Swiss mountain town Davos relishing in anti-globalist Trump spotlight

Abstract: DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - The Swiss Alpine town of Davos is used to celebrities and high-rollers, but even it is relishing new attention being heaped on it with U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to attend the World Economic Forum this month. Trump’s visit to Davos for the annual meet-up of global political and business leaders will be the first for a sitting U.S. president since Bill Clinton came in 2000. Trump’s policies, including his intention to exit the 2015 Paris climate accord and his “America First” tendencies, may not sit well with all of Switzerland, which backs the global climate pact and whose economy relies on global trade. This has prompted some critics to suggest Trump’s polarizing persona could resurrect violent anti-WEF protests from the early 2000s. An online petition is circulating telling Trump he is not welcome. Still, the tenor in Davos this week Thursday was upbeat, with many confident a robust security contingent — up to 5,000 soldiers if necessary alongside about 1,000 police — can handle any furor surrounding Trump’s presence. “It doesn’t get any better than this,” said Ernst Wyrsch, who was director of the hotel where Clinton stayed during his WEF visit and now heads the region’s hotel association. “Davos, for at least a couple of days, will be at the center of the world.” While dignitaries come each year — British Prime Minister Theresa May and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping made the trek to the town last year — they lack the media power of a U.S. president that puts the spotlight on a community that relies on tourism. “I guess there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” said Linard Kinschi, a resident who was heading out to the 1,560 meters above sea level town’s cross-country ski trails. Although U.S. officials are already in Switzerland preparing for Trump’s arrival, details of his trip, including whether he will even spend the night during the Jan. 23-26 event, were under wraps. Trump, expected to be accompanied by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and possibly Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, may rush in for a day, give a speech and then depart. There is something of a contradiction in all this. The WEF is a haven for supporters of globalization who espouse the very free trade pacts that Trump has blasted as unfair to the United States. Heinz Brand, who represents Davos in the Swiss parliament, hopes Trump arrives in the mood for discussion, not a fight. “Even people who were sworn enemies have met in Davos and left on more favorable terms,” Brand said, recalling when Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres shared a WEF stage. The Swiss army has begun erecting checkpoints on roads leading into town and armed hillside bivouacs down the valley, scenes on par with every post-Sept. 11 WEF where security has been to the fore. “This is the 48th WEF,” said Reto Branschi, CEO of Davos Klosters Tourism. “Every year, we have 20 presidents from all over the world. We are used to the visits of presidents.” Last year, 4,300 Swiss soldiers deployed, with the airspace open only to aircraft ferrying participants to the forum. Grisons cantonal police, who coordinate WEF security measures and are liaising with U.S. officials, say they are ready. “The closure of the airspace has worked well in recent years, and we don’t believe that any modifications will be necessary this year,” said Andre Kraske, a Grisons spokesman. Still, there are some changes. For decades, helicopters carrying visitors have landed in the meadow of Hans Stiffler, a lifelong Davoser who runs an inn. This year, the landing pad has been moved across the valley, where there is more room. Without choppers at the doorstep this year, it will be a bit quieter, and Stiffler will not have to bring his security badge with him every time he leaves home. But he may also not be able to add to his trove of WEF memorabilia includes letters of appreciation from Clinton, photos of former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, and an intimate shot of then Brazilian president Lula da Silva meeting Israel’s Peres in Stiffler’s hotel for five minutes before each was helicoptered away.

davos
switzerland
bill clinton
wef
donald trump


Rwanda expects census to show surge in ranks of highly endangered mountain gorillas

Abstract: MUSANZE, RWANDA - A census of mountain gorillas due in March will likely show numbers have risen this decade, experts said during a ceremony to mark Rwanda’s expansion of its Volcano National Park. The last global survey in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda in 2010 found just 480 individuals of the critically endangered sub-species. Eugene Mutangana, the head of conservation at the Rwandan Development Board (RDB), said an average of 18 baby mountain gorillas had been born each year in Rwanda since 2005, when the East African nation began naming them in an annual ceremony. “We only had seven families of gorillas seven years ago. Today we have 20,” RDB chief executive Clare Akamanzi said. Mountain gorillas are under threat from poaching, war and habitat loss. Rwanda is keen to encourage tourists to see them, but tour operators and hoteliers say a government decision to double the price of trekking permits from $750 to $1,500 last year slashed visitor numbers. Akamanzi said Rwanda aimed to attract high-end tourists. Philip Mason of Sabyinyo Silverback lodge, a high-end hotel in the town of Musanze, at the foot of volcanoes where gorillas live, said ticket sales were down 30 percent. But budget facilities and tour operators have been harder hit. “I have a 14-room hotel but I don’t have more than five tourists per week,” said Eric Twagirimana, owner of budget Buffalo mountain lodge. “The government shouldn’t have taken this decision without consulting us.” Tour guide Gilles Mugabe said visitors were instead going to Uganda and Congo, where prices were lower. Mountain gorillas, a subspecies of the eastern gorilla, have longer hair, jaws and teeth than most other species. Adult males grow a patch of gray hair on their back and hips, giving them the “silverback” moniker. One such is Gihishamwotsi, a dominant male in the Sabyinyo family, a popular group viewed by trekkers in Rwanda’s national park.

endangered species
rwanda
census
mountain gorillas


Japan rewrites tourism record after 28.7 million visited in 2017

Abstract: Japan attracted a record 28.69 million tourists in 2017, up 19.3 percent from the previous year and the sixth consecutive yearly increase, the transport minister said Friday. “In 2017, there was a sharp increase in tourists from Asia, and we need to make more efforts to attract tourists from a wide range of countries and regions,” Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Keiichi Ishii told a news conference. Ishii credited the growth to an increase in discount flights from South Korea and other Asian countries and cruise ships from China, as well as the easing of visa requirements for Chinese and Russian travelers. The government will release a regional breakdown and other details next week. The government has set a goal of 40 million foreign visitors by 2020, when Japan hosts the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. It plans to use revenue from a new ¥1,000 departure tax to be imposed on every person leaving Japan from January 2019 to promote tourism. Japan used to focus on drawing shopaholic tourists to urban areas like Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district. But in recent years, more visitors have been venturing away from traditional tourist hubs like the capital and the ancient city of Kyoto, and going further afield rather than buying gadgets to take home, industry experts say. However, busloads of tourists from around the world still regularly leave Tokyo for a day trek around Mount Fuji. “In addition to individual Asian visitors and repeat customers, we need to continue raising awareness among potential tourists in Europe, the U.S. and Australia,” Ishii added.


Heavy snow in Japan traps over 400 passengers on stranded train in Niigata

Abstract: NIIGATA - Around 430 passengers in Niigata Prefecture were forced to spend the night on a packed four-car train after it got stranded Thursday evening by heavy snow along the Sea of Japan coast. According to rescue workers, five passengers — a man in his 40s and four women in their teens and 20s — were found unwell when they arrived, and the man was taken to a hospital. The train, which was bound for Nagaoka from Niigata, resumed service Friday morning about 15 hours after getting stuck. More than half of the passengers on the train on the East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) Shinetsu Line were evacuated earlier in the morning, with families arriving to pick them up by car. While JR East said the train’s interior lights and heating worked properly, it only had one bathroom and the toilet paper ran out, passengers said. Some said they took turns using the seats to relieve passengers who were standing. “I was standing and looking down the entire time,” said a woman who exited the train at around 4:40 a.m. when her family arrived. “I just want to sleep,” a male passenger said. A 50-year-old man who came to pick up his daughter said he was angry because she was preparing for an entrance exam. “Tomorrow, she will sit for the university entrance exams so I want her to rest as soon as possible,” he said. “The operator kept saying the train would start moving, but they were wrong.” The train was stranded at around 6:55 p.m. Thursday at a crossing between Tokoji and Obiori stations in Sanjo, where snowfall reached 77 cm around that time. Due to other delays and cancellations caused by snow, the train ended up being packed, and JR East did not arrange for alternative transport. “We put priority on safety,” a JR East official said. Transport minister Keiichi Ishii said he instructed the railway to investigate why it took so long to help the passengers and resume service. There were no snowplows operating near the site Thursday evening, and the only one deployed arrived at the site at around 9:30 a.m. Friday. Two subsequent trains also came to a halt, temporarily stranding an additional 400 people who were later evacuated by buses. Snow also caused about 300 vehicles to get stuck near two exits of the Ban-etsu Expressway in the Niigata town of Aga Thursday evening, but all were able to leave after about 12 hours of snow-clearing work. In the meantime, another 410 vehicles got stuck on the Hokuriku Expressway in Toyama and Ishikawa prefectures, but there were no reports of injuries or sickness, according to local authorities.

niigata transportation snow weather rail


Debate continues over mothers taking their babies to work

Abstract: The hashtag #KozurekaigiOK, which translates roughly as “It’s OK to bring a child to a meeting,” began trending in late November. The trigger was a female politician’s decision to bring her child to a Kumamoto assembly session , which sparked a nationwide debate on child care options for parents juggling work and family responsibilities. While the discourse on adequate child care and work-life policies for parents, particularly mothers, isn’t new to Japan, the politician’s actions caused a stir online. Hiroki Komazaki, founder of NPO Florence, which provides accessible medical and child care solutions, penned an article titled, “ Is it wrong to bring a baby to a meeting? ” and tweeted his support for the hashtag, adding that he hoped the practice of allowing children in professional settings such as meetings, interviews and lectures would spread . In the wake of the politician’s action in November, the Kumamoto Municipal Government received 563 submissions from its citizens, with more than half calling for a change to the existing policy . The local government responded by announcing in December that they would set up a child care facility in the City Hall in 2018. Prefectures such as Fukushima, Miyagi and Tokyo have already introduced nursery facilities in government office buildings. However, the debate over whether working parents should be allowed to bring their children to work appears to be far from over. On Jan. 5, BuzzFeed Japan published an interview with Mariko Oi, a Japanese BBC World reporter, that focused on her experiences as a working mother who brought her two young children to the studio when she covered U.S.President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan . On the day of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump’s joint press conference, Oi went into the BBC’s Tokyo bureau with her 3-year-old daughter, 3-month-old son and mother in tow. When she wasn’t live on air, she was holding her son and writing articles on her smartphone. Oi noted that while increasing the number of nursery schools and providing adequate maternity leave and child care options are are vital steps in supporting working mothers, it’s also necessary to acknowledge the unique needs and values of individuals in terms of child care. As such, she says, “a policy system created by the government will not necessarily solve all problems.” Readers applauded Oi for her dedication to her job and family, and the BBC for its support of working parents. Fellow journalist and mother of two Jibu Renge tweeted her support for the article, stating: “ This is article is really good! The article addresses other important aspects, not just ‘policies’ or ‘nursery schools.’ ” In a similar vein, a Jan. 10 Forbes Japan interview with the executives of Campfire and SmartHR, two startup companies championing efforts to allow parents to bring children to work , touched on the #KozurekaigiOK campaign. SmartHR develops a cloud-based personnel and labor management platform, while Campfire manages its namesake crowdfunding platform, Campfire. Campfire CEO Kazuma Ireiri admits there is opposition to bringing children to work but a change in mentality would be helpful. “I think a more effective approach would be to give employees a choice by saying, ‘We can look after the children together and get the work done,’ rather than giving employees no choice but to stay home from work and look after their child,” Ireiri says. “That approach is more likely to alleviate the pressures of child care.” Yoshio Hashimoto of NPO Florence responded positively to the article , saying, “The hashtag supports this idea as well, but instead of saying ‘We may as well bring our kids to the workplace,’ it is better to say, ‘Well, it is good to have the choice to bring our kids to work,’ because it’s important to have the flexibility of choices and a work-life (balance).” Engineering an environment in which parents can bring children into their workplaces is no small feat — it entails changing rigid views on professional etiquette and practices. With increasing global attention on women’s rights and the country’s recent drop in the World Economic Forum’s global gender equality ranking, Japan is probably long overdue for a change.


Press failing to question the legal process

Abstract: To ring in the new year, TBS Radio’s “Session 22 ” asked several notable people on Jan. 4 about their predictions for 2018. Michiko Kameishi, a human rights lawyer, commented that she is looking forward to three criminal trials that turn on confessions extracted from suspects. Two of the cases are retrials of persons who have already been convicted and served their times in prison. In both, lawyers convinced courts to retry their clients because the convictions were based solely on confessions they later recanted and which they say were coerced under questionable circumstances. Police and prosecutors rely so heavily on confessions in criminal cases that they don’t feel the need to go out and gather evidence, says Kameishi, an insight that led to a discussion of the Moritomo Gakuen elementary school scandal that embroiled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year. Yasunori Kagoike and his wife, Junko, were arrested in July on allegations of fraud in their dealings with government entities as they went through the process of building their new school in Osaka . They’ve been in jail ever since and denied contact with anyone except their lawyers. Kameishi explained that the reason they are still being detained is that they refuse to talk, which is actually their right. The lawyer thinks that prosecutors have been trying to force confessions out of the couple and haven’t succeeded. The ostensible reason for denying them bail is that a judge has deemed they could tamper with evidence or witnesses while outside, so until the trial begins they are being kept away from anyone, including family members and each other. The real purpose of the bail denial, Kameishi says, is to put more pressure on the suspects to confess. If they do, then the trial can proceed right away, but as long as they don’t, their detention periods can be continually extended until it begins, and that could be months. It’s not unusual for suspects to spend a year or so under wraps. According to Kameishi, lawyers call this practice “hostage justice” ( hitojichi shiho ). “The suspects’ lives are destroyed even before they go to trial,” she says. “The idea is to break their silence.” Such tactics often result in enzai (false convictions), and what makes the Kagoikes’ situation special is that the media was covering the case closely last year because the prime minister and his wife were associated with the couple in the past. The judge’s stated reasons for not granting bail to the couple did not make sense to Kameishi because the police spent more than three months collecting all available evidence prior to their arrest. And since the Kagoikes are well-known, it would be almost impossible for them to flee bail and disappear, even it they wanted to. Even a former judge said he found these circumstances strange. Interviewed about the case last November on a TBS-BS news show, Tomoyuki Mizuno, now a professor at Hosei University, said he thought the Kagoikes’ detention was “too long,” but also said that if he were still a judge he might think differently because when prosecutors came to him saying a suspect could destroy evidence if he granted them bail, it made his job easier. In trying to explain such a mind-set, he said people in the criminal justice system believe it is due to their “hard work” that Japan is such a safe country, there is no reason to change their ways. The TBS reporter didn’t bring up civil rights, maybe because it didn’t occur to him. Hiroshi Seki, who has written extensively on Japanese courts, blames this ignorance for Japan’s “medieval” trial system . According to a review of Seki’s 2014 book “Japan’s Courts” that appeared in the online magazine Litera in February 2015 , the media has abandoned their essential mission, which is to “check those in power.” Seki says the press practices self-restraint, thus placing them at the beck-and-call of those in power. Reporters are not required to know anything about the things they cover. When it comes to criminal trials, for instance, they can’t produce a story “without lectures from the courts and the police.” Reporters covering court cases usually attend sessions by police and prosecutors who explain the development of a case. These are not news conferences. The prosecution gives its version of the case and the journalists base their reporting on that version. In most instances, they do not go out and dig deeper into the case. They simply repeat what they’ve been told, since they don’t understand enough about the legal process to draw any conclusions other than the ones already drawn for them by the authorities. Veteran journalist Shoko Egawa, who came to the public’s attention with her in-depth coverage of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in the ’90s, has been a strong critic of this failure of the press. Last year, she appeared on “Session 22” with Atsuko Muraki , who as a welfare ministry official was wrongly indicted for forging documents in 2009 by the special investigator (tokusobu), an organ that seems to specialize in bringing down high-level bureaucrats and politicians. Egawa helped Muraki write her book about the case, and during the discussion expressed astonishment at how gullible the media was. Any reporter with an elementary understanding of ministry procedure should have been suspicious of the special prosecutor’s accusation, but they all accepted it without question. The third case Kameishi is looking forward to this year is the second trial of Takuya Katsumata, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a 7-year-old girl in 2005 . No physical evidence was produced during the first trial. The conviction was based solely on a confession his lawyers say was coerced under duress. When Fuji TV covered the trial, it produced a dramatization of what went on in court, and analyzed every gesture and facial expression for what they indicated about the defendant’s guilt, which was taken for granted because of the confession. It was as if Fuji TV was saying, “The police already did this work, why should we?”

shinzo abe
takuya katsumata
criminal trials
moritomo gakuen
yasunori kagoike
junko kagoike


Organizer still counting on Trump to speak at Davos despite U.S. shutdown

Abstract: DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - The World Economic Forum (WEF) still expects U.S. President Donald Trump to attend its annual meeting in the Swiss Alps this week, the forum’s chairman, Klaus Schwab, said on Sunday. Schwab made the comments in an interview with Reuters a day after White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the trip was up in the air because of the federal government shutdown in the United States. Trump is due to speak at the gathering of politicians, business chiefs and bankers on Friday, the final day of the four-day event. Asked if he had any indication that Trump’s trip was in flux, Schwab said: “No, we haven’t. Until now we hope that the trip will be maintained … we’ll see what the final outcome is.” Heavy snow in the Alps has made travel difficult in many regions, given the heightened danger of avalanches. The main road leading to Davos was covered with snow. The town’s website for avalanche information advised people in nearly 30 residences to seek more secure dwellings for Sunday evening. Schwab said he wasn’t worried that weather would prevent attendees from coming to the event, which officially starts on Tuesday. “No, I’m happy because it provides Davos with what it should be — the aspect of a global village, but a village where you know nature plays still a very important role and, in our discussion, the whole environmental issue will also be at the forefront of what we do here,” he said.


Rare prehistoric shell mound in Aichi, Japan, suggests possible mid-Jomon shell trade

Abstract: An ancient heap of shells at Sakatsuji Shell Midden in the city of Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, most likely served as a clam processing site in the latter half of the mid-Jomon Period, approximately 4,500 years ago, an investigation conducted by the city’s board of education has revealed. While there are ruins in eastern Japan that indicate organized production during the mid-Jomon Period — including the Nakazato shell midden, or mound, which is a national historic site in Tokyo’s Kita Ward — it is extremely rare to find one in the Chubu region or further west. This latest discovery will provide important clues about the culinary lifestyle and economic activities conducted in the Jomon Period. The Sakatsuji shell mound is one of the Muro cluster of seven shell middens in Aichi Prefecture. An excavation conducted in the 1970s showed a rough scale of activities there, but details had remained unknown. The mound is located approximately 3.5 km inland of what is now Mikawa Bay. But prior to the bay being filled in to create rice fields in the Edo Period the shell mound had faced the sea, along a stretch of coastland where the shores are shallow. As a land consolidation project is scheduled to start in the area that includes the mound, the board of education had been excavating approximately 1,000 square meters of land since May. The mound, made almost entirely of clamshells, measures roughly 1.6 meters high, about 6 meters wide and more than 24 meters long. At least four layers have been identified, sandwiched between soil streaked with charcoal. The team also discovered around 55 objects that looked like furnaces assembled from stones, and the members expect to find more as they continue excavating. “We believe that the clams were boiled in the furnaces, and their meat stripped from the shells. Afterward the shells were piled up, then the ground was leveled and made into a processing site again,” said a member of the excavation team. “That kind of process must have been repeated again and again.” The excavation team was not able to find any evidence of residences nearby, so it was likely the workers who dug and processed the clams lived in another area. The volume of shells discovered was so huge it is hard to believe that they were consumed within the region, and the excavation team has said there is a possibility people dried the clams after they were boiled so that they would last longer and could be used for trading. The shells are of various sizes. “We found many large shells similar to those seen in high-class Japanese restaurants. The clams must have become quite salty when boiled in sea water, so maybe they were used to make soup stock,” a member of the excavation team said. Several hundred furnaces have been found in the other six shell mounds in Muro. They share the same features as the Sakatsuji midden, which indicates the whole area was bustling with clam processing at the time. However, the other six shell middens were from the late Jomon Period — approximately 2,300 to 3,800 years ago — which means the clam processing site of Sakatsuji was much older. Most of the furnaces found in the other shell middens were also without stone structures, and were constructed in such a way that earthenware was placed directly on the floor. “Perhaps they changed to a simpler furnace in order to meet the growing demand for clams,” said one of the team members. The excavation will continue until the end of March and an on-site briefing is expected to be held in mid-February. According to Tomonari Osada, a part-time lecturer specializing in archaeology at Chubu University, the Tokai region during the mid-Jomon Period is believed to have been less socially developed compared to the period immediately before the beginning of the Yayoi Period. “I would be surprised if the production conducted at the Sakatsuji shell midden was for the sake of trading and distribution to other regions. We need to focus on this site and conduct further analysis to determine whether the objects made of stones were indeed furnaces for boiling (clams).”

jomon period
aichi
toyohashi
shell middens
sakatsuji


Filipino and Japanese youngsters urged to remember infamous 1942 Bataan Death March

Abstract: MANILA - Philippine officials and executives involved in caring for the country’s war veterans have urged younger generations of Filipinos to carry forward the memory of the 1942 Death March, and those in Japan to learn about it. “We commemorate the Bataan Death March every year so that we will not forget, and so that the following generations — who may be in danger of forgetting the Bataan Death March and who may think that war is (just) a video game — will remember that this is not a video game,” said Roberto de Ocampo, chairman of the Philippine Veterans Bank, on Thursday at the launch of this year’s activities to commemorate what is considered to have been a war crime by Japan 76 years ago. Speaking at the same event, Ernesto Carolina, administrator of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, spoke in particular to the “millennials” or “the young people” of Japan, whom, he suspects, “do not know what happened” in the Philippines during the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation. “I think it is important that the young children of Japan will continue to know what happened — not for them to condemn, but so that it will never happen again,” Carolina said. Carolina recalled that during last year’s commemoration of the World War II Battle of Manila, a group of young Japanese in attendance confessed to hearing about the wartime atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers for the first time. “She said candidly that they never knew what their forefathers did,” Carolina said, referring to the leader of the Japanese group who spoke at the commemorative event. “It occurred to us that maybe in Japan the children do not know what happened. And we hear about this revising of history and slowly covering it up so that one day, nobody would know in Japan about what happened at the Death March.” The Death March refers to the forced movement by the Imperial Japanese Army of more than 70,000 Filipino and American soldiers from their point of capture in Bataan Province to prison camps in Tarlac Province, both north of Manila. The forcible transfer, mainly on foot, began on April 9, 1942, and lasted six days. They were forced to march “day and night, under blistering sun or cold night sky,” and were only given “brief rest and some water,” according to markers put up by government on the Death March route. “Many were ill, most were feverish, but none might rest, for the enemy was brutal with those who lagged behind. Thousands fell along the way.” In the town of San Fernando more than halfway through the ordeal, “the Death March became a Death Ride by cargo train when the prisoners were packed so densely into boxcars that many of them perished from suffocation,” the markers said. When the evacuation ended at what would later be the concentration camp in Tarlac on April 15, 1942, it is estimated that only 54,000 arrived alive. Carolina said that only a small number of Death March survivors are among some 7,000 living Filipino war veterans. Japan has apologized for its wartime atrocities and offered reparations to the Philippines. The two countries currently regard each other as “strategic partners.” “When images of the Death March are brought back, we see the cruelty and the suffering. But beyond that, we would like to highlight the ideals that those who survived, those who participated in the infamous Death March represent — love of country, selfless sacrifice,” Carolina said. “I was fortunate to meet a lot of them, and many of them had a chance to escape during the Death March. But they did not. They could not leave behind their buddies, their comrades who were sick and who would be killed and bayoneted by the Japanese,” he added. Carolina said images of captured soldiers sharing what they had, as well as of civilians taking the risk of giving food to the POWs, are the “ideals that we would like to stay and be imbibed by our citizens, especially the young people.” Noting that “the relationship (of the Philippines) with Japan over the years has improved to the extent that there is no need really for us to emphasize in any way the Japanese part of the occupation,” de Ocampo expressed confidence that “the friendship” between the two countries “will not be dented by the fact that we are honoring an event that really highlights Philippine heroism.” A multievent race called Freedom Trail will be held on March 24 and 25 as part of the commemoration. As in the inaugural edition held last year, participants will trace the entire route in three categories: a 160-km ultramarathon relay, a motorcycle tour, and a road bike ride. In addition, the fifth annual “Bataan Freedom Run” is scheduled for April 8, and also follows a portion of the Death March route. “The Bataan Death March was of course a horrific experience. The Freedom March is the joyful one. But nevertheless, it is a commemorative one,” de Ocampo said of the upcoming events. Carolina said that while static reminders of the Death March are already in place, “it is not enough that you see; it is important that you feel (it), you go through it, and you experience it.” Mike Villa-Real, vice president for communication and corporate affairs of the Philippine Veterans Bank, said the fees that will be collected from participants who will register will be used for maintenance of the Death March markers.

philippines
world war ii
bataan death march


Experts at Davos open debate on redefining GDP

Abstract: DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - It can topple governments, confer international bragging rights and pretty much obsessed the government of China once the country began its long march back to economic prowess. But is gross domestic product outliving its usefulness as a metric of economic size, and is it stoking social and environmental crises by encouraging growth at any cost? Debate about whether it is time to adopt a more nuanced calculator has been growing in recent years, and featured anew during discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. “There’s emerging agreement that the kind of statistics we’ve used in the past just aren’t working any more,” British economist Diane Coyle from the University of Manchester said in Davos. Coyle is one of several experts who have written books on the subject. Others have detailed proposals such as a “Human Development Index,” and a new addition to the literature comes this week from Financial Times journalist David Pilling, entitled “The Growth Delusion.” In Davos, Coyle outlined new thinking that will supplement brute economic data with measurements covering human capital (skills and education), physical infrastructure and “intangible capital” such as computerized data and patents. They will also cover environmental quality, and “social capital” looking at how united or divided a country is. Ascribing a value to data is particularly pressing as companies and customers increasingly transact their lives “in the cloud.” To take one example, a globally accessible and hugely useful resource like Wikipedia is worth precisely zero in traditional GDP accounting models. Nor does GDP encompass the black market, omitting a huge source of activity and income in many developing countries, including in Africa and Latin America. Notably, GDP cannot measure the distribution of wealth within a country. So while its total value can go up, gains are all too often skewed to top earners. Those lower down the ladder can fall further behind in relative terms. That is exactly what has been playing out in the United States, powering a populist backlash that elected Donald Trump, and influencing the British people’s decision to quit the European Union. After the Brexit referendum campaign, pro-EU campaigner Anand Menon wrote that he was trying to explain at one event about the hit to GDP that he felt would come if Britons voted to leave the bloc. He said that one woman in the audience in Newcastle, northeastern England, shouted back “that’s your bloody GDP, not ours.” Developed in 1934 by economist Simon Kuznets to help the United States chart an escape from the Great Depression, GDP measures the total value of a country’s goods and services over quarters and years. Woe betide a government that heads into an election on the back of a recession — usually defined as two consecutive quarters of decline in its GDP. But even where there is growth, disenchantment with how it is shared out can be seen vividly in Brexit-bound Britain, according to Inga Beale, chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market. “We’ve got to find another mechanism to include much bigger parts of the population, and use different metrics to measure success of a country,” she told CNBC television. GDP is widely seen as a blunt instrument to measure growth, and has attracted criticism from Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, among others. But countries that do execute sustained rises in GDP can use the accreted wealth to transform their standing. Exhibit A is China, which after decades of pell-mell growth is now the world’s second-biggest economy as measured by GDP, awarding it the kind of international prestige and influence that it has not enjoyed for centuries. But even in China the GDP debate is intensifying as President Xi Jinping vies to prioritize quality over quantity in the economy’s expansion. So what are the alternatives to GDP? Dissident thinkers are calling for a holistic approach that calibrates not just economic inputs but human capital along with quality-of-life issues. With the planet warming and some resources already exploited nearly to exhaustion, including many fisheries, the WEF this week proposed a broader measure of growth called the Inclusive Development Index that accounts for such factors. On that basis, Norway is the world’s richest country and the rest of the top 10 is compossed of small European countries and Australia. Germany is in 12th position, the United States is 23rd and China 26th. In any case, Coyle said, countries do not drastically have to overhaul their national accounting to take stock of environmental degradation caused by the rush for growth. “You just need to breathe the air in Beijing to feel the cost,” she said.

china
world economic forum
davos
gdp
wef


Activist widowed by Aum yet to find peace decades after deadly '95 sarin attack

Abstract: The March 1995 sarin attack on Tokyo’s subway system perpetrated by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo changed Shizue Takahashi forever. Had it not been for the attack, she would have continued on as an ordinary housewife who enjoyed making sweets. The Japanese terrorist attack, which killed her husband and 12 other people and left more than 6,000 others injured, drove her to establish a support group for the victims and to speak publicly about her experience. The 70-year-old representative has even moved the central government to act. She is often asked how she can be so tough. “For my husband,” she replies, noting that she is spending a day living that Kazumasa Takahashi could not. On the morning of March 20, 1995, her husband, who was then the 50-year-old deputy stationmaster at Kasumigaseki Station, passed out after cleaning up plastic bags on a train that, unbeknownst to him, were used to release the deadly nerve agent sarin. He never woke up. Takahashi kept asking herself, “Why did my husband have to die?” She attended the Tokyo district and high court trials of the Aum defendants, including that of Aum founder Shoko Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto. In December 2011, when the trials of the cult’s major members concluded with the finalization of the life sentence of Seiichi Endo, 57, Takahashi sold her condo in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward, filled with memories of her husband, and discarded his belongings. She also said she would step down as representative of the victims and their families. Takahashi, however, was stirred to action again in 2012 when three Aum fugitives were arrested, starting with 52-year-old senior member Makoto Hirata. Takahashi attended both the first and second trials of Hirata and Katsuya Takahashi, 59. In a courtroom at the Tokyo District Court on March in 2015, when it was her turn to ask defendant Takahashi a direct question for the first time, she said in a calm tone of voice: “You’re a Takahashi too.” The accused just kept looking down on the witness stand. Crime victims became able to participate in trials in 2008 in response to calls from people including Shizue Takahashi. Takahashi also pushed for a law mandating that compensation be paid to crime victims and their families by the central government, arguing that the cult balked on its promise to pay redress to its victims. When Takahashi was questioning Aum defendant Takahashi, she asked him whether there was anything he regrets. He only said: “I have regrets coming and going in my mind.” Takahashi said after the court session that she wished the defendant had had a sense of remorse. Having participated in the trials of Takahashi and Hirata as a victim, she plans to pass on her experience to younger generations. She plans to hold a discussion in March to give college students an opportunity to exchange opinions about the attack. “I have the feelings of the Aum victims and their families on my shoulders,” Takahashi said at a news conference Friday. “I have not found a sense of peace yet.”

aum shinrikyo
shoko asahara
shizue takahashi


Pope urges in Mafia-infested Rome suburb to break away from 'moorings of fear'

Abstract: ROME - Pope Francis on Sunday visited a once-tranquil seaside community outside Rome that has become a power center of Mafia violence and political corruption and urged residents to break away from the “moorings of fear. For decades popes have held the traditional Corpus Christi feast Mass and subsequent procession in the center of Rome, walking between two magnificent basilicas. This year Francis chose to move the event to two working-class parishes in Ostia, a district about 30 km (17 miles) from the center with a population of about 230,000 people, to show solidarity with anguished and frightened residents. In his homily during a Mass from the steps of the first church, he used the word “omerta,” which refers to the code of silence organized crime groups impose on their members and the fear they use as a tool to keep others from talking to police. “Jesus wants the walls of indifference and ‘omerta’ to be breached, iron bars of oppression and arrogance torn asunder, and paths cleared for justice, civility and legality,” he said. Using nautical language and speaking near the seaport of ancient Rome, he encouraged residents to break free from “the moorings of fear and depression,” telling them “you have experienced painful situations. Last January, police arrested dozens of alleged members of the Spada family, the clan authorities say runs extortion rackets controlling lucrative beach concessions, restaurants and gaming arcades as well as drug trafficking. Ostia was put under control of a government commissioner for more than two years because of alleged mafia infiltration of the local administration as part of a wide-ranging investigation dubbed “Mafia Capital” in 2014. The spotlight returned to Ostia in last year when Roberto Spada, gym owner and brother of a convicted mobster, was filmed headbutting an investigative journalist ahead of the March 4 national elections. Roberto Spada and his older brother Carmine were among those arrested in January. Police said at the time the brothers had ordered the murder in 2011 of Francesco “Little Moustache” Antonini and Giovanni “Black Rat” Galleoni, who were gunned down in front of bars and restaurants on a busy street just metres from the beach.


Now in a wheelchair, Japanese ex-motorcycle racer still passionate about bikes at Aichi shop

Abstract: Motorcycle shop owner Ko Sawada, 38, gave up his racing career after incurring a spinal cord injury in a 1999 race. But his love of motorcycles continues, and he hopes to revive the popularity of the vehicles. Sawada runs Motocyclette Sawada with his younger brother, Seiya, 29, selling classic motorcycles. The shop looks almost like a museum, with vintage bikes from Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki to BMW, Ducati and MV Agusta on display. Most were produced between the 1970s and 1990s. His father, who opened the shop in Shinshiro, Aichi Prefecture, in 1982, inspired him to enter a racing school at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, when he was in junior high school. His elder brother, Rei, who was two years older, joined the school with him and became a professional racer, competing in the All Japan Road Race Championship, the nation’s top racing series. Ko supported him as a mechanic. In 1998, however, his brother died after falling during a race at the Tsukuba Circuit in Shimotsuma, Ibaraki Prefecture. Sawada succeeded him and became a racer himself, but was involved in an accident at the Suzuka Circuit the following year that put him in a wheelchair for life. Sawada said the accident never made him dislike motorcycles. “Although I can’t ride them anymore, riding is not the only good thing about bikes,” he said. “It’s fun to watch races, and bikes are beautiful as machines.” The shop buys classic motorcycles and components through its own channels in Europe and other places. After they arrive, his brother Seiya and the other mechanics take them apart for maintenance and tune them up. When restoring them, they try to retain the original look and feel of the vehicles as much as possible. Sawada mainly manages the sales and accounting operations but performs some of the repair work, too. The shop buys between 60 and 100 motorcycles a year, and sells them to customers nationwide from Hokkaido to Miyako Island in Okinawa. Many of his bikes sell for around ¥2 million. The shop also takes requests to fix bikes that other shops can’t. Sawada, who has worked at the shop for 20 years, said he hopes to promote the attractiveness of motorcycles further. “I feel happy when my customers get excited to see the bikes we repaired,” he said. “I hope more people will learn about the beauty and joy of motorbikes.” The popularity of motorcycles has been declining in recent years. According to Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association statistics, shipments including minibikes stood at more than 1.21 million between March 1995 and February 1996, but dropped to about 510,000 between March 2008 and February 2009, and then to about 360,000 from March 2015 to February 2016 — a plunge of more than 70 percent in two decades. Experts attribute the change to an increase in car owners, a decline in motorcycle use for daily transport, and the falling birthrate. “Demand for motorbikes is dropping, but the number of motorbike shops hasn’t declined much,” said Ko Oguchi, 68, of Toyoyama, who runs two bike shops in Aichi. “Times are tough for motorbike shops.”

racing
motorbikes
ko sawada
motocyclette sawada


Panel balks at proposing the killing of Japan's political fairness clause

Abstract: A government deregulation council on Monday dropped a key proposal — reportedly favored by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — to eliminate the political fairness clause from the Broadcast Law. The proposal drew criticism for potentially opening up the nation’s airwaves to a deluge of politically charged programs and internet-driven “fake news.” The Regulatory Reform Promotion Council submitted to Abe a final set of recommendations meant to foster deregulation in areas including agriculture, employment, medicine and investment. The recommendations include a series of measures aimed at helping students from overseas land jobs in Japan as the nation struggles to meet a goal adopted by the government’s 2016 growth strategy to boost the foreign student employment rate in Japan to 50 percent. The final report skirts any mention of the Broadcast Law’s Article 4, which requires broadcasters to keep their programming politically neutral, despite an initial plan within the government to repeal it. Instead, the council listed measures designed to, among other things, facilitate live-streaming of TV content and better promote Japan’s TV content, such as anime, overseas. “I want the internal affairs ministry and other related entities to comprehensively study how to make our broadcast business more future-oriented — in particular from the perspective of how to make it more innovative, global and user-friendly,” Abe said upon receiving the report. Media reports emerged in mid-March that the Abe government was eyeing a drastic overhaul of the nation’s broadcast businesses by stripping away a batch of regulations imposed by the Broadcast Law — including the principle of political fairness — on TV and radio stations. Article 4 has often drawn comparisons with the now-defunct Fairness Doctrine in the U.S., which required political balance in broadcasting. The deregulation could have paved the way for internet-based, video-on-demand platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu to make greater forays into the world of TV and thus encourage competition with conventional broadcasters. But the notion of scrapping Article 4 at the same time spurred worries that it may lead to the advent of politically marketed programs that could polarize the public, possibly even underscoring, as some experts noted, Abe’s desire to see the birth of TV programs that advertise his views. Momentum for revising the Broadcast Law, however, appeared to fizzle out after TV station representatives and some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, including internal affairs minister Seiko Noda, publicly denounced the reported plan. With Article 4 also urging broadcasters to keep their programming factually correct, Noda, for one, said its annulment could “lead to an increase in reportage that is not based on facts.” Monday’s report by the council instead proposes establishing a “common platform” shared by broadcasters for livestreaming their content, and improving the business infrastructure of local TV stations. To make Japan’s broadcast industry more globally competitive, it suggests “fundamentally strengthening” international broadcasting by NHK and further investing in efforts to clamp down on “illegal content” that undermines the profits of Japanese anime, including measures against pirate websites. The recommendations also include a series of measures aimed at helping overseas students land jobs in Japan. The council, for one thing, proposed streamlining the red tape that small and midsize companies currently must go through to hire foreign students. The council took issue with the dearth of Japanese universities whose foreign graduates are designated by the Justice Minister as eligible to receive extra points under the government-backed “highly skilled foreign professionals” program. The report says the number of such institutions, which currently stands at 13, should be increased so that more students will qualify for a variety of visa perks granted by the program and feel encouraged to keep working in Japan. In another suggestion, the council said not only local municipalities but universities should be declared eligible to help aspiring foreign entrepreneurs prepare capital of ¥5 million — the amount they need to amass to switch their visa status from students to business managers. Currently, local governments are allowed to finance up to ¥2 million on behalf of students.

shinzo abe
jobs
foreign students
broadcast law
broadcasters
regulatory reforms


In tattoo-taboo Japan, new website offers helping hand for those with ink

Abstract: In tattoo-taboo Japan, those who are inked-up have received a helping hand — in both English and Japanese — with the launch of a new website that offers information about tattoo-friendly hot springs and other locations nationwide. Launched last week, the Tattoo Friendly website lists more than 600 hotels, ryokan (inns), onsen (hot springs), sentō (public baths), gyms, pools and beaches across the country, rating them by how open they are to those sporting tattoos. Users can use a map and filters on the site to view details about each spot, with their tattoo policies ranging from lenient — “unrestricted” and “covered tattoos accepted” — to those that are a little more strict, with only smaller tattoos or tattoos with “special conditions” allowed. The website also has columns on topics such as bathing manners and the history of tattoos in Japan — which has long shunned them due to their association with yakuza. Miho Kawasaki, the website’s administrator and a former editor of the now-defunct Japanese magazine Tattoo Burst, said she was motivated to establish a universal platform for tattooed tourists after being contacted by a number of visitors asking about hot springs that accept them. Because some spots do not clearly indicate their no-tattoo policies online, some visitors told her they were told not to enter the facilities only after checking in. Prohibitions on tattooed visitors to public bathhouses in the country were originally put in place to deny the entry of yakuza members, many of whom are tattooed. However, Kawasaki said tattoos, which have gained popularity globally, have increasingly been recognized as legitimate forms of fashion — a shift that is expected to become even more clear with an increase in foreign tourists in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The view of tattoos has also undergone a change in the Japanese travel and leisure industry, Kawasaki said, amid a shift in focus from group tours to more personalized, individual tourism, with each facility vying to attract visitors by offering a variety of special options. As this trend grows, the rigid, negative reaction to those with tattoos no longer makes sense, Kawasaki suggested. “Tattoo-friendliness should be one of the various individual preferences for amenities, just like pet-friendliness or wheelchair-accessibility,” she said.


Endangered mountain gorilla population recovers to over 1,000

Abstract: GOMA, CONGO - The population of mountain gorillas, one of the world’s most endangered species, which survives on the forest-cloaked volcanoes of central Africa, has increased by a quarter to over 1,000 individuals since 2010, wildlife authorities said. That is despite the threat posed by poachers and armed groups in the Virunga Massif, a spine of volcanic mountains in the western Rift Valley straddling eastern Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, where most of them reside. The latest census put them at 1,004 individuals: 604 in Virunga, and 400 in Uganda’s nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Joel Wenga Malembe, spokesman for the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, told Reuters. The last survey, in 2010, found just 786 of this critically endangered eastern gorilla sub-species, of which 480 were in Virunga. “These numbers are truly remarkable, far exceeding our expectations, and are the result of a collaborative, three-country effort with governments and partners all playing an important role,” Mike Cranfield, of charity Gorilla Doctors, said in a statement. Partly because they are so rare, the mountain gorillas are a major source of tourist revenue for the three nations, and their habitat supports other rare species found nowhere else such as golden monkeys. But they are under constant threat of encroachment by farmers in one of Africa’s most densely populated rural regions, and hunting for bush meat or bizarre trophies sold abroad. Congo has also invited oil companies to start drilling in Virunga, Africa’s largest tropical rainforest reserve, which conservationists worry will put the environment in greater danger. Adding to Virunga’s woes, rangers banned tourists this month from entering the park during investigations into the kidnapping of two Britons by an armed militia.

nature animals endangered uganda congo rwanda gorillas


Memory athletes could be on the right track to a longer life

Abstract: Akira Haraguchi, of Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, is a world-class athlete, and in his particular sport he is the best in the world. You might be puzzled if you saw him: He’s 72, a retired engineer and doesn’t look like a reigning world champion. But his sport is played in the mind, and Haraguchi’s mind is trained to the very highest level. He is a memory athlete. In 2006, Haraguchi recited the mathematical constant pi to 100,000 digits, in a feat that lasted more than 16 hours. Pi, of course, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and is an infinite and irrational number. That means it goes on forever, with no repeating patterns of numbers. To Haraguchi, pi represents a religious quest for meaning. “Reciting pi’s digits has the same meaning as chanting the Buddhist mantra and meditating,” he says. “Everything that circles around carries the spirit of the Buddha. I think pi is the ultimate example of that.” He spends an hour a day reciting the numbers. He is the world champion, although Guinness World Records has not recognized his recitation. Since the 2006 breakthrough, he has posted videos of himself reciting yet more of pi. His current record is 111,700. The official Guinness record holder is 23-year-old Rajveer Meena from Sawai Madhopur district in Rajasthan, India. On March 21, 2015, at the Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu, Meena recited pi to 70,000 decimal places. He was blindfolded. The feat took him nine hours and seven minutes. One of the factors motivating him, he told me, was his upbringing. He wanted to show that despite his humble background, he could win the world’s toughest memory challenge. These memory wizards have different motivations, and use different techniques, but they all essentially convert the numbers into a story. When they tell the story in their heads,they translate it back into digits and recite the numbers. It’s a technique anyone can learn, should you want to become a memory athlete. Haraguchi’s system is based on the Japanese kana alphabet. The first fifty digits of his system read (translated into English): “Well, I, that fragile being who left my hometown to find peace of mind, am going to die in the dark corners; it’s easy to die, but I stay positive.” One hopes that in the rest of the 100,000 digits the story picks up a bit. For the memory chapter in my book “Superhuman,” I wanted to understand the people, like Haraguchi, who memorize pi, and I felt like I ought to get to know the number a bit better than the first few digits that I know, 3.14159. So I spent some time scrolling through a web page listing pi to 1 billion digits. It’s a mesmerizing experience. I scrolled down steadily for some time, and the scroll marker in the margin was still only about 5 percent of the way down the page. I felt my mind could unravel if I did this for too long. The tumbling numbers recalled “The Matrix,” but obviously I couldn’t see anything in them, because there isn’t anything in them. Pi is infinite, and so far has been calculated to 22 trillion digits. No one has (yet?) posted this number online. Haraguchi finds spiritual value in his endeavors. But he has another motivation: to improve human cognition. There’s another chapter in my book that’s on longevity, and as I write, a few weeks ago the then-oldest person in the world died. On April 21, Nabi Tajima died in Kikai, Kagoshima, at the age of 117 years and 260 days. She was the third-oldest person in human history. As always happens when a person attains great age, they are asked the secret of their longevity. Tajima said it was sleeping soundly and eating delicious food. Nice. But for most of us it will take more than that. We need to work to keep our minds active. This is now thought to protect against dementia, and it points to another of Haraguchi’s motivations: He wants to develop a method to help people recover from dementia. There are 47 million people in the world suffering from dementia. In one 10-year study of people over 65, scientists found that a kind of brain training that exercises the memory helped protect against subsequent dementia. Haraguchi might be on to something. Some people have a natural resistance to the ravages of time. Nabi Tajima was one. She escaped having serious illness her entire life. Scientists have classed people like Tajima, over 90 but with well-functioning memories, as superagers. When they eventually die and their brains are examined, researchers found that some do indeed display the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, but they hadn’t shown the usual loss of memory. By studying these people we can start to understand how we can all live to a great age, and do it with our memories, and our minds, intact.

alzheimer 's
pi
superhuman
nabi tajima
memory athlete
akira haraguchi
rajveer meen
superager


Top Iwate brewery turns to AI for high-tech assist with sake

Abstract: MORIOKA, IWATE PREF. - An award-winning sake brewery in the Tohoku region is eyeing a new approach to sake production that uses artificial intelligence to assist skilled workers. Nanbu Bijin Co. in Ninohe, Iwate Prefecture, is developing an AI tool to find the best time to drain water in the steeping process for rice before it gets steamed. The company aims to see AI put in practical use in several years. “We would like to develop AI to partner with our workers to help resolve the manpower shortage (at breweries in Japan),” said Nanbu Bijin President Kosuke Kuji, 46. The company, whose origins date back to the early 1900s, won the top sake title in the junmai category for its Nanbu Bijin Tokubetsu Junmai at the International Wine Challenge 2017. Junmai sake is made of only rice, kōji (mold) and water. The brewery also received a kosher certification for sake and sugar-free plum sake in 2013, among other achievements. To figure out how long to steep the rice, Nanbu Bijin’s head brewer and others use stopwatches while accounting for the variety of rice and the water temperature after pouring both into a 5-ton tank. The person in charge of the brewing is the tōji and oversees the other workers. “If water absorption rates change, even by 1 percent, the taste of sake will change. It is the most crucial process, relying on artisans’ experience and intuition,” Kuji said. The idea for using AI to improve the process was proposed by Ima Inc. in Tokyo, which has been supporting traditional Japanese industries through the use of information technology. Images of the water absorption process will be captured every few seconds and the data can be accumulated for analysis. “I would like to raise the standard of Japan’s brewing industry through cutting-edge technology,” said Ami Miura, the 32-year-old president of Ima. Kuji’s family has run Nanbu Bijin for five generations since its founding in 1902. Master brewer Junji Matsumori and Kuji inherited their brewing techniques from the late Hajime Yamaguchi, who, according to the company, was known as one of the top sake brewers in Japan. Both Kuji and Matsumori are certified as skilled brewers by the Iwate Prefectural Government. Along with the growing washoku (Japanese cuisine) boom, Nanbu Bijin has experienced a similar expansion in its exports, which now reach 28 countries including Russia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as cities like New York and London. According to the Nanbu tōji guild in Hanamaki in the prefecture, 241 master brewers were registered as of 2007, a number that dropped to 182 in 2017 after many skilled brewers retired. “It takes a long time to foster skillful workers. If we complete this AI tool, we can engage in making even better sake because the tool will be applicable at any brewery,” Kuji said.

sake
iwate prefecture
artificial intelligence
breweries
nanbu bijin


Can Hirokazu Kore-eda's success with 'Shoplifters' shed some light on poverty in Japan?

Abstract: Director Hirokazu Kore-eda recently won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for “Shoplifters,” a critically acclaimed family drama that was partially inspired by real-life events. It attempts to depict a slice of life in which people are struggling to make ends meet, a set of circumstances that can be easily forgotten about unless you’re unfortunate enough to be facing the same financial hardship. According to the Mainichi Shimbun, shoplifting nationwide is estimated to set the country back about ¥400 billion ($3.6 billion) each year. Studies by the National Police Agency and other organizations indicate that the majority of shoplifters are motivated by economic strife, especially the elderly. According to the National Police Agency, 72 percent of all cases involving a person aged 80 or older who are arrested for shoplifting involve food. Eighty-three percent of all such arrests involve theft committed at a supermarket. These figures speak for themselves. “Shoplifters” depicts an impoverished family that, while living on a grandmother’s meager — and fraudulent — pension, sends their children to steal from stores. The family lives in a house owned by the grandmother (Kirin Kiki), who keeps her ex-husband’s photo on a Buddhist altar and draws out his pension every month to supplement her own. It’s the family’s only steady source of income. The parents — mother Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) and father (Lily Franky) — earn minimum wages doing part-time work. Nobuyo’s younger sister, Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), works at a “JK”-themed sex shop. JK stands for joshi kosei (female high school students). The family supplements its low income by shoplifting. Kore-eda, who also wrote the screenplay, said in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun that the film is first and foremost a universal look at the definition of a family. However, he also wanted to draw attention to the invisible people in society and the social problems that are being overlooked. He said he was inspired by media reports about people fraudulently claiming pensions when he was writing the script for the movie. It turns out that several families in recent years might fit this description. In February 2015, police in Kagawa Prefecture arrested a 25-year-old part-time worker and his 26-year-old wife on charges of theft for making their 6-year-old son steal toys from a mall. The boy was instructed to steal several figurines worth ¥89,000, which he in turn handed to his mother waiting outside. The father then sold them at a recycling shop. The family lived together with a 2-year-old daughter. In March 2015, police in Osaka arrested a 36-year-old father and 33-year-old mother on theft charges for making their three children: two boys aged 12 and 14, and their 9-year-old daughter, repeatedly engage in theft. On Oct. 25, 2014, the parents are believed to have ordered the children to steal three sets of fishing equipment worth ¥17,000 from a retail store. Upon being confronted about the theft, the parents denied the charges and claimed the children acted on their own volition. However, security camera footage and telephone emails back and forth between the parents provided evidence that was conclusive enough for the police to press charges. The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the family often went fishing together and that they had carried out the crime in several other fishing shops before finally being caught. The younger children were taken into protective custody, while the 14-year-old son was tried as a juvenile and sent to reform school. In March 2017, a mother and an adopted son were arrested and charged by police in Saitama Prefecture with theft. The pair were accused of ordering another son and 6-year-old daughter to steal toy robots and other merchandise worth roughly ¥130,000. The pair then sold off the toys for cash. The mother reportedly told police that the family was having a hard time getting by. One can imagine that the above cases are a mere drop in the ocean when you consider the billions of yen that are lost each year to shoplifting. Government figures show that as many as 1 in 6 children live in poverty, which suggests that the problem is perhaps more widespread than you might think. A veteran detective in the Metropolitan Police Department who has handled cases of theft for 20 years believes shoplifting is a microcosm of all social ills. “There have always been people of all ages doing it for a kick: kids, housewives, retiree,” he says, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Nowadays, however, we are catching people stealing sashimi, bread, daily essentials, etc. The children and elderly we catch are often motivated by simple hunger. They’ve fallen through the invisible safety net and end up in custody.” Those who live on the fringes of society are often extremely visible to the police. If Kore-eda’s film is able to shine a spotlight on those among us who are struggling with poverty, then that could ultimately lead to something of a happy ending. For the time being, however, those who find themselves living on the fringes of society and feel they have to resort to shoplifting in order to get by can find themselves in the country’s final “safety net” — a jail cell.

theft
shoplifters
shoplifting
hirokazu kore-eda


Smartphones leading charge to shame troublemakers online

Abstract: Everyone in Tokyo has a commuting horror story, but sometimes you need to see an example of some really rough behavior on the trains with your own eyes to understand just how bad some people have it. An act of violence recorded on a smartphone in Shinjuku Station attracted plenty of attention online recently. Viewers were shocked to see a man specifically targeting women — although it didn’t take long before some commenters spoke up to say that such behavior wasn’t altogether out of the ordinary. On the evening of May 25, Twitter user @____s__7_ uploaded a video that showed footage of a man from behind as he walked through Shinjuku Station wearing a backpack. Within the first 10 seconds of the video, the man appears to change tack and head toward a pair of women walking in the opposite direction, putting his shoulder into the woman closest to him as he passes by. He appears to repeat this action on another woman in similar circumstances seconds later. The user who shared the video said he’d seen him do the same thing to 10 other women before filming. From there, the man brushes the shoulders of a few other women as he walks through the station. He appears to avoid other male commuters during his walk and, as several commentators have noted, women who were accompanied by men. The 44-second clip spread quickly online. The original Twitter upload was viewed several million times before being taken down by the uploader, while a YouTube version has attracted more than 250,000 views. Websites aggregated both the video and its reaction before the issue was eventually picked up by more trusted online-focused outlets . A TV program even tried reaching out to the person who originally shared it for additional information . Initially, netizens responded with anger and disgust . Online viewers quickly picked up on the fact the person in the video was targeting women, an action that fueled the initial discussion and helped it spread across the platform. According to J-Cast , a number of Twitter users argued that his actions could be especially dangerous to commuters who are pregnant. Internet discourse in 2018 can often be contentious, but this issue found the majority of people united in outrage over the man’s apparent intentions. The discussion also encouraged other women to share similar experiences. This, they argued, wasn’t an isolated incident, but something they put up with frequently. A report on TV Asahi’s May 29 episode of “Morning Show” that focused on the footage found that 21 of the 50 women interviewed for the show had experienced something similar. In the week after the clip went viral, more articles emerged that echoed those findings. Yet a similar airing of grievances happened at the start of last month, too. Twitter user @ohnuki_tsuyoshi wrote on May 7 that female relatives and friends had told him about the increased number of incidents in which men had intentionally crashed into them. That post also went viral and yet it didn’t quite create the same outcry as the Shinjuku Station incident, which took it to the next level. It’s safe to say that the latter incident garnered more attention because it was accompanied by a video that had been shot on a smartphone. This, it seems, is where the real power lies online in Japan these days. Almost everyone agreed that it was wrong to shoulder-barge women, but some responders to the original tweet noted that filming people in public was also questionable . It’s a longstanding issue that pops up frequently — remember the conveyor belt sushi video ? — and which attorney Kyoko Hijikata summed up in a 2015 Japan Times contribution as being “acceptable, but only if it can be justified in the circumstances.” However, recent times have seen an uptick in videos on social media that have been uploaded explicitly to shame disgusting and dangerous behavior. Specific examples include a clip of a bus driver playing “Pokemon Go” on his smartphone while operating the vehicle and an older gentlemen throwing liquid on another man aboard a train before dashing away. Footage of fights between gang members have circulated in the past, but an increasing number of videos capture bad behavior on trains and in stations (including popular compilations resembling “what not to do on public transit” tutorials). While these uploads sometimes feel like comedy ripped from everyday life, they’re increasingly showing how common bad behavior can be and serving as a way to warn others from doing the same, lest they get captured on camera and shamed online. This is particularly true for actions aimed at women. Around the same time as the Shinjuku Station video went viral, another clip of a man touching women inappropriately on the street emerged on Twitter as well. More importantly, sharing such videos is having real-world consequences. JR East, for example, says it plans to increase security at its stations in the wake of the video. It’s a nice reminder that people can indeed bring about change in society by supporting various grass-roots campaigns on social media, or using their own footage to steer people away from copying their questionable behavior.


Market forces in Japan failing to tackle growing plastics problem

Abstract: Last month, news outlets all over the world reported on the discovery of a plastic shopping bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench near the Philippines , the deepest point in the Earth’s oceans. The discovery was made by a group of Japanese researchers studying images from deep-sea exploration projects, and what’s chilling about the finding is that it was from footage recorded in 1998, which likely means even more plastic has accumulated at the bottom of the sea in the meantime. In spite of the Japanese angle, the story wasn’t picked up domestically with the same measure of alarm as it was overseas. That’s especially odd because Japan is surrounded by ocean, and the problem of plastics in the sea has become a topic of intense concern. One significant wake-up call was China’s announcement that it would no longer accept imports of waste plastic for recycling . In response, the European Union has proposed much stricter standards for one-use plastic packaging and paraphernalia , including a possible ban on plastic straws and stirrers. Japan has announced no similar countermeasures even though China’s move affects Japan more directly. Japan exported 72 percent of its waste plastic to China in 2017, according to the May 9 installment of the NHK in-depth news program “ Close-up Gendai ,” and will now either have to find a new destination for this refuse or handle it on its own. “Close-up Gendai” starts by citing a BBC report that states how China’s announcement has sent shock waves throughout the world. The NHK announcer says that so far there has been no appreciable effect on Japan, but storage for plastic waste has reached saturation levels in many places. China’s standard of living has improved greatly in recent decades and the damaging effects of plastic consumption on the environment have gained more weight than the “demand” for waste plastic as a “resource.” China means to clean up its act, and thus will no longer be the dumping ground for the world’s plastic. Despite the dire implications, NHK sounded hopeful about the future. The term “ shigen gomi ” (“recyclable garbage”) was used commonly throughout the program when referring to waste plastic in Japan, with the twin countermeasures being commerce and technology. With regard to the former, Thailand was mentioned as a candidate for some of Japan’s plastic waste, and the show spotlighted a Chinese-Japanese entrepreneur who is looking for business opportunities in Thailand for accepting plastic. A Thai bureaucrat mentions, however, that at the moment they can take this waste, but that soon they will be overloaded, implying that, like China, Thailand aims to move away from its status as a developing country. There is a temporal limitation to any strategy that involves shipping waste to other countries, and as Tohoku University professor Yu Jeong-soo , who studies the matter, tells the announcer in the studio, shipping costs will become prohibitive when Southeast Asia no longer accepts such shipments. That leaves technology as a likely way out, or so NHK contends, which means more effective recycling efforts and, in turn, a larger range of products that can be made from waste plastic. Mention is made of recycled plastic as fuel for paper mills but, with more domestic businesses going paperless, that solution has no future. The local government of Miyagi Prefecture subsidizes enterprises that convert plastic waste into something else. Monetary gain is the incentive, and some companies have created household and industrial products from recycled plastic waste, though no one notes that since these items are plastic themselves, they will someday be waste that once again has to be processed. The elephant in the room is finally addressed by Yu, who states that society has become too dependent on recycling. If this statement sounds counterintuitive — recycling has always been a fundamental activity of the environmental movement — it’s because the show ended before there was any discussion of the statement’s ramification, which is that the banning of plastic packaging and paraphernalia may be the only solution in the long run. The gist of NHK’s presentation was that Japan has good plastic recycling programs and yet no capacity to store and process any more, especially now that the Chinese are out of the picture. What will become of the accumulating surplus? The mantra for responsible waste handling has always been “reduce, reuse, recycle,” and recycle is third in line for a reason. In Japan, it’s portrayed as a noble civic undertaking. On many local government homepages you will find a video explaining the locality’s recycling activities , with PET bottles and plastic bags being turned into consumer items or even reduced to their constituent elements. Some local governments do discourage the use of plastics , usually in the area of reji-bukuro (plastic bags given out at stores), but outright bans are extremely rare. The recycling movement does have its detractors, the most controversial being professor Kunihiko Takeda of Chubu University, a media pundit known for his iconoclastic stances on everything from marijuana decriminalization (for) to recycling ( against ). Takeda’s arguments are often based on economic efficacy. Plastic is made from by-products of petroleum refining that would otherwise go to waste. Recycling plastic costs much more than making plastic from scratch and requires lots of energy, water and manpower. Takeda thinks it’s better to bury or burn plastic waste, and some governments agree with him , though obviously the only real solution is reduction. Just as we have to wean ourselves from fossil fuels to achieve a future that’s energy sustainable, we need to move away from polyethylene and polypropylene to restore our environment to a state that’s survivable. You can’t rely on market forces to solve the plastics problem — only rigorous public policy can do that.


Japan Times 1918: Teacher's house stoned after racial epithet

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Sunday, June 9 1918 Teacher’s house stoned after racial epithet | THE JAPAN TIMES Twenty-three students of the Odate Middle School in Akita Prefecture in northwestern Japan attacked the house of Mr. Kishida, instructor of natural history in the school, twice on the night of June 2, throwing stones and destroying the windows and paper slides of the house. The teacher and his family, terrified at the sudden assault, ran outdoors and took refuge in a neighbor’s house. The students have been punished by suspension from school indefinitely. A few days before this incident, the school was going to hold an athletic meet, but owing to rainfall in the facility postponed it. The students of the higher class objected and insisted on holding the meet notwithstanding the inclement weather. The instructor reprimanded the students and went to the length of calling them the descendants of the Ainus, perhaps from theories he entertained as a scholar of natural history. This unenviable epithet was enough to call forth the indignation of the students, who resorted to an assault in force to avenge the insult. 75 YEARS AGO Thursday, June 10, 1943 POWs’ mutual hatred sparks fight in camp | THE JAPAN TIMES The Tokyo War Prisoners Camp No. 2 was the scene of a fist fight between an American private and a Dutch infantry sergeant when the supercilious contempt of the Americans for the Dutch on the one hand, and the brooding resentment of the latter against the former on the other, came to a clash which might have caused a major disturbance but for the quick interference of a Japanese sentry, it was learned yesterday. The fight took place in the dining room and a free-for-all was barely averted by a Japanese sentry who, being drawn by the clamor, rushed into the room and separated the belligerents, John Edward Rich, an American private of the 131st Field Artillery, and Cornelis Bertsch, sergeant of the 1st Battalion Infantry, Bandoeng. For some time past, it was disclosed, there has been a bad feeling between the American and British prisoners of war on the one hand, and the Dutch on the other. The Americans and British had a tendency to look down on the Dutch. On March 4, as the afternoon meal was being distributed, John Rich, who was in charge of serving the Americans, approached Bertsch, and calling him a “greedy pig,” said that he was eating too much — like all Dutchmen. On the table assigned to the Dutch prisoners were some plates of plump-looking sardines. As Bertsch glowered at the American private, Rich stretched out a hand and, remarking that Dutchmen didn’t have to eat sardines, tried to take away one of the plates to the American side. Bertsch endeavored to prevent Rich but, failing to do so, he lashed out with his fist. Rich retaliated in like fashion. The room was thrown into confusion and, had not the Japanese sentry rushed in instantly, a free-for-all battle might have broken out. 50 YEARS AGO Monday, June 17, 1968 Terrorist incident on Yokosuka Line kills 1 | THE JAPAN TIMES One person was killed and 26 others were injured in an explosion of what was believed to be a time-bomb on a moving Tokyo-bound train of the Yokosuka Line near Ofuna Station, 18 kilometers south of Yokohama. Isamu Hiroshima, 30, from the Tokyo suburbs of Musashino died late Sunday night from brain damage. Six other persons were in serious condition. The blast, apparently from a time-bomb left on a baggage rack, occurred as the train was pulling into Ofuna Station. Police believed an explosive device could have been planted in the Japanese National Railways train by the same person who set off a time-bomb on the same day one year ago on a train of the private Sanyo Electric Railways in Kobe, killing two passengers and injuring 29 others. Both incidents occurred on Father’s Day, the third Sunday in June. Fragments of a clock, a piece of steel pipe and four dry batteries were found by the police in the Yokosuka Line train’s sixth coach in which the blast was set off at 3:28 p.m. Most of the window panes in the sixth coach were broken and several holes were made in the ceiling by the impact of the explosion. Eyewitnesses said white smoke billowed from a baggage rack, and some passengers, with blood oozing from their faces and heads, fell to the floor. The Tokyo-bound train was only about 300 meters away from Ofuna Station when the explosion occurred. The motorman brought the train to the station and asked for ambulances. The train was knocked off schedule. 25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, June 9, 1993 Overuse of foreign words criticized | THE JAPAN TIMES The Japanese language faces several problems, including the excessive use of words of foreign origin, an advisory panel to the Education Ministry reported. The issues raised in the report, written by the Council on the National Language, will be discussed in the fall. The council said that even in written Japanese, people are using words of foreign origin — including “identity,” “restructuring,” “global” and “needs” — although the Japanese language has its own counterpart words. It also called on government agencies to be prudent in using such terms as ODA (official development assistance) and PKO (peacekeeping operations). They should use words that are simple and easily understood, the council added. In this feature, we delve into The Japan Times’ 120-year archive to present a selection of stories from the past. The Japan Times’ entire archive is now available to purchase in digital format. For more details, see jtimes.jp/de .

wwii
terrorism
ainu
world war ii
akita
oda
pko
prisoners of war
yokosuka line
ofuna


How early 20th-century Japanese rice breeders shaped the future of the staple food in Taiwan

Abstract: TAIPEI - Rice has been grown in Taiwan for centuries, but many modern varieties of the island’s staple food have their origins in Japan. While the earliest written record of rice being cultivated on the subtropical island dates back to 1602, archaeologists have found evidence that aboriginal groups collected wild varieties as early as 5,000 B.C. Today, however, Taiwan’s rice producers are feeling more than a little anxious about their prospects. Per capita rice consumption has plunged from 132 kg to just 45 kg in the last 40 years, as rising affluence has led to an increase in the consumption of imported staples such as wheat, along with meat and other animal-based proteins. Concerns have been muted until recently. With Taiwan now showing a 10 to 15 percent surplus in supply, officials in government, industry and researchers are looking for ways to reverse the trend. This is not the first time Taiwan’s rice growers have faced problems. When Chinese migrants came to the island in the 16th century, they brought a long-grain species of rice called indica that easily adapted to the new climate, which was much like its native habitat in South and Southeast Asia. However, when Japanese arrived in 1895, they brought a different variety called japonica, which is short-grained and starchy and widely consumed in Japan, the Koreas and northern China. Their intention back then was to grow rice for their home market as part of an official policy meant to offset a decrease in rice production due to industrialization. Their motivation to find new agricultural opportunities increased a decade later because of price hikes resulting from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Unfortunately, japonica did not respond well to Taiwan’s subtropical climate and abundance of sunlight. Crop after crop of japonica failed, as did efforts to develop indica varieties acceptable to Japanese consumers. After 25 years of frustration, two discoveries were made that resolved the problem, while altering the Taiwanese diet forever. The first occurred in 1921 when it was found that a variety of japonica from Kyushu, known as Nakamura rice, could be grown near Bamboo Lake in the mountains north of Taipei. This led to the cultivation of other Japanese cultivars at higher altitudes, although efforts to move these to flat lowlands favorable to production farming in Taiwan continued to fail. Then in 1923, a Japanese rice breeder named Megumu Suenaga discovered a new cropping scheme for growing the rice at a lower altitude. Suenaga, who later headed a rice experiment laboratory in central Taiwan now called the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, found that Nakamura rice reached the highest yield potential if seedlings were transplanted from their seedbeds into the flooded fields earlier than native varieties and at a shallower depth. In 1925, Japanese administrators abandoned the indica breeding program and doubled down on japonica, adopting the name Ponlai for Nakamura rice grown in Taiwan a year later. Suenaga’s supervisor, Eikichi Iso, also played an important role in developing new strains of japonica in Taiwan. Iso published an article in 1928 that led to the successful breeding of a new Ponlai variety that became the parent of a major staple of the Taiwanese diet. Crossing the japonica varieties of Kameji and Sinliki, the new hybrid, Taichung No. 65, combined the characteristics needed to grow rice in Taiwan for the Japanese market: short round grains, sticky texture, high production yields and the ability to withstand local pests, heat and sunlight. Since 1929, researchers at the Taichung station have planted and harvested Taichung No. 65 as a recurrent parent for the station’s ongoing rice breeding program. To commemorate his contribution to Taiwan, the station has a bronze statue of Suenaga, who is fondly remembered as “the mother of Taiwanese japonica rice.” For his part, Iso has been dubbed the “father,” and his laboratory, a row of wooden Japanese-style bungalows at Taihoku Imperial University, the predecessor of today’s National Taiwan University, was designated a historic site by the city of Taipei in 2009. “Without Japanese rice breeders, the rice we grow today in Taiwan would not exist,” said Lin Hsueh-shih, head of the Taichung district research station. Putting it more bluntly, Chen Jen-ping, director general of Taiwan’s Agriculture and Food Agency, said, “The DNA of Taiwanese rice originated in Japan.” Taiwan’s experiment stations continue to breed new strains of rice. While the focus remains on japonica, some farmers continue to grow indica, mainly for use in processed foods. The most recent indica rice variety is Taichung No. 197, which was bred specifically for products such as rice noodles, rice cakes and various products used in baking. Apart from the decades it took to grow japonica in Taiwan, other problems have challenged researchers over the years. Issues are likely to continue to arise, especially in areas such as drought and pest control as climate change begins to affect agriculture. However, consumption has never been a problem until now, and breeders are once again being called upon to meet the needs of government and industry as they seek solutions to dietary change. Taiwan is not alone in dealing with waning rice consumption. Affluence has also affected other countries in a similar way in the region, such as Japan, where recent figures show that per capita annual consumption is now 54.4 kg, less than half the amount consumed 50 years ago. Similarly, per capita rice consumption in South Korea dropped to a record low last year, and has experienced a more than 50 percent drop since 1970. Unlike South Korea, Taiwan has not reduced the amount of land allocated to growing rice. Nor does it encourage farmers to grow more rice to feed livestock, as in Japan. Instead, Taiwanese farmers have been encouraged to sustain production, while researchers in government and industry seek a solution to oversupply by way of marketing and development. In addition to new product lines, the Agriculture and Food Agency established an online platform in April that allows consumers to purchase rice-based foods. Apart from the domestic market, the agency is eyeing the more than 10 million foreign tourists who visit Taiwan annually, especially those who come from japonica-growing countries like Japan.


U.S. sailors honor Pearl Harbor survivor during one last visit

Abstract: PEARL HARBOR, HAWAII - Ray Emory survived the early morning surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that killed nearly 2,400 servicemen nearly 80 years ago. The 97-year-old never forgot those who died that day, spending the past few decades doggedly pushing for the remains of those buried as unknowns to be identified and returned to their families. Clutching a walker and stepping tentatively, Emory returned to Pearl Harbor for one last visit before he leaves his Hawaii home to live in Boise, Idaho, with his son. He expected to stop at the pier where his ship, the USS Honolulu, was moored on Dec. 7, 1941, and stay for three or four minutes and then go home. Instead more than 500 sailors stood side-by-side on ships and piers to surprise him. They greeted him with salutes as he arrived on a golf cart and shouted cheers of “Hip, Hip, Hooray!” Lt. Ryan Donohue, chief engineer on USS O’Kane, said it was important for sailors to remember those who sacrificed on Dec. 7. “I think it’s important that we know where we come from — the different events that transpired, about how we have our freedom today,” he said. Emory took the microphone during a ceremony in his honor and recited the names of dozens of ships that were in Pearl Harbor the day of the attack. “I’m glad I came and I’ll never forget it,” Emory told reporters afterward. Emory is leaving Hawaii because his wife died about a month ago and he doesn’t have family in the islands. He plans to go fishing in Idaho. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, Emory managed to fire a few rounds at the airplanes that dropped the torpedoes. He still has an empty bullet casing that fell to his ship deck. In 2012, the Navy and National Park Service recognized Emory for his work with the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to honor and remember Pearl Harbor’s dead. Bureaucrats didn’t welcome his efforts, at least not initially. Emory says they politely told him to “‘go you-know-where.’ ” It didn’t deter him. First, thanks to legislation sponsored by the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii, he managed to get gravestones for unknowns from the USS Arizona marked with name of their battleship. In 2003, the military agreed to dig up a casket that Emory was convinced, after meticulously studying records, included the remains of multiple USS Oklahoma servicemen. Emory was right, and five sailors were identified. It helped lay the foundation for the Pentagon’s decision more than a decade later to exhume and attempt to identify all 388 sailors and Marines from the Oklahoma who had been buried as unknowns in a national cemetery in Honolulu. Since those 2015 exhumations, 138 sailors from the Oklahoma have been identified. About 77 have been reburied, many in their hometowns, bringing closure to families across the country. “Ray, you’re the man that did it. There’s nobody else. If it wasn’t for you, it would have never been done,” Jim Taylor, the Navy’s liaison to Pearl Harbor survivors, told Emory during the brief ceremony earlier this month at the USS Honolulu’s old pier. Taylor predicted Emory would return to his research on unknowns once he’s in Idaho. “He’ll do this until the day he joins his wife in heaven,” Taylor said. Some of the remains, especially those burned to ash, will never be identified. But the military aims to put names with 80 percent of the Oklahoma servicemen who were dug up in 2015. Altogether, the Pearl Harbor attack killed nearly 2,400 U.S. servicemen. The Oklahoma lost 429 men after being hit by at least nine torpedoes. It was the second-largest number of dead from one vessel. The USS Arizona lost 1,177 sailors and Marines. Most of those killed on the Arizona remain entombed in the sunken hull of the battleship. The Pentagon has also exhumed the remains of 35 servicemen from the USS West Virginia from Honolulu’s National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. None have been identified so far.

conflict
wwii
history
pearl harbor
japan-u.s. relations


Rail car mover, used to carry bricks in Gifu, to be restored 40 years after retirement

Abstract: Efforts are underway to restore an abandoned freight car mover that was used until some 40 years ago to carry firebricks at a brick factory in the major ceramics production town of Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture. Kobei Kato, 72, the seventh-generation master of local pottery Kobei-gama and a rail fan who had kept the car mover, has been working since spring with Masahiro Sasada, 46, a dermatologist and a railway writer from Koka, Shiga Prefecture, to restore the machine so it can be put on display as an artefact of industrial heritage. The car mover is a C2-type vehicle that had been used on a siding at a factory run by TYK Corp., a refractory manufacturer in Tajimi. From 1949, the then Japanese National Railways manufactured 140 car movers, each weighing 5 tons and measuring 3.5 meters in length and 2 meters in width, during the postwar period when resources were scarce. They were built with secondhand 40 horsepower gasoline engines used for buses, and equipped with accelerator and brake pedals like cars. The vehicles were said to have been able to move only at a speed of about 10 kilometers per hour. The car mover came to the TYK factory after being used by Japanese National Railways. It pulled freight cars carrying firebricks to the nearby Ichinokuraguchi Station of Tohnoh Tetsudou Co.’s now-defunct Kasahara Line. The firebricks were then distributed nationwide via the Kasahara Line and the JNR. After the Kasahara Line was closed, in 1978, the car mover was retired, and had long been abandoned on the factory grounds. About 15 years ago, Kato passed by the factory and noticed the vehicle. He told then-TYK President Susumu Ushigome he would like to adopt the car mover and keep it on the grounds of Kobei-gama. Sasada learned about the car mover from a readers’ column in a railway magazine. He said he was excited to find out that the vehicle still existed, believing that it is the only remaining car mover of its type. He visited Kato last fall and requested that the vehicle be restored, and the collaboration started. Until this spring leaving the vehicle outdoors had been unavoidable, and it had become quite weather-beaten. The iron plating was rusty and had holes in it, and the wood floor was rotted. They filled the holes with an aluminum sheet and replaced the floor. They also painted the vehicle yellow, based on earlier photographs, but they have said it is difficult to repair the engine. The car mover is currently on a 10-meter-long railway track in the pottery grounds, but Kato plans to extend the track by about 10 meters and build a roofed garage as well. “When the restoration work is done, I want to see the vehicle towed by manpower,” Kato said. “I want to give it a name.” “I’m glad to feel like the vehicle has been brought back to life,” Sasada said. They plan to hold an event this summer to show the restored vehicle to the public.


Osaka earthquake: Useful links and resources

Abstract: Here is a collection of links in English and Japanese that might prove useful in dealing with the earthquake that struck the Osaka region Monday morning: Government agencies Japan Meteorological Agency Disaster preparedness Railways and subways JR West Osaka Metro Power and gas companies Kansai Electric Tourist emergencies Osaka Convention and Tourism Bureau NTT East, disaster emergency information Earthquake-related resources Getting a handle on earthquakes Shindo: Japan’s earthquake intensity scale Links in Japanese Cabinet Office Japan Meteorological Agency Osaka Metro JR West

osaka
earthquake
kepco
meteorological agency
fukui nuclear plants