JAPAN: Japan says 'sayonara' to Tokyo's kabuki theatre

People crowd outside of Tokyo's Kabukiza, the iconic home of Japan's traditional kabuki drama, in Tokyo on April 21, 2010. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

TOKYO, April 21 (AFP) - The curtain is coming down on Tokyo's Kabukiza, the iconic home of Japan's traditional kabuki drama, which is set to be demolished next month to make way for a skyscraper.

Women dressed in their finest kimonos and crowds of tourists have flocked to the venue, a landmark that evokes ancient Japanese castles and temples, to catch the final shows before its date with the wrecking ball.

Nestled amid the glass and steel of the upscale Ginza shopping district, the four-story playhouse, with its curved roofs and red paper lanterns, is a reminder of a quieter past beloved by many in the bustling metropolis.

For more than half a century it has been the premiere venue in Tokyo to see kabuki, the stylised classical dance-drama whose all-male actors perform in extravagant costumes and mask-like facial makeup.

The theatre's owner, movie and entertainment company Shochiku, plans to take down the building sometime in May and build a 49-story office tower on the site by 2013 at a cost of 43 billion yen (467 million dollars).

The company, which says the old structure fails to meet earthquake-safety standards, has said it will rebuild the theatre, using some original facade ornaments, on the bottom floors of the new building.

In contrast to the half-century old structure, the new version will boast elevators and the latest energy saving technology.

In the meantime the show must go on and daily plays will continue to be staged at several other venues in the city, including the nearby Shimbashi Embu theatre, and elsewhere in Japan.

Still, for many the Kabukiza demolition will mark the end of an era.

"When the Kabukiza closes, I will close my shop," said Kazushi Nishii, 80, who sells roasted chestnuts outside the theatre. "My girlfriend called the Kabukiza will be gone. I don't want to see a new one."

Kikuko Murakami, 79, a nearby kiosk owner, said: "I am very sad, and it's difficult to buy tickets this month ... There are a lot of people visiting."

Crowds have been queuing outside the theatre, which is listed as a cultural property and has been decorated with blue and red drop curtains with the farewell message "Kabukiza. Sayonara performance."

People crowd outside of Tokyo's Kabukiza, the iconic home of Japan's traditional kabuki drama, in Tokyo on April 21, 2010. (Photo courtesy: AFP)

Artists have been drawing and painting the theatre, while foreign and Japanese tourists have posed for photos in front of an electronic countdown board showing the days left until the final show on April 30.

The Kabukiza was originally built in 1889 and has since been reconstructed repeatedly following fires, the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, and US air raids at the end of World War II.

The current theatre was built in 1950, using some materials from the bombed site, with an audience capacity of 2,000.

"It is a symbol of rebirth after the war, so this is a very important building for us," Nobuyuki Suzuki, 66, said, painting a picture of the theatre from the sidewalk.

"I don't think it's right to break it down," Suzuki said. "I think this building should remain as a treasure of Japan."

Kana Kashima, a 21-year-old university student, said: "I feel very sad. It is historic and doesn't look so old, so tearing it down is unfortunate."

The firm, however, says reconstruction is unavoidable.

"We also feel very sad as we have an emotional attachment to the current building, but it is our duty to offer a safe environment to our audience," said Ippei Noma, a Shochiku official in charge of the reconstruction.

"And many of our audience members are complaining about the inconvenience and unfriendly facilities for the elderly, such as the absence of elevators or escalators," Noma said.

The company plans to set up a "Kabuki" gallery in the new building to pass on the 400-year-old tradition to younger generations, as well as an information centre to help foreign visitors better understand the art form.

"Theatre can't exist without an audience," Noma said. "It is our mission to take measures to maintain our traditional art."

"In kabuki, we have long maintained old things while embracing the challenge of the new," Noma said. "The concept of kabuki is exactly the same as our reconstruction concept." (By Shingo Ito/ AFP)

View article...

RUSSIA: On this day: 21 April

St. Sergius Lavra

On April 21, 1946, the St. Sergius Lavra, the stronghold of the Russian Orthodox faith and a source of pride and inspiration for the Russian people, was given back to the Russian Patriarchy after a twenty-year-long secular spell.

Sergius, the founder of the Lavra and a saint already in his lifetime, started his hermitage in 1337 by building a shelter and a small church in a clearing in the middle of the thick forest. Over centuries, this tiny complex had grown into the spiritual center of Russia and a unique architectural site.

Despite the distance of his hermitage, word of St. Sergius soon spread, and people started coming to him for advice or to join him. So great was his work that Patriarch Filofey of Constantinople gave Sergius his blessing to open a monastery.

Before the great battle on the Kulikovo field on September 8, 1380, Prince Dimitry Donskoy of Moscow came to seek St. Sergius` blessing before leading his army against the Tatar-Mongol troops. After a major victory had been won, Moscow Princes became the patrons of the Trinity monastery. St. Sergius was canonized patron saint of the Russian state in 1422 and declared “Russia’s advocate before Lord.”

In the XV century, Ivan the Terrible, having a particular veneration toward St. Sergius, was baptized in the monastery and sponsored the construction of a church there. The abbots of the monastery were favored by the royalty, and they accepted novices from nobility.

During the Time of Troubles (1598 – 1613) the monastery provided protection for Russian troops and they successfully withstood a 16-month-long Polish-Lithuanian siege (1608-1609). The monastery also donated many of its valuables to the army and allowed to use its facilities as a hospital. In the later XVII century, Peter the Great, the Russian Emperor-to-be at the time, took refuge behind the monastery’s walls, hiding from his enemies.

In 1919, regardless of the protests, the holy relics of Saint Sergius were exposed, and on April 20, 1920, Lavra was closed per the decree of the Soviet of People’s Commissars, with all the brothers dismissed. The authorities assigned the monastery’s buildings to various civic institutions – a common practice of the Soviet regime.

A unique monument of the fortress architecture, with four centuries of making, the Lavra saw much damage and destruction in the 1930s. Many of its valuables had been stolen by the Soviet authorities, and it was in need of an extensive restoration which did start in the 1940s and lasted for several decades.

Following Joseph Stalin's temporary tolerance of the church in the years of World War II, part of the Lavra was returned under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church; the monastery life revived, and the holy relics of St. Sergius returned home. The first service after reopening was conducted on the Easter night on April 21, 1946.

In 1993, the St Sergius Lavra was included on the UN World Heritage List.

View article…

CHINA: Music Bridges the Political Divide in China

April 21, 2010

By CINDY SUI

DALIN, TAIWAN — When a Taiwan music ensemble performed its reconstruction of Chinese imperial court music last year in Beijing, it marked not just a cultural milestone, but a political one.

The concert provided a rare opportunity to hear ancient sounds salvaged from a nearly vanished musical tradition. The 3,000-year-old genre known as yayue, or “elegant music,” faded with the collapse of dynastic rule in 1911, and nearly succumbed to the later Maoist assault on “feudalistic” elements of China’s past.

But it was also a chance for people from both sides of the long-divided Taiwan Strait to compare notes on which parts of their joint Chinese heritage have been preserved, or not.

“The audience response was quite strong. Many were hearing this music for the first time,” said Xie Jiaxing, director of the China Conservatory in Beijing, which had invited the Yayue Ensemble of Nanhua University to perform in the capital.

“For political reasons, we haven’t done enough to research yayue,” Mr. Xie said. “Taiwan’s Nanhua University has done a really good job in this respect. Afterwards, our students wrote to the school saying how happy they were to discover such a great treasure in ancient Chinese culture, even though they don’t really understand it.”

The Communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949 and the flight of the defeated Kuomintang forces to Taiwan was followed by decades of tense separation. Taiwan considers itself a self-governed island, while China regards it as a renegade province.

A détente, first taking the form of economic ties, gathered strength beginning in 2008 with the election in Taiwan of President Ma Ying-jeou, who has made improved relations a hallmark of his administration. Direct flights, tourism and, increasingly, cultural exchanges have blossomed.

While Taiwan has long prided itself on being the keeper of Chinese tradition, until recently it had been distanced from its cultural roots on the mainland. The Communist mainland, by contrast, had in many regards cut itself off from its own past. The exchanges are allowing both sides to fill in the gaps. The past year has seen exhibits and performances unimaginable not long ago.

Last October, the Palace Museum in Beijing and Taiwan’s National Palace Museum held their first-ever joint exhibition in Taipei, displaying paintings and other treasures from a long-splintered imperial collection.

The two museums are also stepping up cooperation, coordinating their catalogs and Web sites, and sharing their expertise in storing and restoring artifacts.

In March, the internationally renowned Chinese director Zhang Yimou staged his production of the Puccini opera “Turandot” in Taiwan, performed by mainland singers and Taiwanese instrumentalists.

Mainland provincial governments have been sending delegations to Taiwan to promote investment, trade and tourism, and each brings examples of local culture, some of which had never been seen in Taiwan.

Henan Province brought monks from the Shaolin Temple who demonstrated their martial arts skills. Guizhou Province displayed one of its most famous products — Maotai grain liquor, which is still barred from sale in Taiwan — but also the clothing, crafts and dances of its many ethnic minorities.

Chou Ju-mu, 20, a Taipei fashion design student who visited the recent Guizhou exhibit, expressed amazement at the intricate embroidery, batiks and paper-thin silver ornaments.

“We’ve only learned about the mainland from books,” she said. “Only today are we able to see these things in reality.”

Joseph Lee, a businessman who was also at the exhibit, agreed, saying many aspects of China’s culture remained foreign to ordinary Taiwanese.

“We’ve seen more of the culture of Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States or Canada than we have of mainland China.”

That is changing. Banners on the main boulevards of Taipei that once were more likely to promote Western or Japanese performers now advertise coming performances by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra or a Kunqu opera troupe.

Even a singer from the People’s Liberation Army has given a concert here.

These events are not happening without controversy or criticism, especially from Taiwan’s main opposition party and others who suspect that China’s overtures, even cultural exchanges, may all be aimed at eventually bringing the island under its rule.

However, Chen Huei-ying, director-general of the cultural and education affairs department of the Mainland Affairs Council, the Taiwan government body in charge of policies toward China, sees benefits.

“Cultural exchanges are helpful to peaceful development of cross-strait relations,” he said.

“They increase understanding and appreciation for each other and especially feelings people on each side have for one another.”

They are also allowing mainland Chinese visitors to see how their culture evolved on Taiwan, shielded from the Communist campaigns against many traditional practices.

Some folk customs — such as the worship of Mazu, the sea goddess — thrive here in ways they no longer do on the mainland. Chinese temples are seeking help from their Taiwanese counterparts on how to revive Mazu festivals.

In the case of yayue, the classical court music, the exchanges are generating lively discussion, if not always agreement.

The yayue performance presented in Beijing last autumn was the culmination of 15 years of research by Chou Chun-yi, head of the Yayue Ensemble at Nanhua University here in Dalin.

Such was the influence of imperial China over its neighbors that variants of its musical forms and instruments had made their way into the courts of Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Mr. Chou traveled to those countries in search of clues to what instruments should be played and how, what the music should sound like and what the accompanying dance steps might have been. But he also made numerous trips to the Chinese mainland, where he studied ancient instruments unearthed from tombs and had replicas made.

“A people cannot be without its history,” said Mr. Chou. “Japan and South Korea can perform something from 1,000 years ago. Why can’t we?”

The mainland’s state-run China Central Television broadcast a special program about the concert and interviewed Mr. Chou. He maintains that this was the first time many Chinese had heard this music of their own ancestors.

Peng Qingtao, director of the materials research committee of the Cultural Relics Bureau of Qufu, the hometown of Confucius, acknowledges that much of what passes for ancient music in China today may not be genuine. But he wondered how authentic even Mr. Chou’s painstakingly researched renditions could be.

“There are no recordings of the music,” Mr. Peng said. “Even the musical scores were notated under a different system than the one we use now. So it’s impossible for any interpretation to be completely authentic.”

He said China also has much to offer Taiwan in terms of traditional culture.

“We’ve held ceremonies to honor Confucius here for 2,000 years, without interruption until 1949, so it’s not correct to say that all Chinese culture disappeared from China,” Mr. Peng said, referring to the year that Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China.

“We still have documents that show exactly where the musicians stood, and the notices sent out before the ceremonies where yayue was played,” Mr. Peng said.

“These were not all destroyed in the Cultural Revolution,” he said, referring to the 1966-76 political campaign, when Red Guards defaced the tombs of Confucius and his descendents.

Meanwhile, the two sides are sharing their respective understandings of yayue. Partly because of the Beijing performance, the China Conservatory plans to set up its own yayue research center later this year and has invited Mr. Chou to help.

“Yayue is really worth studying and reviving. It’s one of the treasures of our ancient culture,” said Mr. Xie, the conservatory director. “These exchanges are good. They will deepen our understanding of Chinese traditional culture.”

View article...

RUSSIA: Multinationals pledge no corruption in Russia

By Lidia Kelly

MOSCOW (Reuters) - More than 50 international companies are pledging zero-tolerance of bribery in Russia under a fresh Kremlin-backed effort to improve the business climate in one of the world's most corrupt countries.

Anti-graft legislation initiated by President Dmitry Medvedev in late 2008 had yet to be effective, according to Transparency International, an independent global group which monitors business corruption.

The new Corporate Ethics Initiative for Business in the Russian federation stems from political signals by the government and its growing recognition of the problem, according to Michael Harms, executive director of the German-Russian Chamber of Commerce in Moscow, which initiated the pact.

"The political background is very good now in Russia, with the Russian government fully supporting anti-corruption efforts," Harms said.

Transparency International last year ranked Russia a lowly 146 for corruption out of 180 countries. Medvedev has described corruption as "public enemy number one."

According to INDEM, the Moscow-based Information Science for Democracy foundation, a non-government organization, more than $300 billion is paid in bribes each year in Russia, more than a quarter of the country's GDP in 2009.

The 56 mainly German companies which will sign the pact on Wednesday include carmaker Daimler. engineering group Siemens, Deutsche Bank, publishing and media company Axel Springer AG and German state rail company Deutsche Bahn.

"Corruption is an obvious problem in Russia," said Frank Schauff, chief executive officer of the Association of European Businesses in Russia.

"But in the past few years the government has increased its efforts in fighting corruption."

ANTI-CORRUPTION PRINCIPLES

The agreement is based on a World Economic Forum initiative from 2004 and obliges each signatory to implement or improve existing anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices and report any incidents.

Schauff said the pact was not connected to a recent spate of bribery probes.

The world's top personal computer maker Hewlett-Packard is being investigated over whether it paid $11 million in bribes to win business in Russia.

Siemens agreed in 2008 to pay $1.3 billion to end corruption probes in the United States and Germany. Last month, Daimler agreed to pay $185 million to settle U.S. charges it showered foreign officials with money and gifts to win contracts, including in Russia.

"Multinational companies are particularly challenged in emerging markets, since they have to abide by more stringently applied regulation in their home countries, while trying to compete in rapidly growing, but inconsistently regulated markets such as Russia," said Brook Horowitz, IBLF's executive director for Russia.

Transparency International said in a statement the excessive role of government in the economy and business sector helped spur corruption and aggravated the problem.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly; Editing by David Cowell)

View article...

TRAVEL: Developments in volcanic ash affecting air travel

April 20, 2010 10:00 a.m. EDT

By the CNN Wire Staff

(CNN) -- Weather conditions aren't set to change over Europe until Friday, meaning the volcanic ash may linger over the continent until then, a spokeswoman from Britain's weather service, the Met Office, said Tuesday.

Starting Friday, southwesterly winds will start taking the ash away from the United Kingdom, the spokeswoman told CNN.

About 14,000 flights were expected to operate in European airspace Tuesday -- half of scheduled air traffic, according to Eurocontrol, the intergovernmental body that manages European air travel.

Some flights resume as new ash cloud forms

Latest travel picture by country:

China
- Air China said it will resume flying from Beijing to Moscow, Rome, and Stockholm. Flights to London, Paris, and Frankfurt are still suspended, it said.

Japan
- Japan Airlines said it planned to run a round-trip flight between Tokyo and Rome. It added an extra flight from Tokyo to Rome to help stranded passengers get home. Since Thursday JAL has canceled 55 flights, which has affected 14,000 passengers, the airline said.

Russia
- Twelve Russian airports were suffering flight delays and cancellations Tuesday because of the flight disruptions in Europe, the Russian Transport Ministry said. Moscow's international Sheremetyevo Airport has been affected far more than others, with 308 canceled flights and 127 delayed, the ministry said.

- Countrywide, 531 flights were cancelled and 177 were delayed, it said.

JAPAN: Ash halts some Nissan production

Nissan's Kyushu factory will be shut

Nissan has said that it will suspend production of three models in Japan on Wednesday because supply of parts has been disrupted by the volcanic ash.

The carmaker said it was unable to import air pressure sensors from the Irish Republic.

The sensors are used in Nissan's Cube, Murano and Rogue vehicles.

It will halt production of 2,000 vehicles in two plants. It has not yet decided whether a further suspension is needed on Thursday and beyond.

One of two production lines will be shut down at its Oppama plant in Yokosuka outside of Tokyo, while both lines at its southern Kyushu factory will be suspended.

The move comes as the spread of volcanic ash from Iceland continues to disrupt European airspace.

Businesses affected

Meanwhile, other Asian businesses have also been hit by the disruption to flights.

Factories in China's Guangdong province have seen air shipments of clothes and jewellery delayed.

In South Korea, Samsung and LG said they were unable to air-freight more than 20% of their daily electronics exports.

And the Federation of Hong Kong Industries said hotels and restaurants in Hong Kong were facing shortages of French cheese, Belgian chocolates and Dutch fresh-cut flowers.

View article...

N. KOREA: North Korea readying for 3rd nuclear test: report

North Korean soldiers applaud during a visit by their leader Kim Jong-il at the 1224 military unit at an undisclosed place in North Korea, in an undated picture released in November 2009. Credit: Reuters/KCNA

Tue Apr 20, 2010 10:18am EDT

By Jack Kim and Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea is preparing for a third atomic test that may come in May or June, South Korean broadcaster YTN reported on Tuesday, an act that could further isolate Pyongyang and complicate already troubled nuclear diplomacy.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan dismissed the report, saying Seoul had seen no evidence.

"If North Korea was making such preparations, there would be related circumstances that can be detected ... there is no intelligence on such circumstances," Yu told a news briefing.

The preparations began in February and involve a level of technical proficiency that is significantly upgraded from the first two tests, considered partial successes at best, YTN quoted an unnamed diplomat as saying.

North Korea has boycotted international nuclear disarmament talks for over a year and put conditions on its return that include ending U.N. sanctions imposed after its last test in May 2009 that dealt a severe blow to its feeble economy.

North Korea, scrutinized by U.S. spy satellites, can easily signal it is preparing for a test by moving equipment but that does not mean a blast is imminent, analysts said.

A third test would improve North Korea's ability to make nuclear weapons but also decrease its supply of fissile material, thought to be enough for six to eight nuclear bombs, experts say.

Factbox

• Factbox: A look at North Korea's nuclear arms program

HEDGING ITS BETS

Destitute North Korea may be trying to hedge its position, experts said. It needs the aid that comes with making progress in nuclear disarmament talks but also wants the world know it can rattle the region with another nuclear test if discussions fail.

"The North is likely to first show that it may conduct a test and then try to prod China and the United States (into making concessions)," said Lee Jong-won, an expert on the North at Japan's Rikkyo University.

Leader Kim Jong-il is expected to soon go to China, his state's biggest backer and closest thing it can claim as a major ally, where he may try to win sweeteners for returning to the six-country talks hosted by Beijing, experts said.

Kim's leadership has been tested by a failed currency move late last year that exacerbated food shortages among an impoverished public and sparked rare civil unrest.

This raised questions about his ability to anoint his youngest son as heir to the state his family has ruled for more than 60 years.

Previous nuclear tests, trumpeted at home, have boosted Kim's stature with his country's powerful armed forces and rallied the masses around his guiding military-first rule.

A German former aid worker in North Korea told reporters in Beijing that farmers had been resisting accepting the new currency following the reform which, she said, was threatening already precarious food supplies.

"Some people thought that after some time everything will be fine again. But then when they said at the beginning of January that nobody could use any foreign currency, then people became really unhappy," said Karin Janz, who until February 1 was North Korea country director for German NGO Welthungerhilfe.

Market players, who have grown used to the North's saber rattling, said the report had no major market impact. The North's two previous nuclear tests caused brief, and quickly reversed, falls in local shares and the Korean won.

Investors said markets would move on acts that raise the chance of war, shaking the export-based economies of North Asia that are responsible for about one-sixth of the global economy.

"North Korea should come to its senses. The people are suffering and they spent 6 billion won ($5.37 million) in fireworks on founder Kim Il-sung's birthday. Imagine how much corn that could buy," South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said.

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in Seoul, Yoko Kubota in Tokyo and Ben Blanchard in Beijing, editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Ron Popeski)

View article...

CHINA: The Geography of Chinese Power

Published: April 19, 2010

By ROBERT D. KAPLAN, I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor

China’s blessed geography is so obvious a point that it tends to get overlooked in discussions of the country’s economic dynamism and national assertiveness.

Yet it is essential: It means that China will stand at the hub of geopolitics even if the country’s path toward global power is not necessarily linear.

Today China’s ambitions are as aggressive as those of the United States a century ago, but for completely different reasons. China does not take a missionary approach to world affairs, seeking to spread an ideology or a system of government. Instead, its actions are propelled by its need to secure energy, metals and strategic minerals in order to support the rising living standards of its immense population.

Within the Chinese state, Xinjiang and Tibet are the two principal areas whose inhabitants have resisted China’s pull. In order to secure Xinjiang — and the oil, natural gas, copper, and iron ore in its soil — Beijing has for decades been populating it with Han Chinese from the country’s heartland.

The mountainous Tibetan Plateau is rich in copper and iron ore and accounts for much of China’s territory. This is why Beijing views with horror the prospect of Tibetan autonomy and why it is frantically building roads and railroads across the area.

China’s northern border wraps around Mongolia, a giant territory that looks like it was once bitten out of China’s back. Mongolia has one of the world’s lowest population densities and is now being threatened demographically by an urban Chinese civilization next door.

Having once conquered Outer Mongolia to gain access to more cultivable land, Beijing is poised to conquer Mongolia again, albeit indirectly, through the acquisition of its natural resources.

North of Mongolia and of China’s three northeastern provinces lies Russia’s Far East region, a numbing vastness twice the size of Europe with a meager and shrinking population and large reserves of natural gas, oil, timber, diamonds and gold.

As with Mongolia, the fear is not that the Chinese army will one day invade or formally annex the Russian Far East. It is that Beijing’s demographic and corporate control over the region is steadily increasing.

China’s influence is also spreading southeast. In fact, it is with the relatively weak states of Southeast Asia that the emergence of a Greater China is meeting the least resistance.

There are relatively few geographic impediments separating China from Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, and China continues to develop profitable relationships with its southern neighbors. It uses Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) as a market for selling high-value Chinese manufactured goods while buying from it low-value agricultural produce.

Central Asia, Mongolia, the Russian Far East and Southeast Asia are natural zones of Chinese influence. But they are also zones whose political borders are not likely to change. The situation on the Korean Peninsula is different. No one really expects China to annex any part of the Korean Peninsula, of course, But although it supports Kim Jong-il’s Stalinist regime, it has plans for the peninsula beyond his reign.

Beijing would like to eventually dispatch there the thousands of North Korean defectors who now are in China so that they could build a favorable political base for Beijing’s gradual economic takeover of the region.

China is as blessed by its seaboard as by its continental interior, but it faces a far more hostile environment at sea than it does on land.

The Chinese Navy sees little but trouble in what it calls the “first island chain”: the Korean Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan (including the Ryukyu Islands), Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia.

China’s answer to feeling so boxed in has been aggressive at times — for example when, in March 2009, a handful of Chinese Navy ships harassed the U.S. surveillance ship Impeccable while it was openly conducting operations in the South China Sea.

Beijing is also preparing to envelop Taiwan not just militarily but economically and socially. How this comes about will be pivotal for the future of great-power politics in the region. If the United States simply abandons Taiwan to Beijing, then Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and other U.S. allies in the Pacific will begin to doubt the strength of Washington’s commitments. That could encourage those states to move closer to China and thus allow the emergence of a Greater China of truly hemispheric proportions.

So can the United States work to preserve stability in Asia, protect its allies there, and limit the emergence of a Greater China while avoiding a conflict with Beijing?

Strengthening the U.S. air and sea presence in Oceania would be a compromise approach between resisting a Greater China at all cost and assenting to a future in which the Chinese Navy policed the first island chain. This approach would ensure that China paid a steep price for any military aggression against Taiwan.

Still, the very fact of China’s rising economic and military power will exacerbate U.S.-Chinese tensions in the years ahead. To paraphrase the political scientist John Mearsheimer, the United States, the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, will try to prevent China from becoming the hegemon of much of the Eastern Hemisphere. This could be the signal drama of the age.

Robert D. Kaplan is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a correspondent for The Atlantic. A fuller version of this article appears in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs.

View article...

CHINA: Three pulled out of debris alive five days after quake

Updated: 2010-04-19 21:49

(Xinhua)

YUSHU, Qinghai - Three Tibetan women were pulled out alive from rubble Monday, five days after a 7.1-magnitude quake hit northwest China, rescuers said.

At about 11:00 a.m., Sichuan Mining Rescue Team rescued the 68-year-old Urgyan Tsomo and 4-year-old Tsering Belkyi, who had been buried for more than 123 hours. Their family had managed to send water and rice to the two buried under their collapsed house. Luckily, they had a bedboard overhead for protection.

Another saved was an unidentified Tibetan woman, who was rescued out of rubble 130 hours after the quake occurred.

View article…

CHINA: Weather poses fresh misery over quake-hit region

Updated: 2010-04-19 07:53

By Zhang Jin and Zuo Likun (China Daily)

XINING - Snow, rain and strong wind, coupled with a drop in temperature, will descend on quake-hit Yushu county in the coming days, aggravating the misery endured by survivors and rescuers, a weather forecaster said on Sunday.

The temperature will fall by 4 to 6 C from Monday to Wednesday, chief weather forecaster Wei Shuxia, of the Qinghai Meteorological Bureau, told China Daily.

The temperature varies greatly by hours, she said. The mercury could be 15 C at noon, but fall below zero at night.

Wei said the lowest recorded temperature in Yushu in April once hit -12.8 C.

To make matters worse, the weather can vary within minutes.

"It could be sunny one minute, followed by snow and then hailstones," she said, suggesting that the variation in weather, along with the altitude of 4,000 meters above sea level, hampers outsiders from adapting to Yushu's climate.

Altitude sickness and harsh weather were the biggest challenges to rescuers and quake victims, Li Wenzhong, who heads a rescue team from Xi'an, Shaanxi province, said in a phone call from Yushu.

"I woke up at night feeling cold," he said, referring to Saturday night.

Meanwhile, Qinghai has banned the use of advertising balloons to ensure the safety of flights that deliver aid to, and ferry victims from, Yushu county.

"We have suspended accepting applications to use hydrogen balloons, especially those for commercial use," said Yuan Zhaosen, director of the policy and regulation department of Qinghai Meteorological Bureau.

These advertising balloons, with a diameter of one or two meters, are usually tied with huge banners and fixed to the ground. They could pose a threat to flights if the balloons break free, Yuan said.

"In the worst cases, a flying balloon could cause a plane to crash," he said.

"Severe punishment" will be imposed on those who violate the ban, Yuan warned.

As of 11 pm on Saturday, a total of 226 planes have flown to and from Yushu, carrying 4,470 people and delivering 547 tons of aid, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

View article…

CHINA: China quake death toll climbs to more than 2,000

Ethnic Tibetan women rest amid the ruins of their destroyed house in the earthquake-hit Gyegu town in Yushu County, Qinghai province April 18, 2010.  Credit: Reuters/Stringer

BEIJING (Reuters) - The official death toll from an earthquake on China's remote Tibetan plateau has climbed to 2,039, state media said on Tuesday.

Another 195 people are still listed as missing following the quake, which struck Yushu county in the western province of Qinghai last Wednesday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

View article...

CHINA & TAIWAN: Ancient festival

Millions of people are expected to visit the temple in Dajia for the festivities

Page last updated at 23:20 GMT, Monday, 19 April 2010 00:20 UK

As Taiwan celebrates one of its most important religious occassions, the Mazu festival, an interesting interaction between China and the island that separated from it in 1949 is also taking place, the BBC's Cindy Sui reports.

A record number of celebrants from mainland China - more than 2,000 people from about 40 Mazu temples - are in the town of Dajia to witness the beginning of the Goddess of the Sea's 330km (205 miles) tour to bless adherents in more than 20 townships.

Centuries-old festivals such as this one organised by the Dajia Jenn Lann Temple have nearly disappeared in China. But they have been kept alive in Taiwan, which did not undergo the anti-feudal or anti-religious campaigns that China did.

Mazu originated in China, but thrives in Taiwan like nowhere else. In recent years, Chinese officials have sought help from Taiwan to help them rebuild destroyed or neglected Mazu temples.

Increasing wealth and openness have made many ordinary Chinese people curious about their cultural and religious history, with many turning to China's traditional religious faiths to help them cope with the challenges of life.

Many are now coming to Taiwan to explore their religious roots, especially after relations between the two rivals improved when Taiwan's China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou entered office in 2008.

Common heritage

Mazu, a fisherman's daughter who was widely worshipped in coastal areas of East and South-East Asia as a protector of fishermen and sailors, was born in Fujian province in China in AD 960.

For years China's communist government banned worship of her, along with other religions. Only in recent decades has Mazu worship begun to re-emerge in China.

Worshipping Mazu was banned for decades by China's communist rulers

Zheng Huan-qiang, an official from a Mazu temple in China's Fujian province, is one of the people in Taiwan this month to see how Mazu is worshipped here.

"I've believed in Mazu from a young age, along with my mom and dad. But when I was young, my parents didn't tell me much about Mazu and during the Cultural Revolution, we couldn't worship her," said Zheng.

He later rediscovered his faith in Mazu. "Taiwanese people's belief in Mazu is very strong. They put a lot of effort into the celebrations. Their ceremonies, processes, the rules they go by are all very elaborate," he said.

Even President Ma Ying-jeou joined in the ceremonies last week. Hundreds of people thronged the temple, with many eager to place incense in the burner and to see the traditional performances on the temple square.

But for China, sending its temple representatives here to join in the celebrations is not without its political motivations.

The Chinese government has placed great emphasis on reviving Mazu in China - seeing it as an important way to underscore its insistence that Taiwanese people and culture came from China - and that Taiwan is a part of China.

Beijing hopes to reunify with the island one day and has not renounced the use of force to do so.

"They're doing this to show both sides believe in Mazu and have a similar heritage," said Tsai Ming-hsien, a volunteer Mazu celebrations organiser who has had many dealings with Chinese temple officials.

Celebrants from mainland China have been instructed to not give interviews, according to their Taiwanese tour guides.

Zheng, who reluctantly gave an interview to the BBC, echoed the official line. Despite showing admiration for how Mazu festivities had been kept alive for a millennium in Taiwan, he emphasised that "the roots of Taiwan's Mazu beliefs lie in mainland China".

'Religion, not politics'

Another motivation for Chinese temples is tourism.

Taiwanese adherents over the years have given large amounts of money to help rebuild China's Mazu temples, but they have noticed that China's temple officials see Mazu differently.

            The colourful festival attracts many mainland visitors to Taiwan

"They're reviving the temples to make money. They're running the temples like enterprises, not based on faith," said Tsai. "They hold the festivals like a carnival, for tourism. They're always asking us how to make it run so that it makes money."

Some temples in mainland China charge entrance fees and the incense sold there can be expensive, Tsai said. In Taiwan, temples are open to all and there is no need to make donations.

Nevertheless, officials from both sides said the fact that both sides were stepping up cultural exchanges was a sign of improving relations.

"It's about religion, not politics. What's most important is doing things that are good for the economy of both sides' people," said the Dajia Jenn Lann Temple's vice chairman, Cheng Ming-kun.

He said that the increased number of Chinese visitors to Dajia had helped the town and nearby scenic areas.

"Mazu brings together the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and brings peoples' feelings closer," Mr Cheng said.

This year, Dajia is expecting more than seven million celebrants over the three-month festival period, with about one million over the most important nine days, he said.

Besides China, celebrants come from Australia, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore.

View article...

JAPAN: Ministry aims to build over 14 new atomic power plants by 2030

TOKYO, April 19 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The industry ministry said Monday that Japan should build more than 14 new atomic power plants by 2030 as part of its effort to fight global warming.

Japan currently has 54 nuclear power plants nationwide. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also proposed that the country raise the operating rate of the facilities to the world's top level of some 90 percent in 20 years' time, while the rate has been declining to around 60 percent in recent years due partly to safety checks at some plants.

The proposals are in a set of recommendations submitted by the ministry to the Advisory Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, an advisory panel to the METI minister discussing long-term energy policies the government should take in the next 10 to 20 years.

A draft guideline, unveiled last month, fell short of mentioning those numerical goals for 2030.

As for the 2020 target, the ministry said Monday that Japan should construct nine new atomic power plants, up from eight proposed by the earlier draft, adding that the operating rate should be raised to around 85 percent by the year.

While Japan has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 in the fight against climate change, the ministry says the country should achieve the goal by taking measures including promoting the use of nuclear energy.

But the proposal for wider atomic power use has been facing opposition from some lawmakers and conservation groups expressing concerns over radioactive toxic waste that poses disposal problems.

The advisory panel will work out Japan's new basic energy plan in early June after soliciting public opinions and discussing with ministries and agencies concerned.

View article...

JAPAN: Japan's Uniqlo to open giant New York store

Posted: 19 April 2010 2138 hrs

A Uniqlo store

TOKYO: The operator of Japan's low-cost clothing chain Uniqlo on Monday said it planned to set up its biggest store in the world in New York as it ramps up new openings.

Fast Retailing said its US subsidiary had signed a lease contract for the 8,300 square metre (90,000 square feet) space on Fifth Avenue in New York, which would be the firm's second in the city. It gave no other details other than to say it saw a "minimal" impact on its financial results for the year.

Uniqlo's first outlet in New York opened in 2006.

The retailer is expected to open its fourth global flagship in Shanghai in May, boasting 1,100 square metres on three floors with a sleek design by the architects behind Apple's stores.

The firm recently reported net profit jumped 55.7 per cent to 55.4 billion yen (594 million dollars) in the six months to February.

The casual-clothing empire, founded by billionaire Tadashi Yanai -- Japan's richest person according to Forbes Magazine -- is seen as a rare success story in a domestic retail sector battered by deflation and weak demand.

Uniqlo has continued its expansion across Asia as well as Europe and the United States, despite tough competition from foreign rivals such as Gap, Zara and H&M.
- AFP/jy

Tadashi Yanai

View article...

TRAVEL: Injured? Sick? Volcano? Travel insurance can help

By Eileen AJ Connelly, AP Personal Finance Writer

NEW YORK — The cloud of volcanic ash from Iceland that has shut down airports all over Europe is just the latest event to disrupt travel.

Hurricanes and other natural disasters, along with political unrest and personal problems, ruin vacation and business travel plans all the time.

One way to hedge against such events is travel insurance. For a relatively small fee — typically 4 to 8% of the cost of the trip — you can buy protection for your trip.

Typical policies cover costs for delays, like extra hotel stays or the price involved in changing plans; the nonrefundable costs for interrupted or canceled trips; lost or stolen luggage; medical emergencies and even medical evacuation. Older travelers and those who take more expensive vacations can expect to pay the higher prices.

But you can no longer get coverage for next week's planned trip to Europe.

The travel insurance industry has designated the eruption of the volcano beneath an Icelandic glacier as a "known event," explained Jill Rosenberg, manager of group and executive travel for AAA New York. That means you won't be able to buy coverage for trips that may be canceled or otherwise impacted by the volcano.

"It's sort of like buying homeowner's insurance while your house is on fire," said Jim Grace, president of Insuremytrip.com, which sells policies from 24 companies online.

Similar rules apply to a hurricane once it has a name, said Carol Mueller, a spokeswoman for the insurer Travel Guard.

Mueller said about 75% of claims in the industry are related to canceling trips, usually because of illness for the traveler or a family member.

Here's some tips for buying travel insurance:

• Purchase your policy within seven to 14 days of booking your trip to get the most comprehensive coverage.

• Ask questions to make sure you're getting the coverage you need. Grace said about 90% of the companies that sell policies through his website are covering volcano-related cancellations.

• Adventure travel and high-risk activities may require extra insurance on top of the standard policy.

• Extra protection is available through policies with "cancel for any reason" riders, which are more expensive. Some of these policies may not reimburse the full cost of a trip, so make sure you know how much coverage you're buying.

• Theft or damage of personal property is usually covered, but there are typically price limits. Homeowner's or renter's insurance may provide backup for expensive items like electronics or jewelry, but check before you leave home.

• Many booking websites offer travel insurance at the time you make a reservation, but you can also buy it separately through an aggregator like insuremytrip.com or directly from company sites. Prices vary, so it makes sense to shop around.

View article...

RUSSIA: 'Returned' Russian Adoptee Stirs Debate On International Adoption

April 19, 2010

TRANSCRIPT

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

Coming up, my weekly commentary. I'll share my thoughts about the Tea Party movement and what I think their anger is really all about.

But now it's time to go Behind Closed Doors. That's the part of the program where we talk about things that are often difficult to discuss, often because of stigma or shame. And I'm thinking there are few things that would cause a parent more shame than to admit that you just cannot cope with a child whom you have committed to raise and love forever.

Of course we're talking about that story out of Tennessee last week where a woman put her 7-year-old adopted son on a plane back to his native Russia. She says the boy's behavioral problems were too severe for her family to address, and that she had been misled about their severity by the orphanage from which he came.

Russia has since said it will suspend adoptions by American families. But as you can imagine, this has also raised questions and pushed a lot of people's buttons in the U.S. To talk more about this, we called Dr. Jane Aronson. She's the pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine. She's an adoptive parent herself. She's also the founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, and she joined us from Maplewood, New Jersey.

Thomas DiFilipo is the president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services. That's an advocacy organization that works to protect the right of children to live in families around the world. He joined us here in our Washington, D.C. studio.

Also with us, James Blue. He is the father of two adopted children from South Africa. He's also a veteran journalist who's covered much of the world. He is actually en route to South Africa, and he's joining us now from Doha, Qatar. I welcome you all. Thank you all so much for joining us.

Dr. JANE ARONSON (Pediatrician, Adoption Medicine): Thank you.

Mr. THOMAS DIFILIPO (President, Joint Council on International Children's Services): Thank you, Michel.

Mr. JAMES BLUE: Thank you.

MARTIN: So, Dr. Aronson, can we start with you and ask about this specific kind of situation? It's been reported, for example, in a piece that aired earlier on NPR, according to Chuck Johnson, who's the acting CEO of the National Council for Adoption, the number of failed foreign adoption parallels studies of failed domestic adoptions. And it says it's about 15 percent, which I think is a number that surprises me. Can I just get your perspective on that?

Dr. ARONSON: I'm not surprised at all. In fact, I wasn't surprised by the story because in my 20 years of doing adoption medicine, there have been many stories that have been quite similar. I can tell endless stories about families who were not able to continue parenting their child and abandoned the child, actually, in different settings all around the world because the kids were adopted from different countries. So, these are dramatic moments, but there are many stories like this.

MARTIN: Mr. DiFilipo, the focus of this particular case has been Russian adoptions but children come to the United States from all over the world. Can you just give us a sense of, are there any patterns to where difficulties arise? It makes you wonder whether there's something about the circumstances in some parts of the world versus others that make it particularly challenging.

Mr. DIFILIPO: Well, in this year alone there'll be about 10,000 children that come into the United States through international adoption. It was a high of 24,000 a few years ago but because of government policies, it's cut, well, more than in half. Gyegu

And whether or not there's a predisposition for one type of a problem in one region, I would say that fetal alcohol syndrome is certainly more prevalent in Southeast Asia and also in eastern Europe, not so much in Africa or South America. Other than that, it really seems to go towards how long the child's been institutionalized, whether or not there was prenatal care, child's birth weight. And Dr. Aronson can certainly speak to all of this better than I can. But it's really the institutionalization piece, which is universal. Institution in one country is generally the same as another.

MARTIN: Dr. Aronson, can I pick up on a point that you started our conversation with, which is to say the idea that a parent saying, well, this child is too difficult for me, therefore I can't cope - do you think that within the context of adoption, people feel more free to say that than they might if they had given birth to the child? Because, I mean, in this country, it seems to me the result would probably be the same, would probably be foster care, whatever it is. But I do wonder what you think in terms of what's going on with the families and how they process whatever it is they're dealing with.

Dr. ARONSON: Birth parents and parents through adoption have a hard time expressing any feeling of disappoint in their role as a parent and in their child. I think it just goes with the territory. You've been waiting a long time. You put a lot of energy and hope. Your dreams are about being a parent and then you have a baby either by birth or adoption and you’re supposed to be happy. And so it becomes exceedingly difficult to express those feelings.

Frequently, people have postpartum depression after birth. There's something called post-adoption depression and it's a very common feeling that people have but people don’t feel free to discuss it, and they should feel free to discuss those feelings because if you do express them then you get help.

MARTIN: Have you noticed any difference between people who adopt domestically and people who adopt internationally? Because one of the things I've from people who have international experience - international adoption - is that sometimes people feel free to challenge them about it. They feel free to say well, why did you choose a child from there when there are many children here?

Dr. ARONSON: I think that's a very - I mean I think all of us agree, that's a very unfair comment.

MARTIN: Mm-hmm.

Dr. ARONSON: I think there are children available all over the world. They're all equally in need, and there are many reasons that...

Mr. BLUE: Why is that an unfair comment?

Dr. ARONSON: There are many, many reasons why people choose to adopt.

MARTIN: Well no, but that's my point. My question is...

Mr. BLUE: I mean that's a perfectly reasonable question.

MARTIN: ...that people sometimes feel free to say things that they wouldn’t feel free to say in other context. And that's why I was just wondering was there any additional element to it.

James, do you want to speak to that?

Mr. BLUE: I disagree with Dr. Aronson. I think that's a perfectly reasonable question. I do wonder why people go to such great lengths to adopt foreign kids when there are so many available in the U.S. And I don’t believe I'm a hypocrite. I have adopted children internationally but at the time we did the adoption, we weren't able to adopt in the U.S. So I do think that's a valid question.

MARTIN: Do you think though that people challenge you on that?

Dr. ARONSON: No, but it's usually a criticism, James.

MARTIN: Mm-hmm.

Dr. ARONSON: That's the problem is that people often, you know, take people to task. They get angry at them. Why are you going to China when you could adopt in New York City? And there are really very important reasons why people may go to a country. And they may not be satisfying to someone else, but if you have an interest in your roots for instance, in Eastern Europe or South America, Central America, that can drive people.

Mr. BLUE: Sure it can drive people, but as the other guest just said, the leading countries where we're getting kids from are China, Russia, Ethiopia and Korea. And I can guarantee you most of the people adopting there don’t have attachments or roots in those countries.

MARTIN: James, can I ask you as a - both as a journalist who's traveled widely and as an adoptive parent yourself, we talked about the role of institutionalization there and whether agencies in orphanages overseas disclose a lot about the children and their circumstances and the kind of care they receive. Can I just ask what your experience was?

Mr. BLUE: Well, you know, I think it's a really good question and I think it has a lot to do with the sort of pre-adoptive services that are available. In our example, we were living in London and, you know, this agency said okay, we have a kid available for you in Johannesburg. And, you know, we were thinking, oh my gosh, this is great because the U.S. requires several medical measures and all sorts of medical records.

And so we got all of his medical records, gave it to an independent doctor, our physician in London, and said would you look at this? What do you think the issue is? But we were very, very impressed with the orphanage that we worked with because when we asked for additional testing that we paid for ourselves, they were more than willing to take them to sort of local experts in Johannesburg. They were really able to get to the bottom of some of the outstanding questions that we had. And, you know, hats off to them for providing those services.

MARTIN: Can I ask you how you’re reacting to this story?

Mr. BLUE: I'm reacting to this story in two ways because in addition to being an adoptive parent, I'm also an adoptee. And the thing that I find so tragic, I mean it's so extreme to put a child on a plane and send them back sight unseen. And what I don’t understand is how she didn’t have the tools to sort of work through. But it just seems to me there has to be some interim step between things aren't working out at home and putting him on a plane back to Russia.

I'm just saddened by the fact that she didn’t have support services, information or know-how to figure some other route because, you know, regardless of her sending her kid back to Russia, it still is her kid.

Mr. DIFILIPO: It actually get's a little more complicated than that...

MARTIN: Tom. Go ahead. Mm-hmm.

Mr. DIFILIPO: ...as well. This child's a U.S. citizen. Our understanding in looking at the situation is that the agency she used has a history of placing children with special needs or who are older, so she had developed plan so if this happens, if this type of behavior happens what do you do? If the child becomes violent what do you do? And that plan had to be submitted and approved by the placing agency.

MARTIN: So what do you think this is about Dr. Aronson, do you think this is about adoption or do you think this is more about parenting and the isolation that some parents feel?

Dr. ARONSON: As a pediatrician again, I take care of both children who are from birth and from adoption and I find that parenting is really what we're looking at here. It's a reflection of parenting and how we look at the responsibility as parents, what we do to prepare for it, how we learn to be better parents.

Most important to me at this point is that in my work as the CEO of Worldwide Orphans Foundation, we're many different countries providing services for orphans in their communities. And I do believe that this is a point for us to look at how children are living in the world.

You’ve got kids with no prenatal care as already been noted, exposure to alcohol, malnutrition, etcetera, etcetera, exposure to toxins, smoking, drugs and I think we have an obligation now to look at what do orphanages look like. That's what I do in my other, you know, hat is try to help orphans be the best people they can be, to get a good education, good medical care and good mental health care.

MARTIN: Charles, lets hear from you. What do you think we should learn from this?

Mr. DIFILIPO: Well, I think it is an issue of parenting and not just international adoption, because take a look at the United States, we have 500,000 children at any given time in U.S. foster care system and the majority of them are there because of abuse or neglect. And our goal is to protect children from any type of abuse or neglect, but it happens and it happens whether the child is born into the family or adopted into the family.

So I think one of the most important things that we can learn and that families can learn from this is that there is help available. There are alternatives to hurting your child, to neglecting your child, or to putting them on a plane. I mean whether it's your local church community or your extended family starting there, or going to mental health professionals. So there are options.

MARTIN: Are you worried that this will give adoption a bad name, as it were? Or perhaps, is it appropriate for people to stop and think about whether they are emotionally prepared to address whatever challenges come down the line?

Mr. DIFILIPO: I think it's very important for families to stop and think before they charge ahead with an adoption. Make sure they have the capacity and that they're willing to get help if they need it, and that's a sign of good parenting. Reaching out to get help is what is normal. You know, when people come back and they say, we just want to live a normal life. Well, if your child has problems, that's normal for you.

Mr. BLUE: Right, I mean I also think...

MARTIN: James, final thought from you?

Mr. BLUE: Yeah, I think we're right to focus on, you know, this is a parenting problem. And, you know, in some ways putting the kid on a plane is a symptom of her inability to cope. And sure, the kid has issues, but I think its right that we shouldn’t blame the kid for her shortcomings.

MARTIN: Dr. Aronson, do you want to give us a final thought about what we should learn from this going forward?

Dr. ARONSON: Yeah, I think what James just said just now is very critical and that is to not blame the child, when you asked will adoption be hurt. I think a lot of times people do, you know, look at adopted children in a very negative way and we really just in general should learn all the victims of adult decisions. Government decisions, parent decisions, community decisions and I think that that's really important things for us to take responsibility as a world community. We’ve got to be better caretakers of our children around the world.

MARTIN: Dr. Jane Aronson is a pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine. She's an adoptive parent and founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation. Thomas DiFilipo is the President of the Joint Council on International Children's Services. That's an advocacy organization that works to protect the right of children to live in families around the world. And James Blue is the father of two adopted children from South Africa, a veteran journalist, and I should disclose, also a friend.

And I thank you all so much for speaking with us.

Mr. BLUE: Thank you, Michel.

Mr. DIFILIPO: Thank you.

Dr. ARONSON: Thanks, Michel.

Mr. BLUE: Thanks.

View article…

S. KOREA: South Korea president vows to pursue those responsible for naval disaster

April 19, 2010 | 1:21 p.m.

By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times, Reporting from Seoul

In a televised speech to the nation, an emotional President Lee Myung-bak pledges to follow up on an inquiry into last month's deadly ship sinking, though he does not mention North Korea.

In an emotional speech televised live to a grieving nation, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday vowed to pursue those responsible for last month's deadly sinking of a naval warship.

Without mentioning North Korea, the conservative leader said he would "resolutely and unwaveringly cope with the results" of the investigation into one of South Korea's worst naval disasters.

Pledging to make South Korea's military stronger to prevent a similar episode, Lee broke into tears as he read the names of 46 crewmen who are presumed to have died when the Cheonan sank after a mysterious nighttime explosion.

The March 26 blast sank the 1,200-ton corvette as it patrolled near the contested sea border between North and South Korea. South officials have said they have not ruled out a possibility that the vessel may have been downed by a mine or torpedo.

The leader of the inquiry, which includes experts from the United States and other countries, has linked the cause of the sinking to an external blast, rather than exploding ammunition aboard ship.

North Korea on Saturday responded angrily to suggestions it was responsible for the disaster, accusing Seoul of spreading false rumors for political gain before upcoming elections.

On Sunday, however, South Korean officials suggested they would take the matter to the United Nations Security Council if the investigation found North Korean involvement.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young on Monday turned up the heat on the government in Pyongyang, telling a parliamentary hearing that the South Korean military had "judged that it was a North Korean act as soon as the incident occurred."

Wearing a black suit and tie, Lee for the first time addressed the nation on TV concerning the Cheonan's sinking. Previously he had spoken about the sinking during his regular radio addresses, and he has flown to the scene to console family members of crewmen.

"I promise you that as the president I will uncover all details of the cause of the Cheonan's sinking to the end," he said in a 10-minute speech. Later in the address, he added, "I will make the military stronger."

Fifty-eight crewmen, including the captain, were rescued as the ship sank. In the ensuing weeks, 38 bodies have been found, most of them last week when the vessel's stern was raised from the water. Eight crew members remain unaccounted for.

One South Korean newspaper reported Monday that a senior U.S. intelligence official had visited Seoul this month to help determine whether North Korea had engaged in any suspicious activity around the time of the Cheonan's sinking.

Researcher Ju-min Park of The Times' Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.

View article...

CHINA: Hope Amidst the Rubble

NI YUXING / EPA

A photograph of the Dalai Lama lies amidst the rubble of a collapsed building in the town of Jiegu in Qinghai province, China. Jiegu was the hardest-hit in last week's earthquake that devastated the region.

View article...

CHINA: Buddhist Monks Cremate Quake Victims' Remains

View article...

SHANGHAI, CHINA: World Expo song halted by plagiarism row

Monday, April 19, 2010

SHANGHAI (Kyodo) Use of the theme song for the World Expo in Shanghai has been suspended amid allegations that it is a plagiarized version of a Japanese song from 1997, according to the expo's Web site.

The expo's secretariat said it is concerned about potential copyright conflicts and that a final decision will be made after its investigation into the matter concludes, the secretariat said.

Japanese media reports and Chinese Web sites have focused on the melody of the expo theme song, which is said to be identical to "Sono Mama no Kimi de Ite," a song released in Japan in January 1997 by pop singer Mayo Okamoto.

View article…

CHINA: Diabetes epidemic the price of China's growth

Monday, April 19, 2010

By CESAR CHELALA

China has a serious problem with diabetes, which has reached epidemic proportions in the country.

This is the conclusion of a group of researchers from Tulane University and colleagues from China, whose findings were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90 percent to 95 percent of all diabetes cases among adults.

According to the study, 92.4 million adults in China age 20 or older (almost 10 percent of the country's total population) have diabetes, and 148.2 million adults have pre-diabetes, a condition that signifies high risk of developing overt diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease. Of particular significance is the finding that the majority of diabetes cases are undiagnosed and untreated.

These figures indicate that China has edged ahead of India to become the country with the highest number of diabetes-afflicted people. The diabetes epidemic is not only a serious public health problem, but can also have serious economic repercussions as well. A study found that estimated medical costs for diabetes and its complications accounted for 18.2 percent of China's total health expenditure in 2007. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that diabetes, heart disease and stroke will cost China approximately $558 billion between 2006 and 2015.

Experts associate China's rapid economic development with increased urbanization, physical inactivity and unhealthful diet — all important contributing factors in the development of diabetes. Until just over a decade ago, diabetes was relatively rare in China.

Environmental toxins may also contribute to recent increases in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes. This is the opinion of experts who found a positive correlation between concentration in the urine of bisphenol A, found in some plastics, and type 2 diabetes.

Obesity has been found to contribute to approximately 55 percent of Type 2 diabetes. A study on the importance of lifestyle factors showed that those who had high levels of physical activity, a healthy diet, did not smoke and consumed alcohol only in moderation had an 82 percent lower chance of developing diabetes.

The increased rate of childhood obesity between 1960 and 2000 is believed to have directly contributed to the increased frequency of type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents. According to a 2004 survey, there were more than 60 million obese people in China, and another 200 million who were overweight.

Type 2 diabetes is a form of the disease that results from insulin resistance, or when cells fail to use insulin properly. Type 2 diabetes affects approximately 8 percent of adults in the U.S, and 18.3 percent of Americans aged 60 or older, according to the American Diabetes Association. By comparison, the worldwide prevalence of diabetes across all age groups was estimated to be 2.8 percent in 2000, and is expected to rise to 4.4 percent by 2030. Presently, the rate of increase of diabetes is much greater in China than in Europe or the U.S.

Diabetes and its consequences have become a major public health problem, not only in China but in many industrialized countries. It is imperative that, as recommended by the authors of the study of the situation in China, strategies be developed and instituted for preventing, diagnosing and treating diabetes in the general population.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant.

View article…

JAPAN & US: Toyota To Agree To $16.4 Million Fine

April 19, 2010

by The Associated Press

Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to agree to a fine of more than $16 million, the largest government penalty levied against an automaker, for a four-month delay in telling federal authorities about defective gas pedals on its vehicles, a Transportation Department official said Sunday.

Toyota faces a Monday deadline to accept or contest the $16.4 million fine over evidence it knew about sticking gas pedals in September but did not issue a recall until January.

The Transportation official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity. The official said Toyota is expected to pay the full amount of the assessed fine within 30 days as a means of avoiding going to court against the government.

The official said Toyota did not intend to accept liability explicitly. But from the government's viewpoint, the official said, the agreement to pay the full fine constituted an acceptance of responsibility for hiding the safety defect in violation of the law.

Toyota did not immediately comment on the fine. Under federal law, automakers are required to notify the government within five business days when they find a potential safety defect.

Toyota announced it would recall 2.3 million vehicles in January to address sticking pedals on popular vehicles such as the Camry and Corolla. The Japanese automaker has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide because of acceleration problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius hybrid.

Concerns about sticking gas pedals and complaints from Toyota owners in the U.S. were rising at the end of 2009, according to chronologies of the investigation Toyota provided to the government.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said documents provided by Toyota showed the automaker had known about the sticky pedal defect at least since Sept. 29, 2009, when it issued repair procedures to distributors in 31 European countries to address complaints of sticking pedals, sudden increases in engine RPM and sudden vehicle acceleration.

The documents also showed that Toyota knew that owners in the United States had experienced the same problems.

The Japanese automaker has been weighing its options since the fine was announced in early April but analysts expected it to pay the penalty.

The company has been named in 138 potential class-action lawsuits over falling vehicle values and about 100 personal injury and wrongful death cases in federal courts. Federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission are conducting investigations related to the recalls.

"When you look at the toll it's taken on Toyota's reputation, when you look at the number of vehicles involved, when you look at the hardship it's placed on Toyota's customer base, it's only right for Toyota to take this fine," said Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Transportation officials have not ruled out additional fines. The department is reviewing whether Toyota delayed for six weeks the late January recall of the 2009-2010 Venza in the United States to address floor mats that could entrap the accelerator pedal after making a similar recall in Canada.

Toyota recalled the Venza in Canada in December and reported to the U.S. government on Dec. 16 that the floor mats could move forward while the vehicle is in use and "may interfere with the accelerator pedal."

Toyota told U.S. authorities at the time that the floor mats in question were not imported into the U.S. but the Venza was added to the floor mat recall in late January.

View article...

CHINA: In China, a one-man crusade to help the disabled

Peng Jing, 6, who has cerebral palsy, practices walking with the aid of parallel bars his parents copied from a Chinese hospital. His mother, Lu Hui, right, says Peng has made progress. By Bruce Li

By Calum MacLeod and Sunny Yang, USA TODAY

XIAOGAN, China — The nighttime cry sounded like a stray cat. The cold morning light revealed a stray baby instead, wrapped in a quilt beside a bag of diapers and a packet of milk powder.

"Don't blame us for our cruelty, it's because we can't afford to raise you," read an anonymous note.

The baby girl, perhaps 1 month old, had a severely disabled left foot.

Such a deformity in China is considered an enormous burden, and up until recently there were no privately run homes for the disabled in the entire country. One such home is where the child was left, established in January by Chen Fuqiao.

"I want to teach them how to help themselves, more or less, and give the better ones a chance to work," Chen says.

The hurdles are high for people such as Chen who are trying to help the disabled live more normal lives. The Communist Party in control of China does not like group efforts that are independent of the state, he says.

Not so in the West, where institutions have largely given way to group homes or apartments in neighborhood settings that allow people with mental and physical disabilities to be part of the community. Much of the housing is run by community-based organizations.

In China, all decisions regarding its disabled are made by the Communist Party, which prefers traditional institutional care. When individuals such as Chen try to do things differently, they run into a system that distrusts civic action.

Running into resistance

Chen has been refused official registration and funding even though he is providing for 27 children and young adults in his hometown of Xiaogan, in eastern China.

This month, Beijing further limited the amount of money an organization not controlled by the government can take from foreign donors.

More than 13 million of China's estimated 83 million physically handicapped people also have learning disabilities, says Yang Xiang, head of the juvenile research institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Wealthier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai fund special education programs, but about 60% of those 13 million remain "stuck at home," in the poorer countryside with little access to help, Yang says.

Chen, whose 20-year-old son has suffered learning disabilities since birth, left his job at a fertilizer factory to set up a small supermarket in the 1990s. The joy Chen experienced training his son to run for the Special Olympics convinced him he could help others.

Since 2007, he has ridden his old motorbike around Xiaogan and nearby villages looking for families like his own while still managing his grocery.

The response was overwhelming. In a city of 5 million, Chen says he discovered at least 1,000 families struggling to raise children with disabilities. Municipal statistics from 2006 say that 28,000 of Xiaogan's 309,000 disabled people are mentally handicapped.

Most of the children spend all day at home, looked after by their mothers, Chen says.

The Chinese sense of duty to care for one's parents, popularized by Confucius, runs deep in Xiaogan city, named after a famous legend of filial piety. At Chen's center, that tradition is reversed.

"My aim is to let the parents of families like mine leave the world without worry," explains Chen, 46, a soft-spoken Buddhist. "There is a place they can trust, and make their children happier."

After just two months, Shi Biyu is already convinced.

"She never said 'good morning' before, but she did it all day after joining Mr. Chen's center," Shi says of daughter Zhou Mei, a baby-faced 36-year-old who was clutching a Mickey Mouse doll. "I can't die with my eyes closed if Meimei doesn't have a good place to go. Now I set my mind at rest."

Others must wait for Chen's help.

Every day the parents of Peng Jing, 6, strap him into a "standing shelf," a contraption copied from a hospital device, that they hope will improve his walking. Peng, who has cerebral palsy, cries every time he is strapped in.

"He hates using the equipment," says Lu, who softens the pain by giving Peng treats from KFC.

Beijing may be coming around, however.

At the annual session of parliament last month, Premier Wen Jiabao included for the first time in his government report additional assistance for services for the disabled. Zhang Haidi, head of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, said that China urgently needs more funds for disabled people in remote villages.

Still, "Compared to problems like house prices, corruption and health care, I fear the problem of the mentally disabled is now pretty much near the back," Yang says.

Gratitude for efforts

In Xiaogan, local government officials appreciate Chen's efforts.

"He helps our work, but the financial help we can give him is limited," says Xu Zemin, deputy head of the municipal disabled persons' federation.

Meng Weina, a pioneer in caring for China's disabled, says attitudes have improved from days when people with disabilities were called "cripples" or "idiots."

"The government realizes it can't do everything," Meng says.

Meng's outspokenness on the need to change the way the disabled are treated has cost her official support for her services organization, which are now in 11 cities, she says.

"It's a miracle we have kept going," says Meng, a Catholic inspired by Mother Theresa.

Chen Fuqiao may need a miracle.

All but one of the 17 nurses he took on earlier this year have left because of low salaries, he says. His wife complains he is neglecting the family grocery.

"I pray to Buddha every day," Chen says. "I ask him, 'Am I right or wrong to do this?' "

In the morning he is back at it. He has a sports meet to prepare for, he says, and a lot of hopes riding on his shoulders.

MacLeod reported from Beijing; Yang from Xiaogan.

View article…

TRAVEL: Senator: Airlines Pledge Not To Charge For Carry-Ons

April 18, 2010

by The Associated Press

U.S. airlines never met a fee they didn't like. Until now, it seems.

Five major carriers on Sunday agreed not to follow the lead of a small Florida airline that plans to charge for carry-on bags. Their commitment comes just in time to keep travelers from running for the exits during the peak summer flying season, but it is doubtful that it marks a change in strategy.

The promise to New York Sen. Charles Schumer from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, US Airways and JetBlue Airways comes despite the fact that some of those same airlines are expected to report first-quarter losses next week. They were stung by higher fuel prices and the heavy February snowstorms.

Ancillary fees for air travel -- including baggage fees, reservation change fees and other miscellaneous operating revenue -- have been piling up.

For U.S. carriers, they totaled $1.95 billion in the third quarter of 2009, roughly 36 percent higher than for the same period a year earlier. For 26 large U.S. airlines, those fees made up 6.9 percent of their total operating revenue in the third quarter of last year, according to the most recent government data available.

But major carriers risk alienating customers if they follow Spirit Airlines' lead and impose a fee on carry-on bags. In August, Spirit will begin charging customers up to $45 to place a bag in an overhead bin.

Other fees haven't stopped people from flying, but many can be avoided. Carry-on bag fees would be hard to avoid.

"We believe it is something that's important to our customers and they value, and we will continue making that available to them at no charge," American Airlines spokesman Roger Frizzell said.

It wasn't clear how long the five airlines had pledged not to charge for carry-ons. Frizzell couldn't say, and a spokesman for Delta declined to comment.

Schumer and five other Democratic senators -- New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen, Maryland's Ben Cardin, Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, and New Jersey's Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg -- support legislation that would tax airlines if they charge carry-on bag fees.

Schumer said the legislation will move forward until it becomes clear that no airline will institute the charges. He will have an uphill battle changing the minds of Spirit executives when he meets with them soon.

Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza told The Associated Press on Sunday that his airline is moving ahead with its carry-on bag fee.

"Our plan was never predicated on anyone matching us," Baldanza said. "The fact that other people are saying they won't has never changed our view that this is right."

He said his competitors' decision actually puts pressure on those airlines because Spirit has lowered its fares more than the price of the new fee.

"We knew we took a risk with this strategy, but we believe on balance it's one that our customers will buy into," Baldanza said.

Analysts expect several major carriers to get back in the black in the current quarter -- the second quarter -- and in the second half of the year, thanks to the summer and holiday travel rushes. They wouldn't want anything like an uproar over carry-on bag fees to keep passengers from flying.

Even so, for the financial improvement airlines have seen to be sustainable, revenue needs to keep rising -- either through higher fares, more fees or both -- and airlines need to better position themselves in case fuel prices spike even higher.

On the last day of the first quarter -- March 31 -- the price of a barrel of oil closed at $83.76, more than 68 percent higher than on the same day a year earlier.

That means if major carriers don't charge for carry-ons, they could increase existing fees or institute new fees altogether.

Any way you cut it, that adds up to less money in the pockets of U.S. air travelers.

"As a practical matter, as industry conditions change and if profitability is further challenged, we're likely to see some sort of price increase," aviation consultant Mark Kiefer said.

View article...