Month: August 2019

Typhoon Francisco was expected to make landfall in Kyushu on Tuesday, the Meteorological Agency said.

The agency warned of potential flooding, mudslides and high waves in the region as the season’s eighth typhoon was expected to bring strong winds and torrential rain.

Shikoku was also expected to see rough weather.

A number of flights to and from airports in Kyushu were expected to be canceled throughout Tuesday.

As of 8 p.m. Monday, the typhoon was traveling some 170 kilometers south-southeast of Cape Ashizuri in Kochi Prefecture at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour with an atmospheric pressure of 975 hectopascals at its center and packing winds of up to 180 kph, the Meteorological Agency said.

Kyushu may see up to 300 millimeters of rainfall in the 24-hour period to 6 p.m. Tuesday while as much as 250 mm is expected in Shikoku, the agency said.

Through Tuesday, winds of up to 180 kph and waves as high as 9 meters are forecast for southern Kyushu, the agency said. Northern Kyushu and Shikoku could be hit with winds of up to 126 kph and 7-meter waves, it said.

Rain is likely to continue in western Japan regions on the Pacific side even after the typhoon passes as moist air is forecast to continue flowing into the areas.

Click Here: watford football shirts

HIROSHIMA – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged South Korea on Tuesday to uphold a 1965 agreement to settle property claims stemming from wartime grievances. He said mutual trust is at stake at a time of high tensions.

Speaking at a news conference in Hiroshima, Abe said South Korea has “unilaterally” breached the accord that settled the issue of compensation for wartime laborers during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

“When we think about the current Japan-South Korea relationship, the biggest issue we have is of trust, or whether promises made between states are kept,” Abe said.

South Korea has “violated the treaty that served as the basis for us to normalize ties,” the prime minister said as he called on Seoul to abide by the agreement “first and foremost.”

Ties between Tokyo and Seoul have deteriorated sharply since a series of South Korean court rulings late last year that ordered Japanese firms to compensate victims of wartime labor.

Based on the bilateral accord, Japan maintains that issues related to financial compensation were settled “finally and completely.” Under the pact, Tokyo provided Seoul with a $500 million lump sum in financial aid.

South Korea has not accepted Japan’s requests to solve the latest dispute via bilateral consultations or an arbitration panel involving a third country.

Tensions between the Asian neighbors have shown no signs of easing following Tokyo’s tightening last month of export controls on some South Korea-bound exports due to security reasons.

Last Friday, Japan decided to take South Korea off its list of nations given preferential status as a trading partner with simplified export procedures.

The step drew a sharp response from South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who called the decision “very reckless.”

An official of South Korea’s presidential office on Friday indicated that Seoul may reconsider continuing the General Security of Military Information Agreement, a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo, in an apparent attempt to pressure Japan into softening its stance on the trade disputes.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry officials on Monday said Japan has protested to South Korea after local media reported the country’s military is considering conducting a defense drill later this month near and on a pair of islets disputed by the two nations.

The two nations are at odds over the South Korea-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan, called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.

South Korea conducts the drill twice a year, deploying destroyers and patrol planes. This year’s exercise had been postponed from June to avoid worsening bilateral ties, Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.

Fifty-seven people died due to heat-related medical issues in Japan over the week starting July 29, the government said Tuesday, with the number of those taken to hospitals more than tripling to 18,347 from the previous week’s 5,664.

The weekly figure for hospitalizations due to high temperatures was the second highest since tallies began in 2008, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Click Here: highlanders rugby gear world

Of the 18,347 people, 729 had severe symptoms that will require more than three weeks of treatment as an inpatient, while 6,548 had less serious issues, requiring shorter stays. Those age 65 and older accounted for 54.3 percent of the total.

Tokyo had the most people taken to hospitals at 1,857, followed by 1,342 in Aichi Prefecture and 1,307 in Saitama Prefecture. Deaths were reported across 24 prefectures, with Hokkaido seeing the most at seven, followed by five each in Ibaraki and Saitama.

A high pressure system over the Japanese archipelago preserved extreme heat, said the agency. It is advising people to constantly stay hydrated and rest in cooler areas.

In a break from the usual rhetoric, Yukio Edano, leader of the largest opposition party in the Diet, is calling on smaller parties to join forces and form a larger joint parliamentary group within the Lower House to counter the overwhelming majority of the ruling bloc.

The move, announced Monday, is a departure from the usual dynamic that dominates relations between the opposition parties, with the two largest opposition parties often taking each other on and leaving the opposition fragmented.

It also comes on the heels of an election that left lawmakers in favor of constitutional revision just four seats shy of clinching the all-important two-thirds majority of the Upper House.

“This is the time to join hands in creating a political force strong enough to counter the current ruling bloc — which has constantly relied on the strength of having a majority rather than real dialogue” to push bills through the Diet, Edano said at a news conference.

Parliamentary groups do not need to have a unified political platform, and therefore can be formed regardless of party boundaries or political differences.

However, question times in the Diet and committee meetings are allocated according to the number of members in each parliamentary group.

Edano confirmed that the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, of which he is leader, has reached out to the second-largest, the Democratic Party for the People, as well as independent lawmakers to join the CDP’s joint bloc.

So far, the DPP has refrained from giving a clear answer on whether it will be joining the CDP’s parliamentary group.

“We are really grateful for the offer,” DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki said Monday. “But we will have to discuss this internally within our party before coming to any conclusion as to whether we will merge our parliamentary groups or not.”

The CDP is asking for a reply by mid-August.

So far, attempts at cooperation between the two parties have been far from smooth sailing, as they struggle to bridge their differing political stances on fundamental issues such as constitutional revision, nuclear energy and allowing dual surnames.

Both Edano and Tamaki deflected questions on whether the unification of their joint parliamentary groups would eventually mean that the two parties would merge, saying that the question of whether to link up parliamentary groups was their foremost priority for now.

Click Here: highlanders rugby gear world

HIROSHIMA – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged South Korea on Tuesday to uphold a 1965 agreement to settle property claims stemming from wartime grievances. He said mutual trust is at stake at a time of high tensions.

Speaking at a news conference in Hiroshima, Abe said South Korea has “unilaterally” breached the accord that settled the issue of compensation for wartime laborers during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

“When we think about the current Japan-South Korea relationship, the biggest issue we have is of trust, or whether promises made between states are kept,” Abe said.

South Korea has “violated the treaty that served as the basis for us to normalize ties,” the prime minister said as he called on Seoul to abide by the agreement “first and foremost.”

Ties between Tokyo and Seoul have deteriorated sharply since a series of South Korean court rulings late last year that ordered Japanese firms to compensate victims of wartime labor.

Based on the bilateral accord, Japan maintains that issues related to financial compensation were settled “finally and completely.” Under the pact, Tokyo provided Seoul with a $500 million lump sum in financial aid.

South Korea has not accepted Japan’s requests to solve the latest dispute via bilateral consultations or an arbitration panel involving a third country.

Tensions between the Asian neighbors have shown no signs of easing following Tokyo’s tightening last month of export controls on some South Korea-bound exports due to security reasons.

Last Friday, Japan decided to take South Korea off its list of nations given preferential status as a trading partner with simplified export procedures.

The step drew a sharp response from South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who called the decision “very reckless.”

An official of South Korea’s presidential office on Friday indicated that Seoul may reconsider continuing the General Security of Military Information Agreement, a military intelligence-sharing pact with Tokyo, in an apparent attempt to pressure Japan into softening its stance on the trade disputes.

Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry officials on Monday said Japan has protested to South Korea after local media reported the country’s military is considering conducting a defense drill later this month near and on a pair of islets disputed by the two nations.

The two nations are at odds over the South Korea-controlled islets in the Sea of Japan, called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea.

South Korea conducts the drill twice a year, deploying destroyers and patrol planes. This year’s exercise had been postponed from June to avoid worsening bilateral ties, Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.

Fifty-seven people died due to heat-related medical issues in Japan over the week starting July 29, the government said Tuesday, with the number of those taken to hospitals more than tripling to 18,347 from the previous week’s 5,664.

The weekly figure for hospitalizations due to high temperatures was the second highest since tallies began in 2008, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.

Of the 18,347 people, 729 had severe symptoms that will require more than three weeks of treatment as an inpatient, while 6,548 had less serious issues, requiring shorter stays. Those age 65 and older accounted for 54.3 percent of the total.

Tokyo had the most people taken to hospitals at 1,857, followed by 1,342 in Aichi Prefecture and 1,307 in Saitama Prefecture. Deaths were reported across 24 prefectures, with Hokkaido seeing the most at seven, followed by five each in Ibaraki and Saitama.

A high pressure system over the Japanese archipelago preserved extreme heat, said the agency. It is advising people to constantly stay hydrated and rest in cooler areas.

The proportion of children with allergies or dental problems is more than 10 times higher in families on welfare than in those not receiving benefits, a recent university study showed.

Stress, house dust and a lack of supervision with no one around to guide children were seen as contributory factors according to the study conducted by Naoki Kondo, associate professor of social epidemiology at the University of Tokyo, and his team.

The study covered 573 boys and girls under the age of 15 in households receiving welfare benefits in 2016 in two municipalities in Japan. For comparison, the team looked at overall data on children around the same age compiled in a health ministry survey.

Among children in households on welfare benefits, 31 percent of boys aged 5 to 9 suffered from asthma, the highest percentage by age group and gender, and more than 10 times higher than among children in households not receiving benefits.

Similar results were found for allergic rhinitis and dental problems such as cavities and gum inflammation, with the level more than 10 times higher than among children as a whole. For children with eczema, the difference was around fivefold.

Notable differences were also seen among households on benefits, with the proportion of children in single-parent households suffering from eczema and dental problems four times and two times higher, respectively, than households with two parents.

Financial difficulties and the challenges of single parenting are believed to have affected the outcome. “Instead of pointing a finger at single parents, we can improve children’s health by providing additional child care support,” Kondo said.

With the central and local governments starting a health management support program from 2021 for people on welfare, focusing mainly on chronic adult diseases such as diabetes, the survey suggests the need to provide effective assistance for children.

Click Here: highlanders rugby gear world

Some municipalities and civic groups have launched initiatives to address the issue, such as study support and after-school activities as well as the provision of meals to children in single-parent households and free or low-cost food in cafeterias.

“It has become clear over time that there needs to be more than just economic support to close the health gap,” said Katsunori Kondo, professor of social preventive medicine at Chiba University, who has studied such health issues.

TAIPEI – In April, Japan undertook a policy initiative meant to alleviate problems caused by its rapidly graying population, including labor shortages, rural depopulation and increasing pressure on social services.

Key to the policy is a visa plan to bring in more foreign labor over the next five years, including 345,000 blue-collar workers from China and Southeast Asia.

To attract quality workers, Japanese planners are trying to not only correct past problems, but also let “qualified migrants” stay longer, bring their families, and in some cases become citizens.

Such changes will alter the social fabric of a nation long resistant to immigration. But more generous work visas will also increase competition for migrant labor in the region, especially among advanced economies with similar demographic problems and a poor record of hosting visiting workers.

Taiwan is a case in point.

With one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, Taiwan will soon surpass Japan in the ratio of elderly to young residents, with projections suggesting that by 2065 there will be only one working-age Taiwanese for every retiree.

Policymakers have responded with pension reforms designed to keep people working longer, investments in robotics and artificial intelligence, and programs to encourage women to have more children while staying employed.

As useful as such efforts may be, experts agree that for economies like Taiwan, a viable demographic future depends on immigration — a mechanism that might be further complicated by Japan.

Commenting on Tokyo’s new policy, Taiwan’s Lo Ping-cheng, Cabinet minister for migrant labor, said attracting foreign labor was bound to become more difficult as the region improves and Southeast Asians become less likely to seek jobs abroad.

However, “if Japan begins offering better terms, we’ll be in trouble,” he said.

Taiwan began importing foreign labor in 1989, when Thai workers were brought in to help with highway construction. The 1992 Employment Service Act provided the legal basis for such hiring beyond state infrastructure projects, and today there are about 800,000 foreign people working in Taiwan. The majority are unskilled laborers in sectors ranging from fishing and manufacturing to domestic service and elderly care.

But while Taiwan has experience, 30 years of hosting foreign workers has not always gone well, with exploitation and mistreatment rampant in many sectors.

Complaints include overwork, unpaid wages, dangerous working conditions and intimidation. Sexual assault claims have also been made. Because those sectors fall outside the labor laws, domestic workers and fishing crews are paid below minimum wage and are regular victims of forced labor.

Wu Jing-ru of the Taiwan International Workers’ Association makes Lo’s point more bluntly.

“If Taiwan wants to attract quality workers, treat them better,” she said.

By Wu’s account, the main problem lies with the nation’s private labor brokers. These people can obtain visas for a substantial fee. They also collect a monthly fee from workers and assess additional charges for such services as housing and health care.

Aside from the fees, which cut deeply into earnings that would otherwise be sent home, the broker system is widely suspected of exploitation. Such corruption takes the form of payments to ignore abuse, for example, and to see that regulations remain biased, such as a rule that ties workers to specific employers so they cannot leave bad jobs or seek better ones.

Rules like these clearly favor brokers and employers.

But policymakers are unlikely to make sweeping changes, such as doing away with the private broker system altogether.

More likely will be a series of incremental reforms as the market for foreign labor tightens and legislation must match what is offered elsewhere.

Such changes have already occurred for white-collar professionals. About 32,000 foreign professionals work in Taiwan, and most are treated far better than blue-collar migrants. Indeed, 15,000 qualify as permanent residents, a status that does not require brokers, visa renewal, or even steady employment as individuals can leave jobs when they wish.

Things were not always this way.

An arrival in the mid-1990s, university professor David Stewart recalls renewing immigration documents each year at the police station and standing in line with laborers from Thailand and the Philippines for mandatory health checks in the basement of a hospital.

“On the job regulations often treated foreigners differently: limits on research funding, for example, contract-dependent visas and reduced pension benefits,” Stewart said.

The change began when it became clear that Taiwan’s economic needs were exceeding its human capital, and policymakers began drafting laws to attract applicants in the competitive marketplace for professional talent.

In 1999 qualifications for permanent residency were established. Three years later the rules were changed so foreign professionals would receive the same pensions as their Taiwanese colleagues.

Lawmakers have continued to amend these and other policies, making them fairer and more inclusive.

“Conditions have greatly improved,” Stewart said.

By raising the bar for foreign labor, Japan’s expanded visa program promises similar improvements, and not just for workers.

Ian Goldin, professor of global development at Oxford University, points out that immigrants provide more than cheap labor. To aging communities, they bring youth, incentive, new ideas and new blood. As dozens of Western countries attest, given the chance, newcomers stay, raise families, start businesses and, in time, become proud citizens of new homes.

Critics point to the rise of xenophobia in the United States and the European Union as a reason to resist immigration in Asia. Yet despite recent troubles, many such countries, as well as others like Canada and Australia, have been remarkably successful in assimilating immigrants and accepting them into their communities.

Click Here: highlanders rugby gear world

Looking to such a future, Taiwan’s Education Ministry recently added seven Southeast Asian languages to school curricula from first grade to college, enabling children from the region to use their native tongues at school and Taiwanese to learn the languages and cultures of their neighbors.

Similarly, to facilitate the cross-border movement of its migrants, the Philippine trade office in Taipei has been offering Mandarin classes and other training programs.

In the private sector, businesses, too, are reaching out, providing multicultural media, while Muslims have remarked favorably on the growing availability of public prayer rooms and halal-certified foods.

Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Friday he will hold his first face-to-face talks with U.S. counterpart Mark Esper next week in Japan.

Iwaya told a news conference that during the meeting next Wednesday he wants to discuss ways to strengthen defense cooperation with the new U.S. defense secretary.

The cost of host-nation support for U.S. forces stationed in Japan, a U.S.-led coalition to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz and a series of recent missile tests by North Korea are expected to be on the agenda.

The Pentagon said earlier this week that Esper, who took office on July 23, will visit Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Mongolia and South Korea from Friday.

Click Here: online rugby store malaysia

Click:metal case mod casioak

In May 1993, general elections were held in Cambodia. Voter turnout was 89.56 percent.

People who don’t have democracy want it — very badly. Traumatized by 30 years of war, genocide, dictatorship, hunger — just about every evil into which a state can sink — Cambodians swarmed polling stations to elect, under U.N. auspices, a postwar government.

A measure of their eagerness is the obstacles they had to defy. Poor transportation was the least of them.

Terrorists opposing the elections “proclaimed that anyone who voted … would be considered ‘traitors to the nation,’” wrote Northern Illinois University cultural anthropologist Judy Ledgerwood on the university website. “The intimidation included following people, verbal threats, firing weapons near party offices, arresting or otherwise harassing friends or relatives of party activists and, in some cases, murder.”

To vote in Cambodia in 1993 was literally to put your life on the line.

Japan, its democracy secure, holds elections regularly. Its latest one was on July 21. It went as smooth as silk. No threats, no violence, no arrests, no harassment. Voter turnout was 48.8 percent.

It was the second-lowest turnout in Japan’s postwar democratic history. The spark that fired the Cambodians was evidently missing. This is surprising. Critical issues abound. Have voters nothing to say about them?

That cannot be. The economy struggles; poverty spreads; society ages. Indifference is possible regarding matters that have little direct bearing on daily life — the government’s honesty or dishonesty, for example; foreign relations; the concentration of power in the prime minister’s hands at the expense of the Diet; the languishing opposition. Busy and distracted beyond a certain point, you might well say, “Let others worry about that.” It may be unwise; you may unwittingly be undermining your democratic freedom — but that’s up to you. That, too, is democratic freedom.

To be indifferent to the economy and the state of society, however, is roughly equivalent to being indifferent to the state of your own health. It’s logically impossible.

There is in fact no such indifference. The flurry that followed the release in June of the Financial Services Agency’s report suggesting we need savings of ¥20 million to live in dignified retirement to age 95, a life span now commonplace, proves it. Who has ¥20 million?

Not most people. Finance Minister Taro Aso promptly rejected the report, saying it has caused “misunderstanding and anxiety.” Anxiety, for sure. “Misunderstanding” suggests the anxiety is delusional. Which raises a question already referred to: Is the government honest?

There are reasons to doubt it. On at least three separate occasions since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office in December 2012, members of his administration have been caught covertly rewriting official documents. Two of these occasions — the heavily discounted sale of public land to nationalist school operator Moritomo Gakuen and fast-track government approval of a new veterinary school to be run by Kake Gakuen — involved seemingly preferential treatment for close friends of Abe’s. The third concerned the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces peacekeepers to South Sudan. The troops were withdrawn in May 2017 amid controversy over whether their deployment there was legal under the Constitution, whose war-renouncing provisions Abe has radically reinterpreted — almost out of existence, critics say.

Very few, if any, Japanese citizens of voting age are unaware of this. It has received intense and exhaustive coverage over the years.

A forgiving response is possible. “All governments lie,” you might argue, “it comes with the territory; lies lubricate the governing machinery; truth is a virtue but also a vulnerability” — and so on.

Generally speaking, though, democratic citizens resent being lied to by the people they elect to represent them. When the next election comes along they vent their indignation. It’s an important privilege — right, rather — as is, of course, the right to show support in the name of realism.

More than half the electorate — 51.2 percent — did neither.

Foreign relations, in Japan’s case, means, overwhelmingly, Japan-U.S. relations. Abe has gone to great lengths to ingratiate himself with U.S. President Donald Trump, going so far as to nominate him, upon request, for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Does it matter? Maybe not, but it’s hard not to have an opinion about it, positive or negative. Positively, you might say Abe is doing everything possible to defend Japan’s long-term interests, even at the cost of some personal dignity. Negatively, you can say the loss of dignity is not only his but Japan’s; that such effusive friendliness to a highly idiosyncratic president whom history seems likely to judge harshly is by no means in the national interest, especially if, as some fear, it draws Japan into an ill-considered war with Iran.

In the election aftermath, the Asahi Shimbun polled eligible voters and found them in a state perhaps best described as resigned apathy.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they have “no interest in politics.” Forty-three percent said, “Even if I vote, nothing will change.” Young people, traditionally the most discontented and activist segment of the population, seem even more disengaged than their elders.

Eighteen- and 19-year-olds, given the vote amid much fanfare three years ago, said en masse, in effect, no thanks — 68.67 percent of them didn’t vote; 48 percent of respondents aged 18-29 told the Asahi they had “no interest in politics.”

Presumably they are interested in their salaries, which Weekly Playboy magazine (Aug. 5), citing labor ministry statistics, says are going down — not up, despite government assurances of economic recovery. Weekly Playboy is geared toward young readers. Its message to them is: “Wage decline times consumption tax hike (in October) equals hell.” The implied subtext is: “Vote!” “What for?” is the implied reply.

Japan’s democratic machinery is visibly functioning, and yet two major dailies cast doubt on Japan’s status as a democracy.

Click Here: online rugby store malaysia

The Asahi Shimbun, in a postelection editorial, said, “If political parties and politicians are as far estranged from popular opinion (as the voting rate suggests), democracy itself is on the brink of crisis.”

The Mainichi Shimbun said: “The result (of poor and steadily declining voter turnouts) is that representatives of the people are elected in national polls where only about half of the voting population cast their ballots. … It can be said that the foundations of Japan’s parliamentary democracy are beginning to fall apart.”

Big in Japan is a weekly column that focuses on issues being discussed by domestic media organizations. Michael Hoffman’s latest book is an essay collection titled “Fuji, Sinai, Olympos.”