Kurashi - News From Japan

1976 Nobel Peace Price winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire from Northern Ireland expresses her views about Japan's Peace Constitution. There is much more on Youtube . Who is Mairead Corrigan Maguire ? Corrigan was born into a Roman Catholic family in Belfast, the second child of seven. She attended Catholic schools until the age of 14. Corrigan became active with the peace movement after three children of her sister, Anne Maguire, were run over and killed by a car driven by Danny Lennon, an Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) man who was fatally shot by British troops while trying to make a getaway. Betty Williams, had witnessed the event, and soon after the two co-founded Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People. By the end of the month Williams and Corrigan brought 35,000 people onto the streets of Belfast petitioning for peace between the republican and loyalist factions. She believed the most effective way to end the violence was not violence but re-e...

With Kyuuto.

Thousands of Korean residents held a candlelight rally at the plaza in front of the Cheonggye stream in central Seoul, Friday. Korean consumers are opposed to the full opening of the market to American beef, due to concerns about mad cow disease. Some 600,000 people have signed the petition on Daum, one of the largest Internet portal sites in Korea. Update: The protests in Seoul are continuing today on Saturday, turning into a manifestation against the current president, Lee Myung-bak, jokingly called "2MB" as a reference to his short memory. Seems president Lee got to meet president Bush at Camp David in return for reopening the Korean beef market. Not a particularly bright idea: Koreans are very sensitive about their sovereignty. In November, 2006 I met some of the leaders of this anti-US beef campaign: they know a lot about the problems with cattle in the US. As I wrote back then: Dr. Mike Hansen from the U.S. Consumers Union had a lot to say about the situatio...

Today is May 1, and Japan's gasoline prices just shot up by 34 Yen, as the government reinstated its "temporary" taxes, that have been in place since the 1970s. Some 5,000 road construction projects can now resume (in addition to free taxi trips for certain government officials, and massage chairs, and other perks). Other bloggers have gone to great length to explain the politics behind it, especially Shisaku and Ampontan . An Asahi Shimbun survey found 63 percent of the respondents opposing the legislative action to restore the taxes, while 58 percent said they supported the idea of shifting the road-financing taxes into the general revenue pot, rather than just construction projects. Well, as much as I support higher taxes on gasoline, clearly it is time for Japan's government to make sure that the revenue goes to environmental and welfare projects to an increasing degree, rather than huge highways in the countryside. An environmental tax would also be more in lin...

Thanks everyone who participated in my poll about how much organic food you eat. Great to see that more than half of my readers are eating more healthy, sustainably grown foods. Five people replied that they don't care. Should you? Well, if you want to avoid residues of hazardous pesticides, and help improve conditions for livestock, then my answer is "yes". Rivers and lakes near farms would benefit, since less fertilizer would be introduced into the environment. Organic certification also means you get to avoid genetically modified foods, that are promoted by the same multi-national chemical companies that sell the poisons the GMO crops are designed to tolerate (with patents that make it impossible for farmers to save seed). As for meat and fish, it can be tricky to find organic products, but the benefits are huge. No antibiotics are used, which means less risk that you will catch harmful multi-resistant bacteria. No growth hormones are used, which is obviously a more s...

From King Features Earth Day 2008 , where they have a lot more goodies. BTW, Blondie was always my dad's favourite comic. I think he still reads it every day. Absolutely ;)

My friends at greenz.jp are involved in a number of projects, including Green Week . It is a campaign to coincide with Golden Week, the long holiday starting this week. They got the support from former environment minister Yuriko Koike, as well as other celebrities. Some of the events to be held from May 2 include (of course) a green party, rice-planting with Tanemaki (billed as eco tourism, but - hint, hint - planting rice is hard work!) and a city gardening project to create a "green curtain" before summer (to reduce the heat wave). Tanemaki also has an ambitious project this summer to gather 1000 people as part of their Soybean Revolution, to increase domestic soy production in Japan, in the hope that society will change if people sow seeds. It is a long train ride from Tokyo to their fertile fields in eastern Chiba. Everyone is welcome: bring your best rubber boots, or enjoy feeling the warm, living soil under your bare feet. Update: I found their Picasa photoalbum from...