Daily Japan Headlines: Monday, Aug 1, 2011
Photo Source: Wall Street Journal.
Wall Street Journal: Seoul Blocks Contested Japanese Lawmakers Visit at Airport
Three Japanese lawmakers were denied entrance to South Korea upon touching down at Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport on Monday as Korean officials blocked their controversial plans to visit an island close to a territorial disputed area known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan.
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Wall Street Journal: Japan Agency in New Storm
Chubu Electric Power Co. in central Japan, said it had been asked by NISA to bring people to a public symposium in 2007 and to give them supportive questions they could ask. Chubu Electric said it encouraged its people to attend but did not supply questions because it considered it inappropriate.
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Reuters: What’s going on at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant?
Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the owner of the quake and tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant, said on Monday it had successfully begun to cool one of two spent fuel pools that were still considered unstable.
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New York Times: Doubting Assurances, Japanese Find Radioactivity on Their Own
“They don’t riot and they don’t even demonstrate very much, but they are not just sitting on their hands, either,” said Gerald Curtis, Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and a longtime Japan expert. “What the dosimeter issue reveals is that people are getting more nervous rather than less about radiation dangers.”
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Chicago Tribune: Japanese rice to be tested for radioactive cesium
More than a dozen regional governments in Japan will conduct tests to determine whether locally grown rice contains too much radioactive cesium, farm ministry officials said on Monday, as food safety worries spill into the country’s traditional staple.
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Independent: Japan women remain world’s longest-lived: govt
Japanese women remained the world’s longest-living last year, although their average life expectancy edged down slightly to 86.39 years, the government said Wednesday.
The fall of 0.05 years was the first decline in five years, falling from a record 86.44 registered in 2009, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said.
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Wall Street Journal: The Tracks of Banri Kaieda’s Tears
The minister of economy, trade and industry lost his composure, convulsing in sobs after Liberal Democratic Party politician Ryosei Akazawa berated him over the government’s energy policy for roughly 20 minutes during a parliamentary session discussing a bill to promote renewable energy. The opposition lawmaker demanded the minister resign, a topic of increasing interest among opposition parties as Mr. Kaieda struggles to coordinate Tokyo’s stance on nuclear energy.
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Forbes: What the Japanization of the World Economy means for Stocks, Bonds, and Commodities
No, no, heavily indebted economies of Europe won’t collapse. They will enter a prolonged stagnation like Japan did in the 1990s, dragging the rest of Europe along. The US economy won’t collapse either. It will also slide into Japanese-style stagnation, dragging along emerging economies that have been thriving on its large and robust consumer market to sell their products—I call it the Japanization of the world economy.
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Japan Focus: The Great Hiroshima Cover-Up—And the Greatest Movie Never Made
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, killing at least 70,000 civilians instantly and perhaps 70,000 more in the months to follow. Three days later, it exploded another atomic bomb over Nagasaki, killing 40,000 immediately and dooming tens of thousands of others. Within days, Japan had surrendered, and the U.S. readied plans to occupy the defeated country — and documenting the first atomic catastrophe.
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Japan Focus: Sushi and Samurai: Western Stereotypes and the (Mis)Understanding of Post-Tsunami Japan
In this time of disaster, commentators have recourse to shop-worn concepts— “Japanese think collectively,“ “the individual is subservient to the group,“ “they are sadistic torturers of dolphins,“ “submissive to authority,“ “devoid of feelings“— and martial images such as kamikaze are revived again. How do you explain the abundance of stereotypes in the discussion of Japan?
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Reuters: Swimming-Tough lessons learned in Shanghai – Japan coach
Japan’s head swimming coach has warned the country’s elite swimmers they will win nothing at next year’s London Olympics unless they learn from their world championship flop.
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Boston Herald: Japan faces tough road in World Cup qualifying
Japan faces a challenging qualifying path to the 2014 World Cup finals against rivals who will be looking to upset the Asian champions.
Alberto Zaccheroni’s team was drawn Saturday with Uzbekistan, Syria and North Korea in Group C of the third round of Asian qualifying. Japan will be bidding for its fifth straight appearance in the World Cup finals.
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