We really have to hand to him here! Such a brave kid - and SO dedicated to his fans! Although a majority of his crew have flat-out refused to participate in his upcoming tour dates in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan, due to fear of another earthquake or exposure to nuclear radiation, Justin Bieber has announced that he will go no matter what! Furthermore, ...

We really have to hand to him here! Such a brave kid - and SO dedicated to his fans! Although a majority of his crew have flat-out refused to participate in his upcoming tour dates in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan, due to fear of another earthquake or exposure to nuclear radiation, Justin Bieber has announced [...]

Two more matches have been announced for the upcoming Jewels: “14th Ring” event on May 14th in Tokyo, Japan. Teen prodigy Mizuki Inoue will return to Jewels after winning last year’s Rough Stone Grand Prix at 56kg. The 16-year-old will face Natsuka in her second shoot boxing match. Also confirmed for the card is a grappling match between jiu-jitsu specialists Emi Tomimatsu and Mayumi Suzuki. Tomimatsu has competed in grappling matches on two consecutive Jewels cards and will make her third straight appearance at 14th Ring, while Suzuki makes her Jewels debut. Despite her young age, Inoue has already developed into one of the brightest prospects among female fighters in Japan. After winning her first two professional kickboxing matches last year, Inoue made her MMA debut at Jewels: 10th Ring and submitted Emi Murata to advance to the finals of the 2010 Jewels Rough Stone Grand Prix at 56kg. She went on to win the tournament by submitting Asako Saioka at 11th Ring in December. With the victory, the karate practitioner became the youngest female fighter to win a mixed martial arts tournament title in a major promotion. Inoue returned to kickboxing on March 6th and defeated Madoka Jinnai by Unanimous Decision after an extra round at J-Girls: “Catch The Stone 13.” She is expected to challenge for the J-Girls Bantamweight Championship later this year. Still maintaining a full-time high school schedule, Inoue debuted as a blue belt in a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament on May 1st, where she won both of her matches by submission. While she is otherwise unbeaten in professional combat sports, Inoue was defeated in her lone shoot boxing appearance to date. She took on Kanako Oka at Shoot Boxing Osaka 2010 Alpinisme: “Young Caesar vol. 2” on May 16th of last year and lost a Majority Decision. Days shy of one year later, she will have a chance to pick up her first shoot boxing win against Natsuka, who is coming off of a Unanimous Decision victory in January.   Though she now primarily competes in grappling matches, Tomimatsu formerly competed in MMA. She won two of her six MMA bouts and faced formidable opposition during her 15 months in the sport. On December 17th at Jewels: 11th Ring, Tomimatsu defeated Akemi Ogawa by Unanimous Decision after one 4:00 round in a grappling match. Suzuki took part in last month’s Roll Festival grappling tournament in Tokyo, but was defeated by eventual finalists Ricaco Yuasa and Hiroko Kitamura.   Jewels: 13th Ring and 14th Ring will both take place on May 14th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring in Tokyo. The events will together be part of an all-day festival to raise money for relief and reconstruction in Japan after the country was struck by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.   Jewels: 13th Ring Fight Card (to date; subject to change): - Bolormaa “Esui” Erdenebileg vs Chisa Yonezawa [61kg Jewels Special Rules MMA Bout] - Asami Higa vs Megumi Morioka [50kg Jewels Official Rules MMA Bout] - Yukiko Seki vs Yuka Okumura [48kg Jewels Official Rules MMA Bout] - Sadae “Manhoef” Suzumura vs Anna Saito [53kg Jewels Official Rules MMA Bout] - Kozue “Azuma” Nagashima vs Yukimi Kamikaze [57.15kg Kickboxing Bout] - Miku Hayashi vs Rio Kamikaze [53.52kg Kickboxing Bout] - Madoka Okada vs Momoka [47kg Kickboxing Bout]   Jewels: 14th Ring Fight Card (to date; subject to change): - Misaki Takimoto vs Naho “Sugi Rock” Sugiyama [48kg Jewels Special Rules MMA Bout] - Mika “Future Princess” Nagano vs Emi Murata [54kg Jewels Official Rules MMA Bout] - Miyoko Kusaka vs Sachiko “Sachi” Yamamoto [48kg Jewels Official Rules MMA Bout] - Mizuki Inoue vs Natsuka [54kg Shoot Boxing Match] - Ayaka Hamasaki vs Saori “Shooting Star” Ishioka [52kg Non-Title Grappling Match] - Ricaco Yuasa vs Kazue Matake [56.5kg Grappling Match] - Emi Tomimatsu vs Mayumi Suzuki [54kg Grappling Match]     (Photo Credit: Jewels blog)

Watch Cerezo Osaka vs Vegalta Sendai Japanese J League Live Streaming Online Fuji TV TV Broadcast, Telecast Coverage Schedule, Start Time, Live Scores, Standings Updates. Cerezo Osaka vs Vegalta Sendai Japanese J League is scheduled to be played on Saturday May 7, 2011 Start Time 10:00 GMT at . Get more ...

Good news Japanese fans (or fans worldwide)! SNSD will perform Mr Taxi live for the very first time on Japan’s Asahi TV‘s Music Station on May 13!

This also marks the continuation of the girls’ Japanese activities, which was temporarily halted and somehow affected after the Japanese disaster in March, and this is the first time they are performing the song after the official release of the single on April 27.

The girls’ popularity and the SNSD craze is expected to rise again with their upcoming performance on Music Station and possibly other Japanese promotions for their third Japanese single.

They will also kick off their Arena Tour in Osaka on May 31 and the tour, which includes Osaka, Tokyo, Saitama, Hiroshima, Nagoya and Fukuoka, will be ongoing until July 17, where they are will be performing in front of an estimated audience of 100,000.

Are you feeling envious of Japanese fans yet?

Stay tuned to KpopLIVE for more Kpop Music News and updates on SNSD’s performance on Music Station!

Source: Newsen
Translated by: Fanwonder
Written by: yegrina@kpoplive.com

Posted on Fri, 06 May 2011 18:28:25 +0000 at http://www.kpoplive.com/2011/05/06/snsds...xt-friday/
Comments: http://www.kpoplive.com/2011/05/06/snsds.../#comments

American thrash veterans Anthrax have announced that its Japanese tour, which was expected to kick off on May 5 in Tokyo, has been "postponed." The band offered only the following breif statement; "We are currently working to reschedule and hope to announce new Japan dates soon." The affected shows can be found in the list below.

May 05 - Tokyo, Japan - O-East
May 06 - Tokyo, Japan - O-East
May 07 - Nagoya, Japan - Diamond Hall
May 09 - Osaka, Japan - Big Cat

Since i didn’t get to go to Japan (sob),  i find myself seeking solace in flipping through Japanese magazines in Kinokuniya pretending i’m in a bookstore in Osaka, or playing pachinko on my android pretending i’m in an arcade center in Shibuya, or go to Sasa with Aud to buy Japanese make up products pretending [...]

ANTHRAX's previously announced Japanese tour, which was slated to kick off tonight (Thursday, May 5) in Tokyo, has been "postponed." The band states, "We are currently working to reschedule and hope to announce new Japan dates soon." Affected shows: May 05 - Tokyo, Japan @ O-East May 06 - Tokyo, Japan @ O-East May 07 - Nagoya, Japan @ Diamond Hall May 09 - Osaka, Japan @ Big Cat SEPULT

Fukushima is not Chernobyl, Prime Minister Naoto Kan insists. His government draws comfort from the fact that Fukushima emitted only a fraction of the radiation released at Chernobyl in 1986, that Chernobyl caused a number of deaths and thousands of cancers. In Chernobyl, the exploding reactor threw radioactive material high into the atmosphere, spreading it over a wide area of Western Europe. In Fukushima, apart from the radioactivity released to the sea, the contamination is concentrated within some 400 square kilometers around the plant. Fukushima caused no deaths, at least not so far.

Photo by liebeslakritze

 

However, in some ways Fukushima looks more worrying than Chernobyl, and more hopeless.

Portrait of a pressure group: the nuclear village

The disaster at Chernobyl was triggered by a botched experiment to improve the reactor’s safety in case of an emergency shut-down. The disaster at Fukushima was triggered by a natural catastrophe, a tsunami, but it was allowed to happen, because Tepco, the plant’s operator, and subsequent Japanese governments ignored ample warnings, an earthquake or a tsunami of this magnitude might knock out the emergency back-up systems.

Tepco systematically violated safety rules. In more than 200 instances between 1977 and 2002, the utility submitted false data to the authorities, as stated by a commission of the Japanese parliament, the Diet. The nation’s nuclear safety authorities and government were complicit in Tepco’s blunders.

The Soviet Union was a system in decay, even before Chernobyl. To outside observers, it was no surprise when things went wrong. Japan sees herself at the pinnacle of technology, a major exporter of nuclear power. Despite the fact Japan’s nuclear industry has suffered a substantial number of accidents before, the country did not have any contingency plans to deal with a nuclear accident as it happened in Fukushima. Six days into the catastrophe, Japan had no idea how to get the plant under control. In a desperate attempt, seawater was dumped from a helicopter to cool spent nuclear fuel. Despite warnings, Tepco failed to prevent hydrogen-explosions.

Photo with thanks to daveeza

 

Japan, a nation proud of her safety standards and disaster preparedness, was totally unprepared for an accident that had been predicted by experts. The nation of the industrial robot did not have a single machine to mitigate the crisis. Japan has not learned anything from Chernobyl.

On March, 11, Japan suffered one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history, followed by an enormous tsunami. The three nuclear power plants located on the coast hit by the tsunami withstood the tremor, but at Fukushima I the waves knocked out all cooling systems. Although it had been suggested to Tepco, there were no mobile cooling systems on stand-bye.

To make things worse, Tepco initially underestimated the developing crisis. Knowingly or not, the utility did not react with the urgency necessary. The Kan government trusted Tepco, and, according to Japanese press reports, rejected the first offers of foreign assistance, notably from the US to help cool the reactors. It might have been possible to prevent some or all of the four hydrogen-explosions that caused major damage to unit 1,2 and 4, blew off their roofs and splattered the plant with highly radioactive debris.

Photo with thanks to daveeza

 

Fukushima I was not designed to survive a tsunami, any surge of the seawater higher than 5.7 meters would have been fatal. However, the villages and fishing harbors nearby all had tsunami-barriers.

It has been estimated that the waves that hit the plant were about 14 meters high. In some areas further north, they reached 30 meters. Tepco, the Japanese nuclear watchdogs and government officials claim such a tsunami was beyond expectation. When driving along the devastated coast on a hilly road, however, one regularly crosses the line up to which the tsunami wrecked everything. Climbing on, a few meters above that line of destruction, one encounters a road sign, “End of Estimated Tsunami Inundation Area”. In some places, the water flooded these signs, but not by much, in many others, the tsunami did not reach as high as the sign. One can but conclude that Japan’s road bureau and the local authorities knew they had to expect a tsunami the heigth of March, 11, but not Tepco and the nuclear safety authorities.

As historic evidence shows, earthquakes of a similar magnitude struck this region in the years, 869, 1498, 1896 and 1933, causing tsunamis of a comparable strength. For the Jogan-earthquake in 869, Professor Koji Minoru of Tohoku University has shown with the help of sediments that in the Sendai area the tsunami reached 4 kilometers inland. The 1933 tsunami is still remembered by surviving witnesses, there are even historical film documents.

A few years ago, it had been discussed in a Diet commission if such historical evidence of major tsunamis should be taken into account for the safety guidelines for nuclear power plants. There cannot be any doubt that the government and Tepco were aware of the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami, but ignored them to cut costs. In 2006, the guidelines for the safety of nuclear power plants were revised, but their wording remained fuzzy, the threat of a tsunami is only mentioned at on the last two of some 140 pages. Before an earlier revision, Tepco had managed to postpone their implementation so that they would not be applicable for a unit then under construction.

The most detailed warning was made in 2008 by Kobe University’s Professor Katsuhiko Ishibashi. In front of a Diet commission, he drew a scenario of an earthquake knocking out all cooling systems of a nuclear power plant. This would be followed by hydrogen explosions and a massive release of radioactivity into the atmosphere, said Ishibashi. That is exactly what happened at Fukushima I. Only, Ishibashi developed his scenario for the plant in Hamaoka, west of Tokyo. Hamaoka is considered to be the most dangerous nuclear power station in Japan. With certain winds, Ishibashi said, Tokyo might become uninhabitable. Despite his insistence, the majority of Diet commission saw no need to act.

The “atomic village”, as the collusion of the nuclear industry, the nuclear watchdogs and the government has come to be called, didn’t want to hear any of it. “If you were criticizing nuclear power, you were treated as an enemy of the state”, former governor of Fukushima prefecture Eisaku Sato says. He ruled the stricken prefecture from 1988 to 2006, when he was arrested for corruption – on doctored evidence, as he claims.

With a number of lawsuits, concerned citizens tried to force the operators of Japan’s nuclear power plants to improve on their security standards, notably in Fukushima. One of these lawsuits is aimed at shutting down Chubu Electric’s Hamaoka plant, the one Ishibashi developed his scenario for.

As a witness of the defense, Haruki Madarame, then a professor at the University of Tokyo, said in court: “There needs to be a line drawn somewhere. It would be impossible to design a nuclear plant if engineers had to consider every single possibility.” Last year, the same Madarame was elected to chair Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, the government’s highest body for the safety of nuclear power. Thus, the governments top expert for the safety of the nuclear plants is someone who in court said relative safety is good enough for nuclear power plants.

Japan has clearly accepted insufficient safety standards, and her nuclear authorities failed to to strictly enforce even those inadequate standards.

In Chernobyl, once the magnitude of the disaster had become obvious, the authorities acted with urgency. 36 hours after the explosion, within a period of 2 1/2 hours, they evacuated 49,000 people. In Japan, it took Prime Minister Naoto Kan more than 30 hours to declare a nuclear emergency. Only after four explosions and more than four days of disorientation, he subjected Tepco’s wanting crisis management to his direct control. It took Japan six days to effectively start cooling the reactors and the spent fuel.

For several weeks, the Japanese government refused to publish the results of SPPEDI, a computer program to determine its the effective contamination. The head of Japan’s weather service Hiroshi Niino feared, “this would cause a panic”, as he later said. When the data were finally out, the government failed to draw the obvious conclusion and adjust the zone of evacuation. Only a week after a recommendation from the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, it decided to do so. To this day, not all evacuation orders have been executed.

The earthquake and tsunami were natural disaster, the nuclear catastrophe could have been avoided. Tepco, Japan’s nuclear authorities and the government bear the responsibility for this calamity, particularly Japan’s previous governments. They allowed the “atomic village” to develop, a quagmire of corruption. The current government made things worse by reacting too slowly, and naively.

The clean, ignored alternatives

Japan has no alternative to nuclear energy, subsequent governments have been insisting for decades. Fact is, Japan has never seriously explored alternatives. Some Japanese companies produce world class generators for renewable power such as wind turbines and solar panels, but they sell them mostly abroad.

When the threat of CO2 to the planet’s climate materialized, Japan’s prime reaction was to redefine her nuclear program as “green”.

The main alternative to energy consumption is saving it. While Japan's industry achieves the highest efficiency in the world, the state, the service sector and the consumers are wasting electric power. Japan consumes about 15 percent more electricity per capita than Germany, a similarly industrialized country. Japanese houses, assembled from prefabricated parts, are hardly insulated at all. In winter, the Japanese are wasting electricity to keep warm, in summer, to keep them cool. In recent years, Tepco encouraged their customers to use more (nuclear) power, namely to switch from gas to electricity to increase the utility’s business.

The low quality of Japanese housing is often explained by high land prices. People who bought land do not have much money left for quality, they say. Japanese companies are manufacturing some of the best insulation windows worldwide, but almost exclusively for export.

The Japanese government justifies its prioritizing nuclear power because of its lack of oil. Japan’s substantial coal reserves are expensive to mine and in remote places. Some critics of Japan’s nuclear program stress further that, although Tokyo has no intention to acquire nuclear weapons, the possession of nuclear technology, especially its reprocessing facility, makes it a virtual member of the nuclear club.

Japan’s proponents of renewable energy believe the “atomic village” is deliberately obstructing hydro-, wind-, thermosolar-, photovoltaic- and geothermal energy.

Currently, about 2.5 percent of the worldwide electric energy is generated by wind-power, a number rapidly increasing. In Japan, a very windy country, the wind’s share is as low as 0.4 percent. To this day, the Japanese government has not adopted standards for wind power, as Eitaro Takayama of Mitsubishi Heavy, a producer of wind turbines, complained in Tokyo early this year.

Japanese companies such as Hitachi, Sharp and Sanyo were pioneering solar energy. In 1980, Japanese households had installed 2.8 million square meters of solar thermal panels. These are simple solar energy collectors used for heating water. By 2005, only a tenth of this capacity remained in place. Helped by the government, the utilities waged a price war against decentralized renewable power sources. They squeezed solar thermal energy generation out of the market. The Tokyo Institute for Sustainable Energy calls this a "political disaster".

In photovoltaic energy generation, solar panels that convert sunlight into electric power, Japan has lost its global leadership both in terms production and installation. In Europe, Japanese companies have been selling photovoltaic solar panels to retail customers for years, but not in Japan where feed-in-tariffs were abolished almost a decade ago (they were reintroduced recently).

Japan is a mountainous country. It has more than 3000 reservoirs, of which only a small fraction is used for hydroelectric power generation. The others were built for drinking water reserve and flood protection. An additional purpose of these dams was pork barrel politics, as is widely acknowledged today. The Liberal Democratic Party, LDP, that ruled Japan for 54 years, used to offer local construction companies large scale jobs. In turn, those companies secured the votes for the LDP to stay in power.

Many of these reservoirs could be used for small hydropower plants for local consumption. But Japanese bureaucrats favor grand solutions.

Japan has 108 active volcanoes, there are more than 10,000 so-called onsen, or hot springs. Geothermal Power is the most important untapped energy source in Japan. A geothermal power plant works just like an oil, coal, gas or nuclear power plant. It produces steam to drive turbines.

After the first oil crisis in 1973, geothermal power was proposed as the ideal solution for Japan, 19 stations were built. However, the government went for nuclear power. Geothermal stations would be located near hot springs, and thus tourist spots, it argued. Additionally, it said, geothermal is too expensive. The “atomic village” killed this clean source of energy.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), a kilowatt hour (Kwh) of nuclear generated electricity costs about 5 US-cents, geothermal power is estimated at 11 US-cents. However, the price given by METI does not include the disposal of nuclear waste, and neither the cost of the clean up of Fukushima I, currently estimated at some 300 billion US-Dollars.

According to Tetsunari Iida of the Tokyo Institute for Sustainable Energy, METI refuses to release its basis for determining the price of nuclear power at some 5 cents per kwh. He therefore calls this price fiction.

Professor Hiroaki Niitsuma of Tohoku University, blamed the state for this clean energy’s demise. Keiji Miyazaki, Professor emeritus of Osaka University, a staunch supporter of nuclear power even after Fukushima, claimed recently that geothermal power plants smell bad. Fortunately for those poor people in Fukushima, radiation doesn’t smell.

The politics of nuclear absolutism

According to her constitution, Japan is a democracy. Eisako Sato, the aforementioned ex-governor of Fukushima prefecture, says, when it comes to nuclear power, “Japan is almost a fascist state.” Japan:s doctrine has been, “nuclear power is absolutely necessary for Japan, so it is absolutely safe”, he says. Because it is so important for the nation, Sato goes on, many officials thought it legitimate to cover up accidents and flaws. He calls that “Japan:s nuclear absolutism.”

Originally accepting nuclear power as a necessity, Sato became a critic after whistle-blowers revealed to him how much Tepco was violating safety rules and falsifying protocols. As a consequence, he withdrew his approval for Tepco to use MOX in Fukushima I, a dangerous mix of uranium-plutonium. After that, the prosecution office started to investigate him for corruption.

Behind the governor’s back, Tokyo sent a flock of nuclear missionaries to the 23,000 households around the Fukushima I plant. Their task was to convince the people that MOX was safe, despite what their governor said. These households are now evacuated.

Maybe  Sato was corrupt. But if so, his was at most the petty corruption common among Japanese politicians. If all Japanese MPs guilty of this kind of corruption were banned from parliament, the hall would be half empty, it has been said. Japan’s prosecutors have a free hand to determine whom they prosecute and when; or to turn a blind eye. Thus, Sato’s allegation that he has been singled out for political reasons, namely his opposition to nuclear power, is at least plausible.

The “atomic village” stands for corruption on a much grander scale. The nuclear industry, scientists, bureaucrats and politicians have created a tight network of institutionalized and legitimized corruption. Reciprocity, a crucial point to prove corruption, is not required in the “atomic village”. Its members provide “the village” with construction jobs, research grants, promotions and votes, probably believing it is for the good of the nation. They don’t tolerate criticism. The leading media have been on good terms with this network. They have ignored the critics of nuclear power, including their many lawsuits against unsafe plants, including  Fukushima.

A crucial component of the “atomic village”, as of other tightly knit Japanese networks between politics and the private sector, is “amakudari”, literally “descent from heaven”. Japanese bureaucrats retire at the young age of 55. “Amakudari” is the institutionalized practice to help them join those companies and organizations they used to control before retirement. Thus, while still working for the government, they can expect to be rewarded in the future with the high pay of an adviser for smoothing a company’s dealings with the state. After switching side, they also use their connections and their intimate knowledge of the controlling authority to facilitate permission procedures for the company. This practice has been called the “hidden fabric of Japan’s Economy.” At the time of the Fukushima accident, two former bureaucrats were on the board of Tepco, and the former boss of the nuclear division of Tepco was rewarded by the LDP with a mandate in the Upper House of the Diet.

On top of this, there are the family networks. Many leading Japanese politicians are sons, son-in-laws, grandsons or nephews of top-politicians. They inherited their relatives’ constituencies, and also their networks.

Fukushima prefecture’s current governor, Yuhei Sato (he’s not related to his predecessor) is a nephew Kozo Watanabe, one of the surviving grand old men of Japanese politics. The only job Watanabe never held was Prime Minister, as they say. An MP for Fukushima since 1969, Watanabe was once an independent, then a member of the LDP; now he’s a crucial actor in PM Kan’s DPJ. He is on the record saying nuclear power allows the people to live longer, because it has helped Japan solve its energy problem.

After taking office, Yuhei Sato re-approved the use of MOX at Fukushima I. As a direct consequence of this decision, there were now traces of Plutonium contamination around the plant.

Most of Japan’s nuclear power plants are clustered on remote coastlines in poor prefectures. Tokyo gets the power, the people in Fukushima the problems, one can hear these days. Former governor Eisaku Sato stresses, in Japan, decision are made from top down, from Tokyo to the provinces. However, there’s another side to this equation.

One of the main architects of the “atomic village” was Kakuei Tanaka, PM from 1972-1974, and one of the most powerful men in postwar Japan. Under his premiership, Japan declared nuclear power to be a top priority.

A farmer’s son from rural Niigata, Tanaka served in the Japanese army in Manchuria. There he made his first contacts with the group that was to lead Japan’s post war economy. In hindsight, the command economy Japan imposed on Manchuria, de facto a Japanese colony, served as a laboratory for Japan’s reconstruction. Back in Tokyo, Tanaka married the heiress of a construction company and went into politics, thus becoming part of both sides of the corruption, almost an incarnation of it.

Not only did Tanaka try to get as many construction jobs for his company, but also for his prefecture Niigata. This would help him get reelected, and improve his and his prefecture’s standing in Tokyo. He managed to get his remote province connected to the national highway system and the bullet-train network long before bigger cities. The biggest price, construction work for more than a decade, was erected literally at the doorstep of his birthplace: the world’s largest nuclear power plant, Kashikawazaki-Kariwa.

When he was a member of the LDP, Kozo Watanabe belonged to Tanaka’s faction. Just like his mentor, he helped bring nuclear power plants to his own prefecture, Fukushima.

In the Soviet Union, the communist party was ubiquitous. To ensure loyalty to the party, it sent a representative into every institution, the party secretary. Their second task was to keep the government informed about the needs and achievements of their enterprise. Japanese networking, namely amakudari, other mutual dependencies and the family ties, do the same trick. In its heyday, the LDP was almost as ubiquitous as the CPSU in the Soviet Union.

Chernobyl forced the Soviet authorities to their first steps of glasnost, or openness. Late in 1986, a local youth newspaper in the then Soviet republic of Estonia dodged censorship and published a story of young Estonian liquidators who were exposed to high dosages of radiation. This was the beginning of the liberalization of the Soviet media. Thus, Chernobyl can be considered as one of the starting points to the process that finally led to the collapse of communism.

Just as with the Soviet Union at the time, Japan needs fundamental reforms. For two decades, Japanese politics have been stagnant and petrified. Some academics see the nuclear power plants as monuments of Japanese corruption.

Other than the Soviet Union, however, Japan is an open society with free elections that respects human rights. All the levers for reform should be in place.

Reform?

Will Fukushima trigger the changes Japan has been waiting for? In the Soviet Union, well educated people had lost faith in a system that lied to them and failed to provide them with their daily needs, enough milk or toilet paper. They helped to topple the government, and the system.

Japan’s is still an affluent society, the new poverty that emerged in the last decade is hard to discern, since it is marginalized to the provinces and to the fringes of society. The urban middle class still has a very good life, it has too much to lose to ask for change. In their eyes, the Tohoku region hit by the earthquake, the tsunami and the radiation crisis, is a remote place. The media is already stepping back from the more controversial position it adapted at the culmination of the crisis. The government is preoccupied with fighting assessments of Fukushima I that differ from its own. It calls these “harmful rumors”. And the opposition is back to its petty bickering.

There is no Japanese Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Andrey Sakharov, not even a Mikhail Gorbachev, no moral authority and no politician who could lead the nation to reforming itself, and not much can be expected from a government that barely manages to survive. Thus, Fukushima, unlike Chernobyl, looks unlikely to set off the chain reaction of reform that would be the only good to come of it.

Sideboxes

Related stories: 

Japan: from tsunami to change

After Fukushima

Nuclear Follies

Ear Sucker

Justin Bieber's Japan Concerts May Be Canceled Gather.com The concerts are scheduled for Osaka and Tokyo on May 17 and May 19 respectively. Without a crew, the Biebs cannot perform in Japan, and these tour dates may be canceled. Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber's manager, was reportedly very angry at the crew ... Drama Erupts on Justin Bieber's TourOlogy Is Justin Bieber Canceling Japan Tour Dates?Zimbio The Bourgeois Bieber: Eggs a la ScooterRobot Celeb all 34 news articles »

Melbourne Victory veteran Kevin Muscat says he has no regrets about returning to Australia at the time that he did.

The 37-year old former Crystal Palace, Wolves, Rangers and Millwall man left the UK in 2005 to join the A-League when he was 31 and still an Australian national team regular.

Many Australians who have left Europe during the peak of their career have been criticised for doing so but Muscat, who played his final game in Melbourne on Wednesday night, insists it was a great decision by him to come back when he did.

“I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm grateful for the fact I came back at an age where I could have some input,” Muscat told Fox Sports after the 1-1 Asian Champions League draw with Gamba Osaka at Etihad Stadium.

“But now the legs have gone, I'll be the first to admit I've slowed up a bit in the past 12 or 18 months. I've enjoyed my time here, and I owe this club more than they owe me.

“It's the longest I've spent at one club. Six seasons and we've had quite a bit of success here. I met a lot of good people from day one and long may it continue.”

Muscat said the response from the fans was great and hopes that the support for the Victory continues after he retires.

“It's nice. The appreciation I've got for them. I've been here six years and I feel I've endeared myself to the fans here. These fans have been the best since day one and long may it continue,” Muscat added.

 
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Osaka, Japan

During the Golden Week holidays, attending the Nakanoshima Festival in Osaka has become an annual event for me. It is a gathering of people of all kinds devoted to various social causes and NPOs, performances, cosplay, flea markets and of course good food and drink. There are various groups of deaf people as well, including NPO Deaf Support Osaka. Not only is it a great celebration and a time to meet friends, but a great opportunity for photography. This year was the 40th Anniversary of the event, and despite being slightly subdued in honor of the earthquake/tsunami/Fukushima victims, it was still a lot of fun.


Link to Nakanoshima Festival Homepage: http://www.nakanoshima.net/

Click here to check out my photos from last year's festival.

2011/04/30Two men and a woman were killed or injured severely in the apartment at Osaka City.The Osaka Prefecture Police arrested an unemployed man named TSUKIYAMA Sakae (59) for the suspicion of the homicide and the attempted murder on April 30.Tsukiyama killed ONISHI Yoshitomo (44) and his ex-wife SHIMOMURA Yuka (39), both unemployed and lived in the same room, wit...

Architects: Takeshi Hamada
Location: Osaka, Japan
Project area: 100 sqm
Project year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Takeshi HamadaThe housing is located in the place from one block from the main street in Osaka’s suburb, and I cannot say…

Normally I put up an out of office notice, but in my excitement, I totally forgot this time. The reason for the lack of updates over the last few days is that I've actually been on holiday in Osaka. It's Japan's second biggest city.

I'll be back in Tokyo this Friday.

Kim Hyun-joong attended the celebration of the release of the drama "Naughty Kiss" in Japan and met with the fans. Along with Jeong So-min whom he was in the drama with, they met with 6,000 fans on the 3rd in Osaka at two times in a row. Kim Hyun-joong's popularity in Japan was proved as the ticket bookings for this event was sold out in a day and tickets were even drawn to lucky winners. So

Melbourne Victory are still in with a chance of qualifying for the knockout phase of this season’s Asian Champions League.

After a poor start to their group stage campaign, the Victory have been able to bounce back with two draws and a win in their last three but perhaps their latest result might have served them better if it was as the name suggests, a victory.

Melbourne were held to s 1-1 draw by Japanese club Gamba Osaka at Etihad Stadium in veteran Kevin Muscat’s last match for the club on home soil.

The home side netted first through centre-half Adrian Leijer who headed home in the 12th minute but the Victory could not maintain their lead as Sota Nakazawa leveled just prior to half-time.

The point recorded from the draw leaves the Victory on the bottom of the Group E table in five points but if they can muster a win in their final match against Jeju United in Korea and group leaders Tianjin Teda defeat Gamba, then the Melbourne club will move through to the next phase.

Adrian Leijer of the Victory celebrates his goal with team-mates during the AFC Champions League Group E match between Melbourne and Gamba Osaka at Docklands on May 4, 2011.

Melbourne captain Kevin Muscat said farewell to his home fans in anti-climatic fashion as his side drew Gamba Osaka 1-1 in their Asian Champions League draw at Docklands.

COLOR TIMER | OSAKA, JAPAN: Ultraman is packing heat—plastic heat. (Photo: Brian Ashcraft)

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CYCLING The SF Bike Coalition's valet parking was strangely empty for a blazingly sunny Saturday event by the Ferry Building. "They've just been leaving their bikes around," a bored attendant told me of the crowd assembled for the Red Bull Ride + Style fixed-gear competition. But that wasn't out of apathy to their rides — these attendees wanted to keep their bikes close.

Candy-colored fixies were turned upside-down on their handlebars, stacked in piles with the steeds of their owners' friends. Young men (there were a lot of young men) kept their hands firmly locked in riding position, rolling their bikes back and forth as they spoke, some times gesticulating with them for added effect. Those slim, messenger-style backpacks were much in evidence.

In the competition arena, no one strayed far from their bikes either, except for the spectacular falls that sporadically broke up the action. Strap-on fixed-gear pedals make for epic wipe-outs; one soldier was taken off the field on a stretcher.

Save for the lone female who rolled about during the event's interminable "practice times," all riders were male. This was about bros on bikes. Indeed, as the final race around the hazardous, hairpin track was announced between Bay Area childhood friends Jason Clary and Kell McKenzie (Clary won), the announcer took a moment to salute their relationship. "You guys have known each other since you were 14? It's bro versus bro! Fixed-gear nation!"

Competitive fixed-gear racing is, relatively speaking, a nascent addition to the legion of bone-cracking thrill fests enjoyed by extreme sports fans. The sport's lexicon is borrowed from the death-defying ride tactics of gonzo bike messengers, a profession that has to sprint to keep up with e-mail and 3-D projection technology to stay salient for corporate America.

San Francisco is one of the messenger bike meccas. The city has given birth to some epically fly-terrifying fixie films — guys slaloming down from Twin Peaks, diving into traffic, holding onto buses for acceleration, basically using the ridiculous speed you can achieve on a fixed- gear bike for pure chaos (in the eyes of the pedestrian, surely).

But street stunts do not a competitive sport make. On Saturday, it was apparent that everyone was trying to figure out just what Ride + Style meant. The week before the event, the Guardian interviewed Austin Horse, one of New York City's best-known bike messengers, by e-mail.

"Nobody knows what to expect about Ride N Style," he wrote. "It's very mysterious, but the riders know it's going to be a challenging and compelling event because it's coming from Red Bull. [Editor's note: Apparently Red Bull's sponsorship is a big deal. Red Bull also sponsored a downhill bike race through a Brazilian favela, the aerodynamic inanity of Flutag, and your most jittery friend in college who had a dorm room full of Red Bull crates. Remember that guy?] The result is that all the riders are a little more anxious about this race than other events. What we do know is that it's gonna be a sprint with features some guys aren't going to be comfortable with. It's a little scary."

The second half of the day was given over to what was billed as the most cutting edge part of the competition: the freestyle contest. Covered in sherbet colors, spiders, geometric whorls, and playing card designs, they looked every bit the background for an extreme sports tournament.

"Only rarely have events invested in features tailored to the constraints and potential of this type of riding," Horse says. When the cameras are off "people practice wherever they can — skate parks and street spots."

In San Francisco, one of the most reliable spots to watch good fixed-gear freestyling is in the Harry Bridges Plaza, the strip of asphalt between the Ferry Building and where Ride + Style was erected in the more ample Justin Herman Plaza. You can go out to Harry Bridges at dusk most days and see people hopping their bikes off the ground, spinning in the air, twerking their handlebars, riding backward in tight figure eights, and stopping on dimes.

But the ramps took it up a notch — so up that spectators began to compare the competition to those of BMX bikes, which can catch a lot more air than fixed gears. It wasn't a coincidental connection: some of the competitors announced on the microphone that they were usually on a BMX, and Jeremy Witek, the lead designer of the ramps, told me during the construction phase that this was the first time he'd been asked to make structures like these for a fixed-gear competition.

There were some hands-down highlights of the freestyle portion — Kohei "Kozo" Fuji flew in from Osaka to bust the first fixed-gear back flip in international competition. But many of the routines seemed strangely suited for their setting. The beauty of the fixed-gear lies in its simplicity — one pump of the legs, one rotation of the wheels, the easy mathematics of human body and machine.

But the novelty of seeing these lifestyle bikes thrust into the bright lights and loud announcers of the X Games variety wasn't lost on those least jaded of San Franciscans — the Embarcadero tourists. Washing my hands in the Embarcadero Center bathroom, I heard a young woman essentially ask her mom what the hell this crazy city of bikes is up to. "Does San Francisco always have this?"

Girl, it does now. 

 

On a per-mile basis, some of the best deals going are to Asia. Consider Delta Air Lines’ sale to Hong Kong, Osaka and Tokyo.

Former Kansai Johnny's Jr. member Nakata Daichi (21) has been arrested on charges of theft. According to police in Sonezaki, Osaka, he stole a wallet at an internet cafe, which contained approximately 37,000 yen and a cash card. On the … Continue reading →

Name: Elie
Occupation: Blogger and writer
What he's wearing: JUMA pants and t-shirt, Matinique scarf, Doc Martens and cardigan is from H&M;
Style: Midnight nomad

Name: Shenae
Occupation: Actor
What she's wearing: Sam Edelman shoes, vintage levi's shorts, shirt bought in Japan, and jacket from Aritzia
Style: Comfortable, and I like to wear as much fur as I can

Name: Grant
Occupation: Hair stylist
What he's wearing: Scarf is from Zara, Banana Republic pants, and H&M; blazer
Style: Thrifty and eclectic

Name: Sarah Nicole Prickett
Occupation: Fashion Writer
What she's wearing: Hilary Radley trench coat from Holt's, vintage skirt, Banana Republic bag, and shoes are from ALDO
Style: Twisted sophisticate

Name: Nicki
Occupation: Freelance writer
What she's wearing: Shoes are from Topshop, Danier leather jacket, and American Apparel shirt
Style: Depends on how i'm feeling that day

Name: Hannah
Occupation: Editor at Latest News
What she's wearing: The white maxi dress with a peacock print is from a boutique in the Eaton Center, jacket is from Maska in Montreal, Versace shoes, and the bag is from Dior
Style: Classic with some experimentation

Name: Rei
Occupation: Photographer
What he's wearing: $10 pashmina from India, belt and pants from Dundas 909, and boots bought in Osaka
Style: Unique and individual. I don't read magazines to get a sense of fashion

Name: Amarsana
Occupation: Stylist
What she's wearing: Rachel Sin dress, coat is from Helmut Lang, and shoes were bought at a store in Korea
Style: Classic with some spice added

Writing and photos by Mona Chammas. For more street style in Toronto and other cities, check out my blog at www.geekychic.ca

Use promo code SAVE25 and save 25% off your flight! Depart from any of Air New Zealand's 27 Do­mestic Airports.

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OSAKA (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd (Osaka: 7974.OS - News ) might provide clues on the effect of the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami on the industry's supply chain and domestic demand as it kicks off earnings for the Japanese electronics sector ...

Location: Osaka, Japan Photography: Eddie Eng

Some of the cool people in the audience. :-) thanks to all who came out tonight in the rain! Sent from my iPhone

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Picture this. Transplanted B16A screaming close to redline as you weave through traffic in the middle of the night, blasting your way through the Osaka Kanjo highway system in a stripped out EF Civic, with no number plates and having sneaked through the...(read more)

El gigante japonés Panasonic anunció hoy que recortará unos 17 mil empleos en el mundo durante los próximos dos años, después de haber reducido desde marzo de 2010 otros 17 mil 650 puestos de trabajo. El fabricante de productos electrónicos, con sede en Osaka, presentó hoy un plan empresarial a dos años que establece que [...]

Nike Sportswear and SOPHNET. have teamed up to celebrate the launch of Isetan Osaka with this compelling design that is defined by the personal taste of designer Hirofumi Kiyonaga. The Air Deschutz sandal is a classic ACG design and these two colorways are defined by the ‘tricolore’ theme of the current F.C.R.B. collection.

Nike Sportswear x SOPHNET. Air Deschutz is a post from: SLAMXHYPE

Whereas LTE and LTE Advanced will surely be on the network upgrade paths for most operators, there are impediments to rapid and widespread switching in Europe. Unavailability of new spectrum is the major temporary barrier, though there are other impediments as well. Spectrum caps will fragment bands and could prevent the full spectral-efficiency benefits that can be derived from large LTE channel widths of 20MHz or more; HSPA-based technologies are continuously being improved to include many of the same capabilities that are in LTE; and spectrum refaming in the 900MHz band will be mainly with HSPA.

With exceptions in Scandinavia and rural Germany, most of Europe has been relatively slow with LTE deployment. Commercial services have been available since 2009 in Scandinavia via Telenor and Tele2's partnership and from TeliaSonera. In the U.S., MetroPCS was first to launch and Verizon Wireless following before year-end 2010 with service in 38 major metropolitan markets and 60 commercial airports across the country. Verizon Wireless plans to cover two-thirds of the U.S. population by mid-2012, and offer LTE from coast to coast - everywhere it offers EV-DO service today-by the end of 2013.  Japan's  NTT DoCoMo's  also launched its Xi-branded LTE network by yearend 2010 in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. Germany's largest mobile operator, Deutsche Telekom, went live with its LTE network, with an initial focus on providing broadband services to underserved rural areas. DT is obliged by its 800MHz licence conditions to deploy LTE into so-called 'white spot' areas, or those without DSL access, before making the service more generally available across Germany.  LTE provides operators with a cost-effective solution in delivering broadband to these rural areas, but these will not generate the high volumes of subscriber uptake that are occurring in the speed- and capacity-driven urban deployments identified above.

Whereas the U.S. auctioned off  its 700MHz digital dividend spectrum- which became available with the switch from analogue to digital TV- in early 2008, Europeans have mostly yet to decide how to allocate their 800MHz digital dividend spectrum. The full European Parliament will vote in June 2011 on the European Commission's proposal to release a significant amount of spectrum, including that from the digital dividend. Under the plans, EU countries would have to make the 800MHz band available for the harmonised use of wireless broadband services by the end of 2012. Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, has decided the forthcoming LTE spectrum auction will come with strict conditions for how much spectrum operators can purchase. Controversy on spectrum allocations in the UK, with challenges from operators, has delayed the process. Similarly, the prospect of France Telecom Orange dominating the bidding for LTE spectrum has provoked calls from the smaller French operators for limits on the amount a single operator can buy.

It remains to be seen whether spectrum caps--particularly below 1GHz, where spectrum is most scare and where operators already have GSM and are refarming with HSPA (i.e., UMTS 900) in the 900MHz band--will prevent the full benefits of LTE's wide channel widths being achieved. LTE comes into its own with highest spectral efficiency when 20MHz channels are employed and LTE Advanced offers the possibility of even better performance using up to 100MHz channel widths. Notwithstanding AT&T's large spectrum holdings as U.S. market leader, it significantly justifies its proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA with the opportunity to aggregate spectrum.  Perhaps European regulators will allow the contradiction of spectrum sharing while capping outright ownership and outlawing operator consolidation?

Spectrum costs might also be problematic. The millennial 3G spectrum auctions across Europe raised around $150 billion for governments, but the cost had a crippling effect on the sector that drove KPN close to bankruptcy. The UK government aims to raise £5 billion ($8 billion) from the forthcoming spectrum auction. The U.S. 700MHz auctions raised a total of $19.6 billion dollars, with one spectrum block remaining unsold.  AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless accounted for $16.3 billion of these proceeds.

HSPA Evolved is proving a formidable rival for LTE with many complementary technologies associated with LTE also being incorporated.  These include 64QAM higher order modulation, MIMO, beamforming, carrier aggregation and an all-IP core. None of these are unique to LTE's OFDMA core technology.

Following recent lifting of regulatory restrictions requiring exclusive GSM use in the 900MHz and 1800MHz bands across Europe, the highest priority for refarming the 900MHz band is with HSPA.  Many handsets on sale from a wide variety of manufacturers include this capability. Once HSPA is in, it will be a long time before it is displaced by LTE. In the meantime, this refarming will be a priority and account for a significant proportion of operator capital expenditures.

Despite all the impediments, migration to LTE and LTE Advanced is inevitable. Most of the new spectrum bands, including 700MHz, 800MHz and various other bands earmarked for LTE will never be standardized for HSPA. It also seems most likely that LTE will prevail with refarming of the 1800MHz band that is currently used for GSM. Many of the bells and whistles being added to LTE will never find their way into HSPA Evolved.

Keith Mallinson is a leading industry expert, analyst and consultant. Solving business problems in wireless and mobile communications, he founded consulting firm WiseHarbor in 2007. WiseHarbor is publishing an annual update to its Extended Mobile Broadband Forecast in May 2011. The new forecast will include network equipment, devices and carrier services to 2025. Further details are available at: http://www.wiseharbor.com/forecast.html

Pride themselves for their resiliency in the face of great upheaval, most in Japan have returned to the daily hustle and bustle while its northern continued the recovery effort from the March 11th Earthquake and Tsunami. One sign, the scheduled opening of JR Osaka Mitsukoshi Isetan Department Store on May 4th. To commemorate this grand [...]

TEH FUTURE | OSAKA, JAPAN: Spotted at an open market. (Photo by Brian Ashcraft)

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In celebration of the opening of the new Isetan Mitsukoshi flagship store in Osaka, Nike and SOPHNET. have teamed up to release this Air Deschutz sandal. Featuring adjustable velcro straps inspired by that same ones used on Nike’s SB models, the outdoor sandal is also equipped with an air heel for added comfort. The sandal [...]

Hello all!

I live in Japan, and although I loved baking bread regularly before moving here, I realize that Japan (at least Osaka, where I live) is a very different place to bake from what I am used to.  I used to live in Southern California, where I had no trouble with cinnamon rolls, buns, big fluffy challah, you name it!  Now that I live here (and I've been struggling with baking here now for 3 years and counting!), I find that recipes need to either be seriously altered for them to work, or I have to buy Japanese baking books.  I have a few baking books that are made for use with domestic ingredients, but I'm still learning Japanese, so my kanji reading skills are not yet 100%, and it becomes really tedious to make sure I understand a recipe completely - which takes all the fun out of it.

I'm looking forward to meeting all of you, and am wondering - are there any veteran bakers who live in Japan that have success with bread, and might be able to send a few tips my way when I get stuck?

P.S. I have the same trouble with cakes and cookies.  They don't rise - they tend to just sit there, goopy in the middle, and dense like a rock all around...It's incredibly discouraging, but I just found a baking supply store nearby, so I'm really excited to try again - which is why I came here!  :)

This forum looks extremely active!  I'm really ready to get in there and chit chat with you all about baking our favorite bread!

In reply to Okonomiyaki, Osaka style:

I lived in Iwakuni, Japan for 18 months. While there we found this little hole in the wall restaurant with a moma-san who brought us over some Okonomiyaki to try. It was excellent and for 34+ years I have been looking for the recipe. I can't wait to try it with the Japanese pan noodles as described in the Hiroshima version since Iwakuni was 30k south. Most restaurants here in the states do not have this; many of the waitresses said that it was an old dish that their grandmothers made but no one knew the recipe. Domo to the person that added this.

I wanted to save it for my first TNA iMPACT! review, but I might go ahead and call this week’s installment of the column the “Worst and Worst of WWE Raw.” There are a few things keeping me from enjoying the show, and they are

1. I was incapacitated last week with a viral infection of my intestines, which ended up basically poisoning me and putting me in the hospital for three days. I didn’t do a Best and Worst last week but I watched the show, and all I can really remember is morphine and an extremely white guy retiring.

2. I spent this weekend in Philadelphia at CHIKARA’s King of Trios tournament, which included (in one place or another) the Great Sasuke, Jinsei Shinzaki, Dick Togo, Manami Toyota, Akira Tozawa, Archibald Peck of “The Band” and a handful of guys from Osaka Pro, including a Japanese Spider-man. It’s hard to go from three days of amazing wrestling to two hours of unentertaining entertainment.

3. Raw is awful.

I’m sure next week will pick back up, but here we go. I apologize in advance.

Worst: England

Not the country. It’s just that whenever Raw starts off with big flags on the stage, you automatically know that you’re in for two hours of pointless water-treading. Nothing happens in England. Sure, if William Regal is around they might trot him out for the first time in eight months to win the Intercontinental Championship or something, and that’s always fun, but other than that you know Mark Henry is going to be competing against the current whoever version of Manu, and nothing is going to happen.

Sure enough, literally nothing happened on Raw last night. The Draft is next week, so coupling that with the big flags meant you might as well be watching an unusually terrible episode of Superstars. You know, I’m not 100% against the whole “entertainment” initiative, and if you’d rather “make a movie” or tell a story than wrestle a wrestling match, sure, go for it. The only thing I ask is that you make a good movie, or tell an interesting story, and that you won’t expect “R-Truth drinks water” to be thirty minutes long.

G-YUN, the vocalist of ska band GOLLBETTY, will make her solo artist debut on May 10 with a single titled “Message.” Following the song’s release, she will perform her first solo concerts in Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo between June 10 … Continue reading →

Osaka. La local Etsuko Tada conservó el cinturón mundial de peso mínimo de la Asociación Mundial de Boxeo por quinta vez tras vencer a la mexicana Ibeth Roca Zamora. En el combate a 10 rounds por el título unificatorio la japonesa ganó por decisión unánime.

Twocrazimeddies's Great Adventure

A quickie, just to say I am still snacking on baked sweet potatoes… instead of cakes. I have n

A damages suit over HIV infection was settled Friday as the government and five drugmakers accepted a court-proposed settlement plan calling on the defendants to pay damages to three plaintiffs. The move left only one person in Japan yet to reach a settlement over the infection of the AIDS-causing virus through tainted blood products, among more than 1,380 plaintiffs in suits filed with the Tokyo and Osaka district courts since 1996. Under the compromise plan agreed at the Osaka court Friday, the defendants will pay 28 million yen in damages to each of the three plaintiffs. (Kyodo)

As powerful earthquakes continue to jolt Japan and radiation levels near Tokyo are rising, the Asian country's authorities are considering moving the capital to another city.

The most probable location for a new capital are Osaka and Nagoya, according to ITAR-TASS. Both cities are located near international airports.

Hundreds of people flocked to see cherry blossoms against the backdrop of a clear sky Thursday at the Finance Ministry's Osaka Mint Bureau in an annual event marking the full arrival of spring in the western Japan commercial city. Some 800 visitors entered the gate of Cherry Blossom Lane as the "Cherry Blossom Viewing in Osaka" event kicked off. The bureau decided to carry out the event after considering canceling it following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. (Kyodo)

Hays Specialist Recruitment Japan K.K. ("Hays Japan") today announces the launch of its Shinjuku office, as part of Hays Japan's continuing growth and as a reflection of its confidence in the local job market. With this launch, Hays Japan now operates in Akasaka and Shinjuku in Tokyo, and covers the Kansai region from its Osaka office. Hays Japan is the first and only foreign recruitment company to operate three Japan offices and offer direct Shinjuku service.

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