beneficial — Isabella Bird notwithstanding. Bird is a fine observer, but she wouldn’t have known the tales, and her feelings in any case were mixed; she could not deny that there was something very fine about the Ainu after all. “They are uncivilizable and altogether irreclaimable savages,” Bird writes, “yet they are attractive and in some ways fascinating, and I hope I shall never forget the music of their low, sweet voices … and the wonderful sweetness of their smile.” Is this paradise lost? Were the Ainu “innocent babes,” as Chiri thought, or vermin-ridden savages, as they appeared to Bird? “Inferior race,” said the Ryukyu Shimpo — yet who today doesn’t see something admirable in their loving symbiosis with nature, their lack of greed, their ability to live in peace with one another? Hopeless, doomed. In the 16th century rumors swirled of gold to be found in the far north, and Japanese prospectors poured in. The rest, as they say, is history.