Top-heavy, nuke-clinging Kepco faces liberated electricity market

Abstract: OSAKA - News that 7-Eleven stores in the Kansai region will trade Kansai Electric Power Co.’s electricity in favor of cheaper electricity from Tokyo Electric Power Co. has locals wondering if Kepco’s six-decade monopoly over Kansai’s electricity supply might be ending. From October, about 1,000 Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd. stores in three Kansai prefectures will purchase their electricity from Tepco. The move comes just months after Kepco raised rates, and Seven-Eleven Japan, noting Tepco’s cheaper fees, made the move to switch utilities. Stores in Nara, Wakayama and Hyogo prefectures will receive 32,000 kw of Tepco-provided electricity from a self-generator at the utility’s Kansai factory. That’s enough to power about 10,000 homes. For Seven-Eleven Japan, switching to Tepco means reduced electricity costs amounting to hundreds of millions of yen. With deregulation in the smaller users electricity market set to begin next April, giving small businesses and residential customers a wider option of providers, Kepco seems particularly ill-placed to take advantage of the new competitive environment. Prior to 2011, Kepco relied on nuclear power for up to half of its total electricity supply — the highest ratio of any utility in Japan. Because all 11 of its reactors remain idle, though two will be decommissioned, Kepco says it was forced to hike electricity rates in June to make up for lost revenues. But a host of critics, starting with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, have also noted that Kepco has done little to reduce its top-heavy management structure, especially the number of senior executives, all of whom command huge salaries and bonuses. Adding to investor concerns is the fact that scare stories about how blackouts will occur without Kepco-provided nuclear power no longer resonate with the public. Thanks to a combination of voluntary reductions in electricity usage and ever more energy efficient technology, Japan as a whole is consuming over 10 percent less electricity now compared to 2010. Even during the first week of August, when air conditioners were running full blast and temperatures topped 35 degrees, Kepco had plenty of electricity to sell, with demand under 90 percent, and as low as 80 percent, of available supply. Nowadays, Kepco has changed tactics, and says the only way it can compete against Tepco and new electricity providers is to restart its nuclear plants so it can offer lower prices. But increased competition due to deregulatory measures, the introduction of more energy-efficient technologies like LED lighting, and shifting electricity consumption habits these past four years means Kepco will have to fight a lot harder to keep its old customers — let alone find new ones — in the coming years.

tepco kepco kansai electricity seven-eleven


Psychology is where real radiation risks lie

Abstract: Misinformation breeds discrimination. As if it wasn’t enough to experience the trauma of a nuclear bomb, many hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) also faced appalling discrimination. It appears their children and grandchildren still do — as do those who were caught up in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear disaster in 2011. Problems arise because the general public is not properly informed about radiation. Stories in newspapers often exaggerate the risks and fears surrounding radiation, as do lobby groups opposed to nuclear energy. I’ve been thinking about this when reading some of the first-hand accounts of nuclear war from surviving hibakusha. Shimako Yamaguchi, 94, recounted her memories of the Nagasaki bomb to the Asahi Shimbun. She’s been plagued by nightmares about the dying people she had to leave behind. Crawling across a bridge covered in bodies on the morning of Aug. 9, 1945, she had to free herself from a hand that grasped her ankle. Sometimes, guilt-ridden, she still feels the grip of that hand. However, she said, throughout her life she’s been called a marugen (“nukey”), even in hospitals when she’s gone for checkups. Hiroshima resident Shizuoka Abe, 18 at the time of the bomb and now 88, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that her children were bullied. They were called “A-bomb children” and faced discrimination. Perhaps even more troubling, misinformation may still cause discrimination, fear and suffering today. I heard from a friend of a friend in Hiroshima, a granddaughter of a hibakusha, that she was afraid to have children in case they had genetic problems. I was shocked by this — the woman herself is fine but she was still worried about her genes. She should not be concerned. Several studies have shown that the children and grandchildren of hibakusha do not have any increased risk of genetic problems. It’s horrifying that people should still be worried about this; the general public should be reassured that they are OK. In a paper published earlier this month in The Lancet medical journal, professor Kenji Kamiya of Hiroshima University and colleagues reported on the long-term health impact of radiation exposure from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Kamiya’s team looked at evidence from a life span study that followed 94,000 atomic bomb survivors from 1950 (five years after the bombings) to the current day. Yes, they found that survivors of the bombs face an increased lifetime risk of cancer. The risk was found to be proportional to dose for “solid cancers” — all cancers other than leukemia — and people exposed as children had a higher risk. However, hereditary effects have not been detected. In other words, the children of hibakusha are not at any greater risk of developing cancer during their lives. In a 2003 study conducted by Dale Preston of Hirosoft International Corp., researchers found that hibakusha had a 10.7 percent greater risk of developing a solid cancer than other Japanese who were not exposed to radiation. In addition, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation found that a person who receives a whole-body dose of radiation will carry a cancer risk that is less than five times that of an unexposed individual. It is uncontroversial to conclude, therefore, that the psychological effects of radiation exposure may be worse than the actual physiological effects. Certainly, the psychological stigma seems to have been worse for a number of descendants of hibakusha and for people living near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Koichi Tanigawa of Fukushima Medical University agrees that the worst outcome of the disaster was the psychological problems it caused. “Although the radiation dose to the public from Fukushima was relatively low, and no discernible physical health effects are expected, psychological and social problems, largely stemming from the differences in risk perceptions, have had a devastating impact on people’s lives,” Tanigawa wrote in findings published in The Lancet. Tanigawa’s colleague, Akira Ohtsuru, also at Fukushima Medical University, has also published a paper that addresses concerns about mental health in the wake of a nuclear accident. “One of the key tasks of the health services is to reliably communicate that in most nuclear accidents very few people are exposed to a life-threatening dose of radiation,” Ohtsuru wrote. He also wrote that “screening for mental illness in residents relocated from their homes and providing mental health care will be essential.” It’s not really surprising that the obvious physical effects of radiation exposure are the ones that doctors have focused on over the years. First the immediate effects of exposure to radiation, then the potential increased risk of cancer. Radiation is invisible and that’s one of the reasons it is so feared. However, the psychological effects of exposure — even of small, harmless amounts — are hard to see, too. Even reading the accounts of the hibakusha can be harrowing. Nothing most of us have experienced comes close. It is vital that their stories are told so people never forget what they went through. We can now, in the month of the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at least acknowledge the psychological burden carried by those caught up in nuclear accidents — especially those living around Fukushima — to make their internal suffering visible. This is the conclusion of Kamiya’s paper. “Psychosocial problems in Fukushima have a devastating effect on people’s lives,” he wrote. “In addition to the natural science of radiation effects, psychosocial studies should be integrated into recovery planning after nuclear accidents such as that at Fukushima.”

wwii
nagasaki
hiroshima
discrimination
hibakusha
atomic bombings


The fraught debate over science and divinity

Abstract: Truth is a sordid business. It brings nations down to earth, cuts people down to size. Why honor it, therefore? Why esteem it above myth, which does the opposite, raising nations to the gods and turning ordinary, unremarkable people into subjects of divine rulers? Japan, the ancient chronicles tell us, is “the land of the gods,” its emperors descended from the Sun Goddess. Pre-rational thinking spawns beliefs a lot more fantastic than that. Is it surprising that this one went so long unquestioned? Prince among early skeptics was Confucius (551-479 B.C.). Asked by a disciple how best to serve the gods, he replied, “You are not even able to serve man. How can you serve the spirits?” Keep your thoughts earthbound, he seems to be saying; they’ll be busy enough. Confucianism in Japan goes back to the seventh-century, coming of age a millennium later as the official ideology of the Tokugawa shoguns. Absolute rulers from 1603 to 1867, the Tokugawas found Confucian downplaying of the divine a convenient cover for their effective sidelining of the divine Emperor. Confucianist Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725) spoke in the master’s prosaic spirit when he said, “The kami (gods) are human beings. … And when the kami Izanagi and Izanami are said to have had intercourse and produced the islands of Japan, this refers to a merging of two great fleets of warships led by these personages.” The Meiji Restoration of 1868 toppled the Tokugawas and hurled feudal, stagnant, isolated, backward Japan forward into the modern world. This was a revolution — carried out in the name of the 15-year-old Emperor Meiji, “restored” not to power but to immaculate, powerless, sacredness. Out with Confucianism. Japan once again was “the land of the gods,” and the shrewd politicians who ruled in the Emperor’s name intended to keep it that way. The intellectual dilemma this determination encompassed emerged only gradually. Science and myth are fundamentally incompatible. A regime seeking to wield both — science to build “a rich nation and a strong army,” myth to foster popular enthusiasm and unquestioning obedience — walks a very tricky tightrope. Science meant education in the positivist mode — unfettered curiosity, methodical observation, objective reasoning. European and American professors were recruited to staff new universities, Tokyo Imperial University, the future University of Tokyo, among them. Scientific history was largely a German development. Among its early exponents was Ludwig Riess (1861-1928), who taught at Tokyo Imperial University for three years beginning in 1887. Riess articulated the spirit of the new age: “All historical subjects and problems are capable and in need of scientific treatment.” Riess setting the tone, Japanese colleagues eagerly followed. Most famous among them was Kunitake Kume (1839-1931). Decorated and feted, he suffered an abrupt downfall. In 1892, he resigned in disgrace. What had he done? How had he offended? He had said — as Arai and other Tokugawa thinkers had two centuries earlier — that Japan’s gods were mythical, not historical; that the native Shinto religion was a primitive form of worship, relic of bygone times. As for the “way of the gods,” what nation doesn’t have its way of the gods? “The way of the gods is worldwide,” said Kume; “religion itself is the way of the gods.” The Meiji government was honest at least to the extent of being forthright about its conservative aims. There was no humbugging lip service to individual freedom, human rights, democracy. “In the administration of all schools,” declared Education Minister Arinori Mori (shortly before his assassination in 1889 by a Shintoist zealot), “it must be kept in mind that what is done is not for the sake of the pupils but for the sake of the country.” Imperial universities in Meiji Japan were government departments; professors were civil servants. Kume, clearly, was a man of considerable courage. Mori’s assassination made the risks he ran only too plain; dismissal was one of the lesser ones, and he remained admirably firm when political thugs known as soshi visited his home uninvited and harangued him for hours. Years later, having to some extent resuscitated his academic career at the private Waseda University, he recalled: “We three professors, (Yasutsugu) Shigeno, (Hisashi) Hoshino and myself, who started the Department of Japanese History, were all considered bad. I was the most hated of the three, and … when I expressed myself too lightly in the matter of Shinto, I had to resign the prestigious position of professor at the Imperial University. Looking back, I would say that I was a victim of the merger of Japan and Korea.” That vexed question did not involve him personally, but the axe fell on him as the most radical, or perhaps simply the most reckless, of the three trailblazing disciples of Riess. Shigeno — as historian John Brownlee explains in his book “Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600-1945” — was known as “Dr. Obliteration” for the doubts he cast on the existence of this or that character of myth or pseudo-history. Hoshino evolved a hypothesis that assigned Korean origin to the god Oshimimi, a child of Amaterasu Omikami, the Sun Goddess and ancestress of the Imperial line. The supposed ancient union of Japan and Korea gave Japan its excuse to annex Korea in 1910, but 20 years earlier it was a touchy subject. Shigeno and Hoshino, more politically adroit apparently than Kume — their failure to speak out in Kume’s defense suggests as much — were spared, though Shigeno’s works were censored posthumously amid the nationalist hysteria of the 1930s. In 1911, a vague plot to assassinate Emperor Meiji was summarily dealt with by a mass roundup of political dissidents, 12 of whom were hanged. See what unorthodox teaching leads to, people said. “Scientific history” was amoral, corrosive. “History,” Brownlee quotes the contemporary scholar Shuji Isawa as asserting, “must be centered primarily on moral education that makes clear the right relations between the Emperor and his subjects” — the former divine, the latter worshipful. “That is not open to question.”


Five ex-prime ministers rap Abe over his push for security bills

Abstract: Five former prime ministers harshly criticized current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over his push for security bills that would greatly expand the role of the Self-Defense Forces overseas, according to their statements collected by a group of former journalists. The group of about 50 former reporters for newspaper publishers and TV stations said it received written recommendations from five former prime ministers — Morihiro Hosokawa, Tsutomu Hata, Tomiichi Murayama, Yukio Hatoyama and Naoto Kan — after asking 12 former prime ministers in writing in July to give advice to Abe. Abe’s Cabinet in May approved the security bills that would allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, or coming to the aid of the United States or other friendly nations under armed attack even if Japan itself is not attacked. The bills are now in the upper chamber of the Diet after the ruling parties pushed them through the Lower House last month despite mounting public opposition and questions over the legislation’s consistency with the pacifist Constitution. Kan, who served as prime minister from June 2010 to September 2011, said in a statement that Abe “is against constitutionalism and unqualified as a prime minister of a democratic country. … I request his resignation.” Hosokawa, who led Japan from August 1993 to April 1994, called for scrapping of the security bills. “If the security bills are passed, it would mean the collapse of constitutionalism and damage national interests,” he said. Hata, who took the helm for about two months after Hosokawa’s term, said, “The spirit of the pacifist Constitution laid the foundation for peace and prosperity today … let’s protect Japan from Prime Minister Abe.” Murayama, who served as prime minister from June 1994 to January 1996, criticized Abe for pushing through parliament the controversial bills despite mounting public concerns as seen in demonstrations and opinion polls. He said Abe’s attitude of pushing the bills through by “neglecting people’s voices” is “unforgivable.” Hatoyama, whose term lasted about nine months from September 2009, said, “I request the prime minister to make a wise decision to shift from ‘nation-building toward war’ to ‘nation-building for peace.'” Konosuke Oharu, 79, a former reporter for NHK, said at a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the statements written by former prime ministers share the same values to respect the Constitution and the belief that politics should be done under the Constitution. “Citizens are aware that Prime Minister Abe is trying to destroy (the shared values),” said Oharu, a member of the former journalists’ group. The group did not receive statements from such long-serving prime ministers as Yasuhiro Nakasone and Junichiro Koizumi.

shinzo abe
constitution
opposition
security bills
ex-prime ministers


The biggest terrorism threat in Japan

Abstract: Remember how the government said Japan needed a state secrets law to protect it from acts of terrorism? Which is more dangerous: a government bureaucrat, a journalist or a worker in a nuclear power plant that may be crazy or a criminal? Answer: anyone but the nuclear power plant worker. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations says that all government workers and sub-contractors will face invasive security checks from now on because almost all government agencies are handling documents that are categorized as state secrets. The security checks will examine a person’s criminal and disciplinary records, improper conduct in handling information, drug abuse, pyschological disorders, “moderation in drinking alcohol,” and an assessment of their credit history and financial situation. Guess who won’t be subject to such checks? Workers at the country’s nuclear power plants and storage facilities, at least according to a recent report in the Sankei Shimbun. Tokyo Electric Power Co. and other utilities may ask potential employees to complete a self-assessment report and conduct a background check based on the results, but they are not obliged to do so. The law now requires power companies to take anti-terrorism measures to protect against external threats but there is no requirement to establish countermeasures against threats on the inside. In other words, the simplest way for a terrorist to gain entry into a nuclear power plant remains the same: apply for a job. An NRA official told me that power utilities may even turn a blind eye to background checks that revealed former ties to yakuza members and other undesirables because it could create a staffing shortage. The transparency of the country’s nuclear industry is an issue that has been debated ever since the triple-meltdown disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant in 2011. In August 2013, Reporters Without Borders welcomed a decision by Shiro Shirakawa, head of nuclear power safety company New Tech, to withdraw a libel suit against freelance journalist Minoru Tanaka. The subject of the lawsuit was a Shukan Kinyobi article published in December 2011 that was titled “Last big fixer, Shiro Shirakawa, gets his share of the Tepco nuclear cake.” The article suggests that Shirakawa profited from acting as an intermediary between Tepco, construction companies, politicians and even criminal elements. New Tech oversaw security for the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, where there’s enough plutonium to make hundreds of nuclear weapons, according to the Center For Public Integrity. In short, we’ve been asked to believe that power companies are able to handle the safety and security of nuclear facilities around the country without any government oversight. These, of course, are the same utilities that were managing nuclear plants in Fukushima, Niigata and Ibaraki prefectures when they were struck by accidents that led to radioactive leaks and/or fatalities. It might be different if any negligence is followed up by criminal penalties, but I suspect this is unlikely. The Prosecutor’s Office has so far declined to file criminal charges against anyone at Tepco over allegations of negligence that have surfaced in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Two workers did drown while checking the status of generators located in the basement of the No. 4 reactor building after it had been swamped by the waves. The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission found the nuclear disaster was a “profoundly manmade disaster that … should have been foreseen and prevented.” Although no deaths followed short-term radiation exposure immediately after the quake, researchers from Fukushima Medical University found that more than 50 children in the area have developed thyroid cancer since the accident. Masao Yoshida, chief of the plant during the crisis, might have been able to provide evidence to prosecutors but he died of esophageal cancer in July 2013. The rapid spread of the disease following diagnosis allowed Tepco to say it was unrelated to the nuclear accident. In July 2103, a judicial panel of citizens recommended that three former Tepco executives should be prosecuted over the nuclear disaster. The report prompted the Prosecutor’s Office to resume investigations but ultimately decided not to indict anyone over the crisis, leaking the decision on the day Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Olympics and, effectively, burying the story. In future, the state secrets law is likely to make such news even easier to hide. So why it was necessary to draft secrecy legislation in the first place? “Let me assure you the situation is under control,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in a speech to the International Olympic Committee in Buenos Aires on Sept. 7, 2013, referring to contaminated groundwater problems at the site of the disaster. Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Games after the presentation. Six days later, Kazuhiko Yamashita, a senior executive at Tepco, disputed Abe’s claim during a meeting in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture. “We regard the current situation as not being under control,” Yamashita said. A few months later, the state secrets bill was bulldozed through the Diet. All of this makes me think the secrecy law hasn’t been drafted to fight terrorism, it’s been created to ensure things are under control — not so much the nuclear problem, but how the media report on the nuclear problem. While Fukushima may not be under control, the media certainly is. Abe now claims his resounding election victory has given him a mandate to restart the nuclear reactors. Meanwhile, media outlets nationwide are now no longer able to report on security surrounding the plants and may not even be told how much radioactive waste is still leaking into the ocean. It’s arguable the glowing look on Abe’s face after winning an election in which a little more than 50 percent of the population voted has less to do with the size of his victory and more to do with the fact that he no longer has to face difficult questions he feels uncomfortable with. Take, for example, the way he removed his earpiece when talking to journalists in a live interview following his election victory — he seems perfectly happy not listening. If, God forbid, someday another nuclear meltdown warning siren goes off, will he hear it? And if he does, will he tell us?


Debate over WW1 role; 21 Nazis snatched off Yokohama; new Red China policy adopted; Nagasaki mayor shot

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1915 Debate over role in European conflict Amid many rumors and arguments about Japanese participation in the European war, two things are certain — namely, that Great Britain does not like it, and that Japan is ready to participate the moment its ally requests it. German diplomacy is doing what it can to prevent the participation. Japanese participation, says a high official, would have political as well as military significance, as it will persuade Italy and Rumania to join the Allies. The new British troops to arrive on the battlefield this spring will be hardly sufficient in number to drive the enemy out of Belgium and France. It seems to be Japan’s plan, characteristic of an Oriental nation, to offer participation on certain conditions when a real crisis has come for the Allies. These conditions will include the grant of favorable terms when Japan wishes to float loans in Great Britain or France, and the recognition of her commercial privileges in China. It is reported in other circles that Germany, anxious to get Japan to betray her allies, has offered her a free hand in Asia while she herself and Austria are engaged in the conquest of Africa. Japan’s contribution to the European war was ultimately limited to naval operations. 75 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Jan. 23, 1940 Cruiser snatches 21 Nazis off Yokohama Twenty-one German merchant marine officers were prisoners of war aboard a British cruiser Monday, following a drama on the high seas which brought Japan a taste of the European conflict. The men were forcibly taken from the N.Y.K. Liner Asama Maru noon Sunday about 50 miles off Nojimazaki Point at the entrance of Tokyo Bay by a boarding party of British officers and men. The Asama Maru, bound from Los Angeles to Yokohama, was stopped by the cruiser which fired a shot across the Japanese vessel’s bow. The British Embassy in Tokyo issued a statement confirming the raid and emphasizing that it was in full accord with wartime international law. Captain K. Watanabe of the Asama Maru strenuously objected to seizure of the German sailors, according to Purser Hideyoshi Nanjo. The name of the British cruiser was not learned but it was a 10,000 tonner of the “A” class. The sailors taken were en route to Germany via Japan and Russia. They had been in service on oil tankers out of Panama and, when war flared over Europe, were taken off the ships for transfer to Germany. A passenger on the liner told The Japan Times the cruiser appeared off the Asama Maru’s port side Sunday about 12:40 p.m. and fired a blank shot across the Asama’s bow. The Asama hove to and a launch, bearing four officers and 16 men in uniform, put out from the cruiser and came alongside. The British officers had a list of the 51 Germans on board, but took only 21 men as being members of Germany’s armed forces. Two German sailors succeeded in hiding while the vessel was searched and escaped capture. They refused to give their names when the boat docked at Yokohama. The Asama passenger told The Japan Times: “When the cruiser first appeared all the passengers, even the Germans, thought it was a Japanese cruiser and they got out their cameras. Then the cruiser ran up the British flag and the Germans became worried.” According to one of the German sailors who evaded capture, 400 German sailors were taken off Standard Oil tankers at outbreak of the war and kept four months in New York City. In December, 41 of them were sent to Los Angeles where they boarded the Asama Maru. “We thought we were safe, way out here in the Pacific,” he said ruefully, “but we were fooled.” 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, Jan. 21, 1965 Japan to adopt new Red China policy Prime Minister Eisaku Sato said Wednesday Japan would put forward an independent policy to deal with Communist China as a neighboring power. Sato made the statement at a press conference to report to the nation the results of his talks with President Lyndon B. Johnson and other American leaders in Washington last week. He said that the new policy on Communist China will be of “Japan’s own making and pursued independently.” The United States will not be allowed to interfere in its shaping or implementation, he said. Sato said his Government has as yet no plan for a direct official contact with Peiping authorities. He predicted, however, that trade between Japan and Communist China would be expanded greatly in the future. Sato, touching on the China question, said: “I pledged Japan’s continued normal ties with Nationalist China in the Washington talks. As for our relations with Peiping, I reaffirmed our policy of separating politics from economics. I believe it’s the best policy at the moment to maintain the status quo.” 25 YEARS AGO Friday, Jan. 19, 1990 Right-winger shoots Nagasaki mayor A member of a Nagasaki-based right-wing group was arrested Thursday evening following the shooting earlier in the day of Nagasaki Mayor Hitoshi Motoshima, police said. Motoshima was reported in stable condition Thursday night with a gunshot wound to his back. He caused controversy last year by saying the late Emperor Showa bore some responsibility for World War II. The mayor was shot in broad daylight outside Nagasaki City Hall. He was rushed to a hospital and was reported to be in a stable condition following a two-hour operation. Police said they arrested Kazumi Tajiri, 40, a member of the right-wing group Seikijuku, about five hours after the shooting.

china
nagasaki
germany
communism
world war i
eisaku sato
hitoshi motoshima


Sexy China TV drama busted, returns to air more sedate

Abstract: BEIJING - A Chinese television drama that was pulled off the air after the female characters appeared on screen showing cleavage has returned to the screen, though this time showing only the actresses’ heads, state news agency Xinhua said on Saturday. The drama, “The Empress of China” also known as the “Saga of Wu Zetian,” was removed by commercial satellite station Hunan TV for “technical reasons” in late December, Xinhua said. “Many viewers speculated the suspension was a punishment given by the country’s television regulators for the much-discussed revealing costumes of female characters on the show, which stirred online debate in which the female characters were dubbed ‘squeezed breasts,’ ” Xinhua said. The move comes as the government, which is usually wary about political and sexual content, intensifies a crackdown on freedom of expression, both online and in traditional media. Chinese Internet users responded by complaining about the censorship on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Several complained that they would not be able to see the hundreds of costume changes by Fan Bingbing, one of China’s most popular actresses, who plays the Empress Wu. Others questioned whether the low necklines had to be banned on television. “Can revealing cleavage really be considered pornographic?” wrote one microblogger. “Isn’t this feudalism?” Wu, the only recorded empress of China, ruled the country in the seventh century.


Obama to travel to drum up policy support as Republicans take over Congress

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to travel around the U.S. as the newly Republican-controlled Congress arrives in Washington, promoting his policies from easing immigration rules to boosting the economy through spending on infrastructure. The president will begin a three-state swing on Wednesday in Detroit, then travel to Phoenix and Tennessee. He’ll announce a series of executive actions and legislative proposals that will help more people afford homes, pay for college and find work, according to a White House statement. The barnstorming is a buildup to Obama’s State of the Union address on Jan. 20, following his two-week Hawaiian vacation, in the face of a Congress that has its own agenda. The Republicans take control of both houses for the first time in Obama’s presidency on Tuesday, and will seek to put the president on the defensive by undoing his policies on issues ranging from immigration to health care. “The president is eager to get to work, and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “He will not let this Congress undo important protections gained — particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment.” Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the fact that Americans voted in favor of divided government shows they want “things done in the political center” that Republicans and Democrats agree on. Republicans’ legislative goals will include trying to “rein in the regulatory onslaught” and roll back elements of the Affordable Care Act, McConnell said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. Republicans lack the votes to repeal the health care law. The newly Republican Senate will challenge the president almost immediately — starting with a bill to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which has been delayed repeatedly by Obama’s administration and is in limbo pending a Nebraska court ruling. A Senate committee vote is set for Jan. 8. Democrats plan to add amendments to any bill approving Keystone to require that all oil going through the pipeline be used in the U.S. and that the pipeline itself be made out of domestic steel, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday. Democrats also have the votes to uphold a presidential veto of Keystone, he said. “Our Republican colleagues say that this is a jobs bill, but that really is not true at all,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation” program. “These amendments will make it better, but certainly not good enough at this point in time.” Republicans will also seek to to curb Obama’s energy and environmental regulations and block the president’s order easing deportation for undocumented immigrants. Republicans, who’ve held the majority in the House and now will have 54-46 control in the Senate, are more likely to support the president on the trade agreements he’s seeking with Europe and the Pacific nations. Obama returned to Washington Sunday after vacationing with his family on Oahu. During most of his days in Hawaii, he took time for a round of golf, often with friends he made growing up in the state. Since Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in the November election, Obama has signaled that he plans to take a tougher approach to dealing with political opponents. His speeches starting this week and the State of the Union address will be opportunities for the president to more clearly draw the distinctions between his priorities and those of the Republicans.

barack obama
congress
immigration
health care
republicans
policies


Stealth tech no given in Japanese sub deal

Abstract: Retired Vice Admiral Masao Kobayashi commanded Japan’s submarine fleet from 2007 to 2009. In a recent interview in Tokyo with The Japan Times, when asked to explain one of the country’s most tightly guarded military secrets, he seemed reflective. Kobayashi pointed to the ceiling lights in the quiet interview room and said: “Take those fluorescent lights, for example. Any fluorescent light generates sound.” Other than our voices, there were no other sounds in the room. “Fluorescent lights generate extremely small vibrations. We take anti-vibration measures for every single light in a submarine,” he said. Japan’s engineers have painstakingly worked to minimize the vibrations given off by the multitude of components in submarines to prevent even those undetectable by the human ear from being picked up by the super-sensitive sonars of enemy subs and sonobuoys from anti-submarine aircraft, Kobayashi said. Noisy components include fans, pumps, motors and fluorescent lights. Some are carefully muted with vibration-damping rubber, he said. “The quiet submarines we have today are the result of numerous long, patient efforts,” Kobayashi said. The Maritime Self-Defense Force’s submarines are not nuclear-powered but have a reputation for being ultra-quiet. Now Australia, seeking to build a new fleet of large, long-range submarines, seems keen on acquiring Japan’s latest Soryu-class subs, or at least their technology. If the deal goes through, the top-secret submarines will become the first major pieces of military hardware Japan has authorized for export since the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the decades-long blanket ban on arms sales last year. Vice Adm. Robert Thomas, commander of the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, reportedly said Oct. 24 in Tokyo that then-Australian Defense Minister David Johnston was very interested in Japan’s Soryu-class subs. “I talked to him about it four years ago and I said: ‘You want to find the finest diesel-electric submarine made on the planet — it’s made at Kobe works in Japan,’ Thomas was quoted as saying by Bloomberg News. The U.S., which has close but separate security pacts with Japan and Australia, probably wants Australia to buy Japanese submarines because it would greatly strengthen their strategic military ties, Kobayashi said. Deeper Japan-Australia military cooperation would help ease the heavy burden on the U.S. fleet, which is busy decommissioning many of the nuclear-powered attack submarines it built during the Cold War, he said. “The U.S. rapidly built many Los Angeles-class nuclear submarines during the Cold War. Many of them are being decommissioned now,” Kobayashi said. “I think the U.S. wants to create a strategic triangle of Japan, Australia and the United States. That’s probably a factor behind” the apparent U.S. nod to Australia’s proposal to Japan, he added. Japanese defense officials are thought to be pleased for the same reason Washington is. They want to deepen strategic military ties with Australia. “Australia would make a good partner for cooperation. There are no major diplomatic problems between the two countries other than whaling,” a senior Defense Ministry official said on condition anonymity. Australia opposes Japan’s annual whaling expeditions. Japan has just started receiving the submarine specifications sought by Australia but has yet to decide which secrets to share, two senior defense officials said. Japan soon plans to use lithium-ion batteries to drive the motors in its latest Soryu sub, making them even quieter. Australia is believed to be interested in this advance, the officials said. But advanced lithium-ion batteries are one of Japan’s top military secrets, one warned. “(Exporting) them would be a rather sensitive issue. We’d need to study if it’s really appropriate for an outside party (to have that technology),” the Defense Ministry official said. In Australia meanwhile, opposition lawmakers and trade unions are strongly opposed to procuring Japanese submarines because it could considerably undermine the domestic defense industry and reduce jobs in South Australia. Joint development might be an option, the two Japanese officials said, noting that nothing concrete has been officially proposed. Teruhiko Fukushima, a professor at the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, who is an expert on Australia, said Prime Minister Tony Abbott seems eager to procure the subs to bolster Canberra’s military ties with Japan and the United States. “Abbott should be considering a Japan-U.S.-Australian alliance as a kind of insurance” against the recent rise of China’s powerful military, Fukushima said. “The introduction of Soryu-class submarines would be a plus to strengthen that alliance,” he added. “If the Abbott administration survives the next election and wins a second term, there will be a greater chance that Soryu-class submarines will be introduced in Australia,” he said. Last June, Australia and Japan conducted “two-plus-two” talks between their foreign and defense ministers. In the joint statement that followed, Australia expressed “strong opposition to the use of force or coercion to unilaterally alter the status quo in the East China Sea and the South China Sea,” an apparent warning to China to not aggressively press its territorial claims in those areas, which include the Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands, which China and Taiwan also claim. China calls the uninhabited islets Diaoyu and Taiwan calls them Tiaoyutai. Fukushima also said that on Nov. 26, 2013, only three days after Beijing declared the establishment of an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea that included the Senkakus, the Abbott administration summoned the Chinese ambassador in Canberra to express its concerns after the ADIZ drew strong protests from Tokyo and Washington. “There is no doubt Abbott puts great emphasis on the relationship shared by Japan, the U.S. and Australia,” Fukushima said. But he also noted that China is Australia’s No. 1 trade partner and that the public would never approve of political actions that could seriously damage those economic ties. “The best way for Abbott is to strengthen the Japan-U.S.-Australian relationship while maintaining good economic ties with China at the same time. Australia would never turn its back on the Chinese market,” he said.


Reflections on the Kobe quake two decades on

Abstract: This year, thousands of Japanese around the country celebrated Coming-of-Age Day. In Kobe, however, the occasion was especially poignant, as those who will turn 20 this year were just days old or, most likely, born after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of Jan. 17, 1995. The first generation of adults who never experienced the event firsthand has officially arrived. For those of us who lived through the quake, it remains one of the defining moments of our lives. The experience changed the way we saw Kobe, the Kansai region, and Japan itself. Like the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, it demolished official lies that had become articles of faith. Two of these fallacies were: Japanese construction is quake-proof, and the central government will assist in a timely manner if disaster strikes. Both beliefs crumbled quicker than the Hanshin Expressway. In particular, Tokyo bureaucrats and politicians who could not respond quickly, and the 1,001 anecdotes of asinine behavior when they did, in Kobe and Kansai created deep resentments and a skepticism — even cynicism — of government that still lingers. However, the Kobe quake also awoke a spirit of volunteerism that continues today. Whatever the logistical and bureaucratic problems of responding to 3/11, without the experience of the Kobe quake, things would have been far worse. Knowledge gained and friendships forged in the rubble of Kobe in 1995 endured, expanded and became more organized and efficient as volunteer networks became more experienced. A generation of young and old volunteers not only went elsewhere in Japan but also overseas to lend their assistance. Bureaucrats who once looked upon volunteer types as nosy outsiders began to work with them. Of all the changes these past 20 years, there is nothing Japan can — and should be — more proud of than the generation of people who first volunteered in Kobe and continue to rush out to help the rest of the nation and the world when disaster strikes. The quake also led to some fundamental changes. The biggest was political: The central government set up a more effective disaster response apparatus and a chain of command, especially with regards to dispatching the Self-Defense Forces, that would make it easier for politicians from the prime minister on down to react more quickly to natural disasters. Construction codes were, of course, strengthened. One unintended result was technological, however. Readers of a certain age recall that, in the mid-1990s, cellphones and PHS “handy phones” were around. The latter tended to cut you off in mid-conversation when you passed under a bridge, went into a train station, or found yourself in the middle of a thick concrete building. But they were cheap. Before the Kobe quake, at least in Kansai, cellphones were not really in widespread use. A few weeks later, it seemed they were everywhere and the days of PHS were numbered. Today, except for a few coffee shops catering to an older crowd that have ancient signs asking customers to turn off their PHS phones, the technology is all but forgotten. Yet despite the physical recovery, Kobe has struggled to retain a distinct political and cultural identify in a region ever-more dominated by neighboring Osaka and especially Kyoto. While vestiges of its former role as the region’s international hub remain, Kobe is, as many resident Westerners will happily inform visitors, “a nice place to live.” Nothing wrong with that. But too often the rest of the comment reads: ” … if you have to commute to Osaka.” Twenty years on, Kobe has many reasons to celebrate its recovery, even if, sadly, its role within Kansai is not what it used to be.

kobe
kobe quake
great hanshin-awaji earthquake


Entrepreneur's pet protection center takes shape in Iwate

Abstract: Ayumi Tanaka is crazy about pets. Ever since she was a child, she has pondered the problem of the thousands of stray dogs and cats that get put down every year and has wondered how she might help to save them. Last spring, she purchased around 40 hectares of land in Takizawa, Iwate Prefecture, and set about building Pets Village, a complex that she hopes will become the world’s largest pet protection center. The center is currently home to about 30 animals. “I hope to change the way Japanese people think about the lives of animals,” Tanaka said. “I’m thrilled with the opportunity to realize my dream, which I believe is worth giving everything I have for.” According to the Environment Ministry, over 128,000 dogs and cats were killed in Japan in fiscal 2013. Tanaka aims to reduce that to zero by the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Pets Village will be more than twice as large as Europe’s biggest animal protection facility, which is in Germany. Tanaka plans to take in abandoned animals collected from publicly run shelters and to seek foster families for them. In September last year, she opened a dog run. A native of Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, Tanaka had a dog as a child and was constantly troubled by the idea that strays were being killed. “For a long time, I had no idea what I could do,” she said. Her initial career path was not in this direction. She founded a printing company in Tokyo five years ago, but the pets problem continued to bother her. She brought it up with fellow entrepreneurs who shared her dream of creating a “sacred spot” where animals would be protected from all threats. One day, someone who liked the idea let her know about a parcel of land for sale in Iwate Prefecture. Tanaka put her operations on hold, established a foundation called Pets Village and moved to Iwate. The facility is now taking shape. “I’m realizing anew how grave the responsibility of protecting lives is,” she said. For now, Tanaka largely depends on corporate donations but she hopes to become financially independent by producing and selling pet-related goods and offering insurance. Her long-term dream is to build an animal hospital and animal cemetery within the Pets Village premises. “I also hope to deepen cooperation and coordination with animal protection centers across Japan,” she said.


Crime and punishment: Abe's Mideast crisis

Abstract: In general, crime prevention is a good thing — it helps stop crime. By punishing people for minor transgressions, you stop them from committing larger misdemeanors and discourage crime overall. If the principle is applied blindly, however, it can produce some awkward results. Tokyo police raided the home of journalist Kosuke Tsuneoka in Nakano Ward on Oct. 6 on suspicion he had a role in assisting a student who reportedly wanted to go fight for the Islamic State group in Syria. Tsuneoka is believed to be acquainted with an Islamic State military commander. “(Police) raided his home Sunday and confiscated everything that contained data, from PCs, USB memory sticks, cameras, mobile phones — just about everything,” The Japan Times quoted Hitoshi Takase, a friend of Tsuneoka, as saying. “Tsuneoka thinks the police see him as having a key role in taking the student to Islamic State, or that they want to obtain information about Islamic State from him.” Investigators who looked into his background affirmed as much. The police also seized materials that belonged to Islamic scholar Hassan Ko Nakata, a friend of Tsuneoka who was also believed to have been involved in the student’s attempted trip overseas. Tsuneoka and the student were suspected of violating Article 93 of the Penal Code, which stipulates punishment by imprisonment of three months to five years for people who prepare or plot to wage war against a foreign state in a personal capacity. While the law has rarely been used, the perceived attempt of a Japanese citizen to join the Islamic State group was treated with grave seriousness. And so it should be — the Islamic State is a pernicious terrorist organization that has killed thousands of civilians in the Middle East. After the raids, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government would prevent Japanese nationals from supporting terrorist groups and that Japan intended to take measures “to curb extremists.” The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Public Security Bureau can be overenthusiastic. It was embarrassed in October 2010, after leaked documents showed police had engaged in extensive surveillance of Muslims in Japan. The leaked files contained names, addresses and personal information on hundreds of Muslims nationwide. In some cases, the files even contained the names of mosques they attended. The government was criticized for effectively treating Muslim citizens as terrorists. All this helped result in the detainment and investigation of both Nakata and Tsuneoka. It also caused unforeseen problems. The two men were on their way to Syria to negotiate the safe return of self-proclaimed military adviser Haruna Yukawa, who was captured by the Islamic State group last year. Tsuneoka was in contact with the group and had been asked to serve, along with Nakata, as intermediaries in a Shariah trial for Yukawa. Both men, now under investigation, were unable to go. In their place, a well-respected journalist and friend of Yukawa, Kenji Goto, went instead. He had negotiated the safe release of his friend before and perhaps felt he could do it again. Fellow journalist Toshi Maeda describes Goto as an extremely compassionate man who felt that all news should involve “the human angle.” Then, around the end of October last year, Goto vanished in Syria. The government knew as early as mid-November that both Goto and Yukawa had been taken hostage by the Islamic State group. In the latest issue of Shukan Post, the magazine details how the Foreign Ministry asked it not to write about Goto’s capture in 2014. The Foreign Ministry told the magazine that ransom negotiations were taking place and the jihadis were likely to cut off Goto’s head if the name of the group was published. As a result, the magazine killed the story. The Foreign Ministry later told the magazine that negotiations had all but broken down; Goto and Yukawa were now being offered as a package deal, with a higher ransom being demanded. Japan has paid terrorists to secure the release of hostages before. In 1977, they paid $6 million to Japanese Red Army hijackers in Dhaka; then-Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda accepted the hijackers’ demands, “on the principle that “human life outweighs the Earth.” So it’s understandable the jihadis probably felt as if they’d hit the jackpot. However, any chance of negotiating with the militants diminished when Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Middle East. While knowing the Islamic State was holding two Japanese citizens, he pledged at a meeting in Cairo on Jan. 17 to provide assistance worth “$200 million for those countries contending with the Islamic State.” That speech did not go over well with the jihadis and they played the hostage card. In a dispatch on Jan. 20, Jiji Press summed it up succinctly: “The Islamic State violently responds to Abe speech, views Japan as ‘a Christian Crusader.'” The article said his speech resulted in the release of the video as both a warning and retaliation for attempts to block the group’s activities in the Middle East. Japan is now regarded as a full-blown enemy of the Islamic State. After demanding a ransom of $200 million themselves, the jihadis allegedly beheaded Yukawa and made a new demand. Answering a question from the opposition at the Diet on Jan. 27, Abe admitted knowing the Islamic State group was holding Japanese hostages but refused to acknowledge he had disregarded their safety when making his speech in Cairo. The Islamic State, of course, is the real problem. But still … There is another crime in Japanese law we have also been hearing about in the midst of the hostage crisis: professional negligence resulting in death or injury. The Tokyo Prosecutor’s District Public Office last week said it would not hold Tepco responsible for the triple nuclear meltdowns in March 2011 and, therefore, would not press charges. The story was buried in the news cycle amidst all the hostage updates. Imagine if we started holding people responsible for the deaths of people because they failed to pay attention to the risks of what they did? Tepco might go bankrupt or its executives might be jailed. On the other hand, Shukan Post paid attention and killed its story. Abe decided for himself there was no risk or, simply, that he didn’t care. That’s not a crime, right? Full coverage of the Islamic State hostage crisis

shinzo abe
haruna yukawa
kenji goto
is hostage crisis
kosuke tsuneoka


German prisoners 'fare better than Russians'; Emperor urges cooperation; Sato promotes peace; Gorbachev accepts multiparty system

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1915 German prisoners ‘fare better than Russians’ The German prisoners of war in Japan fare far better than the Russian ones did 10 years ago, says a high officer of the Army, and that is largely due to the decisions of the Hague Conference to pay their salaries on top of other allowances. At one time, this country accommodated over 70,000 Russians, while the number of the present captured is less than 5,000. This smaller number of course works in favor of the Germans in every way. But aside from this consideration, what the Japanese authorities pay the officers and men is much more than what a captive was entitled to before the new convention came into force. The German officers receive 70 sen for their daily food, besides the salaries of Japanese officers of corresponding rank. 40 sen is paid for the daily food of a quasi officer, 15 yen a month as salary and for clothing and 5 yen besides for his sundry expenses. Except for German beer and free outing, the German prisoners suffer no privation at all. The officers, in most cases, get European meals from restaurants at monthly rates, while non-commissioned officers and men cook their own food in their respective places of detention. At present they are all pleased that the cold in this country is not so rigorous as in their Fatherland! 75 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Feb. 13, 1940 Emperor calls for cooperation in crisis His Majesty the Emperor urged cooperation among the people in order to tide the nation over the present crisis in an Imperial message granted Sunday on the occasion of the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Empire. The Imperial rescript, made public by the Government at 10 a.m. Sunday in an extra issue of the Official Gazette, reads in substance as follows. “In accordance with the Sacred Way, the Emperor Jimmu established the foundation of the unbroken and everlasting lineage of Imperial rulers. His successors have been all benevolent to the people the people loyal to the rulers until today when the nation greets its 2,600th anniversary. “On this particularly significant Empire Day under emergency circumstances, our subjects, remember the initial achievements of the Emperor Jimmu and the vastness and profoundness of the Imperial policy. “And in complete harmony overcome the present crisis in accordance with the national ideal, thereby enhancing the national prestige and living up to the desire of our Imperial Ancestors.” The “present crisis” referred to was the war in China, which by this time had been continuing since 1937 . 50 YEARS AGO Saturday, Feb. 13, 1965 Sato promotes Japan peace role in Vietnam Prime Minister Eisaku Sato said Friday that the United States was fully advised of Japan’s strong desire to see the spread of armed conflicts in Vietnam checked by all means. “My government will carry out any positive role it feels it can play in promoting peace in Asia anytime,” he said. Sato cited “the Japan-U.S. concurrence in views on the Vietnamese situation” reached between him and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Jan. 12-13 Washington conference as “verifying” the U.S. understanding of the Japan stand against escalation of the Vietnamese war. Sato said he had requested the U.S. side not to expand the conflict in Vietnam soon after U.S. reprisal bombings were conducted in response to Viet Cong raids on U.S. military facilities in South Vietnam. Sato also noted the third U.S. bombing, which took place on Thursday, was not a continuation of the first but was a separate reprisal for a separate Viet Cong raid. For this reason, he reasoned, the present bombings by the United States cannot be said to be an aggressive act. The U.S. reprisal bombings referred to here were known as Operation Flaming Dart and Flaming Dart II. They were closely followed by a larger bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, which continued through 1968. 25 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Feb. 6, 1990 Gorbachev accepts multiparty system Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Monday that the Communist Party is ready to contend for power with other parties, his first public acceptance of a multiparty Soviet Union. Gorbachev, opening a momentous plenum of the Communist Party leadership, presented to the approximately 300 full and candidate members of the Central Committee a draft plan to make the party more democratic. Gorbachev’s statements were made amid intense grassroots pressure for fast radical reform. Monday’s plenum was closed to the press but outside the Kremlin one of those attending, Oleg Nefyodov, gave brief details of Gorbachev’s remarks. “He said it is necessary to take into account reality, that we are living and working already in a multiparty system,” Nefyodov reported. Gorbachev did not give any detailed proposals about how and under what terms the Soviet Union’s multiplicity of political movements could be legalized as political parties, said Nefyodov, a vice president of the Academy of Sciences. Others present at the session said Gorbachev also proposed replacing the position of party general secretary, which he holds, with a party chairman.

russia
germany
vietnam war
mikhail gorbachev
world war i
eisaku sato


U.S. says it's not clear after Cuba talks if new reform-promotion policy will work

Abstract: HAVANA - The highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Cuba in more than three decades said Friday that two days of talks on re-establishing full diplomatic relations had left her with no sense of whether the new U.S. policy of engagement would achieve its goal of generating reforms that benefit the Cuban people. The Obama administration says the goal of its Cuban policy remains the same: creating more freedoms for ordinary Cubans. Cuban diplomats said throughout the negotiations in Havana that the U.S. needs to abandon hopes of using closer relations to foment change on the island. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson told reporters Friday that the talks had left her with no clearer idea of whether Obama’s new policy has good prospects of success. “It’s very hard to say exactly how this will work,” Jacobson said. “We think that we need to make decisions in our own interest and take decision that are to going to empower the Cuban people but the verdict on whether that succeeds is still to be made.” The United States and Cuba both reported progress toward restoring diplomatic ties after a half-century of estrangement. But it wasn’t immediately clear whether the human rights issue, which has previously blocked closer U.S.-Cuban relations, would pose a threat to the new diplomatic process. “Cuba has never responded to pressure,” Josefina Vidal, the country’s top diplomat for U.S. affairs, told reporters Thursday night. The comments by Jacobson and Vidal lay bare the pressures each side faces at home — the U.S., from Republican leaders in Congress and powerful Cuban-American groups, and Cuba, from hardliners deeply concerned that rapprochement could undermine the communist system founded by Fidel Castro. Earlier in the week, Jacobson hailed the talks as “positive and productive,” focusing on the mechanics of converting interest sections into full-fledged embassies headed by ambassadors. But she also spoke of “profound differences” separating the two governments and said embassies by themselves would not mean normalized ties. Along with human rights, Cuba outlined other obstacles in the relationship. Vidal demanded that Cuba be taken off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. However, she praised Obama for easing the U.S. trade embargo and urging the U.S. Congress to lift it entirely. “It was a first meeting. This is a process,” Vidal said. In the next weeks, she said, the U.S. and Cuba will schedule a second round of talks, which may or may not be the time to finalize an agreement. Issues on Thursday’s agenda included ending caps on staff, limits on diplomats’ movements and, in the case of the U.S. building, removing guard posts and other Cuban structures along the perimeter. Earlier, the two countries disputed whether human rights had even been discussed at all. Jacobson said the U.S. raised it in the morning meeting; Vidal said it had not come up. Gustavo Machin, Cuba’s deputy chief of North American affairs, later said the delegations spent time in an afternoon session discussing U.S. human rights problems — a reference to recent police killings of black men in Missouri and New York. Cuban state media said the Cuban delegation also complained about the detention of prisoners at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay. A U.S. official said the difference in Jacobson’s statements was unintentional and that the English version — that the U.S “pressed the Cuban government for improved human rights conditions, including freedom of expression” — reflected the delegation’s position. The U.S. and Cuba also talked about human trafficking, environmental protection, American rules to allow greater telecommunications exports to Cuba and how to coordinate responses to oil spills or Ebola outbreaks. The need for at least one future round of talks could set back U.S. hopes of reopening the embassies before April’s Summit of the Americas, which Obama and Castro are expected to attend. Still, after so many years of mutual suspicion, each side stressed the importance of the collegial atmosphere in Havana that included long working lunches and a dinner together.

u.s .
barack obama
rights
cuba
reforms
normalization talks
policies


Mizuho Bank ex-employee arrested for illegally withdrawing ¥12 million in elderly depositor's cash

Abstract: YOKOHAMA - A former Mizuho Bank employee was arrested Monday for allegedly drawing at least ¥12 million illegally from a customer’s deposits and spending lavishly on bars and night clubs, police said. Shinya Takagawa, 46, who was at the bank’s branch office in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, was already fired in December 2012 when his acts came to light after relatives of the victim, a woman in her 90s, complained to the bank. Monday’s arrest is based on a criminal complaint filed by Mizuho Bank in 2013. According to the police, Takagawa changed the woman’s “hanko” seal necessary for making bank transactions without her consent and withdrew a total of ¥12 million from her savings on three occasions between July and September 2012. Takagawa then spent the money on high-class night clubs and other adult entertainment, the police said, adding they believe she may have been bilked out of even more money.


Sharp to trim base salaries as much as 2%, seek early retirement

Abstract: OSAKA - Struggling electronics firm Sharp Corp. plans to cut base salaries by 1 to 2 percent from August through March next year in a cost-cutting effort to return to profitability, sources close to the matter say. The plan, which its labor union has been informed of, comes after Sharp fell into the red again in the business year ended March 31, posting a net group loss of ¥222.3 billion ($1.8 billion) after returning to the black for just a year. The Osaka-based company is also looking to cut winter bonuses to a level equivalent to one month’s salary, a half the previous year’s bonus, and reduce their family and business trip allowances, the sources said Wednesday. Executive officers will have their base salaries cut by 5 percent, they added. The pay cuts are expected to help Sharp lower labor costs by around ¥3 billion in the current business year through March 2016 as it continues to struggle with tough competition from regional rivals. As for its plan to cut around 3,500 jobs in Japan through early retirements, Sharp will target employees aged between 45 and 59, the sources said. After registering massive losses for two consecutive years through March 2013, Sharp reduced salaries and bonuses of both standard employees and executives in the 2012 and 2013 business years, but suspended the measures in the year to March 2015 amid signs that performance was improving.

electronics
job cuts
restructuring
shapr


Bra-maker's Cinderella Taxis aim to deliver the perfect fit

Abstract: If you’re sick of waiting for your pumpkin to turn into a carriage, hail a Cinderella Taxi to get a little extra bibbidi-bobbidi-boo in your life. Coming to Tokyo in June and Osaka in July, this special taxi offers riders bra fittings and makeover services to spread the magic of lingerie-maker Wacoal and its Cinderella campaign. Just as Cinderella’s glass slippers are perfectly fitted for her feet, Wacoal wants to offer women the chance to get a bra perfectly tailored to their bodies using a 3-D scanner. Before-and-after images are then generated to show customers the change in their silhouette. As you make your way to your destination, your own Fairy Godmother (i.e., a professional hair and makeup artist) will help you find your new look. The royal treatment lasts approximately two hours, but the Wacoal beauty consultants’ advice will last long after the clock strikes midnight.


India's blocking imports of U.S. poultry, eggs is unfair, WTO rules

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The World Trade Organization has upheld a ruling that India is unfairly blocking imports of U.S. poultry and eggs. The Obama administration called the decision a major victory that should greatly expand export opportunities for American farmers. The ruling announced Thursday by the Geneva-based WTO’s appellate body upheld a decision issued by a dispute panel last October. India imposed the trade barriers in 2007 to prevent avian influenza from entering the country. The WTO said they were too restrictive and not based on international scientific standards. The U.S. poultry industry has estimated that exports of poultry meat alone could exceed $300 million annually once India’s restrictions are removed. The United States exports 20 percent of its poultry meat production each year. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said that the WTO victory showed that the administration was “fully committed to enforcing U.S. rights” in the trade agreements it negotiates. The decision comes as the White House is fighting to win the House votes it needs for approval of fast-track legislation that will allow it to wrap up negotiations for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. “This decision affirms the importance of basing agricultural trade requirements on sound science,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. The administration said in a fact sheet that while U.S. poultry producers are currently being challenged by an outbreak of avian influenza, those outbreaks do not justify a ban on poultry imports from the entire United States. Under WTO rules, India will be given a period of time to dismantle the barriers that have been found to be illegal. If it fails to dismantle the barriers, the United States would have the right to impose trade sanctions against India equal to the amount of lost agricultural trade. India’s press office at its embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

barack obama
tpp
wto
imports
eggs
u.s. poultry
tom vilsack


Shibamata offers a step back into a Tora-san time warp

Abstract: Tokyo’s Shibamata district has preserved much of its townscape, which is reminiscent of old downtown Tokyo. The Katsushika Ward district located in the eastern-most part of Tokyo, a 20-minute train ride from Asakusa Station on the Keisei Line, is perhaps best known as the hometown of Torajiro Kuruma, the hero of the “Otoko wa Tsuraiyo” (“It’s Tough Being a Man”) film franchise starring the late Kiyoshi Atsumi. In fact, walking out of Shibamata Station, you are greeted by a bronze statue of the films’ hero, better known as Tora-san, who became the symbol of the district after director Yoji Yamada’s series grew into a long-running hit. After the first installment was released in 1969, 48 episodes of the series were created until 1995. Each episode of the popular series features a very similar storyline: The goofy hero coming home to the family-run sweets shop after a long time away working as a traveling salesman. He then somehow throws his family into trouble. The simple yet heartwarming episodes caught the heart of Japanese, and the episodes are occasionally aired on TV even today. Shibamata, the key setting of the films, is a town that has grown up around Shibamata Taishakuten, a Buddhist temple, and that dates back to the Edo Period (1603-1868). The 200-meter-long main approach to the temple is lined with wooden shops selling local specialty kusa dango (rice dumplings flavored with mugwort), good-luck charms and mascots, as well as restaurants offering river fish dishes. Walking eastward down the street eastward, you reach the splendid Nitenmon Gate. Beyond that lies the temple’s main hall, whose walls are decked out with elaborate carvings. A short walk farther east from the temple will take you to the western bank of the Edogawa River, which features a bicycle lane and baseball grounds. There is also a ferry where small wooden rowboats slowly transport people across the 150-meter-wide river — the only place in Tokyo such a service is still available. The ferry used help transport farmers and shoppers in the old days. Today, it operates mostly for tourists. Once the boat leaves the river bank, all you hear is twittering birds and the creaking of the oars. Time seems to slow down while on the boat, which does not operate based on a schedule but departs once the ferryman decides enough passengers have clambered aboard. Shibamata definitely stands out amid Tokyo’s constantly evolving cityscape, retaining an old-time feel. As you stroll through the area, it’s not difficult to imagine Tora-san returning home from his long travels.

shibamata
otoko wa tsuraiyo
kiyoshi astumi
shibamata taishakuten


Medaka: the fish that helps us understand gender

Abstract: The diminutive medaka (Japanese rice fish) have been kept as pets since the Edo Period (1603-1868). They are hardy animals, an important quality for a pet, and they naturally occur in a variety of colors, including gold. They have distinctive, some say attractive, eyes (for a fish) — indeed, medaka in Japanese means “with high eyes.” These characteristics made them popular among all classes of feudal Japanese in the past. The natural historian Baien Mouri included a number of color varieties in his 1843 encyclopedia. Three hundred years ago, however, no child taking delight in the glittering little fish in his or her rice field could have possibly imagined the incredible adventures this species would go on, nor the contribution to our understanding of the world it would make. For all the cultural and culinary impact of carp or puffer fish, medaka — scientific name Oryzias latipes — are arguably more important. In the early 1900s, they contributed to genetics. Medaka were the first backboned animal that were found to follow Mendel’s law of inheritance, which explains the way different traits are passed on down the generations. In 1994, medaka became the first vertebrate to have sex and reproduce in space. Male and female fish traveled to the Earth orbit on the space shuttle Columbia, mated in orbit and produced normal babies, all in a weightless environment. Sure, there are rumors, denied by NASA, that humans have had sex in space, too, but the first vertebrates to do it were medaka. Right now, there is a special chamber for them on board the Kibo module of the International Space Station. In the Aquatic Habitat built by the Japanese Space Agency, medaka are being studied to tell us about the impact of micro-gravity in life — not so much for telling us about what will happen to us when we live far from the planet, but for improving life on it. “Studies on bone degradation mechanisms and muscle atrophy mechanisms are applicable to human health problems, especially for the aging society,” says Nobuyoshi Fujimoto of the agency’s Space Environment Unitization Center. The fish, which had its genome sequenced in 2007, will also be bred for three generations on board the space station. So we know a huge amount about medaka, but what we learned last week was still a massive surprise, and could have illuminating implications for humans, too. Scientists discovered last week that changing only one gene in female fish makes them produce sperm in their ovaries, instead of eggs. In every other way the fish are normal female fish. The sperm produced by them are normal sperm, which fertilize eggs normally and produce normal offspring. Scientists at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Okazaki achieved the feat by breeding female fish without a key gene, called foxl3. “In spite of the environment surrounding the germ cells being female, the fact that functional sperm has been made surprised me greatly,” geneticist Toshiya Nishimura says. It’s an entirely new finding, he says, that the sex of the body is independent of the germ cells (the sex cells that produce sperm or eggs) made by the body. “Nobody knew that the germ cells in vertebrates have a switch mechanism to decide their own sperm or egg fate,” says Minoru Tanaka, a colleague of Nishimura. “Our result suggests that once a decision is made, the germ cells have the ability to go all the way to the end. I believe it is of very large significance that this mechanism has been found.” It’s tempting to consider what this finding means for our understanding of human biology. That would be premature: Of course, fish are very different to mammals. Mammals have the foxl3 gene but what it does in humans is as yet unknown — perhaps it has something to do with stopping basic sex cells becoming male? Finding out what it does in us will be trickier than it has been in fish. (It’s worth noting that some 60 percent of medaka genes have equivalent forms in humans, making it a good “model” organism for scientists to study.) However, look again at what Nishimura says and it’s hard not to draw analogies with humans. “That this sexual switch present in the germ cells is independent of the body’s sex is an entirely new finding,” he says. In other words, the body can look like a female, but the germ cells it produces — from ovaries that look like normal ovaries — are sperm. The analogy is comparable with the way we consider gender in humans. We now know that gender is not a binary male or female thing, but a spectrum. Some people who look like they are male or female on the outside, may feel different on the inside. Another possibility is that scientists could potentially flick the same switch in human females and get them to produce sperm. The implications for lesbian couples wanting to have children are profound — though, of course, no one is even talking about this as a possibility yet. I’ve only scratched the surface of what scientists know about medaka. As well as being pets for hundreds of years in Japan, they’ve also been studied in-depth for many, many years. Cute factoid: rather than simply spawning their eggs into the water, female medaka carry their eggs like a bunch of grapes between their fins. Once the eggs are fertilized, female medaka don’t just dump them into the water, they deposit them carefully, one by one, on plants. Fish owners love them, and genetically modified fish are available that glow red, green or yellow, the result of having jellyfish genes inserted to the genome. My favorite is the moonlight medaka — genetically modified so it glows in ultra-violet light. Someone should write a haiku about them: they glow in the dark, they’ve had sex in space and some of the females can make sperm. There’s plenty of material to work with there.


Abe and Hashimoto's political dance will have to avoid stepping on any toes

Abstract: One month after Osaka voters said no, just barely, to his pet project of fundamentally restructuring the municipal government, Mayor Toru Hashimoto finds himself courted by an increasingly anxious Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who hopes to borrow whatever is left of Hashimoto’s influence in the Japan Innovation Party, and get new security bills passed by the end of the summer. As ever, Hashimoto is playing hard-to-get, even as he is quite happy to find himself back in the national media spotlight. However, the meeting between Hashimoto and Abe a week ago was seen in Osaka as a sign Abe’s government is getting desperate in the face of expert consensus the bills are unconstitutional, and needs all the allies he can find to pass them before the September, when the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election takes place. Clearly, Abe is courting Hashimoto to pressure coalition partner Komeito (the “liberal” wing of the Liberal Democratic Party?). However, last week’s meeting was also another step in the longer-term effort by Abe and his allies to separate Hashimoto and his most ardent supporters in his Japan Innovation Party of constitutional revision from the rest of the party. Yet if anything formal does happen between Abe and Hashimoto, it will have to take place with Komeito’s blessing. This is because, unlike Hashimoto’s party, Komeito has deep experience with, and knowledge of, two critical ministries LDP members cannot afford to alienate lest they anger supporters back home. These are the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. A Komeito representative held the transport ministry post for four years, between 2004 and 2008. The current minister, Akihiro Ota, is from Komeito and has run the ministry since December 2012. Komeito also has a good deal of influence within the health ministry, having had a member serve as minister between 2001 and 2005 and playing something of a mentor role to LDP ministers since. No politician of any party can expect to get re-elected if they fail to meet the welfare needs of their elderly voters or secure permission, and money, for local transport infrastructure projects (needed or not) for their financial backers. Hashimoto’s political and economic philosophy of bureaucratic cuts and privatization of public services might draw praise from wealthy senior corporate executives, foreign investors and the business media, but it’s viewed with deep suspicion by those two ministries (and, of course, by millions of Japanese voters worried about poverty after retirement). By September’s LDP presidential election, Abe might find himself under attack by LDP members worried his courtship of Hashimoto could make their own lives more difficult at these key ministries. Yet none of this is to say Hashimoto’s political career will end in November when he leaves office, despite his announced intention to retire from politics. An appointment to some blue-ribbon committee is possible. Assuming that Abe’s LDP rivals, who see his falling poll numbers and sense an opportunity, don’t unseat him September or that if Abe is replaced, it’s by somebody who is willing to work with Hashimoto. At the moment, however, Hashimoto and his party are divided. His local Osaka party members remain bitter at their defeat in the May referendum to merge the city, which was due to LDP-led opposition. They hate the thought of cooperating with the LDP, and for many, constitutional revision, or Abe’s view of it at least, was never a priority. Thus, for Abe, the question is how to utilize Hashimoto and his party to maximum political advantage. However, given Hashimoto’s testy relationships with other parties and the central bureaucracy, combined with divisions within his own party that could split it and Abe’s declining popularity, perhaps the more pertinent question to be asked is: Will it make any difference to Abe’s own future even if he does?


Home electronics market loses its spark

Abstract: On May 25, Yamada Denki Co., the largest home electronics retailer in Japan, announced that it would be closing 46 outlets. Given that the stores had been losing money for at least a year and Yamada operates more than 1,000, the announcement wasn’t surprising, though the swiftness of its actions was. The targeted stores were shuttered a week later. NHK visited a store in Tokyo’s Koto Ward three days after the announcement and found hundreds of banners advertising a closing sale with Yamada’s already low prices slashed by up to 50 percent. One employee told the reporter that he had only learned about the store’s closing less than a week earlier, and expressed anxiety over where he would be transferred. A woman who lived nearby said it would be an inconvenience since the store not only sold electronics at a discount, but also inexpensive food and sundries. Why the big hurry? Like all retailers in Japan, Yamada expected some fall-off in sales following last year’s consumption tax hike, but it didn’t expect it to be as steep at 12 percent compared to the previous year. More significantly, Yamada’s business profits declined by 42 percent, and not just due to the effect of the tax hike or last summer’s unstable weather, which was seen to have stunted consumption. Yamada acknowledged that the country’s population is shrinking, especially among its target demographic, and that it had to review its policy, which since the early ’90s was based on one thing only: expansion. As one executive told NHK, Yamada opened so many stores in Japan over the past 20 years that it ended up competing with itself in certain regional markets, so the plan now is to switch from being a “quantity seller” to a “quality seller.” That means not only closing unprofitable stores, but establishing new ones in places where people are likely to spend more money for home electronics, mainly in central urban areas. Yamada is opening new stores near Tokyo and Shinbashi stations in the capital in order to attract foreign tourists with specific items, such as luxury brand accessories and rice cookers, which are very popular among well-to-do Chinese visitors. Yamada has been less forthright about another aspect of its expansion policy, namely a perceived deterioration in service. In its ranking of home electronics retailers, Nikkei BP Consulting listed Yamada in last place in terms of “after-service” for eight years in a row, with customers complaining of unhelpful floor staff. In the retail industry, Yamada is notorious for over-working its salespeople, and even won an award one year for being a “black company” that underpays employees. Yamada, headquartered in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, practically invented the idea of the discount mass sales electronics store in the ’90s, when it was in heated competition with two other Kanto area chains, Kato Denki (now K’s Denki) from Ibaraki Prefecture and Kojima from Tochigi. Yamada’s winning strategy was to saturate well-traveled suburban routes with stores featuring large parking lots, a scheme that received a huge boost with the passage of the so-called big store law that former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi passed as part of his deregulation push to please American trade negotiators. Yamada’s aggressive combination of mass sales and low overhead — that is, low personnel costs — drove its profits ever skyward. Everyone else had to follow suit, at least to a certain extent. The upshot is that what were once called discount electronics stores are now just electronics stores, thus forcing out of business the standard retailer associated with a certain manufacturer, like Sony or Panasonic. These neighborhood mom-and-pop operations sold products at recommended list prices, but were full-service in that they delivered the product, installed it and instructed the buyer in its use for as long as they owned it. Sometimes they fixed it for free even after the warranty ran out. This retail model withered after Japan entered its long period of stagnation in the early ’90s and consumers wanted only one thing: low prices. Manufacturers were forced to de-emphasize design for “cost-performance,” which some believe led to Japan’s international decline as a technological innovator. However, the demand for cheap eventually overran discount electronics stores, as more people went online to buy appliances at even lower prices through portal sites such as kakaku.com . This phenomenon led to the practice known as “showrooming”: Consumers only used retailers to check out the merchandise, and then went home and bought it over the Internet. The market may be swinging back. There is a home electronics chain in Kyushu called Atom Denki, which is basically a collective of surviving franchise outlets who work together to buy products en masse but retain the full-service/personal attention nature of the old neighborhood electronics store. They now count more than 1,000 members and continue to grow. Cultural Convenience Club, the company that runs the Tsutaya chain of book and entertainment software stores, recently opened an electronics outlet in the upscale Futago-Tamagawa area of Tokyo called Tsutaya Kaden that in terms of decor is the opposite of the fluorescent-lit, white-metal-rack Yamada model. The interior is all dark wood and indirect lighting, and the salespeople are called concierges. The store features a cafe and a bookseller, and there are no bargain sales. The “regular prices” are cheap to begin with, though not as cheap as they are on the web. As the store’s manager told Asahi Shimbun, the purpose is not selling products, but “lifestyles based on products.” The only phones on display are iPhones and the only TVs ones with 4K screens over 50 inches. In this case, the term “lifestyle” translates as “money to spend on stuff.”


Value of household assets inflates to ¥1.708 quadrillion, thanks to BOJ strategy

Abstract: Financial assets held by Japanese households came to a record high of ¥1.708 quadrillion at the end of March, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier, as a weak yen and rising share prices boosted their value, the Bank of Japan said Monday. The key stock index has risen to 18-year highs on robust earnings while the yen’s fall against the dollar and other major currencies has increased the value of their foreign assets in terms of the unit. The latest result topped the previous record of ¥1.696 quadrillion marked three months earlier, the central bank said. By type of assets, cash and deposits accounted for 51.7 percent, the biggest chunk of the total, and stood at ¥883 trillion, up 2.2 percent from the year before. Stock and other equities rose 21.5 percent to ¥184 trillion, while investment trusts grew 21.6 percent to ¥95 trillion. Shares alone increased 20 percent to ¥100 trillion, a level unseen over the past eight years. Although households still have a tendency to choose safer assets, they are not just focused on “safe driving” anymore and gradually rebalancing to riskier assets, a BOJ official said. Assets held by companies excluding financial institutions rose 13.2 to a record ¥1.111 quadrillion as they moved to hold more equities. The quarterly data also showed the outstanding balance of Japanese government bonds grew 4.2 percent to ¥1.038 quadrillion. The BOJ remained the biggest holder of sovereign debt, accounting for 26.5 percent of it, or a record ¥275 trillion, up 36.6 percent, as it gobbles up most of the bonds available as part of its unorthodox monetary easing strategy to banish deflation.


Law gets serious about cycling safety

Abstract: Bicycle use is growing along with greater public awareness of health and environmental issues, with cities around the country beginning to rent them out to visitors who are eager to tour Japan on the cheap. But this has triggered a rise in fatal accidents caused by reckless cyclists, who are often taken to court and ordered to pay tens of millions of yen in damages for their transgressions. The revised Road Traffic Law took effect June 1 to get a handle on the problem by penalizing cyclists who flout the rules of the road and forcing them to take safety courses if they fail to improve. Let’s take a closer look at the government’s effort to crack down on risky cyclists. How many bicycles are there and why are people riding? According to the National Police Agency, there were 71.551 million bicycles in Japan in 2013, compared with 27.643 million in 1970. A survey carried out by a transport ministry-affiliated research institute found that 42 percent of the 1,945 respondents said they ride regularly to stay fit and offset the lack of serious exercise, while 41 percent do so to cut their commuting or gasoline bills, and 9 percent do so to help the environment. Are cycling-caused accidents on the rise? No, but the ratio of fatal accidents is surging. According to NPA figures, cyclists caused 109,269 accidents last year, down from 188,338 in 2004, while fatal accidents fell to 542 from 870 a decade ago. But the ratio of fatal accidents to the whole actually rose 1.3 points to 13.5 percent over the period. The fatalities, which included pedestrians, other cyclists or the cyclists themselves, rose to 82 from 51 in 2004. Of the 106,427 deaths and injuries, 67,876, or 63.8 percent, were linked to traffic violations such as ignoring traffic lights or stop signs. Why was the law amended? The government wants to curb traffic violations that could lead to serious or fatal accidents. Because of the surge in the ratio of fatal accidents caused by cyclists, the central government revised the law so that it classifies 14 types of traffic offenses and requires negligent cyclists to take safety lessons. The offenses include ignoring traffic lights, passing under railway crossing gates when they are down, failing to stop at intersections where required, riding without properly working brakes and cycling while drunk. They also include violations of other safety regulations, such as cycling while using mobile phones, listening to music through earphones or holding an umbrella. But the regulations can differ from place to place, since they vary by municipality or are set by local public safety commissions. Cyclists are concerned that certain regulations are too ambiguous and give police too much leeway to charge them with traffic violations. What do the new penalties involve? The police can issue tickets to cyclists who are 14 or older. If you get two or more in a three-year period, you would be required to take a safety lesson similar to the one imposed on car, truck and motorcycle drivers. The mandatory safety lesson takes three hours and costs ¥5,700. Cyclists who refuse will be fined up to ¥50,000. The lesson, which can be taken at driver’s license centers and prefectural police headquarters, involves studying traffic rules, reading accounts written by errant cyclists, and accounts written by the victims or their relatives. What are the consequences of serious cycling accidents? Cyclists involved in accidents resulting in severe injury or death can impose enormous financial penalties on themselves and their families. In July 2013, the Kobe District Court ordered a mother to pay ¥95 million in damages after her son hit a 67-year-old woman while riding his bicycle on a hill in Kobe, leaving her bedridden. In January 2014, the Tokyo District Court ordered a male cyclist to pay ¥47 million in damages to the family of an elderly pedestrian he hit and killed after running a red light. In response, the Hyogo Prefectural Assembly in March adopted an ordinance requiring cyclists to buy liability insurance, becoming the first prefecture in the nation to do so. Last Thursday, the Tokyo public safety commission suspended the driver’s license of a man who drunkenly cycled across a busy street at a place where there was no crossing in January and crashed into a motorcycle, killing the driver. The accident thus gave the commission reason to judge that the cyclist posed a danger as a motorist as well. What other measures are being considered to curb bicycle-related fatalities? Some governments, including Ehime Prefecture and the city of Sakai in Osaka Prefecture, have introduced ordinances calling for cyclists of all ages to wear helmets, rather than just children 12 and under who are encouraged to do so under the Road Traffic Law. Experts say that the central and regional governments should also improve the transportation environment for cyclists, including by creating more cycling lanes to improve safety and help them abide by the rules. A 2011 questionnaire conducted by the NPA found that 58 percent of the 790 respondents said they cannot abide by the traffic rules while cycling because of bad traffic conditions.


Higher Japanese proficiency urged for foreign nursing care interns

Abstract: The Society for Teaching Japanese as a Foreign Language asked the government Monday to toughen a Japanese-language proficiency requirement for foreign nursing care interns. The request came after an advisory panel for the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry lowered the requirement for foreigners before undergoing on-the-job training at nursing care facilities in Japan. The ministry is planning to adopt the lower requirement in the fiscal year starting in April 2016. The lowered requirement describes the proficiency as “understanding basic Japanese words,” against “understanding Japanese words used in daily life to some extent” under the earlier requirement. “Communication is important for personal nursing care,” said the society’s leader, Sukero Ito, a professor at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, after he made the request to Keiko Nagaoka, a senior official in the ministry. “The lowered requirement is insufficient.” Ito also said a system will be required to help interns improve their Japanese proficiency after starting training.