Whn Shinzo Abe resigned after just a year as prime minister, in September 2007, he was derided by voters, broken by chronic illness, and dogged by the ineptitude that has been the bane of so many recent Japanese leaders. Today, not yet five months into his second term, Mr Abe seems to be a new man. He has put Japan on a regime of “Abenomics”, a mix of reflation, government spending and a growth strategy designed to jolt the economy out of the suspended animation that has gripped it for more than two decades. He has supercharged Japan’s once-fearsome bureaucracy to make government vigorous again. And, with his own health revived, he has sketched out a programme of geopolitical rebranding and constitutional change that is meant to return Japan to what Mr Abe thinks is its rightful place as a world power.

Mr Abe is electrifying a nation that had lost faith in its political class. Since he was elected, the stockmarket has risen by 55%. Consumer spending pushed up growth in the first quarter to an annualised 3.5%. Mr Abe has an approval rating of over 70% (compared with around 30% at the end of his first term). His Liberal Democratic Party is poised to triumph in elections for the upper house of the Diet in July. With a majority in both chambers he should be able to pass legislation freely.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Currency Markets • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Commodity prices have been falling since September, culminating in a rout over the past two weeks. That is a classic warning for the global economy.

It is becoming ever clearer that the roaring boom in global equities since last summer has priced in an economic recovery that does not in fact exist. The International Monetary Fund has had to nurse down its global growth forecasts yet again. We are still stuck in an old-fashioned trade depression, with pervasive over-capacity in manufacturing plant and a record global savings rate of 25pc of GDP.

German car sales fell 17pc in March. That should puncture the last illusions that Germany is about to pull Europe out of a self-inflicted slump.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • Stock Market • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The holiday season is a time for expansive thoughts, and not just about waistlines. It allows people time to step back from the daily grind and think about how they could do things differently. Has lack of imagination blinded them to simple solutions? With a little effort, could they make 2013 a lot better?

For the rich world’s governments, the answer is yes. We offer three ways to improve confidence and increase growth in what otherwise looks like being a pretty bleak year. Regular readers will not be astonished to hear that all three involve trade liberalisation. This is, indeed, a theme we have returned to with some frequency since this newspaper was set up in 1843 to oppose Britain’s protectionist Corn Laws. But the gains to be had from sluggish rich countries opening their borders to each other’s goods and services look enticing. The world is less integrated than most people realise. And trade also offers a chance for liberal democracies to re-establish their credentials as the world’s guides towards prosperity.

According to the IMF, in 2013 America’s economy may grow by around 2%, Japan’s and Britain’s by 1% or so, and the euro zone’s will be lucky to grow at all. Policymakers in each of these economies could do plenty of things to improve this dour prognosis, but most involve unappealing choices. A further monetary boost may help add zip to the recovery, but risks producing asset bubbles. More fiscal expansion could help growth but could weigh governments down with extra debt.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan • Caribbean • England / UK • Europe

Understanding the developing attitude of the central banks, and the effects of their actions, obviously remains central for investors in all financial assets. The “big picture” for global financial assets, involving very low government bond yields and a gradual shift of risk appetite into credit and equities, is unlikely to change until one of two events takes place.

The first would be a decision by the central bankers themselves that the era of unlimited quantitative easing must end, either because of the risk of inflation and asset price bubbles, or because of concerns about fiscal dominance over the monetary authorities. The second would be a realisation by the markets that further action by the central bankers is irrelevant because they have run out of effective ammunition. Either of these events would probably remove the central prop from the equity bull market which began in March, 2009, but neither seems very likely in 2013.

There is certainly no sign that the central bankers themselves will call a halt to the extension of their balance sheets.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Currency Markets • Euro • European Central Bank • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • The United States Currency (Dollar etc) • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • Japan • Europe • --European Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2010

Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain, as of dawn, December 7. On that day, Sunday, Japanese dive-bombers and naval craft, without waming, attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base and Hickam Field, Hawaii, and other American possessions in the Pacific. That same day, in Washington, at the same time as the assault, Ambassador Nomura and Special Envoy Kurusu were delivering in person to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, the rejection by the Japanese Government of the American demands.... At once, following the Japanese assault, the American fleet in the Pacific, and the American air-force went into action against the Japanese aggressors. On Monday, December 8, one half hour after high noon, the President of the United States addressed a joint session of Congress. His address lasted little more than five minutes. After enumerating the series of attacks made by Japanese war forces on American possessions during the past forty-eight hours, he declared very plainly, that he asked that Congress declare that a state of war has existed since December 7, between the United States and Japan. Such are the facts in the final stages of the war with Japan that has, through long years, and in the past month, been regarded as inevitable.

The United States has been left no choice but to prosecute war against Japan with the full power of naval, air and army forces....

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • Senate • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

[Shusaku] Endo locates the point of contact between Japanese life and the Gospel in what he observes, and has experienced personally, to be the essence of Japanese religious awareness. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person's life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are intelligible only in the experience of their opposites. Endo sees them incarnate in the person of Jesus through his own experience of failure, rejection, and, most of all, ineffectualness. Only rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and find understanding and compassion. Endo argues that it is our universal human experience of failure in life that provides us with an understanding of Christian faith in its depth.

--Fumitaka Matsuoka, The Christology of Shusaku Endo, Theology Today (October 1982) [emphasis mine]

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Theology • Christology

The US, Japan and the European Union have filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports.

US President Barack Obama accused China of breaking agreed trade rules as he announced the case at the White House.

Beijing has set quotas for exports of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products from hybrid cars to flat-screen TVs.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Energy, Natural Resources • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • Japan • Europe

In the year since the largest quake in Japan's recorded history, Christians have witnessed more than the walls of buildings come down. During Christianity Today's recent travels through the quake zone, pastors and other Christian leaders said that the cultural and spiritual barriers that have for generations divided Christians from each other and from greater Japanese society have weakened in the aftermath.

"We've been called to remember in these months that the church really is the body of Christ," said Joseph Handley, president of Asian Access, an interdenominational evangelical organization that works throughout Asia to develop Christian leaders.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Stewardship • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

A combination of fewer people in the workforce and high levels of indebtedness leads to a very adverse economic environment, [Ajay] Kapur warned.

The aging population means that a serious reform of the social security and tax systems will be needed in Japan, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura at a press conference held Monday, according to a Feb. 1 report by the Daily Yomiuri Online.

In 1960 one retiree was supported by 11.2 workers. In 2010, one retiree was supported by only 2.8 workers. By 2060, it is expected there will be just 1.3 workers per retiree.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Marriage & Family • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

O God our Father, who art the source of strength to all thy saints, and who didst bring the holy martyrs of Japan through the suffering of the cross to the joys of life eternal: Grant that we, being encouraged by their example, may hold fast the faith that we profess, even unto death; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church History • Spirituality/Prayer • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

For more than half a century, members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association gathered here every Dec. 7 to commemorate the attack by the Japanese that drew the United States into World War II. Others stayed closer to home for more intimate regional chapter ceremonies, sharing memories of a day they still remember in searing detail.

But no more. The 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack will be the last one marked by the survivors’ association. With a concession to the reality of time — of age, of deteriorating health and death — the association will disband on Dec. 31.

“We had no choice,” said William H. Eckel, 89, who was once the director of the Fourth Division of the survivors’ association, interviewed by telephone from Texas. “Wives and family members have been trying to keep it operating, but they just can’t do it. People are winding up in nursing homes and intensive care places.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Military / Armed Forces • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan • Europe

Boeing Co. handed over the key for its first 787 wide-body jet to All Nippon Airways on Monday after years of delays, marking a long-awaited milestone in the history of commercial flight.

Thousands of workers gathered for the ceremony at Paine Field, outside the building where the planes are assembled, with many finding shelter from the rain under the wings of two yet-to-be-delivered 787s. The actual first ANA 787 was nearby at the Future of Flight aviation center, where it was being prepared for a reception Monday night and its flight to Japan today. The plane goes into service in November.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * South Carolina

Nick Pratto connected for a two-out, bases-loaded single in the bottom of the sixth inning to lead Huntington Beach’s Ocean View team to the Little League World Series championship.

Ocean View beat Hamamtsu City, Japan, 2-1, and became the seventh team from California to win the title.

Both teams had scored in the bottom of the third inning, and the game stayed tied until Pratto’s decisive single into right-center field.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

This was the subject of today's Adult Sunday school. Make sure you did not miss Walter Russell Mead's piece wherein he uses Daniel 5 as a means by which to understand our times. His reflections formed the basis of our deliberations--KSH.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Adult Education • * Culture-Watch • History • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • Japan • Europe • * South Carolina • * Theology • Theology: Scripture

They never gave up--congratulations to them.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • Women • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

Japan have recorded a famous 1-0 extra-time win to eliminate reigning champions and host nation Germany from the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup™ and reach the semi-finals for the first time.

Substitute Karina Maruyama scored the decisive goal on 108 minutes as Germany suffered a first defeat for 16 matches, dating back to the quarter-final stage at USA 1999. Japan will now face the winner of Sunday’s semi-final between Sweden and Australia.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • Women • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • Europe • Germany

Economists have found themselves repeatedly making excuses. First it was the snowstorms. Then it was Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster which crimped the supply of parts to car assembly plants in America. Then, as the snow melted, floods ravaged Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, and tornadoes battered Alabama and Missouri. America has suffered five incidents of extreme weather this year, each inflicting at least $1 billion in damage.

The most important special factor has been petrol. Prices jumped from $3 per gallon at the end of December to $3.90 in early May. That has siphoned off much of the purchasing power that consumers should have extracted from December’s tax agreement and subsequent gains in employment. Total consumer spending rose at just a 6.7% annual rate in the three months to the end of April, but most of that increase was eaten up by inflation. Real spending grew by a paltry 2.2%.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Housing/Real Estate Market • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * General Interest • Weather • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

An intensely toxic court case which shattered Japanese society, ended today with a 30-month prison sentence for a man who was once the country’s most prominent entrepreneur....

Mr [Takafumi] Horie’s eradication as a political and corporate trailblazer also marked the beginning of the end of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s supposedly reformist era.

It was a five-and-a-half year stint in which the charismatic politician persuaded both Japan and the outside world that he had placed the country on a new tack. Retrospective analysis of his period in power suggest his practical impact had been almost entirely undone by about 2009.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

[Shusaku] Endo locates the point of contact between Japanese life and the Gospel in what he observes, and has experienced personally, to be the essence of Japanese religious awareness. This he sees as the sense of failure in life and the subsequent shame and guilt that leave a lasting impact upon a person's life. Such theological notions as love, grace, trust, and truth are intelligible only in the experience of their opposites. Endo sees them incarnate in the person of Jesus through his own experience of failure, rejection, and, most of all, ineffectualness. Only rarely has modern Christianity presented the story of Jesus as the one to whom those who had failed, were rejected, lonely, and alienated could turn and find understanding and compassion. Endo argues that it is our universal human experience of failure in life that provides us with an understanding of Christian faith in its depth.

--Fumitaka Matsuoka, The Christology of Shusaku Endo, Theology Today (October 1982) [emphasis mine]

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Holy Week • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Theology • Christology

The overall impact of earthquake and tsunami according to the government has been:

Death: about 13,200 people
Missing: about 14,300 people
Displaced: about 167,000 people
Totally demolished homes: 52,800 homes

Most damage has been caused by the tsunami rather than earthquake itself. In addition we are facing the potential impact of nuclear radiation caused by malfunction of the nuclear power plant. We are experiencing many aftershocks with some of them causing more damage to already weakened structures.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Japanese authorities have raised the severity rating of their nuclear crisis to the highest level, seven.

The decision reflects the total release of radiation at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which is ongoing, rather than a sudden deterioration.

Level seven previously only applied to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, where 10 times as much radiation was emitted.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Energy, Natural Resources • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Two weeks have passed since the devastating earthquake on the 11th March. At least I have been able to visit the devastated area in Sendai. The night of the 26th March I flew from Tokyo to Yamagata Airport. The next morning I entered Sendai City. Sendai is the main city of the Tohoku region where the Cathedral of Tohoku Diocese of Nippon Sei Ko Kai (the Anglican Church in Japan) is located.

On Sunday morning, I visited the Cathedral (Sendai Christ Church) and saw that parts of the walls had fallen down, the walls were cracked. It looked to me as the whole building was lopsided. On the floor of the Cathedral there were various piles of goods sent from churches in different parts of Japan such as foodstuff, fuel and clothing. Because of the frequent aftershocks, the church council members have decided that it is too dangerous to use the Cathedral for worship, so they are having services in the nearby church hall.

In Sendai City they have restored water and electricity supplies, but the supply of gas to houses has not been restored. Although food is available it is still very difficult to get hold of petrol and other fuel. So some of the parishioners who gathered for worship on the Sunday walked a long distance to get there. Due to the continuing aftershocks, some people go to bed fully clothed, wearing shoes. There are those who have not slept at all since the earthquake and look exhausted. The Bishop of Tohoku Hiromichi Kato who preached at eucharist, he tried to encourage the congregation by saying that their faith would lead them to hope even through the hardship and difficulties of the present situation.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives lost power in their German heartland after nearly six decades, initial poll results showed Sunday, with the Greens likely to lead their first state government.

Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) have ruled Baden-Wuerttemberg since 1953, but anger over her nuclear policy in light of the Japan crisis as well as decisions on Libya and the euro drove away voters in the run-up to the poll.

The anti-nuclear Greens claimed about 24 percent of the vote -- about 12 point higher than five years ago -- and were likely to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, who garnered about 23 percent in the rich state.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Africa • Libya • Asia • Japan • Europe • Germany

The Japanese electricians who bravely strung wires this week to all six reactor buildings at a stricken nuclear power plant succeeded despite waves of heat and blasts of radioactive steam.

The restoration of electricity at the plant, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, stirred hopes that the crisis was ebbing. But nuclear engineers say some of the most difficult and dangerous tasks are still ahead — and time is not necessarily on the side of the repair teams.

The tasks include manually draining hundreds of gallons of radioactive water and venting radioactive gas from the pumps and piping of the emergency cooling systems, which are located diagonally underneath the overheated reactor vessels. The urgency of halting the spread of radioactive contamination from the site was underlined on Wednesday by the health warning that infants should not drink tap water — even in Tokyo, 140 miles southwest of the stricken plant — which raised alarms about extensive contamination.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Hundreds of people at a Vancouver church offered prayers and donations Sunday for the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, as they were told not even religion could explain the unspeakable tragedy that has befallen the east Asian country.

The 130-year-old Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in downtown Vancouver held a service Sunday afternoon that alternated between English and Japanese, bringing together Japanese-Canadians, members of other local Anglican congregations and people from outside the faith -- many still coming to grips with the devastation unfolding across the Pacific.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami have together killed at least 8,600 people, with nearly 13,000 still missing and another 452,000 living in shelters. They have also sparked a continuing crisis at the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant which has been leaking radiation since the natural disasters.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

In response to a growing desire to donate as well as pray for the beleaguered nation of Japan, agencies and Churches of the Communion have been setting up avenues for giving.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The government said Saturday that it had found higher than normal levels of radioactive materials in spinach and milk at farms up to 90 miles away from the ravaged nuclear power plants, the first confirmation by officials that the unfolding nuclear crisis has affected the nation’s food supply.

While officials played down the immediate risks to consumers, the findings further unsettled a nation worried about the long-term effects of the damaged nuclear power plants.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, with help from the Japan Self-Defense Force, police officers and firefighters, continued efforts to cool the damaged reactors on Saturday to try to stave off a further fuel meltdown and stem the radiation leak. The latest plan involved running a mile-long electrical transmission line to Reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to try to restore power to its cooling system.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The Bishop of Tohoku, the Rt Rev John Hiromichi Kato, said that the affected area was very wide and diocesan staff had not been able to visit all areas.

One member of St John’s Church, Isoyama, has been confirmed dead but there has still been no news of the tiny church’s other seven members.

“We pray that they are all safe in some temporary shelter,” said Bishop Kato.

The diocese’s main church, Christ Church Sendai, has still not been able to locate some of its members.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Pastoral Care • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

A week after their lives were turned upside down by the biggest recorded earthquake in Japan's history, many survivors are too shocked to contemplate the future.

"My house does not exist anymore. Everything is gone, including money," said Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter in Yamada, northern Japan.

"This is where I was born, so I want to stay here. I don't know how it will turn out, but this is my hope."

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Filed under: * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

This is the 91-word prayer [Jennifer] Phillips composed:

Merciful God, in your hands are the caverns of the earth and the heights of the hills: our times also are in your hands. Hear our prayers for those suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan; soothe those in distress; watch over those trapped and hoping for rescue; comfort the bereaved; strengthen those who labor to help others, lift up those who cannot help themselves; and in every danger be their very present help by the power of your Holy Spirit; we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Spirituality/Prayer • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Many of the children taking refuge at the Kama Elementary School, on the eastern fringes of the town of Ishinomaki, are playing in the corridors or helping their parents scrub mud-coated boots in the filthy water of the school pool.

But the atmosphere in the room on the third floor, where 30 children whose parents simply disappeared when the tsunami swept through the town, is very different.

Viewed through the window, the children sit more still and are apparently engrossed in books or card games. They are watched over by other relatives or teachers and we are not allowed to enter or speak with them. Understandably, they do not want their charges to have more reminders of the disaster that has befallen them.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • * General Interest • Natural Disasters: Earthquakes, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, etc. • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Five days ago, on March 11 at 2:46 PM, there was a major earthquake followed by a tsunami and fires. Now we are facing potential disaster caused by the malfunction of nuclear power plant. On the day of earthquake it was snowing. Today it is expected to get colder. The tsunami and the fires it caused have made us miserable. We are now experiencing a lack of food supply. Over the past five days there have been as series of worrying aftershocks. Essential services are disrupted, particularly the phones with many people unable to recharge their cell phones. There is now a petrol shortage in the immediate area. We were simply not prepared for problems on this scale. In the central part of Sendai City there does not appear to be major damage to the buildings; it almost appears as if there is no problem, but in reality the lack of essential services--gas, electricity and water--is particularly hard for people.

What we are experiencing in our city does not compare to what we have seen in the media, particularly those areas directly impacted by the tsunami. According to the Asahi newspaper, life for the between 400,000 to 500,000 people living in temporary shelters is getting worse. The affected area is very wide and diocesan staff have not been able to visit all areas.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Churches across Japan are responding with prayers, donations, and relief operations to the impacts of the March 11 earthquake and its subsequent tsunamis and nuclear power plant accidents.

As of March 16, more than 3,700 people were confirmed dead, more than 7,800 missing, and about 2,000 injured, according to the National Police Agency. More than 400,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster zones in northeastern Japan. The earthquake also damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, where workers have been struggling to contain radiation leaks.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Pastoral Care • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

Left-leaning news media outlets were long skeptical of nuclear power and its backers, and the mutual mistrust led power companies and their regulators to tightly control the flow of information about nuclear operations so as not to inflame a broad spectrum of opponents that include pacifists and environmentalists.

“It’s a Catch-22,” said Kuni Yogo, a former nuclear power planner at Japan’s Science and Technology Agency.

He said that the government and Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, the operator of the troubled nuclear plant, “try to disclose only what they think is necessary, while the media, which has an antinuclear tendency, acts hysterically, which leads the government and Tepco to not offer more information.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Media • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Increasing alarm has been expressed in the US about the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan.

Greg Jaczko, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said attempts to cool reactors with sea water and prevent them from melting down appeared to be failing.

Emergency workers in the vicinity could be exposed to "potentially lethal" radiation doses, he said.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Foreign Relations • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

As the extent of the death and destruction from the massive disaster in Japan comes into focus, religious relief organizations are sending and supporting teams to assess the damage.

Groups such World Vision and Baptist World Aid have teams on the ground determining what kinds of experts and supplies will be needed in the recovery from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Friday (March 11).

Rachel Wolff, a spokeswoman for World Vision, said a relief manager who worked on the scenes of earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan was stunned by the extent of the destruction.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Charities/Non-Profit Organizations • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Earlier attempts to use helicopters had to be abandoned due to radiation levels.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The Diocese of Sendai includes the areas hardest-hit in the disaster, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

Father Peter Shiro Komatsu, diocesan chancellor, said March 14 that Bishop Martin Tetsuo Hiraga of Sendai was unharmed but had not received complete reports on the damage because telecommunications remained disrupted.

The priest said diocesan officials did not know about what had happened to several churches along the coast. He said one church in Fukushima was totally damaged and eight churches in Sendai were either unaffected or only slightly damaged.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

At least 750 workers were evacuated on Tuesday morning after a separate explosion ruptured the inner containment building at Reactor No. 2 at the Daiichi plant, which was crippled by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. The explosion released a surge of radiation 800 times more intense than the recommended hourly exposure limit in Japan.

But 50 workers stayed behind, a crew no larger than would be stationed at the plant on a quiet spring day. Taking shelter when possible in the reactor’s control room, which is heavily shielded from radiation, they struggled through the morning and afternoon to keep hundreds of gallons of seawater a minute flowing through temporary fire pumps into the three stricken reactors, Nos. 1, 2 and 3, where overheated fuel rods continued to boil away the water at a brisk pace.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Energy, Natural Resources • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Christians in Japan are looking for survivors and assessing damage to church buildings after Friday’s (March 11) devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The National Police Agency announced that as of Monday about 1,800 people have died and 2,400 are missing. The death toll may eventually reach more than 10,000, according to police.

Churches and Christians in northeastern Japan, the most heavily affected area, are still out of contact days after the disaster.

Studies estimate that 2 percent of Japanese are Christian, with the vast majority practicing Buddhism and the indigenous Shinto religion.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches

The earthquake/tsunami affected areas include the dioceses of Tohoku and Kita Kanto, and a very small area of the Diocese of Yokohama in Chiba prefecture.

The Diocese of Tohoku covers the prefectures of Aomori, Akita, Miyagi, Yamagata, and Fukushima, and the last three have been hit hard, particularly Miyagi prefecture. Membership of diocese of Tohoku is about 1,500 people and there are 29 churches, chapels and missionary stations. Its Cathedral is in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The nuclear power industry had been experiencing something of a rebirth in the United States, following decades of doubt. That's been put at risk by the crisis unfolding at a nuclear power plant in Japan in the wake of a devastating quake and tsunami there.

With that situation still in flux, attention should remain focused on dealing with the immediate safety issues in Japan, says Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an association of electric utility companies.

"There will be plenty of time later on for a, hopefully, thoughtful dialogue," Owen says.

But officials in Owen's industry recognize that problems in Japan are bound to have repercussions when it comes to nuclear policy in the U.S.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Science & Technology • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • The U.S. Government • Energy, Natural Resources • Foreign Relations • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Technicians are battling to stabilise a third reactor at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant that has been rocked by a second blast in three days.

Sea water is being pumped into reactor 2 at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after its fuel rods were fully exposed twice.

International nuclear watchdogs said there was no sign of a meltdown but one minister said a melting of rods was "highly likely" to be happening.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

In Tokyo, the Rev. Claudia Genung Yamamoto, a United Methodist missionary, discarded her planned Sunday sermon text at West Tokyo Union Church, where she has served as pastor for nearly 17 years.

Instead of speaking about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, she focused on Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Missions • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Methodist

Check it out.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

On the 11th of March at 2:46pm, the biggest earthquake ever to hit Japan struck just off the coast of the Tohoku region. This caused a tsunami and fires that brought massive devastation to a very wide area. This unimaginably strong earthquake triggered an explosion at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear reactor. The people living in the area around that and the No. 2 reactor have been evacuated. The stories and images constantly broadcast by the media have left people lost for words, unable to describe the sheer scale of the unbelievable devastation caused by the earthquake, tsunami and fires.

We see homes devastated, whole towns that were swallowed by the tsunami, and houses that continue to burn because fire fighters are unable to reach both the properties and the people who were the victims of this catastrophe. With hearts filled with grief and helplessness we see people who are mourning their lost loved ones and others who search tirelessly for missing family members. There are so many who have lost their homes and possessions. Towns and villages were obliterated by the tsunami, everything was gone in a second.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • -- Statements & Letters: Bishops • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, of Cape Town, said that he was “shocked and deeply saddened” by the natural disaster that struck Japan on Friday, in a letter to his counterpart Archbishop Nathaniel Makoto Uematsu.

“I have been stunned by the pictures which are reaching us with the images of human tragedy, displacement and the physical damage to so many structures in many communities,” Makgoba said.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of South Africa • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The bishop of a diocese in northern part of Japan devastated by yesteday's earthquake and tsunami, is said to be safe but uncontactable.

Bishop Hiromichi Kato managed to get a message out to say that he is OK, but according Rikkyo University professor Rev.Prof. Renta Nishihara no one has managed to contact him directly.

Prof. Nishihara added that Bp Kato had revealed many churches of Tohoku , including the cathedral suffered the heavy damage.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Simply amazing--check them out.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Japan faced mounting humanitarian and nuclear emergencies Sunday as the death toll from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami climbed astronomically, partial meltdowns occurred at two crippled plants and cooling problems struck four more reactors.

In one town alone, the port of Minamisanriku, a senior police official said the number of dead would “certainly be more than 10,000.” The overall number is also certain to climb as searchers began to reach coastal villages that essentially vanished under the first muddy surge of the tsunami, which struck the nation’s northern Pacific coast. Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a news conference late Sunday: “I think that the earthquake, tsunami and the situation at our nuclear reactors makes up the worst crisis in the 65 years since the war. If the nation works together, we will overcome.”

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Caught this on the morning run--helpful I thought. Watch it all.

Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

A massive explosion has rocked a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake.

A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured.

Japanese officials say the container housing the reactor was not damaged and that radiation levels have now fallen.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Churches and agencies of the Anglican Communion have begun to plan how best to respond to the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami impacting countries across the Pacific Ocean.

The Secretary of The Nippon Sei Ko Kai (The Anglican Communion in Japan) Shinya Samuel Yawata told ACNS this morning that the Provincial office is waiting to learn the extent of the destruction in northern Japan. He said he had not yet heard from any other dioceses, but wanted the rest of the Communion to know that the NSKK Province office is still functioning.

“Unfortunately we have not heard from people of northern Japan except from the news on the Internet. All phone lines are down because of heavy usage so we do not know much about what is going on. Viewing the Internet we can see that damage is substantial and already many deaths have been reported.”

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea were bracing for possible tsunamis after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck off the northeast of Japan, sending waves crashing through coastal towns.

The strongest temblor in Japan in at least a century struck at 2:46 p.m. local time 130 kilometers (81 miles) off the coast of Sendai, north of Tokyo. Buildings shook in the capital, and television footage showed a wave of water as high as 10 meters engulfing farmhouses and roads along the coast. Fires broke out in an oil plant and buildings in Tokyo.

Waves traveling as fast as 800 kilometers an hour may be radiating from the epicenter, sparking warnings in countries that lie in their path. The quake is the strongest since a 9.1 magnitude temblor off North Sumatra in Indonesia in December 2004 left about 220,000 people dead or missing in 12 countries around the Indian Ocean.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

In the interval between the 57th and 58th Japanese general synods, the Primates’ Meeting, the Lambeth Conference, and the Anglican Consultative Council made “requests and recommendations” that the US and Canada forebear from pursuing gay bishops and blessings, while the “Archbishop of Canterbury has repeatedly given appeals and requests to address the problems.”

Yet, “in spite of the recommendations and appeals [TEC] and the [ACC] have proceeded with the ordination of a homosexual Bishop and recognising the ‘marriage’ (union) of same sex couples, further complicating the situation and resulting in some provinces threatening to sever relations” with the two North American provinces, while other “provinces have expressed their intention of establishing a separate ‘Province’.”

“These unfavourable movements have created the situation where a number of Provinces, Dioceses and Churches are unsure of where they stand, dangerously affecting their identity within the Anglican Communion,” Archbishop Uematsu warned.

Read it all (from the long queue of should-have-already-been-posted material)

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • Anglican Covenant • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Father Satoru Kato, 56, until recently an Anglican priest working in England, is set to enter full communion with the Catholic Church and be ordained a Catholic priest.

According to Father Hiroshi Oka of the Saitama diocese, who has been helping coordinate the convert’s entry into that diocese, once he is ordained Kato will work at a welfare institute and parishes as an assistant priest in Gunma Prefecture. Since Christmas, he has been doing interim work in Gunma.

Since Kato is married, Oka began to educate lay Catholics last December, explaining that priests are frequently married in Eastern Rite communities of the Catholic Church. “At first, there was a general feeling of displeasure among the laity,” Oka explained, “but I think that has mostly dissipated.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Latest News • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Ministry of the Ordained • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Check it out courtesy of Floyd Norris.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • Currency Markets • The U.S. Government • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

Like many members of Japan’s middle class, Masato Y. enjoyed a level of affluence two decades ago that was the envy of the world. Masato, a small-business owner, bought a $500,000 condominium, vacationed in Hawaii and drove a late-model Mercedes.

But his living standards slowly crumbled along with Japan’s overall economy. First, he was forced to reduce trips abroad and then eliminate them. Then he traded the Mercedes for a cheaper domestic model. Last year, he sold his condo — for a third of what he paid for it, and for less than what he still owed on the mortgage he took out 17 years ago.

“Japan used to be so flashy and upbeat, but now everyone must live in a dark and subdued way,” said Masato, 49, who asked that his full name not be used because he still cannot repay the $110,000 that he owes on the mortgage.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Currency Markets • The Banking System/Sector • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Since the marriage rate among Japan's shrinking population is falling and with many of the country's remaining lovebirds heading for Hawaii or Australia's Gold Coast, Atami had to do something. It is trying to attract single men—and their handheld devices.

In the first month of the city's promotional campaign launched July 10, more than 1,500 male fans of the Japanese dating-simulation game LovePlus+ have flocked to Atami for a romantic date with their videogame character girlfriends.

The men are real. The girls are cartoon characters on a screen. The trips are actual, can be expensive and aim to re-create the virtual weekend outing featured in the game, a product of Konami Corp. played on Nintendo Co.'s DS videogame system.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet • Men • Women • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Three years ago, I saw a television program about a new breed of youngster: the nonconsumer. Japanese in their late teens and early 20s, it said, did not have cars. They didn’t drink alcohol. They didn’t spend Christmas Eve with their boyfriends or girlfriends at fancy hotels downtown the way earlier generations did. I have taught many students who fit this mold. They work hard at part-time jobs, spend hours at McDonald’s sipping cheap coffee, eat fast food lunches at Yoshinoya. They save their money for the future.

These are the Japanese who came of age after the bubble, never having known Japan as a flourishing economy. They are accustomed to being frugal. Today’s youths, living in a society older than any in the world, are the first since the late 19th century to feel so uneasy about the future.

I saw young Japanese in Paris, of course, vacationing or studying, but statistics show that they don’t travel the way we used to. Perhaps it’s a reaction against their globalizing elders who are still zealously pushing English-language education and overseas employment. Young people have grown less interested in studying foreign languages. They seem not to feel the urge to grow outward. Look, they say, Japan is a small country. And we’re O.K. with small.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Psychology • Young Adults • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter, capping the nation’s three- decade rise from Communist isolation to emerging superpower.

Japan’s nominal gross domestic product for the second quarter totaled $1.288 trillion, less than China’s $1.337 trillion, the Japanese Cabinet Office said today. Japan remained bigger in the first half of 2010, the government agency said.

China led the world out of last year’s global recession with an economy that’s more than 90-times bigger than when leader Deng Xiaoping ditched hard-line Communist policies in favor of free-market reforms in 1978. The country of 1.3 billion people will overtake the U.S., where annual GDP is about $14 trillion, as the world’s largest economy by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chief economist Jim O’Neill.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • China • Japan

The World Council of Churches has reaffirmed the vision of a world without nuclear weapons, in marking the anniversary of the atomic bombing in 1945 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

"Sixty-five years on, nuclear bombs still threaten humanity and deny a lasting peace," WCC general secretary the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit said in advance of the Aug. 6 anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in the closing days of the Second World War.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Defense, National Security, Military • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

The causes of Japan's lethargy and deflation rest in a failure to push ahead with structural reforms such as in postal savings or cuts to corporate tax rates that would unleash animal spirits, not a shortage of liquidity.

Mr. Bernanke may take comfort that Japan's situation is in key respects different from America's. For instance, U.S. households are more prone to consuming than their Japanese peers, and American banks and companies less averse to risk (sometimes to an extreme, as we've discovered in the past few years). Mr. Bernanke's own exceptionally easy monetary policy has already filtered through the economy and has shown up in higher prices in nations pegged to the dollar and in higher global commodity prices (until the recent flight to the safety of dollar assets).

Still, for an economist who has famously examined Japan's lost decade to avoid a recurrence in America, Mr. Bernanke could usefully come away from his Tokyo sojourn with a few updated lessons in mind. The most important message he could spread when he gets back to Washington is that for all monetary policy's importance, it's no substitute for pro-growth fiscal and regulatory policies.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The fear that began in Athens, raced through Europe and finally shook the stock market in the United States is now affecting the broader global economy, from the ability of Asian corporations to raise money to the outlook for money-market funds where American savers park their cash.

What was once a local worry about the debt burden of one of Europe’s smallest economies has quickly gone global. Already, jittery investors have forced Brazil to scale back bond sales as interest rates soared and caused currencies in Asia like the Korean won to weaken. Ten companies around the world that had planned to issue stock delayed their offerings, the most in a single week since October 2008.

The increased global anxiety threatens to slow the recovery in the United States, where job growth has finally picked up after the deepest recession since the Great Depression. It could also inhibit consumer spending as stock portfolios shrink and loans are harder to come by.

“It’s not just a European problem, it’s the U.S., Japan and the U.K. right now,” said Ian Kelson, a bond fund manager in London with T. Rowe Price. “It’s across the board.”

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Credit Markets • Stock Market • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • England / UK • Europe • Greece

By 1982, GM had had enough and put the Fremont factory out of its misery, Two years later, GM and Toyota reopened the factory with — incredibly — most of the same workforce.

But first, they sent some of them to Japan to learn the Toyota way.

The key to the Toyota Production System was a principle so basic, it sounds like an empty management slogan: Teamwork.

At Toyota, people were divided into teams of just four or five and they switched jobs every few hours to relieve the monotony. A team leader would step in to help when anything went wrong.

At the old GM plant in Fremont, Calif., the system had been totally different and there was one cardinal rule that everyone knew: the assembly line could never stop.

"You just didn't see the line stop," Madrid said. "I saw a guy fall in the pit and they didn't stop the line."

This is just a fabulous story. Don't miss the image of a single bolt. read or listen to it all.

Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

While Britain was panicking about a sterling crisis and the terrifying financial consequences of a hung parliament, I spent last week in Japan. It was a good vantage point to put Britain’s financial and political travails into perspective.

Japan’s budget deficit of 10.5 per cent of GDP is this year second to Britain’s among the G7 countries, but in every other respect the fiscal situation in Japan is far worse. Because the Japanese Government has borrowed similarly prodigious sums almost every year since 1990, it carries by far the world’s heaviest debt load, with net public debt now running at 115 per cent of GDP, about the same as in Italy and Greece. And there is not the slightest prospect of any reduction in borrowing in the foreseeable future because of the political situation in Japan. It has had four prime ministers in three years, its civil service is in more or less open warfare with the elected politicians and there has been no effective government since the resignation of Junichiro Koizumi in 2006.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • England / UK

A wonderful photo from the winter Olympics.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Sports • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

When Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, apologized for the recalls that have marred Toyota’s reputation, he talked not just about his company’s fate, but also his nation’s.

“I hope to return Toyota to profit and contribute to the revitalization of Japan,” he said.

Once a leading symbol of Japan’s rise to global economic might, Toyota has become one of the most visible signs of its decline. And even before the recalls, Japan’s rivals from South Korea and China had started overtaking Japan in key industries from semiconductors to flat-panel televisions.

“At this rate, Japan will sink into the sea,” said Masatomo Tanaka, a professor at the Institute of Technologists, a university that specializes in training engineers. “If Toyota is not healthy, then Japan is not healthy.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Guess before you look.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

(ACNS) The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, currently visiting the Anglican Church in Japan, today took part in an Act of Remembrance at the epicentre of the atomic bomb blast in Nagasaki. During the Act of Remembrance, Dr Williams laid flowers at the memorial and spoke about the pressing importance of working for a world free from nuclear weapons:

“There are no victories in human history without their element of tragedy. Victory in human affairs always means that someone has lost ...sometimes the victory has been gained at the price of such violence that we have to say that everyone has lost. Those who have won the conflict have lost some dimension of their own life, their own welfare and integrity.”

“To see the effects of the use of the atomic bomb here in Nagasaki is to see how this degree of slaughter and violence leaves everyone defeated. The wholesale killing of the innocent and the destruction of an entire environment, natural as well as cultural, the long-term effects, physical and psychological, on those who survived - all of this constitutes a would that affects the attackers as well as the victims.”

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * Culture-Watch • Violence • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Simplicity comes first. We do not proclaim ourselves, says St Paul, we don't offer ourselves as the answer to everyone's questions. We bring the knowledge of the great gifts God has given in his promise of reconciliation and renewal, and we bring our own struggles to live in the atmosphere of reconciliation and renewal – pointing always to God as the one who begins the whole story and brings it to its full realisation. We learn to walk lightly and to travel light, grateful for the gifts of human culture but not making them an absolute.

Risk and solidarity come next. We don't seek to protect ourselves, to do no more than keep the little circle of the Christian family warm and secure. We walk along the roads of human suffering, accompanying the lost and anxious and oppressed in the name of Jesus.

And reverence comes third. We approach our neighbours not with arrogance and impatience but with a readiness to learn and a willingness to rejoice in the rich texture of their human lives, individual and cultural. We look and listen for God in all that lies before us.

If we can continue in this 'barefoot' mission, we shall be opening ourselves up to the simplicity of Jesus himself and so to the transforming grace and beauty of his own mission.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Preaching / Homiletics • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

As part the150th anniversary celebrations of the Anglican Church in Japan, the Archbishop of Canterbury will be making a week-long visit to Japan during which he will visit Anglican churches, universities and schools, as well as the city of Nagasaki.

Dr Williams will preach at the service to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Anglican Church in Japan (known as Nippon Sei Ko Kai) and will be joined by other bishops and Primates from around the Anglican Communion.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Japan is a decent, consensual and egalitarian country. Much of it is still prosperous, despite a dismal period for the economy. The beliefs of its two main political parties are often hard to tell apart. Both their leaders are grandsons of (rival) prime ministers. There were no loud celebrations when the results of the general election were announced on August 30th. It is tempting therefore to write it off as no earth-shattering event.

That would be a mistake. The vote, in which the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) broke the half-century lock of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on power, marked the overdue destruction of Japan’s post-war political system. The question is what will now take its place.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Politics in General • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Japan's voters Sunday soundly rejected the ruling party that has set the nation's course for more than half a century, choosing instead an untested rival to grapple with a weakening economy and an aging society.

The historic change in government could usher in a new era for Japanese politics that replaces the staid consensus that guided Japan in its postwar boom years with a more fractious, competitive environment. But it also raises major questions about whether the newcomers can solve Japan's deep structural problems and reassure a people increasingly uncertain about their future.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

Madeline Gianforte sees no conflict between the vows she took as a Catholic Sister of St. Agnes and her role as a master of reiki, a Japanese healing practice.

But her church does.

Co-founder of the natural healing center CORE/El Centro on Milwaukee's south side, Gianforte employs reiki to help clients work through pain, both physical and emotional.

"It's a very spiritual, very prayerful experience for people," said Gianforte, one of a number of Catholic practitioners in southeastern Wisconsin. "It's about finding balance between the body, mind and spirit."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic

Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.

But critics denounce the program as shortsighted, inhumane and a threat to what little progress Japan has made in opening its economy to foreign workers.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s cold-hearted,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

To better compete, companies slashed jobs and wages, replacing much of their work force with temporary workers who had no job security and fewer benefits. Nontraditional workers now make up more than a third of Japan’s labor force.

Younger people are feeling the brunt of that shift. Some 48 percent of workers age 24 or younger are temps. These workers, who came of age during a tough job market, tend to shun conspicuous consumption.

They tend to be uninterested in cars; a survey last year by the business daily Nikkei found that only 25 percent of Japanese men in their 20s wanted a car, down from 48 percent in 2000, contributing to the slump in sales.

Young Japanese women even seem to be losing their once- insatiable thirst for foreign fashion. Louis Vuitton, for example, reported a 10 percent drop in its sales in Japan in 2008.

“I’m not interested in big spending,” says Risa Masaki, 20, a college student in Tokyo and a neighbor of the Takigasakis. “I just want a humble life.”

Japan’s aging population is not helping consumption. Businesses had hoped that baby boomers — the generation that reaped the benefits of Japan’s postwar breakneck economic growth — would splurge their lifetime savings upon retirement, which began en masse in 2007. But that has not happened at the scale that companies had hoped.

Economists blame this slow spending on widespread distrust of Japan’s pension system, which is buckling under the weight of one of the world’s most rapidly aging societies. That could serve as a warning for the United States, where workers’ 401(k)’s have been ravaged by declining stocks, pensions are disappearing, and the long-term solvency of the Social Security system is in question.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Globalization • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Consumer/consumer spending • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • * International News & Commentary • Asia • Japan

The Obama administration is committing huge sums of money to rescuing banks, but the veterans of Japan’s banking crisis have three words for the Americans: more money, faster.

The Japanese have been here before. They endured a “lost decade” of economic stagnation in the 1990s as their banks labored under crippling debt, and successive governments wasted trillions of yen on half-measures.

Only in 2003 did the government finally take the actions that helped lead to a recovery: forcing major banks to submit to merciless audits and declare bad debts; spending two trillion yen to effectively nationalize a major bank, wiping out its shareholders; and allowing weaker banks to fail.

By then, Tokyo’s main Nikkei stock index had lost almost three-quarters of its value. The country’s public debt had grown to exceed its gross domestic product, and deflation stalked the land. In the end, real estate prices fell for 15 consecutive years.

More alarming? Some students of the Japanese debacle say they see a similar train wreck heading for the United States.

“I thought America had studied Japan’s failures,” said Hirofumi Gomi, a top official at Japan’s Financial Services Agency during the crisis. “Why is it making the same mistakes?”

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The Fiscal Stimulus Package of 2009 • The Possibility of a Bailout for the U.S. Auto Industry • The September 2008 Proposed Henry Paulson 700 Billion Bailout Package • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

As the United States and other major countries prepare to combat the threat of deflation and recession with interest rates fast approaching zero, a five-year policy experiment in Japan shows how important it is to act quickly and boldly.

Japan fought its way out of deflation after a property and stock bubble burst in the 1990s with quantitative easing, a policy measure that involved flooding banks with far more cash than was needed to keep short-term rates at zero.

It was a groundbreaking experiment and took a long time to work because the Bank of Japan was slow to employ the entire gamut of policy options and spell out its goals in credible fashion.

These lessons are now acquiring a special relevance to the U.S. Federal Reserve, facing the risk of a Japan-style deflationary spiral after a mortgage market meltdown that battered the banking system and resulted in the worst bear market for stocks since the Great Depression.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • Japan

On Japan, the 120-page report said the country will face a "major reorientation" of its domestic and foreign policies yet maintain its status as an "upper middle rank power."

It forecast Tokyo's foreign policies "will be influenced most by the policies of China and the United States," with a broad spectrum of options possible.

If China continues its current economic growth pattern, Japan will attach importance to maintaining healthy political ties and increase market access, possibly through forging a bilateral free-trade agreement, the NIC report said.

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Filed under: * International News & Commentary • America/U.S.A. • Asia • China • Japan