Tokyo stocks plunge on selling for risk aversion

Abstract: Stocks turned down sharply Monday, with a wide range of issues suffering losses amid a risk-averse market mood after a steep sell-off Thursday. The Nikkei 225 average lost 423.36 points, or 1.87 percent, to end at 22,271.30, the lowest close since Aug. 21. On Friday, the key market gauge gained 103.80 points. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, closed 27.01 points, or 1.59 percent, lower at 1,675.44 after edging up 0.59 point Friday. Both indexes stayed deep in negative territory throughout Monday’s session. Some investors taking an investment approach known as “risk parity” appeared to have sold stocks in response to an increase in the market’s volatility, said Chihiro Ota, general manager for investment research and investor services at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. Such investors change components of their investment portfolios to ensure equal risks from all asset classes. Further declines in stock prices this week may prompt more selling by such investors due to resulting higher volatility, Ota warned. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s remarks expressing an intention to urge Japan to include a currency clause in a proposed bilateral trade agreement may have dampened market sentiment due to caution over a strengthening of the yen, but the effect was limited, Ota said, noting relatively calm dollar-yen rate movements in Tokyo. Corporate scorecards to be released in the United States this week and in Japan from late next week warrant attention as factors that could decide the direction of the Tokyo market, said Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Naito Securities Co. Falling issues far outnumbered rising ones 1,852 to 223 in the TSE’s first section, while 34 issues were unchanged. Volume decreased to 1.4 billion shares from 1.688 billion Friday. Department store operator Takashimaya dropped 4.01 percent, as a small upward revision to its consolidated earnings forecast for the year to February 2019 on Friday failed to impress investors, broker said. Export-oriented issues met with selling due to growing concerns over a stronger yen after Mnuchin’s remark, brokers said. They included automaker Toyota, semiconductor-related Tokyo Electron and industrial robot producer Fanuc. Other major losers included mobile phone carrier SoftBank Group and clothing retailer Fast Retailing. By contrast, Saizeriya jumped 5.33 percent after Mizuho Securities Co. revised up its investment rating and target stock price for the restaurant operator. Also higher were air line JAL and drugmaker Takeda.


At IMF meeting in Indonesia, China's globalization agenda gets left behind

Abstract: NUSA DUA, INDONESIA - Three days before U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping portrayed Beijing as the champion and defender of globalization at the Davos World Economic Forum amid rising fears of trade protectionism. A few months later, as Xi launched a forum on China’s vast “Belt and Road” effort, promising to spread Chinese investment and soft power through the world, it appeared his country’s global stature was rising. But now the luster on Beijing’s trade and investment story has dulled amid rising U.S. tariffs, higher interest rates and capital flight from emerging markets, all of which threaten to erode global growth. At the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, some of that sentiment spilled into the open. “I think there is a broad view growing in the West that China has in some ways taken advantage of the system,” said Charles Dallara, former head of the Institute of International Finance, who attended the meetings. “It reminds me of the view in the West of Japan in the 1980s, very much so.” Calls to fix global trading rules are tellingly coming not just from the Trump administration. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde last week laid out what needs to be done. “This means looking at the distortionary effects of state subsidies, improving the enforcement of intellectual property rights, and taking steps to ensure effective competition — to avoid the excesses of market-dominant positions,” she said at a trade conference during the Bali meetings. Lagarde did not mention China, but all those issues are charges frequently leveled by the Trump administration. Others were less restrained. “We absolutely need to address the issue of overcapacities in China. Nobody can say that this is not a problem. This has to be dealt with,” European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said at the same event. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin struck a more confident tone at the Bali meetings compared with similar gatherings over the last year, when he was the target of near-universal criticism over Trump’s tariff plans. Fresh off a deal to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, and with trade talks coming soon with the European Union and Japan, the U.S. administration is trying to build a coalition of allies to revamp global trade rules to combat technology transfer and other trade policies it associates with China. Mnuchin said U.S. allies first viewed Trump’s trade views as simply protectionist but now have a better understanding of his desire for “free, fair and reciprocal trade.” “This is not a coalition to pressure China. This is a coalition of like-minded people who have very similar issues as it relates to China,” Mnuchin said. China is still a major political and economic power, but Chinese officials appeared more on the defensive last week, with the tone of debate at some IMF forums shifting more quickly than Beijing may have expected. Vice Finance Minister Zou Jiayi, on a World Bank panel on Xi’s signature “Belt and Road’ initiative, found herself fielding questions from other panelists and the audience over debt sustainability, how effectively small countries can negotiate with Beijing, and whether the effort is viable in the midst of a protracted trade war. The debt burdens from the “Belt and Road” initiative came into sharper focus as Pakistan, a major recipient of Chinese-financed port, rail and road projects, formally sought an IMF bailout program during the Bali meetings. Zou said China is using risk analysis methods from bodies such as the IMF and World Bank, and will supervise the projects’ debt more vigorously. But she also said that they are essentially commercial projects and that countries should exercise caution and make their own evaluations of their commercial viability. And she said some of the risks came from a drastic change in the external environment, giving an example of an unnamed African country with sound debt levels that sank into crisis after oil prices tanked and its currency fell. David Dollar, a former U.S. Treasury official and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who spoke on the panel, said that “Belt and Road” could reduce trade costs, but that more work needs to be done. “For low-income countries, there is really this risk of taking on too much debt even if the projects are very, very good,” Dollar said. Some delegates from China at the Bali IMF and World Bank meetings expressed frustration that Beijing’s agenda is being bypassed while international institutions have largely been ineffective in deterring Trump’s tariff actions. “Personally I think unfortunately the G20 hasn’t contributed much to reconciliation and coordination of macroeconomic policies across the world,” said Xiang Songzuo, deputy director of International Monetary Institute at Renmin University of China, who was a speaker at a sideline event during the meetings in Bali. “We wish all these forums including G20, U.N., World Bank, IMF, WTO, would become stronger, stronger and more productive in containing all these wrong things — protectionism, unilateralism,” Xiang added. The current leaders of the G20, which bills itself as a leading forum that seeks to develop global policies and address the most pressing challenges, conceded that it is effectively sidelined on trade. “The G20 can play a role in providing the platform for discussions,” said Argentine Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne, chairman of this year’s G20 finance leaders’ meeting. “But the differences that still persist should be resolved by the members that are directly involved in the tensions.” Although there are reports that Xi and Trump will meet at the G20 leaders’ summit on November, Mnuchin said that currency issues would be part of trade talks, and that the onus was squarely on China to take concrete steps before trade talks could resume. “This can’t just be talk; there have to be meaningful commitments to create a rebalanced trading relationship,” Mnuchin told reporters Saturday, adding that structural changes are needed to balance the relationship. “This is not about buying more soybeans and buying more LNG,” he said.


Chinese livestreamer held for 'insulting' national anthem

Abstract: SHANGHAI - A popular Chinese livestreamer has been sentenced to five days in detention for “insulting” China’s national anthem by waving her arms and mimicking a conductor as she sung the song during a broadcast to millions of her followers. The woman, Yang Kaili, was detained by authorities in Shanghai Saturday for violating a national anthem law that was enacted last year. In a broadcast on the Huya livestream website on Oct. 7, Yang, 21, appeared wearing an antler-shaped headband and hummed a ceremonial song in combination with some of the words of “The March of the Volunteers,” while waving her arms and mimicking a conductor. Huya subsequently blocked Yang’s live-stream channel, froze her account and removed her videos. Yang’s husky voice became popular on another livestream platform, TikTok, and in August she was invited to perform by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. “The national anthem is solemn and should not be sung in a livestream room,” Yang wrote in an apology and self-criticism to her 1.1 million followers on Twitter-like platform Weibo. “I will stop all livestream work, perform self-rectification, draw lessons from the bitter experience, deeply reflect and fully accept education on ideological politics and patriotism.” In September last year, the National People’s Congress passed a law against mocking the national anthem, with a punishment of up to 15 days in jail. The NPC changed the criminal law in November to allow those who disrespected the anthem to be jailed for up to three years. President Xi Jinping, considered Communist China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, has stepped up the promotion of patriotism in the world’s most populous country.

china
rights
social media
xi jinping
yang kaili


Learning what life in Japan is like for people with disabilities

Abstract: One recent Sunday, 7-year-old Yukito Takanashi of Tokyo was dribbling a soccer ball on a makeshift field. At one point, he put on an eye mask like those worn by blind soccer players. But he took it off after a while, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The boy, who has experience playing the game with other children who, like himself, have autism, said it was “difficult” to play with his eyes covered. “It’s a good chance to learn about the struggles people with disabilities go through that most people fail to notice in their daily lives,” Takanashi’s father, Ryoichi, 32, said. “(Trying it for yourself) can trigger empathy and will make you feel more respectful toward people who are struggling (with disabilities) but are active (in society).” The Takanashis were at the annual Lives Tokyo event last month at the Tokyo Midtown complex in Minato Ward, aimed at raising awareness of the many challenges people with disabilities face. And with the clock ticking down to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, organizers are calling for the creation of an inclusive society where everyone — regardless of physical or mental challenges — is given opportunities to show their talent and pursue the path of their choice. “We’re trying to really create an ongoing movement to open up society to be more accessible, more innovative and create more opportunities, more jobs for citizens with disabilities,” said Theodore Guild, chairman of Hands On Tokyo, a group that provides volunteering opportunities in Japan and the organizer of the Lives Tokyo event. He calls it a “grassroots, bottom-up movement.” Guild said Japan needs more collaboration between the public and private sectors, and nonprofit groups, to make sure people with disabilities enjoy the same human rights as the rest of society. Visitors at the event tried on prosthetic limbs, experienced what it is like to participate in games and simulations as a person on the autism spectrum, and listened to successful life stories from athletes with disabilities. On the sidelines, entrepreneurs and businesses offered job opportunities for such people. A similar event last year led to the launch of about 500 projects that people with disabilities were able to join, organizers said. Creating a diversified environment is key to success in businesses as well, said Elly Keinan, president of IBM Japan Ltd., who was also at the event. “The best ideas come from diverse teams,” he said. NavCog, a pilot app for the blind, is one such example, according to Keinan. The app, which uses AI to provide cognitive assistance for the visually impaired in their daily lives, was developed by Chieko Asakawa, a computer scientist at IBM and an expert in accessibility. She lost her eyesight at the age of 14. The app measures how close someone or something is to the user, can inform the user about the facial expression of the person they are talking to and can even assist with cooking or shopping by, for instance, suggesting that they choose healthy products. In Japan, a law for people with disabilities obliges companies and government organizations to employ a certain percentage of people with physical, intellectual or mental impairments. The current target is 2.2 percent of the workforce at firms with least 46 workers and from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent in national and local government bodies. But according to the labor ministry, people with disabilities accounted for just 1.97 percent of the workforce in 2017 at firms obliged to meet the target. “The government does call for embracing diversity, but it is often in the context of offering a helping hand to those with disabilities, not viewing on an equal level . But I hope they’ll focus on promoting people’s strengths,” said Hikaru Wakimoto, 28, who came to the event looking for hints on how to improve communication and the working environment within her workplace. Her organization, Tokyo Diversity Lab, offers programs enabling people to experience the world from the perspective of people with disabilities by, for instance, writing calligraphy in absolute darkness. Wakimoto works with hearing and visually impaired colleagues. “We need to show that environments with people with disabilities and able-bodied people working together work to our advantage,” she said. “For instance, the senses of blind people are enhanced in complete darkness and in such an environment they have an advantage.” Looking ahead, Jesper Koll, the economist who heads the investment firm WisdomTree Japan, believes the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics can serve as a chance for Japan to showcase its strategies toward an inclusive society and develop technologies to improve the quality of life for people with physical or other challenges. “We all become, in some form, a little handicapped as we go through (life),” Koll said. And like this year’s Lives Tokyo, which involved around 1,500 people who were either helping or visiting, organizers hope more people will be able to have a better awareness of the issue and become involved. “Essentially, we believe that volunteerism is very important to advance areas where there’s a social need in society,” Guild said. Rhea Ibay, 16, a Filipina living in Kanagawa Prefecture who came to Japan nearly a year ago, was one of the volunteers at the event, where she hoped to learn more about people with disabilities. “I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone and give back to the community just a little bit at this young age,” she said. If she gets a chance, Ibay said she wants to be a volunteer to support athletes and spectators at the Tokyo Games.

disability
2020 tokyo paralympics
live tokyo


Warm, dry spring seen aggravating Nagoya-area hornet threat

Abstract: As the nation enters the autumn tourist season, concerns are growing over hornets, whose nests and number of workers are larger than usual this year because of the warmer spring and limited rain during the rainy season. Hornet stings have been reported in Gifu and Nagano prefectures since August. Experts warn that worker hornets tend to become more aggressive when there are more of them, and in autumn when they need to protect the larvae that will become their new queens. Hornet stings can cause anaphylaxis, including shortness of breath and vomiting, and at times can be life-threatening. Twenty-three people died due to bee stings in 2015, 19 in 2016 and 13 in 2017, according to the health ministry’s demographic statistics. Experts say someone stung by a hornet should wash the wound with cold water and seek medical attention. Someone who feels dizzy, whose body starts itching, or those stung on the head or neck, or multiple times, are urged to call an ambulance right away. In late September, yellow tape warning people to keep out were placed around trees at three locations in Nagoya’s Meijo Park, which surrounds Nagoya Castle, with signs urging visitors to watch out for hornets. Kumiko Hattori, 47, who was walking through the park to take her daughter to a swimming school, said: “We avoid walking near the signs because my child is scared of hornets.” “We placed the tape to prevent bee attacks after receiving reports from visitors that they saw large bees,” said an official who manages the park. “We confirmed a couple of what appear to be hornets near tree sap.” According to Mai Mitsubayashi, an official in charge of pest inspections with the Nagoya Municipal Government, 1,714 hornets were captured in August using traps installed at 10 parks in the city — roughly 30 percent more than the average of 1,276 during the month over the past decade. Numbers of black-tailed hornets — the type commonly seen in residential areas — have increased to nearly five times more than in an average year, Mitsubayashi said. “They are not so aggressive, but they can attack people,” she said. To avoid angering hornets, Mitsubayashi advises people not to wear black clothes or wear perfume when they go into the woods or go near their nests. Japanese giant hornets sometimes build their nests underground, so people might be disturbing them without knowing it, she said. Suzumebachi 110-ban (which roughly translates as “emergency hornet handlers”), a company in Minamiise, Mie Prefecture, that removes hornet nests in the Tokai region, said the number of requests to remove nests of aggressive Japanese yellow hornets has nearly doubled between June and August compared with an average year. Hidehisa Nishi, who heads the firm, said the size of nests is also larger this year. “Usually the nests are about the size of a dodgeball, but this year there are more nests about the size that fits in the arms of an adult,” Nishi said. Experts attribute the increase in hornets and the larger nest size to the change of climate this year. According to Masato Ono, a professor of applied entomology at Tamagawa University who has written a book about hornets, the temperature during early spring was higher this year, making queen hornets come out of hibernation and start building nests earlier. The amount of rain that prevents nest-building during the rainy season was also less than usual, resulting in bigger nests, he said, adding that bigger nests mean there are more of the worker hornets that become more aggressive in autumn when they have to protect larvae. Ono said hornets show alarm, such as buzzing around, before going into attack mode, and advised people to slowly back away because sideways movements can irritate hornets. If people find nests, they should ask experts to remove them, Ono said, adding that the best time to remove the nests is during the night.


As tourists crowd popular sites and inconvenience residents, government launches first-ever survey on 'overtourism'

Abstract: Japan is launching its first survey on “overtourism,” or the phenomenon of a popular destination becoming overrun with tourists in an unsustainable way, to counter nuisances such as noise and congestion that disrupt local residents’ lives, according to officials. The Japan Tourism Agency aims to compile a report by the end of March based on a survey of municipalities with major tourists spots, and to explore ways to foster environments where tourism can coexist with residents’ lives amid a surge in foreign visitors to the country. The agency has already sent questionnaires to around 50 local governments and will start a further survey of another 150 or so before the end of October. Tourism-related problems occur during peak seasons at popular sites such as the ancient cities of Kyoto and Kamakura, with commuter traffic affected by severe congestion on trains and buses. In neighborhoods where private apartments or single-family houses offer lodgings to foreign tourists, there are often complaints about noise levels and improper trash disposal. Besides complaints related to lodgings, nuisances reported by municipalities include illegal parking in vacant lots at the village of Shirakawa in Gifu Prefecture — a World Heritage site — and trespassing into fields near a major natural beauty spot in the town of Biei in Hokkaido. The survey’s goal is to learn more about the degree of public congestion, breaches of local rules, environmental degradation and other issues that may occur due to the high number of tourists. In November the agency is also planning to set up a study group involving municipality officials and experts. The new body will propose policies for central and local governments based on the survey results, so that Japan can develop regions that are “good to live in and visit,” the officials said. The survey of the 150 municipalities will mostly target prefectural capitals, major cities and those with tourism promotion bodies known as “destination management organizations.” Visitors to Japan reached 21.3 million between January and August this year, up 12.6 percent from a year earlier. For the whole of 2018, the number is projected to hit 30 million for the first time. The government aims to increase the number of foreign tourists to 40 million by 2020 and to 60 million by 2030. But there is awareness that the numerical targets may not be met if a backlash from residents diminishes tourist satisfaction, the officials said.

kyoto tourism survey noise congestion overtourism


After Nikkei's fall, Tokyo stocks bounce back as investors buy on dips

Abstract: Stocks closed higher on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday as buying on dips set in after the benchmark Nikkei average fell over 1,000 points briefly the previous day. The 225-issue Nikkei average gained 103.80 points, or 0.46 percent, to end at 22,694.66. On Thursday, it plunged 915.18 points, or 3.89 percent, its third-biggest daily point loss this year, following Wall Street’s rout Wednesday. The Topix index of all first-section issues closed up 0.59 point, or 0.03 percent, at 1,702.45. It fell 62.00 points the previous day. The Nikkei gave up over 260 points as soon as the Tokyo market opened after the Dow Jones industrial average lost an additional 2.13 percent Thursday. But the Tokyo market index moved into positive territory in afternoon trading following a rebound in Chinese stocks, brokers said. The Tokyo market “was ready to rebound at any moment” a day after its plunge, an official of an online brokerage house said. Thursday’s tumble made stocks undervalued enough for investors to place buy orders, brokers said. The Nikkei average’s rebound reflected “large-lot purchases of Nikkei futures contracts” amid rises in the Shanghai composite stock index and the Dow futures, an official of a Japanese securities firm said. “A sense of relief spread” among investors thanks to stable movements of Shanghai stock prices, said Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities Ltd. Market players also took heart from “the stability of the (dollar-yen) exchange rate,” the online brokerage house official said. Rising issues outnumbered falling ones 1,130 to 926 on the TSE’s first section, while 53 issues were unchanged. Volume fell to 1.69 billion shares from Thursday’s 1.95 billion. Factory automation-related issues, including Yaskawa Electric and Fanuc, attracted purchases following their recent falls. Other major winners included mobile phone carrier SoftBank Group and cosmetics maker Shiseido. By contrast, convenience store chain operator Lawson slumped 6.23 percent after reporting Thursday double-digit declines in fiscal first-half operating and net profits and a reduction in its full-year gross operating revenue forecast. Also on the minus side were clothing store chain operator Fast Retailing and retailer FamilyMart Uny. In index futures trading on the Osaka Exchange, the key December contract on the Nikkei average rose 70 points to 22,650.


Over half Venezuela's doctors and quarter of nurses have left since 2012: NGOs

Abstract: CARACAS - More than half Venezuela’s doctors have been forced to flee the country’s crushing economic and political crisis, according to a report by health NGOs released Thursday. “Between 2012 and 2017, 22,000 Venezuelan doctors migrated” — 55 percent of the total 39,000 doctors registered by the PanAmerican Health Organization in 2014, the report said. Some 6,000 nurses — nearly a quarter of Venezuela’s total — also left the country during the same period. Nearly 2 million people have emigrated since 2015, the U.N. said, adding that around 5,000 people are leaving the country daily. The NGO report — “The right to health, the complex humanitarian emergency in Venezuela” — was endorsed by 12 non-governmental organizations for patient rights. Out of Venezuela’s population of 30 million, some “18.7 million have no guarantees of access to diagnosis or treatment,” it said. It adds up to “a humanitarian emergency,” the NGOs said. The health crisis is exacerbated by an acute shortage of medicines in pharmacies and hospitals across the country, according to trade associations. The United Nations last week announced a $32 million donation to reduce maternal and infant mortality and to protect children, in addition to donating 30 tons of health supplies. With hyperinflation expected to reach 1.3 million percent in 2018, the few medicines available are unattainable for most of the population, as is private health care. Oil income-dependent Venezuela’s economic woes began in 2014 with the crash in the price of crude. President Nicolas Maduro’s government has since been slapped with a range of sanctions over its crackdown on the opposition and civil society critics.

venezuela
nurses
nicolas maduro
doctors
ngos
emigration


Saudi Arabia's strategy of silence on Khashoggi risky amid media storm: analysts

Abstract: DUBAI - Riyadh’s silence since shrugging off as “baseless” reports of a state-sponsored killing of Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi is a risky strategy amid increasing pressure from key allies such as the United States, analysts said Thursday. A day after demanding that Saudi Arabia provide answers to Khashoggi’s disappearance, U.S. President Donald Trump voiced determination to get to the bottom of the matter. “We can’t let it happen. And we’re being very tough,” he said in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” Britain’s foreign secretary warned that Riyadh faces “serious consequences” if reports that Khashoggi was murdered turn out to be true. Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributor who was critical of some of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies and had been living in self-imposed exile since late 2017, vanished after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 to obtain official documents for his upcoming marriage. Turkish officials quoted in the Turkish and U.S. media have said he was killed, but Riyadh denied that allegation as “baseless” in a Twitter message and since then has maintained its silence. Saudi Arabia is being cautious about making official statements, “as other countries are,” said Aleksandar Mitreski, a security and defense analyst. “The risk here is that by remaining silent the kingdom may look guilty in the eyes of international media,” Mitreski, researcher at the University of Sydney, said. Riyadh has also not commented on U.S. and Turkish media reports that an “assassination team” was sent to Istanbul or claims that Prince Mohammed issued an order to “lure” Khashoggi back to the kingdom. “However, making an official statement that can be questioned as new evidence emerges could be even more damaging for Saudi Arabia,” said Mitreski. Earlier this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the kingdom to release footage of the journalist leaving the Saudi consulate, to back up its contention that he left the building safely. Turkish police are investigating a team of 15 Saudis who they say were at the consulate at the same time as Khashoggi and arrived in Istanbul on Oct. 2 on board two private planes. Turkish media have said the 15 were an “assassination team” and that they took the consulate’s footage with them. The consulate has said the CCTV cameras were not working that day. The kingdom has “done itself few favors by flatly rejecting any responsibility for Khashoggi’s disappearance,” said James Dorsey, an expert in international affairs. “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has suffered significant reputational damage irrespective of Khashoggi’s fate, raising the question of his viability if Saudi Arabia were condemned internationally,” said Dorsey, a fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. With Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, calling on the U.S. to help find him, the mystery has captivated the world and hurt efforts by the young crown prince to improve the image of his country with his reform drive. Trump said Thursday he was not yet prepared to limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Khashoggi, though he reiterated he wants answers about his fate. Much is at stake. A major three-day investment conference hosted by Prince Mohammed and due to be held in Riyadh from October 23 to 25, hosting international leaders such as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and IMF chief Christine Lagarde, is going ahead, organizers said. But Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Khashoggi’s fate could have “serious consequences.” “People who have long thought of themselves as Saudi’s friends are saying this is a very, very serious matter,” Hunt said. “If these allegations are true, there will be serious consequences because our friendships and our partnerships are based on shared values.” Human Rights Watch on Thursday urged allies of Saudi Arabia to review their ties with Prince Mohammed. “If Saudi Arabia is responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible murder, the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and other Saudi allies need to fundamentally reconsider their relationship with a leadership whose behavior resembles that of a rogue regime,” the New York-based rights group said. While Saudi Arabia has in the past days not officially commented, local media have reported the kingdom is a subject of a smear campaign by political rivals. Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat cited on Thursday an unnamed official source as saying there was “no evidence” that Saudi Arabia was behind the alleged killing. The 33-year-old crown prince, who was named heir to the throne in June 2017, has garnered international attention with his rapid rise to power as well as social and economic reforms. While he has been lauded by some for pursuing changes, such as lifting a decades-long ban on women driving and clipping the wings of the long-feared religious police, others have criticized his crackdown on political dissent.

media
murder
saudi arabia
turkey
mohammed bin salman
jamal khashoggi


Of mice and men: Scientists produce babies from same-sex mice pairs

Abstract: A team of researchers has produced viable offspring from same-sex pairs of mice, using a novel technology that involves stem cells altered to remove certain genes. While the applications of the research are largely theoretical for now, they could include improving existing cloning methods for mammals and even eventually fertility treatments for same-sex couples. The study, published Thursday in Cell Stem Cell journal, is the first time the method has been successfully implemented, though previous research has looked at other ways to produce babies from same-sex pairs. But while the team was able to produce viable babies from female pairs of mice, whose offspring went on to have their own progeny, the mice produced from male pairs fared less well. They survived only 48 hours after birth, despite a complicated process of gene manipulation intended to eliminate abnormalities resulting from the same-sex reproductive process. Experts said there was no prospect of the technique being translated soon into humans for the creation of “gay babies.” “To consider exploring similar technology for human application in the near future is implausible,” said Dusko Ilic, a stem cell specialist at King’s College London who was asked to comment on the Chinese results. “The risk of severe abnormalities is too high, and it would take years of research in various animal models to fully understand how this could be done safely.” Many species are naturally able to reproduce via methods that do not involve a male-female pairing. Species including reptiles, amphibians and fish can reproduce with just a single parent, but the process is more complicated for mammals. “We were interested in the question of why mammals can only undergo sexual reproduction,” co-senior author Qi Zhou of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the journal. This field of research treads on tricky ethical ground, with previous studies involving genetic editing and novel methods of reproduction prompting fears about the implications if similar processes were eventually applied to humans. During the reproduction process, mammals mostly inherit two sets of each gene, one from their mother and one from their father. But a small subset of genes, known as “imprinted” genes, are inherited from only one parent. For these genes, the set produced by the other parent is effectively inactive, having been “shut off” when it is transmitted. If this “shutting off” process does not function correctly, the offspring could suffer from abnormalities or even die. Mixing genetic material from same-sex couples runs the risk of the babies receiving two sets of “imprinted” genes. So the study used haploid embryonic stem cells, which resemble “primordial germ cells, the precursors of eggs and sperm,” said co-senior author Baoyang Hu. They then altered the genetic makeup of the cells, deleting “imprinting regions” to effectively mimic the “shutting off” process in normal reproduction. In the case of the female mice, three “imprinting regions” were deleted from the stem cells, which were then injected into the eggs of another mouse. In the case of the male mice, seven “imprinting regions” were deleted and the cells were injected into a mouse egg along with sperm from a second mouse “father.” The nucleus of the mouse egg was removed, meaning there was no female genetic material left and the fertilized egg was placed in a surrogate mouse. Using two sets of female mice DNA, with gene manipulations, the scientists produced 29 babies from 210 embryos, which lived to adulthood and reproduced normally. Researchers plan further study as to why the process did not work as well for mice produced from two male sets of genetic material.

biotechnology
biology
cloning
in vitro
surrogacy


In race to parliament, Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim faces down his critics

Abstract: PORT DICKSON, MALAYSIA - Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim will face the first test of his return to political life on Saturday, in a by-election that would pave his way to claiming the premiership, as promised by former foe Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Anwar, who is expected to win, needs a strong mandate in the fight in the coastal seat of Port Dickson to counter criticism that he is in a hurry to take over from the 93-year-old Mahathir, just five months after being released from prison. “A bigger margin will give the by-election the appearance of a coronation, something Anwar has been awaiting for 20 years,” said Adib Zalkapli, an analyst with the political risk consulting firm Vriens & Partners. “If he wins by a smaller margin, he may be seen as merely riding on the popularity of Mahathir, without winning new support to the coalition.” Mahathir led the Alliance of Hope coalition to a shock victory in a general election in May, unseating his former protege Najib Razak and ending the 61-year rule of the National Front coalition. Their campaign focused on corruption concerns triggered by a multibillion-dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), over which Najib and his wife face investigation. Anwar could not run because he was in prison on a 2015 sodomy conviction, but his renewed partnership with Mahathir was key to the election win, after which Mahathir secured a royal pardon for Anwar. The pair have had an acrimonious relationship over two decades, sparked when Mahathir, during his previous tenure as prime minister, sacked Anwar as his deputy in 1998. A year later, Anwar was convicted of corruption and sodomy. Anwar and his supporters maintain that all the charges were trumped up to end his political career. On Saturday, Anwar will face a motley crew of six contenders, among them former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan, whose sodomy accusations against Anwar led to a second prison term. Saiful said he was running to stop Anwar from becoming prime minister. “All this is not about the people. It’s about his personal agenda to become prime minister,” he said. Another candidate, Stevie Chan, who has built up a large domestic following on Twitter, has also said he was running to take a stand against “political entitlement and arrogance.” But 74 percent of survey respondents would still vote for Anwar, according to a poll by Institut Darul Ehsan, a think tank set up by the state of Selangor, which is ruled by his Pakatan coalition. Anwar has kept up a break-neck campaign, supported by ruling coalition leaders, showcasing the charisma that jump-started the Reform movement after he was sacked in 1998. Even Mahathir made an appearance, joining Anwar on stage for the first time in 20 years at a mega-rally on Monday. Mahathir is the right man to lead the country “in the current situation,” Anwar told the rally, in a response to critics who question his ambitions. “I say this with all humility. I know him, love him as a father and a leader. I fought against him, and now accept he is the best man to lead Malaysia now,” he said to thunderous applause from thousands of supporters.

anwar ibrahim
malaysia
elections
mahathir mohamad


Five men and the sea: Huge marlin sinks Philippine fishing boat

Abstract: MANILA - Like a modern-day take on “The Old Man and the Sea,” five Filipino fishermen were cast adrift for days on a makeshift raft after a huge marlin sank their boat. The men were fishing in the South China Sea when a 6-foot-long (1.8-meter) marlin punctured their boat’s wooden hull with its giant bill, vessel master Jimmy Batiller said on Wednesday. Their 12-meter boat quickly dipped beneath the waves in the early evening of Oct. 3, leaving the crew with little drinking water or food until their rescue by the U.S. Navy on Monday. “It (the fish) hit the bottom of our boat, leaving two big holes. We suspect it was chasing a smaller fish. It swam around the sinking boat for a while, apparently disorientated,” Batiller said. The fishermen salvaged what they could, removing the outriggers, planks and barrels to create a makeshift raft. “Our water ran out after two days. We waved at passing commercial vessels, but no one came to rescue us. But we did not lose hope,” the 42-year-old father of one said. The crew also ate raw rice and drank some seawater. “When we were rescued, that was when our tears fell,” said Batiller, who has been reunited with his family in Subic, a port about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of Manila. The U.S. Navy said the men were lucky to survive, especially given that they had drunk seawater. “On average, death results two to three days after a diet of drinking undiluted sea water or urine in survival-at-sea events, as it takes more water than is consumed for the body to process the waste and salt out of the kidneys,” said Leon Hadley, the civilian chief mate from the ship which conducted the rescue, the USNS Wally Schirra. “Luckily, we were going at a slow enough speed to have spotted the fishermen,” said the Wally Schirra’s master, Keith Sauls. “The individuals were waving their arms and a flag in the air. They were also flashing a white light that was previously thought to be fishing buoy,” he added in an account carried by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service. The blue marlin is one of the open ocean’s fastest, strongest predators and one of the largest species of bony fish. It can grow up to 5 meters in length and weigh as much as 820 kilograms. It is known for its long bill, which it uses to stun prey. “This is the first such incident we have encountered here. Most of the time it’s bad weather sinking fishermen’s boats in the open seas,” said Subic coast guard operations officer Erman Besana. Despite the near-death experience, Batiller and his crew planned to go back to sea after a few days’ rest — provided they can find a new boat. “This is our job,” he said.

accidents
oceans
philippines
south china sea
fishing


Quake-hit Hokkaido taps Hong Kong to revive tourism

Abstract: HONG KONG - Hokkaido is trying to tempt back tourists from overseas in the wake of last month’s massive earthquake, targeting vibrant Asian economies including Hong Kong. The hotel industry in Hokkaido is still reeling from the magnitude 6.7 earthquake that jolted the southwest of the prefecture on Sept. 6, cutting power supplies to over 5 million residents, killing 41 people and injuring more than 700. “We are delivering our message to the whole world in six languages: Hokkaido is safe and has recovered already,” Yasuhiro Tsuji, vice governor of Hokkaido, said in an interview. “We are cooperating with airlines in order to raise the number of travelers.” Tsuji was in Hong Kong this week for “Hokkaido Showcase: Food, Tourism and Investment,” hosted by the provincial government and the Japan External Trade Organization. It is the first such event held overseas since the disaster. A total of 14 companies and organizations participated in the food exhibition within the event space, while six companies and organizations joined a seminar on tourism. Tsuji said his prefecture is placing importance on Hong Kong, where people already have deep knowledge of Japanese food and culture. Last year, a record 28.7 million people from overseas visited Japan, up 19.3 percent on year, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization. The nation attracted a record 2.2 million people from Hong Kong in 2017, up 21.3 percent from 2016, the data showed. News reports said the quake caused at least ¥10 billion (about $90 million) in canceled reservations, mainly by schools and foreign tourists. The total damage to Hokkaido infrastructure and all local industries is estimated to exceed ¥400 billion, according to newspaper reports.

hong kong
tourists
hokkaido
inbound tourism


Public and private sectors push to revive Okinawa's struggling awamori industry

Abstract: With young people apparently finding Okinawa’s awamori liquor less appealing, the industry has been hit with a decline in shipments for 13 consecutive years. To rev up the struggling business, people from the public and private sectors have joined hands to pitch the distilled spirit indigenous to the island prefecture to other Japanese and overseas consumers. The growing number of foreign tourists to Japan, including Okinawa, is also expected to give a boost to the flagging industry. Awamori dates back around 600 years and mirrors the unique culture of Okinawa — formerly the Ryukyu Kingdom before it was annexed by Japan in 1879. It is a type of shōchū , but differs in that it is made from long-grained Thai rice instead of short-grained japonica rice and uses black kōji (yeast) native to the prefecture. The alcoholic beverage’s shipments had been brisk in the early 2000s, helped by the shōchū boom and the publicity the prefecture gained by hosting the Group of Eight summit in 2000. But sales have declined after peaking in 2004. “Footage showing people gulping down (awamori) has created an enduring image” that it is simply a drink that will get you drunk quickly, Gaku Sakumoto, who leads the Okinawa Awamori Distillers Association, said during a roundtable talk held in September at The Okinawa Times building. Manufacturers have not had time to properly promote how to drink the beverage while being busy making and delivering products, he said. Katsunobu Shingaki of the Awamori Meister Association, who has promoted the use of the local liquor in cocktails, said, “It is becoming more important to come up with ideas of how to drink it at a time when consumers’ taste preferences are diversifying.” The roundtable talk was joined by Takeo Koizumi, professor emeritus of the Tokyo University of Agriculture who also serves as the head of a public-private project to promote awamori exports that kicked off in January this year. “Awamori, which uses black kōji (yeast) to mature, has just as much charm as any other alcohol has, but it may be difficult for young people to quickly get acquainted with it. We need to create a strategy that first lets them know how to enjoy it and then lure them to the ‘authentic’ world,” said Koizumi, one of the leading experts in the field of fermentation, adding that awamori needs to brush up its image. Reducing production cost is also a challenge. The industry has been calling for the extension of a liquor tax relief measure beyond the current expiration date of May 2019. The measure was introduced in 1972, when Okinawa reverted to Japanese control after being under U.S. Occupation from the end of World War II, and has continued to be extended at the urging of the industry. According to a study by the Okinawa Development Finance Corp., the operating margin for awamori-makers was 2.4 percent in fiscal 2016, far short of the 8.7 percent margin enjoyed by shōchū firms. “As we seek to broaden the market outside the prefecture and overseas, we cannot help but see a rise in shipping costs,” Sakumoto said, but he also added that improvement in manufacturing skills is expected to support moves to sell the product internationally. Shingaki, meanwhile, said, many awamori-makers are interested in exporting their products, but the lack of manpower seems to make them hesitate. With officials in the fields of finance and tourism also taking part in the awamori export project, the team has been putting forward new ideas to promote the liquor. “People who are not in the awamori business are starting to feel that they should also support the awamori promotion activities,” Sakumoto said. Koizumi noted: “Awamori is a part of Okinawa’s unique culture and its promotion is something we should work on by bringing together all forces in Okinawa.”


More medical schools in Japan suspected of manipulating test scores of female applicants, minister reveals

Abstract: More medical schools were found to have disadvantaged female applicants in their entrance exams, in a survey taken after the discovery that a Tokyo medical university had manipulated test scores to curb female enrollment, education minister Masahiko Shibayama said Friday. Shibayama told a news conference that there is a “strong suspicion” of undue bias against female applicants, and men who have failed the exams in the past. Excluding Tokyo Medical University, none of the 81 schools covered by the ministry’s survey have admitted to rigging exam scores to discriminate against applicants by gender or age. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology conducted on-site probes at around 30 universities that had significant disparities in pass rates between female and male applicants in the last six years. In the probes, the ministry found evidence suggesting that examinees had been treated unfairly based on their gender or a record of past failures. “It is problematic that university entrance exams that should be held fairly have been conducted in this way,” Shibayama said. He withheld the names or number of universities suspected to have manipulated exam scores as it remains unknown whether there were reasonable grounds to support cases where the treatment of applicants differed. The ministry plans to further investigate its suspicions and compile an interim report in October. It will also conduct on-site surveys at all universities with medical departments to release a final report by the end of the year. Last month, the ministry’s preliminary survey results showed that men had passed entrance exams more frequently than women at 78 percent of medical schools polled after the scandal. The average ratio of successful male applicants to female stood at 1.18. In August, Tokyo Medical University admitted it had maintained a practice of making deductions from entrance exam scores for more than 10 years to curb the enrollment of women as well as men who had failed the exam a number of times. The rigging was aimed at keeping the proportion of women studying at the university at around 30 percent. The institution believed that would prevent a shortage of doctors at affiliated hospitals, on the grounds that female doctors tend to resign or take a long leave of absence after getting married or giving birth, according to an internal report and university sources. The medical school also disliked accepting male applicants who had failed a number of times because they also tend to fail the national exam for medical practitioners, which would bring down the university’s ratio of successful applicants and hurt its reputation, according to the sources.

education
entrance exams
medical schools
tokyo medical university


U.N. criticized over latest picks for human rights council

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS - Bahrain, Cameroon and the Philippines were among a number of nations controversially elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday, sparking sharp criticism from rights groups and the United States. Around a third of the seats on the 47-member council, based in Geneva, were open for slots lasting from 2019 to 2022. A 97-vote majority from the 193 nations that make up the U.N.’s General Assembly is needed for approval. For the first time since the council was created in 2006, each voting region agreed in advance on 18 candidates to run for 18 seats, removing any competition. New members Bahrain, Cameroon, the Philippines, Somalia, Bangladesh and Eritrea were elected with between 160 and 178 votes — and immediately drew criticism from activists in Europe and North America dismissing them as “unqualified” due to their human-rights records. “By putting forward serious rights violators and presenting only as many candidates as seats available, the regional groups risk undermining the council’s credibility and effectiveness,” said New York-based Human Rights Watch. Louis Charbonneau, the group’s U.N. director, called the vote “ridiculous” and said on Twitter it “makes mockery of (the) word ‘election.'” At the start of the voting session, the General Assembly’s president, Maria Fernanda Espinosa, noted that every member state is allowed to apply for a seat. Her spokesman later declined to directly address the criticism, but instead noted: “It’s clear that the world expects that members of international bodies will abide to a certain set of standards of behavior consistent with the bodies they have been elected to.” Five of the new members were from Africa, five from Asia, two from eastern Europe, three from Latin America and the Caribbean, and three from western Europe. The United States pulled out of the council in June, calling the organization a “hypocritical” body that “makes a mockery of human rights,” in particular in regard to its stance on Israel. Nikki Haley, who earlier in the week announced her resignation as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Friday’s vote demonstrates why the U.S. was right to withdraw. “Yet again, countries with poor human rights records ran uncontested. This lack of standards continues to undermine the organization,” she said. “The United States will continue to support reforms that would make the Human Rights Council credible.”

philippines
rights
u.n .
cameroon
bahrain


Stressed? Many Japanese schools and companies are encouraging people to cry to boost mental health

Abstract: An increasing number of schools and companies in Japan are encouraging their students and employees to cry as a way of relieving stress and improving mental health. Tears of sadness and happiness are believed to reduce stress, as the act of crying relaxes autonomic nerves by stimulating parasympathetic nerve activity, according to experts. “Crying is an act of self-defense against accumulating stresses,” says Junko Umihara, professor at Nippon Medical School. For 5½ years, former high school teacher Hidefumi Yoshida, 43, who calls himself a “ namida sensei ” (“tears teacher”), has organized activities and lectured at schools and companies across the country to help people discover the benefits of crying. He came to recognize those benefits after one of his former students stopped showing up for consultations after the pupil had opened up and shed tears. “The act of crying is more effective than laughing or sleeping in reducing stress,” Yoshida says. Working with Hideho Arita, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Medicine at Toho University, and others, Yoshida launched activities in 2014 to raise people’s awareness about the health benefits of crying. In 2015, Japan introduced a mandatory stress-check program for companies with 50 or more employees, and other entities. Since then, Yoshida has received a flood of requests from companies and schools to give lectures. In the past couple of years, he has visited hundreds of venues for lectures and other activities. According to Yoshida, it’s important to create opportunities to cry by watching tear-jerking movies, listening to emotive music or reading inspiring books. “If you cry once a week, you can live a stress-free life.” On Sept. 7, Yoshida gave a lecture at private Osaka High School in the Kansai metropolis, with 79 second-grade students taking part. After watching a tear-jerker, they wrote and read out essays in order to induce tears. “I think I should hold nothing back when I cry,” student Ryohei Tsuda, 17, said after the event. “It is good to cry to reduce stress,” Naito Sugimoto, 17, said.

psychology
schools
stress
work–life balance


Japan to mandate that retailers charge fees for plastic bags, but plans for punishments unclear

Abstract: The Environment Ministry has decided to obligate retailers — including supermarkets and convenience stores — to charge fees for plastic checkout bags or provide loyalty points to shoppers who bring their own bags, officials have said. The ministry plans to include the policy in an outline of its plastic recycling strategy due out next Friday, aiming for revisions to related laws, the officials said Friday. Turtles and whales have been found to have eaten discarded plastic bags. The ministry judged it necessary to strengthen efforts to reduce plastic bags in order to curb plastic pollution. The ministry plans to exempt small stores from the envisioned obligations. The range of retailers bound by the rules will be determined later. The obligations will not apply to bags made from paper and other materials. The ministry will take into account the opinions of experts to decide whether bioplastic bags should be treated in the same way as nonplastic bags. The ministry will discuss when to start the plastic bag charge system and whether to punish violators at an experts panel of the Central Environment Council, which advises the environment minister. The plastic recycling strategy will be set by next June.

pollution
recycling
environment
plastic
plastic waste


Traces of previously unknown Mount Fuji eruptions uncovered at bottom of nearby lake

Abstract: Traces of two past unknown eruptions of Mount Fuji have been found in a layer at the bottom of Lake Motosu, northwest of the country’s tallest mountain, according to a research group that included Akita University. The finding about the 3,776-meter volcano, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was recently reported in the online edition of a Dutch journal. “Characteristics of past eruptions and precise data on intervals between them are useful for drawing up hazard maps,” Akita University professor Stephen Obrochta said. Municipalities near the mountain that straddles Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures are working on revising hazard maps that will be utilized for evacuation plans in the event of an eruption. Sediment at the bottom of deep lakes is relatively insulated from the effects of wind and waves and tends to contain plankton that can be used to estimate age. The group, which also includes researchers from Yamagata University and the University of Tokyo, collected 4-meter-thick sediment from the bottom of the lake, covering some 8,000 years of geological layers. The group found ash layers indicating two eruptions on the western flank of the mountain some 2,500 years ago. The eruptions, which had been unknown, happened about 20 years apart. The group also found that eruptions believed to have occurred 3,400 and 3,200 years ago actually happened 200 to 300 years later. The areas hit by volcanic ash were wider than previously estimated, according to the group.


Kizuna AI's NHK appearance sparks debate on social media

Abstract: Do virtual YouTubers dream of online controversy? Maybe not but they sure are good at courting it. One of the most buzzed about developments in online culture in Japan over the past 12 months has been a boom in virtual YouTubers , animated characters operating their own channels, upon which they behave much like their human counterparts. They play video games , partake in memes and provide meta commentary on their existence . It’s still a niche pocket of Japanese pop culture and hardly a new idea — digital characters acting like people stretch back decades, especially if Max Headroom counts. However, the buzz around virtual YouTubers prompted Sanrio to have Hello Kitty take up the occupation , and the BBC recently gave the field the feature treatment . It all comes off as an entry in the slightly weird Japan trend stack. Yet the past couple of weeks showed it’s far more complicated domestically. The top virtual YouTuber in Japan at present is Kizuna AI . She kickstarted all this and boasts several million subscribers spread out over two channels. Due to her popularity, she’s shilled for SoftBank and the Japan National Tourism Organization , among others. Most recently, she was picked to appear on an NHK show about recent Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize. She asked prize-winning scientists questions , which they answered in detail. What was an effort to goose ratings for educational programming ended up sparking one of the year’s biggest online debates to date. Several criticized NHK’s decision to use a female character that they argued was sexualized in this show, with some wondering why they couldn’t find a real female scientist to take her role. The first big volley came from Musashi University professor Senda Yuki, who penned an article for Yahoo! Japan criticizing the national broadcaster’s move and its decision to have the virtual YouTuber respond in interviews with single-syllable answers (which wasn’t entirely accurate … more on that later). The article was praised by plenty … but it also attracted many who wished to defend Kizuna AI. Twitter user @harukazechan wondered why the character needed to cover up , while others noted that a woman had actually designed the character in the first place . In a real “ through the looking glass ” moment, Kizuna AI herself might have commented on this, first by donning a lab coat and then wondering why people frequently complain about the things she does . It might be because virtual YouTubers in general have evolved from being a nifty sideshow into a new avatar for long-standing cultural debate in Japan. Virtual YouTubers started as a point of curiosity, with many mostly charmed by the new technology. Popular characters such as Kizuna AI then attracted strong fanbases, resembling what you see with idols, actors or even human YouTubers. However, greater attention also brought greater scrutiny, albeit familiar criticism. The anime-style design and the wardrobe selections for virtual YouTubers has gotten them tagged as “ moe ,” a slang term applied to cartoon characters who generate an intense attachment from fans. Moe, along with the image of “otaku,” have long been contentious topics in Japan, mainly due to how women are portrayed in animated form (see, for example, the recent controversy over “ moe-style” fairy-tale books ). Unsurprisingly, another recent criticism of virtual YouTubers is the lack of male characters . They do exist , but come nowhere close to appearing on “top ranking” charts or representing the community beyond the internet. Check out this virtual YouTube event in Akihabara, which features all female characters , or simply note how most viewers are male based on data collected by CyberV . The flap over Kizuna AI’s appearance on TV for the Nobel panel became less about virtual YouTubers, and more about using virtual YouTubers as avatars for different talking points. Those offended by NHK’s move talked about the sexualizing of 3D bodies or the negative effects of “moe” in general . One much-shared essay placed the Kizuna AI incident among other recent controversies on TV, showing the rough position women have in society today. As for the other side, Gizmodo Japan put a more positive spin on the impact that virtual YouTubers are having worldwide by inspiring new types of creativity online. Many claimed that it served as a continued attack on moe culture (with one user going so far as to call it a “ genocide on 2D characters ”), which itself offered some a chance to tease feminists and “social justice warriors,” and this carried over to English-language observers as well. The original critics then became the focus of criticism , via a popular Blogos entry about those “attacking Kizuna AI,” emphasizing how the original Yahoo! article got information wrong. Due to heavy criticism online , Senda made her account private . Along the way, someone drew Kizuna AI in Ku Klux Klan clothes to shock people . However, one of the most popular blog posts to come out of this didn’t even take a side — it simply observed how, while discussion between clashing parties can be good, nobody involved in this seemed like they were reaching out to the other in good faith. It’s a mess and, ultimately, the virtual YouTuber debate over the past week became a something of a microcosm for many of the strains of discourse online in 2018.


Natural disasters shake the nation to attention in 2018

Abstract: You wake to pitch blackness, the house shaking crazily. Nightmare? Yes — a waking one. “Where are my glasses?” You’re helpless without your glasses. The shaking gets worse. Earthquakes, typhoons, torrential rain, withering heat — this summer was a crash course in coping with natural onslaughts. The education is painful but necessary. Worse is to come — if not something unforeseen, then the very luridly foreseen Nankai Trough megaquake. Projections are legion: magnitude 9, 300,000 deaths, ¥1.4 quadrillion worth of damage, 4.3 million refugees; 70, 80 or 90 percent likely to happen within 30 years, with devastation radiating from an epicenter off southwestern Honshu through Nagoya, Chiba, Yokohama and Tokyo. Imagine, says Shukan Gendai magazine — sometimes it’s the relatively small calamities that seize the imagination — 17,000 people stuck between floors in disabled elevators. Elevators present twin terrors: being stuck in one and being stuck without one. If you live high up in a tall building, with the power down and the water off, your 19th-floor apartment can be a claustrophobic prison, as it was following September’s Hokkaido quake for a Sapporo man Shukan Gendai spoke to. He’s in his 40s and healthy. Trudging up and down 19 flights of stairs for food, bottled water and whatever other needs two days of utility paralysis generate was exhausting but tolerable. But if you’re ill? Infirm? Old? There’s no law that says earthquakes must occur, or are more likely to occur, in the dead of night, but many seem to. The Hokkaido one did, and a rude awakening it was. You come to your senses, grasp what’s happening, grope for your glasses — where are they? Maybe it doesn’t matter. You can’t see in the dark anyway. Flashlight — there’s a flashlight somewhere. Where? You need a flashlight to find a flashlight. You hadn’t thought of that pre-quake! There are many things, says Shukan Gendai, you don’t think of pre-quake. Let us say, it says, that the quake finds you drowning your sorrows, or raising your spirits, with spirits — you’re drunk, in other words. Whether you’ve been partying or moping is suddenly beside the point. The ground is opening beneath your feet, tossing you about like a rag doll. How will you get home? Where is home? You stagger outside. It’s pitch dark, not a light on anywhere. Maybe you promise yourself then and there never to drink again. Or maybe you stagger back into the bar, if it’s still standing, plant yourself on the stool you just vacated, if that’s still standing, and order another whiskey, if the bartender is still standing. In a magnitude 9 earthquake, they probably wouldn’t be. The first reality of natural disasters is that they kill people. The second is that they displace people — by the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Homelessness seems preferable to death, but the relief of survival ebbs in the ordeal ahead. Death is the end of all ordeals; homelessness the beginning of a potentially very great, very long one. The dread it inspires is suggested by the choice many make to sleep privately in their cars rather than en masse in a shelter. The April 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes killed 55 directly and 170 indirectly. Among the indirect fatalities, Kyodo News reported, 41 — 24 percent — had spent at least one night in a vehicle, risking potentially lethal deep vein thrombosis, better known as economy class syndrome. “Privacy,” architect Shigeru Ban told the Asahi Shimbun in an interview published last month, “is the most basic human right there is.” Disaster deprives us of it. Ban seeks to minimize the extent to which it does so. He converts mass space into personal space. He builds walls, partitions, rooms. His iconic building material is the cardboard tube — recycled paper. He’s famous worldwide, much in demand in areas reduced to rubble. Not in his homeland, however. “I’ve been called to Turkey, to Nepal, many places,” he tells the Asahi. “In Japan, no one has ever called me.” He goes anyway, on his own initiative — to Kobe in 1995 after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, to Niigata in 2004 after the Chuetsu Earthquake, to Fukushima in 2011 after the Great East Japan Earthquake, to Kumamoto, to Hokkaido. He’s won the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most prestigious award. Why does Japan alone scorn his services? “Wherever I go” in Japan, he says, “I get the same response from the local government: ‘We don’t need you, there’s no precedent.’ Unpartitioned space is easier to manage, you see. Behind partitions, people may drink and cause trouble.” Ban explains, wheedles, cajoles and finally secures permission to work, but it’s an uphill battle. The lack of privacy, he says, “is why people would rather sleep in their cars than go to a shelter.” And yet privacy has shallow roots in Japan. The very word had to be borrowed from English to name a novelty of 19th-century Westernization. Traditional homes had no corridors between rooms. Such partitions as there were — screens of thin shoji paper — would hardly have met Ban’s standards. The private conversation would have been impossible; private meditation nearly so. It’s a fine line, the Japanese have discovered since then, between privacy as a luxury and privacy as a burden. The price to pay for the enrichment it affords is the isolation it imposes. How private — how alone — does one want to be? The answer will vary from individual to individual, and within the same individual from time to time. Alone, we crave company; in company, relief from company. How much the more so when disaster strikes, throwing us into company that is haphazard or privacy that is a locked car. It’s not the worst fear as we look ahead to nature’s next murderous caprice — but it’s not the least one either.

natural disaster
earthquakes
heat waves
typhoons


Can female surgeons dismantle stereotypes in Japan?

Abstract: The long-running American TV series “Grey’s Anatomy” is popular because of the way it mixes standard medical drama with mushy romantic intrigue, but another part of its appeal is the makeup of its characters. The drama takes place in the surgical department of a Seattle hospital, and half the doctors are women. About half are also African-Americans, with other minorities thrown in, as well as some LGBT characters. As with the romantic elements’ relation to real life, the cast is not representative of the American medical world as a whole. Only 19 percent of practicing U.S. surgeons are female . As a field, surgery has always been something of a boys club. In Japan, the ratio of surgeons who are female is even smaller — 5.2 percent — and one of the excuses given by people who defend Tokyo Medical University’s habit of reducing entrance test scores for female applicants is that the school doesn’t want to go to the trouble and expense of training surgeons who will quit after they have children. In a recent series, the weekly magazine Gendai quoted one doctor as saying “surgery requires physical power” that women don’t possess. This is, of course, nonsense. “Grey’s Anatomy” is fluff and not above assigning characters traditional gender roles, but the female surgeons are just as physically resilient as the male surgeons. It’s never an issue on the show, and common sense says it isn’t one in real life. In this regard, it’s almost a shame that TV Asahi decided to discontinue its medical drama series “ Doctor X ” after five seasons by killing off its protagonist with a tumor, since it might have addressed something along the lines of the Tokyo Medical University scandal. On Sept. 30, they rebroadcast a special two-hour episode from 2016, and though it’s tempting to think TV Asahi was making a comment on the scandal, it apparently had more to do with promoting a new fall drama series starring the same actress who played Doctor X, Ryoko Yonekura, except this time she’s a lawyer. The name of the new series? “ Legal V .” The “real” name of Doctor X is Michiko Daimon, and she’s a surgeon — and not just any surgeon: She’s a lone-wolf super-surgeon, a freelance cutter who can treat any organ or condition with equal facility. Her modus operandi is swooping into a university hospital, shaking up the staid and invariably all-male surgical staff and successfully performing operations that are usually deemed too risky or downright impossible. She’s also incredibly feminine, with makeup and hairstyling that remain impeccable even when she’s operating, stiletto heels and short tight skirts. Her demeanor is haughty and aggressive, almost arrogant, as if she were compensating for the almost complete dearth of women surgeons in Japan. It’s a little over-the-top. “Doctor X” is even more of a fantasy than “Grey’s Anatomy,” owing mainly to the prerogatives of Japanese TV drama, but if it inspires girls to want to become surgeons, then it has more purpose than its silly premise lets on. All circumstances and situations in the stories are exaggerations, but they do show how the medical profession in Japan is a monument to convention that, in the end, benefits doctors more than patients. Dr. Daimon may be full of herself — “I never fail” is her mantra — but the welfare of her patients is the paramount consideration in any case she accepts, and the series was careful to contrast this attitude with that of her male colleagues, who are more interested in preserving their positions. Making Doctor X a woman is not just a stab at topicality. By being a woman, the character is as far removed from the medical establishment as she can be. Only she can change things. The two-hour special was about a hospital in Kanazawa whose mission is to do away with surgery. All ailments will someday be treated with drugs, thus obviating the need for invasive techniques, and while this is a desirable goal, the main impetus in the hospital’s case is money. It pursues its mission in concert with a local pharmaceutical company that needs the good publicity to sell more of its drugs nationwide. Daimon is hired by the hospital’s crafty chief, Dr. Kurosu, played by comedian/filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. Later, through a convoluted series of events, she injures her hand and is let go just before she is to operate on a world-famous figure skater. With the media in full thrall, the hospital then treats the skater’s condition with new, experimental drugs. The doctor eventually comes roaring back, putting the male staff in their places, though the show’s overblown hero posturing undermines whatever message it could deliver in favor of female empowerment. In the Gendai article, cartoonist Yoshinori Kobayashi, in making the case that people prefer male to female surgeons, commented: “Of course, if you get Doctor Michiko Daimon, you might feel reassured, but that’s just fiction. No such person exists. What if your surgeon is menstruating or pregnant? What will happen then?” Despite falling in love and occasionally manifesting what some would call “a maternal instinct,” Daimon didn’t seem interested in getting married or having children. She was too dedicated to her work, which implies that a female surgeon needs to abandon any notion of becoming a wife and mother. “Grey’s Anatomy” tries to show on a continuing basis how dated this idea is. Female surgeons on the show regularly get married and have children, all the while performing miracle procedures and conducting vanguard research. Maybe it’s beyond the pale, but one of the better attributes of popular culture is how it can depict the ideal, no matter how outlandish the presentation. “Doctor X” gets halfway there by showing how female doctors can help unblock a sclerotic medical culture. The fact that it’s the culture itself that prevents women from making a difference is enough of a reason to tear it all down.

medicine
tokyo medical university
surgery gret 's anatomy
doctor x


Japan's prime minister to formally announce sales tax hike to 10 percent from next October

Abstract: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday will formally announce that the government will raise the consumption tax to 10 percent from the current 8 percent in October 2019, government sources said Sunday. Abe is expected to make the announcement following an extraordinary Cabinet meeting where a supplementary budget for fiscal 2018 is likely to be approved. He has said the government will raise the consumption tax next fall as scheduled unless significant economic turmoil occurs. As the envisioned tax hike is expected to dampen consumption as seen in the past hikes, the Abe government will instruct ministries and agencies to take steps to prevent the economy from deteriorating by encouraging purchases of houses and cars through incentives such as tax breaks. It is considering to pay up to ¥500,000 to those who buy a house with annual income of 7.75 million or less. Another possible option on the table is giving monetary points to consumers who purchase goods at small stores with credit cards, as the government is also trying to promote cashless payments. Japan raised the consumption tax from 3 percent to 5 percent in April 1997. The rate was hiked to the current 8 percent in April 2014 under Abe’s administration. Although the tax hike from 8 percent to 10 percent has been treated as the second stage of a two-stage consumption tax hike from 5 percent to 10 percent, Abe has pushed backed the schedule twice, first from October 2015 to April 2017, and then to October 2019 due to fears it could derail the fragile economy. Tokyo’s last tax hike in April 2014 was blamed for pushing the country into a brief recession. While a consumption tax hike is always unpopular with voters, the International Monetary Fund has long asked Tokyo to raise the tax rate to secure sustainable revenues and improve its tattered finances. IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned earlier this month that the challenges facing the country will “only grow as Japan’s population continues to age and shrink,” noting that both the size of the economy and the population are on track to shrink by a quarter over the next 40 years. Lagarde met with Abe earlier this month and told him that Japan should make sure that the hike will not negatively affect the economy. The IMF recommends “that the 2019 consumption tax increase be accompanied by carefully designed mitigating measures to protect near-term reflation and growth momentum. We believe that the fiscal stance should certainly remain neutral at least for the next two years,” she said. Critics also say that raising the tax from 8 percent to 10 percent is crucial to finance snowballing social security expenditures — especially medical fees — in the rapidly aging society. Abe recently said that reforming the country’s social security system — pension and national health insurance, among others — is “the biggest challenge” ahead and pledged to tackle the issue In addition, the world’s third-largest economy has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios among rich nations. Much of it is held domestically at low interest rates, allowing Japan to avoid a Greek-style cash crunch. But a loss of confidence in Tokyo’s ability to pay its debts could send interest rates soaring and increase the risk of a bankruptcy. Ratings agencies have previously cut Japan’s credit standing over its debt levels. The IMF says Japan should continue to gradually increase the consumption tax to at least 15 percent to pay for the cost of caring for a rapidly aging population while reducing its massive public debt.


Anwar paves way to Malaysia leadership with Parliament seat

Abstract: KUALA LUMPUR - Anwar Ibrahim has emerged as the winner in a district by-election, clearing the way for the formerly jailed leader to become the nation’s eighth prime minister. Anwar, 71, leader of the largest party in the ruling coalition, is set to be inaugurated on Monday after winning 71 percent of votes against six other candidates for a Parliament seat, the Election Commission announced Saturday. Polling at the coastal town of Port Dickson ended at 5 p.m. local time with voter turnout at 58 percent. “The results exceeded our expectations because we obtained a convincing majority,” Anwar said after being declared the victor. “We were able to convincingly win the support of all races,” he said, referring to the constituency’s ethnic split of Malays, Chinese and Indians. While he’s set to replace Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister in a year or two, he has tempered expectations of taking an immediate role in the cabinet. He would first focus on developing his constituency as a tourism destination while working on reforms in the legislative body, giving Mahathir space to run the government. Mahathir has vouched for this, and appeared by Anwar’s side at a rally Monday. The Pakatan Harapan coalition engineered the by-election to realize its succession plan for Anwar. The group chose Mahathir as their interim prime minister candidate and Anwar’s wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the deputy for the election in May, as Anwar was ineligible to contest due to a sodomy conviction that’s been widely criticized as political. His full pardon and release was granted within a week of the coalition’s victory. In August, he became the president of People’s Justice Party, the largest in the alliance, without contest. The ruling coalition’s unity rests on relations between Anwar and Mahathir, who have a fraught history going back to the 1990s. Mahathir decided to sack Anwar as his deputy amid debates on how best to respond to the Asian financial crisis in 1998. Anwar was then jailed twice, once for committing sodomy and abusing power, and a second time for a subsequent sodomy conviction. He has denied the charges. Mahathir hasn’t committed to a timeline for the handover, though Anwar has consistently said he wants to let the current prime minister complete “the major task” of rooting out corruption. Mahathir is grappling with fulfilling campaign promises with a budget that’s constrained by debt and liabilities, all while seeking to get to the bottom of the globe-spanning 1MDB scandal in order to recoup $4.5 billion of potentially missing funds. “This sort of teamwork will be very essential for him to continue getting the latitude and space without any encumbrances, and for me to assume the position much later,” Anwar said in a September interview. “We’ve accepted the fact that the country must be saved, that the country takes precedence.”


Against narcotics, but also killings: Filipinos deeply conflicted on Rodrigo Duterte's drug war

Abstract: MANILA - Jailed drug user Bitoy Paras perks up when describing his support for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on narcotics, an unlikely fan of a campaign that has left Filipinos deeply conflicted. “Duterte talks tough, saying he will get rid of addicts … I am happy he’s doing that,” he said at Manila’s main jail, which is packed with drug suspects. “But I feel uneasy about the killings,” said the 22-year-old rickshaw driver, whose real name cannot be used due to prison policy. Paras’s seemingly paradoxical backing echoes that of millions of Filipinos, who polls say support the crackdown but not the thousands of slayings that are central to it. Duterte’s drug war — his signature initiative — helped bring him to power in mid-2016, promising to rid society of narcotics by any means necessary. Since then, police say they have killed 4,854 alleged drug users or dealers in self-defence, while rights groups estimate the true toll is at least triple that. According to the latest survey by pollster SWS, the campaign still has the backing of 78 percent of Filipinos, a figure undented in over a year. Drug war proponents regularly point to these statistics as proof that the internationally condemned crackdown is the will of the people. But those same polls show near unanimous agreement — 96 percent — among the nation in opposition to the killing, saying the suspects should be taken alive. Experts say Duterte’s campaign has tapped into genuine popular outrage over disorder, crime and dysfunction in a developing nation with millions of poor people and a turbulent political past. “It’s not like they’re turning a blind eye (to the killing), but they’re really worried about the drug problem,” said Steven Rood, a fellow-in-residence at SWS. “It has been a problem for a long time and finally the president of the Philippines is doing something about it,” he added, describing how many Filipinos view the narcotics issue. But for the family of Duterte voter Katherine Bautista, that belief was suddenly turned on its head by tragedy last year. Bautista supported the crackdown until her stepson John Jezreel David was shot dead in what police said was an anti-drug operation, even as she insisted her son was not a drug user. “I was even saying that the tears of families (of those killed) seemed fake. But when it happened to us, I felt the pain they were feeling,” Bautista said. “If it doesn’t happen to your family, you won’t wake up to the truth,” she added. A significant strand in the opposition to the killings is the fear a loved could be slain just by being in the wrong place, not necessarily because of involvement in drugs. “People feel very afraid that their families or their relatives might be placed in a situation where they could be the targets,” said Randy David, a sociologist and newspaper columnist in Manila. “But how can you possibly disagree or not lend support for a campaign to rid this country of illegal drugs?” David added, saying the lethal methods were what prompted questions. There has been broader condemnation of the crackdown at home and abroad. Rare protests were held in the Philippines last year following the deaths of teenagers, while outrage over alleged abuses has prompted Duterte to twice remove police from the frontlines of the campaign — only to reinstate them and promise to pardon officers convicted of murder. The International Criminal Court has launched a preliminary examination into the killings, while rights groups say Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity. Meanwhile, Duterte hammers the menace posed by drugs in near daily speeches in which he has described addicts as “not human.” Analysts say the president uses clear and repeated messaging in an effort to buttress backing for his campaign. “The way (the message) is delivered is that there is a very big threat, so first there’s the production of massive fear,” said Ateneo de Manila University psychology professor Cristina Montiel. “Then (comes) the salvific message that this programme or this leader is here to save you,” she added. “That’s how popular support is produced.” As the campaign continues, the death toll is well over Amnesty International’s count of 3,240 people killed during the nine years of martial law rule under dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s darkest chapter since World War II. Duterte recently addressed the thorny issue of the killings, delivering what critics called a clear admission they are suspect. “What are my sins? Did I steal money? Even just one peso? Did I prosecute somebody I sent to jail?” he asked in a September speech. “My only sin is extrajudicial killings.”

murder
drugs
philippines
rights
rodrigo duterte
extrajudicial killings
police


Kangaroo attack leaves three hurt

Abstract: SYDNEY - Three members of an Australian family used a broom and a shovel to fight off a rare attack by a large kangaroo that left all of them injured, one seriously. Linda Smith, 64, suffered a collapsed lung, broken ribs, cuts and other internal injuries, and underwent surgery in a hospital on Sunday after the Saturday evening attack at her property in the Darling Downs region of Queensland. The wildlife carer and her husband, Jim, had been feeding 30 kangaroos and wallabies at their property every night amid a severe drought that has depleted their food sources. One of the large males — at least 6 feet tall (1.8 meters) — turned on her husband as he fed it, she told Queensland Ambulance Service. “Jim was on the ground and the kangaroo just kept at him. I went outside to try and help him and took a broom and a piece of bread, but he knocked the broom out of my hand, then attacked me,” Smith said. The 64-year-old managed to get the roo off her husband and grabbed a piece of wood to defend herself while her 40-year-old son “came out to try and help me and hit him over the head with a shovel.” The kangaroo then hopped off back into the bush. Smith, who has been a wildlife carer for 15 years, said she did not want the marsupial to be hunted down. Calling what happened “an act of nature,” Smith said she was always aware she was dealing with wildlife. “I am always careful, especially of the males. It’s breeding time so they can be more aggressive. I don’t want this kangaroo to be hunted down and killed, I love animals,” she added. “I do understand what happened but I have never seen one that aggressive — it was in there for a fight and it wouldn’t back off.” Queensland Ambulance Service’s senior operations supervisor Stephen Jones said the attack was “rare.” “They are known to attack and can be quite vicious, particularly the large males. But it is something that is uncommon, something that I haven’t come across in my 30-odd years in the service,” Jones told AFP. He added that if Smith had not intervened to help her husband, who suffered multiple cuts and abrasions to his arms, chest and legs, he could have suffered more serious injuries and “the outcome may have even been death.” There are more than 46 million kangaroos across Australia according to a government count last year, but conservationists warn that population numbers are falling amid a long drought in the vast continent’s east.


After 16 years, Fukushima's Aizu Koshihikari still the brand of choice for popular Tokyo rice ball shop

Abstract: A popular rice ball shop stands near Tokyo Station’s Yaesu Central Gate, drawing long lines of customers waiting to buy products made with rice from Aizu, Fukushima Prefecture, known for remaining soft with a touch of sweetness even when it gets cold. As it takes less than a minute to make the rice balls, customers don’t have to wait long at Honnoriya, a rice ball chain operated by JR East Food Business Co. From actors, athletes and comedians to politicians and culinary maestros, many say they are fans of the rice balls. After it was featured on the popular TBS television show “Matsuko no Shiranai Sekai” (“The World Unknown to Matsuko”), a rush of traffic swarmed Honnoriya’s website, temporarily shutting it down. Sadafumi Yamagiwa, president of JR East Food, said the secret of the chain’s popularity is the quality of the rice — Koshihikari rice produced in Fukushima’s Aizu region. “It’s because the rice tastes good. The Aizu Koshihikari rice is chewy, making it different from other rice,” Yamagiwa said. The firm uses Aizu Koshihikari in all of its 13 outlets located in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba. At the main shop in Tokyo, around 7,000 rice balls are sold on busy days. In fiscal 2017, a total of 252 tons of rice were consumed at its 13 stores. Since Honnoriya opened its first outlet at Tokyo Station in March 2002, it has continued to use Koshihikari brand. Despite having been awarded the top “special A” ranking by the Japan Grain Inspection Association, Aizu Koshihikari is cheap compared with other varieties produced in different regions, Yamagiwa said. Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the ensuing nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, many consumers avoided produce from the prefecture. The company also received many inquiries about the safety of the rice, and employee opinions differed over which brand should be used. But as blanket radiation checks conducted on Fukushima-grown rice found no radioactive material, such concern gradually eased, Yamagiwa said. He stressed that the company has been using Aizu Koshihikari solely for the reason that it tastes good. “It’s not like we’ve been using the rice to support the disaster-hit regions,” he said. Each year, the company chooses a rice brand after comparing the tastes of different varieties produced in different parts of the country. For the past 16 years, there has been no rice that surpassed Koshihikari produced in Aizu, Yamagiwa said, meaning that Aizu Koshihikari has consistently won the internal competition every single year.


Juntendo and Showa universities' medical faculties suspected of rigging entrance exam results based on gender

Abstract: Juntendo University and Showa University are suspected of rigging the results of entrance examinations for their respective medical faculties in the same way Tokyo Medical University did, informed sources said Saturday. Juntendo and Showa, both in Tokyo, are believed to have applied different test judgment criteria on the basis of gender and the number of exam failures in the past, according to sources familiar with the results so far of the education ministry’s emergency survey of universities with medical departments. The sources also said that male applicants’ exam pass rate was higher than female applicants’ at some 80 percent of the 81 universities surveyed, but only Tokyo Medical University admitted misconduct, such as through manipulating test scores of female applicants. Based on data over the past six years, Juntendo’s male-to-female acceptance ratio proved to be the highest, at 1.67-to-1, followed by Showa’s 1.54-to-1, the sources noted. At a news conference on Friday, education minister Masahiko Shibayama said multiple universities with medical faculties were found to have rigged entrance exam results. He did not identify them. The ministry plans to release an interim report on the survey this month and a final report by the year-end.

education
entrance exams
showa university
juntendo university
medical schools
tokyo medical university


Stocks erase early losses, following rise in Shanghai bourse

Abstract: Stocks wiped out early losses to close higher Monday, assisted by a jump in Chinese equities. The Nikkei 225 average rebounded 82.74 points, or 0.37 percent, to end at 22,614.82. On Friday, the key market gauge lost 126.08 points. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, finished 2.46 points, or 0.15 percent, higher at 1,695.31 after dropping 11.79 points Friday. After opening lower, both indexes stayed in negative territory throughout the morning as investors refrained from active buying ahead of earnings releases from major companies later this week, brokers said. In the afternoon, however, the closely watched key market gauges popped into the positive side, supported by small-lot buying after a surge of over 4 percent in the key Shanghai stock index, brokers said. Some food and cosmetics issues got a boost from strong Chinese stocks following Beijing’s reported income tax deduction plan for individuals, an official of a major securities firm said. “Investors took a wait-and-see stance ahead of the earnings season and trading is likely to continue thin tomorrow,” the official said. Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co., said he expects brisk corporate earnings reports for April-September and cautious full-year business forecasts. The earnings reports will likely support the market’s downside but not drive stocks sharply higher, Miura said. Rising issues outnumbered falling ones 1,216 to 792 in the TSE’s first section, while 100 issues were unchanged. Volume decreased to 1.135 billion shares from 1.281 billion Friday. Major gainers in the cosmetics sector included Shiseido, Kose and Pola Orbis. Defense-related Howa Machinery and Ishikawa Seisakusho jumped on growing geopolitical concerns after U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he intends to withdraw his country from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. Howa Machinery surged 5.32 percent and Ishikawa Seisakusho 11.92 percent. Among other major winners were mega-bank groups Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho, and clothing retailer Fast Retailing. By contrast, Kawasaki Heavy briefly hit a year-to-date low of ¥2,803 and closed 9.28 percent lower after the company Friday lowered its consolidated earnings forecast for the year to March. Also weaker were mobile phone carrier SoftBank Group and game maker Nintendo.


Chilean court orders Catholic Church to pay damages over priest's decades of abuse of trio: report

Abstract: SANTIAGO - Chile’s Court of Appeal has ordered the office of Santiago’s Archbishop to pay 450 million pesos ($650,000) to three men who alleged they were sexually abused for decades by Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, a local newspaper reported on Sunday. Citing a copy of a leaked judgment, La Tercera said the three judges who heard the case on Thursday found in favor of an appeal for “moral damages” against the church for allegedly covering up the crimes. The case was previously rejected by a lower court for lack of evidence. Reuters could not independently confirm the report. The Santiago Archbishopric, which could appeal to Chile’s Supreme Court, said it was considering “what steps to take.” If confirmed by the court on Monday, it would be the first damages order to have been leveled against Chile’s powerful Roman Catholic Church for a scandal of sex abuse and cover-up that prompted Pope Francis to apologize to its faithful. Legal experts have said it could pave the way for more claims amid a new climate of discovery which has seen hundreds of people come forward to allege they were abused and criminal prosecutors launch scores of new investigations. In a statement hailing the reported verdict, claimants James Hamilton, Jose Andres Murillo and Juan Carlos Cruz — who were invited to Rome earlier this year to tell the pope about their alleged abuse — said it was the culmination of a “journey that was long and painful, but worth it. “We are witnessing an important cultural shift, in which the abuses of the powerful are beginning to be seen as unacceptable, and Justice is confirming that,” they said. Their lawyer, Juan Pablo Hermosilla, told Reuters they believed the report was credible but added: “I don’t have official confirmation yet.” Karadima worked for the Santiago Archbishopric as a parish priest in the wealthy suburb of El Bosque for 21 years between 1985 to 2006. Now 88 and living in a nursing home in the capital, Karadima has always denied accusations of abuse. He was never charged by civilian authorities because the statute of limitations on such crimes had expired. He was found guilty of sexual abuse in a Vatican investigation in 2011, and last month was defrocked by the Pope. Hermosilla said that since the case was rejected by a lower court, new evidence had emerged including an email written in 2009 from a former archbishop, Cardinal Francisco Errazuriz, to the then papal nuncio that was read to the court on Thursday. In the email, Errazuriz described the trio of accusers as “aggressive” and said he was closing the case against Karadima. In a statement responding to the report of a verdict, the Santiago Archbishopric said it did not know the court’s ruling, but that it would have to study it and recent developments in the case before deciding how to act. “We must analyze the situation, together with the ruling, to resolve what steps to take,” the archbishopric’s statement said.

chile
pope francis
roman catholic church
sex abuse
fernando karadima