Sunday, October 18, 2009
Men going to great lengths for beautiful skin
Men going to great lengths for beautiful skin
Shoichi Shirahaze / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
Skin care items are not just for "metrosexuals" any more, as marketers cater to an increasing number of men who are putting priority on cosmetic considerations.
According to the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, sales of men's skin care cosmetics in 2008 totaled 17.6 billion yen, a 16.9 percent increase from the previous year.
Nivea-Kao Co. became the first to offer a men's skin care brand in 2002, followed by Shiseido Co. in 2004 and Roht Pharmaceutical Co. in 2006.
Yoshiaki Okabe, a Shiseido official who took part in developing the company's men's skin care brand, said, "More men are spending money on skin care items thanks to the appearance of men's cosmetics items at several department stores as well as due to the 'choi-waru oyaji' [trendy middle-aged playboy] boom."
Meanwhile, Kaori Sutani, a public relations officer at Mandom Corp., said men, mostly younger ones, have begun paying attention to their skin, partly due to the popularization of sending e-mail photo attachments. According to a Mandom survey, the usage rate of facial wash among men reached 59.4 percent in 2009, compared with the 48.8 percent figure registered in 2005. When the question focused on university students, the rate soared to more than 85 percent.
Other men's cosmetic products, such as beauty essence, milky lotion and cream preparations, also recently have hit the market. One can find large selections of these items at drugstores and special cosmetic counters staffed by skin counselors at department stores.
Male skin is said to contain more oil and less moisture than female skin. Skin care experts recommend that men keep their facial skin clean by frequently washing and using moisturizing products.
(Oct. 19, 2009)
Crime rife at Net cafes that don't require ID
Crime rife at Net cafes that don't require ID
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Tokyo police are considering making it mandatory for Net cafe operators to ask customers to show identification after a survey found nearly 75 percent of crimes committed at cybercafes occurred at shops that did not check the ID of customers.
Fewer than 40 percent of Net cafes in the capital ask their customers to show ID, according to a Metropolitan Police Department survey of 561 Net cafes known to be operating in Tokyo as of the end of August.
The MPD launched an expert advisory panel Saturday to consider measures to stem the crimes--including theft, hacking and rape--occurring in Net cafes. One step the panel will discuss is making it obligatory for Net cafes to confirm the identification of their customers, according to the MPD.
Just 214 of the Net cafes surveyed, or 38.1 percent, asked customers to show ID when entering their premises.
There were 679 crimes reported in Tokyo's Net cafes from January to the end of August. Of them, 505, or 74 percent, took place at Net cafes that did not check customer ID.
Thefts of bags and other possessions topped the list with 579 incidents, followed by 67 cases of fraud and seven robberies with violence.
A youth arrested by police on suspicion of stealing items from private booths late at night reportedly told police that the Net cafes were easy targets. "The booths have no locks and many people leave their booths unattended," he reportedly said.
Since around 2006, cases of using computers at Net cafes for unlawful purposes such as hacking and purchasing illegal drugs online have been steadily increasing, investigators said.
Even rapes have been reported at Net cafes. A 28-year-old part-time worker arrested on suspicion of indecently assaulting a young girl in a booth for couples at a Net cafe reportedly told police that the booth had a mattress and "could not be seen from the outside."
Girls who have run away from home have been found using computers at Net cafes to trawl for people willing to pay them for sex, the MPD said.
Billing fraud gangs have stationed members charged with withdrawing money from victims' accounts at Net cafes.
The MPD has been urging Net cafe operators since 2007 to verify the identity of their customers with ID bearing a photograph and keep computer records.
Compliance with the MPD requests, however, has been left to discretion of the cafes, and no penalties are slapped on cafes that fail to comply.
Just 38.1 percent of Net cafes complied with the MPD request in the latest survey, edging down from 40.6 percent in a survey a year before, and only 13.9 percent stored computer usage records, down from 24.6 percent a year earlier, the MPD noted.
Some Net cafes reportedly told MPD officers that they stopped asking customers to show ID because many cafe users disliked the practice.
The Japan Complex Cafe Association, a nationwide federation of 1,263 Net cafe operators, plans to ask its members to tighten their checks of customers.
"We'll boost efforts to confirm cafe users' identification because doing so would bring in more users if they know they can enter and feel safe," an association official said.
(Oct. 19, 2009)
Water shortages hit south China
Water shortages hit south China
Source: Xinhua
2009-10-19
SEVERE drought over the past months has stunted rice crops, threatened reservoirs and left hundreds of thousands of people short of drinking water in southern Chinese provinces.
In the southern Guangdong Province, where rain in the first 10 months fell by 14 percent compared with averages in past years, more than 55,000 hectares of cropland are affected and 50,000 people are facing difficulties in getting drinking water because of the drought.
Water level in Guangdong's dams continued to drop. According to Guangdong Provincial Flooding and Drought Relief Headquarters, water levels in Guangdong's 32 key reservoirs have reported a year-on-year decrease of 2.34 billion cubic meters.
The drought is continuing to take a toll on agricultural production in the province.
"I've never seen such a severe drought in my life," said a 73-year-old farmer in Zhoutian Township, Shaoguan City. "A great deal of crops have been damaged."
There have also been concerns of further crop damage as drought harms plants' ability to weather the winter.
In Nan'ao Island of Shantou City, home to more than 70,000 people, drought has left residents struggling to bathe and do the laundry.
More than 70,000 people in Zhangzhou City in the southeastern Fujian Province are also short of drinking water.
Hydraulic experts attribute the water shortage to the lingering drought as well as a shortage of reservoirs, where construction has lagged behind China's industrialization and urbanization.
In the central Hunan Province, low water levels in Dongting Lake, China's second largest fresh water lake, have forced local fishermen out of work.
"October used to be a 'golden season' for fishing in the lake," said fisherman Gong Jianmin. "But now we can't go out to fish since the low water period has come early this year because of the drought."
In eastern Jiangxi Province, most cities have recorded a 66 percent drop in rainfall.
Villagers relocated to make way for reservoir
Villagers relocated to make way for reservoir
Source: Xinhua
2009-10-19
A RESETTLEMENT project involving 330,000 people living in central China's Hubei and Henan provinces has started to make way for China's south-north water diversion project, according to resettlement authorities in Henan yesterday.
People will be relocated from their homes near the Danjiangkou reservoir, where a sluice will be built to divert water from the Yangtze River to thirsty northern China regions including Beijing, Tianjin, Henan and Hebei.
Sources with the resettlement headquarters in Henan said the provincial government has approved new settlement areas with convenient traffic conditions and good soil quality.
Henan's Xichuan County will see the resettlement of 162,000 people, the largest number in a single county, in 185 new villages.
Resettlement in the province is scheduled to be completed in 2011, according to Henan's authorities.
Each resettled family will be given 0.1 hectare of land per person and an annual subsidy of 600 yuan (US$88) each for 20 years, according to Duan Shiyao, deputy chief of Hubei Provincial Resettlement Bureau.
The resettlement project is the country's second largest following a similar scheme for the Three Gorges Hydro-Power Project, where 1.27 million people were moved.
U.S.-Japan ties get early test ahead of Obama visit
U.S.-Japan ties get early test ahead of Obama visit
Sun Oct 18, 2009 7:30am EDT
By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A trip by the U.S. defense secretary to Tokyo this week will offer an early test of ties with Japan's new government, which swept to power last month promising a more independent path from Washington.
The change of guard in Japan has raised uncertainty among investors watching the pivotal role of the U.S. alliance in a region that is also home to North Korea, an unpredictable and reclusive state that is pursuing a nuclear program.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, whose trip will include South Korea, will give assurances of Washington's "full-throated commitment" to defend allies in Asia from any threat from North Korea after its latest missile test, U.S. defense officials said.
But Gates is also expected to seek assurances during his visit on Tuesday and Wednesday that Japan's new government will honor past security accords, clearing away possible sources of friction before President Barack Obama's visit next month.
Those include a contentious agreement on rejigging U.S. forces in Japan, home to 48,000 U.S. troops.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants a Marine air base moved off Okinawa island -- an option U.S. officials rule out. They say it would undermine broader security arrangements long in the making.
"It's been in the works for 15 years. ... You start to pull on one thread and you run the risk of the whole thing unraveling," said one defense official, briefing journalists before the trip on the condition he not be named.
Washington also wants Japan to come forward with new forms of assistance to Afghanistan, if Tokyo follows through with plans to halt a naval refueling mission backing coalition forces, the official said.
"That contribution does not have to be a military one. In fact, a lot of the very valuable contributions in Afghanistan are on the development side and the training side," he said.
Japan's defense minister said on Tuesday that Tokyo would end its refueling mission in support of coalition operations in Afghanistan, but a top government spokesman said a decision had yet to be made.
Analysts expressed optimism that Tokyo and Washington would reaffirm their historically strong ties, despite a new government in Japan and a young administration in Washington.
"The Japanese will be reassuring him (Gates) that nothing much is going to change, even though they've made a lot of noise," said Phil Deans, professor of international affairs at Temple University's Tokyo campus.
SOUTH KOREA HANDOVER
After Japan, Gates heads to South Korea, where nearly 29,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed to help defend against North Korea, which fired five short-range missiles on October 12.
The Pentagon called those tests "unhelpful and potentially destabilizing" and senior U.S. officials immediately traveled to Tokyo and then Seoul last week to assure allies the United States could defend them, officials said.
"North Korea is obviously trying to achieve break-out as a nuclear weapons state. We will never accept this," one official said.
Asked whether there were concerns that Asian allies might pursue their own nuclear programs to defend against North Korea, a U.S. official said the hope was that a strong U.S. commitment would steer them away from "the nuclear option."
Gates' trip to Seoul also comes amid a major restructuring of the U.S. military alliance with South Korea, forged during the 1950-53 Korean War. Seoul is set to take wartime control of its forces by 2012.
"We think it's a natural evolution of the alliance, that it's time now 60 years after the start of the Korean War," an official said.
Officials said Gates was set to confirm progress toward the handover.
"That will be one of the issues that will be discussed," he added. "And we fully expect that we will endorse the progress we've made and that we're on target for transfer in 2012."
South Korea's 650,000 troops face about 1.1 million in North Korea, which devotes the bulk of its resources to its military despite a struggling economy.
(Additional reporting by Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo; Editing by Paul Eckert and John O'Callaghan)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Straits' slim limits set to let U.S. nukes pass
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009
Straits' slim limits set to let U.S. nukes pass
Kyodo News
Japan decided in the 1970s to set narrow territorial limits on five key straits to allow passage of U.S. warships carrying nuclear weapons, a former envoy who represented Japan at U.N. talks on international maritime law said in a recent interview.
Some of the U.S. submarines that passed through Japanese territorial waters or called at Japanese ports during the Cold War were carrying nuclear weapons, said Shigeru Oda, who represented Japan during talks on the U.N. Conference on the Law of the Sea. Oda said the decision to let them pass was a political one.
Countries involved in the 1973-1982 talks agreed to allow territorial waters to be set at a maximum of 12 nautical miles (22 km) from shore.
Under the Territorial Waters Act that took effect in 1977, Japan expanded its territorial waters to 12 nautical miles from the previous limit of 3 nautical miles (5.6 km).
But the limits on Japan's territorial waters in the Soya, Tsugaru, Osumi, Tsushima and Korea straits were mysteriously left unchanged at 3 nautical miles.
The Foreign Ministry demanded that Oda not disclose how and why the decision was made in a book he was writing after leaving the ministry in 1976, he said, adding he eventually gave in to the demand.
He went on to become a judge at the International Court of Justice that year and served until 2003.
"The Tsugaru Strait would have become Japan's territorial waters (if the limit was expanded to 12 nautical miles)," Oda, 84, said.
"In order to say 'no bringing in nuclear weapons' and 'submarines must surface when passing through Japan's territorial waters,' you could not make the limit 12 nautical miles," he said, referring to the three nonnuclear principles of prohibiting possession, production or introduction of nuclear arms on Japanese territory.
Japan needed to keep the limits in the five straits at 3 nautical miles so it could deny that U.S. ships or subs with nuclear weapons were plying official Japanese waters, he said.
Official U.S. documents and testimony from people involved with the issue have already confirmed that Japan voluntarily chose to set narrow limits on the straits and that pressure from the United States was involved in the matter.
Okada urges understanding for Taiji
Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009
Okada urges understanding for Taiji
Kyodo News
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Friday called for people to respect other countries' cultures and habits after environmental conservation groups criticized the annual dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture.
Dolphin hunting in the town was thrust into the international spotlight after the U.S. documentary "The Cove," which highlighted the issue, was screened in the United States, Australia and other countries, including, after a delay, Japan.
"Various things can be edible depending on each country . . . I would like (people) to understand that culture is diverse," Okada said at a news conference.
Although the foreign minister admitted he has not seen the film himself, he nonetheless suggested there were parts of it that are untrue.
"The Cove" is among films to be shown during the 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival, which kicked off Saturday.
China only trails U.S. in billionaires
China only trails U.S. in billionaires
Story Highlights
* Number of billionaires in China grows to 130, according to report
* Actual number of billionaires may be up to 260, according to man who compiles list
* Wealthy in China hard to track because they want to avoid government scrutiny
* Most who made list made fortunes due to real estate, similar ventures
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- China ranks second only to the United States in the number of billionaires, according to an annual report of the 1,000 richest people in the country.
The Hurun Rich List counted 130 billionaires in China this year, up from 101 a year ago and none in 2003.
An additional 825,000 people had personal wealth of more than $1.5 million, said Rupert Hoogewerf, an accountant who has compiled the list since 1998.
"You can double the real number of billionaires in China to 260," said Hoogewerf in a statement. "There are still a large number of billionaires off the radar screens."
Often, wealthy people in China try to avoid the scrutiny of tax authorities by keeping their finances private.
The man who topped the list last year, for example, is under arrest for alleged financial irregularities.
The most prominent dropout from the list is injured Houston Rockets basketball player Yao Ming, whose fortune was valued at $100 million last year.
The list indicates that China's wealthy have been buffered from the global financial meltdown, which has tycoons in other countries reeling.
A separate list, released in June by Capgemeni SA and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, found that China's economy grew by 9 percent last year, even as the United States and Europe slipped into recession.
That list found that the combined riches of China's millionaires surpassed that of the United Kingdom's.
Most business owners who made the Hurun list -- both as billionaires and millionaires -- made their fortune in real estate and related industries as China has undergone dizzying urbanization.
The construction ministry estimates that the country's urban population will increase by 300 million people by 2025.
Few of those making the list relied on exports to Western economies.
But the richest man in China this year, Wang Chuanfu, jumped 102 places to the top after billionaire U.S. investor Warren Buffett agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in his company.
Buffett's announcement sent shares in Wang's company, BYD, surging 387 percent this year.
The company initially made its name with rechargeable cell phone batteries, but this year launched mass production of a plug-in hybrid electric car.
Other highlights from the list:
Less than 1 percent on the list inherited their wealth, compared with 25 percent in the United Kingdom and 35 percent in the United States.
The typical rich list member is a 50-year-old self-made man who started out 16 years ago and has made his money from property development.
102 women were among China's 1,000 richest. Chinese women make up more than half the world's richest self-made women.
The top three hobbies of wealthy Chinese are travel, swimming and golf. The United States, Australia and France are their preferred destinations.
Though the list mentions China as second to the United States in the number of billionaires, it did not specify how many the latter produced.
A Forbes magazine tally of the world's richest people, released in March, counted 359billionaires in America.
Learning to drink like a local in Qingdao, China
Learning to drink like a local in Qingdao, China
Story Highlights
* Qingdao is located in northeast China, north of Shanghai
* The city hosts a beer festival and is home to distinctive European architecture
* The Tsingtao Brewery was founded in 1903 by German settlers
October 16, 2009 -- Updated 0228 GMT (1028 HKT)
By Frances McCullers
For CNN
QINGDAO, China (CNN) -- Another round of toasts and exclamations of "hajiu" sounded out around me. I took a sip and set down my small glass of Tsingtao beer as my new friends downed theirs and refilled. Our seafood dinner, perched on the single cluttered table of a tiny antique shop, was punctuated regularly by such moments.
I joined in happily, although somewhat bemused, at each increasingly beery celebration of our host, the worldly Captain Jau. My company, a gathering from four regions of China, was engaging me in Chinese drinking etiquette, in the city of Qingdao.
A few drinks in the People's Republic of China led me to discover European delights and other unexpected finds in this modest city.
You'd be forgiven for not knowing where Qingdao (pronounced Chingdao) is. The Chinese city in Shandong province doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as Beijing, Shanghai, or even Xi'an.
The 2008 Olympics gave it a place on the map as China's sailing hub; no longer a secret that holiday-making officials could keep for themselves.
But my American spell-check doesn't recognize it (which says more about my spell-check), and you can still find pre-Cultural Revolution manhole covers. So what is it about this city that seduces the unassuming traveler?
Nestled on the coast of Shandong province, almost exactly halfway between its big sisters, Beijing and Shanghai, Qingdao features as a handy pit-stop on East coast itineraries. It boasts great infrastructure, a charming climate, alfresco eateries, good coffee, sandy beaches, German history, international hotels, a brand new airport and even a famous brewery.
Qingdao could pass itself off as a miniature Seattle if it weren't for the fact that pretty much no one outside of the five-star hotels speaks English, and that communism still articulates itself through the tourist beaches, stoically named Number One to Number Six.
"In mainland China, Qingdao's history is uniquely international; in fact, more of the city's cultural identity is wrapped up in its German colonial past than even its prominent role in the emergence of Daoism" said Eric Blocher, editor of the English-language magazine Red Star.
"The local culture bureau once joked to us that Qingdao is a 'cultural desert', because it doesn't have the dynastic lineage of Nanjing or Xi'an, or opera for that matter," Blocher said. "But that's not what makes a city livable, or even fun -- if your office is in downtown, you're never more than five minutes from a protected beach; there's always excellent seafood close at hand; you can buy China's best beer fresh, for 10 cents a pound, and walk around drinking it out of a plastic bag."
Following this key advice, I visited Qingdao during the International Beer Festival in late August, an event aimed largely at a domestic Chinese market. The West knows beer. China does not. The annual Beer Festival aims to change this. While the bright lights and myriad beers flowed, one thing was obvious: this was for the tourists.
True Qingdaonese people are fiercely proud of Tsingtao beer, produced just down the road on Beer Street, and little else is drunk here in homes or bars. Pijiu, beer in Mandarin, is hajiu in Qingdaonese, the regional dialect. When in doubt, this does as well for a toast as anything else. Indeed, there is no better way of celebrating an occasion than by toasting the guest of honor with a bag of fresh beer.
If I was the guest of honor at Captain Jau's table, I certainly wasn't living up to expectations. Particularly not for my self-appointed etiquette guardian and "pure Qingdao boy," Loukas. As I raised my glass for a sip and Loukas jumped to toast the good weather for the nth time, it all became clear. In Qingdao, a beer glass is never raised without a toast.
This serves three (frankly ingenious) purposes; beer is drunk in unison; beer isn't consumed too rapidly, since constant toasting would ruin conversation; and everyone finds ways to honor each other for the purposes of toasting. Captain Jau was particularly in favor of the latter as our eccentric host was made subject of most cheers, likewise teaching us the salutations he had learned from the many foreign guests he had cooked for. From the French "salut!" to the German "prost!" to the Turkish "serefe!" Most popular of all was homegrown "hajiu!"
Alcohol is enjoyed throughout China. Microbreweries are yet to catch on here like they have in Japan and Singapore. For now Tsingtao holds the monopoly, and Qingdao's people aren't complaining.
The Tsingtao Brewery, founded in 1903 by German settlers, confiscated by the Japanese in 1915, turned over to state ownership in 1949 and finally privatized in the early 1990s, has witnessed a colorful history. The largest stakeholder, Anheuser-Busch, recently sold majority ownership to Japanese Asahi Breweries.
Residents are the first to introduce you to their biggest export. Outside every shop is a barrel or two of Tsingtao, with a ream of clean plastic bags ready to be filled with cheap 3.5 percent beer. Tsingtao beer tastes crisp and sweet (most likely from rice mixed in to cut down on the cost of barley. It is bought by the pound and weighed to prevent gaseous volume manipulation. A pint, when sold in this method, costs around 1.5 renminbi, or 22 U.S. cents.
Beer is a way of life here and has been ever since the Germans arrived and erected tree-lined avenues, red-roofed houses and a brewery. The Germans are gone but the beer stayed. And with it, three hajiu-loving generations tell you about their happy memories.
"When I was little, buying beer was one special job I did for my dad every summer day," explained Irene Cheung over a fresh bag of beer. "I was the little girl proudly and carefully carrying the plastic bag home."
It is easier to identify Qingdao by what it is not -- smoggy, crowded Beijing, or nightlife hub Shanghai -- than what it is or hopes to be. This may be the very reason why Qingdao remains largely unvisited by the West. And while there may not be much more than good weather, food and beer to keep you content, that may just be enough to hop on the three-hour flight from Hong Kong, or the one hour 20 minute-journey from Beijing or Shanghai.
Following Olympic-based investment, more than 3,000 factories have sprung up in the airport suburbs. You can source anything from shoes to jewels to Durex condoms among the largely Korean-owned industries. If these things aren't up your street, head elsewhere; like functionally named Beer Street, Bar Street, or my personal favorite, Coffee and Tea Craft Street.
"We used to have to put on parties so that there would be material to justify an English-oriented lifestyle magazine," editor Blocher said. "Now we have trouble keeping track!"
Check out English-language newspaper Red Star, for informative listings and an insight into the growing English-speaking population that has stumbled upon and stayed in Qingdao.
Japan's nuclear-bombed cities plan joint bid for 2020 Olympic Games
On August 6 and 9, 1945 the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, were bombed by the U.S. with atomic bombs.
Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's Tomihisa Taue are the founders of the Mayors for Peace 2020 campaign, that is an effort have a global ban on nuclear weapons by 2020.
Using this campaign as a spring-board, the mayors are also planning to launch a joint-bid for the 2020 Olympics.
"The Olympics symbolize the abolition of nuclear arms and world peace, and we want to work to realize our plan to host the games," Akiba said.
Last month Akiba spoke in Mexico City and asserted that he believed that the world could indeed abolish nuclear weapons by 2020. He further added that nothing would celebrate such an abolition, than for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only two cities to ever suffer from atomic strike, to host the Olympics on such a momentous occasion.
One must certainly admit that such an unfolding of events would definitely be cause for celebration, and if a nuclear weapon abolition across the globe were to take place, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would indeed be the perfect places for "icing on the cake," but in reality the whole scheme seems nothing short of utopian.
With a nuclear North Korea and Iran not far behind, attempting to accomplish a world ban on nuclear weapons is not only a utopian idea, but also seemingly naive. Though the U.S. has entered the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, along with Russia, both nations still maintain a nuclear arsenal. China as well will surely not give-up such a weapon. Pakistan and India who are bitter rivals will certainly retain their nuclear weapons as a deterrent to the other-side.
Such a list may go on forever, and to hope that a nuclear ban would take place within the next eleven years is too far fetched for the Olympic Committee to agree to allow the two cities to host the 2020 games. While we must all applaud the effort of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and as exciting as it would be for a denuclearized world to watch the Olympics in these two historic cities, the reality is that it may yet be all too far out of reach.
Public baths in Adachi cut weekend prices to combat plunge in visitors
Public baths in Adachi cut weekend prices to combat plunge in visitors
Public baths in Tokyo's Adachi Ward have lowered their weekend prices for children and accompanying adults in a bid to combat a decline in customers.
A campaign running until February lowers the admission fee for elementary school students to 100 yen on Saturdays and Sundays, down from 180 yen. The price for accompanying adults is 330 yen (down from 450 yen), while infants get in for free, instead of the regular 80 yen. There are also quizzes and prizes for younger children.
"We encourage parents and children to come and relax and soak in the baths," said the operator of one public bath participating in the campaign.
The number of public baths in Tokyo peaked in 1968, when there were over 2,600 baths. However, due to management difficulties and a lack of successors the figure has since dwindled to about 850. In Adachi Ward, which has retained a bath-going culture, there are still 53 public baths. The baths are varied, some with outdoor bathing spots and some with baths designed specifically for children, and the Adachi branch of the Tokyo Sento (public bath) Association is pouring effort into attracting families to halt the decline in users caused by the aging population and declining birth rate.
The weekend discounts are covered by a Tokyo Metropolitan Government subsidy, with children who bring stickers distributed at elementary schools entitled to discounts. In addition, people who correctly answer a quiz in the autumn edition of the quarterly publication "Sento to Ieba Adachi," distributed free at public baths and libraries, go in a draw to win puzzle games and shampoo. The deadline for entries is Dec. 6.
Satoko Funahashi, who edits "Sento to Ieba Adachi," often visits public baths with her two children.
"Our local public bath heats up well water, and it takes away your tiredness. After an autumn outing, it feels good to take a hot bath," she says.
(Mainichi Japan) October 18, 2009
Yamanote Line mountain spotters denied last glimpse of Fuji by new building
Yamanote Line mountain spotters denied last glimpse of Fuji by new building
Since this summer, passengers have no longer been able to catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji from the JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo due to the construction of a new commercial building, leaving commuters and enthusiasts of "urban views of Mt. Fuji" heartbroken.
On winter mornings when the air was clear, the peak of Mt. Fuji was visible -- for a fleeting moment, wedged in between buildings -- if passengers were looking southwest from the train between Takadanobaba and Mejiro stations. It lasted less than a second, but captured the hearts of many as a valuable view in the middle of the urban landscape.
Hiroshi Tashiro, 59, head of FYAMAP, a forum on mountain views and maps and a teacher at University of Tsukuba Senior High School, was looking for Mt. Fuji from the train in late September when he discovered, much to his dismay, that it was now hidden. "I'm sure there were many passengers on their way to work or school who looked forward to sightings of Mt. Fuji," he said. "I'm shocked that we've lost a valuable scenic viewpoint in the Tokyo metropolitan area."
According to those affiliated with the new four-story building located approximately 100 meters from the train tracks in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, construction was completed in August. Previously, Mt. Fuji had been visible between Harajuku and Yoyogi stations before high-rise buildings blocked the view, but the latest spot had been the last remaining spot where passengers were offered a view of Mt. Fuji from the Yamanote line.
(Mainichi Japan) October 18, 2009
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling
October 18, 2009
News Analysis
Russia’s Leaders See China as Template for Ruling
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
MOSCOW — Nearly two decades after the collapse of the Communist Party, Russia’s rulers have hit upon a model for future success: the Communist Party.
Or at least, the one that reigns next door.
Like an envious underachiever, Vladimir V. Putin’s party, United Russia, is increasingly examining how it can emulate the Chinese Communist Party, especially its skill in shepherding China through the financial crisis relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even convened a special meeting this month with senior Chinese Communist Party officials to hear firsthand how they wield power.
In truth, the Russians express no desire to return to Communism as a far-reaching Marxist-Leninist ideology, whether the Soviet version or the much attenuated one in Beijing. What they admire, it seems, is the Chinese ability to use a one-party system to keep tight control over the country while still driving significant economic growth.
It is a historical turnabout that resonates, given that the Chinese Communists were inspired by the Soviets, before the two sides had a lengthy rift.
For the Russians, what matters is the countries’ divergent paths in recent decades. They are acutely aware that even as Russia has endured many dark days in its transition to a market economy, China appears to have carried out a fairly similar shift more artfully.
The Russians also seem almost ashamed that their economy is highly dependent on oil, gas and other natural resources, as if Russia were a third world nation, while China excels at manufacturing products sought by the world.
“The accomplishments of China’s Communist Party in developing its government deserve the highest marks,” Aleksandr D. Zhukov, a deputy prime minister and senior Putin aide, declared at the meeting with Chinese officials on Oct. 9 in the border city of Suifenhe, China, northwest of Vladivostok. “The practical experience they have should be intensely studied.”
Mr. Zhukov invited President Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, to United Russia’s convention, in November in St. Petersburg.
The meeting in Suifenhe capped several months of increased contacts between the political parties. In the spring, a high-level United Russia delegation visited Beijing for several days of talks, and United Russia announced that it would open an office in Beijing for its research arm.
The fascination with the Chinese Communist Party underscores United Russia’s lack of a core philosophy. The party has functioned largely as an arm of Mr. Putin’s authority, even campaigning on the slogan “Putin’s Plan.” Lately, it has championed “Russian Conservatism,” without detailing what exactly that is.
Indeed, whether United Russia’s effort to learn from the Chinese Communist Party is anything more than an intellectual exercise is an open question.
Whatever the motivation, Russia in recent years has started moving toward the Chinese model politically and economically. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia plunged into capitalism haphazardly, selling off many industries and loosening regulation. Under Mr. Putin, the government has reversed course, seizing more control over many sectors.
Today, both countries govern with a potent centralized authority, overseeing economies with a mix of private and state industries, although the Russians have long seemed less disciplined in doing so.
Corruption is worse in Russia than China, according to global indexes, and foreign companies generally consider Russia’s investment climate less hospitable as well, in part because of less respect for property rights.
Russia has also been unable to match China in modernizing roads, airports, power plants and other infrastructure. And Russia is grappling with myriad health and social problems that have reduced the average life expectancy for men to 60. One consequence is a demographic crisis that is expected to drag down growth.
The world financial crisis accentuated comparisons between the economies, drawing attention to Moscow’s policies. In June, the World Bank projected that China’s economy would grow by 7.2 percent in 2009, while Russia’s would shrink by 7.9 percent.
Politically, Russia remains more open than China, with independent (though often co-opted) opposition parties and more freedom of speech. The most obvious contrast involves the Internet, which is censored in China but not in Russia.
Even so, Mr. Putin’s political aides have long studied how to move the political system to the kind that took root for many decades in countries like Japan and Mexico, with a de facto one-party government under a democratic guise, political analysts said. The Russians tend to gloss over the fact that in many of those countries, long-serving ruling parties have fallen.
The Kremlin’s strategy was apparent in regional elections last week, when United Russia lieutenants and government officials used strong-arm tactics to squeeze out opposition parties, according to nonpartisan monitoring organizations. United Russia won the vast majority of contests across the country.
Far behind was the Russian Communist Party, which styles itself as the successor to the Soviet one and has some popularity among older people. The Russian Communists have also sought to build ties to their Chinese brethren, but the Chinese leadership prefers to deal with Mr. Putin’s party.
The regional elections highlighted how the Russian government and United Russia have become ever more intertwined. State-run television channels offer highly favorable coverage of the party, and the courts rarely if ever rule against it. United Russia leaders openly acknowledged that they wanted to study how the Chinese maintained the correct balance between the party and government.
“We are interested in the experience of the party and government structures in China, where cooperation exists between the ruling party and the judicial, legislative and executive authorities,” Vladimir E. Matkhanov, a deputy in Russia’s Parliament, said at the Suifenhe meeting, according to a transcript.
United Russia praises the Chinese system without mentioning its repressive aspects. And the party’s stance also appears to clash with repeated declarations by Mr. Putin, the former president and current prime minister, and President Dmitri A. Medvedev that Russia needs a robust multiparty system to thrive.
The two endorsed the results of Sunday’s local elections, despite widespread reports of fraud, prompting opposition politicians to call their words hollow.
Sergei S. Mitrokhin, leader of Yabloko, a liberal, pro-Western party that was trounced, said the elections revealed the Kremlin’s true aspirations. And the China talks made them all the more clear, Mr. Mitrokhin said.
“To me, the China meeting demonstrated that United Russia wants to establish a single-party dictatorship in Russia, for all time,” he said.
Throughout recent centuries, Russia has flirted with both the West and East, its identity never quite settled, and analysts said that under Mr. Putin, the political leadership had grown scornful of the idea that the country had to embrace Western notions of democracy or governing.
That in part stems from the backlash stirred in the 1990s, after the Soviet fall, when Russia faced economic hardship and political chaos, which many Putin supporters say the West helped to cause.
Dmitri Kosyrev, a political commentator for Russia’s state news agency and author of detective novels set in Asia, said it was only natural that the Kremlin would cast its gaze to the East.
“When they discovered that there was a way to reform a formally socialist nation into something much better and more efficient, of course they would take note,” Mr. Kosyrev said. “Everyone here sees China as the model, because Russia is not the model.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Party Elder Still Jousts With China’s Censors
October 17, 2009
Party Elder Still Jousts With China’s Censors
By SHARON LaFRANIERE and JONATHAN ANSFIELD
BEIJING
FOR nearly two decades, the Communist Party strove to wipe out the national memory of Zhao Ziyang, the reform-minded party secretary who opposed the use of force against pro-democracy protesters in 1989.
So when a former aide of Mr. Zhao’s, Du Daozheng, disclosed in May that he had helped secretly record Mr. Zhao’s memoir for posthumous publication, Mr. Du’s daughter refused to let him walk outside alone for fear of possible repercussions.
She need not have worried. On June 25, a top official in charge of propaganda showed up at Mr. Du’s western Beijing apartment with a reassuring message from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Communist Party and the government. Mr. Du said he was told that, as an old friend of Mr. Zhao’s, “Zhongnanhai and party central can understand why you did this.”
Mr. Du used to be among those who delivered such judgments. Until he was ousted in 1989 with Mr. Zhao, he served as head of the government’s press and publications administration, an agency that helps enforce censors’ orders.
Now he spends his days jousting with such officials, trying to foist unmentionable topics like Mr. Zhao’s career into the public domain. Helping with Mr. Zhao’s memoir — a rare look at the party’s inner conflicts that was published this May outside China — was a particularly daring thrust.
But strategic ventures into forbidden territory are characteristic of his monthly scholarly journal, Yanhuang Chunqiu. In 2005, he published articles on Hu Yaobang, the former party leader whose death helped set off the Tiananmen protests. Infuriated authorities threatened to reduce copies of the magazine to pulp, according to Mr. Du’s daughter, Du Mingming.
After a string of journal articles last year touched on Mr. Zhao’s accomplishments, party authorities issued an internal regulation so precisely focused that it could have been named after Mr. Du. The order forbids retired government or party officials to serve as publication directors.
Party sources say Jiang Zemin, the now-retired leader who replaced Mr. Zhao, was irritated by the articles and instigated the pressure on Mr. Du to step down. Sitting in the magazine’s musty offices, Mr. Du said he dealt with the order by reshuffling titles.
“I just ignore it,” he said. “I am old enough and tough enough that if there is any pressure from the government, I can hold on here.”
MR. Du survives such skirmishes because he is 86, wily and quietly supported by certain party luminaries. He says as many as 100 former party officials back his magazine’s attempts to draw lessons from the party’s buried past and nudge it toward democratic reforms. Some current officials also sympathize with the effort, he suggests. “Nobody dares close it,” he said, lest that provoke a reaction from “old cadres.” Last year supporters promised him, “If the magazine closes, we will take to the streets,” he said.
They said: “We are old. We are in our 80s. We have heart problems. We will probably die in the streets.”
“So the conservatives don’t take any action,” Mr. Du said, “because they are afraid of that responsibility.”
Others suggest the party can afford to be tolerant. Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst of China politics, said that Mr. Du and other liberal-minded party “elders” posed no particular threat to today’s Communist Party, so slaps on the wrists sufficed.
“I admire the courage and the conviction, but the conservatives really won this battle some time ago,” he said. “I really see him as a tragic figure, still holding the flag after most of the armies have left the field.
“He is fighting a struggle against the political tenor of the times, as well as against time itself,” Mr. Moses said.
Mr. Du is not, however, fighting with himself. He sees his modest magazine, printed on newsprint-quality paper and distributed to some 100,000 subscribers for about a dollar a copy, as “the best thing he has done in his life,” his daughter said.
The struggle between truth and propaganda has been a constant theme in Mr. Du’s life. He was an early Communist Party loyalist, dropping out of middle school at age 14 to join the battle against Japanese invaders. After the Communists rose to power in 1949, he dutifully — and falsely — reported the party’s claims of record harvests and free food as a reporter for Xinhua, the state-run news agency.
But by April 1959, he could no longer reconcile the discrepancy with reality. In a 4,900-word letter to a superior, he documented widespread famine and disease in the countryside.
Within two months, his letter was turned against him during the campaign against antiparty “rightists.” He was publicly condemned 17 times — once before an auditorium filled with 6,000 people — and dismissed from his job and party post.
He escaped even worse punishment, as many did, by betraying others to his government tormentors. The four people he named “suffered greatly,” he said. One refused until his dying day to forgive him.
Mr. Du was persecuted anew during the Cultural Revolution. “It was as though I was sent to hell and back,” he wrote in his magazine in January.
Once rehabilitated, he rose quickly in the ranks of the state-run media. He held a vice ministerial position during the 1989 pro-democracy protests.
Mr. Du tried to marshal support for Mr. Zhao’s position that the crisis should be resolved peacefully. In a letter signed by some 30 other government officials, Mr. Du urged party leaders not to use force against the demonstrators, according to his daughter.
When the troops opened fire on the night of June 3, he, his wife and some friends “cried from our hearts” in his living room, Mr. Du said.
“We all shared one feeling,” he said. “The Communist Party is over.”
IT was three years before he could discuss the tragedy with Mr. Zhao, who was removed as party secretary and placed under house arrest. Mr. Du, who was also ousted, said he urged Mr. Zhao to record his version of events for history’s sake.
In the ensuing years, Mr. Du said, he filled two notebooks with Mr. Zhao’s words, then switched to a tape recorder. Four other former officials also pitched in. Mr. Du hid his copies of the tapes in his daughter’s underwear drawer and later she transported the copies to Hong Kong. After Mr. Zhao, still under house arrest, died in 2005, Bao Pu, the son of Mr. Zhao’s top aide, began transcribing and translating other copies of the recordings.
Ever the strategist, Mr. Du recommended that the memoir be published only after the 20th anniversary of the crackdown in June. But with the support of Mr. Zhao’s family, in May Mr. Bao arranged publication of a Chinese version in Hong Kong and an English version, titled “Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang.”
Hong Kong bookshops have reportedly sold 100,000 copies. “I have not seen such excitement about a book in years,” said Lam Mingkei, owner of Causeway Bay Bookstore, a prominent bookseller in Hong Kong.
Mr. Du said he believed that the democratic ideals expressed in Mr. Zhao’s book and in the pages of his beloved journal would eventually take hold, though not, he predicted, under the current leaders. “If the Communist Party refuses to take political reform, then there must be some other force that rises up to carry it out,” he said.
In the meantime, he says, he will defend his journal’s role as a liberal windsock. Said his daughter: “My father knows how to fight.”
Jing Zhang contributed research from Beijing, and Hilda Wang from Hong Kong.
Russia 'illegally' on isles: Maehara
Russia 'illegally' on isles: Maehara
NEMURO, Hokkaido (Kyodo) Seiji Maehara, state minister in charge of the Northern Territories — as the government calls four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido claimed by Japan — said Saturday that Tokyo should keep demanding their return from Russia's "illegal occupation."
"Historically, the Northern Territories are an integral part of Japan. It is literally an illegal occupation (by Russia) and Japan should keep saying so," Maehara told reporters after viewing the islands from a Japan Coast Guard vessel.
Before boarding the boat, Maehara also viewed the islands — Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group — from Cape Nosappu in the city of Nemuro.
"Though faintly, you can see Kunashiri with the naked eye. As a Japanese national, I felt nostalgic," Maehara told reporters.
"Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama intends to resolve the territorial issue. Negotiations (with Russia) will not be easy but we will do our best," he added.
Maehara, also land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister, arrived in Nemuro on Friday and met with former residents of the islands and Hokkaido Gov. Harumi Takahashi.
In the meeting, the residents called on the government to achieve an early return of the islands, which Russia refers to as the Southern Kurils. Maehara, meanwhile, revealed he intends to visit the islands after next spring.
Earlier this year, the Diet passed a bill declaring the islands to be an integral part of Japan. Then Prime Minister Taro Aso called Russia's occupation illegal, sparking protests from Moscow.
The Soviet Union seized the four islands just before the end of World War II. After occupying them, the Soviet Union declared they were part of its territories in February 1946 and all Japanese residents were forced to leave by 1949.
The dispute has prevented Japan and Russia from concluding a peace treaty to formally end the war.
The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved
First subway line to cross Yangtze
First subway line to cross Yangtze
Created: 2009-10-18 0:47:19
CHINA'S first subway tunnel traversing the Yangtze River is expected to begin construction this month in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, local officials said yesterday.
The 3,100-meter-long tunnel will be located between the country's first bridge on the river, the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, and its first road tunnel beneath the river, they said.
The subway tunnel is expected to reduce 50 percent of the city's traffic flow across the river. It is designed to withstand a 6.0-magnitude earthquake and a flood that occurs once every 300 years, they said.
The tunnel is part of the city's No. 2 Metro line with a length of 27.98 kilometers, which is expected to be completed in 2012.
About 14.9 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) will be invested in the construction of the Metro line, officials said.
The first road tunnel was built in Wuhan and opened for traffic last December.
Another two road tunnels under the Yangtze River in Shanghai and Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, are expected to open for traffic respectively at the end of this year and in July 2010.
The 6,300-kilometer Yangtze River, which originates in northwest China's Qinghai Province and flows through 10 provinces and municipalities before emptying into the East China Sea, is a major transport link between the west and east China. More than 100 bridges across the river are in use.
Meanwhile, construction to extend a Metro line in Beijing built for the 2008 Olympics also started on Friday.
According to the municipal transport authorities, the No. 8 line will be extended both to the north and south. The added northern section will traverse 10.7 kilometers from the south gate of the Beijing Olympic Park to the Huilongguan apartment community, outside the city's northern Fifth Ring Road.
Xinhua
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Friday, October 16, 2009
Pardon my bootleg: Navigating China's pirated waters
Pardon my bootleg: Navigating China's pirated waters
Fri Oct 16, 2009 10:35am EDT
7:01am EDTBy Melanie Lee
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - I confess, my copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, the latest version of Microsoft's Windows franchise, was just that: a copy.
I picked it up at a shop in a subway station near my house for 20 yuan, or less than $3 -- about the price of a bowl of soupy pork noodles available across Shanghai.
I bought it this week on a story assignment that sent me into the city's notorious Xinyang market, where boxes of the software were tucked among racks of fake Ralph Polo T-shirts and Gucci bags, even though its official launch was a week away.
One shopkeeper, a petite woman in her 30s, was clearly impressed by my well-heeled attire and assumed I was a seasoned buyer of pirated wares rampant throughout China.
"If you buy 10 you get it cheaper," she said in broken English.
"If you buy Microsoft Office 2010, you also get cheaper. I can wholesale you. How many you want?," she prodded, eager to unload stacks of the CDs wrapped in white non-descript cases.
In a sign of how far China has come since its Communist Iron Rice Bowl days, there was even the promise of customer satisfaction: "The installation instructions are in English and if it's not working you can bring it back to change," she said.
HALFWAY THERE
I left with my box containing one Windows 7 disk, the first part of my task completed.
Now came the more daunting part.
Many have warned me that installing pirated versions of Windows on a computer is a bit like playing Russian Roulette with your hard drive. But I had to see this mission through, and enlisted a colleague's help to install it on a laptop.
The results were quite impressive, at least initially.
Windows 7's interface is very fresh. Instead of little square boxes on the task bar at the bottom of the screen, there are icons. Keeping track of multiple browser windows is no problem as one click of the Internet Explorer icon lets you see all the browsers you have open.
It also allows you to drag interactive applets or widgets onto your desktop, and the boot-up time seemed faster than for the Windows Vista I have on my laptop at home.
But, after a reboot, the laptop mysteriously crashed, with a black screen prompting: "Bootmgr is missing."
Uh-oh.
Thankfully, my colleague had the genuine Windows XP on hand and my rendezvous with piracy was over.
STAMPING OUT THE PIRATES
The U.S. and Europe are critical of piracy of software and other products, but I have to confess I have my own issues with product makers who make it tough to buy the real deal in China.
When I first landed in Shanghai, I found real software incredibly hard to find. Pirated copies, on the other hand, were everywhere. So were pirated versions of just about everything else, from DVDs to three different kinds of fake Apple iPhones -- small ones, ones with radios, and dual-SIM card ones.
But in my four months in Shanghai, I've also come to appreciate the main things that real products offer that the pirates don't: quality and dependability.
Watching Neil Blomkamp's "District 9" movie on a bootleg DVD was an awful experience. The sound was muffled, and the subtitles were clearly from a totally different movie.
As income levels rise and prices fall, I'm guessing the Chinese, an enterprising and hardworking lot, will find more reason to buy real products and fewer reasons to buy rip-offs.
I'm encouraged that some Chinese now pay Western prices at the cinema, even though the numbers at screenings I've attended are still relatively small.
And legitimate CDs can be had at local Carrefour outlets, though I've no idea how well they sell.
(Editing by Doug Young & Ian Geoghegan)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
World’s Seventh Longest Bridge Opens in Incheon
10-16-2009 18:14
World’s Seventh Longest Bridge Opens in Incheon
By Do Je-hae
Staff Reporter
Some say that it is one of the world's 10 construction wonders. Others point out that a round-trip over it is almost the same length as a marathon.
The 21.38-kilometer Incheon Bridge, by all accounts, is a man-made structure that exacts wow from onlookers. The completion of the cable-stayed bridge, the world's seventh longest, was celebrated Friday with President Lee Myung-bak on hand.
It will open to traffic Monday at 12:00 a.m., marking the completion of the $1.4-billion mega project that has taken more than four years. A fine example of Korea's engineering expertise, the bridge will serve as one of the nation's new symbols to the world, Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo said.
A ceremony was held to mark the momentous opening of the landmark for Incheon and Korea. A special marathon took place over the weekend to celebrate the occasion.
The country's longest bridge connects the Songdo International Business District in the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) to Yeongjongdo, where Incheon International Airport is located.
The average toll fee for driving on the six-lane bridge is 5,500 won, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM), Friday. Large vehicles will be subject to higher fees.
Constructed under the Build-Transfer-Operate (BTO) contracts, the bridge will expedite transportation from Incheon International Airport to Songdo International City by about 35 minutes. It will now be possible to get from the airport to the international city in around 15 minutes.
In connection with the surrounding national road network, the bridge is expected to significantly improve the traffic and logistics conditions in the metropolitan area. Previously, the route from southern Seoul to the city of Incheon has been poor, with commuters needing to take a long detour.
UK's Construction News has selected it as one of the world's 10 construction wonders. The mega project was largely completed off-site to overcome the challenges of working above water.
Korea has high hopes for its role in attracting more foreign businesses and tourists to the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ), currently under construction as one of the most dynamic and globalized urban areas in the country.
The centerpiece of the IFEZ is Songdo International City, 64 kilometers from Seoul. It is the largest development project of its kind in Korea and there are hopes it will become Northeast Asia's new multicultural center of business and education.
"The bridge is an instrumental infrastructure for the IFEZ. Its completion will undoubtedly advance the country's policy of becoming a business hub of Northeast Asia through a successful implementation of the IFEZ project," Lee Heon-seok, CEO of the IFEZ Authority, said in a statement.
By 2014, the free economic zone will house more than 300 Northeast Asian business headquarters, 30 international organizations including those affiliated with the United Nations and extended campuses of 15 foreign universities.
The IFEZ is considered to be a leader in terms of foreign investments and development, having six similar projects under way in various parts of the country ― including Busan, Daegu and Jeolla Province ― since 2003.
jhdo@koreatimes.co.kr
Japan’s Kobe Beef: Is It Too Expensive To Eat?
Japan’s Kobe Beef: Is It Too Expensive To Eat?
Wagyu is the name given to Japanese cattle that are known to produce the best beef in the world, which is known as Kobe beef. The word derivation is simple; wa means Japan and gyu means cow.
This simplicity comes with a price tag that might have even made even JP Morgan take a second look, namely, about $500 per steak in some of Tokyo’s finer dining establishments (and that’s without an appetizer, drink or even piano bar).
Kobe beef has become a household name around the world. Why it is so good, well known and expensive are questions many may ask. Outside of Japan’s borders, Kobe beef is the best known type of wagyu, but there are many different kinds of high quality Japanese beef such as Matsuzaka, Mishima and Omi among others, that are presenting some stiff competition.
What is the beef exactly when it comes to Kobe, you might ask? The answer is simple. The marbled fat content is what determines the grade of the meat and with Japanese beef that concerns the white parts of fat that are known as sashi.
Sashi is usually interspersed between layers of red meat and gives the beef a marbled look. Intense patterns are deliberately created and intended to make the meat literally ”melt in the mouth.” This feature is by far the most prized aspect of Japanese beef.
The fat content in Japanese beef is primarily mono-unsaturated, which translates into beef that is actually known to lower bad cholesterol!
The marbling is the result of much time and effort, and cows in Japan, despite the fact that they are ultimately sacrificed, live lives fit for emperors (albeit doomed royalty). Much care goes into their feeding, which usually entails high quality grains.
Each farmer has his own mystical blend of feed. While some ingredients are as heavily guarded as family heirlooms, some diets are known to include soybeans and okara, which is a byproduct of tofu. Water is also important and local mineral varieties are often part of a good cattle diet, which ensures the best quality meat.
Believe it or not, many farmers give their cows beer and saki to keep their appetites healthy during the warmer months of the year. Some farmers spit sake onto their cows and rub it in with a brush, which they claim helps to balance the distribution of marble content and keeps the lice and ticks at bay.
Cows raised in stalls tend to develop fatty marbling and for this reason, are taken outside to frolic and play in the fresh air and sunshine. Some breeders even go so far as to play soothing music for their cows to keep them relaxed. (It is not known whether they prefer classical or popular varieties.)
Japanese beef is a delicacy by any standard but expect to pay through nose and every other body part for any meat from these pampered cows!
By MDeeDubroff on 16-10-2009
Koreas fail to agree on more reunions
Koreas fail to agree on more reunions
The inter-Korean Red Cross talks ended yesterday as the two sides failed to reach an agreement on Seoul's proposal to hold more cross-border reunion events for separated families.
"We suggested holding family reunions in Seoul and Pyongyang in November, and again on Lunar New Year's Day (in February) at the Mount Geumgang resort, and repeatedly stressed the importance of making them a regular event," said a Unification Ministry official on condition of anonymity.
"The North did not deny the need for more family reunions but did not show any positive response either."
As expected earlier, North Korea renewed its request for humanitarian aid from the South.
"The North requested humanitarian aid, without mentioning the specific items or amount, and the South's delegation said they would review it in Seoul," the official said.
"The two sides did not get to decide when to meet for follow-up talks."
The South also suggested discussing measures to resolve the issue of South Korean prisoners of war and civilians including fishermen held in the North, to which the North did not respond.
Two South Korean Red Cross officials Kim Eui-do and Kim Sung-keun sat for the working-level talks with their North Korean counterparts in Gaeseong, just north of the border.
The meeting was constantly adjourned and resumed throughout the day until 6:30 p.m. as the two sides struggled to bridge the gap.
The talks started at 10 a.m. and were adjourned 40 minutes later, resumed at 3 p.m. only to last for another 40 minutes.
Two more shorter meetings took place at 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Despite the North's request for rice aid on the sidelines of the previous round of family reunions late last month, Seoul has said that it had no plans to send large amounts of aid like it had under former administrations.
The government has told South Korean media, however, that it could provide aid in much smaller amounts.
The South had shipped around 300,000 tons of fertilizer to the North tacitly in exchange for allowing its people to temporary meetings with their kin across the border under former presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.
North Korea agreed to the working-level meeting a day after the South proposed it on Monday and in the mean time test-fired short-range missiles and warned of a naval clash in the Yellow Sea. The so-called "two-track" diplomacy came as the North, currently under U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile tests in April, was pushing the South to resume profitable tourism projects and humanitarian aid to the country.
(sophie@heraldm.com)
By Kim So-hyun
2009.10.17
US clears China of yuan influence
US clears China of yuan influence
Created: 2009-10-17 1:09:04
THE United States government said on Thursday that China did not manipulate its currency against the US dollar and has made significant contribution to world economic recovery during the first half of this year.
"No major trading partner of the United States" met the standards identified by a US act of manipulating their rates of exchange against the greenback to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade, the Treasury Department said in its Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies.
Based on a 1988 law, the Treasury is required to submit to Congress twice a year a report identifying whether its major trade partners manipulate their currencies to boost their exports to the US or make US products more expensive in overseas markets.
Since the end of the dollar peg in July 2005, the yuan has appreciated a cumulative 21.2 percent against the dollar and 15.7 percent on a real effective basis, based on the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) measure, said the report.
According to the BIS index, China's real effective exchange rate appreciated 13.3 percent between June 2008 and February 2009, it said.
The report also said China has contributed to the global economic recovery.
China's "timely and aggressive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus has resulted in a strong domestic economic recovery and a decline in its current account surplus, and as a result contributed significantly to the recovery in global demand," it said.
China's real gross domestic product rose by 7.1 percent on an annual basis in the first half of this year, as fixed-asset investment and consumption contributed 6.2 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points to growth, respectively, said the report.
Reflecting the decline in China's trade surplus, net exports in the first half of this year subtracted 2.9 percentage points from growth, the report added.
This month, the International Monetary Fund forecast that China's real GDP would gain 8.5 percent this year, up from its April forecast of 6.5-percent growth. The IMF predicted China's GDP will grow 9 percent next year.
(Xinhua)
US clears China of yuan influence
The United States government said on Thursday that China did not manipulate its currency against the US dollar and has made significant contribution to world economic recovery during the first half of this year.
"No major trading partner of the United States" met the standards identified by a US act of manipulating their rates of exchange against the greenback to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade, the Treasury Department said in its Semi-Annual Report to Congress on International Economic and Exchange Rate Policies.
Based on a 1988 law, the Treasury is required to submit to Congress twice a year a report identifying whether its major trade partners manipulate their currencies to boost their exports to the US or make US products more expensive in overseas markets.
Since the end of the dollar peg in July 2005, the yuan has appreciated a cumulative 21.2 percent against the dollar and 15.7 percent on a real effective basis, based on the BIS (Bank for International Settlements) measure, said the report.
According to the BIS index, China's real effective exchange rate appreciated 13.3 percent between June 2008 and February 2009, it said.
The report also said China has contributed to the global economic recovery.
China's "timely and aggressive fiscal and monetary policy stimulus has resulted in a strong domestic economic recovery and a decline in its current account surplus, and as a result contributed significantly to the recovery in global demand," it said.
China's real gross domestic product rose by 7.1 percent on an annual basis in the first half of this year, as fixed-asset investment and consumption contributed 6.2 percentage points and 3.8 percentage points to growth, respectively, said the report.
Reflecting the decline in China's trade surplus, net exports in the first half of this year subtracted 2.9 percentage points from growth, the report added.
This month, the International Monetary Fund forecast that China's real GDP would gain 8.5 percent this year, up from its April forecast of 6.5-percent growth. The IMF predicted China's GDP will grow 9 percent next year.
Xinhua
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Suzhou picked for LCD plant
Suzhou picked for LCD plant
Created: 2009-10-17 1:27:45
SAMSUNG Electronics Co yesterday said it plans to invest 2.6 trillion won (US$2.2 billion) to build a liquid crystal display plant in China -- its first full-scale LCD factory outside South Korea.
The facility is to be built in the east China's Suzhou City pending approval from the South Korean and Chinese governments, the firm said in a filing.
Samsung, a major global manufacturer of consumer electronics and components, is the world's largest maker of LCDs, a key component in flat screen televisions.
The company has yet to decide what size panels it will manufacture in the factory, according to Hwang Eun-ju, a company spokeswoman.
But she said that in general a plant of the scale that is planned would make panels suitable for TVs ranging in screen size from 32 inches to 47 inches.
Hwang also said the facility will be Samsung's first fully-fledged LCD factory, or fab, overseas, following the six it operates in South Korea.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Entrapment claimed in seizure of 'black cab'
Entrapment claimed in seizure of 'black cab'
Created: 2009-10-17 1:45:45
Author:Ni Yinbin, Wu Shen and Xu Chi
A SHANGHAI company said yesterday that one of its drivers was entrapped by traffic authorities investigating illegal cabs, and it is threatening legal action if the case is not quashed.
Similar allegations have been raised by other drivers who claim the traffic watchdog, which is in the midst of a two-year crackdown that has generated millions of yuan in fines, used bounty hunters to manufacture false evidence.
In the latest incident, the driver was so disturbed about the allegation that he cut off part of a finger in a misguided attempt to prove his innocence. The Shanghai Traffic Law Enforcement Team for Pudong New Area has detained the company's vehicle and is investigating the case.
If the driver, Sun Zhongjie, who works for Shanghai Pangyuan Construction Machinery Engineering Co Ltd, is found guilty, Sun or the company will have to pay a fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) to retrieve the confiscated minibus.
The company said Sun was innocent and claimed the 19-year-old was set up by the traffic team on a charge of operating an unlicensed cab after he picked up a pedestrian who asked for a lift.
"We think the team used entrapment," said Zhang Lili, an attorney for the firm. "Our company will take legal action if the enforcement team doesn't cancel the charge."
Charge denied
Authorities, however, denied any wrongdoing.
"The hitchhiker was not our man," Yan Liangming, deputy general commander of the traffic team, said in a TV interview. Yan also said the team had evidence to support its actions.
The conflict began at about 7:30pm on Wednesday. Sun was driving the company's minibus to a supermarket in Pudong and encountered a young man standing in the middle of his lane waving at him. The man, wearing a thin shirt, claimed to be cold and pleaded for a ride, Sun said.
Before Sun agreed, the man got into his vehicle and Sun drove on. After about a five-minute ride, the man jumped out of the minibus and left 10 yuan behind, Sun said. At about the same time, Sun was stopped by two minibuses from which several men emerged.
Sun said he was forced to sign a penalty notice admitting he was operating an illegal cab or they wouldn't let him go. They then drove off in his vehicle.
Saying he felt aggrieved, Sun went home and cut off the little finger of his left hand with a knife.
"I wanted to prove my innocence." Sun said, without specifying how the action would accomplish that goal.
Sun was then sent to an army hospital where his finger was reattached.
Bounty offered
Zhang Liwei, an official with Shanghai Traffic Law Enforcement General Team, told a local newspaper yesterday that none of the 15 district teams hired private agents to entrap drivers. But Zhang said that people who help catch illegal cabbies can receive bounties of 200 to 300 yuan.
Shanghai's Minhang District People's Court accepted a lawsuit a week ago by a driver against the district's Traffic Law Enforcement Team, which fined him 10,000 yuan for operating an unlicensed cab. The driver, Zhang Jun, alleged entrapment and said he was merely giving a ride to an apparently sick stranger.
Four months ago, a driver was allegedly entrapped by the law enforcement team in Baoshan District. He later sued the team but a court dismissed the case.
In 2008, a Minhang driver unsuccessfully sued traffic authorities twice over what he said were false charges of operating an unlicensed cab.
The same year, a woman was stabbed by an unlicensed taxi driver while she was working undercover for the taxi watchdog.
"These undercover investigators are supported by the teams and get money for catching black cabbies," a veteran licensed cab driver told China Youth Daily.
There are thousands of these bounty hunters in the city, mostly in suburban areas where black taxis are rampant, he said.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Created: 2009-10-17 1:45:45
Author:Ni Yinbin, Wu Shen and Xu Chi
A SHANGHAI company said yesterday that one of its drivers was entrapped by traffic authorities investigating illegal cabs, and it is threatening legal action if the case is not quashed.
Similar allegations have been raised by other drivers who claim the traffic watchdog, which is in the midst of a two-year crackdown that has generated millions of yuan in fines, used bounty hunters to manufacture false evidence.
In the latest incident, the driver was so disturbed about the allegation that he cut off part of a finger in a misguided attempt to prove his innocence. The Shanghai Traffic Law Enforcement Team for Pudong New Area has detained the company's vehicle and is investigating the case.
If the driver, Sun Zhongjie, who works for Shanghai Pangyuan Construction Machinery Engineering Co Ltd, is found guilty, Sun or the company will have to pay a fine of 10,000 yuan (US$1,465) to retrieve the confiscated minibus.
The company said Sun was innocent and claimed the 19-year-old was set up by the traffic team on a charge of operating an unlicensed cab after he picked up a pedestrian who asked for a lift.
"We think the team used entrapment," said Zhang Lili, an attorney for the firm. "Our company will take legal action if the enforcement team doesn't cancel the charge."
Charge denied
Authorities, however, denied any wrongdoing.
"The hitchhiker was not our man," Yan Liangming, deputy general commander of the traffic team, said in a TV interview. Yan also said the team had evidence to support its actions.
The conflict began at about 7:30pm on Wednesday. Sun was driving the company's minibus to a supermarket in Pudong and encountered a young man standing in the middle of his lane waving at him. The man, wearing a thin shirt, claimed to be cold and pleaded for a ride, Sun said.
Before Sun agreed, the man got into his vehicle and Sun drove on. After about a five-minute ride, the man jumped out of the minibus and left 10 yuan behind, Sun said. At about the same time, Sun was stopped by two minibuses from which several men emerged.
Sun said he was forced to sign a penalty notice admitting he was operating an illegal cab or they wouldn't let him go. They then drove off in his vehicle.
Saying he felt aggrieved, Sun went home and cut off the little finger of his left hand with a knife.
"I wanted to prove my innocence." Sun said, without specifying how the action would accomplish that goal.
Sun was then sent to an army hospital where his finger was reattached.
Bounty offered
Zhang Liwei, an official with Shanghai Traffic Law Enforcement General Team, told a local newspaper yesterday that none of the 15 district teams hired private agents to entrap drivers. But Zhang said that people who help catch illegal cabbies can receive bounties of 200 to 300 yuan.
Shanghai's Minhang District People's Court accepted a lawsuit a week ago by a driver against the district's Traffic Law Enforcement Team, which fined him 10,000 yuan for operating an unlicensed cab. The driver, Zhang Jun, alleged entrapment and said he was merely giving a ride to an apparently sick stranger.
Four months ago, a driver was allegedly entrapped by the law enforcement team in Baoshan District. He later sued the team but a court dismissed the case.
In 2008, a Minhang driver unsuccessfully sued traffic authorities twice over what he said were false charges of operating an unlicensed cab.
The same year, a woman was stabbed by an unlicensed taxi driver while she was working undercover for the taxi watchdog.
"These undercover investigators are supported by the teams and get money for catching black cabbies," a veteran licensed cab driver told China Youth Daily.
There are thousands of these bounty hunters in the city, mostly in suburban areas where black taxis are rampant, he said.
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
West strategy to continue
West strategy to continue
Created: 2009-10-17 2:04:56
CHINA has made great achievements in developing its western region in the last 10 years and it would stick to the West Development Strategy that was adopted in 2000, Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday.
Wen also said the government was willing to continue cooperating with other economies in promoting development of the western region.
Wen made the remarks in a speech at the opening ceremony of the 10th Western China International Economy and Trade Fair and the Second West China International Cooperation Forum in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province.
"Since last year, China's western regions have suffered the double blow of a big natural disaster and the global economic crisis. With a basket of measures to cope with the economic crisis, China continues unswervingly to push forward with the West Development Strategy," he said.
More than 43 percent of investment allocated by the central government to expand domestic demand and fight the financial crisis had been used for projects to improve living standards, infrastructure projects, post-disaster reconstruction and technological innovation in western regions, he said.
In the wake of the financial crisis, China rolled out a 4 trillion yuan (US$585.86 billion) economic stimulus package to finance massive projects nationwide.
In the first half, total gross domestic product in the western region grew at an annual rate of 11.8 percent, he added. Nationally, the economy expanded 7.1 percent over the same period.
The West Development Strategy policy was adopted in 2000 to help the underdeveloped west region catch up with the more prosperous east region.
The 12 western provinces, autonomous regions and municipality have a combined population of about 370 million. They include Sichuan, Yunnan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.
This year, China planned to invest 468.9 billion yuan in the region.
Xinhua
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
Handle gripes better: official
Handle gripes better: official
Source: Xinhua | 2009-10-17
THE government needs to better handle complaints to promote social harmony, Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Political Bureau, said at a meeting in Beijing yesterday.
He said the work to take in people's complaints and solve their problems is vital for improving relations between the Party, government and people.
At Party organs and government departments, offices are set up to receive people's letters, calls and visits.
From August to September, the central government sent 16 teams to 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as well as 15 central government departments to inspect work in this field.
Reviewing the reports from the inspection teams, Zhou said problems existed in some localities and fields, and the government's efforts in handling complaints did not meet with people's needs and expectations.
"The decisions made by the government should be scientific, democratic, open and in line with laws so as to prevent new social disputes," he said.
The government should review the risks to social stability when adopting new polices and carrying out reforms, he said.
"Policies, projects and reforms that most people oppose should be stopped or suspended," Zhou said.
15,000 to be resettled in Henan city to escape threat from lead
15,000 to be resettled in Henan city to escape threat from lead
Created: 2009-10-17 2:22:43, Updated: 2009-10-17 2:32:15
THE government of Jiyuan, where China's biggest lead smelting base is located, plans to move 15,000 residents away from the threat of poisoning, after nearly 1,000 children were found to have high levels of the metal in their blood.
Zhao Suping, mayor of the city in central China's Henan Province, said yesterday the mass relocation would cost 1 billion yuan (US$146 million), of which 70 percent will be provided by the government and smelters, and the rest by local residents.
The government is now looking for sites for the resettlement, Zhao said.
Jiyuan's health bureau initiated blood tests for children on August 20 in the wake of a lead poisoning scandal in other areas.
Mass lead poisonings in Henan, Shaanxi, Hunan and Yunnan provinces have sickened thousands of children, pointing up the challenges facing many parts of China as industrial development threatens the environment and people's health.
Yang Anguo, board chairman of China's biggest lead smelter, Yuguang Gold and Lead Group, said he had mixed feelings when he saw local villagers gathered to protest in front of his plant. Yang still clearly remembers when residents beat drums and gongs to welcome the factory 23 years ago.
Over the past two decades, Yuguang Gold and Lead Group has grown from a plant with an annual output valued at about 10 million yuan into the world's second-largest lead smelter, with annual sales exceeding 10 billion yuan.
Relations had been good between villagers in Jiyuan and the lead smelters, as many people were employed at the plants and paid well. But ties have now turned sour.
In Shiniu Village, which is near the Wanyang Smelter Group and where about 100 children were poisoned, 60-year-old Wang Shaozhou said he was worried about his grandson.
"A few people got rich, but the whole village was poisoned. How can we ignore people's health in the process of economic development?" Wang said.
More than 10,000 people in Jiyuan with a population of 670,000 are directly employed in the city's 35 lead smelters, and more than 20,000 others work indirectly for the industry.
"In the pursuit of wealth, neither the company nor local people has given due attention to pollution. The incident (of excessive lead level) is a lesson for the government, the company and local people," said Yu Bo, an Jiyuan government official.
The city government has provided blood tests for 2,743 children under age 14 who lived near three major smelters, and 968 were found to have excessive lead levels. It also suspended production at 35 lead plants.
Xinhua
Copyright © 2001-2009 Shanghai Daily Publishing House
North Korea invites U.S. envoy for talks: report
North Korea invites U.S. envoy for talks: report
Fri Oct 16, 2009 7:38am EDT
(Reuters) - North Korea has renewed an invitation to U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth to visit Pyongyang, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported, in a signal that it wants to return to nuclear talks, albeit on Pyongyang's terms.
The impoverished North also made a rare request to South Korea for humanitarian aid at a meeting of their Red Cross societies on Friday.
South Korea, once a major donor of aid for the North, said it would consider resuming food aid afterwards, the South's Yonhap News reported, citing a source.
U.S. evangelist Franklin Graham, who was in North Korea this week to organize food aid, told Kyodo that Pyongyang was very positive about holding talks with Washington.
"The invitation has been extended," Graham, who heads the U.S. aid organization Samaritan's Purse, said, quoting a North Korean official.
The North has had longstanding ties with the Graham family, including Graham's father, evangelist Billy Graham. The family has led several food aid missions from Christian charities for the impoverished state.
Kyodo said Graham met North Korean officials including Kim Kye Gwan, its envoy to the dormant six-party nuclear talks.
"I think they are very positive" about holding talks with the United States, Graham said.
The report coincided with further mixed signals from the North, promising to return to the talks on ending its nuclear program while raising regional tension by launching short-range missiles and accusing South Korean ships of entering its waters.
The talks involve the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.
The North has previously invited Bosworth to Pyongyang for talks. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has neither accepted the proposal nor ruled it out.
At Friday's Red Cross meeting, the two Koreas discussed having another round of reunions for families split by the 1950-53 Korean War and possibly resuming food aid, but failed to bridge differences, according to Yonhap.
North Korea does not produce enough food to feed its 23 million people and had been seeking a resumption of South Korean aid in return for holding more reunions.
The two Koreas held their first family reunions in nearly two years at the end of September.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota in TOKYO and Jon Herskovitz in SEOUL; Editing by Ron Popeski)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
S.Korea Sept dept store sales growth at 8-mth high
S.Korea Sept dept store sales growth at 8-mth high
Thu Oct 15, 2009 5:00pm EDT
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2009 05:00pm EDT
SEOUL, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Sales at South Korea's top three department stores in September jumped at the fastest pace in eight months, data showed on Friday, fresh evidence of a sustained recovery in domestic demand.
"Based on department store sales data, domestic consumption is recovering fast and the improving trend will likely continue in line with the overall economic recovery," a Ministry of Knowledge Economy official said.
Combined sales at Lotte Shopping Co Ltd (023530.KS), Shinsegae Co Ltd (004170.KS) and Hyundai Department Store Co Ltd (069960.KS) soared 8.6 percent in September over a year earlier, the seventh consecutive month of annual growth and the biggest gain since January's 10.4 percent, the ministry said.
The growth more than doubled from June and July.
However, combined sales at big discount stores fell 6.0 percent in September from a year earlier, the fourth month of declines and worse than a 1.5 percent drop in August, as they were open one day less than department stores, it said.
(Reporting by Seo Eun-kyung; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Thu Oct 15, 2009 5:00pm EDT
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2009 05:00pm EDT
SEOUL, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Sales at South Korea's top three department stores in September jumped at the fastest pace in eight months, data showed on Friday, fresh evidence of a sustained recovery in domestic demand.
"Based on department store sales data, domestic consumption is recovering fast and the improving trend will likely continue in line with the overall economic recovery," a Ministry of Knowledge Economy official said.
Combined sales at Lotte Shopping Co Ltd (023530.KS), Shinsegae Co Ltd (004170.KS) and Hyundai Department Store Co Ltd (069960.KS) soared 8.6 percent in September over a year earlier, the seventh consecutive month of annual growth and the biggest gain since January's 10.4 percent, the ministry said.
The growth more than doubled from June and July.
However, combined sales at big discount stores fell 6.0 percent in September from a year earlier, the fourth month of declines and worse than a 1.5 percent drop in August, as they were open one day less than department stores, it said.
(Reporting by Seo Eun-kyung; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
South Korea urges U.S. to approve trade pact
South Korea urges U.S. to approve trade pact
Thu Oct 15, 2009 12:17pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will be at a competitive disadvantage in the South Korean market unless Congress approves a bilateral free trade agreement signed two years ago, a Korean official said on Thursday.
"Korea strongly hopes this agreement will be put into effect as soon as possible," South Korean Ambassador to the United States Han Duk-soo said.
He spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington not long after European Union and South Korean officials initialed a bilateral free trade pact. That agreement should be in force by the middle of next year, Han said.
Korea hopes for progress on U.S. autos and other concerns blocking approval of the U.S.-Korea agreement by the time President Barack Obama visits the country in November, Han said.
Approval of the deal would be an "economic stimulus" package for both countries, Han said.
"Trade is not a source of the problem, but ... it can be part of the solution," Han said.
South Korea hopes the U.S. Congress will turn to the free trade agreement as soon as possible after it finishes its work on healthcare reform, he said.
Obama opposed the South Korea agreement during last year's campaign, but has said he wants to work with Congress and Seoul to resolve concerns about the pact.
(Reporting by Doug Palmer, Editing by Sandra Maler)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
EU-Korea trade deal puts pressure on Obama to act
Thu Oct 15, 2009 4:35pm EDT
By Doug Palmer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama faced increased pressure on Thursday to win approval of a free trade deal with South Korea after the European Union locked up its own pact with Asia's third-largest market.
"We have concluded our negotiations with the EU, which has almost a similar economic size as the United States," South Korean Ambassador to the United States Han Duk-soo said.
"President Obama will visit Korea in November and we hope we will make some progress before that" to resolve concerns blocking approval of the U.S.-Korea free trade pact, Han said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
The United States and South Korea signed their free trade deal more than two years ago. But U.S. lawmaker concerns over beef and auto trade with the longtime ally that borders North Korea has blocked approval of the agreement.
Many U.S. lawmakers argue the free trade pact fails to tear down "non-tariff barriers" that keep out American cars. Others want Seoul to remove remaining barriers to U.S. beef imports that stemming from the discovery mad cow disease in the United States several years ago.
Since then, South Korea has continued negotiating free trade deals. It initialed a pact with the European Union on Thursday expected to go into force by the middle of 2010 and is currently in talks with Canada, Mexico and Peru.
"We would like to be the hub of free trade agreements in East Asia," Han said, citing a study that U.S. companies could lose 380,000 jobs to competitors in the EU and Canada if the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement is not approved.
The EU-Korea trade deal could be worth 100 billion euros ($149 billion) to both economies and advocates says it will help both sides fight the worst financial crisis in decades.
It also comes at a time when the United States is already losing market share in South Korea to the EU, Japan and China.
US SAYS "KEENLY INTERESTED" IN EU-KOREA DEAL
Obama sided with the United Auto Workers and other opponents of the South Korean free trade agreement during last year's presidential campaign.
After meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in June, the two leaders agreed to work on outstanding concerns. However, Seoul has steadfastly refused to renegotiate auto provisions that are the biggest obstacle to U.S. approval.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office said the United States was "keenly interested" in the implications of the EU-Korea deal for the United States.
"EU firms compete directly with U.S. suppliers in key segments of the large and growing Korean market, such as machinery, chemicals, plastics, auto parts, and dairy products," USTR spokesman Carol Guthrie said.
"Ambassador (Ron) Kirk believes it is vital to maintain the competitiveness of US businesses and workers in this important market," Guthrie said, referring to the U.S. Trade Representative.
(Additional reporting by Darren Ennis in Brussels; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
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