'This is taking an awfully long time!' says scientist before assisted suicide

Abstract: ZURICH - A 104-year-old Australian scientist killed himself in Switzerland on Thursday by lethal injection in an assisted suicide he hoped would trigger more lenient euthanasia laws in his home country. British-born David Goodall, who was not terminally ill, personally triggered a lethal dose of a barbiturate and died at a clinic near Basel, the assisted suicide group Exit International said. Goodall, a member of the Order of Australia for work as a botanist that included publications on arid shrub lands, said he had unsuccessfully tried to kill himself in Australia after his faculties including his hearing deteriorated. He came to Switzerland for its laws that have made assisted suicide legal since the 1940s, a legal curiosity that has made the country what some call a “death tourism” magnet. “My life has been rather poor for the past year or so, and I am very happy to end it,” Goodall told reporters on Thursday, shortly before his death. “All the publicity that this has been receiving can only, I think, help the cause of euthanasia for the elderly, which I want.” Physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia remains illegal in many countries, including Australia, though the state of Victoria became the first to pass a euthanasia bill last November to allow terminally ill patients to end their lives. It takes effect in June 2019. Several family members were with Goodall until his death, which was preceded by formal paperwork that visibly frustrated Goodall, who said, “What are we waiting for?” His last meal was fish and chips, and Exit International director Philip Nitschke helped organize Beethoven’s 9th Symphony to be played at his death, a spontaneous request by Goodall prompted by a reporter’s question at a news conference on Wednesday. “The infusion started to drip as he activated the process — he had to do that himself — after answering questions which said he knew who he was, where he was and what he was about to do, and he answered these questions with great clarity,” Nitschke told Reuters after Goodall’s death. “In fact his last words were ‘This is taking an awfully long time!’ ” Nitschke said. Goodall, a 20-year member of Exit International, was born in London in 1914 and moved to Australia in 1948, where he was a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. He also worked in Britain and held academic posts at U.S. universities, including at Utah State University in Logan. There, news of his death prompted debate over his legacy, with some former colleagues suggesting his public suicide fit a personality that did not shy the limelight. Others called Goodall a fine scholar who was well-liked. “If I had been asked to provide my own comments on David Goodall, I would have said he is perceptive, brilliant and inventive,” said Robert Russon, a 30-year professor at the Logan school in a letter to the Herald Journal newspaper. Before his death, Goodall said there were things he would have changed, were he to do it all over again. “I’m not satisfied with what I have done, by any means,” he said. “But I did my best.”


Taro Aso's remarks on harassment spark criticism again

Abstract: Finance Minister Taro Aso came under fire again on Friday for a comment during a Diet session that suggests a belittling attitude toward sexual harassment, saying his ministry’s former top bureaucrat might have fallen into a trap by a female reporter. “Such a possibility can’t be ruled out,” Aso said during a session of the Lower House financial committee, after saying that the reporter had intentionally tried to get then-Administrative Vice Minister Junichi Fukuda to make sexual advances. Aso’s statement sparked strong words from opposition lawmakers. Seiji Osaka, a senior member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters he was “past being surprised by the unwillingness to admit fault and downright angry.” The remark follows the recent resignation of Fukuda for alleged sexual harassment, and protests from women over comments made by Aso in connection with the scandal. Aso later retracted the remark, saying, “It was careless, and I’ve been told it makes light of sexual harassment. I’ll be more careful in the future.” Aso drew criticism after making similar comments last month, saying, “There are many opinions among the public, including that (Fukuda) was entrapped and now he is being accused.” He also said before that “there is no such thing as a sexual harassment charge (in the Penal Code).” A lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party, meanwhile, is being criticized for saying this week that newlyweds should have at least three children. The remark by Kanji Kato — a 72-year-old Lower House member — at a meeting on Thursday with members of the ruling party is the latest in a series of gaffes by Japanese politicians. While Japan’s gender gap remains wide and sexual harassment scandals involving public figures have been grabbing headlines in recent weeks, what Kato said sparked a wave of criticism even from his ruling party peers. One female lawmaker said, “This is exactly sexual harassment,” and many others also expressed discomfort with the remark. Yoshihisa Inoue, secretary-general of the Komeito party, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, said Kato’s view is inappropriate, noting that he seems not to understand what is needed to reverse the nation’s declining birthrate. “It is fundamental to build a society that makes it possible for people to give birth and raise kids if they wish. That’s our most important job,” Inoue told a news conference. At the meeting, Kato said that when attending wedding receptions, he always tells brides and grooms that he wants them to raise three or more kids. Kato also said that when he meets young women at a wedding reception, he tells them that if they don’t get married they won’t have children, meaning they would have to enter a nursing home using tax money paid by someone else’s offspring. Kato initially told reporters that he didn’t intend to retract his comment. But his office later released a statement saying that, while the remark was “not intended to disrespect women,” he apologizes for making a misleading comment and retracts it. Kato, who has been elected to the Lower House three times, has served as vice minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, among other posts.

taro aso
women
sexual harassment
gaffe
kanji kato


Osaka lavatory signs do more harm than good, say members of LGBT community

Abstract: OSAKA/KYOTO - Restroom signs for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have drawn an unexpected backlash from sexual minorities in Japan. The city of Osaka put a rainbow-colored sticker representing sexual diversity on the doors of unisex multipurpose restrooms in municipal government buildings in hopes of making it easier for LGBT people to use them. The city withdrew the measure following complaints from LGBT people. Multipurpose restrooms are designed for easy use by elderly people and people in wheelchairs, regardless of gender. An official at the Yodogawa Ward Office in Osaka came up with the idea to put the sticker on such facilities after attending a lecture by a nonprofit organization supporting LGBT people. After introduction of the sticker in 2014, the idea spread to neighboring wards. But some LGBT people complained that they could draw unnecessary attention if they are seen entering a restroom adorned with the sticker. In the face of growing criticism, the municipal government decided to end use of the sticker in March. At a news conference last month, Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura stressed the importance of listening to LGBT people. He voiced the city’s intention to continue taking measures for the LGBT community, saying that “doing nothing is the worst thing.” Some LGBT people also complained after a large hotel in the city of Kyoto put up a sign symbolizing gender neutrality on its multipurpose restrooms. However, a hotel official said the sign will stay in place for the time being, noting that similar signs are commonly used in elementary schools in the United States. There is no measure that can satisfy everyone, the official said. In February, a meeting among LGBT people was held in Kyoto to discuss restrooms for sexual minorities. A participant said some measures are disturbing even if they are based on goodwill, while another voiced concern over possible social recognition that LGBT people use particular restrooms. “Support means offering a hand to help with individual difficulties,” one of the meeting’s organizers said. “Posting stickers is not synonymous with support.”


After 75 years, 'forgotten' hand-to-hand WWII battle of Attu still haunts vets

Abstract: ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - William Roy Dover’s memory of the World War II battle is as sharp as it was 75 years ago, even though it’s been long forgotten by most everyone else. His first sergeant rousted him from his pup tent around 2 a.m. when word came the Japanese were attacking and had maybe even gotten behind the American front line, on a desolate, unforgiving slab of an occupied island in the North Pacific. “He was shouting, ‘Get up! Get out!’ ” Dover said. Dover and most of the American soldiers rushed to an embankment on what became known as Engineer Hill, the last gasp of the Japanese during the Battle of Attu, fought 75 years ago this month on Attu Island in Alaska’s Aleutian chain. “I had two friends that were too slow to get out,” the 95-year-old Alabama farmer recalled. “They both got bayonetted in their pup tents.” Joseph Sasser, then a skinny 20-year-old from Cartharge, Mississippi, also found himself perched against the berm on Engineer Hill when a captain with a rifle took up a position about 3 meters away. “I noticed about after 30 minutes or so, he was awfully quiet,” Sasser said. “We checked to see if he had a pulse and if he was alive, and he was not. “We didn’t even know he had been shot,” said Sasser, also 95. American forces reclaimed remote Attu Island on May 30, 1943, after a 19-day campaign that is known as World War II’s forgotten battle. Much of the fighting was hand to hand, waged in dense fog and winds that gusted up to 200 kph. The battle for the Aleutian island was one of the deadliest in the Pacific in terms of the percentage of troops killed. Nearly all the Japanese forces, estimated at about 2,500 soldiers, died with only 28 survivors. About 550 or so U.S. soldiers were killed. American forces, many poorly outfitted for Alaska weather and trained in California for desert combat, recaptured Attu 11 months after the Japanese took it and a nearby island, Kiska. It was the only World War II battle fought on North American soil. The Japanese staged a last-ditch, desperate offensive May 29 at Engineer Hill. “Japanese soldiers surprise American forces on Attu with a fanatical charge out of the mountains,” recounts an Associated Press chronology of World War II events in 1943. “Savage fighting rages throughout the day and into the following night. About 200 Japanese soldiers died in the assault, and the remaining 500 or so held grenades to their bellies and pulled the pins. It was the first official case of gyokusai , a Japanese euphemism for annihilation or mass suicide in the name of the emperor, which increasingly occurred in other Japanese battlefields. Tomimatsu Takahashi told NHK in 2010 he was being treated for a bullet wound when the order for the final charge came. “I was going to die, I thought,” he said. But as he headed out to fight, he collapsed, likely because he hadn’t eaten in days. He was captured and sent to several mainland POW camps, including in Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago, before he returned home to Iwate Prefecture in 1947. His family already had a funeral and grave for him. “I felt so relieved to be home,” he said. “But I never thought I was lucky to be alive. I thought I survived because I was not lucky. I felt I was not supposed to come back, because those who went to war were not supposed to come back, and that’s what we were taught.” After the battle, Dover said things went back to normal for the American soldiers — except one thing: “Somebody had to bury those Japanese.” During the war, the U.S. Army buried the Japanese soldiers’ bodies with care, built a memorial, set up a grave post and paid respects to the spirits, said Nobuyuki Yamazaki, whose grandfather died on Attu. Yamazaki was among a delegation of Japanese soldiers’ descendants who attended a 75th anniversary celebration this month in Anchorage. The families have formally petitioned the Japanese government to have the remains returned, Anchorage television station KTVA reported. “Japanese people find great comfort when the remains of the Japanese are buried in our homeland,” Yamazaki said. The Aleut people living on Attu Island also suffered losses, becoming the only North American community to be imprisoned in Japan during the war, according to the book “Attu: The Forgotten Battle,” by John Haile Cloe. While Kiska was unpopulated, about 45 Aleuts lived on Attu Island. When Japanese forces invaded, the Aleuts were captured and sent to Hokkaido, where about half died, most from malnutrition or starvation. The survivors never returned to Attu. The U.S. Army said it would be too expensive to rebuild their village, and they were relocated after the war. The battle over Attu proved to be unimportant to the rest of the war, possibly why it’s forgotten today. However, American planes did use the island to bomb the northernmost reaches of Japan. And author and historian Cloe, who died in 2016, told the AP in 1993 that the army learned much about amphibious landings and Japanese tactics from the battle. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now owns Attu Island, which is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. Seventy-five years later, 102-year-old Allan Seroll of Massachusetts, who worked in communications including Morse code for the Army Signal Corps, still carries the burden of the Battle of Attu. “I wake up in the middle of the night, and I can’t go back to sleep,” Seroll told KTVA. “That’s what this has done to me. That’s how much it affected me and still does.”


Malaysia's reformist icon Anwar freed, given royal pardon

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s reformist icon Anwar Ibrahim was freed from custody Wednesday after receiving a royal pardon, transforming a political prisoner into a prime minister-in-waiting following his alliance’s stunning election victory. Anwar, 70, was convicted of sodomy in 2015 in a case he said was aimed at crushing his alliance, which was making gains against Malaysia’s long ruling coalition government. His sentence was set to end June 8 but last week’s unexpected election win, which ended the National Front’s 60-year rule, led to his swift release. Dressed in a suit, Anwar waved to reporters as he was whisked from a hospital, where he was recovering from shoulder surgery, to an audience with Malaysia’s king. The royal palace said in a statement that the monarch had given Anwar a full pardon following advice from the Pardons Board. Anwar is prime minister-in-waiting but unlikely to take over quickly from Mahathir Mohamad, who after leading Anwar’s alliance in the election campaign has become the world’s oldest leader at 92. Mahathir, premier for 22 years until 2003, said Tuesday that he will run the country for “one to two years” to fix Malaysia’s financial problems, creating uncertainty about how the two will work together in the interim. It was Anwar’s second spell in prison. Once a high flyer in the ruling party, Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy and corruption after a power struggle with Mahathir in 1998. Anwar and his supporters have long denied the sodomy allegations, saying they were concocted to destroy his political career. Yet rather than give up, Anwar worked from his prison cell to forge a new opposition alliance by ending the two-decade feud with Mahathir — a gamble that paid off when the alliance won the May 9 polls. His daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar has said the pardon was sought on the grounds of miscarriage of justice. Anwar needs to contest a by-election to become a member of Parliament before he could replace Mahathir. Analysts say his release could cause tensions in the new government due to the dominance of the two leaders. Mahathir is the chairman of the alliance and Anwar is its de-facto leader. “The hope is that Anwar and Mahathir will find a way to work together especially during this period of transition,” said Rashaad Ali, research analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “This is an opportunity for both of them to move forward for the sake of the country. There may be clashes between these two big personalities but (officials in their) coalition as well as the expectations of Malaysians will provide a check and balance,” he said. Anwar’s wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is the new deputy premier, has said there was no rush for Anwar to take over. She said time is needed for the country’s “healing process” after the first transition of power in six decades, and that Anwar should recover fully from recent surgery before jumping back to politics. Anwar is expected to thank supporters at a rally later Wednesday.

anwar ibrahim
malaysia
courts
elections
prisons
mahathir mohamad


Stigma around HIV thwarting efforts to eradicate disease in Japan: AIDS society official

Abstract: Despite advances in treatment, the number of newly confirmed cases of HIV in Japan has remained flat for the past decade, a sign that misconceptions about the disease are making progress toward eradication difficult. “The stigma around HIV is the reason that we can’t end it. In many places, people are still afraid of HIV or afraid of people living with HIV. We need to be clear that that idea is old, that is 30 years old,” Owen Ryan, executive director of the International AIDS Society, said on a recent visit to Japan. Ryan, whose group of doctors, nurses and researchers is working to eliminate AIDS, called for more self-testing. “In Japan, the key is finding (those) who aren’t tested,” he said. “When people know their HIV status, they tend to go get treatment. So self-testing is important.” Japan is the fifth-largest donor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an effort it helped establish. The fund is the largest multigovernment funder of HIV programs, with more than $4 billion a year according to Ryan. Despite the country’s efforts on the international front, newly infected HIV sufferers at home totaled 1,407 in 2017, only slightly lower than the previous year, with one-third showing symptoms that indicate they may have progressed to the third stage of the disease (AIDS), preliminary data by the health ministry showed. In 2016, the number was 1,440, slightly up from 1,434 in 2015. The latest data also reported three cases of mother-to-child infections, the first recording of multiple infections of that kind in three years, prompting the government to call on pregnant mothers to make sure they get health checkups. In the fight against AIDS, the ministry started a subsidy program from April in some municipal areas in Japan where workers will be able to be tested for HIV for free as part of their health examinations. Public health centers nationwide also offer free, anonymous HIV testing, but that’s only available on weekdays. Self-testing is not sufficiently practiced “because people are scared,” Ryan said. “In Japan, new infections are (largely) among gay men and so you are already stigmatized because you are gay and people feel like it’s a double stigma. I think getting (more people) tested happens by attacking that stigma,” he said. “With a bit more work and more money, Japan really could be one of the first countries to end AIDS,” Ryan said. A public survey conducted in January by the Cabinet Office showed that 52 percent of the respondents still believed AIDS is an “illness that leads to death,” although advances in drugs used to treat the disease have allowed HIV patients to live as long as nonsufferers and also have substantially lowered the chance of transmitting the disease to others. The poll, which drew responses from 1,671 people over 18 years old nationwide, showed 34 percent of them think the “cause (of AIDS) is unknown and untreatable,” while 20 percent called it “an illness that only affects specific people.” As for the origins of infection, some respondents were completely misinformed, with 25 percent believing that “mosquitoes were carriers” of the disease, and 17 percent saying it could be transmitted by “light kissing.” Only half of the respondents knew that anonymous, free testing is offered at public health centers. Another online survey conducted by HIV Futures Japan Project, an entity comprised of people infected with HIV and researchers of the disease, also showed that those with the disease are tormented by the stigma associated with it. In the poll, conducted on some 1,000 people in Japan infected with HIV in 2016 and 2017, about 93 percent said they are “very careful” when they talk to someone about being HIV positive. More than 85 percent also said that, in general, when people learn they are HIV positive, they deny it, while nearly 63 percent feared losing their jobs if their employers discover they carry the disease. The survey also found that HIV patients tend to put pressure on themselves, leading some to suffer from deteriorating mental health. Over 64 percent said that they lie about their condition if HIV comes up in a conversation, while nearly 66 percent said they continually try to ensure their HIV positive status is not discovered by people around them. While acknowledging the difficulties in tackling the issue in an environment like Japan where AIDS is still taboo, Ryan warned that stopping the conversation or failing to educate young people about it only serves to reinforce the stigma. He cited the cases of Eastern Europe and Central Asia where new HIV infections rose by 60 percent and AIDS-related deaths in the region increased by 27 percent between 2010 and 2016, while globally, new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have actually fallen in the same period. “It’s a great example of, when you stop talking about it, educating about it, it keeps coming back,” Ryan said. UNAIDS, which works closely with the International AIDS Society, aims to eliminate the AIDS epidemic by 2030. Its ambitious project takes the so-called 90-90-90 approach: ensuring 90 percent of the infected are diagnosed, getting 90 percent of those who are diagnosed on treatment with antiretroviral drugs, and having 90 percent of those infected attain viral suppression.


How does a 1-ton dino hatch its eggs? Carefully

Abstract: PARIS - Most dinosaurs buried their eggs and hoped for the best, but some species — including a few hefty ones — built nests and pampered unhatched offspring much as birds do today, researchers reported Wednesday. Which raises an intriguing question: How did creatures nearly as heavy as a hippo brood eggs without squashing them? “Large species may have not sat directly on their eggs,” explained Kohei Tanaka, a researcher at Nagoya University Museum and lead author of a study in Biology Letters that details the incubation strategy of feathered carnivores called oviraptorosaurs. Describing clutches of potato-shaped eggs found in China, he said the “eggs are arranged in a circular pattern with a large central opening” and each was up to half a meter long and weighed up to 7 kilograms. “The dinosaurs likely sat in the middle of the nest so that they didn’t crush the eggs.” That didn’t keep the unborn dinosaurs warm, but it may have protected them from predators and the elements, Tanaka speculated. Modern birds are descended from a large group of mostly carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods, all of which are thought to have laid eggs. But very few theropods built nests, which is why the brooding displayed by oviraptorosaurs — a clade of several dozen species ranging from the turkey-size Caudipteryx to the 1.4-ton Gigantoraptor — is so important. “The incubation behavior of birds — such as adults sitting in the nest and possibly brooding — likely evolved from theropod dinosaurs,” said Tanaka. “Our research provides additional evidence.” Oviraptorosaurs lived during the Cretaceous period, the 80 million years leading up to the asteroid or comet strike blamed for wiping out nonavian terrestrial dinosaurs. They had short snouts and beak-like jaws with few or no teeth, and some sported bony crests on their heads. Evidence of generous plumage — especially on the tail — has been found on several species. Besides the spoke-like arrangement of the fossilized eggs, the eggshell itself provided further evidence that large oviraptorosaurs sat near their unborn progeny, not on top of them. The eggs of big dinosaurs, the researchers discovered, were more fragile than the eggs of smaller ones, which were clearly designed to carry more weight. How big is too big to park a dinosaur’s butt on top of unhatched eggs? “That’s hard to say,” said Tanaka. “There is a gap in the data, but the threshold should be between 200 and 500 kg.”

dinosaurs
nagoya university
eggs
hatching
oviraptorosaurs


Diet passes nonbinding legislation aimed at increasing women in politics

Abstract: The Diet on Wednesday passed a bill seeking to boost the number of female lawmakers and assembly members in a nation where women have long been underrepresented in politics. The measure, approved unanimously by the Upper House, urges each political party to make every effort to try and “equalize as much as possible” the number of male and female candidates it fields for national and local elections. Although it heralds a significant step toward increasing the presence of females in the male-dominated world of Japanese politics, the bill has no legally binding power, only stipulating political parties need to “make voluntary efforts” to even the playing field in terms of gender. A failure to achieve the goal entails no penalty. At the very least, however, the bill will place pressure on political parties to honor its principle, making next year’s unified local elections and summer Upper House election the first barometer of how committed they are to achieve the 50-50 ratio. “This is only a starting point,” independent lawmaker Masaharu Nakagawa, who has been one of the most active proponents of the bill, told The Japan Times soon after its enactment. “Based on this law, we will have to move on to tackling legal revisions or hammering out more concrete frameworks — including discussing how to make it easier for female lawmakers to balance work and home life, and whether to introduce quota systems,” Nakagawa said. The bill’s enactment didn’t come easily. It was originally supposed to have been passed in last year’s ordinary Diet session, but its deliberation got sidelined amid fierce political wrangling between the ruling and opposition parties over Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s favoritism scandals that have dominated debate in the Diet. Wednesday’s development also coincides with a nascent rise in the #MeToo movement in Japan, where public outcries have erupted over ex-top Finance Ministry bureaucrat Junichi Fukuda’s sexual harassment of a female reporter as well as Finance Minister Taro Aso’s subsequent remarks that appeared to downplay the severity of Fukuda’s misconduct. Specifically, the bill defines the responsibility on the part of the central government and local municipalities to, among other things, probe and raise awareness of female participation in politics. “Female empowerment is one of the Abe administration’s top priorities,” Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said ahead of the bill’s passage. “We want to create an environment where women can play a vital part in the world of politics,” he added. That said, Japan has traditionally lagged behind other countries in its effort to facilitate female participation in politics. According to the latest data publicized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a Geneva-based organization comprising national parliaments from around the world, Japan ranked 158th out of 193 countries in terms of the percentage of women in unicameral parliaments or in the lower house of bicameral parliaments. The data, reflecting the result of last October’s general election, showed women in Japan’s Lower House accounted for a mere 10.1 percent, compared with 39.0 percent in France, 30.7 percent in Germany, 19.5 percent in the U.S. and 17.0 percent in South Korea. Japan also fared dismally in the World Economic Forum’s annual global gender gap report in 2017, ranking 114th — its worst performance ever — out of 144 countries due largely to a poor showing in the category of political empowerment. A survey conducted last fall by the Cabinet Office of about 4,000 local assemblywomen, meanwhile, shed light on what factors are possibly contributing to a low proportion of female politicians in Japan. Asked why they think women tend to be dissuaded from entering local politics, 78.6 percent cited difficulties achieving work-life balance, 73.4 percent the lack of understanding from family and 59.1 percent the deeply ingrained stereotype that politics is the domain of men. Bringing female voices into politics is “no longer a matter of good or bad. Diversifying a male-dominated society is the global trend now,” Masako Hiramatsu, chairwoman of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs of Japan, said. “The fact the bill was passed unanimously means the old guard in the Diet can no longer complain of women running for elections,” she said.

elections
diet
politics
female empowerment


China says to end 'one size fits all' environmental policies

Abstract: SHANGHAI - China plans to end its “one size fits all” approach to fighting pollution, the environment ministry said Monday, as it tries to devise more nuanced policies that match local conditions and minimize economic disruption. The failure to take heed of local conditions will be regarded as a form of bureaucratic thinking and officials will be held responsible for any serious problems that arise, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) said in a notice. China imposed blanket restrictions on traffic, coal use and industrial activity throughout the smog-prone north last year as it raced to meet its politically crucial air quality targets. In some cities, industrial sectors like steel were forced to shut down as much as 50 percent of their total production capacity to limit smog build-ups in the region, and many firms complained that Beijing’s failure to take account of local conditions had made it impossible to fulfill client orders. Overzealous efforts by local officials to convert coal-fired boilers to cleaner-burning but scarce natural gas also left thousands of households without heat during the freezing winter. The new measures will ban the use of blanket production suspensions on industrial enterprises that are already complying with environmental requirements. Firms that have not met those requirements will also be subject to more targeted rectification measures and punishments, the ministry said. It also promised to give local regulators enough time to investigate and resolve environmental problems rather than imposing orders from above. While China met its 2013-2017 air quality targets, environment ministry officials have said that a more scientific, city-by-city approach will be required over the next few years to make further improvements. “One size fits all was easy to implement … but economically, it may be inefficient,” said Chen Songxi, an expert in environmental statistics at the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. “The problem is that some factories have implemented much better emissions standards but they are treated the same as those that have done nothing,” he added.


ILO explores rules on workplace harassment as Me Too movement rages

Abstract: As the Me Too movement takes the world by storm, the International Labor Organization kicked off its annual meeting Monday in Geneva with discussions aimed at setting the first international rules to end sexual and other types of harassment at work. At the U.N. agency’s conference, which runs through June 8 and brings together governments, employers and workers from 187 member states, participants will discuss standards to fight workplace violence and harassment so they can be adopted at next year’s ILO meeting. In a report compiled to facilitate discussions at the conference, the ILO said, “Violence and harassment in the world of work produces devastating effects on individuals, enterprises, economies and societies,” and called for measures to address the issue. The report reviewed the situation in 80 countries and found 60 of them regulate physical and psychological forms of violence and harassment in the world of work. It also noted there is currently no international legal standard that addresses violence and harassment in the workplace and provides a definition and scope for it. The document defined harassment as “a continuum of unacceptable behaviors and practices that are likely to result in physical, psychological or sexual harm or suffering” and said its victims could include job seekers and interns. As for the envisioned standards, the ILO conference is expected to discuss whether there should be a legally binding convention, a nonbinding recommendation or a combination of a convention complemented by a recommendation with more detailed and practical guidance on how to translate the principles embedded in the convention into action. Although more than 90 percent of labor organizations worldwide, including Japan’s largest union — the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) — supported the strictest third option in a questionnaire prior to the ILO conference, the Japanese government said it believes the second option would be more effective. “A recommendation would be more flexible than a convention that would clearly set rules. But (Japan) will decide its policy after examining other countries’ opinions,” a labor ministry official said before the meeting. Japan does not prohibit violence and harassment in workplace by law. The ILO report also found 45.2 percent of workers reported “power harassment” in a 2012 survey of 4,580 enterprises in Japan and said it “shows the depth of the problem.”


Aichi hopes to see million participate in September quake drill

Abstract: The Aichi Prefectural Government — which has been holding the ShakeOut earthquake drill since fiscal 2013 — plans to draw a million participants to a session to be held this year on Sept. 1, the Disaster Prevention Day. Since the prefecture is expected to suffer massive damage if a major earthquake occurs in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast, the prefectural government is calling on companies and schools to participate in an effort to increase disaster prevention awareness. The quake-survival drill was first developed in California in 2008 as a preparedness activity that anyone can participate in. In the drill, participants are urged to “drop, cover and hold on” — meaning to get down on hands and knees, protect their heads under a sturdy desk or table, and hang on until the shaking stops. On Sept. 1, when the clock hits noon, participants in the drill will drop to the floor all together and stay still for a minute after being signaled. In the U.S., many such drills are held with millions of people participating. In Japan, the Great Japan ShakeOut, an advocacy group of earthquake and disaster prevention researchers, is campaigning to spread the drill. Participants in such drills held by the Aichi Prefectural Government have increased from roughly 261,000 in fiscal 2013 to 578,000 in fiscal 2017. However, while many people in schools and government agencies take part in the drills, awareness among other people remains low, and few companies have been willing to participate. Aichi officials are asking companies, especially manufacturers where many employees work at factories and are likely to suffer a calamity in the event of a major earthquake, to take part in the drill. Anyone, including individuals and citizens’ groups in and out of Aichi, can participate in the drill. The prefecture accepts applications at its website ( aichi0901.pref.aichi.jp ) until Aug. 31. If an application is submitted by the deadline, groups such as companies can conduct the drill by themselves on a different day and still be regarded as participants in the Aichi drill.

earthquakes disasters aichi drills shakeout


Japanese calling the police more than ever to address nonurgent matters

Abstract: Police dealt with a record-high number of consultations last year over problems that did not call for an urgent response, such as noisy neighbors and graffiti, a report showed Monday. The record 2.08 million consultations, up about 50 percent from 2008, may reflect a loss of community networks that have traditionally dealt with local problems, according to a National Police Agency official. Separately, the police also received about 9 million emergency calls last year of which about 20 percent were about nonurgent matters. They are asking people to avoid using emergency numbers and use a special line for consultations instead. Of the consultations, 240,956, or 11.6 percent, were for noise or other problems related to neighbors, households and workplaces, up 70 percent from 2008. This was followed by consultations for graffiti and other disturbances to the public peace, which more than doubled to 128,258 cases, accounting for 6.2 percent, it said. Consultations about issues that might evolve into criminal cases also rose. A total of 261,936 cases, or 12.6 percent, involved potential criminal cases, including claims about suspicious calls that could be linked to fraud, while 255,520, or 12.3 percent, were from people wanting to stop spam calls and other public nuisances. Consultations for domestic violence grew about 2.8 times to 71,579 cases, or 3.4 percent, while consultations on possible cybercrimes such as suspicious email stood at 129,393, or 6.2 percent.

noise
national police agency
graffiti
police
consultations


Trump discloses 'expenses' payment to attorney who paid off porn star

Abstract: NEW YORK - President Donald Trump revealed in his financial disclosure Wednesday that he reimbursed personal attorney Michael Cohen as much as $250,000 for unspecified “expenses,” with no mention of a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual tryst she said they had. The head of the nation’s ethics office questioned why Trump didn’t include this in his previous year’s sworn disclosure and passed along his concerns to federal prosecutors. “I am providing both reports to you because you may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry you may be pursuing,” David Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, wrote to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Apol wrote that he considers Trump’s payment to Cohen to be a repayment on a loan and that it was required to be included in Trump’s June 2017 disclosure. Ethics experts says that if that payment was knowingly and willfully left out, Trump could be in violation of federal ethics laws. “This is a big deal and unprecedented. No President has been previously subject to any referral by (Office of Government Ethics) to DOJ as a result of having failed to report an item on their public financial disclosure report,” said Virginia Canter, a former ethics official in the Clinton and Obama White Houses who is now with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. How Trump dealt with the Daniels hush money in his disclosure has been closely watched, particularly after his attorney Rudy Giuliani gave interviews earlier this month saying the president had reimbursed Cohen in a series of payments after the campaign was over. Trump and Giuliani have clashed over what the president knew and when he knew it. In a footnote in tiny type on Page 45 of his 92-page disclosure, Trump said he reimbursed Cohen for “expenses” ranging from $100,001 to $250,000. The report said the president did not have to disclose the payment but was doing so “in the interest of transparency.” While the disclosure didn’t specify the purpose of the payment, Cohen has said he paid $130,000 to Daniels in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election to keep her from going public about her allegations that she had sex with the married Trump in 2006. Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, tweeted, “Mr. Trump’s disclosure today conclusively proves that the American people were deceived.” The tweet continued: “This was NOT an accident and it was not isolated. Cover-ups should always matter.” The Trump Organization referred questions about the disclosure report to the president’s lawyer Sheri Dillon of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Dillon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Cohen footnote appears in a report giving the first extended look at Trump’s income from his properties since he became president. In all, Trump took in at least $453 million from hotels, resorts, books and other business ventures. His Washington, D.C., hotel near the Oval Office, a magnet for diplomats and lobbyists, took in $40 million. His Doral golf course and resort in Miami took in $75 million. His Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, received $25 million, and his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, generated $15 million. Some of the 12-month figures for his properties are down from his previous report, but that earlier report covered about 16 months and so it is not directly comparable. The figures are before expenses and so give no indication of how much profit the president made off the properties. Trump has at least $315 million in debt, about the same as he reported a year ago. One of his biggest lenders is Ladder Capital, which has lent more than $100 million. Trump owes Deutsch Bank as much as $175 million. The debt figures are given in broad ranges in the report and capped at $50 million, so it’s unclear just how much Trump actually owes. The president’s tax returns would give a clear picture, but Trump has broken with tradition by refusing to make them public. When Trump took office, he refused to fully divest from his global business, another break with presidential tradition. Instead, he put his assets in a trust controlled by his two adult sons and a senior executive. Trump can take back control of the trust at any time, and he’s allowed to withdraw cash from it as he pleases. His report shows that Trump received $64,840 from the Screen Actors Guild pension fund. Trump has appeared in several movies, including “Home Alone 2” and “Zoolander.” For operating New York’s Wollman Rink in Central Park, the president took in $9.3 million. Though it was published three decades ago, Trump’s “The Art of The Deal” last year generated as much as $1 million.

ethics
robert mueller
donald trump
mar-a-lago
michael cohen
stormy daniels
hush money


How Trump's fix-it man became $1.2 million headache for Novartis

Abstract: LONDON - When Michael Cohen showed up at Novartis AG last year proposing to help the drugmaker navigate the Donald Trump administration, it sounded like a promising opportunity. Cohen had, after all, served as an attorney for Trump and had close ties to the new president. It didn’t take long for Novartis to conclude Cohen was full of hot air. And soon — but not soon enough — the company realized he was also a hot potato. After the first meeting between Novartis officials and Cohen, in March 2017, “it was clear that he had oversold his abilities,” said Joe Jimenez, the company’s chief executive at the time. Jimenez, who stepped down as CEO earlier this year, was one of two Novartis executives to sign a one-year, $1.2 million contract with Cohen’s firm, Essential Consultants LLC. The other, Felix Ehrat, the drugmaker’s top lawyer since 2011, is leaving the company due to the affair, Novartis said Wednesday. How a global powerhouse like Novartis could get entangled in controversy with Trump’s personal fixer highlights the way established lines of doing business have been upended by the unorthodox new president. Now the job of digging out of the situation falls to Jimenez’s successor, Vas Narasimhan, who has spent much of the last week meeting with investors and managers in an effort to mend the company’s tarnished reputation. “We know we’ve made a mistake, and we also know we need to get better,” Narasimhan told investors gathered Wednesday at Novartis headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. “This is something I take incredibly seriously.” On paper, a contract with Cohen made sense. He had worked at Trump’s organization — though he said he was no longer employed there — and offered insights into a president who had said the pharmaceutical industry was “getting away with murder” and had vowed to kill off President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation. What was less clear to Novartis — and other companies such as AT&T Inc. and a Korean aerospace firm that worked with Cohen — was the extent of his ties to a cluster of New York real estate and taxi companies. And that he was the man who had brokered a $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford — the adult-film actress who performs as Stormy Daniels — to keep her from disclosing what she says was a sexual relationship with Trump. After the initial meeting with Cohen, Novartis decided not to engage with him further. But the company opted to simply let the agreement lapse while continuing to pay the fees it had agreed to, figuring litigation to end it would be costlier. In hindsight, Jimenez said, that was a mistake. Cohen never provided access to anyone in the White House or any lobbying services, Jimenez said. “Had we done deeper background checks on him we would have discovered that he was probably not somebody we wanted to get involved with,” said Jimenez, who worked at Clorox Co., ConAgra Foods Inc. and H.J. Heinz Co. before joining Novartis in 2007. “We should have just ended the contract regardless of the costs.” Novartis said in September that Jimenez would retire and pass the reins to Narasimhan, who the company says had no involvement in the arrangement with Cohen. Two months later, the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller — investigating suspected Russian meddling in the presidential election — contacted Novartis about its ties to Cohen. Narasimhan, a Harvard-trained doctor, on Wednesday outlined steps he will take to reshape the company’s culture. Novartis has been embroiled in a string of legal woes, and in 2015 agreed to pay the U.S. government $390 million to settle allegations of kickbacks to pharmacies in return for recommending its drugs. It is also fighting a U.S. lawsuit alleging that it improperly provided doctors with lavish dinners, fishing trips and speaking fees to boost drug sales. Monday, the new CEO, an American who came to Novartis in 2005, held a conference call with 5,000 of his managers, according to a source familiar with the matter. On the call, he stressed the need to regain the public’s trust and change the way the company works with outside groups such as consultants and lobbyists. Yet the drama isn’t over. Switzerland’s Attorney General is talking with prosecutors in Basel about the payments the drugmaker made to Cohen, though no investigation has been opened. Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sent a letter to Narasimhan this week saying the arrangement appears to be “stunningly irresponsible” while also questioning whether Novartis and the Trump administration were engaged in a “pay-for-play operation.” The lawmakers sent a similar letter to AT&T, which paid the consulting firm $600,000 and later forced out veteran lobbyist and attorney Robert Quinn. Narasimhan has been candid in his assessment of the Cohen contract, repeatedly calling it a mistake and beneath company standards. The day the payment became public, the CEO went to bed “frustrated and tired,” he told his 120,000-plus employees in a memo. Though he is determined to repair the company’s image, he told the investors in Basel: “I don’t want to stand here and tell you that we are going to resolve these issues right away. This is going to be a long-term journey.”


China launches first privately designed rocket

Abstract: BEIJING - China launched its first privately developed rocket on Thursday, the latest milestone in its ambitious space exploration program. Since coming to office in 2012, President Xi Jinping has made becoming a “space flight superpower” a top priority for the Chinese government, which has a goal of sending a permanent manned space station into orbit by around 2022. The launch of the Chongqing Liangjiang Star rocket, developed by OneSpace Technology, a Beijing-based private firm, marks the first time a private Chinese rocket has successfully entered orbit, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The rocket is powered by a solid-fuel engine developed by OneSpace and its control systems are customizable in accordance with user demand, the company’s chairman, Ma Chao, told Xinhua. Also known as the OS-XO, the craft can place a 100-kilogram load into orbit 800 kilometers from the Earth, according to state media. The rocket uses energy-saving technology such as wireless communications, thereby cutting weight and helping to lower fuel costs by about 30 percent, Xinhua said. Founded in 2015, OneSpace is the result of a government effort to foster China’s commercial space flight and encourage private participation in the sector. The company expects 10 missions for carrier rockets in 2019, founder Shu Chang told the official China Daily last week. “I hope we can become one of the biggest small-satellite launchers in the world,” Shu said. Last year, the company signed a deal with the state-run Chongqing Liangjiang Aviation Industry Investment Group to build a joint research and manufacturing base in the southwestern city of Chongqing. The base’s strategic location as part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, a key foreign policy initiative by Xi that aims to develop trade links between China and Eurasia, will provide a large export market for OneSpace, Shu told China Daily. “We will develop bigger rockets in the future and participate in the global competition,” Shu said.


Tourists deface iconic bamboo plants in Kyoto's Arashiyama district

Abstract: At least 100 bamboo plants in Kyoto’s Arashiyama district have been vandalized by tourists, who apparently engraved their names and initials, a company managing the iconic groves of the popular tourist spot said Thursday. The engravings carved on the stems of the plants are in foreign languages. According to the city of Kyoto, which owns the plants, the number has increased rapidly since April. “The visitors might have carved their names to commemorate their trips, but we can’t accept such behavior which could disappoint many other tourists who are looking forward to enjoying the scenery of the forests,” a city official said. Taking a stroll through the bamboo grove in Arashiyama is among the most popular things for tourists to do while visiting the former capital. “It is deplorable that the scribbles are spoiling the precious bamboos,” said Megumi Nakamura, a visitor from Osaka Prefecture.


Tokyo lawyers to sue nationalists who allegedly targeted them for their stance on Korean schools

Abstract: Two Tokyo lawyers said Thursday they plan to sue hundreds of internet rightists, who the lawyers say campaigned to have them reprimanded over their apparent support for free education at ethnic Korean schools in Japan. Ryo Sasaki and Kanehito Kita said they will file a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court in late June demanding some 960 of the 3,000 activists pay ¥300,000 ($2,700) each in damages. The internet rightists, known as nettouyoku , are said to have bombarded the Tokyo Bar Association with vitriol about the lawyers, who were seen to have supported the association’s public statement in support of Korean schools. The group’s actions were incited by a blog post from an unknown author, and they focused their attention on bar associations in Tokyo and elsewhere, apparently in the belief that they could do so anonymously, Sasaki and Kita told a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday. In 2010, the government launched a policy that made high school tuition basically free, including at schools for ethnic minorities. But in designing the policy, the government purposely excluded a dozen Korean schools due to their alleged links to the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, also known as Chongryon. A number of local governments have also canceled or reduced subsidies to Korean schools, citing North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese nationals and the country’s pursuit of missile and nuclear programs. Many bar associations in Japan, including in Tokyo, have issued statements calling for tuition to be free at the Korean schools in Japan and for them to be subsidized in the same way as other schools. In a blog post titled “Yomei Sannen” (“Three Years Remain to Live”), an anonymous writer told readers to target a large number of lawyers for expressing a pro-Korea stance. The blog published a long list of lawyers by name, which led to many being targeted. As a result, many letters arrived at the Tokyo Bar Association from around June last year demanding Sasaki be punished. After Kita tweeted support for Sasaki, he was also targeted, they said. The bar association outright rejected the activists’ demand that both men be reprimanded. Sasaki and Kita offered an out-of-court settlement option for the activists, and some have already agreed to a deal. The lawyers also plan to file a criminal complaint against the blogger, although the person’s identity remains unknown. “The requests (for us to be punished) were baseless and we have not participated in lawsuits related to Korean schools. The episode has put a strain on our business and has caused us mental anguish,” Sasaki said. Ethnic Koreans have long been a target of harassment by rightists in Japan, whose actions eventually led to the creation of an anti-hate speech law in 2016. More than 480,000 Korean residents lived in Japan as of the end of June 2017, according to the Justice Ministry. Most of them are descendants of Koreans who arrived, some forcibly, during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

internet lawyers lawsuit koreans netouyo


Monk sues temple at Mount Koya World Heritage site over heavy workload

Abstract: WAKAYAMA - A monk working at the World Heritage site of Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture has filed a lawsuit against the organization that operates the temple for damages and unpaid wages, claiming he developed depression and was forced to take a leave of absence because of his heavy workload, a lawyer representing him said Wednesday. The plaintiff filed the suit April 27 with the Wakayama District Court, seeking some ¥8.6 million ($78,000). The monk, in his 40s, who started working for one of the temples at Mount Koya in 2008, developed depression around December 2015 and has been absent from work since March 2016, the complaint says. A local labor standards supervision office has already recognized his overwork, confirming he once worked for at least a month without a day off. According to the complaint, his schedule included making preparations from before 5 a.m. for guests to take part in morning prayers at the temple’s shukubō , a lodging built for monks and worshippers. He sometimes worked late into the night attending to guests and fulfilling other duties at the temple. The surge in guests in 2015, which marked 1,200 years since the founding of the head temple at Mount Koya, forced him to work 64 consecutive days between March and May, and 32 straight days between September and October. Lawyer Noritake Shirakura said working at temples tends to be regarded as training, and his client wants to shed light on an environment where monks could be forced into overwork. Lawyers familiar with labor disputes say the work of monks should not be entirely treated as training as long as they receive wages for their services. Mount Koya has 117 temples, including 52 equipped with shukubo. It was listed as a World Heritage site in 2004, along with other temples and pilgrimage routes of the Kii mountain range in the prefecture. Since its listing, the annual number of shukubo guests there ranged from 200,000 to more than 400,000, with the figure for 2015 reaching some 440,000, while the number of foreign guests nearly tripled in the three years from 2013. The secluded temple complex was established by Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, who founded the Shingon school of Buddhism. Mount Koya was given three stars in 2009 by the Michelin Green Guide while National Geographic Traveler selected it in its list of 20 destinations to visit in 2015 — the only destination chosen from Japan.

lawsuit
world heritage
depression
wakayama
mount koya
buddhist monk


Over 90% of Japan's child abuse and sexual crime victims didn't receive compensation: survey

Abstract: More than 90 percent of child abuse and sexual crime victims and their families didn’t receive compensation from their assailants, nor public financial assistance, largely due to the lack of awareness on the consultation services available, police data showed Thursday. The National Police Agency analyzed the answers of 917 respondents who said they were crime victims — as well as family members of victims — in an online survey conducted between Jan. 19 and 28 that focused on men and women aged 20 or older. The survey, conducted with the aim of following up with past victims and incorporating their experiences into national policies, covered six types of crimes; violent crimes including murder and assault, sexual crimes, traffic incidents, domestic violence, stalking, and child abuse. According to the data, the proportion of victims who didn’t receive compensation or financial aid stood at 94.2 percent in child abuse cases, followed by sexual crimes at 92.9 percent, domestic violence at 91.1 percent and stalking at 90.2 percent. The state provides lump sum benefits for bereaved families of victims, or those who were seriously injured or disabled in criminal cases. An NPA official believes a lot of victims are compelled to suffer in silence and tend to go unnoticed, as many respondents also said they did not report their cases to the police. As for traffic accidents, only 35.4 percent of the respondents said they didn’t receive compensation, reflecting the use of private insurance. The figure stood at 78.7 percent for murder and assault cases. The survey also revealed that only a small proportion of all victims used support programs such as police counseling and phone consultation services provided by private support organizations. In cases of child abuse, 87.1 percent said they did not use such services. The figure stood at more than 60 percent in the other five crime categories. Asked about necessary support shortly after their victimization, more than 30 percent said they needed someone to talk to and consult with but 80.7 percent said they did not know about consultation services offered by municipal governments or other organizations. Only 7 percent said they were aware of support services before they were victimized. In the multiple answer survey section, 38.6 percent of the respondents said they did not consult with anyone, while 22.8 percent said they did not know whom to consult with, while 19.7 percent said they were reluctant to disclose their situation. Although the availability of counseling is spreading, awareness of such services remains low, the official said, adding that the NPA hopes to raise awareness of programs going forward.

abuse
survey
national police agency
compensation
victims


Former strongman Mahathir Mohamad is Malaysia’s comeback kid

Abstract: Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad has never lost an election campaign. He maintained that record and created another one on Thursday when, at 92, he was set to be sworn in as the world’s oldest elected leader. “Yes, yes, I am still alive,” a sprightly looking Mahathir said at a 3 a.m. news conference in which he claimed victory over the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition that has ruled the Southeast Asian nation since independence six decades ago. Mahathir led the coalition as Malaysia’s prime minister for 22 years, starting in 1981. As one of the country’s most eminent leaders, he was pugnacious, uncompromising and intolerant of dissent, but turned Malaysia from a sleepy backwater into one of the world’s modern industrialized nations. Described as authoritarian, he used security laws to put his political opponents behind bars. His critics say he restricted free speech and persecuted political opponents — none more so than his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, who remains in jail on charges of sodomy and corruption. Mahathir joined hands with Anwar in this campaign and has promised to seek a royal pardon for him. He has vowed to then step aside and let Anwar be prime minister. In retirement, he was still never far from the headlines. And two years ago he came back to active politics, this time in the ranks of the opposition, vowing to oust his protege Najib Razak from the prime minister’s chair over a financial scandal at the state investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). In his crusade, Mahathir eventually quit the ruling United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) party, which he had helped build, and ceded all his government advisory roles. “During his time, I was a strong opponent of Mahathir,” said Joseph Paul, 70, a retired social worker who joined thousands of people in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, to celebrate Mahathir’s win. “Well, politics they say is the art of the possible, so if he comes in to get rid of another evil, why not?” Official results early on Thursday showed that Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) had won 113 of parliament’s 222 seats, clinching the simple majority required to rule in the country’s most stunning election result. The nonagenarian is scheduled to be sworn in as prime minister later in the day. In his earlier stint as prime minister, Mahathir’s aggressive diplomacy needled countries like Britain and the United States, with comments such as one, on the eve of his retirement, that Jews ruled the world by proxy. He was once described as a “menace to his country” by financier George Soros, whom Mahathir famously derided as a “moron” in an attack on foreign currency traders during the Asian financial crisis of 1998. He also spent years squabbling with his old rival and another towering figure in Asian politics, the late Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew. Mahathir grew up in the rural heartland of Malaysia, then a British colony, witnessing severe food shortages during the 1930s Great Depression. He was a medical doctor before becoming Malaysia’s fourth prime minister in 1981 and kicking off a mission of modernization. Bridges and six-lane highways crisscrossed Malaysia in his development blitz, capped off with a lavish new administrative capital, and the world’s tallest structure when it was built, the 88-storey Petronas twin towers in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The activity helped win Mahathir the title “Father of Modern Malaysia,” but he was known for his strong-arm rule, although he fell short of some southeast Asian peers in ruthlessness. Mahathir was masterly in playing to the feelings of the mainly Muslim ethnic Malay majority. His 1970 book, “The Malay Dilemma,” argued that ethnic Malays, whom he called the nation’s rightful owners, were being eclipsed economically by ethnic Chinese. Faced with a leadership challenge after just five years in office, Mahathir detained more than 100 opposition politicians, academics and social activists without trial, under internal security laws. During the 1998 Asian financial crisis, he took a huge gamble in tackling twin economic and political crises by sacking Anwar and then going against the advice of the International Monetary Fund to impose capital and currency controls that saved the economy. Anwar took on Mahathir, turning overnight into an opposition politician, bringing tens of thousands of people onto the streets, shouting “Reformasi.” Anwar was later charged with sodomy and corruption, but Mahathir denied orchestrating the charges. After his release, he was jailed again during Najib’s rule on the same charges. Mahathir continued to wield power in UMNO even after he handed over in 2003. He backed Najib, the son of Malaysia’s second prime minister, as the premier in 2009. But in 2015 he urged Najib to step down over the corruption scandal at state fund 1MDB. In an interview in March, he said he would keep up the battle against Najib even if he lost this election. “I will be in my late 90s and physically not as strong,” he said. “But if I am well enough, I will continue the struggle.” He also seems to have accepted he made mistakes in rule, writing in a blog post in January that people and the media never failed to point out he presided over an authoritarian government for 22 years. “Looking back now, I realize why, as Prime Minister of Malaysia I was described as a dictator,” Mahathir wrote. “There were many things I did which were typically dictatorial.”

anwar ibrahim
malaysia
elections
najib razak
mahathir mohamad


Hiroshima hibakusha recalls warmth of Southeast Asian students who helped her survive A-bomb blast

Abstract: Meiko Kurihara was a 19-year-old mobilized student at Toyo Kogyo (now Mazda Motor Corp.) when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Now 92 and living in a nursing home in Hiroshima, Kurihara remembers being badly hurt by flying glass from the blast. Despite her injuries, she tended to the wounded who managed to escape the city’s center, only to do little more than watch them die. As the inferno caused by the bomb prevented her from entering the city, it was not until Aug. 7 that she was able to return to her burned-down house within. Her mother, Kaneko, and her sister, Shoko, had evacuated to a nearby village to avoid air raids. But her father, Ken, had been working in the city as an eye doctor at Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital. Worried about her father, the second-year student at Hiroshima Jogakuin Senmon Gakko wandered around the city looking for him. She came across scores of dead and injured on the road, but went on, trying not to get upset by the scene. Unable to find her father, she used a cinder to scrawl the words “Meiko is fine” on a fire cistern before continuing on to the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital to look for him there. On the way, she froze when she came across a black object. When she picked it, she found that it was warm and, from the shape of the head and hands, she realized it was a baby. It was then that, for the first time, she was hit by grief. It was when she was feeling down for being unable to find her father that she came across a friend from the Hiroshima University of Literature and Science (now Hiroshima University), across the street. Shedding tears, they embraced and then entered the school, where her friend introduced her to six Southeast Asian students who had come to study at the university. The foreign students caught up in the bombing included those from what are now Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Kurihara spent a week at the university with these students after the bombing. At the time, the six were living together in the dormitory known as Konan-ryo. They reassured Kurihara that she didn’t have to be afraid anymore, which made her feel comfortable. She had seen them enjoying the cool evening breeze near the dormitory before, but this was the first time she had spoken to them. That evening they ate boiled potatoes together on the school playground and slept there in the open air. On Aug. 8, Kurihara found her mother at the wreckage of their home, where she had come with the students to search for food. Still unable to find her father, Kurihara started spending her days searching for him, staying at the campus at night. Whenever she returned without success, the students helped lift her spirits by telling her not to give up. The students grew to love Kurihara’s mother and called her okāsan , meaning mother in Japanese. Kurihara imagined that they keenly missed their own mothers and she felt very sorry for them, but they shared some good times together and their presence was greatly encouraging. During that time, Kurihara heard the students had pulled a female student from the river bank onto a raft to save her, but unfortunately, the girl and the raft drifted away. They also went to a food distribution station for Kurihara. Despite being caught up in this terrible event in a foreign country, they all did what they could to help others. In the evening, she was comforted by the sound of a violin they retrieved from the dormitory. Kurihara and the students stayed together until Aug. 14, just a day before Japan surrendered. After the war, Kurihara moved to the village of Kuji, where she came down with radiation sickness resulting from her exposure to the fallout. The inside of her mouth became inflamed and her hair fell out. She was terrified that she would die. While sick in bed, her mother went on searching for her father and eventually learned he had perished after being trapped in a collapsed building at Hiroshima Prefectural Hospital. When winter came, Kurihara returned to school, working part-time to make ends meet. After graduating, she began working for the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, a U.S. government agency aimed at researching the effects of the Hiroshima A-bomb, in 1948. The stable income helped her lead a financially better life. But reflecting on the 21 years she worked there, she felt deeply conflicted because the organization was affiliated with the country that destroyed Hiroshima. In talking about her experience, Kurihara says what lingers most strongly in her mind are the Southeast Asian students she stayed with. Unfortunately, though, two of them died from radiation exposure, one in Kyoto after leaving the university and just before he was to return to his country. When she speaks about her war experience, Kurihara makes sure to include the students so they won’t be forgotten. “I hope that those who listen to my account will remember the young Southeast Asian students who tried to help the people of Hiroshima despite being exposed to the atomic bomb themselves,” she said.

history
hiroshima
atomic bombing
meiko kurihara


Disgraced scientist Haruko Obokata back in public eye with photo spread in weekly magazine

Abstract: ‘Hello, Bunshun- san . Yesterday I wrote in my diary that, ‘Well, it’s come to this, that I am working with you.'” So begins a short essay by Haruko Obokata that accompanied three glossy color photographs, called gurabia (short for “color rotogravure”) appearing at the front of the May 17 issue of Shukan Bunshun magazine. The photos were taken by one of Japan’s most accomplished portrait photographers, Kishin Shinoyama. Her black, sleeveless dress descends to mid-calf length and the photos are perfectly proper, although one pose, in a prone position with eyes closed, may be considered remotely suggestive. One blogger who goes by the handle “Wolflog” identified her garment as being from Gucci, and claimed it retails for ¥213,840. The amount Obokata received for her essay and photos, however, remains open to speculation. Several years ago, when her troubles were at their peak, it was rumored she was offered to appear undraped in a magazine for ¥50 million. Obokata, 34, is neither an entertainer nor a guradoru (gravia idol, i.e., pinup girl), at least in the professional sense. In early 2014, she published two articles in the British scientific journal Nature based on her doctoral studies, “Isolation of pluripotent adult stem cells discovered from tissues derived from all three germ layers.” Her scientific breakthrough proved to be anything but, and over a short span of time, her career crashed and had burned. By June that same year, Nature announced her papers would be withdrawn. In July, she had failed to replicate the results of her study in the laboratory and, a month later, her mentor and co-author Yoshiki Sasai committed suicide. Her doctorate degree was rescinded. She has been rumored to have been lying low in Kobe, but she occasionally surfaces for interviews. This time, she’s promoting an account of her circumstances from December 2014 to October 2016, a 304-page work from Chuo Koron Shinsha titled “The Diary of Haruko Obokata.” “Since I underwent an extremely unusual experience, I thought it would not be a waste of time to leave behind a record of the way things transpired,” she wrote. “One of the key personages that figures in the diary is Bunshun-san. I was thinking that if your readers peruse my diary, they might be able to enjoy aspects from different perspectives than they might have otherwise expected. “So I made the decision to appear in Bunshun because I wanted them to read it.” She admits that she felt resistance at first to conveying her feelings “because the coverage has been almost entirely negative.” “But as a person who has been hounded, I felt all the more strongly moved to leave behind an accurate record, so I decided to publish,” she wrote. “The things I viewed through the microscope even now float before my eyes, and when I dream about enjoying the company of people who I’ll never see again seems unreal. This fills my heart with pain.” Asked if she thinks there is a chance she’ll ever return to the lab and see STAP cells again, she replies, “In my present situation, I can’t easily answer that. I’m not able to do the things that I want to do, and it’s not something I’ll be able to do on my own.” When the vicissitudes of life turn against public personas of the female persuasion, some have chosen to pose, sometimes undressed, in weekly magazines and also photo collections. Their motives cannot be easily generalized: For some, it might be a means of reviving a sputtering career; for others, the motive is likely to based on the need for for a quick infusion of cash. One of the biggest newsmakers of her time was Mieko Enomoto, who was married to Toshio Enomoto, the private secretary of Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. Her damaging testimony regarding the Marubeni trading company and the Lockheed Scandals the 1970s came to be known colloquially as the “bee sting.” After her divorce she posed nude in Penthouse and other publications. One shot showed her clad in a dominatrix costume, complete with high-heeled boots and a riding whip. Former singing idol Mari Amachi, 66, the perky princess of pop music in the early 1970s, was reportedly raking in ¥3 million a month at the peak of her popularity and owned a spacious condo in an upscale neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. But at age 25 she developed a thyroid disorder. Her weight ballooned and attempts at a comeback proved futile. Banking on her fame, she appeared in a pornographic film in 1986 that paid a ¥2 million guarantee. “I spent most of it on a fur coat,” she recalled in a weekly magazine. James Bailey, former entertainment editor of Tokyo Weekender, recalls Amachi’s struggles to recapture the limelight. “Amachi’s nude photo spread happened in 1997 (at age 46), the same year that saw publication of her ‘Snow White’ diet book, as well as her endorsements for dietary supplements. So, diet book, ads, nude photos and so on were all designed to show off the slim figure that can be yours, too, ladies,” he pointed out in an email. “Moreover, she kept working pretty steadily in show biz for the next decade, after which she virtually vanished for a two-year period, so if the nude book had a deleterious effect on her career, it was also a delayed one.” Glossy American-style magazines with pull-out centerfolds were introduced to Japan with mixed success. Shueisha published a Japanese-language edition of Playboy magazine from July 1975 to November 2008. Its circulation declined from 900,000 at its peak to 55,000 by the end. Penthouse’s Japanese-language edition, published by Kodansha, lasted only five years, from 1983 to 1988. Efforts to keep it afloat through one-time specials proved futile, and the publisher finally pulled the plug in 2014.


Japan's courts are being asked to define the role of the SDF

Abstract: As discussed in Media Mix last week, news organizations are on the lookout for signs of whether the country’s Self-Defense Forces are becoming politically active. There have been indications the SDF wants to be the conventional military that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has in mind, but that doesn’t mean the entire organization agrees with this direction. After the Cabinet decided in 2015 to allow the SDF to participate in collective self-defense overseas, an active Ground SDF member brought a suit against the government demanding that it clarify if he would have to go abroad if the SDF was ordered to do so. As explained in an Asahi Shimbun editorial published in February , Japan might issue such an order if faced with sonritsu kiki jitai, meaning a “security crisis that threatens the nation’s survival” due to conflicts that affect an ally of Japan. The SDF plaintiff argues that the Constitution, which disavows armed aggression in any form, prohibits Japan from carrying out collective self-defense. The SDF member simply wanted the government to confirm that it would send him overseas if an ally requested it. Last year, the Tokyo District Court dismissed the suit out of hand because it found “no specific possibility of such an order being issued.” In other words, the court couldn’t rule on a theoretical scenario. The SDF member filed an appeal, so while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe used the threat of North Korean missiles as a means to justify his call for greater security during last fall’s election campaign for the Lower House, government lawyers were in court claiming that a conflict with North Korea was merely an “abstract and hypothetical assumption.” On Jan. 31, the Tokyo High Court rejected the appeal and sent the case back to the lower court, saying that the plaintiff deserved to know if he was obligated to follow such an order since he could be prosecuted if he disobeyed it. This case is only one of the most recent in a series of lawsuits whose purpose has been to define the role of the SDF within the scope of the Constitution. All ended in the government obfuscating that role so that it never has to address the issue. The apparent thinking of the SDF plaintiff in the current lawsuit is that he signed up to defend Japanese soil and Japan’s citizens only, and so he is demanding that the government definitively state what he is expected to do. Coincidentally, NHK aired a documentary on April 28 describing two court cases that addressed similar matters. In the first, two Hokkaido dairy farmers cut communications cables on a neighboring SDF base in 1962 because the loud drills that took place on the base were disturbing the cows and the farmers’ livelihoods. The government prosecuted them for violating Article 121 of the SDF Law, which prohibits destruction of SDF property. Although the pair wanted the drills to stop and damages to be paid, a civic group supported them and helped raise public awareness about the case. Among those who supported the brothers was a law professor who helped raise funds for their defense with the aim of using the case to challenge the existence of the SDF, which had been established in 1954 even though the Constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining armed forces. The lawyers’ immediate strategy was to prove that the farmers were not breaking any laws, and in order to do that they aimed to show that the SDF itself was illegal based on Article 9 of the Constitution. After a long trial the judge found the farmer innocent, but not due to any constitutional violation. The judge said the cut cable was not vital to SDF operations and so the farmer did not break the SDF Law. He made no mention of the Constitution. The defense lawyers, as well as the media covering the case, saw through this ploy. By acquitting the farmer, the judge prevented any possibility of the case being appealed by the defense, and the government didn’t want to discuss the constitutionality of the SDF, so it didn’t appeal the verdict. According to NHK, the judge’s daughter, years later, said that her father had been instructed by his superiors in the Sapporo District Court to decide the matter in that way. The second case covered by the documentary also took place in Hokkaido, and only a few years later. In the late 1960s, the SDF wanted to build a Nike-J missile base on a plateau above the town of Naganuma, but since the forest on the mountain was protected, the SDF had to receive a waiver from the government. The residents were afraid that by cutting the trees in the watershed, flooding would increase in the town, so they filed an injunction to stop the waiver. The judge, Shigeo Fukushima, told NHK that he also received instruction from the Sapporo District Court to reject the injunction but he refused. Naturally, the government appealed his decision and won in the higher court. Naganuma then sued the government over the missile base, thus paving the way for another challenge to the constitutionality of the SDF. Fukushima was again the judge, and he stuck by his guns, saying in the end that the plaintiff’s lawyers successfully argued that the SDF’s existence violated the principles of heiwa-teki seizon ken, the “right to peaceful existence,” as outlined in the introduction of the Constitution. It was the first time a judge had found the SDF’s existence to be unconstitutional but, of course, the government appealed and had the decision reversed in a higher court, which asserted that the right to peaceful existence was “not relevant” to this trial. As with the current case brought by the SDF member, the government argued that the principles invoked by Naganuma’s lawyers were too abstract to have any legal force. NHK made a direct link between the Hokkaido cases and Okinawans who oppose U.S. military bases. In lawsuits, residents have claimed that the bases violate their right to peaceful existence. Though they are still fighting, former judge Kunio Aoyama told NHK he thinks it’s only a matter of time before they win. “Understanding of the right to peaceful existence has matured,” he said.

constitution
self defense forces
lawsuits


Sanrio characters in 'Aggretsuko' reflect the realities of life at work — rage included

Abstract: Sanrio Co. is known for churning out some of the most adorable creatures out there, including Hello Kitty and the bunny My Melody. Its characters are often cute and colorful, and usually silent. Retsuko the red panda, on the other hand, is the total opposite of Sanrio’s typical line of mascots. She is neurotic, angry and absolutely hates her life — as well as many of the people in it. That’s the plot behind one of the newest anime shows on Netflix at the moment, “Aggretsuko.” The 10-episode series follows “OL” (office lady) Retsuko as she deals with the trials and tribulations of living and working in Japan, including being squashed on a commuter train every day. All the while she has to deal with a variety of characters at her work, including the cunning and friendly Fenneko (a fennec fox) and her misogynistic boss, Director Ton (a pig, naturally). She has to control her anger in the face of classic Japanese tropes — working late, being forced to make tea, and simply bowing and apologizing when being scolded. Retsuko copes with her stress by counting to 10, daydreaming about changing jobs and screaming heavy death metal at the top of her lungs. Yes, this is where the aggressive part of Retsuko comes out. The sweet-looking red panda actually has a dark side, spending her hours after work (or sometimes during a bathroom break) singing about her disdain for her job and her managers. She even carries around a microphone with her as routinely as a phone or keys, just in case the mood strikes. Prepare to have your remote handy while watching the show, as you’ll probably want to turn down the sound once Retsuko starts yelling “S— BOSS!” “Aggretsuko” isn’t afraid to show an aspect of society that many ignore or pretend doesn’t exist: young women can be angry, too. “Kawaii” Retsuko dreams of slapping her boss with a resignation letter or hitting her superior with a bolt of lightning. “STRIKE THEM DOWN!” she sings. The story of “Aggretsuko” — a young woman trying to appear upbeat and composed in an aggressive and overly masculine work environment — has indeed resonated with many females in Japan. Twitter user @katoww wrote: “I can’t stop (watching) ‘Aggretsuko.’ Can’t stop. Too many feels.” @Taichi701001 posted that his daughter suggested he watch the show, which ending up moving him: “It appeared so cute at first. It made me think about how society is just being cut to pieces. … I recommend it!” Overseas viewers are also relating to hardworking Retsuko. Twitter user @AZHarmonia posted “Retsuko is my spirit animal. I freaking love her,” while other viewers are posting plenty of fan art online . People who live in Los Angeles were able to jump into the show by visiting Sanrio’s pop-up shop in this month, appropriately named the Den of Rage , and snapping of a picture of themselves in Retsuko’s office . And it’s not just OLs or anime fanatics that are being attracted to the show. “Aggretsuko” has inspired think pieces on all corners of the internet, including Verge ( “Netflix’s ‘Aggretsuko’ show is a shockingly insightful portrait of feminine rage” ), Huffington Post ( “‘Aggretsuko’ is a workplace comedy where rage Is front and center” ) and Thrillist ( “Netflix’s ‘Aggretsuko’ is the anime series for anyone who’s worked a s—– office job” ). Buzzfeed even has a quiz that will reveal which character from the show best represents you. The success of “Aggretsuko” may be a sign that Japan’s laborers are sick of the country’s work-yourself-to-death lifestyle. A 2017 poll by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry showed that 1 in 3 employees have experienced “power harassment” bullying on the job, and a 2017 survey by Expedia.com revealed that more than 60 percent of people feel guilty for taking paid holidays. Perhaps “Aggretsuko” is a warning signal of the anger building up in workers who are tired of dealing with outdated rules and restrictions simply because that’s the way it’s always been. Retsuko may lead a new generation of employees who are mad as hell — and not afraid to sing about it.


Watanabe Kazan: Too open-minded for Edo

Abstract: Imagine living in a “closed country.” Japan was such for over two centuries, from the anti-Christian hysteria of the 1630s to the incursion in the 1850s of the American “Black Ships.” Imagine living in a doorless, windowless, airless room. You know there’s life beyond the walls — you keep hearing voices, though you can’t make out the words. You’re stifling, you feel your mind atrophying. It craves nourishment, but Confucian thought no longer nourishes, and anything else is criminal. One fall day in 1838 an informal club called the Shoshikai held a meeting. The club’s name can be translated as Old Men’s Association. The members were young, restless. Youth and restlessness were subversive. The name was chosen to conceal, not reveal. The first meetings, a year before, had discussed the dreadful famines that all too frequently wracked the land. The founding members were Confucian scholars, but others, known as rangakusha , also drifted in. Rangakusha were students, more or less furtive, of “Dutch learning” — of Western science generally, wisps of which were filtering into Japan via a handful of Dutch traders confined to an island off Nagasaki. This was Japan’s sole window on the outside world throughout the long years of sakoku (closed country). The Shoshikai’s agenda broadened. Rumor filled the air. What was true? What was not? There were no newspapers, there was no news, everything was secret. One rumor concerned an American ship called the Morrison. It was said to be on its way, its mission to repatriate a number of Japanese castaways. When it arrived, some had heard, it was to be immediately fired upon, based on an edict of 1825 known as the “No Second Thought Expulsion Order.” Russian and British ships had become frequent visitors in Far Eastern waters. They demanded provisions, sought trade, wheedled, threatened. Informed that Japanese law forbade traffic with foreigners, they did not always accept the rebuff with grace. There were scuffles and altercations. The “No Second Thought” order was Japan’s warning to anyone daring to test her resolve that they had better not. The trouble was, Japanese gunnery was pitifully primitive. Primitive force risked provoking sophisticated force. Didn’t the bakufu (shogunal government) know this? The Shoshikai members did, or sensed it, feared it, and had assembled, on that day in 1838, to discuss the matter — little knowing, so dim was the awareness of even the best informed people, that the Morrison, far from being en route, had in fact paid its call a full year earlier and, unarmed to emphasize its peaceful intention, had been driven off at gunpoint. As though alarmed by its own temerity, the bakufu, without actually repealing “No Second Thought,” never applied it again. They knew nothing, these Shoshikai “old men,” of what was going on, even in their own country, let alone in the great world outside. They knew they knew nothing and craved knowledge as the starving crave food, as the choking crave air. One member went home from the meeting and began to set down his churning thoughts in an essay. Having written it, he kept it to himself. Its implicit criticism of the government was potentially a capital offense. Perhaps he had gone too far? Perhaps he had. Spies were everywhere. The fact that he made no attempt to publish the essay did not save him from arrest — only from the death penalty. No matter. Released after months of interrogation to the custody of his domain, he committed seppuku, consumed with guilt for having betrayed, if only in thought, his country and his heritage. His name was Watanabe Kazan. He was born in 1793, a high-ranking but impoverished samurai of the remote domain of Tahara, in today’s Aichi Prefecture. He was a painter, a brilliant one. And a thinker — no mean one. Confucian to the core, he was drawn nonetheless to rangaku. Perhaps the European “barbarians” knew something the Confucian sages didn’t? In 1821, traveling on domain business to the island of Enoshima, he wrote in his diary, “How wonderful! How marvelous! From here to the southeast is what the Westerners call the Pacific Ocean and the American states! They must be very close!” If rangaku has a founder, the honor must go to a physician named Sugita Genpaku (1733-1817). Medicine, like every other branch of learning, was Confucian. Happening on a Dutch translation of a German anatomy textbook, Sugita was awed: “I couldn’t read a word, of course, but the drawings of the viscera, bones and muscles were quite unlike anything I had seen before, and I realized that they must have been drawn from life.” He and two colleagues learned Dutch from scratch and spent four years translating the book. Diehard Confucians stuck to their guns. The sages had not erred. Barbarian anatomy was for barbarian bodies, not for Japanese. If that sounds foolish to us, we ought to reflect that European medical pioneers of the 16th and 17th centuries faced similar objections from diehard practitioners of classical Greek medicine. Watanabe’s essay, writes historian Donald Keene in “Frog in the Well: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan, 1793-1841,” though “written in white-hot indignation,” is no call to revolution. Watanabe defends sakoku, fearing above all its vulnerability unless Japan fortifies itself with European technology. But there is another strain. In the West, Watanabe speculates, “people choose the profession they will follow, whether academic or technical, depending on their individual talents. They do not consider some professions as noble and others as base; they reserve their criticism for men who fail to realize their talents.” How he and the other “old men” yearned to do just that — “realize their talents”! A culpable ambition. Guilty as charged, said the verdict — of being “a blind devotee of foreign learning.” Watanabe is a tragic figure, a man out of his time — born too early, or too late. He died in 1841. The “American states” were very close indeed. The Black Ships were 12 years away. Sakoku crumbled like a sand castle.

confucius
watanabe kazan
black ships
bafaku
shoshikai
rangakusha
dutch learning
morrison incident


Osaka putting the 'cart before the horse' with 2025 expo bid

Abstract: OSAKA - In early May, Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura traveled to South Africa to attend a Japan-Africa economic meeting and chat up Osaka’s efforts to host the 2025 World Expo. At the gathering were representatives from dozens of African countries, though it is not clear how many actually had earnest talks with him. Yoshimura’s reason for traveling halfway around the world for a couple of days was simple. Of the 170 members of the Paris-based Bureau International des Expositions, nearly a third are from Africa. Their votes will be crucial when the BIE awards the 2025 Expo in November. Yoshimura’s foray into this kind of international lobbying was preceded by plenty of “administrative guidance,” which in the previous century was recognized among foreign businesses and Japan scholars as a euphemism for “tight bureaucratic control.” In this case, those who guided Yoshimura included not only smiling suits from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and the Foreign Ministry, but also the Japanese business community. The visit received only moderate media attention in Osaka, where local excitement over the bid, as even Osaka politicians admit, is not very high. Yoshimura justified the huge travel expense to voters as critical to Osaka’s international PR efforts. But one wonders if he, and Osaka, aren’t pursuing a flawed strategy. Some of the most influential BIE votes are from Francophone Africa and Central and South America. While extended trips by a large Osaka delegation to those places are not practical, the mayor, his corporate friends, and the Japanese government, which says it strongly backs the bid, might have done better by using the money to fly to Paris, meet at length with African and Latin American BIE delegates one-on-one, and then decide which countries to lobby. But even that option doesn’t address a more fundamental problem. The Expo 2025 Osaka bid still has the smell of a top-down, corporate campaign run largely by elderly Japanese men, and is one that seems devoid of a genuine “people’s movement.” It’s the same type of campaign that, in 2001, led to Osaka being kicked out of the first round of voting for the 2008 Olympics. Nobody expected to beat Beijing, which won the bid. But neither did anyone expect Osaka to do so badly. Of course, it didn’t help that Olympic delegates were not allowed to visit bid cities after all manner of bribes and corruption in the bidding process were revealed, meaning nobody from the International Olympic Committee ever made it to Osaka before the vote. Osaka faces the same situation with its 2025 expo bid. BIE delegates will not be flying into Kansai International Airport over the coming months with their families and hangers-on for a relaxing holiday in Osaka where their luxury hotel suites, Michelin-starred dinners, various forms of risque evening entertainment and luxury shopping sprees for their spouses are provided courtesy of Osaka taxpayers via the expo bid committee. Thankfully, that kind of nonsense is forbidden. But, then, how does Osaka convince the BIE it deserves the expo? Flashy videos long on technical production and short on meaningful content won’t do it. Nor will an army of men and women in business attire handing out business cards and brochures while reciting the same platitudes and buzz words at large, formal events, either here in Japan or abroad, pull it off. Osaka is sure to spend the next six months trying to figure out how to “promote its bid to foreigners.” As with the 2008 Olympic bid, they’re putting the cart before the horse. Unless Osakans of all ages, income levels, and social backgrounds demonstrate, and quickly, to the world in general and to the BIE in particular they really want to the expo, the 2025 bid may well suffer the same fate as the 2008 Olympic bid.