news.notes20090510a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire, born this day in 1899, is considered one of the greatest American popular-music dancers and is especially remembered for his partnership with Ginger Rogers in a series of highly successful musical comedy films.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

1994: Nelson Mandela inaugurated as president of South Africa
Nelson Mandela, whose efforts to end apartheid led to his imprisonment (1962–90) and earned him a share (with F.W. de Klerk) of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, became president of South Africa this day in 1994.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Sunday, May 10, 2009
Nation's first H1N1 cases land in Narita
Three on plane hospitalized, 49 kept in hotel

(Kyodo News) Three Japanese males who arrived at Narita airport from Canada via the United States on Friday were confirmed to be infected with the new H1N1 strain of influenza, marking the first cases of so-called swine flu in Japan, the health ministry said Saturday.

The three — a high school teacher in his 40s and two teenage students from Osaka — had been in Oakville, Ontario, on a school trip since April 24. They returned via Detroit on a Northwest Airlines flight that landed at about 4:30 p.m.

The three, who had fevers and coughs, tested positive for influenza A during the onboard quarantine inspection and were taken to Japanese Red Cross Narita Hospital in Chiba Prefecture and isolated.

A group of 49 other passengers seated nearby are quarantined in a hotel for 10 days.

The teacher had a fever as high as 38.6 degrees and the students had temperatures of 36.6 and 37.1. Further tests by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases confirmed they were infected with H1N1.

"They are the first patients within Japanese territory confirmed as being infected with the disease," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said at a hastily called news conference.

"The conditions of the three patients have remained stable," an official at the hospital told reporters. "As we are taking every possible measure, I hope people feel secure."

Masuzoe said one of the students slipped through the onboard inspection as he had no flu symptoms initially. But after exiting the aircraft, he was questioned by airport officials during transit and said he felt sick.

Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry officials said there is a possibility up to 11 people who were seated near the student and may also be infected dodged isolation and left after passing through immigration.

It also said another 13 passengers who are potential carriers had already left for Thailand, Taiwan and elsewhere.

The ministry will report the development to the World Health Organization as Japan's first cases of H1N1 flu amid growing concerns the disease may spread.

Prime Minister Taro Aso said in a statement that efforts to block the flu are continuing.

Since the three cases "were detected during the quarantine at the airport, we do not consider it as indicating the domestic emergence of the disease," Aso said, adding that the government "will proceed with preparations for a domestic emergence."

The flight had 409 passengers and crew members. Of those, 49 people, including 33 who were traveling with the three patients, were put up at a nearby hotel for 10 days of monitoring, Masuzoe said.

Seven of the 49 later developed symptoms and were transferred to three hospitals in the prefecture for further testing, but all tested negative for the new strain.

The rest will be asked to get followup checks, he said.

"I hope people in Japan will stay calm," he said.

Later in the day, the ministry said four Americans who were sitting close to the students and were therefore obliged to stay in Narita for monitoring apparently left instead. They were later located in Kyoto and tested negative for the new strain.

Kyoto officials said they were part of a group of 14 — 13 Americans and a Japanese. All were rechecked for the flu but no abnormalities were found, they said.

Japan is the latest nation in Asia to confirm the presence of swine flu, following Hong Kong and South Korea.

Several people returning from abroad during the Golden Week holidays have tested positive for influenza A but negative for the new strain.

The latest involved a woman in her 30s from Kawasaki. After returning from Washington D.C. on Sunday, she tested positive for type-A flu in the preliminary test but was judged negative for the new strain Saturday night, the ministry said.

Earlier, a 6-year-old Japanese boy living in Chicago became the first Japanese national confirmed to have caught the new flu.

With the confirmation of the three cases at Narita, the number of Japanese patients confirmed to have the new type of influenza stands at four.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Sunday, May 10, 2009
Japan not yet ready to resolve isle row: Putin

MOSCOW (Kyodo) Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has indicated that conditions are not yet ripe for Russia and Japan to achieve a breakthrough in the decades-old territorial dispute over four Russian-controlled islands off Hokkaido.

"It is necessary (for the two countries) to prepare the conditions, to develop the relations in all directions," Putin said during a group interview ahead of his visit to Japan on Monday.

"In order to resolve such high-level and difficult problems, it is necessary to show patience, attention to each other's interests," Putin said, noting the two countries need "not to put the situation into a deadlock by permanent pretensions and confrontation."

His remarks suggest Moscow is prioritizing economic and trade ties with Japan over settlement of the dispute at a time when Japanese expectations have been growing since the two agreed in February to take a "creative and unconventional approach" to the issue.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Taro Aso agreed in their talks in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the capital of the Sakhalin region, to intensify efforts for resolving the issue by taking a new approach. But no tangible steps emerged.

Putin, who met the Japanese media for the first time since assuming the premiership in May last year, said Tokyo "still has not formulated its position exactly" on how to seek a resolution.

The 56-year-old prime minister was referring to remarks reported made by former Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi calling for the return of "3.5" of the four Russian-controlled islands rather than the reversion of all of them.

Yachi, currently a special envoy on key diplomatic issues, later denied making the comments in an interview with the daily Mainichi Shimbun in April. Prime Minister Aso maintains Tokyo will not conclude a peace treaty with Moscow unless Russia confirms all four islands belong to Japan.

Tokyo has been calling for the return of all four islands — Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group. The territorial dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Sunday, May 10, 2009
Imawano fans bid farewell to 'Japan's King of Rock'

(Kyodo News) Hundreds of fans of late rock singer Kiyoshiro Imawano gathered at his funeral Saturday in Tokyo to pay their respects to "Japan's King of Rock," who died of a lymphatic disease May 2 at age 58.

Fans began gathering early in the morning outside Aoyama Sogisho funeral hall in Minato Ward, Tokyo, and had formed a line long enough to surround it by 10 a.m., two hours before the service.

Imawano was the leader of the band RC Succession, which debuted in 1970. He wore extensive makeup on stage and was known for his rough style of delivery, even for simple lyrics.

The band's big hits include "Ameagari no Yozora ni" ("To the Night Sky After the Rain").

After the band stopped performing in 1991, Imawano explored other genres by collaborating with jazz and even "enka" (ballad) musicians.

"Without Kiyoshiro, I wouldn't have been what I am today — everything from my lifestyle to the way I look at things," said Hiroya Yamamoto, a 38-year-old office worker who considers himself a hardcore Imawano fan. "Regardless of his death, his music will stay with me."

Many waiting in line were carrying bouquets with messages. One said: "Thank you for giving me a dream."

A number of celebrities attended the funeral as well.

Fans were also seen gathering at a private funeral service for his relatives on Monday.

news.notes20090510

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Call Your Mom!

By Lydia DePillis
Posted Sunday, May 10, 2009, at 6:19 AM ET

The New York Times leads with an examination of the national hodgepodge of state aid systems that provide adequate help for some and far less than necessary for others, depending on their location and station in life: With few truly national aid programs, whether a person survives or not can have more to do with he or she lives than how hard she works. The Washington Post leads with the story behind an odd qualification for the liberal, African-American Supreme Court contender Leah Ward Sears: the esteem of arch-conservative justice Clarence Thomas, whom many in the black community believe has betrayed their interests. The Los Angeles Times leads with a look at how the CIA is fighting to hold on to sleep deprivation as a technique for coaxing information out of detainees, which President Obama banned along with other torture methods as one of the first actions of his presidency. Unpleasant details abound—prisoners were at one point allowed to be kept awake for eleven days, although the allowable time was then reduced to a week.

(In the papers' only real appeal to today's Hallmark holiday, the Post's A1 feature about a football star gets a "news" hook. In an odd foil for the same front-page real estate, the LAT opts for a piece about child-molesting teachers. Happy Mother's Day!)

In the first Sunday papers since Justice David Souter announced his retirement, the SCOTUS parlour game is in full swing. As the Post's story narrates, Sears and Thomas grew up not far from each other in Georgia, where she is now chief justice of the state supreme court; he attended her swearing in and reportedly respects her achievement while disagreeing with her politics. The NYT reads the tea leaves in President Barack Obama's past voting record on judicial nominees, which has been rather firmly liberal: He voted against Sam Alito and John Roberts as well as numerous nominees to the federal bench on the grounds that they lacked "empathy," or a sensitivity to social justice concerns.

Swine flu continues to get play in the form of a NYT, front-page, reassuringly-toned profile of the woman who would save us all: World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan, a "diminutive woman with large glasses who does not drive, type or cook" who is nevertheless a highly competent veteran of the SARS epidemic, which she battled while heading the Health Department in Hong Kong. If you're still worried, blame pork, Mexican communities say—the big industrial hog farms mostly owned by American companies dotted through the landscape. While the stench and groundwater contamination from pig excrement isn't exactly good for anyone's health, officials haven't found any link between the pork producers and the pandemic, the Post reports.

Meanwhile, to safeguard your general health, Congress is considering incentives for employers to organize in-house "wellness programs"—currently limited under a tangle of federal rules—which would encourage balanced diets, judicious exercise, and other habits that help prevent harder-to-cure health problems down the line. This one may well make it through; The NYT notices that the solidarity Republican lawmakers showed in overwhelmingly opposing the stimulus bill and budget seems to be breaking down over other chunks of the President's recovery plan, like measures to rein in credit card companies and crack down on financial fraud.

Trailing its lead story, the NYT has a pair of big-picture reflections on the Economic Situation: In one of those whatever-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger moments, the paper notes that Americans may just learn to save money again as a consequence of this here economic downturn. Then back in the business pages, proclaiming the economic free-fall to be at an end, the paper muses upon what lies ahead for this shrunken and re-shaped economy. The piece focuses on Boise, Idaho, supposedly a microcosm of America, with the kind of stories that have by now become monotonously familiar.

In news from the Middle East, Israel is quietly but openly consolidating control over Jerusalem by building parks. The Holy Basin, already dotted with historical sites claimed by both Jews and Palestinians, is undergoing a public-private, $100 million revamp that focuses on Jewish heritage and Israeli sovereignty, although planners emphasize how it will benefit all Jerusalemites by drawing visitors to the city. Jumping to Pakistan, the name "sharia" may not evoke "moderation" and "mainstream" in a Westerner's mind, but residents of that country's Swat valley wish they could return to the formal system of Islamic law—adopted out of frustration with the inefficiency of secular courts—as it gets increasingly twisted by Taliban forces that have taken control in the area. While sharia itself has become more popular around the country, the Post reports that many are fleeing the excessively harsh punishments imposed in its name, as officials in Parliament decry the "Talibanization" of the traditional legal framework and work to drive out the Taliban fighters.

Below the fold, the LAT sits in on the trial of the late philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor's son, accused of stealing millions from his centenarian mother in her final years. The ongoing soap opera of a court proceeding has been a parade of Manhattan high society fixtures, most recently including Nancy Kissinger, who often hosted the grande dame at her parties. The prosecution's goal has been to prove Mrs. Astor's mental infirmity, and her illustrious friends have complied with stories of misremembered names and dates. The Times runs with it as a rare window for the rest of us into a world with wealth on a scale that few can understand.

The Post has an insightful piece in Outlook that questions Obama's use of the word "pragmatism" and variations thereupon, which have been applied to everything from economic policies to court nominees. It's a term that almost no one can take issue with—the most pragmatic word in politics! But Obama got better reviews for his performance at this year's White House Correspondents Association dinner, featuring such zingers as this one for Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "This is a tough holiday for Rahm. He's not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother.' "