Always shaky?

During the period from october to now, we've been looking at Japan News couple times a week in order to be able to post interesting News or development regarding their economy, the many natural disaster that occured during that period.

This last post from me will be about another earthquake that happened this thursday the 24th of november. A magnitude 6.1 second strike of the day happened and caused about 3,900 homes to miss electricity for an hour. Even if this isn't a big disaster that really needs to be posted I think it illustrates the whole situation in Japan. Since the Tsunami and the Nuclear Breakdown they have not been able to fully recover and every political move to get out of it is followed by other perturbation. In a conservative a proud country like Japan, it is hard to put new ideas into concrete actions. The instable governement struggled to stay in power and that resulted in many changes in the head of state.

Even if Japan gets out of their crisis by themselves they will always stay a little shaky due to their geographic location.

A first good decision by the new government

Today, on November 19^th, Noda, the Prime Minister of Japan, announced that he will invest 2 trillions of yens in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN). This investment is for the development of projects to strengthen regional integration. In a near future, he also said that he would like to boost the cooperation with the region from the ASEAN committee over maritime security and safety amid China's increasing assertiveness at sea. In this meeting, Japan also announced many other actions that their 2 trillions of yens will cover such as strategies to promote peace, stability and prosperity in the region that include deepening political and security ties, cooperation in ASEAN community-building and improving links between ASEAN and Japan. I think that this decision was one of the fist good decision that the new japanese government made. At least, this decision is one that promote peace and could help the japanese citizens. The other decisions made before this one by the government were to promote the Japanese reputation around the world and were often not democratic. Yes this decision is still to promote its reputation but at least, it is democratic.  

Radiation a Safe Source of Energy? Just take a Look at Japan...

If on the 14th 15,000 people were protesting against nuclear power in Japan. Today three radiation stories has been released. The contaminated water from the reactor is still not fixed and will not in a near future. The water that was used to cool the reactor has been in contact with the radioactive debris that went out when the reactor blew. This water is still contaminating the water that just passes by to cool the reactor so soon enough it will be all out in the ocean and still continuing to contaminate fresh source of water.

There is also another fact that has been mention that surprisingly many farm lands near Fukushima are no more cultivable. The radioactive level is too high for human consumption. The half life of the radioactive element found is 30 years so it is going to take couple decades before it is eradicated and still more to come to be back to what it was before if this ever happens.

On the same idea but a couple years back, a bottle believe to have contained radium has been found close to a supermarket still releasing 170 microsieverts per hour. This bottle was probably used for medicine the source mentions. But this should raise a question in one’s mind. If hospitals cannot deal carefully with their own radioactive waste how a big power plant playing with tons of those wastes can handle them without risks? Why can we find bottle of radioactive waste near a supermarket? Those questions will stay unanswered but people should be really careful before accepting a Nuclear power plant in their region because even governments officials don’t know or respect the security code surrounding the waste.

14th of November
Japanese reaction towards nuclear energy is getting bigger than ever. About 15,000 people gathered in Fukuoka to protest to dismantle all the nuclear power plant in Japan. The protesters were claiming that they want a soil free of nuclear contamination for their generation and the future. Korean People also joined the protesters to support the Japanese cause but also because if another big nuclear meltdown happens it could certainly affect Korea. The protests that started with few dozen of people is now rising to 15,000 and more people might want to join the green cause after the disaster they all witness.

Economic Growth of 6%: Thanks to Exportation!

14th of November
The Japanese economy is getting better this quarter. The economic growth is stated to be at 6% for this quarter. It is the only growth since the last four quarters. This significant growth is explained mainly by the export that had an increase of 6.2 percent while the accounts of 60% of the economy grew of 1% and the capital invested by companies raise by 1.%. Those growths can be explained by the Japanese government that is working on trade agreements which many countries. Government had talks with the US government on trade agreements and this is probably the main cause of the growth, being a trade partner with one of the world largest economy is beneficial for your local economy for sure.

Pacific Trade Agreement

The Japanese government wants to join a Pacific trade agreement involving many countries such as US, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. This trade agreement would be a free trade agreement and would therefore remove quotas and tariffs with these countries. But there is an organization that is totally against this trade agreement. It is the Japan's Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives. And they are against this trade agreement but for a good reason. This agreement would decrease the food security of Japan especially for the rice. Since that rice is one of the major source of food for Japan, it is not a good idea to engage into this agreement. Again, the government only cares about their reputation. They only care about their trades with the other countries to reinforce the Japan's exportation. They don't care about their citizens and not caring about their citizens is not democratic.

Will You Travel to Japan?

8th of November




Visa fee will be waived for tourist going to Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate to help rebuild the economy over there. It is a smart move by the government because this will promote long term vacancy on Japan soil. Also if the tourist money goes to local industries this will directly help the rebuilding because we all know that if there is an imminent need for facilities and infrastructure there will always be private owner willing to invest money to make money over that need.

Hard Time for Olympus?

8th of November

Olympus Japanese companies are right into a financial scandal. The scandal is about the 687$ million payment that was not relevant to the company operation while the official version from the Chairman Kikukawa mentions those spending as losses. The chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa resigned after all those accusations. He was not able to redress the situation so the easiest way for him to get away with that much money spend with no relevant reason was literally to get away. This is the biggest financial fraud in the Japan history and this might help the government in a certain way: it will redirect the journalist and popular judgment toward that issue instead of being locked on every government moves to get out of the financial and nuclear crisis.
Update on the 14th: Olympus supporter think that one of the best thing they could do is to rehire the Briton that worked 30 years for that company and has been chairmen. The Briton, Michael Woodford is the most competent CEO that has worked for the company and he might be the only one able to restructure the company to get out of the 80% loss in stock value since October 14th.

Social security or not?

As it was said in the previous posts, the Japanese government has decided to take a lot of drastic measures to stop the on-going nuclear crisis. One of these measures was to increase income taxes. But one of the latest measure that the government has decided to take is to decrease social security among women. The government wants to revise the designation for homemakers that allows them a pension share if their husbands are enrolled in the program through their employers. The reason why the government wants to remove this pension is that they are saying that all Japanese pay for this program but it is not all of them that benefit from this program. The government said that this program benefits 10 million full-time housewives over 33 million other women, married or single, who work either part-time or full-time and have to make pension payments themselves. I don't agree with the government because they completely want to remove the social security for women and I don't think that this is fair. Instead of removing completely this social security, they should add some. Every single women should have the same level of social security.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fd20111023pb.html

Is raising the retirement age a good idea for Japan?

This Friday, on October 14th, some japanese journalist revealed to the japanese citizens that the present government had in mind to increase the retirement age from 65 to 70 years old in the next years. The purpose of this measure is to decrease the Japanese debt, which is already of 10 trillions of dollars. This is another measure that could make the government fall. Since that the government was elected, they have almost only put negative measures in place for the citizens. The only thing that the government wants to do for the moment is to find a way out from this crisis. But to do it, the only way that the present government seems to want to end this crisis is to punish the citizens by putting measures such as increasing the taxes and increasing the retirement age. But what is happening to Japan is not the fault of the citizens. It is the nature that caused this catastrophe. It is also not the fault of the citizens that the debt is as high as it is right now. So, instead of punishing the citizens, they should try to find measures that would affect the citizens less directly such as increasing the immigration into Japan. Again, a government is supposed to promote democracy which is essentially the people. Right now, the government only cares about the japanese reputation around the world and really don't care about their citizens. Is the government going to fall in the next months? Who knows?!!

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/govt-likely-to-face-strong-opposition-to-raising-retirement-age-survey

Outrageous !!!!!!

Hello everyone

As it was said in the previous posts, Japan is facing a huge nuclear crisis. 

This crisis is affecting the world economy but also the Japanese people. The previous government has fallen and a new government was elected at the head of the state. Only one month after the election of Mr. Noda, the newly elected prime minister, his party has lost 8 points. But there are reasons for this lost of 8 points. A government is supposed to promote democracy. It is supposed to represent the people. In his case, he is doing the opposite. First, he wants to increase the taxes on products when he knows that many of the Japanese workers have lost their job and that many of them could not even afford this tax increase. Companies such as Toyota have had to stop their production of vehicles because of this crisis. Instead of helping the Japanese, they are promoting foreign policies with the US and this is because they care too much about their reputation. They only want to look like the perfect government that care about their citizens but the only thing that they care about is their reputation and this frustrates me!!! Secondly, the government is not saying the truth about the nuclear crisis to the world. This is unacceptable!! As it was said in the previous video, the level of nuclear radiations can now be compared with the level of nuclear radiations that was released in the atmosphere in the Tchernobyl accidents. When the accidents happened, they said that the level was not comparable. This is on the international level. But nationally, it is even worst. They are telling to the Japanese that this crisis is going to end soon and that they will be able to return to their homes. But this not true!!! It is going to take up to 100 years to clean up all of the nuclear waste!!! A 100 years, have you heard that!! This is almost three generations. They are putting the lives of the people around there in danger. Nuclear waste is one of the most dangerous waste that has ever existed. It attacks and destroys the cells in your body. You can go and see this document if you are interested. If the food is surrounded by a large amount of nuclear waste, it could be deadly. You can go and see this document if you are interested. http://www.cea.fr/var/cea/storage/static/gb/library/Clefs53/pdf-gb/009-11pflury_53gb.pdf

1-http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/15/japan-nuclear-crisis-stocks-tumble

New government already falling???

Is the new government already falling? Maybe not but he sure has lost some points over the other parties. When he was elected on August 30th, he had 62,8 points. Only one month after his election, a survey done by the national poll announced that he had already lost 8 points which is enormous. In the Cabinet, his disaproval rating went from 10 to 27,8 percent. This is is mostly due to his tax increases that he wants to put in place in next years but also due to the situation of the Japanese people with the nuclear crisis going on.

1-http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2506306.ece 

Telling the truth!!!

On september 29th, Japan announced to the press that they were scared to tell the truth. The truth about what? About telling to the citizens that they were living close to Fukishima that they won't be able to return to their homes.  Here is a very good video that explains why they are afraid to tell the truth.

1-http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-28/fukushima-residents-unable-to-return-home/3026496/?site=sydney

Foreign policies: Japan’s solution to the crisis

As it was said in my previous article, Japan is facing a huge crisis. A consequence from this crisis was that the last Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, was ejected from the Cabinet. He was replaced by Yoshihiko Noda, a fiscal hawk[1]. If he wants to stay at the head of the Government, Noda will have to take some very good initiatives for the Japanese because he is not the most well-liked from the parliament.  One thing that he wants to do is to raise the tax consumption and this is not a very good idea if he wants to stay at the head of the government[2]. But his favourable foreign policies are the solution for him to stay on top. Roughly two weeks after his election, on September 16^th , he had already started to reinforce the foreign policies of Japan with other countries. He is trying to earn back the trust of the Obama’s government from the United States. To do so, he backed away from the idea of an East Asian community. He also picked two pro-Washington officials for key policy positions, naming Johns Hopkins-educated Akihisa Nagashima as a defense adviser and China hawk Seiji Maehara as a policy adviser. Those actions were all favorable for the US. Also, his policies that he wants to do include support for a multi-nation free-trade agreement and for allowing easier exports of Japanese weapons technology, ventures that have strong support in Washington. Noda has also signaled his intention to carry out a long-stalled agreement with Washington that would put the U.S. Marine presence in Okinawa on a more solid footing[3].

    

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/yoshihiko-noda-japans-newest-leader-says-he-has-just-the-style-to-handle-a-mess/2011/08/29/gIQAXIZymJ_story.html

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/yoshihiko-noda-japans-newest-leader-says-he-has-just-the-style-to-handle-a-mess/2011/08/29/gIQAXIZymJ_story.html

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-trying-to-repair-ties-with-washington/2011/09/15/gIQA6afHXK_story.html

The background of the Japan Crisis

          To understand modern situation in Japan, you have to go back to the events of April 2010. During the month of April, there was a huge tsunami in the Eastern Asia which affected mostly the country of Japan. As you may know or not, Japan is one of the most technologically advanced country in the world. They have many huge nuclear centrals which are mostly located near the seacoast. This tsunami touched the coast of Japan and therefore caused a lot of trouble throughout the country. Nuclear centrals broke and this created a lot of nuclear waste that travelled through the air. This pollution, which can cause death, landed on the ground but also travelled throughout the sea pretty much all around the world. We may think that this catastrophe was only an environmental one for Japan but it also affected the political-economic situation of Japan. In the next few weeks, you will get to know more about the fragile situation of Japan.