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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Qantas Group launches Jetstar Japan - National Business Review

Jetstar is expanding its Asian operations in Japan with a new low fare airline called Jetstar Japan.

The new airline is a partnership between Qantas Group, Japan Airlines (JAL) and Mitsubishi Corporation and has a total capitalization commitment of up to ¥12 billion, a Jetstar statement said.

Jetstar Japan was expected to fly from Tokyo and Kansai International, with other airports and bases being considered, including Sapporo, Fukuoka and Okinawa, a Jetstar statement said, with flights expected to start by the end of next year.

The airline would have an initial fleet of three new Airbus A320 aircraft designed for 180 customers in one class, with plans to grow the fleet to 24 A320s in a few years, the statement said.

Jetstar Airways, a Qantas subsidiary, flies long haul services from both Tokyo and Osaka to Cairns and the Gold Coast in Australia, with Airbus A330 two class aircraft, and from Singapore to Osaka with Jetstar’s Asia’s short haul A320 fleet.

Jetstar Japan would be the newest link in the airline’s network, the statement said.  Jetstar currently offers connections to 17 countries including Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and New Zealand, the statement said.

Jetstar chief executive office Bruce Buchanan said the new venture would link existing services to Osaka and Tokyo with other popular destinations across Japan.

“Jetstar Japan means people will be able to travel on our network into Japan, and then continue on to the famous ski fields or cultural centres under our much-loved orange star.”

Fares are expected to be an average of 40% lower than current prices, the statement said, with special sales offering lower prices.

Jetstar's Growth Chart, detailing the airline's passenger growth compared with low cost carrier competitors since its launch

JAL is a full service carrier with an international network servicing more than 225 airports in 38 countries and regions along with its codeshare partners.  Domestically the airline covers more than 50 airports throughout Japan.  JAL operates about 22,000 international and domestic flights a month.

Mitsubishi Corporation is Japan’s largest general trading company, the statement said, with more than 200 bases of operations in about 80 countries around the world.  Mitsubishi has eight business groups across most industries in the world including Metals, Chemicals, Industrial Finance and the Global Environment Business Development Group.

The announcement of the new airline is part of a major overhaul of Qantas, in which it plans to refocus its offshore operations on Asia, the Australian Financial Review reported.

This overhaul saw up to 1000 jobs cut after a year-long review into Qantas International, which the company has estimated will lose about $200 million in the last financial year, AFR reported.

The announcement also follows on from Singapore Airlines announcement that it will launch a low cost subsidiary airline within one year, yet to be named.

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Mark Pendergrast: Japan's eco-revolution runs out of steam - National Post

By Mark Pendergrast

Japanese trains run to the minute, and the country’s businesses pride themselves on energy efficiency. The Japanese boast of their eco-services for eco-products in eco-cities. Yet they rely primarily on imported fossil fuel and nuclear power, live in energy-wasteful homes and import 60% of their food.

That may be changing in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Maybe. Japan is at a crucial tipping point. As an island nation, it offers a microcosmic look at the economic and environmental problems facing the rest of the globe. And as Japan tips, so may the world.

I landed in Tokyo’s Narita Airport on May 11, 2011, exactly two months after the magnitude 9.0 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake triggered a devastating tsunami wave that killed an estimated 20,500 people and left a swath of destruction up to nine kilometres inland. That zone included the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where the loss of electric power led to a full meltdown of three out of six reactors (three reactors that did not meltdown have gone offline and are unlikely to return to service).

In the same way that we now refer to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, simply as “9/11,” the Japanese shorthand for March 11, 2011, the day of their triple disaster, is “3/11.”

Before 3/11, I had been invited to visit several of Japan’s so-called Eco-Model Cities. I figured that because the Japanese import virtually all of their fossil fuel and are technologically sophisticated, that they must be doing innovative things with renewable energy. Indeed, during my six-week odyssey, I saw solar panels, micro-hydro generators, wind turbines, electric vehicles, hydrogen power, biodiesel, wood pellet factories, compost made from human excrement, geothermal systems and model sustainable homes.

But, overall, I realized that I had been naive. The Eco-Model City program was thrown together in a hurry so that then-prime minister Yasuo Fukuda could announce it at the G8 summit held in Japan in July 2008, and the cities received very little funding. They are doing some interesting piecemeal things, but not enough.

Japan is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. As an industrialized island nation, it is facing the same issues as the rest of the globe, only sooner and more urgently. Yet it lags far behind Europe, the United States and even (in some respects) China in terms of renewable energy efforts. Photovoltaic panels receive the only current federal subsidy. And Japan is mired in bureaucracy, political in-fighting, indecision, puffery, public apathy and cultural attitudes that make rapid change difficult.

But Japan does need to take urgent action. Japan is heavily dependent on nuclear energy, which since the meltdowns has become politically toxic. Plans, announced in 2010, to increase Japan’s reliance on nuclear power have been scrapped, and on top of the three reactors that were lost at Fukushima, five others have been shutdown for safety reasons. So what will happen next?

Tetsunari Iida, the former nuclear engineer who heads the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), has a plan. Iida sees Japan’s nuclear power and fossil fuel use gradually dwindling to nothing by 2050, while renewable energy swells to account for 50% of current use. The other 50% will be covered by energy savings and efficiencies, he says.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has apparently been listening to Iida and is now a born-again renewable energy advocate. Yet because of political in-fighting and a looming no-confidence vote, Kan announced that he will resign soon, the sixth Japanese prime minister to do so in six years. He says he won’t go until the parliament votes for renewable energy subsidies for wind, biomass, geothermal, solar hot water, micro-hydro, but the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) really run the country, in league with the electricity monopolies. METI has funded a program to dabble in smart grid technology in four test cities, but Japan needs a drastic overhaul of its electric grid and massive support for renewable energy. Even in the aftermath of catastrophe, though, it still seems to be business as usual for Japan’s political and industrial leaders.

Japan is better positioned than any country in the world to adopt renewable, sustainable development policies. The trouble it is having overcoming its own existing habits, despite the ample reason to push ahead post-3/11, is cause for concern.

National Post

Mark Pendergrast is the author of Inside the Outbreaks and other books. He is writing a book called Japan’s Tipping Point.

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