For foreign nationals over 150 years ago, Kyoto’s Fushimi was end of the line

Abstract: FUSHIMI, KYOTO PREF. - Just before reaching Chushojima Station on the Keihan Line heading into Kyoto from Osaka, or just after crossing the Uji River on the almost parallel Kintetsu train that runs between Kyoto and Nara, two towers that look old and of European design flash briefly into view before disappearing among the modern houses and buildings. The towers are part of a canal lock sitting at the entrance to the old port of Fushimi. Though a quiet park today, a century and a half ago, Fushimi was, for foreign nationals living in the concessions of Kobe and Osaka in the 1850s, the closest they were allowed to get to Kyoto for many years without special permission from the Tokugawa government. Even after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, entering Kyoto was not easy. Traveling from Osaka to Fushimi Port was, literally, the end of the line, the closest to the home of the emperor that the government would allow non-Japanese to venture without rarely given special permission. Today, the journey on the Keihan train line from Osaka’s Yodoyabashi Station to northern Kyoto takes about an hour, while the Kintetsu Nara Line to Kyoto Station is about 45 minutes. But in the 19th century, a trip by boat from Osaka to Fushimi was long, uncomfortable, perilous and could take 12 hours or longer. When Japan opened to the West in 1854, Kyoto was considered a mysterious place few outsiders had ever seen, home to a reclusive emperor and an ancient aristocracy, gorgeous works of art and a building made of gold, Kinkakuji Temple. A contemporary newspaper estimated not more than a dozen Westerners had ever passed through it. After Emperor Meiji went to live in Tokyo (Kyoto people would say “visit”), curious Westerners in the Kobe and Osaka settlements clamored to be allowed to go to Kyoto. In 1872, the ancient capital was the site of a months-long world’s fair that drew hundreds of foreign visitors. All traveled the same way, up the Yodo River from Osaka to Fushimi and then by road with security all along the way to Kyoto. Writing in the April 18, 1872, edition of the Kobe-based Hiogo News, an anonymous correspondent describes the journey. “I arrived here (Fushimi) at 5 p.m. on Tuesday evening, having left Osaka at 7 a.m. The voyage to Fushimi I made in the steamer Asahi Maru in eight hours exactly, the distance being probably what the natives estimate at, namely ten ri, or twenty five miles. From Fushimi I came (to Kyoto) by jinrikisha, over bad roads made heavy by recent rains.” About six months before the Hiogo News correspondent made the trip, a visiting Austrian nobleman named Baron de Hubner managed to get permission to enter Kyoto. In his book, “A Ramble Round the World,” published in 1874, he recounts his trip on Sept. 22, 1871, between Osaka and Fushimi. “Besides the great rowing boats employed in the transport of travelers and merchandise, some small steamers leave Osaka every morning, and, according to the variable state of the Yodogawa current, arrive (or do not arrive!) towards evening, or in the night, at Fushimi. Luckily of late there have been no explosions.” The baron describes the scenery after the ship departed from the docks near Yodoyabashi and his arrival at Fushimi nine hours later. “We are steaming between tufts of bamboos and fine groups of maples, larch, and weeping willows. Market town, great and small villages, all looking populous and prosperous, succeed one another at short intervals. “By special favor of the steam we arrive at 4 p.m. at Fushimi. A brilliant reception awaited us. The authorities in court dress received us at the landing place, and led us to a beautiful apartment, ornamented with flowers and carpets,” he writes. De Hubner’s mention of ships not arriving proved prophetic. The Hiogo News correspondent ended his letter to the Kobe community with news of a tragedy. “You will have heard of the blowing up of the Suiryu Maru steamship on her way from Osaka to Fushimi, which resulted in the death of four native passengers, the three foreigners on board luckily escaping. I am loath to write anything likely to deter anyone from coming here, but shall not trust myself to the tender mercies of a Japanese engineer again in a hurry.” A 2002 essay published by the Yodogawa Museum in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, notes the history of the ships that made the Osaka to Fushimi run. It says that, in 1868, 50 ships a day of various types and sizes carrying about 1,500 people made the trip between Osaka, close to where Yodoyabashi Station is today, and the port of Fushimi. The port would thrive as a “foreign port” until the late 1870s, when the first railroads were opened between Osaka and Kyoto. Today, a small information center with photos and models of how ships used the canal to enter Fushimi Port offer a brief history of the forgotten era. This year, Kyoto is commemorating its role in the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration with numerous public events and lectures around the city on all manner of subjects. But the history of Fushimi harbor is not getting much attention. “There are reportedly plans under way by Fushimi Ward to do a lecture in November but the details are not set yet,” said Yuji Iwata, a city official. For the moment, then, even though Kyoto’s other older historical places are overcrowded with tourists, Fushimi harbor is likely to remain an off-the-beaten-path reminder of the past.

history
kyoto
meiji restoration
insights


Democrats demand answers over Scott Pruitt's mystery Morocco trip and lobbyist pal's pricey contract

Abstract: WASHINGTON - EPA Chief Scott Pruitt’s four-day trip to Morocco last December was puzzling from the start. Environmental Protection Agency officials didn’t tell reporters about the excursion until after Pruitt had returned. And their initial explanation — that Pruitt was touting the benefits of U.S. liquefied natural gas — raised questions because the issue falls outside the EPA’s jurisdiction. Now, Democrats are demanding more details about the role of a lobbyist in planning Pruitt’s jaunt to Morocco. The lobbyist, Richard Smotkin, accompanied Pruitt for part of the trip, helped facilitate meetings during it and, four months later, won a $40,000-a-month contract with the Moroccan government. “Administrator Pruitt needs to explain this trip,” Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said in a joint news release. “We thought boosting an industry he is not even charged with regulating — a mission well outside the scope of his job — was troubling enough,” the senators said. “Now, after our repeated questions have gone ignored, we learn this trip was also the work of a lobbyist and personal friend of Pruitt’s now representing the Moroccan government.” EPA officials have defended Pruitt’s trip, calling it an appropriate effort to negotiate environmental provisions in a bilateral trade agreement with Morocco. EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said Pruitt was not aware Smotkin was considering taking on a formal role representing the country. Pruitt told a House committee last week that the ambassador of Morocco invited him to negotiate the environmental chapter of the free-trade pact. That is “very important” to the duties of the EPA, Pruitt said. Pruitt also told lawmakers that the attention to LNG was “only because the ambassador asked me to share that” with people while in Morocco. The intensifying scrutiny of Pruitt’s jaunt to Morocco comes as the administrator faces criticism for frequent travel to his home state of Oklahoma, questionable spending decisions at the EPA, raises for two top aides over White House objections and allegations that some employees were sidelined after questioning his decisions. Critics also have pounced on Pruitt’s decision to rent a bedroom on Capitol Hill from a lobbyist whose husband had clients with matters pending before the agency. Smotkin played a key role in shaping Pruitt’s Morocco trip, including hastily scheduled events during the journey. The lobbyist also helped arrange an Oct. 25 meeting between Pruitt and the Moroccan ambassador, Princess Lalla Joumala Alaoui, during which the administrator said he was asked to visit the country for trade negotiations. But some arrangements were being made even before that Oct. 25 meeting, according to the Washington Post, which reported previously on Smotkin’s role. In April, Smotkin registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent representing Morocco through his lobbying firm ThirdCircle Inc. According to an April 4 contract, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2018, Smotkin’s company would be paid $40,000 monthly for at least a year, to tout Morocco as a film destination and “a world-class golf destination.” The work was to include bringing U.S. film and television producers to Morocco and doing the same with golf enthusiasts, so they could “experience the majestic golf courses that span the country.” Smotkin and Pruitt have known each other for years, going back to the EPA chief’s time as Oklahoma attorney general. Smotkin was a senior vice president of government affairs for Comcast Corp. through last July and the pair frequently interacted as part of Pruitt’s previous chairmanship of the Republican Attorneys General Association. On Feb. 27 last year — just 10 days after Pruitt had been sworn in — the two men met for an early dinner in Washington, according to schedules released by the agency. Although Smotkin joined Pruitt on at least two meetings in Morocco — and dined with the administrator at least once during the trip — he “did not attend or participate in any official meetings with the Moroccan government,” Wilcox said. Pruitt was accompanied by eight EPA staff members during the trip to Morocco, which included at least eight official events, according to the administrator’s schedule. His itinerary included a visit with Mostafa Terrab, the chairman of Moroccan state-owned phosphate mining company OCP SA, and a tour of the Green Energy Park north of Marrakesh designed to promote the development of renewable energy. Pruitt also visited with the CEO of the Moroccan Agency for Sustainable Energy and dined with Moroccan government officials. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has already asked for documents and information about Pruitt’s travel to Morocco. And the EPA’s inspector general is auditing all of Pruitt’s travel last year.

lng
epa
spending
oklahoma
morocco
donald trump
scott pruitt
lobbyists
richard smotkin


Traces of early humans in Philippines 700,000 years ago raise question of whether they were seafarers

Abstract: PARIS - Were the early humans roaming East Asia more than half a million years ago clever enough to build seafaring watercraft and curious enough to cross a vast expanse of open sea? This and other questions arise from the discovery in the Philippines of a butchered rhinoceros skeleton and the stone tools probably used to carve away its meat, researchers said Wednesday. The find pushes back the arrival of the first Homo species on the island chain ten-fold to 700,000 years ago, they reported in the journal Nature. Earlier archaeological clues from Luzon island — tools at one site, pre-historic animals remains at another — hinted at the presence of primitive human species, echoing the way Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis probably populated the Indonesian archipelago during roughly the same period. But until now, the earliest confirmed evidence of hominins — the scientific term used to group modern and early humans — in the Philippines came from a single 67,000-year-old foot bone unearthed in the Sierra Madre Mountains. “We had the extraordinary luck to find a nearly complete, disarticulated rhinoceros,” said Thomas Ingicco, a paleoanthropologist at France’s National Museum of Natural History and lead author of the study. Analysis of the bones from the extinct species — Rhinoceros philippinensis — left no doubt “that it showed ridges left by tools,” he said. Some of the cut marks were made while removing flesh; others came from specialized tools designed to remove nourishing — and no doubt delicious — marrow. Ingicco and his colleagues also uncovered the skeletal remains of other potentially tasty animals, including brown deer, monitor lizards, freshwater turtles and stegodons, extinct mammals combining elephant and mammoth features. “We know that some species of human ate this rhino,” said Ingicco. “But we don’t know if they killed if first, or found the carcass.” All told, the Kalinga site in northern Luzon’s Cagayan Valley yielded more than 400 bones and several dozen knapped — or chipped — tools, including 49 knife-like flakes and two hammers. “This evidence pushes back the proven period of colonization of the Philippines by hundreds of thousands of years,” the authors concluded. Several dating techniques applied to the rhino remains determined its age at between 631,000 and 777,000 years, putting it in a period known as the Pleistocene. With no direct trace of the humans who butchered the animals, researchers could only speculate on who they were and how they got there. Homo erectus — known to have wandered to present-day China and Southeast Asia up to million years ago — is one candidate. It is also possible that the butchers of Kalinga had already evolved into a distinct subspecies, as likely happened to the “hobbit” of Flores, diminutive humans named for the Indonesian island where they were first found. As for how “Kalinga Man” made it across what is today 1,000 km (620 miles) of open ocean between Luzon and mainland Asia, the authors doubt they fashioned a raft or other seaworthy vessel. “The colonization could have happened ‘accidentally’ after a tsunami ripped up the coastline and created a temporary land bridge, a rare but documented phenomenon,” said Ingicco.

philippines
tools
rhinos
luzon
homo erectus


Xerox CEO to stay in surprise U-turn, putting deal with Fujifilm in flux and setting off proxy war

Abstract: HONG KONG/NEW YORK - A plan to replace the chief executive officer of Xerox Corp. and several directors fell apart over a technicality, setting the stage for a proxy fight in which activist shareholders will seek to improve the terms of a deal to cede control of the iconic U.S. printer company to Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp., or scrap it entirely. In a surprising turn of events Thursday night, Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson and six other board members will now stay on, after a settlement to oust them, reached earlier in the week with Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason, expired. Xerox had said Tuesday that the agreement was contingent on Deason ending his lawsuit against the company. Thursday night Xerox said “in the absence of such stipulations, the agreement expired.” Xerox and the two investors, who control more than 13 percent of the company, are battling over a proposed $6.1 billion deal that would hand control of the embattled, former U.S. office giant to Fujifilm. Xerox shares gained 1.2 percent Friday while Fujifilm fell 5.5 percent in Tokyo. Icahn and Deason have opposed the transaction from the start. Deason sued Xerox in February to block the proposal, accusing Jacobson of acting without authorization to strike a deal with Fujifilm that preserved his job at the expense of shareholder value. He also claimed the company’s board breached its fiduciary duties. A judge temporarily blocked the deal last week, before an agreement Tuesday between the company and the investors that would have seen Jacobson and six board members step down. Now this: After Xerox said Jacobson and his team will stay on, the company later also said it’s appealing the court decision that blocked it in the first place. “Now it’s just more uncertainty,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Simon Chan in Hong Kong. “We don’t know if the deal is back on. There’s something happening behind the scenes, which does not raise confidence in the deal or the company.” Jacobson’s initial planned resignation was seen as a major victory for the activist shareholders. Xerox had said the new board would look at alternatives, including terminating or restructuring the pact with Fujifilm. “The Xerox board recklessly refused to follow through with the leadership and governance changes we agreed to, demanding unprecedented additional approvals for their own personal self-interest,” Icahn and Deason wrote in an open letter to shareholders after news that Jacobson would stay on. “We will continue our fight to rescue and revitalize Xerox.” Deason and Icahn plan to push ahead with their proxy fight at the company, according to a person familiar with the matter. The two men plan to propose a slate of 10 new members to Xerox’s board as soon as possible and leave it up to shareholders to decide who should control the company, likely at a meeting in June, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters. The two investors are also considering possible legal action against Xerox and Fujifilm, the person said. Fujifilm and Xerox could continue to renegotiate the whole deal, but the only situation that’s palatable for Deason and Icahn would be one where the Japanese company buys the entire Xerox Corp. for a premium, the person familiar said. Some valuations have pegged Xerox at more than $40 a share, the person said. Fujifilm reiterated its call for the Xerox board to fulfill the deal agreement. The Japanese company is satisfied the U.S. court has “accepted our view of the importance of an open, orderly and transparent review process before any final decisions are made,” Fujifilm spokeswoman Mizuki Itou said in an emailed statement on Friday. Under the terms of the takeover announced in January, Xerox, which has a market value of $7.3 billion, would first merge with a joint venture that the company operates with Fujifilm in Asia. Tokyo-based Fujifilm would ultimately end up owning 50.1 percent of the combined entity, which would expand the joint venture to encompass all of Xerox’s operations. Xerox holders would receive a cash dividend of $9.80 a share under the proposed transaction.

acquisitions
carl icahn
fujifilm holdings
joint ventures
xerox


Susaki otter Chiitan leads a new generation of mascots with personality

Abstract: Registration for this year’s Yuru-kyara Grand Prix opens on May 7, with eyes nationwide turning to see which cute and cuddly mascot will snap up the prestigious award in 2018. Winning the competition carries plenty of weight, something that is perhaps illustrated best by the success of Kumamon, a rotund black bear representing Kumamoto Prefecture who won the contest in 2011. Kumamon has charmed netizens thanks to his aerobics , his vaguely “Wicker Man”-like moments , and the fact he generates billions of yen worth of income for his home prefecture . Indeed, it wasn’t long before seemingly every municipality and government-aligned organization started rolling out their own yuru-kyara (mascot) in an attempt to ride on the coattails of the bear’s success. “I remember being very taken by the characters on signs and posters everywhere from the moment I arrived here — probably because I couldn’t read any of the actual text on the signs,” says Chris Carlier, founder of the mascot-focused Twitter account Mondo Mascots . “The more acrobatic costumed characters, such as Funassyi and Kumamon, made me dig deeper later.” While these creations charmed with pure cuteness and a variety of wacky stunts — I’m a fan of Funassyi skydiving — they became popular internationally, peaking in 2015 when comedian John Oliver devoted a segment to mascots on his U.S. TV show “Last Week Tonight.” As that piece points out, though, local governments started curbing the use of mascots owing to worries over the use of taxpayer money, with the Finance Ministry calling for some mascots to be culled all together . Being cute, it seems, only takes you so far in life. However, life goes on and more recent versions of the cuddly critters have found some salvation on social media. “In recent years, the mascots have become very internet-savvy, and all have social media accounts,” Carlier says. “You can follow them on Twitter, Line and Facebook.” No mascot has better adjusted to social media than Chiitan . The large otter represents the city of Susaki in Kochi Prefecture, and was inspired by an actual version of the animal that also became popular online . Strangely enough, Chiitan has a predecessor named Shinjo-kun , which also promotes the city and which won the Yuru-kyara Grand Prix in 2016. Chiitan, though, does something a little different. “Chiitan posts a new slapstick video on its Twitter account each day that gets thousands of hits,” Carlier says. The otter is also popular on YouTube , where she shares experiences that fall somewhere between Buster Keaton and “Jackass.” Chiitan pummels away at a punching bag , falls off a pogo stick , fails at bowling , loses control of a bike while trying to fire an arrow from a bow and much more. Whereas older mascots act almost like TV celebrities in how they approach the entertainment industry (think myriad TV appearances), Chiitan leads a new generation of mascots that push the envelope in terms of creating a marketable personality, including drumming maniac Nyango Star and the Chiba Lotte Marines’ manic fish character . RocketNews24 has wondered if Chittan is the second coming of Funassyi, while TV programs have devoted various segments to the mascot’s popularity (while also making it pull off a few brand new stunts). Chiitan has even attracted some love from Western publications such as Buzzfeed, which made a video featuring several of its best hits along with the text “I am this Japanese mascot failing at everything.” The interest in mascots outside of Japan is strong thanks in part to Carlier’s online presence. The ubiquitous presence of mascots on Twitter can serve as a bright spot on a medium that’s come under fire recently for being toxic. “I had a ton of pictures and decided to share them online to cheer myself up in 2016, when most of the news and content on Twitter was increasingly grim,” he says. As the social network continues to slip into cynicism and negativity, there may indeed be something to be said for the existence of tempura critters such as Nagorakko and hemp fairies like Asamiko-chan . Let’s hope any moves to cull their number suffer the same embarrassing fate as a clumsy otter trying to fire an arrow from a bow while riding a bike.


Japan is struggling to deal with the foreign tourism boom

Abstract: With the population shrinking and the government leery of allowing more immigrants into the country, foreign tourism has become an effective economic stimulus. In fact, its success has exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams. More than 28 million tourists from abroad visited Japan last year , and it seems for sure that the stated goal of reaching 40 million tourists a year by 2020 will be achieved if not surpassed, with or without legalized casino gambling, which is part of the official tourism plan. That said, a downside has emerged — something the media is calling “ kankō kōgai ,” or “tourism pollution.” However effective the tourism promotion scheme has been, it didn’t take into account the numbers that actually materialized, nor the fact that many places, even those ostensibly set up for tourism, are not capable of handling the amount of traffic they’ve seen. The most referenced example is Kyoto. In an Asahi Shimbun article on April 21, Masaru Takayama, a native of the city and the CEO of an eco-tourism company, said his hometown is practically overrun by overseas tourists these days, and the residents don’t like it, despite the boost to the local economy. People who live along transportation routes that go through sightseeing areas find it difficult to use local buses anymore because they’re crammed with tourists. Restaurants are always booked because of social network hype. And foreign visitors, he states plainly, are often inconsiderate — eating on the street, making too much noise in general. The rush of out-of-towners has destroyed “miyabi” — that refined atmosphere unique to Kyoto. As a result, an increasing number of businesses are no longer offering multilingual service support on their homepages and are being selective when accepting reservations by phone. More to the point, Takayama says that a lot of tourism-related businesses that are “not being run with local money” have set up shop in Kyoto to take advantage of the foreign hordes and their revenue doesn’t benefit people who live there. The main point of the Asahi article seems to be that the tourism policy only has one aim — increasing the number of visitors. The government has yet to collect usable, localized data on the tourist boom that will help it address the kankō kōgai problem. The boom started in 2012 when low-cost carriers started operating in earnest, bringing package tours. But these tours tended to hit only the usual spots — Tokyo, Kyoto, Mount Fuji and maybe even Hokkaido. Takao Ikado, a tourism expert, said in the same article that the only thing scarier than “tourism pollution” is “no tourism at all,” and points out that without anyone to replace the dwindling number of Japanese travelers, traditional tourist destinations that are not located along beaten paths will quickly disappear. More effort should be made to steer overseas tourists to these places, but the authorities and the tourism industry itself have been slow to confront this reality. What’s needed is better transportation access, accommodations that can handle foreign visitors as well as more complete infrastructure. The government has implemented an exit tax of ¥1,000 for people leaving Japan from 2019 that will be used to reinforce tourism infrastructure, and one vital change in that regard would be helping businesses become less reliant on cash transactions. Many tourist-oriented businesses still don’t take credit cards or e-money, because Japanese customers pay in cash. Many tourists from abroad prefer not to. Another problem is that most tourist-oriented businesses in Japan are small-scale, and so can’t afford to renovate their operations to accommodate overseas visitors. The government may have to subsidize these renovations, otherwise the tourist boom could go bust. If a visitor comes once and finds Japan intriguing but inconvenient, says Ikado, they’ll think once is enough. Sustainable tourism means repeat visitors. Solving these problems requires a will to action on the part of the government and the sightseeing industry. The trickier part is getting the public to accept overseas tourists, a concept the media also likes to play up. Rude foreign tourists is a common media topic whose anecdotal coverage makes it impossible to quantify. Several weeks ago, the TV Asahi variety show “TV Tackle” aired a 60-minute installment on non-Japanese issues , and while some segments focused on foreign residents, other complaints were made about tourists. Some came across as gratuitous — one spotlighted sloppy foreign drunks in Shinjuku without mentioning that there are probably even more sloppy Japanese drunks in the area — but others, such as improper refuse disposal, were hard to argue with. However, it was a comment by the show’s host, comedian Takeshi Kitano, that made the biggest impression. He said that Japan had sacrificed its cultural integrity for the sake of money, thus implying that foreign tourism was polluting the Japanese spirit. Given that the largest portion of overseas tourists came from mainland China in 2017 and more than 80 percent of Japanese people hold an unfavorable opinion of the country , it would follow that, at best, the Japanese public only tolerates the foreign tourist boom. And the fact that the government encourages Chinese tourism — casino legalization is based on the hope of bringing more high-rollers from the mainland — without actively trying to counter this public perception adds substance to Kitano’s cynical observation. The media is sensitive to this opinion. On April 7, TV Asahi aired a 3½-hour special covering the top 40 favorite Japanese foods among foreign tourists . Although hardly a serious study, the show nevertheless skewed its coverage. Mainland Chinese and South Koreans accounted for more than half the overseas visitors last year , but I counted only a handful of both among the hundreds of participants interviewed during the show. The majority were Westerners, who made up only 10 percent of the inbound numbers in 2017. It felt odd. I’m sure Chinese tourists like Japanese food just as much as the next overseas visitor.


In Japan, a high-profile former gangster struggles to go straight

Abstract: Everyone loves a tale of redemption. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be one of them. In a previous column, I introduced a man who had gone from being a greedy, violent, self-centered boss of an organized crime syndicate to become a compassionate male nurse. It’s rare for a gangster to go straight, with many finding it a challenge to return to ordinary life in society even if they wanted to. On March 6, Yoshio Ishige, a former boss of a crime syndicate who was better known as Shinji Ishihara, passed away. He was 79. Most people who knew Ishihara called him “Yomawari Kumicho.” In Japanese, “ yomawari ” is a term used to describe someone patrolling the streets or making the rounds at night. It’s commonly used in conversation among reporters, gangsters, police officers and people in the adult entertainment industry. “ Kumicho ,” on the other hand, is short-hand for “boss.” True to his nickname, Ishihara could regularly be seen walking the streets at night and offering advice to a wide variety of young men and women in the hope that he could steer them away from the mistakes he himself had once made. He was an imposing figure: Tall, bald and hefty, he commanded a booming voice. “After getting out of prison, I wanted to put my crimes behind me and be useful to the world,” Ishihara once told me. “So I decided to devote the rest of my life to helping out juvenile delinquents.” Ishihara told me that he had spent nearly 20 years in prison after being involved in a murder. Ishihara wrote books under a pen name and someone had even made a comic strip version of his life. He wrote columns for magazines and, when everything was good, he’d visit clubs in Akasaka and Ginza, where he was, according to one hostess, “a very generous customer.” In early March, Ishihara allegedly stabbed a man in what may have been an attempted robbery and tried to flee the scene by jumping into the Sumida River, according to reports in domestic media. Police recovered his body on the same day and told reporters he had drowned. He had reportedly been telling friends that he wanted to die and, according to an article in Friday magazine, he also believed that someone was trying to kill him, showing traces of paranoia. His death was ultimately ruled a suicide. That, however, isn’t the end of the story. On Oct. 26, Kiyomi Kimura, 71, was found strangled to death in a hotel and sauna. His valuables were missing, including a watch worth an estimated $10,000. Police later tracked down video footage of a man who resembled Ishihara trying to sell a watch of the same make to a second-hand store in Taito Ward. They also obtained DNA from Ishihara’s personal belongings that identified his bloodstains found on the clothes of the victim. On April 5, the Metropolitan Police Department posthumously sent papers to the prosecutor’s office, charging Ishihara with robbery ending in murder, a death penalty offense. To the best of my knowledge, prosecutors have never indicted a dead man before but their case appears solid. The media outlets in Japan that paraded Ishihara in front of their cameras as a shining example of how a gangster can rejoin society after serving time in prison must be privately fuming at this development. Indeed, Ishihara’s unfortunate fall from grace suggests that once you’re a gangster, you’re always a gangster. There may be exceptions, of course, but it’s obviously tough to go straight. Many find themselves struggling to pay the bills as they can’t hold down a full-time job, forcing gangsters to revert to doing what they do best — use violence to procure money. At the end of the day, that’s what being a gangster is all about.


News outlets quick to fall in love with prison break coverage

Abstract: Did somebody say “ prison break “? The thought took me back to the late 1970s, when I was waiting in the outbound immigration queue at Narita Airport, and found myself standing beside U.S. actor David Janssen (1931-80). From 1963, he’d starred in four seasons of the wildly popular ABC TV show “The Fugitive” in the role of Richard Kimble — a physician wrongly convicted of murdering his wife — who managed to escape from custody and struggled to clear his name. While our line shuffled forward, Japanese sporadically slipped out of adjacent lines to approach Janssen and shake his hand. He modestly but graciously obliged, flashing his characteristic bittersweet smile. “Tobosha” — the show’s name in Japanese — was said to be so popular here that TV Guide magazine reported that public bathhouses would empty out on the evenings of its weekly broadcasts so bathers could rush home to watch. Hearing the first reports about Tatsuma Hirao’s escape from a low-security prison in Shikoku on April 8, for some reason I recalled that brief encounter with Janssen, who in his time became emblematic of an individual forced to live by his wits while on the run from the law. A 27-year-old Fukuoka native, Hirao was serving time for multiple thefts. With a little over two years left in his sentence, he had been transferred from Fukuoka Prison in December 2017; he labored under an honor system at the Oi shipyard in the city of Imabari, one of only four such penal institutions in Japan. Police sources say Hirao decided to flee owing to “disgust over a relationship” with a guard at the prison. Due to the holidays, magazine coverage of the escape was scant but Weekly Playboy (May 14) ran an interview with Toshi Ofumi, who formerly served a brief stint in the French Foreign Legion and claimed to know something about escaping. Ofumi turned out to be correct in predicting that Hirao was likely to have accumulated some cash before his escape. (When eventually apprehended in Hiroshima, he had about ¥20,000 on him.) Ofumi was also spot-on in predicting that “Japanese cops won’t let up on the search. It’s just a matter of time until they catch him.” Last Monday evening, TV Asahi News devoted the first 10 minutes of its broadcast to Hirao’s capture, including street camera videos of his attempt to flee pursuers by scaling a wall. Those 24 days of freedom are likely to come at a high price: A commentator told TV Asahi News that Hirao could probably expect to have an additional year tacked on to his remaining sentence for the crime of escaping, plus “three to four additional years” for crimes against property committed while on the run. Unlike Kazuko Fukuda, Tatsuya Ichihashi and several other notable fugitives who produced books, Hirao’s brief breakout is unlikely to warrant an autobiographical account of his escape. In 1982, Fukuda strangled a rival hostess in the city of Matsuyama out of jealousy. After fleeing, she underwent several surgical procedures to become known as “the woman with seven faces.” Ehime’s police took the unusual step (at the time) of offering a substantial monetary reward for information leading to her apprehension, and she was tracked down and arrested in the city of Fukui on July 29, 1997 — just 21 days before the statute of limitations on her crime would have expired. In 1999, she published an autobiography titled “Valley of Tears: My 14 years, 11 months and 10 days as a Fugitive.” Tatsuya Ichihashi made international headlines when he evaded arrest after murdering English teacher Leslie Ann Hawker in his own apartment in March 2007. Ichihashi stood over 180 centimeters tall — well above average in height — but somehow managed to evade security cameras and travel around the country for some 2½ years. He briefly sought sanctuary on a nearly uninhabited, snake-infested island in the Ryukyu archipelago about 100 kilometers west of Okinawa, and this stint as a modern-day Robinson Crusoe fascinated the media. Ichihashi’s 238-page account, titled “Before I Was Arrested: Records of the Blank Two Years and Seven Months,” was published by Gentosha in January 2011 and quickly soared to No. 1 in nonfiction book sales on Amazon Japan. During the Meiji Era (1868-1912) when prison conditions were much more severe, escapes were common. A record number of 1,821 convicts made successful getaways in 1881, and annual figures remained in the hundreds well into the early 20th century. Today, prison escapes have become exceedingly rare; since the mid-1970s, the number in any given year has never exceeded a single digit. In the annals of crime and punishment, a man named Yoshie Shiratori is still remembered as “the man no prison could hold.” Between 1933 and 1947, Shiratori made four successful escapes, including one from Abashiri Prison in remote northern Hokkaido, where the nation’s worst offenders were incarcerated. As related in numerous accounts, each morning at breakfast Shiratori spat miso soup on the door frame of his solitary cell. The salt gradually caused the door’s metal to corrode and weaken. On the night of Aug. 26, 1944, taking advantage of the wartime blackout, he stripped to his underwear and — dislocating both his shoulders from their joints — squeezed himself through the slot in the cell door used by the guards to insert the food tray. His escape made front-page headlines in the Hokkaido Shimbun. Author Kiyohiko Sato published the definitive study on prison escapes in a 1995 work of nonfiction titled “The Escapees.” In Sato’s view, escapes owe their rarity in part to Japan’s emergence as a kanri shakai (controlled society), where what remains of individual privacy is left to the indulgence of big government, banks and other organizations. Then again, it may also reflect how prisons have become more accommodating places where cooperative inhabitants are accorded lenient treatment along with a warm bed and three meals per day.


Japan 1943: 'Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto dies a gallant death in action'

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Thursday, May 2, 1918 Brave little girl saves father from burglar A brave little girl faced an armed robber who broke into the house of Naojiro Naito, a grocer of Nippori, a suburb of Tokyo, at midnight on the 29th of last month. The noise awoke the master of the house and the unwelcome visitor threatened him with a short sword and the usual phrase, “Your money or your life!” Fourteen-year-old Otsuru, the eldest daughter of the house, who was sleeping in the next room, ran up to the robber and appealed to him to save her father and instead take her own life. She entreated so pitifully that the rogue was moved by the affectionate and courageous little girl, and left the house without further molesting the family, carrying away ¥30 that Naito gave him. The robber was arrested on Monday morning while viewing the cherry flowers at Arakawa. 75 YEARS AGO Saturday, May 22, 1943 Admiral Yamamoto dies gallantly in action Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, died a gallant death in a plane during an engagement with the enemy while personally directing the general strategic operations on the front line in April, it was revealed in an announcement issued by the Imperial headquarters on Friday. “His Majesty the Emperor on receiving word that that Admiral Yamamoto was in a dangerous condition graciously appointed him to the Supreme War Council of Marshals and Fleet Admirals and by special Imperial favor conferred on him with the Grand Order of the Chrysanthenum and First Class Order of the Golden Kite,” Navy Minister Shigetaro Shimada said. “Ever since the outbreak of war, the late Fleet-Admiral has personally directed operations in the midst of the fiercest fighting, thus uplifting the morale of the officers and men under him. His end is a logical consequence of his inspiring practice of going into the thick of fighting. He was killed during a stirring air combat with the enemy on the foremost line. Every member of the combined fleet on hearing the report of his heroic death was moved to every fiber of his being and vowed that the enemy pay dearly for the death of this great commander. “We are deeply pained over the death of Admiral Yamamoto especially at a momentous phase of the war as present, when our very national fortunes are to be decided, but the Imperial Navy remains absolutely unshaken by his passing. Under the August virtues of His Imperial Majesty, its fighting morale has only been heightened by the heroic example of one of its leaders and its determination to smash the enemy only intensified. The Imperial Navy now pledges redoubled efforts to live up to the August expectation of His Imperial Majesty. 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, May 9, 1968 Mysterious disease blamed on mine A mysterious bone disease that has hit Toyama Prefecture is attributable to industrial waste from the Kamioka Mine of Mitsui Mining and Smelting Co., the Health and Welfare Ministry announced today. The announcement meant that the goverment had reached a “verdict” on a four-year dispute on the cause of a strange endemic disease known as the itai-itai (ouch-ouch) disease. The ministry identified the chemical responsible for the disease as cadmium, found in the drainage from Mitsui Mining and Smelting’s cadmium mine at Kamioka in Toyama Prefecture on the upper reaches of the River Jintsu. The disease, known for the past 20 years, has been afflicting people, chiefly women, in the downstream town of Fuchu, and its environs in Nei-gun, Toyama Prefecture. Between 100 and 200 persons are believed to have died of the insidious disease that slowly turns the victims’ bones brittle. The chronic disease is believed to develop over a period of 30 years or more. This was the first instance of such a public health incident involving a heavy metal being officially labeled a “public hazard.” After the natural presence of a miminal content of cadmium in any soil or water is deducted, the abnormally large content of cadmium remaining can “only be blamed on the drainage of the Kamioka Mine,” the ministry said. The fact that the mine has long been paying compensation to farmers in the lower valley of the river for crop damage caused by the drainage was noted as “supplementary proof.” 25 YEARS AGO Sunday, May 16, 1993 The J. League is born! First match kicks off Japan’s professional soccer league burst into life Saturday evening at Tokyo’s National Stadium as the J. League opened with a short but dazzling ceremony followed by the opening match between the Yokohama Marinos and Verdy Kawasaki. The announcement of the team lineups proclaimed the start of the ¥100 million ceremony, and the “the Birthday of the J. League” appeared on a huge screen. Amidst a flurry of skypiercing lasers, Michiya Haruhata, guitarist with the Japanese rock band Tube, played “Born To Win” and “J’s Theme,” the J. League’s theme song. Huge flags of all 10 J. League clubs and the league itself were passed down over the crowd from the top of the stands. J. League chairman Saburo Kawabuchi declared the league open: “Supported by many fans who love sports, the J. League now takes its first step today. On May 15, I declare the start of the J. League.” The Marinos and Verdy players ran onto the pitch to the deafening cheers of a full-house crowd of 59,626. The Marinos edged Verdy in the opening match 2-1. Japan’s Dutch manager, Hans Ooft, attended the ceremony and watched the match with his family. Ooft said with a smile, “I’m just one of the spectators today.”

wwii
j . league
soccer
world war ii
toyama
itai-itai disease
isoroku yamamoto


Comments from defunct online Cabinet forum ignite debate over hate speech

Abstract: Controversial comments from a defunct and somewhat obscure Cabinet Office online forum have ignited a social media debate over hate speech. Discontinued in April 2017, the online forum known as the Government Monitor System allowed citizens to contact the Cabinet Office directly to express policy-related ideas, with the comments eventually being published online. Although the government warned against the use of “slanderous” comments, many appear to encroach upon what qualifies as hate speech. The user comments, which included calls to execute former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and attack Korean residents in Japan, were brought to light in the past week via a blog post and a subsequent social media discussion, particularly on Twitter. When reached for comment Wednesday, the Cabinet Office stated repeatedly that the website operated under the ideal that the government should respect the opinions of citizens rather than censor the material. “We wanted to respect the position of our citizens,” said an official from the Cabinet Office’s public relations, who asked to remain anonymous. “And so as far as I understand, the user comments were usually simply divided up by field and published.” Yuji Nasu, a professor of constitutional law at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, suggested that, legally speaking, removing the controversial comments from public forums would most likely not result in violation of the Constitution or any other law. But in doing so, bureaucrats would potentially be put in the difficult position of having to decide which comments warranted being deleted. “I think that if there are extreme comments, such as referring to certain nationalities as cockroaches, then there could be a legal case to remove them without violating the Constitution,” Nasu said. “But on the other hand, in cases where comments don’t use extreme wording, but are simply insulting, it may be more difficult for those working at the Cabinet Office to remove the comments from the forums,” he added. Nasu suggested the government could find middle ground by instead tagging controversial comments with disclaimers making it clear that the government does not support hate speech. Other countries have also experienced controversy when publishing official policy suggestions on online forums. During the Obama administration, the U.S. government in 2011 launched a website petition service called We the People. The service allowed people to post or vote on petitions they believe the government should address. While the U.S. petition website warns users against using obscene material, defamatory or fraudulent statements, in addition to a slew of other rules that give the curators of the website the power to remove improper content, the efforts did not completely prevented the website from hosting controversial petitions. One of the most recent petitions active on the website as of Wednesday was titled, “Declare George Soros a terrorist and seize all of his related organizations’ assets …” The Japanese version of the Government Monitor System was originally created in 1962 and allowed citizens to send in policy ideas to the government via postal mail. It was later upgraded to include online comments in 2012. Professor Kenta Yamada of Senshu University in Tokyo acknowledged that hate speech is hard to classify in practice, and that a reluctance to do so is somewhat based on a historical reluctance to crackdown on freedom of expression. But Yamada, a specialist in freedom of speech laws, also added, “To maintain order in online forums, it may be necessary to create more clear rules than were used under the Cabinet Office forums.”

social media
discrimination
cabinet office
hate speech


Pilot schools cash in as drone business takes off in Japan

Abstract: As Japan positions itself to take advantage of the growing trend in drones, another sector is popping up in the promising market — drone schools. Industries ranging from agriculture to security are setting their eyes on the benefits of the device. And although the aerial vehicles are capable of autonomous flight, skilled pilots need to be on hand in case something goes wrong. “The industrial use of drones will grow more to replace some work previously handled by humans,” said Kazunori Fujiwara, a spokesman at the Drone Pilot Association, a Tokyo-based group that promotes pilot education. “There are still not enough pilots. It’s been just three or four years since drones started spreading, so we need to raise greater awareness,” he said. The DPA estimates that more than 140,000 pilots will be needed by 2020. The DPA said it does not have a current figure for pilots nationwide but that close to 10,000 people have received training at schools through a DPA-designed education program. Including those not using the DPA’s curriculum, the number of companies or organizations running drone pilot schools jumped from 43 last June to 154 in March, according to transport ministry data. Schools generally teach students how to fly the unmanned vehicles based on guidelines drafted by drone-related organizations. Several courses are available, but most involve two- or four-day plans priced between ¥200,000 and ¥300,000. The courses provide practice time and teach about regulations. After completion, students can receive a certificate showing they took a course and are trained pilots. That makes it easier for them to apply for special permission from the transport ministry. Without that permission, the types of aircraft that can be used and where they can fly is heavily regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Law. The law limits flights over crowded residential areas, including major cities and all 23 wards in Tokyo, to drones weighing 200 grams or more. Flights are also limited to a maximum altitude of 150 meters, and banned near airports. The ministry also requires pilots to have a minimum of 10 hours of experience. Some people wonder how pilots factor in if drones are capable of autonomous flight through programming and GPS. Fujiwara says pilots play a crucial role in safety. “Airline pilots are a good example. Those airplanes mostly fly pre-input routes autonomously. But when something happens, pilots take control” to make sure they land safely, he said. “This is the same with drones . . . when flying in autonomous mode, a gust of wind could cause some anomalies. If that happens, pilots have to manually handle the situation.” A drone crash can be dangerous. In November, a drone flying over an event at a park in Ogaki, Gifu Prefecture, suddenly crashed into the crowd, injuring six people. For that reason, schools say piloting skills are the main focus of training. “Pilots must have a mindset that a drone is in danger of crashing when they are in charge,” said Keita Mizuno, head of a drone flight school in Tokyo’s Koto Ward. The school, near Shiomi Station on the Keiyo Line, has enrolled about 5,000 people so far and teaches how to control the aircraft in both autonomous mode and manual mode. Mizuno said a lot of students take lessons as part of their jobs, which are often related to construction or infrastructure maintenance. One student taking a lesson last week found that flying drones isn’t a game. “It is harder than I thought,” admited Hiroaki Usui, who was taking lessons as part of his work at a civil engineering firm. “I play video games, so I thought (flying drones) was kind of similar at first. But once its GPS was turned off, it got out of control if I didn’t operate it correctly, so that was hard.” Usui said he came from Hokkaido to take a four-day course. His company is seeking drone pilots because it sees potential business from offering pesticide-spraying services in the prefecture. With business opportunities projected to grow, schools see a rosy future for drones. Even driving schools are getting in on the act. “They have been affected by Japan’s low birthrate, together with a higher ratio of young people who aren’t interested in getting a driver’s license,” said Michihiro Kobayashi, a spokesman for the Driving School Drone Consortium. Driving schools totaled 1,441 in 2006 but declined to 1,330 as of last year. “Driving schools feel a sense of crisis, so many are exploring the merits of branching out into new businesses,” Kobayashi said. Established last September, the consortium is encouraging driving schools to introduce drone education programs. Kobayashi said driving schools are experienced in teaching safety issues and equipped with all the necessary facilities, including classrooms and driving courses that can be adapted to teach drone pilots as well. But driving schools are not the only ones seeking to diversify. Nagoya Railroad Co., which also offers bus and aviation services via group firms, plans to open a drone school in June to cultivate a fresh source of profit. Japan Airlines Co. is also looking to launch a drone pilot business in the future by taking advantage of its aviation know-how.


From office watcher to farm protector and crop duster, unmanned aircraft playing unusual roles

Abstract: At exactly 5 p.m. one recent Friday at Taisei Co., a flying drone alerted workers at the building maintenance firm that the day’s work was done. The fully automatic drone, which goes by the name T-Frend, is an example of the unique ways unmanned aerial vehicles are being used to seize control of what people are failing at or incapable of. “This drone will identify who remains in the office after hours. . . . And by accessing recorded data, human resources or administration departments will be able to deal with those who abuse overtime,” said Chikara Kato, manager of the Tokyo firm’s corporate planning division and inventor of the device. In recent years, Japan has been strengthening efforts to limit overtime amid outrage sparked by the continuing deaths caused by Japan’s excessively long working hours. “At first, we considered flying drones over parking lots to use them in place of security guards,” but instead we invented a system to fly drones inside of buildings as it doesn’t need to meet Japan’s strict aviation restrictions outdoors, Kato said. T-Frend, which is being used on a trial basis, was developed by Taisei using the technology of drone developer Blue Innovation Co. and telecommunications giant NTT East Corp. Taisei said it will start marketing the unusual office service in October. A drone hovers inside Taisei Co.’s office in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, on May 10. | SATOKO KAWASAKI Weighing several hundred grams, the rechargeable drone, which also takes video, can fly at a height of around 2 meters for up to 15 minutes. The system doesn’t require a pilot and transmits its data directly to a cloud-based storage system. It can also improve security, Kato added. “Now we’re receiving inquiries from operators of logistics warehouses who want to use T-Frend to prevent robberies.” Drones aren’t just being used to watch over humans. Municipalities nationwide rely on such technology to track and scare off crop-damaging wildlife in rural areas. The city of Minokamo in Gifu Prefecture scares marauding macaques from fields using sounds emitted by drones. “Monkeys are smart enough to avoid traps. . . . And we’ve come up with an idea to use drones to teach them a lesson,” said Yuki Yamada, an official with the city’s agricultural and forestry division. Crop losses in Minokamo caused by macaques top nearly ¥2 million per year, but the animals “also damage roofs and invade warehouses, so the damage is much more significant,” she said. Since October, the city has been dispatching teams of “monkey chasers” who broadcast Minokamo’s official melody through speakers attached to the drones once or twice a month. Simultaneously, hunters shoot off air guns and fireworks at invading macaques to scare them off. “When the monkeys hear Minokamo’s melody, they know their lives might be in danger,” Yamada said. “We’ve heard them screech while running.” Some monkeys have fled to other areas since the project was launched, she added. Kanagawa Prefecture is testing a new drone-type robot specifically designed to deter the crop-damaging macaques. “We’ve thought of using drones as monkeys are simply afraid of them,” said Takatsugu Nemoto, an inventor at Meiko Electronics Co. who is building a system for the prefecture’s ¥10 million project. Meiko’s system also tracks macaques fitted with collars that emit GPS signals. The drones can follow them as they move around with their families. The pilots can then buzz any monkeys spotted invading farmland and scare them off with the speakers. The Kanagawa Prefectural Government ran three tests last year in mountainous parts of Atsugi and plans to train operators in Sagamihara later this year, an official with the prefectural government’s industry promotion division said. Tony Lin of venture capital firm Skyrobot Inc. demonstrates a drone at his Tokyo office on May 10. The drone, which has an infrared camera, can be used to track animals. | MAGDALENA OSUMI Startup Skyrobot Inc., another Tokyo-based drone firm, dispatches teams to track bears, deer and boars using Sky Animal drones with infrared cameras. “We’re also thinking of creating drones that would release nets to actually capture wild animals,” said Tony Lin, Skyrobot’s technical sales representative. The company also sells and rents drones that can spread 10 kg of fertilizers over a 1-hectare field in just 10 minutes. The venture is currently working on hydrogen fuel technology that would allow drones to fly for about three hours, compared with just 30 minutes for battery-powered current models. In the future, flying vehicles will become a reality, and drone companies are seeking new technologies that will allow people to ride them, Lin said.


Italian artist sculpting iconic Fiat 500 car out of block of white marble

Abstract: PIEMONT, ITALY - A young Turin-based artist has spent months sculpting a life-size Fiat 500 car out of a 15-ton block of white Carrara marble in a work he sees as a critique of today’s consumerist, throw-away society. Armed with his circular saw and a face mask to keep away the dust, Nazareno Biondo began work on the piece last year, slowly and meticulously hewing out of stone a copy of the iconic “Topolino,” the original small two-door rear-engined city car that still symbolizes, 60 years after its launch, Italy’s postwar economic boom. “It’s my biggest work so far,” the 30-something sculptor said in his atelier on the outskirts of Turin, a city which is also home to the famous car brand. Biondo, who graduated from Turin’s Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, specializes in working in marble, and has already carved gold ingots, bundles of dollars and even a Vespa motor scooter out of the white stone. But far from being a symbol of the “Dolce vita,” his “Cinquecento” will be an evocation “of a bygone era, where the future of my generation could still be decided,” he said. Once it is completed, probably in a few months, the work will look like a car ready for the scrap yard, “because my pieces are a reflection of consumerism, of the waste of contemporary society,” he said.


Record 98% of Japan's university graduates land jobs amid recovering economy

Abstract: A record-high 98 percent of newly minted university graduates landed jobs at the beginning of this fiscal year, government data showed Friday, reflecting a recovering economy. The employment rate of job-seeking graduates rose 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier, up for the seventh consecutive year, in an annual survey that’s been conducted since 1997 by the labor and education ministries. Aided by firms’ increasing appetite for recruitment, the rate of university students seeking jobs also increased to 75.3 percent, the highest on record. A labor ministry official attributed the rises to an economic turnaround that has provided students with more opportunities to apply for positions that match their preferences. The employment rate among new high school graduates who sought jobs as of the end of March gained 0.1 percentage point to 98.1 percent, up for the eighth straight year. “Enhanced collaboration between Hello Work (public job-placement offices) and universities or high schools, as well as improved career education, have contributed to the strong figures,” education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference. The employment rate of university graduates who majored in humanities climbed 0.9 percentage points to 98.2 percent while that of those who majored in science-related fields fell 1.5 percentage points to 97.2 percent. It was the first time the figure for science majors fell below that for humanities majors. The labor ministry official said there may have been more science graduates who were willing to defer employment in order to obtain qualifications required by their preferred companies. With around 8,200 new university graduates estimated to remain jobless, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said it will continue to support their efforts to secure employment. Twenty-four national and public universities and 38 private universities were picked for the survey that covered some 4,800 students. Each university interviewed students to track their employment situation. The new university graduates’ employment rate has recovered from a record low of 91 percent in the spring of 2011, weeks after the March earthquake and tsunami disaster struck northeastern Japan. In a separate survey that covered all high school students in Japan, around 188,000 students sought jobs out of around 1,061,000 students. The seller’s market is expected to continue this fiscal year on the back of labor shortages — except for some industries such as major banks, which have decided to slash new hires, experts said. According to Recruit Career Co., the proportion of students who secured informal job offers for the next fiscal year stood at around 43 percent as of May 1, up 7.7 percentage points from the previous year.

employment
jobs
university graduates
labor shortage


U.S. cites Japan for noncompliance with Hague treaty on cross-border parental child abductions

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department on Wednesday listed Japan as one of the countries showing a pattern of noncompliance with the so-called Hague treaty, which sets procedures to settle cross-border parental child abduction cases. Japan joined the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in 2014, and it is the first time since then that the nation has been put on the list in the department’s annual report on the issue of children taken by one parent following the breakup of an international marriage. The listing may help put greater pressure on Japan to comply with the treaty, pundits said. The 2018 report said Japan has made “measurable progress” on international parental child abduction, noting that the average number of children reported abducted to the country each year has decreased by 44 percent since 2014 thanks to the expansion of mediation between parents and the promotion of voluntary returns by authorities. While noting that “a strong and productive relationship” between the Japanese and U.S. governments has facilitated the resolution of abduction cases, the report said that “there were no effective means” to enforce court return orders. As a result, 22 percent of requests for the return of abducted children under the treaty had remained unresolved for more than one year, or 22 months on average, the report said. “Japan’s inability to quickly and effectively enforce Hague return orders appears to stem from limitations in Japanese law including requirements that direct enforcement take place in the home and presence of the taking parent, that the child willingly leave the taking parent, and that the child face no risk of psychological harm,” the report said. It also said the enforcement process “is excessively long,” noting that parents who want to get their children back sometimes spend more than a year in follow-on legal proceedings seeking a ruling to enforce the Hague order. A total of 12 countries — also including China, India, Brazil and Argentina — were on the 2018 list of countries showing a pattern of noncompliance. “Now is an opportunity for the government of Japan to demonstrate a true commitment to reforming its inability to enforce its own judicial rulings,” said Jeffery Morehouse, who is seeking to gain custody of his son in Japan. Paul Toland, who hopes to reunite with his daughter in Japan, said, “Japan will need a complete reform of their family law system and will have to change the way they view the rights of a child to know and love both parents after a divorce if they ever want to be compliant with the Hague (treaty).” In April, International Alliance Partners, a group representing parents whose children were taken away by their Japanese partners or within Japan, sent an open letter to the governments of the Group of Seven member countries, urging them to take “firm, decisive, public action with the government of Japan to resolve the crisis and cases of parental child abduction.”

u.s .
children
hague convention
parental child abduction
divorce


Aspiring brewer taps Fukushima town's hops in bid to boost sagging farming industry

Abstract: “I can’t wait to drink delicious beer made from homegrown hops,” Makoto Honma, the president of Hop Japan Inc., told farmers with a smile in April when he visited them in Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture. While his company was originally intended to focus on the production and sale of homegrown hops, Honma is now planning to build a craft beer brewery in the city amid the recent surge in popularity of locally produced beer and unique brewing methods. Currently, most domestic hops are grown based on contracts with major breweries, but the production outlook is dim due to a dwindling number of farmers in Japan and falling consumption of big brand beers. The 52-year-old also believes the realization of his dream would help solve problems related to the abandonment of local farms and revitalize rural tourism. His brewery dream originates from his experience in the United States a decade ago. While working as a spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co. in 2008, the Yamagata Prefecture native decided to take a two-year leave to study English in Seattle. During his stay, Honma developed a fascination with local craft beer and the brewery business. In 2014, one of his friends asked him to help in negotiations with producers of Tohoku-grown hops, further piquing his interest in the industry. Honma said the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, and subsequent tsunami and nuclear crisis, had a major impact on his life. “I want to make hop production sustainable in Tohoku. I would do whatever I can do as we can only live once,” he said, recalling his new outlook on life. Honma decided to quit his job and launched Hop Japan in Sendai in 2015. He later learned that Fukushima Bank offers financial aid for startups, leading him to move his company to the city of Fukushima in order to receive the funding. Honma was later tapped by the Reconstruction Agency to grow hops in Tamura, where farmers sought alternative crops because of the falling production of tobacco leaves. Tamura officials later asked him to build a brewery in addition to farming hops. Prompted by the local passion, Honma decided to follow through with the plan, and is set to move to the city by the end of the year, taking further steps toward fulfilling his dream. “By promoting the brewery business, I’d like to realize a society where economic activities from producing and processing to selling, work together in unison,” he said.

fukushima
fukushima no . 1
great east japan earthquake
tsunami
beer


Wakayama's governor all-in on casino resort bet

Abstract: OSAKA - After the Diet finally approves legislation setting the rules on integrated casino resort complexes, the race to win one of the first three casinos will quickly heat up. And nowhere is the competition becoming more intense than in Kansai. Osaka is a heavy favorite to win one of the three, with strong support from local politicians and the business community as well as strong interest from international casino operators. But neighboring Wakayama also wants a casino resort as a way to attract tourists and, despite what appear to be long odds, Gov. Yoshinobu Nisaka is stepping up the prefecture’s bidding efforts. At a public symposium on May 19 in the city of Wakayama, Nisaka, in an attempt to placate concerns about the surge in problem gamblers a casino would bring, proposed that entry to any casino in the prefecture by Japanese be restricted, in principle. If Japanese customers met certain prefecture-mandated requirements, they would be permitted entry. Nisaka proposed issuing them a cash card for use in casinos. The card would have an upper limit. “Money used from this system could fund support policies for dealing with problem gamblers,” Nisaka said. Previously, the governor, in a bid to win over voters worried about gambling addiction, had created controversy by suggesting it would be better to ban Japanese from entry. Earlier this month, Nisaka lobbied international casino operators at a convention. “Eight casino operators were there, and it was a chance for Wakayama to present its plans for a resort,” Nisaka told reporters on May 15, just after the meeting. Wakayama’s plan calls for a casino resort to be built at Marina City on a man-made island in the city of Wakayama. It would include a 2,500-room hotel, an international conference hall and a virtual reality game center. Wakayama says the resort, with an estimated cost of ¥280 billion, could generate ¥140 billion in annual sales if Japanese customers are allowed to enter the casino. Many casino operators are skeptical of these figures, and of the potential for a Wakayama-based casino to make a profit, especially if there are any restrictions on Japanese. Osaka remains the preferred choice in Kansai for most, but as Nisaka’s recent efforts show, Wakayama intends to remain in contention, convinced that a casino is just what is needed to revive its economy.


People with disabilities giving Japan's short-handed companies an assist by working from home

Abstract: To meet hiring obligations, companies, municipalities and prefectures are increasingly turning to people with disabilities who would rather work from home than endure the hardships of a daily commute. Amid a growing manpower shortage in urban areas, more companies are turning to telecommuting or telework to secure a reliable workforce. The telecommuting trend is easing the employment concerns of people with physical disabilities and mental disorders, as well as those residing in rural areas. Kazuma Minowa, who lives in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, began working as a nonregular employee for Tokyo real estate firm Kachi Jutaku Inc. last December. Working 21 hours a week, he collects real estate information online and creates floor plans for the firm from a laptop computer. But Minowa, 32, developed a mental disorder 15 years ago. Although he had a job back then, his symptoms worsened and he had to quit after about six months. Later, he sought the help of an employment agency that suggested he try telecommuting, and was hired by his current company after attending a telecommuting event last fall. The employer provided Minowa with a computer equipped with the software needed to do the job, and he can communicate with the company’s office in Tokyo at any time via the internet. “It’s like being at the office. But even if you’re not feeling well, you can take advantage of being at home and work without caring about your surroundings,” said Minowa, who hopes to stay with his current employer as long as possible. According to Telework Management, a consultancy that works for the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry promoting telecommuting for the disabled, more people are inquiring about jobs they can do from home. Last November, the company immediately filled all 120 seats for its seminar in Tokyo. In response to growing labor shortages, the legal requirement for hiring disabled workers was raised to 2.2 percent of a company’s workforce in April, with the category expanded to include people with mental disorders. But amid a shortage of disabled workers in the metropolitan area, companies are seeking employees based outside the city in order to meet their legal requirements.While companies are only required to hire disabled people if they have 45.5 employees or more, many say interest in telecommuting is growing regardless of size. Masanori Takahashi, president of the real estate firm where Minowa works, a company with fewer than 20 employees, said working remotely will soon be a necessity. “From now on, the hiring difficulties of small and midsize companies will get worse. Telework is essential.” Governments are responding to the trend as well. Since fiscal 2016, Asahikawa officials have held briefings for companies promoting telecommuting for the disabled, resulting in 21 people being hired by two private companies outside the city. Kochi Prefecture in Shikoku has advocated telecommuting since 2016. Fukuoka is considering doing the same in fiscal 2019. “While there are a lot of companies that are concerned about changes in their employees’ health, it’s possible to get support through local disability employment services agencies,” said Rie Kuramochi, a consultant for Telework Management. Kuramochi emphasized that it is important for companies to devise ways of sharing work among employees and that firms should prepare to accept these new hires.


Okinawan activist fights for rights of indigenous Ryukyuans at U.N. forum

Abstract: NEW YORK - Activist Shinako Oyakawa recently used her first participation at a United Nations gathering in New York to highlight Okinawan issues in the context of a broader struggle for the rights of indigenous people around the world. “We really have to make it an international issue because it is related to so many other indigenous peoples’ problems, and colonization is happening under the table,” she said on the sidelines of the international body’s 17th Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues last month. “Both the Japanese and U.S. governments are violently pushing through construction of new military bases at Henoko and Takae,” said the Ph.D. candidate at the University of the Ryukyus and executive member of the Association of Comprehensive Studies for Independence of the Lew Chewans. In its official name, the pro-independence organization uses the original, local word for Ryukyuans — the indigenous descendants of the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was a sovereign entity prior to its annexation by Japan in 1879. In recent years, the contentious relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from an urban center to the coastal area of Henoko has consistently drawn protesters, including last month when large numbers turned out to mark a year since the government started building seawalls to prepare for the transfer. Further up the island’s east coast, residents of Takae have for the past decade staged sit-ins to oppose helipad construction for the U.S. military’s V-22 Osprey aircraft, whose noise and checkered safety record have heightened concerns. “Our problem is about two different countries that are the colonizers, which makes it complicated,” Oyakawa said. “We are in the gap (between) two countries. We can’t agree (with either) and we are kind of excluded.” Sharing the stage at a panel discussion with leaders from Myanmar, the Philippines and Malaysia, the Okinawa University lecturer pointed out that her homeland, despite representing only 0.6 percent of Japan by land area, bears a disproportionate burden in hosting U.S. military facilities. Roughly 70 percent of the land area in Japan used for U.S. bases is in Okinawa. This presence, she said, has brought decades of accidents as well as cases of rape and murder. “It’s not really a national issue,” she said. “It’s concentrated in Okinawa and the Japanese people don’t really face discrimination.” Oyakawa, who is working on her doctorate in sociolinguistics, characterized the Ryukyu people as a “stateless minority” put through more than a century of subordination since falling under Japanese rule. During World War II, the islands became a staging ground for a bloody land battle, with heavy civilian death tolls as residents got caught between U.S. and Japanese forces. Okinawa was held by the United States for 27 years following the war, reverting back to Japanese control in 1972. The government adopted a resolution in 2008 recognizing the Ainu population, mainly from Hokkaido and nearby areas, as an indigenous people with their own language and customs. However, no such designation has been granted to the people of Okinawa. At present, the government considers the Ryukyu language a dialect of Japanese. In an April 19 plenary session during the U.N. forum, a representative of the Japanese mission stated that the government “respects Okinawa’s culture and traditions” but that “there is no widespread understanding in Japan that the people of Okinawa are indigenous people.” At the same session, also attended by Oyakawa, a youth representative from her group aired their concerns. In addition to stating that “colonization and militarization (are) still severe,” she objected to the unfair burden the bases place on residents and demanded the return of human skeletons exhumed in the past for research purposes. Separately, Oyakawa said that other groups are planning to file a lawsuit in the near future against the universities involved in collecting the remains, as previous efforts to resolve the issue have failed. As the 37-year-old works to shine a global spotlight on Okinawan concerns, she has drawn inspiration and expertise from a variety of peers doing academic and advocacy work with indigenous groups around the world. It was while studying at the University of Hawaii that she began to embrace her own heritage, with encouragement from residents. An exchange student at the time, Oyakawa shifted her academic focus to revitalizing the language of her grandparents, which she did not know, and later gained knowledge from Hawaiians about educating the next generation on indigenous issues. While attending the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, she met Irish and Scottish students who expanded her thinking on independence efforts, and in more recent interactions with Yakutians, an indigenous group from Siberia, she learned new ways of cataloging documents to better track stolen artifacts. Her trip to the United Nations provided an additional boost for her group, which Oyakawa said has many upcoming plans, including the possible formation of a charter school or after-school program where students can learn about indigenous culture and history. “It is kind of new to go to the U.N., so we want to collect more information, learn how to use the information and we want to make a big network with indigenous people,” she added. “We are still not equal and we are not really treated the same, so why not have our own view and make a partnership together?” she asked.


Osaka frets over illegal minpaku ahead of G-20 summit

Abstract: OSAKA - Imagine a headline splashing out news of tourists being killed by a fire at an illegal short-term lodging facility during the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Japan. That is exactly what Osaka, which is hosting the international event in June 2019, desperately wants to avoid. Cracking down on the illegal facilities, which can lack sufficient fire and safety measures but are popular with frugal tourists, is at the top of the city’s to-do list as an influx of participants before and during the G-20 summit could push other visitors who would ordinarily stay at luxury and business hotels into minpaku , Japan’s version of Airbnb lodging. “An international conference like the G-20 summit requires safety and a high level of hospitality. Eliminating illegal private lodging as much as possible is the ideal situation,” Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura told reporters at a news conference earlier this month. Minpaku have become popular amid the steady increase in tourists in the past few years. Last year, over 11 million visitors from overseas came to Osaka, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. During the summit, some 30,000 people from presidents and prime ministers and their vast entourages to members of the press are expected to flood the city. With high-end hotels expected to be full, tourists and business travelers may be forced to opt for private lodging, some of which may be operating illegally and without the necessary safety measures in place. Thus, the city has budgeted ¥93 million this year to organize a team of about 70 people, including 40 former police officers, to investigate the lodgings in the coming months and determine whether they are operating legally. “It’s necessary to get the illegal lodgings to follow the rules and come into compliance with the law,” Yoshimura said. As of this year, the city has about 1,200 hotels and traditional inns in operation, plus another 660 authorized private lodging facilities. In 2017, the average occupancy rate for Osaka’s hotels was 83.1 percent. By 2019, there will be an additional 14,000 rooms at authorized hotels and lodging establishments compared with 2016, according to a survey, more than enough to meet anticipated demand from the G-20 and from Olympic-related tourism in 2020. There are no official figures on how many illegal private lodging facilities there are in Osaka, but the city said that as of this March, it had received nearly 2,000 complaints of suspected illegal facilities. Osaka Prefecture is planning a similar crackdown on illegal minpaku in seven other cities this year. This includes Sakai, which lies between the city of Osaka and Kansai airport and is believed to host many such lodgings. Whether Osaka’s efforts will simply drive those who want to stay at minpaku next June to reserve such accommodations in neighboring Kyoto, Hyogo, Nara or Wakayama prefectures remains to be seen. But those prefectures are also, to varying degrees, increasing their efforts to crack down. The summit venue also needs to be renovated ahead of the G-20 summit to make it more hospitable. Osaka plans to spend ¥236 million to refurbish the Intex Osaka conference center on the city’s waterfront to improve fire safety measures and redo the hall. As June is typically hot and humid in Osaka, the air conditioning system will also be upgraded in advance of the summit. Intex Osaka is over 30 years old and was designed for trade shows, where people move around, rather than international conferences. And in an improvement that has received a good deal of local media attention, public restrooms at adjacent train stations will all be remodeled with Western-style toilets. Some of the budget may be allocated to upgrade Wi-Fi service following complaints about internet access at past trade shows. “Compared to parts of Tokyo, Wi-Fi service here at Intex Osaka does seem a bit slower at times, especially for sharing video files and for Skype,” said Hiroshi Komatsu, a 28-year-old businessman from Tokyo, during a recent trade show.


Whisky-inspired code names cloaked Takeda's $62 billion Shire gamble in secrecy — until cover was blown

Abstract: HONG KONG - Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s ambitions to expand in the lucrative U.S. health care market led the drugmaker to begin a painstaking examination of Shire PLC’s assets more than two years prior to striking a $62 billion deal. In particular, Shire’s neuroscience unit and its gastrointestinal products sparked Takeda’s interest. One hurdle, though, gave them pause: the steep purchase price. Then the tide turned in Takeda’s favor. Shire’s struggling stock performance after its failed sale to AbbVie Inc. and the acquisition spree that followed — culminating with the $32 billion takeover of Baxalta Inc. — frustrated investors and prompted concerns about its strategy. To appease them, Shire in August announced a potential spinoff of its neuroscience unit, potentially valued at $10 billion to $15 billion. This account of how the takeover came together is based on conversations with people involved in the deal, all of whom asked not to be identified so that they could speak freely. Representatives for Osaka-based Takeda and Dublin-based Shire declined to comment. After evaluating a purchase of the pricey neuroscience unit for a couple of months based on public information, Takeda executives last fall decided to aim higher — to acquire all of Shire. That would allow them to diversify their portfolio, avoiding future woes when patents expire. So Takeda lined up bankers familiar with the company at Evercore Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., along with Japan’s Nomura Holdings Inc. To minimize leaks, executives assembled a small team with the goal of approaching Shire’s board by Easter, which this year fell on April 1. The people employed in the secret talks used code names based on Japanese whisky brands. Takeda was christened Yamazaki, the nation’s No. 1 single malt. Shire was coined Hibiki, described on its producer’s website as a seductive, enigmatic blend that evokes a sense of luxury. And then the deal talks were almost upended. On March 28, a few days before the offer was to be made, rumors of it began to emerge, boosting Shire’s price and triggering a call from the U.K. takeover panel asking Takeda to confirm its intentions. The drugmaker and its external advisers, some of whom were on vacation at the time of the leak, were shaken. They called Shire to formally apologize. The Japanese suitor had sought a friendly deal, with the goal of evading rival offers that could disrupt the talks. The statement also caught Shire and its advisers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley by surprise. Takeda shares plunged on concerns about the sheer size of the transaction and its rationale. Shire investors, meanwhile, began to anticipate that an offer would emerge from a larger drugmaker with deeper pockets — and at a higher premium. In the following days, the financial hurdles multiplied as the gap in the two firms’ valuations widened. The leak triggered frantic weeks of negotiations and meetings in New York — mostly at the law offices of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, a legal adviser to Shire — and by phone. The talks were led by Takeda Chief Executive Officer Christophe Weber and Shire Chairwoman Susan Kilsby, with Shire CEO Flemming Ornskov also playing a crucial role. Strict takeover rules in the U.K. made it difficult for Takeda to explain its reasoning to investors, who worried that the target was too big to swallow without putting its debt rating at risk. Takeda’s market value is currently at $33.8 billion, while Shire’s is about $50.2 billion. Still, Takeda didn’t run into much competition. With the exception of Allergan PLC’s short-lived exploration of a rival bid for Shire, no drugmaker stepped forward. That paved the way for Takeda’s transformation into a global powerhouse with a suite of rare-disease drugs. Shire wasn’t won over easily, spurning four offers from the Japanese company. Ultimately, Weber and his team prevailed, acquiring the bank loans and backing of Shire’s board to seal the $62 billion deal, the biggest in Takeda’s history. But there was no time for the traditional celebratory dinner that typically follows, as the two sides raced against the clock to complete the takeover by a May 8 deadline. And though Takeda succeeded in its years-long quest, the drugmaker is left with a pile of debt and the task of combining two companies with different sizes, cultures and areas of focus in the drug industry. Integrating the Japanese drugmaker — which began by selling herbal therapies 237 years ago — with the sprawling Irish biotechnology behemoth may prove to be more complicated than sealing the deal for its purchase.


Mahathir Mohamad's shock election win raises specter of populist economics

Abstract: HONG KONG - Mahathir Mohamad’s shock Malaysian election win has raised concerns that his populist promises could undermine economic prospects at an increasingly challenging time for emerging markets, despite hopes elsewhere that he may revive his bold approach to economic management. The Malaysian economy, while vulnerable in some areas, is widely seen as being in better shape than those the Philippines and Indonesia, which run current account deficits. Malaysia has also halved its budget deficit since the global financial crisis. Its economy is growing at one of the fastest clips in the world, close to 6 percent, and its stock market in dollar terms is the second-best-performing in Asia. And a surge in crude prices to 3½-year highs has helped the net energy exporter’s income. But the country may be left without key sources of revenue if Mahathir keeps his pledge to remove the goods-and-services tax (GST) and toll fees, bring back fuel subsidies and raise minimum wages. Protectionist overtures on Chinese infrastructure projects have also raised concerns about foreign investment. Such a policy shift comes amid heightened fears about capital outflows following a rise in U.S. Treasury yields. “Some campaign promises, such as abolishing GST and reintroducing fuel subsidies, may boost consumption but, without offsetting measures, would adversely affect the country’s budget deficits and sovereign rating,” said Eli Lee, head of investment strategy at the Bank of Singapore. “At a time of growing pressure on emerging markets’ currencies and bonds, the situation in Malaysia bears careful watching for potential knock-on effects.” Mahathir ruled Malaysia with an iron fist from 1981 to 2003. On Wednesday, his opposition coalition defeated his former protege Prime Minister Najib Razak and the UMNO bloc, which has governed Malaysia for six decades. Ratings agency Moody’s was prompt in warning that Mahathir’s promises were credit-negative for its A3 ratings if implemented without any other adjustments. Local markets are closed for the week, but a fall in the ringgit in offshore trading and a rise in the cost of insuring the country’s debt showed investors are nervous about the country’s first political change in six decades. “This upset ranks up there with Brexit and Trump’s election,” said Aninda Mitra, senior sovereign analyst at BNY Mellon Investment Management. “I think there will be short-term volatility.” While Malaysia’s 6 percent GST sparked large street protests when it was introduced in 2015, it helped mitigate a 30 percent drop in oil revenues, pulling back the ringgit from 10-year lows. Foreign investment has since returned as well, although largely fueled by China’s soft-power push into Southeast Asia. Projects such as the $100 billion Forest City residential development near the Singapore border and the $13 billion East Coast high-speed railway, part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, were seen as boosting jobs but prompted discontent about increasing Chinese influence. While many analysts have criticized some of the Chinese projects as white elephants, investors now fear the billions they penciled in from Beijing may not be forthcoming. “The Sino-Malaysian relationship under Mahathir bears monitoring,” said Sue Trinh, head of Asia FX strategy at RBC Capital Markets. “Mahathir has pledged that Chinese investment in Malaysia will face much greater scrutiny.” Additionally, Mahathir’s promise to seek a royal pardon for jailed political leader Anwar Ibrahim, his one-time deputy whom he famously fell out with in 1998, and let him become prime minister, might also raise questions about policy, if it happens. “The market is uncertain about (Anwar) and also whether he will take over the administration,” Commerzbank analyst Charlie Lay said. “This election looked like the old UMNO versus the new UMNO. People don’t know where to put Anwar in that.” Despite the concerns, Mahathir has a record of bold measures that deliver. In the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, he pulled Malaysia away from IMF-imposed austerity measures and slapped on currency and capital controls, in moves that ultimately helped Malaysia endure a shallower loss of economic output than Indonesia, Thailand or South Korea. His pledge to tackle corruption and nepotism raises hopes of a long-term fix of governance and public institutions. A removal of the GST and new subsidies may also boost consumption, which was at risk, given Malaysia’s high level of household debt. Morgan Stanley analysts remain overweight in sectors such as banks, health care and telecommunications. Analysts at Fidelity International note that during his first stint in power, Mahathir initiated many of the country’s major infrastructure projects. “We are looking at when to buy, given most of these pre-election promises are not adhered to,” said Fidelity’s head of Asian fixed income Bryan Collins. “Back in the day, Mahathir was a pragmatic person and is less likely to completely close the economy.”

anwar ibrahim
malaysia
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najib razak
mahathir mohamad


Malaysia's king agrees to pardon jailed opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, paving way for premiership

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s king has agreed to pardon Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s newly installed prime minister said Friday, paving the way for the jailed opposition leader to return to politics and potentially become premier. It was the latest dramatic development after Mahathir Mohamad’s opposition alliance inflicted a shock defeat on the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, ending the corruption-riddled regime’s six-decade stranglehold on power. Mahathir was sworn in Thursday, becoming the world’s oldest elected leader at 92. Mahathir, who had ruled with an iron fist for over two decades before retiring in 2003, cut ties with BN due to allegations that the party’s leader and his ex-protege Najib Razak oversaw the pillaging of sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. The elderly politician joined forces with opposition parties that opposed him while in power and agreed that if elected, he would hand over the premiership to Anwar, his former nemesis. Mahathir has previously said he would likely remain prime minister for two to three years, before transferring power to Anwar. Anwar, from the People’s Justice Party, is a key longtime leader of the opposition alliance. One of Malaysia’s most charismatic politicians, he was heir-apparent to the premiership until Mahathir sacked him in 1998 and he was subsequently jailed for sodomy and abuse of power. But in a remarkable turnaround, the pair reconciled and joined forces as allegations mounted over 1MDB and Najib became increasingly authoritarian, jailing opponents and introducing laws to stifle dissent. Anwar, now 70, was jailed again in 2015 during Najib’s rule, and had been due out next month. But Mahathir told a press conference that King Sultan Muhammad V, in a meeting with opposition leaders, had indicated he was willing to grant Anwar a royal pardon immediately. The royal pardon would mean he could return to politics straight away. Without it, he would be banned from political life for five years. “We will begin the… proper process of obtaining a pardon,” Mahathir told reporters. “He should be released immediately when he is pardoned.” • ‘Hidden evidence of wrongdoing’- Mahathir also announced that 10 cabinet positions would be filled on Saturday, including finance, defence and foreign affairs. Asked about 1MDB, he accused Attorney-General Mohamed Ali Apandi — who cleared Najib over the scandal — of having “undermined his own credibility.” “He in fact has hidden evidence of wrongdoing and that is wrong in law,” he said. “Our intention is to go for people who have shown a tendency to be corrupt or who had committed known corrupt crimes.” In 2016, Apandi said the Saudi royal family was the source of $681 million that mysteriously appeared in Najib’s bank accounts, and closed the 1MDB probe. Apandi came to office after Najib sacked the previous attorney general, who was believed to be aggressively investigating the matter. Mahathir also said there was widespread fraud during the hard-fought election campaign, and raised concerns about irregularities in the Borneo state of Sabah, where BN made heavy losses. “In the last two days, for example, there were no speeches made, only money distributed,” he said. “We will properly investigate all these things because we want to follow the rule of law.” His comments might raise eyebrows however. Critics say there was much electoral fraud during Mahathir’s time in power, while corruption and cronyism flourished, and his government pushed policies that favored the Muslim Malay majority and exacerbated racial tensions. Still, analysts say the attempted cheating at Wednesday’s poll was worse than anything seen before. BN was accused of gerrymandering while activists said he hurled cash and gifts at voters and there was a litany of problems with the electoral roll, including dead people appearing on the list. But voters turned out in droves, determined to push out the government, with the opposition boosted by the presence of standard-bearer Mahathir, who has a huge following among ethnic Malays.