Rose-tinted views of elderly workers' plight

Abstract: The media has been conscientious in its coverage of the need for foreign workers in Japan. A May 20 NHK Special was particularly thorough in its portrayal of Mimasaka, Okayama Prefecture, which is encouraging Vietnamese laborers to move to the city. Several news outlets have covered Mimasaka’s statue of former Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh , which was presented to the city by Hanoi last November at the request of Mimasaka’s mayor. The special also looked at older workers. According to NHK, 12.4 percent of the workforce is over 65 at present, and many of these people are doing manual work, often for the first time in their lives. In Mimasaka, 40 percent of all workers are over 65. It’s obvious that more older people are either forgoing retirement or reentering the workforce afterward. In many cases, these elderly workers need the money because basic national pensions are not enough to get by on, but a popular media narrative is that these people are going back to work because they are bored with retired life or think that society needs them. This narrative was the theme of a recent two-hour Kansai TV drama , “68-sai no Shinnyu Shain” (“The 68-year-old New Employee”), about a former manager, Kazuo Niimoto (Masao Kusakari), who, eight years into his retirement, is talked into returning to his old employer, a medium-sized confectionery maker, by the company’s younger president. The drama wears its topicality like a badge and steers the conversation toward areas that have little to do with economics. It’s mainly about being able to contribute and fulfill your desire to stay relevant. Such an image was discussed on NHK’s news program “ Shutoken Joho Neta Dori ,” which doubled down on the cliche that senior workers “have a lot of experience-based wisdom to stimulate the workplace,” as the show’s announcer put it. In 2017, there were 8 million workers aged over 65, and for the most part all were making significantly less money than they did when they were younger, usually because they retired from their old jobs and were then hired as “new employees.” When the program provided examples, however, all of the men featured had retired with sufficient company pensions and savings and just wanted something to do. Sometimes, there was a happy match between the needs of the worker and the needs of the employer, as in the case of one 70-year-old man who works part-time for a package delivery company servicing the large apartment complex where he lives. He only makes about ¥3,000 a day, but, because he makes deliveries by bicycle, he gets needed exercise and stays in close contact with his neighbors. In turn, the company doesn’t have to worry about delivery personnel going back to the complex for re-deliveries, since the on-site courier can keep undelivered packages at his home and re-deliver them at his leisure. In another segment, an over-70s telemarketer for an insurance company is shown to have the best sales record because, as someone who has taken out supplemental insurance himself, he can persuasively explain the benefits of such a product. NHK did not avoid the fact that a good many retired people don’t want to go back to work and if they do it’s because their pensions and savings are insufficient. For the most part, however, the show dealt with the psychological dimensions of the growing senior labor market, and examined how reentering a workforce that is different from the one elderly workers once knew presents unique challenges in terms of human relations. In the KTV drama, Niimoto gladly returns to his old company but is discouraged to discover he’s starting at the bottom in a sales team whose job is to come up with ideas for a new business: inexpensive trinkets and toys. Niimoto’s boss is Mayuko Kudo (Mitsuki Takahata), a 28-year-old who worked herself up from office clerk to section head due to her imagination. Her rapid ascent, however, has made her the target of office bullying, thus putting greater pressure on her to achieve results right away. At first she expresses impatience at being forced to train a guy who is older than her father. No worries there. Thanks to his wife’s advice, Niimoto resists reverting to his salaryman mindset and adapts to being an underling, which leads to running jokes about tablet PCs and getting the hang of the office lingo of a new generation. One of the topics covered on NHK’s “Shutoken Joho Neta Dori” program was how older people have trouble communicating with younger co-workers, especially if the younger colleagues occupy higher positions. It seems to be a common problem, and would have made for an intriguing theme, but for some reason the drama’s writers hardly touched it. Instead, the conflicts all fell on Kudo, with Niimoto simply being on hand to help alleviate them — not so much with his experience-based wisdom but his selfless willingness to be a subordinate. If there was a message to the story, it’s that today’s young workers, due to changes in workplace dynamics and attitudes toward human resources, carry a heavier burden than their elders did when they were the same age. But the show didn’t illustrate this burden in a convincing way. Kudo’s problems were caused by envious, sexist superiors — cartoon villains who smirked too much and spoke in witheringly condescending tones. There was no burden on Niimoto, unless you count the usual existential ones like closer proximity to mortality. Even without his token wage, he and his wife lived quite comfortably, thus indicating another lost opportunity. It would have been more revealing, and certainly more dramatically compelling, if the 68-year-old in “68-sai no Shinnyu Shain” really needed the job, but that isn’t what the media, in thrall to the zeitgeist, is selling. The government actively wants more older people to work , and those in financial straits are already working anyway. It’s those who don’t need the money who have to be flattered into coming back on the payroll.


Women in Japan fall for an Amuro who isn't the J-pop star

Abstract: Most people in Japan associate the surname Amuro with the retiring 40-year-old queen of J-pop of the same name, who gave a series of farewell concerts in June that attracted 800,000 people. Namie Amuro’s official exit from stardom will take place in September but fans are still buying her merchandise . As famous as Amuro is, her popularity is beginning to face some stiff competition from a male anime character who shares her surname. Toru Amuro is a stunningly handsome, mysterious chap who juggles several identities in the “Detective Conan” manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. In one episode, Amuro displays his culinary flair by making the “Amuro Sandwich.” The recipe went viral and the sandwich was served at 10 Detective Conan cafes that opened in pop-up locations across Japan to celebrate the release of the new Conan movie, “Zero The Enforcer.” Amuro plays a central role in “Zero The Enforcer,” which is shattering box-office records having earned a whopping ¥8.3 billion to date. Lest you think Amuro is simply a handsome guy with an eye for cooking — let’s face it, there are plenty of those around — it’s just one of his guises. Amuro is actually an agent at the Keishicho Koanbu (Public Security Bureau, the Japanese version of the FBI), where he’s known as Rei Furuya. A spike in the sales of hanko (seals) of the same name was put down to women who were purchasing them in droves, confessing on social media networks that they carried theirs around like a talisman. And that’s not all. Amuro goes by the code name “Bourbon” when he’s undercover and this has spurred a recent rise in bourbon sales. Amuro also drives a souped-up Mazda RX-7, with some of the more hard-core fans either renting a model or buying one outright in an attempt to emulate their idol. Naturally, Amuro figurines continue to fly off the shelves. Women form the bulk of Amuro’s fanbase, with many calling themselves “Amuro’s woman.” Many of these women are office employees who see Amuro as an ideal — albeit unattainable — boyfriend, according to an article in the Nikkei Shimbun. Another article in the same newspaper quoted one woman who had seen the movie 18 times and even took herself to a theater in Tachikawa where the sound system is best suited to listening to the slight smack of Amuro’s tongue. The voice actor who plays Amuro is named Toru Furuya, a combination of Amuro’s two identities, and he is doing his part to uphold the Amuro legend, appearing at cosplay events and pop-up Conan cafes . So why exactly is Amuro so popular? Apart from his to-die-for looks, platinum blonde hair and wide-ranging skills in everything from cooking to boxing, Amuro is a patriot. He thinks of Japan the way some people think about lovers, and says as much in the movie. During one action-packed, life-or-death sequence in the film, Conan asks Amuro whether or not he has a girlfriend, to which our hero replies: “Yes, I do. My girlfriend is … Japan.” The line went viral on Twitter and spawned comments about wanting to “ become Japan in order to sleep with Amuro .” Nikkei.com believes that Namie Amuro and the character in the “Conan” series have benefited from the “parent and child” consumer phenomenon, meaning that their brand of popularity defies the generation gap. Namie Amuro made her debut as a solo artist in 1995 and the “Conan” series first aired on Japanese TV in 1996, which means people now in their 20s have grown up with both the J-pop star and the manga. What’s more, 30-somethings are also passing their enthusiasm on to their children. With both Amuros appealing to the young and middle-aged, single working women are now joining the chorus. Now, if only the world was to fall for Amuro Ray, a fictional character in the anime series “Mobile Suit Gundam,” we’d have the perfect trifecta of Amuros to carry us through to the 22nd century.

amuro
namie amuro
toru
detective conan
japan pulse


Exploring the bare difference between a truth and a lie

Abstract: “Kill one man, and you’re a murderer. Kill millions, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god.” The French biologist and philosopher Jean Rostand (1894-1977) was led to that bleak view of greatness by sinister events in Europe in the 1930s. Forty years later, the line was picked up by filmmaker Kihachi Okamoto, who used it in his 1967 black comedy “Satsujinkyo Jidai” (“The Age of Assassins”). Josei Seven magazine borrows it from the film and alters the context — from killing to lying. Its adaptation goes, “Lie to your husband or friend (or mother or teacher) and you’re a liar. Lie to the country and you’re a hero.” It’s a strained analogy. Few would dispute that politics is clogged with lies. What’s controversial, in the ongoing swirl of scandals implicating the government and bureaucracy in cronyism, cover-ups, document-tampering and so on, is not whether lying or truth-telling prevails, but over who precisely the liars are. Whoever they are, few regard them as heroes — though a poll last month by the business daily Nikkei shows rising support for the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, suggesting a measure of tolerance for lying in high places. Perhaps it’s just weariness. With “moral education” as of this spring part of the official elementary school curriculum — “official” meaning subject to government oversight — the question naturally arises: What does “moral” mean? What does it mean to be good? Unanimity eludes, but we approach it at least in praising honesty. Practice aside, the disapproval of lying is all but universal. “Always tell the truth,” we are taught as children, and teach our children in turn. “Never lie.” Probably the first twinge of conscience most children feel is over a lie. Even very little kids lying their way out of trouble do so sheepishly, with a telltale blush or lowering of the eyes. The barefaced liar seems a particularly sinister figure. A small child who lies easily is apt to inspire somber forebodings. Josei Seven doesn’t specifically mention moral education, but the reader can’t help being aware of it as the background to the question it raises, which is: In a world so overgrown with lies and deception, how can we honestly teach our children to be honest? Lying is unique among the vices in that, unlike thievery, say, or sexual and power harassment, everybody does it. Society could scarcely function otherwise. Social life would be impossible. We couldn’t bear to hear what our friends really think of us. Naked honesty stripped of the veiling lie would rouse us to hatred and self-hatred. If businesses were completely open and completely honest, no one would buy anything. Politics held to standards of perfect honesty would paralyze itself. Everybody knows that. What nobody knows is precisely where to draw the line between acceptable lying and vicious lying. The line grows more obscure, rather than less, with the passage of time, and nothing has obscured it more, two contributors to Josei Seven’s package agree, than life on the internet. The two are author Akiko Shimoju, 82, and Buddhist priest-cum-author Sokyu Genyu, 62. Each stresses a different aspect of life online: Shimoju its “peer pressure,” Genyu abstraction. People meet, but not face to face. Face-to-face contact, in Genyu’s view, keeps us at least minimally honest. Without it, “I think,” he says, “that the good latent in each of us gradually oozes out.” Crime, he says, is more rampant online than off. And government procedures, he adds, referring to the document-tampering and coverup allegations dogging the Abe administration, are largely handled online. “In order to be sincere and not tell lies,” writes Shimoju, “we need to recover the quality of aloneness.” The word she uses is kodoku , whose meaning ranges from solitary introspection to morbid isolation. Young people, she says, take it in its purely negative sense and recoil from it, cheating themselves, in her view, of one of life’s most enriching experiences and enslaving themselves to peer pressure. Reflexively “liking” something because 10,000 people before you have “liked” it is, she says, a form of lying that is innocent in the sense of not malicious but less so — “scary,” she says — in that it undermines the very concept of truth. Which brings us, inevitably, to “post-truth” and its concomitant, “fake news.” Who knows, anymore, what’s fake and what’s news, or whether a thing is true because it actually happened or because somebody said it did? “There’s no escaping it — the world is full of lies,” said the priest Yoshida Kenko (1284-1350) in the “Tsurezuregusa” (“Grasses of Idleness”). He seems oddly prescient when he writes, “People tend to exaggerate even when relating things they have actually witnessed, but when months or years have intervened, and the place is remote, they are all the more prone to invent whatever tales suit their fancies, and, when these have been written down, fictions are accepted as fact.” “Is it because the truth is so boring,” asks Kenko, “that most stories one hears are false?” Maybe that’s it. Interesting, given his priestly vocation, that his charming little essay includes no ringing defense of truth. Why bother with truth anyway, if a lie is what suits our purposes? If your lie upsets me, I’ll counter with a lie of my own, and may the more inventive, or more dogged, liar win. Genyu, like Kenko a literary priest, is less sanguine. His era has taught him lessons Kenko never had to learn. The “fake news” generated by Japan’s current scandals reminds him of something within living memory. “Power expands when people aren’t looking,” he says, “and then is protected by lies and document-tampering. Wartime propaganda was very much like that.”


Ex-nurse arrested for allegedly poisoning patient at Yokohama hospital in 2016

Abstract: YOKOHAMA - A 31-year-old former nurse was arrested Saturday for allegedly murdering an elderly patient in 2016 at a Yokohama hospital where three other patients also died under suspicious circumstances, police said. Ayumi Kuboki has admitted to killing Sozo Nishikawa, 88, who died on Sept. 18, 2016, at what was then Oguchi Hospital in Kanagawa Ward, according to the police. He was found to have been poisoned with a surfactant compound. Kuboki told them she injected disinfectant into intravenous drip bags used to treat about 20 patients, according to investigative sources. Traces of a surfactant compound were also found in the bodies of three other patients who died. One of them, Nobuo Yamaki, 88, died two days after Nishikawa in the same room, and the same type of toxic substance was found in his body and in an intravenous drip bag that had been used to treat him, according to police. Kuboki has told police she repeatedly injected disinfectant into drip bags, the sources said, adding they are investigating the possibility that the nurse killed Yamaki as well. Starting in July 2016 and continuing until Sept. 20 of the same year, 48 patients died at the hospital, including five patients on a single day in late August and four on one day in early September. The substances found in their bodies were the same as the disinfectant used at the nurses’ station on the fourth floor of the hospital where the two men were hospitalized. Among about 50 unused drip bags at the nurses’ station, about 10 were found to have small puncture holes in them. The police believe someone may have used a syringe to inject the disinfectant into the bags. Soon after the deaths of the two patients, police began investigating the case as possible murders committed by someone with knowledge of the hospital and medicine. Shortly after police began investigating the deaths, the nurse said that she was not involved in the incidents and had not noticed anything unusual at the hospital. Before she was arrested, Kuboki flatly denied lacing IV drip bags with poisonous substances, and said she was “shocked” by the incidents and “felt very sorry for the victims as well as their families.” Beginning about six months before Nishikawa’s death, a series of suspicious incidents occurred at the hospital. In April 2016 shredded nurses’ aprons were found, in June part of a patient’s medical records was lost, and in August a nurse tasted what she believes was bleach in a bottled drink. According to her mother, Kuboki told her she was afraid of working at the hospital at night and wanted to quit her job.


Doctor and researchers use Japanese strategy game go to help children with developmental disabilities

Abstract: In a new approach to helping children with developmental disabilities, a doctor who is also a go enthusiast has been using the strategy game to augment his efforts. Toru Masaoka, 85, is head of Kansai Kiin, an association of professional go players in Osaka, and has been piloting “go therapy” with children. Recently he began collecting medical data on the approach. “I hope we can cooperate internationally to better understand the effects of go,” Masaoka said. The leukemia specialist, formerly chief of the Japan Marrow Donor Program and an adviser to the Osaka International Cancer Institute, assumed the top post with Kansai Kiin in June last year. Masaoka is a high-level amateur go player, having taken up the board game as an elementary school student under the tutelage of his older brother. Children with developmental disabilities, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, often have difficulty communicating with others or lack social skills, and tend to have negative perceptions of themselves. Go is believed to be effective in helping such children learn how to better communicate with others, and nurture sociability and self-respect. Challenge Kids Takarazuka, an after-school day care facility for children with developmental disabilities in Takarazuka, Hyogo Prefecture, has adopted go as one of 40 activities for the children, along with speech, writing and arithmetic. Amateur go players from Kansai Kiin have been visiting the facility once a week on a volunteer basis since March 2016 to teach the game. When the program began, just two out of some 10 children at the facility participated. But after a year, all ended up taking part. At first, the volunteers offered one-on-one lessons lasting 15 minutes, but now half-hour lessons are provided to two children at the same time. Some of the kids can now play matches on their own, and in some cases even take on the challenge of isshokugo (one-color go), in which both players use stones of the same color and have to remember which ones belong to them. In standard go matches, one player uses black stones and the other white, aiming to take up more territory and surround their opponent on the wooden board. Some of the children even plan to take part in a go tournament this year to gain more experience in the game. “Developmental disabilities are inborn issues related to brain functions,” said Masaoka’s younger brother, Satoshi, a 72-year-old psychiatrist who supports the activities. “Research on such disabilities has become active only in recent years and there are many things yet to be explained. There are no established rehabilitation methods and we are still learning by trial and error. “We don’t know until we try which therapy works well for a specific child. Therapies are more effective if you start from a younger age. It is important to try various things at an early stage.” Nurses and clinical psychologists at Satoshi Masaoka’s clinic have created a team to collect data through counseling and testing the children taking part in the go therapy. A variety of therapies have proved effective for developmental disabilities, including building with blocks, sandplay (a nonverbal therapy that makes use of a sandbox to create scenes of miniature worlds that reflect inner thoughts and struggles), painting and playing musical instruments. But go, also known as shudan (conversing by hand), is a highly communicative game with simple rules that can be played even by young children. Toru Masaoka plans to make the first presentation of his research at the Japan Go Congress, which is scheduled to start Friday in Takarazuka. “Some go players who have succeeded as professionals are believed to have developmental disabilities,” he said. “It’s important to support each child by understanding his or her characteristics at an early stage. I want to make go therapy a big movement during my lifetime.”


Syrian regime forces and allies close to capturing entire southwest

Abstract: BEIRUT - Government forces are on the brink of seizing the last part of southwestern Syria in insurgent hands, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday. Advancing government forces have seized all but three villages held by the Islamic State-affiliated faction, the Khalid Ibn al-Walid army, that controlled the Yarmouk Basin, the war monitor said. Earlier in July, the Syrian regime and its allies, backed by Russian airstrikes, widened their offensive on the southwest to include the region that borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Jordan. “Khalid Ibn al-Walid army now controls three small villages, which constitute less than 1 percent of the area it once controlled in Yarmouk Basin,” Rami Abdelrahman, director of the Britain-based war monitor, told Reuters by phone. President Bashar Assad is seeking to recover the entire southwestern corner of Syria in an offensive that began last month and has so far recovered swaths of territory from rebels fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner. Assad is already in his strongest position since the early days of a seven-year civil war that has killed half a million people. A successful assault on the southwest would leave insurgents seeking to overthrow Assad largely confined to a single pocket of territory in the northwest of the country. Assad has so far recovered swaths of Daraa province in the southwest from FSA rebels, many of whom have been forced into surrender agreements mediated by Russian officers. The United States, which once armed the southern FSA rebels, told them at the start of the attack not to expect its intervention.

syria
golan heights
jordan
bashar assad
fsa
daraa
conflict
u.s .
russia
islamic state


Myanmar names panel to probe abuses targeting Rohingya in Rakhine

Abstract: YANGON - Myanmar has established a commission of inquiry to probe allegations of human rights abuses in conflict-torn Rakhine state, authorities said on Monday, as the country faces growing calls for accountability over accusations of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims. The four-person commission will be comprised of two local and two international members — Filipino diplomat Rosario Manalo and Kenzo Oshima, Japan’s former ambassador to the U.N — the Myanmar President’s Office said in a statement. Manalo, 82, a former undersecretary of foreign affairs, will chair the commission. The two local members are lawyer Mya Thein and Aung Tun Thet, an economist and former U.N. official. Aung Tun Thet was last year appointed by de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a key role in Myanmar’s response to the Rakhine crisis, and in April told a Bangladesh newspaper that Myanmar had “no intention of ethnic cleansing. “The Independent Commission will investigate the allegations of human rights violations and related issues, following the terrorist attacks by ARSA,” the office of President Win Myint said, referring to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a Rohingya armed group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state after a military crackdown that started in August last year in response to attacks by ARSA on security posts. Myanmar has rejected accusations of ethnic cleansing and dismissed most accounts of atrocities, blaming Rohingya “terrorists. The statement on Monday called the panel “part of its national initiative to address reconciliation, peace, stability and development in Rakhine.” The commission is one of several formed in recent months to address the situation in Rakhine state, which the U.N. has termed a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.

myanmar
rohingya
rakhine
ethnic cleansing
kenzo oshima
u.n .


Japan to cut plutonium stockpile amid international concerns

Abstract: Japan has decided to reduce its plutonium stockpile, in line with its principle of possessing only the amount necessary for peaceful use, the country’s nuclear panel said Tuesday, while failing to give a numerical target. The Japan Atomic Energy Commission also said in the revised policy guideline that plutonium production at the planned Rokkasho reprocessing plant should be limited to the amount required to fuel the country’s nuclear reactors. The revision to the 2003 plutonium-use policy came amid international concerns about a stockpile increase and uncertainty about the recycling policy on spent nuclear fuel following the 2011 Fukushima disaster. In its updated policy, the panel said “recent circumstances surrounding the use of nuclear energy not only in Japan but also in the world” have been taken into account, while pledging to cooperate with the international community to work toward nuclear nonproliferation. The commission, however, did not specify a cap on the amount of plutonium allowed to be possessed nor a deadline for curbing the stockpile. Some countries, including the United States, which has allowed Japan to extract plutonium and enrich uranium for decades, are seen as concerned about its increasing stockpile of plutonium. On July 17, Japan and the U.S. extended a bilateral nuclear agreement beyond its initial 30-year period that has served as the basis for Tokyo’s push for a nuclear fuel recycle policy. Japan had a total of 47.3 tons of plutonium at the end of 2017, up from 46.9 tons the year before, which is enough to produce about 6,000 nuclear warheads. Most of the total, or about 36.7 tons, was stored overseas — 21.2 tons in the U.K. and 15.5 tons in France. About 10.5 tons are kept within the country, according to the government. The panel said the country will aim to keep its stockpile from rising further by taking a series of measures, including the steady curbing of plutonium stored overseas. Despite the latest pledge, it remains to be seen whether the amount of plutonium can actually be curbed once the Rokkasho fuel reprocessing plant starts operating, nuclear experts say. The plant in Aomori Prefecture is now expected to be completed in the first half of fiscal 2021 following repeated delays. When fully operational, it is designed to extract about 8 tons of plutonium per year through the reprocessing of up to 800 tons of spent fuel. Resource-poor Japan has been pushing for a fuel cycle policy. Spent fuel from nuclear reactors is reprocessed to extract uranium and plutonium, which is then recycled into fuel called mixed oxide (MOX) for use in fast-breeder reactors or conventional nuclear reactors. But most of the country’s nuclear reactors remain offline amid safety concerns and public opposition, and the prospects are dim for active MOX fuel use. Currently, only four nuclear reactors can burn it. In a setback for nuclear fuel recycling, the government decided in 2016 to scrap the trouble-plagued Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor.

plutonium
japan atomic energy commission
rokkasho
nuclear energy


Japan nears record number of hospitalizations for heat-related issues

Abstract: More than 57,000 people were taken to the hospital over the last three months due to the nationwide heat wave, government data showed Tuesday, with the figure likely to reach a record high for the year. A total of 57,534 cases of heat exhaustion and heatstroke were reported between April 30 and July 29, including 125 who died from heat-related causes, according to data from the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. The number surged as the heat wave took hold following torrential rains that caused massive flooding and landslides in western Japan in early July. This year’s figure has already surpassed last year’s 52,984 and is expected to outstrip the record 58,729 cases recorded in 2013. The long-running heat wave has set new temperature records, including a national high of 41.1 C on July 23 in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. Tokyo saw the largest number of hospitalized individuals with 4,648, followed by 4,345 in the prefecture of Osaka and 4,254 in Aichi Prefecture. Of all of those who were taken to hospital, over 1,400 needed to be hospitalized for more than three weeks. About 4,300 called an ambulance from an educational facility. The elderly accounted for 48.7 percent of the total. Over the week to Sunday, 13,721 were sent to hospitals, down from the previous week’s figure of 22,647, which marked a record high since comparable information became available in 2008. Throughout the heat wave, property firm Leopalace21 Corp. has received an increasing number of complaints from tenants regarding some of its air conditioners, which automatically stop running after three hours. The company intended for the automatic feature to be an eco-friendly measure, but because of rising criticism it began to modify the units’ settings or replace them entirely. According to the firm, such air conditioners were installed in around 390,000 homes built between January 2002 and March 2015. Leopalace21 replaced or modified settings in 64,000 units. The number of complaints from its customers jumped to 1,165 in July from 130 the previous month. Some told the company that they could suffer from heatstroke or die. The company said it had already stopped installing the model of air conditioner and will not use it again in the future. “I woke up every three hours because of the heat. It’s normal for me to suffer from headaches or stomachaches. I once even thought of calling an ambulance,” said a woman in her 30s who lives in one of the company’s apartments in Chiba Prefecture. “Since it’s a (company-provided) residence, it’s hard for me to move somewhere else. I want them to swiftly deal with the issue.” Leopalace21 says those who want to replace their timed air conditioner units may visit their nearest branch or call 0120-590080. Office hours are between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m.

hospitals
heat wave
heat stroke
leopalace
japan heat wave


From robots to girl power, getting Cameroon's women into work

Abstract: YAOUNDE - With a flash of green light, a robot sputters and whizzes across the room, obeying the remote control commands 15-year-old Xaviera Nguefo and her team send its way. It is a scene that would not look out of place in a futuristic sci-fi fantasy, but is instead playing out in Yaounde, the dusty capital of Cameroon with its potholed streets and frequent power outages. In a country where 1 in 4 girls do not even learn to read, Xaviera, one of about 20 young Cameroonians studying at the NextGen Technology Center in Yaounde, is picking up the basics of artificial intelligence. “I love doing that because the physics that they teach us (at school) is all applied here,” she said. “And it makes me a little bit smarter!” The center is the brainchild of Janet Fofang, a pioneering scientist and teacher who aims to train the future tech innovators of her country — with a particular focus on its girls. It enables young Cameroonians to learn to write code, make robots and acquire advanced computer skills, and is one of a range of initiatives Fofang has set up, including a technological school for 800 pupils. “We’ve seen technology prove to every one of us that it’s a good method to move away from poverty. And we all know that in these parts, women always remain at the poverty line,” she said. Nearly 1 in 3 girls in Cameroon are married by the time they reach 18, according to a 2016 study by United Nations children’s agency UNICEF, and this often means they drop out of full-time education early. In 2016, 95 percent of all children out of school were girls, and U.N. data for 2010 — the most up to date available — showed women and girls made up 60 percent of Cameroon’s illiterate population. Studies suggest educating girls has a broader societal benefit that goes well beyond the individual child. If all girls had a secondary education, child deaths would be cut in half, saving almost 3 million lives across the globe, according to research by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. Fofang says teaching girls about technology can help break the cycle of “poverty from generation to generation,” but says social attitudes, as well as a lack of opportunities, are still holding them back. “An overly ambitious girl in Cameroon is not a good one — if you’re too ambitious, society judges you,” she said. One woman who has not allowed society to hold her back is chemical engineer Persis Mbangsi, one of a tiny minority of Cameroonian women who have broken through the glass ceiling. She is the only woman among 500 male engineers at the aluminium plant where she works. Together with other female engineers, Mbangsi established a social media initiative entitled Hidden No More Cameroon to showcase the achievements of women in technology. It was inspired by the Hollywood film “Hidden Figures,” which tells the story of three African-American female mathematicians in the 1960s who defy the odds by going to work for NASA. “We have a cultural background that says that a woman sits in the kitchen,” said Mbangsi. “But imagine in a community one person saying … ‘Oh, I’ve seen her, she’s a petroleum engineer.’ “ Cameroon, a lower-middle income country wedged between Central and West Africa, has natural resources including oil and gas, timber and minerals, yet 40 percent of its 23.7 million people live below the poverty line. The country needs to increase productivity and unleash the potential of its private sector, the World Bank said in April. After she qualified as an electrical engineer, Fofang worked in one of Yaounde’s poorest schools, where most teachers lacked even basic computer skills. In 2009 she established her own school, the Tassah Academy, financing it herself with the help of her mother and sister. The school specializes in technology and 60 percent of its students are girls. Five years later, seeking to take technology to schoolgirls around the country, she launched a scheme to encourage other schools to set up clubs to get girls interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In August, Xaviera and her team will travel to Mexico to take part in an international competition to devise robots that provide reliable energy power systems — a topic close to their hearts given the frequent power outages in Cameroon. “It’s really frustrating sometimes. Just as we’re talking there can be … a blackout,” said Xaviera. Robotics is helping her assert herself against the boys in the team and at school, who she says often think they know best. Xaviera recalled a recent case where she came up with the solution to a problem- forcing them to concede she was right. “And I was so happy!” she laughed. “My solution, it worked!”


China orders medical institutions not to use recalled Huahai-made drug due to cancer risk

Abstract: SHANGHAI - China’s health regulator said Monday all domestic medical institutions must cooperate with authorities and not use the valsartan blood and heart drug made by Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical that could pose cancer risks. The bulk manufacturer of the drug said earlier this month that it is recalling the valsartan drug sold in the United States after the European Medicines Agency found that it was tainted with an impurity linked to cancer. In a notice posted on its website, China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission said the recalled drug, commonly used to treat patients with high blood pressure, should not be used for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. European regulators have said that the problem likely dates to changes introduced into manufacturing processes at the company in 2012, suggesting that many patients could have been exposed to cancer risk. The drug has already been withdrawn in the United States and Europe and China’s drug regulator said Sunday that Huahai had completed the withdrawal in China of the raw materials used to produce the drug. The Chinese health regulator also said that there were six local companies that used valsartan made by Huahai. Five of these companies had products on the market and have since issued recalls, it added. The sixth firm, the Hunan branch of Zhuzhou Qianjin Pharmaceutical, had not yet shipped out its products, the regulator said. The company said in a statement that it returned Huahai’s valsartan earlier this month and that none of its products were affected by the product recalls. Huahai said Monday that its other products did not contain the impurity known as NDMA, which is classified as a probable human carcinogen, and that it will continue to improve its systems in order to prevent similar incidents from occurring again.


Nagoya school hires AC Milan coach to guide soccer team

Abstract: A coach from AC Milan has been training members of the soccer team at Nagoya International Junior and Senior High School since April. Although the soccer club, which is part of the top Italian league Serie A, offers lessons to children in Japan and in 12 other countries, it is the first time for the club to provide coaching to a school soccer team. The school hopes that inviting professional coaches from outside will help improve team members’ skills and also reduce the burden on teachers who had been tasked with supervising and coaching extracurricular clubs. “Bravo!” said Matteo Cont, a 38-year-old Italian coach from AC Milan, to players passing the ball at a soccer field in Nisshin, Aichi Prefecture. Cont and three Japanese trainers who studied coaching at AC Milan supervise 35 junior and senior high school team members twice a week. Technical drills by the soccer team are more or less the same as those of AC Milan’s youth team. They play with the ball throughout the two-hour practice, as Cont says a good practice session is one that closely resembles a match. Cont repeatedly stresses the importance of broadening a player’s vision, regardless of whether or not they are in possession of the ball. He advises that when the team gets the ball, players should try to keep hold of it by making short passes and aiming for the goal. He also takes into consideration individual aptitudes in guiding the team. Takayuki Kurimoto, 41, the school’s director of administration, said the school had been thinking about forming a partnership with AC Milan for four years. Since 2014, the school has allowed AC Milan to use its soccer field when it offers lessons in Nagoya. Kurimoto and other school officials researched AC Milan’s activities overseas and analyzed the effects of cooperating with the club, and invited an AC Milan coach to join them in April. Kentaro Hazama, 12, a first-year junior high school student and one of the team members, has been playing soccer for six years. He said he chose to attend the school because he heard of its plan to invite a coach from AC Milan. “It’s a club that Japanese national team member Keisuke Honda used to play for,” Hazama said. “The team changed drastically, as each member now thinks of their own good and weak points,” said team captain Taro Okuni, a 17-year-old third-year senior high school student, in explaining the effect of having professional coaches. “Now we have consistency in coaching to enhance performance,” Kurimoto said, giving high marks to the coaches, whom he believes are also contributing to the promotion of the school. “They can help children have dreams for the future. We can give an impression to people that schools making unique efforts have a lot of potential.” While pointing out that, for Italians, school is not a place to play sports, Cont said he believes collaboration between professional coaches and schools may be able to produce good results. Outsourcing extracurricular club coaching is also part of efforts to reduce the workload of teachers who had been assigned the task. Acknowledging that it is impossible for a school to have experts in every field, the school invited an alumnus nine years ago to become the field manager of its high school baseball team. The school plans to invite coaches for other clubs as well.

nagoya international junior and senior high school


Taking workplace bullying in Japan by the horns with power harassment prevention education

Abstract: In a country famous for conservative company cultures, a Tokyo-based consultancy firm is meeting the demand for training from businesses that are trying to stamp out so-called power harassment by educating nightmare bosses on how to treat subordinates in the workplace. Why? Because companies are finding that unless workplace bullies are made to realize they are in the wrong, punishing their behavior does not lead to a full resolution. Expectations are high that “bad boss” training may help improve the workplace environment as companies make serious efforts to combat abuse. In a culture where authoritarian bosses have been traditionally celebrated for their strong leadership skills that often take the form of ill-tempered outbursts, managers have been known to say they are “only guiding their subordinates,” while questioning why they are being disciplined. Cuore C3 Co., a consultancy firm that conducts power harassment prevention courses geared toward educating abusive bosses, believes anger directed toward subordinates who have made bullying accusations is commonplace. The company and its chairwoman Yasuko Okada, the woman credited with coining the term “power harassment,” started a “behavior therapy program” for its client companies in 2014. Although not a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, the concept of power harassment has become a hot topic here as workplaces have inched toward having a more democratic and modern culture. Behavior once admired is now widely seen as predatory and unpalatable. Okada said her firm received requests from clients who wanted the behavior of competent, if abusive, employees rectified so they can get them back to work. “If the thinking, speech and behavior of influential, strong people changes within a company, it is rare to see new cases of abuse occurring,” Okada said. Each trainee is assigned two instructors for anti-harassment training, which is conducted three times over about six months. It starts with the boss airing grievances about being labeled abusive. They are encouraged to take note of their own stress as well as mental and physical fatigue — often the result of the pressure of long working hours and high expectations. On top of this, instructors offer support by asking the trainee to consider how to change their problematic behavior and the manner in which they address junior employees. So far, about 60 men and women have enrolled in the course. Many are in managerial positions from a variety of industries and range in age from their 40s to 50s. Some of the trainees are shocked at their own hostile behavior. “I cringed at my own actions,” one participant said after watching a video of themselves giving instructions to subordinates in a role-play scenario. Others said they felt relieved after gaining perspective on their own behavior. Company superiors are asked to evaluate trainees on their efforts. After the program is completed, some companies will conduct similar training to prevent further power harassment in the workplace, including opportunities for the abuser and coworkers to debate the best ways to improve workplace conduct. With workers who witness power harassment on the job also complaining of the harm it causes, it is not simply an issue that affects the abused and their abuser. Of 253,000 inquiries made to labor departments nationwide in fiscal 2017, 72,000 involved bullying and harassment — the No. 1 issue for the sixth consecutive year. An expert review committee from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry suggested a definition of power harassment in the year through March 2018, but no conclusion was reached on mandatory preventive measures. Such discussions about whether to enforce preventive measures are likely to be held by the labor policy council in the near future. Power harassment prevention seminars, which got underway earlier this month, have been conducted nationwide by the labor ministry since fiscal 2013. Eight cities will also begin courses to train experts in power harassment prevention from September. “There will be concrete preventive measures introduced, so we would like many companies to actively participate,” said a person in charge of the seminars.


Kyoto team pits iPS cells against Parkinson's disease

Abstract: KYOTO - A Kyoto University research team said Monday it will begin a clinical test this week using induced pluripotent stem cells to treat Parkinson’s disease, in what will be the world’s first application of iPS technology to the progressive neurological disorder. The team led by Jun Takahashi, a professor at the university’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, has received government approval and is soliciting seven patients to participate in the trial, which will be conducted at Kyoto University Hospital. The research team said one of the patients taking part in the study will be selected from those being treated at Kyoto University Hospital. The researchers are aiming to develop the method as a new treatment covered by national health insurance. While some experts call for careful application due to concerns that iPS cells could turn into malignant tumors, Takahashi said at a news conference the trial could provide patients with a “promising choice of treatment.” Parkinson’s disease reduces dopamine-producing neurons in the brain and results in tremors in the hands and feet, and stiffness in the body. While there are treatments to relieve the symptoms, there is currently no cure for the disease. In the clinical test that will start Wednesday, nerve cells derived from other people and stored at the university will be transplanted into the brains of patients to supplement damaged nerve cells. The nerve cells are created using cells from people who have types of immunity that make them less prone to transplant rejections. The team has already tested the process on monkeys in a preclinical study, in which the movement of the affected animals improved without seeing any tumors that could develop into cancer in the brain over a two-year observation period. In Japan, an estimated 160,000 people suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Many patients develop symptoms in their 50s or older, and the number of patients is rising due to the aging of society. Kosei Hasegawa, representative chairman of the Japan Parkinson’s Disease Association, said patients have huge expectations of the iPS therapy. Hasegawa said many people are hoping to join the clinical research, adding, “I want the method to be established as a treatment available for anyone as soon as possible.” In one of the currently available treatment methods, electrodes are placed inside the brain to send electric signals and alleviate symptoms, even though it is not effective for all patients. A woman who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease more than 10 years ago said, “If iPS treatment is established, it will offer more choices for patients with progressed symptoms,” she said. Among other clinical tests of iPS cells, the government-backed Riken institute conducted the world’s first transplant of retinal cells grown from iPS cells to a patient suffering from a serious disease in 2014. Osaka University is also planning a clinical test for treating heart failure by using a heart muscle cell sheet created from iPS cells. IPS cells can grow into any type of body tissue and are seen as a promising tool for regenerative medicine and drug development. Shinya Yamanaka, who heads the iPS center, won the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2012 for discovering iPS cells.

ips
parkinson 's disease
disease
kyoto university
transplants
medicine
dopamine


Nursing cafes aim to promote regional growth, stimulate dialogue on elder care in Japan

Abstract: Workers in the nursing care and welfare sectors are increasingly gathering at so-called “nursing cafes” in an effort to stimulate dialogue in communities on the medical issues that are arising as a result of the nation’s graying society. In Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture, a cafe-style event was held in March to formulate ideas for “developing the Ishikawa region.” Participants came from a wide variety of occupations, including doctors, care workers, priests and internet business entrepreneurs. “It wasn’t for airing grievances, but we were able to hold productive conversations about how to change the region,” said Yohei Kasama, 37, a supervisor of a care facility. Participants ranged in age from their 20s to 70s and were split into several small groups. Gathered around desks, they discussed topics such as “creating roles in society for people after they turn 80.” Suggested ideas included getting medical professionals and care workers to involve local governments and people from the region to contribute to regional development in nursing care infrastructure. “Hospitals are often hard for people to approach, so I thought of getting out here myself and making it easier for people (to approach us),” said one 46-year-old female nurse. Hisako Takase, 40, founded Kaigo Cafe (nursing cafe) in 2012. “I wanted to create a place where people could hold dialogues in an easy manner, regardless of their position or job title,” she said. The cafes are a place where anyone can go to exchange information. As a care manager herself, Takase often expressed her views online, but she thought she needed to create actual locations for people to meet. Thanks to word-of-mouth, via social media, the events have drawn around 6,000 participants in total. After listening to a guest speaker, event participants settle on a main topic of discussion. They talk about the best ways to entertain the elderly or how to understand what people suffering from dementia are going through. Topics change with each event and are held mainly in Tokyo every month, and elsewhere upon request. The cost to participate is about ¥3,000. Seats, of which there are about 100 per event, can fill up quickly. Wakako Mitsuya, 57, who runs a community general support center in a town in Fukushima Prefecture, has been attending cafe events once every two months since she first took part. “I was bothered by young staff members complaining that care work is boring,” she said. “So I tell them it is not only about the place you work. Look outside, too!” Yasuhiro Yuki, a Shukutoku University professor, said, “At most places of employment there really aren’t that many opportunities to speak with people from different occupations. In the nursing field there are more and more elderly who require a lot of medical attention, so it is important to have cooperation among occupations.” Takase is working to create a textbook for those who wish to host their own cafe events. She was able to raise money for the project through crowdfunding. “We want to have more people who can develop such places in their regions, and have this network spread nationwide,” she said.


Japan lawmaker group eyes mandatory microchipping of puppies and kittens

Abstract: A group of lawmakers from both ruling and opposition camps have drafted a bill calling for the microchipping of puppies and kittens to protect them from illicit deals, such as being taken from their mothers and sold at too early of an age, it was learned Saturday. The group, led by former welfare minister Hidehisa Otsuji, aims to introduce the amendment bill to the animal protection law at an extraordinary Diet session likely to be held this autumn, they said. The law basically bans breeders from selling puppies and kittens to dealers before they become eight weeks old, because separating such young animals from their parents tends to cause problematic behavior, including biting. Despite this, there are still breeders who will sell newborns to dealers, including some that carry diseases. If the pets are microchipped, it will be easy to know how old they are and what kind of diseases they may have or had, the lawmakers said. According to the draft bill, breeders will be obligated to ensure the animals are microchipped, but there is no punitive clause regarding failure to do so. Whether or not those who fail to do so will be punished will be considered later, lawmakers said. According to the Environment Ministry, microchips containing information such as dates of birth, vaccination data, the names of breeders and owners will be injected into the animals by veterinarians. The injection is estimated to cost less than ¥10,000. Once a chip is embedded, stored data cannot be rewritten, the ministry added.


Lions eat rhino poachers on South African reserve

Abstract: GAUTENG, SOUTH AFRICA - At least three suspected poachers who were apparently hunting for rhinos have been mauled to death and eaten by lions on a game reserve in South Africa, the owner said on Thursday. The men entered the Sibuya Game Reserve on the southeast coast armed with a high-powered rifle and an ax in the early hours of Monday and were found dismembered the following day. “They strayed into a pride of lions — it’s a big pride, so they didn’t have too much time,” said reserve owner Nick Fox, 60. “We’re not sure how many there were — there’s not much left of them. There seems to be clothing for three people. I’ve not heard of it before in our area.” Police forensics officers were on the scene conducting tests on the remains of the victims, Fox added. “We went in yesterday — I got our vet to dart all the lions,” he said. “I think we had a stroke of luck here that the lions got to them before they got to the rhinos. We lost three rhino in March 2016.” Fewer than 25,000 rhinos remain in the wild in Africa due to a surge in poaching. Rhinos are targeted to feed booming demand for rhino horn in China, Vietnam and other Asian countries, where it is believed to have medicinal qualities. Fox said that the reserve was still open to guests despite the incident. “It’s still business as usual, it doesn’t change anything we do,” he said. “The comments on our Facebook are all talking about karma and warnings.”

rhinos
south africa
hunting
animals
endangered


Ex-Aum executive Joyu offers apology to cult's victims on day of Asahara's execution

Abstract: Former Aum Shinrikyo executive Fumihiro Joyu, who later founded Hikari no Wa (The Circle of Rainbow Light) which is one of the splinter groups, offered his apologies once again Friday to people affected by the doomsday cult but said he is no longer part of the original group. “As I also bear a heavy responsibility, I would like to apologize to the victims,” he told a news conference, although adding, “I have left Aleph more than 10 years ago, and I don’t have any special feelings (for Asahara).” Joyu said he first learned about the executions of Aum founder Shoko Asahara and six other condemned cult members during a telephone call Friday morning from an acquaintance. Aum evolved from a yoga school established by Asahara in 1984 and had about 1,400 live-in followers and over 10,000 lay followers at one point. It renamed itself Aleph in 2000 and two splinter groups have since been formed. One of them is Joyu’s Hikari no Wa. The Public Security Intelligence Agency continued to monitor the groups, believing they were still under the influence of Asahara. The followers of the three groups total about 1,650 in Japan and about 460 in Russia, while the groups hold more than ¥1 billion ($9 million) in assets, according to the agency. Aum built up a following in Russia amid the turmoil that followed the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, and at one point it was estimated to have 30,000-50,000 adherents in the country, according to Russia’s local media. On Friday, Russian media reported Asahara’s execution as breaking news, showing a high interest in the murderous Japanese sect that gained a following in Russia in 1990s. Aum “predicted the end of the world and the final decisive battle of good and evil, and planned to eradicate enemies in various ways such as (by using) poison gas,” Tass news agency said, adding, “That is prohibited all over the world, including in Russia.” Aum is banned in Russia, having been recognized as a terrorist organization by Russia’s Supreme Court in 2016.

executions
aum shinrikyo
fumihiro joyu
shoko asahara


Aum founder Shoko Asahara was mentally competent during detention, sources maintain

Abstract: Aum Shinrikyo cult founder Shoko Asahara, who was executed Friday for numerous crimes, suffered no psychiatric problems, sources with knowledge of his behavior in a detention facility said. The 63-year-old, who masterminded the 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system and 29 other murders, had been seen sitting silently without speaking to guards. However, he was able to stand up on his own when he was told to take a bath, once in several days, at the Tokyo Detention House, the sources said. Asahara’s family had claimed he was mentally incompetent and could not be executed under the law, but multiple Justice Ministry sources denied any abnormality in his mental capacity. Since mid-2008, Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, had declined all meeting requests from his family and lawyers. According to the sources, the cult founder’s appearance had completely changed after his arrest when he had his hair cut short and removed his beard. He spent most of the day sitting in his solitary cell, but did communicate with a doctor who regularly came to check his condition. Refusing to use the toilet in the cell, he always wore a diaper. He was also sometimes seen with rough skin. A document submitted by the detention center to the Yokohama Family Court in May 2015, citing a diagnosis by a psychiatrist, said Asahara had “no explicit psychiatric disorders.” The document was submitted in connection with a request made by a daughter of Asahara to nullify her parents’ right to inherit her property in the event of her death. In addition to Asahara, six former senior members of the cult were also executed on Friday. They were among 13 people placed on death row in connection with a string of crimes.

shoko asahara
executions
murder
chizuo matsumoto
religion
terrorism
death penalty
tokyo sarin gas attack
aum shinrikyo in focus


Aum founder Shoko Asahara's execution leads to renewed debate in Japan on death penalty

Abstract: While the execution of Aum Shinrikyo cult founder Shoko Asahara and the group’s former senior members may offer a degree of closure on a string of crimes that shocked the nation, it also creates an opportunity for further debate in Japanese society about the death penalty. At a time when the global trend is toward abolishing capital punishment,the country’s death penalty system has sparked international criticism — especially over the secrecy surrounding its executions — and has prompted critics to push for its abolition. Even so, Friday’s execution of the seven death row inmates including Asahara reflected the Justice Ministry’s sensitivity not only to the feelings of victims and their families but also a strong public resentment against him over the deadly crimes he perpetrated. The 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 13 people, among a total of over 6,500 victims, was only one of numerous murders masterminded by Asahara. The sarin gas attack also shattered the country’s reputation for public safety. With this Friday’s executions of cult members, the nation will now have to grapple with unanswered questions about the crimes — with no longer any chance of hearing accounts directly from Asahara or the six others. Yuji Ogawara, who heads a lawyers’ group that is opposed to the death penalty at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, disputes that the executions bring closure to Aum’s crimes. “We should have heard more accounts from the people involved and deepened discussions in society to get to the bottom as to why such crimes related to religion happened,” Ogawara said. As time passes, public memories of the crime may fade away. Victims, families and their supporters, as well as those involved in the legal system, believe it is necessary to come to terms with the crimes and draw lessons from them to avoid a similar incident happening again. Even at his execution, little had been learned about Asahara. At the time of his arrest, he was vocal. But he fell silent halfway through the proceedings of his trial, which started in 1996, and began exhibiting baffling behavior. In detention, he also refused to meet his family and lawyers from 2008 onward. In January 2018, officials at the Tokyo Detention House told relatives that Asahara would not step outside his cell even if they tried to pull him out by the hand. His family said he was mentally incompetent, making it impossible for him to be executed as stipulated in Japan’s law of criminal procedure. But the ministry has denied this claim. The method by which the ministry judged him to be mentally competent is also one aspect of the case that remains under wraps. Recounting how the doomsday cult attracted educated youths, Tadashi Moriyama, a Takushoku University professor, said he feels that “it was not fully revealed in trial or among researchers why many highly educated people, or those with high social status, were involved in the crimes.” “With the execution, I feel that the opportunity to discover (why) has been lost,” Moriyama said. Amnesty International, a human rights organization, criticized the country on Friday for executing Asahara and six of Aum’s former members, saying that capital punishment does not deliver justice for the victims of crimes committed by the doomsday cult. “Justice demands accountability but also respect for everyone’s human rights. The death penalty can never deliver this as it is the ultimate denial of human rights,” Hiroka Shoji, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International, wrote in a statement. The organization recorded four executions and three death sentences issued in 2017, and by the end of the year 123 people had seen their death sentences finalized by the courts. The ministry said the number of people with finalized death sentences dropped to 117, one of whom is under retrial, after the executions of the seven men on Friday. Even though the death penalty has been under fire by international rights groups, a majority of the public has shown support for it. A 2014 government survey showed that 80.3 percent of Japanese people aged 20 or over favored capital punishment — down from a record 85.6 percent in the previous survey in 2009. “The death penalty system is very much criticized by the international community and there are still issues involving those seeking retrial, or death sentences for those suspected to be mentally incompetent,” Ogawara said. Against such a backdrop, he added that the latest executions must now pave the way for “broader discussions on whether to abolish or retain the death penalty.”

shoko asahara
executions
death penalty
murder
religion
terrorism
chizuo matsumoto
tokyo sarin gas attack
aum shinrikyo in focus


Shoko Asahara: From poor upbringing to cult leader

Abstract: Shoko Asahara, the man behind an unprecedented string of heinous crimes in the 1980s and 1990s who was executed Friday at age 63, grew up visually impaired and faced various setbacks in his childhood as he sought to make something of his life. Formerly an acupuncturist, Asahara founded religious sect Aum Shinrikyo and eventually became its revered guru. The group attracted tens of thousands of followers in Japan, including many highly educated young people, and branched out overseas into countries including Russia. Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, was born in Kumamoto Prefecture in March 1955 as one of seven children in a financially-strapped family. With severely limited vision in his left eye and vision problems with his right eye as well, Asahara was sent to a prefectural school for the visually impaired in his home prefecture. He was seen as smart but did not take any leadership roles in sports or student government. Later, he took — and failed — the entrance examination for the University of Tokyo. He married in 1978 and fathered six children. After leaving school, he opened a pharmacy in Chiba Prefecture but was arrested in 1982 for selling unauthorized medicine. In 1984, he launched the cult’s predecessor group, Aum Shinsen no Kai, which opened a yoga school. Three years later, it was renamed Aum Shinrikyo. Many young followers severed ties with their families and started living in Aum facilities, donating cash and belongings to Asahara. Educated young people with expertise in science also filled Aum’s top ranks. Asahara’s emergence came amid a boom in new religions in the 1980s. In the period, many young people felt alienated by the culture of consumerism and success generated during the country’s asset-inflated bubble economy years. “Those who sought spiritual happiness, instead of the material abundance during the bubble economy period in the late 1980s were drawn to Aum,” Hiromi Shimada, a scholar of religion who researched Aum extensively, said in a speech in 2015. He used a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and yoga to draw followers. They took part in bizarre rituals, such as drinking his bathwater and wearing electrical caps they believed synchronized their brain waves with Asahara’s. Former followers would later say they were given hallucinogens such as LSD as part of religious practice. The group used donations from followers and earnings from yoga classes and health food businesses to amass cash to buy land and equipment. They made and bought conventional weapons in and outside Japan, while the scientists he had recruited developed and manufactured sarin, VX and other deadly chemical and biological weapons. With his beard and long hair, Asahara projected himself as a “savior,” claiming to have achieved enlightenment from an ascetic experience in the Himalayas, and told his followers he was the reincarnation of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and regeneration. The self-styled guru, who also said he could teach levitation and telepathy, told his followers that the world would end in Armageddon and promised to lead his followers to salvation. “World War III will certainly occur. I will stake my religious life on that,” he said in a lecture in 1993. Asahara also dipped into politics, running unsuccessfully with top members of Aum Shinrikyo in the 1990 general election for the House of Representatives. Prosecutors believe the electoral defeat is what spurred Asahara to begin plotting the murder of members of the public for revenge. Mass production of sarin nerve gas also gained traction at this time. In a sign of what prosecutors said was Asahara’s hunger for power and control, Aum, a legally registered religious organization, structured itself along the lines of the government, with its own “agencies” and “ministries.” He chose doctors, lawyers and scientists from Japan’s top universities as his top aides, making them ministers of his pseudo-government of the Aum empire. They worshipped him and carried out his orders. Aum also condoned murder as a path to salvation. Even after his arrest in May 1995 — two months after the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system — Asahara continued to speak in religious rhetoric, saying a miracle would happen and that he would not have to stand trial. But the miracle he spoke of never occurred, and his trial started in April 1996. Halfway through the proceedings at the Tokyo District Court, which lasted almost eight years, Asahara fell silent, leaving Aum’s crimes mostly unexplained by its leader. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004.

shoko asahara
executions
aum shinrikyo
chizuo matsumoto
religion
murder
terrorism
death penalty
tokyo sarin gas attack


Three major cases involving the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult

Abstract: The following are brief descriptions of three major acts of violence by the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult. Tokyo subway sarin gas attack Under instructions from Aum leader Shoko Asahara, 15 senior members conspired to take plastic bags containing sarin onto five Tokyo subway trains, which were converging at Kasumigaseki Station in the city’s government district, and release the poison by puncturing the bags with umbrellas, vaporizing the nerve agent, during the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995. The attack caused panic and chaos in the subway stations and throughout Tokyo. Victims of all ages were described as “coughing uncontrollably, vomiting and collapsing in heaps.” The attack, one of Japan’s worst terrorism incidents, killed 13 people and injured over 6,200. More than 180 people were indicted for the attacks. Asahara was arrested in May 1995 and sentenced to death in February 2004 after an eight-year trial. Prosecutors at the time called him the worst criminal in the history of Japan. Matsumoto sarin attack On June 27, 1994, members sprayed sarin gas from a custom-made vehicle in a residential area of Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, about 100 miles west of Tokyo. The attack targeted judges who lived in the neighborhood and were involved in a land dispute case related to the cult. In addition to the eight people killed, hundreds were injured by the colorless, odorless nerve gas. Developed as a pesticide, sarin can cause symptoms in humans ranging from watery eyes to paralysis and death, depending on the amount of exposure. The Aum cult was a clear danger to not only to Japan but also to the United States, a 1995 report by a U.S. Senate subcommittee concluded. The cult had plans to attack senior Japanese government leaders, it said. Murder of Sakamoto family Under instructions from Asahara, six Aum members strangled 33-year-old lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto — who had been helping parents seeking to free their children from the cult’s control — as well as his 29-year-old wife, Satoko, and their 1-year-old son, Tatsuhiko, after breaking into the family’s home in Yokohama in the early hours of Nov. 4, 1989.

shoko asahara
terrorism
murder
religion
death penalty
executions
chizuo matsumoto
tokyo sarin gas attack
aum shinrikyo in focus


Aum Shinrikyo guru Shoko Asahara and six other cult members hanged for mass murders

Abstract: Shoko Asahara, founder of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and mastermind behind the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system — and a number of other horrific crimes in the 1980s and ’90s — was executed on Friday, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa confirmed. She also confirmed that six other condemned Aum members — Tomomasa Nakagawa, 55, Kiyohide Hayakawa, 68, Yoshihiro Inoue, 48, Masami Tsuchiya, 53, Seiichi Endo, 58, and Tomomitsu Niimi, 54 — were also executed. In total, Asahara, 63, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, was found guilty for his role in 13 crimes that led to the deaths of 27 people, a figure that later was increased to 29. In the Tokyo subway attack, 13 people were killed and more than 6,000 injured. The hanging of Asahara has in some ways closed the curtain on the shocking crimes and dramatic events staged by Aum. But it also leaves several critical questions unanswered, because even during his trial, Asahara never explained the actual motivations for the crimes. In particular, the 1995 sarin attack in Tokyo is remembered as a watershed event that deeply damaged a long-held sense of security felt by many in postwar Japan. Kamikawa deflected questions about the details of the executions, such as the reason for choosing the seven from among others also on death row or the timing. She said she couldn’t comment on “the decisions regarding individual cases” because her statements may “disturb the peace of mind” of those on death row. She cited “the pain and suffering of the victims and their families” and her belief that “the members’ death penalties were finalized after plenty of deliberation in court” as reasons for ordering the executions. Although Kamikawa declined to specify whether any of those who were executed were appealing their sentences, some media reports have said that at least Inoue had sought a retrial. Those seeking a retrial are usually not executed. After the executions were reported, residents near the prisons where the inmates had been detained expressed relief and renewed anger. “They deserve executions. Actually, I think they should have been hanged much earlier” an 84-year-old man said in front of the Tokyo Detention House in Katsushika Ward, where Asahara had been detained. A woman in Osaka, who was walking past the Osaka Detention House in the city’s Miyakojima Ward — where two of the executed inmates had been detained — expressed a voice of concern. “Now with the executions, I’m worried (Asahara’s) remaining followers could start doing something terrible,” she said. Authorities said they were on alert for any actions by followers of the cult’s splinter groups. The death penalty for the guru was first handed down by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004 and finalized by the Supreme Court in September 2006. The crimes he was convicted of also include the murders of lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, his wife, and their 1-year-old son in November 1989, as well as another sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in June 1994. That attack killed eight and left about 600 injured. Asahara’s execution was delayed while the lengthy court proceedings involving other key Aum followers accused of being complicit in the crimes played out. The court saga concluded on Jan. 25 of this year. In addition to Asahara, 191 Aum members were indicted over a number of criminal acts — including murders, attempted murders, abductions and the production of deadly nerve gases and illegal automatic rifles. Twelve had their death penalty sentences finalized. Over the past 10 years, the guru reportedly turned down all requests from outside the prison for a meeting, even from family members. During the trials and interviews with his lawyers, Asahara often remained silent or uttered words that no one could clearly understand. The difficulty in communicating with him prompted his counsel to claim that he was not mentally competent to stand trial. In 2006, the Supreme Court, however, rejected a special appeal and finalized the death sentence. The court ruled that Asahara was legally sane and thus could be held responsible for his actions. Asahara, born in 1955 in what is now the city of Yatsushiro, Kumamoto Prefecture, formed the predecessor of Aum Shinrikyo in 1984. By around October 1988, the number of lay followers surged to between 3,000 and 4,000 and that of live-in followers was estimated at between 100 and 200. In that period, the cult had head offices in Tokyo and Kamikuishiki, a village in Yamanashi Prefecture. It also had branch offices in Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya, Sapporo, New York and Russia. In the vast compound in Kamikuishiki at the foot of Mount Fuji, Aum Shinrikyo, under the instruction of Asahara, built and operated a chemical plant to mass-produce sarin and another to assemble illegal automatic rifles. The doomsday cult successfully recruited a number of highly educated young people, including doctors and scientists, some of whom took part in the crimes — a fact that particularly shocked the Japanese public. Many Aum members were featured on live TV shows, openly defending the group. The media exposure helped solidify the group’s lasting impact on the public’s collective consciousness. Asahara claimed that Armageddon was inevitable and justified the murders of certain people by insisting they would send their souls to a heavenly world, according to court transcripts. During a hearing in June 2001, Nakagawa, a former doctor who played a key role in the cult’s production of sarin gas, begged his guru to explain what he was actually thinking when he instructed followers to commit illegal, violent acts. In response, Asahara, with his eyes closed, just mumbled words no one could understand, according to media reports. “I didn’t enter the priesthood (of Aum Shinrikyo) to produce sarin or choke someone’s neck,” Nakagawa tearfully said during the hearing. “Please explain your ideas to the people who believed in you,” Nakagawa recalled saying in vain. Nakagawa himself was on death row for the roles he played in the production of sarin gas and the 1989 murders of the Sakamoto family.

aum shinrikyo
shoko asahara
executions
death penalty
aum shinrikyo in focus


Authorities on alert as Aum successor and splinter groups remain active

Abstract: Public security authorities are on alert amid concerns that Friday’s executions of Aum Shinrikyo cult founder Shoko Asahara and former senior members could prompt groups of his supporters to become more active. The mainstay group — renamed Aleph — and two splinter groups have continued their activities, even soliciting new young members who know less about the series of crimes committed by Aum, including the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system. Aleph has about 1,450 members, while the other two groups — Hikari no Wa (Circle of Rainbow Light) and another called Yamadara no Shudan — have some 150 and 50 members, respectively. The three are all being watched by security authorities. In recent years, Aleph has made clear its devotion to Asahara, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, and obstructed inspections of its facilities by the authorities, according to the Public Security Intelligence Agency. Aleph had assets of more than ¥1 billion as of October last year, funded mainly by fees collected from participants in its “intensive seminars” and donations by followers, the agency said. The group recruits about 100 new members every year, especially young people, while at the same time claiming the sarin gas attack was a conspiracy against Aum, according to the agency. Around 50 members split from Aleph in 2013 over a disagreement about who should succeed Asahara as leader. The agency believes this group is also under the influence of Asahara’s practices. Hikari no Wa, established in 2007 by former senior Aum member Fumihiro Joyu, has underscored its break with Asahara. “While denying relations (with Asahara), they also preach absolute devotion to his doctrine,” an agency official said.

executions
aum shinrikyo
shoko asahara
chizuo matsumoto
religion
murder
terrorism
death penalty
tokyo sarin gas attack
aum shinrikyo in focus


Japanese have mixed opinions on execution of Aum leader Shoko Asahara and six accomplices

Abstract: A wide-range of reactions were heard Friday to news of the executions of Shoko Asahara and six former senior members of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo — which carried out the deadly 1995 sarin nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system — with some saying it was good the sentences were finally carried out and others recalling the devastation inflicted by the group. “There are people who both support and oppose the executions, but it had to happen eventually, didn’t it?” Motokatsu Hosaka, 81, from Tochigi Prefecture, said at Tokyo Station. “I am not a person who supports the death penalty but in this instance the crime was indiscriminate and unforgivable,” said a 71-year-old woman from Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. In the attack on March 20, 1995, 13 people were killed and more than 6,000 were injured. “After all these years I thought it would never happen but I think it’s good they finally carried out the executions,” said a 37-year-old woman from Tokyo’s Koto Ward, who asked not to be named. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004. The sentence was finalized by the Supreme Court in 2006. A Tokyo resident in his 60s who was on a Hibiya Line train on the morning of the sarin attack also welcomed the hanging of the cult founder. But the man, who was not on a train where the deadly nerve gas was released, said, “Rather than executing him, I rather wanted him to experience a living hell.” Some people had vivid memories of the attack, which occurred during the busy morning rush hour in central Tokyo. “The incident happened next to my company. By pure coincidence on that day, many people took a different route to work, and it may have saved their lives,” said 61-year-old Yokohama resident Yuichiro Hoshina. “I remember that after the incident, many passengers would be suspicious of any baggage left unattended on the train. It lasted for about a year. It feels like it’s finally over,” he said. “My company had a branch in Higashiginza and many of my colleagues were affected by the incident. Initially I heard some explosions had occurred and it was shocking,” a woman in her 50s said. “Since I have an acquaintance who was injured in the attack, I remember it well. (The acquaintance) was admitted to the hospital and had surgery, but has no long-term damage,” said Yuri Ito, 59, a resident of Tama, in western Tokyo. “I was surprised that incidents like this can happen in Japan.” “Even though they were executed, there are still remnants of the cult left. So I don’t think the story is completely over,” she added. Aum renamed itself Aleph in 2000 and two splinter groups have since been formed. The followers of the three groups total about 1,650 in Japan and 460 in Russia, according to the Public Security Intelligence Agency, which continues to monitor the cult. Some people wondered about the true reasons behind the sarin attack and other heinous crimes committed by Aum, with the executions permanently eliminating any chance of hearing accounts of them from Asahara and six of his closest followers. “I have a hard time understanding why they carried out the attack,” the Fujisawa woman said. “I wonder what he (Asahara) wanted to achieve,” said a 56-year-old man from Nara Prefecture who was in Tokyo on Friday on a business trip. Recalling that the subway attack occurred six years into the reign of Emperor Akihito following the collapse of the country’s asset-inflated bubble economy, the man said he felt the executions mark “an end of an era.” Zoe Chan, a 28-year-old Chinese woman who lives in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, said of the Aum subway attack, “It’s famous worldwide. I think if it went through a trial then we should support it (the hanging.)” She said Japan should boost security measures to prevent similar terrorist attacks. “In China, we get checked before we enter the trains, but in Japan there is no security. It is kind of unbelievable. I think something should be done before the Olympics to keep us safe,” she said.

executions
shoko asahara
aum shinrikyo
death penalty
religion
murder
terrorism
chizuo matsumoto
tokyo sarin gas attack
aum shinrikyo in focus


U.K. sharing intel, expects U.S. to try 'Beatles' fighters caught in Syria and won't try to block death penalty

Abstract: LONDON - Britain said Monday it was sharing intelligence to help the United States bring to trial two British fighters captured in Syria, known as the “Beatles,” and would not block the death penalty. Security Minister Ben Wallace told MPs that a British trial was unlikely for Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee el-Sheikh, who he said were not actually British citizens, after the government had unusually stripped them of their nationality. But the decision to seek no assurances that they would not face the death penalty drew anger from lawmakers, while Amnesty International called it “deeply worrying. “We do not think we have the evidence here to try them in the United Kingdom … it is likely (this) is a trial that is carried out in the United States,” Wallace told the House of Commons. He added: “When the request came in for sharing of evidence, this government took the decision — rare at it is — to share that evidence without seeking assurances.” Kotey and Sheikh were part of a four-member kidnapping gang within the Islamic State group dubbed “The Beatles” by their captives due to their heavy British accents. They were notorious for videotaping beheadings and are believed to have killed American journalist James Foley and many Western aid workers. “We’re not talking about U.K. citizens,” Wallace said. The fate of the pair was discussed in a letter by British Home Secretary Sajid Javid to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions that was leaked to the Daily Telegraph. The decision not to demand assurances on the death penalty sparked an emergency Commons debate on Monday, to which Wallace responded. He said assurances might “get in the way” of a future trial, but insisted: “Our longstanding position on the use of the death penalty has not changed.” However, opposition Labour MPs accused the government of having “unilaterally ripped up” years of British policy. Foley’s mother, Diane, told BBC radio that her son’s killers should go to jail but said putting them to death “would just make them martyrs in their twisted ideology. Wallace said Britain “will not share information with the United States if those individuals were going to end up in Guantanamo Bay,” the U.S. detention camp on Cuba. But he added: “We should not forget that the crimes that we’re talking about involve the beheading and videoing of those beheading dozens of innocent people by one of the most abhorrent organizations walking this Earth.” The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) caught Kotey in January as he tried to flee Syria for Turkey, while a U.S. defense official announced in February that Sheikh had also been captured by Syrian rebel forces. Wallace said: “The individuals that we’re talking about, or foreign fighters at the moment in general, are currently held by nonstate actors in Syria. “That is a big challenge for all European states and indeed the U.S. about how those people are brought back.”

beatles
syria
islamic state
james foley
jeff sessions
guantanamo bay
u.s .
terrorism
u.k .


Eight extremists charged over 2016 Islamic State-claimed Bangladesh cafe attack that left 22 dead

Abstract: DHAKA - Bangladesh police Monday charged eight Islamist extremists over the savage 2016 attack claimed by Islamic State on a Dhaka cafe popular with Westerners that killed 22 people, including 18 foreigners. Of the eight charged, “six have been arrested and two have absconded,” Monirul Islam, the head of Dhaka police’s counter-terrorism unit, told reporters. “Their aim was to destabilize the country and turn the country into a militant state,” Islam said. Police said the eight face a maximum sentence of death by hanging under anti-terrorism laws. The brazen assault on July 1, 2016 saw five militants with assault rifles and machetes storm the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka’s well-heeled Gulshan neighborhood. Nine Italians and seven Japanese were among the foreigners to be hacked or shot dead. Two policemen were also killed. Military commandos stormed the cafe after a 10-hour standoff and freed more than two dozen hostages. The attack claimed by the Islamic State group fueled tensions over Islamist extremism in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. All five militants were killed when police stormed the cafe. Eight others — including mastermind Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury, a Canadian of Bangladesh descent — were killed during raids in Dhaka and its suburbs months after the attack. They included commanders of a new faction of the homegrown extremist group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh. One of the freed hostages, a British national of Bangladeshi origin named Hasnat Karim, was later detained by police over allegations he played a role into the attack. But Mohibul Islam Khan, counterterrorism police deputy commissioner, said investigators found no evidence against Karim and his name has been left off the charge sheet. The government has repeatedly denied that international jihadi networks have a presence in Bangladesh. The IS-linked news agency Aamaq however published extensive details of the attack, including photos from inside the cafe. Monirul Islam said Rohan Imtiaz, 19, led the attack. Imtiaz had completed his A-levels at Scholastica, a school for the children of well-to-do families in Dhaka. The hostage crisis marked an escalation from a spate of murders claimed by IS and al-Qaida of rights activists, gays, foreigners and religious minorities. It was seen as a major blow to the country’s image as a moderate Muslim nation. Dozens of atheist writers, publishers, members of religious minorities, social activists and foreign aid workers have been murdered in Bangladesh since 2013.

islamic state
bangladesh
dhaka
holey artisan bakery
japanese
terrorism


Record-breaking high temperatures likely a 'new normal' for Japan, experts warn

Abstract: OSAKA - This summer’s deadly heat wave has been labeled as unprecedented, but official climate forecasts and experts are warning that the recent rise in temperatures is likely to become the new normal in the years ahead. “Generally speaking, it’s predicted that the kind of heat we have now will increase as climate change advances,” said Masako Konishi, a meteorologist and deputy director of conservation at WWF Japan. “While we can’t say the current heat wave itself is a sign of the direct effects of climate change, at the very least we can say that we’ll see more of this kind of climate in the future. “What’s most frightening is that what we once had no experience with is gradually becoming the daily norm,” Konishi noted. “The government and television weather personalities are working hard to warn of the dangers of the heat, with some using language that treats it like a natural disaster. In other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, these high temperatures are a natural part of life and people are used to them.” According to government data released Tuesday, the heat wave has killed at least 65 people in 28 prefectures and sent more than 22,000 to hospitals last week — the highest figure since comparable information became available in 2008. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency has announced that over a seven-day period to Sunday, 22,647 people were taken to hospitals due to the heat, with Tokyo — the country’s most populous prefecture — accounting for the highest number at 1,979. Aichi Prefecture ranked second at 1,954, followed by Osaka Prefecture with 1,779 and Saitama Prefecture at 1,617. The previous weekly record for people taken to hospitals over heat stroke or heat exhaustion — 12,064 — was logged in the period from July 27 to Aug. 2, 2015. This summer’s scorching heat appears likely to continue presenting a danger to many, with the Tokyo Fire Department reporting a preliminary figure Monday of 371 people rushed to hospitals in the metropolitan area over suspected heatstroke or heat exhaustion — the highest figure since the department began compiling statistics in 2010. Japanese television reports Monday night and Tuesday in Saitama Prefecture and Tokyo showed reporters with thermometers at ground level, where road-surface temperatures of above 45 degrees Celsius had been recorded. “We are observing unprecedented levels of heat in some areas,” weather agency official Motoaki Takekawa said late Monday. Past projections from the Environment Ministry, the Meteorological Agency, and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as most other Japanese and international climate experts, agree that temperatures in the country — as well as extreme weather events — are very likely to rise in the coming years. In 2015, the Meteorological Agency predicted that the nation’s average annual temperature between 2076 and 2095 would be 2.5 to 3.5 degrees higher than that of the 1980-1999 period and that flash downpours would become more frequent. To prepare for the worst, a law was passed last month urging all local governments to draw up plans for the possibility of impacts due to climate change. “We should see the heat wave this year as an example of (Japan’s) future climate and be ready for these extreme weather phenomena with a well-thought-out adaptation plan,” Konishi said.


LDP lawmaker Mio Sugita faces backlash after describing LGBT people as 'unproductive'

Abstract: A ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker has drawn a fierce backlash after labeling the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community “unproductive” in terms of childbirth, and warning that a society that accepts same-sex relationships risks “increasing unhappy people.” Junior lawmaker Mio Sugita is facing nationwide criticism after contributing an article to the latest issue of conservative magazine Shincho 45 questioning what she perceives to be Japanese media’s recent trend toward favorable coverage of LGBT-related issues. In it, Sugita argued that there is no justification for efforts by the state and municipalities to invest taxpayers’ money into policies supporting same-sex couples because “these men and women don’t bear children — in other words, they are ‘unproductive.’ ” She went on in the article to recall her adolescence, the bulk of which she said she had spent being surrounded by female classmates in an all-girl school system. In such an environment, it was not uncommon for girls around her to fantasize about becoming romantically involved with each other, she wrote. But they would soon outgrow that phase and move on to have “normal” lives by marrying husbands, Sugita wrote in the article. The recent media tendency toward embracing same-sex relationships in the name of diversity, she said, “could make people capable of enjoying normal romance and getting married believe that they have an option of going homosexual, and as a result risk increasing (the number of) unhappy people.” “A society deprived of ‘common sense’ and ‘normalcy’ is destined to lose ‘order’ and eventually collapse. I don’t want Japan to be a society like this,” she concluded in her four-page article. The nation’s LGBT community was quick to lambaste Sugita’s remarks. The Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation issued a statement pointing out that Sugita’s description of LGBT people as abnormal disregards the LDP’s own acknowledgment of the fact that many sexual minorities suffer from being forced into the “norm” imposed by society. Her assertion that LGBT people are not discriminated against in society, it said, also belies a 2017 Cabinet Office survey suggesting 49 percent of the public think gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals have been targeted by “discriminatory remarks.” A member of the Toshima Ward Assembly, Taiga Ishikawa — one of Japan’s first openly gay politicians — said that given Sugita’s role as a member of the ruling party, her remarks “significantly tarnish Japan’s reputation” ahead of the 2020 Olympics. “Homosexuality is not the definition of unhappiness,” he said. “It’s discriminatory remarks like Sugita’s that make us unhappy.” When contacted by The Japan Times on Tuesday, Sugita’s office in Tokyo said she was not available for comment. On Monday, Sugita tweeted that “someone claiming to be gay” had emailed a death threat to her office, which she said prompted her to delete all her previous tweets on her latest debacle. In fact, Sugita is no stranger to controversy. In her recent appearance in a BBC documentary examining the high-profile case of the alleged rape of journalist Shiori Ito, Sugita blamed Ito for making “clear errors as a woman” by drinking too much in the presence of a man. Being relatively new to the Japanese political arena, Sugita, currently in her second term, could not be described as a heavyweight and has held no ministerial portfolio. At a news conference Tuesday, LDP Secretary General Toshihiro Nikai didn’t support Sugita’s comments or criticize her, according to Kyodo News. “Different people have different views, let alone their political positions,” he said. But Nikai stressed that it’s important to realize a society where diversity is accepted.