News: Asian / International Articles...

Dec 02 2009 0 Comments by The ENB

While countries all over asia are striving to improve their English Education Programs there are cases in which a country's president may actually pledge to upgrade the establishment for example in the Korean English program a news article posted last year: "South Korea to improve English Education" by Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press Writer.

And in our own area of Japan I came across something more of an an editorial article than a news piece written by Kenji Tamaki, Editorial Writer over at Mainichi Shinbun. It makes for a very interesting point and references the origins of the Elementary School English Program in Japan and his thoughts on the matter. Yet, as he states "If the purpose of the government's action plan is only to make people fluent in English -- which, by the way, is a difficult thing to do -- it is of no use at all." Well. I really hate to burst his bubble, becuase he does make his point clear. But isn't the main point of MEXT's program for shogakko English to enjoy learning English first and gain some International Understanding. Why not forget about fluency for now and let's have some fun with the kids. In the meantime, we can also enjoy hearing them take on the challenge.

audio sample: Japanese kid's and fluency

And yes, such as his point may be, let's leave the matter of fluency to be later decided by the individual learner themselves. If young learners enjoy learning English as the years go by they will not feel that they have to abide by a ministry related (future) 'status quo' but actually be willing to communicate on their own free will and be proud of their English Speaking Skills. Thanks for the article Tamaki-san. It certainly raises a lot of deep issues on the matter, especially, the feelings of the teachers themselves.

Keep posted here for further comments.

The Japan Times: more articles/news about living in Japan

Dec 04 2009 0 Comments by The ENB

Crisis never came close to scenario meriting Tokyo evacuation: panel chief

The Fukushima No. 1 plant worst-case fallout scenario drawn up by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo last March 25 assumed winds would carry the radioactive materials to Tokyo, forcing the government to help people "migrate" from the capital.
But Kondo told The Japan Times last month this simulated contamination scenario was an unrealistic overstatement and steps had been taken to prevent the crisis from escalating to such proportions.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:39 pm

'Stealth' intervention reined in yen

Japan used so-called stealth intervention in November as the government sought to stem yen gains that hammered earnings at makers of exports ranging from cars to electronics.
Finance Ministry data released Tuesday showed Japan conducted ¥1.02 trillion worth of unannounced intervention during the first four days of November, after selling a record ¥8.07 trillion on Oct. 31, when the yen climbed to a postwar high of 75.35 against the dollar.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:38 pm

High cesium found in earthworms

Earthworms collected in Kawauchi, a village near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, have cesium levels averaging some 20,000 becquerels per kilogram, government researchers said.
The finding indicates the radioactive substance "may accumulate in other animals through the food chain," Motohiro Hasegawa, senior researcher at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, said Monday, noting earthworms are eaten by birds, boars and other wild animals.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:37 pm

Obama bows to Arab royalty in democracy push

Just after the first anniversary of the onset of the Arab Spring, the Obama administration announced in December an enormous arms sale to Saudi Arabia, with a price tag greater than the annual gross domestic product of more than half the countries in the world. The administration hailed the sale as a "historic achievement" that "reinforces the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia."
The close juxtaposition of the anniversary and the apparent repair of the temporary rough patch in U.S.-Saudi relations highlights crucial overlooked realities about the Arab Spring and the U.S. response.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:36 pm

Renault-Nissan to buy Russian firm in stages

Renault SA and affiliate Nissan Motor Co. may pay for their planned 50 percent stake in OAO AvtoVAZ over two years as goals are met, according to an executive at the Russian carmaker's second-biggest local owner.
A memorandum of understanding may be signed as soon as the end of February or at the Geneva auto show starting March 8, with the transaction completed three months later, Sergey Skvortsov, deputy chairman of Troika Dialog, said in Moscow.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:35 pm

The Iranian factor in U.S.-Indian relations

In what some are seeing as a diplomatic victory for Tehran, New Delhi has so far resisted complying with new U.S. sanctions aimed at shutting down the Iranian petroleum sector as a means of pressuring the Islamic Republic to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program.
With India purchasing about 10 percent of its oil imports from Iran, many analysts have tied New Delhi's stance to its burgeoning energy security needs. But there is also another important factor at work, though it is largely unrecognized in Washington: the Obama administration's quickening disengagement from Afghanistan is pushing India to strengthen relations with Iran.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:34 pm

Damage by animals to be studied

The Environment Ministry said Tuesday it will research reports of increased damage caused by wild animals in nuclear crisis-hit Fukushima and three surrounding prefectures this month and consider countermeasures.
The move comes amid a decline in the number of registered hunters in Fukushima, Miyagi, Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures in the wake of the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:33 pm

Toyota raises operating group profit forecast for full year to ¥270 billion

Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday raised its expectations for the business year to March, saying it now forecasts group operating profit of ¥270 billion on the back of rebounding sales in the United States and Europe as well as its cost-cutting efforts.
The auto giant had forecast Dec. 9 that the profit would come to ¥200 billion. But the new outlook is still dimmer than the ¥468.2 billion profit for the year that ended last March, as the current business year was impacted by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as last year's Thai floods, which disrupted the supply of parts and forced the company to briefly suspend production.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:32 pm

Caution on concessions ahead of U.S. TPP talks

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba said the government was "cautious" ahead of talks Tuesday on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bloc that will include demands to eliminate tariffs on protected goods.
Japanese officials were to meet with their American counterparts in Washington to discuss participation in the U.S.-led initiative. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is pushing to join the free-trade group over the opposition of some lawmakers concerned that slashing tariffs such as the 778 percent duty on rice will hurt farmers.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:31 pm

Nuke dangers nowhere near resolved: Kan's crisis adviser

In December, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the "conclusion" of the meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, saying Tokyo Electric Power Co. was managing to keep the three crippled reactors cool, as well as the facility's spent fuel pools.
But a former special adviser to Naoto Kan, who was prime minister when the crisis started, warned that the situation is far from resolved and said Fukushima has exposed a raft of serious nuclear problems that Japan will have to confront for years.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:30 pm

Sapporo buys into U.S. juice maker

Sapporo Holdings Ltd., which last year reported it had about $1.5 billion to spend on acquisitions, bought Florida-based juice maker Silver Springs Citrus Inc. to expand in the United States.
The brewer agreed to pay $24 million to Toyota Tsusho America Inc. for a 51 percent stake in the orange and grapefruit juice producer, Sapporo said in a statement.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:29 pm

Hashimoto group claims union tried to tip election

Osaka Municipal Assembly members from Mayor Toru Hashimoto's Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka) group are pursuing allegations that a city labor union attempted to gather votes for Hashimoto's opponent in last November's election in possible violation of campaign laws.
The allegations surfaced Monday when Osaka Ishin no Kai announced it had obtained a 36-page list of 1,800 names of municipal transport workers from a city employee, who told the group the list had been drawn up by the city transport worker union in an effort to support former Mayor Kunio Hiramatsu in the November mayoral race.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:28 pm

Bills could render Hague toothless

Japan may sign the Hague Convention, but if planned new laws for ratifying the treaty fail to compel family court judges to adhere to its principles, the whole exercise could be meaningless, legal experts and people whose children have been victims of parental abductions say.
"The legal principle of the Hague Convention is to always return the child unless there is clear and convincing evidence that this default presumption of return can be rebutted because of imminent danger of grave harm to the child," said Christopher Savoie, a Tennessee resident whose Japanese former wife illegally took the couple's children to Japan.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:27 pm

DeNA lowers annual profit estimate

DeNA Co., the country's biggest social-network website operator, is forecasting annual profit below analyst estimates as costs for labor and software suppliers rose.
Net income will probably be ¥32.6 billion in the year ending March 31, the company said Tuesday. A survey of 24 analysts found an average estimate of ¥34.9 billion.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:26 pm

A strategy for Russia's budding snow revolution

Nonviolent revolutions do not always remain nonviolent, as the examples of uprisings in Egypt, Libya, and Syria in the Arab Spring have shown. But peaceful movements for regime change often do succeed. They have toppled illegitimate rulers, as with the post-Soviet "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine, and ended apartheid in South Africa, for example, or, before that, the Jim Crow system in the American South. Non-violent movements broke British rule in India and Malawi, and brought down authoritarian regimes in Chile, the Philippines, and Portugal.
On the surface, most of these cases seem so different from present-day Russia as to be irrelevant to the success or failure of the current protests against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's continued rule and the protesters' call for free, fair, and competitive elections. But which differences are important?

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:25 pm

Outline approved for Hague treaty bills

A Justice Ministry panel on Tuesday gave the green light for the ministry to write bills for new domestic laws in preparation for signing the Hague Convention, which would theoretically promise other countries that Japan will try its utmost to return abducted children.
Critics, however, are not too optimistic because whether children will be returned to their original countries will depend largely on how Japan's family court judges interpret any new laws.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:24 pm

Caterpillar may up production 20%

Caterpillar Japan Ltd., a unit of the world's biggest construction-equipment maker, said it plans to produce a record number of excavators this year as the nation rebuilds infrastructure following the March 11 disasters in parts of the Tohoku region.
The venture between U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. may up output by 20 percent at its Akashi plant in Hyogo Prefecture, spokesman Mutsumi Miyanaga said Tuesday.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:23 pm

Romney: the right's cup of tea

"Many tea party folks are going to find me, I believe, to be the ideal candidate," the Republican presidential contender said in a news conference in December. "I sure hope so."
These words were uttered not by Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul or Rick Perry — but by Mitt Romney. Yes, the same Romney who has been pegged as too moderate to attract tea party voters and hard-core conservatives.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:22 pm

Shops selling dried herbs spiked with stimulant chemicals on the increase

Dried herbs mixed with stimulant chemicals carefully packaged to dodge drug laws are gaining in popularity among young Japanese, leading in turn to a drastic increase in the shops selling such products.
These "dappo habu" (law-evading herbs) contain stimulant materials whose chemical components are slightly different from those prohibited by drug laws.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:21 pm

2011 stimulant smuggling cases hit record high

The number of stimulant drug smuggling cases processed by customs authorities at the nation's airports and seaports in 2011 rose 22 percent from the previous year to hit a record-high of 185, the Finance Ministry said.
The amount of stimulant drugs seized increased by 25 percent to around 402 kg, the ministry said.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:20 pm

Five missing after refinery tunnel floods

Five workers went missing Tuesday afternoon after an undersea tunnel caved in and seawater gushed in at JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp.'s Mizushima oil refinery in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, the company said.
Police divers searched for the missing workers after the incident was reported to the fire department at around 12:35 p.m. They suspended the search shortly after 3 p.m. because of poor visibility and dangerous debris.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:19 pm

Japan's population time bomb

A population trend estimate announced on Jan. 30 by the health and welfare ministry's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research shows that in 2060, Japan's population will fall to about 30 percent below the current level, while people aged 65 or older will account for 40 percent of the population. It is imperative that the government take effective measures to make it easier for young people to be able to afford to marry and raise a family.
As Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said in his policy speech before the Diet on Jan. 24, Japan should change its social security system from one that is preoccupied with supporting elderly citizens to one that strengthens support for working people, including child-rearing families, and meets the need of all generations.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:18 pm

U.S. is urged to return Okinawa sites

Tokyo asked Washington to return some military sites in Okinawa at an early date during the latest bilateral talks Monday on redeploying U.S. Marines in the Asia-Pacific region, Japanese officials said.
The request to return part of Camp Zukeran and the Makiminato Service Area was made in connection with a U.S. plan to move about 4,700 marines in Okinawa to Guam, ahead of the contentious relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to another part of Okinawa Island, the officials said.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:17 pm

Bullying rose 6.7% in 2010 school year

The number of bullying cases recognized by public and private elementary, junior high and high schools nationwide in the 2010 academic year rose 6.7 percent from a year earlier to 77,630, according to an education ministry survey.
It was the first increase in five years. The number of such cases had been falling since the 2006 school year, when the ministry began collecting such data. An education official said the number rose as teachers became better at recognizing bullying.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:16 pm

Nation's bullet train blues

The central government has decided to start construction work on three sections of three planned Shinkansen bullet train lines — the Shin Hakodate-Sapporo section of the Hokkaido Shinkansen Line, the Kanazawa-Tsuruga section of the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line and the Isahaya-Nagasaki section of the Kyushu-Nagasaki Shinkansen Line. The construction of the new Shinkansen sections, whose total cost is estimated at ¥3.01 trillion, could cause problems for the central government, local governments concerned and local residents.
Since the central government and local governments along the planned Shinkansen lines cannot attain tax revenues large enough to cover the construction costs, the government decided to siphon the fees Japan Railway companies pay to the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency for use of Shinkansen tracks owned by the agency.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:15 pm

Utilities to adopt filtered vent units for pressurized light-water reactors

Kansai Electric Power Co. and other utilities will install filter-equipped venting systems for their pressurized light-water reactors to release vapor and prevent damage to containment vessels in the event of a crisis, according to sources.
The utilities had maintained that such venting systems were unnecessary for pressurized water reactors and are making the about-face amid heightened public fear brought on by the Fukushima crisis and the hard sell they face in gaining the OK to restart reactors idled for safety checks, the sources said Monday.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:14 pm

China faces rising risks as it looks overseas for resources

China's meteoric rise to become the world's second biggest economy and a global manufacturing center is sustained by ever-growing imports of raw materials and increasing investment abroad, often in under-developed countries shunned by the West for alleged human rights abuses or because they are considered too dangerous.
The investment has been accompanied by a wave of Chinese managers, technicians and workers, many employed by state-owned firms spearheading China's commercial expansion into Africa, Asia and Latin America. They seek promising foreign markets and access to resources that include oil, minerals and timber. These companies often bring their own laborers to do work that Western firms would usually hire local employees to perform.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:13 pm

Water rate increased for reactor 2

Workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant increased the amount of water injected into reactor 2 on Tuesday to the highest level since the plant achieved cold shutdown in December as concerns grew over rising temperatures at the bottom of the pressure vessel.
Following the move, the temperature in the vessel eased to 68.5 degrees by 5 p.m. from 73.3 degrees logged at 7 a.m. Monday, Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., told a news conference.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:12 pm

Marubeni gets major Angolan order

Marubeni Corp. said Tuesday it has received a $650 million order from the government of Angola for a plant to produce sugar and ethanol from sugarcane.
The plant will be built in Cunene, southern Angola, with an annual production capacity at about 400,000 tons of sugar and some 40 million liters of ethanol. It will cover most of the sugar demand in the country that currently depends fully on imports for its sugar supply, the company said.

Posted on 7 February 2012 | 1:11 pm

World economy's uncharted territory

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." — L.P. Hartley, English novelist
It must now be obvious that, economically speaking, we're in another country. Things we once took for granted no longer apply; things we never imagined occur all the time. We've entered a zone of ignorance where familiar experience and ideas count for less. "Thirty years ago, if you'd said that the United States and Europe were going to be the centers of financial crises, people would have thought you were crazy," says economist Fred Bergsten. The unforeseen is now routine.