Daily Japan Headlines: Saturday, May 28, 2011

Written By: guyjin on May 28, 2011 No Comment

20110528

Telegraph Video: Tokyo zoo shows off newborn cheetah cubs

The six-week-old cheetahs drew hundreds of visitors from the first hour they went of show to the public.
The zoo said it hoped the cheetah cubs would provide some much needed good news amid the chaos of the last couple of months as the country attempts to recover from the devasation caused by the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radiation leak.

Video after the jump.

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ABC News: AP Exclusive: Fukushima Tsunami Plan a Single Page

TEPCO’s memo was titled “The Assessment of Effects Related to the Japan Society of Civil Engineers’ ‘Guidelines on Tsunami Assessment for Nuclear Power Plants’ — Fukushima Dai-ichi and Daini Nuclear Power Plants.”
The company said it used measures for expected earthquakes and other “parameters” to calculate that water would not surpass 5.7 meters (18.7 feet) at Fukushima Dai-ichi.
The waters set off by the March tsunami reached 14 meters (46 feet) above sea level, according to TEPCO.
One big reason for the underestimate: TEPCO’s experts asserted that the biggest earthquake that the nearest fault could produce was 8.6 magnitude. At a 9.0 magnitude, the quake that struck was four times more powerful than that.

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Forbes: Did Management Problems at TEPCO Cause Japan’s $15B Radiation Leak?

The tragedy highlights the fact that major corporations have a responsibility to engage in rigorous risk management. TEPCO, after all, couldn’t have predicted that the tsunami would hit, but it could have been better prepared for such an event to take place. In recent years outside experts had warned that TEPCO’s nuclear facility was dangerously at risk of being damaged by even a mid-sized tsunami. Unfortunately, maybe in part because of the absence of independent board members and risk experts at the company’s top level, TEPCO never implemented strong risk control measures. In any case, the TEPCO disaster shows that risk management matters, and highlights why good corporate governance is important.

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Fox Business: Japan Kaieda Calls For Government Probe Of Tepco’s New Version Of Key Event

Japan’s industry minister said Friday he was “stunned” by the revised account given by the operator of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and called for a government probe as confusion surrounding a key event has raised questions about the government’s control over stabilization operations at the plant.
“We need to find out why a different account was provided to the government,” industry minister Banri Kaieda told reporters. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano also expressed frustration over the incident, saying “it was extremely regrettable.”

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Reuters: Japan fiscal adjustment plan too leisurely: Fitch

Andrew Colquhoun, head of Fitch’s Asia-Pacific Sovereigns team, told Reuters Insider television that Japan’s plan, detailed last June and due to be updated next month, aimed to stabilize its general government debt to gross domestic product ratio by 2020.
“If you look at some of the plans that some other high-grade sovereigns have come up with, that’s pretty leisurely, particularly given the high starting level of the debt,” he said.
Public debt is already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy, the heaviest burden among industrialized economies, and is set to swell further as the government deals with the cost of the disasters.

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Bloomberg: Japan Land Values Fall at More Sites Following Earthquake

Values fell at 98 of 146 locations throughout Japan in the three months ended April 1, according to a survey by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism today. The survey excluded three sites in Sendai and one in Urayasu that were “directly affected by the quake,” it said.

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Bloomberg: Japan Should Stop Building Skyscrapers After Quake, Mori Says

Mori, Japan’s third-richest person, said the government should consider setting a standard height for new buildings at about 100 meters (328 feet), a level for so-called base- isolation systems that shift and reduce the energy of quakes to work best. An increase in tenants’ preference for office space on lower floors may also make taller buildings less attractive, he said.

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NPR: Of War And Kisses: How Adversity Shapes Culture

Countries tend to have personalities just like people do. Researchers have set out to define those differences, using a scale that measures how tight the social rules and standards are. They find that cultural rules — as simple as when and where it’s appropriate to kiss — are often shaped by a nation’s experience with war, disease and other challenges.
Cultures all squeezed together, like in Japan, have a strong incentive to be cooperative.

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ABC News: Bluefin Tuna Escapes Endangered Species List

The bluefin tuna has escaped being placed on the endangered species list, but the majestic fish prized by sushi lovers will be listed as a “species of concern” by the federal agency that oversees America’s fisheries.
The U.S. accounts for about 5 percent of the global bluefin harvest, with more than half the catch being exported, she said. Most of the catch goes to Japan, where a single large fish can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

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