JAPAN: 'Cove' named best documentary

Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010

LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) "The Cove," a U.S. documentary about dolphin hunting in Wakayama Prefecture, has been named best documentary at the Critics' Choice Awards in Los Angeles.

The film, directed by Louis Psihoyos, won the Best Documentary Feature award Friday, beating four other nominees, including "Michael Jackson's This Is It," according to the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the largest film critics' organization in the United States and Canada.

"The Cove" shows the pains a special team put together by Psihoyos goes through to film the killing of dolphins by local fishermen in a hidden cove in the whaling town of Taiji, the main source of dolphins captured for entertainment use around the world and one of several regional areas in Japan where dolphin meat has traditionally been consumed.

After screenings in the United States and Australia, the movie prompted criticism of dolphin hunting in the town. Local fishermen responded that it is part of a Japanese tradition.

View Article on The Japan Times

RUSSIA: Orthodox Christians Celebrate the Epiphany Today

RUSSIA: Russians bathe in icy cold water to celebrate Epiphany

 

© RIA Novosti. Maxim Bogovid

Russia is celebrating Epiphany on Tuesday, with thousands of believers across the country taking dips in icy cold water - a ceremony believed to cleanse them of sin and heal their illnesses.

Epiphany is one of the Great Feasts, marking the baptism of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist in the Jordan River and the beginning of his ministry, and the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates it on January 19 in line with the Julian calendar.

The feast’s peculiar feature is the rite of the Great Blessing of Water, performed in Russian churches twice - on January 18, on the eve of the feast, and on Epiphany proper, after Divine Liturgy. Holy water is then given to believers, who store it for long periods and use it to cure illnesses and bless themselves or things and premises around them. Some people think any water - even from the taps on the kitchen sink - poured or bottled on Epiphany becomes holy.

Western Christians observe it January 6 in line with the Gregorian calendar, or, in some countries on the Sunday after January 1. On that day Western Christian tradition commemorates the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus.

Epiphany is also known in the Orthodox Church as Theophany, which means the shining forth and manifestation of God.

On that day, according to Gospels, the Holy Trinity manifested itself to mankind: Jesus, the Son of God, dipped himself in the Jordan, the voice of his Father was heard from Heaven, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove.

Honoring an old Russian tradition, believers dive into ice holes, usually made in the form of a cross, in lakes, rivers and other water bodies, as temperatures across Russia vary from zero to minus sixty degrees Celsius, the figures for the Moscow Region ranging these days from -10 to -25.

The bathing, also popular among nonbelievers, can be performed in 37 special places in the Russian capital after waters there are blessed by Orthodox priests. The Emergency Situations Ministry said over 60,000 people are expected to make their ice dives after midnight and during the day on Tuesday, adding that 260 ministry rescuers will monitor the safety of swimming.

The president of Russia’s Cold Treatment and Sports Winter Swimming Federation said it is impossible to fall ill after dipping into icy water on Epiphany.

“Physicists have established that on Epiphany the crystalline structure of water changes on Earth, including in the human organism that consists of 75% water. Water self-purifies, so even an unprepared person won’t catch a cold when swimming in cold water on Epiphany,” Vladimir Grebyonkin said.

View Article on RIA Novosti

OLYMPIC SPOTLIGHT ON JAPAN: Japanese Winter Olympic delegation launched

Jan 18 06:31 AM US/Eastern

TOKYO, Jan. 18 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The Japanese delegation for the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver was officially launched at a ceremony in Tokyo on Monday.

Around 90 members of the delegation, which currently comprises 86 athletes and 102 officials for the Feb. 12-28 Games, were present at the ceremony, which was also attended by Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko and Japanese Olympic Committee President Tsunekazu Takeda.

"We are proud and honored to be picked to represent Japan and will head to Vancouver as a united team," said veteran ski jumper and Japan captain Takanobu Okabe, who will make his fourth Olympic appearance and at 39 become the oldest Japanese skier ever to compete in a Winter Olympics.

"We pledge to do our utmost in competition to try and give Japanese people something happy to talk about," said Okabe.

JOC chief Takeda handed the delegation flag to flag bearer and 38- year-old speed skater Tomomi Okazaki via Chef de Mission Seiko Hashimoto, a seven-time Olympian and the first woman ever to head the Japanese team at a Summer Games or Winter Olympics.

"You can expect a tough battle but I want you to have no fear, believe in yourselves and be fully focused on competing," upper house member Hashimoto told the athletes. "I know how much pressure there will be but that pressure must be turned into something positive."

Takeda added, "Do your utmost to respond to the expectations of a nation."

Japan is aiming to improve on its dismal showing in Turin four years ago, where it won just one medal, the gold delivered by figure skater Shizuka Arakawa.

 

 

 

 

Japan's medals hopes rest largely on figure skaters

Mao Asada,

 

 

 

 

Miki Ando

 

 

 

 

and Daisuke Takahashi

 

 

 

 

 

while women's moguls freestyle skier Aiko Uemura is also expected to make the podium.

 

 

 

Veteran ski jumper Noriaki Kasai will be the first athlete in history to represent Japan in six consecutive Winter Games.

 

 

Japan's ski jumpers and speed skaters could also deliver medals.

View Article on Breitbart

CHINA & JAPAN: China has sovereignty over disputed gas field, Yang tells Okada

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi reiterated to his Japanese counterpart Katsuya Okada on Sunday that Beijing has sovereignty over a disputed gas field it is developing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Monday. Okada told Yang during a meeting in Tokyo that Japan will take countermeasures if China begins gas production in the Chunxiao gas field, arguing that Japan will regard such action as a violation of a 2008 agreement to jointly explore gas resources in the East China Sea. (AP)

View article...

CHINA: No Pants Day

Uploaded on: January 18, 2010

Chinese started joining in on No Pants Day. This news from Guangzhou was about 20 youngsters who took off their trousers on subway to raise people’s awareness of the importance of environmental protection. The very low thumbs-up rate tells you that Chinese and westerners, even when they agree on a particular cause, might well go about expressing themselves in very different ways. I’m still not sure whether the connection of less clothing to and environmental protection is made…

CHINA: Foreign Journalists in Beijing Hit by E-Mail Hackers

Published: January 18, 2010

By EDWARD WONG

BEIJING — At least two foreign journalists living in Beijing have had their Google e-mail accounts hacked, a journalists’ advocacy group in China said Monday. The hackers changed settings so that all Gmail messages would be forwarded to unfamiliar addresses.

The journalists apparently discovered that their accounts had been hacked after Google announced last week that hackers had attempted sophisticated attacks on its security infrastructure. The attacks were traced to mainland China. Google also said that two Gmail accounts had been compromised and, separately, that dozens of people pressing for human rights in China had had their e-mail accounts hacked. In retaliation, Google had said it would talk to the Chinese government about ceasing the practice of self-censorship of its Chinese-language search engine, Google.cn, and that the search company could close down or curtail its operations in China.

The two foreign journalists recently victimized by hackers were among a large number of Gmail users in China who checked their accounts after Google’s announcement and discovered that their accounts had been compromised. In many of those cases, it was unclear exactly when the hackers had broken into the accounts. The attacks are separate from those that were aimed weeks ago at the security infrastructure of Google and more than 30 other companies and entities, most of them based in Silicon Valley, California.

One of the two journalists is a television reporter in the Beijing bureau of The Associated Press, which has one of the largest foreign news operations in China. E-mail messages in the reporter’s account were being forwarded to an e-mail address that the reporter did not recognize. The reporter said that other people the reporter knew in Beijing had suffered the same kind of attack, though none of the forwarding addresses were the same.

It is unclear whether the attacks are tied to the Chinese government, whose security forces sometimes closely monitor the activities of foreign journalists.

“We remind all members that journalists in China have been particular targets of hacker attacks in the last two years,” the journalists’ advocacy group, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, said in its announcement of the recent attacks on the Gmail accounts.

Several well-known rights advocates in China said last week that their Gmail accounts had been hacked recently. The advocates include Ai Weiwei, the rebellious artist, and Teng Biao, a lawyer. In several instances, the accounts had been set by hackers to forward e-mail messages to unfamiliar addresses, as in the cases of the two journalists.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman based in Asia for Google said Monday that the larger attacks on the Google infrastructure were part of an ongoing investigation and declined to comment further.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 19, 2010, in The International Herald Tribune.

Link to Original Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: Japan Airlines bankruptcy filing expected Tuesday

 

01.18.10, 04:00 AM EST 

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA

Associated Press

TOKYO -- Japan Airlines is expected to file for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, ending months-long speculation about its fate and launching a massive overhaul to shed the fat and inefficiency that hobbled Asia's biggest airline.

With debts of 1.5 trillion yen ($16.5 billion) as of November, the carrier will go down in Japanese corporate history as one of its biggest failures.

Despite its woes, the airline's access to Asia is a prized asset for foreign airlines. Delta Air Lines Inc. is trying to lure Japan Airlines from its alliance with American Airlines.

The bankruptcy filing will be immediately followed by a restructuring plan crafted by a government-backed corporate turnaround body, according to media reports over the weekend. The government itself will offer assurances of support for the airline's rehabilitation and ongoing operations, the Nikkei financial daily said.

Investors Monday braced for a seemingly inevitable removal of the airline's shares from the stock exchange.

The issue, which has lost more than 90 percent of its value over the last week, tumbled another 29 percent Monday to 5 yen. The company is now essentially worthless, with a market capitalization of about 13.7 billion yen ($150 million) - the price of one Boeing 787 jet.

It's a humbling outcome for Japan's once-proud flagship carrier, called JAL for short, which was founded in 1951 and spent its early years owned by the state. Along with Japan's economy, it expanded quickly in the decades after World War II and was privatized in 1987.

But it soon became the victim of its own ambitions.

When Japan's property and stock bubble of the 1980s burst, risky investments in foreign resorts and hotels undermined its bottom line. JAL also shouldered growing pension and payroll costs, as well as a big network of unprofitable domestic routes it was politically obligated to maintain.

More recently, JAL's passenger traffic has slowed amid the global economic downturn, swine flu fears, competition from Japanese rival All Nippon Airways Co. and a spate of safety lapses that tarnished its image. It lost 131.2 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in the six months through September.

The restructuring plan in the works at the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. calls for about 15,600 job cuts - a third of JAL's work force - and will require the airline to cut the number of flights at home and abroad, according to Kyodo News agency.

Transportation Minister Seiji Maehara has said he wants to keep JAL flying through the restructuring process.

Delta Air Lines - the world's biggest airline operator - and rival American Airlines are courting JAL with massive financial offers as the U.S. carriers seek to expand their Asian networks.

Delta and its SkyTeam partners have offered $1 billion, including $500 million in cash to lure JAL away from American's oneworld alliance. American Airlines and its partners say they are ready to inject $1.4 billion cash into the Japanese airline, up from a previous $1.1 billion offer.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Link to Original Article in Forbes

CHINA: Google wins praise for its defiance of China over censorship

January 18, 2010

By Jessica Guynn

INTERNET

The Internet giant has won admiration from politicians, Silicon Valley business leaders and even its sharpest critics for threatening to bail out of the Asian nation.

A message of support for Google was left at a makeshift shrine outside its headquarters in Beijing. Google says it has a 31% market share in China, a distant second behind Baidu Inc. (Nelson Ching / Bloomberg / January 14, 2010)

The decision by Google Inc. to stand up to censorship in China is a marked turnaround from just a few years ago, when the Internet giant agreed to gag parts of its search engine to enter the lucrative China market.

Google's threat to bolt from the Asian nation has brought praise from politicians and Silicon Valley business leaders, along with many of the human-rights activists who had condemned the company for going along with China's restrictions on Internet access.

Whether Google's reversal sprang from political idealism or corporate realism, the Mountain View, Calif., company seems intent on winning back the glow of goodwill.

"The China situation was a ticking time bomb for Google's reputation, and they were smart to detonate it on their terms," said crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall.

Google, which had come under harsh criticism after its 2006 move into China, is widely known for its good deeds. It is donating $1 million and technology to relief organizations in Haiti to aid rescue efforts in the aftermath of the deadly magnitude 7.0 earthquake there. During climate talks in Copenhagen, it introduced a free tool to monitor deforestation around the world. Other free services track the spread of flu viruses and energy consumption.
But, as its influence and wealth swelled, so did concerns and unease with the company's rapid growth.

It has been accused of ignoring the rights of authors as it builds a massive digital library and not adequately protecting consumers' privacy with Gmail and other services. It has been derided for crushing old-media companies and disrupting other industries and amassing too much power in the online advertising market. Its actions have drawn attention from regulators in the U.S. and Europe.

The decision to enter China posed the greatest risk to its reputation. With more than 360 million Internet users, one of the largest and fastest-growing Internet audiences in the world, China is tempting for U.S. technology companies.

It's also treacherous. Yahoo Inc. ultimately withdrew from China after it provided information to Chinese authorities that led to the arrest of journalists. Yahoo sold its China business to Alibaba Group in 2005, while acquiring a 39% stake in Alibaba.

That Google would go along with China's restriction on Internet access, dubbed the "Great Firewall of China," drew strong condemnation from human-rights activists. It was also a source of controversy within Google itself.

At the time, the company consulted a cavalcade of China experts and ultimately concluded that the benefits of providing Chinese users with access to its search engine outweighed its concerns over censoring some results. But co-founder Sergey Brin, whose family left the Soviet Union when he was a child, was deeply ambivalent. "Google executives were always of two minds about that decision," said John Battelle, who covered the rise of Google in his 2005 book "The Search."

Google made significant investments in China, opening a research-and-development center, hiring key executives and a staff of hundreds. But Google never experienced the explosive growth in China that it did in the U.S. It struggled to compete with Baidu Inc., claiming a 31% market share, a distant second behind its Chinese competitor. Estimates put Google's China revenue last year at about $300 million, a fraction of its worldwide sales of $22 billion.

At the same time, Google said, it grew increasingly uneasy about the broad crackdown on Internet freedom in China and a series of confrontations with Chinese officials. The final straw, it said, was the hacking of information stored on its servers that targeted human-rights activists.

Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said that the company had always been clear about monitoring conditions in China and that it would reconsider its "approach" if it were unable to give the Chinese people "increased access to information."

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said Google began signaling a change of heart in May 2008 when it said it would support legislation that pushes for more Internet freedom in China.

Google had previously joined other technology companies in opposing the bill.

Smith said David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer, paid him a visit in July, as did another Google representative last week, to express support for the Global Online Freedom Act with some "tweaks."

"This is a very big game changer when the leading search engine in the world all of a sudden has had enough," Smith said.

Google faces an uphill battle in seeking support for its new stance from other U.S. companies and from the U.S. government. The State Department on Friday said it would file a formal complaint with Chinese officials this week and ask for an investigation into the hacking attacks. But U.S. trade policy supports investment in China, Battelle said.

Siva Vaidhyanathan, associate professor of media studies and law at the University of Virginia who is writing a book about the Internet giant, cautioned that Google wasn't so much taking a stand against censorship as a stand against cyber-spying.
"Google deserves tremendous thanks and applause for standing up for the integrity of the Internet. But the free-speech part of this story is merely window dressing. We have to be careful about what we applaud Google for."

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

Link to the Original Article in the Los Angeles Times

2010 Michelin guide to TOKYO Restaurants & Hotels Now Available

The 3rd edition of the Michelin guide to Tokyo has just been released in the US!

From the back cover:

“With more Michelin starred restaurants than any other city in the world, Tokyo is now regarded as the global gourmet capital.”

Endowed with 110 years of experience in the world of gastronomy, the MICHELIN guide has a strong commitment to professionalism and independence.

For this 3rd edition, the MICHELIN inspectors, have once again combed Tokyo anonymously and made their recommendation of the best restaurants the city has to offer.

It will help you discover the treasure of Japanese and international gastronomy in Tokyo.

MICHELIN guide Tokyo also includes a selection of hotels in all price ranges and colorful maps to make locating recommended places easy.”

Click here to purchase the 2010 Michelin guide to Tokyo online now.

CHINA: Major boost to Tianjin

2010-1-18  

An aerial view of part of Sinopec's ethylene project with an annual capacity of 1 million ton in Tianjin's Binhai New Area. Sinopec, as China Petroleum and Chemical Corp is known, has started production at the facility, which is estimated to raise Tianjin's gross industrial output value by more than 4 percent and drive up investment of 100 billion yuan (US$14.6 billion) in downstream industries and support projects.

Link to Original Article in the Shanghai Daily

JAPAN: Kobe, vicinity mark 15th anniversary of Great Hanshin Earthquake

KOBE, Jan. 17 KYODO

    The Japanese western port city of Kobe and its neighboring cities which were devastated in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake commemorated Sunday the 15th anniversary of the disaster that claimed the lives of 6,434.

    

People gathered before dawn at a park located at the center of Kobe to light thousands of bamboo lanterns in the shape of ''1995'' and ''1.17'' and offered silent prayers at 5:46 a.m., the time the magnitude 7.3 quake hit the city.
     Kiyomi Mabuchi, 53, whose husband and in-laws were killed after their house collapsed on top of them, came from Tokushima Prefecture to mourn them at Higashi-Yuenchi Park.
     ''People say it's been 15 years, but whether it's 15 or 20 years, our feelings do not change,'' she said.
     Wearing a necklace her husband was wearing at the time of his death, Mabuchi said, ''There may be no recovery for my heart.''
     Some kneeled before the lanterns to pray while others were seen standing and crying during the countdown to the moment at the park filled with people.
     Junji Yamashita, an elementary school vice-principal who lost his parents due to the quake, came to the site, which he started visiting 9 years ago after deciding he has to face the experience before he can teach his young students about it.
     The 48-year-old used to teach at a Japanese school in Tehran and collected donations at his school when a major earthquake hit Bam, Iran, in 2003. The school gave a total of some 250,000 yen to a local aid worker who later established a care home for young quake victims.
     He said he had told his students a few days earlier that other countries helped Kobe recover, and the students responded, ''We have to take action'' over the earthquake that devastated Haiti earlier in the week.
     In a city-hosted memorial ceremony that followed the prayers, gospel singer Yuri Mori, who lost her younger brother in the Great Hanshin quake, sang a song written to wish recovery for the city.
     Mori earlier said she would sing the song, ''Shiawase Hakoberu yo ni'' (To Carry Happiness), so that she can bring happiness not to just her deceased brother Wataru, a 22-year-old university student, but to all the victims and survivors of the disaster.
     Hiromi Shimoura, a 49-year-old resident of Kobe, who also lost her 85-year-old grandmother Kimino Sugimoto, gave a speech to represent the bereaved families in the city.
     ''Every time when this day arrives, I recall the event vividly as if it had just happened, and it makes me cry,'' she said, mentioning the rows of houses diminished to rubble and the death of her grandmother, whom she said she ''loved dearly.''
     ''The earthquake took away many precious lives and things from us. But it also taught us many things that are important to people...I want to continue passing them down to the children who do not know about the disaster and children yet to be born so that the event that day would not fade away,'' she said.
     Kobe Mayor Tatsuo Yada offered condolences at the ceremony to families of those killed in the disaster and mentioned the continuous threats of earthquakes, referring to the powerful one that marred Haiti.
     ''Overseas, just few days ago, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti, and serious disasters have occurred in other regions as well, forcing us to realize that we are always fraught with the dangers of disasters.''
     Various memorial events were held throughout the city and other parts of Hyogo Prefecture, allowing people to offer flowers, post their messages on the disaster in front of office buildings and sign condolence books.

Link to Original Kyodo News Article

Technorati Tags: Japan,Kobe,Great Hanshin Earthquake

JAPAN: He's not Steve Jobs, but this tycoon may fix it

January 17, 2010, 09:22 PM EST

Commentary by William Pesek

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- If you think nothing ever changes in Japan, consider Naoto Kan and Kazuo Inamori.

Kan is the new finance minister and Inamori is Japan Airlines Corp.’s new chief executive officer. Both men have three notable things in common. One, neither is a natural choice for the task at hand. Two, both hold the outlook for Asia’s biggest economy in their hands. Three, the odds are stacked firmly against either succeeding.

Japan is turning to Kan and Inamori in a sign of change, and it’s a good one. So let’s consider what could be if things break their way.

Kan’s job has “impossible” written all over it: boost growth and avoid a downgrade to Japan’s Aa2 credit rating. Rating companies are registering their dismay that Japan has had six finance ministers in 18 months. Such “revolving-door” leadership “doesn’t engender confidence,” says Thomas Byrne, senior vice president of Moody’s Investors Service.

The good news is that Kan, 63, is breaking the mold of the typical keeper of Japan’s all-powerful Ministry of Finance. Staffers are abuzz that he hasn’t visited the place much since getting the job on Jan. 6. There’s a reason for that. Kan wants to yank control over an economy heading in the wrong direction from the shadowy bureaucrats who run it.

It’s not the kind of revolution that lends itself to television-news reports, but it’s a huge one. Out of the gate, Kan told staffers that “the minister is not a representative of the ministry. He is a representative of the people.”

Arm’s Length

It’s not just semantics. Kan has a track record as a political rebel. By limiting his time at MOF headquarters, Kan is signaling that he plans to keep the bureaucrats at arm’s length. This is a big deal in change-averse Japan and it has the political class chattering.

Inamori’s job would seem equally impossible. Beleaguered JAL soon may file for what would be the nation’s sixth-biggest bankruptcy. The former flagship carrier holds a key place in the Japanese psyche. A few decades ago, its high level of service represented Japan’s rise from the ashes of World War II. Now it’s a national punch line and a reminder that Japan’s zombie- company problem lives on.

As deflation returns and pessimism about the future grows, JAL’s prognosis weighs heavily on the nation’s 126 million people. Just as U.S. President Barack Obama helped General Motors Co. to support consumer sentiment, Yukio Hatoyama must ensure JAL is handled skillfully for a change. That can be seen in how Prime Minister Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan is breaking with the tradition of bailing out JAL every few years.

Seniority-Obsessed Japan

Enter tycoon Inamori, one of Japan’s most celebrated entrepreneurs. In few countries could a 77-year-old wear that moniker. In seniority-obsessed Japan, he’s that and more. Inamori founded electronics company Kyocera Corp. and set up one of the three companies that merged in 2000 to become KDDI Corp., Japan’s second-biggest wireless operator.

Last week, Forbes magazine named Inamori Japan’s 28th- richest man. It’s not his money that intrigues people, though. It’s his role as a business philosopher and writer -- a kind of Japanese Jack Welch. In a Nov. 2 column, I postulated that JAL needed a Steve Jobs -- a creative multitasker with uncanny business acumen. Inamori isn’t the Apple Inc. CEO, but he may do.

It’s strangely fitting that Inamori also is an ordained Buddhist priest. He may need more than good karma to tame the unholy alliance of labor unions, bankers and politicians standing in his way. Then again, Inamori is thought to have something equally useful: the support of the prime minister.

Airport Fetish

The idea that JAL is an independent company is rubbish. Technically privatized in 1987, it has never been allowed to run itself for one reason: The Liberal Democratic Party, which ran Japan virtually uninterrupted for 54 years until last August, had an airport fetish. The LDP built white-elephant terminals and runways all over the nation to create construction jobs.

Then, it browbeat JAL’s compliant executives into utilizing them. It left JAL with a stable of unprofitable routes -- not unlike Amtrak in the U.S. A key task for Inamori is halting those flights, a radical step that will require political support at the highest levels.

I don’t feel terribly bad for all of JAL’s shareholders. For the retirees about to see their investments vanish, one has to have more sympathy. The many investors out there targeting JAL as a “moral hazard” strategy bet on bailouts for years. It’s about time the government ended the JAL gravy train.

That phenomenon is at the core of Japan’s two-decade-long economic funk. Japan Inc. picks corporate winners and then coddles them into complacency. And so, Hatoyama isn’t exaggerating when he says: “The revival of Japan Airlines is deeply connected to the revival of the Japanese economy.”

There’s wisdom in putting the economy and JAL into fresh and unpredictable hands. Yes, it may be business as usual and history might show little was achieved by Kan and Inamori. It’s also possible the reform that investors have waited for in Japan for decades is suddenly afoot.

Link to the Original Article in BusinessWeek

Technorati Tags: Japan,Naoto Kan,Kazuo Inamori,Ministry of Finance,Japan Airlines,JAL

JAPAN: Japan's secret pact with U.S. spurs debate

January 17, 2010

By John M. Glionna

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has created a panel to investigate Japan's role in a decades-old secret pact allowing nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to dock at Japanese ports, against Japanese laws.

Koji Murata, a political scientist at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, has discussed in his classes the issue of the secret 1969 accord between Tokyo and Washington allowing nuclear-armed U.S. naval vessels to continue docking, despite Japanese laws to the contrary. His personal opinion is that there are times when the government can withhold the truth. (John M. Glionna / Los Angeles Times / January 10, 2010)

Reporting from Kyoto, Japan - Professor Koji Murata likes to ask his political science students a tough policy question: Is it ever proper for a government to lie to its constituents?

Class opinions vary, but Murata, a scholar of international security issues at Doshisha University in Kyoto, has his own view.
"I think it's OK to lie to the public for the public good," he said. "As long as what you say is not contrary to national intent, really important secrets must be kept."

The philosophical question has gained urgency in the wake of revelations here of a decades-old secret pact between Tokyo and Washington that allowed nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to dock at Japanese ports, despite laws here against it.

For 40 years, the government denied the existence of the 1969 agreement between President Nixon and Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, the architect of Japan's post-World War II pacifism and staunch antinuclear policies.

Successive Japanese administrations were wary of a public outcry in a nation that suffered two devastating nuclear attacks 65 years ago.

Days after he took office in September, however, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama assigned a panel of government officials and historians to investigate Japan's role in the agreement.
Since the end of the Cold War, nuclear-armed U.S. ships have stopped docking in Japan, officials say.

The findings, due out this month, could further complicate a tense standoff between Hatoyama and the Obama administration over Japan's calls for the removal of a controversial U.S. military presence on the southern island of Okinawa.

"This revelation makes maintaining a stable alliance even more challenging," said Carl Baker, director of programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Pacific Forum.

Many Japanese applauded Hatoyama's effort to create a more open government but said they felt betrayed by leaders who had publicly railed against nuclear arms, only to secretly acquiesce to the demands of a powerful nation.

Some are particularly incensed that the deal was struck with the United States, which dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II, killing as many as 220,000 people.

Bloggers have ridiculed Sato's 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, calling Japan's longest-serving postwar prime minister a hypocrite.
As she boarded a train home to Tokyo recently, Aikiko Shiono said she felt betrayed by the pact and the government stonewalling.

"Japan is the only country on Earth to suffer the devastation of a nuclear bomb," said Shiono, who works for a political think tank. "We shouldn't allow nuclear weapons to enter our country. We have to keep advocating to the world how Nagasaki and Hiroshima were a tragedy. To do otherwise is an insult to the victims."

Sitting a few seats ahead, Shiono's father said he disagreed.
"There are things the government has to hide from us," said Kenji Kobori, 60. "They have to make some tough decisions. Some of those have to remain secret."

The agreement, which scholars say violates a Japanese law forbidding nuclear weapons from being made, possessed or stored on this country's territory, was made public by American officials after the U.S. military stopped sending nuclear-armed ships to Japan in 1991.

Despite the U.S. government's admission, Japanese leaders continued to deny that there was such a pact.

"They did not exist," then-Prime Minister Taro Aso said during a nationally televised news conference last year in response to a reporter's query about the pact and revealing documents.

The deal restoring Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty reportedly hinged, in its secret portions, on the U.S. retaining the right to dock nuclear warships at the base in case of emergency.

Security analysts were divided over Japan's handling of the secret agreement.

"I think it's always useful for citizens to know what their government is up to, even decades after the fact," said Jerome Cohen, a legal expert at the New York University School of Law. "We learn what to do for the future from our mistakes of the past."

Baker said the issue was more complex than learning a history lesson.

"Is it useful to bring out information about this pact now? These kinds of things are never useful when it comes to national security."
He said the revelation could play a role as Tokyo and Washington hammer out a deal on a new location for a controversial U.S. Marine Corps air station on Okinawa.

"This is another thorn to deal with, on top of everything else between the two nations," Baker said. "Part of me says that, like it or not, history has to be revealed. But how far do you take it? At what point do you trade off national security for full disclosure? Should we start disclosing past CIA operations? We know they existed.

"It's a tough issue. There's just no easy answer."
One former Japanese government official said that such secrets are kept by all nations.

"It isn't just Japan," said the former ambassador, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The ambassador said Sato was empowered to enter into such a deal to help Japan secure the return of Okinawa. But he said the deal should have been made public years ago.

"It was a lie, and they should have corrected it after the Cold War ended and the U.S. nuclear ships stopped coming," he said.
Murata, the political science professor, says the debate will continue in his classes as to how Japan should treat U.S. nuclear vessels in the future.

"It was a betrayal and it went on for decades," he said. "Now the government has finally come clean. But the question remains: With an unstable North Korea, how do we assist our closest ally without a secret pact?"

john.glionna@latimes.com

Link to Original Article in the Los Angeles Times

Technorati Tags: Japan,US,Okinawa,nuclear,secet pact,Hiroshima,Nagasaki

CHINA: Chinese hackers pose a growing threat to U.S. firms

January 15, 2010

By Jessica Guynn

Escalating cyber attacks on Google and other companies alarm government officials who say the U.S. may be powerless to stop the online industrial espionage.

A worker at a Beijing office checks stories and photos of the Dalai Lama on the Google China search page. Google has threatened to pull out of China after a series of cyber attacks originating from that nation. (STR / AFP / Getty Images / January 14, 2010)

The scale and sophistication of the cyber attacks on Google Inc. and other large U.S. corporations by hackers in China is raising national security concerns that the Asian superpower is escalating its industrial espionage efforts on the Internet.

While the U.S. focus has been primarily on protecting military and state secrets from cyber spying, a new battle is being waged in which corporate computers and the valuable intellectual property they hold have become as much a target of foreign governments as those run by the Pentagon and the CIA.

"This is a watershed moment in the cyber war," James Mulvenon, director of the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis at Defense Group Inc., a national-security firm, said Thursday. "Before, the Chinese were going after defense targets to modernize the country's military machine. But these intrusions strike at the heart of the American innovation community."

The attacks on Google and several dozen other companies have alarmed government officials and lawmakers who warned that the U.S. may already be losing the battle to protect the nation's besieged cyber infrastructure.

"The recent cyber intrusion that Google attributes to China is troubling and the U.S. government is looking into it," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Thursday.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), a senior member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, called China a pervasive hacker. "This behavior is unacceptable. We used to use the term 'highway robbery.' This is high-tech robbery."

The cost has been huge, according to a recent study by a congressional advisory panel, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. While it is hard to quantify the value of the intellectual property that is stolen by the Chinese each year -- because many businesses do not like to report getting hacked -- Dan Slane, chairman of the commission, estimated it was in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Hacker strategy

Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md., security firm, said Chinese hackers target Western companies with an approach dubbed "1,000 grains of sand," meaning they go after every piece of information in search of competitive intelligence. Most companies keep silent about the attacks, but they draw heavy scrutiny from law enforcement officials.

"The odds of the 25 biggest companies in California not being fully compromised by the Chinese is near zero," Paller said. "That is true of companies across the country."

China defended its Internet policies at a news conference Thursday. Jiang Yu, spokeswoman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said China's Internet is open and welcomes foreign companies. She also said Chinese law prohibits hacker attacks but declined to say whether the Chinese government is bound by the law.

Google on Tuesday revealed that it had fallen prey to a series of cyber attacks originating from China. The Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant said it believed the attackers wanted access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But the incursions, which also included theft of intellectual property, raised the possibility that the hackers were also attempting economic espionage.

Google took the bold stance of making the attacks public, catching the Chinese government off guard. The company's defiance of the world's most populous country stunned observers. It also prompted questions about the scope and nature of the attacks.

"For a big multinational company to consider leaving a critical market means the overall damage to its operation and assets is likely to be greater than the benefits," said Oded Shenkar, a professor of business management at Ohio State University and the author of "The Chinese Century." "Google is not only making a human rights statement; my educated guess is that there is much more to it than that."

It is unclear exactly where the attacks came from, and Google was careful not to directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating them. But Chinese cyber spying has been a persistent problem for years with dozens of attacks on commercial, government and military targets, analysts say.

A growing menace

The attacks against the U.S. are ramping up, according to the congressional U.S.-China commission, which noted in October that Chinese espionage was "straining the U.S. capacity to respond."
The report focused on an attack on one company, concluding that it was supported and possibly choreographed by the Chinese government. The report also alleged that China's military, the People's Liberation Army, is responsible for aspects of cyber spying and has created cyber warfare units.

McAfee Labs, which has analyzed the attacks on Google and other companies, said Thursday that the hackers had deployed highly sophisticated "advanced persistent threats" that in the past were primarily used against governments. The attacks targeted individuals with known access to valuable corporate information.
Google may have been particularly vulnerable because all of its technology is online and networked, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
On Wednesday, Google said it would improve security for Gmail users by encrypting data to its servers. Such steps are crucial for Google, whose business hinges on its ability to protect its users' privacy and maintain their trust, said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal.

"Commercial organizations can rarely defend themselves against sophisticated government attacks," said Phil Lieberman, chief executive of Lieberman Software, a Los Angeles security software firm.

Last week, a Santa Barbara software maker filed a $2.2-billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and several Chinese technology firms, accusing them of conspiring to steal and disseminate the U.S. firm's Internet filtering technology.
The Los Angeles law firm representing Cybersitter in the lawsuit said Thursday that it was besieged by similar cyber attacks originating in China. On Monday evening its lawyers began receiving 10 different Trojan horse e-mails designed to retrieve information from its computers, said Gregory Fayer, an attorney at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione. The law firm has turned over the e-mails to the FBI, which is investigating, Fayer said.
After Google's announcement, Adobe Systems Inc. and Rackspace Hosting Inc. also reported attacks.

A national priority

Early last year, President Obama identified protecting computer networks in the private and public sectors as a national security priority. But bureaucratic infighting among law enforcement and intelligence agencies and disagreements with business interests about the role of government in controlling the Internet delayed naming a White House cyber-security "czar."

In December, Obama appointed Howard Schmidt, a former chief security executive at Microsoft with 31 years' experience in law enforcement and the military, to the post.

How to protect the nation's cyber infrastructure, largely in private sector hands, from alleged state-sponsored attacks has become a matter of intensifying debate in Washington, analysts say.  The U.S. has no formal policy for dealing with such attacks. Renewed attention could help shape policy and smooth passage of legislation, analysts said.

"This highlights a core dilemma for the U.S. cyber strategy," Mulvenon said. "What can the U.S. government do to defend Google? Really not very much."

jessica.guynn@latimes.com
Times staff writer W.J. Hennigan contributed to this report.

Technorati Tags: China,Google,corporate espionage,economic espionage,human rights activists,computer hacking

JAPAN: See Japan – without breaking the bank

Sunday, 17 January 2010

This intriguing country is renowned for being expensive. Susie Rushton tries out a new 'Price Cruncher' tour that could put it within your reach

 

Matsumoto Castle: 'Five tiers of beautiful blackish wooden pagoda, reflected in koi carp-filled waters'

Horrid slimy things, mushrooms. I've never liked them. So I'm not tempted by a box of three pale brown fungi on sale at a stall in Kyoto's food market.

That's just as well, because they cost 37,000 yen, or about £250. Fans of Japan often say its reputation for emptying a tourist's wallet faster than you can say "konnichiwa" is exaggerated. What's certainly true is that if you spend a lot in this land of high design, delicate aesthetics and unfailingly polite service, you're spoilt silly.

About Y25,000 (£169) buys a night at a top ryokan, a traditional inn where pampered guests can gaze out at bonsai gardens from the comfort of a private bathtub. There's no limit to luxury here. There are more three-star Michelin restaurants in Tokyo than any other city. Bullet trains are stupidly fast, punctual, clean – sexy, even. Your fellow travellers disport themselves without jostling or eating smelly food, meaning you can actually enjoy the journey. But a regular return fare from Tokyo to Kyoto on the fastest Shinkansen service, the 180mph Nozomi Super Express, will also tear Y27,040 (£182) from your purse.

So, my challenge was to take a two-week trip around the big-ticket sights of Honshu, seeing Tokyo and Kyoto, plus some of the prettier places in the "Japanese Alps" – keeping to about Y10,000 (about £67) each a day. It wasn't a shoestring; my days of sleeping in dorms are over. I've been to Japan twice before, on business, but this time I wanted to see more; my boyfriend had never been but had learnt some Japanese and was keen to try it out. Our plan was to sleep in cheaper, chain business hotels and budget ryokan. We'd use buses and local trains but we still wanted to eat decently, buy small souvenirs and experience some only-in-Japan moments.

The solution was a new self-guided tour offered by Inside Japan, which would pre-book accommodation and travel. The "Price Cruncher" tour also meant we knew how much the trip would cost: the only variables would be food and spending money.

We start in Tokyo, regularly at the top of any "most expensive city" charts. But there are plenty of free amusements: a 6am visit to the Tsukiji fish market; walking in the Imperial Palace Gardens; watching sumo wrestlers practise; and the view from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, Shinjuku.

Living frugally can't keep me from touring the city's ritzy department stores and gleaming malls. But, like lots of Tokyoites right now, we just look. It's easy not to buy clothes when your giant limbs would split Japanese XL sizes at the seams. The gourmet shops in department-store basements are harder to resist.

I soon give in to the call of consumerism, but keep purchases small – not the latest micro-camera, but what I'll call "cuteware". The country's unofficial religion is still the worship of all things kawai (cute), and for a few pounds you can load up on Miffy calendars, stickers, fun-fur ashtrays, glittery hair clips, and strapus (the mini toys that dangle from every mobile phone). Recession has meant good times for the 100-yen shops, which trade in cheap knick-knacks, household essentials and sometimes food.

Tokyo's subway system requires concentration to navigate (with the help of an English-language map), but it's affordable. We buy pre-paid Pasmo cards and load them with credits, although unlike London's Oyster system there's no saving on the standard ticket. Expect to spend about Y1,200 (£8) a day for about six journeys.

After four jet-lagged, beer-soaked nights in Tokyo, we're wrung out, so we head to the mountain resort of Hakone on the Odakyu Highway Bus (Y1,850, or £12.50), which is, they say, a great way to see Mount Fuji. (It's hidden in mist when I travel, so I'll take their word for it.)

The next morning, to get to Kyoto, we take the bullet train – the most expensive leg of the trip at Y6,000 (£40) for a reserved seat – and savour the journey. It'll be coaches and local transport from now on.

Hidden away at edges of the city, the antique pavilions, Zen gardens and pagoda architecture are captivating – but entry tickets average at Y500. We search out less popular sites, which are not only more peaceful but cheap, or even free. The best is a sprawling compound of Zen temples called Daitokuji. Here, the minuscule ryogen is a perfect jewel of five dry gardens, each about the size of a tiny city roof terrace, and each symbolising with moss or rock or gravel a lovely, if obtuse, piece of Buddhist philosophy. Entry costs a mere Y300 (£2), and it is deserted.

Kyoto's gardens require lots of walking, and, for me, that takes caffeine. Blowing Y400 (£2.70) at Starbucks is out, so I get familiar with the vending machines on every corner.

I had thought a formal Japanese tea ceremony was out of reach until I hear about a place in the small town of Uji, just south of Kyoto. Here, in a tea house next to the tourist office (where you buy the ticket), is supposedly the cheapest tea ceremony in Japan. The hot, fluffy, bright green liquid you drink at the end of cha-no-yu, or "way of the tea", isn't the point, of course. We're offered a place to kneel, while two ladies in brocade kimonos and elaborate hair split duties: one heats the water on a brazier and whisks the tea; the other kneels behind her, keeping one eye on her technique, while also making stilted conversation. It's like visiting a great aunt, but the tea ceremony is a showcase of traditional Japanese etiquette. At 20 minutes and just Y500 (less than £3.50), this was short order compared with the average Kyoto experience (45 minutes or longer, for Y2,000, or £13.40).

Back in modern Japan, eating fast, furious and cheaply isn't a problem. At lunch, restaurants offer a cheaper set menu. We slurp in noodle restaurants, where a big bowl of thick udon noodles in hearty soup stock are layered with slices of pork, just Y850, less than £6, in an Ebisu branch of the hip noodle chain Ippudo.

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants with colour-coded plates helps avoid shocking bills, though you'll watch the priciest dishes glide by. Bento boxes are cheap and easy to select; okonomiyaki, an omelette filled with sliced cabbage, or noodles, with egg, slices of beef or fish, is yours for Y750 (about a fiver). Our favourite frugal dinner is yakitori, chicken skewers cooked to order as you sit facing the grill.

A step up from McDonald's, places such as Jonathan's, Royal Host and Yoshinoya are the equivalent to Pizza Hut, with a Japanese level of service and quality. My favourite is the "Italian" chain Saizeria: portions are modest but the flavours are decent and the picture menus are easy to use. A bowl of penne all'arrabiata and a glass of drinkable French red wine is Y600 (£4).

Two hours and 20 minutes from Kyoto on the limited express train (Y6,800 or £46) is the coastal town of Kanazawa, with famous ornamental gardens and a sleek new contemporary art museum. We spend the afternoon in the "Ninja Temple", a castle of tricks with hidden staircases and sliding doors designed to confuse invading enemies. The price is rather sly, too, at Y800 each, and by now the budget's getting tight so we start hanging out in games arcades; bigger places have their own "maid cafés". Sadly, nowhere do I find a budget karaoke venue to parrot my favourite Eighties' hits – the ubiquitous chain Big Echo charges Y2,000 (about £13.50) per hour. Too expensive.

The end of our frugal tour rounds the mountains west of Tokyo, through Takayama, home to Hida beef, which locals obviously hope can challenge Wagyu and Kobe varieties. Next day, in Matsumoto, two hours away by carefully driven coach (with filmic views of rusty autumn leaves), we spend the afternoon in the most beautiful castle I've ever seen. Five tiers of beautiful blackish wooden pagoda, reflected in koi carp-filled waters. On a war footing after a sturdy curry noodle lunch (Y525 a bowl), we march up the wooden steps inside the 16th-century keep with legions of school kids. Entry fee? A mere Y600 each (£4 – the Tower of London costs £16.50).

By the end of the fortnight, we meet our daily budget but the ruinous exchange rate didn't help. Our "self-guided" tour package gave us all the train and bus tickets beforehand and helped us sidestep expensive mistakes. A couple of practical tips: debit and credit cards are not as widely accepted here as in the UK, and post offices are the only place where foreign-issued cards work – so you need to carry cash. It's safe to do so, but the Y10,000 (£67) limit per transaction at a post office ATM means bank charges can tot up.

The Japanese have got used to living in recession, and there are bargains here – you just have to find them. I didn't feel like the Queen of Sheba, but everything I ate, drank and looked at offered amazing value – except for those mushrooms. They were definitely overpriced.

Compact Facts

How to get there

Susie Rushton was a guest of Inside Japan Tours (0117-314 4620; inside japantours.com). Its 13-night Price Cruncher trip costs £1,217 per person, based on two sharing, with five nights in Tokyo, one in Hakone, three in Kyoto, one in Kanazawa, two in Takayama, and one in Matsumoto, plus all breakfasts, one dinner and all transfers. A seven-night version costs from £600. Japan Airlines (0845 774 7700; uk.jal.com) offers daily flights from London to Tokyo from £589.

Further Information

Japan National Tourism Organisation (jnto.go.jp).

Original Article from The Independent

Technorati Tags: Japan,budget travel,Tokyo,Hakone,Kyoto,Kanazawa,Takayama

OP-ED: What’s Our Sputnik?

Published: January 16, 2010

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Taipei, Taiwan

Dick Cheney says President Obama is “trying to pretend that we are not at war” with terrorists. There is only one thing I have to say about that: I sure hope so.

Frankly, if I had my wish, we would be on our way out of Afghanistan not in, we would be letting Pakistan figure out which Taliban they want to conspire with and which ones they want to fight, we would be letting Israelis and Palestinians figure out on their own how to make peace, we would be taking $100 billion out of the Pentagon budget to make us independent of imported oil — nothing would make us more secure — and we would be reducing the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden to exactly what he’s worth: 10 cents and an autographed picture of Dick Cheney.

Am I going isolationist? No, but visiting the greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations than my president, whose agenda can be derailed at any moment by a jihadist death cult using exploding underpants.

Could we just walk away? No, but we must change our emphasis. The “war on terrorists” has to begin by our challenging the people and leaders over there. If they’re not ready to take the lead, to speak out and fight the madness in their midst, for the future of their own societies, there is no way we can succeed. We’ll exhaust ourselves trying. We’d be better off just building a higher wall.

As the terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman noted in an essay in The Washington Post: “In the wake of the global financial crisis, Al Qaeda has stepped up a strategy of economic warfare. ‘We will bury you,’ Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev promised Americans 50 years ago. Today, Al Qaeda threatens: ‘We will bankrupt you.’ ” And they will.

Our presence, our oil dependence, our endless foreign aid in the Middle East have become huge enablers of bad governance there and massive escapes from responsibility and accountability by people who want to blame all their troubles on us. Let’s get out of the way and let the moderate majorities there, if they really exist, face their own enemies on their own. It is the only way they will move. We can be the wind at their backs, but we can’t be their sails. There is some hope for Iraq and Iran today because their moderates are fighting for themselves.

Has anyone noticed the most important peace breakthrough on the planet in the last two years? It’s right here: the new calm in the Strait of Taiwan.

For decades, this was considered the most dangerous place on earth, with Taiwan and China pointing missiles at each other on hair triggers. Well, over the past two years, China and Taiwan have reached a quiet rapprochement — on their own. No special envoys or shuttling secretaries of state. Yes, our Navy was a critical stabilizer. But they worked it out. They realized their own interdependence. The result: a new web of economic ties, direct flights and student exchanges.

A key reason is that Taiwan has no oil, no natural resources. It’s a barren rock with 23 million people who, through hard work, have amassed the fourth-largest foreign currency reserves in the world. They got rich digging inside themselves, unlocking their entrepreneurs, not digging for oil. They took responsibility. They got rich by asking: “How do I improve myself?” Not by declaring: “It’s all somebody else’s fault. Give me a handout.”

When I look at America from here, I worry. China is now our main economic partner and competitor. Sure, China has big problems. Nevertheless,

I hope Americans see China’s rise as the 21st-century equivalent of Russia launching the Sputnik satellite — a challenge to which we responded with a huge national effort that revived our education, infrastructure and science and propelled us for 50 years.

Unfortunately, the Cheneyites want to make fighting Al Qaeda our Sputnik. Others want us to worry about some loopy remark Senator Harry Reid made about the shade of Obama’s skin.

Well, what is our national project going to be? Racing China, chasing Al Qaeda or parsing Harry? Of course, to a degree, we need to both race China and confront Al Qaeda — but which will define us?

“Our response to Sputnik made us better educated, more productive, more technologically advanced and more ingenious,” said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. “Our investments in science and education spread throughout American society, producing the Internet, more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation.”

And what does the war on terror give us? Better drones, body scanners and a lot of desultory T.S.A. security jobs at airports. “Sputnik spurred us to build a highway to the future,” added Mandelbaum. “The war on terror is prompting us to build bridges to nowhere.”

We just keep thinking we can do it all — be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can’t. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the time.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 17, 2010, on page WK8 of the New York edition.

Link to the Original Article in The New York Times

Technorati Tags: US,China,Taiwan,Russia

JAPAN: Navy Ends Mission in Support of Afghan War

January 16, 2010

World Briefing | Asia

By MARTIN FACKLER

The defense minister ordered Japan’s ships to return from the Indian Ocean on Friday, fulfilling a government pledge to end an eight-year refueling mission in support of the war in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama refused to renew the law authorizing the mission, ignoring requests from the Obama administration to continue it as a show of support. Military experts have said the Japanese withdrawal would not affect military operations in Afghanistan.

View Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: Born in Japan, but ordered out

Sunday, January 17, 2010; A20

By Blaine Harden

TOKYO -- Fida Khan, a gangly 14-year-old, told the court that immigration authorities should not deport him and his family merely because his foreign-born parents lacked proper visas when they came to Japan more than 20 years ago.

Fida Khan, 14, faces deportation from Japan, although he was born there and speaks only Japanese. (Blaine Harden/the Washington Post)

During the past two decades, his Pakistani father and Filipino mother have held steady jobs, raised children, paid taxes and have never been in trouble with the law.

"I have the right to do my best to become a person who can contribute to this society," Fida told a Tokyo district court in Japanese, the only language he speaks.

But the court ruled last year that Fida has no right to stay in the country where he was born. Unless a higher court or the Minister of Justice intervenes, a deportation order will soon split the Khan family, sending the father, Waqar Hassan Khan, back to Pakistan, while dispatching Fida and his sister Fatima, 7, to the Philippines with their mother, Jennette.

Aggressive enforcement of Japanese immigration laws has increased in recent years as the country's economy has floundered and the need for cheap foreign labor has fallen.

Nationality in Japan is based on blood and parentage, not place of birth. This island nation was closed to the outside world until the 1850s, when U.S. warships forced it to open up to trade. Wariness of foreigners remains a potent political force, one that politicians dare not ignore, especially when the economy is weak.

As a result, the number of illegal immigrants has been slashed, often by deportation, from 300,000 in 1995 to just 130,000, a minuscule number in comparison to other rich countries. The United States, whose population is 2 1/2 times that of Japan's, has about 90 times as many illegal immigrants (11.6 million).

Among highly developed countries, Japan also ranks near the bottom in the percentage of legal foreign residents. Just 1.7 percent are foreign or foreign-born, compared with about 12 percent in the United States. Japan held a pivotal election last year and voters tossed out a party that had ruled for nearly 50 years. But the winner, the Democratic Party of Japan, has so far done nothing to alter immigration policy.

That policy, in a country running low on working-age people, is helping to push Japan off a demographic cliff. It already has fewer children and more elderly as a percentage of its population than any country in recorded history. If trends continue, the population of 127 million will shrink by a third in 50 years and by two-thirds in a century. By 2060, Japan will have two retirees for every three workers -- a ratio that will weaken and perhaps wreck pension and health-care systems.

These dismal numbers upset Masaki Tsuchiya, who manages a Tokyo welding company that for seven years has employed Waqar Khan.

"If Khan is deported, it will not be possible to find anyone like him, as many Japanese workers have lost their hungriness," said Tsuchiya, who has urged Japanese immigration officials to rescind the deportation order for the Khan family.

"When the Japanese population is declining, I believe our society has to think more seriously about immigration."

At the Ministry of Justice, immigration officials say they are simply carrying out rules politicians make. The rules, though, are not particularly precise. They grant wide leeway to bureaucrats to use their own discretion in deciding who stays and who gets deported. Last year, immigration officials granted "special permits" to 8,500 undocumented foreigners, with about 65 percent of them going to those who had married a Japanese citizen.

Exercising their discretion under the law, immigration authorities last year offered Noriko Calderon, 13, the wrenching choice of living with her parents or living in her homeland. The girl, who was born and educated in the Tokyo suburbs, could stay in Japan, the government ruled. But she had to say goodbye to her Filipino mother and father, who were deported after living illegally in Japan for 16 years. Following tearful goodbyes at a Tokyo airport, Noriko remained in Japan with an aunt.

Japan's growing need for working-age immigrants has not gone unnoticed by senior leaders in government and business. Slightly relaxed rules have admitted skilled professionals and guest workers. The number of legal foreign residents reached an all-time high of 2.2 million at the end of 2008, with Chinese accounting for the largest group, followed by Koreans, Brazilians (mostly of Japanese descent) and Filipinos.

Still, experts say these numbers are far too low to head off significant economic contraction. A group of 80 politicians said last year that the country needs 10 million immigrants by 2050. Japan's largest business federation called for 15 million, saying: "We cannot wait any longer to aggressively welcome necessary personnel."

Yet the treatment of foreign workers already in Japan is unpredictable. The government opened service centers last year to help foreign workers who lost their jobs to recession. For the first time, it offered them free language training, along with classes on social integration. As that program got underway, however, the government began giving money -- about $12,000 for a family of four -- to foreign workers, if they agreed to go home immediately and never come back to work.

The Khan family's troubles began two years, when a policeman nabbed Waqar Khan on his way home from work. He was detained for nine months. Police in Japan often stop foreign-looking people on the street and ask for residency documents.

The letter of the law was clearly against Khan and his wife. He had overstayed a 15-day tourist visa by 20 years. She came into the country on a forged passport.

But they have refused to sign deportation documents, arguing that although their papers are bad, their behavior as foreigners has been exemplary. Under Japanese law, foreigners are eligible to become naturalized citizens if they have lived in the country for more than five years, have good behavior and are self-sufficient.

The Khans also argue that their children, who regard themselves as Japanese, are assets for Japan. "It is a bit weird that the country needs children, but it is saying to us, go away," Khan said.

The family's lawyer, Gen'ichi Yamaguchi, has tried -- and so far failed -- to convince immigration officials and judges that the Khans are just the sort of hardworking, Japanese-speaking immigrants that the country should embrace for the sake of its own future.

"During the bubble years, the number of illegal workers increased a lot and the police looked the other way," Yamaguchi said. "Japan has always looked at immigrants as cheap but disposable labor."

An appeals court is scheduled to rule on the Khan case in the first week of February.

Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto contributed to this report.

Link to Original Article in The Washington Post

Technorati Tags: Japan,foreigners in Japan,immigration

CHINA: Solar Eclipse

Uploaded on: January 16, 2010

After a complete solar eclipse, Chinese observed an annular solar eclipse the beginning of this year. Many Youku paike enthusiastically contributed their footage. This was the most popular one which was taken in Tengchong, Yunnan Province.

CHINA: In China's Tiananmen Square, patriotism snaps in the wind

January 16, 2010

By John M. Glionna and Lily Kuo

The daily flag-handling ceremony in the vast space is a stirring moment for Chinese tourists -- and a sometimes weird, unsettling one for foreigners.

Chinese officers raise the flag at dawn at Tiananmen Square. It is taken down each day at dusk. Out-of-towners flock to watch the ceremony; on national holidays the crowds swell

to thousands. (Andy Wong / Associated Press / June 3, 2008)

 

Reporting from Beijing - Lou Hongfei is playing tour guide. His girlfriend has just arrived in the capital from the provincial city of Chongqing and he wants to show her the urban wonders of Beijing.

So he has brought her to Tiananmen Square for a patriotic experience many Chinese tourists liken to the thrill of walking the Great Wall or viewing the terra cotta warriors: the quiet majesty of the flag-handling ceremony in one of the world's largest public spaces.

Twice a day, out-of-towners flock to the square's imposing expanse of concrete to watch the soldiers tend to China's iconic flag -- red with five yellow stars -- as it is unfurled at dawn and calmly taken down at dusk.

On national holidays, tens of thousands congregate to watch the ceremony. "For us," Lou says, "that flag symbolizes hundreds of years of Chinese history."

The event is akin to such tourist attractions as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Old Faithful's eruptions in Yellowstone or the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square.
"It's right up there with all the other top attractions of Beijing," says Michael Sichter, a U.S. law school student watching the ceremony. "It's just a cool touristy thing to do."

For the Chinese, the pageant is as patriotically intimate as a sun-splashed Fourth of July in the American heartland, a moment that brings a lump to their throats.

Zhou, a 40-year-old manufacturing employee who didn't give his first name, has brought his wife and young daughter to the square with about 1,000 others, stamping their feet in the 18-degree late-December chill.

Flanked by the Great Hall of the People and the mausoleum where Mao Tse-tung's body lies in state, Zhou revels in the unlikely sense of rural vastness afforded by the urban space. As someone shouts "It's starting! It's starting!" he lifts his daughter to his shoulders, teasing, "You're too heavy!"

The square suddenly becomes quiet as two columns of white-gloved soldiers, ceremonial white rifles raised, goose-step the perimeter of the towering flagpole.

Rush-hour traffic on the adjacent Avenue of Eternal Peace halts as many soldiers place their hands on their hearts. Then, with precise jerks, two soldiers lower the wavering banner. They don't fold it, but wrap it around a staff. The crowd murmurs. Fezia Tyebawly and friend Adnan Asgerali, tourists from Singapore, aren't sure what to make of the nationalistic show in a square many foreigners associate with the government's bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

They wince at being photographed by two men in dark jackets who they're convinced are state security guards. They see a Chinese woman mysteriously stuffed into a patrol car and driven away after she raises her voice to shout some muffled objection.

"That was so weird," Tyebawly whispers. "I thought, 'Should we even be here?' "

They only relax when a Chinese man asks Tyebawly to take his picture. He then drops on one knee and proposes to his date. The marriage proposal, many Chinese believe, is just part of the magic of the flag ceremony.

As quickly as they appeared, the soldiers march away. The flag is gone. Traffic resumes.

Almost immediately, the souvenir vendors move in to hawk Communist Party buttons and hats. They are soon joined by a platoon of police cars, megaphones blaring.

"Dear visitors," a message plays in Chinese and English, "Tiananmen Square is now closing. Please collect your things. Thank you for your understanding."

john.glionna@latimes.com
Kuo is a special correspondent.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

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JAPAN: Japanese Authorities Arrest Ozawa Associates

JANUARY 16, 2010, 5:03 A.M. ET

By YUKA HAYASHI

TOKYO -- Authorities arrested a member of parliament and close associate of Ichiro Ozawa, a top ruling party official, on suspicion of violating political-funds rules, a development that could seriously hurt the popularity of Tokyo's new center-left government.

Tomohiro Ishikawa, The Democratic Party of Japan, taken from taken from www.dpj.or.jp

As a probe into Mr. Ozawa's fund raising activity widens rapidly, Tomohiro Ishikawa, a 36-year-old lower house member from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan was arrested and taken to a Tokyo jail by a special investigations unit of the Tokyo District Prosecutors' Office late Friday, according to Japanese media reports.

Mr. Ishikawa, a protégé of Mr. Ozawa since becoming his personal secretary while still in college, served as a caretaker of his fund-raising organization in 2004, when alleged irregularities in its financial records first appeared.

Also arrested was a 32-year-old former aide to Mr. Ozawa who

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took over Mr. Ishikawa's job at the fund-raising entity.

Officials for the prosecutors' office and Mr. Ishikawa's office weren't available for comment due to the late hour.

Japanese television networks showed footage of vans reportedly carrying Mr. Ishikawa to a Tokyo jail.

The news of the rare arrest of a current member of parliament is another blow to the waning popular support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's four-month-old government, which has already suffered from the prime minister's own political-funds scandal. The government's approval rating fell to 48% in late December, compared to 71% when he took office in September, according to a poll by the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun in late December.

According to Japanese media reports, prosecutors say Mr. Ozawa's organization failed to properly record the sources of funds used to purchase a piece of land in Tokyo for 400 million yen ($4.4 million) in 2004 for the purpose of building a staff dormitory.

Mr. Ozawa denied the allegations.

Mr. Hatoyama and DPJ politicians have stood behind Mr. Ozawa, a revered party elder whose election strategies led the party to a landslide victory in national elections last August.

Link to Original Article in The Wall Street Journal

JAPAN: JAL, Delta reach deal over tie-up: report

(AFP) – 15 hours ago

TOKYO — Japan Airlines has reached an agreement on a tie-up with Delta Air Lines as the troubled Japanese carrier readies for a court-led rehabilitation, according to a newspaper.

The two companies are likely officially to sign the deal, which will allow them to run code-share flights, as soon as JAL's new management endorses it, the Yomiuri Shimbun said on Saturday, quoting company sources.

The agreement means Asia's biggest airline will switch from the Oneworld alliance to the SkyTeam group, to which Delta belongs.

JAL and Delta will ask US authorities for antitrust immunity by mid-February, the paper said. If the request is accepted, the two firms will be able to run combined flights over their Pacific routes in what amounts to business integration.

The report came after American Airlines and its partners lifted their proposed investment in JAL to 1.4 billion dollars, from a previous offer of 1.1 billion dollars in a bidding war with rival Delta for a stake in JAL.

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On Friday, Japan's government said it would announce a restructuring package for JAL on January 19, when the troubled carrier is widely expected to file for bankruptcy protection.

JAL is believed to be on the verge of seeking court protection from creditors and delisting its shares from the Tokyo Stock Exchange to make it easier to restructure its debt and slash costs.

JAL, which lost about 1.5 billion dollars in the six months to September, is seeking public aid in the face of mounting debts. JAL is reportedly set to slash more than 15,000 jobs and sell non-core assets such as hotels.