Upcoming Cruises

TBD

Saturday, January 30, 2010

THE KOREAS: Lee may meet N.K. leader this year

Friday, January 29, 2010

ZURICH - President Lee Myung-bak said he may meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il this year to discuss the nuclear dispute and peninsular peace. "I am always ready to meet with Chairman Kim Jong-il," he said in an interview with the BBC in Davos, where he attended the World Economic Forum.

"However, if we meet, we have to engage in fruitful dialogue and hold enough discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue," Lee added.

He said the two sides should meet for reconciliation and cooperation without any conditions.

"I think the meeting will take place within the year," he said.

The North has rejected any discussion of the nuclear issue with the South, claiming that it should be settled with the United States. The North has justified its atomic weapons ambition over what it called America's hostile policies.

Cheong Wa Dae released the transcript, saying his remark is nothing but a reiteration of his consistent principle.

His top press aide, Lee Dong-kwan, said there is no practical preparation underway for the summit. The two Koreas reportedly explored the possibility of a summit last year but failed to reach an agreement.

The president's remarks came after the North fired artillery shells into waters near the disputed maritime border this week. Seoul's Defense Ministry warned it to stop raising tension.

Lee said the North's actions may be an attempt to press for a peace treaty with the United States as well as resumed talks with South Korea. "This is not a good method," he said.

The North is seen as striving to turn attention to the need of a peace treaty with the United States to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.

Pyongyang raised the demand again late last year in the face of growing pressure to return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks which it boycotted in response to U.N. sanctions against its missile and nuclear tests. The North indicated its willingness to return to the six-party talks in October.

Experts say the North may be seeking to bring the issue to the forefront in order to divert attention from denuclearization.

In the interview, Lee said North Korea faces economic difficulties because of U.N. sanctions and may be seeking to get out of the economic pinch by taking the gesture toward dialogue. The communist country, however, appears unwilling to give up its nuclear arsenal, Lee said.

"I believe North Korea is resorting to its past tactic of playing for time and delaying the resolution of the nuclear issue. But such a tactic will no longer work in the international community," he said.

Lee denied speculations about an imminent collapse of the impoverished North.

"North Korea is not on the verge of collapse. Chairman Kim Jong-il has somewhat recovered from his health problems. Though the country faces economic difficulties, it is a long-standing situation," Lee said.

"We should be prepared for a worst-case scenario but we do not believe the North's collapse is impending."

News reports this month that Seoul was stepping up preparation for a North Korean contingency triggered angry reactions from its military.

Lee will return to Seoul today from his two-day trip to Davos, where he made a special address on Thursday to outline Korea's plan for the Group of 20 summit scheduled for November.

On Friday, he met with Israeli President Shimon Peres and discussed cooperation in renewable energy and trade. He said a Korean delegation plans to visit solar and biological energy facilities in Israel in March.

He also met with Cisco Systems chairman and CEO John Chambers and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

Lee and Chambers discussed Cisco's $30 million project to build its center for IT-based, eco-friendly urban development in Korea.

Lee also discussed corporate social responsibility and aid to underdeveloped countries during a meeting with Gates, chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which is dedicated to bringing innovations in health and learning to the global community.

Lee also had a roundtable session with international business leaders and journalists on post-crisis recovery, green growth and other economic policy issues.

View Article in The Korea Herald

CHINA: Clinton Warns China on Iran Sanctions

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at a military school in Paris on Friday. Yoan Valat/European Pressphoto Agency

January 30, 2010

By MARK LANDLER

PARIS — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned China on Friday that it would face economic insecurity and diplomatic isolation if it did not sign on to tough new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, seeking to raise the pressure on Beijing to fall in line with an American-led campaign.

Speaking to students at the École Militaire, the prestigious French war college, Mrs. Clinton said, “China will be under a lot of pressure to recognize the destabilizing effect that a nuclear-armed Iran would have” in the Persian Gulf, “from which they receive a significant percentage of their oil supply.”

With Russia increasingly frustrated by Iran’s recalcitrance, China has emerged as perhaps the lone holdout to a new United Nations resolution that would focus sweeping financial and economic sanctions on Iran’s leadership, including a possible ban on sales of technology to its energy sector.

Mrs. Clinton — in a flurry of meetings this week in Europe, including one with the Chinese foreign minister — has tried to build momentum for new measures against Iran. Britain, France and Germany back the effort, and Russia, which has often blocked previous efforts, now seems ready to act.

Only China, which imports crude oil from Iran and has large investments in Iran’s oil and gas sector, has said it would prefer to continue negotiating with the Iranian government. With a veto in the United Nations Security Council, it could block a move to impose more sanctions.

“We understand that right now, that is something that seems counterproductive to you, sanction a country from which you get so much of the natural resources your growing economy needs,” Mrs. Clinton said, referring to the Chinese, in comments after a speech on European security. “But think about the longer-term implications.”

American officials have been making this argument privately to the Chinese for weeks, as the United States tries to win them over for new sanctions. But this is the first time Mrs. Clinton has publicly made the link between China’s energy security and the alarm over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

In case Beijing missed the urgency of her appeal, Mrs. Clinton remarked that a nuclear-armed Iran would risk setting off an arms race in the Persian Gulf, and that it could provoke a military strike from Israel, which she said would regard a nuclear Iran as an “existential threat.”

Tensions between China and the United States have flared recently over a range of issues, most notably Internet freedom and Google’s announcement that its systems had been hacked by sources in mainland China. Unprompted, Mrs. Clinton alluded to another source of friction: President Obama’s plan to meet with the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing condemns as a subversive.

China, she said, should not allow such irritants to derail its otherwise “positive, comprehensive” relationship with the United States.

Mrs. Clinton was in London and Paris this week for meetings on Afghanistan and Yemen, and for her security speech. But jitters about Iran and its nuclear ambitions have shadowed her at every stop.

In London, Mrs. Clinton brought along specialists on sanctions from the Treasury Department to talk to Chinese officials about technical issues, like how the Iranian government transfers money to banks in Asia to avoid restrictions on its transactions in Western banks.

Mrs. Clinton met Thursday with the Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, who was attending the Afghanistan conference. A senior administration official said Mr. Yang listened to the American arguments but reiterated his government’s preference to stick with negotiations.

International patience with Iran has frayed, particularly since Iranian authorities backed out of a deal to ship a significant portion of their lightly enriched uranium to France or Russia to be further enriched for medical purposes.

Frustration with Iran is also mounting on Capitol Hill, where the Senate passed its own sanctions bill on Thursday. Mrs. Clinton said the administration would focus on obtaining a United Nations resolution, though she said the Senate’s legislation could end up being “complementary.”

As part of the effort to broaden and toughen sanctions, the Obama administration is expected to push to add financial institutions to the blacklist of those helping Iran’s nuclear program.

The focus of these sanctions, Mrs. Clinton has said, would be on Iran’s leadership, particularly members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Many in the corps also played a role in cracking down on the enduring protests after Iran’s disputed presidential election in June.

Mrs. Clinton, who met the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, earlier in the day, said she applauded his “leadership on this issue.”

Her address on European security, the main reason for her stop in Paris, was meant to answer recent Russian proposals to revamp security arrangements on the continent, including major arms treaties.

The United States, Mrs. Clinton said, opposed negotiating new security treaties, saying that would be time-consuming and cumbersome. Instead, she said she wanted to strengthen existing institutions.

“The United States and Russia will not always agree,” she said. “Our interests will not always overlap. But when we disagree, we will seek constructive ways to discuss and manage our differences.”

CHINA: Fallows On The News: State Of The Union, China

January 30, 2010

From the State of the Union to a familiar diplomatic clash between the U.S. and China, host Guy Raz digs into the week's big stories with news analyst James Fallows from The Atlantic magazine.

TRANSCRIPT:

(Soundbite of music)

GUY RAZ, host:

We're back with ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

And this week, the president hoped to hit the reset button.

President BARACK OBAMA: Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can.

Representative JOHN BOEHNER (Republican, Ohio; Minority Leader): There are issues and items that we do agree upon. But when they're lumped together in a 2,000-page bills, typically what we find is a lot of things that we disagree with.

RAZ: House minority leader John Boehner; and, earlier, President Obama.

James Fallows joins me here in the studio for a look at the week that was.

And, Jim, thanks for trudging through the snow here in Washington today.

Mr. JAMES FALLOWS (National Correspondent, The Atlantic Monthly): My pleasure. It's nice and brisk outside.

RAZ: And on your blog this week, Jim, you write that normally, State of the Union addresses are more like corporate annual reports than normal speeches. But you also wrote that you think this one, this past week, will actually be studied by historians closely.

Mr. FALLOWS: Well, sort of. I think State of the Union addresses usually have two impacts: one is in real times made on the main guaranteed audience the president has over TV in the course of a year, so he makes his case.

The other is, they're studied in budgetary terms, because usually you go through and you have one sentence about each department of the government. I think this one, its main effect was its consistency with other big speeches Obama has given in sort of resetting his situation, recovering from political setbacks and saying here's the way he would like to redefine whether it's the deficit argument, the partisanship argument, the health care argument or so on.

RAZ: Now, Jim, no matter what anyone might think about President Obama, it was still pretty remarkable to watch him address those House Republicans in Baltimore yesterday. He was basically going into enemy territory. Now, he took questions for 90 minutes, and it was all televised. I can't remember another example of a president doing this.

Mr. FALLOWS: Nor can I. And I think the closet counterpart is something that was not only not televised but secret for a long time, which were the transcriptions of Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls which were released a few years ago. And you could hear the same sort of playing the great organ of working on people, with emotional appeals and logical appeals and all the rest.

And, Obama, of course, was doing this in live TV with a national audience in his enemy's camp. And I think that in retrospect, I think it will be good for the nation if there are gonna be many more of these. I will be surprised if the Republican Party accepts many more of these invitations, because I think on net it was a more impressive performance for the president in trying to present his personality and his arguments than it was for the other side.

RAZ: I mean, even though presumably some of the House members there will try and use their confrontations with the president in their re-election campaigns.

Mr. FALLOWS: That's certainly so. And I think we saw in this session, this remarkable session, the built-in advantage any incumbent president always has; that he was the center of every discussion. Now, these people were asking questions from the twilight or not really on camera, he could be there calm and confidently sort of giving his answers. So it is a plus that any president has, and it is particular form that favors President Obama.

ON CHINA:

RAZ: Jim, turning on to a completely different topic. Last night, China announced that it's suspending some military exchanges with the United States because of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

This issue seems to come up every year or so, and then it seems to just blow over and pass on. Is it different this time?

Mr. FALLOWS: I think it is different in some ways. It comes up every year or every couple of years because when the U.S. normalizes relations with mainland China and changed them with Taiwan 30-plus years ago, it committed itself to a kind of ongoing arms relationship with the Taiwanese, which is a constant irritant in mainland China. And so every time this happens, there's complaint from the government in Beijing, which is barely noticed by most of the populace in the U.S. but a big deal in China.

This time it may be more because so many other things are sort of breaking in the direction of U.S./China friction right now. The Google case, of course, is only becoming more sort of embattled in China. There's issues about currency levels and trade imbalances and, of course, the Copenhagen agreements where China and the U.S. were in disagreement.

RAZ: And the U.S. is now saying it will reduce its CO2 emissions by some 17 percent over the next decade, part of this Copenhagen Accord that was discussed last month at the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

China, of course, is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases. What's the sense? Will China sign on to this?

Mr. FALLOWS: I think in the long term, it is necessary for China to be involved in this sort of agreement, because otherwise there really isn't any hope of coping with it. In the short term, I think we'll know in basically two days whether or not China is willing to match this U.S. announcement with something of its own, because that was the period after the Copenhagen talks when all the major parties were supposed to say, okay, what are you doing next?

If they don't do that, it means another sort of long slogging round ahead.

RAZ: What are the Chinese objections?

Mr. FALLOWS: The Chinese objections are essentially that, you know, you Western powers, for 200 years you've had a free run on polluting world. And any way, you're still much richer than we are so why should we - just beginning to develop with all these peasants and poor people, why should we make these sacrifices now? That's their case.

RAZ: And, Jim, one more thing before I let you go.

(Soundbite of applause and cheering)

Pres. OBAMA: Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

RAZ: Every year, Jim, I should mention, you post an annotated version of the State of the Union address. And this year, you did, as well. I was hoping you could explain what it is about that line we just heard that drives you up the wall.

Mr. FALLOWS: What drives me up the wall is that before the era of Ronald Reagan, who changed America in ways both better and worse, presidents, when they ended an address on any topic, they had to end it with an actual ending. They had to complete their thought. They had to say what they wanted people to do or change their behavior or whatever.

Abraham Lincoln did that. You can check it out. George Washington did it. Thomas Jefferson did it. Everybody did it until Ronald Reagan who began the practice of ending all of his addresses with: And God Bless the United States of America.

That's a fine sentiment. I agree with that myself. But as a way to end a speech has become the equivalent of a flag pin...

RAZ: Yeah.

Mr. FALLOWS: ...that is on your lapel. That is you have to do it otherwise you're somehow not American. So I fruitlessly and vainly lament its appearance every time it comes up.

RAZ: That's James Fallows. He's national correspondent for The Atlantic. You can read his annotated State of the Union at jamesfallow.theatlantic.com.

Jim, thanks so much, and God bless America.

Mr. FALLOWS: And God bless us, every one.

View Article on NPR

S. KOREA: Samsung Surpasses HP As Biggest Tech Co.

By KELLY OLSEN , 01.29.10, 03:24 AM EST 

SEOUL, South Korea -- Samsung Electronics Co. returned to profit in the fourth quarter as demand for flat screen televisions and mobile phones helped push sales to a record high, underlining Samsung's rise to the top tier of global technology companies.

The company, a major producer of consumer electronics products and components that make them work, earned 3.05 trillion won ($2.64 billion) in the three months ended Dec. 31 on a parent basis, it said in a statement Friday. Samsung does not release a consolidated net profit figure.

Samsung said, however, that sales on a consolidated basis - which includes the performance of its overseas and domestic subsidiaries excluding financial businesses - reached a record 136.29 trillion won or nearly $118 billion at Friday's exchange rate.

That places Samsung slightly above Hewlett-Packard Co. ( HPQ - news - people ), which in November reported sales for fiscal year 2009 ended Oct. 31 of $114.6 billion. Palo Alto, California-based HP is considered the world's biggest technology company.

Such a comparison is not direct, however, as HP has yet to report results for the final two months of 2009 and movements in the often volatile South Korean won can influence the size of Samsung's sales when converted into dollars.

Still, Samsung's sales figure highlights its emergence as one of the world's top technology companies. The Suwon, South Korea-based corporation is the largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, flat screen televisions and liquid crystal displays. It ranks No. 2 in cell phones behind Finland's Nokia Corp. ( NOK - news - people )

Samsung's profit was a huge turnaround from its net loss of 22 billion won in the fourth quarter of 2008. That red ink - its first net loss since it began reporting results on a quarterly basis in the third quarter of 2000 - sent shockwaves through the company and came as the global economic slump hit demand.

Samsung said its "strong performance" during the fourth quarter last year was bolstered by improving prices for memory chips and a seasonal increase in sales of consumer electronics.

The company said it sold nearly 11 million flat screen TVs in the quarter, becoming the first manufacturer to exceed the 10 million mark.

Mobile phone handset sales in the quarter jumped 16 percent from a year earlier to 69 million. Total 2009 sales reached 227 million.

Looking ahead, Samsung said it expects "positive growth across its businesses in 2010," citing stronger demand for flat screen TVs, mobile phones and laptop computers resulting from the ongoing economic recovery.

Samsung said parent sales in the fourth quarter reached 25.32 trillion won, which was 37 percent higher than 18.45 trillion won reported a year earlier.

In a separate regulatory filing, the company said that it earned 9.65 trillion won in all of 2009 on a parent basis, up 75 percent from 2008. Samsung also said sales last year rose 23 percent to 89.77 trillion won from 72.95 trillion won the year before.

Shares in Samsung, which released its earnings results about 30 minutes after the stock market opened, fell 3 percent to close at 784,000 won. The company's stock price rose 77 percent in 2009.

View Article on Forbes

RUSSIA: Grandson to Japanese PM born in Moscow

Edited 29 January, 2010, 23:18

Perhaps Russia and Japan may get a bit closer after a grandson to the Japanese Prime Minister was born in Moscow on Thursday.

The boy was born in Moscow, where Yukio Hatoyama’s son Kiichiro has been working as an urban engineering researcher at the Moscow State University since February 2008.

33-year-old Kiichiro is living in MSU’s dormitory with his wife and daughter.

Apart from lectures at the MSU’s School of Business, Kiichiro Hatoyama is dealing with the problem of Moscow traffic jams and plans to offer his own solution.

He says he plans to stay in Moscow for over a year.

View Article in Russia Times

TAIWAN: U.S. Approves $6 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan

American soldiers with arms at a South Korean base. The United States is selling Patriot missiles and other arms to Taiwan.  Jung Yeon-je/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

January 30, 2010

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has approved an arms sales package to Taiwan worth more than $6 billion, a move that has enraged China and may complicate President Obama’s effort to enlist Beijing’s cooperation on Iran.

The administration deferred a decision on selling F-16 fighter planes to Taiwan, administration officials said, but they pointedly added that they were not shutting the door to future F-16 sales.

The last time the United States sold F-16s to Taiwan was in 1992 under President George H. W. Bush. In response, China threatened to withdraw from international arms control talks and retaliated, many China experts contend, by selling medium-range missiles to Pakistan.

“We continue to study it,” a senior administration official said of the possible F-16 sales. “We will look at it from the perspective of what its impact would be on Taiwan’s air defense capability.”

The arms package announced Friday is primarily defensive, and includes 114 Patriot missiles worth $2.82 billion, 60 Black Hawk helicopters worth $3.1 billion and communications equipment for Taiwan’s F-16 fleet. The package also includes Harpoon missiles and mine-hunting ships, the Defense Cooperation Security Agency said in a statement.

The Chinese reaction was swift, and negative. China’s vice foreign minister, He Yafei, issued a diplomatic message to the State Department expressing his “indignation” over the pending sale, said Wang Baoding, the spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington.

“We believe this move endangers China’s national security and harms China’s peaceful reunification efforts,” Mr. Wang said in an interview. “It will harm China-U.S. relations and bring about a serious and active impact on bilateral communication and cooperation.”

China experts said that Beijing was likely to cut off military-to-military cooperation with the United States in retaliation, and that President Hu Jintao might boycott Mr. Obama’s planned nuclear security summit meeting in April.

The relationship between the two countries may deteriorate more if Mr. Obama meets, as he is expected to, with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Mr. Obama put off meeting with the Dalai Lama last year to avoid angering Beijing before his visit to China in November, a decision that received strong criticism from human rights activists.

Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, said Friday that the announcement should not “come as a surprise to our Chinese friends,” adding that the Obama administration was “bent on a new relationship with China that goes beyond arms sales to Taiwan.” Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, General Jones sought to play down the escalating tensions between the United States and China.

Those tensions have been on full display since Mr. Obama traveled to Beijing in November. While Mr. Obama and Mr. Hu promised to conduct regular exchanges and to work together on a number of issues, they did not reach an agreement on how to move forward on Western efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Obama administration officials now say that they view China, not Russia, as the main stumbling block on efforts to get a Security Council resolution that would impose additional sanctions on Iran.

A month after Mr. Obama went to Beijing, China blocked his efforts to reach a meaningful climate change agreement in Copenhagen. China announced this month that it had tested the country’s first land-based missile defense system, a test that Chinese and Western analysts said was timed to convey Beijing’s annoyance over the expected American arms sales to Taiwan. Throughout January, Chinese state news media have produced a torrent of articles condemning the expected sale.

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province, separated since the civil war of the 1940s, and sees arms sales as interference in an internal matter. The American relationship with Taiwan is one of the most delicate diplomatic issues between Beijing and Washington.

The deal announced Friday is the second big arms sale to Taiwan in two years. When the Pentagon announced in October 2008, under the Bush administration, that it was selling Taiwan $6.6 billion worth of weapons, China froze military ties with the United States and did not resume the contacts until after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Beijing last February.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, urged China not to take that tack again. Responding to a question from a reporter before the sale was announced, Mr. Morrell said that “this relationship is too important to go through the fits and starts that we have over the years, where every little bump in the road results in a breaking of communication and a suspension of dialogue.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are both expected to travel to Beijing this year for high-level talks. Administration officials said Friday that they hoped China did not retract those two invitations.

View Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: Toyota recalls undermine Japanese confidence in an industrial titan

Toyota's reputation dented

Toyota 's showroom in Tokyo. A flood of recalls in the U.S. has shaken the confidence of many loyal customers in Japan. (Shizuo Kambayashi / Associated Press / January 28, 2010)

January 29, 2010

By John M. Glionna and Coco Masters

Reporting from Tokyo and Seoul - For 15 years, Tokyo taxi driver Kiyomi Hashimoto has been a loyal Toyota man. Not once has he considered changing brands or even the possibility of car problems.
But now, sitting in his black Prius, pondering the news of Toyota's recent U.S. recalls, there are cracks in his once armor-plated confidence in the world's biggest automaker.


"I never once thought I'd have a problem before," he said. "Now, I'm not so sure."


News that the preeminent icon of Japanese industry had halted U.S. sales of eight popular models because of a design defect -- after issuing recalls of 7.6 million cars and trucks in the U.S. in the last few months -- has had a sickening effect on the national psyche.


In recent years, Toyota has emerged as Japan's most potent corporate champion, its race to catch and surpass General Motors Co. as the world's largest automaker chronicled by a slavishly loyal news media.


With other Japanese companies, such as Sony Corp., on their heels in global markets, Toyota remained the symbol of the country's claim to manufacturing and design greatness.

"Automaking is perhaps Japan's premier industry, and the perception here is that one of our national champions has embarrassed us," said Christopher Richter, senior research analyst in Tokyo for Calyon Capital Markets Asia, a Hong Kong brokerage house.


On Thursday, Toyota announced that it was recalling vehicles in China and Europe for the same gas pedal problem involved in the U.S. recalls.

Toyota vehicles sold in Japan aren't affected by the recalls. But many here question whether the safety flaw in accelerators and floor mats is a byproduct of that drive for growth, particularly in foreign markets that Toyota has relied on to compensate for long-term flat or declining sales in the Japanese domestic market.
How, they ask, could such a fate befall a company that for decades has staked its reputation on high quality and safety?


"Toyota needs to reassure customers that their safety is its top concern," Richter said. "Because right now you've got millions of people in America who own Toyotas, and they don't know if they can take them out of the garage."


Some analysts say Toyota has only itself to blame.  "It's hubris, in a word," said John R. Harris, a Tokyo-area communications consultant specializing in the auto industry.  While maintaining what Harris calls "a cloak of false humility," Toyota "secretly set its sights on catching General Motors as the world's top-selling carmaker."  "They snuck up behind GM, all while keeping their head down. But as they got closer, they got caught by this desire to be No. 1," he said.


No Toyota pitchman would have ever acknowledged such a goal, Harris said, "but behind it all was this huge ambition. As the ambition got ahold of them, they overreached."


Industry insiders are also speculating on whether Toyota's latest troubles might spell the end for the company's president, Akio Toyoda, the publicity-shy grandson of the firm's founder who assumed the top post in June.


Many blame Toyoda's predecessor, Katsuaki Watanabe, for the apparent lapse in safety. He was at the helm in 2006 when recalls mounted to more than 1 million a year, and he sent two executives to clean up the quality problems. He reported two years later that the focus on improvement had worked as recalls dropped dramatically.


In pursuing a long-held company goal of garnering 15% of the world's new-car market, Watanabe had some missteps along the way. Toyota, for instance, built a $1.3-billion plant in San Antonio to make its Tundra heavy-duty truck. The plant was completed in 2006 as the housing market started falling apart and sales of full-size trucks plummeted.


Still, "there is the possibility that Toyoda could end up taking responsibility," said Masahiro Fukuda, a manager at Fourin Inc., an industry research company in Nagoya, Japan.


Toyota has much to lose, in terms of consumer trust, by how it handles the accelerator glitch.


Shares of the company's Asian rivals, including South Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia Motors, have gained in recent days on speculation that they are poised to benefit from Toyota's massive recall and its tainted image. Toyota's U.S.-traded shares have plunged 15% since mid-January, losing $2.10 Thursday to $77.67.


Many say the automaker privately set aside its "Toyota way" mantra of quality, becoming less cautious and more aggressive in its sales push to catch GM. It expanded too quickly and ignored its tradition of disciplined growth. And as its profits grew, it spent less wisely, some analysts believe.


"Underneath it all, they are still tremendously arrogant," Harris said. "They've been the gorilla of the industry long before they passed GM in the meaningless measure of sales volume."


Others were less critical, blaming the accelerator problem on Toyota parts supplier CTS Corp. in Elkhart, Ind., which manufactured the accelerator pedals involved in the latest Toyota recall.


"It's a parts problem, not a Toyota problem," said Dan Lucas, a senior analyst at Australian investment bank Macquarie. "But they will take responsibility; they don't walk away from their cars."


He didn't think that Toyota's reputation for quality would take a hit over the recall. "This part was made by a non-Japanese company. The Japanese companies still do it better," Lucas said.


Tatsuo Yoshida, a senior analyst with UBS Securities Japan, also played down the significance of Toyota's turmoil, calling it "just a product recall."


"It's a big deal because of the number of vehicles involved. . . . And it's happened to GM and to Ford in the past," he said, noting that neither company apologized. "I think it's strange if the top person of a Japanese car company has to bow every time there's a recall."

This isn't the first time a Japanese automaker has been entangled in a safety scandal. In 2004, Japanese news reports said that Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and a subsidiary company had systematically hidden defects involving 800,000 vehicles over a 20-year period. Three top executives, including Takashi Usami, former chairman of the firm's truck and bus division, were charged with covering up defects that caused an accident in 2002, killing one person and injuring another. The three were acquitted in 2006.

For decades, Toyota avoided such devastating news coverage.
Then the Japanese government's Consumer Affairs Agency in December, after receiving reports that floor mats in Toyotas and other makes had jammed gas pedals and brakes, warned drivers that improperly aligned mats in their vehicles might worsen an accelerator problem.


Even though Japan isn't affected by the recalls, analyst Fukuda said Toyota needs to make a strong domestic appeal and say that it is swiftly handling the issue.


"Japanese drivers think of the problem as far away, but there are surely some consumers who are increasingly uncertain about Toyota's cars," he said.


The company said today, however, that its president, Toyoda, had no plans to respond to reporters' questions about the recalls and planned to attend the annual World Economic Forum, now underway in the Swiss resort of Davos, as scheduled.


Although it remains unclear how domestic consumers will respond to Toyota's most recent recalls, Japanese news media are warning of possible damage to an already-reeling Japanese economy.
Meanwhile, at the company's Toyota City headquarters, fingers are being pointed, many believe.


"Toyota people are mortified by this. They take quality seriously because it goes to the heart of their self-esteem," Harris said.
"That said, heads are rolling as we speak, I'm sure."

View Article in the Los Angeles Times

TRAVEL: The Air Up There

Facts: If you're sick, a face mask can keep you from infecting others; if you'reJanuary 2010

by Barbara Peterson 

Face Facts: If you're sick, a face mask can keep you from infecting others; if you're seated near someone who's coughing, it could protect you.

Spending hours on a crowded plane seems like the perfect way to pick up a cold or flu. But research shows that airliners pose less of a health risk than you might think—and new technology promises to make flying even healthier

Every winter, legions of healthy travelers board airplanes wondering if they'll still be well when they walk off, after spending hours packed shoulder to shoulder with dozens—or even hundreds—of other passengers, some of whom are likely to be suffering from a cold or the flu. This year, the prospect of contracting swine flu has of course heightened the anxiety. But there's good reason to take heart (and take to the skies): Several scientific studies show that, in terms of the spread of contagious bugs, airplanes are healthier environments than is commonly believed. While it's true that the germs which cause colds and flu can be passed from person to person through coughs and sneezes, research indicates that you need to be sitting very close to a sick passenger—usually within two rows—and for longer than eight hours to significantly increase your chances of contracting an illness.

"There is a heightened risk of infection when you enter a confined space such as an aircraft or subway, but a plane is a much safer place because of the ventilation system," says Dr. Mark Gendreau, an emergency and aviation medicine expert at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts.

On average, cabin air is completely refreshed 20 times per hour, compared with just 12 times per hour in an office building. On most aircraft, air is also circulated through hospital-grade HEPA filters, which remove 99.97 percent of bacteria, as well as the airborne particles that viruses use for transport (many regional jets lack these filters).

Additionally, cabins are divided into separate ventilation sections about every seven rows of seats, which means that you share air only with those in your immediate environment and not with the guy who's coughing up a lung ten rows back. When the plane is on the ground, however, air circulation in the cabin can be greatly reduced.

The most common way to pick up a bug when flying, experts say, is from a contaminated surface—tray tables, lavatory doors, and latches on overhead bins are loaded with viruses and bacteria. "When I travel, I become very compulsive and even wipe the tray table with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer," says Dr. Gendreau.

The achy, icky feeling many fliers get after spending hours in the air usually has nothing to do with colds or flu and everything to do with the bone-dry, oxygen-thin atmosphere of the cabin. But new developments in aircraft manufacturing and air filtration promise to make flying more comfortable and to reduce even further the chance that you'll catch something from a fellow passenger.

Most planes cruise at 35,000 feet or higher, but since passengers need to breathe, aircraft cabins are pressurized to about 8,000 feet above sea level, which is all their aluminum skins can safely endure. It's also a higher altitude than most people are used to (studies show that discomfort begins for vulnerable passengers once the cabin pressure exceeds 6,000 feet).

"Some people are effectively suffering from altitude sickness in flight," says Condé Nast Traveler Medical Affairs Correspondent Dr. Richard Dawood.

The next generation of planes will be built from composite materials—plastics reinforced with carbon fiber—and will usher in a new era of comfort. The much-delayed Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world's first aircraft constructed almost entirely of composites, promises to offer relief not only from altitude sickness but also from the burning eyes and swollen nasal passages many fliers experience.

"One of the problems of aluminum airplanes is the danger of metal corrosion," says Ken Price, an interiors expert at Boeing. Which, he explains, is why it is as dry as a desert inside an aircraft, with humidity levels sometimes dipping below ten percent. The 787 will have "much more humidity than any current plane," Price says, because moisture doesn't pose a threat to the composite materials it's made from. Airbus's new mid-sized wide-body, the A350, isn't expected to be launched for another few years, but it too will use more composite materials, which should allow for relief from cabin dryness. In the meantime, some fliers are already enjoying the benefits of new construction materials: The recently introduced Airbus A380 double-decker behemoth is partly built from plastic, allowing it to be pressurized to 5,000 feet and deliver a more comfortable ride.

The latest development in cabin air quality is a new purification technology being tested by British aerospace giant BAE Systems. AirManager, developed by the U.K. firm Quest International, uses a patented technology known as "non-thermal plasma" to eliminate not only germs and particles but also all the viruses, impurities, and foul odors that HEPA filters cannot. AirManager underwent four years of testing aboard the fleets of eight European regional carriers and has been cleared by European regulators for installation on BAE's own 146-series of smaller jets. The Federal Aviation Administration says that it is watching the development and that AirManager could replace current filtration systems once they reach the end of their useful life. However, since the new system could cost about ten times more than HEPA filters ($80,000 to equip a 737, for example), it's not likely that airlines will rush to install them ahead of schedule.

View Article on Concierge

Have you found any good strategies for dealing with the dry, pressurized cabin and for preventing illness?  If so, please share in your comments below.

CHINA: China Insists That Its Steps on Climate Be Voluntary

January 30, 2010

By EDWARD WONG and JONATHAN ANSFIELD

BEIJING — As a Monday deadline approaches for countries to submit to the United Nations their plans for fighting climate change, China is banding together with other major developing nations to stress that only the wealthier countries need to make internationally binding commitments.

So while China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, might put down in writing its targets for slowing the growth of emissions, it will make clear that those efforts are voluntary steps it plans to take domestically that should not imply a binding international commitment.

The distinction reflects China’s strong desire to cast climate change policy as a sovereignty issue in the aftermath of rancorous negotiations last month at the environmental summit meeting in Copenhagen. It says developed nations, which emitted carbon dioxide without restriction over many decades of industrialization, cannot force developing countries to submit to international policies or regulations.

China demands that climate change negotiations should not set emissions targets for developing countries, said Pan Jiahua, an economics professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who advises the Chinese negotiating team. “I don’t think China will change its position.”

This position could draw further criticisms from Western politicians who already blame China for weakening the final accord at Copenhagen. In the United States Congress, the chances that lawmakers will pass climate legislation this year are slim, in part because some lawmakers say China and India, where carbon emissions are rising the fastest, are giving much higher priority to maintaining economic growth than to fighting climate change.

But even as China sticks to tough diplomatic language, environmental advocates say it is forging ahead with its own plans to become more carbon-efficient.

This week, China unveiled a new agency, the National Energy Commission, headed by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, to coordinate energy policy. In December, China, now considered a leader in developing renewable energy technology, put more pressure on companies connected to the electric grid to hook up to renewable energy sources like wind- and solar-power generators.

The United Nations set the deadline of Monday — Sunday Beijing time — for countries to approve the Copenhagen Accord and append their own goals for cutting carbon emissions or slowing emissions growth by 2020. American officials have said that they will inscribe a provisional pledge announced by President Obama last November that the United States will cut carbon emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, pending action by Congress. Other nations have demanded that the United States make bolder cuts.

China, India, Brazil and South Africa said in New Delhi this week that they would present the United Nations with their “voluntary” plans on climate change. Voluntary is the operative word; the countries want to stress that only developed nations should have binding responsibilities to fight climate change.

“A very big deal is the extent to which you’re doing this voluntarily,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “You’ve got to make clear this isn’t an international obligation, and that you’re doing this because you’re a good guy.”

To make the divide even clearer, the four countries called for an “early flow” of an annual $10 billion promised at Copenhagen to help developing nations combat climate change. Wealthy nations should begin handing over the money, first to small island nations and African countries, as “proof of their commitment,” the four major developing nations said in a statement.

China appears to be emphasizing rich nations’ obligations on that now partly because Chinese officials felt ambushed at Copenhagen, especially over Western demands that China submit to an international system for monitoring and verifying emissions cuts.

China is also worried about losing the support of smaller developing nations because some of them rejected China’s positions at Copenhagen. This month when Yang Jiechi, the Chinese foreign minister, visited Africa, he made China-Africa cooperation on climate change a priority in talks.

“I think that the Chinese definitely feel quite beaten up in Copenhagen,” said Yang Ailun, the climate and energy campaign manager at Greenpeace China, “and what’s quite worrying is that there was a sense among the Chinese officials that, ‘Well, maybe we should just come to focus on our own domestic energy and domestic issues.’ ”

The government’s lead negotiator, Su Wei, said at a Chinese academic forum in December that the United States and European countries had played “tricks” in Copenhagen to heap pressure on China, according to a government-run Web site.

At the climate talks, frustration by the Chinese burst into the open when Xie Zhenhua, the top Chinese climate official, yelled and wagged his finger at Mr. Obama, say conference attendees. Mr. Wen, the prime minister, told the interpreter to ignore Mr. Xie’s remarks — a sign of the discord that attendees said plagued the Chinese ranks.

Chinese officials were ill prepared to offer any concessions. They had gone to Copenhagen thinking that other nations would be satisfied with the announcement that China planned to cut carbon emissions per unit of economic growth, so-called carbon intensity, by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

China and India have long rejected pledging to cut absolute emissions. Instead, they promise they can slow the growth of emissions while sustaining booming economies. Cutting carbon intensity will not reduce China’s emissions; some analysts predict emissions could grow by up to 90 percent from 2005 to 2020.

Chinese officials insist the carbon intensity cut will require ambitious measures. Some American officials and analysts have called China’s carbon intensity targets disappointing.

Michael A. Levi, a climate change expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said China’s carbon intensity goal did not deviate greatly from what he called “business as usual,” reductions likely to occur under policies already put in place by 2009. The effort is important, he said, but “does not indicate any new decision to fundamentally change course in the future.”

Some environmentalists have praised China’s goal and say China will have to make great efforts to achieve it. Barbara Finamore, who heads the China program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in Washington, said the fact that China put in place relatively progressive policies before Copenhagen did not mean those policies should be considered “business as usual.”

Earlier in December in Beijing, President Hu Jintao trumpeted China’s opposition to stringent international monitoring, calling it a “vital interest” on which China would not compromise, said an editor at a Communist Party newspaper.

John M. Broder contributed reporting from Washington.

View Article on The New York Times

JAPAN: On menu in Japan: Beef bowl with side of deflation

A beef bowl at Yoshinoya.   Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

January 30, 2010

By HIROKO TABUCHI

Beef Bowl Economics

TOKYO — The broiled meat is tender and the rice is silky-smooth. But as Japan’s economic recovery falters, beef bowls have come to symbolize one of its most pressing woes: deflation.

Japan’s big three beef bowl restaurant chains, the country’s answer to hamburger giants like McDonald’s, are in a price war. It is a sign, many people say, of the dire state of Japan’s economy that even dirt-cheap beef bowl restaurants must slash their already low prices to keep customers.

The battle has also come to epitomize a destructive pattern repeated across Japan’s economy. By cutting prices hastily and aggressively to attract consumers, critics say, restaurants decimate profits, squeeze workers’ pay and drive the weak out of business — a deflationary cycle that threatens the nation’s economy.

“These cutthroat price wars could usher in another recessionary hell,” the influential economist Noriko Hama wrote in a magazine article that has won much attention. “If we all got used to spending just 250 yen for every meal, then meals priced respectably will soon become too expensive,” she said. “When you buy something cheap, you lower the value of your own life.”

Deflation — defined as a decline in the prices of goods and services — is back in Japan as it struggles to shake off the effects of its worst recession since World War II.

While prices have fallen elsewhere during the global economic crisis, deflation has been the most persistent here: consumer prices among industrialized economies rose by a robust 1.3 percent in the year to November, but fell 1.9 percent in Japan.

In the decline, companies that undercut rivals too aggressively are being chastised as reckless at best, or as traitors undermining the country’s recovery at worst. Every markdown of beef bowl prices by the big three restaurants — Sukiya, Yoshinoya and Matsuya — has been promptly broadcast by the national news media here.

Japan has reason to be worried. Deflation hampered Japan from the mid-1990s, after the collapse of its bubble economy, to at least 2005. Households held back spending on big-ticket goods, knowing they would only get cheaper. Companies were unsure of how much to invest. At the time, the three beef bowl chains were in a similar price war.

Still, government officials back then emphasized the supposed benefits of deflation; falling prices were good for households, they said. Others said deflation would help restructure the economy by weeding out weak companies.

But the drawn-out deflationary cycle weighed heavily on Japan’s recovery. Apart from putting a damper on consumption and investment, asset deflation ravaged the country’s banks and shut out new businesses from credit.

Now that deflation is back, Japan is wary. Unemployment remains near record highs, and wages are falling. Mounting public debt is also a problem, causing Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday to cut its outlook for Japan’s sovereign rating for the first time since 2002. Japan must do more to lift its economy out of deflation and bolster long-term growth, S.& P. said.

Moreover, the population is shrinking, making demand inherently weak. Economists say Japan’s economy is saddled with a 35 trillion yen, or $388 billion, “demand gap,” or almost 7 percent of the country’s economic output.

“With supply continuing to exceed demand by a massive margin, deflationary expectations are proving very difficult to shake,” said Ryutaro Kono, an economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. “Households have been tightening their purse strings as the income outlook looks increasingly bleak, and we believe firms will continue to respond by lowering prices.”

Matsuya, the smallest of the three chains, set off the price war by cutting the price of its standard beef bowl to 320 yen, or $3.55, from 380 yen in early December. The market leader, Sukiya, followed suit that month, lowering its price to 280 yen, from 330 yen.

Matsuya is one of large beef bowl chains in Tokyo.  Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

This month, the No. 2 beef bowl chain, Yoshinoya, lowered the price of its beef bowl to 300 yen, from 380 yen, though it says the cut is temporary. A smaller chain, Nakau, has also lowered prices.

The restaurant chains insist they have not downsized their portions, and will make up for cheaper prices by raising efficiency.

“We don’t consider this a price cut. We’ve simply set a new price,” said Naoki Fujita at Zensho, which runs the Sukiya chain. “With incomes falling, we needed to figure out what would be a reasonable price,” he said. “We hope customers who came every week will now come twice a week.”

In a sense, the beef bowl has always been about low prices. Yoshinoya, the beef bowl pioneer with about 1,560 stores in Japan and overseas, helped bring beef to the Japanese working class with its first restaurant in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo in 1899.

Though beef was a delicacy at the time, Eikichi Matsuda, the Yoshinoya founder, kept prices cheap by buying in bulk, and serving as many customers as possible from his tiny stall. Speed and efficiency reigned, with workers trained to start preparing a bowl even before a customer sat down.

Banners at Yoshinoya advertise an anniversary sale on beef bowls.  Ko Sasaki for The New York Times 

The same principles still apply at Yoshinoya. At a branch in central Tokyo, servers rarely take more than a minute to fill an order. The average customer spends just 7.5 minutes on a meal, and a small restaurant can serve more than 3,000 customers a day.

But forced to sell at ever-lower prices — and hurt by lower-priced competitors — making a profit has been increasingly difficult. The company suffered a 2.3 billion yen net loss in the nine months to November, and the next month, before Yoshinoya slashed prices, its sales slumped 22.2 percent. In contrast, sales at Sukiya, which serves up the cheapest beef bowl, surged 15.9 percent that month from the previous year.

Yoshinoya is not considering further price cuts. Squeezing out more savings is “like wringing a dry towel,” said a spokesman, Haruhiko Kizu.

Meanwhile, labor disputes at Sukiya show how falling prices and revenue can quickly hurt workers. A string of former workers have sued the chain over withholding overtime pay. Sukiya denies the accusations.

Other companies have been harshly criticized for slashing prices. Fast Retailing, the company behind the fast-growing Uniqlo brand, has garnered as much disapproval as awe for selling jeans as low as 990 yen. McDonald’s, on the other hand, has won kudos for resisting bargain basement prices by introducing a series of big “American-style” burgers for more than 400 yen, considered expensive in today’s Japan.

“Some Japanese companies are waging such reckless price wars, they’re wringing their own necks,” said Masamitsu Sakurai, who heads the influential business lobby Keizai Doyukai. “Companies need to be more creative. They should come up with products that add value.”

Economists say it is absurd to blame individual companies for Japan’s deflation. “For prices to fall during an economic downturn is natural. That stimulates demand and facilitates an eventual recovery,” said Takuji Aida, chief economist for UBS in Tokyo. “But this mechanism doesn’t work when there is such a big demand shortfall.”

The government has vowed to lift household incomes through a series of subsidies, including new cash payments to families with small children. But the scale of government payments — 2.3 trillion yen in the case of the child subsidies — is hardly enough to fill the nation’s huge demand shortfall. With interest rates close to zero, Japan also has few options left in monetary policy.

In the meantime, cutthroat price battles are already driving laggards out of business. Wendy’s, the American burger chain, left Japan on Dec. 31.

It is not surprising, considering the competition. A mere stone’s throw from Tokyo’s celebrated Ginza district is Shokuan, the kind of restaurant that is undercutting everyone.

Shokuan, which has vending machines but no table service, is an inexpensive place to eat.   Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Shokuan, which has no chairs nor table service, is a cluster of beer vending machines huddled under the train tracks. A man behind a tiny counter sells dirt-cheap morsels: fish sausages for 50 yen, prawn crackers for 60 yen, canned yakitori for 160 yen. Many days of the week, Shokuan is spilling over with customers.

“I don’t think there’s anything around here cheaper than this. That’s why I started to come,” said Yasunori Miura, a manufacturing company employee and a recent regular. “This here,” he said, pointing to his fish sausage, “is deflation.”

Makiko Inoue contributed reporting

View Article in The New York Times

S. KOREA & JAPAN: Korean girl groups set to perform in Japan

Friday, January 29, 2010

Popular Korean girl groups are making inroads in the Japanese pop music scene, following in the footsteps of boy bands that have drawn a sizable fan base after their debuts there last year, according to Yonhap News.

Five-member group Kara will present its first showcase in Japan on Feb. 7 in Akasaka Blitz, a live venue in central Tokyo, her agent DSP entertainment said. The show was initially planned as a one-off event, but fans' rush to buy tickets prompted organizers to add one more show to the Kara First Showcase in Japan 2010.

The seven-member sensation, After School, is set to attend the Billboard Japan Music Awards ceremony in Tokyo on Sunday, where the group will receive K-pop New Artist of the Year 2009 award.

The new 14-member Exile and BoA, an established star already active both in Korea and Japan, will also attend the award ceremony set to be broadcast in nationwide Japan.

View Article on The Korea Herald

CHINA: Foreign and Military Affairs China, US peacekeepers conduct joint patrol in Haiti

Updated: 2010-01-29 23:27

(Xinhua)

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Chinese peacekeeping riot police and US troops Thursday carried out their first joint patrol in the quake-battered Haitian capital, as designated by the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH).

Hendre Ciprian, a Romanian police officer with MINUSTAH who coordinated the patrol, told Xinhua that the operation, the first one joined by US soldiers at MINUSTAH's invitation, was aimed at assisting Haitian police in keeping social stability and capturing criminal suspects.

A tactics team of 10 Chinese riot police and two squads from the US 82nd Airborne Division conducted the patrol.

The joint forces patrolled some densely populated areas in the city center including the Saint Joseph vegetable market, the Hypolite commercial area, and a neighborhood.

The forces kept guard when the Haitian special police were questioning and searching for suspects. The Haitian special police arrested one criminal suspect and brought the person to a police station for further interrogation.

Ciprian expressed his satisfaction over the one-and-a-half-hour joint patrol, saying MINUSTAH would carry out more similar operations to help restore order in Port-au-Prince.

Currently, nearly 130 Chinese riot police are deployed on a peacekeeping mission in Haiti as part of the 9,000-strong MINUSTAH.

View article in China Daily

CHINA: Beijing's representative-office scandals: The delights of home cooking

Jan 28th 2010 | BEIJING | From The Economist print edition

 

How to represent your hometown in style

 

(Illustration by S. Kambayashi)

FOR fans of Sichuan food in Beijing, there is no better place for authentic fare than the Chuan Ban restaurant, housed in, named after and operated by Sichuan province’s “capital representative office”. Your correspondent has never been seated there without a wait.

Every Chinese province and most large cities operate such Beijing offices. So too do thousands of city, district, county and town governments; others are run by big firms and even civic associations. But their days are numbered, at least for the estimated 5,000 offices run by smaller governments and entities. Outlook Weekly, an official news magazine, this week reported on a central-government plan to shut the lower-level representative offices down within six months.

The offices’ jobs include lobbying the central government on finance and policy issues, helping visitors from home, or reining in those in Beijing to protest, petition or otherwise make mischief.

They are also in the business of lavishly entertaining local officials when they visit Beijing. Many house restaurants and fancy guesthouses. Outlook reported that the offices spend a combined 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) a year. But since that is based on 2001 statistics the true figure is probably far higher.

The government’s main concern, however, appears to be corruption. Under China’s hierarchical bureaucracy, sub-provincial governments have little legitimate business in Beijing. Financing and policy matters are meant to flow through the provincial government. So any favour the lower-level offices might try to curry is likely to be illicit.

The offices have been involved in a series of corruption scandals in recent years. In 2002 the director of Hebei province’s office was sentenced to life in jail. Another scandal involved the spending of almost $100,000 on fewer than 800 bottles of liquor.

The fiction of Wang Xiaofang, once the private secretary to a deputy mayor of Shenyang, a large city in China’s north-east, has further besmirched the offices’ image. After the execution of his boss for corruption in 2001, Mr Wang went on to publish an influential series of novels called “Beijing Office Director”. His fictional accounts of the shenanigans in representative offices rang all too true. In 2006 the Communist Party’s corruption watchdogs launched a review of the representative-office system.

Closing the offices may not be so simple. Decision-making in China is very centralised. Many local officials will be tempted to maintain their lobbying operations, even if they have to reorganise them as companies. And many will hope to stay in business by using the connections and influence they have been cultivating over the years in Beijing. Friends in high places and gourmet local cooking can be a potent combination.

View Article on The Economist

JAPAN: Toyota recalls 'up to 1.8m' cars

Toyota Corolla

The popular Corolla is one of the models affected

Page last updated at 21:31 GMT, Friday, 29 January 2010

Toyota says it is recalling up to 1.8 million cars across Europe, including about 220,000 in the UK, following an accelerator problem.

The carmaker says it will recall eight models including the Yaris, the Corolla and the RAV4 sports utility vehicle.

On Thursday, Toyota announced it was recalling 1.1 million more cars in the US, a day after suspending sales of eight popular US models.

Toyota then widened the recall to Europe and China.

Last week it recalled 2.3 million US cars with faulty pedals.

Deep regret

In a statement, the company said the precise number of European vehicles involved was still under investigation, "but may reach up to 1.8 million vehicles."

'My Toyota crashed into wall'

The eight models recalled are the AYGO, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis and RAV4 and cover manufacturing dates going back to February 2005.

The recall does not affect Lexus models, Toyota said.

"We understand that the current situation is creating concerns and we deeply regret it," said Tadashi Arashima, the chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe.

Toyota said it was not aware of any accidents resulting from the issue and that only a limited number of incidents involving accelerator pedals had been reported in Europe.

On Thursday, Toyota said it was recalling 75,552 RAV4 vehicles in China from 28 February.

The cars in question were manufactured between 19 March 2009 and 25 January 2010 in Tianjin, according to a notice on the website of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China.

Separately, Ford said it would be suspending production of a van made and sold in China that has an accelerator pedal made by the same firm at the centre of Toyota's investigations.

However, Ford said it had only been using the pedal in the Transit Classic model since December, with only 1,663 vehicles produced.

View Article on BBC News

IN THE MOVIES: Scorsese and friends race to save film classics from destruction

Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation is fighting against time to rescue forgotten film classics.

Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation is fighting against time to rescue forgotten film classics.

January 28, 2010 6:44 a.m. EST

By Grace Wong for CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation aims to preserve film classics from around the world
  • Films from Turkey, South Korea, Morocco, Brazil among those restored by organization
  • Directors Walter Salles, Guillermo del Toro, Wong Kar-Wai on board with effort
  • Watch restored classics at online movie theater The Auteurs

London, England (CNN) -- They don't wear masks or capes, but the filmmakers behind the World Cinema Foundation are arguably the superheroes of film.

Led by Martin Scorsese, these celluloid crusaders are racing to save some of cinema's masterpieces from the ravages of time.

We are trying to fight "for the existence of a memory," Brazilian filmmaker and foundation member, Walter Salles told CNN.

"That is, at the end of the day, what we are preserving -- it's our collective memory," said the director who is known for his 2004 adaptation of Che Guevara's journals, "The Motorcycle Diaries."

Salles is one of a band of a dozen or so noted international directors compelled to join forces with the "Mean Streets" director in his push to preserve films. Others include Guillermo del Toro, Wong Kar-Wai, Stephen Frears, and Elia Suleiman.

Salles is currently restoring "Limite," a black and white film from 1931 that he said "shows a Brazil that doesn't exist anymore."

"Limite" is one of a handful of films the World Cinema Foundation has rescued since Scorsese launched the organization nearly three years ago.

It is Scorsese's passion for cinema that fuels the foundation, says Salles, who describes the filmmaker as a "renaissance man of cinema" and a "cinephile above all cinephiles."

Scorsese, a tireless champion of film preservation, introduced the foundation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 amid great fanfare.

Since then, the organization has been hard at work rescuing neglected films from various corners of the world.

South Korea’s “The Housemaid”

South Korea's "The Housemaid," Turkish film "Dry Summer" and "Transes" from Morocco are a few of the cinema classics from across the globe that have been restored by the foundation.

"Film preservation is always an uphill battle. There's never enough time," Scorsese said at Cannes last year.

"One has to think of history in the past 3,000 years, how much literature was lost. So, whatever we can do now, we're going to save something."

Unlike The Film Foundation, which Scorsese started two decades ago to preserve American film heritage, the World Cinema Foundation's focus is on international archives.

Its purpose is to provide help to countries where there are concerns that are larger and more pressing than the restoration and preservation of films, Kent Jones, executive director of the foundation, told CNN.

Or to put it more simply, he said, the aim is "to get help where help is really needed."

In the digital age, film preservation has come a long way.

"Even 10 years ago you couldn't do the kinds of things you can do now," Jones said. "You can take images and basically rebuild them from very compromised material.

"That just wasn't true before." But, he added, it's still a painstaking process.

The actual restoration process is just one of the challenges the organization faces; getting these films in front of audiences is another.

Given a movie-going public that, judging by the box office, is enamored with films like James Cameron's technologically advanced 3D "Avatar" -- films that look to the future of movie making rather than its past -- the latter may prove a harder task.

But Scorsese and company realize the importance of raising awareness around the films they save.

Beyond restoration and preservation, the World Cinema Foundation is committed to making sure their refurbished movies get seen, Jones said.

To that end, Scorsese revealed at Cannes last year two new distribution partnerships, including one that allows four of the films restored by the foundation to be viewed for free via online movie theater The Auteurs.

The foundation's role, Jones told CNN, is really "to create awareness and build up the presence of these films and filmmakers."

After all, it is these neglected films that remind us of how we lived in a specific period of time, according to Salles, and by saving them, history is being preserved.

That, he added, is "a very powerful tool, for the new generations or next generations, to understand where we come from, who we are and where we're going to."

For more on film preservation, watch The Screening Room on CNN at the following times: Wednesday 27 January: 0930, 1730, Saturday 30 January: 0930, 1800, 2130, Sunday 31 January: 0630, 1830, Monday 1 February: 0400 (all times GMT)

Lidz-Ama Appiah and Katie Walmsley contributed to this report.

Read synopsis of S. Korea’s “The Housemaid” and WATCH FOR FREE online here.

View Article on CNN

CHINA: Farmyard animal?

An adult male tiger (generic picture)

China's wild tiger population may be as small as 50

Page last updated at 15:37 GMT, Friday, 29 January 2010

By Patrick Jackson
BBC News

For every one wild tiger alive in the world today, there may be three "farmed" tigers in China.

They have been bred for their hides but also their bones, which are used to infuse some wines prized in South East Asia.

Some in the region believe that the consumption of certain parts of a tiger's carcass can give strength and virility.

China banned the trade in tiger bones and products in 1993 but that has not stopped the practice, which is currently on the agenda of an international tiger conservation conference in Thailand.

The part [of the farm] which people rarely see is basically a winery in which the skeletons of grown tigers are cleaned and put into vats of wine

Judy Mills
Conservation International

According to the World Bank, which leads the Global Tiger Initiative (GTI), the trade is being spurred by privately run tiger farms in Asian countries. It has called for these farms to be shut down.

Tigers on the farms are kept in cages and are also allowed to chase cows or chickens for the amusement of the paying public.

"Our position is that tiger farms as an animal practice are cruel," said the World Bank's Keshav Varma, GTI's programme director, as he attended the conference in Hua Hin.

"They fan the potential use of tiger parts," he told the Associated Press news agency.

In order to get an idea of what goes on in these farms, which are often presented as parks for tourists, BBC World Service spoke to Judy Mills of Conservation International, who has visited some of them.

'Speed-breeding'

The world's entire surviving wild tiger population is somewhere between 3,600 and 3,200, conservationists believe.

In China, there are now close to 10,000 tigers on farms, says Ms Mills, while other estimates suggest the number may be around 5,000.

"These are speed-breeding factory farms," Conservation International's tiger specialist says.

According to her research, farm tigresses produce cubs at about three times or more their natural rate, bearing up to three litters a year. Cubs are often taken away from their mothers before they are properly weaned.

These cubs, she says, are usually made to suckle from other animals, such as pigs or dogs - their "wet nurse surrogates" - so that the tigresses can produce more young.

"The part [of the farm] which people rarely see is basically a winery in which the skeletons of grown tigers are cleaned and put into vats of wine," says Ms Mills.

The bones are steeped for years, she explains, and the length of the infusion determines the value of the wine.

Conservation International says it is very difficult to clarify the legal status of these farms in China.

"When I first visited a tiger farm in 1990, it was part of a fur farm raising racoon, dogs, mink and other fur-bearing animals for commercial use," says Ms Mills. "The owner of the farm was showing me the log of orders for tiger bones and skins and other parts and products from tigers.

"Then in 1993, because of international pressure, China banned its commercial trade in tiger bone and tiger bone products but, at the same time, these tiger farms were allowed to expand.

"It's something the conservation community has been trying to address with the Chinese government ever since."

Late last year, the Chinese State Forestry Administration promised to monitor tiger breeders more closely, and crack down on the illegal trade in tiger parts and products.

The fear must be, however, that with the Chinese Year of the Tiger due to fall on 14 February, demand for such items will be as strong as ever.

View Article on BBC News

JAPAN: 'Fathering school' opens to give men lessons in raising children

News photo

Bringing up baby: A man practices on a life-size doll during a child care session at a "fathering school" in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, in November. KYODO

Friday, Jan. 29, 2010

By KYOTA SHIROYAMA

Kyodo News

More than a dozen men last autumn hoping to take on a greater role in child rearing gathered in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, after work for lectures on child care.

One of them, the father of an elementary school boy, said, "I want to consider child rearing anew."

A bachelor said was attending the eight-lecture course to prepare for the day he becomes a father.

Around 58 percent of male company employees say they want "to strike a balance between work, and housework and child rearing," according to a poll conducted by Mitsubishi UFJ Consulting Co.

However, the survey commissioned by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry found that 74 percent of male workers with preschool children put priority on work.

The nonprofit organization Fathering Japan set up the "fathering school" primarily for prospective fathers. The course covers ways to prevent illness, laws pertaining to child-rearing, and training sessions using life-size dolls of kids.

Tetsuya Ando, representative director of Fathering Japan, hopes the course helps participants find a sense of enjoyment in child care and assists them in developing networks.

Ando said he opened the school because there were no continuous learning opportunities for men to prepare for fatherhood.

He said "konkatsu" activities for men and women to find partners through marriage agencies and group meetings have become popular, but the "power of child care" will serve as a trump card for men.

Tokyo resident Shota Araki, 27, said attending the course gave him an opportunity to consider seriously what he can do before his wife gives birth next month.

Because he stays late at the office on weekdays, he has to juggle work to attend the weekly course. Planning to take parental leave, he said, "I'd like to raise awareness in the company so that employees spend more time with their children on weekdays."

Masami Ohinata, a professor of developmental psychology at Keisen University's graduate school in Tokyo, said the course provides a new avenue for men to approach child care, which is considered the preserve of women.

But Ohinata said there are many men who are unable to participate in child care even if they want to and the challenge is to enable them to play a more active role.

View Article in The Japan Times

TAIWAN: US Announces $6B Arms Sale To Taiwan

January 29, 2010, 04:12 pm ET

by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - In a move sure to aggravate China, the Obama administration on Friday announced plans for more than $6 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island the Chinese claim as their own.

The sale would include Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot missiles, mine-hunting ships and information technology. Lawmakers have 30 days to comment before the plan proceeds; senior lawmakers have traditionally supported arms sales to Taiwan.

Taiwan is the most sensitive matter in already-tense relations between the U.S. and China, two powers increasingly linked by security and economic issues. The sale could spark a temporary break in U.S.-China military ties.

The United States, which only told China of the sale hours before the announcement, acknowledged Friday that Beijing may retaliate by cutting off military talks with Washington, which happened after a multibillion dollar U.S. sale to Taiwan in 2008.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Beijing will lodge a formal protest against the U.S. decision. Asked if China would cut off military ties, he said, "Let's wait and see."

President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Jim Jones, said Friday that Washington and Beijing both do things "periodically that may not make everybody completely happy."

But Jones told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank the U.S. is "bent toward a new relationship with China as a rising power in the world."

China vehemently opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. It has threatened to invade Taiwan should the island ever formalize its de facto independence.

The United States is Taiwan's most important ally and largest arms supplier.

The package, posted on a Pentagon Web site, dodges one thorny issue: The F-16 fighter jets that Taiwan covets are not included.

The sale satisfies parts of an $11 billion arms package originally pledged to Taiwan by former President George W. Bush in 2001, which has been provided in stages because of political and budgetary considerations in Taiwan and the United States.

The arms sale will test the Obama administration's China policy, which U.S. officials say is meant to improve trust between the countries, so that the inevitable disagreements over Taiwan or Tibet don't reverse efforts to cooperate on nuclear standoffs in Iran and North Korea and other issues.

China aims more than 1,000 ballistic missiles at Taiwan; the U.S. government is bound by law to ensure the island is able to respond to Chinese threats.

The package includes 114 Patriot missiles designed to shoot down other missiles, 60 Black Hawk helicopters, and two mine-hunting ships.

Associated Press writers Robert Burns, Desmond Butler and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

View Article on NPR

CHINA: Returned China Uighurs 'vanished'

Page last updated at 14:54 GMT, Friday, 29 January 2010

Burned buses in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China (6 July 2009)

The Uighurs left Xinjiang after deadly fighting in July

China must account for the whereabouts of ethnic Uighurs forcibly repatriated from Cambodia, a US-based rights group has said.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said such groups had "disappeared into a black hole" on their return to China.

The Uighurs fled to Cambodia after mass ethnic riots in China in July. Beijing has referred to them as criminals.

In December, a group of 20 Uighurs were put on a plane to China despite opposition from the UN and US.

They said the group were likely to face persecution in China.

"Uighur asylum seekers sent back to China by Cambodia have disappeared into a black hole," said Sophie Richardson of HRW.

"There is no information about their whereabouts, no notification of any legal charges against them, and there are no guarantees they are safe from torture and ill-treatment."

HRW said a number of the group had given detailed accounts of past torture and persecution in China and that threats had been made against their families.

The organisation said China has a history of executing or imposing harsh sentences of Uighurs sent back from abroad and that there were unconfirmed reports some members of a group previously returned had been sentenced to death in western Xinjiang province.

'Fair trials'

Ms Richardson said the Chinese government must say where the group are being held and under what status as well as allowing the UN and family members to see them.

Map

"Family members have the right to know what has happened to their loved ones," she said

"The Chinese government must treat all returnees humanely, ensure fair trials, and not persecute individuals for activities and speech that are protected under international law."

There has been no immediate comment from the Chinese foreign ministry.

The Uighurs fled Xinjiang after July's violent ethnic clashes in the provincial capital Urumqi which left at least 97 people dead.

Most of those killed in the unrest were majority Han Chinese, according to officials, and Urumqi's Han population had demanded swift justice.

At least 25 people have been sentenced to death after the riots.

Tensions between the mainly-Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang and Han have been growing in recent years. Millions of Han have moved to the region in recent decades.

Many Uighurs want more autonomy and rights for their culture and religion than is allowed by Beijing's strict rule.

View Article on BBC News