Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara was voted in for a fourth term in Sunday’s election. Voter turnout was 57.8 percent, and Ishihara got about 43 percent of the vote. The 78-year-old, far-right incumbent, who has been an independent governor of Tokyo since 1999, played up his role in handling the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake […]
Something I ran across on the ‘net that I wanted to share with readers. The video below was originally posted by Aljazeera in September of 2010: The past decade has seen Chinese economic growth explode across the world and the Chinese economic miracle seems to reach into every imaginable area of manufacturing and natural resources. […]
The brokerage arm of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, SMBC Nikko Securities Inc, says an employee at a Tokyo branch swindled 16 individual investors out of a total of about 880 million yen (more than $10 million) over an 11-year period to earlier this year. The employee, who was in charge of sales for individual investors, […]
Many foreign nationals fleeing Japan are basing their decisions on pressure from family back home and the overly bleak scenarios projected by foreign media. State Foreign Secretary Chiaki Takahashi told a press conference Thursday that foreign coverage of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima has been sensationalist and in some cases incorrect. Takahashi asked foreign media […]
A 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck near Miyagi at 11:32 p.m. Thursday. The quake was the strongest aftershock of the 9.0-magnitude quake that hit the same region Mar. 11. Two people have died and 132 were injured as a result of the quake. One 79-year-old man died of shock and a woman in her 60s died when […]
It is important to keep Gandhi untarnished. The Gandhian can be negotiated with. Two developments in India during the past week convinced me of the above approach in Indian politics. American journalist Joseph Lelyveld’s book The Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India created furore in the country. The book has been banned […]
The Japanese government defended Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s dumping of radioactive water into the ocean by claiming the action violates no international laws Tuesday. The government claims TEPCO’s dumping of 11,500 tons of low-level tainted water does not violate the 1986 Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident or the U.N. Convention on the […]
The controversy over Joseph Lelyveld’s new book on Mahatma Gandhi has at least had the salutary effect of illuminating both the virtues and vices of the Indian polity.
A recent BBC article highlights an increasing shortage of low-skilled labor in Malaysia after the government imposed stricter policies for legal immigration. The situation is similar to that in many Western countries where governments have reduced the inflow of foreign labor by instituting minimum education requirements for immigrants, making visa application processes longer and more […]
The Awami League government has sped ahead to put together a working International Tribunal to try individuals accused of committing war crimes during the conflict-ridden events of 1971. So far the procedures though seemingly smooth haven’t measured up to international legal norms and values- values that one might suppose stands behind the “International-ness” of the […]
Radiation leaking into the ocean from the faulting Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant following the Mar. 11 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami has apparently been stopped. Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Naoki Tsunoda announced the company’s injection of 1500 liters of sodium silicate into a seaside pit that has been leaking radioactive iodine into the ocean […]
Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a constant source of material for this blog, has asked citizens to avoid holding cherry blossom viewing parties, known as hanami, such as the one I mentioned in Sunday’s post. Amidst the rolling blackouts in Tokyo caused by power shortages resulting from the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, […]
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