Eideard

Nanjing Massacre Museum
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

The Chinese city of Nanjing has suspended its sister-city relationship with Nagoya, Japan, after Nagoya’s mayor expressed doubts that the Japanese Army’s 1937 Nanjing Massacre actually took place…

The falling out began Monday, when Nagoya’s mayor, Takashi Kawamura, told a visiting delegation of Chinese Communist Party officials from Nanjing that he doubted that Japanese troops had massacred Chinese civilians. Most historians say that at a minimum, tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered in Nanjing in one of the most infamous atrocities of Japan’s military expansion across Asia in the early 20th century.

The falling out underscored how differing views of history remain a problem in Japan’s ties with the nations that it once conquered. While such denials are common by Japanese conservatives like Mr. Kawamura, they are rarely raised in such a public manner, or directly to Chinese officials…

Still, the Japanese government scrambled to head off a full-blown diplomatic quarrel. The top government spokesman restated Japan’s official position that the massacre did, in fact, take place…

On Wednesday, Mr. Kawamura remained unrepentant, saying that he did not intend to retract the statement or apologize…

Such disagreements between Japan and its neighbors have quieted from the early 2000s, when Junichiro Koizumi, then prime minister, angered many in China and South Korea by visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo that honors Japan’s war dead, included executed war criminals.

I’ve written about this before. People in China haven’t forgotten. Why should I?

Michael Woodford demonstrates oversight by Japan’s regulators
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Four months after one of Japan’s biggest corporate scandals, police and prosecutors on have arrested seven men, including the former president of Olympus Corp and ex-bankers, over their role in a $1.7 billion accounting fraud at the medical equipment and camera maker.

Tokyo prosecutors arrested ex-President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, officials said.

Also arrested were former bankers Akio Nakagawa and Nobumasa Yokoo and two others suspected of helping hide huge investment losses through complex M&A deals…

The scandal was exposed in October by then-CEO Michael Woodford, who was sacked by the Olympus board after querying dubious M&A deals later found to have been used to conceal the losses. Woodford campaigned to win his job back, but gave up that bid last month, blaming cozy ties between management and big Japanese shareholders and citing the strain on his family.

“After going to hell and back, this is a day to remember,” Woodford said in an email on Thursday. The Briton, who was a rare foreign CEO in Japan, plans to write a book about his experiences uncovering the scandal.

The arrests come as investors focus on who will run the once-proud company when its management steps down at an April 20 shareholders meeting, and whether Olympus will seek a capital tie-up to fix its balance sheet.

Olympus is banking on that April meeting marking a turning point in the scandal, with at least six of its 11-member board, including current President Shuichi Takayama, set to resign…

An Olympus spokesman said the company would cooperate fully with the investigative authorities. It is also under investigation by law enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States. Yup. They all did such a thorough job before Woodford blew the whistle.

Olympus in December filed five years’ worth of corrected financial statements plus overdue first-half results, revealing a $1.1 billion dent in its balance sheet, triggering talk it would need to merge or forge a business tie-up to raise capital.

On Monday, it forecast a $410 million full-year loss due largely to its ailing camera operations, but its core endoscope business appeared unscathed by the scandal…

Looking forward to Woodford’s book. To be followed by interviews from self-titled investigative journalists who will ask the coppers in the UK, US and Japan why they didn’t notice the fraud. No one will ask the journalists – considered expert in financial matters – why they didn’t notice the fraud.

Everyone has lunch together and celebrates quarterly statements as achieving something more than the paper they’re printed on. Some financial markets have to offer at least a semblance of reality. Japan isn’t one of them.

At age 39, Yoshiaki Suda, the new mayor of this town that was destroyed by last March’s tsunami, oversees a community where the votes, money and influence lie among its large population of graying residents. But for Onagawa to have a future, he must rebuild it in such a way as to make it attractive to those of his generation and younger.

“That’s the most difficult problem,” Mr. Suda said. “For whom are we rebuilding?”

The reconstruction of Onagawa and the rest of the coast where the tsunami hit is a preview of what may be the most critical test Japan will face in the decades ahead. In a country where power rests disproportionately among older people, how does Japan, which has the world’s most rapidly aging population, use its dwindling resources to build a society that looks to the future as much as to the past…?

So after the tsunami destroyed all 15 of the fishing villages that make up part of Onagawa, Nobutaka Azumi, then the mayor, proposed a reconstruction plan that seemed sensible enough: consolidate the villages. Having just a few centralized communities would save the town money, Mr. Azumi said, and perhaps increase their chances of long-term survival.

But the village elders fought back, saying they wanted the government to rebuild their ancestral villages so that they could spend their last years there. Younger residents, many of whom supported consolidation but were vastly outnumbered, were left grumbling among themselves.

After the mayor persisted, he was pushed out of office by Mr. Suda, who was backed by opponents of consolidation. Mr. Suda now says that all the villages will be rebuilt, including a hamlet with just 22 inhabitants and an island village whose residents are on average 74 years old.

“There were 15 locations, so there will be 15 locations,” Mr. Suda said. “We’re moving forward under the premise that there will be no centralization, though I’m thinking of asking them one last time if this is really O.K., whether their young relatives are in agreement.”

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Japan and the United States agreed on Wednesday to decouple the transfer of thousands of U.S. Marines to Guam from the southern Japan island of Okinawa from plans to relocate a base on Okinawa, a step forward in resolving an irritant in relations.

The shift of U.S. Marines to the Pacific island of Guam had been linked to progress in relocating the Futenma airbase on Okinawa. But Tokyo has struggled to win the consent of islanders’ to the relocation plan…

Ain’t it nice the diplomats agree? The island’s population wants the air base gone and they’re screwed as usual.

The decision to expedite the transfer of U.S. forces in Okinawa coincides with pressure on the Pentagon to cut spending, including costs associated with the move to Guam, and a new U.S. emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region…

There are a total of about 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan…Each of which costs American taxpayers over $100K/year to support.

The Futenma facility is surrounded by more than 100 schools, hospitals and shops. Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka calls it the world’s most dangerous airbase.

The Mayor of Nago, however, restated his opposition to the relocation plan, Kyodo news agency reported. “We cannot put up with an additional burden stemming from the construction of a new military base,” Susumu Inamine said, noting that 11 percent of city’s total land was already occupied by U.S. military facilities.

Issues surrounding the Futenma relocation has bedeviled not only U.S.-Japan security ties, but also posed major problems for the Democratic Party government first elected in 2009.

Ties with Washington were strained after the election after then-Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sought to keep his campaign promise to move the Futenma base off the island.

The government, however, could find no alternative site and was forced to reaffirm the 2006 agreement. Hatoyama stepped down.

That is pretty much a lie designed to keep the heat off Obama. What happened was that once Hatoyama was in power he was shown the secret treaties which let the United States do pretty much whatever they wish to in Japan – in perpetuity.

Hatoyama couldn’t fight the agreements signed by a then-occupied Japan without losing tremendous face for preceding governments who let this stand, as well. The embarrassment was the death-stroke for his government.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Carl E. Clark, 95, stood before a cheering crowd of 600 on Tuesday at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View to receive a combat medal for bravery in World War II, an honor he was originally denied because he’s black…

On May 3, 1945, in the Battle of Okinawa, Japan, six kamikaze planes hit the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, engulfing the ship’s deck in a deadly inferno. As the fire approached an ammunition locker that would have exploded and destroyed the ship, Mr. Clark — who broke his collarbone in the attacks and was the only survivor of a damage control team — grabbed a hose typically operated by several men and doused the flames.

His actions saved the vessel, but they were not mentioned in the battle report. In the deeply segregated Navy of that time, Mr. Clark was just a servant — a ship’s steward — and it was common practice then for the heroics of blacks in the military to be ignored or discredited…

Mr. Clark’s deeds would have remained unrecognized except for Sheila Dunec, an instructor at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, who met him in 1999 as part of a project to document veterans’ remembrances. She eventually brought the matter to the attention of Representative Eshoo, who pressed the Navy to investigate…

For Mr. Clark and other black servicemen in 1945 the war raged on two fronts: the battle against the enemy, and the relentless racism within the military. The constant struggles led to a complex view of the war.

“I couldn’t hate the Japanese,” Mr. Clark said. “I couldn’t have the same feelings toward the enemy as the Caucasians because of the way we were treated at home…”

At Tuesday’s ceremony he accepted the medal on behalf of other black servicemen whose deeds and deaths were never noted. “I want to share this honor with all of those men,” he said in his speech.

He stayed in the Navy after the war to provide for his family, rising to the rank of chief petty officer to command 175 men. He finally retired in 1958, but he said in the 22 years he served the racism never relented. When he received his discharge papers a young white clerk said, “Here you go, boy.” Embittered, he left without saying goodbye to his men…

And now Mr. Clark, who appears decades younger than his age…finds himself looking forward — hoping his story teaches younger blacks, who he said don’t fully appreciate his generation’s struggles.

“Racial relations in the country have come a long way,” he said, “but I know it has quite a way to go.”

At the rate with which our pundits and politicians approach tasks requiring backbone and a sense of history and justice — turning around bigotry in this Land of Liberty seems always to be measured in decades. If you leave it up to that mythic grassroots American, the timespan might be centuries. Or so it seems.

Poems about the Japanese tsunami were among the winners at the country’s annual Imperial Palace poetry contest. Emperor Akihito and his family attended a ceremony in Tokyo, where the 10 winning poems were read aloud.

One winner, a 72-year-old tailor, wrote of his relief upon learning his son was safe after three days of uncertainty when an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan last March.

The theme for this year’s traditional five-line tanka contest was “shore”.

A tanka is an older form of poetry than the more well-known haiku, and follows a syllable pattern of 5-7-5-7-7…

Never able to
Turn it back,
This reality
Feels so heavy on my shoulders,
Along this coastal path.

By Yueko Sawabe

The imperial family also offered their poems for the event. One of Emperor Akihito’s verses expressed his sorrow and horror in watching the dark waves of the rolling tsunami on TV news footage.

Next year’s theme has been announced as “stand up”, which could inspire poems of hope in a recovering Japan.

Bravo. I could see Obama sponsoring a poetry contest.

The next Republican in the White House – hopefully not in my remaining years – will probably have a contest for badges required for dissenters to wear in public. As part of the Patriot [sic] Act.

Free Wi-Fi is on its way to some Japanese vending machines. Working much like a mobile hotspot at your local coffee shop, people located near the machines would be able to connect to the internet for 30 minutes at a time and surf the web.

The vending machines are for the drink company Asahi. Connecting to the web using a machine can be done without any kind of log-in, and if your initial 30-minute connection to the network expires, you can connect again and keep on surfing. The service is available to anyone, to use with any smartphone, tablet, or computer and does not require the purchase of a drink from the machine.

Why vending machine hotspots? Free internet hotspots in the country are few and far between due in part to Japan’s early adoption of mobile broadband, which led to a lack of free Wi-Fi locations. Now that tablets and smartphones have taken off, there’s a growing need for Wi-Fi. While there are a few hotspots at places like McDonalds, the vending machines would allow people to get connected in more areas.

OK. I still recommend setting up a VPN — virtual private network — connecting through your home network before you start wandering much through public access unsecured wifi.

A fleet of high-performance cars, including eight Ferraris, has been involved in one of the most expensive accidents in history after an astonishing multi-car pile-up in Japan. Police said three Mercedes Benz cars and a Lamborghini Diablo were also involved in the massive crash at the weekend on the Chugoku Expressway, in the country’s south-west.

While the majority of the 14 vehicles – which also included a Japanese supercar Nissan GT-R Skyline and a Toyota Prius – were travelling along the Osaka Prefecture-bound bended lane at least one Mercedes CL600 was driving in the opposite direction.

Television footage showed the cars – either wrecked or destroyed – spread across the highway, in a trail of crumpled metal and broken glass. Several of the vehicles were wedged up against the metal barriers. Miraculously, none of drivers – the majority of whom are reported to be foreign car enthusiasts – were seriously hurt in the wreckage but the bill is still bound to be painful nonetheless.

Such was the severity of the damage, several of the luxury cars have been written off, leaving their owners with the nightmare scenario of seeing their prized possessions turned into expensive scrap metal.

The total damage bill is expected to hit several million pounds. A new Ferrari 355 retails for several hundred thousand pounds. The other Ferrari models understood to have been involved in the pile-up include a F512, F355, F430 and a F360…

It is thought the crash occurred when the lead driver hit a central barrier after losing control of their Ferrari while trying to overtake in wet conditions. They are then reported to have hit the central reservation before rebounding into the path of the oncoming traffic.

They then caused a chain reaction of accidents over several hundred yards as other drivers went around the bend and unable to avoid the accident.

The highway was closed for more than six hours while authorities removed the wrecked cars.

Insurance companies are going to love this one. Especially whoever is covering the poor bugger whose Prius was thumped by all the expensive alloy and horsepower.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Six central banks led by the Federal Reserve made it cheaper for banks to borrow dollars in emergencies in a global effort to ease Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.

Stocks rallied worldwide, commodities surged and yields on most European debt fell on the show of force from central banks aimed at easing strains in financial markets. The cost for European banks to borrow dollars dropped from the highest in three years, tempering concerns about euro’s worsening crisis after leaders said they’d failed to boost the region’s bailout fund as much as planned…

The premium banks pay to borrow dollars overnight from central banks will fall by half a percentage point to 50 basis points, the Fed said today in a statement in Washington. The so- called dollar swap lines will be extended by six months to Feb. 1, 2013. The Fed coordinated the move with the European Central Bank and the central banks of Canada, Switzerland, Japan and the U.K.

The six central banks also agreed to create temporary bilateral swap programs so funding can be provided in any of the currencies “should market conditions so warrant.” Those swap lines were also authorized through Feb. 1, 2013…

Two hours before the Fed announcement, China cut the amount of cash that the nation’s banks must set aside as reserves for the first time since 2008. The level for the biggest lenders falls to 21 percent from a record 21.5 percent, based on past statements.

While today’s move by the six central banks is likely to ease tensions in money markets, it falls short of some calls for the ECB to step up and act as lender of last resort for the governments of the 17-member euro area and buy unlimited amounts of government bonds. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has resisted the idea, arguing it isn’t the ECB’s job to do so and would only be a temporary fix…

Under the dollar liquidity-swap program, the Fed lends dollars to the ECB and other central banks in exchange for currencies including euros. The central banks lend dollars to commercial banks in their jurisdictions through an auction process…

The coordinated action “lowers the cost of emergency funding and increases the scope,” Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive officer, of PIMCo. said in a radio interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene. Central banks “are seeing something in the functioning of the banking system that worries them,” El-Erian said.

Mohamed El-Erian would be understated about the end of the universe as we know it.

I’d love to know if it was Ben Bernanke or Tim Geithner – or both – who worked behind the scenes to get this herd of cats into an assembly of thrift and economic repair that should last at least a week or two. I’m convinced it was one or the other. And Euro egos are so tender they won’t be seen admitting either.

Four robots have set out on an epic 66,000km journey across the Pacific Ocean. Created by US firm Liquid Robotics, the four are aiming to set the record for the longest distance at sea travelled by an unmanned craft.

Throughout their journey the robots will gather lots of data about the composition and quality of sea water. The journey is expected to take about 300 days, and is designed to inspire researchers to study ocean health.

The robots were launched from the St Francis Yacht Club on the edge of San Francisco harbour on 17 November.

Initially the four will travel as a flotilla to Hawaii and then will split into two pairs. One will go on to Australia and the other will head to Japan to support a dive on the Mariana Trench – the deepest part of the ocean.

The robots manage to move thanks to interaction between the two halves of the autonomous vehicle. The upper half of the wave-riding robot is shaped like a stunted surfboard and it is attached by a cable to a lower part that sports a series of fins and a keel.

Interaction between the two parts brought about by the motion of the waves enables the robot to propel itself.

Electrical power for sensors is provided by solar panels on the upper surface of the robot…

The wave-riding robots are veterans of ocean-going science and helped monitor the spread of oil during the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Before now the longest single journey they have undertaken was over a distance of 2,500 miles.

Bravo. Does anyone know if we will be able to trace them along their travels?

Here’s a link from Ursarodina to sign up for periodic updates: http://tinyurl.com/86op5n5