SDF troops get warm welcome in typhoon-hit Philippines

More than 1,000 Japanese troops were offered a warm welcome in the Philippines on Friday as they prepared to launch relief operations across the typhoon-devastated islands, which Japan brutally occupied seven decades ago.
The troops were aboard three vessels that arrived at the central Philippine port of Cebu, an official at the Japanese embassy said, in what is the biggest overseas deployment of Japan’s military since its defeat in World War II.
They will join a huge international relief effort to help survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which flattened dozens of towns through the central Philippines on Nov 8, leaving at least 5,500 dead or missing.
“We have already delivered small amounts of aid but the main effort will begin after a meeting with Philippine forces today,” Takashi Inoue, deputy director of public affairs with the Japanese embassy in Manila, told AFP.
Japan’s contribution to the humanitarian effort comes as a newly-confident Tokyo looks to make its mark again on the world order, after decades in which the idea of its troops on foreign soil was complete anathema.
In many parts of Asia, memories linger of the brutality of invading Japanese soldiers prosecuting an expansionist romp through the region in the name of the emperor.
In a twist of historic irony, the Japanese troops are returning to areas of the Philippines that saw Japan lose one of history’s biggest naval battles to the US-led Allies.
Eulalia Macaya, 74, who survived World War II and the typhoon, said she remembered being terrified by Japanese troops as a little girl.
“We were hiding in holes dug under the floor of our homes,” she recalled. “The Japanese soldiers were patrolling but we couldn’t see much of them. We could only see their boots. We were so afraid.”
But Macaya, who was waiting for treatment at a temporary field clinic set up by the Japanese government in Tacloban, the typhoon-ruined capital of Leyte, said she was very pleased the former occupier was back.
“I don’t hold any grudges anymore. There’s no more bad blood between us,” she said.
Tente Quintero, 72, a former vice mayor of Tacloban, said that at a time of dispute with an increasingly emboldened China over the ownership of South China Sea islands, Filipinos now saw the Japanese as friends and allies.
He declared himself “happy” there were Japanese boots back on Philippines soil.
“There’s nothing like two allies living in harmony with each other,” he said.
Beatrice Bisquera, 91, said the devastation and hardships Haiyan had brought were worse than anything Filipinos suffered under Japanese military rule.
“During the Japanese occupation we just hid in the mountains. Now, there’s nowhere to hide,” she told AFP.
Lieutenant Jim Alagao, a spokesman for Philippine armed forces Central Command, said the Philippines was thankful for the Japanese typhoon support, and World War II was no longer a concern for his generation.
“World War II was so long ago. If we still harbor bad feelings against the Japanese, it is question for our grandfathers to answer,” he told AFP. “We are very grateful for all the help that other nations can give.”
For some Japanese relief workers already on the ground in Leyte, their country’s participation in the international relief effort alongside the United States is an indication of Japan’s very different relationship with the outside world.
“Nearly 70 years ago, we were enemies. Now we’re friends,” said Joji Tomioka, a doctor helping to co-ordinate a civilian medical team. “We cannot forget the past, but we must learn from history so that we will not do the same thing again.”

Kamakura Museum of Modern Art at risk of demolition

The Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama is facing possible demolition as the prefecture has decided not to renew the land lease with the landowner (the nearby Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu shrine). The prefecture’s difficult financial situation has meant that they cannot continue to operate the museum and it is scheduled to close at the end of March 2016.
The Japan Institute of Architects have submitted a request to the prefecture to urge them to protect the historic building. Under the terms of the land lease, the prefecture agreed that any structures would be demolished before the land was returned. There are hopes that the prefecture and shrine can come to an agreement on conserving the modern building.
The main building of the museum is Kamakura Hall. It was designed by Junzo Sakakura and completed in 1951. Sakakura studied under the world renowned modern architect Le Corbusier and went on to design numerous buildings across Japan.
The hall is oldest public modern art museum in Japan, and is a highly valuable example of modern architecture. In 1999, it was selected as one of the DOCOMOMO Japan 100.

Stocks close up 2.23%

Tokyo stocks jumped 2.23% by the close Tuesday with the dollar’s rise against the yen boosting exporters’ shares as Japanese earnings season winds down.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index gained 318.84 points to 14,588.68, while the Topix index of all first-section issues was up 1.67%, or 19.76 points, to 1,205.41.
The dollar rose to 99.59 yen from 99.20 yen in New York Monday as recent upbeat U.S. data sparked speculation that the Federal Reserve could start reeling in its aggressive stimulus program as soon as next month.
“Expectations, well-founded or not, that the Fed will opt for near-term tapering of its bond-purchase program are nudging the dollar speculatively higher,” an equity trading director at a foreign brokerage said.
A weaker yen is a plus for Japanese exporters as it makes them more competitive overseas and inflates repatriated foreign income.
Weak Japanese consumer sentiment figures did little to curtail the strong forex-led rally in Tokyo.
The government’s consumer confidence index for October fell the most since April 2011, a month after a Japan’s quake-tsunami disaster.
The reading came as the government gets set to hike sales taxes next year, a rise expected to weigh on consumer spending. 

Punishing the diligent?

Inspector General of Police, N.K. Illangakoon, transferred all the 23 officers other than the Director of the Organized Crime and Corruption Prevention Division of the Police Headquarters in less that 24 hours following their raid of a gaming centre at the Salaka building in Union Place, Colombo.


The police officers, who raided the gaming centre which was run with the blessings of the politicos and officers, have been transferred out of the Western Province.
Police rounded up the casino in the wee hours of 4 November and took into custody 45 persons including the manager. Some politicians and several police chiefs called the senior officers of the Police Unit and ordered them to move out of the Salaka Club and Restaurant. An official linked to the National Police Commission and a former Deputy Inspector General of Police, who is now a lawyer, were among those who influenced the police to release the suspects. However, the police had possessed a warrant issued by Maligakanda Court.


The owner of the gaming centre is a woman who is said to be very close to politicians. It is suspected that the reason behind these swift transfers was this association. The transfer orders were issued suddenly at midnight on 6 November.
The police team rounded up the casino for the second time. On 1 July, 83 persons were arrested. The police were thereafter warned to keep away from this club but the officers said they saw no reason to grant impunity for this club as they were continuing raids in other similar places.


Removed


The Organized Crime and Corruption Prevention Division was first established in Chaithya Road, Colombo Fort, in 2001, when T.E. Anandarajah was the Police Chief. It was attached to the Vilasitha Nivasa office under the direct purview of the Inspector General of Police on 5 September 2010.
At the outset, the Division was after the underworld, and several leading gangsters saw the end of their lives in the hands of these officers. The present Inspector General of Police removed it from underworld operations but they continued their work in the prevention of organized crime and corruption.


Police Media Spokesman, SSP Ajith Rohana, said the transfers have no connection with the raid of the casino and have been made by the IGP at the request of the Deputy Inspector General of Police, I.M. Karunaratna.
DIG Karunaratna has said that there is no proper supervision and the officers are up to bribery. Within a week the request was made, the IGP decided to transfer all the officers without further investigations.


SSP Ajith Rohana said, the two police inspectors, two sub inspectors, three sergeants, 15 constables and one woman constable transferred have been substituted by others.
Ajith Rohana said that two officers of the Division were arrested on 9 September as they were soliciting a bribe from a Muslim businessman. However, sources said the two suspected officers were in the service of the Crime Investigation Division located at the Police Headquarters under the direct purview of the IGP.


Transferred


They were transferred from the Organized Crime and Corruption Prevention Division on 22 January together with five more police officers. DIG-in-Charge of Crime Division, Jayantha Kulatilake, issued the relevant order.
IP Rohan Mahesh, Sergeants Nimal and Jayaweera, Constables Kamalasiri, Liyanage, Jayasinghe and Sameera were thus transferred but Kamalasiri got his transfer cancelled. The other six were transferred with their fire arms to the Crime Investigation Division.


Liyanage and Jayasinghe were arrested by the Mirihana Police as they were attempting to obtain a ransom. But, they were not in the service of the Organized Crime and Corruption Prevention Division.


None of the officers of the Crime Investigation Division have been transferred yet. An inspector who was with the police officers that solicited ransom was given a promotion as the Officer-in-Charge of the Manipai Police Station. The Police Spokesman said, the transfers were made at the request of DIG Karunaratna to transfer the police officers that worked in the Division for more than a year. However, some of the transferred officers have less than one year of service there. For example, PCs Karunaratna (3907) and Nandana (46522) assumed duties on 16 January and 10 April 2013, respectively. Police has a transfer scheme for officers who are in service for more than three years in one station. It is not for those with one year of service. But, still there are officers who have worked in the same station more than six years.


Therefore, all the police arguments on these transfers fail and it is clear that the 23 police officers have been transferred because they acted against the powerful illegal casino.

Fukushima plant prepares for dangerous fuel rod removal

Nuclear engineers in Japan are readying to move uranium and plutonium fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in their most difficult and dangerous task since the plant’s runaway reactors were brought under control two years ago.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) will this month begin taking out fuel rods from a pool inside a reactor building at the tsunami-hit plant, in a technically challenging operation that will test the utility’s abilities after months of setbacks and glitches.
Experts say the operation is a tricky but essential step in the decades-long decommissioning process after the worst atomic accident in a generation.
More than 1,500 nuclear fuel assemblies, the bulk of them used, but including 200 new ones, need to be pulled out of the pool where they were being stored when the tsunami smashed into Fukushima in March 2011.
Reactor No. 4 was not in operation at the time but hydrogen from Reactor No. 3 escaped into the building and exploded, tearing the roof off and leaving it at the mercy of natural hazards like earthquakes, storms or another tsunami.
TEPCO says it has not yet found any damage to the assemblies at No. 4, which contain an mixture of uranium and plutonium, but will be monitoring for abnormalities.
The removal of fuel is part of regular work at any nuclear power plant, but “conditions are different from normal because of the disaster,” said company spokeswoman Mayumi Yoshida.
“It is crucial. It is a first big step toward decommissioning the reactors,” she said. “Being fully aware of risks, we are determined to go ahead with operations cautiously and securely.”
Chunks of debris that were sent flying into the pool as reactor buildings exploded have largely been removed and a crane has been installed. A protective hood has been erected over the building’s skeleton in a bid to prevent radioactive leaks.
A remotely-controlled grabber will sink into the pool and hook onto a fuel assembly, which it will pull up and place inside a fully immersed cask.
The 4.5-meter bundles weighing 300 kilograms have to be kept in water throughout the operation to keep them cool, the spokeswoman said.
The 91-ton cask will then be hauled from the pool—containing as many as 22 fuel assemblies and a lot of water—to be loaded onto a trailer and taken to a different storage pool where the operation will be reversed.
Experts warn that any slip-ups could quickly snowball and even minor mishaps will create considerable delays to the already long and complicated decommissioning.
“This is the first practical milestone for the project,” said Hiroshi Miyano, a nuclear systems expert and visiting professor at Hosei University in Tokyo. “Any trouble in this operation will considerably affect the timetable for the entire project. This is an operation TEPCO cannot afford to bungle.”
Miyano’s comments reflect an increasingly widespread view that the giant utility is not capable of dealing with the mess its nuclear plant has created.
Months of setbacks have included multiple leaks from tanks storing the water used to keep reactors cool, and a power outage caused when a rat electrocuted itself on a circuit board.
TEPCO’s management of the problems has been criticized as haphazard and uncoordinated, with one government minister saying it was like watching someone playing “whack-a-mole.”
The full decommissioning of Fukushima is likely to take decades and include tasks that have never been attempted anywhere in the world, such as the removal of reactor cores that have probably melted beyond recognition.
Meanwhile, villages and towns nearby remain largely empty, their residents unable or unwilling to return to live in the shadow of the leaking plant because of the fear of radiation.

1st shipment of Beaujolais Nouveau arrives in Japan

This year’s first shipment of 15,000 bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau wine arrived from France at Haneda airport on Tuesday morning. Further shipments will arrive at Narita, Haneda, Kansai, Chubu, Fukuoka and Shin-Chitose airports through Nov 17.
Japan will uncork the first Beaujolais Nouveau of the season on Nov 21 at a price of 2,400 yen per bottle. The third Thursday in November traditionally marks the official debut of the new season’s Beaujolais around the world, and the Japanese are the first to get a taste of the light red wine because of their time zone.
A spokesman for importer Suntory Wine International said that Japan will import about 8.5 million 750-mililiter bottles of the wine this year, NHK reported. The record for Japan was 12.5 million bottles sold in 2004.

Canada to extradite Chinese man to Japan in 1995 triple murder probe

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said Sunday that a Chinese man, who lives in Canada, will be extradited to Japan to be questioned about a triple murder in Tokyo’s Hachioji in 1995.
The 43-year-old man is wanted in Japan for using a forged passport to leave the country in 2002. He obtained Canadian citizenship in 2006.
A police spokesman said that a Canadian appeals court had finalized the extradition request that was approved in September this year, upholding a lower court decision, Fuji TV reported. The police will send investigators to Canada this month to escort the suspect back to Japan.
Japan’s National Police Agency first filed an extradition request with Canadian authorities in 2010 with the Ontario High Court. However, the suspect filed an appeal, claiming that he should not be extradited over a passport violation if the objective is to question him about a murder case. 
The NPA has offered a 3 million yen reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the murders of three women workers at a supermarket in Hachioji on July 30, 1995.
The three women, two of whom were 17-year-old students working part-time, were shot to death during a robbery at the supermarket. The killer got away without stealing money and jewellery from the victims or the locked safe in the office, a fact which has puzzled police and given rise to speculation that the shooting was motivated by a personal grudge.
Police were unable to achieve a breakthrough in the case until 2009, when a Japanese man on death row in China for drug trafficking made a statement to Japanese police that a Chinese man in Canada was involved in the murder.
The Japanese man, who was executed in 2010, told Japanese investigators that the suspect in Canada was part of a gang of Japanese and Chinese who carried out a series of robberies in Japan in the 1990s.