福島第１原発：飯舘村の英国人ＡＬＴ 再び来日し教壇に
2011年5月28日 1
東京電力福島第１原発事故の計画的避難区域に指定され、全村避難が始まった福島県飯舘村で唯一の英国人ＡＬＴ（外国語指導助手）、ハナ・サンプターさん（２３）が、勤め先の村立飯舘中が仮住まいしている同県川俣町で教壇に立ち続けている。英国政府の退避勧告により一度は帰国したが、４月末に再来日し、福島市で避難生活を送りながら村民と一緒に村へ戻る日を待ち望んでいる。・・・・・
避難先とはいえ、サンプターさんの授業では「眠い」と思わずつぶやいた生徒に「アー・ユー・スリーピー？」と切り返したり、笑顔が絶えない。遠藤和雄校長（５３）は「通常の学校運営が困難な状況だが、彼女がいてくれることで本来に近い形で学習を進めることができ、生徒に安心感を与えている。村が危機にひんしている中、本当に感謝している」と話す。・・・・・
再来日後は福島市の友人宅アパートのリビングで寝泊まりし、車で約１時間かけて通った。「何年かかるか分からないけど一日も早く皆で一緒に飯舘に戻りたい」。思いは村人と同じだ。【金寿英】
ありがとう。感謝！
貯金尽き生活困窮「食べていけない」 ７０日以上 缶詰中心の食生活
2011.5.28
はやく、義援金の給付してあげてよ。
コロ、また会えるなんて 震災で不明のペットと再会
2011年5月28日
岩手県陸前高田市の菅原広世（ひろせ）さん（７０）とトシ子さん（６８）は最近、津波で犠牲になった一人娘の一家が飼っていたオス犬「コロ」と暮らし始めた。不明となったコロは震災から２８日後、保健所で見つかった。
コロは６歳。亡くなった孫の高城隆世（りゅうせい）君（１３）の７歳の誕生プレゼントだった。娘恵子さん（４４）は自宅から車で避難中に津波に巻き込まれた。友人宅にいた隆世君は母を心配して自宅に戻った。ふたりはともに遺体で発見された。
土台だけが残った自宅跡にコロをつないでいた小屋はない。恵子さんの夫郁雄さん（５２）が諦めの気持ちで保健所に足を運んだら、やせこけたコロがいた。目が合うと鼻をくんくん鳴らした。首に散歩用の赤いリードがついていた。震災数日後、隆世君の遺体が見つかった川の近くで保護されたとわかった。「家に戻った隆世がつけかえ、一緒に逃げようとしたのだろう」と郁雄さん。
悲しみを背負いながら・・・・
BBC
28 May 2011
Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan 'unready for typhoon
スポニチ
祈るのみ…あきれた東電、福島原発“台風対策なし”
たしかにあきれるが、しかし、政府も報道も、東電を信じよう、東電を任せよう、ということではなかったのか？
ロシアトゥデイ
Japan's nuclear troubles extend into Russia
The Russian used auto industry relies on used car shipments from Japanese companies that have dried up since the March earthquake and problems at the Fukushima plant.
日本の原発の影響で、日本からロシアへの中古車の輸出が激減。困ったもんだ、とディーラー。
九電の営業所に火炎瓶投げ込まれる 佐賀、炎上せず
2011年5月28日
左でも右でも馬鹿はいるもんだね。
Police crack down on Spanish anti-austerity camp
27.05.2011 @ 18:37 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Police launched a morning crackdown on anti-austerity protesters camped out in the main square in the Catalan city of Barcelona on Friday (27 May).
According to eyewitnesses, riot police moved in to Placa de Catalunya between 7 and 8 am, firing rubber bullets, tear gas and baton-charging the protesters. Footage from the encampment shows police attacking peaceful demonstrators without prior provocation.
Some two individuals were arrested, with 46 injured and five admitted to hospital
小沢氏、米紙に「汚染はどんどん広がる」
「汚染はどんどん広がるだろう。もう（周辺には）住めない。黙っていたら、東京もアウトになる」と訴えた。
（2011年5月28日02時14分 読売新聞
この男、判断は留保していたが、しかし、結局、彼に対する批評家の言が正しかったのだろう。要するに、権力奪取のためなら何でもいう、する、男。
EUobserver
EU reaches uneasy compromise over nuclear 'stress tests'
14 EU member states produce nuclear energy (Photo: Nicholas Sideras)
ANDREW WILLIS
25.05.2011 @ 15:46 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union has reached a broad agreement on the criteria for 'stress testing' the region's 143 nuclear power plants, the bloc's principle safety response following the accident at Japan's Fukushima power station.
EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger announced the compromise deal in Brussels on Wednesday (25 May), after weeks of wrangling between EU member states over whether to include terrorist strikes in the region-wide safety assessment.
福島の原発をうけて新しい原発の安全基準を模索しているが、テロ対策については意見が一致していない、と。
| 27.05.2011
German farmers angry over ambiguous E. coli warnings
Germany's E. coli outbreak is a catastrophe for the nation's farmers, but they also think authorities made it worse with confusing warnings. Some are calling for better communication during health scares.
ドイツの大腸菌問題で、農家が大迷惑、と。野菜に原因があるという発表で、地域の限定が曖昧だったので、風評被害ってやつだろうね。
BBC
27 May 2011 Last updated at 11:03
Thailand arrests US citizen for 'insult to monarchy
タイでアメリカ人が不敬罪 lese majestyで逮捕される、と。
ロシアトゥデイ
FBI targeting political activists as terrorists
Published: 26 May, 2011,
FBIがテロの名目で環境主義者など政治活動家を取り締まっている、と。
ロシアトゥデイ
US justice goes commercial
permalink email story to a friend print version
Published: 26 May, 2011,
With well over two million people in jail, the US has the highest prison population in the world. But some are seeing the inside of a cell because dodgy judges are getting kickbacks from the private sector.
Two Pennsylvania judges have made a killing on juvenile prisons. Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were convicted of receiving payoffs of more than two million dollars from the developers of several private detention centers.
According to parents, however, the real crime is that these judges sent more than 5,000 children to those very facilities for crimes as small as fighting on a school bus or posting a parody of their teacher on the web.
Sandy Fonzo’s 17-year-old son Edward was a promising student and sportsman when he was arrested at an underage party. Judge Ciavarella locked him up for six months. Shortly after he got out, Edward committed suicide.
“He never looked into the whole picture of the kids,” Sandy Fonzo explains. “He lined them up one by one and he sent them away, shackled them, sent them to places [where] god knows what went on, and then he throws them back. How does a kid deal with that? My son just never recovered from it.”
Ciavarella sent a 12-year-old boy to jail for two years for scratching his mom’s car while joy-riding. He also locked up a teenager for several months over throwing a piece of steak at his mother’s boyfriend.
“I could not believe that I could be sent away for something as stupid as throwing a steak,” the young man said later.
The case of the two Pennsylvania judges being in bed with local private prisons could be just the tip of the iceberg. A recent report revealed America’s largest prison corporations pour hundreds of thousands into the campaigns of governors, state legislators and judges in the hope of advancing their agenda. And it seems to be working.
The number of private prisons in the US is growing rapidly.
“All their money, every penny they get is tax payer dollars they get from the government,” an activist Paul Wright explains. “So, what they do is, they get the money from the government to house prisoners and they turn around and spend some of that money by giving it back to the politicians that pushed the laws and the policies that lead to both more people being incarcerated and more people being incarcerated in private prisons. So, it’s almost money laundering of tax dollars.”
And as the number of prisons increases, so to does the number of prisoners. The US has 2.3 million people behind bars, more than any other country in the world. China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison.
裁判官が民営収容所から賄賂を受け取っていた、と。そして、不要に子供たちをその民営の少年院に送っていたのではないか、と。つまり、子供を沢山送れば、民営少年院の需要がますわけだね。*
毎日
社説：証言強要疑惑 警察庁主導の調査必要
現在、政府が検討している取り調べの可視化（録音・録画）は、裁判員裁判対象事件を念頭に置き、公選法違反事件は対象外である。今後、可視化の範囲も議論すべきだ。
あたりまえ。しかし、監査機関は独立にすべきだ。
刑事司法改革 時代に合う捜査手法の検討を（5月27日付・読売社説）
で、これは、日本の捜査手法および検察の問題点。英語であるから、参照にしてほしい。
Modernize methods of criminal investigation
The Yomiuri Shimbun
An ideal criminal justice system would never fail to solve a case and would maintain order without proceeding on any false charges.
Justice Minister Satsuki Eda told his ministry's Legislative Council, an advisory panel, in mid-May to review the nation's criminal justice system. He decided to review the system because cracks began to show in its current investigation methods. For instance, Atsuko Muraki, a former senior official of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, was arrested in 2009 on charges of abusing a postal discount system, but was exonerated last year.
Issues to be discussed at the council will include legislation for "visualizing" interrogations by tape-recording and videotaping so that the investigation process can be studied later. We hope the council will uncover problems in the system and try to construct a judiciary that is abreast of the times.
===
Flaw in current system
One characteristic of Japan's criminal justice system is that detaining and questioning a suspect to determine the truth is a major part of the investigation. Confession statements made in that process have so far served as strong evidence for judges to render guilty verdicts.
This can make prosecutors and police officers prone to maneuver or force suspects to tell what they want to hear so the suspect's statements suit the authorities' presumptions. This has been pointed out as a breeding ground for false convictions.
However, it is also a fact that prosecutors and police officers have a very limited number of investigation methods other than interrogations at their disposal. If it institutionalizes visualization of interrogations to increase their transparency, the Justice Ministry should also seriously consider introducing a variety of investigative methods used in the United States and other Western countries.
For instance, prosecutors and police officers in those countries are often allowed to wiretap communications of suspects while investigating cases of murder, arson and bribery. In many of these countries, they are also empowered to take DNA from suspects and convicts.
Plea bargains are another common tool in those countries. In plea bargaining, prosecutors and police officers can promise to seek lighter penalties if a suspect confesses to the charges against him, or they may give up prosecuting suspects who help in investigations by informing on accomplices or divulging other facts.
In Japan, however, most of those methods are not allowed. Wiretapping is permitted in very few cases, such as crimes related to weapons and drugs. In fact, only a very small number of cases have involved wiretapping in this country.
===
Crimes more sophisticated
However, criminals have employed increasingly sophisticated methods in recent years. Gangs are becoming better organized. Recidivism rates are rising. We have to say that current investigative methods, dependent on interrogations, are becoming obsolete.
Prosecutors plan to test the visualization of interrogations for one year until next April. The special investigation unit of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office earlier this month began videotaping the entire process of questioning in a case related to an allegation of aggravated breach of trust. Results of these experiments must be reflected in discussions at the Legislative Council.
In its deliberations, the council also should consider the views of various people such as volunteer probation officers, who are engaged in the rehabilitation of parolees, in addition to crime victims and bereaved families.
The council also should develop an environment in which as many people as possible will become interested in discussions of the criminal justice system reform, by disclosing the minutes of its discussions to the public.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 27, 2011)
(May. 28, 2011)
布川事件再審 冤罪生んだ恣意的な証拠開示（5月25日付・読売社説）
Arbitrary evidence disclosure to blame for false accusations
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Disclose all evidence
The deposition that included this testimony was disclosed by the prosecutors for the first time in 2001 when Sugiyama and Sakurai applied for a retrial for the second time. The deposition proved a decisive factor behind the court agreeing to the retrial.
The court did not totally accept the credibility of her testimony. However, if the testimony had been made known much earlier, the original trial might have followed a different course.
The prosecutors obviously made arbitrary judgments about what evidence to disclose. Evidence that would work to their disadvantage was withheld.
With the introduction of the lay judge system, prosecutors are, in principle, obliged to submit all evidence related to points of contention before the first hearing is held. However, prosecutors tend to keep almost all the evidence under their control.
Trials can be conducted fairly only if prosecutors disclose all the evidence, even that which might work to their disadvantage. Judges, for their part, should encourage disclosure of evidence.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, May 25, 2011)
(May. 26, 2011)
*Penn. judge convicted in 'for profit' scheme also faces lawsuit
February 21, 2011
A Pennsylvania judge recently convicted for putting juveniles into "for profit" detention centers is being sued, a civil rights attorney said Monday.
The class-action civil lawsuit was originally filed in 2009. It names several defendents, including Mark Ciavarella, whose alleged illegal actions date back to 2003, on and off the bench.
The former Luzerne County judge was found guilty Friday of 12 of 39 racketeering and fraud charges for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from friends who owned detention centers to which he sent juveniles.
I can't say I've ever seen something as bad as kids being incarcerated for no reason at all," attorney Barry Dyler told CNN affiliate WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
The case against Ciavarella made national headlines when a distraught mother lashed out Friday at the former judge after his conviction.
Sandy Fonzo's 17-year-old son, Edward Kenzakowski, spent six months in a detention center after Ciavarella sentenced him for possession of drug paraphernalia.
According to Fonzo, her son, who had no prior record, was never able to recover and eventually took his own life.
・・・・・
The class-action suit alleges that Ciavarella and another judge devised a "material scheme to abuse the juvenile system and deprive allegedly deliquent children and their parents of clearly established civil rights for significant personal gain."
The suit alleges RICO violations, civil conspiracy, wrongful imprisonment and violation of due process and civil rights.
It also alleges the activity goes back several years and includes Ciavarella and his wife, Cynthia, another former judge, Michael Conahan, and his wife, Barbara.
It names the facilities used by the judges, their owners and anyone who help build, operate or collected any money in connection with the "alleged scheme."
Dyller said families whose children had been wrongly imprisoned began reaching out to him after charges were brought against Ciavarella.
"Thousands of kids appeared before Mark Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008. That's the time period we're looking at," Dyller told WBRE.
The suit also alleges the defendents "prohibited or discouraged juveniles from having legal representation during court proceedings," creating the potential for an increased number of juvenile offenders to be sent to specific detention facilities.
Ciavarella is free on bond until his sentencing. He could face up to 157 years in prison.
"There is no justice," Fonzo said.
"(Ciavarella) will never receive my sentence," she said. "I have nothing."