The White Peril 白禍

Another important step in the "trinity reform" package:

On 30 November, the LDP's policy research committee approved a proposed agreement between the government and the ruling coalition on reform of the tax, financing, and administrative relationship between federal and regional governments ("trinity reform"). In order to decrease the amount Tokyo gives to regional governments in subsidies, the federal government lowered its contribution (in percentage terms) to allocations for children and expenditures on educators who work in public elementary and junior high schools.

The decrease comes to ¥654 billion. One way the agreement was finally reached was by saying goodbye (that's the metaphor in Japanese, too--well, it's more like "seeing off," but the image is the same) to cuts in livelihood protection expenditures, which the regional governments had viciously opposed.

For those who don't know, "livelihood protection" is basically the system that guarantees a minimum standard of living for citizens. Workers pay into it at the same time as they pay into the national pension system; the payouts they receive, by contrast, come from the pension system alone, unless they end up impoverished. Why would federal and regional governments get into a tussle over which kind of funding to cut? Take a look:

At the NHK Hall in Tokyo's Shibuya on Monday [14 November], where a meeting to promote the decentralization of power was held, Tamotu Yamade, chairman of the Japan Association of City Mayors and mayor of Kanazawa, criticized the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for agreeing to even part of the subsidy cut proposal.

"The problem of livelihood protection costs is merely a transfer of the burden" to local governments, he said.

"Reforms without ideology will leave the root of the evil behind. We must staunchly fight," Yamade said, triggering thunderous applause from about 3,000 mayors and local assembly members attending the meeting.

At a news conference after the meeting, Aso said, "We would like the prime minister to take leadership this year to the last moment, unlike last year."

Local governments are opposed to cuts in subsidies for livelihood protection, which [sic] the Finance Ministry is pushing for such cuts. The local governments are willing to accept cuts in subsidies for facilities at public schools, but the ministry is against that.

From the beginning, the Finance Ministry has been reluctant to subsidy [sic] reductions which do not lead to spending cuts, but is poised to oppose reductions in subsidies for school facilities, whose source is construction national bonds.

Over the last fifteen years, the number of people drawing on livelihood protection has risen, naturally, at the same time as the economy was frequently slumping. Spinning off repsonsibility for the program could easily stick regional and local governments with new collection and accounting headaches without increasing their discretion over where money and resources go. Note also that it's about as easy to get the federal government to agree to issue fewer bonds as it is to get Courtney Love to take fewer drugs.

In separate but not unrelated news, the government plans to restructure out-of-pocket payments for patient care in the National Health system:

On, 30 November, the government and ruling coalition decided on the broad outlines of two-phase reform for the health care system that would raise the amount patients pay for medical care beginning next year. First, the percent paid by high-income patients 70 and over will increase to 30% from the current 20%; after 2008, the percent paid by middle- and low-income patients between 70 and 74 will as a rule increase to 20% from the current 10%. Conversely, the plan folds in an expansion--from younger than 3 to younger than 6--of the age at which payment for children is slightly decreased to 20%. The goal is to hold down increases in health care costs by keeping an eye on payments exacted from people during their child-rearing years while making those from the aged more appropriate.

So many dropped balls are coming to light in the Aneha scandal that I'm starting to expect Mr. Moose to wander by at any moment. One of the sticking points thus far had been over the degree to which the federal government should be helping out people who've been stuck with unsafe condos. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport has come up with a partial plan:

Residents of housing blocks built on falsified structural integrity data who took out loans with the government's Housing Loan Corporation to purchase their now unlivable homes, will be allowed to defer their loan payments, Construction and Transport Ministry officials said Sunday.

This will be the first step the government has taken to help those living in 230 condominiums in question. However, only 14 of the households, or about 6 percent, of them took out loans with the corporation.

Thus, the ministry is also looking into possibly assisting residents who borrowed from private financial institutions, the officials said.

...

The ministry holds that the condominiums' builders should fulfill the defect liability to rebuild the buildings free of charge before the ministry assists residents, but it is not clear how such firms, including Huser, will handle the problem and whether they have the necessary funds to rebuild the housing blocks.

The ministry is searching for a way to extend a helping hand, as it will take time for the residents to rebuild their lives and they may be forced to repay their loans at the same time they pay rent on new homes.

I hope my arch tone over the last week hasn't made it seem that I regard this story as a joke. While it's true that we're very lucky no one was killed here, a lot of people have poured savings into mortgages that are now proving worthless. There's nothing funny about that.

There's also nothing funny about the fact that, as the Asahi reported this morning, it's beginning to look as if everyone--and I mean everyone--involved in these construction projects failed to be vigilant:

The reports submitted by Aneha, who is based in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, were supposed to be thoroughly checked by eHomes Inc., a private-sector inspection company.

At the same time, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport only carried out perfunctory reviews of the work done by eHomes in its annual inspection of the company.

To compound matters, a number of local governments were also lax in their efforts to unearth irregularities in reports put together by Aneha.

Land ministry officials searched the offices of eHomes in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward on Thursday and Friday to look into the company's inspection procedures.

Sources said that eHomes apparently failed to reconfirm the information included in the structural-strength reports as required by the Building Standards Law.

The whole point of building redundancy into these sorts of procedures is to put as many pairs of eyes as possible on the same information: what one person doesn't notice, everyone else will. What actually appears to have happened--all Tragedy of the Commons-like--is that everyone assumed everyone else was being vigilant, so once Aneha had put his fraudulent structural integrity reports into circulation, the falsifications weren't discovered.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport made an announcement today:

On 28 November, reacting to the scandal in which Aneha Design falsified the structural calculations for apartment complexes and other buildings, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport firmed up new policies of systemic revision that would require the name of any architectural subcontractor that performed structural calculations to be recorded in any application for a building permit. The intention is to have revisions enacted and implemented in basic construction laws governing application documents by the end of the year.

Well, okay. I'm sure anyone who sees the name Aneha on a building permit application from here on will be sure to put it in the "Reject" pile. Otherwise, if there's a way this will help ensure greater vigilance on the part of those in charge of inspection and certification, I'm not sure what it is.

Like other federal ministries, the MLIT takes the tack that the safety of the public is too important for its operations to be spun off into private hands. Since protecting its citizens is the government's primary responsibility, I'd be inclined to agree. But the above policy appears to add only a little more paper pushing (never a hard sell on bureaucrats). The fact is that it's already the job of functionaries in government construction agencies to review structural calculations, and they didn't do it. Perhaps the rules themselves could use some revision, but the major issue is pretty clearly the mindset. It's not clear what anyone plans to do to change that.

If you care to depress or scare yourself, BTW, the Japanese Nikkei now has a handy category page dedicated to the Aneha scandal--certain to be updated frequently for the foreseeable future, if this week is any indication.

They've arrested Shingo Nishimura. I don't see much in the Nikkei report that adds to what we've heard over the last week, up to this anticipatory report from a few hours ago:

Opposition lawmaker [lower house, DPJ--SRK] Shingo Nishimura will likely be arrested today in connection with allegations he allowed a former employee to pose as a lawyer to work on out-of-court settlements, sources close to Osaka prosecutors and police said.

They said two of the Lower House member's aides likely will also be arrested.

Police believe the aides introduced Nishimura, a member of Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), to 52-year-old Koji Suzuki in 1998.

Suzuki, who formerly worked in Nishimura's law firm in Osaka Prefecture, was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of mediating insurance settlements for traffic-related cases even though he is not a member of the bar.

The sources said police suspect Nishimura permitted Suzuki to mediate in 40 or so settlements, all of which took place after December 2002.

Plenty of fraud to go around these days. It's alleged that Nishimura falsely claimed for tax purposes that Suzuki was a salaried employee of the firm but instead put the designated amount into an off-the-books fund.

This weekend's earthquake in China not only is sad in and of itself, but is especially sobering for those following what's happening with Japan's beleaguered construction industry and government bodies.

News is pouring in. The city of Hiratsuka in Kanagawa Prefecture (near Yokohama and the ancient capital of Kamakura) has acknowledged that it failed to check Aneha's structural strength report:

Municipal officials in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, failed to detect an architect's lies about the quake-resistance　of a hotel, saying his structural-strength report was simply too big to be checked in time.

Hidetsugu Aneha, the Chiba Prefecture-based architect at the center of the growing scandal involving unsafe buildings, compiled the report for Park Inn Hiratsuka.

...

"The structural strength report was a very thick one measuring about 10 centimeters, and it was very difficult to check it thoroughly in three weeks,'' Hiratsuka Mayor Ritsuko Okura said Thursday.

The oversight came to light after officials of the city's urban policy department reviewed the report.

The 14 columns on the first floor of the hotel had between 60 and 70 percent the required strength, sources said.

Sounds like responsibility-dodging, huh? It may be worse than you think. In the week-and-change over which this story has been unfolding, it's becoming clearer and clearer that at least some of Aneha's falsifications should have been caught a long time ago. An on-site manager for the construction firm that built Sun Chuo Home # 15 in Funabashi apparently alerted the company as it was being built that it had too few girders. I'm quoting this at length so I can inflict on my Japan-based readers the full, creeping sense of horror I experienced when first reading it:

An expert analysis has revealed that structural integrity data on two apartment buildings submitted by architect Hidetsugu Aneha had less than half the required earthquake resistance, with overly small pillars and girders used in the calculations.

The analysis was provided by a first-class architect asked by The Yomiuri Shimbun to evaluate the plans of Aneha, who has admitted falsifying structural strength certificates for 22 buildings in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The expert said the structural data were an outright falsification, with various data combined to reduce material costs, and it was hard to imagine how the inspection agency involved failed to notice.

Concerning the structural integrity data for Sun Chuo Home No. 15, an apartment building in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, the architect said, "I had an uncomfortable feeling looking at it at first glance."

The 10-story ferroconcrete building was designed by Aneha Architect Design Office in Ichikawa in the same prefecture, and constructed and sold by Sun Chuo Home Co. The Construction and Transport Ministry's recalculation found the building has only 31 percent of the necessary strength.

Bear in mind that these two condominium complexes were in Chiba Prefecture; they are not the same hotel that Hiratsuka is admitting it rushed through, and maybe Aneha was more careful to cover his tracks there. For his part, Aneha is accusing three of the construction firms with which he contracted of pressuring him to allow them to cut corners on structural strength.

Several hotels have been closed. A few days ago, the city of Yokohama ordered a condominium evacuated, and now the federal government has stepped in, with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport taking the unusual step of threatening to invoke the building standards law to force people out of condos designated unsafe if they refuse to evacuate. It's also proposing, naturally more stringent inspection procedures:

Checks will be tightened on construction authorization procedures in the wake of a scandal that has uncovered dozens of apartment blocks and large buildings built using falsified structural integrity data, the government said Saturday.

The Construction and Transport Ministry plans to introduce a manual on how to check the structural integrity data of building designs, as well as a random survey of government-designated private inspection companies.

The ministry will submit the draft reform plan to the Panel on Infrastructure Development, an advisory body to the construction and transport minister, at a meeting to be held next month.

Reviewing the checking system is one of the most important tasks to prevent a recurrence of the problem.

"Until now, the system was based on trust in the inspectors," a ministry official said. "But we must base it on the view that human nature is inherently evil."

Those who want to see the original of that last dramatic sentence can find it here: "これまでは設計者や、建築確認を行う民間機関、自治体などへの信頼が前提だったが、今後は性悪説に基づいた制度に変える。"

I didn't mention the China earthquake just because of its fatalities, BTW. Its magnitude was 5.7. That's the Richter scale for released energy, not the JMA scale for surface vibration--still, by all accounts, the quake and aftershocks were strong but not major. I assume they were of about the intensity at which Aneha's falsely certified buildings are expected to be at risk of failing.

One of the things commentators have been saying since yesterday is that Jiangxi Province was lucky in a sense: most of the houses that are falling down are only one or two stories, so injuries and fatalities have been minimal. The hotels and apartments we're talking about here in Japan are all, to my knowledge, multi-story structures. (At least one mentioned above is ten.) If, in the worst-case scenario, one of them collapsed, dozens of people could be buried in moments.

Fortunately, counts of deaths and injuries in eastern China don't seem to have ballooned overnight, so resources can probably be devoted to assisting those who have been displaced. It's cold at night now, so keeping people out of the elements will be the first priority.

While Atsushi and I were spending the weekend shopping, eating, and otherwise amusing ourselves, the news cycle kept going. The Hayabusa landed successfully on Itokawa (its second attempt) and gathered its samples; the project manager was apparently elated at the press conference, as well he should be. This article from the English Yomiuri gives more information about the mission itself and its significance.

The friends I went out with last night are architects, BTW, so you can imagine that the Aneha scandal was one of our topics of conversation. New revelations include an admission that the firm falsified earthquake resistance certification for more buildings than we already knew about. Another problem:

But officials still have not managed to identify all of the buildings in question. Since the investigation by the Chiba Prefectural Government was limited to structures listed in Aneha's notes, officials have been able to identify only about one-third of all buildings, and the location of 20 buildings is unknown.

In Wakayama, where one hotel came under suspicion, city officials said an inspection failed to find any problems. However, officials added that Aneha's name had not come up in any of the city's own data, leaving doubt over whether the firm was involved in the construction of any other buildings in the city.

Another building was located in Gifu Prefecture. Officials said there was no evidence to suggest that data had been falsified, but added that they could neither regard the building as safe nor dangerous.

I'll bet that last bit of PR-speak is of significant comfort to people are wondering whether their house or hotel room could come crashing down on their heads. Of the buildings that are known to be unsafe, there are already plans to demolish some:

Three contractors involved in the construction of 22 metropolitan buildings built using falsified structural-integrity data have decided to demolish 13 housing blocks the government fears may collapse if hit by a temblor registering upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of seven.

At press conferences held in Fukuoka and Tokyo on Tuesday, Hideaki Shinohara, 40, president of Hakata Ward, Fukuoka-based real estate company Shinoken Co. and Susumu Kojima, 52, president of Huser Management Ltd., said they would reimburse costs incurred by those who had to be evacuated, but were divided on the idea of buying back the condominiums.

...

On Wednesday, Sun Chuo Home Co. of Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, said it would demolish two 10-story buildings and a nine-story building--a total of 177 units in the city.

Managing Director Keiji Kudo of the real estate company made the announcement during a briefing in Funabashi to the residents, during which he also offered his apologies to them.

He told the meeting, organized by the Funabashi municipal government, that his company had thought of reinforcing the three condominiums but that emergency inspections of their earthquake-resistance had led to the conclusion that they needed to be pulled down.

Not being an engineer, I'm not sure how weak a building has to be before you're better off tearing it down than trying to retrofit it. It doesn't sound good. It's been determined that one building, inspected by a team of architects from the Funabashi municipal government, has only 31% of the level of earthquake resistance required by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport. That sounds even worse.

The rating scale, BTW, apparently works like this:

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it will compile a unified set of standards to be applied when local municipalities order buildings that are at risk from temblors to be demolished or repaired.

The ministry decided on the step because standards differ from one municipality to another. Officials reasoned that residents in the apartments at risk should not be worried further.

A benchmark of 1 describes strength that will withstand a temblor of upper 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7. Structures will be graded in proportion to the benchmark. A reading of 0.5 means that there is a danger the structure will collapse in an earthquake of upper 5 on the seismic scale.

Those classified as between 0.3 and 0.2 in quake resistance will be ordered torn down.

Of the 14 completed buildings in which Aneha, 48, was involved, the ministry said Monday that 12 were rated at 0.5 or less in quake-resistance levels. One was classified with a 0.56 reading.

As my friends and I were remarking yet again last night, an upper 5 is a significant quake, but it's not really what you'd call major. Nor is it a rare occurrence if you take Japan as a whole. As Taro Akasaka commented here the other day, the good news is that a scandal like this rivets the attention and could help prevent such fraud in the future. The Japanese will gamely put up with all kinds of discomfort, but tell them their houses aren't safe in earthquakes, and you will know their wrath.

When discussing the possibility of an attack by the PRC on Taiwan, people don't seem to say a whole lot about Taiwan's own army. Usually, the discussion is framed in terms of whether the US or Japan would have to enter the fray and what that would mean. This (via Simon) isn't a blog I'm familiar with, but the writer seems to know what he's talking about, and what he discusses is, precisely, how ready is Taiwan to defend itself against the PRC? His conclusions ring true based on the societies he's describing. The PRC army is run the way you'd expect it to be: corruptly, nepotistically, back-scratchingly, and patronage-ly. The ROC army has morale problems because it's conscription-based and, apparently, plagued by a sense that it would lose in a war with the mainland:

The primary difference between the two forces is the quality of training. The training of the Chinese military has been described as ranging "from spotty to poor." Taiwan’s forces, on the other hand, train to Western standards under a cadre of American educated and trained officers and NCOs. They are generally considered to be proficient at the application of military force with the exceptions noted above.

I wonder whether Taiwan has ever asked Israel for guidance on these things. Israelis serve mandatory IDF stints, and they're surrounded by enemies who think the land is rightfully theirs. Maybe commitment is better in Israel precisely because it is attacked regularly? In any case, MeiZhongTai (spelled 米中台, says the author, for obvious reasons) has provided an interesting read on the topic.

Ooh! This is cool:

A Japanese space probe successfully landed and then departed from the surface of an asteroid 290 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, despite an initial announcement that the attempt had failed, Japan's space agency said.

JAXA officials had said on Sunday that the Hayabusa probe, on a mission to briefly land on the asteroid Itokawa, collect material, and then bring it back to Earth, had failed to touch down after maneuvering within meters (yards) of the asteroid's surface.

However, on Wednesday JAXA said that data sent from Hayabusa confirmed that it had landed on the asteroid on Sunday for about half an hour. However, the probe failed to collect material, JAXA said.

The Hayabusa is making a go-round and will attempt a second landing.

Repercussions from the Aneha scandal are still being felt. Just about the only bright side here so far is that it's given rise to one of those super-long kanji compound strings that can be such fun: 耐震強度偽造問題 (taishin kyoudo gizou mondai: lit., "earthquake-resistance strength falsification scandal"). It's not a whole lot of comfort:

The Mie Transport (Sanco) Corporation (Tsu City) announced on 23 November that it was halting operation of two hotels managed by its Sanco Real Estate subsidiary, the Sanco Inn Kuwana Station (Kuwana City, Mie Prefecture) and the Sanco Inn Shizuoka (Shizuoka City), until their safety and earthquake resistance could be confirmed. The design office at Aneha had participated in planning the structures.

Additionally, the Nagoya Rail (Meitetsu) Group's Meitetsu Real Estate (Nagoya City) similarly halted operations of its Meitetsu Inn Kariya (Kariya City, Aichi Prefecture) because Aneha had handled calculations for its construction.

When Atsushi called from Kyushu yesterday, he related that one of the construction firms for whose buildings Aneha had produced the inspection reports known to be falsified, Kimura Construction (Yashiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture) has already essentially gone bankrupt. Yesterday morning, the shutters were closed over the windows and a note was posted in one of them stating that it was unable to pay its bills and was consulting with attorneys.

It's hard to explain just how chilling this is. It's not just that the Kanto Plain is an earthquake zone. In Tokyo, we're also right next to the ocean. Parts of the city are below sea level or built on filled-in creekbeds and such. Our houses are shoehorned in close together. We also have perceptible little tremors here every few weeks or so--constant reminders that the ground is unstable.

People don't sit around having morbid discussions about earthquakes all the time. At least, the people I know don't. But you do think about it when you're deciding how close you want that new bookcase to be to your sleeping head at night, or whether it's okay to have your emergency supplies several steps from the bed and the sofa where you spend the most time. Things like that. Word is that some of the buildings Aneha certified might collapse in earthquakes at a strong 5 on the JMA scale of surface vibration. That's strong, but a quake at that level isn't exactly unlikely to occur at some point soon, and the instruction that you get about earthquake preparation usually explicitly tells you to factor in the age and certified earthquake resistance of your building, for obvious reasons.

The Liberal Democratic Party celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding yesterday:

The Liberal Democratic Party marked the 50th anniversary of its founding Tuesday and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a celebratory convention the party's mission now is to implement structural reforms on a par with the Meiji Restoration and the postwar economic miracle to cope with a changing world.

"In Japan's modern political history, two big reforms can be called 'miracles.' One was the Meiji Restoration of 1867-68, and the other is the reform that came 60 years ago after the defeat in World War II," said Koizumi, who is also LDP president, at the convention in Tokyo.

The Meiji Restoration marked the transfer of power from the feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate to a new central government, ushering in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and forcing the country out of three centuries of isolation.

Koizumi noted that the two reforms were achieved after many people were killed.

"How can we, in a peaceful way, implement reforms to deal with ongoing change around the globe?" he asked. "That is the duty of this governing party as it marks the 50th anniversary of its founding."

The party also publicized some of its new platform, including one that's been both controversial and anticipated:

Secretary General Takebe officially unveiled the new party platform, the goals of which are a new ideology that embraces "contributing to the realization of world peace," "passage of constitutional revisions," "revision of fundamental education law," and "achieving small government."

Former Prime Minister Mori, chair of the party's drafting committee for constitutional revisions, announced proposed revisions that stipulate that Japan maintains a "self-defense army" and add new rights related to privacy and the environment.

I haven't seen anything about phrasing that would give Japan the right to participate in "collective defense" missions, which was the other big military matter under discussion in the drafting committee.

The Liberal Democratic Party celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding yesterday:

The Liberal Democratic Party marked the 50th anniversary of its founding Tuesday and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told a celebratory convention the party's mission now is to implement structural reforms on a par with the Meiji Restoration and the postwar economic miracle to cope with a changing world.

"In Japan's modern political history, two big reforms can be called 'miracles.' One was the Meiji Restoration of 1867-68, and the other is the reform that came 60 years ago after the defeat in World War II," said Koizumi, who is also LDP president, at the convention in Tokyo.

The Meiji Restoration marked the transfer of power from the feudalistic Tokugawa shogunate to a new central government, ushering in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) and forcing the country out of three centuries of isolation.

Koizumi noted that the two reforms were achieved after many people were killed.

"How can we, in a peaceful way, implement reforms to deal with ongoing change around the globe?" he asked. "That is the duty of this governing party as it marks the 50th anniversary of its founding."

The party also publicized some of its new platform, including one that's been both controversial and anticipated:

Secretary General Takebe officially unveiled the new party platform, the goals of which are a new ideology that embraces "contributing to the realization of world peace," "passage of constitutional revisions," "revision of fundamental education law," and "achieving small government."

Former Prime Minister Mori, chair of the party's drafting committee for constitutional revisions, announced proposed revisions that stipulate that Japan maintains a "self-defense army" and add new rights related to privacy and the environment.

I haven't seen anything about phrasing that would give Japan the right to participate in "collective defense" missions, which was the other big military matter under discussion in the drafting committee.

To complete the set of contentious meetings this weekend, Prime Minister Koizumi met with Russia's President Vladimir Putin:

In summit talks Monday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to expand their economic ties but broke no new ground on the Northern Territories dispute.

Japanese officials described the Tokyo talks as frank and thorough. Both sides seemed happier skirting the contentious territorial issue--apparently for fear of having to make drastic concessions that would not win public approval at home.

The two sides signed 12 agreements ranging from energy development and telecommunications to fighting terrorism and promoting tourism.

...

Analysts suggested that Moscow feels it has the upper hand right now because the Russian economy stands to benefit from high oil prices. In addition, a swell in nationalistic sentiment in Russia may make it more difficult for Putin to give ground on the dispute.

After nine years here, I have to wonder: When and where is nationalist sentiment ever not swelling in Asia and its environs?

The Nikkei editorial on the meeting this morning added uncharacteristically little. Besides the dispute over islands, the negotiations for a Siberian pipeline didn't produce an agreement as firm as Japan would have liked.

Darn. Too bad:

A Japanese research probe failed to touch down on an asteroid Sunday after maneuvering within meters to collect surface samples, JAXA, Japan's space agency said.

The Hayabusa probe, which botched a rehearsal earlier this month, was on a mission to briefly land on the asteroid, collect material, then bring it back to Earth.

When Hayabusa was 40 meters above the asteroid Itokawa, it dropped a small object as a touchdown target, then descended to 17 meters, said officials from Japan's space agency, JAXA.

At that point, ground control lost contact with the probe for about three hours, the officials said.

"Hayabusa reached extremely close, but could not make the landing," said JAXA spokesman Toshihisa Horiguchi, adding that the reason for the failure was unknown.

At least this project was launched successfully. Not all of them have been over the last few years, though normally I think it was satellites that were involved. This wasn't a military mission, of course, but Japan is justifiably keeping an eye on China's increased military spending, and visible tech screw-ups like this don't look good, either internally or externally.

DPJ leader Seiji Maehara spoke about ROK President Roh on Asahi Television this weekend:

On an Asahi television program on 20 November, DPJ party chief Seiji Maehara expressed the following judgment about the pursuit of a resolution sought by South Korean President Mu-Hyon Roh to the issues of Takeshima (Korean: Dokuto) and history textbooks: "I'm not sure what Mr. Roh is thinking--telling us to find a resolution to the Takeshima problem when they (Korea) are already actually governing it. On the textbook problem also, hasn't he [displayed] a shallow understanding of Japan's approval system?"

I think all the chumminess probably comes from their shared genetic heritage.

Some of the buildings with faked earthquake code certifications have been identified. You can guess the result:

Bureaucrats were busy taking calls from anxious residents Saturday following news reports of falsified structural strength data for 21 buildings in Tokyo and in Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures.

In Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, structural strength reports of five apartment buildings--including two that have residents--were falsified, it was revealed by the Construction and Transport Ministry on Friday.

Seven officials of the Funabashi municipal government's building guidance division came to work Saturday to respond to residents' inquiries. They were kept busy answering a spate of phone calls from residents from about 8 a.m.

...

However, a ward official said: "We've also been waiting for the result of a reassessment of the building's structural strength from the ministry. We can't say whether the building is safe or dangerous at the moment."

Officials dealing with the issue in other municipalities also were having a hard time. One of them asked, "How can we explain to residents when we don't have any data?" Another asked, "Should I just tell the residents to evacuate their apartments?"

Oy. Another big, if (slightly) less urgent question: Who's going to be stuck with the blame when the dust settles? (Kind of a ghoulish figure of speech in this case, but I couldn't resist):

"Basically, the first-class architect, who holds a government certified qualification and acted dishonestly, bears heavy responsibility," Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara said at a press conference Friday in reference to 48-year-old Aneha, of Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, who owns Aneha Architect Design Office.

But Ishihara went on to say the government also was to blame because it failed to properly oversee eHomes, the Tokyo private organization that checked documents filed by Aneha on behalf of the government.

"I think it [eHomes] didn't read the documents properly and was slack about issuing approvals," Ishihara said.

"As the government commissioned the task to the private sector, the government should have properly guided the private sector," he said.

"The government should be blamed for the scandal," he added.

But the government is reluctant to consider providing assistance to the condominium residents.

"Basically, it is an issue that occurred as a result of private economic activities," a senior Construction and Transport Ministry official said. "As it is clear that the cause of the scandal was a deliberate falsification of documents, it is difficult for the government to help them."

The government has asked local governments to provide public housing for the residents, but moving costs and rent likely will have to be paid by the residents themselves.

...

Aneha, who provided the falsified reports, said the falsification is easy to detect if one does a simple calculation, but eHomes failed to spot it.

Apparently, so did the government agencies.

Wow. The revelations in this case just keep sounding worse and worse:

An architect falsified reports on the structural strength of 20 apartment complexes and a hotel, putting hundreds of residents at risk of injury or death in the event of a large earthquake, officials said.

The buildings are located in Tokyo, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Two of the completed apartment complexes could collapse in an earthquake with an intensity of upper 5 on the Japanese scale of 7, ministry officials said.

...

In the past five years, Aneha worked on the strength reports for about 90 buildings, but he said he faked the reports for only the 21 buildings.

The land ministry will file a complaint against Aneha with the Metropolitan Police Department.

"We will adopt a stern manner in dealing with the architect and others who were involved in the illegal acts," said National Public Safety Commission Chairman Tetsuo Kutsukake, who has temporarily taken over as land minister for Kazuo Kitagawa, who is visiting Laos and China.

When asked about compensation for the residents living at buildings that need reconstruction or reinforcements, Kutsukake said: "Because this is a private matter, we will not be obliged to provide public funds. If the residents should wish to move out, we'd like to take measures, including helping them find accommodation at public housing or other facilities."

The numbers there are a little more specific than what we heard at the end of last week, particular the strength of a quake in which the buildings could fail. Upper 5 is not a minor little quake, but it's well within the realm of possibility for a seismically active region such as Kanto. Perhaps in practical terms this isn't as bad as it sounds; there are plenty of flimsy old wood-frame-and-corrugated-tin apartment buildings around Tokyo and environs. It's not as if these falsified inspection reports made possible the only unsafe buildings in the area. Still, they should open a serious can of Hammurabi on this guy's ass. Even if he wasn't the actual builder, he was the one whose job it was to deem buildings up to or not up to code, and people make their emergency plans based on the quake-resistance of the building they live in.

Today the meeting was between Koizumi and the ROK's President Roh:

On the evening of 18 November, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi met with South Korean President Mu-Hyon Roh in Pusan for approximately 30 minutes. The President expressed strong opposition to "the pilgrimages by the Prime Minister and multiple other politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine," which are "a provocation to Korea." The Prime Minister once again explained, "Those pilgrimages represent both a self-examination with respect to [Japanese conduct during] the war and a gesture of respect to those who died." However, the argument established no common ground; the planned visit by President Roh to Japan within the year could not be agreed upon.

For this region, that's relatively mellow, though most of the serious animosity usually isn't vented in face-to-face meetings. Of course, heads of state in this part of the world have a habit of refusing to visit each other...well, to visit Japan. (Balloon-Juice had a post the other day that made a few not-bad points about the dynamic between us and the PRC but struck me as a little bit flibbertigibbety and too-touchy about what constitutes a serious diplomatic insult in these parts.)

So Japan has managed to alarm both of its closest neighbors with which it has strong economic ties. Of course, there doesn't seem to have been anything from North Korea, but just you wait: the UN, presumably anxious to quell rumors that it thinks it was rather charming of the DPRK to kidnap fifteen Japanese nationals from their native beaches, condemned the late-70s abductions yesterday. Or maybe it was the day before--you know, all those UN announcements that we should play nice tend to run together. Kim's bound to have a reaction to that.

The extension of the SDF deployment in Iraq looks like a done deal--this Nikkei report is a little firmer than the last one I saw yesterday:

At the Japan-US meeting between heads of state on 16 November, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi revealed, for all intents and purposes, that the deployment of SDF personnel in Iraq, which comes up against its existing end date in December, will be extended. The extension is based on a judgement that, since other countries contributing to the multi-national force will keep their troops stationed there, the US will not be understanding if Japan alone withdraws. However, the UK and Australian forces that serve as escorts for the SDF are set to be withdrawn in May of next year. The [US] president expressed appreciation for Japan's support; the prime minister, in the meantime, is already looking to set a withdrawal date.

"Japan, as a member of international society, must continue to support Iraq towards its goal of standing on its own."

With that roundabout utterance, the prime minister conveyed to the president that the troop deployment would be extended.

President Bush is in Kyoto and met with Prime Minister Koizumi today. The Nikkei reports on Xinhua's reaction:

On 16 November, the PRC state news agency Xinhua reported of Prime Minister Koizumi and US President Bush's meeting that "they emphasized the importance of the Japan-US alliance" and displayed alarm as it related such items as Koizumi's mention of the importance of US military personnel stationed in Japan.

The Asahi has a more wide-ranging rundown, including this related point:

The Japanese prime minister also brushed aside criticism that he has focused too heavily on U.S. relations while ignoring ties with Japan's Asian neighbors.

"There are some people who believe that Japan should not pursue its relations with the United States too far, and if that creates some negative elements, then Japan should strengthen friendly ties with other countries.

"But that is not my thinking."

Bush also had a message for China, saying leaders should not be afraid to give freedom to their society.

The U.S. president went on to say that the Liberal Democratic Party's landslide victory in the Sept. 11 Lower House election underscores the strength of democracy in Japan.

Koizumi and Bush confirmed that their countries will work in close cooperation so that China becomes a constructive partner.

The evening edition of the Nikkei has a picture of the two at Kinkakuji, which unfortunately doesn't appear to be on-line. This is the only one I can find posted.

Ghost of a Flea has clearly not met my boyfriend, who would not only not be fleeing for his life but would be furrowing his brow and saying, "Hmmmm. Fire truck's out of the way. Hon, how about standing a little bit off to the left there?"

(Of course I'm just kidding, dearest.)

This morning, a M 7.1 earthquake rumbled the ocean floor off the coast of Japan, spreading fear and panic among normally-placid sea anemone and vent-dwelling tubeworm populations and raising troubling concerns about the ability of local ecosystems to cope with such disturbances without comprehensive planning at the seabed-wide level.

Okay, maybe it didn't. Being a child of the media age has kind of conditioned me to think of everything as a crisis. Well, I've also had people asking me whether I'm okay.

The quake was 300 miles offshore--and the focus was buried unusually deep. I didn't feel it at all, and the reports on the websites of the major dailies are buried by this point--the Princess's wedding and the Koizumi cabinet's budget capers, you know. There was a tsunami warning, but it was downplayed even as it was being made.

Quick Japan news: the ROK Foreign Minister took a swipe at Japan for the Yasukuni Shrine issue at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Pusan:

Ban stated, "Japanese leaders have not been capable of squarely acknowledging past history; their pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine are undesirable." While he avoided mentioning Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister [Taro] Aso by name, he did criticize the policies of the Japanese side.

I believe that Ban is usually referred to as the "Foreign Minister" in English, though the kanji title would mean something closer to "Minister of Diplomacy and Trade." Whatever his title, and however generic his statement, it is evidence that the ROK is not softening toward Japan on the Yasukuni issue--not surprising, given that Koizumi's new cabinet includes a new member or two known for nationalist leanings.

...

The seven federal ministries asked to cut their budgets have come up with only ¥28.9 billion of the requested ¥630 billion. That's a whopping 4.6%. Let's hope the regional government bodies don't spend it all in one place.

...

The government has established a central processing center for information about possible money laundering and financing of terrorism.

...

Has anyone heard anything about Minerva? Minerva is the probe that was launched off the Hayabusa spacecraft and was supposed to land on the Asteroid Itokawa. Apparently, the Hayabusa was ascending too fast and so the Minerva's trajectory was screwed up--such aerospace geeks who may be reading this will probably be wincing at that description, but I was only half-paying attention to NHK when the announcement was made. There didn't seem to be a way to get the Minerva back on course, so they were fearing it might be lost. I hope not. Japan's aerospace programs have had a lot of embarrassing failures over the last several years.

You may recall that even of the federal ministries have been instructed to cut their budgets for subsidies; the odds are that they won't reach their targets:

The deadline passed at noon today for responses from seven federal ministries to a proposal to cut a collective ¥630 billion from their budgets, as apportioned by the Prime Minister. By noon, the number of submissions was stalled at two: from the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry and from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. The other five, such as the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, are set to submit their proposals this afternoon, but [their proposed cuts] are not expected to meet the ¥630 billion objective. The Prime Minister's office indicates that it expects things to be settled up by the end of the month, but the journey promises to be rough.

I haven't seen an update since that story was posted at 13:00, and if there was one on NHK, it was delivered while I was out of the room.

*******

So this whole bird flu thing? Gives me deep thoughts. Like, you know, what if we all totally get sick and die? We've certainly been hearing about it, though there was nothing that seemed interested enough to post. Today, the Ministry of Health, Labor...oops! Labour--the u is very important...the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare announced that it's going to take a six-phase approach to preparation:

On 14 November, the MHLW unveiled a "plan of action" that stipulated a phase-six policy to contend with new forms of influenza; the risk that such forms will appear has increased. [The policy provides for] coordination if certain measures become necessary: the stockpiling of antiviral drugs will be increased on a large scale; in the event of a global outbreak, schools will be closed and large assemblies banned, commuting to workplaces will be restricted, and citizens will be instructed to restrict their movements by international air and maritime transport. Taking the MLHW's directive into account, prefectural governments will begin generating independent proposals [for their own local policies] in earnest.

The worst-case scenario, as projected at the moment, is one fourth of the Japanese population infected.

*******

Among other threats to health, there've been a lot of interesting homicides in the news here lately. One of the more chilling is one that, fortunately for the intended victim, didn't come off. The chilling part is that the plan could be put into motion in the first place:

The arrest of a 16-year-old girl who allegedly tried to poison her mother to death with thallium raises the question of how the student was able to obtain the poison so easily even under tightened controls following similar crimes.

The investigation by the Shizuoka prefectural police has so far found that the high school student in Izunokuni possessed various kinds of chemicals. About 30 substances, including thallium, were seized during the police search of her room at her home.

The girl told the police she had bought the thallium at a nearby drugstore.

However, the Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Law bans drugstores from selling such poisonous substances to those aged under 18.

It also requires buyers to submit a form listing their name, address, occupation, the amount of chemical they have bought and other items when they purchase such substances.

The Health, Labor [!] and Welfare Ministry instructs drugstores to check buyers' identity and ask them why they want to buy toxic substances.

Someone apparently read Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse.

In another archetypal case--this time with a more tragic ending--a high school girl in one of the outer municipalities in Tokyo Metro was killed by a classmate with a crush that spiraled out of control:

A schoolboy accused of killing 15-year-old Yua Koyama last week because she had gone cold on him had been seen gazing longingly at her suburban Tokyo apartment for hours some weeks ago, a witness told the police.

The 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also told investigators that he burst into the Koyama home without prior notice as soon as Yua's mother, Kimiko, left for work on Thursday, the day he is alleged to have killed the fellow student from his high school.

Police have transferred the boy to the Hachioji Branch of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, where he awaits his fate.

NHK reported the day after the killing that a neighbor had heard noises coming from the apartment, including the girl's screams for help, but assumed that she and her mother were having a fight.

This opinion piece is an excellent example of why I avoid The Japan Times. It's full of hot air about "cultural diversity," and if the triteness of that inescapable phrase isn't enough of a turn-off, just wait until you see where the writer, one Kazuo Ogoura, goes with it:

What I find worrisome is not the general American reluctance to adopt this phrase but rather the underlying trend in contemporary American society of apparent opposition to the notion of cultural diversity. Specifically, there appears to be a movement in contemporary U.S. society to restore a more traditional form of American culture while simultaneously pushing back the inroads made by Hispanic and other cultures. A somewhat alarming thesis imagines floods of Mexican immigrants dividing and weakening traditional American culture. Whatever the intentions of those who expound them, the existence of such ideas suggests an undercurrent of thought in American society that seeks to restore a more homogenous vision of America, to the detriment of cultural diversity.

If this trend continues, and if cultural diversity is denied or neglected, it will endanger the development of human society, for diversity ultimately provides flexibility. One can easily grasp this link between diversity and flexibility by considering biological diversity in nature. Unless biological diversity is maintained, living species cannot survive climatic and ecological change. And just as biological diversity guarantees the survival of species in spite of environmental changes, so cultural diversity provides for the survival of human civilizations.

I expend a lot of energy extolling the politeness and respect for ceremony that makes life in Japan, even in super-crowded Tokyo, work smoothly. But I'm sorry, the nerve--THE NERVE--of some Japanese government flack sermonizing at AMERICA about domestic cultural diversity and fear of immigrants is just way too much. This is the country in which a nurse with a Japanese mother and Korean father, born and brought up here, was denied promotion because her citizenship is not Japanese, a decision that was upheld by the Supreme Court. (BTW, if you read that article, there's more to the situation than nasty Japanese and noble, put-upon Koreans, but it serves to illustrate the point that if former Japanese officials are going to address respect for diversity, criticism should start at home.)

It's certainly possible to find rank xenophobes in America, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the public debate over border security knows that any "thesis" that "imagines floods of Mexican immigrants dividing and weakening traditional American culture" is held by very few. The major worries with regards to Mexico are economic (expensive welfare programs for illegal aliens, for example) and defense-based (slack security could allow terrorists in along with migrant workers and other job-seekers). You don't necessarily have to favor numerical caps on immigration to favor strict policies to deal with those who come in without permission and documentation.

The most mainstream "cultural" concern that I'm aware of revolves around the use of English. Many of us oppose hand-holding bilingual public school classes because a lack of native-level English impedes the assimilation of immigrant children into the workforce--not just American, but global. However, no sensible American wants to interfere with people's ability to speak Spanish at home or in businesses established to cater to immigrant markets, or to celebrate festivals from the old country. If there's a movement to get us all to start living like some fantasy-nostalgia version of Connecticut WASPs in the 50s, I haven't heard of it. And Professor, Mexicans are Chicanos, not Hispanics. Don't make that slide in front of a Puerto Rican if you expect to remain known as a diplomat.

Speaking of theses, Ogoura's--"And just as biological diversity guarantees the survival of species in spite of environmental changes, so cultural diversity provides for the survival of human civilizations"--is inane, or at least conveniently foggy. If we view the globe as a cultural ecosystem, then sleekly gorgeous, genetically pure, low-birthrate Japan is the equivalent of, like, the cheetah. America may, in 2006, be looking for ways to limit immigration, but it is already the product of a hodge-podge, a century and a half in the making, of peoples that have contributed their different resources to the general culture. In a world of nations brought closer together by technology, perhaps diversity can be achieved not by walling each country off in its little cell of cultural maintenance but by allowing disparate influences to be more subtly woven together within nations, or even cities and neighborhoods.

And I haven't even gotten to what, as the friend who sent me the link remarked, is the biggest problem: "the inherent assumption that 'cultures' must be protected from individual choices." Yes, one does have to wonder how these American cultural exports are finding consumers where no one is interested in buying them. Must be our mind-control rays. Sheesh.

Am I the only one who's noticed an awful lot of guys running around Tokyo in charcoal grey suits + pointed tan shoes that...you know...TOTALLY DON'T GO TOGETHER?

What's up? This has been over, I'd say, the last two or three weeks. Did some popular TV drama feature an actor in that kind of get-up in a pivotal scene? Did Donatella Versace send models down the runway that way? Did Men's Non-no do a five-page feature (complete with bossy pictorial how-to's) on healing the rift between antiqued brown leather and grey wool?

The look is utterly hein, and I can only hope it passes quickly. (When cocoa brown + black--both of which at least have cool, blue undertones to unite them--came in a decade ago, it was here for-flippin'-ever.) There are far better reasons to think about taking men's clothing off than that it's COMPLETELY HIDEOUS. Please, just stop.

Koizumi's three-pronged reforms (usually more literally translated "trinity reforms") are not part of his campaign that we'd been hearing a whole lot about lately, what with the emphasis on Japan Post and the resulting landslide election victory and cabinet reshuffling. They're back in the spotlight these last few days, though. Yesterday, the government made a few announcements:

On 8 November, the federal government gave instructions to slash ¥630 billion from the budgets of seven ministries. The purpose of the move is to effect decreases in the amount spent on subsidies, in line with the ¥600 billion worth of the tax revenues that will no longer be transferred to the federal government as a result of the national and regional three-pronged reforms. Though the goal is to speed [the implementation of the Koizumi administration's platform through] cabinet-level leadership, Kasumigaseki has objected to what it sees as quotas. The government and the LDP have mobilized their machine to take the lead politically through, for example, the new establishment of regular talks between the vice-ministers and the party chairman.

"It is necessary for us as the cabinet to throw even more energy into coordinating [these reforms]. The relevant cabinet members, we would ask to marshall all their resources swiftly"--so said Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe at an informal gathering after an 8 November cabinet meeting. He requested concrete proposals for fulfilling [each ministry's quota of reductions in] allocations by 14 November.

That was one of those little articles that are easy to understand but surprisingly difficult to translate. (Or maybe the difficulties I was having in getting it into non-mangled English were a signal that I was missing something, but I don't think so.)

Assuming the vice-ministers referred to are the administrative vice-ministers, the meetings with the LDP point person are going to be very important. When cabinet ministers appointed by the PM (and their immediate subordinates) have problems, it's usually because they run afoul of and are outmaneuvered by those under them: the career bureaucrats, who are led by the administrative vice-ministers. These are the people who have devoted their entire post-university careers to going up the escalator in their chosen arm of the government, and they are notoriously resistant to change--especially the kind of change that involves cutting their budgets, and thus their power and influence.

To recap, the three prongs of reform are

• to slash outright federal subsidies to regional and local governments
  
• to overhaul the federal "revenue sharing" system, in which tax revenue comes from local taxpayers to Tokyo, is divided for redistribution in little packets after being haggled over by agencies in the federal ministries, then makes a U-ey back to local governments (or local branches of federal agencies)
  
• to make up for the resulting loss of federal subsidies by increasing the amount of locally collected taxes that goes straight into the coffers of regional and local governments--which is to say, to decrease the role of the federal middle man

You can imagine what the middle man thinks of all this, but self-serving complaints from Kasumigaseki are not the only ones being leveled at Koizumi's plan. The "three-pronged reforms" have been portrayed as simply shifting much of the government debt burden from federal to regional bodies. One might note that, given the federal government's notorious wastefulness in handling money, shifting its debt somewhere--anywhere--can hardly make things worse. There's another problem, though, as noted, for example, in this Asahi editorial from a month or so back: decision-making power is not necessarily being decentralized along with tax collection.

With regard to the transfer of 3 trillion yen in tax revenue, some people say a figure of 2.4 trillion yen has already been agreed upon. But in reality, the Education Ministry is still against slashing 850 billion yen from compulsory education fees now paid from national coffers. The Central Council for Education, an advisory body to the education minister, took an extraordinary vote during a recent meeting. It is scheduled to issue a report shortly recommending that state funding of compulsory education be maintained at current levels.

In addition, entities like the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, or the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, have refused to cooperate with a plan submitted by the National Governors' Association to abolish state subsidies.

Thus, the situation has not changed from last year. Koizumi is still at odds with the ministries.

Final resolution of the issue depends on the outcome of talks between the government and the ruling parties. In order to prevent having the subsidies under their control abolished altogether, the various ministries will probably offer their own versions of reducing subsidy rates, or suggest ways to switching to grants, whose purpose is not designated, and, therefore, more convenient for local governments.

But we cannot approve of switching purpose-specific subsidies to nonspecific grants. This would allow the ministries in Tokyo to retain their power of allocating money. That would be counterproductive to the decentralizing principles of reform.

It's worth noting that while left-leaning organizations such as the Democratic Party of Japan and, uh, the Asahi editorial board are reliably against privatization, they often do support decentralization of government budgeting and allocation. Whether that testifies to their economic liberal-mindedness or to the sheer undeniable inefficiency of the bureaucracies is an open question.

It will be interesting to see what happens on and after the fourteenth.

Japan Airlines is about to pour ¥60 billion (US $550 million) into tightening safety standards:

JAL has announced a plan for corporate reform of which the pillars will include a ¥60 billion investment in increasing flight safety from fiscal 2006 to 2010. In addition to increasing its competitive edge by introducing state-of-the-art new aircraft, the company will implement cuts in remunerations to board members and base salaries for employees.

There are plans to retire thirty Boeing 747s currently in service, to add smaller 737s, and to increase the number of international routes, especially to China. The safety measures are set out more vaguely--the hiring of more technicians and a more systematic training program. Of course, JAL didn't come up with this idea on its own: the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure has given it increasingly frequent warnings over procedural failures that nearly resulted in incidents. The publicity has not been good. But if JAL is serious (and I trust it to get Atsushi here and back at least once a month, so I hope so), this could be a welcome and too-uncommon case of a Japanese company's finding and addressing flaws in its safety procedures before a disaster happens.

When I first saw this story, I assumed the suspect had set things on fire to give himself more dramatic stuff to cover--faking stories is not unheard of at NHK, though we haven't had any really good scandals to laugh out loud over lately.

It appears, however, that he may just be seriously screwed up in the head. I can't decide whether that's more or less disturbing:

A 24-year-old NHK reporter was arrested Saturday on suspicion of attempted arson at a house under construction in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, with police saying he was a suspect in 11 arson attacks, including burning down a house in Otsu.

Arrested was Hirofumi Kasamatsu, a reporter at the public broadcaster's Otsu Station, according to a joint force of the Shiga and Osaka prefectural police.

Hired by NHK in April last year, Kasamatsu was responsible for covering crimes and accidents in the prefecture at the time of the arson attacks. He is currently on leave from work.

According to the police, Kasamatsu admitted the alleged attempted arson, saying he lit the fire with a cigarette lighter. He also admitted setting a number of fires in the Shiga Prefecture capital in April and May.

...

Kasamatsu told the police that he regretted what he had done. He also said he had committed the arson attacks due to problems at work.

NHK Chairman Genichi Hashimoto said: "It's regrettable that a person of the media caused such crimes. I'd like to sincerely apologize. We're considering how to reprimand him in light of the investigation."

Reprimand? Firing him sounds like a pretty good idea, though I don't suppose administering a good scolding along with it wouldn't hurt.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara is an endless source of provocation:

Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Shintaro Ishihara, on a visit to the US, gave a lecture at a think tank on 3 November and warned that, if thrust into a war with China, "the US, which reveres human life, would surely lose."

He indicated that the reason was that China, unlike the human-rights-valuing US, would not fear the loss of large numbers of human lives.

Well, not that long ago we fought a death-glorifying Asian enemy whose air force pilots were notoriously willing to sink our warships by flying their planes into them...uh, not the best historian here...who was that again? Anyway, I'm pretty sure we won, partially because our scruples about human rights didn't prevent us from striking big-time HARD at the enemy when the time came.

China has many, many people, true. It also has a decided nationalistic streak that could be used to get those people riled up in war time. But the CCP's troubles in coordinating its own government, let alone keeping the reins it would like on the Chinese populace, are well known. Invading and taking China over would be exceedingly diffcult; at the same time, projecting force in a coordinated and far-reaching fashion is something the US now has more sustained experience with than any other country on earth.

Be that as it may, Ishihara's recommendations go along predictable lines:

He argued that, to combat the rise of China, what was needed was not military might but "a policy of economic containment." He called for measures to isolate China by, for example, strengthening ties with India. Given that the Chinese economy is dependent on foreign technology, if exchange with foreign countries is restricted, Ishihara said, "it will dry up economically and be unable to maneuver."

Interesting how the best way for the US to further its interests would just, you know, happen to coincide with a policy that would seriously stick it to Japan's most ancient rival. What a felicitous coincidence, huh?

In real life, the gigantic Chinese market means a lot to Ishihara's own people, whose economy, he's surely noticed, has been having its own share of troubles. Additionally, if there are hazards involved in economic and technological investment in a country run by a regime like the CCP, there are also hazards involved in flagrantly attempting to stunt its growth and prosperity. Beijing would have no trouble using that to its own ends in fomenting anti-foreigner sentiment among its people--it welcomes every chance to deflect dissatisfaction away from itself--in which case our military power might come in handy after all.

There's pretty obviously no way to guarantee that China will not become a huge problem, but the current approach seems the best of the available options, even if specific policies sometimes err to far in the direction of making nice with the CCP. Making all billion-plus Chinese prosperous and content at once is impossible, but as long as a solid proportion of people think they have a shot at bettering their lives, they're less likely to get restive, even if US ally India becomes a major economic competitor and keeps China's growth in check somewhat.

The asbestos scandal has been one of the biggest news stories of the year here in Japan. It doesn't seem to be getting much attention from Western journalists here, though I suppose I could be missing things. I don't think so, though, and it's kind of bizarre, because the issue taps into the sorts of broad-brush changes in society that journalists like to play up--especially old favorites such as emerging problems with Japan's national health system.

This is from the latest from the Nikkei:

The Ministry of the Environment announced on 4 November that, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare, it will establish an investigative committee to determine the medical criteria for diagnosing illnesses caused by asbestos. The committee's goal is to set recognition criteria for confirming the presence of five kinds of ailments, including not only lung cancer but also mesothelioma and asbestos lung.

On 16 November, the Environment Ministry will gather six medical experts and open t