October 2, 2009
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — For years, Japan has been readying itself for the day that it is eclipsed economically by China. But as a result of the global slowdown, Japan’s difficulty in managing its economy and China’s rise — on vivid display Thursday as Beijing celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic — that day may come sooner than anyone predicted.
Though recent wild currency swings could delay the reckoning, many economists expect Japan to cede its rank as the world’s second-largest economy sometime next year, as much as five years earlier than previously forecast.
At stake are more than regional bragging rights: the reversal of fortune will bring an end to a global economic order that has prevailed for 40 years, with ramifications across arenas from trade and diplomacy to, potentially, military power.
China’s rise could accelerate Japan’s economic decline as it captures Japanese export markets, and as Japan’s crushing national debt increases and its aging population grows less and less productive — producing a downward spiral.
“It’s beyond my imagination how far Japan will fall in the world economy in 10, 20 years,” said Hideo Kumano, economist at the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.
Not long ago, Japan was “the economic miracle,” an ascendant juggernaut on its way to rivaling the United States, which has the biggest economy.
Now, many here ask whether Japan is destined to be the next Switzerland: rich and comfortable, but of little global import, largely ignored by the rest of the world.
Yet even this widely held hope among the country’s 127 million people may be slipping from Japan’s grasp.
The per-capita gross domestic product of Japan, which surged past that of the United States in the late 1980s, stalled at $34,300 in 2007; it is now a quarter below American levels and 19th in the world. Both income inequality and poverty are on the rise.
Unemployment stands at a record high of 5.7 percent, while prices and wages are falling fast. Japan’s economy shrank at an annualized rate of 11.7 percent in the first three months of the year before recovering to a modest 2.3 percent annual rate of growth in the second quarter.
The Chinese economy is likely to expand 8 percent in 2009, while economists expect the Japanese economy to shrink 3 percent for the year before returning to anemic growth of about 1 percent next year.
The Chinese economy grew about 10 percent a year for most of the last two decades. Over that period, Japan stagnated as huge public works projects aimed at reviving the economy went toward protecting moribund industries instead of fostering new ones, failing to lift Japan out of its doldrums while creating a huge debt burden.
The troubles in Japan have been confounded by its worst recession in postwar history, brought on by the financial crisis that swept across the globe. As demand evaporated in important overseas markets, production and exports slumped as much as 40 percent this year.
Even Japan Inc. is increasingly falling off the global map. In 1988, Nomura Securities issued a ranking of companies by market capitalization, and 8 of the top 10 were in Japan, topped by Nippon Telegraph & Telephone.
As of July 31 this year, not a single Japanese company made the global top 10.
The list was dominated by companies based in China and the United States; Toyota Motor ranked No. 22, at $144.5 billion, and only five other Japanese companies made the top 100.
The richest man in Japan, the retailing entrepreneur Tadashi Yanai, was 76th in the most recent global Forbes list, behind moguls from countries like Mexico, India and the Czech Republic — a far cry from the late 1980s, when Japanese industrialists like the railroad tycoon Yoshiaki Tsutsumi were among those at the top.
China has also surpassed Japan in having the biggest trade surplus and foreign currency reserves, as well as the highest steel production. And next year, China could overtake Japan as the largest automobile producer.
A new government has vowed to take Japan on a new development path, one that relies less on the exports that have long driven growth and is more focused on increasing domestic demand. The Democratic Party, which recently swept the long-ruling Liberal Democrats out of power, has promised to strengthen social welfare and redistribute wealth more evenly.
Per-capita income in China is still less than a tenth that in Japan. But by other measures, the Chinese economy long ago overtook that of Japan.
In terms of overall purchasing power, China surpassed Japan in 1992 and will overtake the United States before 2020.
In some ways, this reflects economic fundamentals: As countries develop, growth tends to slow. Annual growth in Japanese gross domestic product averaged 10.4 percent in the 1960s and 5 percent in the 1970s, but only 4 percent in the 1980s and 1.8 percent in the 1990s, according to Goldman Sachs. In the first decade of this century, growth has been even slower.
Some economists say Japan does not need to fear its neighbor. China became Japan’s largest trading partner in 2006, and China-bound exports were among the first to show signs of recovery in the recent slump. As the global auto market stagnates, carmakers like Toyota and Nissan are making a renewed play for the Chinese market.
“Japan is neighbors with a rapidly growing market,” said Nobuo Iizuka, chief economist at the Japan Center for Economic Research. “That is a great advantage, not a threat. The question is, can Japan build on that advantage?”
Still, said C. H. Kwan, a senior fellow at the Nomura Institute of Capital Market Research, based in Tokyo, “this is a big psychological shock to Japan.”
Mr. Kwan, a native of Hong Kong, migrated to Tokyo after being awed by the 1979 book “Japan as No. 1,” by Ezra F. Vogel, who sang the praises of the country’s fast economic growth.
Now, he is working on a book of his own: “China as No. 1.”
Based on current growth and currency trends, Mr. Kwan forecasts that the Chinese economy could surpass that of the United States in 2039. And that date could move up to 2026 if China lets its currency appreciate by a mere 2 percent a year.
“We’re no longer talking about China making lots of shoes,” he said. “China is about to leave everyone behind in a big way.”
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Obama Becomes Japan’s English Teacher
October 12, 2009
Obama Becomes Japan’s English Teacher
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — When Utako Sakai was changing the background music in her beauty parlor recently, she did not opt for the classical piano pieces she usually chose.
Instead, she picked her favorite CD: “President Obama’s Inaugural Address,” released by Asahi Press, a Japanese publisher of language books. She says the speech lifts her spirits and helps her to learn English all at once.
“All our customers love it,” said Ms. Sakai, who is based in Ayase City, in Kanagawa Prefecture, outside Tokyo.
The speech CD and its accompanying book have been a resounding success, selling 200,000 copies since its release in January. A compilation of President Barack Obama’s speeches has done even better, selling half a million copies since November, solidifying his role as Japan’s English teacher.
Publishers have since flooded the market with over a dozen language-learning titles, including “Speech Training: Learning to Deliver English Speech, Obama Style”; “Learn English Grammar From Obama”; and “Yes, I Can With Obama: 40 Magical English Phrases From Presidential E-mails.”
Asahi Press followed up its inauguration book and CD with a recording of Mr. Obama’s “World Without Nuclear Weapons” speech, also in book and CD form, given in Prague in April.
The publishers are trying to tap into a foreign-language teaching industry that the Yano Search Institute said was valued at ¥767 billion, or $8.7 billion, in 2008. The figure includes the cost of books, CDs, dictionaries, e-learning programs, standardized English tests, and the cost of private language lessons. The institute, in Tokyo, says the majority of the spending is aimed at learning English.
Most Japanese people, including those studying English, would have difficulty comprehending a speech given by a native English speaker. But “Mr. Obama’s English is easy to understand because he pronounces words clearly and speaks at a relatively slow clip,” said Professor Tadaharu Nikaido, a communication specialist here. “Movies tend to be the most difficult for Japanese, especially when actors mumble their words.”
Mr. Obama sets his range of vocabulary wide enough to accommodate the highly educated and the less educated, Professor Nikaido added, and at the lower end, it sometimes comes within the range of non-native speakers’ comprehension.
But there are probably a large number of buyers who do not really possess the basic English skills to understand his speech, said Yuzo Yamamoto, an editor at Asahi Press. Since the sales took off, he has received postcards from readers saying they had been touched by Mr. Obama’s speeches, but “those same people have said they were moved even though they didn’t understand English well,” he said. “Some even said the only phrase they caught was, ‘Yes, we can.’ They said they were in tears nonetheless.”
Mr. Yamamoto said there was a sincerity about Mr. Obama’s speaking style that listeners could perceive phonetically, combined with a delivery that was almost musical.
“That seems to result in sensation, the kind of which you get from listening to good music,” he said.
Other observers say that Japanese buyers probably feel as though they understand his speeches just from the nonverbal cues.
“The audience in the background helped too,” Professor Nikaido said. “The audience’s echo in the background works the same way as, say, laugh sound effects inserted in TV comedies.”
That may explain why Ms. Sakai, the beautician, and her customers were so enthralled by Mr. Obama. Ms. Sakai describes her English skills as less than perfect and says she relies on others for translation when she travels overseas. But when she hears Mr. Obama talk, she feels perfectly at ease.
“I feel as though I am not Japanese,” she says, because she is able to understand the English speech so well.
The fervor over Obama-speak, some say, reflects other aspects of Japan’s changing society. Among the public, there is now a longing for leaders with a communication style that is more effective, dynamic and inspiring, something not prevalent in the political culture here, they say.
Since late last year, economic recession has only deepened with no end in sight, and hope has been difficult to find. “There is a sense, why isn’t there an Obama in Japan who can raise people’s spirits,” Mr. Yamamoto said. This year, as the Obama books were beginning to boom, the prime minister then, Taro Aso, was making a series of political gaffes, Mr. Yamamoto noted. They included misreading kanji, the Japanese characters, in public.
The Obama speech phenomenon peaked in the spring, observers say, and has given way to more books and magazines that focus on how Mr. Obama’s communication skills might be adopted in Japan for business and political purposes.
Professor Nikaido himself has recently published a book called “Creating an Audience Frenzy: Learning From Obama’s Strategic Oratory.” At least half a dozen books and magazine covers of this kind have appeared in the past several months.
John R. Harris, a Canadian speechwriter who is based in Chiba, a Tokyo suburb, and who has worked with Japanese politicians, says he knows a good deal about the dire straits of political communication in Japan. The art is virtually nonexistent and is only beginning to be discovered, he said.
“Japan has not been serious about communication,” he said. “In a Japanese company or political party or anyplace where Japanese come together as a group, the process is consensus-forming, and the outcome has to be consensus, and the consensus is internal. In that, the audience often gets forgotten.”
Copyright 2009
Obama Becomes Japan’s English Teacher
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — When Utako Sakai was changing the background music in her beauty parlor recently, she did not opt for the classical piano pieces she usually chose.
Instead, she picked her favorite CD: “President Obama’s Inaugural Address,” released by Asahi Press, a Japanese publisher of language books. She says the speech lifts her spirits and helps her to learn English all at once.
“All our customers love it,” said Ms. Sakai, who is based in Ayase City, in Kanagawa Prefecture, outside Tokyo.
The speech CD and its accompanying book have been a resounding success, selling 200,000 copies since its release in January. A compilation of President Barack Obama’s speeches has done even better, selling half a million copies since November, solidifying his role as Japan’s English teacher.
Publishers have since flooded the market with over a dozen language-learning titles, including “Speech Training: Learning to Deliver English Speech, Obama Style”; “Learn English Grammar From Obama”; and “Yes, I Can With Obama: 40 Magical English Phrases From Presidential E-mails.”
Asahi Press followed up its inauguration book and CD with a recording of Mr. Obama’s “World Without Nuclear Weapons” speech, also in book and CD form, given in Prague in April.
The publishers are trying to tap into a foreign-language teaching industry that the Yano Search Institute said was valued at ¥767 billion, or $8.7 billion, in 2008. The figure includes the cost of books, CDs, dictionaries, e-learning programs, standardized English tests, and the cost of private language lessons. The institute, in Tokyo, says the majority of the spending is aimed at learning English.
Most Japanese people, including those studying English, would have difficulty comprehending a speech given by a native English speaker. But “Mr. Obama’s English is easy to understand because he pronounces words clearly and speaks at a relatively slow clip,” said Professor Tadaharu Nikaido, a communication specialist here. “Movies tend to be the most difficult for Japanese, especially when actors mumble their words.”
Mr. Obama sets his range of vocabulary wide enough to accommodate the highly educated and the less educated, Professor Nikaido added, and at the lower end, it sometimes comes within the range of non-native speakers’ comprehension.
But there are probably a large number of buyers who do not really possess the basic English skills to understand his speech, said Yuzo Yamamoto, an editor at Asahi Press. Since the sales took off, he has received postcards from readers saying they had been touched by Mr. Obama’s speeches, but “those same people have said they were moved even though they didn’t understand English well,” he said. “Some even said the only phrase they caught was, ‘Yes, we can.’ They said they were in tears nonetheless.”
Mr. Yamamoto said there was a sincerity about Mr. Obama’s speaking style that listeners could perceive phonetically, combined with a delivery that was almost musical.
“That seems to result in sensation, the kind of which you get from listening to good music,” he said.
Other observers say that Japanese buyers probably feel as though they understand his speeches just from the nonverbal cues.
“The audience in the background helped too,” Professor Nikaido said. “The audience’s echo in the background works the same way as, say, laugh sound effects inserted in TV comedies.”
That may explain why Ms. Sakai, the beautician, and her customers were so enthralled by Mr. Obama. Ms. Sakai describes her English skills as less than perfect and says she relies on others for translation when she travels overseas. But when she hears Mr. Obama talk, she feels perfectly at ease.
“I feel as though I am not Japanese,” she says, because she is able to understand the English speech so well.
The fervor over Obama-speak, some say, reflects other aspects of Japan’s changing society. Among the public, there is now a longing for leaders with a communication style that is more effective, dynamic and inspiring, something not prevalent in the political culture here, they say.
Since late last year, economic recession has only deepened with no end in sight, and hope has been difficult to find. “There is a sense, why isn’t there an Obama in Japan who can raise people’s spirits,” Mr. Yamamoto said. This year, as the Obama books were beginning to boom, the prime minister then, Taro Aso, was making a series of political gaffes, Mr. Yamamoto noted. They included misreading kanji, the Japanese characters, in public.
The Obama speech phenomenon peaked in the spring, observers say, and has given way to more books and magazines that focus on how Mr. Obama’s communication skills might be adopted in Japan for business and political purposes.
Professor Nikaido himself has recently published a book called “Creating an Audience Frenzy: Learning From Obama’s Strategic Oratory.” At least half a dozen books and magazine covers of this kind have appeared in the past several months.
John R. Harris, a Canadian speechwriter who is based in Chiba, a Tokyo suburb, and who has worked with Japanese politicians, says he knows a good deal about the dire straits of political communication in Japan. The art is virtually nonexistent and is only beginning to be discovered, he said.
“Japan has not been serious about communication,” he said. “In a Japanese company or political party or anyplace where Japanese come together as a group, the process is consensus-forming, and the outcome has to be consensus, and the consensus is internal. In that, the audience often gets forgotten.”
Copyright 2009
Taking On Skyscrapers to Protect View of an ‘Old Friend’
October 12, 2009
Tokyo Journal
Taking On Skyscrapers to Protect View of an ‘Old Friend’
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — Growing up in prewar Tokyo, Makoto Kaneko recalls that the perfectly shaped, snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji was like a constant companion, visible on the horizon from the narrow streets of his hilly working-class neighborhood. The most majestic view was from a steep hillside affectionately named Fujimizaka, “the slope for seeing Mount Fuji.”
Today, Mr. Kaneko’s cramped 80-year-old shop selling foods cooked in soy sauce is one of several old wooden stores and Buddhist temples that still stand here, making the Nippori neighborhood a rare oasis of medieval charm in Tokyo’s concrete sprawl. But the distant volcano, Japan’s tallest peak and pre-eminent national symbol, has been increasingly blocked by skyscrapers and smog.
Mr. Kaneko said he and other residents did not mind because they still had the vista from Fujimizaka, which has become a minor tourist attraction. Then, one day a decade ago, they learned of plans for a 14-story apartment building a mile away that would partly obstruct that view.
“My mind went blank with disbelief,” said Mr. Kaneko, 83. “That is when we realized what we were losing.”
With the help of a university professor, the neighborhood’s mostly graying residents formed the Society to Protect Nippori’s Fujimizaka, which Mr. Kaneko leads. The group has approached developers, landowners and local governments, but their efforts have collided with a preservation problem: Protecting a building or a park may be one thing, but how do you protect a view? Saving the view from Nippori’s Fujimizaka would require capping building heights within an elongated fan-shaped corridor three miles long and up to 1,000 feet wide across densely populated neighborhoods. So far, the society has met stiff resistance from city officials and developers in Tokyo, whose properties rose rapidly from the postwar ashes thanks in part to unrestrained construction.
“Tokyo’s approach has been to build first, worry about beauty and preservation later,” said Kazuteru Chiba, the professor of urban planning at Tokyo’s Waseda University who helped form the Fujimizaka society. “This is true even when it involves a national emblem like Mount Fuji.”
Still, the neighborhood’s cause has slowly gained support in Tokyo, as part of a small but growing clamor to preserve the city’s remaining historical places. The neighborhood has benefited from Utagawa Hiroshige, one of Japan’s most celebrated 19th-century artists, who depicted the view from Nippori in a woodblock print.
Local media coverage has also focused on Nippori’s distinction as the last of 16 slopes in central Tokyo named Fujimizaka from which Mount Fuji is still visible. The naming of hillsides dates to medieval times, as a form of street address before Tokyo’s more recent neighborhood-based numbering system. Fujimizaka was the most frequently used name, reflecting the mountain’s sacred place in Japan’s indigenous Shinto religion, according to Noriko Ide, a leader of the Slope Society of Japan, a private group that chronicles the history of hillside names.
“It is a miracle that one of these slopes has survived,” Ms. Ide said, “so it is a precious cultural asset.”
The slope also figures prominently in Nippori’s local lore. In the closing days of World War II, a local woman claimed that while standing on the slope, she could see a flash and a funny-shaped cloud just to the right of Mount Fuji — at the exact moment that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, according to Nobuyuki Nozawa, a local veterinarian.
“Mount Fuji is like an old friend guarding us,” he said.
Other preservationists point out that protecting views is not without precedent elsewhere.
Vancouver, British Columbia, was a pioneer in the late 1980s with ordinances protecting “view corridors” of the city’s surrounding mountains from designated intersections and parks. Some American coastal communities restrict tall buildings that would block ocean views.
Two years ago, Tokyo took its first step in that direction with a plan to protect the scenery around four prominent historic buildings, including the national Parliament and the red-brick Tokyo train station. But city officials say they have only limited powers to restrict private property rights: in many cases, officials are limited to asking landowners to voluntarily show restraint in the heights of their buildings.
When the Fujimizaka society and local government officials approached the developer of the 14-story apartment building, they could only ask for his cooperation. The developer, the real estate arm of what is now the steel maker JFE Holdings, demanded $12 million in compensation for eliminating the top five floors from the $16 million building.
With such a sum beyond the society’s means, the developer went ahead with finishing the building in 2000. It now blocks the left third of Mount Fuji as seen from Nippori’s Fujimizaka.
One problem was jurisdiction, officials say: while Arakawa ward, where the slope is located, was enthusiastic about protecting the view, Bunkyo ward, where the 14-story building was erected, was afraid of losing the tax revenue from redevelopment.
Officials in Tokyo’s city hall say they could step in, but only if they felt there was a public mandate for protecting the slope’s view.
“Whoever heard of protecting a line of sight from a single point?” said Masafumi Tanaka, head of urban planning in the Bunkyo ward office. “We can’t just ignore property rights.”
Professor Chiba said the failure to stop the 14-story building so discouraged residents that the Fujimizaka society almost disbanded. “Then we realized there is still two-thirds of the view left. So we decided, let’s protect that,” he recalled.
The society has tried to increase public awareness by contacting landowners where tall buildings could be built that would block the remaining view. They also began organizing an event called Diamond Fuji, during the two times a year when the sun sets exactly on the top of the volcano’s symmetrical cone. The last Diamond Fuji, in January, drew 300 people, Mr. Kaneko said.
Still, like most residents, Mr. Kaneko is far from optimistic.
“I can’t imagine Nippori without Mount Fuji,” Mr. Kaneko said. “But it is probably just a matter of time before another building appears that will block what’s left.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Tokyo Journal
Taking On Skyscrapers to Protect View of an ‘Old Friend’
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — Growing up in prewar Tokyo, Makoto Kaneko recalls that the perfectly shaped, snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji was like a constant companion, visible on the horizon from the narrow streets of his hilly working-class neighborhood. The most majestic view was from a steep hillside affectionately named Fujimizaka, “the slope for seeing Mount Fuji.”
Today, Mr. Kaneko’s cramped 80-year-old shop selling foods cooked in soy sauce is one of several old wooden stores and Buddhist temples that still stand here, making the Nippori neighborhood a rare oasis of medieval charm in Tokyo’s concrete sprawl. But the distant volcano, Japan’s tallest peak and pre-eminent national symbol, has been increasingly blocked by skyscrapers and smog.
Mr. Kaneko said he and other residents did not mind because they still had the vista from Fujimizaka, which has become a minor tourist attraction. Then, one day a decade ago, they learned of plans for a 14-story apartment building a mile away that would partly obstruct that view.
“My mind went blank with disbelief,” said Mr. Kaneko, 83. “That is when we realized what we were losing.”
With the help of a university professor, the neighborhood’s mostly graying residents formed the Society to Protect Nippori’s Fujimizaka, which Mr. Kaneko leads. The group has approached developers, landowners and local governments, but their efforts have collided with a preservation problem: Protecting a building or a park may be one thing, but how do you protect a view? Saving the view from Nippori’s Fujimizaka would require capping building heights within an elongated fan-shaped corridor three miles long and up to 1,000 feet wide across densely populated neighborhoods. So far, the society has met stiff resistance from city officials and developers in Tokyo, whose properties rose rapidly from the postwar ashes thanks in part to unrestrained construction.
“Tokyo’s approach has been to build first, worry about beauty and preservation later,” said Kazuteru Chiba, the professor of urban planning at Tokyo’s Waseda University who helped form the Fujimizaka society. “This is true even when it involves a national emblem like Mount Fuji.”
Still, the neighborhood’s cause has slowly gained support in Tokyo, as part of a small but growing clamor to preserve the city’s remaining historical places. The neighborhood has benefited from Utagawa Hiroshige, one of Japan’s most celebrated 19th-century artists, who depicted the view from Nippori in a woodblock print.
Local media coverage has also focused on Nippori’s distinction as the last of 16 slopes in central Tokyo named Fujimizaka from which Mount Fuji is still visible. The naming of hillsides dates to medieval times, as a form of street address before Tokyo’s more recent neighborhood-based numbering system. Fujimizaka was the most frequently used name, reflecting the mountain’s sacred place in Japan’s indigenous Shinto religion, according to Noriko Ide, a leader of the Slope Society of Japan, a private group that chronicles the history of hillside names.
“It is a miracle that one of these slopes has survived,” Ms. Ide said, “so it is a precious cultural asset.”
The slope also figures prominently in Nippori’s local lore. In the closing days of World War II, a local woman claimed that while standing on the slope, she could see a flash and a funny-shaped cloud just to the right of Mount Fuji — at the exact moment that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, according to Nobuyuki Nozawa, a local veterinarian.
“Mount Fuji is like an old friend guarding us,” he said.
Other preservationists point out that protecting views is not without precedent elsewhere.
Vancouver, British Columbia, was a pioneer in the late 1980s with ordinances protecting “view corridors” of the city’s surrounding mountains from designated intersections and parks. Some American coastal communities restrict tall buildings that would block ocean views.
Two years ago, Tokyo took its first step in that direction with a plan to protect the scenery around four prominent historic buildings, including the national Parliament and the red-brick Tokyo train station. But city officials say they have only limited powers to restrict private property rights: in many cases, officials are limited to asking landowners to voluntarily show restraint in the heights of their buildings.
When the Fujimizaka society and local government officials approached the developer of the 14-story apartment building, they could only ask for his cooperation. The developer, the real estate arm of what is now the steel maker JFE Holdings, demanded $12 million in compensation for eliminating the top five floors from the $16 million building.
With such a sum beyond the society’s means, the developer went ahead with finishing the building in 2000. It now blocks the left third of Mount Fuji as seen from Nippori’s Fujimizaka.
One problem was jurisdiction, officials say: while Arakawa ward, where the slope is located, was enthusiastic about protecting the view, Bunkyo ward, where the 14-story building was erected, was afraid of losing the tax revenue from redevelopment.
Officials in Tokyo’s city hall say they could step in, but only if they felt there was a public mandate for protecting the slope’s view.
“Whoever heard of protecting a line of sight from a single point?” said Masafumi Tanaka, head of urban planning in the Bunkyo ward office. “We can’t just ignore property rights.”
Professor Chiba said the failure to stop the 14-story building so discouraged residents that the Fujimizaka society almost disbanded. “Then we realized there is still two-thirds of the view left. So we decided, let’s protect that,” he recalled.
The society has tried to increase public awareness by contacting landowners where tall buildings could be built that would block the remaining view. They also began organizing an event called Diamond Fuji, during the two times a year when the sun sets exactly on the top of the volcano’s symmetrical cone. The last Diamond Fuji, in January, drew 300 people, Mr. Kaneko said.
Still, like most residents, Mr. Kaneko is far from optimistic.
“I can’t imagine Nippori without Mount Fuji,” Mr. Kaneko said. “But it is probably just a matter of time before another building appears that will block what’s left.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Japanese Destroyer Hits South Korean Ship
October 28, 2009
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — A Japanese navy destroyer collided with a South Korean freighter in the waters off southern Japan on Tuesday, setting off fires on both boats and injuring three crew members.
The collision was the second in less than two years involving a Japanese navy ship and a commercial vessel. Last year, another Japanese destroyer smashed into a fishing boat off eastern Japan, killing two fishermen in an accident blamed on poor surveillance and steering by the destroyer’s crew.
Japan’s defense minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, swiftly called a news conference to apologize for the accident and said the government would investigate.
“It is extremely regrettable that the destroyer, Kurama, has been in a collision, causing everyone concern and inconvenience,” Mr. Kitazawa told reporters. “We will quickly find out what caused the accident.”
The 5,200-ton Kurama was traveling through a narrow strip of water between two of Japan’s four main islands — a major shipping route — when it struck the container vessel, the Carina Star, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.
Televised images from the scene showed a burst of yellow flames rising from the destroyer’s bow. A crew member on the destroyer sustained minor burns, and two more were being treated for smoke inhalation, the ministry said. There was damage to freight but no casualties on the South Korean freighter, which was traveling from the South Korean port of Pusan to Osaka in western Japan.
Firefighters had extinguished the fire on the freighter by late Tuesday, and the flames were largely under control on the Kurama, which had about 150 on board. It had been on its way to its home port of on the island of Kyushu after participating in a naval review on Sunday off Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo, where it was boarded by the deputy prime minister, Naoto Kan.
In the accident last year, the destroyer Atago struck and sunk a tuna trawler off Japan’s eastern coast in February, killing two and triggering a public outcry. The navy chief of staff was fired and two officers were charged with professional negligence after the collision, which a government investigation blamed on poor surveillance and flawed teamwork by night-duty officers.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — A Japanese navy destroyer collided with a South Korean freighter in the waters off southern Japan on Tuesday, setting off fires on both boats and injuring three crew members.
The collision was the second in less than two years involving a Japanese navy ship and a commercial vessel. Last year, another Japanese destroyer smashed into a fishing boat off eastern Japan, killing two fishermen in an accident blamed on poor surveillance and steering by the destroyer’s crew.
Japan’s defense minister, Toshimi Kitazawa, swiftly called a news conference to apologize for the accident and said the government would investigate.
“It is extremely regrettable that the destroyer, Kurama, has been in a collision, causing everyone concern and inconvenience,” Mr. Kitazawa told reporters. “We will quickly find out what caused the accident.”
The 5,200-ton Kurama was traveling through a narrow strip of water between two of Japan’s four main islands — a major shipping route — when it struck the container vessel, the Carina Star, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.
Televised images from the scene showed a burst of yellow flames rising from the destroyer’s bow. A crew member on the destroyer sustained minor burns, and two more were being treated for smoke inhalation, the ministry said. There was damage to freight but no casualties on the South Korean freighter, which was traveling from the South Korean port of Pusan to Osaka in western Japan.
Firefighters had extinguished the fire on the freighter by late Tuesday, and the flames were largely under control on the Kurama, which had about 150 on board. It had been on its way to its home port of on the island of Kyushu after participating in a naval review on Sunday off Yokosuka, southwest of Tokyo, where it was boarded by the deputy prime minister, Naoto Kan.
In the accident last year, the destroyer Atago struck and sunk a tuna trawler off Japan’s eastern coast in February, killing two and triggering a public outcry. The navy chief of staff was fired and two officers were charged with professional negligence after the collision, which a government investigation blamed on poor surveillance and flawed teamwork by night-duty officers.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Japan Says JAL Can Be Saved, With a Bailout
October 29, 2009, 11:55 am
Japan set the stage for a huge bailout of Japan Airlines on Thursday, telling the struggling carrier to turn to a state-backed body for assistance, a move that ruled out a tougher stance by a new left-leaning government in Tokyo against the country’s powerful corporations, Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times reports.
The government said JAL, Japan’s largest carrier by revenue, had been instructed to apply for funds from a state-backed turnaround body, after a special task force said saving the airline was “definitely possible” but would require a “substantial” injection of public money.
The former flagship carrier, which was privatized in 1987, was bailed out three times since 2001 under the previous administration, but it is still reeling from plunging revenues and $15 billion in debt. The airline posted a record quarterly net loss of 99 billion yen ($1.08 billion), in the three months that ended in June, and has forecast a net loss of 63 billion yen for the fiscal year to March.
Some had predicted that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party cast the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party from power in August, could let JAL go under to underline a promise to shift Japan’s resources away from corporations and toward households.
But ultimately, JAL is big to fail, Seiji Maehara, the transportation minister, told reporters Thursday. He said it was too early to say how big the bailout would be, however.
“If JAL were to stop flying, there would be serious repercussions for Japan’s economy,” and it would disrupt travel to and from other countries, Mr. Maehara told reporters Thursday. “It is not your ordinary company,” he said.
Mr. Maehara stressed that JAL would need to make aggressive cutbacks to receive fresh public funds, including rolling back the company’s bloated bureaucracy, downsizing its fleet and slashing so-called legacy costs, which include pension liabilities of about 330 billion yen.
The minister also criticized previous bailouts, calling them mere stop-gap measures, and said his government was committed to bringing about a more comprehensive turnaround.
“Under the previous administration, there was no real due diligence, no real turnaround strategy,” Mr. Maehara said.
JAL had earlier submitted its own draft reconstruction plan, which included cuts of 6,800 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workers, but it failed to get a passing mark from Mr. Maehara.
A government bailout could complicate partnership negotiations between JAL and several other top airlines, including Delta Air Lines, the world’s biggest airline operator; American Airlines; and Air France-KLM, Europe’s biggest airline group.
A partnership could give a foreign airline a firm foothold in Japan’s highly regulated airline sector, as well as a gateway to the fast-growing Asia. Foreign airlines are also vying for access to berths at Haneda Airport in central Tokyo. The airport will add a fourth runway next year that could increase its capacity for domestic and international flights by 40 percent.
Government money could lead JAL to reject foreign capital; on the other hand, a more robust balance sheet would make JAL more attractive to investors. JAL’s main creditor banks had previously balked at requests from JAL to waive loans worth 250 billion yen, according to local media.
JAL will now apply for assistance from the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, set up by the government this month to invest in struggling but viable firms. The turnaround body will conduct its own due diligence before formally agreeing to aid JAL, Mr. Maehara said, though government commitment to the airline appeared certain Thursday.
Shares of Japan Airlines, which have plunged in recent weeks, closed Thursday up 2.7 percent at 115 yen, outperforming a 1.8 percent drop in the Nikkei average.
The troubles at JAL, once a symbol of Japan’s emergence in the global economy, stem from years of mismanagement, as well as a more recent plunge in travel amid the global financial crisis.
JAL’s deep problems also stem from stiff regulations that have forced the airline to service many unprofitable routes within Japan to prop up a network of domestic airports built with government money. Flying to these has been a drain on its resources and profitability.
But JAL can be quickly revived with funds and a robust turnaround plan, said Shinjiro Takagi, the government task force chief.
“Reviving JAL will require a substantial amount of money, including public money,” Mr. Takagi said. “Our conclusion, however, is that JAL can most certainly turn itself around, and in a robust way.”
“There is room for great reform at JAL,” said Kazuhiko Toyama, deputy leader of the task force. “There is still great potential for growth,” he said.
The turnaround body, the E.T.I.C., has a mandate to draw up to 1.6 trillion yen in state-guaranteed funds to assist JAL. The government is also considering enacting a new law that would allow the airline to unilaterally slash its pension benefits.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Japan set the stage for a huge bailout of Japan Airlines on Thursday, telling the struggling carrier to turn to a state-backed body for assistance, a move that ruled out a tougher stance by a new left-leaning government in Tokyo against the country’s powerful corporations, Hiroko Tabuchi of The New York Times reports.
The government said JAL, Japan’s largest carrier by revenue, had been instructed to apply for funds from a state-backed turnaround body, after a special task force said saving the airline was “definitely possible” but would require a “substantial” injection of public money.
The former flagship carrier, which was privatized in 1987, was bailed out three times since 2001 under the previous administration, but it is still reeling from plunging revenues and $15 billion in debt. The airline posted a record quarterly net loss of 99 billion yen ($1.08 billion), in the three months that ended in June, and has forecast a net loss of 63 billion yen for the fiscal year to March.
Some had predicted that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party cast the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party from power in August, could let JAL go under to underline a promise to shift Japan’s resources away from corporations and toward households.
But ultimately, JAL is big to fail, Seiji Maehara, the transportation minister, told reporters Thursday. He said it was too early to say how big the bailout would be, however.
“If JAL were to stop flying, there would be serious repercussions for Japan’s economy,” and it would disrupt travel to and from other countries, Mr. Maehara told reporters Thursday. “It is not your ordinary company,” he said.
Mr. Maehara stressed that JAL would need to make aggressive cutbacks to receive fresh public funds, including rolling back the company’s bloated bureaucracy, downsizing its fleet and slashing so-called legacy costs, which include pension liabilities of about 330 billion yen.
The minister also criticized previous bailouts, calling them mere stop-gap measures, and said his government was committed to bringing about a more comprehensive turnaround.
“Under the previous administration, there was no real due diligence, no real turnaround strategy,” Mr. Maehara said.
JAL had earlier submitted its own draft reconstruction plan, which included cuts of 6,800 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workers, but it failed to get a passing mark from Mr. Maehara.
A government bailout could complicate partnership negotiations between JAL and several other top airlines, including Delta Air Lines, the world’s biggest airline operator; American Airlines; and Air France-KLM, Europe’s biggest airline group.
A partnership could give a foreign airline a firm foothold in Japan’s highly regulated airline sector, as well as a gateway to the fast-growing Asia. Foreign airlines are also vying for access to berths at Haneda Airport in central Tokyo. The airport will add a fourth runway next year that could increase its capacity for domestic and international flights by 40 percent.
Government money could lead JAL to reject foreign capital; on the other hand, a more robust balance sheet would make JAL more attractive to investors. JAL’s main creditor banks had previously balked at requests from JAL to waive loans worth 250 billion yen, according to local media.
JAL will now apply for assistance from the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation, set up by the government this month to invest in struggling but viable firms. The turnaround body will conduct its own due diligence before formally agreeing to aid JAL, Mr. Maehara said, though government commitment to the airline appeared certain Thursday.
Shares of Japan Airlines, which have plunged in recent weeks, closed Thursday up 2.7 percent at 115 yen, outperforming a 1.8 percent drop in the Nikkei average.
The troubles at JAL, once a symbol of Japan’s emergence in the global economy, stem from years of mismanagement, as well as a more recent plunge in travel amid the global financial crisis.
JAL’s deep problems also stem from stiff regulations that have forced the airline to service many unprofitable routes within Japan to prop up a network of domestic airports built with government money. Flying to these has been a drain on its resources and profitability.
But JAL can be quickly revived with funds and a robust turnaround plan, said Shinjiro Takagi, the government task force chief.
“Reviving JAL will require a substantial amount of money, including public money,” Mr. Takagi said. “Our conclusion, however, is that JAL can most certainly turn itself around, and in a robust way.”
“There is room for great reform at JAL,” said Kazuhiko Toyama, deputy leader of the task force. “There is still great potential for growth,” he said.
The turnaround body, the E.T.I.C., has a mandate to draw up to 1.6 trillion yen in state-guaranteed funds to assist JAL. The government is also considering enacting a new law that would allow the airline to unilaterally slash its pension benefits.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
In Japan, Homes Built With the Bathtub in Mind
October 30, 2009
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — A whiff of autumn is in the air. Birds are singing, the crickets are chirping and there is a gentle seasonal breeze. Perfect for a picnic or family hiking? Perhaps, but many Japanese, including Hiroyuki Masuda, would prefer to do something else: take a bath.
His 4-square-meter, or 43-square-foot, bathtub sits next to a creek, covered only by a roof that extends from the weekend home he recently built in Shizuoka Prefecture, west of Tokyo. “I get to relax very much, here,” said Dr. Masuda, a pediatrician with an office in nearby Shizuoka City. “This weekend house was planned with the bath in mind.”
That bath, or ofuro, has a special place in Japanese history and culture — as well as in modern homes from Okinawa and Hokkaido to the towns of Karuizawa, Izu and Hakone, some of the favorite summer retreats for well-heeled residents of Tokyo and Osaka.
Some are carefully designed outdoor baths, or roten, that overlook a garden, have sweeping views of the ocean or mountains. Others are made of prized materials like hinoki, a cypress wood, and urushi, a lacquer often used on soup bowls.
“Japanese people long for healing and therapy, and they seek for it in the bathroom,” said Yukio Hashimoto, an architect based in Tokyo whose recent projects have included a number of high-end bathrooms. “For Westerners, bathrooms may be a place to clean themselves, but for the Japanese, it is much more than that.”
Kumiko Tanaka, editor-in-chief of Good Reform, a home-renovation and interiors magazine, said that a few things about the Japanese and their bathrooms were noteworthy. “The bathroom is the place to relax,” especially for Japanese men, she said.
“The bathroom is really a place to spend time,” Ms. Tanaka said, adding that many hardware stores have sections dedicated to accessories like bookshelves for the bathroom. People also use their bathrooms for activities like drinking sake; playing shogi, or Japanese chess; and contemplating views of the surrounding area.
In urban areas, physical and geographical limitations make extravagant bathroom features like an ornate garden or a sweeping view rare. But, Ms. Tanaka said, when city dwellers “build their second homes, their efforts to pursue their dream bath often becomes ferocious.”
Kimitsugu Sugihara, an architect in Yokohama who has designed many vacation homes with exotic bathrooms, including Dr. Masuda’s, said that many potential clients come to his office with pictures of baths at Japanese resorts that they want copied.
“They usually have some type of image from a well-designed hot-spring outdoor bath in mind,” he said. “These days, private outdoor bathrooms at ryokans are all the rage,” he said, referring to traditional Japanese inns.
Few Japanese think of creating a roten in a city, but Mr. Sugihara said he had taken on several such projects. “I would set up a little garden and enclose it with walls, and you are all set,” he said.
Some designers specialize in fine touches for baths. Mr. Hashimoto, the architectural designer, created a tub made of Japanese lacquer, or urushi, which is usually reserved for tableware like bowls and chopsticks. “It’s not too slippery, is soft to the skin and can withstand very high temperature,” he said. “Urushi is perfect for a bathtub.”
His black-and-red urushi bathtub was displayed last year at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, a furniture fair held annually in Milan. The price: ¥8 million, or $88,000.
A more common material is hinoki, the cypress that is a favorite among many Japanese. “Hinoki has the right texture, gives off nice scent and does not collect moss,” Ms. Tanaka of Good Reform magazine said.
Builders say that hinoki bathrooms cost ¥2 million to ¥4 million, depending on the size and design.
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — A whiff of autumn is in the air. Birds are singing, the crickets are chirping and there is a gentle seasonal breeze. Perfect for a picnic or family hiking? Perhaps, but many Japanese, including Hiroyuki Masuda, would prefer to do something else: take a bath.
His 4-square-meter, or 43-square-foot, bathtub sits next to a creek, covered only by a roof that extends from the weekend home he recently built in Shizuoka Prefecture, west of Tokyo. “I get to relax very much, here,” said Dr. Masuda, a pediatrician with an office in nearby Shizuoka City. “This weekend house was planned with the bath in mind.”
That bath, or ofuro, has a special place in Japanese history and culture — as well as in modern homes from Okinawa and Hokkaido to the towns of Karuizawa, Izu and Hakone, some of the favorite summer retreats for well-heeled residents of Tokyo and Osaka.
Some are carefully designed outdoor baths, or roten, that overlook a garden, have sweeping views of the ocean or mountains. Others are made of prized materials like hinoki, a cypress wood, and urushi, a lacquer often used on soup bowls.
“Japanese people long for healing and therapy, and they seek for it in the bathroom,” said Yukio Hashimoto, an architect based in Tokyo whose recent projects have included a number of high-end bathrooms. “For Westerners, bathrooms may be a place to clean themselves, but for the Japanese, it is much more than that.”
Kumiko Tanaka, editor-in-chief of Good Reform, a home-renovation and interiors magazine, said that a few things about the Japanese and their bathrooms were noteworthy. “The bathroom is the place to relax,” especially for Japanese men, she said.
“The bathroom is really a place to spend time,” Ms. Tanaka said, adding that many hardware stores have sections dedicated to accessories like bookshelves for the bathroom. People also use their bathrooms for activities like drinking sake; playing shogi, or Japanese chess; and contemplating views of the surrounding area.
In urban areas, physical and geographical limitations make extravagant bathroom features like an ornate garden or a sweeping view rare. But, Ms. Tanaka said, when city dwellers “build their second homes, their efforts to pursue their dream bath often becomes ferocious.”
Kimitsugu Sugihara, an architect in Yokohama who has designed many vacation homes with exotic bathrooms, including Dr. Masuda’s, said that many potential clients come to his office with pictures of baths at Japanese resorts that they want copied.
“They usually have some type of image from a well-designed hot-spring outdoor bath in mind,” he said. “These days, private outdoor bathrooms at ryokans are all the rage,” he said, referring to traditional Japanese inns.
Few Japanese think of creating a roten in a city, but Mr. Sugihara said he had taken on several such projects. “I would set up a little garden and enclose it with walls, and you are all set,” he said.
Some designers specialize in fine touches for baths. Mr. Hashimoto, the architectural designer, created a tub made of Japanese lacquer, or urushi, which is usually reserved for tableware like bowls and chopsticks. “It’s not too slippery, is soft to the skin and can withstand very high temperature,” he said. “Urushi is perfect for a bathtub.”
His black-and-red urushi bathtub was displayed last year at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, a furniture fair held annually in Milan. The price: ¥8 million, or $88,000.
A more common material is hinoki, the cypress that is a favorite among many Japanese. “Hinoki has the right texture, gives off nice scent and does not collect moss,” Ms. Tanaka of Good Reform magazine said.
Builders say that hinoki bathrooms cost ¥2 million to ¥4 million, depending on the size and design.
Is Technology Dumbing Down Japanese?
November 8, 2009
Essay
Is Technology Dumbing Down Japanese?
By EMILY PARKER
When I first moved to Kyoto in 1999, I knew about 50 words of Japanese. My attempts to string together a few broken phrases were met with excessive praise, and I assumed everyone was being nice. “No,” I remember my friend Yuki saying. “People mean it. They really are impressed.”
She was referring to the widespread belief that Japanese, with its nuanced formal expressions and three different writing systems, is a uniquely complex language. How could a foreigner possibly learn it? Even Japanese people make mistakes. Former Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose Liberal Democratic Party’s more than half-century in power came to a crashing end this past August, might go down in history for having publicly misread Japanese kanji, or characters. He was hardly the first native speaker to bungle the language. “Many otherwise educated people have trouble writing a logical, grammatically correct sentence,” said Michaela Komine, an Australian who spent eight years working as a Japanese-English translator in Osaka.
Now the Japanese language is being transformed by blogs, e-mail and keitai shosetsu, or cellphone novels. Americans may fret over the ways digital communications encourage sloppy grammar and spelling, but in Japan these changes are much more wrenching. A vertically written language seems to be becoming increasingly horizontal. Novels are being written and read on little screens. People have gotten so used to typing on computers that they can no longer write characters by hand. And English words continue to infiltrate the language.
So what do these changes mean for a language long defined by indirect locutions and long, leisurely sentences that drift from the top of the page? Is Japanese getting simpler, easier or just worse?
On one side of the debate is Minae Mizumura, whose book “The Fall of Japanese in the Age of English” made a splash when it came out in Japan last year. Mizumura contends that the dominance of English, especially with the advent of the Internet, threatens to reduce all other national languages to mere “local” languages that are not taken seriously by scholars. The education system, she argues, doesn’t spend enough time teaching Japanese. “I cannot imagine a country with a highly functioning national language that devotes less time to teaching their own language than to teaching a foreign language,” she wrote in an e-mail message.
The simplification of Japanese really began during the country’s transition to democracy after World War II, according to Mizumura. While the American occupiers did not succeed in persuading Japan to change to the Roman alphabet, Mizumura said, the “pro-phonetic” camp gained momentum, and the Japanese Ministry of Education simplified characters and limited the number of kanji used in the media. As a result, “the older generation — even those who did not go to college — are much more comfortable reading and writing Japanese than the younger generation,” she said. “The Japanese population’s literacy — that is, the capacity to read and enjoy books — slowly declined, and the written language itself accordingly became less rich.”
But other authors embrace the language’s evolution. As Haruki Murakami, Japan’s best-known living novelist, wrote via e-mail, “My personal view on the Japanese language (or any language) is, If it wants to change, let it change. Any language is alive just like a human being, just like you or me. And if it’s alive, it will change. Nobody can stop it.” There is no such thing as simplification of language, he added. “It just changes for better or worse (and nobody can tell if it is better or worse).”
Some of the most dramatic transformations have been taking place on cellphones, where writers, often young women, type stories into their keypads and readers consume them on their screens. Sentences tend to be short, and love stories are popular. The phenomenon peaked in 2007, when five out of 10 of the year’s best-selling books were written on cellphones. While their popularity seems to have dropped off, keitai shosetsu still elicit scorn from some Japanese who see them as trashy. Others just shrug them off: Murakami said that he has “no interest” in cellphone novels or any form that resembles them.
Natsuo Kirino, author of the novels “Out,” “Grotesque” and “Real World,” believes that cellphone novels have hardly killed off traditional literature. “I think there is a split in the reading styles among young people,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “On one hand, there are those who love keitai novels — they feel comfortable with the flat and simple language and expressions. I also feel there are a lot of young people who are not satisfied with simplicity, who read complex and advanced novels, and even wish to write their own.”
Nor does it seem that cellphone novels have permanently shortened attention spans. Murakami’s latest novel, “1Q84,” which weighs in at over 1,000 pages, had huge print runs when it came out in Japan this year.
Even as some see new technology as a threat to literacy, surveys suggest that Japanese are reading more than before. According to an article in the newspaper Sankei Shimbun, middle-school students read an average of four books a month in 2008, the most ever in the 30-year history of the survey. (The article did note that the reading material was not always sophisticated.) A separate national survey published last year in Yomiuri Shimbun found that 54 percent of people were reading more than one book a month, compared with 48 percent in the year before.
Japanese people also seem to be writing more. Motoyuki Shibata, who teaches literature and translation at the University of Tokyo, noticed that new technology makes his students more willing to write Japanese, even if it is on their computers or cellphones. “Some people say the tradition of letter writing has come back,” Shibata says. Thanks to e-mail, he adds, “I get more messages and feedback from students than I used to 20 years ago.”
People may also be using and recognizing more kanji. Instead of having to write every stroke from memory, people can type words phonetically into a computer and a list of characters to choose from pops up on the screen. (This wondrous phenomenon allows me to quickly dash off e-mail messages filled with complex characters. As a result, I am much more inclined to send messages to Japan.)
Critics may protest that Japanese is defined by its formal expressions, polite openers and roundabout way of getting to the point. In an age of cellphone novels and rapid text messaging, won’t some of this be lost? Maybe. But Japanese might also become less intimidating, allowing a wider range of people to enjoy the pleasures of reading and writing.
Will technology cause Japanese to lose its reputation as a uniquely difficult language? That’s possible, too. But it could be a good thing. Japan, a rapidly aging society, may well have to face an influx of immigration in the not too distant future. A more accessible language could accelerate the country’s process of internationalization. Who knows, we might even one day find that, as Shibata put it, “this idea of Japanese being a very difficult, esoteric language may have been a myth all the time.”
Emily Parker, a former editor on The Times’s Op-Ed page, is writing a book about the Internet and democracy. She has written extensively on Japan and China for The Wall Street Journal.
Essay
Is Technology Dumbing Down Japanese?
By EMILY PARKER
When I first moved to Kyoto in 1999, I knew about 50 words of Japanese. My attempts to string together a few broken phrases were met with excessive praise, and I assumed everyone was being nice. “No,” I remember my friend Yuki saying. “People mean it. They really are impressed.”
She was referring to the widespread belief that Japanese, with its nuanced formal expressions and three different writing systems, is a uniquely complex language. How could a foreigner possibly learn it? Even Japanese people make mistakes. Former Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose Liberal Democratic Party’s more than half-century in power came to a crashing end this past August, might go down in history for having publicly misread Japanese kanji, or characters. He was hardly the first native speaker to bungle the language. “Many otherwise educated people have trouble writing a logical, grammatically correct sentence,” said Michaela Komine, an Australian who spent eight years working as a Japanese-English translator in Osaka.
Now the Japanese language is being transformed by blogs, e-mail and keitai shosetsu, or cellphone novels. Americans may fret over the ways digital communications encourage sloppy grammar and spelling, but in Japan these changes are much more wrenching. A vertically written language seems to be becoming increasingly horizontal. Novels are being written and read on little screens. People have gotten so used to typing on computers that they can no longer write characters by hand. And English words continue to infiltrate the language.
So what do these changes mean for a language long defined by indirect locutions and long, leisurely sentences that drift from the top of the page? Is Japanese getting simpler, easier or just worse?
On one side of the debate is Minae Mizumura, whose book “The Fall of Japanese in the Age of English” made a splash when it came out in Japan last year. Mizumura contends that the dominance of English, especially with the advent of the Internet, threatens to reduce all other national languages to mere “local” languages that are not taken seriously by scholars. The education system, she argues, doesn’t spend enough time teaching Japanese. “I cannot imagine a country with a highly functioning national language that devotes less time to teaching their own language than to teaching a foreign language,” she wrote in an e-mail message.
The simplification of Japanese really began during the country’s transition to democracy after World War II, according to Mizumura. While the American occupiers did not succeed in persuading Japan to change to the Roman alphabet, Mizumura said, the “pro-phonetic” camp gained momentum, and the Japanese Ministry of Education simplified characters and limited the number of kanji used in the media. As a result, “the older generation — even those who did not go to college — are much more comfortable reading and writing Japanese than the younger generation,” she said. “The Japanese population’s literacy — that is, the capacity to read and enjoy books — slowly declined, and the written language itself accordingly became less rich.”
But other authors embrace the language’s evolution. As Haruki Murakami, Japan’s best-known living novelist, wrote via e-mail, “My personal view on the Japanese language (or any language) is, If it wants to change, let it change. Any language is alive just like a human being, just like you or me. And if it’s alive, it will change. Nobody can stop it.” There is no such thing as simplification of language, he added. “It just changes for better or worse (and nobody can tell if it is better or worse).”
Some of the most dramatic transformations have been taking place on cellphones, where writers, often young women, type stories into their keypads and readers consume them on their screens. Sentences tend to be short, and love stories are popular. The phenomenon peaked in 2007, when five out of 10 of the year’s best-selling books were written on cellphones. While their popularity seems to have dropped off, keitai shosetsu still elicit scorn from some Japanese who see them as trashy. Others just shrug them off: Murakami said that he has “no interest” in cellphone novels or any form that resembles them.
Natsuo Kirino, author of the novels “Out,” “Grotesque” and “Real World,” believes that cellphone novels have hardly killed off traditional literature. “I think there is a split in the reading styles among young people,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “On one hand, there are those who love keitai novels — they feel comfortable with the flat and simple language and expressions. I also feel there are a lot of young people who are not satisfied with simplicity, who read complex and advanced novels, and even wish to write their own.”
Nor does it seem that cellphone novels have permanently shortened attention spans. Murakami’s latest novel, “1Q84,” which weighs in at over 1,000 pages, had huge print runs when it came out in Japan this year.
Even as some see new technology as a threat to literacy, surveys suggest that Japanese are reading more than before. According to an article in the newspaper Sankei Shimbun, middle-school students read an average of four books a month in 2008, the most ever in the 30-year history of the survey. (The article did note that the reading material was not always sophisticated.) A separate national survey published last year in Yomiuri Shimbun found that 54 percent of people were reading more than one book a month, compared with 48 percent in the year before.
Japanese people also seem to be writing more. Motoyuki Shibata, who teaches literature and translation at the University of Tokyo, noticed that new technology makes his students more willing to write Japanese, even if it is on their computers or cellphones. “Some people say the tradition of letter writing has come back,” Shibata says. Thanks to e-mail, he adds, “I get more messages and feedback from students than I used to 20 years ago.”
People may also be using and recognizing more kanji. Instead of having to write every stroke from memory, people can type words phonetically into a computer and a list of characters to choose from pops up on the screen. (This wondrous phenomenon allows me to quickly dash off e-mail messages filled with complex characters. As a result, I am much more inclined to send messages to Japan.)
Critics may protest that Japanese is defined by its formal expressions, polite openers and roundabout way of getting to the point. In an age of cellphone novels and rapid text messaging, won’t some of this be lost? Maybe. But Japanese might also become less intimidating, allowing a wider range of people to enjoy the pleasures of reading and writing.
Will technology cause Japanese to lose its reputation as a uniquely difficult language? That’s possible, too. But it could be a good thing. Japan, a rapidly aging society, may well have to face an influx of immigration in the not too distant future. A more accessible language could accelerate the country’s process of internationalization. Who knows, we might even one day find that, as Shibata put it, “this idea of Japanese being a very difficult, esoteric language may have been a myth all the time.”
Emily Parker, a former editor on The Times’s Op-Ed page, is writing a book about the Internet and democracy. She has written extensively on Japan and China for The Wall Street Journal.
PlayStation 3 sales hit one million in three weeks
(AFP) – Sep 24, 2009
TOKYO — Japan's Sony said Thursday that global retail sales of its latest, cut-price model of the PlayStation 3 videogame console had hit one million in the three weeks since its launch.
The new PS3 was went on sale on September 1 in North America, Europe and in Asia, except for Japan where it debuted in stores two days later.
The model is priced at 29,980 yen (330 dollars) in Japan, 10,000 yen less than its earlier version. The recommended retail price is 299 dollars in North America and 299 euros (440 dollars) in Europe, Sony says.
The new version, like its predecessors, allows users to play games and movies on Blu-ray discs, but is slimmer and uses less power.
"The console packs cutting-edge technologies, including the (pre-installed) 120 gigabyte hard-disk drive and Blu-ray capability, at a lower price," said Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. spokeswoman Makiko Noda.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
TOKYO — Japan's Sony said Thursday that global retail sales of its latest, cut-price model of the PlayStation 3 videogame console had hit one million in the three weeks since its launch.
The new PS3 was went on sale on September 1 in North America, Europe and in Asia, except for Japan where it debuted in stores two days later.
The model is priced at 29,980 yen (330 dollars) in Japan, 10,000 yen less than its earlier version. The recommended retail price is 299 dollars in North America and 299 euros (440 dollars) in Europe, Sony says.
The new version, like its predecessors, allows users to play games and movies on Blu-ray discs, but is slimmer and uses less power.
"The console packs cutting-edge technologies, including the (pre-installed) 120 gigabyte hard-disk drive and Blu-ray capability, at a lower price," said Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. spokeswoman Makiko Noda.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Construction freeze on Japan dam marks end of era
Japanese government freezes construction of dam, could mark end of big public works projects
By Jay Alabaster, Associated Press Writer
On 1:40 pm EDT, Thursday September 24, 2009
NAGANOHARA, Japan (AP) -- Giant gray pylons loom over this hot springs town -- part of a $5 billion dam project that now may never be finished.
Construction at the Yamba dam, five decades in the making, has been halted by Japan's new government, which wants to scrap dozens of public works projects it considers wasteful.
Yamba, the first to get the ax, has become a national symbol of the big-money projects favored by the old government led by the Liberal Democratic Party.
The LDP -- which ruled the country for nearly all of the last 50 years but was recently ousted in national elections -- pumped billions of dollars into rural areas for elaborate tunnels, bridges and dams, many of which get little use.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's rival Democrats promised during their campaign to end that legacy of public works spending. The party wants to free up funds for new polices like handouts to farmers and families with children.
Just hours after he was appointed last week, Land and Infrastructure Minister Seiji Maehara said construction on the dam would stop.
But the freeze of the Yamba has sparked an outcry from local residents who have become invested -- emotionally and economically -- in the project. Many have construction-related jobs, and they don't want the sacrifices they made for the reservoir the dam will create -- giving up their land, moving family graves -- to go to waste.
"I just want them to finish it. It's sad to still be here, you can tell people are hurting just by their faces," says Tsutomu Mizuide, a 16-year-old whose family runs a small restaurant in an area that will be submerged.
The Yamba dam, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Tokyo, was first designed to help control flooding after a typhoon ravaged the mountainous area. In the years since, it has grown to include power generation and water provision for four different prefectures plus Tokyo.
When the project first got under way decades ago, local residents waged a spirited campaign to save the area, but as the fight dragged on, most people gave up in resignation, accepting cash payouts for their land or resettlement deals.
Some owners of hot spring inns had been hoping to use replacement land provided by the government -- lakeside property near the new reservoir -- to kick-start the local economy.
"We don't really mind whether they stop construction on the dam or not, we just want our new life," said Yoji Hida, who runs an inn that goes back about 200 years old and is also the chairman of a local group backing the project.
Around Naganohara, the sights and sounds of construction are everywhere. Highway tunnels have been drilled into the surrounding hills, large bridges in various states of completion crisscross overhead and broad swaths of earth have been blanketed in concrete. New houses for those who will be displaced are being built, and family graveyards have been moved to higher ground.
Some have suggested the current budget of $5 billion could double before all of it is complete.
The project is about 70 percent finished in terms of budget, but construction on the dam itself has yet to begin. It was to be completed by mid-2016.
After the outcry from local residents, Maehara toured the works on Wednesday, drawing a media contingent of hundreds to the small town, where wooden inns display handwritten signs with the names of their guests.
He had planned to talk with local leaders, but they refused on the grounds that there was nothing to negotiate as his decision had already been made.
At a news conference in a local town hall, Maehara said the various supporting roads and bridges would be finished, but the dam would be canceled. He said his ministry is reviewing 143 dam projects.
Residents gathered outside, where "Quickly rebuild livelihoods, quickly finish Yamba Dam" was posted on the building in large letters.
Still, while the town's elders work to present a unified picture of support for the dam, some locals never warmed to the project. As Maehara was leaving the press conference, Yohei Watari, a 23-year-old local resident who works as a salesman, attempted to get close enough to say he was against the dam, but was held back by a man in a suit.
"The government should listen to everyone's opinion, for or against," he said.
Yoko Watanabe, the director of an anti-dam group that has about 300 members, said there are powerful political forces at work in the town.
"Previously, there was strong opposition to the dam. But those who were opposed were pressured, and those who favored the dam are now leaders in the town," she said. "Residents are being used as pawns in a political conflict."
Associated Press writers Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
By Jay Alabaster, Associated Press Writer
On 1:40 pm EDT, Thursday September 24, 2009
NAGANOHARA, Japan (AP) -- Giant gray pylons loom over this hot springs town -- part of a $5 billion dam project that now may never be finished.
Construction at the Yamba dam, five decades in the making, has been halted by Japan's new government, which wants to scrap dozens of public works projects it considers wasteful.
Yamba, the first to get the ax, has become a national symbol of the big-money projects favored by the old government led by the Liberal Democratic Party.
The LDP -- which ruled the country for nearly all of the last 50 years but was recently ousted in national elections -- pumped billions of dollars into rural areas for elaborate tunnels, bridges and dams, many of which get little use.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's rival Democrats promised during their campaign to end that legacy of public works spending. The party wants to free up funds for new polices like handouts to farmers and families with children.
Just hours after he was appointed last week, Land and Infrastructure Minister Seiji Maehara said construction on the dam would stop.
But the freeze of the Yamba has sparked an outcry from local residents who have become invested -- emotionally and economically -- in the project. Many have construction-related jobs, and they don't want the sacrifices they made for the reservoir the dam will create -- giving up their land, moving family graves -- to go to waste.
"I just want them to finish it. It's sad to still be here, you can tell people are hurting just by their faces," says Tsutomu Mizuide, a 16-year-old whose family runs a small restaurant in an area that will be submerged.
The Yamba dam, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Tokyo, was first designed to help control flooding after a typhoon ravaged the mountainous area. In the years since, it has grown to include power generation and water provision for four different prefectures plus Tokyo.
When the project first got under way decades ago, local residents waged a spirited campaign to save the area, but as the fight dragged on, most people gave up in resignation, accepting cash payouts for their land or resettlement deals.
Some owners of hot spring inns had been hoping to use replacement land provided by the government -- lakeside property near the new reservoir -- to kick-start the local economy.
"We don't really mind whether they stop construction on the dam or not, we just want our new life," said Yoji Hida, who runs an inn that goes back about 200 years old and is also the chairman of a local group backing the project.
Around Naganohara, the sights and sounds of construction are everywhere. Highway tunnels have been drilled into the surrounding hills, large bridges in various states of completion crisscross overhead and broad swaths of earth have been blanketed in concrete. New houses for those who will be displaced are being built, and family graveyards have been moved to higher ground.
Some have suggested the current budget of $5 billion could double before all of it is complete.
The project is about 70 percent finished in terms of budget, but construction on the dam itself has yet to begin. It was to be completed by mid-2016.
After the outcry from local residents, Maehara toured the works on Wednesday, drawing a media contingent of hundreds to the small town, where wooden inns display handwritten signs with the names of their guests.
He had planned to talk with local leaders, but they refused on the grounds that there was nothing to negotiate as his decision had already been made.
At a news conference in a local town hall, Maehara said the various supporting roads and bridges would be finished, but the dam would be canceled. He said his ministry is reviewing 143 dam projects.
Residents gathered outside, where "Quickly rebuild livelihoods, quickly finish Yamba Dam" was posted on the building in large letters.
Still, while the town's elders work to present a unified picture of support for the dam, some locals never warmed to the project. As Maehara was leaving the press conference, Yohei Watari, a 23-year-old local resident who works as a salesman, attempted to get close enough to say he was against the dam, but was held back by a man in a suit.
"The government should listen to everyone's opinion, for or against," he said.
Yoko Watanabe, the director of an anti-dam group that has about 300 members, said there are powerful political forces at work in the town.
"Previously, there was strong opposition to the dam. But those who were opposed were pressured, and those who favored the dam are now leaders in the town," she said. "Residents are being used as pawns in a political conflict."
Associated Press writers Malcolm Foster and Mari Yamaguchi contributed to this report.
British playwright wins Japan's Praemium Imperiale
(AFP) – Sep 24, 2009
TOKYO — The Japan Art Association on Thursday named British playwright Tom Stoppard as a recipient of the Praemium Imperiale, one of the richest awards in the arts world.
Two more Britons also won the prize -- Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and sculptor Richard Long -- as did Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel.
Each recipient of the annual award, which is supported by Japan's imperial family, will receive 15 million yen (158,000 dollars), making it one of the most lucrative prizes in art.
Stoppard, born in what is now the Czech Republic, wrote the play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and the screenplays for "Empire of the Sun" and "Shakespeare in Love," for which he won an Oscar.
Hadid, 58, the first female architect to win her profession's Pritzker Prize, is known for her avant-garde designs, including Germany's BMW Central Building and an ongoing work, the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics.
Long, 64, has explored the theme of man and nature, using natural materials he finds on long walks all over the world. A winner of Britain's Turner Prize, he staged the solo exhibition "Heaven and Earth" at London's Tate gallery this year.
Sugimoto, 61, is known for his large-format photography, creating dreamlike images often said to have a quality that transcends time and space. Irish rock band U2 used one of them for a CD jacket this year.
Czech-born Brendel, who is 78 and recently retired, is the first pianist to record Beethoven's entire piano works and also well-known for his wide repertoire including Haydn, Schubert and Mozart.
He is largely self-taught and also famed for his poetry.
The awards ceremony in Tokyo on October 22 will be led by Prince Hitachi, brother of Emperor Akihito and honorary patron of the association.
Previous recipients of the Praemium Imperiale include painters Jasper Johns and Willem de Kooning, architects Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei, filmmakers Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa, playwright Arthur Miller and sitarist Ravi Shankar.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
TOKYO — The Japan Art Association on Thursday named British playwright Tom Stoppard as a recipient of the Praemium Imperiale, one of the richest awards in the arts world.
Two more Britons also won the prize -- Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid and sculptor Richard Long -- as did Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel.
Each recipient of the annual award, which is supported by Japan's imperial family, will receive 15 million yen (158,000 dollars), making it one of the most lucrative prizes in art.
Stoppard, born in what is now the Czech Republic, wrote the play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and the screenplays for "Empire of the Sun" and "Shakespeare in Love," for which he won an Oscar.
Hadid, 58, the first female architect to win her profession's Pritzker Prize, is known for her avant-garde designs, including Germany's BMW Central Building and an ongoing work, the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics.
Long, 64, has explored the theme of man and nature, using natural materials he finds on long walks all over the world. A winner of Britain's Turner Prize, he staged the solo exhibition "Heaven and Earth" at London's Tate gallery this year.
Sugimoto, 61, is known for his large-format photography, creating dreamlike images often said to have a quality that transcends time and space. Irish rock band U2 used one of them for a CD jacket this year.
Czech-born Brendel, who is 78 and recently retired, is the first pianist to record Beethoven's entire piano works and also well-known for his wide repertoire including Haydn, Schubert and Mozart.
He is largely self-taught and also famed for his poetry.
The awards ceremony in Tokyo on October 22 will be led by Prince Hitachi, brother of Emperor Akihito and honorary patron of the association.
Previous recipients of the Praemium Imperiale include painters Jasper Johns and Willem de Kooning, architects Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei, filmmakers Federico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa, playwright Arthur Miller and sitarist Ravi Shankar.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
Iceland plans huge whale meat export to Japan: firm
(AFP) – Sep 25, 2009
REYKJAVIK — Iceland's fin whaling company said on Friday it plans a huge export of about 1,500 tonnes of whale meat, mainly to Japan, after wrapping up its hunting season for this year.
Kristjan Loftsson, boss of company Hvalur, said the firm brought ashore 125 fin whales this season following a huge rise in the number of animals they were allowed to catch.
Last year the whalers were permitted to catch just nine fin whales -- that figure rose to 150 for the 2009 season.
"We have about 1,500 tonnes of frozen produce that we are preparing to export," said Loftsson, with Japan the main customer.
"I am happy with the season," he added.
Loftsson said his whalers were wrapping up the 2009 season after bringing ashore their final two whales on Friday.
The fishermen caught all but 25 of the fin whales permitted by the quota.
Hvalur is the only company authorised to hunt fin whales in Iceland.
Iceland's whaling season opened on May 26 amid fierce opposition from environmental groups angered by the sharp quota rise.
As well as the fin whale increase, the minke whale quota increased to 100 from 40.
Greenpeace attacked Iceland's leaders over the increase, angered that a left-wing administration elected a month before the start of the season would not reconsider the quota increases.
Many species of whales are now endangered and hunting of the marine mammal was officially banned with a moratorium in 1986.
Iceland and Norway are the only two countries in the world that now authorise commercial whaling.
Iceland withdrew from the moratorium in 2006, and Norway in 1993, triggering an international outcry on both occasions.
Japan officially allows whaling for scientific purposes, but the meat is then sold to restaurants and supermarkets.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
REYKJAVIK — Iceland's fin whaling company said on Friday it plans a huge export of about 1,500 tonnes of whale meat, mainly to Japan, after wrapping up its hunting season for this year.
Kristjan Loftsson, boss of company Hvalur, said the firm brought ashore 125 fin whales this season following a huge rise in the number of animals they were allowed to catch.
Last year the whalers were permitted to catch just nine fin whales -- that figure rose to 150 for the 2009 season.
"We have about 1,500 tonnes of frozen produce that we are preparing to export," said Loftsson, with Japan the main customer.
"I am happy with the season," he added.
Loftsson said his whalers were wrapping up the 2009 season after bringing ashore their final two whales on Friday.
The fishermen caught all but 25 of the fin whales permitted by the quota.
Hvalur is the only company authorised to hunt fin whales in Iceland.
Iceland's whaling season opened on May 26 amid fierce opposition from environmental groups angered by the sharp quota rise.
As well as the fin whale increase, the minke whale quota increased to 100 from 40.
Greenpeace attacked Iceland's leaders over the increase, angered that a left-wing administration elected a month before the start of the season would not reconsider the quota increases.
Many species of whales are now endangered and hunting of the marine mammal was officially banned with a moratorium in 1986.
Iceland and Norway are the only two countries in the world that now authorise commercial whaling.
Iceland withdrew from the moratorium in 2006, and Norway in 1993, triggering an international outcry on both occasions.
Japan officially allows whaling for scientific purposes, but the meat is then sold to restaurants and supermarkets.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Japan's new PM wins praise on debut
By Shingo Ito (AFP)
Sep 26, 2009
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Japan's new prime minister wound up his global debut this week, winning applause from world leaders for his ambitious target on climate change and assuring that US ties were solid.
But analysts warned the honeymoon of Yukio Hatoyama's novice government may not last long as he must soon live up to the political consequences of his promises.
Fresh from taking office last week, Hatoyama met US President Barack Obama, China's President Hu Jintao and other world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly and climate change talks in New York and the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.
The center-left leader -- whose Democratic Party of Japan ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule in a sweeping election win last month -- rated his whirlwind trip as "extremely fulfilling."
"By meeting with so many leaders on my diplomatic debut, I was able to send a message saying Japan's politics have changed," said the soft-spoken, Stanford-trained engineer.
Hatoyama, the scion of a powerful political dynasty, impressed counterparts with a pledge to cut Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 and to step up aid to poor countries to combat climate change.
"Hatoyama made an ideal debut as the 25 percent reduction has a great impact," said Tetsuro Kato, a professor of politics at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
"But at the same time the pledge, now turning out to be an international one, is weighing heavily on his shoulders."
Some business leaders have warned the 25 percent reduction may force ailing manufacturers to flee overseas and estimated the burden at 4,000 dollars (360,000 yen) per Japanese individual each year.
"I know some industries are saying it's impossible, but I believe we can make it by fully making use of our science and technology," Hatoyama said. "I believe in the Japanese people. I'm confident."
Hatoyama also maintained he was able to get off to a good start with Washington, saying he managed to build "some sort of relationship of trust with President Obama."
During their joint meeting, Obama called the half-century alliance with Japan a "cornerstone" of US diplomacy and said he would visit Tokyo in November.
Hatoyama "successfully showed his philosophy, and now it's time to face reality," said Takehiko Yamamoto, a political professor at Tokyo's Waseda University.
"On the issue of the Japan-US alliance, the next key stage will come in November when various diplomatic events are scheduled, including Obama's visit to Japan."
Hatoyama said he would move quickly to find a way to provide support to Afghanistan for Obama, who has invested political capital into rooting out violent extremists from the war-torn country.
Hatoyama plans to end an Indian Ocean naval refueling mission that supports the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, but has proposed offering job training for former Afghan soldiers as a possible alternative.
While in opposition, his party briefly forced a halt to the naval mission through parliamentary maneuvers, arguing that Japan -- officially pacifist since World War II -- should not abet "American wars."
Hatoyama in the past has criticized "US-led globalism" and called for "more equal" ties between the United States and Japan.
But his first trip abroad also saw a diplomatic setback for Japan, as Obama declared that the Group of 20 would be the premier global economic forum, not the cozier Group of Eight.
Hatoyama said the G8, of which Japan is a member, should not end. "I don't really think the significance of the G8 has disappeared," he said.
The world's second-largest economy has looked on with unease as a greater spotlight falls on its growing neighbor China, which is a key member of the G20 and has blocked Japan's bids for permanent membership on the UN Security Council.
China's growing clout was reaffirmed on Friday when world leaders unveiled plans to fix global imbalances and give more voting power at the International Monetary Fund to emerging giants.
The Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh committed the IMF to shift at least five percent of its internal voting rights to the developing world and tasked it with a bigger monitoring role.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Sep 26, 2009
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Japan's new prime minister wound up his global debut this week, winning applause from world leaders for his ambitious target on climate change and assuring that US ties were solid.
But analysts warned the honeymoon of Yukio Hatoyama's novice government may not last long as he must soon live up to the political consequences of his promises.
Fresh from taking office last week, Hatoyama met US President Barack Obama, China's President Hu Jintao and other world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly and climate change talks in New York and the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.
The center-left leader -- whose Democratic Party of Japan ended more than half a century of almost unbroken conservative rule in a sweeping election win last month -- rated his whirlwind trip as "extremely fulfilling."
"By meeting with so many leaders on my diplomatic debut, I was able to send a message saying Japan's politics have changed," said the soft-spoken, Stanford-trained engineer.
Hatoyama, the scion of a powerful political dynasty, impressed counterparts with a pledge to cut Japan's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 and to step up aid to poor countries to combat climate change.
"Hatoyama made an ideal debut as the 25 percent reduction has a great impact," said Tetsuro Kato, a professor of politics at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
"But at the same time the pledge, now turning out to be an international one, is weighing heavily on his shoulders."
Some business leaders have warned the 25 percent reduction may force ailing manufacturers to flee overseas and estimated the burden at 4,000 dollars (360,000 yen) per Japanese individual each year.
"I know some industries are saying it's impossible, but I believe we can make it by fully making use of our science and technology," Hatoyama said. "I believe in the Japanese people. I'm confident."
Hatoyama also maintained he was able to get off to a good start with Washington, saying he managed to build "some sort of relationship of trust with President Obama."
During their joint meeting, Obama called the half-century alliance with Japan a "cornerstone" of US diplomacy and said he would visit Tokyo in November.
Hatoyama "successfully showed his philosophy, and now it's time to face reality," said Takehiko Yamamoto, a political professor at Tokyo's Waseda University.
"On the issue of the Japan-US alliance, the next key stage will come in November when various diplomatic events are scheduled, including Obama's visit to Japan."
Hatoyama said he would move quickly to find a way to provide support to Afghanistan for Obama, who has invested political capital into rooting out violent extremists from the war-torn country.
Hatoyama plans to end an Indian Ocean naval refueling mission that supports the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan, but has proposed offering job training for former Afghan soldiers as a possible alternative.
While in opposition, his party briefly forced a halt to the naval mission through parliamentary maneuvers, arguing that Japan -- officially pacifist since World War II -- should not abet "American wars."
Hatoyama in the past has criticized "US-led globalism" and called for "more equal" ties between the United States and Japan.
But his first trip abroad also saw a diplomatic setback for Japan, as Obama declared that the Group of 20 would be the premier global economic forum, not the cozier Group of Eight.
Hatoyama said the G8, of which Japan is a member, should not end. "I don't really think the significance of the G8 has disappeared," he said.
The world's second-largest economy has looked on with unease as a greater spotlight falls on its growing neighbor China, which is a key member of the G20 and has blocked Japan's bids for permanent membership on the UN Security Council.
China's growing clout was reaffirmed on Friday when world leaders unveiled plans to fix global imbalances and give more voting power at the International Monetary Fund to emerging giants.
The Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh committed the IMF to shift at least five percent of its internal voting rights to the developing world and tasked it with a bigger monitoring role.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Japan PM to pitch for Tokyo 2016 Olympics
By Shigemi Sato (AFP)
Sep 28, 2009
TOKYO — Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will push Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Summer Games at an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in Copenhagen this week, his spokesman said on Monday.
In the Danish capital on Friday, some 100 IOC members will vote to choose the host from among Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, with none of the cities seen as a clear favourite so far.
The Japanese capital plans to host what it calls the most compact, ecologically friendly and athletes-focused Olympics yet.
"Although it is a hectic time at the start of his government, the prime minister will make a final appeal to IOC members in an all-out effort to bring us the Olympics," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano.
High-powered lobbying by government leaders and royals was seen as a major factor in swaying the IOC as it selected recent Olympic hosts -- London for the 2012 Summer Games and Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Games.
Hatoyama, who took office two weeks ago, believes the IOC meeting would be a good opportunity to push his drive for drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, his top government spokesman told a news conference.
"Tokyo has presented a unique concept to reduce the burden on the environment," the spokesman said.
The new premier has surprised the world with a bold pledge to cut Japan's carbon emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. He renewed the promise before the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
Tokyo says it plans to cut carbon emissions by an amount greater than the emissions that would be generated by Games-related construction, transport and operations, and boost the use of renewable energy sources and electric cars.
The Tokyo Olympic bid committee had requested Hatoyama's presence in Copenhagen since his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan won an August 30 election and ended more than half a century of conservative rule.
The committee has also asked Crown Prince Naruhito to come, but the Imperial Household Agency has given no public reply and the prince already has another event scheduled for the same day.
King Juan Carlos of Spain and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are due to go to Copenhagen, while US President Barack Obama is sending his wife, Michelle, to lobby IOC members.
In 2005, then British prime minister Tony Blair's final appeal was seen as crucial in winning London the 2012 Summer Games against favourite Paris.
Vladimir Putin, as Russian president in 2007, helped Sochi's winning bid for the 2014 Winter edition.
Separate from its green Games plan, Tokyo has already been enforcing carbon emissions cuts, planting trees, covering school yards with lawn and taking other steps in a 10-year programme toward 2016.
Tokyo's governor Shintaro Ishihara welcomed Hatoyama's trip to Copenhagen, calling it a "great driving force to bring about a Tokyo Games which places the utmost emphasis on the environment".
"We will go to win the bid by taking this good news as an additional tailwind," he told Japanese media in Copenhagen.
It was unclear how much weight the "green Games" pitch would carry.
Tokyo's ecology-related scheme was described by an IOC commission, evaluating the four cities' bids, as a "major challenge to properly measure and achieve".
One member of the commission reportedly told Tokyo's bid leaders: "We are not the United Nations."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Sep 28, 2009
TOKYO — Japan's new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will push Tokyo's bid to host the 2016 Summer Games at an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in Copenhagen this week, his spokesman said on Monday.
In the Danish capital on Friday, some 100 IOC members will vote to choose the host from among Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, with none of the cities seen as a clear favourite so far.
The Japanese capital plans to host what it calls the most compact, ecologically friendly and athletes-focused Olympics yet.
"Although it is a hectic time at the start of his government, the prime minister will make a final appeal to IOC members in an all-out effort to bring us the Olympics," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano.
High-powered lobbying by government leaders and royals was seen as a major factor in swaying the IOC as it selected recent Olympic hosts -- London for the 2012 Summer Games and Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Games.
Hatoyama, who took office two weeks ago, believes the IOC meeting would be a good opportunity to push his drive for drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, his top government spokesman told a news conference.
"Tokyo has presented a unique concept to reduce the burden on the environment," the spokesman said.
The new premier has surprised the world with a bold pledge to cut Japan's carbon emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. He renewed the promise before the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
Tokyo says it plans to cut carbon emissions by an amount greater than the emissions that would be generated by Games-related construction, transport and operations, and boost the use of renewable energy sources and electric cars.
The Tokyo Olympic bid committee had requested Hatoyama's presence in Copenhagen since his centre-left Democratic Party of Japan won an August 30 election and ended more than half a century of conservative rule.
The committee has also asked Crown Prince Naruhito to come, but the Imperial Household Agency has given no public reply and the prince already has another event scheduled for the same day.
King Juan Carlos of Spain and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are due to go to Copenhagen, while US President Barack Obama is sending his wife, Michelle, to lobby IOC members.
In 2005, then British prime minister Tony Blair's final appeal was seen as crucial in winning London the 2012 Summer Games against favourite Paris.
Vladimir Putin, as Russian president in 2007, helped Sochi's winning bid for the 2014 Winter edition.
Separate from its green Games plan, Tokyo has already been enforcing carbon emissions cuts, planting trees, covering school yards with lawn and taking other steps in a 10-year programme toward 2016.
Tokyo's governor Shintaro Ishihara welcomed Hatoyama's trip to Copenhagen, calling it a "great driving force to bring about a Tokyo Games which places the utmost emphasis on the environment".
"We will go to win the bid by taking this good news as an additional tailwind," he told Japanese media in Copenhagen.
It was unclear how much weight the "green Games" pitch would carry.
Tokyo's ecology-related scheme was described by an IOC commission, evaluating the four cities' bids, as a "major challenge to properly measure and achieve".
One member of the commission reportedly told Tokyo's bid leaders: "We are not the United Nations."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Ex-finance minister takes helm of Japan's LDP
Posted: 28 September 2009 1452 hrs
TOKYO : Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose former finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki as its new leader Monday as it struggles to rebuild itself after last month's crushing election defeat.
Tanigaki, 64 -- a known consensus builder and dove in foreign policy who has also held a number of other cabinet posts -- beat younger rivals Taro Kono and Yasutoshi Nishimura, both aged 46.
Tanigaki replaces Taro Aso, who stepped down as LDP president and prime minister after an August 30 election rout. The conservative party had been in power for more than half a century with only one interruption.
"I'm very conscious of the voice of the people which says our party has to reflect on our past conduct," Tanigaki said. "We need to return to the LDP's origins -- that politics is for the people.
"There is no time for us to sit and wait before we reform our party. We need drastic reforms," Tanigaki told his fellow LDP lawmakers after easily winning the party vote.
He took 300 votes against 144 for Kono and 54 for Nishimura, with one vote counted as invalid. In the ballot, LDP lawmakers cast 199 votes and party members 300.
The centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), after its landslide election win last month, has formed a coalition government with two small parties under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Hatoyama has vowed to steer Japan away from unrestrained capitalism toward a kinder society, promising cash allowances for child-raising, free high school education, a higher minimum wage and an end to highway tolls.
Tanigaki has argued that the LDP had failed to pay attention to those people who suffered because of the market-led reforms of former LDP premier Junichiro Koizumi, who ruled from 2001 to 2006.
He has advocated the idea of a "bond" or "kizuna" between people and argued that "within kizuna, each individual would be able to exert his talent so that local communities can be revitalised."
Tanigaki has also criticised the DPJ's "big government" style and questioned its ability to finance its bold campaign pledges, arguing that "Japan should seek a mid-sized government with mid-level welfare services."
Looking ahead to upper house polls in 2010 and elections in the years beyond, he said "the LDP's origin is its capacity to absorb voices from the grassroots... and if we rebuild it, I'm sure we will win again."
Tanigaki, the son of a former education minister and a graduate of the elite Tokyo University, became a lawmaker in 1983, having worked as a lawyer for several years.
His expertise in policy matters quickly drew media attention to Tanigaki, and political journalists in a magazine poll once ranked him as the third-most likely Japanese politician to be a strong leader in the 21st century.
In 2000 when senior LDP officials attempted to topple the government led by unpopular premier Yoshiro Mori, he joined a rebel movement which ended up in failure, but the move did no serious harm to his political career.
Since then he has held a number of crucial cabinet and party posts -- including finance minister from 2003 to 2006, land minister and minister in charge of corporate revitalisation.
Soft-spoken Tanigaki, who seeks closer ties with Asian countries, was a member of an association of lawmakers who supported the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and one of the founders of an LDP study group on Asian diplomacy.
Tanigaki has said in the past that a Japanese prime minister should not visit the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead and several convicted war criminals.
He is an avid cyclist and loves fine wines.
- AFP/so/ir
TOKYO : Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) chose former finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki as its new leader Monday as it struggles to rebuild itself after last month's crushing election defeat.
Tanigaki, 64 -- a known consensus builder and dove in foreign policy who has also held a number of other cabinet posts -- beat younger rivals Taro Kono and Yasutoshi Nishimura, both aged 46.
Tanigaki replaces Taro Aso, who stepped down as LDP president and prime minister after an August 30 election rout. The conservative party had been in power for more than half a century with only one interruption.
"I'm very conscious of the voice of the people which says our party has to reflect on our past conduct," Tanigaki said. "We need to return to the LDP's origins -- that politics is for the people.
"There is no time for us to sit and wait before we reform our party. We need drastic reforms," Tanigaki told his fellow LDP lawmakers after easily winning the party vote.
He took 300 votes against 144 for Kono and 54 for Nishimura, with one vote counted as invalid. In the ballot, LDP lawmakers cast 199 votes and party members 300.
The centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), after its landslide election win last month, has formed a coalition government with two small parties under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
Hatoyama has vowed to steer Japan away from unrestrained capitalism toward a kinder society, promising cash allowances for child-raising, free high school education, a higher minimum wage and an end to highway tolls.
Tanigaki has argued that the LDP had failed to pay attention to those people who suffered because of the market-led reforms of former LDP premier Junichiro Koizumi, who ruled from 2001 to 2006.
He has advocated the idea of a "bond" or "kizuna" between people and argued that "within kizuna, each individual would be able to exert his talent so that local communities can be revitalised."
Tanigaki has also criticised the DPJ's "big government" style and questioned its ability to finance its bold campaign pledges, arguing that "Japan should seek a mid-sized government with mid-level welfare services."
Looking ahead to upper house polls in 2010 and elections in the years beyond, he said "the LDP's origin is its capacity to absorb voices from the grassroots... and if we rebuild it, I'm sure we will win again."
Tanigaki, the son of a former education minister and a graduate of the elite Tokyo University, became a lawmaker in 1983, having worked as a lawyer for several years.
His expertise in policy matters quickly drew media attention to Tanigaki, and political journalists in a magazine poll once ranked him as the third-most likely Japanese politician to be a strong leader in the 21st century.
In 2000 when senior LDP officials attempted to topple the government led by unpopular premier Yoshiro Mori, he joined a rebel movement which ended up in failure, but the move did no serious harm to his political career.
Since then he has held a number of crucial cabinet and party posts -- including finance minister from 2003 to 2006, land minister and minister in charge of corporate revitalisation.
Soft-spoken Tanigaki, who seeks closer ties with Asian countries, was a member of an association of lawmakers who supported the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, and one of the founders of an LDP study group on Asian diplomacy.
Tanigaki has said in the past that a Japanese prime minister should not visit the controversial Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead and several convicted war criminals.
He is an avid cyclist and loves fine wines.
- AFP/so/ir
Indonesian filmmakers defy clerics over Japanese porn star's visit
(AFP) – Sep 28, 2009
JAKARTA — Filmmakers in Muslim-majority Indonesia on Monday defied condemnation by clerics, saying they would stick to their plans to fly out a top Japanese porn star to act in a local comedy.
Muslim leaders have blasted plans to bring out 23-year-old erotic film megastar Maria Ozawa, popularly known as Miyabi, to play herself in the upcoming film "Menculik Miyabi" (Kidnapping Miyabi).
But Maxima Productions General Manager Adi Sudiadi said the company would stick to its plans to include Ozawa in the film, which tells the story of a group of university students who accidentally kidnap the starlet.
"We guarantee that Miyabi won't be playing in a porn film here, we'll bring her here not as a porn star but purely for a comedy movie," Sudiadi said.
"Miyabi is well-known by Indonesian people... we're expecting that Miyabi will attract a lot of spectators here.
"We're also trying to fix Miyabi's image by showing she can play more than just a porn star," he said, adding that no final agreement had been reached with Ozawa to act in the film.
Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) Chairman Amidhan slammed the choice of Ozawa -- who has gained notoriety in Japan's burgeoning porn industry thanks to her striking Canadian-Japanese looks -- as a threat to the moral health of the country's youth.
"Even if the film isn't porno, it's very dangerous for our young people, particularly if they become fans of this porn actress and become curious enough to watch her films," he said.
"We have to be firm and not let rubbish into our country. This is about Indonesia's reputation as the world's most populous Muslim country," he said.
Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 234 million people are Muslim. Most practise a moderate form of the religion.
Indonesia's parliament earlier this month passed a controversial film law that imposes tighter controls on content, including violence and sex.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
JAKARTA — Filmmakers in Muslim-majority Indonesia on Monday defied condemnation by clerics, saying they would stick to their plans to fly out a top Japanese porn star to act in a local comedy.
Muslim leaders have blasted plans to bring out 23-year-old erotic film megastar Maria Ozawa, popularly known as Miyabi, to play herself in the upcoming film "Menculik Miyabi" (Kidnapping Miyabi).
But Maxima Productions General Manager Adi Sudiadi said the company would stick to its plans to include Ozawa in the film, which tells the story of a group of university students who accidentally kidnap the starlet.
"We guarantee that Miyabi won't be playing in a porn film here, we'll bring her here not as a porn star but purely for a comedy movie," Sudiadi said.
"Miyabi is well-known by Indonesian people... we're expecting that Miyabi will attract a lot of spectators here.
"We're also trying to fix Miyabi's image by showing she can play more than just a porn star," he said, adding that no final agreement had been reached with Ozawa to act in the film.
Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) Chairman Amidhan slammed the choice of Ozawa -- who has gained notoriety in Japan's burgeoning porn industry thanks to her striking Canadian-Japanese looks -- as a threat to the moral health of the country's youth.
"Even if the film isn't porno, it's very dangerous for our young people, particularly if they become fans of this porn actress and become curious enough to watch her films," he said.
"We have to be firm and not let rubbish into our country. This is about Indonesia's reputation as the world's most populous Muslim country," he said.
Nearly 90 percent of Indonesia's 234 million people are Muslim. Most practise a moderate form of the religion.
Indonesia's parliament earlier this month passed a controversial film law that imposes tighter controls on content, including violence and sex.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
American arrested in Japan for kidnapping own kids
By Shino Yuasa, Associated Press Writer
September 30, 2009
TOKYO --An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.
Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children -- an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl -- by force Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, shoved them into a car and drove away, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.
He was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.
The number of such cases is growing in Japan -- mostly with Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.
Savoie, a 38-year-old from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police. The children were returned to her, Taylor said. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets sole custody of their children -- almost always the mother. Divorced fathers typically don't get much access to their children.
Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents. Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.
The United States, Canada, Britain and France in May urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention. At least 70 dispute cases exist between Japan and the U.S., but Tokyo does not have the exact number.
Japanese tend to prioritize the mother's role over the rights of the father or children, said Hideki Tani, a lawyer who is an expert on the issue.
"In Japan, it's not considered a serious problem if a mother takes her children with her without telling her ex-husband when they get separated or divorced," Tani said. "But for many people outside Japan, that's outrageous."
Japan and the U.S. have very different approaches to divorce and raising children, said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo. "Japanese privacy laws can create frustrations for 'left-behind' parents."
Japan is aware of the need to address the issue and that it is seriously considering joining the Hague convention, said Kosei Nomura, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of international law.
"The problem is growing, and it has become a diplomatic issue," Nomura said. "The question is if we should insist on the Japanese traditional standard to resolve disputes over children as a result of broken international marriages."
The couple was divorced in January and the mother was given primary custody of the children, according to records from the Chancery Court for Williamson County in Tennessee that were posted on the Web site of Nashville television station WTVF.
Savoie grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from the University of Rhode Island, then moved to Japan and got his doctorate, The Providence Journal reported Wednesday.
Savoie has since remarried. His wife, Amy, told CBS that Noriko was not letting the children talk to him on the telephone after she took them to Japan. Amy said she doesn't know if she and her husband will ever see the children again.
"We hope if she is granted custody over there, that they will come and find us when they are in their 20s maybe and come see that we still love them," she said.
American Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers, Taylor said.
A lawyer for Savoie, Jeremy Morley, told NBC he had about 100 clients with difficulty seeing their children after ex-spouses took them to Japan.
"This is an untold story," he said.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told The Associated Press he has introduced a bill called the International Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2009, which would penalize countries that show a pattern of not cooperating to resolve such cases. Penalties could include being denied military aid and certain loans, he said.
"It is abominable what has happened here," Smith said early Wednesday.
He also said he had "guarded hope" that Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would use the situation as a chance to take another look at the country's policy.
Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and Bernard McGhee in Atlanta contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
September 30, 2009
TOKYO --An American father on a mission to reclaim his young children in Japan was arrested over their alleged abduction while they were walking to school with his ex-wife, officials said Wednesday.
Christopher John Savoie snatched his two children -- an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl -- by force Monday in the southern city of Fukuoka, shoved them into a car and drove away, said Akira Naraki, a police spokesman in the city.
He was arrested by Japanese police as he tried to enter the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka with the children, said Tracy Taylor, a spokeswoman at the consulate.
The number of such cases is growing in Japan -- mostly with Japanese mothers bringing their children back to the country and refusing to let their foreign ex-husbands visit them. The United States, Canada, Britain and France issued a joint statement in May urging Japan to address the problem.
Savoie, a 38-year-old from Franklin, Tennessee, was arrested after his ex-wife, Noriko, alerted the police. The children were returned to her, Taylor said. Efforts to reach her were unsuccessful.
Local police said they received permission from the court to keep Savoie in custody for 10 days.
The divorced couple and the two children were living in Tennessee, but Noriko Savoie came to Japan with the two children in August without telling her ex-husband, Taylor said.
In Japan, if a couple gets divorced, one parent often gets sole custody of their children -- almost always the mother. Divorced fathers typically don't get much access to their children.
Japan has yet to sign the 1980 Hague Convention on International Child Abduction, which seeks to standardize laws among participating countries to ensure that custody decisions can be made by appropriate courts and protect the rights of access of both parents. Japan has argued that refusing to sign the Hague Convention helped shield Japanese women and their children fleeing from abusive foreign husbands.
The United States, Canada, Britain and France in May urged Japan to sign the Hague Convention. At least 70 dispute cases exist between Japan and the U.S., but Tokyo does not have the exact number.
Japanese tend to prioritize the mother's role over the rights of the father or children, said Hideki Tani, a lawyer who is an expert on the issue.
"In Japan, it's not considered a serious problem if a mother takes her children with her without telling her ex-husband when they get separated or divorced," Tani said. "But for many people outside Japan, that's outrageous."
Japan and the U.S. have very different approaches to divorce and raising children, said David Marks, U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tokyo. "Japanese privacy laws can create frustrations for 'left-behind' parents."
Japan is aware of the need to address the issue and that it is seriously considering joining the Hague convention, said Kosei Nomura, a Foreign Ministry official in charge of international law.
"The problem is growing, and it has become a diplomatic issue," Nomura said. "The question is if we should insist on the Japanese traditional standard to resolve disputes over children as a result of broken international marriages."
The couple was divorced in January and the mother was given primary custody of the children, according to records from the Chancery Court for Williamson County in Tennessee that were posted on the Web site of Nashville television station WTVF.
Savoie grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from the University of Rhode Island, then moved to Japan and got his doctorate, The Providence Journal reported Wednesday.
Savoie has since remarried. His wife, Amy, told CBS that Noriko was not letting the children talk to him on the telephone after she took them to Japan. Amy said she doesn't know if she and her husband will ever see the children again.
"We hope if she is granted custody over there, that they will come and find us when they are in their 20s maybe and come see that we still love them," she said.
American Consulate officials have twice visited Savoie, who now has American and Japanese lawyers, Taylor said.
A lawyer for Savoie, Jeremy Morley, told NBC he had about 100 clients with difficulty seeing their children after ex-spouses took them to Japan.
"This is an untold story," he said.
U.S. Representative Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told The Associated Press he has introduced a bill called the International Child Abduction Prevention Act of 2009, which would penalize countries that show a pattern of not cooperating to resolve such cases. Penalties could include being denied military aid and certain loans, he said.
"It is abominable what has happened here," Smith said early Wednesday.
He also said he had "guarded hope" that Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, would use the situation as a chance to take another look at the country's policy.
Associated Press Writers Mari Yamaguchi and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo and Bernard McGhee in Atlanta contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
China, Japan honoured by UNESCO heritage board
AFP Global Edition
September 30, 2009
China and Japan swept the board of additions to the United Nations' list of cultural treasures on Wednesday, accounting for nearly half of the ancient customs and handicrafts honoured by UNESCO.
Some 400 experts from the United Nations cultural organisation meeting in the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi agreed on 76 living arts and traditions from 27 countries to be safeguarded as humanity's "intangible cultural heritage".
No fewer than 22 Chinese customs were honoured, from intricate paper cutting techniques passed down from mother to daughter, to the silkworm farming and crafts of Sichuan Province and the worship of the sea goddess Mazu.
Many are drawn from China's minority cultures, from Tibet's opera or its Regong decorative arts, to the epic poems of the Kyrgyz people in Xinjiang or the Mongolian people's tradition of ritual polyphonic singing.
Japan also saw 13 additions, many of them folk dances and processions, from an annual float-ceremony in Kyoto to a seventh-century rice harvest ritual from Akiu in the north or the oldest of Japan's performing arts called Gagaku.
Western Japan's Sekishu-Banshi paper making techniques were added along with the Ojiya-chijimi and Echigo-jofu art of making hand-woven, tie-dyed fabrics from the ramie plant in Japan's snowy northwest.
The Paris-based UNESCO decided in 2001 to offer the same protection to living traditions as to natural and cultural treasures such as the Great Wall of China or the Great Barrier Reef, with 90 customs added so far to its list.
Other additions to the UNESCO list ranged from Latin America's tango culture to the Procession of the Holy Blood in the Belgian city of Bruges, an ancient Malian constitution and the lacework of Croatia and Cyprus.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
September 30, 2009
China and Japan swept the board of additions to the United Nations' list of cultural treasures on Wednesday, accounting for nearly half of the ancient customs and handicrafts honoured by UNESCO.
Some 400 experts from the United Nations cultural organisation meeting in the Gulf state of Abu Dhabi agreed on 76 living arts and traditions from 27 countries to be safeguarded as humanity's "intangible cultural heritage".
No fewer than 22 Chinese customs were honoured, from intricate paper cutting techniques passed down from mother to daughter, to the silkworm farming and crafts of Sichuan Province and the worship of the sea goddess Mazu.
Many are drawn from China's minority cultures, from Tibet's opera or its Regong decorative arts, to the epic poems of the Kyrgyz people in Xinjiang or the Mongolian people's tradition of ritual polyphonic singing.
Japan also saw 13 additions, many of them folk dances and processions, from an annual float-ceremony in Kyoto to a seventh-century rice harvest ritual from Akiu in the north or the oldest of Japan's performing arts called Gagaku.
Western Japan's Sekishu-Banshi paper making techniques were added along with the Ojiya-chijimi and Echigo-jofu art of making hand-woven, tie-dyed fabrics from the ramie plant in Japan's snowy northwest.
The Paris-based UNESCO decided in 2001 to offer the same protection to living traditions as to natural and cultural treasures such as the Great Wall of China or the Great Barrier Reef, with 90 customs added so far to its list.
Other additions to the UNESCO list ranged from Latin America's tango culture to the Procession of the Holy Blood in the Belgian city of Bruges, an ancient Malian constitution and the lacework of Croatia and Cyprus.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
Japan business confidence up for second straight quarter
01 October 2009 0959 hrs (SST)
TOKYO: Japanese business confidence has improved for a second straight quarter as the world's number two economy slowly emerges from its worst recession in decades, the Bank of Japan said Thursday.
Sentiment among major manufacturers improved to minus 33 in September from minus 48 in June, after hitting a record low of minus 58 in March, according to the central bank's closely watched Tankan survey of more than 10,000 firms.
But the index - which measures the percentage of firms that think business conditions are good minus those that believe they are bad - suggests that many companies are still gloomy about the outlook.
The confidence index for major non-manufacturers rose to minus 24, from minus 29 three months earlier.
The Tankan found that big manufacturers expect sentiment to continue to improve, forecasting a sentiment rating of minus 21 for December.
But the profit outlook remains bleak. The major makers forecast a 38.9 per cent drop in pre-tax earnings for the current financial year to March, after a 61.9 per cent plunge last year.
Japan's corporate sector, particularly major manufacturers such as Sony and Toyota, were a key driver of growth in Asia's largest economy before the global economic crisis erupted.
Now many companies are cutting back their investment in an effort to ride out the economic downturn, which battered their sales and sent the yen soaring against other major currencies, eating away at their profits.
Large manufacturers plan to slash their spending on plants and equipment by 25.6 per cent in the year through March 2010 compared with the previous year, according to the Tankan survey.
Japan is crawling out of a particularly brutal recession caused by a collapse in overseas demand for its cars, electronics and other goods.
Its economy grew in April-June for the first time in five quarters, but the unemployment rate is at a record high and deflation is deepening amid weak domestic demand, while a strong yen is threatening exports.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted on Wednesday that Japan's economy would grow by 0.9 per cent in 2010, after a huge 6.0 per cent contraction this year.
The major manufacturers' earnings forecast is based on the assumption that the dollar will average 94.50 yen during this fiscal year.
On Thursday the greenback was changing hands for 89.78 yen, suggesting that exporters may have to downgrade their outlooks unless the dollar strengthens.
- AFP/yb
TOKYO: Japanese business confidence has improved for a second straight quarter as the world's number two economy slowly emerges from its worst recession in decades, the Bank of Japan said Thursday.
Sentiment among major manufacturers improved to minus 33 in September from minus 48 in June, after hitting a record low of minus 58 in March, according to the central bank's closely watched Tankan survey of more than 10,000 firms.
But the index - which measures the percentage of firms that think business conditions are good minus those that believe they are bad - suggests that many companies are still gloomy about the outlook.
The confidence index for major non-manufacturers rose to minus 24, from minus 29 three months earlier.
The Tankan found that big manufacturers expect sentiment to continue to improve, forecasting a sentiment rating of minus 21 for December.
But the profit outlook remains bleak. The major makers forecast a 38.9 per cent drop in pre-tax earnings for the current financial year to March, after a 61.9 per cent plunge last year.
Japan's corporate sector, particularly major manufacturers such as Sony and Toyota, were a key driver of growth in Asia's largest economy before the global economic crisis erupted.
Now many companies are cutting back their investment in an effort to ride out the economic downturn, which battered their sales and sent the yen soaring against other major currencies, eating away at their profits.
Large manufacturers plan to slash their spending on plants and equipment by 25.6 per cent in the year through March 2010 compared with the previous year, according to the Tankan survey.
Japan is crawling out of a particularly brutal recession caused by a collapse in overseas demand for its cars, electronics and other goods.
Its economy grew in April-June for the first time in five quarters, but the unemployment rate is at a record high and deflation is deepening amid weak domestic demand, while a strong yen is threatening exports.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted on Wednesday that Japan's economy would grow by 0.9 per cent in 2010, after a huge 6.0 per cent contraction this year.
The major manufacturers' earnings forecast is based on the assumption that the dollar will average 94.50 yen during this fiscal year.
On Thursday the greenback was changing hands for 89.78 yen, suggesting that exporters may have to downgrade their outlooks unless the dollar strengthens.
- AFP/yb
Suspect in murder of British woman had face-lift in Nagoya
Nov 4 01:39 PM US/Eastern
CHIBA, Japan, Nov. 4 (AP) - (Kyodo)
A fugitive suspect in the 2007 murder of a British woman had cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture last month, investigative sources said Wednesday.
The Oct. 24 surgery is the first solid information in the ongoing hunt for Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, who is wanted in connection with the murder of Lindsay Hawker, 22, a language teacher whose body was found at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, since March 2007.
The Chiba police will soon publicize a new photo of Ichihashi as the surgery, according to the sources, made him look very different from how he looks in the photo that has been released by the police as the suspect in the Hawker case.
The police have already dispatched investigators to Aichi to search for other traces of Ichihashi, such as at hotels in Nagoya.
Ichihashi went missing after fleeing from police officers on March 26, 2007 at his apartment, where Hawker's body was found in a sand-filled bathtub.
According to the sources, he had his nose altered at the Nagoya clinic having entered a false name and an address in Osaka Prefecture and paid for the surgery in cash, but did not return to have the stitches removed on a later appointment day in late October.
The police believe Ichihashi, who had single-edged eyelids, a fat lower lip and two small spots on his left cheek, may have repeatedly had cosmetic surgery during his flight.
William Hawker, the victim's father, said in a statement that the family has never given up hope that Ichihashi will be caught, but expressed dissatisfaction that he has not received any official confirmation from the police about the latest report. He also said that "two years of freedom" for the suspect is "too long."
"Who is hiding him? Which hospitals or clinics carried out the work and why would they operate on a man who is allegedly the most wanted man in Japan?" the statement said, adding the family want to know "the facts, not just rumors."
The mother, Julia, told the Daily Telegraph "We feel very let down." "We have been told that this is the biggest man-hunt ever staged in Japan and no one in the country can say they don't know who Ichihashi is."
"So why did nobody say anything when a young man has gone into this clinic and asked the doctor to change his appearance?" she was quoted as saying.
"This is obviously very upsetting for us, but it also raises lots of questions -- where has he been living? How has he been earning money? Where has he got enough money for plastic surgery?" she said.
"But the most upsetting thing for us is that no-one has done anything about this sighting, it has come out in the media and the police always seem to be there after the event," she added.
Hawker's relatives have visited Japan several times, hoping to resolve the case, while the National Police Agency raised the cash reward for information leading to Ichihashi's arrest from 1 million to 10 million yen in June this year.
CHIBA, Japan, Nov. 4 (AP) - (Kyodo)
A fugitive suspect in the 2007 murder of a British woman had cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture last month, investigative sources said Wednesday.
The Oct. 24 surgery is the first solid information in the ongoing hunt for Tatsuya Ichihashi, 30, who is wanted in connection with the murder of Lindsay Hawker, 22, a language teacher whose body was found at his apartment in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, since March 2007.
The Chiba police will soon publicize a new photo of Ichihashi as the surgery, according to the sources, made him look very different from how he looks in the photo that has been released by the police as the suspect in the Hawker case.
The police have already dispatched investigators to Aichi to search for other traces of Ichihashi, such as at hotels in Nagoya.
Ichihashi went missing after fleeing from police officers on March 26, 2007 at his apartment, where Hawker's body was found in a sand-filled bathtub.
According to the sources, he had his nose altered at the Nagoya clinic having entered a false name and an address in Osaka Prefecture and paid for the surgery in cash, but did not return to have the stitches removed on a later appointment day in late October.
The police believe Ichihashi, who had single-edged eyelids, a fat lower lip and two small spots on his left cheek, may have repeatedly had cosmetic surgery during his flight.
William Hawker, the victim's father, said in a statement that the family has never given up hope that Ichihashi will be caught, but expressed dissatisfaction that he has not received any official confirmation from the police about the latest report. He also said that "two years of freedom" for the suspect is "too long."
"Who is hiding him? Which hospitals or clinics carried out the work and why would they operate on a man who is allegedly the most wanted man in Japan?" the statement said, adding the family want to know "the facts, not just rumors."
The mother, Julia, told the Daily Telegraph "We feel very let down." "We have been told that this is the biggest man-hunt ever staged in Japan and no one in the country can say they don't know who Ichihashi is."
"So why did nobody say anything when a young man has gone into this clinic and asked the doctor to change his appearance?" she was quoted as saying.
"This is obviously very upsetting for us, but it also raises lots of questions -- where has he been living? How has he been earning money? Where has he got enough money for plastic surgery?" she said.
"But the most upsetting thing for us is that no-one has done anything about this sighting, it has come out in the media and the police always seem to be there after the event," she added.
Hawker's relatives have visited Japan several times, hoping to resolve the case, while the National Police Agency raised the cash reward for information leading to Ichihashi's arrest from 1 million to 10 million yen in June this year.
Toyota to quit F1: report
Tue Nov 3, 7:34 pm ET
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's Toyota Motor is to quit Formula One (F1) in a bid to slash costs as the company battles to cope with the fallout from the global recession, a newspaper said Wednesday.
Toyota will hold an extraordinary board meeting Wednesday to make a formal decision on the pullout, with president Akio Toyoda making the announcement at a news conference in Tokyo, the Mainichi Shimbun said, without citing its sources.
The world's biggest carmaker declined to comment on the report.
The Mainichi said the auto giant had earlier planned to continue its F1 participation until 2012 but decided to cut costs by making this year's season -- which ended Sunday in Abu Dhabi -- its last, the paper said.
Toyota would consider selling the team, it said.
Toyota entered F1 in 2002. It ended this season ranked fifth in the constructors' championship.
If the company's withdrawal is confirmed it would mean there would be no Japanese automakers in the world's premier autosport.
Toyota in July pulled out of hosting the Japanese Grand Prix at its Fuji Speedway circuit.
The report came just two days after Japanese tyre maker Bridgestone Corp. said it would end supplying tyres to the race next year.
Bridgestone's exit from Formula One is part of an exodus by Japanese automotive industry giants from the multi-million-dollar sport amid the worst industry slump in decades.
Honda earlier sold its F1 team as the carmaker battled with the effects of a slowing world economy.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's Toyota Motor is to quit Formula One (F1) in a bid to slash costs as the company battles to cope with the fallout from the global recession, a newspaper said Wednesday.
Toyota will hold an extraordinary board meeting Wednesday to make a formal decision on the pullout, with president Akio Toyoda making the announcement at a news conference in Tokyo, the Mainichi Shimbun said, without citing its sources.
The world's biggest carmaker declined to comment on the report.
The Mainichi said the auto giant had earlier planned to continue its F1 participation until 2012 but decided to cut costs by making this year's season -- which ended Sunday in Abu Dhabi -- its last, the paper said.
Toyota would consider selling the team, it said.
Toyota entered F1 in 2002. It ended this season ranked fifth in the constructors' championship.
If the company's withdrawal is confirmed it would mean there would be no Japanese automakers in the world's premier autosport.
Toyota in July pulled out of hosting the Japanese Grand Prix at its Fuji Speedway circuit.
The report came just two days after Japanese tyre maker Bridgestone Corp. said it would end supplying tyres to the race next year.
Bridgestone's exit from Formula One is part of an exodus by Japanese automotive industry giants from the multi-million-dollar sport amid the worst industry slump in decades.
Honda earlier sold its F1 team as the carmaker battled with the effects of a slowing world economy.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Japan's NEC offers eyewear translator
Posted on - Thu Nov 5, 2009 3:22AM EST
TOKYO (AFP) - Most eyewear improves vision or cuts through solar glare, but a new gadget from Japan may soon sharpen linguistic skills and cut down language barriers instead, inventors said Thursday.
High-tech company NEC has come up with a device that it says will allow users to communicate with people of different languages.
Shaped like a pair of eye-glasses, but without the lenses, the computer-assisted Tele Scouter would use an imaging device to project almost real-time translations directly onto the user's retina.
The text -- provided instantly through voice recognition and translation programmes -- would effectively provide movie-like 'subtitles' during a conversation between two people wearing the glasses.
"You can keep the conversation flowing," NEC market development official Takayuki Omino told AFP at a Tokyo exposition where the device was on display.
"This could also be used for talks involving confidential information," negating the need for a human translator, said Omino.
Each user's spoken words would be picked up by a microphone, translated, and be instantly available for the counterpart in both visual text and as audio delivered through headphones.
Users can still see their conversation partner's face because the text is projected onto only part of the retina -- the first time such technology is used in a commercial product, according to NEC.
The company plans to launch the Tele Scouter in Japan in November next year, although initially without the translation mode.
NEC says the device can have other uses aside from translation.
For example, it could be useful for salespeople if it is linked with a camera, face-recognition software and a store's client database by instantly providing them with a customer's purchase history.
"It's best if you know the customer personally for individual sales pitches, but that can be difficult at big stores," Omino said. "This device can be a weapon for salespeople on the floor."
The model for sales staff and for translations is to be launched in 2011, Omino said.
A set intended for companies with 30 eyewear units would sell at 7.5 million yen (83,300 dollars), plus the cost of any customised software application.
TOKYO (AFP) - Most eyewear improves vision or cuts through solar glare, but a new gadget from Japan may soon sharpen linguistic skills and cut down language barriers instead, inventors said Thursday.
High-tech company NEC has come up with a device that it says will allow users to communicate with people of different languages.
Shaped like a pair of eye-glasses, but without the lenses, the computer-assisted Tele Scouter would use an imaging device to project almost real-time translations directly onto the user's retina.
The text -- provided instantly through voice recognition and translation programmes -- would effectively provide movie-like 'subtitles' during a conversation between two people wearing the glasses.
"You can keep the conversation flowing," NEC market development official Takayuki Omino told AFP at a Tokyo exposition where the device was on display.
"This could also be used for talks involving confidential information," negating the need for a human translator, said Omino.
Each user's spoken words would be picked up by a microphone, translated, and be instantly available for the counterpart in both visual text and as audio delivered through headphones.
Users can still see their conversation partner's face because the text is projected onto only part of the retina -- the first time such technology is used in a commercial product, according to NEC.
The company plans to launch the Tele Scouter in Japan in November next year, although initially without the translation mode.
NEC says the device can have other uses aside from translation.
For example, it could be useful for salespeople if it is linked with a camera, face-recognition software and a store's client database by instantly providing them with a customer's purchase history.
"It's best if you know the customer personally for individual sales pitches, but that can be difficult at big stores," Omino said. "This device can be a weapon for salespeople on the floor."
The model for sales staff and for translations is to be launched in 2011, Omino said.
A set intended for companies with 30 eyewear units would sell at 7.5 million yen (83,300 dollars), plus the cost of any customised software application.
Astronomers see 'skeleton' of the universe
(AFP) – 4 days ago
SANTIAGO — Astronomers in Chile and Japan have for the first time seen part of the "cosmic web" of galaxies that permeates the known universe in a gigantic assembly some seven billion light-years from Earth.
Viewed through the world's most powerful telescopes, the discovery "is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed," the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said Tuesday in a statement.
The assembly of galaxies form filaments "millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe," it said.
"Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest," it added.
The filaments are located about 6.7 billion light-years away and extend over at least 60 million light-years, the scientists said, adding the structure very likely stretches beyond the area they probed, warranting further observations.
"This is the first time that we have observed such a rich and prominent structure in the distant universe," said ESO's Masayuki Tanaka, who led the study.
"We can now move from demography to sociology and study how the properties of galaxies depend on their environment, at a time when the Universe was only two thirds of its present age," Tanaka added.
Scientists have long theorized that galaxy clusters are not evenly distributed throughout the universe.
"The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called ?cosmic web?, in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy structure," Tanaka said.
ESO said the discovery was "made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world:" the Very Large Telescope at Chile's Paranal Observatory, and the National Astronomical Observatory's Subaru Telescope, in Japan.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
SANTIAGO — Astronomers in Chile and Japan have for the first time seen part of the "cosmic web" of galaxies that permeates the known universe in a gigantic assembly some seven billion light-years from Earth.
Viewed through the world's most powerful telescopes, the discovery "is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed," the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said Tuesday in a statement.
The assembly of galaxies form filaments "millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe," it said.
"Galaxies gather around them, and immense galaxy clusters form at their intersections, lurking like giant spiders waiting for more matter to digest," it added.
The filaments are located about 6.7 billion light-years away and extend over at least 60 million light-years, the scientists said, adding the structure very likely stretches beyond the area they probed, warranting further observations.
"This is the first time that we have observed such a rich and prominent structure in the distant universe," said ESO's Masayuki Tanaka, who led the study.
"We can now move from demography to sociology and study how the properties of galaxies depend on their environment, at a time when the Universe was only two thirds of its present age," Tanaka added.
Scientists have long theorized that galaxy clusters are not evenly distributed throughout the universe.
"The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called ?cosmic web?, in which galaxies, embedded in filaments stretching between voids, create a gigantic wispy structure," Tanaka said.
ESO said the discovery was "made possible by combining two of the most powerful ground-based telescopes in the world:" the Very Large Telescope at Chile's Paranal Observatory, and the National Astronomical Observatory's Subaru Telescope, in Japan.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
Gunman in Japan 'wounds three, kills himself'
Fri Nov 6, 4:55 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – A gunman in Japan who said he was a gangster shot and wounded three people before killing himself Friday in Yokohama near Tokyo, police and news reports said.
The man entered a real estate agency and said he was a member of a crime syndicate before he opened fire around 2:30 pm (0530 GMT), wounding the three people, one of them seriously, police said.
When police surrounded the building, he shot himself in the head, Jiji Press said, quoting police sources.
"We stormed the building and found the man on the floor with a revolver, bleeding from his right ear," a Kanagawa Police Department spokesman told AFP.
"The injured were all taken to hospital, but one of them had lost consciousness," the spokesman said.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc.
TOKYO (AFP) – A gunman in Japan who said he was a gangster shot and wounded three people before killing himself Friday in Yokohama near Tokyo, police and news reports said.
The man entered a real estate agency and said he was a member of a crime syndicate before he opened fire around 2:30 pm (0530 GMT), wounding the three people, one of them seriously, police said.
When police surrounded the building, he shot himself in the head, Jiji Press said, quoting police sources.
"We stormed the building and found the man on the floor with a revolver, bleeding from his right ear," a Kanagawa Police Department spokesman told AFP.
"The injured were all taken to hospital, but one of them had lost consciousness," the spokesman said.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc.
Japan eyes solar station in space as new energy source
by Karyn Poupee Karyn Poupee
Sun Nov 8, 12:14 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.
The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.
With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But Japan's boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres (square miles) in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere.
"Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming," researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.
"The sun's rays abound in space."
The solar cells would capture the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves.
These would be collected by gigantic parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, said Tadashige Takiya, a spokesman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The researchers are targeting a one gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant, that would produce electricity at eight yen (cents) per kilowatt-hour, six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.
The challenge -- including transporting the components to space -- may appear gigantic, but Japan has been pursuing the project since 1998, with some 130 researchers studying it under JAXA's oversight.
Last month Japan's Economy and Trade Ministry and the Science Ministry took another step toward making the project a reality, by selecting several Japanese high-tech giants as participants in the project.
The consortium, named the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, also includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.
The project's roadmap outlined several steps that would need to be taken before a full-blown launch in 2030.
Within several years, "a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket," said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers heading the project.
The next step, expected around 2020, would be to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 megawatt power capacity, to be followed by a 250 megawatt prototype.
This would help evaluate the project's financial viability, say officials. The final aim is to produce electricity cheap enough to compete with other alternative energy sources.
JAXA says the transmission technology would be safe but concedes it would have to convince the public, which may harbour images of laser beams shooting down from the sky, roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air.
According to a 2004 study by JAXA, the words 'laser' and 'microwave' caused the most concern among the 1,000 people questioned.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Sun Nov 8, 12:14 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan's space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.
The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.
With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But Japan's boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres (square miles) in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere.
"Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming," researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.
"The sun's rays abound in space."
The solar cells would capture the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves.
These would be collected by gigantic parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, said Tadashige Takiya, a spokesman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The researchers are targeting a one gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant, that would produce electricity at eight yen (cents) per kilowatt-hour, six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.
The challenge -- including transporting the components to space -- may appear gigantic, but Japan has been pursuing the project since 1998, with some 130 researchers studying it under JAXA's oversight.
Last month Japan's Economy and Trade Ministry and the Science Ministry took another step toward making the project a reality, by selecting several Japanese high-tech giants as participants in the project.
The consortium, named the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, also includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.
The project's roadmap outlined several steps that would need to be taken before a full-blown launch in 2030.
Within several years, "a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket," said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers heading the project.
The next step, expected around 2020, would be to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 megawatt power capacity, to be followed by a 250 megawatt prototype.
This would help evaluate the project's financial viability, say officials. The final aim is to produce electricity cheap enough to compete with other alternative energy sources.
JAXA says the transmission technology would be safe but concedes it would have to convince the public, which may harbour images of laser beams shooting down from the sky, roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air.
According to a 2004 study by JAXA, the words 'laser' and 'microwave' caused the most concern among the 1,000 people questioned.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Japanese to protest US base before Obama visit
By Harumi Ozawa (AFP) – 1 day ago
GINOWAN, Japan — Thousands were expected to rally Sunday against a US military base on Japan's Okinawa island, raising the heat in a simmering row days before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo.
Local opposition has often flared against the large US military presence on the southern island, strategically located within easy reach of China, Taiwan and North Korea and dubbed the United States' "unsinkable aircraft carrier".
But the rise of a new centre-left government in Tokyo in September, ending decades of conservative rule, has brought the issue to the centre of national politics and strained Japan's most important security alliance.
More than 30,000 protesters were expected to gather from 0500 GMT in a park near the controversial US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base in Ginowan city, organisers said. Obama visits Japan on Friday and Saturday.
The Futenma base, located in a densely populated urban area, has emerged as a flashpoint for local opponents who have been angered by aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of accidents and crimes committed by US service personnel.
Okinawans reacted with fury to the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen, and demands to close the base on safety grounds grew when a US helicopter crashed into the front yard of a local university in 2004.
The government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, which swept to power in a landslide and has vowed a less subservient relationship with Washington, has said it may want the base moved off the island or even out of the country.
The United States has demanded Japan honour a 2006 agreement under which the Futenma base would be closed but its air operations moved to an alternative site to be built on Okinawa by 2014 in the coastal Camp Schwab area.
But activists near Camp Schwab also oppose the planned new base, which would be built on reclaimed land and would include two runways likely to affect a marine habitat home to corals and an endangered sea mammal, the dugong.
On a visit to Japan last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly urged Tokyo to "move on" and resolve the issue before Obama's arrival, stressing that Washington does not want to renegotiate a pact that was years in the making.
Hatoyama has said Japan will need more time to resolve the tricky question as it weighs the demands of Washington and of the people of Okinawa, a heartland of left-leaning and pacifist groups who oppose the bases.
Subtropical Okinawa, located about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo, saw some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
American occupation forces only handed the island back to Japan in 1972, but it continues to host more than half of the 47,000 US troops in the country.
Washington and Tokyo have been close security allies in the post-war era, with the United States guaranteeing Japan's defence and providing nuclear deterrence during and after the Cold War.
Japan's post-war constitution bars its Self-Defence Forces from offensive military action and Japanese soldiers abroad, despite limited deployments in Iraq and on peace-keeping missions, have not fired a shot in anger since WWII.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
GINOWAN, Japan — Thousands were expected to rally Sunday against a US military base on Japan's Okinawa island, raising the heat in a simmering row days before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo.
Local opposition has often flared against the large US military presence on the southern island, strategically located within easy reach of China, Taiwan and North Korea and dubbed the United States' "unsinkable aircraft carrier".
But the rise of a new centre-left government in Tokyo in September, ending decades of conservative rule, has brought the issue to the centre of national politics and strained Japan's most important security alliance.
More than 30,000 protesters were expected to gather from 0500 GMT in a park near the controversial US Marine Corps Futenma Air Base in Ginowan city, organisers said. Obama visits Japan on Friday and Saturday.
The Futenma base, located in a densely populated urban area, has emerged as a flashpoint for local opponents who have been angered by aircraft noise, pollution, the risk of accidents and crimes committed by US service personnel.
Okinawans reacted with fury to the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen, and demands to close the base on safety grounds grew when a US helicopter crashed into the front yard of a local university in 2004.
The government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, which swept to power in a landslide and has vowed a less subservient relationship with Washington, has said it may want the base moved off the island or even out of the country.
The United States has demanded Japan honour a 2006 agreement under which the Futenma base would be closed but its air operations moved to an alternative site to be built on Okinawa by 2014 in the coastal Camp Schwab area.
But activists near Camp Schwab also oppose the planned new base, which would be built on reclaimed land and would include two runways likely to affect a marine habitat home to corals and an endangered sea mammal, the dugong.
On a visit to Japan last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates bluntly urged Tokyo to "move on" and resolve the issue before Obama's arrival, stressing that Washington does not want to renegotiate a pact that was years in the making.
Hatoyama has said Japan will need more time to resolve the tricky question as it weighs the demands of Washington and of the people of Okinawa, a heartland of left-leaning and pacifist groups who oppose the bases.
Subtropical Okinawa, located about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo, saw some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
American occupation forces only handed the island back to Japan in 1972, but it continues to host more than half of the 47,000 US troops in the country.
Washington and Tokyo have been close security allies in the post-war era, with the United States guaranteeing Japan's defence and providing nuclear deterrence during and after the Cold War.
Japan's post-war constitution bars its Self-Defence Forces from offensive military action and Japanese soldiers abroad, despite limited deployments in Iraq and on peace-keeping missions, have not fired a shot in anger since WWII.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Q+A: U.S. base feud hits nerve ahead of Obama visit
Thu Nov 5, 2009 1:08am EST
By Linda Sieg
TOKYO (Reuters) - A feud over plans to relocate a U.S. military base on Japan's Okinawa island as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. troops has strained Washington's ties with Tokyo ahead of President Barack Obama's November 12-13 visit.
The row coincides with deepening questions about how China's rising military and economic clout will reshape the decades-old U.S.-Japan alliance, long seen as vital to regional security.
Below are some questions and answers about the origins of the dispute and whether an alliance crisis can be avoided.
WHY CLOSE THE FUTENMA BASE AND REPLACE IT?
Residents of Okinawa, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo and reluctant host to about half the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, have long resented what they see as an unfair burden in maintaining the U.S.-Japan security alliance.
The concentration of U.S. military bases on Okinawa, a major U.S. military forward logistics base in the western Pacific, is a legacy of America's occupation of the island from 1945 to 1972.
Many locals associate the bases with crime, noise, pollution and accidents, and outrage flares periodically -- most strikingly after the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen.
As part of a 1996 pact to reduce the U.S. military presence, the United States and Japan agreed to close Futenma Air Station, home to about 4,000 Marines and located in crowded Ginowan City, within seven years if a replacement could be found in Okinawa.
An initial plan for an off-shore facility in northern Okinawa was opposed by locals and environmentalists.
The current plan is for relocation to a northern site to be partly built within another U.S. base and on reclaimed land.
IS THIS JUST ABOUT FUTENMA?
No. The issue is much broader. Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 on a "road map" to transform the decades-old alliance, the pillar of Japan's post-World War Two security policies.
Part of a U.S. effort to make its military more flexible globally, the realignment fit with efforts by Japan's then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to shed the constraints of its postwar pacifist constitution and assume a higher global security profile.
Central to the pact was a plan to reorganize U.S. troops in Japan, including a shift of about 8,000 Marines by 2014 to the U.S. territory of Guam from Okinawa. The Marines' move, however, depends on finding a replacement site for Futenma.
While Futenma and the Marines' move grab most headlines in Japan, a package of steps to improve U.S.-Japan military cooperation in areas such as missile defense is equally vital.
WHY IS THIS DISPUTE FLARING NOW?
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which took power in September, promised in the campaign leading up to its election victory in August that it would review the realignment pact as well as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the U.S. military in Japan. Hatoyama had said moving Futenma's functions off Okinawa was best.
More broadly, the Democrats have promised to adopt a diplomatic stance less subservient to its close security ally Washington, a shift from the long-dominant LDP, which was defeated in the election.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates turned up the heat last month when he stated bluntly that the deal must be carried out. But State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Wednesday that the United States had not set a deadline.
Anxiety is being exacerbated by questions about the overall future of the five-decade-old U.S.-Japan alliance as both face the challenge of China's rising economic and military might.
Some in Japan fear Washington will cozy up to Beijing, while some in the United States worry Tokyo is tilting toward Asia by promoting the idea of an East Asia Community trading bloc.
CAN A CRISIS BE AVOIDED?
The best bet is for the two sides to turn down the heat and delay a resolution until after Obama's visit. Tokyo would need to convince Washington that it doesn't plan to delay too long.
The United States is unlikely to agree to reopen talks given its firm public rejection of that option and Obama's need to focus on other pressing issues such as the war in Afghanistan.
Japan might eventually agree to the current plan as is, or with slight modifications, but bowing to U.S. demands could cause a rift with two tiny coalition partners whose backing is needed to pass laws smoothly, as well as within the Democratic Party.
Appearing to dither or to endanger the U.S.-Japan alliance could undermine Hatoyama's public support, but caving in suddenly to U.S. pressure could also alienate some voters.
WILL THIS AFFECT ECONOMIC TIES?
Few analysts expect bilateral strains to spill over into trade and investment ties between the world's two biggest economies, and financial markets have taken the row in their stride even as market players express concern.
But damage to U.S.-Japan ties could spell geopolitical uncertainty in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea, eventually affecting investment flows.
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved
By Linda Sieg
TOKYO (Reuters) - A feud over plans to relocate a U.S. military base on Japan's Okinawa island as part of a broad reorganization of U.S. troops has strained Washington's ties with Tokyo ahead of President Barack Obama's November 12-13 visit.
The row coincides with deepening questions about how China's rising military and economic clout will reshape the decades-old U.S.-Japan alliance, long seen as vital to regional security.
Below are some questions and answers about the origins of the dispute and whether an alliance crisis can be avoided.
WHY CLOSE THE FUTENMA BASE AND REPLACE IT?
Residents of Okinawa, 1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of Tokyo and reluctant host to about half the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, have long resented what they see as an unfair burden in maintaining the U.S.-Japan security alliance.
The concentration of U.S. military bases on Okinawa, a major U.S. military forward logistics base in the western Pacific, is a legacy of America's occupation of the island from 1945 to 1972.
Many locals associate the bases with crime, noise, pollution and accidents, and outrage flares periodically -- most strikingly after the 1995 rape of a schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen.
As part of a 1996 pact to reduce the U.S. military presence, the United States and Japan agreed to close Futenma Air Station, home to about 4,000 Marines and located in crowded Ginowan City, within seven years if a replacement could be found in Okinawa.
An initial plan for an off-shore facility in northern Okinawa was opposed by locals and environmentalists.
The current plan is for relocation to a northern site to be partly built within another U.S. base and on reclaimed land.
IS THIS JUST ABOUT FUTENMA?
No. The issue is much broader. Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2006 on a "road map" to transform the decades-old alliance, the pillar of Japan's post-World War Two security policies.
Part of a U.S. effort to make its military more flexible globally, the realignment fit with efforts by Japan's then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to shed the constraints of its postwar pacifist constitution and assume a higher global security profile.
Central to the pact was a plan to reorganize U.S. troops in Japan, including a shift of about 8,000 Marines by 2014 to the U.S. territory of Guam from Okinawa. The Marines' move, however, depends on finding a replacement site for Futenma.
While Futenma and the Marines' move grab most headlines in Japan, a package of steps to improve U.S.-Japan military cooperation in areas such as missile defense is equally vital.
WHY IS THIS DISPUTE FLARING NOW?
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which took power in September, promised in the campaign leading up to its election victory in August that it would review the realignment pact as well as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the U.S. military in Japan. Hatoyama had said moving Futenma's functions off Okinawa was best.
More broadly, the Democrats have promised to adopt a diplomatic stance less subservient to its close security ally Washington, a shift from the long-dominant LDP, which was defeated in the election.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates turned up the heat last month when he stated bluntly that the deal must be carried out. But State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Wednesday that the United States had not set a deadline.
Anxiety is being exacerbated by questions about the overall future of the five-decade-old U.S.-Japan alliance as both face the challenge of China's rising economic and military might.
Some in Japan fear Washington will cozy up to Beijing, while some in the United States worry Tokyo is tilting toward Asia by promoting the idea of an East Asia Community trading bloc.
CAN A CRISIS BE AVOIDED?
The best bet is for the two sides to turn down the heat and delay a resolution until after Obama's visit. Tokyo would need to convince Washington that it doesn't plan to delay too long.
The United States is unlikely to agree to reopen talks given its firm public rejection of that option and Obama's need to focus on other pressing issues such as the war in Afghanistan.
Japan might eventually agree to the current plan as is, or with slight modifications, but bowing to U.S. demands could cause a rift with two tiny coalition partners whose backing is needed to pass laws smoothly, as well as within the Democratic Party.
Appearing to dither or to endanger the U.S.-Japan alliance could undermine Hatoyama's public support, but caving in suddenly to U.S. pressure could also alienate some voters.
WILL THIS AFFECT ECONOMIC TIES?
Few analysts expect bilateral strains to spill over into trade and investment ties between the world's two biggest economies, and financial markets have taken the row in their stride even as market players express concern.
But damage to U.S.-Japan ties could spell geopolitical uncertainty in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea, eventually affecting investment flows.
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved
Thousands of Japanese protest U.S. base plan
Thousands of Japanese protest U.S. base plan
Sun Nov 8, 2009 11:45am EST
By Isabel Reynolds
GINOWAN, Japan (Reuters) - Thousands of Japanese gathered in sweltering heat on the southern island of Okinawa on Sunday to demand that a U.S. Marine base be moved out of the region, days ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama.
The row over the re-siting of the Futenma air base threatens to stall a realignment of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan and sour defense ties between the two countries, seen as key in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea.
It could also prove a domestic headache for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose support ratings have slipped since his landslide election victory in August.
"Okinawa's future is for us, the Okinawan people to decide," Ginowan mayor Yoichi Iha told a supportive crowd which spilled out of an open-air theater by the beach. "We cannot let America decide for us."
Organizers put the number of protesters at 21,000.
Under a 2006 U.S.-Japan agreement, the Futenma Marine base in the center of the city of Ginowan is set to be closed and replaced with a facility built partly on reclaimed land at Henoko, a remoter part of the island, by 2014.
The deal, which Washington wants to push through after years of what a military official called "painful" negotiations, is part of a wider plan to re-organize U.S. troops and reduce the burden on Okinawa by moving up to 8,000 Marines to Guam.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has urged Japan to approve the plan ahead of Obama's visit, which is scheduled to start on November 12.
EMOTIVE ISSUE
Hatoyama, who has vowed to build a more equal relationship with the United States, said in the run-up to his August election victory the base should be moved off the island.
That view was supported by 70 percent of Okinawa residents in a poll published this month by the Mainichi newspaper.
"I think getting rid of Futenma would be a good starting point for the removal of all the U.S. bases from Okinawa," said a 60-year-old woman at Sunday's protest, who gave her name only as Shinzato.
Okinawa, controlled by the United States until 1972, makes up only 0.6 percent of Japan's land mass, but hosts about half the U.S. troops in Japan. Those who live near the bases complain of noise, crime, pollution and accidents.
"It's such a wonderful place. It makes no sense to build it here," said Hiroshi Ashitomi, a long-time anti-base campaigner.
Environmentalists are anxious to protect marine life including coral and rare dugongs in nearby waters.
Others have different priorities.
"Nature is important, but the primary responsibility of a politician is to protect people's lives and property," said Kosuke Gushi, a regional assemblyman with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party that signed off on the plan while in government.
He and other backers of the existing plan, including Ginowan businessmen, say they are concerned re-opening the issue will mean an indefinite delay to the closure of Futenma, where a 2004 helicopter crash added to fears over safety.
Gushi also sees the row as potentially undermining Japan's U.S.-dependent security policy, leaving the country vulnerable.
"If we can't provide the bases as we have pledged to do under the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the Americans could pull out and say they are no longer responsible," Gushi said.
Hatoyama has said he needs time to review the existing base plan, but his Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa has more or less endorsed the current agreement.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
Sun Nov 8, 2009 11:45am EST
By Isabel Reynolds
GINOWAN, Japan (Reuters) - Thousands of Japanese gathered in sweltering heat on the southern island of Okinawa on Sunday to demand that a U.S. Marine base be moved out of the region, days ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama.
The row over the re-siting of the Futenma air base threatens to stall a realignment of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan and sour defense ties between the two countries, seen as key in a region home to a rising China and an unpredictable North Korea.
It could also prove a domestic headache for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose support ratings have slipped since his landslide election victory in August.
"Okinawa's future is for us, the Okinawan people to decide," Ginowan mayor Yoichi Iha told a supportive crowd which spilled out of an open-air theater by the beach. "We cannot let America decide for us."
Organizers put the number of protesters at 21,000.
Under a 2006 U.S.-Japan agreement, the Futenma Marine base in the center of the city of Ginowan is set to be closed and replaced with a facility built partly on reclaimed land at Henoko, a remoter part of the island, by 2014.
The deal, which Washington wants to push through after years of what a military official called "painful" negotiations, is part of a wider plan to re-organize U.S. troops and reduce the burden on Okinawa by moving up to 8,000 Marines to Guam.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has urged Japan to approve the plan ahead of Obama's visit, which is scheduled to start on November 12.
EMOTIVE ISSUE
Hatoyama, who has vowed to build a more equal relationship with the United States, said in the run-up to his August election victory the base should be moved off the island.
That view was supported by 70 percent of Okinawa residents in a poll published this month by the Mainichi newspaper.
"I think getting rid of Futenma would be a good starting point for the removal of all the U.S. bases from Okinawa," said a 60-year-old woman at Sunday's protest, who gave her name only as Shinzato.
Okinawa, controlled by the United States until 1972, makes up only 0.6 percent of Japan's land mass, but hosts about half the U.S. troops in Japan. Those who live near the bases complain of noise, crime, pollution and accidents.
"It's such a wonderful place. It makes no sense to build it here," said Hiroshi Ashitomi, a long-time anti-base campaigner.
Environmentalists are anxious to protect marine life including coral and rare dugongs in nearby waters.
Others have different priorities.
"Nature is important, but the primary responsibility of a politician is to protect people's lives and property," said Kosuke Gushi, a regional assemblyman with the opposition Liberal Democratic Party that signed off on the plan while in government.
He and other backers of the existing plan, including Ginowan businessmen, say they are concerned re-opening the issue will mean an indefinite delay to the closure of Futenma, where a 2004 helicopter crash added to fears over safety.
Gushi also sees the row as potentially undermining Japan's U.S.-dependent security policy, leaving the country vulnerable.
"If we can't provide the bases as we have pledged to do under the U.S.-Japan security treaty, the Americans could pull out and say they are no longer responsible," Gushi said.
Hatoyama has said he needs time to review the existing base plan, but his Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa has more or less endorsed the current agreement.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
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