Kurashi - News From Japan

Unbelievable, but then again, just what you'd expect :) It was revealed by a whistle-blower, which I find interesting, but not much has been said about that. The Mainichi is properly shocked: A scandal involving money and politics has once again rocked the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Akira Amari, minister in charge of economic revitalization, has stepped down over allegations that he and one of his secretaries received cash from a construction company official in return for doing the firm a favor. The resignation of a Cabinet minister playing a leading role in promoting the prime minister's "Abenomics" policy mix and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact has dealt a serious blow to the Abe administration. At a news conference on Jan. 28, Amari admitted that he had accepted cash on two occasions and that his secretary received 3 million yen in secret donations. As such, it is only natural that Amari has stepped down a...

NHK, also recently known as the "Abe Channel" said today that the Prime Minister "was speaking at a conference of an international environmental NGO in Tokyo on Thursday." NHK World: Abe: Japan will do its best for climate agreement But NHK World would not tell us what NGO that was, so I did a search. Neither google nor yahoo had any hints about a major NGO conference on October 15, 2015, so I went to the home page of the PM, and on its Japanese website (not very international) there was a note about today's event, ＧＥＡ国際会議２０１５ (J). So I searched for that. And found nothing, neither in Japanese nor in English, nothing about today's "international" event. Turns out, the "international environmental NGO" is an affiliate of the Japanese government, here: Global Environmental Action (E). Among its "Membership Companies" you get Mitsui and Mitsubishi. "Supporting Members" are Tokyo Gas and TEPCO. Here is th...

If you follow car news, or wonder about the future of mobility - and/or care about the air we breathe, well, then you must have noticed that Volkswagen was caught on September 3 by the biggest story ever. Diesel cars use engines that are pretty powerful on less fuel compared to gasoline, but they also have more emissions of CO2 and worse, the Nitrogen compounds known as NOx. These combine on hot summer days to form smog and ozone and really bad stuff that will actually kill people. So for a long time, diesel has had a bad rap, so to speak. Then car manufacturers tried to remedy that by introducing all kinds of systems to clean the exhaust. Except, due to the terrific work by a small NGO in the US with just a staff of 25 or so people, it was revealed that Volkswagen had put a computer program algorithm in its engines, that could detect if the car was being tested or not. In other words, if a test was going on, switch on the system to clean up the exhaust, and emit less NOx and o...

Again, a food scandal involving unsanitary practices at a major meat processing company. It happens everywhere, not only in China, but this time, the ramifications are huge for the cheap meat/fast food retailers like McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Starbucks and even FamilyMart in Japan and others around the world. First, it was thought that the Husi company in Shanghai only supplied local Chinese outlets with hamburgers and chicken products. Quickly, on Tuesday we learnt that here in Japan, McDonald's and FamilyMart (Sankei, J) use the same supplier. So much for consumer choice in the 21th century. Economists tell us we will get more and more at lower prices, while what consumers get is just more of the same, and the only way we know how it is produced is when whistle-blowers reveal the outrageous conditions. Plus, we get all that fun and bright advertising, of course. Which we pay for, indirectly, but still. This case started to unravel as a clever and courageous...

I'm not sure why these issues keep coming back again and again. Why all kinds of scientific papers are being published without proper guidance and control and peer review. Seems to me it points to some more fundamental problem. I blogged about the South Korean cloning scandal ( Dr. Hwang ) and now we see the same thing happen again in Japan? This time it is another claim that genetically engineered stem cells can cure all kinds of genetic diseases. Did these people not learn a thing? Sorry, we do not believe you. You use genetically modified animals for your studies: mice that have been transmogrified to develop cancer more easily and rapidly for your research purposes. Most people are kept in the dark about their suffering, but you push on, funded by tax payers - and then you don't even take sufficient care to NOT fake images and make claims, just to get published? And you patent your methods, clearly in order to make profits, rather than create benefits for societ...

My take on the recent WikiLeaks release of details about TPP is up on Japan Focus: WikiLeaks and the Release of the Environment Report WikiLeaks has done it again – made available important documents that governments and corporate interests have tried to keep secret from the general public. Until this new release, we had almost no idea what was going on within the secret Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations involving an extraordinarily diverse group of 12 large and small as well as rich and poor nations of East and Southeast Asia, Australasia, and North and South America. The twelve are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United State and Vietnam, with the US driving the agenda. South Korea and Taiwan have also indicated that they may want to join. This time, we get a glimpse of the status of the Environment Chapter with important implications for the people and nature of the region. In this cartoon accompanying the ...

If you follow Democracy Now! you will be interested in the one day seminar at Sophia University in Tokyo on Saturday, featuring Amy Goodman and Colin Crouch as speakers. More information here . A day-long symposium hosted by the Institute for Global Concern, Sophia University. Doors open 9:30 am, program from 10 am–17:45. Featuring keynote addresses by Amy Goodman and Colin Crouch. Event is free, but pre-registration is required, as seating is limited. To register, or for more information, call or email: Phone: 03-3238-3023 (Institute of Global Concern, Sophia University) email: 33rd.symposium.igc@gmail.com please cc: all email registration requests to denis@democracynow.org It has been an interesting week for those who follow the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations as Wikileaks managed to get hold of and share important documents related to the Environment Chapter. Still massive disagreement among the 12 countries that are trying to seal this anti-democrati...

There is a Japanese expression that I was reminded of at the beginning of the year, which I liked. 傍目八目 or 岡目八目 (oka-me-hachi-moku) My dictionaries give me "Bystander's vantage point" or something related to watching a game of go, and as such, it is much easier to see the game unfolding some eight steps ahead, as it where. "Observing objectively" comes some way to explain the expression, although that is neither here nor there. I blog here at Kurashi with some ideas of what I like and what I do not like. I am obviously just a bystander, but after some time in Japan, I am also a player. I do wish the best to all people, and try to put my finger on what are the right steps to take, as we all plod ahead. So when I see news that Japan is about to enter a trade agreement that gives no regard to this country's amazing agricultural heritage, just for a few people to export more cars, and whatever, I find that so shortsighted. When I see the mass media pla...

Finally we have a solid translation of the classic story, The Crab Cannery Ship, by Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933) translated by Zeljko Cipris, with an introduction by Komori Yoichi, published by the University of Hawai'i Press. Do find it in your local bookshop or on the Internet. Plus two additional short stories published in English for the first time, Yasuko and Life of a Party Member. Look Inside (Amazon) Mark Schilling explains : Why does a novel about exploited workers on a crab cannery boat, published 80 years ago by a young communist writer, later tortured to death by the police, become a hot movie property now? The program for “Kani Kosen” (“The Crab Cannery Boat”) explains that a store poster, inspired by Takiji Kobayashi’s eponymous novel, became a media sensation last year and, before you could say “bubble,” indie veteran Sabu scripted and directed a film. “Kani Kosen,” however, is not another pop culture throwaway, made to capitalize on a fad. It is also n...

Activists from northern Finland are in Japan to convey the message that Finnish people do not want a Toshiba nuclear reactor in their neighborhood. Hanna Halmeenpää from Pro Hanhikivi has visited Fukushima Prefecture and is now in Tokyo to talk to anti-nuclear activists and I had the pleasure of meeting her and help interpret for her team. A mother of three, she was rudely awoken by a newspaper article that there would be a nuclear plant in the Baltic Sea nature reserve called Hanhikivi - on her doorstep, literally. This is a beautiful cape that turns out to be host to a large number of migratory birds, a location for breeding birds, and unique natural beauty. E.On, the German energy giant soon found out that they had dropped this project on the wrong doorstep. Through lawsuits, going to Brussels and arguing the case that this is a protected Natura 2000 area, and by an amazing amount of enthusiasm, Hanna and others managed to at least bring the project to a temporary halt. E.On ha...

  The debate about the Trans-Pacific Partnership just got a little bit more huffy  (cool adjective I just invented) as The Huffington Post leaked links to  documents that US trade negotiators have tried to keep away from the public eye  that were released by Public Citizen.   And of course, the same is true for every other country that joins the TPP. The international  tribunal will be able to overrule any national legislation that is not in line with the TPP rules. Forget about national legislation, that is so old-school. Democracy? I don't think so.   Say your country has environmental laws and consumer protection rules, that are not so much appreciated by some multinational corporation, be it chemicals, energy, cars, food, or medicines.   The Trans-Pacific deal has Intellectual Property (IP) provision rules that would prevent the development of useful new products in the technology space, blocking the release of new products. If n...

I was recently made aware of a documentary film about matters I care a lot about. Such as food, health, agriculture, welfare. Also about the economy. Are the top pharmaceutical companies, that are obviously also involved in biotechnology, and GMOs, and what not, also making the same substances that may give us all, or at least 1/3 of us, cancer? That is the concept behind Idiot Cycle . A documentary by Emmanuelle Schick Garcia. Seems Google is not very fond of this film. Also, I'm told they couldn't get the insurance that is needed to show it on TV in North America. Scary, as "freedom of speech" is something we all care a lot about, right? I'll be complete honest and say that I don't like the image of the dead lab rat that they have chosen for the film's poster. Yes, millions of lab rats are killed for research, I don't like it but that is considered as normal, and no one seems to care. I don't understand why not, but that is reality. Mi...