TAIWAN: LA Dodgers sign Taiwanese pitcher Kuo Hong-Chih to one-year deal

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 1:44 pm TWN

By Chris Wang, CNA

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Los Angeles Dodgers have signed Taiwanese pitcher Kuo Hong-Chih to a one-year deal that will pay him US$975,000 in 2010, the Major League Baseball club's Web site reported Wednesday.

The signing means the left-handed reliever, who earned US$437,000 last season, will not have to go through salary arbitration proceedings.

Kuo's contract also includes an incentive clause for total appearances. His 55th and 60th appearances would each earn him an additional US$25,000 and his 65th and 70th appearances would each earn him an extra US$50,000.

Kuo appeared in 35 games and pitched 30 innings in 2009, mostly in a set-up role, and went 0-2 with a 3.00 ERA.

The 28-year-old left-hander has compiled a 9-13 record and 3.77 ERA in his five seasons with the Dodgers.

Though he has been plagued by arm injuries throughout his career, Kuo seems to have finally earned the trust of manager Joe Torre in the Dodgers' bullpen.

Kuo was among six Dodgers to file for salary arbitration Jan. 15.

Russell Martin, James Loney and George Sherrill also signed one-year deals with the Dodgers to avoid arbitration. Outfielder Andre Ethier and closer Jonathan Broxton are the two Dodgers eligible for arbitration who have yet to sign.

View Article in The China Post

CHINA: China Could Learn From Henry Ford

Published: January 19, 2010

Letter from China

By MICHAEL FORSYTHE

BEIJING — “Little” Xie says he wants to own one of the vehicles he helps build at the Ford assembly plant in the Yangtze River city of Chongqing. With his mortgage payment taking about 60 percent of his 2,000 renminbi [less than UD$300] monthly pay, that won’t happen soon.

“It isn’t even worth talking about company incentives to help buy a car, since I can’t afford one in the first place,” said Xie, 28, a six-year Ford employee, as he approached the factory gates for his night shift. Xie, whose nickname comes from his youthful age, asked that his full name not be used.

Higher wages for people like Xie would help resolve China’s biggest economic challenge: shifting away from growth fueled by exports and investment and moving toward an economy driven more by domestic consumers. China’s Communist leaders might learn a lesson about how to create a more prosperous working class from the American industrialist Henry Ford.

The founder of the auto manufacturer that bears his name generated headlines around the world in January 1914 by doubling the average autoworker’s pay to $5 a day. The move made Ford’s Model T more affordable, created a more stable work force and helped stoke the growth of the U.S. middle class, according to Bob Kreipke, the historian for the company, based in Dearborn, Michigan.

“This allowed people to increase their buying power and, at the same time, they produced a better product,” Mr. Kreipke said.

Low wages in the world’s third-largest economy are slowing the rise of a consumer culture that Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao have said China needs to maintain expansion at the 8 percent a year that will generate jobs for its 1.3 billion people. The current growth pattern is “unsustainable,” Mr. Wen said Dec. 27.

That hasn’t stopped China’s auto industry from booming, with sales last year of 13.6 million vehicles, eclipsing the United States as the world’s top market for the first time, according to figures from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in Beijing. The surge in purchases was driven partly by government subsidies to help farmers buy vehicles.

Encouraging higher pay might help sustain the boom and bolster consumption, which currently accounts for about 35 percent of China’s gross domestic product, compared with 70 percent in the United States. It would also help ease income gaps between the rich and poor, which are greater than those in South Korea and Taiwan at similar stages of development and have led to riots and other labor unrest.

Ford’s $5 daily pay allowed an employee to buy a Model T that cost $440 with the equivalent of about four months of wages. Chinese factory workers averaged 24,192 renminbi, or $3,544, a year in 2008, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing, so it would take more than three years of wages for them to afford the cheapest car advertised on the company’s Chinese-language Web site: a four-door hatchback with a 1.3 liter engine listed for 78,900 renminbi.

While the auto company declined to comment on worker pay, Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, Ford’s chief economist, said Ford was projecting growth 10 years into the future for the countries where it operates, and it saw China’s economy in a period of expansion characterized by rapid rises in employee compensation similar to South Korea’s economy starting in the 1960s.

“We are at a situation where wages are moving up and doubling in a very short period of time,” Ms. Hughes-Cromwick said in a telephone interview from Dearborn. “We do expect takeoff to generate pretty substantial wage gains.”

One way the Chinese government might help raise pay would be to increase the value of the renminbi, said Nicholas Lardy, who studies the Chinese economy as a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

U.S. and European officials have said that China keeps the renminbi artificially low to improve sales in foreign markets. An undervalued currency encourages manufactured exports at the expense of developing the more labor-intensive service sector, depressing job growth and keeping wages low, Mr. Lardy said.

“Appreciation would lead to more rapid growth in the demand for labor and thus to more employment growth and more wage growth,” he said.

China should also spend more on education for peasants and migrants to raise their skill levels and employment prospects, said Xiao Geng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing.

Henry Ford employed some of the millions of East European immigrants who poured into the United States a century ago, as well as migrants from the South and Midwest lured by high wages. China’s leaders must deal with hundreds of millions of rural laborers coming to cities, who put downward pressure on salaries.

“Unskilled workers are condemned for generations to low wages,” Mr. Xiao said.

Even a skilled worker like Gong — who also asked that his full name not be used — said he makes only 6 renminbi an hour as a welder at Ford’s Chongqing plant, 9 renminbi an hour for overtime. “I have a dream of someday buying a car,” said Gong, 29, as he walked home in the rain after a 10-hour shift. “I guess it will take six years of saving.”

Bloomberg News

View Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: Imperial Palace resides in otherworldly expanse

Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010

By TAKAHIRO FUKADA

Staff writer

Grand tour: Tourists take in the Imperial Palace gardens near the moat and Niju-Bashi Bridge. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

History abounds in cultural and religious preserve in heart of metropolis

Like a nature reserve surrounded by Tokyo's concrete jungle, the Imperial Palace, or Kokyo, home to the Emperor and Empress, is a moated, otherworldly forested expanse where once stood a castle.

The castle housed generations of Tokugawa shoguns during the Edo Period (1603-1867).

The grounds now thrive with nature.

Just minutes on foot from Tokyo Station, the palace's Niju-Bashi Bridge is a major tourist draw and subject for photographers in the metropolis.

Following are questions and answers about the Imperial Palace:

How is the palace complex composed?

The palace, other structures and grounds make up 1.15 million sq. meters, or about 25 times the area of Tokyo Dome. The estate in divided into three blocks, according to "Zusetsu Koshitsu no Subete" ("All about the Imperial Family"), by the Gakken Group.

The central block encompasses the main palace, where Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko conduct official duties and ceremonies are held, and the Imperial Household Agency.

The Imperial Couple's residence is in an adjacent block, Fukiage Gyoen, which also includes the Fukiage Omiya Palace, where Emperor Hirohito (known posthumously as Showa) and Empress Kojun resided. The block also has Shinto shrines where the Emperor engages in private religious rites.

The East Gardens make up the third block, which includes the Imperial Concert Hall and Museum of the Imperial Collections.

The palace grounds and structures basically belong to the nation, while the Imperial family owns the shrines, according to the agency.

What animal and plant life can be found on the grounds?

According to the agency, the National Museum of Nature and Science found in 2000 a total of 3,638 animal species and 1,366 different plants. Of all the large trees in the capital, 20 percent are believed to be within the palace grounds.

New finds by researchers include sow bugs, endangered species, including Ranunculus ternatus Thunb, and species once believed extinct in the capital.

The Imperial Couple's residence is surrounded by thick woods. The book "Nihonno Koshitsu" by royal journalist Yasushi Kunoh attributes the abundance of nature to Emperor Hirohito, who liked to research plant and marine life.

According to the book, the late Emperor used to say no plant on Earth should ever be called a "weed."

The agency said it does not in principle use pesticides. It allows foliage to fall naturally and workers stack branches and leaves to create insect habitats.

The book also says parts of the forest are so thick that inexperienced agency staff occasionally get lost.

How are subway lines affected by the palace's central location?

According to Tokyo Metro Co., which operates subway lines in the capital, none run underneath the palace, although some skirt the grounds.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials said they cannot find any historical record indicating whether the palace and its grounds, and the land under them, were ever legally off-limits to underground rail lines.

Railways and stations were instead situated where local governments assessed they were in most demand, said the officials, including one who noted that because there are no neighborhoods or businesses on the palace grounds, there is no need for a station there.

Can the public use the Imperial Household Agency hospital inside the palace?

The hospital is primarily for members of the Imperial family, the Imperial Guard and the agency, but relatives of the latter groups or outsiders given official introduction can also access the facility, Kunoh's book and the agency say.

Imperial family members, who do not have public health insurance, don't have to pay for medical treatment at the 20-bed hospital, whose departments include internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, dermatology, urology, dentistry and radiology. There are seven regular doctors on staff and four part-timers.

How much is the palace real estate worth?

A real estate agent nearby told The Japan Times that the palace property is probably the highest-priced in Tokyo, and thus in all of Japan.

While property prices in the Ginza and Shinjuku commercial districts range from around ¥30 million to ¥40 million per tsubo, or about 3.3 sq. meters, the agent estimated the palace equivalent would be around ¥50 million.

The palace is regarded in the real estate industry as a benchmark for land prices in Tokyo, the agent said. The farther away from the palace, the lower the land prices.

"But I do not think the (palace land) would ever be put up for sale," he said.

Is it true the palace grounds once included a golf course?

Although the agency would not confirm this, Kunoh's book says Emperor Hirohito enjoyed golf and had a nine-hole course created on the grounds before the war. He stopped playing when hostilities escalated and allowed the links to return to nature.

A forest now stands on the site, the book says.

Is it also true the Imperial Guards can compose traditional poems, engage in flower-arrangement and conduct tea ceremonies?

Yes. Imperial Guard recruits are taught how to compose tanka, calligraphy, flower-arrangement and tea ceremony.

The purpose of learning these arts is to cultivate aesthetic sensitivities and to understand what members of the Imperial family feel when they write poems. The guards thus are also guardians of the country's culture and tradition.

Some freshmen guards take a strong liking to poetry and composing, according to their headquarters.

Have there been any recent events of note at the palace?

Late last year the Emperor had an audience with Shizuka Kamei, the financial services minister and leader of Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), a small member of the ruling bloc.

News reports said Kamei urged the Emperor during a luncheon to move to Kyoto, the ancient capital, or Hiroshima Prefecture, Kamei's home district. Kamei said it is not appropriate for the Emperor, who wields no powers over the government, to live at the site of Edo Castle, the symbol of power.

The Emperor reportedly merely told Kamei that he likes Kyoto.

Does the Imperial Palace accept visitors?

Yes. The Imperial Household Agency offers free tours of the palace.

The 2.2-km walking tours generally take place on weekdays starting at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and last approximately 75 minutes, the agency said.

Visitors can view the Lotus Moat, palace buildings and Niju-Bashi Bridge.

After entering the grounds, visitors are taken to a waiting room to view a video about the palace.

The accompanying audio guide is available in English, the agency said.

Those seeking a visit must apply in advance.

For information, call (03) 3213-1111 or visit the Web site sankan.kunaicho.go.jp/english

N. KOREA: Seoul says 'preemptive strikes would be needed to stop N.K. attack'

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

By Kim Ji-hyun

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young yesterday said Seoul would have to conduct "preemptive" strikes if it detects signs of possible nuclear aggression from North Korea.

"We will need to carry out preemptive strikes immediately as soon as we see definite signs of a nuclear attack from North Korea because there would be too much damage if we tried to first block the attack and then respond," Kim said at a forum on military reforms and inter-Korean relations.

The defense minister's remarks come as relations between the two Koreas appeared to be strained once again in the aftermath of a furious statement from the North, denouncing Seoul's reported contingency plans for dealing with "emergency situations" in North Korea.

Pyongyang claims that the plans were aimed at toppling its regime.

Touching on the issue of the plans for transferring wartime operational control to South Korea by 2012, Kim appeared pessimistic about the possibility of readjusting the date to a later time as the conservatives want.

"It is a political promise signed and sealed between two nations. We can not resolve this domestically," the minister said.

But Kim also conceded that the Lee Myung-bak administration was considering this a "tricky" issue.

"The president and the military are pondering (the transfer issue,)" Kim said, adding that the military is preparing for the 2012 transfer.

Any readjustment, he said, would be based on "political judgment from the United States and South Korea."

Critics here believe that transferring wartime operational control to Seoul over the next two years would put the South in a vulnerable position, security-wise.

Right-wing politicians and former military officers have been on a long campaign to defer the transfer to a later date, but the Lee administration has said a readjustment would be difficult.

Washington has on several occasions echoed Seoul's sentiments on this issue.

After the transfer, the South Korean military would be in the leading role for defending its country.

The decision to give Seoul sole operational command by 2012 was made under former President Roh Moo-hyun.

The defense minister yesterday stressed that transferring wartime operational control should not be considered as a prelude to a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

There are some 28,500 U.S. military personnel here. The minister said they would be here even after the transfer and after the camps are relocated to further south of the country.

On North Korea's latest policies towards Seoul, the minister said that he saw Pyongyang to be alternating between hawkish and soft-line methods ahead of a possible resumption of multilateral denuclearization talks.

He supported the nation's current two-track approach aimed at pressuring the North with sanctions, while at the same time keeping the door of dialogue open.

The North in December last year appeared ready to come out for another round of the stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programs.

It was considerably softer to the United States and South Korea in its New Year's address.

But earlier this month it has been putting down conditions such as lifting the United Nations sanctions in order to return to the discussions. Once the dialogue restarts, the North claims utmost priority must be put on signing a peace treaty to replace the current Armistice Agreement.

The two Koreas are currently still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

CHINA: Baidu files damages suit at US provider

2010-1-21

By Ding Yining  

BAIDU Inc has taken legal action against a United States domain service provider for compensation over a hacker attack last week. China's leading search engine provider said in a statement yesterday that last week's malicious attack was due to the negligence of Register.com, and it has filed a lawsuit at a court in New York.

"The malicious attack, which lasted several hours, has brought Baidu serious damages," the company said in the statement.
It didn't specify the amount of compensation it is seeking. It is also considering changing its domain name registration service provider to a Chinese company.

Baidu suffered from its worst attack last Friday since it was established 10 years ago, and its service wasn't restored until four hours after the attack.

Baidu seriously condemned the behavior of attacking legal Websites in an e-mail statement sent to the media.

Baidu said its domain name was externally manipulated, and its search service and online forums were disrupted. Internet users said they were led to an image showing an Iranian flag and a slogan saying "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army," when they entered the address of baidu.com last Friday morning.
Baidu's revenue in the third quarter last year was 1.28 billion yuan (US$176 million).

View Article in the Shanghai Daily

JAPAN: Transport minister raises questions about whether Japan needs two mega air carriers

January 20, 2010

Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Seiji Maehara has raised questions about whether Japan needs two mega air carriers when he met with the press regarding the legal liquidation of Japan Airlines (JAL).

"In addition to slashing its workforce by 15,000, we'll require JAL to withdraw from unprofitable routes. Considering Japan's competitiveness in the world, we must consider our civil aviation policy, including whether Japan needs two mega carriers (JAL and All Nippon Airways)," he told a news conference Tuesday.

"It's the best scenario for the two airlines to continue to develop, but we must avoid causing both firms to go under. As long as taxpayers' money is used (to bail out JAL), we can't make any mistakes," he told reporters after the news conference.

However, Maehara said it is necessary for now to bail out the ailing carrier. "JAL is a company that forms a key part of the aviation network, which is the basis for Japan's development, so the government will help the airline to rehabilitate itself," he said.

The minister said JAL is required to start over from scratch, while pointing out the government's responsibility for JAL's failure.

"The company tended to rely on its belief that the government will bail it out in the end. The president of Japan Airlines (Haruka Nishimatsu) has resigned and the company will be required to withdraw 100 percent of its shares from the market to hold shareholders responsible for its failure," he said. "The government, which continued to build unnecessary airports and forced airlines to fly to such airports, is also to blame."

He also justified the legal liquidation of JAL. "The JAL group is saddled with over 2 trillion yen in debts, and should be disbanded under normal circumstances. Private restructuring would require less money but it is doubtful whether it could fundamentally solve the problems, including the major issue of corporate pension benefits. The government isn't allowed to postpone a fundamental solution."

When asked whether individual shareholders should be held responsible for JAL's failure, the transport minister said, "A bailout plan that wouldn't hold shareholders responsible, would be hardly acceptable to the public."

Click here for the original Japanese story

View Article in The Mainichi Daily News

RUSSIA: Why Russia Still Matters in the Asian Century

19 Jan 2010

John Lee
World Politics Review

Photo: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Beijing, May 2008 (photo by the Web site of the president of the Russian Federation).

Toward the end of World War II, the godfather of geopolitics, Nicholas Spykman, offered his famous analysis that was to become a rule of thumb for many strategists ever since: Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, and who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world. Spykman had a point. The two world wars of the 20th century came about largely due to attempts by European rivals to tilt the Eurasian balance of power in their own favor.

Russia was always a critical component in this balance, but now, due to the country's aging population and infrastructure, the 21st century seems to be leaving Moscow behind.

Still, even as economic and political power shifts from the Atlantic to the Pacific, aging and forgotten Russia will not disappear from the Eurasian equation. A game-changing great-power rivalry could be brewing -- not between Russia and the West, but between Russia and China.

The common wisdom is that Russia is moving closer to China in order to counterbalance America and its European and Asian allies and partners. This has been helped along by Russia's membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as by trade volumes between the two countries reaching $40 billion in 2009.

Moscow and Beijing also signed a document in 2004 ending their 300-year, 2,700-mile border dispute, allowing China to focus its military resources on Taiwan and the South China Sea, and Russia to make up for lost influence in its near-west.

But while Russia is presently preoccupied with regaining its influence in parts of Eastern Europe,

Moscow is also warily watching China's unauthorized movements into Siberia and the Far East. Beijing is approximately six times closer to the Russian Far East port city of Vladivostok than is Moscow, which has very weak administrative control over its eastern territories.

Already, an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Chinese nationals have illegally settled in these oil-, gas- and timber-rich areas. Beijing is also tempted by Siberia's fresh-water supply, given that China already has severe shortages throughout the country.

Currently, the Russian Far East is inhabited by only 6 million people, while the three provinces in northeast China have around 110 million Chinese inhabitants. By 2020, over 100 million Chinese will live less than 60 miles to the south of these Russian territories, whose population will then number between 5 million and 10 million.

As Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently admitted, if Russia does not secure its presence in the Far East, it could eventually "lose everything" to the Chinese.

Moscow signed two major agreements with Beijing in 2009 that allowed Chinese state-owned companies to build mining and pipeline infrastructure in undeveloped areas in east Siberia, which will eventually supply northeast China with oil and gas. But there were immediate concerns in Russia that the agreements will result in the overwhelming majority of workers being Chinese. Although Chinese workers will only be issued temporary work visas to develop these parts of east Siberia, the projects are long-term ones that will last at least one or two decades. It is unlikely that Chinese laborers will simply pack up and leave after spending such a long period of time working there. Moscow is well-aware of this possibility, but is in desperate need of capital and feels it has little choice if it is to develop its far-flung eastern territories.

A scenario of increased Chinese incursions into Russia's Far East territories will not, in itself, trigger a major falling-out between Moscow and Beijing. But as the projected imbalance of military and economic power between Russia and China grows wider, Moscow is likely to see its Chinese neighbor as a greater threat and constraint on its ambitions than America and Western Europe.

The reason, as Spkyman insisted, is due to the immutable factor of geography. China and Russia will increasingly see their competition for influence in Central Asia and Siberia as a zero-sum game.

So far, China has been relatively accommodating to Russian sensitivities in the Far East. But Moscow suspects this has been primarily due to Beijing's desire to focus its military and strategic attention on Taiwan and the South China Sea. Moreover, China is currently Russia's most lucrative arms market. But Moscow is well-aware that Beijing is currently reverse-engineering Russian designs of its most advanced weaponry, and that Chinese reliance on Russian military hardware and technology will diminish over time.

The apparently warm military-to-military relationship between Moscow and Beijing is shallow, and relatively minor disputes between the two will fester rather than evaporate. Many in Moscow believe it is only a matter of time until China looks north again.

Furthermore, any genuine Russia-China strategic cooperation moving forward is limited by the fact that the two countries' strategic planners have enormously different worldviews for the future. China sees the coming world order as a bipolar one defined by U.S.-China competition, with powers such as the EU countries, Japan, India and Russia relegated to the second tier. In contrast, although Russia remains wary of the U.S. and the EU using an expanded NATO to restrict its influence in Eastern Europe,

Russia is determined to remain one of the handful of powers (including China) entrenched just below the American superpower in the global power hierarchy. Therefore, Moscow will seek to position itself as a "middle man" between the U.S. and China, and will become increasingly resentful if Beijing ignores these ambitions -- possibly even moving closer to America as a result.

Even if Russia continues to decline, it will likely remain a great power for decades. The apparent friendship between Moscow and Beijing is pragmatic but superficial.

In Chinese strategic circles, there is a nightmare future scenario: strategic cooperation between the U.S., Japan and Russia.

China takes this possibility seriously. Washington, Tokyo and Brussels should, too.

Dr. John Lee is the foreign policy fellow at the Center for Independent Studies in Sydney and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. He is the author of "Will China Fail?" (CIS: 2009).

View Article in the World Politics Review

CHINA & JAPAN: Japan warning to China 'has domestic cause'

Updated: 2010-01-20 07:25

By Cheng Guangjin and Liu Qi (China Daily)

Ruling party's declining support forces govt to divert discontent

Domestic political uncertainty in Japan caused the country's foreign minister to threaten on Sunday that "action" would be taken against China over Chinese exploration of the Chunxiao oil and gas fields in the East China Sea, Chinese experts said.

Katsuya Okada said during a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi on Sunday in Tokyo that if China violates an agreement signed in 2008 governing the development of oil and gas field in East China Sea, "Japan will have to take certain action", the AFP reported.

In response, Yang emphasized that "the sovereign rights of Chunxiao oil and gas field belong to China", according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

"Under the 2008 agreement on the East China Sea issue between the two countries, the Chunxiao oil and gas fields can be cooperatively developed, which means that China's sovereignty over Chunxiao is indisputable, but China still welcomes Japan to participate in the development," said Yang Bojiang, director of Japanese Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

Okada's remarks were a deliberate misinterpretation of the 2008 agreement designed to make the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) look tough before Japan's upcoming parliamentary elections, Chinese analysts said.

The current government, led by Yukio Hatoyama, wants to divert the public attention to the diplomatic dispute with China from a funding scandal involving the DPJ's secretary-general, Ichiro Ozawa, Yang Bojiang said.

Ozawa has come under fire after prosecutors arrested three of his current and former aides on suspicion of improper reporting of political donations. Ozawa denies any intentional wrongdoing.

Opposition parties have threatened to boycott parliamentary debate on an extra budget to prop up the economy if the ruling Democratic Party dodges questions about the scandal.

"The DPJ has very weak social support, and is nervous about losing the upcoming parliamentary election to Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has far more supporters," he said.

Gao Hong, a Japan studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed. "The Hatoyama cabinet hopes to use this to increase its domestic support," he said.

Just 41.5 percent of voters approve of Hatoyama's cabinet, while 44.1 percent disapprove, Reuters reported, citing a survey by the Kyodo news agency. That is the first time more people have disapproved than approved since Hatoyama took office.

Surveys by the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri newspapers also showed voter support for Hatoyama's government has dropped to 42 and 45 percent, respectively, roughly equal to its disapproval ratings.

However, the DPJ's move on the Chunxiao oil and gas fields will only please some voters in a short term, Yang said.

"The major reason for Hatoyama's declining popularity lies in his hesitation in pressing ahead with reforms and policies," Yang said.

JAPAN: Electing a Town Mayor in Okinawa: Report from the Nago Trenches

Urashima Etsuko with an introduction and translation by Gavan McCormack

Town hall Japanese politics is rarely of much interest beyond the town, much less beyond the country.

The election of a new mayor in Nago City in Okinawa on 24 January, however, is something very much out of the ordinary. It would be no exaggeration to say that no local election in postwar Japan has carried such weight.

Thirteen years ago a former mayor carried to Tokyo the verdict of this city in a local plebiscite. The people had voted clearly against the then proposal to build a base for the US Marines in the city at Henoko. Delivering the outcome, however, the mayor rejected it, declaring that Nago City was ready to accept and cooperate in the base project, and then resigned.

Since then the city has lived a bitter struggle between those who represent special interests (basically construction-related groups and those who see no hope for Okinawa’s depressed economy other than jobs and fees from the construction state) and those who insist on priority to economic policies geared to locally sustainable jobs in harmony with the environment.

During that 13 years, the pro-base elements, till 2009 centered in the Liberal-Democratic Party-based system that ran national, prefectural and city governments, developed a complex structure of persuasion and “buy-off” designed to neutralize, divide and defeat the anti-base citizen groups. Monies under a “Northern Districts Development” formula (tied to submission to the base project) were poured into Nago City and surrounding districts (80 billion yen in 2000 to 2009), filling the coffers of construction and public works-related groups and easing the fiscal crisis of local governments.

At elections, the LDP made every effort to avoid a focus on the base issue, while stressing its ability to provide jobs and money.

The resistance never gave up, however, and opinion surveys showed that support for their cause scarcely wavered.

Anti-base demonstration, December 2009.

In August 2009 the citizens of Nago saw the ousting of the old regime in the national elections as the turning of the tide in their favor. Since then the US government has persisted in extraordinary pressure on Prime Minister Hatoyama to proceed with the deals pushed through in the last days of the LDP regime by an anxious Obama administration, i.e., to construct the promised Marine base at Henoko (Nago City). In December, the Tokyo government postponed a final decision till May 2010. One of the factors to which it has said it will attach particular weight is the outcome of this election. In Washington, too, there can be no doubt that it is watched with especial interest.

Through these 13 years, “conservative” (pro-base) groups have always insisted that they can be relied on to handle economic problems better and to produce better outcomes in terms of jobs and services because they enjoy better “pipelines” of connection to the national government and to national business.

The record, however, is that over the years from 2000 to 2009 dependence deepened, unemployment in Nago City rose to 12.5 per cent, well above the prefectural average and more than double the national average, jobs and incomes shrank, shops and business closed, and the economic performance of the city was significantly worse than that of others that did not “enjoy” special subsidies.

Nago’s performance was among the worst not only in Okinawa but in the country. It has recently been shown that, far from there being a “benefit” attached to base-related income, towns and villages without bases in general fare much better than those with them, and those that have managed to recover parcels of base land have found that productivity and income tends to shoot up, sometimes by as much as twenty, thirty, or even forty times, after reversion from military to civilian use (figures from a study conducted by the prefecture quoted in Maedomari Hiromori, “’Kichi izon keizai’ to iu shinwa” The myth of a ‘base-dependent economy’, Sekai, February 2010, pp. 203-209, especially p. 207).

The three opinion poll surveys on Nago City published on 19 January (Yomiuri shimbun, Okinawa Times and Asahi shimbun, and Ryukyu shimpo and Okinawa TV) found that around 70 per cent of Nago citizens do not want any new base in their city. Those wanting the Futenma base relocated somewhere else out of the prefecture were 73, 65, and 69 per cent respectively, while those ready to accept it at Henoko were 16, 16, and 9 per cent. But it is necessary to stress that the election involves multiple local issues as well as the base. It is not a referendum on the Henoko base issue, indeed the Ryukyu shimpo poll also showed, remarkably, that only a minority saw the base as the key issue of the election.

On 24 January, the people of Nago (45,000 eligible voters) have one more chance to deliver to Tokyo the message they tried and failed to deliver in 1997. The stakes are high and the struggle fierce, as Urashima Etsuko, Nago-resident and long-term citizen-activist-author, writes in this short essay, scheduled for publication immediately after the election but written several days before it. (GMcC)

Nago City is now in the throes of a mayoral election (24 January) whose outcome will affect not only the future of the city and its citizens but the future of Japan itself.

The challenger, Inamine Susumu, who stands for an end to the base problem that has held the city in its thrall now for 13 years, promises to put an end to the special interests tied up with the base that have destroyed the city’s finances and to implement a city politics based on citizens, faces the incumbent, Shimabukuro Yoshikazu, who favours accepting the American base and continuing with the city politics mired in “Zenekon” general construction company special interests.

Shimabukuro Yoshikazu, the incumbent

The characteristic of this election is that six Assembly members who supported Shimabukuro in the last election are now prominent in the Inamine camp. Adding to these the members of Centre and Reform camps, 14 of 26 Assembly members now support Inamine. The Shimabukuro camp feels a sense of crisis over the fact that Inamine is getting widespread support from the Democratic Party (DPJ), Social Democratic Party (SDPJ), Kokumin Shinto, Okinawa Mass, Okinawa Social Mass, Japan Communist Party (JCP), labor unions and civic organizations, together with some small and medium, and also really small, businesses worried that they may not be able to survive the dominance of the Zenekon (big contractors), and is resorting to desperate and unscrupulous electoral measures.

Inamine Susumu, the challenger

The string-puller is Higa Tetsuya, who as mayor in 1997 announced the acceptance of the base plan, thereby trampling on the will of the people who had just voted against it in the Nago City Plebiscite. After resigning, he has continued to run Nago City government as shadow mayor, with strong connections to the Zenekon construction companies.

Today’s mayor Shimabukuro is seen as Higa’s puppet, and Inamine’s support team says that “one of the main objectives of the election this time is to put paid to this string puller who runs Nago City.”

The “get-togethers” (kondankai) held on countless occasions by the Shimabukuro camp are known as “Higa Tetsuya Get Togethers” and it is said that they involve bar crawls (get-togethers in the form of drinking sessions), golf and bowling sessions, and the distribution of expensive presents. It is also said that the Shimabukuro camp applies pressure on businesses, intimidating them so that “not even the “I” of “Inamine” should pass the lips” of employees, threatening that those that support Inamine will in future be excluded from the contract bidding process, and spreading word that “if Inamine becomes mayor, rental payments on base land will cease.”

I live in the Kishi district of Henoko, along Oura Bay, which is also where Shimabukuro comes from. Thanks to 13 years of being pickled in the system of special subsidies, the heads of all 13 wards in Kishi gave up opposition to the base and switched to supporting Shimabukuro, thereby earning the fierce resentment of residents. We now struggle night and day to free ourselves from the voodoo that surrounds the base, which affects both politics and economics, and to restore city government to the people of the city.

After the election was declared on 18 January, the Shimabukuro camp, taking advantage of the provision in the election system for early voting, began a campaign to muster votes collectively, business by business, before election day. Their target is to get 10,000 votes before the 21st. From the opening day, the extraordinary scene unfolded of a steady stream of cars lining up outside the early vote polling station in front of the Nago City election commission office. People were even queuing up.

Last election (2006) 9,588 advance votes were cast, amounting to more than 30 per cent of electors. This time, there were 50 per cent more votes cast on the opening day than in 2006, so it is likely that the overall total may also be higher.

On 19 January, citizen groups supporting Inamine lodged a complaint with the Election Commission under the Public Office Election Law, arguing that the mobilization of advance votes was the antithesis of free voting.

Urashima Etsuko is an environmental activist, author, and chronicler of Okinawan people’s movements of resistance against bases and hyper-development and for nature conservation. For her analysis of the previous (2006) Nago mayoral election, see: “The Nago Mayoral Election and Okinawa’s Search for a Way Beyond Bases and Dependence.” The present article was written on 13 January for publication in Jaanarisuto,(No 622) journal of the Japan Journalists’ Association, on 25 January.

Gavan McCormack is emeritus professor at Australian National University, coordinator of The Asia-Pacific Journal and author, most recently, of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).

Recommended citation: Gavan McCormack, "Electing a Town Mayor in Okinawa: Report from the Nago Trenches," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 4-1-10, January 25, 2010.

View Article in Japan Focus

TRAVEL: Airports in China, Hong Kong, Japan and S. Korea Deemed “Most Beautiful” in the World

From January 2010 By Karrie Jacobs

Envision a majestic space, two miles long, shaped like a dragon. Above, a flurry of reds and yellows color a dizzying mesh ceiling, backlit by the sun, and below, 50 million people pass each year. This building, one of the world's largest, is no palace or museum—it's Terminal 3 at Beijing International Airport.

Flight delays are less painful inside a gorgeous, well-designed airport.

Airports, of course, aren't always so glorious. Most often, they're merely utilitarian entry and exit points for travelers who may be too harried to notice the design. But a growing number of cities have spent lavishly, hiring starchitects to elevate the basic terminal-and-tower structure into a city's captivating gateway.

This is especially true in Asia. Eager to demonstrate their affluence and technological mastery, countries like China and South Korea have led the world in the construction of gargantuan new facilities that are unparalleled in their architectural style and engineering.

"Airports are a national symbol, therefore no expense is spared to make sure mine is better than yours," says architect Ron Steinert, an airport expert with the international architecture firm Gensler.

Unfortunately, it might be hard to envision an airport like Beijing's in the U.S., where flying is generally no more inspiring than taking a bus (and sometimes less so). Sure, back in the 1960s, when Eero Saarinen's landmark TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy was completed, air travel was a glamorous, exciting experience for a relatively small number of people. (In 1960, JFK handled 8.8 million passengers a year. These days it's upward of 48 million.) But today, airports like Cleveland-Hopkins International and La Guardia are so dreary and difficult to navigate, their terminals only add to what is already a dreaded travel experience.

Still, some U.S. airports have moments of beauty, such as the light tunnel at Chicago O'Hare's United Airlines terminal, a breakthrough when it was completed in 1988, or artist Michele Oka Doner's sea life–embedded floor at Miami's Concourse A, which earned a cameo in the George Clooney movie Up in the Air.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is building entire new terminals that infuse air travel with some of its old magic. T4 at Madrid's Barajas airport is, according to the New Yorker's architecture critic Paul Goldberger, "more breathtakingly beautiful than any airport I have ever seen." And Santiago Calatrava's Sondika airport in Bilbao is "cathedral-like, a great space to be in," according to Design Within Reach's globetrotting founder Rob Forbes.

And the world's most beautiful airports aren't just for show—they also bring heightened functionality. "There's a need for legibility to the actual design and a linear flow," says engineer Regine Weston, an airport expert for Arup who studies the pragmatic side of airport beauty. "So when you're in a building you have a very good sense of what happens next and where you go."

In other words, these airports will not only dazzle you—their design may also help you get to your gate on time.

Lou Linwei/Alamy

Terminal 3, Beijing International Airport

Opened in time for the 2008 Olympics, the vast Terminal 3 (two miles long and one of the largest buildings in the world) is supposed to represent a dragon. Architects Foster + Partners color-coded the ceiling—a dizzyingly complex mesh that allows sunlight to filter in—with red zones and yellow zones. Not only does the traditionally Chinese color scheme heighten the building's drama, it also helps passengers navigate the building.

Beauty Mark: Arriving passengers disembark at the airport's highest level: "You're walking through a massive, massive space which is the gateway to China," says Foster + Partners CEO Mouzhan Majidi.

dbimages/Alamy

Incheon International Airport, South Korea

Since its opening in 2001, Incheon, designed by Denver's Fentress Architects, has been a frequent presence at the number one spot on lists of the world's best airports. Not only is it efficient and welcoming, it is intended to be a showcase of Korean culture. The bow of the roofline emulates a traditional Korean temple, the arrival hallways are lined with 5,000 years of Korean artifacts, and the airport's wildly biomorphic train terminal is one of the few places on earth that still looks genuinely futuristic.

Beauty Mark: Visit the Pine Tree Garden in Millennium Hall and the Wildflower Garden in the basement of the Transportation Center.

Tim Graham/Alamy

Chek Lap Kok Airport, Hong Kong

Compared with the spectacular Beijing airport, this 1998 Foster + Partners project is relatively humble. Its beauty can be attributed to its extraordinary functionality. Even the sleepiest passenger off the 17-hour flight from New York can maneuver through this airport with eyes half open. Billowy roof vaults work like subliminal arrows, constantly nudging passengers in the right direction. Between the Jetway and the express train to Hong Kong, there are no stairs or escalators.

Beauty Mark: The train to Hong Kong Central is right in the main terminal building and impossible to miss. Departing Hong Kong, passengers can simply drop their bags at the train station downtown, and not only will they make it to the airport, they’ll also be checked onto the departing flight.

VIEW Pictures Ltd/Alamy

Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan

While it's no longer the world's largest, the airport that rests on a giant man-made island two miles off the coast of Osaka is still a thing of wonder. Designed by architect Renzo Piano and opened in 1994, it is a single, sunlight-filled tube, a supersize airplane fuselage that stretches for more than a mile, with a roofline that moves through space like a wave. International passengers, departing from the terminal's top floor, are treated to a display of exposed structure—as in the architect's famous early work, the Centre Pompidou—revealing the exquisite complexity of this deceptively simple building.

Beauty Mark: Adjacent to the airport is Sky View, "the very first aero theme park in Japan," where you can play with flight simulators or watch takeoffs and landings from the observatory level.

View Article in Travel + Leisure

MACAU: Gaming revenue hit 120 billion last year

21/01/2010 01:03:00

The gaming industry in Macau ended last year with a total gross revenue of more than MOP120 billion [over 15 billion US dollars]  according to information from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

The gross revenue of the gaming industry, hitting positive marks in just over 9.5 percent, comes from MOP119 billion of gross revenues of casino gambling and MOP1 billion in greyhound racing, horse racing, lotteries, as well as football and basketball bettings.

In line with figures released by Portuguese news agency Lusa earlier this year, the numbers now known specifically show that baccarat, the most popular “green cloth” table game accounted for 88.24 percent of the total gross income registered in casinos or 87.49 percent of the total revenue of the sector.

VIP baccarat, played at high roller tables, generated revenues of MOP79.8 billion, and represents 66.88 percent of the casino revenues, or 66.31 percent of overall revenue of the gaming industry.

The slot machines were the second largest source of revenue for local casinos with MOP6.5 billion registered, which represents 5.44 percent of casino revenues or 5.4 percent of the revenues of the sector.

At the end of last year, the six local operators managed 33 casinos, with 14,363 slot machines and 4,770 gaming tables available to gamblers.

From the information compiled by Lusa from the operators at the beginning of the year, casino mogul Stanley Ho led the market last year with a market share of almost 30 percent, followed by the US Sands China, with about 23 percent of the market share, and by Wynn Resorts, with about 15 percent.

Melco/PBL, with just over 12 percent of market share, Galaxy Resorts with 11.5 percent and MGM Macau with almost 9 percent, make up the second half of the table of casino operators’ market share.

View Article in the Macau Daily Times

CHINA: 2D Avatar axed from China cinemas

11:46 GMT, Wednesday, 20 January 2010

China has pulled the 2D version of Avatar from cinemas amid claims the plot mirrors forced land evictions in the country.

Avatar was named best film at the Golden Globes

Authorities insist the decision was a commercial one, saying the 3D version made up two-thirds of ticket revenues.

Critics claim the film's plot parallels the removal of millions of residents to make way for property developers.

The government has also denied reports that a decision was made to reduce competition for home-grown films.

Confucius, starring Chow Yun-fat, will be released in China next week

They include a state-backed biopic of philosopher Confucius, starring Chow Yun-fat, which is due out next week.

But Zhang Hongsen, of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, told Chinese state media: "As the box office receipts for its 2D version are not very good, it's normal for this version of the film to be taken off."

Highest-grossing film

In Avatar, a ruthless corporation tries to force the native Na'vi from their homes in order to mine their planet's precious natural resources.

Writing in English-language newspaper China Daily, columnist Huang Hung said the smash-hit film mirrored China's rules on forced eviction.

"All the forced removal of old neighbourhoods in China makes us the only earthlings today who can really feel the pain of the Na'vi," she wrote.

In December, a Chinese man was treated in hospital after setting himself on fire in Beijing to protest against the demolition of his home.

The previous month, a woman died after setting herself alight in a similar protest.

Avatar had been showing on 2,500 screens across China. One-third were Imax and 3D screens while the rest were regular 2D screens.

The cinema is still considered a pricey treat in China, with tickets for the 2D version of Avatar costing 30 to 40 yuan (£2.60 to £3.50), with 3D tickets from 60 to 80 yuan (£5.20 to £7).

Avatar is already the highest-grossing film of all time in China, pulling in more than 300m yuan (£27m).

But not all films are given access to the Chinese market.

China restricts the number of foreign films shown in the country to 20 each year, a policy that has led to complaints from the US.

View Article in the BBC News

JAPAN: 'New' hope, anxiety in Japan's Kanji of the Year

Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010

By MARY SISK NOGUCHI

BILINGUAL

新

As the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation conducted its 15th annual Kanji of the Year poll, inviting the nation to decide which single kanji best symbolized 2009.

Until the call for votes went out, kanji aficionados had been biting their nails over whether this year's poll would be held — uncertain due to the indictment last May of the nonprofit foundation's former director and his son on charges of incurring huge losses in order to benefit their family businesses. But on Dec. 11, the chief priest of Kiyomizu Temple — apparently satisfied that a revamped foundation would no longer be involved in kanji criminal capers — announced the winner in the usual fashion, in bold strokes on a huge sheet of paper set up at the temple.

A record 161,000 participants voted this year. Some poll watchers had pegged 民 (MIN, citizen) as a shoo-in to win, based on the top domestic news event of 2009: the landslide Lower House victory in late August of the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党, Minshutou, citizen/master/political party) over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). But 民 ended up in the No. 7 position, edging out No. 8, 鳩 (hato, pigeon), the first kanji in the family name of the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山, pigeon/mountain).

The jolt the nation felt when half a century of majority rule by the LDP was terminated was also memorialized in a number of other top-10 finishers: No. 6, 変 ( kaeru, change), No. 5, 改 (aratameru, reform), and

No. 3, 政 (SEI, "government" — the first kanji in compound words 政党 [seitou, political party] and 政治 [seiji, politics]). The combination of 政 with 権 (KEN, power to rule), No. 10 交 (KOU, exchange) and No. 9 代 (TAI, substitute) forms the four-kanji compound 政権交代 (seiken koutai, regime change), announced last month as the winner of the 2009 Shingo-Ryuukougo Taishou (New Popular Word Grand Prize).

The No. 2 vote-getter in the Kanji of the Year poll, 病 (BYOU, sickness), reflected a national obsession with the spread of H1N1 influenza, beginning last spring with thousands of school closings as the first cases were confirmed — and continuing now with a snow-white sea of face masks blanketing the archipelago.

A shortage of H1N1 vaccine and a government ban on teens taking Tamiflu were flu-related events cited for the choice of No. 4, 薬 (kusuri, drugs). Other 2009 news events related to 薬 were the rash of entertainers arrested for possession of illegal drugs, the government decision to allow retail outlets to sell over-the-counter drugs (resulting in slashed prices), and the "too much cold medicine" excuse offered by now-deceased Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa to explain his slurred answers at a Group of Seven news conference in February.

And what was the Grand Kanji Champion of 2009? The top vote-getter, chosen by 9 percent of poll participants, was 新 (SHIN/atarashii, meaning "new").

The DPJ victory (新政権誕生, shinseiken tanjou, new regime's birth) and H1N1 flu (新型インフルエンザ, shingata infuruenza, new-type influenza) gave steam to 新. But a variety of groundbreaking policies and programs introduced last year also contributed to its victory: the new lay-judge system, tax breaks for eco-friendly cars and major cuts in weekend highway tolls. Finally, a new American Major League Baseball record set in September by favorite-son export Ichiro Suzuki — nine consecutive 200-hit seasons — made a deep impression even among marginal baseball fans.

A 48-year-old male poll participant summed up the ambivalent mood of the nation as it bid goodbye to one decade and prepared to face the challenges of the next: "I chose 新 because 2009 was a year mixed with hope for — and fear of — new things."

Quiz:

Match each of the following kanji with the year it was Kanji of the Year. A major news event for each year is provided as a hint.

1. 偽 (fake, nise)
2. 命 (life, inochi)
3. 変 (change, HEN)
4. 新 (new, atarashii)
5. 帰 (return, kaeru)
6. 愛 (love, AI)
7. 戦 (war, SEN)
8. 金 (gold, KIN)
9. 災 (disaster, SAI)
10. 虎 (tiger, tora)

a. 2000 (Japanese athletes took medals at the Sydney Olympics)
b. 2001 (Sept. 11 terrorist attacks)
c. 2002 (five Japanese abducted to North Korea returned to Japan)
d. 2003 (an Osaka baseball team became Central League champs)
e. 2004 (a record-breaking 10 typhoons hit the Japanese mainland)
f. 2005 (Emperor Akihito's only daughter married a commoner)
g. 2006 (the first boy was born into the Imperial family in 40 years)
h. 2007 (scandals involving falsified food labels/ingredients erupted)
i. 2008 (the U.S. sub-prime loan crisis rocked the world economy)
j. 2009 (DPJ defeated the LDP in Lower House elections)

ANSWERS:
1. h
2. g
3. i
4. j
5. c
6. f
7. b
8. a
9. e
10. d

Explore kanji-learning materials utilizing component analysis at www.kanjiclinic.com

View Article in The Japan Times

HONG KONG: HK again ranked as world's freest economy

(AFP) – 10 hours ago

Hong Kong remains the world's freest place to do business, according to an annual report published Wednesday

 

 

 

 

 

 

HONG KONG — Hong Kong remains the world's freest place to do business while the United States has lost its claim to an unrestricted economy, according to an annual report published Wednesday.

Hong Kong, a former British colony which was returned to China in 1997, edged out rival Singapore to claim top spot for the sixteenth consecutive year in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom.

Australia and New Zealand grabbed third and fourth spot respectively.

The report is compiled by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think tank, and The Wall Street Journal.

Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Denmark and Chile rounded out the top ten list, which is based on criteria including economic openness, trade, the efficiency of domestic regulators, and the rule of law.

But Canada pushed the US from the top seven economies deemed to have an entirely free economy due to "notable decreases in financial freedom, monetary freedom, and property rights," the report said.

"The US government’s interventionist responses to the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 have significantly undermined economic freedom and long-term prospects for economic growth," the report said.

Mainland China was ranked 140 in the list of 183 countries with Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea rounding out the bottom of the list.

View Article in the AFP

CHINA: Evidence Found for Chinese Attack on Google

Published: January 19, 2010

By JOHN MARKOFF

SAN FRANCISCO — An American computer security researcher has found what he says he believes is strong evidence of the digital fingerprints of Chinese authors in the software programs used in attacks against Google.

The search engine giant announced last Tuesday that it had experienced a series of Internet break-ins it believed were of Chinese origin. The company’s executives did not, however, detail the evidence leading them to the conclusion that the Chinese government was behind the attacks, beyond stating that e-mail accounts of several Chinese human rights activists had been compromised.

In the week since the announcement, several computer security companies have made claims supporting Google’s suspicions, but the evidence has remained circumstantial.

Now, by analyzing the software used in the break-ins against Google and dozens of other companies, Joe Stewart, a malware specialist with SecureWorks, a computer security company based in Atlanta, said he determined the main program used in the attack contained a module based on an unusual algorithm from a Chinese technical paper that has been published exclusively on Chinese-language Web sites.

The malware at the heart of Google attack is described by researchers as a “Trojan horse” that is intended to open a back door to a computer on the Internet. The program, called Hydraq by the computer security research community and intended to subvert computers that run different versions of the Windows operating system, was first noticed earlier this year.

Mr. Stewart describes himself as a “reverse engineer,” one of a relatively small group of software engineers who disassemble malware codes in an effort to better understand the nature of the attacks that have been introduced by the computer underground, and now possibly by governments as well.

“If you look at the code in a debugger you see patterns that jump out at you,” he said. In this case he discovered software code that represented an unusual algorithm, or formula, intended for error-checking transmitted data.

He acknowledged that he could not completely rule out the possibility that the clue had been placed in the program intentionally by programmers from another government intent on framing the Chinese, but he said that was unlikely. “Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the best one.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 20, 2010, on page B4 of the New York edition.

View Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: After Atom Bombs’ Shock, the Real Horrors Began Unfolding

Published: January 19, 2010

By DWIGHT GARNER

The atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945,                  United States Military

When Tsutomu Yamaguchi died two weeks ago, at 93, he was eulogized as a star-crossed rarity: a man who lived through two atomic blasts, at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki. He was a man with very good luck, or very bad luck. It’s hard to decide.

THE LAST TRAIN FROM HIROSHIMA

The Survivors Look Back

By Charles Pellegrino

Illustrated. 367 pages. Henry Holt. $27.50.

But Mr. Yamaguchi wasn’t alone. He was one of as many as 165 people who are believed to have survived Hiroshima only to wind up in Nagasaki when that bomb fell three days later. The stories of these double survivors make up part of Charles Pellegrino’s sober and authoritative new book, “The Last Train From Hiroshima.”

The term “ground zero” originated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived up-close encounters with these new American bombs did so thanks to sheer, blind good fortune. They were in exactly the right place at the right time, sheltered from the gamma and infrared death rays, and then from the flattening blast, in spots that acted as natural shock cocoons.

The Hiroshima survivors learned invaluable lessons about surviving a nuclear detonation, but they were discouraged from disseminating this knowledge in the immediate aftermath. Japan’s military leaders did not want to spread “bad stories” and “rumors of defeat.” Some of these survivors talked anyway. They surely saved some lives.

The Japanese called the atom bomb the pika-don, the “flash-bang.” One lesson about it was this: If you see and survive the pika, you have a few seconds to duck. The don is on its way. Another lesson: wearing white helps. One doctor, Mr. Pellegrino writes, “reported numerous instances of women and children wearing patterned clothing, sometimes displaying flowers on white cloth. The dark flowers were now branded permanently onto their skin.”

Yet another lesson: the sound of a B-29 bomber diving and flying like hell, straining its engines to get out of the way, is a sound to take seriously.

Many, many other things were still to be learned about these bombs, each worse than the next. People who wore wristwatches were branded where the metal met their skin, and quickly developed radiation sickness. The bombs acted like a microwave oven, heating metal until it glowed.

Many people reported that the smell of burning human flesh was “quite similar to the scent of squid when it was grilled over hot coals,” Mr. Pellegrino writes, “with a few pieces of sweet pork thrown alongside.” And then of course were the lingering horrors of what the Japanese called “atomic bomb disease.”

“The Last Train From Hiroshima” is a clear-eyed catalog of every such horror, and not for the weak-stomached. Mr. Pellegrino follows his survivors as they trudge through wastelands that make “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy read like “Goodnight, Moon.” He describes the so-called “ant-walking alligators” that the survivors saw everywhere, men and women who “were now eyeless and faceless — with their heads transformed into blackened alligator hides displaying red holes, indicating mouths.”

The author continues: “The alligator people did not scream. Their mouths could not form the sounds. The noise they made was worse than screaming. They uttered a continuous murmur — like locusts on a midsummer night. One man, staggering on charred stumps of legs, was carrying a dead baby upside down.”

Mr. Pellegrino, whose many previous books include “Ghosts of the Titanic” (he also served as a scientific consultant to the director James Cameron on his Titanic expeditions and on “Avatar”), relates many stories in this book, not only those of wounded survivors but also of American and Japanese pilots and many others.

He pays particular attention to forensic detail, and provides a slow-motion, almost instant-by-instant explanation of how the atom bomb discharged its fury. There is not a lot that is new here, but “The Last Train From Hiroshima” is a firm, compelling synthesis of earlier memoirs and archival material, as well as of the author’s own interviews and research. This is gleaming, popular wartime history, John Hersey infused with Richard Preston and a fleck of Michael Crichton.

This isn’t a book that wrestles deeply with the moral calculus of the decision to drop the atomic bombs. Mr. Pellegrino doesn’t say whether he agrees with Paul Fussell, who wrote in “Thank God for the Atomic Bomb” that “the degree to which Americans register shock and extraordinary shame about the Hiroshima bomb correlates closely with lack of information about the Pacific war.”

But he certainly studies every kind of fallout and does not neglect the spiritual variety. He writes about one doctor who “recalled that those who survived the atomic bomb were, in general, the people who ignored others crying out in extremis or who stayed away from the flames, even when patients and colleagues shrieked from within them.”

This doctor confessed: “Those of us who stayed where we were, those of us who took refuge in the hills behind the hospital when the fires began to spread and close in, happened to escape alive. In short, those who survived the bomb were, if not merely lucky, in a greater or lesser degree selfish, self-centered — guided by instinct and not by civilization. And we know it, we who have survived.”

Mr. Yamaguchi, the double survivor, was among the advocates of a simple plan to end nuclear war, Mr. Pellegrino writes. That plan went like this: The only people who should be allowed to govern countries with nuclear weapons are mothers, those who are still breast-feeding their babies.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 20, 2010, on page C1 of the New York edition.

View Article in The New York Times

Click here to read an excerpt from the book

S. KOREA: Seoul Unprepared for Earthquakes

01-19-2010 21:51

By Park Si-soo, Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporters

Nearly nine out of 10 commercial and residential buildings in Seoul were built without earthquake-resistant technology, a recent research showed Tuesday.

According to research conducted by Seoul City, only 6,100 out of 628,000 buildings in the metropolitan city with 12 million people are resistant to an earthquake whose magnitude is tantamount to the one that virtually devastated Haiti last week, leaving huge numbers of casualties.

Only six percent of buildings in central Seoul, including Yongsan and Jongno, were designed with quake-resistant technology, while nearly 20 percent of buildings in southern Seoul, including Gangnam and Seocho were built to withstand major tremors, the research said.

Meanwhile, a state institute said Monday Korea is not safe from earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti, calling for swifter emergency measures against the natural disaster.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7 in a small part of a metropolitan area could kill more than 50,000 people, injure more than 620,000, and tear down 929,000 buildings nationwide, according to the National Emergency Management Agency.

Researchers used a computer to simulate an earthquake on a southwestern part of Seoul and found that the death toll would mark 419,746 in Seoul; 45,364 in Incheon; 199 in South Chungcheong; 73 in North Chungcheong; and 65 in Gangwon. Other southern areas would not be affected harshly, it said. Among 6.6 million buildings registered nationwide, 929,230 would be destroyed or severely damaged, it said, stressing the immense effect of the possible disaster.

Korea used to be considered relatively immune to the natural disaster for being situated in the center of one of the earth's plates. However, the emergency agency said, "The increase of a single unit in scale could increase the damage by 32 times in real life."

Still, only 18.1 percent of public and large buildings here are built earthquake-proof and less than 13.7 percent of schools are resistant to the phenomenon, as of 2008 and 2007, respectively.

The government adopted a contingency plan in 2008, which includes early alarm systems that take effect within 50 seconds from detection. The researchers called for more support in construction or the remodeling of non-earthquake-proof buildings.

According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, there have been about 60 earthquakes reported on the Korean peninsula in 2009, the largest number in 31 years of recording.

However, people shouldn't be too alarmed, the weather agency said. Most of them were not even detectable by ordinary people, it said.

"Only eight of them were over a magnitude of 3, a level where people could feel the ground shaking or the vibration," it said in a press release.

View Article in The Korea Times

CHINA: Chinese bid farewell to quake-killed peacekeepers

2010-1-20 

Source: Xinhua    

CHINESE bid farewell to eight peacekeeping police officers, who were killed in the 7.3-magnitude earthquake in Haiti last week, this morning.

Top leaders Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang attended the farewell ceremony held at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing.

The bodies of the eight officers were placed in coffins decorated by white chrysanthemums and covered by China's red national flags.
A black banner was hung upon their pictures, which reads "Deeply mourning Chinese peacekeeping police officers who lost their lives in the Haiti earthquake."

All nine leaders, in black suits with white flowers pinned on their chest, stood in silent tribute and bowed three times toward the coffins of the police officers.

Hu Jintao and other leaders shook hands with family members of the eight deceased one by one, expressing deep sorrow and condolence.

View Article in the Shanghai Daily

JAPAN: Hunks are business eye-candy in Japan

Tuesday 19th January, 2010 (IANS)

Malaysia News.Net

At the entrance to a Tokyo fashion boutique a tall Japanese man holds open the doors for the shop's female customers. The young man is tall, well-built and handsome, sports black hair cut in the latest fashion, perfect skin, a cool look and is always impeccably polite. Just like the ladies like it.

Japan's businesses are well aware of that fact.

While in the past, pretty young women were tasked with reeling in the customers, an ever increasing number of those good-looking 'ikemen', as those hunks are called in Japanese, join the ranks of the business eye-candy.

'We get new orders all the time,' said Masami Morita, vice-president of Okake Untenshu, a chauffeur service. His Tokyo-based company, which has many female clients, started in November to provide exceptionally good-looking drivers for its customers, he told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

Okake Untenshu's 300 registered drivers had to undergo a strict selection process, he said. The company now employs six ikemen, but plans to increase that number to 20, due to popular demand.

The ikemen trend reflects the changing structures of Japan's economy. Some 60 percent of its gross domestic product is created in the service sector, which may be famous for the exceptional politeness of its numerous salesgirls and its fantastic customer service approach, but is not known for turning out profits.

The sector's profitability has been obstructed by producers controlling distribution all the way to department stores and supermarkets, said Martin Schulz, an economist at the Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo.

Focussed customer-orientation that went beyond the expected general politeness never happened. Each time the country entered an economic crisis, restructuring efforts only led to better distribution networks and lower costs, Schulz said.
Japan's businesses rarely tried to improve their marketing strategies or customer focus.

This pattern is changing, especially as younger customers are less interested in the products turned out by Japan's established industries, such as cars, television sets or refrigerators.
Merchandise quality alone is not enough; customers of today expect more, particularly service.

Department stores offer their own product lines, restaurants are keen to have their signature style, and design and marketing gains newfound importance.

At the same time, the latest downturn marked Japanese women, who enter the workforce in increasing numbers, as the key consumer group to lift the country out of its economic misery.
This is where the ikemen come in, to offer that something extra that the female customer demands.

The word itself is a relatively new creation, stemming from youth slang in Osaka, where 'iketeru' means 'cool'. By adding the English word 'men', which in Japanese can also mean 'face', the term ikemen for cool, good-looking guys was born.

But beauty is not everything for becoming a successful ikemen, who also needs to be well-groomed, well-mannered, smell nice and be able to express himself, all factors of extreme importance to Japan's ladies.

'Women hate it if someone looks down on them,' Morita said.
'I used the service once ahead of an important meeting and I really felt comfortable,' said a client of Morita's service. 'Since then, I occasionally order (an ikemen driver). And I am very proud when a good-looking driver opens the door for me,' the businesswoman added.

The trend is gaining momentum: there are culture classes run by handsome teachers; in cafes and bars, regular customers come from far away to be served by 'their' ikemen.

Mika Ohi, 26, is a regular at a bar in Tokyo's hip district of Ikebukuro. She goes there because of Shinji, the 27-year-old owner.

'I come here at least twice a week,' she said. 'Shinji is looking so good and really knows a lot about cocktails. And, he is so sweet,' she said.

'You know, women often are in different moods, but Shinji is such a good listener and always smiles at me. That cheers me up,' Mika said.

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