news20090731JT1

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Sumitomo to buy Citi's Nikko Asset
Credit-crisis trophy priced at \120 billion

(Bloomberg) Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. has agreed to pay \120 billion for Citigroup Inc.'s Japanese asset management unit to increase the amount of investment trusts it oversees.

Sumitomo Trust will buy Nikko Asset Management Co. in October, the Osaka-based lender said Thursday. The company will sell \109 billion in preferred securities in September to bolster capital, it said in a separate release.

The credit crisis has given Japanese companies an opportunity to take market share. Citigroup has sold units, Morgan Stanley agreed to put its Japanese securities arm into a venture with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., and Nomura Holdings Inc. bought Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Asia business.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit is reversing the bank's expansion in Japan, less than two years after it completed a \1.6 trillion acquisition of Nikko Cordial Corp.

"For anybody looking to have a sizable asset management operation in Japan, this is one of very few opportunities," David Threadgold, a Tokyo-based analyst at Fox-Pitt Kelton, said before the deal was announced.

Sumitomo Trust booked its first profit in three quarters Thursday, chalking up net income of \12.2 billion in the three months that ended June 30 on trading earnings and lending. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., the nation's second-biggest bank by market value, also returned to profit on income from derivatives trading and reduced losses on stocks.

Nikko Asset had 529 employees as of March 31 and operated subsidiaries in New York, London and Singapore.

Of the 8.8 trillion in assets under management at Nikko Asset on March 31, the firm oversaw \5.8 trillion in investment trusts, which are similar to mutual funds. Investment trusts accounted for \1.2 trillion of the 25.7 trillion in total assets at Sumitomo Trust.

Sumitomo Trust, which specializes in managing pension funds, is making its biggest acquisition in 3 1/2 half years, after buying lending businesses from firms including Lone Star Funds and Barclays PLC. Buying the Citigroup unit should help the bank reach targets for boosting income from fees, Nomura analyst Keisuke Moriyama said in a June 29 report.

The acquisition will bring Sumitomo Trust's total assets under management to about \34.5 trillion, the firm said.

Sumitomo Trust bought mortgage lender First Credit Corp. for \130 billion from Dallas-based Lone Star Funds in November 2005. The bank acquired a mortgage unit from Shinsei Bank Ltd. and a Japanese trust bank unit from London-based Barclays in 2007.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Industrial output climbs 2.4% as surge enters fourth month

(The Associated Press) Factory output rose for the fourth straight month in June as hopeful manufacturers boosted production to meet an uptick in global demand from depressed levels, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Thursday in a closely watched monthly report.

Industrial production climbed 2.4 percent from the previous month and "continues to show an upward movement," METI said.

For the April-June period, factory output surged 8.3 percent — the biggest quarterly increase in more than five decades — though production was nearly one-quarter lower than a year earlier, reflecting the severity of the slump in previous months.

The figures suggest the recession is loosening its hold on manufacturers, which rely heavily on consumers overseas to buy their cars and gadgets. The unprecedented drop in world demand triggered by last year's global financial crisis dragged the country into its steepest economic downturn since World War II.

Still, economists worry that recovery among companies is not trickling down to workers and families.

Retail sales fell for the 10th consecutive month in June, while unemployment is expected to have risen again when the government releases its report Friday.

Domestic demand, which accounts for more than half of the economy, continues to be lackluster, threatening to send prices lower and undermine the nascent recovery.

METI predicted factory output will rise 1.6 percent in July and 3.3 percent in August.

Inventory in June fell 1 percent from the previous month in the sixth straight month of decline, while shipments rose 3.5 percent.

Strong output gains among companies making electronic parts, steel products and chemicals contributed to the growth.

Export declines eased in June in all of Japan's major markets, particularly China. Huge stimulus spending by Beijing helped Chinese growth accelerate in the second quarter, expanding by 7.9 percent from a year earlier.

Growing demand is driving companies to boost output, rather than the need to replenish excessive inventory cutbacks as was the case earlier, said Chiwoong Lee, an economist with Goldman Sachs.

Before output began to rise in March, it had posted a five-month losing streak as some of Japan's iconic names, particularly Toyota and Sony, announced drastic cutbacks in production, inventories and employment.

The deep slump resulted in gross domestic product contracting at a record annualized pace of 14.2 percent in the first quarter.

"Production should continue growing for a time, given supports such as additional policies overseas, but there is still a risk of another inventory correction triggered by falling consumption amid deteriorating employment conditions," Lee said in a report.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Five firms team up against global warming

(Kyodo News) Five major companies said Thursday they have jointly launched an organization to fight global warming by creating a sustainable low carbon society.

Aeon Co., Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Fujitsu Ltd., Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co. and Ricoh Co. have founded the Japan Climate Leader's Partnership, or Japan-CLP, which they said supports the idea of halving global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The launching of the joint body, unique among Japanese businesses, comes ahead of a key U.N. climate change conference to be held in Copenhagen in December aimed at creating a global framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"We have founded Japan-CLP to urge the industrial community to develop a sound sense of urgency on the issue of climate change and to initiate more proactive actions," the five companies said, adding Japan-CLP will provide support for "helping emissions to peak at the earliest possible stage."

"The transformation to a sustainable low-carbon society will also open up new business opportunities driven by appropriate policies and frameworks, and the proactive engagement of corporations," they said in a statement.

The companies said the Copenhagen conference "will have a significant impact not only on the implementation of effective climate change measures, but also on the execution of future corporate management."

Japan-CLP plans tieups with similar groups led by major companies in the United States and Britain.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Alico Japan fraud inquiries growing

(Kyodo News) Insurer Alico Japan said Thursday it had received by the previous day about 2,700 inquiries into credit card fraud in connection with the reported leak of credit card data of some of its customers.

Alico Japan, affiliated with American International Group Inc., first announced the suspected leak and abuse of customer credit card data last week.

On Monday, the insurance firm put the number of credit card fraud inquiries at about 2,200 as of Saturday.

The pace of inquiries is dropping but "we can't say it has completely stopped," said an Alico Japan official. Alico Japan has pledged to shoulder any confirmed losses to customers in connection with the leak.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Vehicle output, exports plummet

(Kyodo News) Domestic production of cars, trucks and buses in the January-June period plunged 45.2 percent from a year earlier and its exports plummeted 59.1 percent, both marking the first fall in eight years for a first half year, an industry body said Thursday.

Domestic vehicle output totaled 3,321,651 units, down from 6,059,185 units in the same period last year, while exports came to 1,433,488 units, down from 3,505,805 units a year before, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said.

By vehicle type, car production dived 45.3 percent to 2,850,246 units, while truck and bus production dropped 44.3 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively, to 434,228 units and 37,177 units.

Exports of cars fell 59.0 percent to 1,273,362 units, with those of trucks and buses falling 62.7 percent to 121,813 units and 49.7 percent to 38,313 units.

news20090731JT2

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wii sales drop hurts Nintendo profit

(Bloomberg) Nintendo Co. reported Thursday a 61 percent drop in profit as sales of its flagship Wii consoles fell for the first time since the product debuted in 2006.

Net income declined to ¥42.3 billion in the three months that ended June 30, compared with ¥107.4 billion a year earlier, Nintendo said. That missed the ¥47.5 billion median of five analyst estimates.

Sales of the Wii and the portable DS players fell as the global slump drove down demand for electronics. President Satoru Iwata faces mounting pressure to release new products as Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. develop motion-sensing features for their PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 machines, while Apple Inc.'s iPods and iPhones become increasingly popular as hand-held gaming devices.

"There hasn't been a novel announcement by Nintendo lately," Koki Shiraishi, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd., said before the announcement. "My attention is on whether Nintendo can make the most of its uniqueness to release a strong product before the yearend shopping season."

Revenue dropped 40 percent to ¥253.5 billion, worse than the \320 billion median of five analyst estimates in the analyst survey.

Nintendo's stock has lost more than 60 percent of its value since it peaked in November 2007, wiping away almost all of its gains since the Wii's release more than two years ago.

The company maintained its forecast to sell 26 million Wii consoles during the year ending March 2010, almost the same as the previous year.

Nintendo's game lineup has weakened since last year, when "Mario Kart" and "Wii Fit" debuted, Shiraishi said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Shinsei Bank back in black
Compiled from Bloomberg, Kyodo

Shinsei Bank Ltd. returned to profit after three straight quarterly losses as interest income rose and writedowns on investments declined.

Net income dropped 52.4 percent ¥5.2 billion in the three months that ended June 30, from ¥10.9 billion a year earlier, the bank said Thursday. The firm had a loss of ¥110.9 billion in the quarter that ended March 31.

The drop in profit was due to increasing costs to dispose of nonperforming loans, which mushroomed to three times the amount from the same period last year to about ¥26 billion.

Costs for purchasing the Lake consumer lender brand also hurt profit, it said.

Hironari Nozaki at Nikko Citigroup Ltd., ranked Japan's top banking analyst by the Nikkei Veritas newspaper in March, had forecast first-quarter net income of ¥5 billion.

Chief Executive Officer Masamoto Yashiro, brought out of retirement last year after his predecessor's investments in overseas securities backfired, is focusing on the home market in Japan.

Shinsei, backed by U.S. investor Christopher Flowers, said July 1 it plans to merge with Aozora Bank Ltd., controlled by Cerberus Capital Management LP, to increase its size in a market dominated by the nation's three largest banks.

Shinsei booked ¥106.4 billion in losses on investments in the U.S. and Europe last year, including asset-backed securities and collateralized loan obligations. In the quarter just ended, Shinsei booked ¥2.2 billion in losses on asset-backed investments in Europe, it said Thursday.

Interest income jumped 61 percent to ¥57.4 billion, the company said.

The bank maintained its forecast for a ¥10 billion profit this fiscal year.

Shinsei's stock fell 0.7 percent to ¥135 before Thursday's announcement, extending its decline to 2.9 percent in 2009.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
TCI learned the hard way via J-Power play
By TOMOKO YAMAZAKI and SHIGERU SATO

(Bloomberg) It was a crisp day in November 2005 when hedge fund manager John Ho entered Electric Power Development Co.'s headquarters in Tokyo, betting Japan's corporate attitudes were ripe for change.

Ho, then director of Asia-Pacific investments at the Children's Investment Fund Management UK LLP, also known as TCI, was ushered into a conference room with a worn carpet to meet with Masayoshi Kitamura, then executive vice president of the utility. The visitor told Kitamura he wanted to learn more about the company's plans for growth.

His London-based fund was on the hunt for global infrastructure assets, and Japan's No. 1 electricity wholesaler, known to customers as J-Power, looked like an attractive investment. Ho had discussed with his boss, TCI founder Christopher Cooper-Hohn, how J-Power had the cash flow to double its dividends.

TCI, an $8 billion fund that gives a portion of its fees and assets to charity, was looking to invest in airports, shipping facilities and utilities throughout Asia.

"We always make it clear that we're interested, but we don't actually make clear our trading intentions," Ho, 32, says. "I asked a lot of questions."

Kitamura, 62, says J-Power, as a publicly traded company, welcomed outside investors such as TCI. What J-Power didn't welcome was a shareholder who made demands at odds with its strategy. Within a year of Ho's initial approach, TCI bought more than 5 percent of J-Power's outstanding shares, regulatory records show.

That triggered a three-year battle with J-Power, during which Ho discovered the obstacles that overseas investors face in trying to gain a voice in Japanese companies. The utility blocked TCI's attempts to gain higher dividends per share, force the disposal of cross-shareholdings and require independent members on its board of directors.

Last October, TCI sold its shares in J-Power at a loss of about $130 million, according to securities filings, excluding dividend payouts, currency fluctuations and hedging gains.

TCI is just the latest foreign investor to confront Japan Inc.'s resistance to outsiders.

"Sadly, Japan has been a value trap for many years," says James Rosenwald, cofounder of Los Angeles-based Dalton Investments LLC, which controls more than $1 billion in assets, with 40 percent of its holdings invested in Japan. "That means the shares are amazingly cheap for an extended period of time without managements unlocking obvious value, such as companies with huge cash balances and no debt that have no intention of raising dividends or conducting share buybacks."

Japanese managers are accustomed to investors who are both local and passive. These so-called stable shareholders — financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies that buy stakes for the long term — account for about 30 percent of all holdings in the Japanese equities market, according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Tradition has also helped thwart agitators. Annual general meetings, often the stage for shareholder showdowns in the U.S., are treated as a formality in Japan.

TCI's bid to shake up Japanese management began with its investment in J-Power, the sole operator of the transmission lines connecting the four main islands. By the end of 2006, TCI was the utility's biggest shareholder with more than a 9 percent stake.

At J-Power's 2007 annual shareholders' meeting, TCI's proposal to boost dividends was defeated by a margin that J-Power declines to disclose, as Japanese companies aren't required to reveal details of shareholder votes. In May 2008, the government rejected TCI's bid to double its stake in J-Power to 20 percent. For the first time, officials invoked a 1949 national security law designed to block foreign investment in vital industries.

In the runup to J-Power's June 2008 annual meeting, Ho asked the utility to disclose voting arrangements with its corporate shareholders, saying the utility was effectively buying votes to block activist demands. At the time, TCI estimated the value of J-Power's holdings at ¥68 billion and said the investment program had lost the utility about ¥15 billion.

Ho made a final bid to win over 700 fellow shareholders by making a short speech in rudimentary Japanese asking for their support for higher dividends.

The gambit didn't work. TCI's demands were rejected by shareholder vote and the board raised the dividend by just ¥10. Last October, TCI sold its shares back to the company, according to filings. Gains in J-Power's stock price over three years may have blunted losses. The utility's shares averaged ¥3,237 in December 2005 when TCI began its investment. The firm sold the stock back to J-Power at \3,830, about a 30 percent premium to market price.

Ho says he left TCI earlier this month and plans to set up his own investment firm targeting Asian equities. Rahul Moodgal, TCI's London-based spokesman, declined comment on Ho, the J-Power investment or the fund's future strategy for Japan.

Shuhei Abe, president and founder of Sparx Group Co., Asia's biggest hedge fund company, says Japanese managements will ease their resistance to the activists so they can pull their economy out of a slump.

"There are no good or bad investors per se," Abe says. "Japan has to study the rules that global players play by through reforms — otherwise, we will be left out of the global competition."

news20090731JT3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Cabby slaying nets U.S. sailor life in prison

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) A 23-year-old U.S. sailor was sentenced Thursday to life in prison for killing a taxi driver in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in March last year.

The Yokohama District Court found Seaman Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a Nigerian national, guilty of murder and robbery in the death of Masaaki Takahashi, 61.

During his trial that began in December, the focal point was whether Ugbogu was mentally competent and could be held responsible for his acts. He testified in court he heard "voices" ordering him to kill the taxi driver.

Presiding Judge Masaaki Kawaguchi found Ugbogu fully competent.

Ugbogu pleaded not guilty and lawyers argued for a not-guilty verdict, insisting he was insane at the time of the crime.

Prosecutors had sought life in prison, arguing Ugbogu gave false testimony and was fully competent.

A court-commissioned psychiatric test found him sufficiently competent to be held responsible for his acts.

Ugbogu got into Takahashi's taxi in Tokyo on March 19, 2008, instructed him to stop in Yokosuka, about 60 km southwest of the capital, then failed to pay the fare and fatally stabbed Takahashi with a knife, the prosecutors said.

He then fled from the scene of the crime.

Ugbogu, who was a crew member of the 9,600-ton guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens, deserted from the navy earlier the same month.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Newborn found dead in toilet at Shibuya Net cafe; ailing mom held
Compiled from Staff report, Kyodo

A newborn boy still attached to his umbilical cord was found dead in a toilet Wednesday in the lavatory of an Internet cafe in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, and his mother was later arrested on suspicion of abandoning the baby, police said.

Mizuho Nagasue, 23, told police she had been at the cafe since Tuesday night. She never returned to her family after she left home in March, according to the police.

A spokesman of the Metropolitan Police Department said the cafe, located in the Udagawa district of Shibuya, placed an emergency call to police around 5 p.m. Officers responding to the call found Nagasue feeling sick at the cafe. She was taken to a hospital.

The suspect later admitted to giving birth to the baby and leaving him, the police said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Overstayer denied pregnancy registration
By REIJI YOSHIDA
Staff writer

The municipal government of Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, did not accept an application for pregnancy registration by a 30-year-old Indonesian woman in March because she had overstayed her visa, it was learned Thursday.

According to the health ministry, local governments as a rule should accept such registrations for humanitarian reasons and provide a maternal handbook to all pregnant women regardless of their visa status.

The municipal government was unaware of the central government's policy, Suzuka official Hisako Mochizuki claimed.

"We are sorry about that," she said, adding the city provided the handbook to the Japanese father Monday, a day after the woman gave birth.

The maternal handbook is a notebook provided by local governments after a pregnancy is registered. Mothers use the handbook to keep a record of their babies' health. It is often used as a key reference for doctors.

The woman came to Japan in 2007. She turned in her application for pregnancy registration in March but was turned down by the city. She gave birth Sunday to a boy with a Japanese father.

According to Mochizuki, the city until last October gave the maternal handbook and 14 health-checkup coupons to all pregnant women, plus two for her baby — without checking their visa status — who visited the city office.

The city stopped providing the set to foreigners without proper visa status because the 16 coupons, funded by local taxpayers, including registered foreign residents, are worth a combined ¥93,140, Mochizuki said.

The city will resume providing the handbook to all pregnant women but is still considering whether to hand out the checkup coupons for free to foreign women who are in the country illegally, she said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
China puts brakes on talks with Japan, U.S.

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The first trilateral policy dialogue Japan, the United States and China had planned to engage in this month will be delayed because Beijing insists it would anger North Korea, sources close to U.S.-China relations said Wednesday.

The dialogue was planned to take place in Washington, with Japan represented by Koro Bessho, deputy vice foreign minister and director general of the Foreign Ministry's Foreign Policy Bureau, and the United States by Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department's policy planning director. A similar-ranking Foreign Ministry official was expected to represent China.

But Beijing cooled to the session after Pyongyang test-fired missiles and detonated a nuclear device earlier this year, and relayed to Tokyo and Washington its view that a meeting at this juncture is not appropriate, the sources said.

It appears there might be another reason for China's backward-looking manner other than North Korea, because the idea of holding a three-way dialogue was first floated by China and the issue surrounding North Korea had not been included on its agenda.

Beijing may be less interested in the trilateral session involving Japan as the inauguration of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue has underscored the focus by the administration of President Barack Obama on relations with China, the sources said.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Aso to visit abduction sites in Niigata

(Kyodo News) Prime Minister Taro Aso may visit sites this weekend in Niigata Prefecture where Japanese nationals were abducted by North Korean agents, making him the first prime minister to do so, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Thursday.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, for which Aso serves as president, is currently putting together a schedule for his campaign tour ahead of an Aug. 30 general election, and the Sea of Japan coastal prefecture is a possible destination for this weekend, according to the top government spokesman.

During a possible visit to Niigata, Kawamura, an LDP member, said the party is considering having Aso visit sites where Japanese nationals were kidnapped in the 1970s, particularly the spot where Megumi Yokota was abducted in November 1977, when she was 13.

"If realized, it will be the first visit to an abduction site by a Japanese prime minister," Kawamura said.

Aso will finally start a stumping tour this weekend after having only visited business organizations since he dissolved the House of Representatives last week, while his rival, Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, has already gone on tour.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Stationary front fuels downpours

(Kyodo News) The seasonal rain front continues to remain stationary along the length of Japan, spawning torrential downpours in the west, a rare tornado in the east, and unusual weather conditions in Hokkaido.

As a result, the Meteorological Agency hasn't been able to declare an end to this year's rainy season for a wide swath of the nation ranging from the Tokai region to northern Kyushu.

1971-2000 weather data show that the rainy season for northern Kyushu, Shikoku, and the Kinki, Tokai, Hokuriku and northern and southern Tohoku regions usually ends between July 17 and 27. This year, however, the wet season looks to stretch into August.

The agency has declared the rainy season over in Okinawa-Amami, southern Kyushu, and the Kanto-Koshin region, which covers Tokyo and surrounding areas. But rainy weather is nevertheless prevailing over the capital.

The agency said Tokyo's rainy season ended July 14.

The high-pressure system in the Pacific that usually brings summer to Japan has been slow to strengthen because of weak convection activity near the Philippines, agency officials said.

In addition, cold air masses and low-pressure troughs have migrated frequently from continental Asia, preventing the seasonal rain front from moving off northward.

The agency said air as cold as minus 9 that was detected at an altitude of about 5.7 km started coming down from the continent in short intervals in July. This caused the annual rain front to stall and intensify near Japan.

Rain in excess of 100 mm per hour fell on many parts of the nation, notably Fukuoka Prefecture, in late July. This was partly because convection activities intensified near China's coast, which has seen a slew of low-pressure troughs.

Similar phenomena were observed in 1991, when the rainy season continued until Aug. 14 in Hokuriku and northern Tohoku, the latest end on record.

Stormy weather even hit Hokkaido after low-pressure systems struck the prefecture in intervals over several days in July. Hokkaido usually avoids the rainy season.

The unusually stormy weather also played a role in the deaths of 10 hikers in Hokkaido's Taisetsu mountain range in mid-July.

news20090731JT4

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Japan to build own housing, plane tarmac in Djibouti for piracy patrols

(Kyodo News) Japan will build its own base in Djibouti to house Self-Defense Forces personnel and patrol planes involved in antipiracy operations off Somalia, government sources said Thursday.

Tokyo plans to complete a tarmac for Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C surveillance planes and housing facilities in the strife-torn country next year, the sources said. Japan currently rents facilities owned by the private sector and the U.S. military.

The plan signals Japan's deepened commitment to the antipiracy mission, which came under a new law on July 24 that expands the types of commercial ships to be escorted by the SDF.

The U.S. also asked Japan to build its own facilities to carry out full-fledged operations, the sources said.

At present, about 150 members of the Ground Self-Defense Force and MSDF stationed in Djibouti live in U.S. military lodgings near an airport. Japan also rents a hangar for two P-3C planes and trucks from an airport management company based in Dubai.

Tokyo has been negotiating with the Dubai firm to build a tarmac and housing near the airport, the sources said.

Two MSDF destroyers have been escorting vessels in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden since the mission began March 30.

The MSDF's two P-3Cs have been patrolling the gulf and conveying information on suspicious vessels to commercial ships and foreign navies since June 11.

Piracy is rampant in the gulf and off the coast of Somalia, where sea bandits, often heavily armed, have been hijacking tankers and other commercial ships so they can demand huge ransoms to free the vessels and their crew.

The United States, the European Union, Russia and China have sent naval forces to the region to fend off the pirates and many of their ships are deployed to Djibouti.

After the new antipiracy law took effect, the 4,550-ton MSDF destroyer Harusame and 3,500-ton destroyer Amagiri left their bases July 6 to take over escort duties from two other destroyers Tuesday.

In their first antipiracy operation, which ended Thursday, the two destroyers protected five vessels, including two foreign-flagged ships with no connections to Japan.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
Million books free for Sony e-reader

NEW YORK (Kyodo) Sony Corp. said Wednesday users of its e-book readers can now access 1 million titles free of charge through Google Inc.'s public domain.

Sony said e-books digitized under Google's Book project and made available to Sony Reader users are classic titles whose copyrights have expired.

With the addition of Google's library, Sony claims it has become the largest source for e-books.

The race to offer e-books has intensified in the United States. Sony launched the world's first e-reader in 2006.

Last week, bookstore chain Barnes & Noble said it has made more than 700,000 e-book titles available, including half a million from Google's public domain.

Amazon.com Inc. offers more than 300,000 titles through its Kindle store.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
ALSO OUT THERE
The eyes have it — false lashes catch on big with Japan's women
By NATSUKO FUKUE
Staff writer

Long, thick, perfectly curled eyelashes are pretty much the desire of every Japanese woman.

The problem is that the average Japanese lash is only about 5.8 mm in length, less than half that of a Westerner, according to the Japan Lash Association.

Mascara, hot curlers, mascara base, lash treatment and many other products have all been considered essential makeup tools by Japanese women wishing to emphasize their eyelashes, but the latest and easiest path is simply applying false lashes.

Chiaki Umeda, a Fukuoka Prefecture resident in her 20s, wears false eyelashes on some formal occasions, such as weddings or parties.

"My eyelid is single-edged, and my lashes are very short and few," she said. "I feel I would look gorgeous if I had long, beautiful lashes."

False eyelashes, which provide instant volume and length, have grown increasingly popular in the last two years, according to Takayuki Kozu, sales division director at Koji Honpo Co., which back in 1947 was the first company to market fake eyelashes in Japan.

"Sales suddenly jumped in the past two years. Current sales are triple those of two years ago," he said.

For Kozu, the rapid sales increase shows that false lashes are now accepted by a lot of consumers, ranging from teens to women in their 70s.

Elderly users apply false lashes to cover up their short, thin lashes, while teenagers use them on a daily basis to make their eyes look bigger — like the fashion models in magazines, Kozu said.

"Young women don't think false lashes are too much. They are a daily necessity."

Ami Nakano, spokeswoman for Shu Uemura, a cosmetic brand established by globally renowned makeup artist Shu Uemura, said sales of their false lashes have also been soaring the last two years.

"The best part of false lashes is that your eyes look dramatically different," said Nakano, noting it is the only three-dimensional makeup component on the face.

"Your facial impression will look different as well if you change the angle of the lashes," she said. "If you point them upward you will look cool. Downward and you can make a mild impression."

With Shu Uemura's 40 different types from simple to fluffy to sparkling, Nakano said, changing lashes is like changing shoes and accessories.

The simple type, varying in price from \1,575 to \3,675, can be used 20 to 30 times. Shu Uemura, whose false lashes have been popular with celebrities, including Madonna, launched "lash bars," special counters designed to sell and offer advice on false lashes, first in the U.S., then Europe and finally in Japan in 2005.

"Japanese used to think false eyelashes are for special occasions or only for young people, but an increasing number of people are buying them for daily use," said Nakano, who counts herself among the daily users.

Tomoko Hamasaki, a 27-year-old legal firm assistant in Tokyo, thinks that's a bit much because false lashes make a woman's eyes too different than the original. However, false lashes do have a "magical effect," she said.

For those who prefer a more natural look, lash extensions, a synthetic hair applied to each natural lash, is another route.

Shigehisa Sato, chairman of the Japan Lash Association, said a great number of salons that apply lash extensions have opened in the last few years because women want their lashes to look natural.

Extensionslast about a month and stay on even when taking a bath, so women don't need to spend the time putting them on every day, he said, adding the main customers of lash extensions run from teenagers to women in their 50s.

Due to the sudden popularity of extensions, salons with less experienced staff are opening, too, Sato warned.

"It's possible to damage eyes if less experienced staff apply lash extensions. It's important to learn about the mechanism of eyes as well as have the skill."

He recommended that customers check if a salon is certified by the association.

Although it is mostly women who want long lashes, some men aren't adverse to the notion.

"When we held a party called 'Eyelash Night' last year, there were quite a lot of men who asked us to apply false lashes," said Nakano of Shu Uemura.

She said they wanted to try the brand's premium editions, such as those made with colorful lashes or feathers.

"There was a salaryman working in Roppongi" at the party, she said. "Perhaps he found it fun to look different."

In this occasional series, we focus on hot topics, people, events and trends in today's Japan.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, July 31, 2009
'Kamen Rider' villains turn to politics

(Kyodo News) Talk of a change in government power is everywhere ahead of the Aug. 30 Lower House election, including a promotional event this week for the action movie "Kamen Rider Decade."

Two of the franchise's greatest villains — Jigoku Taishi (Ambassador Hell) and Shinigami Hakase (Dr. Death) of the evil Shocker syndicate — appeared on the event stage in Tokyo on Tuesday to scare the dickens out of kids, but brought with them a political twist.

"What comes after we conquer the world? A better nation," actor Ren Osugi, who plays Jigoku Taishi, shouted after arriving on stage aboard a mock election campaign vehicle.

Drawing applause from some of the parents, Osugi and actor Renji Ishibashi, who plays Shinigami Hakase, then declared the establishment of a new political party to run in the election — the Great Shocker Party.

The latest "Kamen Rider" movie hits theaters nationwide Aug. 8. It features an all-out battle between all the heroes and major villains from the franchise's past series that aired on TV, which number more than 20 since the first one was broadcast in 1971.

One of the series, "Kamen Rider Black RX," was remade in English as "Masked Rider" and aired on the Fox Kids channel from 1995 to 1996.

news20090731LAT

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[TOP NEWS]
Iranians defy authorities to mourn those slain in the unrest
Thousands flood a Tehran cemetery on the 40th day since the killing of Neda Agha-Soltan. Their defiance sets the stage for protests next week, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be sworn in.
By Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim
July 31, 2009

Reporting from Tehran and Beirut -- Protesters swarmed Tehran's main cemetery and fanned out across a large swath of the capital Thursday, defying truncheons and tear gas to publicly mourn those killed during weeks of unrest, including a young woman whose death shocked people around the world.

The protests marked the 40th day since the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan was captured on video and posted on the Internet. For Shiite Muslims, the 40th day has religious importance, often an occasion for an outpouring of emotion and grief.

Thirty years ago, such commemorations helped build momentum for the Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the shah. The resilience of the thousands of protesters this time set the stage for more clashes next week, when hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to be inaugurated for a second term despite allegations that he won only because of widespread fraud in the June 12 election.

The scale and reach of Thursday's protests, which also erupted in at least four other cities, appeared to catch security forces off guard. After initially bloodying some of the mourners arriving at Behesht Zahra cemetery, many of them young women dressed in black and carrying roses, officers stepped back. They mingled amicably with protesters, and in one case even accepted flowers from them.

The mourners chanted political slogans as they rode the Tehran subway from the city center to the cemetery and back. When they returned to the center, they took to the streets, first in the area of the Grand Mosala Mosque, where they had been banned from gathering.

Later, on side streets and main thoroughfares, they were occasionally attacked by baton-wielding security personnel, some on motorcycles.

But they were also cheered on by thousands of well-wishers honking car horns ferociously or hanging out the windows of apartments and buses. They clogged roadways and tunnels, holding up signs in support of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Shopkeepers handed out bottles of water to sustain the demonstrators in the heat.

"Honorable Iranians," the protesters chanted. "Today is a day of mourning."

And in a challenge to a harsh crackdown on the news media, they recorded everything and quickly flooded the Internet with amateur videos of the day's events in the capital as well as the provincial cities of Esfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz and Rasht.

"Death to the dictator," chanted those in one long procession heading toward Agha-Soltan's grave, kicking up a storm of dust as they walked. "Neda is not dead. This government is dead."

As night fell, witnesses reported intense confrontations between demonstrators and security forces in north-central Tehran. Trash bonfires that had been created to counter the effects of tear gas belched black smoke into the sky. Residents nearby hurriedly took injured protesters into their homes to protect them from roaming bands of Basiji militiamen.

Iranian officials say 30 people have died in unrest since the election. But human rights monitors and independent observers say the number killed in the protests and subsequent crackdown is at least twice that in the capital alone.

On Wednesday, the Paris-based monitoring group Reporters Without Borders urged authorities to explain the death of journalist Alireza Eftekhari on June 15. His body was handed over to relatives on July 13. A news release said Eftekhari died from a severe beating.

Authorities have tried to quell the unrest using the coercive instruments of the state, angering even some of Ahmadinejad's conservative allies.

On Wednesday, the Tehran prosecutor's office announced the latest in a series of arrests of prominent political figures: Saeed Shariati, a member of the central committee of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the nation's primary reformist grouping.

Authorities also said they would place the first group of protesters on trial. According to a statement by the prosecutor's office, they will be charged with offenses that include having ties to terrorist organizations, invading and setting fires at military bases, destroying public property, looting, and preparing and dispatching news reports for "enemies" of the Islamic Republic.

Still, under massive domestic and international pressure, officials also have acknowledged wrongdoing by authorities. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei this week ordered the Kahrizak detention center south of Tehran closed because its facilities were "substandard."

Iran's police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said some officers "went to extremes" during the protests.

Two prominent jailed reformist politicians, Behzad Nabavi and Mostafa Tajzadeh, were allowed to phone their families from prison for the first time since they were arrested June 13.

And authorities moved Saeed Hajjarian, who was critically wounded in a 2000 assassination attempt, from prison to a detention house with medical facilities, the Mehr news agency reported.

But such steps may not be enough to appease an emboldened opposition, which is supported by a grass-roots political movement unlike any the Islamic Republic has experienced.

Former President Mohammad Khatami, speaking to a group of reformist lawmakers, called for an investigation into allegations of torture and murder.

"Crimes have been committed. Lives have been lost and immoral treatments have been meted out to our dear youths, women and men," he said. "With the supreme leader's order of closure [of Kahrizak], a fresh opportunity has come up to launch an inquiry into the tragedy and punish the perpetrators."

Among the demonstrators, spirits seemed to be rising.

"We cannot foresee any reconciliation between the two camps," said Reza, a 25-year-old at the cemetery who did not want his last name used. "So we go for collapse of the entire system in the long term."

Hamid, a 24-year-old engineering school graduate from what he described as a wealthy family, said he'd given up his previously luxurious lifestyle to devote himself to undermining the government.

"A general strike won't work now," he said. "These demonstrations are better than strikes because with a smaller number of people we . . . make them fear for tomorrow."

Parisa, a 22-year-old college student, said she had already been in so much trouble with the authorities and her college that there was no turning back.

"Whether I come to the demonstrations or not, the authorities will be keeping an eye on me forever," she said.

Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, tried to attend the mourning ceremony but were prevented by security forces, who in some cases appeared divided over whether to beat the demonstrators or guide them toward Agha-Soltan's grave. An amateur video showed mourners surrounding police officers lounging on an official vehicle, chatting amicably.

One witness estimated that 10,000 people flooded into the cemetery. Another, 30-year-old Koroush, said from a bridge that he could see thousands more were outside the grounds, unable to get in.

One person who wasn't there was Agha-Soltan's mother, Hajer Rostam Motlagh.

Many of the parents of those who have died have been warned not to publicly mourn, but she had vowed that she would attend the gathering.

Motlagh instead went to a park near her home. A photograph showed her sitting cross-legged on grass before a single candle. In an interview with BBC Persian this week, she said she didn't want people to forget her daughter, a former student of Islamic philosophy who had cultivated a passion for music and travel. And she said she had a message for the world.

"I want you, on my behalf, to thank everyone around the world, Iranians and non-Iranians, people from every country and culture, people who in their own way, their own tradition, have mourned my child," she told the interviewer. "Everyone who lit a candle for her, every musician who wrote songs for her, who wrote poems about her, I want to thank all of them."

news20090731NYT

[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]

[BUSINESS]
Big Banks Paid Billions in Bonuses Amid Wall St. Crisis
By LOUISE STORY and ERIC DASH
Published: July 30, 2009

Thousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crisis.

Nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008, according to a report released Thursday by Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers.

The report is certain to intensify the growing debate over how, and how much, Wall Street bankers should be paid.

In January, President Obama called financial institutions “shameful” for giving themselves nearly $20 billion in bonuses as the economy was faltering and the government was spending billions to bail out financial institutions.

On Friday, the House of Representatives may vote on a bill that would order bank regulators to restrict “inappropriate or imprudently risky” pay packages at larger banks.

Mr. Cuomo, who for months has criticized the companies over pay, said the bonuses were particularly galling because the banks survived the crisis with the government’s support.

“If the bank lost money, where do you get the money to pay the bonus?” he said.

All the banks named in the report declined to comment.

Mr. Cuomo’s stance — that compensation for every employee in a financial firm should rise and fall in line with the company’s overall results — is not shared on Wall Street, which tends to reward employees based more on their individual performance. Otherwise, the thinking goes, top workers could easily leave for another firm that would reward them more directly for their personal contribution.

Many banks partly base their bonuses on overall results, but Mr. Cuomo has said they should do so to a greater degree.

At Morgan Stanley, for example, compensation last year was more than seven times as large as the bank’s profit. In 2004 and 2005, when the stock markets were doing well, Morgan Stanley spent only two times its profits on compensation.

Robert A. Profusek, a lawyer with the law firm Jones Day, which works with many of the large banks, said bank executives and boards spent considerable time deciding bonuses based on the value of workers to their companies.

“There’s this assumption that everyone was like drunken sailors passing out money without regard to the consequences or without giving it any thought,” Mr. Profusek said. “That wasn’t the case.”

Mr. Cuomo’s office did not study the correlation between all of the individual bonuses and the performance of the people who received them.

Congressional leaders have introduced several other bills aimed at reining in the bank bonus culture. Federal regulators and a new government pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, are also scrutinizing bank bonuses, which have fueled populist outrage. Incentives that led to large bonuses on Wall Street are often cited as a cause of the financial crisis.

Though it has been known for months that billions of dollars were spent on bonuses last year, it was unclear whether that money was spread widely or concentrated among a few workers.

The report suggests that those roughly 5,000 people — a small subset of the industry — accounted for more than $5 billion in bonuses. At Goldman, just 200 people collectively were paid nearly $1 billion in total, and at Morgan Stanley, $577 million was shared by 101 people.

All told, the bonus pools at the nine banks that received bailout money was $32.6 billion, while those banks lost $81 billion.

Some compensation experts questioned whether the bonuses should have been paid at all while the banks were receiving government aid.

“There are some real ethical questions given the bailouts and the precariousness of so many of these financial institutions,” said Jesse M. Brill, an outspoken pay critic who is the chairman of CompensationStandards.com, a research firm in California. “It’s troublesome that the old ways are so ingrained that it is very hard for them to shed them.”

The report does not include certain other highly paid employees, like brokers who are paid on commission. The report also does not include some bank subsidiaries, like the Phibro commodities trading unit at Citigroup, where one trader stands to collect $100 million for his work last year.

Now that most banks are making money again, hefty bonuses will probably be even more common this year. And many banks have increased salaries among highly paid workers so that they will not depend as heavily on bonuses.

Banks typically do not disclose compensation figures beyond their total compensation expenses and the amounts paid to top five highly paid executives, but they turned over information on their bonus pools to a House committee and to Mr. Cuomo after the bailout last year.

The last few years provide a “virtual laboratory” to test whether bankers’ pay moved in line with bank performance, Mr. Cuomo said. If it did, he said, the pay levels would have dropped off in 2007 and 2008 as bank profits fell.

So far this year, Morgan Stanley has set aside about $7 billion for compensation — which includes salaries, bonuses and expenses like health care — even though it has reported quarterly losses.

At some banks last year, revenue fell to levels not seen in more than five years, but pay did not. At Citigroup, revenue was the lowest since 2002. But the amount the bank spent on compensation was higher than in any other year between 2003 and 2006.

At Bank of America, revenue last year was at the same level as in 2006, and the bank kept the amount it paid to employees in line with 2006. Profit at the bank last year, however, was one-fifth of the level in 2006.

Still, regulators may have limited resources for keeping pay in check. Only banks that still have bailout money are subject to oversight by Mr. Feinberg, the pay czar. He will approve pay for the top 100 compensated employees at banks like Citigroup and Bank of America as well as automakers like General Motors.

news20090731WP

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

[National Security]
In Afghanistan, U.S. May Shift Strategy
Request for Big Boost in Afghan Troops Could Also Require More Americans
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan is preparing a new strategy that calls for major changes in the way U.S. and other NATO troops there operate, a vast increase in the size of Afghan security forces and an intensified military effort to root out corruption among local government officials, according to several people familiar with the contents of an assessment report that outlines his approach to the war.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took charge of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month, appears inclined to request an increase in American troops to implement the new strategy, which aims to use more unconventional methods to combat the growing Taliban insurgency, according to members of an advisory group he convened to work on the assessment. Such a request could receive a chilly reception at the White House, where some members of President Obama's national security team have expressed reluctance about authorizing any more deployments.

Senior military officials said McChrystal is waiting for a recommendation from a team of military planners in Kabul before reaching a final decision on a troop request. Several members of the advisory group, who spoke about the issue of force levels on the condition of anonymity, said that they think more U.S. troops are needed but that it was not clear how large an increase McChrystal would seek.

"There was a very broad consensus on the part of the assessment team that the effort is under-resourced and will require additional resources to get the job done," a senior military official in Kabul said.

A request for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan could pose a political challenge for Obama. Some leading congressional Democrats have voiced skepticism about sustaining current force levels, set to reach 68,000 by the fall. After approving an extra 21,000 troops in the spring, Obama himself questioned whether "piling on more and more troops" would lead to success, and his national security adviser, James L. Jones, told U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan last month that the administration wants to hold troop levels flat for now.

One senior administration official said some members of Obama's national security team want to see how McChrystal uses the 21,000 additional troops before any more deployments are authorized. "It'll be a tough sell," the official said.

Even so, McChrystal has been instructed by his superiors -- including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen -- to conduct a thorough assessment of the war effort and articulate his recommendations. While McChrystal has indicated to some of his advisers that he is leaning toward asking for more forces, he has also emphasized that his strategy will involve fundamental changes in the way those troops are used.

One of the key changes outlined in the latest drafts of the assessment report, which will be provided to Gates by mid-August, is a shift in the "operational culture" of U.S. and NATO forces. Commanders will be encouraged to increase contact with Afghans, even if it means living in less-secure outposts inside towns and spending more time on foot patrols instead of in vehicles.

"McChrystal understands that you don't stop IEDs [improvised explosive devices] by putting your soldiers in MRAPs," heavily armored trucks designed to withstand blasts, said Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington who served on the assessment team. "You stop them by convincing the population not to plant them in the first place, and that requires getting out of trucks and interacting with people."

The report calls for intelligence resources to be realigned to focus more on tribal and social dynamics so commanders can identify local power brokers and work with them. Until recently, the vast majority of U.S. and NATO intelligence assets had been oriented toward tracking insurgents.

The changes are aimed at fulfilling McChrystal's view that the primary mission of the international forces is not to conduct raids against Taliban strongholds but to protect civilians and help the Afghan government assume responsibility for maintaining security. "The focus has to be on the people," he said in a recent interview.

To accomplish that, McChrystal has indicated that he is considering moving troops out of remote mountain valleys where Taliban fighters have traditionally sought sanctuary and concentrating more forces around key population centers.

The assessment report also urges the United States and NATO to almost double the size of the Afghan security forces. It calls for expanding the Afghan army from 134,000 soldiers to about 240,000, and the police force from 92,000 personnel to about 160,000. Such an increase would require additional U.S. forces to conduct training and mentoring.

McChrystal and his top lieutenants have expressed concern about a lack of Afghan soldiers to patrol alongside foreign troops and to take responsibility for protecting pacified areas from Taliban infiltration. In Helmand province, where U.S. Marines are engaged in a major operation, fewer than 500 Afghan soldiers are available to work with almost 11,000 American service members.

Some U.S. and European officials involved in Afghanistan policy warn that the Afghan government does not have the means to pay for such a large army and police force, but McChrystal and his assessment team believe additional Afghan troops are essential to the country's stability. U.S. officials have said that they would like European nations to help cover the cost of training and sustaining additional Afghan forces.

The strategy advocates changes in what happens after Afghan soldiers graduate from boot camp. Instead of just placing small groups of U.S. trainers with Afghan units, the assessment calls for a top-to-bottom partnership between Afghan and NATO security forces that involves everyone from generals to privates working in tandem. "We've got to live together, we've got to train together, we've got to conduct operations together," one senior U.S. military official in Kabul said. "Everything we do has to be done together."

The assessment also calls for U.S. and NATO forces to be far more involved in fighting corruption and promoting effective governance, describing the risk to the overall mission from ineffective and venal government officials as being on par with the threat from top Taliban commanders. "These are co-equal ways we could lose the war," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served on the assessment team.

The team, which spent more than a dozen hours meeting with McChrystal over the past month, was made up of several prominent national security specialists from a variety of think thanks in Washington, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

news20090731GCU1

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Fishing]
Fish stocks recover as conservation measures take effect, analysis shows
Regions in Iceland, California and north-east US show signs of recovery but North Sea and Ireland still overfished
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 19.00 BST
Article history

Global efforts to combat overfishing are starting to turn the tide to allow some fish stocks to recover, new analysis shows. Research from an international team of scientists shows that a handful of major fisheries across the world have managed to reduce the rate at which fish are exploited.

The experts say their study offers hope that overfishing can be brought under control, but they warn that fishermen in Ireland and the North Sea are still catching too many fish to allow stocks to recover. Some 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, the scientists report.

"Across all regions we are still seeing a troubling trend of increasing stock collapse," said Dr Boris Worm, an ecologist at Dalhousie University in Canada. "But this paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause. The encouraging result is that exploitation rate, the ultimate driver of depletion and collapse, is decreasing in half the 10 systems we examined. This means that management in those areas is setting the stage for ecological and economic recovery. It's only a start, but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring overfishing under control."

Fisheries winning the battle against overfishing include regions in the US, Iceland and Australia. But fishermen in Ireland and the North Sea are still catching too many fish to allow stocks to recover, the research says.

Pamela Mace of the New Zealand ministry of fisheries, who helped to write the new study, said: "Fisheries managers currently presiding over depleted fish stocks need to become fast followers of the successes revealed in this paper. We need to move much more rapidly towards rebuilding individual fish populations, and restoring the ecosystems of which they are a part, if there is to be any hope for the long-term viability of fisheries and fishing communities."

The new analysis used catch data as well as stock assessments, scientific trawl surveys, small-scale fishery data and modelling results. It highlighted catch quotas, localised fishing closures and bans on selected fishing gear to allow smaller fish to escape as measures that help fish stocks to recover. Agencies in Alaska and New Zealand have led the world in the fight against overfishing by acting before the situation became critical, says the study, which is published in the journal Science. Fish abundance is increasing in previously overfished areas around Iceland, the north-east US shelf, the Newfoundland-Labrador shelf and California. This has benefitted species such as American plaice, pollock, haddock and Atlantic cod.

"Some of the most spectacular rebuilding efforts have involved bold experimentation with closed areas, gear and effort restrictions and new approaches to catch allocations and enforcement," the scientists say. But they caution that the study covers less than a quarter of world fisheries, and lightly to moderately fished and rebuilding ecosystems comprise less than half of those.

The isolated success stories, they say, "may best be interpreted as large scale restoration experiments that demonstrate opportunities for successfully rebuilding marine resources elsewhere." Many nations in Africa have sold the right to fish in their waters to wealthy developed countries that have exhausted their own stocks, the experts said. The move could undermine local efforts to tackle overfishing made by small scale fisheries such as those in Kenya, which are highlighted in the new study.

The North Sea, the Baltic and Celtic-Biscay shelf fisheries are all still declining. Here, Atlantic cod and herring as still declining, while globally populations of large predators such as sharks and rays are in rapid decline.

The new survey marks a public truce in a war of words between Worm, a conservationist, and fellow author Ray Hilborn, a fisheries expert at the University of Washington in Seattle. The spat followed a 2006 study by Worm that made some dire predictions about the state of the world's fisheries, including the claim that most stocks could collapse by 2048 if present trends continued. Hilborn criticised the research as "sloppy" and said the 2048 claim had "zero credibility" because it used simple records of fish catches to say whether stocks had collapsed.

"I very much hope I will be alive in 2048 and I have given some thought to whether I will have a seafood party or not," Worm joked at a press conference this week.

Dr Ana Parma, an author of the paper with the Centro Nacional Patagonico in Argentina, said: "This is the first exhaustive attempt to assemble the best available data on the status of marine fisheries and trends in exploitation rates, a major breakthrough that has allowed scientists from different backgrounds to reach a consensus about the status of fisheries and actions needed."


[Climate Change]
Global poll finds 73% want higher priority for climate change
Britons among the most enthusiastic about action to stop global warming, while Americans among least willing to put environment first, according to global public opinion poll
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 10.49 BST
Article history

A majority of peoples around the world want their governments to put action on climate change at the top of the political agenda, a new global public opinion poll suggests.

Unfortunately for Barack Obama though, who has put energy reform at the top of his White House to-do list, Americans are not necessarily among them.

Only 44% of Americans thought climate change should be a major preoccupation for the Obama administration, the survey co-ordinated by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes said. The only other two countries unwilling to see their governments make climate change a top focus were Iraq and the Palestinian territories. In 15 other countries though there was strong support for governments to do more to deal with climate change.

Britons were among the most enthusiastic supporters for greater government intervention, with 77% urging officials to do more. Germans, however, think their government has already done enough. Some 83% think their government has already adopted climate change action as a top priority; 27% would like the government to turn its attention elsewhere.

"The public is pulling for more — a lot more, no, but a bit more, yes. There is definitely political capital there to move the ball forward and that is pretty much universal," said Steven Kull, the director of the survey which drew on data gathered by academic and marketing polling organisations in the respective countries. Overall about 73% of those polled believe governments should make climate change a top priority.

The poll, which sampled the opinions of 18,578 people in 19 countries, found broad popular support for making climate change a top priority extended even to those countries whose governments have yet to commit to global action. In China there was overwhelming support — 94% — for the government to keep climate change on the front burner. And in India, which is also rapidly emerging as one of the world's leading producers of global warming pollution, 59% of the public wanted their government to make climate change a top priority.

That defies the hard line taken by the country's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, earlier this month against putting any cap on its greenhouse gas emissions.

Around the globe, the public was unconvinced their governments were assigning high enough priority to climate change. The disconnect suggests that there is greater public support for action on public change than elected officials realise, Kull said. "There is a tendency among policy makers to underestimate people's readiness for action."

Only four countries — Germany, Britain, China, and Indonesia — considered that their governments were focused on climate change. But, that did not necessarily satisfy the demand for even greater action.

Although the majority of Britons, 58%, credit the government with making climate change a major priority, even greater numbers, 89%, believe there is room for the government to do even more.

news20090731GCU2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment]
Golden eagle tagged in conservation plan found poisoned to death
Alma, a golden eagle tracked on conservationist website, vanished in early July and was found poisoned to death today
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 18.34 BST
Article history

Police raided a Highland grouse moor today after a golden eagle that had been satellite-tagged as part of a government-funded project was found poisoned with illegal pesticides.

The grouse moor, keepers' cottages and vehicles on the Millden estate near Brechin in Angus were searched under warrant after Tayside police and wildlife crime investigators raided the property early this morning. There were no arrests, and no one from the estate was available for comment.

The estate is run by Nick Baikie, a grouse moor manager who was previously employed by Mark Osborne, an Oxfordshire-based chartered surveyor. Grouse moors run by Osborne in Scotland and England have previously been raided by police investigating alleged wildlife crime offences.

The bird, known to conservationists as Alma, was a young female golden eagle whose daily movements had been tracked on the website of one of Scotland's leading conservationists, Roy Dennis, as it flew over the Cairngorms.

The daily records on Dennis's website ended on 2 July, the second anniversary of its tagging in 2007 on the Glenfeshie estate in the Highlands, as part of a long-term study into their behaviour and breeding.

Superintendent Ewen West, of Tayside police, said: ''The golden eagle was part of a project being undertaken by Scottish National Heritage. The bird was being continuously tracked and when her movements came to an abrupt stop at the beginning of July suspicions were raised that she had died. Sadly, she had been illegally poisoned."

Golden eagles may be deliberately targeted by gamekeepers who want to stop any birds of prey eating grouse or pheasant, but the species normally fall prey to poisoned baits which are laid out on sporting estates to kill other birds of prey, including hen harriers, white-tailed eagles and buzzards.

Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish environment minister, said: "I am truly appalled that yet another golden eagle has been illegally killed in Scotland - the second this summer. Illegal poisoning is simply inexcusable and while the perpetrators are certainly beneath contempt they are in no way above the law.

"Poisoning of course poses serious animal welfare risks, but these offences also damage Scotland's tourism industry our economy and can even tarnish the reputations of those working in our countryside within the law.

"The fact this eagle was tagged and the Scottish public were actively engaged in its progress, only makes this case all the more galling. The loss of this magnificent animal is a real blow to Scotland, particularly as we are renowned world-wide for our incredible wildlife."


[Home Insurance]
Global warming pushes up building insurance costs
Flash floods and giant hailstones help increase claims by 15% and insurance premiums by 10%
Patrick Collinson
The Guardian, Thursday 30 July 2009
Article history

Householders face higher building insurance premiums after a sharp increase in property damage blamed on climate change. A rise in insurance claims has been caused by flash floods and storms in areas of Britain previously immune to severe weather events.

The AA, which produces an insurance premium index monitoring costs, reports a 15% rise in claims in the first six months of 2009 over the same period in 2008 "in the number and cost of payments for buildings damaged by flash floods and storms in areas with little or no previous record of such claims."

It cited one village, Carbrooke in Norfolk, where homes were damaged by giant hailstones during an ice storm in late spring. The storm also caused the roof of a supermarket to partially collapse, and when the hailstones melted, a local school was flooded. "It happened in an area with no previous record of severe weather events," said the AA.

Insurers are now demanding higher premiums to meet the cost of such freak weather, linked to climate change.

The AA found that, in the 12 months to June 2009, the average quote for buildings insurance had risen by 10% — though customers who shopped around were able to limit the increase to 5%.

Simon Douglas, director of AA Insurance, said: "Insurers are beginning to reflect concerns about climate change in their premiums. The industry is expecting rising cost and frequency of claims for flooding, subsidence and storm damage.

"Meanwhile, tighter building regulations mean repairs must meet modern standards for such things as electrical wiring and insulation. As a result, the cost of meeting a claim — particularly for older properties — has been rising steadily."

At the same time households are benefiting from a fall in the cost of home contents insurance to a 15-year low. The AA said that despite reports of a recession-related rise in the number of burglaries, there is little evidence of this from the industry.

One reason is that insurers are making more specific calculations of premiums based on local crime rates. So although the average cost of home contents cover is falling, the figure masks a growing disparity between high and low crime areas.

Fraudulent claims are also contributing to a steep rise in car insurance costs, which are growing at their fastest rate for nearly a decade, said the AA. Drivers are typically being charged £526.42 for fully comprehensive cover, up 10% over the past year — the fastest increase since 2000.

"The industry continues to suffer underwriting losses, which are predicted to be in excess of £240m this year," said Douglas. "Although the number of accidents on Britain's roads is thankfully falling, the cost of claims continues to rise — particularly personal injury claims and legal expenses. During the current downturn, fraudulent claims are also putting pressure on premiums, leading to an increase in the number of people who drive without insurance, currently estimated to be 1.6m.

"The burden of claims involving uninsured drivers unfortunately falls to honest drivers, to the tune of £30 per policy."

Worst hit are drivers under the age of 21. The average premium for third party, fire and theft cover, typically bought by young drivers, rose 4.6% in the second quarter of 2009 over the first to £968.22.


[Climate Change]
London to plant 2m trees by 2025, says mayor's office
Mayor's adviser announces plans to make London 'greener, cleaner and more civilised' with 2m tree plan
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 July 2009 11.41 BST
Article history

London needs more parkland and to plant more trees to combat predicted rises in summer temperatures, an environment chief said today.

Mayor Boris Johnson's environment adviser Isabel Dedring said climate projections showed average summer temperatures in London could be some 3.9C higher than today by 2080, and as much as 6C to 10C on the hottest days.

The "urban heat island effect" in which buildings absorb and release heat, maintaining a higher temperature in cities than surrounding areas, means London temperatures will continue to be higher than other parts of the south-east.

But a study from Manchester suggests that increasing the amount of greenery in a city by 10% could offset the higher temperatures.

The mayor's environment plan is aiming to increase tree cover across the capital by 5% – an extra 2m trees – by 2025.

The programme, Leading to a Greener London, also involves plans for an increase in green space in inner London by 5%, including green roofs and more trees in streets. A green roof features waterproofing and drainage layers topped with soil and plants.

Other measures to make the capital "greener, cleaner and more civilised" include pilot schemes which will pay householders to recycle.

"Trees in streets have a very positive air-quality effect," Dedring added.

news20090731NTO

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 30 July 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.751
News
Battling scientists reach consensus on health of global fish stocks
Many depleted fisheries are making good progress to recovery.
Lizzie Buchen

Overexploitation has left many fisheries drastically depleted.Rudy Kloser, CSIROFisheries scientists and conservation ecologists have put aside their differences to collaborate in a study of overexploited commercial fisheries. They say that such ecosystems can be revived and managed sustainably with existing techniques, but that these measures are being patchily applied around the world.

The study marks a rare consensus between the two fields. Both recognize that overfishing is a serious problem, but have disagreed strongly on how bad the situation is and what the most effective remedies might be.^1,2

Now, researchers from both sides of the debate have come together in a collaboration led by ecologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and fisheries scientist Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington, Seattle. They conclude that efforts to rein in overfishing are beginning to show success in several ecosystems, but they haven't yet reversed the global trend of depletion for individual fish stocks³.

"It was quite surprising that the exploitation rate was decreasing in a number of ecosystems," says Worm. "This shows that we don't need to wait for someone to come up with a magical cure for exploitation. We already have the tools."

{“Here are some fisheries that work. Why aren't they all like that?”
Daniel Pauly
University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada}

Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, says that it was "very daring for [Hilborn and Worm] to come together. There were many, including me, who thought nothing would come out of this because of the animosity between the two of them."

"Of course there should never have been a conflict there in the first place," he adds. "When a stock is exploited, it's as bad for ecology as for fisheries."

Reaching consensus

The conflict had climaxed in 2006, when Worm suggested that all fisheries could collapse by 2048⁴. Hilborn and others argued against the apocalyptic prophecy by highlighting fishery success stories⁵.

"The controversy highlighted that there were two very different views," says Worm. "We're both motivated about improving the state of fisheries, so we wanted to find some consensus of where we are and where we're heading."

The 21 authors of the new paper, published in Science, came together in a working group supported by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They built comprehensive datasets, compiling three types of fish assessments: fisheries catches, research surveys and individual stock assessments.

{“The biggest surprise was how much progress had been made in the regions viewed as the 'bad boys' of fisheries.”
Ray Hilborn
University of Washington, Seattle}

They then ran the data through ecosystem models to calculate the proportion of fish that could be caught while achieving the greatest yield for species across the ecosystem — known as the multi-species maximum sustainable yield (MMSY).

The authors focused on ten well-characterized ecosystems. In five overfished ecosystems, they found that fishing rates had declined since the 1990s to a level at or below the MMSY, which had allowed some depleted stocks to recover. The five rebounding ecosystems (Iceland, Newfoundland–Labrador, the northeast US shelf, southeast Australian shelf and California current) all used different combinations of traditional management practices, including gear restrictions, closed areas and quota reductions.

No room for complacency

"The biggest surprise was how much progress had been made in the regions viewed as the 'bad boys' of fisheries," says Hilborn. "This shows that we have the tools to manage fisheries, and they work quite well."

But the picture wasn't entirely rosy: about two-thirds of the world's stocks are being fished beyond their maximum sustainable yield. Hilborn believes that this ongoing decline is "not for lack of scientific understanding", but a result of competing economic pressures and poor management enforcement.

"The findings demonstrate that the gap between what we could do and what we actually do is enormous in most of the world," Pauly says. "Here are some fisheries that work. Why aren't they all like that? Particularly for Europe and Japan, where all the conditions are there for reasonable fisheries."

Worm says he has more hope than he did in 2006, but "there are still enormous problems in much of the world, where there's less management and less reinforcement," he adds. "We can't be complacent."

References
1. Casey, J. M. & Myers, R. A. Science 281, 690–692 (1998). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Hutchings, J. A. Nature 406, 882–885 (2000). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
3. Worm, B. et al. Science 325, 578–585 (2009). | Article |
4. Worm, B. et al. Science 314, 787–790 (2006). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
5. Hilborn, R., Annala, J. & Holland, D. S. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 63, 2149–2153 (2006). | Article |


[naturenews]
Published online 30 July 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.753
News
Editor retracts sperm-creation paper
Plagiarism accusation hits stem-cell research.
Alison Abbott

A paper reporting the creation of sperm-like cells from human embryonic stem cells has been retracted by the editor of the journal Stem Cells and Development. The work had garnered headlines worldwide after being published three weeks ago (see 'Sperm-like cells made from human embryonic stem cells').

The journal's editor-in-chief Graham Parker says he took the radical step on 27 July because two paragraphs in the introduction of the paper, entitled 'In Vitro Derivation of Human Sperm from Embryonic Stem Cells',1 had been plagiarised from a 2007 review published in another journal, Biology of Reproduction.2

He had been alerted to the plagiarism on 10 July — three days after the article had been published online — by the editors of Biology of Reproduction. Parker says that the corresponding author, Karim Nayernia of the North East England Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle, UK, and the University of Newcastle, had failed to provide convincing evidence that the two paragraphs had been included in the submitted version of the manuscript by mistake.

The retraction has surprised even critics of the paper, who had complained that the work had been over-hyped. "If there is nothing else behind this, it seems a little harsh," says Harry Moore, co-director of the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Valid conclusions
The article reported that sperm precursor cells could be derived from human embryonic stem cells in vitro. These derived cells were able to divide and generate cells with just one set of chromosomes, characteristic of sperm. Although the text of the article modestly refers to these as "sperm-like cells" with "tail-like structures", its title, and the press release which accompanied its publication, refer baldly to human sperm.

"That raised hackles," says Moore. "With that claim the authors opened themselves to criticism, some of it unfair, because the paper did not in fact show that sperm had been derived."

Parker insists that there were no other problems with the paper other than the copied paragraphs. Along with five other editors of his journal, he nevertheless decided that because the paper included "an act of scientific misconduct, retraction was the correct course of action in this instance".

Nayernia declined to comment to Nature, but an official statement from the university says that the paper's original first author, Jae Ho Lee, a postdoc who has since left the university, was responsible for the plagiarism and has apologized to the authors. "No question has been raised about the science conducted or the conclusions of the research," according to the statement. "The name of Dr Lee has been removed from the first authorship," the statement continues. "The paper will now be submitted to another peer-reviewed academic journal."

The statement also says that the "correct version of the manuscript, upon the request of the journal's editor, had been immediately submitted to the journal during the process of proof reading".

The paper had been published online 'ahead of editing' to avoid undue delay, with proofreading happening after publication to correct textual or copy-editing errors, explains Parker. "But plagiarism can come to light at any point in the publishing process," he says. "Proofing isn't a magical stage that allows authors to correct any inappropriate acts."

References
1. Nayernia, K. et al. Stem Cells Dev. advance online publication doi:10.1089/scd.2009.0063 (2009).
2. Nagano, M. C. Biol. Reprod. 76, 546-551 (2007). | Article | PubMed |

news20090731SLT1

[Today's Paper: A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers] from [Slate Magazine]

No Cash Left for Clunkers
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, July 31, 2009, at 6:45 AM ET

The Washington Post (WP) leads with word that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has written an assessment report that proposes to make several changes to the way U.S. and NATO troops operate in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to help fight against the Taliban through a more local approach that relies on building trust with the Afghan people and vastly increasing the number of Afghan security forces. The Wall Street Journal (WS leads its world-wide newsbox with, while the WP and Los Angeles Times front, the Iranians who took to the streets to publicly mourn those who were killed in the post-election violence. Thoj9usands gathered at Tehran's main cemetery to mark the religiously significant 40th day since the most violent clashes took place, including the shooting of 27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan.

The New York Times (NYT) leads with a report by the New York attorney general's office that reveals nine big banks that received government bailout money paid almost $33 billion in bonuses last year. About 5,000 of their employees received bonuses of more than $1 million each. The Los Angeles Times (LAT) leads with, and everyone fronts, news that the $1 billion Congress appropriated for the "cash for clunkers" program may have run out in less than a week. The program was designed to increase auto sales by offering vouchers of up to $4,500 to consumers who traded in gas-guzzling vehicles for more fuel-efficient new trucks or cars. USA Today (USAT) leads with Army records that show the number of Army medical centers and clinics that can't provide timely access to routine medical care is the highest in five years, and around 16 percent of patients end up being sent to doctors off-base. Twenty-six of the Army's medical centers can't meet the Pentagon standard that requires 90 percent of patients get appointments for routine car within seven days.

McChrystal is waiting to hear back from advisers who are currently reviewing his assessment report before making any final recommendations to the White House, particularly on the sensitive issue of troop requests. It's not clear exactly how many more troops McChrystal thinks are needed in Afghanistan, but it's likely that a request of that nature would "receive a chilly reception at the White House," as the Post puts it. Administration officials say the president wants to first see how the additional troops that were sent in the spring are used before even thinking about approving more. Other items in McChrystal's assessment aren't exactly surprising, seeing as though they continue on the same theme that has been talked about for a while now. He wants to make changes to how the troops operate so that they're living in the middle of population centers, carrying out foot patrols, and working with local power brokers. McChrystal wants more attention paid to fighting corruption in the government while also almost doubling the size of Afghan security forces.

Iran's security forces prevented opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from visiting the cemetery in Tehran and fiercely tried to disperse the demonstrators, who had not been given permission to gather. The WP is the only paper to have a staffer inside Tehran—the LAT has a special correspondent—and paints the most dramatic picture of yesterday's clashes, noting that protesters often fought back, for example by beating members of the Basij militia with their own batons and breaking the windows of a van to free demonstrators who had been arrested. The WP describes unhinged security forces that smashed cars when their drivers dared to honk in support of the protesters. The LAT notes that the size of the protests seemed to catch security forces off guard and says that at certain points they "appeared divided" over whether they should beat demonstrators. Coming almost 50 days since the election, the protests showed there is still widespread anger at the results and virtually guarantees there will be more confrontations next week when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is inaugurated for a second term.

Releasing the new report on Wall Street bonuses, Andrew Cuomo, the New York attorney general, said last year's hefty bonuses were particularly insulting considering the companies got billions of dollars from taxpayers in order to survive. "When the banks did well, their employees were paid well," the report said. "When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well. And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well."

While the new numbers are almost certain to reignite outrage in Washington and beyond, those in Wall Street defend the practice saying that bonuses are usually based more on individual performance rather than the company's overall results. In a display of how important the bonus culture is in Wall Street, the WSJ points out that six of the nine banks paid out more in bonuses than they received in profit. Cuomo highlighted that if bonuses had any relation to overall performance, the pay levels should have declined in 2007 and 2008. But that wasn't the case, and several banks continued to increase their compensation even as revenue dropped.

There was lots of confusion last night over whether the "cash for clunkers" program would be suspended. The WP says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called lawmakers yesterday to warn that the program would end at midnight. USAT confirmed the suspension with the legislative director for the National Automobile Dealers Association. But then, administration officials came out to say that the program was not being suspended. Yet it's unlikely that dealers will continue to honor the deal until they get assurances from the government that more money is available since they don't want to get stuck holding the bag. Congress could decide to appropriate more money for the program, but obviously nothing in Washington is that simple, and passing funding bills is often a challenge. Two senators said yesterday that if lawmakers are going to approve more money, they should do so under the condition that the new cars get better fuel economy than required by the original program.

In the continuing fight over health care reform, Sen. Max Baucus said that the finance committee wouldn't be voting on any legislation before the August recess. Baucus, the committee's chairman, said he would continue working on the bill next week but couldn't promise that a draft would be made public before the recess. The NYT notes that two of the top Republican negotiators in the committee vehemently disagree that they're anywhere near reaching a deal. Republicans have apparently been warning their party's negotiators in the committee that they might be compromising leadership posts in the future if they make too many concessions to Democrats. Meanwhile, liberal Democrats in the House expressed their anger at the concessions their party leaders have made and threatened to vote against the bill if the public health plan isn't strengthened in the final version of the legislation.

The WP fronts an analysis of campaign-finance data that shows conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dogs typically receive about 25 percent more donations from the health care and insurance sectors than other Democrats. Their pivotal role in shaping legislation has been good to their coffers, as their political action committee has raised more than $1.1 million this year through June, more than half of that money came from health care, insurance, and financial-services industries.

In the WP's op-ed page, Philip Howard, chairman of a legal reform coalition, writes that as lawmakers look for waste in the nation's health care system, they're refusing to look at "the erratic, expensive and time-consuming jury-by-jury malpractice system" thanks to the influential trial-lawyers lobby. Pilot programs could be set up to test whether "expert health courts" should replace the system, but lawmakers won't even consider it even though it could help cut down on "defensive medicine," a far-too-common practice of ordering unneeded tests and procedures as lawsuit protection. Debating health care without addressing defensive medicine "would be a scandal," writes Howard, "a willful refusal by Congress to deal with one of the causes of skyrocketing health-care costs."

CONTINUED ON newsSLA2

news20090731SLT2

[Today's Paper: A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers] from [Slate Magazine]

No Cash Left for Clunkers
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, July 31, 2009, at 6:45 AM ET

CONTINUED FROM newsSLT1

All the papers front a picture of the hotly anticipated "beer summit" with President Obama, Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. At the last minute, the White House decided to include Vice President Joe Biden, which, as the NYT points out, allowed the administration to "add balance to the photo op that the White House presented: two black guys, two white guys, sitting around a table." Obama and Biden were dressed "in exaggerated casual attire," as the WSJ puts it, in order to highlight that this was supposed to be a friendly, happy hour conversation. But the two guests wore ties and dark jackets, despite the heat. A small group of reporters and photographers were allowed to watch the exciting action for only 30 seconds from about 50 feet away. What happened? Not surprisingly, nothing really. They talked, exchanged pleasantries, and no one apologized. But Gates and Crowley did apparently agree to have lunch together soon.

In the Post's op-ed page, Slate founder Michael Kinsley writes that Obama's "rhetorical goofs" are different from the standard political "gaffe," which usually involves a politician accidentally telling the truth. Obama's "goofs" usually are a result of talking before he thinks through everything he wants to say. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't say it. "The more concerned you are to avoid saying anything wrong or offensive," writes Kinsley, "the less likely you are to say anything inspiring or true."

news20090730BRT

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
July 30
Henry Moore
Henry Moore, born this day in 1898, was an English sculptor whose organically shaped, abstract figures in bronze and stone constitute the major 20th-century manifestation of the humanist tradition in sculpture.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
July 30
1898: Death of Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck—who, as prime minister of Prussia (1862–73, 1873–90), used ruthlessness and moderation to unify Germany, founding the German Empire (1871) and serving as its first chancellor (1871–90)—died this day in 1898.

1975: Former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

1956: The phrase “In God we trust” legally became the national motto of the United States.

1942: Frank Sinatra sang with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in his last recording before venturing on a solo career.

1540: Lutheran clergyman Robert Barnes was burned as a heretic after being used by Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII to gain European support for their antipapal movement in England.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
July 30
History is bunk.
    Henry Forf (born this day in 1863)

歴史などナンセンスじゃ。
Rekishi-nado nansensu-ja.

news20090730JT1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Uighur activist calls on Japan to probe riot
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

Japan must not turn a blind eye to China's suppression of ethnic minorities and should take the on responsibility of assisting them, the president of the World Uighur Congress said Wednesday.

Rebiya Kadeer, 62, who heads the Uighur rights movement, called on Japan to dispatch an investigative unit to look into the July 5 riot in Urumqi that left nearly 200 dead and 1,800 wounded.

"China has only put forward numbers that work in favor of their government," the activist said at a news conference in Tokyo, saying at least 10,000 Uighurs have disappeared since the clash.

Kadeer said she was disappointed with the international community for not taking notice of Beijing's responsibility in the deadly quarrel.

The activist, who arrived Tuesday, said she asked Japanese lawmakers to persuade Beijing to hold talks with her group and release Uighur political prisoners. She also asked the Diet members to push the U.N. to look into the incident.

"If the missing Uighurs are dead, we need to find out where they are buried. If they were arrested, we must know where they are being held captive," she said.

China, which has expressed its dissatisfaction with Japan for letting Kadeer visit, has accused her of masterminding the Urumqi rioting. She denied the allegations, saying Beijing triggered the conflict by repressing the Uighur minority.

"The event on July 5 was originally a peaceful demonstration," Kadeer said, and the violence broke out after the Chinese government turned it into a riot.

She insisted that Beijing's decades-long repression has hit the mostly Muslim community hard, referring to some of China's policies against the Uighurs as "ethnic cleansing."

Kadeer, who was a political prisoner for nine years, said her husband and two children were also held for several years behind bars.

"There is an area in Uighur where about 1,000 households reside. You visit there today and there will be no males over 10 years old," she said, explaining that the central government has pursued a policy of dismantling the ethnic minority.

Tension was in the air after Kadeer arrived for her three-day visit to Tokyo, with the Chinese government criticizing Japan for allowing her entry. Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Kazuo Kodama told reporters Tuesday that Kadeer's visa was issued based on the usual procedures and that it should not affect bilateral ties with China.

Kadeer resides in Washington in self-imposed exile.

Ambassador called
BEJING (Kyodo) Chinese on Wednesday summoned Japanese Ambassador to Beijing Yuji Miyamoto to the Foreign Ministry and filed a protest over the visit of Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer to Japan.

Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei told Miyamoto that China wants Tokyo to act immediately to prevent Kadeer from conducting anti-China separatist activities during her stay in Japan, according to a diplomat at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing.

Kadeer arrived in Japan on Tuesday on a three-day visit.

Prior to summoning Miyamoto, the Chinese Foreign Ministry had already voiced "strong dissatisfaction" over Kadeer's visit to the country.

Miyamoto was quoted as telling Wu that issuing a visa to Kadeer was appropriate, in line with Japanese law.

Beijing accuses Kadeer, who is in self-imposed exile in Washington, of masterminding the July 5 riots in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, which left at least 192 people dead and 1,800 others injured in the country's worst ethnic violence in decades.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
LDP seeks to reduce size of Diet
10% Lower House downsizing, future sales tax hike among goals in pending poll platform

(Kyodo News) The Liberal Democratic Party will pledge a greater than 10 percent reduction in the number of seats in the Lower House in its policy platform for the Aug. 30 general election, party sources said Wednesday.

The manifesto, which Prime Minister Taro Aso is to unveil Friday as LDP chief, will stipulate that the party trim the powerful chamber's 480 seats by "at least 10 percent" before the next Lower House election after the Aug. 30 poll, the sources said.

In what appears to be a streamlining and cost-cutting measure, the party will "aim for at least a 30 percent reduction in total parliamentary seats" in both houses of the Diet, the platform will say, without mentioning whether the LDP seeks a one-house parliament as called for by some members, they said.

The pledges will be part of a category called "responsibility," one of three major areas in the manifesto along with "reassurance" and "vitality."

On so-called hereditary candidates, the LDP, trailing the Democratic Party of Japan in opinion polls, will vow not to field or support spouses or other relatives within the third generation of retiring lawmakers in their districts in subsequent elections after the Aug. 30 poll..

In addition, it will ban retiring members from transferring their political funds to their successors.

To make it easier for people to run for national election, it will pursue a legal change to enable candidates to take campaign leave or return to their previous careers after serving as a Diet member if they are elected, the sources said.

On political donations, often the source of scandal, the platform will call for expanding tax incentives for individual contributions, and come up with ways within a year to make funds transparent and prevent law violations.

It will also specifically pledge to try to make transparent cash flows regarding the political activities of labor unions, whose national confederation, Rengo, supports the DPJ.

According to part of a draft outline of the party's platform obtained separately, the LDP also pledges to overhaul the tax system, including hiking the consumption tax, shortly after the economy enters a recovery.

In the draft platform, the LDP has stipulated its goal of a tax system overhaul "without delay" after the economy sees an upturn and legally required measures are implemented by fiscal 2011.

The LDP also says it will act within three years to aid people who are receiving no, or very little, pension benefits.

The draft also mentions the scandal of lost pension records that surfaced in 2007, saying the problem should be solved by the end of next year, while proposing to establish a panel to reflect public opinions in national welfare policymaking.

On Monday, the DPJ unveiled its platform, which features a promise to realize a government led by politicians rather than bureaucrats with an eye to ending the LDP's long grip on power in the upcoming House of Representatives election.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Panel urges laws to assist Ainu, preserve culture

(Kyodo News) A government panel on the Ainu urged the government Wednesday to take concrete steps to improve their lives and promote their culture through new legislation.

The eight-member panel submitted a report to Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura after panel members approved it. The government plans to set up a consultative body involving officials and some Ainu to study potential policies.

"The government solemnly acknowledges the history of the Ainu people's suffering and pledges to work on the issue continuously and steadily toward realizing the proposals put forward in the report," Kawamura said before receiving the report.

The Ainu, who have lived for centuries in Hokkaido and in nearby areas, including the Sakhalin and Kuril islands, have their own language and customs, but were assimilated by the government beginning around the late Edo Period (1603-1867).

In the 42-page report, the panel acknowledged that the land ownership and assimilation policies implemented while the government was modernizing the state dealt a serious blow to the culture of the indigenous people.

Given such historical backgrounds, the panel said the government bears a "strong responsibility" for helping restore Ainu culture and it should introduce remedial policies through legislation.

Chaired by Koji Sato, a Kyoto University professor emeritus, the panel included Tadashi Kato, who heads the Ainu Association of Hokkaido.

The panel urged the government to compile measures to improve the lot of the Ainu, many of whom lead underprivileged lives, so they can begin preserving their culture and pass it on to future generations.

As a symbol of the Ainu's coexistence with the rest of Japanese society, the panel proposed to build parks or similar space surrounded by nature, where people can learn about and experience Ainu culture.

These facilities would embody the efforts to build a society where there is "a diverse and rich culture that respects the dignity of indigenous people and makes no discrimination," the report says.

The panel also stressed the need to make use of land and water resources to enable the Ainu to practice their traditions, including fishing for salmon in rivers.

Meanwhile, the panel pointed out that measures aimed at improving the living conditions of the Ainu have so far been limited to those living in Hokkaido, who numbered about 24,000 in a 2006 survey.

The panel thus urged that measures for the Ainu be considered from a broader, national standpoint so they can take control of their lives and carry on their tradition no matter where they live.

news20090730JT2

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Nomura posts first quarterly profit since '07

(Bloomberg) Nomura Holdings Inc. posted on Wednesday its first quarterly profit since 2007 as a stock market revival boosted trading and investment banking.

Japan's largest brokerage reported net income of \11.4 billion for the three months that ended June 30, compared with a loss of \76.6 billion a year earlier. Trading profit rose to \121 billion from 10.5 billion a year ago.

The result, which beat analysts' expectations for net income of 1.5 billion, keeps alive a pledge by Chief Executive Officer Kenichi Watanabe to resume dividend payments.

Nomura's acquisition of parts of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. also helped the company benefit from an increase in trading and share sales during the best quarter for global stocks since 1998.

"The Lehman purchase boosted Nomura in trading, and generating global underwriting and M&A business will be on the agenda now," Azuma Ohno, an analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG, said before the earnings report. "We can expect Nomura to continue posting profits."

Investment banking fees increased to \29.7 billion in the first quarter from \13.4 billion a year ago, while brokerage commissions rose to \102 billion from \82.2 billion, Nomura said. The Nikkei average gained 23 percent during the quarter.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Ministry upgrades view of economy

(Kyodo News) The Finance Ministry on Wednesday upgraded its overall assessment of the economy for the first time since April 2004, citing improvements in industrial production and consumer spending.

For the April-June quarter, the ministry said the economy as a whole showed signs it was picking up or moderating the pace of its decline, although it remains in a difficult situation.

The ministry had described the economy as "worsening and becoming severe" in its report for the previous three months, the fifth consecutive quarterly downgrade.

The quarterly report is based on evaluations made by the ministry's Finance Bureaus in 11 regions — Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Hokuriku, Tokai, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu, Fukuoka and Okinawa.

In the latest report, the ministry raised its evaluations for 10 of the 11 regions, the first time since April 2000, only maintaining its assessment for Okinawa.

The upgrades were mainly due to increasing factory output, the ministry said, noting that industries, including those related to chemical products, steel, cars and electronic parts, have been supported by recovering demand from abroad, especially China.

Okinawa was not part of the uptrend as its economy is heavily reliant on tourism rather than manufacturing, a Finance Ministry official said.

It also said economic conditions in all 47 prefectures except Okinawa improved from the previous three months. The number of prefectures that saw an improvement is the largest since comparable data first became available in January 2004, according to the ministry.

The ministry upgraded its assessments of personal spending for five regions — Tohoku, Kanto, Tokai, Shikoku and Kyushu — and maintained them for the remaining six regions.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Aussie fund offers Haneda divestment

(Kyodo News) Australian investment fund Macquarie Group has offered to withdraw investment from Japan Airport Terminal Co., the operator of terminal buildings at Tokyo's Haneda airport, said Wednesday.

In response to Japan Airport Terminal's just-closed tender offer for up to 21.9 percent of its own shares in terms of voting rights, the Australian fund has offered to sell its entire 19.91 percent stake.

Through its International Infrastructure Holdings B.V. unit, Macquarie Group is Japan Airport Terminal's largest shareholder, owning some 20 million shares.

Share offers have totaled 20.06 million shares, or 19.97 percent of Japan Airport Terminal's outstanding shares, falling short of the 21.9 percent tender offer limit. Japan Airport Terminal will acquire all offered shares for about \20.06 billion, or \1,000 per share.

Macquarie Group's acquisition of a nearly 20 percent stake in Japan Airport Terminal was controversial, prompting the transport ministry to consider restrictions on large investment by foreign companies in Japanese airport operators for national security reasons.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Air bag faults prompt Honda recall

(Kyodo News) Honda Motor Co. is recalling 1,532 Inspires and Sabers because their driver-side air bags could rupture, a report filed with the transport ministry said Wednesday.

The inflator could produce excessive pressure and cause metal fragments to pass through the air bag, possibly resulting in injury, the ministry said.

The report was submitted to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry by Honda's U.S. unit, Honda of America Mfg. Inc., in the wake of seven air bag accidents in the United States, including one in which a driver died.

The vehicles subject to the recall were manufactured in the United States between March and October 2001 and sold in Japan. Honda will replace the inflators with new ones.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Retail sales down for 10th month

(The Associated Press) Retail sales fell for the 10th consecutive month in June as the deteriorating job market led consumers to cut spending.

Retail sales fell 3 percent from a year earlier to 10.65 billion, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday. The pace of decline accelerated for the first time since February, suggesting that government stimulus measures intended to boost spending have had a limited impact.

Large-scale outlets, including department stores and supermarkets, fared worse, with sales tumbling 5.1 percent for the 11th month of decline.

Recent signs indicate the economy is shaking off its steepest recession since World War II. Exports are rising, factories are boosting output and companies are forecasting better earnings this year.

But economists worry that lackluster domestic demand, which accounts for more than half of the economy, could send prices lower and undermine the nascent recovery.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Honda raises full-year forecast

(Bloomberg) Honda Motor Co. raised its full-year profit forecast Wednesday as government stimulus measures in its largest markets boost demand for fuel-efficient vehicles.

Honda expects net income of ¥55 billion in the year ending March, compared with an earlier forecast of ¥40 billion, it said in a statement. The company unexpectedly reported a first-quarter profit of ¥7.5 billion.

The United States, Germany, Japan and China have begun stimulus programs that give consumers credits, tax breaks and subsidies for trading in old cars for new fuel-efficient models. The policies are aimed at stemming the plunge in auto demand that helped push General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC into bankruptcy.

"With the stimulus measures, the demand outlook is improving from what it was three months ago," said Mamoru Kato, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Center in Nagoya. Honda didn't include the effect of government incentives in its forecast given in April.

Honda expects sales to recover in the second half of the year and is raising funds in anticipation of an increased demand for car loans.

The "cash-for-clunkers" program in the U.S., which gives consumers as much as $4,500 (about ¥425,000) for old cars, may spark 250,000 new car sales, lawmakers have said. Still, industrywide global light-vehicle output is forecast to fall 20 percent this year to 52.6 million units, according to automotive consulting CSM Worldwide.

Honda has cut production to reduce inventory to match auto demand. Output fell for an 11th straight month in June and totaled 1.32 million units for the first six months, a 34 percent decline. The carmaker's sales in Europe fell 12 percent in the first half.

The company made a first-quarter operating profit of ¥25.1 billion on sales of ¥2 trillion. It was expected to report a first-quarter net loss of ¥40 billion, according to the median of four analysts estimates compiled by Bloomberg.