Japan's answer to next tsunami: mini-ark - Ninemsn

Cosmo Power Co. President Shoji Tanaka crawls out from 'Noah'. (AAP)

A small Japanese company has developed a modern, miniature version of Noah's Ark in case Japan is hit by another massive earthquake and tsunami: a floating capsule that looks like a huge tennis ball.

Japan's Cosmo Power says its "Noah" shelter is made of enhanced fibreglass that can save users from disasters like the one on March 11 that devasted Japan's northern coast, leaving nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.

Company president Shoji Tanaka says the 300,000 yen ($A4000) capsule can hold four adults, and has survived many crash tests. It has a small lookout window and breathing holes on top. It can also be used as a toy house for children.

The company has already delivered two capsules and has orders for 600 more.

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Small Japanese factory has answer to next quake and tsunami: Noah's Ark shaped like a ball

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TOKYO — A small Japanese company has developed a modern, miniature version of Noah’s Ark in case Japan is hit by another massive earthquake and tsunami: a floating capsule that looks like a huge tennis ball.

Japan’s Cosmo Power says its “Noah” shelter is made of enhanced fiberglass that can save users from disasters like the one on March 11 that devasted Japan’s northern coast, leaving nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.

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(no/Associated Press) - A Cosmo Power Co. employee crawls out from a spherical earthquake and tsunami shelter “Noah” made of fiber enforced plastic at the company’s factory in Hiratsuka, west of Tokyo, Friday, Sept. 30, 2011. The Japanese generator maker has developed a modern version of Noah’s Ark in case Japan is hit by another massive earthquake and tsunami. The company of just 10 employees completed the first Noah, that has 1.2 meters (4 feet) in diameter and can hold up to four adults inside, earlier this month and already has 500 orders.

Company president Shoji Tanaka says the $3,900 (300,000 yen) capsule can hold four adults, and that it has survived many crash tests. It has a small lookout window and breathing holes on top. It also can be used as a toy house for children.

The company already has delivered two capsules and has orders for 600 more.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Flash report system to detect tsunami

Flash report system to detect tsunami Japan will develop an emergency flash report system to tell people when Pacific coast tsunami will arrive, officials said Wednesday. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry will seek ¥7 billion initially for the project as part of the fiscal year's third supplementary budget, the officials said. Under the project, cables incorporating tsunami-measuring equipment will be laid on the seabed stretching from an area off Tokachi, Hokkaido, to Chiba Prefecture in the Boso Peninsula, surrounding the Japan Trench, which is vulnerable to major quakes, they said.
23 Sep A man found 10 million yen ($131,000) in cash Sept. 22 in a bag thrown away in a garbage dump at the city of Kasai in Hyogo prefecture, police said. The 56-year-old employee of a Kasai Municipal Government-run waste disposal center found the bag while separating garbage for the disposal. Center officials handed the bag into the police and will be entitled to claim the cash if its rightful owner does not emerge within three months. (majirox news)
22 Sep Following the request that the name Tokyo Electric Power Co. appear on a receipt for a sex club in Sapporo's Susukino red-light district earlier this month, the establishment has decided to ban patronage from that firm, reports daily tabloid Yukan Fuji (Sept. 17). On September 14, the fuzoku shop Olive Garden announced on its blog that it would not honor patrons hailing from TEPCO - in fact, it joked that the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima had sapped some of their virility in any case. (Tokyo Reporter)
22 Sep Mika Sato has found that two dolls resembling her 6-year-old daughter, who died in the March 11 tsunami, have helped soothe her emotional scars. "It was like my daughter came back to me," said Sato, 36, recalling the day earlier this month when she received the two dolls from the nonprofit organization Tamezo Club. Omokage bina are dolls that resemble people who have passed on. They are made by craftsmen who work from photographs of the deceased person. Since early August, Tamezo Club, a welfare services NPO based in Iwatsuki Ward, Saitama, has been donating them to people who lost loved ones in the March 11 disaster. (Yomiuri)
22 Sep A 71-year-old Japanese man died in Honolulu after falling off a trolley during a tour. The man, who name was not released, was taken to a hospital after falling Monday afternoon, where he was listed in critical condition and died later that day, police said. The man was standing next to an exit on the trolley and fell onto the road when the vehicle made a left turn out of a shopping center. A police spokeswoman said the accident is under investigation but that drugs and alcohol are not considered to be factors. The trolley was not speeding and traffic was moderate at the time, she said. (Japan Times)
21 Sep To promote forthcoming anti-gang legislation, the superintendent general of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Tateshi Higuchi, threw out the first pitch before the Yakult Swallows faced the Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome last night, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sept. 21). Beginning on October 1, business transactions between citizens and members of organized crime, such as the paying mikajimeryo (protection money), will be prohibited. The law will be enforced nationwide. (Tokyo Reporter)

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Japan's tsunami tragedy: already fading from sight? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Tokyo and MinamiSanriku, Japan – In the immediate aftermath of March 11, when Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake and tsunami in its history, there was a feeling that the country had changed irrevocably. As images of entire communities being swept away were burned into the national consciousness, many believed this represented a "year zero" for Japan, a chance to break from decades of economic stagnation and political malaise.

Six months later, few still hold such high hopes and there is little sign of the promised rebuilding of homes and lives for those in the disaster zones. Some feel that the rest of the country, including the Tokyo political class, is already forgetting.

RELATED GALLERY: The long road to recovery in Japan

The scale of the disaster remains hard to comprehend. At 2:46 p.m. on that Friday in March, a 250-mile-long and 100-mile-wide section of the Pacific tectonic plate suddenly crashed under the plate on which Japan sits. This violent shifting of the Earth's crust moved Japan's main island eight feet in the direction of the US, knocked the Earth off its axis by four to six inches, and shortened the length of a day by 1.8 microseconds. It also set off the tsunami that was to batter more than 500 miles of Japan's northeast coast, reach heights of up to 130 feet, and penetrate as far as six miles inland.

The tsunami claimed nearly 20,000 lives (including the 4,057 people who remain missing half a year later), and set off the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which operators are still struggling to get into a cold shutdown.

The total bill for reconstruction is estimated to be as much as 23 trillion yen ($300 billion) or 6 percent of Japan's gross domestic product, though this will be spread out over five years, at least. With tax revenues down following the disaster, a rise in the already huge national debt – currently around 200 percent of GDP – is inevitable.

While the central government has been criticized for not distributing funds quickly enough, of the 31 municipalities that suffered the most damage, only four have final reconstruction plans.

"Nobody outside the Ministry of Finance knows exactly how much money has been distributed, or of the money that has gone out to local authorities, how much has actually been spent," says Jun Okumura, senior adviser at the Eurasia Group. "It's very frustrating."

There is money being issued, though: 1.2 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) in insurance money has already been paid out, plus the compensation money from Tokyo Electric Power company, the operator of Fukushima, and aid from local and central government, says Mr. Okumura.

Still, the recovery from the vast triple disaster is proving to be painfully slow in many places.

Some of the worst-hit towns still resemble a wasteland. The quake and tsunami left an estimated 22.6 million tons of rubble in the coastal towns. Out of that, nearly half has been moved to temporary storage. Much of the power has been restored to towns and cities, but power outages remain common. Out of the nearly half a million people displaced, more than 80,000 people remain in temporary accommodations. And the debate over whether to rebuild towns in the same locations continues.

"They should think about building the towns again on higher ground, not in the places that could get hit by another tsunami," says Toshifumi Takada, a professor at Tohoku University.

Though that may seem like a good idea to outsiders, it has been difficult to accomplish given that even in towns such as Minami-Sanriku – where 95 percent of the buildings were swept away – many residents, still very much healing their emotional wounds, are conflicted.

Minami-Sanriku: largely uninhabitableOn the morning of Sept. 11, more than 2,200 people traveled to attend a memorial service in the town's Bayside Arena. "We pray for the lost lives and for the missing to be found as early as possible. We hope that people can return to this town and we can hear cheerful voices again," said Jin Sato, the mayor of Minami-Sanriku, at the service. His voice faltered as he spoke about the many friends and colleagues who were lost.

Mr. Sato had been in the town hall along with 130 staff when the tsunami struck. He was one of only 10 survivors when the 50-foot waves came across the roof of the building and washed away 20 of the 30 people who had made it that far.

Most of the residents of the town returned for the memorial service from other areas, as Minami-Sanriku remains largely uninhabitable. Thousands of tons of debris has been piled into mountains of wood, earth, metal, and concrete along the waterfront. But there is no sign of rebuilding.

Red steel girders are all that is left of the town's disaster-response center, where a young local government worker, Miki Endo, famously stayed at her post sounding an alarm and urging residents to evacuate, until the tsunami engulfed the building and she went missing.

People came from as far as Tokyo to pay their respects at the small makeshift shrine that has appeared in the shell of the building, dedicated to Ms. Endo's sacrifice. Some residents want the remains of the building to be turned into a permanent monument to her heroism.

A cluster of 20 prefab housing units behind the Bayside Arena, where the service was held, is now home to a fraction of the townspeople who lost their homes.

Kaeko Gyoba and her husband were in a club for Minami-Sanriku's elderly residents when the earthquake struck. They made it up to the fourth floor as the waves swept through the stories below. It was one of the few buildings spared in the town.

"We spent two nights up there until a Self-Defense Force helicopter was able to land at the elementary school nearby and get us out," says Ms. Gyoba.

She stayed with relatives near Tokyo after the disaster, but she returned last month to be with the rest of her family, who now occupy five of the small, flimsy-looking temporary houses.

"It's very tough living here. I just can't get used to it. There's nowhere in the town to shop, you need a car to go anywhere, and I worry how cold it will be in the winter," says Gyoba. "And none of the family have jobs now. They all worked on the ocean, farming seaweed and oysters. Everything was swept away."

Fading from public consciousness?Despite the nationwide attention that the six-month memorials received, some of those still struggling to rebuild their lives say their frustrations are compounded by the feeling that they are gradually fading from public consciousness.

"What the people want more than anything at all is the sense that other people – the rest of Japan – are keeping a careful watch over them and are ready to help," says Yuka Kusano, leader of the Miyagi Jonet aid group for victims. "Instead, they fear that the rest of Japan is watching the baseball and comedies on TV and have forgotten about them."

There is also anger at politicians in Tokyo who they see as more concerned with partisan fighting than focusing on helping the region's recovery.

Even the leadership contest to replace former Prime Minister Naoto Kan – who resigned in part because of heavy criticism for his handling of the crisis – was seen as a self-indulgent distraction by many in the region.

His replacement, Yoshihiko Noda, has already lost his trade and industry minister, who resigned only eight days after being sworn in when the media accused him of insensitive behavior on his first trip to the disaster zone.

"The politicians in Tokyo are fools; their behavior is simply unbelievable. We don't expect much from them. We have to do this ourselves," says Tohoku University's Professor Takada.

It is not only outsiders whose memories of the disasters appear to be fading; some residents of the northeast are starting to worry that the tight bonds that bound survivors are fraying.

"At the time of the disaster," says Ms. Kusano, "acts of goodness gave people a new perspective. The next stage was people helping each other because they didn't have anything," she says.

"There was a sense of community. But now as some semblance of normality is returning," she says, "there are signs that all that has been forgotten."

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Typhoon passes Japan tsunami zone - 英文中國郵報

There had been concerns that Typhoon Roke could pose more problems for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which was sent into meltdown by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, but officials said the plant weathered the storm without major incident.

Hiroki Kawamata, spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said several cameras set up to monitor the plant were damaged, but there had been no further leaks of radioactive water or material into the environment.

“We are seeing no problems so far,” he said.

The typhoon had reached the country's northern island of Hokkaido by Thursday morning after weakening overnight, but there were no immediate reports of damage there. The storm was still packing sustained winds of up to 78 mph (126 kph).

The typhoon made landfall Wednesday afternoon near the city of Hamamatsu, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Tokyo, and then cut a path to the northeast and through the capital before bringing new misery to the tsunami zone. It dumped up to 17 inches (42 centimeters) of rain in some areas, triggering landslides and flooding.

Police and local media reported 16 people dead or missing, most swept away by rivers swollen with rains in the southern and central regions. One person died in a landslide in northern Iwate prefecture and two people were swept away in Sendai in the northeast.

Hundreds of tsunami survivors in government shelters in the Miyagi state town of Onagawa were forced to evacuate for fear of flooding.

Strong winds snapped power lines in many areas, and officials said more than 200,000 households in central Japan were without electricity late Wednesday.

Overnight in Tokyo, where many rush hour trains were suspended for hours, thousands of commuters got stuck at stations across the sprawling city and stood in long lines for buses and cabs.

“The hotels in the vicinity are all booked up, so I'm waiting for the bullet train to restart,” Hiromu Harada, a 60-year-old businessman, said at Tokyo Station.

Kyodo said 5,000 people stayed overnight inside Shinkansen bullet trains at Tokyo and Shizuoka stations.

Fire department officials reported three people injured in Tokyo. In the trendy shopping district of Shibuya, winds knocked a tree onto a sidewalk, but no one was hurt. Pedestrians struggled to walk straight in powerful winds that made umbrellas useless.

The storm had set off landslides in parts of Miyagi that already were hit by the March disasters. The local government requested the help of defense troops, and dozens of schools canceled classes.

A magnitude-5.3 earthquake struck late Wednesday just south of Fukushima in Ibaraki state. Officials said the temblor posed no danger to the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, and that it did not cause any damage or injuries in the region.

Heavy rains prompted floods and caused road damage earlier in dozens of locations in Nagoya and several other cities, the Aichi prefectural government said. More than 200 domestic flights were canceled.

A typhoon that slammed Japan earlier this month left about 90 people dead or missing.

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Strong earthquake hits northeast Japan, no tsunami (AP)

TOKYO – A magnitude-6.2 earthquake struck off Japan's battered northeastern coast Thursday, but there was no risk of a tsunami and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake was centered off the coast of Ibaraki, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) east of Tokyo, at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers). The agency said there was no danger of a tsunami from the quake.

Nearly 20,000 people died or were left missing across Japan's northeastern coast after a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The disaster damaged a nuclear power plant, forcing another 100,000 people to leave their homes because of a radiation threat.

The operator of the tsunami-hit Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the plant's cooling functions were intact after Thursday's quake and there was no change to radiation levels around the plant. The plant is about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of the epicenter.

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Strong earthquake hits northeast Japan, no tsunami

Strong earthquake hits northeast Japan, no tsunami A magnitude-6.2 earthquake struck off Japan's battered northeastern coast Thursday, but there was no risk of a tsunami and there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. Japan's Meteorological Agency said the quake was centered off the coast of Ibaraki, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) east of Tokyo, at a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometers). The agency said there was no danger of a tsunami from the quake. Nearly 20,000 people died or were left missing across Japan's northeastern coast after a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The disaster damaged a nuclear power plant, forcing another 100,000 people to leave their homes because of a radiation threat.
15 Sep Shimoda, a small seaside city in Shizuoka prefecture, was home to as many as 200 geisha working its tea-houses as recently as 30 years ago. However, the number of geisha currently based in Shimoda has now declined to just five, prompting the rare intervention of government officials to keep their presence alive. As part of the plan, three prospective geisha will receive wages from central government employment subsidies for a six-month period, during which they will be trained fully in traditional singing, dancing and instrument playing. The geisha training proposal aims to reverse the city's dramatic decline of its geisha population - a problem replicated across much of modern-day Japan. (telegraph.co.uk)
15 Sep The Kyoto Prefectural Government has drafted an ordinance to make it the first prefecture in Japan to outlaw possession of pornographic images or video featuring children under 18. Under Japan's Law for Punishing Acts Related to Child Prostitution and Protecting Children, the manufacturing and trafficking of pornography featuring children under 18 is prohibited, but possession of child porn is not illegal. If Kyoto passes the draft and forms an ordinance outlawing possession of child pornography, it will seek to issue governor's orders to destroy the material and levy fines of up to 300,000 yen ($3,913) on offenders. (majirox news)
15 Sep Following her arrest last month for hemp possession, DJ and model Ayumi Takahashi has been arrested again - this time for stimulant use, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Sept. 14). Takahashi, 26, residing in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward, was cited today by officers of the the Tanishi station of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police for violating the stimulants control law. "I received it from my boyfriend's older brother," she is quoted as telling police. (Tokyo Reporter)
14 Sep Japan's Supreme Court said Tuesday it has turned down an appeal from a former Japanese Red Army member who was sentenced to life imprisonment by lower courts for his involvement in the 1977 hijacking of a Japan Airlines plane and the 1974 seizure of the French Embassy in The Hague. The defendant, Jun Nishikawa, 61, can still file an objection with the top court against the decision but it is limited to technicalities such as errors in wording. Tuesday's decision is expected to become final and binding as the court rarely accepts such objections. Lower court rulings show that Nishikawa conspired with other Japanese Red Army members to seize the French Embassy in The Hague in September 1974, held hostages for up to about 100 hours, and fired at policemen, wounding two of them. (Mainichi)
14 Sep "My boyfriend was so busy, he repeatedly cancelled our dates, and we finally wound up on a 'date' at his house, watching DVDs together. We were slouching on the sofa and he had his hands around my waist. It felt so good! Having gone so long without any lovin', my expectations were soaring." Thus begins an inspired amateur account of lusty romance from the June edition of ladies' magazine Renai Tengoku, as introduced in Shukan Bunshun (Sept. 8). "Then suddenly - you're never gonna believe this - his cell phone rang and he got summoned to an urgent job. He dashed into the other room to change his clothes, and there I sat, wallowing in shock and disappointment." (Tokyo Reporter)

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Six months after Japan's tsunami, residents worry their plight is fading from view (video) (The Christian Science Monitor)

Minami-Sanriku, Japan – As memorial services were held across the northeast coastal regions to mark six months since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, recovery from the vast disaster is proving to be painfully slow in many places.

Some of the worst-hit towns still resemble wasteland. More than 80,000 people remain in temporary accommodation. The nuclear crisis at Fukushima triggered by the tsunami is ongoing, and the new industry minister resigned over the weekend after making disparaging comments about the city.

“We pray for the lost lives and for the missing to be found as early as possible. We hope that people can return to this town and we can hear cheerful voices again,â€

RELATED: IN PICTURES: Japan's nuclear fallout

Mr. Sato had been in the town hall along with 130 staff when the tsunami struck. He was one of only 10 survivors when the 50-ft. waves came across the roof of the building and washed away 20 of the 30 people who had made it that far.

Most of the residents of the town returned for the service from other areas, as Minami-Sanriku remains largely uninhabitable. Thousands of tons of debris were piled into mountains of wood, earth, metal, and concrete along the waterfront.

A boat rests on the second floor of the former city hospital, facing away from the sea, where the tsunami deposited it as the huge wave pulled back to where it came from after obliterating 95 percent of the town.

Related video:

newslook

Recognizing sacrifices Red steel girders are all that is left of the town’s disaster response center where a young local government worker, Miki Endo, famously stayed at her post sounding an alarm and urging residents to evacuate, until the tsunami engulfed the building and she went missing.

People came from as far as Tokyo to pay their respects at the small makeshift shrine that has appeared in the shell of the building, dedicated to Ms. Endo’s sacrifice. Some residents of Minami-Sanriku want the remains of the building to be turned into a permanent monument to her heroism.

A cluster of 20 prefab housing units behind the Bayside Arena, where Sunday morning’s service was held, is now home to a fraction of the town’s people who lost their homes on March 11.

Kaeko Gyoba was in a club for Minami-Sanriku’s elderly residents with her husband when the earthquake struck. They made it up to the fourth floor and were spared as the waves swept through the three stories below, but left the building standing when the waves receded. It was one of the few buildings spared in the entire town.

“We spent two nights up there until a Self-Defense Force helicopter was able to land at the elementary school nearby and get us out,” says Ms. Gyoba.She stayed with relatives near Tokyo after the disaster, but she returned last month to be with the rest of her family, who now occupy five of the small, flimsy-looking temporary houses.

“It’s very tough living here, I just can’t get used to it. There’s nowhere in the town to shop, you need a car to go anywhere, and I worry how cold it will be in the winter,” says Gyoba. “And none of the family have jobs now. They all worked on the ocean, farming seaweed and oysters. Everything was swept away.”

Fading from public consciousness? Despite the nationwide attention that the six-month memorials have been receiving, some of those still struggling to put their lives back together feel they are gradually fading from people’s consciousness in the rest of the country. There is also anger at politicians in Tokyo who they see as more concerned with partisan fighting than focusing on helping the region’s recovery.

Even the leadership contest to replace former Prime Minister Naoto Kan – heavily criticized for his handling of the crisis – was seen as a self-indulgent distraction by many in the region. His replacement, Yoshihiko Noda, has already lost his trade and industry minister, only eight days after being sworn in.

On his first visit to the disaster zone last week, Trade Minister Yoshio Hachiro joked with a reporter accompanying him on the trip about infecting him with radiation by wiping his jacket on the journalist after coming out of the no-go zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant. The minister went on to describe the area around the stricken facility as, “really like a town of death.”

Hachiro’s behavior provoked outrage not just among residents of Fukushima, but across Japan’s north-east coast. For many, the minister’s attitude betrayed a lack of real empathy from Tokyo politicians with the victims of the triple disasters, and his tearful apology afterward convinced few.

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Tsunami debris creates Pacific shipping hazard

Tsunami debris creates Pacific shipping hazard Researchers say tonnes of debris resulting from the tsunami that struck Japan in March are drifting thousands of kilometres into the Pacific. There are fears the debris could present a hazard to both marine life and shipping vessels. A 600-kilometre stretch of Japan's scenic north-east coast was devastated by the disaster, with 20,00 people left dead or missing. Nikolai Maximenko from the University of Hawaii's Pacific Research Centre says the debris is believed to be a few hundred kilometres east of the Midway islands. The islands are more than 4,000 kilometres east of Tokyo.
13 Sep Tsuyoshi Kawana, former leader of a large bosozoku gang, was arrested yesterday in the Azabu Juban district of Tokyo's Minato Ward for an assault that took place four months ago, reports Sports Hochi (Sept. 13). Kawana was taken into custody by members of the Azabu division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police for inflicting injuries requiring two to three weeks to heal to the head of an acquaintance inside a nightclub in the Roppongi entertainment district at around 3 a.m. on May 8. The 40-year-old Kawana was previously involved in the drunken rampage of Mongolian-born former sumo yokozuna Asashoryu that occurred in January of last year, just before the grand champion's retirement from the sport. (Tokyo Reporter)
12 Sep Across from a noodle shop in a Yokohama suburb, Hisayoshi Teramura's inn looks much like any other small lodging that dots the port city. Occasionally, it's even mistaken for a love hotel by couples hankering for some time beneath the sheets. But Teramura's place is neither a love nest nor a pit stop for tired travelers. The white and grey tiled building is a corpse hotel, its 18 deceased guests tucked up in refrigerated coffins. "We tell them we only have cold rooms," Teramura quips when asked how his staff respond to unwary lovers looking for a room. The daily rate at Lastel, as it is known, is 12,000 yen ($157). For that fee, bereaved families can check in their dead while they wait their turn in the queue for one of the city's overworked crematoriums. (Reuters)
12 Sep Two Japanese teenagers, Shota Sometani and Fumi Nikaido, won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor and actress at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday for their performance in the Japanese film "Himizu" directed by Sion Sono. Sometani, 19, and Nikaido, 16, became the first Japanese actor and actress to take home the prize, which was created in 1998. At press conference in Tokyo on Sunday, the actors expressed their joy at receiving the award. (Japan Times)
12 Sep Former Morning Musume member Ai Kago was found in her Tokyo apartment yesterday after an apparent suicide attempt, reports daily tabloid Sports Hochi (Sept. 12). Tokyo Metropolitan Police reported that medical personnel were alerted to Kago's apartment, located in the Roppongi area of Minato Ward, just before noon on Monday after members of the 23-year-old's management agency discovered her on the floor with her wrists cut. She was transferred to a local hospital, where she is now recovering. The one-time member of the popular idol group also seemed to be suffering from an overdose of tranquilizers, police said. (Tokyo Reporter)
12 Sep Even before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck knocking out the Fukushima nuclear plant, Aya's life was a struggle. She had divorced her abusive husband and was left on her own to care and provide for her two daughters. Now, six months after she fled her home just 9 km (6 miles) away from the radiation-spewing plant, the 26-year old single mother is barely surviving. She has no job, languishes in hiding from her violent ex-husband in temporary housing and will probably never see her home again. (Reuters)

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Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami (AP)

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press – 1 hr 38 mins ago

TOKYO – As the world commemorates the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, Sunday is doubly significant for Japan. It marks six months since the massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11, a date now seared in the national consciousness.

Up and down the hard-hit northeast coast, families and communities came together to remember victims. Monks chanted. Survivors prayed. Mothers hung colorful paper cranes for their lost children.

At precisely 2:46 p.m., they stopped and observed a minute of silence. March 11 changed everything for them and their country.

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake produced the sort of devastation Japan hadn't seen since World War II. The tsunami that followed engulfed the northeast and wiped out entire towns. The waves inundated the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, triggering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Some 20,000 people are dead or missing. More than 800,000 homes were completely or partially destroyed. The disaster crippled businesses, roads and infrastructure. The Japanese Red Cross Society estimates that 400,000 people were displaced.

Half a year later, there are physical signs of progress.

Much of the debris has been cleared away or at least organized into big piles. In the port city of Kesennuma, many of the boats carried inland by the tsunami have been removed. Most evacuees have moved out of high school gyms and into temporary shelters or apartments.

The supply chain problems that led to critical parts shortages for Japan's auto and electronics makers are nearly resolved. Industrial production has almost recovered to pre-quake levels.

But beyond the surface is anxiety and frustration among survivors facing an uncertain future. They are growing increasingly impatient with a government they describe as too slow and without direction.

Masayuki Komatsu, a fisherman in Kesennuma, wants to restart his abalone farming business.

But he worries about radiation in the sea from the still-leaking Fukushima plant and isn't sure if his products will be safe enough to sell. He said officials are not providing adequate radiation information for local fisherman.

"I wonder if the government considers our horrible circumstances and the radiation concerns of people in my business," said Komatsu, who also lost his home.

Another resident, 80-year-old Takashi Sugawara, lost his sister in the tsunami and now lives in temporary housing. He wants to rebuild his home but is stuck in limbo for the time being.

"My family is not very wealthy, and I only wish that the country would decide what to do about the area as soon as possible," Sugawara said.

He might be waiting for a while. The Nikkei financial newspaper reported this week that many municipalities in the hardest-hit prefecture of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima have yet to draft reconstruction plans.

Of the 31 cities, towns and villages severely damaged by the disaster, just four have finalized their plans, the Nikkei said. The scale of the disaster, the national government's slow response and quarrels among residents have delayed the rebuilding process.

The Red Cross also expressed frustration over the layers of bureaucracy that delayed distribution of assistance to victims.

"The speed and scope of implementing the response during the emergency phase was not as swift and comprehensive as (the Red Cross) wished, partly due to the structure of disaster management in Japan, partly because of insufficient preparedness," it said in a six-month report.

Criticism of the government's handling of the disaster and nuclear crisis led former Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign. Former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda took over nine days ago, becoming Japan's sixth new prime minister in five years.

He spent much of Saturday visiting Miyage and Iwate prefectures, promising more funding to speed up recovery efforts and trying to shore up confidence in his administration.

But the trip was overshadowed later in the day by his first big political embarrassment. Noda's new trade minister Yoshio Hachiro resigned, caving into intense pressure after calling the area around the nuclear plant "a town of death," a comment seen as insensitive to nuclear evacuees.

Public support for the new government started out strong, with an approval rating of 62.8 percent in a Kyodo News poll released last Saturday. Hachiro's resignation will likely translate into a drop and new doubts about Noda's ability to lead.

On Sunday, he apologized for hurting the feelings of Fukushima residents.

"I continue to believe that without a revival in Fukushima, there will be no revival of Japan," Noda said.

Regardless of politics, what's clear is that the road ahead will be long.

"Given the enormous scale of the destruction and the massive area affected, this will be a long and complex recovery and reconstruction operation," Tadateru Konoe, the Red Cross president, said in a statement. "It will take at least five years to rebuild, but healing the mental scars could take much longer."

___

APTN Videojournalist Miki Toda in Kesennuma contributed to this report.

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Insight: Tsunami town epitomizes Japan Inc's dilemmas

KAMAISHI, Japan (Reuters) – After the waters unleashed by Japan's March 11 tsunami receded, Sakae Kushida toured the big mobile phone makers that buy his electronic components, pleading with them not to dump his firm as a supplier.

He assured them his company Hirose Electric was preparing to shift some of its high-tech production to South Korea, after the tsunami wiped out the factories of a manufacturing partner in Kamaishi, an old steel town in the northeast, disrupting its supply chain.

"I told them, along with my apologies, that the impact of the March earthquake had largely been resolved, that we would establish dual production sites, so please don't abandon Hirose," said Kushida, Hirose Electric's senior executive vice president.

Hirose and companies like it may end up abandoning Kamaishi and other greying towns in Japan's manufacturing heartland, after the events of March 11 exposed the vulnerability of their intricate supply networks -- and the impact on the global supply chain, which seized up after the disaster.

Japan's manufacturing sector has been shrinking since the early 1990s and the onset of the "lost decades", moving core assembly and manufacturing operations overseas both for expansion into new markets as well as declining markets and rising business costs at home.

Japan had started to lose top talent and advanced operations well before the disaster. This is a country where electronics companies have been known to collect engineers' passports on weekends, fearful they might hop on a flight across the Sea of Japan to moonlight for Korean rivals.

"Since the 1980s, the trend has been to keep the production of the most advanced products in Japan and to shift lower value-added production overseas," said Katsunori Nemoto, director of industrial policy for the influential Keidanren business lobby.

"Now the Japanese market is shrinking and the advantage of Japan as a place to carry out advanced R&D is in question ... We are very worried that companies will shift their 'mother factories' overseas."

Those worries have only deepened since March 11.

TO THE MOUNTAINS

"The tsunami came over the road, over the railroad tracks and into the factory buildings," said Michiyuki Kimura, president of Omura Giken, the electronics parts maker in Kamaishi that sold about half its output to Hirose Electric.

All 160 workers on the day shift escaped the more than 20-meter (66-foot) wave that Friday afternoon, he said, calling it a miracle. "When the second wave appeared on the horizon, they could see it was higher than they were, and they fled to the mountains."

But all five of his buildings and the machinery within -- custom-designed presses, moulds and automated assembly machines to make microconnectors used in smart phones and flat TV screens -- were destroyed.

"This was devastating," Kimura said. "They can't be rebuilt."

That was what sent Kushida scurrying across the globe on his damage control mission to his mobile phone customers.

Yet the ructions in the global supply chain that the March disaster caused have recovered more quickly than expected, in no small part due to the cooperative arrangements that underpin Japan, Inc.

Industrial output has rebounded from the deep slump after the disaster as companies and local communities quickly mended broken supply chains and factories.

For Omura Giken and the town of Kamaishi, recovery will be far more problematic.

"There are a lot of places that had been giving us work that have now taken it elsewhere," said Kimura, who grew up in Kamaishi, a fishing and steel-making town of nearly 40,000 perched along deep-water bays and river valleys in a mountainous stretch of Japan's northeast.

"I've heard that we caused quite a lot of problems for finished-goods makers because we couldn't supply them."

Kimura has restarted some production at small plants elsewhere in Japan, convincing most of his top engineering talent to relocate to other company plants. But he has no plans to rebuild in Kamaishi, deterred by the government's lack of concrete plans for the tsunami-hit region. He said he had no choice but to lay off the plant's 230 workers.

That's bad news for a town that has struggled to create jobs and staunch an exodus of young people since Nippon Steel, Japan's biggest steelmaker, began cutting operations there nearly 50 years ago. Kamaishi's population has since fallen by more than half and its proportion of elderly has climbed to more than one-third.

WOOD-BURNING STOVES*

One source of hope for Kamaishi is the small businesses that sprang up after steel plant started to scale down, many of which have bounced back quickly from the disaster without waiting for government reconstruction plans.

Shinichi Ishimura's factory in an industrial neighborhood along the bayshore southeast of the town center is one of them. Piles of rubble still litter vacant lots, while blankets and other debris dangle from the trees.

"This was supposed to have been cleaned up last month," said Ishimura, a stocky, soft-spoken middle-aged man. His workshop has gone "back to the future", making seafood processing equipment and wood-burning stoves after years of supplying Nippon Steel.

Bulky iron stoves are lined up neatly in the yard behind a stairway to his second-floor office, where he pulls out a leather-bound photo album, warped and water-stained by the tsunami.

"Suddenly, our business with Nippon Steel went to zero," he recalls in his office in the factory grounds, flipping through pictures of cranes and equipment his company specialized in maintaining until the last blast furnace was shut in 1989.

For Ishimura, who had reluctantly returned to Kamaishi to work for the company his father founded, cutting the umbilical cord to Nippon Steel was a golden opportunity.

"I'd wanted to get out of it. Even though it was stable, it wasn't interesting. We wouldn't have tried anything new when we were doing work for Nippon Steel," he said.

Ishimura is content for now to continue doing business a stone's throw from the seafront. His steel frame building survived the waves, he believes, because a deep breakwater at the mouth of Kamaishi Bay weakened the tsunami as it neared the town.

But Omura Giken's Kimura does worry about the wisdom of staying in a tsunami zone. Had it come after dark, he fears, his night-shift workers might not have seen how big a wave was headed their way.

LOYAL TO JAPAN

On a national level, Kimura's dilemma about abandoning his home base is playing out elsewhere in Japan. The disaster has prompted a range of disaster recovery strategies, including diversifying supply sources and transferring design and production capabilities across manufacturing sites, including overseas, such as Hirose Electric is doing.

Hirose Electric's Kushida acknowledged that cost concerns fueled by the yen's strength, as much as disruption to production from the disaster, were pushing his company to move abroad.

But Nippon Steel Executive Vice President Kosei Shindo, who said his company was committed to its remaining operations in Kamaishi making steel wire, argued that Japan's strong corporate sense of responsibility to workers and communities would temper moves abroad.

"Japanese managers fully understand the need to move abroad and they're doing that, but they also want to continue manufacturing in Japan," he said. "Manufacturing often means making things in one place for a long period of time, developing technology, having a lot of employees, and employee loyalty is also a necessity. It's not like finance, where you just look at a screen and push buttons."

While Japanese manufacturing's supply networks proved to be most vulnerable after the disaster, it is an ecosystem Japan Inc is eager to maintain despite the increasing pressure to relocate.

Hirose's Kushida said that, while his company will boost technical expertise at its Korean subsidiary and shift more high-tech production there, it wants to keep its suppliers in Japan. Hirose outsources 80 percent of its domestic manufacturing under a "fabless" or factory-free model, which enables it to focus on more profitable design work.

"We don't want our fabless network to fall apart," he said. "We'll gradually shift to Hirose Korea, but we'll keep (the network) from shrinking inside Japan, passing them our new products so they can hold up ... The global economy is off the rails and so we're worried how things will go. But we won't break up (our network)."

Omura Giken's Kimura also worries that dispersing his engineering talent, once concentrated in Kamaishi, to other sites will dull the pace of innovation, which was spurred by staff interaction.

Some experts see an opportunity to wean Japan from a system that relies on guidance and largesse from the ministries and big corporations in Tokyo, which they consider an outmoded model for a high-tech, globalised economy.

"What I think will support the manufacturing sector in the disaster-hit areas, including Kamaishi, is not the old vertical networks of subcontractors, but horizontal networks based more on common concepts of trust and regional reconstruction," said Yuji Genda, a professor at Tokyo University's Institute of Social Science.

"These networks could unfold with their center in the regions rather than in Tokyo."

(Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Nathan Layne; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Japan film in Venice captures tsunami aftermath (Reuters)

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) – Japanese movie "Himizu" is a twisted tale of abuse, violence and lost youth set against the backdrop of the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Director Sion Sono, renowned for hard-hitting, anarchic film making, wove real-life events into a screenplay he had just completed when the catastrophe struck.

"Every scene changed drastically," he told trade publication Variety ahead of Himizu's world premiere at the Venice film festival on Tuesday.

"The original manga had no hope in it, but after March 11, I didn't think I should make a film with no hope. I felt that I had to convey it in the film."

The narrative is interspersed with wide shots of flattened towns and mangled buildings destroyed by the tsunami, bringing the disaster to the big screen less than six months after it happened.

The immediacy of those images, visceral performances by the two central teenaged characters traumatized by abuse and a score that includes Mozart's "Requiem" won over many viewers in Venice, with warm applause at the end of a press screening.

Himizu is based on a manga by Minoru Furuya first published about 10 years ago.

ABANDONMENT, DEVOTION

The story centers around schoolboy Yuichi Sumida, who is regularly beaten by his father and abandoned by his mother yet wants nothing more than to live a normal life.

He lives in a shack by a lake where he hires out boats to day trippers, and on the land a small community of oddballs stay in makeshift tents, possibly because their homes have been destroyed.

His female classmate Keiko Chazawa falls in love with him, and, despite being an unwelcome distraction for Sumida, ends up trying to save his life.

Keiko is a rare source of innocence and optimism in a world where love and hope are crushed from an early age.

Keiko's parents build a gallows for her, which they paint and decorate with colored lights as they encourage her to take her own life.

Sumida is also told time and again by his father that he should never have been born, and he finally reaches breaking point by committing murder.

Despite its bleak portrayal of youth, and dialogue interrupted by screaming and tears, Sono insisted that it conveyed a message of hope.

"The entire Japanese community feels like they have no choice but to have hope, because their situation is so bad," he said in the Variety interview.

"Before I wrote the original script, even I didn't have that much hope, but that has changed drastically."

Shota Sometani, the 19-year-old actor who played Sumida, said something good had come out of the disaster.

"The young generation have started to consider many new things that they were not thinking about before the natural disaster," he told reporters in Venice, speaking through a translator. "There is a new way of thinking."

Himizu is one of 23 films in the main competition in Venice. The 23rd "surprise" picture was named on Tuesday as China's "People Mountain People Sea" directed by Cai Shangjun.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Living with the aftermath of Japan's tsunami nightmare

Kyoko Ogawa became depressed after losing her hotel in March tsunamiShe contemplated suicide after being afraid to talk to anyone about her troublesShe says a volunteer psychiatrist at an evacuation center saved herMental health specialists are worried about the impact of the disaster months later

Otsuchi, Japan (CNN) -- Kyoko Ogawa wore the brave face the world associated with Japan's tsunami survivors.

The March 11 catastrophe washed away all her earthly possessions. She watched as her hotel burned to the ground in a gas explosion triggered by the tsunami; a hotel that had been in her family for generations.

She was determined not to let the disaster break her.

But after the elation of finding her son alive, the reality of losing her livelihood started to erode the calm facade. She was in turmoil. She was afraid to talk to other people about it because she knew everyone was suffering as much as her, if not more.

They were "ganbaru," she recalls -- enduring, holding on, withstanding, and living with the pain. She couldn't be the only one to lose control.

"I was in shock because I realized that all that was precious to me was gone," she says, six months on from that terrible day. "I didn't know what to do from then on. I became tormented."

That was the start of a slippery slope down a dark trail of despair.

It's a familiar story in Otsuchi, northeastern Japan, where the devastating earthquake and tsunami turned much of the town in Iwate Prefecture into rubble. Today, much of that physical debris has been cleared away. But the emotional wreckage of the survivors is proving much more difficult to remove, as the mental scars from that day linger months later.

In Ogawa's case, depression could have had tragic consequences for her had she not met Suimei Morikawa, a volunteer psychiatrist who listened patiently to her troubles one day at an evacuation center.

Morikawa became the difference between life and death. She says she probably would have ended her life if the doctor hadn't been there for her.

"I was so moved by her approach to life," recalls Morikawa. "She may have been suffering and wanting to end her life because she had lost so much, but she also desperately wanted to get over that. I was moved by her willingness to get out of her own situation. I just helped her a little."

Concerns about suicide and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are growing among mental health specialists working in the region. PTSD in particular, a condition which can push people over the edge if not addressed, can show up months after the initial shock.

Suicide is also a major concern in Japan.

The sense of loss and deep grief can overcome you quickly and if you are alone when that happens, you lose all hope for the future.
Mariko Ukiyo, psychologist

According to the World Health Organization, Japan has the fifth highest suicide rate in the world. More than 30,000 suicides are reported each year, according to the country's national police agency, with Iwate Prefecture -- one of the regions hit hardest by the tsunami -- having one of the biggest problems.

Mariko Ukiyo, a psychologist and volunteer counselor, is part of a therapy group called "Team Japan 300." She and a number of other team members visit temporary villages in the devastated region hoping to treat symptoms of PTSD and ultimately prevent suicides.

According to Ukiyo, loneliness and despair take hold when the survivors move from their evacuation center to temporary housing.

"It is only then that people see how their life has changed from their pre-disaster life," she says. "The sense of loss and deep grief can overcome you quickly and if you are alone when that happens, you lose all hope for the future. I think this period is when they need help the most."

But getting help to the victims is proving to be a challenge in Japan, a country with limited experience in mental health care historically. Ukiyo says the amount of psychological support received by tsunami victims now is a tenth of what the victims of 9/11 in the United States experienced.

According to Ukiyo, the devastating 1995 earthquake in the city of Kobe started to raise awareness about the effects of post-traumatic stress -- particularly among the younger generation -- but many Japanese continue to find it difficult to talk about sorrow and loss because of the shame of appearing weak.

Ukiyo's strategy is to gather the residents in temporary housing for a regular get-together in a relaxed atmosphere. This gives her the opportunity to keep an eye on each of the participants, observing anyone that shows signs of severe distress. The hope is that what starts out as small talk will gradually evolve into people talking about themselves and their problems.

But despite her efforts Ukiyo is not optimistic about the region's future with trauma.

"We are only now starting to hear about sick or depressed people six months after the tsunami," she says. She believes suicide rates will only increase.

Meanwhile, Kyoko Ogawa vows not to be another victim. She says Dr. Morikawa pulled her back from the brink and she is now making plans for the future. She wants to rebuild her hotel and give back to those who helped her.

While Ogawa is a success story for Morikawa, he worries about those he will never reach in this devastated region.

"Now that I have met these people, I have grown attached to them," he says.

"It saddens me that there are still so many people suffering here. I can't stand the thought that there may be people who died because they had no-one to talk to."

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Japan film in Venice captures tsunami aftermath

Japan film in Venice captures tsunami aftermath Japanese movie "Himizu" is a twisted tale of abuse, violence and lost youth set against the backdrop of the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Director Sion Sono, renowned for hard-hitting, anarchic film making, wove real-life events into a screenplay he had just completed when the catastrophe struck. "Every scene changed drastically," he told trade publication Variety ahead of Himizu's world premiere at the Venice film festival on Tuesday.
7 Sep With television entertainer Shinsuke Shimada revealing last month that he had ties to organized crime, Zakzak (Sep. 6) speculates that gravure idols (pin-up models often appearing in magazines and on variety shows) will soon find difficulties as police work to eradicate the underworld from the entertainment industry. Starting in October, new anti-gang legislation will prohibit ordinary citizens from doing business transactions with gangsters. Years ago, it was not unusual for organized crime groups, or boryokudan, to associate in public with enka and kabuki performers, but today that is no longer allowable. Nowadays the relations exist through offices that employ models. (Tokyo Reporter)
7 Sep An 81-year-old man who sexually abused two pre-teen girls visiting his home to take part in an English conversation group was sentenced on Sept.6 by the Tokyo District Court to 18 years imprisonment, a year longer than prosecutors had sought. Yasutomo Obana was found guilty of a number of charges, including rape resulting in injury. "You used your position to take advantage of the lack of sexual awareness and immature judgment ability on the part of the girls to carry out what was a foul crime," Presiding Judge Ikuo Toishi told Obana. Toishi praised the girls for their testimony in court and slammed Obana for his behavior. (majirox news)
7 Sep Kyoko Ogawa wore the brave face the world associated with Japan's tsunami survivors. The March 11 catastrophe washed away all her earthly possessions. She watched as her hotel burned to the ground in a gas explosion triggered by the tsunami; a hotel that had been in her family for generations. She was determined not to let the disaster break her. But after the elation of finding her son alive, the reality of losing her livelihood started to erode the calm facade. She was in turmoil. She was afraid to talk to other people about it because she knew everyone was suffering as much as her, if not more. (CNN)
6 Sep In mid-August, Tsuneko Iwakura was finally moved into temporary housing, after five moves in as many months since evacuating her home near a damaged nuclear plant. 'We hear we can stay here for at least two years, so we are now relieved,' said Iwakura, 78. She and her husband left their home in north-eastern Japan when the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Power Station started leaking radioactive material, only 5 kilometres away. When the magnitude-9 earthquake struck the area on March 11, Iwakura watched as the walls of her house cracked and tiles fell from the roof. (monstersandcritics.com)
6 Sep More than 30,000 fashionistas flocked to Japan's largest fashion event, the Tokyo Girl's Collection -- or TGC this weekend -- a bi-annual show that combines the country's top fashion brands with popular music acts. Now in its sixth year, the six hour show has established itself as the epicenter of Japan's "kawaii," or cute culture, a culture that has gained a global following in recent years. On Saturday, the Saitama Super Arena, just outside of Tokyo, looked more like a cross between a concert and circus than a fashion show. Popular models strutted their looks down the runway, as adoring fans screamed their names, while other show-goers crowded booths featuring everything from makeup to a foot massage. In between, the TGC stage featured a mini ballet performance, and an appearance by Cirque de Soleil. (ABC News)

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Japan film in Venice captures tsunami aftermath - Reuters

Director Sion Sono (R) poses with cast members Shota Sometani (R) and Fumi Nikaidou (C) during a photocall for their film Himizu at the 68th Venice Film Festival, September 6, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Gaillard

By Mike Collett-White

VENICE, Italy | Tue Sep 6, 2011 9:20am EDT

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) - Japanese movie "Himizu" is a twisted tale of abuse, violence and lost youth set against the backdrop of the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Director Sion Sono, renowned for hard-hitting, anarchic film making, wove real-life events into a screenplay he had just completed when the catastrophe struck.

"Every scene changed drastically," he told trade publication Variety ahead of Himizu's world premiere at the Venice film festival on Tuesday.

"The original manga had no hope in it, but after March 11, I didn't think I should make a film with no hope. I felt that I had to convey it in the film."

The narrative is interspersed with wide shots of flattened towns and mangled buildings destroyed by the tsunami, bringing the disaster to the big screen less than six months after it happened.

The immediacy of those images, visceral performances by the two central teenaged characters traumatized by abuse and a score that includes Mozart's "Requiem" won over many viewers in Venice, with warm applause at the end of a press screening.

Himizu is based on a manga by Minoru Furuya first published about 10 years ago.

ABANDONMENT, DEVOTION

The story centers around schoolboy Yuichi Sumida, who is regularly beaten by his father and abandoned by his mother yet wants nothing more than to live a normal life.

He lives in a shack by a lake where he hires out boats to day trippers, and on the land a small community of oddballs stay in makeshift tents, possibly because their homes have been destroyed.

His female classmate Keiko Chazawa falls in love with him, and, despite being an unwelcome distraction for Sumida, ends up trying to save his life.

Keiko is a rare source of innocence and optimism in a world where love and hope are crushed from an early age.

Keiko's parents build a gallows for her, which they paint and decorate with colored lights as they encourage her to take her own life.

Sumida is also told time and again by his father that he should never have been born, and he finally reaches breaking point by committing murder.

Despite its bleak portrayal of youth, and dialogue interrupted by screaming and tears, Sono insisted that it conveyed a message of hope.

"The entire Japanese community feels like they have no choice but to have hope, because their situation is so bad," he said in the Variety interview.

"Before I wrote the original script, even I didn't have that much hope, but that has changed drastically."

Shota Sometani, the 19-year-old actor who played Sumida, said something good had come out of the disaster.

"The young generation have started to consider many new things that they were not thinking about before the natural disaster," he told reporters in Venice, speaking through a translator. "There is a new way of thinking."

Himizu is one of 23 films in the main competition in Venice. The 23rd "surprise" picture was named on Tuesday as China's "People Mountain People Sea" directed by Cai Shangjun.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Japan film in Venice captures tsunami aftermath (Reuters)

VENICE, Italy (Reuters) – Japanese movie "Himizu" is a twisted tale of abuse, violence and lost youth set against the backdrop of the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Director Sion Sono, renowned for hard-hitting, anarchic film making, wove real-life events into a screenplay he had just completed when the catastrophe struck.

"Every scene changed drastically," he told trade publication Variety ahead of Himizu's world premiere at the Venice film festival on Tuesday.

"The original manga had no hope in it, but after March 11, I didn't think I should make a film with no hope. I felt that I had to convey it in the film."

The narrative is interspersed with wide shots of flattened towns and mangled buildings destroyed by the tsunami, bringing the disaster to the big screen less than six months after it happened.

The immediacy of those images, visceral performances by the two central teenaged characters traumatized by abuse and a score that includes Mozart's "Requiem" won over many viewers in Venice, with warm applause at the end of a press screening.

Himizu is based on a manga by Minoru Furuya first published about 10 years ago.

ABANDONMENT, DEVOTION

The story centers around schoolboy Yuichi Sumida, who is regularly beaten by his father and abandoned by his mother yet wants nothing more than to live a normal life.

He lives in a shack by a lake where he hires out boats to day trippers, and on the land a small community of oddballs stay in makeshift tents, possibly because their homes have been destroyed.

His female classmate Keiko Chazawa falls in love with him, and, despite being an unwelcome distraction for Sumida, ends up trying to save his life.

Keiko is a rare source of innocence and optimism in a world where love and hope are crushed from an early age.

Keiko's parents build a gallows for her, which they paint and decorate with colored lights as they encourage her to take her own life.

Sumida is also told time and again by his father that he should never have been born, and he finally reaches breaking point by committing murder.

Despite its bleak portrayal of youth, and dialogue interrupted by screaming and tears, Sono insisted that it conveyed a message of hope.

"The entire Japanese community feels like they have no choice but to have hope, because their situation is so bad," he said in the Variety interview.

"Before I wrote the original script, even I didn't have that much hope, but that has changed drastically."

Shota Sometani, the 19-year-old actor who played Sumida, said something good had come out of the disaster.

"The young generation have started to consider many new things that they were not thinking about before the natural disaster," he told reporters in Venice, speaking through a translator. "There is a new way of thinking."

Himizu is one of 23 films in the main competition in Venice. The 23rd "surprise" picture was named on Tuesday as China's "People Mountain People Sea" directed by Cai Shangjun.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Japan in first national quake drill since tsunami

Japan in first national quake drill since tsunami Japan on Thursday conducted its first national earthquake drill since the March 11 disasters that left 20,000 dead or missing and triggered a nuclear crisis. Police supervised traffic at some 100 points in central Tokyo while passengers were guided to safe zones from train stations in a simulation of a post-quake scenario in which all rail and subway services are suspended. Disaster Prevention Day is an annual drill to train for a potentially deadly magnitude-7.3 quake scenario in Tokyo and is held to commemorate the anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which killed more than 140,000.
1 Sep A new erotic photo book is achieving brisk sales in spite of not revealing any of the faces of the female models nor full nudity, reports weekly tabloid Shukan Asahi Geino (Sep. 8). The magazine says that the book emphasizes the subtle aspects of swimsuits and uniforms: The skirt of a sailor suit gently rises to expose high up a thigh; a sock is visible just before a change into a swimsuit; and an exercise session gently reveals a bare midriff. The book "Natsufuku Joshi (Summer Clothing Girls)," by Million Publishing, is recording tremendous sales, ascending to the top of the photo book section of Amazon.jp at the end if July (and still holding that position now). (Tokyo Reporter)
1 Sep Following BEAST, CN Blue has been reported to be caught up in Japan due to their entrance being denied for visa problems, delaying their upcoming press conference. CN Blue was originally supposed to enter Japan through the Haneda Airport on August 31 but was denied for the same reason BEAST was denied earlier this month. The group has an official press conference for their major debut on September 1 as well as music video filmings. (soompi.com)
1 Sep With the aid of bacteria that lowers the level of sodium in soil, a farmer in the city of Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, harvested 150 tomatoes last month on farmland that was swamped by the March 11 tsunami. The cyanobacteria - also called blue-green algae - is found in seawater and sludge on the seafloor. Since it consumes salt when it photosynthesizes, it lowers the level of sodium when mixed in soil. Farmer Etsuo Iizuka, 62, used the soil on his 1,000-sq.-meter tsunami-damaged farm to plant 400 tomato plants in June. Each yielded about 10 tomatoes. (Japan Times)
31 Aug Vines creep across Tomioka's empty streets, its prim gardens overgrown with waist-high weeds and meadow flowers. Dead cows rot where they were left to starve in their pens. Chicken coops writhe with maggots, a sickening stench hanging in the air. This once-thriving community of 16,000 people now has a population of one. In this nuclear no-man's land poisoned by radiation from a disaster-battered power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura refuses to leave despite government orders. He says he has thought about the possibility of getting cancer but prefers to stay - with a skinny dog named Aki his constant companion. Nearly six months after Japan's catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, the 53-year-old believes he is the only inhabitant left in this town sandwiched between the doomed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station to the north and another sprawling nuclear plant to the south. (twincities.com)
31 Aug A growing number of Japanese men and women keen to lose weight are slipping into underwear which claims to burn hundreds of calories a week, simply by wearing them. Perfect for exercise-shy food-lovers, the MXP Calorie Shaper Pants are made with non-elasticated material that the company claims can make muscles work extra hard while walking or climbing stairs. The new underpants, from the Tokyo-based Goldwin company, claim that the average 10 stone man who walks 90 minutes a day while wearing them can lose 210 kilocalories weekly - the equivalent of half a litre of beer. (telegraph.co.uk)

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Anger in tsunami zone over Japan power games

Anger in tsunami zone over Japan power gamesBy Shingo Ito (AFP) – 1 day ago 

TOKYO — As Japan's political elite readies for yet another leadership showdown on Monday, there is widespread anger about the Tokyo power games among survivors of the March 11 quake and tsunami disaster.

Almost six months after the catastrophe, tens of thousands of people still live in crowded shelters and temporary homes, many mourning loved ones, fearful of radiation and without jobs, homes or a clear idea about their future.

The government's disaster response has drawn fierce criticism, forcing Prime Minister Naoto Kan to announce he will quit and setting off frantic jockeying among those eager to replace him at the ruling-party vote.

"I'm disgusted with things over there," said Ikuko Takita, who lives in a temporary home because the massive ocean wave took away her house in Ofunato, 420 kilometres (260 miles) northeast of Tokyo.

"I feel like I'm watching events in another country," said Takita, 60.

Two years after the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) wrested power from the long-ruling conservatives promising a new style of people-first politics, she said: "I'm losing my hopes for the DPJ.

"It looks like nothing will change, whoever becomes the next prime minister," she told AFP by phone.

The winner of Monday's party ballot will become Japan's sixth premier in five years -- continuing a revolving-door leadership tradition where tearful resignations after about 12 months have become the rule.

In Japan's devastated northeast, many are crying out for a government that will take charge and change their lives for the better.

Much of the tsunami rubble has been cleared, leaving vast empty mud fields, and fishing boats have again set out from hurriedly repaired ports to bring in the season's first catches of tuna and other fish.

But full recovery is expected to take years, and a glum mood has settled over towns where the displaced, their homes gone, endure quake aftershocks and are left worrying about the ongoing radiation crisis.

"I feel like I'm still standing in the dark," said Akio Ikuhashi, 61, who was forced to flee to Aizu, western Fukushima, because his house was located only three kilometres away from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

"I didn't do anything wrong, but I lost everything," said Ikuhashi, who was made unemployed after the disaster and has since separated from his wife after the post-disaster stress took its toll on their marriage.

"What will happen after Prime Minister Kan resigns?" he asked rhetorically, a sense of resignation in his voice. "Whatever happens will happen."

Shinji Sakuma, a Fukushima dairy farmer whose cows had to be slaughtered due to radioactive contamination fears, was furious about the politicians he sees as distant and disconnected from the reality of the disaster zone.

"No way! Is this really the time for them to change the leadership without hearing from us?" said the 61-year-old.

"I don't care about who will be the next prime minister. Whoever it will be, please bring an end to the nuclear crisis and let us go home as soon as possible. That's everybody's view around here."

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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Japanese find millions in lost tsunami cash - and return it

Vincent Yu / AP

Japan Self-Defense Force personnel stand near some safes they retrieved from houses destroyed by the tsunami in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan in a photo taken on April 7, 2011.

By Arata Yamamoto, NBC News Producer

TOYKO – If disaster struck, and millions of dollars in cash turned up, do you think it would be returned to its rightful owners?

In Japan, it was.

During the four months since the giant tsunami struck Japan's northern coast, more than 5,700 safes containing approximately $30 million has been recovered from the three hardest hit prefectures, Japan’s National Police Agency recently announced.

Remarkably – since residents of the tsunami zone have scattered across the country and even the world – 96 percent, or nearly $29.6 million in cash, has already been returned to its rightful owners, or if authorities feared the owner had died in the disaster, their closest relative. 

Detective job to find rightful owners 
The majority of the safes recovered in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were collected by Japan’s Self Defense Force, police, and volunteers while combing through destroyed homes and buildings and clearing debris left behind by the devastating wave; some individuals also came forward with lost valuables.

Masao Sasaki, with the Iwate prefectural police, said that determining who the money belonged to and then actually finding them proved to be a great challenge and often involved excruciating detective work.

"In some cases, entire communities were completely washed away. Even if we had information on the address of the owner, there would be no building left, landlines were destroyed,” Sasaki explained. “So we went around to the various evacuation centers and started checking through the rosters."

In Iwate prefecture alone, where more than 23,000 structures along the coast were destroyed, 2,400 safes containing a total amount of $10 million was collected. Incredibly, 91 percent of it has already been returned.

Considering that up until June there were more than 330 evacuation centers in Iwate, and people were constantly moving to new locations, it was no small feat to return that much money.

Aly Song / Reuters

A survivor walks through debris caused by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture, in this March 18, 2011 file photo.

“You can just imagine the difficult work involved in tracking down the owners,” Sasaki said. "In some cases where the owner was thought to have perished, we had to find the closest kin who could have been anywhere inside or outside Iwate.

It’s not unusual for Japanese, especially the elderly, to keep cash at home. In particular, fishermen, who made up a large portion of the coastal population, traditionally preferred cash transactions and often even paid salaries in cash. 

Thankfully, many of the safes also held bank books, certificates of land rights, name chops (traditional stamps used in lieu of signatures on personal documents) or some other form of identification. But because they were drenched in mud and water, each item often had to be carefully cleaned and dried, at times using a shirt iron in order to extract useful clues.

"It was important to be able to return these items properly cleaned, but our first and utmost priority was to find the owners and return their belongings as quickly as possible," said Sasaki.

Asked how they were able to return 91 percent of the lost valuables, Sasaki said it was simply the laborious work and perseverance of the prefecture’s officers.

Venturing into the nuke zone
It was a tougher task in Fukushima prefecture, where extra precaution was required to reach some of the areas affected by the nuclear accident.

When their officers entered the 12-mile-radius exclusion zone, they had to put on hazmat suits and equip themselves with survey meters so they could check the radiation levels.

"It might have taken a little longer in Fukushima," said Yoshiyasu Sato of the local prefectural police headquarters. "We had to start from the outer perimeter of the exclusion zone and slowly work our way in.”

But according to Sato, even though it took four months, the police have pretty much completed their task: they have already returned 96 percent of the $7.2 million found in some 900 safe boxes.

And in the Miyagi prefecture they had an even greater rate of return. More than 2,400 safes were collected that contained approximately $13.5 million –amazingly 99 percent of that has been returned to its owners or closest kin.

Almost done
In Iwate, as they get closer to completing the task of clearing away the rubble, the number of safes and other belongings recovered has dropped. But, Sasaki said, “the collection is still not completely zero, the numbers have come down, but items are being turned in sporadically.”

In total, if you included the money retrieved from lost wallets and purses, $48.3 million worth of cash was collected from the disaster zone. Out of that total amount, 85 percent has found its way to its rightful owners.

While the sheer amount of cash collected and returned is astounding, it is also another reminder of the scope of the damage brought by the March earthquake and tsunami which claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people and completely wiped out at least 112,000 homes and buildings.

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