Kurashi - News From Japan

According to The Inquirer , The United Nations Commission on Human Rights is backing the Philippine campaign against international milk formula companies. These are the companies that sell so-called infant formula (ever wondered what that is really made of?) and spend massive amounts on advertising, to get young mothers to buy the stuff. Jean Ziegler, the commission’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food has written to congratulate the Philippine government’s effort in the face of “increasing internal pressures.” She cited the revised implementing rules and regulations of the new Milk Code, which has been under attack from the US Chamber of Commerce (pdf) and foreign companies, such as Wyeth and Nestlé. Baby Milk Action , the NGO supporting breast feeding, also has updates on the murder of Assistant Solicitor General Nestor J. Ballocillo, the lawyer who worked on introducing the breast feeding code in the Philippines. Photos from a demonstration and a press release can be found he...

Japan for Sustainability makes really great websites, also for kids. Their latest deals with food (one of my favourite topics!) so of course I'm happy to share it with you: Kids, create your future Let me know if it is useful - if you are a teacher, for example, or if you have kids or grandchildren :)

Mainichi says Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa has apologized for calling women "birth-giving machines." He now thinks the description was "too uncivil," and has retracted the remarks. Yanagisawa made the gaffe while giving a speech on Japan's declining birthrate on Saturday. His quirky comment was also picked up by the BBC . Update: Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the opposition Social Democratic Party, called Sunday for Yanagisawa to step down. "I demand the resignation of the welfare minister because he made awful remarks that he should have never made," she said. Fukushima is currently the only female leader among the major parties. She told The Asahi Shimbun that women are not merely machines for producing future sources of revenue for the pension program. "Yanagisawa's remarks were tantamount to telling women to give birth for the nation," Fukushima said. Yukio Hatoyama, secretary-general of the main oppo...

This is a great clip with a full orchestra performing John Cage's famous piece called 4'33'' . I had never actually heard it (or seen it) so this YouTube video made me very happy. It is stunning. BBC Four is ecstatic at the end! John Cage put his Zen Buddhist beliefs into practice through music. His favorite Japanese Zen Buddhist saying was Nichi nichi kore ko nichi -Every day is a good day. Cage’s discovery of Taoism and ultimately Zen Buddhism, introduced to him by the Japanese scholar DT Suzuki, had a great effect on him. Wikipedia has more details. Cage visited Japan several times, to meet DT Suzuki, and his An Autobiographical Statement was written for the Inamori Foundation and delivered in Kyoto as a commemorative lecture when he received the Kyoto Prize in November 1989. PBS made a documentary about John Cage with clips as part of its American Masters series. Enjoy the silence.

NHK, Japan's broadcasting corporation, is putting a series of videos about the ongoing Tuna conference in Kobe on its website. Click on the players at the NHK Feature column. Update: IHT says a plan to slow the decline in tuna catches was adopted on Friday, while NHK notes that the plan is non-binding. Was that the best they could do? Kobe Tuna Meeting previous

I am following the news from the tuna meeting in Kobe. Kyodo reports that they will agree to evaluate the world's five tuna conservation bodies. Five different systems? No wonder tuna stocks are diminishing: As the meeting ran into a second day, the five bodies, gathering together for the first time, studied the differences in their historical backgrounds and past achievements in ensuring the sustainable use of the world's tuna stocks, which have increasingly fallen prey to overfishing. Reuters has better reporting, quoting WWF officials who called the gathering an important first step but said regulators needed to set quotas based on scientific data and combat illegal fishing: "For the first time, there's a general agreement by the governments that something significant has to be done," said Alistair Graham, High Seas Advisor for WWF International. "One of the key decisions they have to make is to stop ignoring scientific data and to put in place catch lim...

Kansai Telecasting Corp. (KTV) on Sunday night aired an apology for a program that falsely claimed natto, fermented soybeans, helps people lose weight, according to Mainichi : KTV's show, "Hakkutsu! Aru Aru Daijiten II," was aired on Jan. 7 and promoted the health benefits of eating natto. In a bid to show natto's potential to help people lose weight, the program used photographs of people who were actually not on a natto diet. It also fabricated some of comments from a professor in the United States. Fictitious data were also aired during the program. "We regret that it betrayed viewers' trust in us," an announcer said during the special apology aired on Sunday night. Obviously, natto producers are rather miffed ... Reuters takes the entire affair very seriously, and listed the news on its "World Crises" page!