Tara Chandra Tripathi Visits JAPAN

Tara Chandra Tripathi Visits JAPAN and SOLVES the MYSTERY OF SUPER ECONMY ECO Friendly!


Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 148

Palash Biswas

Japanese automobile industry
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A concept vehicle by LexusThe Japanese automotive industry is one of the most prominent industries in the world. Japan is the world's largest vehicle manufacturer. It is home to great number of companies that produces cars, construction vehicles, motorcycles, ATVs, engines, etc. Japanese auto companies are usually part of keiretsus like Sumitomo and Mitsubishi.

Japanese automotive manufacturers include Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Subaru, Isuzu, Suzuki, Hino, Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Komatsu. They are very well-recognized names throughout the world, with a well-established advanced and efficient industry that produces many high-quality vehicles for the global market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_automobile_industry

Tokyo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tokyo (??, Tokyo?), officially Tokyo Metropolis (???, Tokyo-to?),[2] is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshu. The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, cover the area that was once the city of Tokyo in the eastern part of the prefecture, and total over 8 million people. The population of the prefecture exceeds 12 million. The prefecture is the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous metropolitan area with 35 million people.

Tokyo is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo

Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Japan (?? Nihon or Nippon?, officially ??? Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku) is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters which make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin country", which is why Japan is sometimes identified as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan comprises over 3,000 islands[3] making it an archipelago. The largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, together accounting for 97% of Japan's land area. Most of the islands are mountainous, many volcanic; for example, Japan’s highest peak, Mount Fuji, is a volcano. Japan has the world's tenth largest population, with about 128 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

Archaeological research indicates that people were living on the islands of Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan begins with brief appearances in Chinese history texts from the first century A.D. Influence from the outside world followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. Since adopting its constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament, the Diet.

A major economic power,[4] Japan has the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP and the third largest in purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, G8, OECD and APEC, with the world's fifth largest defense budget. It is also the world's fourth largest exporter and sixth largest importer. It is a developed country with high living standards (8th highest HDI), the longest life expectancy in the world (according to UN estimates);[5] and is a world leader in technology, machinery, and robotics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy

Feature: Iraqis say farewell to George W. Bush
Xinhua - 1 hour ago
by Gao Shan, Fu Yiming BAGHDAD, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- "You are a liar and a war criminal! Farewell!" blurted Muhammad al-Salami, a professor in Baghdad University, infuriated by the TV footage of the outgoing US President George W. Bush who was giving a ...
Bush’s path from ‘humility’ to ‘bring it on’ Business Mirror
Afghanistan-Iraq Balance to be High on Obama Agenda Voice of America
Indian Express - Pakistan Dawn - AFP - Washington Post

Responsibility is the Theme of Obama's Inauguration Speech, Aides Say
"Responsibility" is the catchword in President-elect Obama's speech -- for government, business and the American people.

FOXNews.com

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Barack Obama's inauguration address will stress "responsibility" by calling on Americans in government and business to embrace a new era of proper behavior.

"Getting our country back on track," is the core theme of the speech, said Obama Press Secretary Rob Gibbs, adding that the president-elect wrote the bulk of it as it is now.

"We need more responsibility and accountability certainly in the way our government acts. We have to have it certainly in many of our financial institutions that sort of have gotten us to where we are in this economic crisis today," he said.

"Obviously the American people are all going to have to give some," Gibbs added, noting that the address will also try to stress that "those that have had the short end of the stick for the last few years (will) get the help that they need."

Gibbs said that the country is at a crossroads, as it has been before, and "we always find ourselves -- at least this country always has -- doing what is necessary to make this country and the lives of the American people better for each and every generation that follows."

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's choice for chief of staff, said Obama's speech Tuesday will ask the nation to reject the "culture of anything goes."

Emanuel said Obama will ask Americans to restore a national value system that honors responsibility and accountability. It harkens back to John F. Kennedy's call for personal sacrifice in his 1960 inauguration address.

Emanuel appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and Gibbs appeared on "FOX News Sunday."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



The Islamic militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip has followed Israel's lead and agreed to a ceasefire. The announcement followed a fresh round of violence!Two prominent India-born executives are the frontrunners for the newly-created post of federal chief technology officer in the incoming Barack Obama Administration!The new Board of Directors of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. said here on Saturday that it has begun discussions with banks and financial institutions to address the issue of liquidity of the beleaguered company!Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) is relieved with no decision on President’s rule in the state but may be in trouble as the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) today made a pitch for the chief minister’s seat!Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday said the National Conference would forge a poll alliance with the Congress for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections!The badge of courage is rightly theirs. The 20 children who will be presented the National Bravery Award 2008 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and will ride down Rajpath on Republic Day are icons at a young age!


Key indices sprung back Friday after a dismal session the previous day, mirroring overseas markets and cheered by signs the US government would do whatever is necessary to prevent its economy from sinking deeper into recession!

The early success of Barack Obama's presidency could hinge on one of the first pieces of legislation Congress sends him -- a huge $825 US President, Past and Present
Obama
billion tax-cut and spending bill to help the staggering U.S. economy. As Obama takes the oath on Tuesday to become president, the first African-American to hold the job, he no doubt will consider in the historic significance of his accomplishment.

But by the time he gets down to business at the White House later in the day, the future will be in focus as he and his fellow Democrats who control Congress ponder the economic package they hope will prevent an outright collapse. Nobody is sure exactly what the final bill will look like, and more importantly whether it will work. "The recovery package ... really causes great excitement for us," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday when she unveiled the legislation and spoke of the need to "turn the economy around for working families." One of her top lieutenants, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, called it "the largest effort by any legislative body on the planet ... to prevent an economic catastrophe."

Beyond helping to stop the hemorrhage of jobs and put the economy back on a growth track, the stimulus bill has much deeper implications for Obama's presidency and for Democrats in Congress who will be seeking reelection in 2010. Without a healthier economy, Obama will have a harder time finding the revenues he will need to enact costly campaign promises.



At a time,while Thousands of runners, many with messages for peace scrawled on their T-shirts, participated in Mumbai's annual marathon, its first international sporting event and the biggest public gathering since the attacks in November, I have to take you in a DIFFERENT JOURNEY to Japan as it relates to OUR INTENSE AMERICANISATION as we fall PREY in CROSS FIRING in AMERICA`s War against terrorism! There happen so many SKELETONS in India INC CUPBOARD as depicted in the DELAY of OIL PRICE CUT for the COMMONERS to BENEFIT the rising ILLUMINITI Ambanies! Thsi OIL CRISIS and OIL ECONOMY tkaes different shape in JAPAN boasting of the GREATEST POST MODERN AUTO INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY. But the OIL War and OIL ECONOMY spares JAPAN even in Glaobal recession just because it has refrained to make OIL the deciding factor of POLITY and ECONOMY! An Indian metropolitan court in Hyderabad has ordered the former chairman, managing director and chief financial officer of embattled Satyam Computer Services be taken into police custody for four days from Sunday. But SATYAM ASATAYM happens to be the HARIKATHA ANANT, the MYTHICAL Spritual Brahaminical Stories sustaining the HEGEMONY of GEMNOCIDE Culture! HOINHE JO RAM RACHI RAKHA, meaninig now whatever WASJHINGTON Dictates, that MUST be the DESTINY of SOUTH ASIAN GOD FEARING Religious people! It is well expressed in GAZA crisis as Hamas said on Sunday it would cease fire immediately along with other militant groups in the Gaza Strip and give Israel, which already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory! White supremacy and ZIONISM have cut very DEEP IN our AMERICANISED shining STARVING India with Intense FOOD Insecurity and inflected with indiscriminate Exploitation of Nature, Natural Resources, Environment, Industrialisation, Globalisation, Privatisation, liberalisation and urbanisation in RETAIL CHAIN Chemical Nuclear suicidal super structure! We have to SACRIFICE our selves as disappearing SPECIES for the SUSTENANCE of HINDU, ZIONIST, WHITE POST MODERN MANUSMRITI APARTHEID Galaxy Order led by US WARMONGER Corporate Imperialism and Global fascism/ Barrack OBAMA or George BUSH remaining QUITE IRRELEVANT! As we the PEOPLE HAVE LOST OUR FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNITY suffereing from DEMENTIOA and controlled by MIND CONTROL Machinery and Brain washing systems of the Global Hegemony of Mass DESTRUCTION!
At a tiem while the HYPOCRITE Marxists ally to make a third Front to capture the State Power at the Centre Accepting and REJECTIN as mayavati the Projected Primeminister face while India INCS optes for Narendra Modi rejectiong Lala Krishana Adwani, at atime while : The 53rd birthday of Bahujan Samaj Party supremo, Mayawati was celebrated with great enthusiasm and fervour at the district collectorate here on Thursday with party ministers and leaders showering praises and praying for her long life,I have decided to take away in the land of SUN RISE to get a different FEEL OF NATURE, ECONOMY, PLOITY,the PEOPLE and CULTURE aliegn to INDIAN People so fastly being AMERICANISED despite so called SUBALTERN Movement led by SC, ST and OBC as well as Minority ICONS side by side Brahaminical Resistance HEGEMONY as in SINGUR and Nandigram of WEST BENGAL ruled By BRAHMIN MARXISTs for no less than thirty years!

All but five US cities will experience job losses this year, with New York suffering the largest decline, according to a forecast Competitive economies
Citigroup
Ghosts of 1929
released by the US Conference of Mayors on Saturday.

Global Insight, an international economic forecasting firm that put together the outlook for the mayors' group, projected that by the end of 2009 one-third of all metropolitan areas in the country would have experienced no overall job growth for the first decade of the century.

New York will likely shed 181,000 jobs this year, with more than 50,000 in the financial services industry alone, the firm said. Los Angeles will lose 164,000 jobs. Overall, 171 cities will see job losses in excess of 2 percent through 2009.

Unemployment rates will rise above 10 percent this year in 70 of the 363 metropolitan areas in the United States, Global Insight said.

In November, 23 cities had jobless rates of at least 10 percent, according to a report released this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while 121 had rates of at least 7 percent.

Metropolitan areas are home to 90 percent of the country's wage income, according to the firm.


My GIC GURUJI Tara Chandra Tripathi recently visited JAPAN since SHUBRA has shifted there from Banglore. Tripathi is a KULIN Kumuni BRAHMINwho taught me the ways to fight Brahaminsism. he appeared as CHARVAK amongst his Disciples and the GIC students used to call him CHANAKYA for his Intelligence. He was a Hindi lecturer for the Sceince students in GIC. He was not my teacher as I opted for ARTS. But he picked up me from my half yearly exams Answer Book. He CAPTURED me. While I passed Intermediate he adviced me to study ENGLISH dumping Hindi. He despised the Hindi departments in Universities and used to say, it would be better for us to learn and work for Hindi at home. He convinced me that ENGLISH is the language of EMPOWERMENT for my People for whom I had to work!

I know well the JAPANESE IMPERIALISM working slowly and definitely inthe Gloabal order in alliance with US Corporate Imperialism. Japan is just waiting for the FALL of America when it should take over the World Order as Japanese Economic Super power. I also know that Japanese robotics may prove more lethal in comparison to Information Technology and Computers!

My friend , the EMINENT Bangladeshi persecuted, banned and Exiled writer Slam Azad often tell that the Japanese happen to be the most INHUMAN. They remain mechanical and you may not impress him on Human Right, nationality and civic rights issue. He told this because JAPAN happens to be the GREATEST DONOR Nation for bangladesh. Hence, the BANGLDESH HEGEMONY responsible for Minority persecution and human right violation may not be influenced even by the UNITED STATES OF America. He suggested me to seek some JAPANESE Avenue to stop Minority persecution in bangladesh and continuous refugee INFLUX from there making complex and IMPOSSIBLE the life of the RESETTLED partition victims of East Benagal! Now see the latest newsbreak as The government of Japan said on Saturday it had pledged to lend Bangladesh nearly $440 million for power generation and bridge construction projects.The commitment came from Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso who had telephoned Bangladesh's new Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to congratulate her after a landslide victory on Jan. 6, Japan's government said in a statement.Aso said the loan was meant for the construction of a power plant, a power distribution project and a bridge improvement project.Japan has been active in giving aid to the power and transportation sectors, and its loan assistance to Bangladesh has risen sharply over the past few years.The interest rate is 0.01 percent per annum and the repayment period is 40 years inclusive of 10-year grace period for the loans.The accumulated total of Japan's loans to Bangladesh since 1973 is about $7.4 billion for 80 projects including three projects under the new package.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sees economic growth under pressure in the next fiscal year beginning April, after growth slowed in the current year amid the global credit crisis, the Economic Times reported.

"Our problems will not be over in the current year. The difficult period will continue into 2009/10," Singh said at an awards function in Mumbai, according to the newspaper.

India's economy is expected to grow by 7-7.5 percent in the current fiscal year after growing about 9 percent for the last three years, a top finance ministry official said on Friday.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday urged Pakistan to fully disclose all facts about the attack in Mumbai last November that killed 179 people and to act swiftly against militant groups on its soil. Then I read MY GURUJI`s experiences during his japan Visit. Recently he has also traveled United States of America and provided us a different vision about the Intimate domestic america!
India has sent evidence to Pakistan that it said linked Pakistani militants to the attacks and has asked for the suspects to be extradited.

"We expect Pakistan to take all the consequent next steps against all those who have planned, organised and executed these horrific crimes," Singh said at a function at the Trident hotel, one of the sites attacked by 10 gunmen.

Pakistan's de facto interior minister Rehman Malik said the government had directed its investigating team to complete its inquiry within 10 days.

"It's a 10-day deadline with the instructions to do it as quickly as possible. The report of their findings can come even before 10 days," the advisor to the prime minister on interior matters told a news conference.

Then I read the TRIAPTHI CHANAKY EXPERIENCES about JAPAN!The article is published in a serial in LOKGANGA, a Hindi little mag published from Dehradoon.

Both India and Japan are engaged in rather pathetic attempts to get into the UN Security Council as veto-holding members, and no prizes for guessing which country is opposing both nations' candidacies: China, of course, which clearly sees itself as the natural hegemon of Asia.

China has come out against Japan's candidacy, claiming, amusingly, that Japan has not atoned for its World War II sins. It is interesting to note that China has been beating Japan with this same stick for over fifty years. Whenever they want to gain an advantage over Japan, they start shouting, 'The rape of Nanjing,' and the Japanese obligingly reach into their pockets. China has extorted at least $10 billion from Japan through guilt-inducement and blackmail.



Tripathi is known for his Materialistic Analysis of History and Culture including literature. We had a friend some MR DAS who had been in Japan for years. We witnessed heated exchanges between triapathi and das in seventies. Das adovocated a SEX Free Developed Japan without ist culter and cultural Icons! he accounted the HI FI Tokyo based Metro industrial Neo Japan. Tripathi despised it. Mr Das dismissed us, Tripathi disciples as we used the Marxist Aesthetics and Language very aggressively. We used to dismiss Japan either as Nazi ALLY or Japanese imperialism. Later we recognised japan as US ally and the Supreme Economic power!Though we always sympathesised with the JAPAN, in which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Destroyed by US Atom Bomb!Though we always tended to be spellbound with the PHOENIX Rise of Jpana from the Atomic Ashes!

Tripathi dealt with the MYSTERY in his specticular teaching style. He went deep into the CULTURAL Roots and Socio Ecological Environment of japan which CONSERVE most its Nature. he focused on Natural Adoption of the Japanese NationalitY in its Technical Industrial superfast Journey to the status of Supreme economic power in this Galaxy!

During second world war , japan was struck by Atom bombes in HIROSHIMA and Nagasaki. it almost over sixty years which happens the exact AGE of the INDEPENDENT India!

JAPAN is a CLUSTER of Barren islands wher some of the ISLANDS have been developed as others remain the dense forests without any fertility or resourse. While, in Comparison, nature has GIFTED Indian sub Continent not only the WIDEST Plains fed by waterful longest rivers and springs with fullmost fertility, but the land is blessed with everything Nature could offer. But we could neithr conserve the environment nor the nature. We spoilt the Natural Resources. Deforestation began with ARYAN Invasion never did stop. We stopped the FLOW of our Rivres. We inflicted the AIR with Chemicals BANNED in the West. We have opted for Nuclear Energy. We tend to be indulged in Wars and Civil Wars!

Acording to Tripathi, Japan spends LEAST on Fuel while most of our national Production and Revenue tend to be DIGESTED by FUEL CRISIS and we always face Foreign Exchange crunch. We have POLITICAL and ECONOMIC Obligations related to FUEL and OIL crisis which determine not only our foreign Policies but the Development and welfare plans!

Japan is FAMOUS for its AUTO INDUSTRY which rules the GLOBE. Ironically, Japan uses the MOTOR Vehicles LEAST. In TOKYO METRO, the people who earn no less than FIFTEEN LAC Dollars per Annume as it happens to be the average per capita income, uses CYCLE as vehicle. Tokyo and Beijing residents are quite Habitual in CYCLING. The Capitals` Lane are full of CYCLES. We never see the cycles in our METRO CITIES. Remember the NEW DELHI scenerio even in Sixties and Seventies while the CYCLE had been the PRIME PUBLIC Convayance. We opted for AUTO so extensively that you won`t be able to locate any CLUSTER of CYCLISTS even in deep rural areas. Indian Air is polluted with OIL, Fuel, chemical and carbondioxide, carbon, Carbon Monooxide and methane everywhere!

It created UNPRECEDENTED ENERGY Crisis which leads our POLITICS, ECONOMY, SOCIETY and Culture.



Japan does not aloow MOTORS in its URBAN Structuer and BYPASSES and Flyovers are the limited areas where a MOTOR may run! We have the MOTORS RUNNING right into our heart and enslaved ourselves to US CORPORATE IMPERIALISM and Zionism.

Japanese Islands are VOLCANOIC. Active and Sleeping Volacanoes are Abundant in Japan. EARTH QUake is daily routine. seven to Nine rector Sacle Earth Quakes are very common in Japan. But it never creates any Clamity as the Housing Technology is quite adapting. It is the same in United sates of America where Tornado, Huricane and cyclones are regular calamities. W e face the calamities but we never adapted Natural protection or Nature friendly Housing. our housing System is like EGYPTIAN Pyramids to bury us LIVE!

Tripathi has accounted japanese land management in detail where land is not indiscriminately aquired for so called development ofr Industrialisation!

More over, tripathi has dealt with the Social and cultural setup at lenghth. japanese happen to be the MOST developed nationality to day. But Japanese PEOPLE refrained from BEING AMERICANISED. They live with their ICONS! They happen to be DEEP ROOTED in their traditional lifestyle though adopting well the Weatern pattern of CIVIC fecelities and Technologies. japanes did not leave their family recipes nor they left or disintegrated the family pattern. WE neevr tried to remain as INDIAN. Interestingly, Foreigners invaded us. Conquered us. They adopted our Culture , Legacy and life style. it began with Aryans. It beame full fledged with SHAKAS and KUSHANs. Then Patahn and Mughals came to India. they did not carry Indian resources and wealth out of India. rather, they enhanced Indian Economy and society with Cultural blends and bondage! Unification was the theme before the BRITISH arrived India. Pilgrimage was used to UNIFY the NATION. Deities and MYTHS were integrited to UNIFY the Nation andat the other hand it elstablished the BRAHMINICAL Hegemony which ENSLAVED the majority People in MANUSMRITI Order. The foreigners never contributed to Enslavement, Persecution , displacement and conversion of the aboriginal indigenous people in India. Deculturisalisation became the TREND with EAST INDIA Comapany. Bengalies adopted the ANGLO SAXON Life Style and Pshyche first. We lost our IDENTITY and Culture in English. This DECULTURISATION and DEINDUSTRIALISATION, Cruel URBANISATION displacing the Indigenous people and deforesting and destrying the Aborignal people remained the POPULAR TREND during two Hundred years of ENGLISH Rule! But BRAHMINS sustained the Ruling Hegemony and further strenghtened it with british Help. Eventually, the Brahmins led by the people like Gandhi, Patel and Nehru, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Lala Lajpat Roy and Bal Gangadhar Tilak succeded to GRAB POWER partitioning India and scrapping the Most Militant Indigenous and Aboriginal, Minority communities. Now, the Brahaminical India adopts AMERICANISM in a Colonila Polity led by world Bank Gangsters and IMMORAL Anti National Imposters! The Production system is destroyed and We DEPEND on SERVICE sector for livelihood and earning under FREEesnSEX Corporate MNC India INC Economy quite contrarily JAPAN. Japanese Economy is essentially JAPAN which has taken CARE to keep NATURE, Natural resources and the People INTACT. DISINTEGRION, DISUNITY, DISORGANISATION and Anarchy, Crime and manipulation, destruction and Annihilation and GENOCIDE Culture being the Imperialist fascist themes in India!

MIGRATION has become the TREND in South Asia! Why should the People go Abroad for Job and Livelihood? North Indian Politicians criticise Bal Thakre and Raj Thakre for SARKAR RAJ as well as MARATHA MANUSH! I personally support maratha Manush but oppose the SARKAR RAJ! Why the People should not get Natural Livelihood and JOB at home, it happens the basic question for me! Why the NATIONALITIES and Identities have not to be ADDRESSED? Why the Nation should be governed by ILLEGAL CORRUPT Governments induldged in defence deals and Strategic Relations with Global Market and corporates>?Why Indian People would be Killed and Annihilated in INDIA INC interest? Why FREE senSEX People would represent INDIA with a little bit of CREAMY Layer dodging all indigenous, aboriginal and Minority communities?


Now, the Washington planted WORLD BANK PENSONER,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the country will have to live with economic woes through the next fiscal because the Government policy measures cannot fully insulate the domestic economy from the impact of the global downturn. However, the easing of inflation has given monetary flexibility to deal with the difficult economic environment, the Prime Minister said.

"Growth in the current year will be lower than the last year ... Our problems will not be over in the current year.

The difficult period will continue into 2009-10," Singh said at the Economic Times Awards function here.

He said the Government would have to continue with the supporting environment next year as well. "Both monetary and fiscal policy will have to be tailored to that objective...

Fortunately the rate of inflation has eased considerably.

Inflation is now 5.2 per cent and is expected to decline further. This gives ample flexibility for monetary policy."

However, the Prime Minister said that the government has limited space for providing more tax cuts in the wake of the growing fiscal deficit even though it (the government) has to "tolerate" it for the next year to accommodate the expenditure needed for stimulating the economy.

The Prime Minister said GDP growth estimates for the current fiscal vary between 6.5 and 7 per cent. The brunt of the recession in several parts of the world is being felt in areas that had seen rapid growth earlier.

The government and the Reserve Bank have announced measures including cuts in interest rates and across-the-board reduction in excise duty to boost demand. Besides, exporters and small-scale industries have been given packages – fiscal and monetary.


Indo Japanese Strategic relation

It is interesting that the incident in Nanjing, even in the most extravagant Chinese claims, counts not more than 250,000 to 300,000 Chinese killed by Japanese invaders, as well as 20,000 women forced into military prostitution, known as comfort women. Compare this to the at least 1 million Tibetans killed by China's ill-named People's Liberation Army, and the thousands of Tibetan women forced to have abortions and sterilised as part of the attempt to destroy the next generation of Tibetans: this is truly cultural and racial genocide.

Where is the atonement for this from China's leaders? Where are the billions of dollars in reparations given to the Tibetans? The answer of course is that there is none of the above. The Chinese, in their own minds, are free to perform the crimes they accuse others of.

The Chinese are the ones most insistent that India should not get a Security Council seat either, so here's one issue on which Japan and India can relate to each other.

Japan has seemingly decided to stop being bullied by China, period. This is reflected in several recent events. The US and Japan made some recent statements about Taiwan's defence, which got China to squawk loudly. Japan has now parceled out oil-drilling rights in the East China Sea in areas that China claims as its exclusive territory. Most of all, Japan is demanding an apology from China for damage to the Japanese embassy and commercial property in the recent, apparently state-orchestrated demonstrations all over China.

Clearly, the Chinese have gone too far. The Japanese depend on several principles of honour and etiquette that they hold most dear. One is wa, harmony, and a preservation of good relationships despite differences of opinion; another is kao, or loss of face, which must be avoided at all costs; and a third is omiyori , empathy, and the ability to imagine another's feelings and to create trust and mutual loyalty.

On all three of these counts, the Chinese have overstepped their boundaries, and I can only assume they did this because of their imperial hubris about how they are going to be masters of the universe any day now. They have destroyed harmony, caused severe embarrassment to Japan, and have not empathised with Japan's position. After all, with the world's second-largest economy, it is not unreasonable for Japan to expect to have a say in how the world runs itself, via a seat at the Security Council high table.

In terms of long-term strategy, there is the laughable fiction of the 'peaceful rise of China.' This is just marketing hype, we all know that China is not going to the peaceful, because they have throughout their history been an imperialist nation. Furthermore, they have the need to kill off 30 million young men who will never find wives because there are that many 'missing women' from the one-child policy, and they are therefore are likely to be delinquents. The best way to manage their excess energy would be to go to war to ensure a large number of them get killed and cause no further trouble.

China is expanding its military, building up a blue-water navy, and enhancing its proliferation activities in missiles and nuclear technology. All this adds up to a formidable challenge. It is likely that the Chinese will attack Russian Siberia for its oil and gas, attack Taiwan to capture it, and attack Japan either directly or through its proxy North Korea, to cripple its economy. The American nuclear and other security umbrella that Japan currently enjoys may become more toothless over time. The clear implication is that Japan will cease sooner of later to be pacifist, and build up its armed forces.

There is definitely a need for Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, India and others threatened by China's ravenous appetite for lebensraum, resources and hegemonism to get together and 'contain' China. This is a context in which Japan and India could cooperate. For instance, if necessary, India should proliferate its nuclear and missile technology to Japan. After all, China has been kind enough to do that for all of India's enemies.

The second linkage is cultural. Many Japanese view India as the Holy Land of their Buddhist religion. In particular, Zen Buddhism was created by the venerated preceptor Daruma, who was in fact the monk Bodhidharma who went from Kodungalloor in Kerala [Images] (some say from Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu). There are also innumerable cultural similarities, for instance between Kabuki and Kathakali classical dances, that could be expanded upon.

I have traveled extensively in Japan, and I have found the people there to have generally positive feelings about India as a culture and a civilisation. Increasing numbers of young Japanese come to India, for instance the 28-year-old woman I met in Hampi a while ago, who had spent most of the previous year backpacking in India. It is true that there are practical difficulties: Japanese are highly sensitive to dirt and disease and squalor; furthermore they prefer to eat Japanese food and entertain Japanese-style, and all these are problems in India. But with more expatriates living in India, things will improve.

The interesting thing is that Japanese don't appear to hold the same kind of racism towards Indians that Chinese do (although the Chinese and Koreans constantly complain about Japanese racism). In any Chinese-dominated place, such as Singapore, Hong Kong or mainland China, racism against Indians is quite palpable. Not so in Japan. By the way, Indian restaurants are popular (I remember Kerala in Kyoto, Moti in Tokyo's Akasaka precinct, and Nair-san's on the Ginza) and one of the favorite fast foods is kari-raisu which bears little resemblance to Indian curry, although Japanese imagine that it does.

Culturally, I think it is not difficult, strange though it may seem, for Indians and Japanese to get along well. There has never been any direct interaction between the two cultures, or conflict, so there is no baggage. Even the interaction between the Japanese and the Indian National Army in World War II was fairly positive.

In terms of business, Japan-China political friction will only magnify the kinds of commercial problems they have had. So far as I know, Japanese investments in China have seldom provided a good rate of return, and they have found their intellectual property ripped off by the Chinese. For instance, Matsushita, one of the earliest investors in China, is yet to show a proper profit after 20 years, as their local partners siphon off all the value. The situation is similar with many other Japanese investments.

In the meantime, Japanese investments in India have slowly picked up steam. The experiences of Honda, Toyota, Suzuki and Sony have not been too bad in India. Since they have now had sufficient time to evaluate the results of moderately large investments, this may be the time the consensus-based Japanese establishment may be induced to suggest to major Japanese companies that India is a good destination.

One of the favourable factors for India is the demographic time-bomb in Japan, as its population ages rapidly; and since they are not prone to import immigrants, it is likely that they will outsource work. Estimates are that there is a shortage of 300,000 technical workers in Japan, which accounts for 20 per cent of the world's total IT market at about $270 billion. This is clearly an area in which India can engage Japan.

In general, Japanese are much more honorable commercial partners than the Chinese are, and they will ensure that their contractual commitments are met to the letter. Indian firms need to be prepared for this: Japanese expect you to meet your commitments to the letter as well, which may amount to culture shock for Indians used to bending the rules a little. If this tendency can be curbed, Indians will find that the Japanese make fantastically loyal partners for the long-term (unlike Americans who are short-term focused).

Thus, the stars seem to be aligned for an Asia-Pacific alliance between India and Japan that can have significant benefits for India, including positioning India as the growth market with no negative political feelings about Japan, unlike antagonistic China.

This is the best time in years to strike wide-ranging agreements with Japan and wean the latter away from over-dependence on a hostile China. I do hope the mandarins in South Block are up to the challenge.

Comments can be posted on my blog http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/apr/26rajeev.htm
India Inc too draws up wishlist for Prez Obama


18 Jan 2009, 0629 hrs IST, Ishani Duttagupta, Shantanu Nandan Sharma & Lisa Mary Thomson, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: Even as the US gets ready for its biggest party of the year — the Presidential inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday — India Inc too
has its wishlist for the man with America’s top job.

While single tickets for the inauguration are selling for a whopping $20,095 in the US, there’s a great deal of buzz around the event in India too. In fact, many captains of industry here are looking at an economic pep pill from President Obama on the very first day of his assuming office.

Says VN Dhoot, chairman of Videocon Group: “We are expecting Barack Obama to announce a big package on his first day in office. It will boost the sentiment in the US, and in a globalised economy we will also be benefited. If he tackles the issues right, things should improve in six months or so.”

Macro-economic issues related to the US economy are obviously top of the agenda. Adds Yashwant Sinha, senior BJP leader and former Union finance minister: “Obama’s key challenge after assuming office is to keep the economy in order. The manner in which he handles the issue will determine how fast the US economy will revive, which in a way will have a direct impact on the Indian economy as well. The recently announced economic packages in US have so far failed to revive hopes and confidence among investors.”

Of course, there are segments of Indian industry that are joined at the hips with the US economy and will be watching the moves made by the new Democratic government in the US much more closely.

“I think from the sectoral standpoint, people have a watch on outsourcing, where there have been some apprehensions of a job-protection policy. However, I do not think there are real chances of a protectionist step with a lot of impact,” ays Alok Mittal , general partner of VC firm Canaan Partners.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_Inc_too_draws_up_wishlist_for_Prez_Obama/articleshow/3996033.cms
India faces serious threat of a Mumbai rerun: US study


18 Jan 2009, 2119 hrs IST, PTI
NEW YORK: India can expect more terror attacks like the Mumbai carnage from Pakistan-based terrorist groups with high body counts and symbolic How Kasab was caught
India’s most Wanted
What to do during terror attacks?
targets in an escalating terror campaign in South Asia, a study by a leading US think tank has warned.

"India will continue to face a serious jihadist threat from Pakistan-based terrorist groups, and neither India nor US policy is likely to reduce that threat in the near future," said Angel Rabasa, lead author of the study and a senior political scientist with RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.

"Other extremist groups in Pakistan likely will find inspiration in the Mumbai attacks, and we can expect more attacks with high body counts and symbolic targets."

The Mumbai terrorist attacks suggest the possibility of a rise of a strategic terrorist culture, the study said.

The RAND study identifies the operational and tactical features of the attack, evaluates the response of Indian security forces, and analyzes the implications for India, Pakistan and the United States.

Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for the 26/11 strikes.

The report acknowledged that both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, making any military action a "dangerous course", but warned that if India does not respond, that "would signal a lackof Indian resolve or capability."

India Inc's PM choice is not Modi, but Manmohan Singh


18 Jan 2009, 1804 hrs IST, IANS
NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the declaration by some top industrialists that Narendra Modi is prime minister material, the Gujarat chief minister is
not India Inc's chosen one for the top job. They repose faith in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

According to a media poll of senior business executives across the country, Modi comes fourth in their list of preferences. He loses out to even young Congress MP Rahul Gandhi.

Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani comes a close second to Manmohan Singh in the poll, while Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary, is third.

The media poll was held through Thursday and Friday - after two top industrialists backed Modi as prime ministerial candidate during the Vibrant Gujarat Investor's meet in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

The poll that covered 226 senior executives across Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad found that a majority of business leaders preferred to trade enthusiasm for experience, especially in times of crisis.

India's 76-year-old prime minister, Manmohan Singh, won 25 percent votes, while 81-year-old BJP stalwart Advani got 23 percent votes.

Modi, 58, bagged 12 percent votes, while Rahul Gandhi, who is 20 years his junior at 38, was the choice of 14 percent of the business executives surveyed.

'Industry looks for values, leadership qualities and the ability to guide the country through the tough times that we are experiencing now,' said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry.

When it comes to the prime minister's job, Banerjee said: 'We look for the same attributes as every citizen does.'

Industrialists Anil Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal had, while heaping praise on Modi, said Wednesday that he had the qualities to be prime minister.

The BJP went out of its way to downplay the statements, reasserting that Advani was the party's and the National Democratic Alliance's (NDA) prime ministerial candidate.

On Saturday, Modi put all speculation to rest, saying that he wasn't in the race. 'After the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP will come to power and L.K. Advani will be the prime minister,' Modi said at a meeting in Halol, Gujarat.

Countries line up for nuclear business with India


18 Jan 2009, 1616 hrs IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: The race among countries for getting nuclear business in India is hotting up with delegations rushing here to discuss opportunities in
this field.

While France has already walked away with a contract in the multi-billion dollar industry, high-level delegations from Britain and Canada will be here this week to interact with Indian side to explore possibilities for cooperation in the nuclear field.

The visits by the British and Canadian delegations come close on the heels of a similar trip by a team of the US nuclear industry here over a week back for a similar purpose.

The flurry of visits come more than three months after the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) granted waiver to India, ending its 34-year isolation and allowing it to have civil nuclear trade with the world.

A 20-member delegation, headed by British Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise Lord Peter Mandelson, will be here from Monday.

Mandelson and the delegation will also visit Mumbai and Pune.

The business delegation accompanying Mandelson will have executives from civil nuclear companies such as AMEC and Rolls Royce.

In Delhi, Mandelson will meet Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and some other ministers. He will also address the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit and attend a seminar with the accompanying UK nuclear delegation.

The delegation will interact with executive of Indian nuclear companies at a seminar on "Civil Nuclear Power: Opportunities for UK-India collaborations" in Mumbai.

The seminar will offer an excellent opportunity for Indian companies interested in the nuclear energy business to interact and learn more about the expertise of UK companies in the sector and explore the possibility of potential business partnerships in this promising sector, a British High Commission statement said.

Canadian Minister for International Trade Stockwell Day will also arrive here tomorrow on a five-day visit along with a delegation that includes representatives from Canadian Atomic Energy Ltd and SNC Lavalin Nuclear and Cameco Corp.

He will meet Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and is likely to call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. During the meetings, opportunities for civil nuclear trade are expected to dominate.

Ahead of his visit, Day said India is "anticipating the construction of over 30 to 40 nuclear plants over the next several years to produce clean energy. That's a huge opportunity for Canada, again, on the technology side and the supply side."

The Canadian side is expected to try to sell a Candu reactor to India, two of which were sold to India during the early 1950s.

Canada, which had been pressing India to sign NPT before there could be civil nuclear cooperation, appears to have amended its position and is keen to have trade in this field with India.

France, however, has already got business in India. Its nuclear company Areva is expected to deliver 300 tonnes of uranium to India in the next few months. Also negotiations are also at an advance stage for building of six future generation nuclear plants of 1600 MW capacity each.

Impact of global meltdown on Indian economy in 2009

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ashok Handoo | 08 Jan, 2009

With the advent of 2009, economists are debating the extent of the impact of global meltdown on the Indian economy in 2009. The predictions range between somewhat optimistic to fairly pessimistic. But the common thread running is that 2009 will be challenging, indeed.

The Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia says the stimulus package part two is part of the government strategy to deal with the situation as it evolves.

The fiscal and monetary measures taken under the second package are targeted to increase liquidity for pushing up demand, addressing the concerns of the industries and provide incentives to exporters that have been hit by the recessionary conditions.

The first objective is aimed to be met by reducing the key interest rates further the CRR has been cut by point 5 percent, bringing it down to 5%. The repo and the reverse repo rates have been reduced by1% each, bringing them down to 5.5 % and 4% respectively. All this will leave more funds with the banks to enable them to lend more at lower rates of interest.

The second objective will be met by curbing cheap imports. That explains why certain duties on import of cement, Zinc and ferro-alloys, TMT bars etc. which were removed earlier to fight inflation, have been restored.

The third objective to boost exports is hoped to be met by a twin stroke-increasing duty drawbacks, which the exporters claim against the taxes paid on inputs needed to manufacture the item for export and extend the duration of the scheme up to the end of December this year.

The government is able to do this because the inflation rate is consistently falling for the last one and a half month. As Ashok Chawla Economic Affair's Secretary in the Finance Ministry observes "the trend is clear. This will translate into lower interest rates." There is a possibility of inflation rate coming down to a tolerable 5% by the end of the current financial year.

Ahluwalia is confident that despite the gloomy international economic situation India will register growth rate of 7 %.

But, he says, fiscal deficit will be higher than anticipated on account of the stimulus packages announced. The mid-year economic review presented in Parliament, projects its increase to 5 percent against the target of 2.5 percent.

The Reserve Bank of India Governor D Subbarao too admits that 2009 will be "more challenging" adding that the RBI will continue to do everything possible to mitigate the impact of global crisis on the Indian Economy. He however, says that the outlook for India and the world remains uncertain and the path of global crisis and its resolution remains unclear.

That view is shared by the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen as well. Sen recently admitted that he did not have a ready answer to how deeply global meltdown will affect India in the New Year.

The World Bank President Robert Zoellick predicts that the global economy is likely to "worsen" in the first half of 2009. The IMF chief concurs with him.

The RBI has made it more than clear that it has a road map to deal with the situation and steps will be taken as and when required. To quote Subbarao "our approach has been to cross the river by feeling the stones." It has already lowered its key interest rates-the CRR to a 2 year low and the repo and reverse repo rates to an 8 year low.

But there are areas of concern as well. Foreign investment flows have declined. The Commerce Minister Kamal Nath informed the Lok Sabha that "FDI inflows between April and September 2008 showed an increasing trend each month in comparison to the same period in the previous year."

But he cautioned that FDI flows to the developing nations would generally decline in 2009. He was however quick to add that the government has put in place a liberal policy which permits FDI up to 100 percent on the automatic route, in most sectors and activities.

The other area of concern is that India's industrial growth has declined for the first time in 15 years. Since Industry accounts for about 25 percent of the country’s GDP it is bound to affect the growth rate. Exports declined by 9.9% in November last which is also worrisome.

The RBI in its report says there are downsize risks from India's increasing global integration such as the sustained outflow of capital, financial contagion and slowing world growth. It corroborates Prime Ministers view that in a globalised world, we cannot pretend that we will not be affected by the crisis that has been created somewhere else. But it says that use of a combination of instruments to absorb excessive pressure had helped cushion the impact on Indian economy.

The silver lining is that since 50% of our GDP comes from the service sector, which is not affected much by the global recession, growth rate in the current year will end up around 7%. That is what the mid- year review estimates. Five years of nearly 4% farm growth and high domestic saving rate of 36% is seen as making that possible.

That the government is alive to the situation is apparent through the measures it has been taking in association with the RBI from time to time. It has raised public expenditure by Rs.20,000 crore through the first stimulus package announced on December 7. The RBI too injected Rs.300,000 crore liquidity into the system through a series of cuts in rates. The second package will increase availability of funds with banks and non-banking financial companies by 75,000 crore. The state governments too have been allowed additional market borrowings of Rs. 30,000 crore.

It is now for the Banks and the big industries to fulfill their share of responsibilities and ensure that the measures taken are effective. They need to move hand in hand with the government.

Time and again, the Prime Minister has been assuring the people that despite the international environment the country has the capacity, ability and resilience to cope with the present global crisis. He has been citing the economic crisis of 1991 which Asia faced and which was "more" serious, but India overcame it efficiently. With steadfast commitments of all the players in the field we look forward to see India coming out of the present global crisis with minimum bruises.

Note:


The author is a freelance writer
The views expressed by the author in this feature are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of SME Times
http://smetimes.tradeindia.com/smetimes/in-depth/2009/Jan/08/impact-of-global-meltdown-on-indian-economy-in-2009.html

EU to unveil credit derivatives clearing plan - Report


18 Jan 2009, 2246 hrs IST, REUTERS
FRANKFURT: The European Commission will soon unveil proposed rules forcing the multi-trillion-dollar trade in credit derivatives to be cleared via a
central party, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

The move follows the collapse this month of a draft industry agreement to clear credit derivatives trades centrally in the European Union by mid-2009 in an effort to make markets less risky and more transparent for investors. "The Commission is reviewing various options to act on the legislative front," the paper quoted a spokesman for EU Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy as saying.

"We will come out soon with proposed regulations." McCreevy's office in Brusssels was not immediately available for comment. The introduction of central clearing for over-the-counter (OTC) contracts is a core plank of EU efforts to apply lessons from the credit crunch. McCreevy has sole power in the EU to propose regulation that would mandate central clearing of off-exchange traded credit derivatives and, separately, he has launched a wider review of the derivatives sector.

The derivatives industry agreed in principle at a meeting with McCreevy's officials on Dec. 10 to introduce voluntarily central clearing of off-exchange traded contracts within six months. McCreevy has said central clearing would cut risk in a $47 trillion market at the heart of the credit crunch. The Commission's objective was to set up a clear roadmap on how to ensure credit default swaps are cleared through a central counterparty, but some industry groups have been reluctant. The deal collapsed over McCreevy's insistence that clearing of EU-based trades must be done inside the 27-nation bloc.

India a giant economy? Yes, by 2035!

January 21, 2005


For over a century the United States has been the largest economy in the world. Major shifts have, however, been under way since then.

During the last 30 years the weight of the world economy has shifted from the US and the rich countries of Europe to China and India.

These trends will continue in the 21st century, bringing about a historic transformation of the world economy. The global economy will change from a uni-polar to a bi-polar one with the emergence of China.

This will be followed a decade and a half later by the emergence of India, converting the world economy into a tri-polar one.

The rich countries of Europe have seen the greatest decline in global GDP share by 4.9 percentage points, followed by the US and Japan with a decline of about 1 percentage point each.

Within Asia the declining global share of Japan since 1990 has been more than made up by the rising share of China and India.

During the seventies and the eighties, ASEAN countries and during the eighties South Korea, along with China and India, contributed to the rising share of Asia in world GDP.

Between 1975 and 2002, Japan's share of world GDP fell by 1 percentage point while that of South Korea, ASEAN, India and China rose by 1 percentage point, 1.2 percentage points, 2.2 percentage points and 9.2 percentage points, respectively.

Thus, India's gains since 1980 have been much larger than ASEAN's and South Korea's but much less than those of China (Arvind Virmani, 'Economic Performance, Power Potential and Global Governance: Towards a New International Order,' ICRIER Working Paper No. 150, December 2005).

Uni-polar Global Economy: 2002

At the start of the new millennium, the US -- the largest economy -- is almost twice the size of the next largest economy, China, and about three times the third largest economy, Japan.

Thus, the size of the US economy is larger than the next two economies combined, revealing clearly the uni-polar nature of the global economy.

The fourth largest economy, India, is a little over one-quarter the size of the US economy.

The next five positions are taken by the big four of Europe: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. Brazil and Russia bring up the rear with their joint size less than that of India.

In turn, the size of these three economies together is less than that of China.

Bi-pole China

Within 10 years, the global economy will be transformed from a uni-polar to a bi-polar one. China is projected by us to become the largest economy in the world within 15 years.

Though India, like the rest of the world, has been falling behind China, its share in world GDP will continue to grow. Before the end of the current decade, India's economy will become larger than that of Japan, thus taking it to the third place, behind the US and China.

We measure the incremental impact of an economy on the rest of the world through trade and financial flow by change in GDP at the current exchange rate.

By the end of the decade, China will become a larger driver of global growth than the European Union's six largest economies. Similarly, India will be a larger growth driver than the United Kingdom, the most significant growth pole in the EU.

At this time the combined impact of the three Asian giants (including Japan) will exceed that of the US.

The global impact of other emerging economies is relatively small. In 2015, Canada and Russia are ranked 11th and 12th in terms of impact, which is less than a third of that of India at that time.

The South Korean economy in contrast comes in at the 7th rank with an impact that is half that of India's. Brazil's impact is projected to be much lower than that of Mexico.

India: 3rd Pole & Growth Driver

As the share of the US in world GDP falls (from 21 per cent to 18 per cent) and that of India rises (from 6 per cent to 11 per cent in 2025), the latter emerges as the third pole in the global economy.

By 2025 the Indian economy is projected to be about 60 per cent the size of the US economy. The transformation into a tri-polar economy will be complete by 2035, with the Indian economy only a little smaller than the US economy but larger than that of Western Europe.

China's economy is projected to become 50 per cent larger than the US economy by 2025, and almost double that of the US by 2035. At this point, China's share in the world economy will be equal to the share of the US and Indian economies taken together.

All the other countries that are either currently members of the Security Council or aspire to become so will therefore have relatively small shares.

Japan, the largest among them, will have a share of about 5 per cent while the others (including Russia) will each have 2.5 per cent.

This scenario assumes that China will be able to sustain the "FDI-export" cum "zero capital cost" model of fast growth. The "FDI-export" model transformed ASEAN countries into "miracle" growth economies, but the Asian crises showed that it was heavily dependent on creating and sustaining optimistic expectations.

China's risk is heightened by it combining with "zero capital cost" to producers inputs including infrastructure that bury inefficiencies in the government banking system (implicit fiscal subsidies).

It is however hard to predict what kind of exogenous shock will knock such an economy off the high-growth knife-edge path to more normal sustainable growth rates.

By around 2025, China's impact (in terms of GDP at prevailing exchange rates) on world growth is likely to be larger than that of the US and India's impact larger than that of Japan.

By 2035, India is likely to be a larger growth driver than the six largest countries in the EU, though its impact will be a little over half that of the US.

China's impact will, however, be about 40 per cent more than that of the US.

Conclusion

The projected changes in the relative size of economies will have profound implications for global governance, the global balance of power, and the stability of Asia.

This phenomenal change in relative power poses a major challenge to the economies of Europe, North America, and Asia that very few seem to fully understand or appreciate.

The author is director and chief executive, ICRIER. The views expressed are personal.
http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/jan/21guest.htm

Economy of Japan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The economy of Japan is the second largest economy in the world,[1] after the United States, at around US$4.5 trillion in terms of nominal GDP[1] and third after the United States and China when adjusted for purchasing power parity.[2] The workers of Japan rank 18th in the world in GDP per hour worked as of 2006.[3]

Japan's economy is highly efficient, highly diversified, and very competitive, being ranked 19th among 111 countries on productivity. Japan has a well-educated work force and high levels of savings and investment rates.

For three decades, Japan's overall real economic growth had been spectacular: a 10% average in the 1960s, a 5% average in the 1970s, and a 4% average in the 1980s.[4]

Sliding stock and real estate prices marked the end of the "Japanese asset price bubble" of the late 1980s, and ushered in a decade of stagnant economic growth. These problems may have been exacerbated by domestic policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Real GDP in Japan grew at an average of roughly 1.5% yearly between 1991-1999, compared to growth in the 1980s of about 4% per year. Growth in Japan throughout the 1990s was slower than growth in other major industrial nations, and the same as in France and Germany. Government efforts to revive economic growth have met with little success and were further hampered in 2000 to 2001 by the slowing of the global economy.[5] However, GDP per worker has increased steadily even through the nineties, given that from 1993 to 2007, 10% of the population distribution moved from the "working age" to "elderly age".

Starting in 2003 Japan's economy began to recover, growing at 2.0% per year in 2003 and 2004, and 2.8 percent in 2005. Unlike previous recovery trends, domestic consumption has been the dominant factor in leading the growth. As predicted, the economic recovery continued in 2006 and 2007.

Natural resources



A mountainous, volcanic island country, Japan has inadequate natural resources to support its growing economy and large population. Although many kinds of minerals were extracted throughout the country, most mineral resources had to be imported in the postwar era. Local deposits of metal-bearing ores were difficult to process because they were low grade. The nation's large and varied forest resources, which covered 70 percent of the country in the late 1980s, were not utilized extensively. Because of the terrain, underdeveloped road network, and high percentage of young trees, domestic sources were only able to supply between 25 and 30 percent of the nation's timber needs. Agriculture and fishing were the best developed resources, but only through years of painstaking investment and toil. The nation therefore built up the manufacturing and processing industries to convert raw materials imported from abroad. This strategy of economic development necessitated the establishment of a strong economic infrastructure to provide the needed energy, transportation, communications, and technological know-how.

Deposits of gold, magnesium, and silver meet current industrial demands, but Japan is dependent on foreign sources for many of the minerals essential to modern industry. Iron ore, copper, and bauxite must be imported, as well as many forest products.


[edit] Infrastructure

ShinkansenMain articles: Energy in Japan and Transportation in Japan
As of 2005, one half of energy in Japan is produced from petroleum, a fifth from coal, and 14% from natural gas.[6] Nuclear power in Japan makes a quarter of electricity production and Japan would like to double it in the next decades.

Japan's road spending has been large.[7]. The 1.2 million kilometers of paved road are the main means of transportation.[8] Japan has left-hand traffic. A single network of high-speed, divided, limited-access toll roads connects major cities and are operated by toll-collecting enterprises. New and used cars are inexpensive. Car ownership fees and fuel levies are used to promote energy-efficiency.

Dozens of Japanese railway companies compete in regional and local passenger transportation markets; for instance, 7 JR enterprises, Kintetsu Corporation, Seibu Railway, and Keio Corporation. Often, strategies of these enterprises contain real estate or department stores next to stations. Some 250 high-speed Shinkansen trains connect major cities. All trains are known for punctuality.

There are 176 airports and flying is a popular way to travel between cities. The largest domestic airport, Haneda Airport, is Asia's busiest airport. The largest international gateways are Narita International Airport (Tokyo area), Kansai International Airport (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto area), and Chubu Centrair International Airport (Nagoya area). The largest ports include Port of Yokohama and Nagoya Port.

Given its heavy dependence on imported energy, Japan has aimed to diversify its sources. Since the oil shocks of the 1970s, Japan has reduced dependence on petroleum as a source of energy from more than 75% in 1973 to about 57% at present. Other important energy sources are coal, liquefied natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower. Demand for oil is also dampened by higher government taxes on automobile engines over 2000 cc, as well as on gasoline itself, currently 54 yen per liter sold retail. Kerosene is also used extensively for home heating in portable heaters, especially farther north. Many taxi companies run their fleets on liquefied gas with tanks in the car trunks. A recent success towards greater fuel economy was the introduction of mass-produced Hybrid vehicles. Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was working on Japan's economic revival, signed a treaty with Saudi Arabia and UAE about the rising prices of oil.


[edit] Macro-economic trend

Trend of Historical value of Japanese YenThis is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Japan at market prices estimated by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Japanese Yen. See also [2]

Year Gross Domestic Product US Dollar Exchange Inflation Index (2000=100)
1955 8,369,500 ?360.00
1960 16,009,700 ?360.00
1965 32,866,000 ?360.00
1970 73,344,900 ?360.00
1975 148,327,100 ?297.26
1980 240,707,315 ?225.82 75
1985 323,541,300 ?236.79 86
1990 440,124,900 ?144.15 92
1995 493,271,700 ?122.78 98
2000 501,068,100 ?107.73 100
2005 502,905,400 ?110.01 97

For purchasing power parity comparisons, the US Dollar is exchanged at ?125.16.


[edit] Services
Japan's service sector accounts for about three-fourths of its total economic output. Banking, insurance, real estate, retailing, transportation, and telecommunications are all major industries such as Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho, NTT, TEPCO, Nomura, Mitsubishi Estate, Tokio Marine, JR East, Seven & I, ANA counting as one of the largest companies in the world. The Koizumi government set Japan Post, one of the country's largest providers of savings and insurance services for privatization by 2014. The six major keiretsus are the Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Fuyo, Mitsui, Dai-Ichi Kangyo and Sanwa Groups. Japan is home to 326 companies from the Forbes Global 2000 or 16.3% (as of 2006).


[edit] Industry
Main article: Manufacturing industries of Japan
Japanese manufacturing is very diversified, with a variety of advanced industries that are highly successful.

Industry is concentrated in several regions, in the following order of importance: the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo, especially the prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Tokyo (the Keihin industrial region); the Tokai region , including Aichi, Gifu, Mie, and Shizuoka prefectures (the Chukyo-Tokai industrial region); Kinki (Kansai), including Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, ( the Hanshin industrial region); the southwestern part of Honshu and northern Shikoku around the Inland Sea (the Setouchi industrial region); and the northern part of Kyushu (Kitakyushu). In addition, a long narrow belt of industrial centers is found between Tokyo and Fukuoka, established by particular industries, that have developed as mill towns.

The fields in which Japan enjoys relatively high technological development include consumer electronics, automobile manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturing, optical fibers, optoelectronics, optical media, facsimile and copy machines, and fermentation processes in food and biochemistry.


[edit] Agriculture
Main article: Agriculture, forestry, and fishing in Japan

Rice is a very important crop in Japan as shown here in a rice paddy in Autumn, Kurihara, Miyagi prefecture.Only 12% of Japan's land is suitable for cultivation. Due to this lack of arable land, a system of terraces is used to farm in small areas. This results in one of the world's highest levels of crop yields per unit area, with an overall agricultural self-sufficiency rate of about 50% on fewer than 56,000 km² (14 million acres) cultivated.

Japan's small agricultural sector, however, is also highly subsidized and protected, with government regulations that favor small-scale cultivation instead of large-scale agriculture as practiced in North America.

Imported rice, the most protected crop, is subject to tariffs of 490% and was restricted to a quota of only 7.2% of average rice consumption from 1968 to 1988. Imports beyond the quota are unrestricted in legal terms, but subject to a 341 yen per kilogram tariff. This tariff is now estimated at 490%, but the rate will soar to a massive 778% under new calculation rules to be introduced as part of the Doha Round.[9]

Although Japan is usually self-sufficient in rice (except for its use in making rice crackers and processed foods) and wheat, the country must import about 50% [10] of its requirements of other grain and fodder crops and relies on imports for most of its supply of meat. Japan imports large quantities of wheat, sorghum, and soybeans, primarily from the United States. Japan is the largest market for EU agricultural exports. Apples are also grown, mostly in Tohoku and Hokkaido; Pears and Oranges are mainly grown in Shikoku and in Kyushu. Pears and oranges were first introduced by Dutch traders, in Nagasaki in the late 18th century.


[edit] Fishery
Japan ranked second in the world behind the People's Republic of China in tonnage of fish caught—11.9 million tons in 1989, up slightly from 11.1 million tons in 1980. After the 1973 energy crisis, deep-sea fishing in Japan declined, with the annual catch in the 1980s averaging 2 million tons. Offshore fisheries accounted for an average of 50 % of the nation's total fish catches in the late 1980s although they experienced repeated ups and downs during that period

Coastal fishing by small boats, set nets, or breeding techniques accounts for about one third of the industry's total production, while offshore fishing by medium-sized boats makes up for more than half the total production. Deep-sea fishing from larger vessels makes up the rest. Among the many fish species caught are sardines, skipjack tuna, crab, shrimp, salmon, pollock, squid, clams, mackerel, sea bream, saury, tuna and Japanese amberjack.

Japan maintains one of the world's largest fishing fleets and accounts for nearly 15% of the global catch [11], prompting some claims that Japan's fishing is leading to depletion in fish stocks such as tuna.[12] Japan has also sparked controversy by supporting quasi-commercial whaling.[13]


[edit] Labor force

Unemployment rate of JapanIn 2001, Japan's labour force consisted of some 67 million workers—40% of whom were women—and was rapidly shrinking. [3] Labour union membership is about 12 million. The unemployment rate is currently 4.1%. In 1989, the predominantly public sector union confederation, SOHYO (General Council of Trade Unions of Japan), merged with RENGO (Japanese Private Sector Trade Union Confederation) to form the Japanese Trade Union Confederation.

One major long-term concern for the Japanese labour force is a low birthrate. In the first half of 2005, the number of deaths in Japan exceeded the number of births, indicating that the decline in population, initially predicted to start in 2007, had already started. While one countermeasure for a declining birthrate would be to remove barriers to immigration, the Japanese government has been reluctant to do so.

As of July 2006, the unemployment rate in Japan is 4.1%, according to the OECD.

see also: Labor market of Japan


[edit] Law and government
Japan ranks 12th of 178 countries in the Ease of Doing Business Index 2008.

Japan has one of the smallest tax burdens in the developed world.[14] After deductions, the majority of workers are free from personal income taxes. Value-added tax rate is only 5%, while corporate tax rates are high.[14]

Shareholder activism is rare despite the fact that the corporate law gives shareholders strong powers over managers. Recently, more shareholders have stood up against managers.[15]

The government's liabilities include the second largest public debt of any nation.

Japan's central bank has the second largest foreign exchange reserves after China.


[edit] Culture

[edit] Overview
Nemawashi (???) in Japanese culture is an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project, by talking to the people concerned, gathering support and feedback, and so forth. It is considered an important element in any major change, before any formal steps are taken, and successful nemawashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all sides.

Japanese companies are known for management methods such as "The Toyota Way". Kaizen (??, Japanese for "improvement") is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from the CEO to the assembly line workers.[16] By improving standardized activities and processes, Kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see Lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses during the country's recovery after World War II, including Toyota, and has since spread to businesses throughout the world.[17]

Some companies have powerful enterprise unions and shunto.

The Nenko System or Nenko Joretsu as it is called in Japan, is the Japanese system of promoting an employee in order of his or her proximity to retirement. The advantage of the system is that it allows older employees to achieve a higher salary level before retirement and that it usually brings more experience to the executive ranks. The disadvantage of the system is that it does not allow new talent to be merged with the experience and those with specialized skills cannot be promoted to the already crowded executive ranks. It also does not guarantee or even attempt to bring the "right person for the right job".

Relationships between government bureaucrats and companies are often cozy. Amakudari (???, amakudari?, "descent from heaven") is the institutionalised practice where Japanese senior bureaucrats retire to high-profile positions in the private and public sectors. The practice is increasingly viewed as corrupt and a drag on unfastening the ties between private sector and state which prevent economic and political reforms.

Lifetime employment (shushin koyo) and seniority-based career advancement have been common in the Japanese work environment.[18][14]

Recently, Japan has begun to gradually move away from some of these norms.[19][20]

Salaryman (??????, Sarariman?, salaried man) refers to someone whose income is salary based; particularly those working for corporations. Its frequent use by Japanese corporations, and its prevalence in Japanese manga and anime has gradually led to its acceptance in English-speaking countries as a noun for a Japanese white-collar businessman. The word can be found in many books and articles pertaining to Japanese culture. Immediately following World War II, becoming a salaryman was viewed as a gateway to a stable, middle-class lifestyle. In modern use, the term carries associations of long working hours, low prestige in the corporate hierarchy, absence of significant sources of income other than salary, wage slavery, and karoshi. The term salaryman refers almost exclusively to males.

An office lady, often abbreviated OL (Japanese: ???? Oeru), is a female office worker in Japan who performs generally pink collar tasks such as serving tea and secretarial or clerical work. Like many unmarried Japanese, OLs often live with their parents well into early adulthood. Office ladies are usually full-time permanent staff, although the jobs they do usually have little opportunity for promotion, and there is usually the tacit expectation that they leave their jobs once they get married.

Freeter (?????, furita?) (other spellings below) is a Japanese expression for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed, excluding homemakers and students. They may also be described as underemployed or freelance workers. These people do not start a career after high school or university but instead usually live as parasite singles with their parents and earn some money with low skilled and low paid jobs. The low income makes it difficult for freeters to start a family, and the lack of qualifications makes it difficult to start a career at a later point in life.

Karoshi (???, karoshi?), which can be translated quite literally from Japanese as "death from overwork", is occupational sudden death. The major medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress.

Sokaiya (???, sokaiya?), (sometimes also translated as corporate bouncers, meeting-men, or corporate blackmailers) are a form of specialized racketeer unique to Japan, and often associated with the yakuza that extort money from or blackmail companies by threatening to publicly humiliate companies and their management, usually in their annual meeting (??, sokai?).

Sarakin (???, Sarakin?) is a Japanese term for moneylender, or loan shark. It is a contraction of the Japanese words for salaryman and cash. Around 14 million people, or 10% of the Japanese population, have borrowed from a sarakin. In total, there are about 10,000 firms (down from 30,000 a decade ago); however, the top seven firms make up 70% of the market. The value of outstanding loans totals $100 billion. The biggest sarakin are publicly traded and often allied with big banks.[21]

The first "Western-style" department store in Japan was Mitsukoshi, founded in 1904, which has its root as a kimono store called Echigoya from 1673. When the roots are considered, however, Matsuzakaya has an even longer history, dated from 1611. The kimono store changed to a department store in 1910. In 1924, Matsuzakaya store in Ginza allowed street shoes to be worn indoors, something innovative at the time. [4] These former kimono shop department stores dominated the market in its earlier history. They sold, or rather displayed, luxurious products, which contributed for their sophisticated atmospheres. Another origin of Japanese department store is that from railway company. There have been many private railway operators in the nation, and from 1920s, they started to build department stores directly linked to their lines' termini. Seibu and Hankyu are the typical examples of this type.

From the 1980s and onwards, Japanese department stores are facing the fierce competition from supermarkets and convenience stores, gradually losing their presences. Still, depato are bastions of several aspects of cultural conservatism in the country. Gift certificates for prestigious department stores are frequently given as formal presents in Japan. Department stores in Japan generally offer a wide range of services and can include foreign exchange, travel reservations, ticket sales for local concerts and other events,


[edit] Keiretsu
Main article: Keiretsu



A keiretsu (??, keiretsu? lit. system or series) is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. It is a type of business group. The prototypical keiretsu are those which appeared in Japan during the "economic miracle" following World War II. Before Japan's surrender, Japanese industry was controlled by large family-controlled vertical monopolies called zaibatsu. The Allies dismantled the zaibatsu in the late 1940s, but the companies formed from the dismantling of the zaibatsu were reintegrated. The dispersed corporations were re-interlinked through share purchases to form horizontally-integrated alliances across many industries. Where possible, keiretsu companies would also supply one another, making the alliances vertically integrated as well. In this period, official government policy promoted the creation of robust trade corporations which could withstand heavy pressures from intensified world trade competition.[22]

The major keiretsu were each centered around one bank, which lent money to the keiretsu's member companies and held equity positions in the companies. Each central bank had great control over the companies in the keiretsu and acted as a monitoring entity and as an emergency bail-out entity. One effect of this structure was to minimize the presence of hostile takeovers in Japan, because no entities could challenge the power of the banks.

There are two types of keiretsu: vertical and horizontal. Vertical keiretsu illustrates the organization and relationships within a company (for example all factors of production of a certain product will be connected), while a horizontal keiretsu shows relationships between entities and industries, normally centered around a bank and trading company. Both are complexly woven together and self-sustain each other.

The Japanese recession in the 1990s had profound effects on the keiretsu. Many of the largest banks were hit hard by bad loan portfolios and forced to merge or go out of business. This had the effect of blurring the lines between the keiretsu: Sumitomo Bank and Mitsui Bank, for instance, became Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in 2001, while Sanwa Bank (the banker for the Hankyu-Toho Group) became part of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. Additionally, many companies from outside the keiretsu system, such as Sony, began outperforming their counterparts within the system.

Generally, these causes gave rise to a strong notion in the business community that the old keiretsu system was not an effective business model, and led to an overall loosening of keiretsu alliances. While the keiretsu still exist, they are not as centralized or integrated as they were before the 1990s. This, in turn, has led to a growing corporate acquisition industry in Japan, as companies are no longer able to be easily "bailed out" by their banks, as well as rising derivative litigation by more independent shareholders.


[edit] Current economic issues
The Koizumi administration, which held office until 2006, enacted or attempted to pass (sometimes with failure) major privatization and foreign-investment laws intended to help stimulate Japan's dormant economy. Although the effectiveness of these laws is still ambiguous, the economy has begun to respond, but Japan's aging population is expected to place further strain on growth in the near future.[23]

Heterodox economists tend to claim that Japan's economy is far stronger than generally believed.[24] Some mainstream economists acknowledge that Japan, which unlike most Western countries has maintained its industrial base, and has vast capital reserves, currently has a strong economic outlook.

The privatization of Japan Post, the Japanese postal system which also runs insurance and deposit-taking businesses, is a major issue. A political battle over privatization caused a political stalemate in August, 2005, and ultimately led to the dissolution of the Japanese House of Representatives. The Postal Savings deposits, which have until now been used to fund public works projects, many of which have had questionable economic value, stands in excess of 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars, and could be a major force in energizing the private sector.

The Japanese monetary authorities' continued desire to depress the price of yen relative to other key specific currencies to protect domestic business from imports may no longer be feasible. The most recent record intervention in 2003 amounted to over 17 trillion yen, more than one third of one trillion US dollars at the time and nearly 3% of Japan's 2003 GDP, being sold in favor of other non-yen denominated assets. However, since 2005, Japan has not directly intervened to buy currency, as yen carry trade has effectively carried out the same task.

Interestingly, international trade has expanded by 60% from 91.4 trillion yen to 142.6 trillion yen from 2001 to 2006. However, taking in account the economic participation rate, Japan's GDP per worker has increased steadily.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development downgraded its economic forecasts on March 20, 2008 for the Japan for the first half of 2008. Japan does not have room to ease fiscal or monetary policy, the 30-nation group warned. For Japan, the OECD said the pace of underlying growth appears to be softening despite support from buoyant neighboring Asian economies. The organization expects first-quarter GDP to be up 0.3 percent and predicts a rise of 0.2 in the second quarter. [5]

On November 17, 2008, Japanese government officials announced that the economy was in a recession.[25] It was reported that Japan's economy contracted at an annual pace of 1.8% in the third quarter of 2008. It is forecasted to have shrunk 0.8% through the fiscal year that ends March 2009.


[edit] Economic history

An 1856 ukiyo-e depicting Echigoya, the current Mitsukoshi.Main article: Economic history of Japan
The economic history of Japan is one of the most studied for its spectacular growth after the Meiji Revolution to be the first non European Power and after the Second World War when the island nation rose to become the world's second largest economy.


[edit] First contacts with Europe (16th century)
Main article: Nanban trade
Renaissance Europeans were quite admiring of Japan when they reached the country in the 16th century. Japan was considered as a country immensely rich in precious metals, mainly owing to Marco Polo's accounts of gilded temples and palaces, but also due to the relative abundance of surface ores characteristic of a volcanic country, before large-scale deep-mining became possible in Industrial times. Japan was to become a major exporter of copper and silver during the period.

Japan was also perceived as a sophisticated feudal society with a high culture and a strong pre-industrial technology. It was densely populated and urbanized. It had Buddhist “universities” larger than any learning institution in the West, such as Salamanca or Coimbra.[citation needed] Prominent European observers of the time seemed to agree that the Japanese "excel not only all the other Oriental peoples, they surpass the Europeans as well" (Alessandro Valignano, 1584, "Historia del Principo y Progresso de la Compania de Jesus en las Indias Orientales).

Early European visitors were amazed by the quality of Japanese craftsmanship and metalsmithing. This stems from the fact that Japan itself is rather poor in natural resources found commonly in Europe, especially iron. Thus, the Japanese were famously frugal with their consumable resources; what little they had they used with expert skill. Her copper and steel were the best in the world, her weapons the sharpest, her paper industries were unequaled.

The cargo of the first Portuguese ships (usually about 4 smaller-sized ships every year) arriving in Japan almost entirely consisted of Chinese goods (silk, porcelain). The Japanese were very much looking forward to acquiring such goods, but had been prohibited from any contacts with the Emperor of China, as a punishment for Wako pirate raids. The Portuguese (who were called Nanban, lit. Southern Barbarians) therefore found the opportunity to act as intermediaries in Asian trade.


[edit] Edo period
The beginning of the Edo period coincides with the last decades of the Nanban trade period, during which intense interaction with European powers, on the economic and religious plane, took place. It is at the beginning of the Edo period that Japan built her first ocean-going Western-style warships, such as the San Juan Bautista, a 500-ton galleon-type ship that transported a Japanese embassy headed by Hasekura Tsunenaga to the Americas, which then continued to Europe. Also during that period, the bakufu commissioned around 350 Red Seal Ships, three-masted and armed trade ships, for intra-Asian commerce. Japanese adventurers, such as Yamada Nagamasa, were active throughout Asia.

In order to eradicate the influence of Christianization, Japan entered in a period of isolation called sakoku, during which its economy enjoyed stability and mild progress.

Economic development during the Edo period included urbanization, increased shipping of commodities, a significant expansion of domestic and, initially, foreign commerce, and a diffusion of trade and handicraft industries. The construction trades flourished, along with banking facilities and merchant associations. Increasingly, han authorities oversaw the rising agricultural production and the spread of rural handicrafts.

By the mid-eighteenth century, Edo had a population of more than 1 million and Osaka and Kyoto each had more than 400,000 inhabitants. Many other castle towns grew as well. Osaka and Kyoto became busy trading and handicraft production centers, while Edo was the center for the supply of food and essential urban consumer goods.

Rice was the base of the economy, as the daimyo collected the taxes from the peasants in the form of rice. Taxes were high, about 40% of the harvest. The rice was sold at the fudasashi market in Edo. To raise money, the daimyo used forward contracts to sell rice that was not even harvested yet. These contracts were similar to modern futures trading.

During the period, Japan progressively studied Western sciences and techniques (called rangaku, literally "Dutch studies") through the information and books received through the Dutch traders in Dejima. The main areas that were studied included geography, medicine, natural sciences, astronomy, art, languages, physical sciences such as the study of electrical phenomena, and mechanical sciences as exemplified by the development of Japanese clockwatches, or wadokei, inspired from Western techniques.


[edit] From the Meiji Restoration to World War II
Since the mid-nineteenth century, when the Tokugawa government first opened the country to Western commerce and influence, Japan has gone through two periods of economic development. The first began in earnest in 1868 and extended through World War II; the second began in 1945 and continued into mid-1980s.

In the Meiji period (1868-1912), leaders inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan (O-yatoi gaikokujin). The government also built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development.

To promote industrialization, the government decided that, while it should help private business to allocate resources and to plan, the private sector was best equipped to stimulate economic growth. The greatest role of government was to help provide the economic conditions in which business could flourish. In short, government was to be the guide and business the producer. In the early Meiji period, the government built factories and shipyards that were sold to entrepreneurs at a fraction of their value. Many of these businesses grew rapidly into the larger conglomerates. Government emerged as chief promoter of private enterprise, enacting a series of probusiness policies.

In the mid 1930s, the Japanese nominal wage rates were 10 times less than the one of the U.S (based on mid-1930s exchange rates), while the price level is estimated to have been about 44% the one of the U.S.[26]


[edit] Post-war economic history

Japanese exports in 2005See also: Japanese post-war economic miracle and Economic history of Japan
From the 1960s to the 1980s, overall real economic growth has been called a "miracle": a 10% average in the 1960s, a 5% average in the 1970s and a 4% average in the 1980s.[27]

Growth slowed markedly in the late 1990s, largely due to the Bank of Japan's failure to cut interest rates quickly enough to counter after-effects of over-investment during the late 1980s. Some economists believe that because the Bank of Japan failed to cut rates quickly enough, Japan entered a liquidity trap. Therefore, to keep its economy afloat, Japan ran massive budget deficits (added trillions in Yen to Japanese financial system) to finance large public works programs. By 1998, Japan's public works projects still could not stimulate demand enough to end the economy's stagnation. In desperation, the Japanese government undertook "structural reform" policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Unfortunately, these policies led Japan into deflation on numerous occasions between 1999 and 2004. In his 1998 paper, Japan's Trap, Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman argued that based on a number of models, Japan had a new option. Krugman's plan called for a rise in inflation expectations to, in effect, cut long-term interest rates and promote spending.[28] Japan used another technique, somewhat based on Krugman's, called Quantitative easing. As opposed to flooding the money supply with newly printed money, the Bank of Japan expanded the money supply internally to raise expectations of inflation. Initially, the policy failed to induce any growth, but it eventually began to effect inflationary expectations. By late 2005, the economy finally began what seems to be a sustained recovery. GDP growth for that year was 2.8%, with an annualized fourth quarter expansion of 5.5%, surpassing the growth rates of the US and European Union during the same period.[29] Unlike previous recovery trends, domestic consumption has been the dominant factor of growth.

Despite having interest rates down near zero for a long period of time, the Quantitative easing strategy did not succeed in stopping price deflation.[30] This led some economists, such as Paul Krugman, and some Japanese politicians, to speak of deliberately causing hyperinflation.[31] In July 2006, the zero-rate policy was ended. In 2008, the Japanese Central Bank still has the lowest interest rates in the developed world, deflation has still not been eliminated[32] and the Nikkei 225 has fallen over approximately 50% (between June 2007 and December 2008).

The Economist has suggested that improvements to bankruptcy law, land transfer law, and tax laws will aid Japan's economy. The Mises Institute recommends that government regulators allow natural market forces to correct for the monetary expansion of the 1980s, and that, ultimately, a return to an asset- or commodity-backed currency (such as the Gold Standard) is necessary.[33]

In recent years, Japan has been the top export market for almost 15 trading nations worldwide.


[edit] Other economic indicators

Current account balance 2006[34]Industrial Production Growth Rate: 3.3% (2006 est.)

Investment (gross fixed): 100% of GDP (2006 est.)

Household income or consumption by percentage share:

Lowest 10%: 4.8%
Highest 10%: 21.7% (1993)
Agriculture - Products: rice, sugar beets, vegetables, fruit, pork, poultry, dairy products, eggs, fish

Exports - Commodities: machinery and equipment, motor vehicles, semiconductors, chemicals

Imports - Commodities: machinery and equipment, fuels, foodstuffs, chemicals, textiles, raw materials (2001)

Exchange rates:
Japanese Yen per US$1 - 100.320 (2008) 109.690016 (2005), 115.933 (2003), 125.388 (2002), 121.529 (2001), 105.16 (January 2000), 113.91 (1999), 130.91 (1998), 120.99 (1997), 108.78 (1996), 94.06 (1995)

Electricity:

Electricity - consumption: 946.3 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - production: 996 billion kWh (2005)
Electricity - exports: 0 kWh (2003)
Electricity - imports: 0 kWh (2003)
Electricity - Production by source:

Fossil Fuel: 56.68%
Hydro: 8.99%
Nuclear: 31.93%
Other: 2.4% (1998)
Electricity - Standards:

100 volts at 50 Hz from the Oi River (in Shizuoka) Northward;
100 volts at 60 Hz Southward
Oil:

production: 125,000 bbl/day (2006)
consumption: 5.578 million bbl/day (2005)
exports: 93,360 barrel/day (2001)
imports: 5.449 million barrel/day (2001)
net imports: 5.3 million barrel/day (2004 est.)
proved reserves: 59 million bbl (1 January 2006)

[edit] See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Japan

Environment
Main article: Environmental issues in Japan
Japan's environmental history and current policies reflect a tenuous balance between economic development and environmental protection. In the rapid economic growth after World War II, environmental policies were downplayed by the government and industrial corporations. As an inevitable consequence, some crucial environmental pollution (see Pollution in Japan) occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. In the rising concern over the problem, the government introduced many environmental protection laws[45] in 1970 and established the Ministry of the Environment in 1971. The Oil crisis in 1973 also encouraged the efficient use of energy due to Japan's lack of natural resources.[46] Current priority environmental issues include urban air pollution (NOx, suspended particulate matter, toxics), waste management, water eutrophication, nature conservation, climate change, chemical management and international co-operation for environmental conservation.[47]

Today Japan is one of the world's leaders in the development of new environment-friendly technologies. Honda and Toyota hybrid electric vehicles were named to have the highest fuel economy and lowest emissions.[48] This is due to the advanced technology in hybrid systems, biofuels, use of lighter weight material and better engineering.

Japan also takes issues surrounding climate change and global warming seriously. As a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, and host of the 1997 conference which created it, Japan is under treaty obligations to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions and to take other steps related to curbing climate change. The Cool Biz campaign introduced under former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was targeted at reducing energy use through the reduction of air conditioning use in government offices. Japan is preparing to force industry to make big cuts in greenhouse gases, taking the lead in a country struggling to meet its Kyoto Protocol obligations.[49]

Japan is ranked 30th best in the world in the Environmental Sustainability Index.[50]


Economy
Main article: Economy of Japan

The Tokyo Stock Exchange is the world's second largest stock exchange.From 1868, Meiji period launched economic expansion. Meiji rulers embraced the concept of a free market economy and adopted British and North American forms of free enterprise capitalism. Japanese went to study overseas and Western scholars were hired to teach in Japan. Many of today's enterprises were founded at the time. Japan emerged as the most developed nation in Asia.

From the 1960s to the 1980s, overall real economic growth has been called a "Japanese miracle": a 10% average in the 1960s, a 5% average in the 1970s and a 4% average in the 1980s.[51] Growth slowed markedly in the 1990s, largely because of the after-effects of Japanese asset price bubble and domestic policies intended to wring speculative excesses from the stock and real estate markets. Government efforts to revive economic growth met with little success and were further hampered by the global slowdown in 2000.[52] The economy showed strong signs of recovery after 2005. GDP growth for that year was 2.8%, with an annualized fourth quarter expansion of 5.5%, surpassing the growth rates of the US and European Union during the same period.[53]



The Minato Mirai 21 district of Yokohama. The majority of Japan's economy is service sector based.Japan is the second largest economy in the world,[54] after the United States, at around US$4.5 trillion in terms of nominal GDP[54] and third after the United States and China in terms of purchasing power parity.[55] Banking, insurance, real estate, retailing, transportation, telecommunications and construction are all major industries.[56] Japan has a large industrial capacity and is home to some of the largest, leading and most technologically advanced producers of motor vehicles, electronic equipment, machine tools, steel and nonferrous metals, ships, chemicals, textiles and processed foods.[52] The service sector accounts for three quarters of the gross domestic product.

As of 2001, Japan's shrinking labor force consists of some 67 million workers.[57] Japan has a low unemployment rate, around 4%. Japan's GDP per hour worked is the world's 19th highest as of 2007.[58] Big Mac Index shows that Japanese workers get the highest salary per hour in the world. Some of the largest enterprises in Japan include Toyota Motor, NTT DoCoMo, Canon, Honda, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Sony, Nintendo, Nippon Steel, Tepco, Mitsubishi Estate, and 711.[59] It is home to some of the world's largest banks and the Tokyo Stock Exchange, known for Nikkei 225, stands as the second largest in the world by market capitalization.[60] Japan is home to 326 companies from the Forbes Global 2000 or 16.3% (as of 2006).

Japan ranks 12th of 178 countries in the Ease of Doing Business Index 2008 and it has one of the smallest governments in the developed world. Japanese variant of capitalism has many distinct features. Keiretsu enterprises are influential. Lifetime employment and seniority-based career advancement are relatively common in Japanese work environment.[61][62] Japanese companies are known for management methods such as "The Toyota Way". Shareholder activism is rare.[63] Recently, Japan has moved away from some of these norms.[64][65] In the Index of Economic Freedom, Japan is the 5th most laissez-faire of 30 Asian countries.[66]

Japan's exports amounted to 4,210 U.S. dollars per capita in 2005. Japan's main export markets are the United States 22.8%, the European Union 14.5%, China 14.3%, South Korea 7.8%, Taiwan 6.8% and Hong Kong 5.6% (for 2006). Japan's main exports are transportation equipment, motor vehicles, electronics, electrical machinery and chemicals.[52] Japan's main import markets are China 20.5%, U.S. 12.0%, the European Union 10.3%, Saudi Arabia 6.4%, UAE 5.5%, Australia 4.8%, South Korea 4.7% and Indonesia 4.2% (for 2006). Japan's main imports are machinery and equipment, fossil fuels, foodstuffs (in particular beef), chemicals, textiles and raw materials for its industries.[67] By market share measures, domestic markets are the least open of any OECD country.[62] Junichiro Koizumi administration commenced some pro-competition reforms and foreign investment in Japan has soared recently.[68]

Japan's business culture has many indigenous concepts such as nemawashi, nenko system, salaryman, and office lady. Japan's housing market is characterized by limited land supply in urban areas. This is particularly true for Tokyo, the world's largest urban agglomeration GDP. More than half of Japanese live in suburbs or more rural areas, where detached houses are the dominant housing type. Agricultural businesses in Japan often utilize a system of terrace farming and crop yields are high. 13% of Japan's land is cultivated. Japan accounts for nearly 15% of the global fish catch, second only to China.[52] Japan's agricultural sector is protected at high cost.[69]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan
Infrastructure
Main articles: Energy in Japan and Transportation in Japan

High speed Shinkansen or Bullet trains are a common form of transportation in Japan.As of 2005, one half of energy in Japan is produced from petroleum, a fifth from coal, and 14% from natural gas.[70] Nuclear power in Japan makes a quarter of electricity production and Japan would like to double it in the next decades.

Japan's road spending has been large.[71] The 1.2 million kilometers of paved road are the main means of transportation.[72] Japan has left-hand traffic. A single network of high-speed, divided, limited-access toll roads connects major cities and are operated by toll-collecting enterprises. New and used cars are inexpensive. Car ownership fees and fuel levies are used to promote energy-efficiency.

Dozens of Japanese railway companies compete in regional and local passenger transportation markets; for instance, 7 JR enterprises, Kintetsu Corporation, Seibu Railway, and Keio Corporation. Often, strategies of these enterprises contain real estate or department stores next to stations. Some 250 high-speed Shinkansen trains connect major cities. All trains are known for punctuality.[citation needed]

There are 173 airports and flying is a popular way to travel between cities. The largest domestic airport, Haneda Airport, is the Asia's busiest airport. The largest international gateways are Narita International Airport (Tokyo area), Kansai International Airport (Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto area), and Chubu Centrair International Airport (Nagoya area). The largest ports include Port of Yokohama and Nagoya Port.


Science and technology
Main article: Science and technology in Japan

Press release photo of the most recent Honda ASIMO model.
JAXA Japanese Experiment Module.Japan is one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific research, particularly technology, machinery and biomedical research. Nearly 700,000 researchers share a US$130 billion research and development budget, the third largest in the world.[73] For instance some of Japan's more prominent technological contributions are found in the fields of electronics, automobiles, machinery, earthquake engineering, industrial robotics, optics, chemicals, semiconductors and metals. Japan leads the world in robotics production and use, possessing more than half (402,200 of 742,500) of the world's industrial robots used for manufacturing.[74] It also produced QRIO, ASIMO and AIBO. Japan is the world's largest producer of automobiles[75] and home to six of the world's fifteen largest automobile manufacturers and seven of the world's twenty largest semiconductor sales leaders as of today.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is Japan's space agency that conducts space and planetary research, aviation research, and development of rockets and satellites. It is a participant in the International Space Station and the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibo) is slated to be added to the International Space Station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2008.[76] It has plans in space exploration, such as launching the Venus Climate Orbiter (PLANET-C) in 2010 [77][78], developing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter to be launched in 2013[79][80], and building a moonbase by 2030.[81] On September 14, 2007, it launched lunar orbit explorer "SELENE" (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) on an H-IIA (Model H2A2022) carrier rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. SELENE is also known as Kaguya, the lunar princess of the ancient folktale The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.[82] Kaguya is the largest lunar probe mission since the Apollo program. Its mission is to gather data on the moon's origin and evolution. It entered into a lunar orbit on October 4, [83] [84] flying in a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km.[85]


Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Japan, Japanese language, Japanese people, Racial issues in Japan, and Religion in Japan

A view of Shibuya crossing, an example of Tokyo's often crowded streets.
Shinto Itsukushima Shrine UNESCO World Heritage Site.Japan's population is estimated at around 127.3 million.[86] For the most part, Japanese society is linguistically and culturally homogeneous with small populations of foreign workers, Zainichi Koreans, Zainichi Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese Brazilians and others. The most dominant native ethnic group is the Yamato people; the primary minority groups include the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan, as well as social minority groups like the burakumin.

Japan has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world, at 81.25 years of age as of 2006.[87] The Japanese population is rapidly aging, the effect of a post-war baby boom followed by a decrease in births in the latter part of the twentieth century. In 2004, about 19.5% of the population was over the age of 65.[88]

The changes in the demographic structure have created a number of social issues, particularly a potential decline in the workforce population and increases in the cost of social security benefits such as the public pension plan. Many Japanese youth are increasingly preferring not to marry or have families as adults.[89] Japan's population is expected to drop to 100 million by 2050 and to 64 million by 2100.[88] Demographers and government planners are currently in a heated debate over how to cope with this problem.[89] Immigration and birth incentives are sometimes suggested as a solution to provide younger workers to support the nation's aging population.[90][91]

The highest estimates for the amount of Buddhists and Shintoists in Japan is 84-96%, representing a large number of believers in a syncretism of both religions.[4][92] However, these estimates are based on people with an association with a temple, rather than the number of people truly following the religion.[93] Professor Robert Kisala (Nanzan University) suggests that only 30 percent of the population identify themselves as belonging to a religion.[93]

Taoism and Confucianism from China have also influenced Japanese beliefs and customs. Religion in Japan tends to be syncretic in nature, and this results in a variety of practices, such as parents and children celebrating Shinto rituals, students praying before exams, couples holding a wedding at a Christian church and funerals being held at Buddhist temples. A minority (2,595,397, or 2.04%) profess to Christianity.[94] In addition, since the mid-19th century, numerous religious sects (Shinshukyo) have emerged in Japan, such as Tenrikyo and Aum Shinrikyo (or Aleph).

More than 99% of the population speaks Japanese as their first language.[86] It is an agglutinative language distinguished by a system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary which indicate the relative status of speaker and listener. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten, Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, indigenous words are 33.8% and other loanwords are 8.8%.[95] The writing system uses kanji (Chinese characters) and two sets of kana (syllabaries based on simplified Chinese characters), as well as the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. The Ryukyuan languages, also part of the Japonic language family to which Japanese belongs, are spoken in Okinawa, but few children learn these languages.[96] The Ainu language is moribund, with only a few elderly native speakers remaining in Hokkaido.[97] Most public and private schools require students to take courses in both Japanese and English.[98]

Education and health
Main articles: Education in Japan and Health care in Japan



The Yasuda Auditorium of University of Tokyo, one of Japan's most prestigious universities.Primary, secondary schools and universities were introduced into Japan in 1872 as a result of the Meiji Restoration.[99] Since 1947, compulsory education in Japan consists of elementary school and middle school, which lasts for nine years (from age 6 to age 15). Almost all children continue their education at a three-year senior high school, and, according to the MEXT, about 75.9% of high school graduates attend a university, junior college, trade school, or other post-secondary institution in 2005.[100] Japan's education is very competitive,[101] especially for entrance to institutions of higher education. The two top-ranking universities in Japan are the University of Tokyo and Keio University.[102] The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Japanese knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds as the 6th best in the world.[103]

In Japan, healthcare services are provided by national and local governments. Payment for personal medical services is offered through a universal health care insurance system that provides relative equality of access, with fees set by a government committee. People without insurance through employers can participate in a national health insurance program administered by local governments. Since 1973, all elderly persons have been covered by government-sponsored insurance.[104] Patients are free to select physicians or facilities of their choice.[105]


Culture and recreation
Main articles: Culture of Japan and Music of Japan

The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832), an ukiyo-e from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai.
Geisha performing in traditional kimonoJapanese culture has evolved greatly over the years, from the country's original Jomon culture to its contemporary culture, which combines influences from Asia, Europe and North America. Traditional Japanese arts include crafts (ikebana, origami, ukiyo-e, dolls, lacquerware, pottery), performances (bunraku, dance, kabuki, noh, rakugo), traditions (games, tea ceremony, Budo, architecture, gardens, swords) and cuisine. The fusion of traditional woodblock printing and Western art led to the creation of manga, a typically Japanese comic book format that is now popular within and outside Japan.[106] Manga-influenced animation for television and film is called anime. Japanese-made video game consoles have prospered since the 1980s.[107]

Japanese music is eclectic, having borrowed instruments, scales and styles from neighboring cultures. Many instruments, such as the koto, were introduced in the ninth and tenth centuries. The accompanied recitative of the Noh drama dates from the fourteenth century and the popular folk music, with the guitar-like shamisen, from the sixteenth.[108] Western music, introduced in the late nineteenth century, now forms an integral part of the culture. Post-war Japan has been heavily influenced by American and European modern music, which has led to the evolution of popular band music called J-pop.[109]

Karaoke is the most widely practiced cultural activity. A November 1993 survey by the Cultural Affairs Agency found that more Japanese had sung karaoke that year than had participated in traditional cultural pursuits such as flower arranging or tea ceremony.[110]


A Japanese gardenThe earliest works of Japanese literature include two history books the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki and the eighth century poetry book Man'yoshu, all written in Chinese characters.[111] In the early days of the Heian period, the system of transcription known as kana (Hiragana and Katakana) was created as phonograms. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is considered the oldest Japanese narrative.[112] An account of Heian court life is given by The Pillow Book written by Sei Shonagon, while The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki is often described as the world's first novel. During the Edo period, literature became not so much the field of the samurai aristocracy as that of the chonin, the ordinary people. Yomihon, for example, became popular and reveals this profound change in the readership and authorship.[112] The Meiji era saw the decline of traditional literary forms, during which Japanese literature integrated Western influences. Natsume Soseki and Mori Ogai were the first "modern" novelists of Japan, followed by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima and, more recently, Haruki Murakami. Japan has two Nobel Prize-winning authors — Yasunari Kawabata (1968) and Kenzaburo Oe (1994).[112]


Sports
Main article: Sport in Japan

A sumo tournament at the Grand Tournament in Osaka.Traditionally, sumo is considered Japan's national sport[113] and it is a popular spectator sport in Japan. Martial arts such as judo, karate and kendo are also widely practiced and enjoyed by spectators in the country. After the Meiji Restoration, many Western sports were introduced in Japan and began to spread through the education system.[114]

The professional baseball league in Japan was established in 1936.[115] Today baseball is the most popular spectator sport in the country. One of the most famous Japanese baseball players is Ichiro Suzuki, who, having won Japan's Most Valuable Player award in 1994, 1995 and 1996, now plays in North American Major League Baseball. Prior to that, Sadaharu Oh was well-known outside Japan, having hit more home runs during his career in Japan than his contemporary, Hank Aaron, did in America.

Since the establishment of the Japan Professional Football League in 1992, association football (soccer) has also gained a wide following.[116] Japan was a venue of the Intercontinental Cup from 1981 to 2004 and co-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup with South Korea. Japan is one of the most successful soccer teams in Asia, winning the Asian Cup three times.

Golf is also popular in Japan,[117] as are forms of auto racing, such as the Super GT sports car series and Formula Nippon formula racing.[118] Twin Ring Motegi was completed in 1997 by Honda in order to bring IndyCar racing to Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan

The Making of Modern Japan
Marius B. Jansen
Magisterial in vision, sweeping in scope, this monumental work presents a seamless account of Japanese society during the modern era, from 1600 to the present. A distillation of more than fifty years' engagement with Japan and its history, it is the crowning work of our leading interpreter of the modern Japanese experience.

Since 1600 Japan has undergone three periods of wrenching social and institutional change, following the imposition of hegemonic order on feudal society by the Tokugawa shogun; the opening of Japan's ports by Commodore Perry; and defeat in World War II. The Making of Modern Japan charts these changes: the social engineering begun with the founding of the shogunate in 1600, the emergence of village and castle towns with consumer populations, and the diffusion of samurai values in the culture.

Jansen covers the making of the modern state, the adaptation of Western models, growing international trade, the broadening opportunity in Japanese society with industrialization, and the postwar occupation reforms imposed by General MacArthur. Throughout, the book gives voice to the individuals and views that have shaped the actions and beliefs of the Japanese, with writers, artists, and thinkers, as well as political leaders given their due.

The story this book tells, though marked by profound changes, is also one of remarkable consistency, in which continuities outweigh upheavals in the development of society, and successive waves of outside influence have only served to strengthen a sense of what is unique and native to Japanese experience. The Making of Modern Japan takes us to the core of this experience as it illuminates one of the contemporary world's most compelling transformations.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/JANMAK.html

Japan
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JPRI Occasional Paper No. 17 (September 2000)
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
by Herbert P. Bix


He said the Emperor had remarked to him several times that the name given his reign-- Showa, [meaning] Enlightened Peace-- now seemed to be a cynical one but he wished to retain that designation and hoped that he would live long enough to insure that it would indeed be a reign of "Splendid Peace." -- Gen. Courtney Whitney

On April 28, 1952, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and the Administrative Agreement granting American military forces in Japan special privileges all went into effect simultaneously. GHQ was abolished; the occupation ended. Thousands of American armed forces began to go home.

Japan now, at last, regained formal independence. At last also the long era of combined military-civilian rule, which had begun in the mid-1880s under Meiji and endured through MacArthur and Ridgway, came to an end. Hirohito finally realized his often stated wish that the occupation be long and followed by an alliance with the United States that would protect Japan militarily into the future. Probably the emperor had even foreseen that the alliance (as opposed to the presence of large numbers of American troops) would be relatively popular with about half the nation, as indeed it proved to be. That the peace treaty had been signed with forty-eight nations but not with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, the Philippines, and India did not bother Hirohito as it did most leftist and some conservative politicians. They opposed both the one-sided peace and the defensive military alliance that had as its main object the containment of China and the Soviet Union.

Japan's return to independence brought home to Hirohito once again the personal losses he had suffered from the defeat and MacArthur's democratizing reforms. His tours of the country, originally undertaken to strengthen domestic integration and save the throne, had largely ended. He could no longer intervene in foreign and domestic affairs by secretly communicating his views to American officials. How was he to convey to the leadership of a new Japan his vision of peace and security through military alliance and economic development? He wanted still to be considered an important political figure, and a large constituency of emperor-enthusiasts continued to believe that he ought to be a driving force in politics. How could he adjust to the role the new constitution required, that of a merely ceremonial monarch?

It was clear that these questions preoccupied him at a time when his only chance to play an active political role in rebuilding the nation depended on the continued loyalty of conservative politicians. When, at the formation of the Progressive Reform Party in February 1952, some of those politicians began to advocate constitutional revision, Hirohito's hopes brightened. A few years later politicians in Yoshida's Liberal Party and members of the Progressive Reform Party launched a movement to partially amend the new constitution in order to eliminate Article 9, entitle him "the head of state," and revive some of the authority he had held under the Meiji constitution. Hirohito backed it. Popular opposition proved too strong, however, and by the end of the 1950s the movement was defeated.

At the return of independence, Japan was absorbed with physical reconstruction, restoration of foreign trade, and economic development. Territorial issues with the Soviet Union over the Kuriles and the United States over the Ryukyu and Ogasawara Islands remained to be negotiated. Memories of the lost war were still vivid; fear of militarism was strong and hatred of the upper echelons of the old officer corps widespread. People remembered that the emperor had sent their sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers off to war. Yet few still argued about his direct responsibility for launching the war, or for the many violations of domestic and international law that had occurred during its course. Where the "symbol" of the nation's unity was concerned, most Japanese were reluctant to exercise their new freedoms. Hirohito's continuation on the throne after independence clearly inhibited popular exercise of the constitution's guarantee of freedom of thought and expression.

Shortly before the treaties became effective, in January 1952, a thirty-four-year-old conservative politician, Nakasone Yasuhiro, declared during questioning in the Budgetary Committee of the House of Representatives that "responsibility for having degraded the glory of modern Japan lies with the Showa emperor." Nakasone wanted Hirohito, whom he called "a pacifist," to acknowledge "his responsibility for having driven Japan into a reckless war" by abdicating so that "the crown prince [could] become emperor" and "the moral foundation of the monarchy firmed up and made eternal." Prime Minister Yoshida angrily labeled Nakasone "un-Japanese;" the rest of the nation just ignored him.

So too did Hirohito. He had no sense of moral accountability to any but his ancestors, and when under pressure to abdicate, he sometimes intimated to aides that he continued to think of himself as a monarch by divine right. In early 1952, in private remarks to Grand Chamberlain Inada Shuichi, Hirohito observed that regardless of what others had said of him during the occupation, he himself had never said he intended to abdicate. He believed he had a divine mission to remain on the throne and rebuild Japan. "The Meiji emperor said that unlike ministers who can resign, emperors can't abdicate because they must carry out the divine order as written in the dynastic histories. . . . My duty is to bequeath this country, which I received from my ancestors, to my descendants." Hirohito's self-image could not have been more unsuitable and unrealistic for a "symbol" monarch under a democratic constitution. Postwar standards of morality were changing; Hirohito's were not.

While Hirohito clung to his old self-image, speculation that he might abdicate ended around 1952, and Japanese media attention shifted to his nineteen-year-old son, Crown Prince Akihito. With no dark shadow of war guilt hanging over him, Akihito had been hailed in the press as the "future hope of Japan." He had received a Western-style education, was at ease with social conversation and spoke Japanese in a normal voice, with a normal intonation (neither of which his father did). Moreover, Akihito had been tutored in the virtues of Britain's George V rather than Meiji, and in English by a Philadelphia Quaker, Mrs. Elizabeth Vining. He was now being prepared for his ceremonial investiture, a "state ceremony" scheduled for November 1952, and the press reported that he would soon be sent abroad to attend the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. At the start of the postoccupation period, Hirohito, the Imperial Household Agency, and the Yoshida cabinet strove to convey, through the crown prince, a message of close friendship with the island nation of Britain, praised as the model of apolitical constitutional monarchy.

I

Compared to military occupations of other countries by other armies, the occupation of Japan had been mild and correct; now the peace treaty was extremely generous and nonpunitive. Virtually the only reparations that Japan would ever have to pay-- a mere 1.02 billion dollars worth of goods and "services" spread out over many years-- were to the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, and (later) the American-created client state of South Vietnam. Nevertheless, at the end of 1952, some 260,000 American military personnel remained posted at bases throughout the country, while strategically important Okinawa and the Ogasawara Islands continued to be occupied. Emperor Hirohito had personally given his consent for these arrangements to the State Department's special consultant on the treaty, John Foster Dulles. For Hirohito understood, better than most Japanese at the time, the unbreakable connection between Japan's renunciation of war and armaments in Article 9 of the constitution, and Okinawa's ongoing status as a giant military base under direct American military rule.

The entire experience of war, defeat, foreign occupation, and reform left Japan deeply divided about its recent past and uneasy about the future. For the Yoshida cabinet two tasks held priority: controlling the deep divisions of national opinion on the issue of the new Security Treaty, and correcting the "excesses" in the occupation-era reforms by pursuing a Japanese-initiated "reverse course." Favorable international conditions and a clever strategy for remembering the war dead facilitated the achievement of both tasks. Generally the U.S.-Soviet Cold War permitted Japan's ruling conservatives to be tricky in their treatment of war criminals, and it freed them from foreign criticism as they went about reimposing censorship in education where the war and the role of the emperor were concerned. In signing the peace treaty Prime Minister Yoshida acknowledged only minimal Japanese war responsibility. He assented (in Article 11) to the charges against the convicted felons and accepted the judgements rendered by the Tokyo tribunal and other Allied war crimes trials. Yet at home Yoshida was able to deny or leave unquestioned the war-leaders' and the state's responsibility to the nation and the world.

This denial could be seen in the way Japanese government officials, as well as an influential minority of private citizens, dismissed the Tokyo trial as one-sided "victor's justice," denied launching and escalating the China war, and avoided all discussion of war responsibility. Between 1951 and 1960, various movements arose seeking the release of "detained comrades" still held in prison. In the Diet conservatives and socialists passed resolutions demanding the release of the convicted criminals. Concurrently the government paid their back salaries and restored their pensions-- on the grounds that they had not been tried under Japanese domestic law and therefore should not be treated as ordinary, standard, home-style criminals. A very small number of those who had been imprisoned as war criminals, such as Shigemitsu Mamoru, Kaya Okinori, and Kishi Nobusuke, actually rose to high positions at the very center of Japanese politics. External acceptance of war responsibility but internal denial-- or as historian Yoshida Yutaka termed it, the "double standard"-- both in the actual treatment of those convicted of war crimes, and as a framework for thinking about the lost war, first formed as the occupation ended, then spread through Japanese society during and after the Korean War.



Hirohito was the ultimate symbol of this "double standard," just as he was an integral part of the conservative approach to containing dissent and keeping everyone aimed toward steady economic development. He played a key role in demonstrating to the nation that the leaders of the state understood the importance of according proper treatment to the war dead and their families. On the first May Day after restoration of independence, May 1, 1952, demonstrators protesting both the peace treaty and pending Diet legislation to "prevent destructive activities," clashed with police in front of the Imperial Palace. Two people died and approximately 2,300 were injured. The next day, against this background of a deeply divided populace, the government staged the first national war memorial service at the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens in Tokyo. To the strains of the former national anthem, "Kimigayo" (May the imperial reign endure), Hirohito, wearing mourning clothes and a top hat, mounted the memorial platform together with Empress Nagako and read aloud these lines:

Due to the recent succession of wars, countless numbers died on the battlefields, sacrificed their lives in the course of work or met untimely deaths. I mourn for all of them from the bottom of my heart and am always pained when I think of their bereaved families. On this occasion, my thoughts are with them and I renew my condolences to them.
Seven years earlier Hirohito had pronounced similar words in his rescript announcing surrender. Then his intention had been to protect the kokutai. Now it was to move closer to the bereaved families and bind the nation together while also indicating, subtly and indirectly, that the question of his own war responsibility should not be reopened.
Significantly, Prime Minister Yoshida's eulogy stressed that the war dead had laid the foundation for Japan's peace and future prosperity. Their "sacrifice" for the nation, said Yoshida, bound the dead to their living heirs. For the next quarter century, all conservative governments would make repeated and powerful use of the word "sacrifice."

In June 1952, Hirohito visited Ise Shrine and in July the shrine of the Meiji emperor. In August he had honored the war dead. Now, on October 16, he resumed worshiping at Yasukuni Shrine. Thereafter, down to 1975, Hirohito visited the shrine on eight occasions. It was as if there had been no occupation, or at least no reforms. He was completely indifferent to Yasukuni's disestablishment from the state for its role in channeling religious energy into war.

II

Conservatives and progressives divided in the early 1950s not only over their characterization of the Asia-Pacific war, but also about the highly subordinate military relationship that the United States had forced upon Japan. The Security Treaty, which was presented to the Yoshida cabinet as a precondition for ending the occupation, brought Japan under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" and ceded to American military forces many special rights and prerogatives. Militarily, diplomatically, and psychologically, Japan remained dominated by its former conqueror-- a kingpin state in America's Asian-Pacific network of alliances and military bases.

Many Japanese perceived their military entanglement with the United States as both highly dangerous and a flagrant negation of the peace ideals inscribed in their new constitution; others, including Hirohito, saw things differently. They took a "realist" view and recognized only the favorable international conditions for economic growth created by subordination to the strongest Western power. The security alliance with the United States relieved Japan of the costs of providing for its own defense, freed its industries to profit enormously from the war in Korea, and insured access to U.S.-controlled markets, technology, and raw materials. The other side was that the American-Soviet rivalry was turning into a world-endangering arms race, and Japan was being drawn into it just as it was developing a culture of pacifism and anti-militarism.

Lacking confidence in their ability to govern in a democracy torn by fierce social conflicts between unions and business firms, Japan's political elites felt a deep uncertainty. Conservatives (including the very small but significant minority who had spent the occupation years behind bars), drafted plans to revise the "peace constitution" and strengthen the emperor's powers by changing his status from a vague "symbol" to a "head of state" who once again could have the power to declare national emergencies and promulgate emergency decrees. Their aim was not to revive the prewar or wartime "emperor system." Neither was it to educate future generations in the old imperial-nation view of history rooted in mythology. Rather, conservatives sought to bolster the emperor's authority so they could use it for their own purposes. They hoped to restrict the human rights provisions of the constitution for the sake of "public welfare." They also wanted to insert new clauses to protect rights of inheritance, thereby strengthening the family system, while curtailing most of the women's rights so dramatically expanded under the occupation.

Extremely concerned about his people's preoccupation with their rights rather than their obligations, Hirohito welcomed these restorationist efforts. He was happy to once again sanction official documents and to have the credentials of foreign diplomats presented to him. His years of active participation in politics and decision making had been personally fulfilling and he longed to resume meaningful political activity. But his constitutional status was now merely that of a "symbol." Intervention in military, diplomatic, and political affairs was denied him. When established in June 1954, the "Self Defense Forces" and "Self-Defense Force Agency" were placed under the command of the prime minister with the principle of civilian control written into their enabling legislation. Being severed from the new Japan's military was painful to Hirohito. His growing irrelevance to Japanese politics and policy making was even more painful.

What remained to him? Only the secret briefings he received from cabinet ministers, and the year-end reports on law and order from the head of the Metropolitan Police and the governor of Tokyo. Neither briefings nor reports were provided for by constitutional law, however, and either could be ended at any time. As the political battles of the mid- and late-1950s unfolded, Hirohito could only hope that influential politicians would seek out his political counsel, continue the briefings he received, and refrain from insisting he be hobbled by his constitutional "symbol" status.

The political turmoil began during the government of Yoshida's successor, seventy-two-year-old Hatoyama Ichiro, who was committed (prematurely as it turned out) to a policy of economic and political independence for Japan. On the day Hatoyama formed his first cabinet, December 10, 1954, Foreign Minister and ex-convicted-felon Shigemitsu Mamoru came to the Palace to brief Hirohito. An innately conservative, yet also intellectually innovative and ambitious person, Shigemitsu during the late 1930s had been an advocate of the "new order" and direct imperial rule. Five years in prison had not changed his fondness for abstract plans to devise new orders. Neither had prison dulled his lively sense of himself as the emperor's loyal servant, or his belief that the emperor lay at the interstices of power and could still be used to serve the purposes of his ministers just as under the old constitution.

Throughout 1955 Shigemitsu and Hirohito discussed important diplomatic issues about twice a month. After the Socialists had gained strength in the Diet and achieved party unity, the conservatives joined to form the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), with Hatoyama as its first president. In 1955, also, the Japanese economy finally surpassed its prewar and even wartime peak output in virtually all areas except one-- trade. While Hatoyama sought revision of the constitution to eliminate Article 9, and to elevate the status of the emperor, Shigemitsu moved to normalize relations with the Soviet Union and widen trade with China. The latter especially would be difficult to accomplish given that the United States was still under the influence of McCarthyism and anti-Communist hysteria, and refused even to recognize China.

At his meetings with Shigemitsu, Hirohito worried aloud about Communist infiltration of Japan should relations with Moscow be restored. He cautioned the foreign minister to avoid a situation where Japan could again become a strategic rival of the United States. In late August 1955, with Nikita Khrushchev in power and seeking a peace treaty with Japan, Hirohito spoke with Shigemitsu at his mansion in Nasu, Tochigi prefecture, and, according to Shigemitsu, stressed "the need to be friendly with the United States and hostile to communism. He said that [American] troops stationed in Japan must not withdraw." Hatoyama and Shigemitsu soon tired of Hirohito's uninvited anti-Communist admonitions and stopped consulting. Their efforts to negotiate with Moscow over the normalization of relations failed when they insisted that the Soviets return the northern Kurile Islands, seized at the end of World War II. Hirohito, unhappy with their diplomatic line, was probably pleased to see both of them depart.

By 1956 more and more Japanese were throwing off old authoritarian political attitudes under the influence of the new constitution and improved economic conditions. Nevertheless, the public was not yet ready to accept Japanese veterans who put down myths of wartime innocence and victimization. That year, determined to fill the void of knowledge about Japan's campaigns in China, veterans of those campaigns who had been imprisoned for war crimes in China returned home and began making public confessions to acts of genocide. In 1957 their book entitled, in Japanese, Sanko, Burn All, Kill All, Steal All, became a national best seller and introduced to the general public the term "sanko operations." Reaction was swift. The veterans were accused of "disgracing all Japanese." They were branded as communist dupes, "brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party." Under threat from right-wing thugs, the publisher soon discontinued it. Kill All, Burn All, Steal All had no place in Japanese collective memory at a time when the government was supporting the U.S. policy of containing China and commemorating the nation's losses in war.

Moreover, many still remained attached to the older forms of nationalist belonging centered on the emperor. Hirohito and his brother Prince Takamatsu took a close interest in the restorationist organizations that formed during the first wave of postoccupation nationalism. Occasionally, the emperor's former military aide, one Hayata Noboru, came to the palace to report on veterans groups such as the Japan Veterans Friendship League, of which he was the vice president, as well as on the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association-- an early-occupation-era group that had grown increasingly conservative since its reorganization in 1953.

On August 15, 1958, these two national associations joined with the Association of Shinto Shrines and various right-wing organizations to carry out a memorial service at the large Kudan Hall, near Yasukuni Shrine. The purpose of the service was to "enshrine the heroic spirits [eirei] of all those who died for the country in the War of Greater East Asia." The term "heroic spirit," connoting an outstanding person who had made a great achievement in war, had once been associated with the notion of "holy war." It had come to imply also a positive attitude toward the imperial state and a negative evaluation of the postwar values inscribed in the constitution. Hirohito and Empress Nagako sent flowers and an imperial message for these unofficial August 15 memorial services. They did not personally attend the annual ceremony, however, until 1963, when the name of the event was changed to the less ideologically charged "National War Dead Memorial Service."

Even among veterans and bereaved families, who in remembering the war dead at the same time reaffirmed the moral justness of the "War of Greater East Asia," there were many who also remembered that Hirohito represented all those leaders who had never admitted responsibility for the war. Such sentiment was usually expressed indirectly, as when the Shizuoka shinbun in October 1957 launched a campaign to induce the emperor to visit the "Nation-Protecting Shrine" [gokoku jinja], Shizuoka's local branch of Yasukuni Shrine. "Because the emperor is the representative of the nation and the symbol of the state, he expresses the nation's sentiment and so should bow down to the spirits of the war dead by visiting gokoku jinja. . . . They died for the Japanese state, for the nation, and for this emperor. Why should he not bow before them, show them his gratitude, and ask for their forgiveness?" And every request for Hirohito to show his "gratitude" and ask "forgiveness" of the war dead contained the possibility of rekindling discussion of his war responsibility.

Partly in response to this renewed nationalist activity by veterans and other conservative groups, a political backlash from the Left developed during the mid- and late 1950s. A small number of historical studies espousing critical views of the lost war gained national attention. On the university campuses, criticism rekindled in certain famous intellectuals who had supported expanding war during the 1930s and early 1940s. Communists, left-wing socialists, and liberals, but also some student groups and many white- and blue-collar workers increasingly condemned the LDP's efforts to revise the constitution. Fueling their opposition were fears of Japan being drawn into war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and fear of rearmament.

The LDP government's reinstitution of state control of education, and its heavy-handed attempt to resuscitate patriotic enthusiasm, also kindled distrust. During the mid-1950s the Ministry of Education checked the influence of the progressive Japan Teachers Union and abolished publicly elected school boards. In place of the latter, it installed the mechanism of school textbook examinations-- an ideal device for perpetuating the "double standard." The system of textbook control implemented between 1956 and 1958 played down Japan's aggressive Asian colonialism and wars. The ministry also attempted to require schools to display the "Rising Sun" flag and to teach the singing of "Kimigayo," even though neither of them enjoyed legal sanction, both closely associated with the prewar regime. This was finally achieved in 1999.

During the first decade of independence, Hirohito gradually ceased to be an object of frequent media attention. He continued to make public appearances at sports events and tree planting ceremonies, to travel to different parts of the country for very short visits, and to perform the limited duties prescribed for him in the constitution. Soon two antagonistic imperial images began to emerge. One was the postwar "human" emperor, a "scientist," a "scholar," and a "family man," popular with his people and in tune with the democratic and liberal values codified in the constitution and practiced in the emerging consumer society. The other was the remote, hard, awe-inspiring, high-voiced emperor, stiffly bound into Shinto and the old value structure, and supportive of the unreformed imperial system. Many middle-aged and elderly supporters of the LDP embraced the latter image and clung to the traditional political values.

III

In February 1957 Kishi Nobusuke, who had served as minister of commerce and industry, and later vice minister of munitions under Tojo, formed a cabinet bent on revising the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and developing a more independent foreign policy. Kishi's goals included reestablishing close economic ties with the nations of Southeast Asia and securing the release of B and C Class war criminals who still were imprisoned for such crimes as torture, rape, and murder. Some were in Sugamo Prison; others remained in the custody of former Allied nations. Their early parole and pardon, Kishi argued, would make it easier for Japan to forget the past and move closer to the United States. The Eisenhower administration agreed and helped to expedite the release of the remaining war criminals.

Kishi, like Hatoyama before him, hoped to revise Articles 1 and 9 of the constitution (on the emperor and the abandonment of war), and to expand the small Self-Defense Forces. Anticipating public demonstrations protesting renewal of the Security Treaty, Kishi introduced a bill to strengthen the powers of the police. In late October 1958 the mass media and most of the nation's labor unions turned against the proposed police law and a national coalition soon emerged calling for Kishi's removal.

In early November the four-million-strong Sohyo labor federation went on strike against the police bill. As opposition to Kishi escalated, his government, on November 27, happily announced the engagement of Crown Prince Akihito and Shoda Michiko, daughter of the president of a large flour-milling company and the product of a Catholic upbringing. Public attention immediately turned from nasty politics to romantic love as palace officials and the media carefully orchestrated all the details. An astonishing "Mitchii" craze swept Japan, and Kishi safely escaped the headlines for awhile.

The engagement and marriage of the crown prince marked an important shift in the evolution of the monarchy. To hear the words "commoner" and "love" joined to the imperial family was distinctively new and very popular. Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako opposed the marriage because they believed Michiko might not be able to handle the intricacies of palace customs. What most concerned Hirohito was neither Michiko's Christianity nor even the maintenance of the imperial house's ties to state Shinto, but rather the break with tradition that the marriage connoted. Hirohito was uncomfortable with the very notion of an "open, popular monarchy." But like everyone, he and Nagako could also appreciate how an alliance with one of the nation's prominent business families could serve to strengthen a legally and politically weakened monarchy.

In February 1959 a Japanese opinion poll showed 87 percent support for Akihito's choice of a commoner. But in addition to general approval, there was also public uneasiness about the marriage. Some worried that a perfectly normal woman marrying into the imperial family would suffer from the loss of her accustomed freedom and become unhappy. A small number of critics and writers of fiction, including the well-known novelist Fukazawa Shichiro, urged that imperial males never marry outside the royal pale so that continued inbreeding would eventually lead to the extinction of the whole imperial lot. Die-hard traditionalists and Shintoists were also opposed. To them there was only threat in the new society of mass consumption and hedonistic aspiration: prewar values were fast eroding, and the marriage suggested that if the throne were brought down to earth, it would eventually be debased also-- by popular acclaim and approval.

Crown Prince Akihito and Michiko were united on April 10, 1959, before a huge television audience estimated at fifteen million viewers; another half million lined the route of their marriage parade. The newlyweds then disappeared on their honeymoon, and from public attention, which now reverted to the great political issues. On January 19, 1960, Kishi signed in Washington, D.C., a renegotiated and more equitable Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The United States promised to consult before committing its forces in Japan to military action. American bases remained on Japanese soil, however, and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces were obligated to aid U.S. forces should Washington find itself at war with some other Far Eastern nation (such as China), and should that other nation attack American bases in Japan.

Ratification was fiercely resisted by the opposition parties within the Diet and by organized labor and student groups outside the Diet. On May 19 five hundred uniformed policemen were brought into the House of Representatives; the vote on ratification was literally a forced vote. This proceeding triggered a month of the largest demonstrations in Japanese history, culminating on June 15th with the death of a student protester in a clash with police in front of the Diet building, followed by calls for a general strike by a coalition of union federations and groups of private citizens. Kishi immediately canceled the scheduled visit of President Eisenhower to Japan. Four days later the Security Treaty went into effect, and the next month Kishi and his entire cabinet resigned, having accomplished their primary mission.

Hirohito was the ultimate symbol of this "double standard," just as he was an integral part of the conservative approach to containing dissent and keeping everyone aimed toward steady economic development. He played a key role in demonstrating to the nation that the leaders of the state understood the importance of according proper treatment to the war dead and their families. On the first May Day after restoration of independence, May 1, 1952, demonstrators protesting both the peace treaty and pending Diet legislation to "prevent destructive activities," clashed with police in front of the Imperial Palace. Two people died and approximately 2,300 were injured. The next day, against this background of a deeply divided populace, the government staged the first national war memorial service at the Shinjuku Imperial Gardens in Tokyo. To the strains of the former national anthem, "Kimigayo" (May the imperial reign endure), Hirohito, wearing mourning clothes and a top hat, mounted the memorial platform together with Empress Nagako and read aloud these lines:

Due to the recent succession of wars, countless numbers died on the battlefields, sacrificed their lives in the course of work or met untimely deaths. I mourn for all of them from the bottom of my heart and am always pained when I think of their bereaved families. On this occasion, my thoughts are with them and I renew my condolences to them.
Seven years earlier Hirohito had pronounced similar words in his rescript announcing surrender. Then his intention had been to protect the kokutai. Now it was to move closer to the bereaved families and bind the nation together while also indicating, subtly and indirectly, that the question of his own war responsibility should not be reopened.
Significantly, Prime Minister Yoshida's eulogy stressed that the war dead had laid the foundation for Japan's peace and future prosperity. Their "sacrifice" for the nation, said Yoshida, bound the dead to their living heirs. For the next quarter century, all conservative governments would make repeated and powerful use of the word "sacrifice."

In June 1952, Hirohito visited Ise Shrine and in July the shrine of the Meiji emperor. In August he had honored the war dead. Now, on October 16, he resumed worshiping at Yasukuni Shrine. Thereafter, down to 1975, Hirohito visited the shrine on eight occasions. It was as if there had been no occupation, or at least no reforms. He was completely indifferent to Yasukuni's disestablishment from the state for its role in channeling religious energy into war.

II

Conservatives and progressives divided in the early 1950s not only over their characterization of the Asia-Pacific war, but also about the highly subordinate military relationship that the United States had forced upon Japan. The Security Treaty, which was presented to the Yoshida cabinet as a precondition for ending the occupation, brought Japan under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" and ceded to American military forces many special rights and prerogatives. Militarily, diplomatically, and psychologically, Japan remained dominated by its former conqueror-- a kingpin state in America's Asian-Pacific network of alliances and military bases.

Many Japanese perceived their military entanglement with the United States as both highly dangerous and a flagrant negation of the peace ideals inscribed in their new constitution; others, including Hirohito, saw things differently. They took a "realist" view and recognized only the favorable international conditions for economic growth created by subordination to the strongest Western power. The security alliance with the United States relieved Japan of the costs of providing for its own defense, freed its industries to profit enormously from the war in Korea, and insured access to U.S.-controlled markets, technology, and raw materials. The other side was that the American-Soviet rivalry was turning into a world-endangering arms race, and Japan was being drawn into it just as it was developing a culture of pacifism and anti-militarism.

Lacking confidence in their ability to govern in a democracy torn by fierce social conflicts between unions and business firms, Japan's political elites felt a deep uncertainty. Conservatives (including the very small but significant minority who had spent the occupation years behind bars), drafted plans to revise the "peace constitution" and strengthen the emperor's powers by changing his status from a vague "symbol" to a "head of state" who once again could have the power to declare national emergencies and promulgate emergency decrees. Their aim was not to revive the prewar or wartime "emperor system." Neither was it to educate future generations in the old imperial-nation view of history rooted in mythology. Rather, conservatives sought to bolster the emperor's authority so they could use it for their own purposes. They hoped to restrict the human rights provisions of the constitution for the sake of "public welfare." They also wanted to insert new clauses to protect rights of inheritance, thereby strengthening the family system, while curtailing most of the women's rights so dramatically expanded under the occupation.

Extremely concerned about his people's preoccupation with their rights rather than their obligations, Hirohito welcomed these restorationist efforts. He was happy to once again sanction official documents and to have the credentials of foreign diplomats presented to him. His years of active participation in politics and decision making had been personally fulfilling and he longed to resume meaningful political activity. But his constitutional status was now merely that of a "symbol." Intervention in military, diplomatic, and political affairs was denied him. When established in June 1954, the "Self Defense Forces" and "Self-Defense Force Agency" were placed under the command of the prime minister with the principle of civilian control written into their enabling legislation. Being severed from the new Japan's military was painful to Hirohito. His growing irrelevance to Japanese politics and policy making was even more painful.

What remained to him? Only the secret briefings he received from cabinet ministers, and the year-end reports on law and order from the head of the Metropolitan Police and the governor of Tokyo. Neither briefings nor reports were provided for by constitutional law, however, and either could be ended at any time. As the political battles of the mid- and late-1950s unfolded, Hirohito could only hope that influential politicians would seek out his political counsel, continue the briefings he received, and refrain from insisting he be hobbled by his constitutional "symbol" status.

The political turmoil began during the government of Yoshida's successor, seventy-two-year-old Hatoyama Ichiro, who was committed (prematurely as it turned out) to a policy of economic and political independence for Japan. On the day Hatoyama formed his first cabinet, December 10, 1954, Foreign Minister and ex-convicted-felon Shigemitsu Mamoru came to the Palace to brief Hirohito. An innately conservative, yet also intellectually innovative and ambitious person, Shigemitsu during the late 1930s had been an advocate of the "new order" and direct imperial rule. Five years in prison had not changed his fondness for abstract plans to devise new orders. Neither had prison dulled his lively sense of himself as the emperor's loyal servant, or his belief that the emperor lay at the interstices of power and could still be used to serve the purposes of his ministers just as under the old constitution.

Throughout 1955 Shigemitsu and Hirohito discussed important diplomatic issues about twice a month. After the Socialists had gained strength in the Diet and achieved party unity, the conservatives joined to form the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), with Hatoyama as its first president. In 1955, also, the Japanese economy finally surpassed its prewar and even wartime peak output in virtually all areas except one-- trade. While Hatoyama sought revision of the constitution to eliminate Article 9, and to elevate the status of the emperor, Shigemitsu moved to normalize relations with the Soviet Union and widen trade with China. The latter especially would be difficult to accomplish given that the United States was still under the influence of McCarthyism and anti-Communist hysteria, and refused even to recognize China.

At his meetings with Shigemitsu, Hirohito worried aloud about Communist infiltration of Japan should relations with Moscow be restored. He cautioned the foreign minister to avoid a situation where Japan could again become a strategic rival of the United States. In late August 1955, with Nikita Khrushchev in power and seeking a peace treaty with Japan, Hirohito spoke with Shigemitsu at his mansion in Nasu, Tochigi prefecture, and, according to Shigemitsu, stressed "the need to be friendly with the United States and hostile to communism. He said that [American] troops stationed in Japan must not withdraw." Hatoyama and Shigemitsu soon tired of Hirohito's uninvited anti-Communist admonitions and stopped consulting. Their efforts to negotiate with Moscow over the normalization of relations failed when they insisted that the Soviets return the northern Kurile Islands, seized at the end of World War II. Hirohito, unhappy with their diplomatic line, was probably pleased to see both of them depart.

By 1956 more and more Japanese were throwing off old authoritarian political attitudes under the influence of the new constitution and improved economic conditions. Nevertheless, the public was not yet ready to accept Japanese veterans who put down myths of wartime innocence and victimization. That year, determined to fill the void of knowledge about Japan's campaigns in China, veterans of those campaigns who had been imprisoned for war crimes in China returned home and began making public confessions to acts of genocide. In 1957 their book entitled, in Japanese, Sanko, Burn All, Kill All, Steal All, became a national best seller and introduced to the general public the term "sanko operations." Reaction was swift. The veterans were accused of "disgracing all Japanese." They were branded as communist dupes, "brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party." Under threat from right-wing thugs, the publisher soon discontinued it. Kill All, Burn All, Steal All had no place in Japanese collective memory at a time when the government was supporting the U.S. policy of containing China and commemorating the nation's losses in war.

Moreover, many still remained attached to the older forms of nationalist belonging centered on the emperor. Hirohito and his brother Prince Takamatsu took a close interest in the restorationist organizations that formed during the first wave of postoccupation nationalism. Occasionally, the emperor's former military aide, one Hayata Noboru, came to the palace to report on veterans groups such as the Japan Veterans Friendship League, of which he was the vice president, as well as on the Japan War-Bereaved Families Association-- an early-occupation-era group that had grown increasingly conservative since its reorganization in 1953.

On August 15, 1958, these two national associations joined with the Association of Shinto Shrines and various right-wing organizations to carry out a memorial service at the large Kudan Hall, near Yasukuni Shrine. The purpose of the service was to "enshrine the heroic spirits [eirei] of all those who died for the country in the War of Greater East Asia." The term "heroic spirit," connoting an outstanding person who had made a great achievement in war, had once been associated with the notion of "holy war." It had come to imply also a positive attitude toward the imperial state and a negative evaluation of the postwar values inscribed in the constitution. Hirohito and Empress Nagako sent flowers and an imperial message for these unofficial August 15 memorial services. They did not personally attend the annual ceremony, however, until 1963, when the name of the event was changed to the less ideologically charged "National War Dead Memorial Service."

Even among veterans and bereaved families, who in remembering the war dead at the same time reaffirmed the moral justness of the "War of Greater East Asia," there were many who also remembered that Hirohito represented all those leaders who had never admitted responsibility for the war. Such sentiment was usually expressed indirectly, as when the Shizuoka shinbun in October 1957 launched a campaign to induce the emperor to visit the "Nation-Protecting Shrine" [gokoku jinja], Shizuoka's local branch of Yasukuni Shrine. "Because the emperor is the representative of the nation and the symbol of the state, he expresses the nation's sentiment and so should bow down to the spirits of the war dead by visiting gokoku jinja. . . . They died for the Japanese state, for the nation, and for this emperor. Why should he not bow before them, show them his gratitude, and ask for their forgiveness?" And every request for Hirohito to show his "gratitude" and ask "forgiveness" of the war dead contained the possibility of rekindling discussion of his war responsibility.

Partly in response to this renewed nationalist activity by veterans and other conservative groups, a political backlash from the Left developed during the mid- and late 1950s. A small number of historical studies espousing critical views of the lost war gained national attention. On the university campuses, criticism rekindled in certain famous intellectuals who had supported expanding war during the 1930s and early 1940s. Communists, left-wing socialists, and liberals, but also some student groups and many white- and blue-collar workers increasingly condemned the LDP's efforts to revise the constitution. Fueling their opposition were fears of Japan being drawn into war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and fear of rearmament.

The LDP government's reinstitution of state control of education, and its heavy-handed attempt to resuscitate patriotic enthusiasm, also kindled distrust. During the mid-1950s the Ministry of Education checked the influence of the progressive Japan Teachers Union and abolished publicly elected school boards. In place of the latter, it installed the mechanism of school textbook examinations-- an ideal device for perpetuating the "double standard." The system of textbook control implemented between 1956 and 1958 played down Japan's aggressive Asian colonialism and wars. The ministry also attempted to require schools to display the "Rising Sun" flag and to teach the singing of "Kimigayo," even though neither of them enjoyed legal sanction, both closely associated with the prewar regime. This was finally achieved in 1999.

During the first decade of independence, Hirohito gradually ceased to be an object of frequent media attention. He continued to make public appearances at sports events and tree planting ceremonies, to travel to different parts of the country for very short visits, and to perform the limited duties prescribed for him in the constitution. Soon two antagonistic imperial images began to emerge. One was the postwar "human" emperor, a "scientist," a "scholar," and a "family man," popular with his people and in tune with the democratic and liberal values codified in the constitution and practiced in the emerging consumer society. The other was the remote, hard, awe-inspiring, high-voiced emperor, stiffly bound into Shinto and the old value structure, and supportive of the unreformed imperial system. Many middle-aged and elderly supporters of the LDP embraced the latter image and clung to the traditional political values.

III

In February 1957 Kishi Nobusuke, who had served as minister of commerce and industry, and later vice minister of munitions under Tojo, formed a cabinet bent on revising the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and developing a more independent foreign policy. Kishi's goals included reestablishing close economic ties with the nations of Southeast Asia and securing the release of B and C Class war criminals who still were imprisoned for such crimes as torture, rape, and murder. Some were in Sugamo Prison; others remained in the custody of former Allied nations. Their early parole and pardon, Kishi argued, would make it easier for Japan to forget the past and move closer to the United States. The Eisenhower administration agreed and helped to expedite the release of the remaining war criminals.

Kishi, like Hatoyama before him, hoped to revise Articles 1 and 9 of the constitution (on the emperor and the abandonment of war), and to expand the small Self-Defense Forces. Anticipating public demonstrations protesting renewal of the Security Treaty, Kishi introduced a bill to strengthen the powers of the police. In late October 1958 the mass media and most of the nation's labor unions turned against the proposed police law and a national coalition soon emerged calling for Kishi's removal.

In early November the four-million-strong Sohyo labor federation went on strike against the police bill. As opposition to Kishi escalated, his government, on November 27, happily announced the engagement of Crown Prince Akihito and Shoda Michiko, daughter of the president of a large flour-milling company and the product of a Catholic upbringing. Public attention immediately turned from nasty politics to romantic love as palace officials and the media carefully orchestrated all the details. An astonishing "Mitchii" craze swept Japan, and Kishi safely escaped the headlines for awhile.

The engagement and marriage of the crown prince marked an important shift in the evolution of the monarchy. To hear the words "commoner" and "love" joined to the imperial family was distinctively new and very popular. Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako opposed the marriage because they believed Michiko might not be able to handle the intricacies of palace customs. What most concerned Hirohito was neither Michiko's Christianity nor even the maintenance of the imperial house's ties to state Shinto, but rather the break with tradition that the marriage connoted. Hirohito was uncomfortable with the very notion of an "open, popular monarchy." But like everyone, he and Nagako could also appreciate how an alliance with one of the nation's prominent business families could serve to strengthen a legally and politically weakened monarchy.

In February 1959 a Japanese opinion poll showed 87 percent support for Akihito's choice of a commoner. But in addition to general approval, there was also public uneasiness about the marriage. Some worried that a perfectly normal woman marrying into the imperial family would suffer from the loss of her accustomed freedom and become unhappy. A small number of critics and writers of fiction, including the well-known novelist Fukazawa Shichiro, urged that imperial males never marry outside the royal pale so that continued inbreeding would eventually lead to the extinction of the whole imperial lot. Die-hard traditionalists and Shintoists were also opposed. To them there was only threat in the new society of mass consumption and hedonistic aspiration: prewar values were fast eroding, and the marriage suggested that if the throne were brought down to earth, it would eventually be debased also-- by popular acclaim and approval.

Crown Prince Akihito and Michiko were united on April 10, 1959, before a huge television audience estimated at fifteen million viewers; another half million lined the route of their marriage parade. The newlyweds then disappeared on their honeymoon, and from public attention, which now reverted to the great political issues. On January 19, 1960, Kishi signed in Washington, D.C., a renegotiated and more equitable Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. The United States promised to consult before committing its forces in Japan to military action. American bases remained on Japanese soil, however, and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces were obligated to aid U.S. forces should Washington find itself at war with some other Far Eastern nation (such as China), and should that other nation attack American bases in Japan.

Ratification was fiercely resisted by the opposition parties within the Diet and by organized labor and student groups outside the Diet. On May 19 five hundred uniformed policemen were brought into the House of Representatives; the vote on ratification was literally a forced vote. This proceeding triggered a month of the largest demonstrations in Japanese history, culminating on June 15th with the death of a student protester in a clash with police in front of the Diet building, followed by calls for a general strike by a coalition of union federations and groups of private citizens. Kishi immediately canceled the scheduled visit of President Eisenhower to Japan. Four days later the Security Treaty went into effect, and the next month Kishi and his entire cabinet resigned, having accomplished their primary mission.



For Hirohito the whole ratification experience was an emotional ordeal. He had wanted relations with the United States improved and the alliance strengthened at all costs. Until the very last minute he had hoped to travel to Haneda airport to greet visiting President Eisenhower, and be seen riding back to the Palace with him in a limousine past crowds of cheering well-wishers. Kishi would then have gotten his treaty renewed while Eisenhower's visit would have helped the emperor raise his status as de facto "head of state," with no need for constitutional revision. The cancellation had denied him that while the struggle over the treaty had temporarily turned the majority of the nation against any tampering with the constitution.

Thus the results of the whole effort were mixed. Hirohito's and the LDP's wish for an American military alliance that would insure continuation of Japan's diplomatic course for the remainder of his reign had been realized. But the struggle over the Security Treaty had been a learning process for the ruling elites. They had weathered the biggest national crisis of the post-occupation period without ever calling on help from the emperor. The rising generation of LDP leaders drew the lesson that the monarchy was not needed as a crisis-control mechanism. Hirohito's dream of someday regaining political relevance was only a dream.

While the treaty struggle was unfolding in Japan, in South Korea student demonstrators were overthrowing American-sponsored dictator Syngman Rhee. In this heated atmosphere of revolutionary hope on the Left and counterrevolutionary fear on the Right, Fukazawa Shichiro wrote a political parody entitled "Furyu mutan" (A dream of courtly elegance). In December 1960, in the immediate wake of the treaty struggle, Chuo Koron (Central review), a popular journal of opinion and the arts, published the story. It begins when the first-person narrator purchases a strange wristwatch that keeps correct time only while he sleeps. As his dream unfolds he witnesses an uprising in central Tokyo resulting in the takeover of the palace by left-wing revolutionaries. At the plaza in front of the palace, crowds enjoy watching as their "superiors" are laid low. The dreamer sees Crown Prince Akihito (in a tuxedo) and Princess Michiko (in a kimono) lying on the ground bellies-up, awaiting execution. The narrator realizes that it is his own ax being wielded by the executioner. The royal heads come off with a swoosh, roll across the plaza, and disappear from sight with a clinking metallic sound of tin cans.

Presently the narrator meets an elderly court chamberlain who tells him nonchalantly: "Now, if you go over there, their majesties the emperor and empress are being killed." He proceeds as instructed, and as he looks at the deceased royal couple, he notices the foreign labels "Made in England" on Hirohito's business suit and Nagako's skirt. The high point of the dream is an exchange with Emperor Meiji's wife-- that is, Hirohito's grandmother, who had died in 1914, and whom he confuses with Teimei kogo, Hirohito's mother.

"You scum wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for us! You owe us everything."

"How can you say that, you shitty old hag? Owe what? To you? Why, you sucked our blood and lived high on our money."

"What! So you've forgotten August 15? When our Hirohito saved all of you by surrendering? Unconditionally! And he did it!"

"Damn you! Our lives were saved because people around your grandson persuaded him to! Unconditionally!"

Later the dowager empress mutters defiantly, "All the people are grateful to us. They do this and they do that for us. Then in the end they say we were bloodsuckers who squeezed money out of them. But who wanted war? You, you idiots! What insolence!"

A satirical attack on the institution of the "symbol" monarchy, and on the fabricated myth that Hirohito had heroically saved the nation from destruction, the "Dream" can be seen as revealing a miscellany of thrusts and cuts that say much about the emperor problem when the era of rapid economic growth began. At a time when most Japanese opted to avoid confronting the emperor's responsibility for the war of aggression, the actors in Fukazawa's story, including the narrator, all have a bald spot on the crown of their heads. That common scar, baldness, is Fukazawa's metaphor for the emperor problem buried deep inside the Japanese conscience. The "Dream," in effect, asserts a mutual relationship of culpability shared by emperor and people, nearly all of whom had enthusiastically identified with him and cooperated in the unjust war of aggression. Fukazawa implies that having made the monarchy a unifying "symbol" for their own purposes, the people have not yet liberated themselves from their emperor. By failing to pursue his war responsibility, they avoid pursuing their own.

Fukazawa's fictionalized murder of the nation's "symbolic family" provoked expressions of delight and approval from some readers, but these quickly gave way to cries of outrage from others, and finally to a real homicide. The Imperial Household Agency sought to bring suit against both author and publisher but the Ikeda cabinet refused to take up the issue. Right-wing groups saw the struggle against the Security Treaty and Fukazawa's "Dream" as springing from the same source-- a desire for revolution. They were more successful than the government in enforcing sanctions against such an act of "les? majestZÿ." The rightists gathered outside the Chuo Koron Company's Tokyo headquarters to berate and threaten its employees. The furor built until, on February 1, 1960, a seventeen-year-old member of a radical right-wing party invaded the residence of the company president, Shimanaka Hoji. Finding him not at home, the youth killed the family maid with a short sword and severely wounded Shimanaka's wife.

After the murder Fukazawa went into hiding for five years. Apparently he never published again. According to literary historian John W. Treat, he devoted "himself to making bean paste" and "later ran a muffin stall-- grandly dubbed the Yumeya or ïDream Shop' in a working-class district of Tokyo" ("Beheaded Emperors and the Absent Figure in Contemporary Japanese Literature," PMLA, January 1994, p. 111). Shimanaka disavowed any association with the writer. Rather than criticize the rightists for the bloodbath at his home, or defend freedom of speech and artistic expression, he repeatedly issued public apologies in the newspapers for having troubled the throne. Then, to further mollify rightwing and respectable opinion alike, Chuo Koron changed its editorial direction and became an outlet for articles that made the behavior of the wartime state appear less condemnable. Other large commercial publishers followed suit, censoring themselves more strictly on subjects concerning the throne. No one (except for a few small, underground presses) thereafter dared publish parodies mocking the authority of emperors.

The "Furyu mutan" and "Shimanaka incidents" highlighted the limits of free expression in the new, more tolerant Japan. In their wake, the mass media stopped publishing articles that could be construed as critical or demeaning of Hirohito and the imperial house. The scope of this "chrysanthemum taboo" widened in 1963, when the publisher Heibonsha ended its magazine serialization of Koyama Itoko's novel, Lady Michiko (Michikosama) following its criticism in the Diet as "entertainment" unsuitable for the nation. Such actions did not silence intellectual argument about the monarchy, however, and their overall impact on the mass media was ephemeral. In the middle-class consumer society that emerged from war and occupation, the constitution had gained a high level of legitimacy. A postwar generation had become the main bearer of democratic, antiauthoritarian values, in conflict with the values of the older generations, educated under the prewar and wartime regimes, for whom unthinking loyalty and reverence for the throne remained strong. In this conflict Hirohito stood with the older generation but was always very careful never openly to defend their view of the "War of Greater East Asia."

Some 233 organized crime and rightist groups were disbanded during the early occupation years. Between 1958 and 1961 rightwing terrorism returned briefly to the Japanese political scene. There is no clear evidence that Kishi and his "mainstream" faction of the LDP directly ordered terrorism against political opponents. Nevertheless, their hard-line policies probably did foster a climate in which such incidents could occur while the police, passive if not complicit, looked the other way. Right-wing hit men struck at leftist Diet members and intimidated opponents of the Security Treaty. Asanuma Inejiro, chairman of the Socialist Party, was assassinated while giving a speech on live television. Radical rightists also ventured into the cultural arena. For the first time in the postwar era, they targeted for intimidation and death writers like Fukazawa who were effective in expressing the need for continued reform of the monarchy.

HERBERT P. BIX is a professor in the Graduate School of Social Sciences at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University. He is the author of "Japan's Delayed Surrender: A Reinterpretation," Diplomatic History vol. 19, no. 2 (Spring 1995), pp. 197-225, and many other works on Showa history. This paper is drawn from his new book, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Harper Collins, 2000, pp. 647-67, and is used with permission.


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Chiba Kameo:
The Making of Modern Japanese Women

Yasuko Claremont
Introduction


The magazine Josei is representative of the liberalism of Taisho democracy, including as it did innovative literary and non-literary genres. Women readers were encouraged to recognise that emancipation for them was possible, and that they could begin breaking away from the oppressed and subordinate role which they occupied in Japanese society. In the Meiji Civil Code, for example, only men had legal rights, while women were legally subordinate to the head of the ie (household). The roles of women were moulded into the sociopolitical model of ryosai kenbo (good wife, wise mother) through the Ministry of Education.[1] Japan's defeat in World War II subsequently breathed new life into women's emancipation movements, bringing women voting rights in 1946.[2] However, movements to enlighten Japanese women had been promoted since as early as the 1910s,[3] as seen in Hiratsuka Raicho's often cited foreword in the inaugural issue of Seito [Bluestocking] in 1911:


In the beginning, woman was the sun. An authentic person. Today, she is the moon.[4]

The launch of the New Women's Association in 1920 heralded a new age for women's movements.


Chiba Kameo's active life as a journalist corresponds with the full span of these women's emancipation movements. Between 1894 and 1935 Chiba's articles amounted to more than 2000, mostly in newspapers and journals.[5] Among them, 306 contributions were made to women's magazines of the time, e.g. Fujin koron, Fujin kurabu, Josei, Nihonjin, Fujin gaho, ujinkai, Fujin no tomo and Fujokai.[6] He also contributed articles to major political, literary, and social magazines of the time, such as Nihonjin, Chûo koron, Fujin koron, and Kaizo, bringing to these magazines a critical voice and leadership in relation to women's rights.[7] The sheer quantity of his publications in this area shows how active he was in promoting issues specifically related to women of the time. In 1924 Chiba Kameo published a collection of his selected writings on issues which concerned women, Isei o miru [Understanding the Opposite Sex] through Reimeisha, Tokyo. This publication clearly indicated that not only was there still a strong readership, despite the hardship resulting from the devastation of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, but also that women's issues remained matters of important debate.[8]


The magazine, Josei, was one of the main platforms for his views, apart from his major newspaper columns for women in, for example, Yomiuri shinbun where Chiba worked from 1919 to 1926. Interestingly, I have not been able to find any contribution by him in the magazine Shufu no tomo [The Housewife's Companion],[9] which is a strong indication that the very nature of his style and content differed from the requirements of that practical daily-life magazine. Josei, in contrast, contained numerous pages for creative, innovative literary genres, such as novels, drama and poetry. Due to the editor Osanai Kaoru's extensive friendship with many well-known writers and artists of the time, prominent writers, such as Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, Arishima Takeo, Nagai Kafû, Akutagawa Ryûnosuke and Yosano Akiko, were all contributors. It also contained commentaries on current affairs related to women's issues, such as chastity and education. In short, it was a highly culturally oriented magazine that promoted women's emancipation among middle-class educated women. Josei enjoyed a highly acclaimed reputation with a circulation of 25,000 copies in 1927.[10]


Chiba Kameo's life


Chiba Kameo's autobiographical work Iza saraba [Farewell to My Home Village], published by Taiheiyokan in 1903, contains loving and sad descriptions of his mother who died in 1896.[11] She endured severe hardship in bringing up five young children alone when her husband died in 1883. Chiba not only acknowledged his indebtedness to his mother, who had encouraged him to acquire high literacy, but he also remembered her steadfast opposition to what she saw as attitudes prejudicial to women. There is no doubt that his own views were shaped by his upbringing.[12] His successful career as a journalist, literary critic and teacher in his later years stemmed from not only his disciplined professionalism but also his liberal and uncompromising thinking. Let me briefly summarize Chiba's biography.


Chiba Kameo was born in Sakata, Yamagata prefecture in 1878, the second son with two elder sisters. His father, Kohei, was a Sakata middle school teacher of kanbun [Chinese classics], and his mother, Tsuka, was the daughter of a doctor in Tsukiji, Tokyo. In 1883, when Chiba was five years old, his father died, resulting in a family financial crisis. As the family had no other source of income, they moved to the father's home village, Fudodo in Onda, Miyagi prefecture, where his mother eked out a living by labouring on just a tiny patch of soil. Chiba grew up there until he finished primary school education, sharing a life of hardship with his mother. Since his mother was originally from Tokyo, farming was never easy for her. However, she maintained her spiritual support for her son.[13] In 1896, hoping to become a writer, Chiba moved to Tokyo, where he did all kinds of minor jobs to support himself while studying. In the same year his mother died in poverty. Chiba's view of the unjust status of women had been formed by witnessing his widowed mother's endurance in supporting her children. He was then eighteen years old.


Thanks to his literary ability and on the recommendation of Kojima Usui,[14] he was employed as a writer by Bunko in 1899. Chiba studied English at the Kokumin Eigakkai [People's English Association] and at Waseda Senmon Gakko [now Waseda University], but left without a degree. In 1903 he resigned from Bunko and joined the journal, Nihon oyobi Nihonjin as a writer. He married in 1905 and in the same year joined Nihon shinbun where, together with journalists who would become prominent in the Taisho period—Hasegawa Nyozekan (1875-1969) and Kuga Katsunan (1857-1907)—he worked on innovative topics, particularly by setting up the women's columns as well as the literary columns. These journalists are important as early protagonists of liberal thought in the media.[15]



In addition, Chiba's wide reading made him familiar with the principles and practices of emancipation movements in Europe and America. A study conducted by a research team at Showa Joshi Daigaku [Showa Women's College] identified Chiba's connection with the American journalist Arthur Brisbane (1814-1935) in this regard.[16] In his newspaper columns Brisbane discussed current topics of daily interest to women, such as family issues and fashion. Influenced by Brisbane, Chiba radically altered the women's column and began engaging in issues concerning the improvement of women's status. At the same time, Chiba did not overlook an element of commercialism in Brisbane's innovative journalism as a negative aspect of his work.[17] And his own columns, in contrast, display much more depth. Because of his independent feminist approach to literature, journalism and criticism, Chiba is often referred to as one of the first pioneer feminists.[18]


Chiba's sharp eye for social and cultural trends as a journalist and his literary sensitivities are evident in the way that his naming of a new literary movement of the 1920s, Shinkankakuha [New Sensationalist School], is now an accepted literary term.[19] Chiba vigorously promoted popular literature in the 1920s by contributing his critical articles to the major journals, such as Chuo koron, expressing his view that the common people's appreciation of literature could no longer be ignored.[20]


Later in his life he became a professor of English literature at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, a position which he occupied until his death in 1935. In memory of Chiba Kameo's contribution to the promotion of taishu bungaku [popular literature], the newspaper, Sande mainichi twice awarded the Chiba Kameo Prize for popular literature in 1936 and 1939.


Portraits of female autonomy in Western literature


Among the many features that are worth examining in Josei, the introductions to the Western literature written by Chiba Kameo reveal not only the literary heroines described, but also Chiba's method of attempting to foster support for women's emancipation. Chiba wanted to show liberated heroines as they were depicted in Western literature. He admired them because they followed their own paths, bearing responsibility and hardship, even if that proved to be at a cost. Chiba's approach in selecting stories was based on their innovative nature, as he believed that 'innovation is the banner for a literary renaissance.'[21] This view was very much in agreement with the view of Osanai Kaoru (1881-1928), who was actually the editor of Josei from 1922 to 1925, and introduced works of Stefan Zeromski, Edward Knoblauch, Lucien Descaves, Nikolai Ljesskof and Anton Chekhov in his own translations. Most of these writers, with the exception of Chekhov, are long forgotten today but were innovative at the time. Many of the Western novelists and their works that Chiba introduced in Josei are also long forgotten, for example, the Russian writer, Boris Pilnyak[22] or the Swedish writer, Selma Lagerlof,[23] despite her being the first woman to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1909. Chiba particularly admired Selma Lagerlof because of the liberal attitude prevailing in all of her writing, as well as her commitment to women's emancipation.


Chiba not only translated excerpts from the texts, but also wrote essays focusing on modern womanhood as it was projected in Western literature. In serialised sections entitled 'Lectures on Literature,' 'People of the Time' and 'Studies on Modern Women,' he introduced writers of the West, for example, August Strindberg,[24] Franz Molnar[25] and Maksim Gorki,[26] and emancipated women depicted in Western literature. His selections from Western literature were almost wholly European, not English or American. He summarised the stories and authors' biographies by translating excerpts and commenting on them. Through his translations and essays he gave readers of Josei access to the lifestyle, attitudes and ideas of modern European women. The making of modern women, particularly their breaking away from social pressures and assuming the right to take responsibility for their lives and actions, reflects Chiba's central concern for what he saw as the predominant qualities characteristic of emancipated women, such as Selma Lagerlof and Marie Curie.


Chiba's view of women was based on universal humanism rather than a specific agenda to redress the gender inequality existing in Japanese society of the 1920s. He insisted on the recognition of women's autonomy, so much so that it attracted, for example, the criticism of Kouchi Nobuko in her comments on Chiba's Understanding the Opposite Sex[27] as 'an ideal point of view'. Kouchi maintained that Chiba's idealism could not be immediately realised in any practical sense because Japan's situation was 'particular'.[28] Chiba was a man of letters, and his expressions were thoroughly literary. His particular style of literary journalism is exemplified in his contributions to Josei.


In his critical article entitled 'What they sought,'[29] Chiba analysed constrictions in the lives of female figures in Western literature, such as Nora created by Ibsen, Anna Karenina created by Tolstoy, and Madam Bovary created by Flaubert, all of whom found themselves trapped in bourgeois marriages. Only Nora escaped. The other two rebelled, but committed suicide after unsatisfactory love affairs. Nevertheless, what each of them sought was to gain the autonomy that had been denied them.


Chiba's twenty-four literary articles all deal with liberated women, illustrating the role that he had chosen for himself in Josei as a literary critic. Because space was necessarily limited in the magazine, Chiba's introduction as well as his translated excerpts or summaries of the originals are in digested form. In each story he began with an introductory note enclosed in a square, giving the reader some idea of the story to be introduced. As well as writers of lesser stature, Chiba introduced prominent writers of world stature, such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and George Bernard Shaw, concentrating on their views on the role of women in the home and in society.


Tolstoy was featured in the magazine through disclosures made by his eldest daughter, who finally broke her silence to tell the truth about the strained relations in the Tolstoy family, and the ordeal that her mother had to face, particularly in old age when Tolstoy wanted to give away all property, leaving the family in hardship.[30] Similarly, readers learned facts about Dostoevsky, given by his second wife, who initially worked for him as a shorthand secretary. Chiba commended her loyalty and the stability which she brought to the marriage in difficult times, as well as her capacity to organise his financial affairs. For example, rejecting a publisher's unworthy copyright proposal of 500 roubles payable over two years, Dostoevsky's wife Anna privately published his novel, The Obsessed, and sold it to the bookshops and individual readers. She earned 4000 roubles in a short period of time. From then on, she started publishing his works, and after his death she published the Collected Works of Dostoevsky. Chiba praised her achievements not only for their practicality but, more importantly, for bringing together Dostoevsky's unpublished works.[31]


In another article, Chiba dealt with Shaw's literary indebtedness to Ibsen, who in his plays was a provocative advocate of women's rights. After discussing the uncertain fate awaiting Ibsen's heroine, Nora, after her departure from a marriage which had ensnared her in A Doll's House, Chiba defined Ibsen as a writer of will who also let Nora act according to her will.[32] In contrast, Chiba regarded Shaw as being too intellectual and lacking in the 'bravery, energy and the primitive power of a revolutionary.'[33] Nevertheless, he admired the vitality of Shaw's views advocating women's independence. For example, Shaw argued for doing away with the attitude prevailing in society that women must depend on men in order to live, 'otherwise family life can never become beautiful and sacred.'[34] Chiba cited Shaw's words:


People who think that the place for a woman is in children's rooms and the kitchen are the same as English children who think that a parrot lives in a cage because there is no other place possible. The kind of reasoning here is that women and parrots have no idea of any alternative other than the places assigned to them. But what I respond to is the person and the parrot who have a free soul and insist on being let out of the cage and placed in an active environment as an absolute necessity. It is sad to think that most people might see such a bid for freedom as selfish.[35]


Shaw continued, saying that enforced isolation in the home can lead to a person becoming uncontrollable, just as a bird may come to hate its cage. Chiba concluded by citing Shaw's bitter remark: 'In cases like this there are only two alternatives: either kill them or let them fly away from the cage.'[36] There is no doubt that Chiba was advocating the emancipation of women through his citations of Shaw.


As we shall see, in Josei most stories have a romantic background, but in each of Chiba's excerpts and commentaries the heroine realises her own integrity and acts autonomously. These figures are by no means heroic in any dramatic sense, but they are heroines in the sense that they have the courage and determination to assert their individuality and escape from the submissive role which society would seek to impose on them. Themes of sexual relationships and motherhood play a significant role in most of the stories, but the Western writers presented in Josei did not describe pregnancy and maternity in the context of family life. Instead, their female figures often regarded their pregnancy as a surprise or gift, not as the beginning of a new generation. As the following examples show, these women with different motivations all took charge of their own fate regardless of social and religious values.


Ksenia, in Snow by Boris Pilnyak, practises free love. Chiba's view was that the heroine represented a typical Russian woman expressing her desire for motherhood. In the story the heroine, Ksenia returns to her ex-lover, Bolnyn in Russia, who is now happily married with a baby daughter. A group of her old friends hold a discussion at a party on what is the most important thing in life: faith, intelligence, morality or spirit. Here is an example of their conversation and discussion, suggesting the heroine's 'tragedy of the soul' in the sense that she is unable to find self-realisation outside marriage.


Viela, Alkipof's wife, said: 'The only tragedy in life is a life with no tragedy.' Ksenia responded with conviction: 'That's right. It is really tragic if one experiences no tragedy.' She then inquired: 'How do you regard free love?' Viela responded: 'Free love is not the only purpose of life.' Ksenia continued her questioning: 'Why are you married?' Viela answered: 'I wanted a baby.' Ksenia stood up from the couch with both her arms open and shouted: 'A baby! That's instinct, isn't it?' Viela said: 'No, it's in conformity with the law.'[37]


This scene is particularly effective because it clearly shows opposed attitudes. Having experienced the futility of free love, all that Ksenia wanted was to have a child by Bolnyn without love or marriage. Bolnyn rejected her, not because he no longer loved her, but because he could not accept a proposal that was convenient only to Ksenia. Bolnyn also believed in the Christian faith, which sees adultery as a crime. Ksenia's desire to redeem herself through free love and conceiving a child was rejected. The title for this story is Snow, but in Japanese Chiba titled it 'The Last Redemption.'[38]


Romain Rolland's story, Annette and Sylvie, was introduced in the June 1925 issue.[39] Chiba simply extracted part of the original work that suited his own purposes, thereby highlighting the theme of personal autonomy. The heroine Annette insists on maintaining her independence even in the course of her courtship. To Annette, marriage did not mean that two people become one, but meant that two people still retain their individuality and in that sense remain free from each other. Her lover has only a limited understanding of this attitude. He sees marriage only in relation to himself. To him marriage gives his position as a politician social respectability. Having sensed their incompatibility, Annette declines his proposal, yet, when she sees how devastated he was, she allows him to make love to her. After the love-making she recognises signs of contempt in his eyes. Annette's lovemaking was simply a sexual impulse. Towards the end of the story she realises that she is pregnant. The story ends with Annette talking to her unborn baby:


You are what people know as love. The love that escaped as soon as I was about to grasp it has come into me now. I have caught you. I will never release you. My little prisoner, I will tie you inside me. Take revenge, slaughter me, eat up my organs. Nourish yourself with my blood. You are me. You are my dream. I have never been able to find you in this life, so I have made you with my body – and now I have caught the love that is you. The one I love is me ...[40]

In Chiba's introductory notes, he recognises in this story an example of 'the dawn of modern women's souls,' that is, Annette's battle for independence—achieved here, it must be said, in quite cold and deliberate circumstances. Nevertheless, Annette has proclaimed her independence, as well as conceiving a child.


Another example of a heroine with aspirations for independence is Emma in Theodore, a novel by a contemporary Swedish writer, Gustave Helstrum.[41] Here the heroine Emma was nearly fifty. She had been a factory worker since the age of sisteen. She was single and lived alone. She let a homeless youth, Theodore, live in her house until he was ready to take up a job on a ship. They made love unexpectedly once, not so much from personal attraction, but simply from sympathy towards each other living in poverty. Emma did not tell Theodore on his departure that she was pregnant. Instead, she took pleasure in the fact that she would no longer be lonely. Chiba saw Emma as a heroine, taking all responsibility for her own actions in life. But here again motherhood is valued only in the sense of companionship, not as a vital element in a planned future. Also of significance is that this story represents Swedish proletarian literature, where women factory workers were socially and politically exploited.


The point of this story is that marriage need no longer be the institution of bondage, particularly for women, that it once was. As in the previous examples, Chiba's articles often included unconventional relationships, such as a woman wanting a child without a legal husband or an unmarried woman delighted by her unexpected pregnancy. These types of relationships would not appeal to all Japanese women readers, but they foreshadowed liberation from the conventional views of marriage, which bound women unconditionally.


Literary journalism to promote women's emancipation


In Chiba's articles the realities of daily life as experienced or known by everyone were never discussed. He did not write about poverty or the misery suffered by prostitutes, for example. He did not explore the issue of Western heroines' cultural environment being based on Christian ethics, as compared with the cultural environment of Japan. Instead, he concentrated on women's rights as they related to suffrage or marriage. Strangely, his scope is both broad and narrow—broad in the sense that the topic of literary heroines in Western literature can be seen as universal, and narrow in the sense that he does not discuss other issues of the highest importance to Japanese women, such as the private property system which, in effect, bound women to marriage for life.


For example, Japan in the late 1910s and 1920s saw a strong public debate about state intervention to protect women workers known as the 'the protection of motherhood debate' [bosei hogo ronso], yet there are no direct references to this debate or to the feminists involved, such as Yosano Akiko, Yamakawa Kikue and Hiratsuka Raicho, in Chiba's contributions to Josei. Likewise, controversial issues of the time involving labour movements, feminist movements and the abolition of licensed prostitution have no priority in Josei, as Koyama Shizuko has observed.[42] According to Koyama's classification, the most discussed issues in Josei were sex, free love, chastity, marriage and divorce.[43] Kouchi Nobuko has also noted that 'there is very little descriptive detail about the real situations of Japanese women.'[44] It is also a sad fact that Chiba's introductions of a new heroine in Western literature did not seem to provoke reader comment either. This kind of passivity in terms of the readership reveals itself as the very nature of Josei, which Koyama described as 'a mirror reflecting the status of women newly born or coming into being.'[45]



Chiba's style is a form of literary journalism. Besides introducing through Western literature what might be regarded as Western heroines, Chiba also contributed sixteen articles of socio-political criticism from the September 1922 issue to the January 1928 issue, discussing current affairs with reference to literary heroines. Over a period of time Chiba introduced such a large variety of women and situations that any attempt at a detailed classification would be fruitless. Nevertheless, we can still find some distinctive themes, which reflect Chiba's own view of what modern women should be.


One example of great interest to Japanese women was the decision by Chief Justice Yokota of the Supreme Court, who turned down a husband's appeal on the grounds that he was responsible for the maintenance of his wife and children.[46] The husband had committed adultery and abandoned his family. Chief Justice Yokota's decision emphasised a husband's responsibility to his family, and equality between husband and wife. Chiba reported this news in detail as 'a new law that a husband also has a duty of chastity'[47] in the September 1927 issue of Josei.


In this article, Chiba added references to two liberated women depicted in Western literature as an epilogue. One was to Susan, a character in Henry Arthur Jones's novel, The Case of Rebellious Susan (1894). Susan left her husband for another man because of her husband's adultery. Later, both ended up being abandoned by their new partners and returned to each other as if nothing had happened between them. Chiba showed that, in this questionable relationship, the author had emphasised the suffering of the husband, with a lesser emphasis on the wife's distress and desperation. Chiba also pointed out the significance of Susan's rebellion against social norms, irrespective of the folly of her actions. The other example was Monique, a character in Victor Marquerite's novel, La Garçonne (1921). The heroine believes that the 'double standard' concerning men and women should be abolished. She is like Susan, rebelling against social norms and making love to anyone she likes without ever falling in love. However, in the end she finds a true love. These two stories reverse socially accepted views by proclaiming that 'if husbands do not have the duty of chastity, wives do not have it either.'[48] This article is a good example of how Chiba joined together the two aspects of literature and journalism, giving the court case that had been reported a wider dimension.


In another example, we can see that Chiba's literary journalism gave to the Josei readership at least some understanding of the political turmoil that was taking place in the Soviet Union. A Week, written by Iuri Libedinsky,[49] portrays three young women. The story takes place in one of the Russian provinces during the civil war period of 1921. There are three central figures: Nadya represents anti-communism, Jimkova believes in pure revolution, and Liza sees the revolution as still incorporating Christian humanist values. Chiba's title for this essay is 'From a country of suffering: three women's lives.'[50] All three women are presented as being victims of political power, where the prevailing ideology crushes personal relationships. Nadya cried and prayed for her lover's safety. She 'could not understand the strange power which had torn them apart.' In Russia people were divided between the communists and the bourgeoisie, who hated the communists for depriving them of their wealth. Young idealists, both men and women, were ruthlessly murdered. Chiba makes no judgements, but simply presents the cases of the three women with strong compassion. Everyone knew of the Russian Revolution without ever feeling what the Russian people, particularly women, might have experienced during the time. This story filled that gap. A Week demonstrates the power of political oppression in conditioning lives and beliefs.


The purpose of Chiba's literary journalism in Josei was clear, promotion of literary articles
which were also relevant to current affairs. For example, in the March 1925 issue Chiba introduced the heroine of Snow, written by Boris Pilnyak. Following this, the story was translated by Shibata Katsue in the May and June 1926 issues. When Pilnyak visited Japan in April 1926, four articles, 'An impression of Mr Pilnyak', 'Mr Pilnyak who hears "The Sound of Japan"', 'An interview with Mr Pilnyak' and 'Portrait of a revolutionary writer,'[51] were published in the May 1926 issue of Josei, together with Hattori Shiro's pen drawing of Pilnyak. Pilnyak was the first Russian writer to visit Japan after the Bolshevik Revolution. Josei was at the forefront here, making its readership acquainted with a living author and his work, Snow, in which the heroine tragically fails to achieve motherhood.
Hattori Shiro, Boris Pilnyak, in Josei, May 1926.

Chiba's non-literary essays


Apart from his major contribution to the introduction of Western heroines in Josei, Chiba also contributed non-literary essays, dealing with the current situations of Japanese women. In them he was compassionate to those women who suffered from injustice, and at the same time he was critical of bourgeois women as lacking understanding of their real situations.


For example, Chiba's first contribution in the September 1922 issue, entitled 'The modern values of confessional literature,' showed his appreciation and support for tosho ran [letters to the editor column], a major feature in women's journals,[52] as confessional literature. Not only that, he was also vocal in his opposition to any criticism of its popularity. He believed that confessional writings were truthful records of the injustices which women often endured. Women had very little equity in law. Although a socially accepted morality existed, it contained a double standard. For example, a husband's adultery was quite permissible and not a ground for divorce. A wife's adultery, on the other hand, was a cause for divorce.[53] Chiba also pointed out the defect that arose from Japan's family system (the ie), in which, for example, a father did not recognise his daughters' independence. It was the father's will that was autonomous.[54] For all of that, what caused Chiba to despair was the lack of individuality that still persisted in women as portrayed in confessional literature:


In the past there was recognition of an order binding family love to the home town and love of the home town to the nation-state. Today is a time of liberation. Above all, be a citizen of the world. Be autonomous and realise your freedom. When we love each other as equal human beings, love of the nation and the family is also born. The individual self can only be born untarnished and unconfined when one feels oneself to be a member of the world of citizens. I am deeply concerned about women whose individual self has not yet been established, having read confessional literature.[55]


Strong though his advocacy was, his views still remained rather general, with no suggestions about how things could be improved or of what action to take. As Koyama Shizuko has pointed out, Josei had no particular inclination to support feminist movements of the time, [56] although Chiba himself was reporting news of women's issues.


Chiba's strong disappointment about the lack of progress being made in the women's movement in Japan—'it is fading out like the dying flame of a sparkler'—appeared in his 1926 article, 'The environment and women's power'.[57] In that, Chiba criticised the bourgeois class of women who hardly ever reflected on what kind of environment they were placed in—the environment where 'they live under the loving protection of men thanks to the financial exchange of their female "sex" for security and status, a situation which never seems to alter.'[58] His comment was deliberately provocative to bring out a sense of frustration and agitation among the readership of Josei. In particular, his criticism of bourgeois women who regarded flower arrangement and music as being simply qualifications for a better marriage has the ring of truth. Chiba pinpointed two major problems facing women and impeding efforts to gain a freer status: ignorance of their environment and their persistence in continuing with established ways. He criticised not only the social environment where women were expected to behave in a subservient manner, but also the fact that women themselves complied all the time with what men expected of them.


Chiba was calling for an inner revolution among the bourgeois class of women:


Having been spoiled by their circumstances, these women are the last to reflect upon whether such circumstances are correct or not. These are the reasons why they are actually a hindrance and make no contribution to our time when the status of womanhood in the new age is to be revolutionised. If only the bourgeois class of women can bring themselves to identify with the have-nots, then modern women as a whole will no longer tolerate remaining in a state of blindness and subjection. It's their duty to provide new knowledge to all women and to revise their consciousness which has been suppressed since old times, and to establish the correct status of women in the new age and to raise and spread movements of enlightenment among all women. The modern bourgeois class of women can do this as they are the ones who have time and intelligence. This can be very clearly seen when you look at the history of modern European and American women's movements.[59]

In order to convince the bourgeois class of women that they had the power to change, Chiba showed convincingly one set of statistics which indicated how easily prostitution occurred. Among 5152 prostitutes, 818 had no education, eighteen had attended middle school for one or two years, and thirteen for three to four years, but none had graduated from middle school. The rest obviously were educated to at least primary school level, although Chiba made no mention of that fact. He moved on by saying that their ignorance lay in not knowing what morality was, and therefore their ruin was not a matter of morality but of education. These women, he claimed, were not immoral but amoral.


In contrast, bourgeois women had none of the pressures brought about by poverty and lack of education. It was strange, Chiba felt, that young women were proud of all kinds of skills, such as ikebana, dance, calligraphy and music, regarding these as credentials to please men. He argued that these educated women, who had ample time on their hands, had a duty to involve themselves and help to liberate suppressed women in order to establish greater freedom in a new age:


No true women's movements come about easily. What is necessary is a serious self-review by women and a change of attitude in which they come to resist the environment imposed upon them.[60]


Chiba also clearly defined where a key problem lay in an article entitled 'A bird's eye view on the current women's world.'[61] He pointed out the significance of the generation gap existing between mothers and daughters. The mothers' generation existed in a state of negativity due to their blind obedience and unquestioning acceptance of social norms. Tragedy and rebellion occurred when the mothers tried to induce the same submissive attitudes in their daughters.


Conclusion: evaluating Chiba's contributions


Chiba was innovative in presenting and discussing a new breed of women and their independent attitudes towards chastity, love and motherhood, not in any academic way but in a more popular style, which was relevant to the contemporary scene of the 1920s. Indeed, it was Chiba who strongly supported the vision of the 'modern girl.'[62] Chiba claimed that free love most celebrated in modern times was not the unrestricted dissipation that previous generations believed in, but, on the contrary, was an affirmative way of living and establishing one's own self.[63]


Chiba's contribution to Josei, not to mention other contributions to magazines and newspapers, is yet to be recognised. Perhaps the reason is that Chiba was not really a practical activist for women's rights movements, although he was certainly a committed advocate for women's emancipation. However, there is evidence that Chiba's idealistic literary journalism did have an impact on educated women of the time. The year before Chiba's death, Miyamoto Yuriko, a well-known proletarian author, wrote an article praising his article in the October 1934 issue of Fujin koron, where Chiba had taken up the topic of women and literature. Miyamoto praised Chiba's insight in showing that the difficulties faced by Japanese women writers in gaining acceptance and pursuing their careers were similar to those experienced by female writers in Britain, as in the case of Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.[64] Miyamoto was not the only writer to find support and inspiration in Chiba's writings. A memorial was held in Chiba's honour on 7 November 1935, thirty-five days after his death. An article in Fujo shinbun [Women's Newspaper] described the respect that Chiba held among women writers and activists and noted that among the 100 or so people gathered, most were women.[65]


Although the women readers of Josei might not have easily related to the heroines Chiba described, by introducing fictional types of emancipated Western women, he encouraged Japanese women to have a wider perspective and deeper understanding of matters concerning women's lives. His purpose was to educate Japanese women to the possibilities of equality in marriage as well as improved social rights. As he had a particular predilection for literature, he used it as a means of advocating his liberal beliefs. The imaginative sphere in which he wrote brought out the relative exoticism of the West as well as self-reflection. He had never been to foreign countries to study, but he was a great reader, as almost everyone who knew him commented.[66] Today literary journalism seems to have lost the power that it enjoyed in Chiba's day. Literature itself evolves in its values over time, but in the 1920s when the mass media were beginning to expand, Chiba's innovative introduction of Western literature certainly played its role in widening readers' minds. Chiba set himself to contribute to the making of modern women at the crucial time of their birth in the 1920s.


Endnotes

Acknowledgement
The author would like to express her sincere appreciation for the valuable suggestions made by the anonymous referees and Hugh Clarke, in particular for Elise Tipton's meticulous editorship and generosity with her time.

[1] Sharon H. Nolte and Sally Ann Hastings, 'The Meiji State's Policy Toward Women, 1890-1920' in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 152, 158-59.

[2] Elise K Tipton, Modern Japan, London and New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 153.

[3] Barbara Sato, The New Japanese Woman, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003, pp. 13-14.

[4] David Lu, Japan, A Documentary History, Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997, p. 309.

[5] All of the detailed publications of Chiba are listed in Kindai bungaku kenkyu sosho, vol. 39, Tokyo: Showa Joshi Daigaku Kindai Bungaku Kenkyushitsu, 1974, pp. 326-90.

[6] Kindai bungaku kenkyu sosho, pp. 326-90.

[7] A chronology is in Chiba Kameo chosakushu [Selected works of Chiba Kameo], vol. 5, Tokyo: Yumani Shobo, 1993, pp. 350-56.

[8] For general background reading, see Kazumi Ishii's article in this issue and Koyama Shizuko's 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi' [The significance of Josei in the history of women] in Josei, Supplement, vol. 48, Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Senta, 1991-1993, pp. 98-99.

[9] Shufu no tomo was launched in 1917 and was one of the most successful women's magazines in interwar Japan.

[10] For the circulation figures of women's journals in the Taisho period, see Kazumi Ishii and Nerida Jarkey, 'The housewife is born: the establishment of the notion and identity of the Shufu in modern Japan,' in Japanese Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, 2002, p. 35, n. 3.

[11] Chiba's first publication of Iza saraba is an autobiographical account of his leave taking. Published in 1903, Tokyo: Taiheiyokan. It is written in classical literary style and is rather like a prose poem. It admires his mother's heroism in raising the family properly on her own.

[12] Iwata Mitsuko and Nakano Hiroko pointed out the significance of Chiba's mother's influence on Chiba in Kindai bungaku kenkyu sosho, vol. 39, pp. 318-19.

[13] See 'Iza saraba,' pp. 48-49 in vol. 1, Chiba Kameo chosakushu, where Chiba acknowledged the value of his mother's home education in reading, composition, history and geography.

[14] Kojima Usui (1873-1948) was editor of Bunko.

[15] Tanaka Hiroshi states that there was a group of nationalistic writers who were concerned with maintaining Japanese tradition against Westernisation, such as Shiga Shigetaka and Inoue Enryo working for the Nihon shinbun. Chiba's name was cited together with Kawahigashi Hekigoto and Maruyama Kenji as liberal writers opposing them in the same company. Tanaka Hiroshi, Nihon riberarisumu no keifu, Asahi sensho, Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun, 2000, p. 174.



[16] Kindai bungaku kenkyu sosho, vol. 39, p. 394.

[17] Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936) was managing editor of the New York Journal and the highest paid journalist in the United States, but in terms of discussing ethical issues he was not regarded highly. Chiba referred to Brisbane's saying that 'if something is appetising we need not bother about the examination of the ingredients,' as an indication that Brisbane's journalism lacked serious social directions. Chiba Kameo chosakushu, vol. 3, p. 76.

[18] For example, see Hatori Tetsuya's 'Kaisetsu' entitled 'Chiba Kameo ni tsuite' in Chiba Kameo chosakushu, vol. 1, 1991, p. 601.

[19] See Chiba's article,'Shinkankakuha no tanjo,' first published in the journal Seiki the November 1924 issue and reprinted in Chiba Kameo chosakushu, vol. 1, pp. 189-94.

[20] Suzuki Sadami, Nihon no 'bungaku' o kangaeru, Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1994, p. 163.

[21] 'Seishin sei koso bungei fukko no hatajirushi,' Kindai bungaku kenkyu sosho, vol. 39, Tokyo: Showa Joshi Daigaku Kindai Bungaku Kenkyushitsu, 1974, p. 395.

[22] Boris Pilnyak (1894-1937), novelist and short-story writer, author of The Volga Falls to the Caspian Sea (1930). Pilnyak was arrested in 1937 for suspicion over his anti-Bolshevik activities, including his contact with the outside world, in particular with Japan. No one ever heard of him after his arrest until the book Arrested Voices, Resurrecting the Disappeared Writers of the Soviet Regime was published in 1996, which included the trial of Pilnyak. Arrested Voices, Vitaly Shentalinsky, trans. John Crowfoot and introduction by Robert Conquest, New York: The Free Press, 1996, pp. 139-57. It is quite indicative of how the world in the 1920s and 1930s was integrated politically and socially. Although Pilnyak's manuscripts were destroyed at the time of his arrest, his contributions to literature are not confined to Russia, but have spread worldwide.

[23] Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940). Chiba often praised Lagerlof because of her imaginative children's stories based on humanitarian love. According to Chiba, she recognised the fatal and inevitable evil that is in humanity. 'Bundan dai ichininsha Ragerureefu jo,' in Josei, April 1923, p. 269.

[24] August Strindberg (1849-1912), dramatist, novelist and critic. Chiba summarized an interview record of Strindberg, in which he discussed the characteristics of Strindberg's attitudes towards writers and women. 'Toki no hito: Sutorindoberii no sowa, Mozurei fujin no koto, Wuindosetto no koto,' in Josei, April 1926, pp. 167-74.

[25] Franz Molnar (1878-1952), Hungarian novelist and dramatist. Chiba introduced Husbands and Lovers in 'Otto to aijin,' in Josei, February 1925, pp. 72-84.

[26] Maksim Gorki (1868-1936), Russian novelist and dramatist. Chiba introduced Gorki's The Rebel's Mother in '"Onna" yondai' [Four titles on 'women'], in Josei, October 1924, pp. 348-51.

[27] A collection of Chiba's thirty-one articles about women's issues published between 1920 and 1924 in major women's magazines, such as Shin katei, Josei, Kaizo, Fujin gaho.

[28] Kouchi Nobuko, 'Chiba Kameo – feminisuto no Joseikan ([isei o miru] o yomu),' Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyozai no kenkyu, November, 1992, p. 94.

[29] 'Kanojora no motometa mono,' in Josei, October 1923, pp. 182-92.

[30] 'Toki no hito: dai To o no saigo,' in Josei, February 1926, pp. 232-39.

[31] 'Toki no hito: sokki musume tono koi, Dosutoiefusukii mibojin no monogatari,' in Josei, November 1925, pp. 223-28.

[32] 'Bûnado Sho,' in Josei, March 1927, p. 237.

[33] 'Sho,' p. 238.

[34] 'Sho,' p. 239.

[35] 'Sho,' p. 239.

[36] 'Sho,' p. 239.

[37] Chiba, 'Saigo no sukui, Borisu Pirunyaku no "Yuki" kara' [The last redemption: from Boris Pilnyak's Snow], in Josei, March 1925, pp. 106-107.

[38] Chiba, 'Saigo no sukui,' in Josei, March 1925, p. 101.

[39] Romain Rolland (1866-1944). Chiba Kameo, 'Kindai fujin kenkyu ren'ai no shinpi,' in Josei, June 1925, pp. 55-67.

[40] 'Ren'ai no shinpi,' p. 67.

[41] Gustave Helstrum (1880-1962), archaeologist and fiction writer. Chiba Kameo, 'Kindai fujinkenkyu sabishii bosei,' in Josei, September 1925, pp. 204-16.

[42] Koyama, 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi,' p. 98.

[43] Koyama, 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi,' p. 103. See Elise Tipton's article in this issue of Intersections for a detailed discussion of these issues.

[44] Kouchi, 'Chiba Kameo – feminisuto no Joseikan ([isei o miru] o yomu),' p. 94.

[45] Koyama, 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi,' p. 107.

[46] Chiba, 'Otto no teiso mondai: otto ni mo teiso no gimu ga aru to no shin horitsu ga dekita,' in Josei, September 1927, pp. 100-107.

[47] Chiba, 'Otto no teiso mondai'.

[48] Chiba, 'Otto no teiso mondai,' p, 106.

[49] Iuri Libedinsky (1898-1959), writer, critic and literary theoretician – belongs to the generation of Soviet writers who emerged in the early 1920s, immediately after the end of the Russian Civil War.

[50] Chiba Kameo, 'Kindai fujinkenkyu nayami no kuni kara,' in Josei, April 1925, pp. 127-39.

[51] 'Pirunyaku shi no insho' was written by Noboru Shomu, '"Nihon no oto" o kiku Pi shi' by Oze Keishi, 'Pi shi to no taidan' by Fuji Tatsuma and 'Kakumei bungo no omokage' by Baba Hideo. These Japanese writers seemed to be impressed by Pilnyak's open-mindedness which was in contrast to their expectations that Pilnyak had come to Japan for Soviet propaganda purposes.

[52] 'Gendai ni okeru kokuhaku bungaku no kachi,' in Josei, September 1922, pp. 125-26. He criticises the perceptions of the general public towards the readers' columns, describing them as unsympathetic and indecent. He defended those contributors' contributions as 'human documents' (p. 121). Incidentally, Josei only included such a column for a short period of time under the title of 'Josei no sakebi' [Cries of women] from April 1927 to June 1927. Koyama Shizuko saw this as the publisher's attempt to boost declining sales. Koyama, 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi,' p. 96.

[53] See Chiba's article 'Otto no teiso mondai,' p. 101.

[54] Chiba, 'Kokuhaku bungaku no kachi,' pp. 125-26.

[55] Chiba, 'Otto no teiso mondai,' p. 128.

[56] Koyama, 'Joseishijo ni okeru Josei no igi,' p. 97.

[57] Chiba, 'Kankyo to onna no chikara,' in Josei, September 1926, pp. 57-62.

[58] Chiba, 'Kankyo,' p. 62.

[59] Chiba, 'Kankyo,' p. 62.

[60] Chiba, 'Kankyo,' p. 62.

[61] Chiba, 'Saikin Joseikai no chogankan,' pp. 202-15.

[62] Sato, The New Japanese Woman, pp. 48, 59-61.

[63] See Chiba, 'Saikin Joseikai no chogankan,' p. 209.

[64] Miyamoto Yuriko, Kodo, December 1934. Accessed on 30/8/2004.

[65] Kouchi, 'Chiba Kameo – feminisuto no Joseikan,' p. 92.

[66] 'Chiba Kameo tsuitobunshu,' in the supplement, Chiba Kameo chosakushu, vol. 5, 1993, in which Chiba's son, Seiichi wrote, 'This man in life read, read, and read until his death,' p. 15.
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue11/claremont.html



Barak probe: CBI seeks Israel's cooperation

NEW DELHI: Three years after initiating probe into the alleged irregularities during purchase of Barak missiles in a Rs 1,150-crore deal, the CBI
has approached the Israel government for its help in recording statements of some people besides details of some bank transactions in that country.

A Letters Rogatory was issued from a designated court here for Israeli government to seek its assistance in investigations into the case, official sources said.

The CBI had moved the court for issuing the Letters Rogatory as the agency alleged that part of offence was committed in Israel as the "commission was paid by the seller in violation of the contract entered with the Government".

The agency said documents were to be collected from Israel and certain statements were to be recorded in order to trace the chain of money, they said.

The CBI had registered a case in this connection and named then Defence Minister George Fernandes, former naval chief Sushil Kumar, president of now defunct Samata Party Jaya Jaitley, arms dealer Suresh Nanda and others in October 2006.

It had questioned Fernandes, Admiral (retd) Kumar, Jaya Jaitley, Nanda and former UPSC Chairman Subir Datta as part of the probe.

CBI claimed in its FIR that the contract price for purchasing seven Barak missile was about USD 17 million which was higher than the price offered by Israel in early 1996.

Missing children's data lacks accuracy: NHRC

NEW DELHI: The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data on missing children "lack accuracy" despite it being the national repository of crime data,
the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has said in its latest report.

"NCRB data on missing children lacks accuracy. Despite being the national repository of 'crime data', the bureau lacks information about the children, both, who are traced and those who remain untraced," the NHRC said.

In any given year, an average of 44,000 children are reported missing. Of them, as many as 11,000 remain untraced, according to the commission.

Although reports about missing children are communicated to the NCRB, it is not generally apprised with the information later when a child is rescued, traced or returned, the NCRB observed.

"Police stations concerned generally do not give any feedback to the NCRB when the missing child is rescued, traced or returned," the commission noted.

Also, parents and relatives of the missing child fail to inform the police about any new development. "This in a way complicates the problem," NHRC said.

Apart from the NCRB, the commission said, there are some regional police websites like the Zonal Integrated Police Network (ZIPNET) and a few state police websites, which provide data on missing persons including children.

But, the information provided therein remains "largely incomplete," it said.

"Since awareness about these databases, particularly, among police personnel, is low, it has not drawn adequate attention in the investigation and tracing of missing children, the commission added.

Non-violence can't tackle terror: Dalai
NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama, a lifelong champion of non-violence on Saturday candidly stated that terrorism cannot be tackled by applying the
principle of ahimsa because the minds of terrorists are closed.

"It is difficult to deal with terrorism through non-violence," the Tibetan spiritual leader said delivering the Madhavrao Scindia Memorial Lecture here.

He also termed terrorism as the worst kind of violence which is not carried by a few mad people but by those who are very brilliant and educated.

"They (terrorists) are very brilliant and educated...but a strong ill feeling is bred in them. Their minds are closed," the Dalai Lama said.

He said that the only way to tackle terrorism is through prevention. The head of the Tibetan government-in-exile left the audience stunned when he said "I love President George W Bush." He went on to add how he and the US President instantly struck a chord in their first meeting unlike politicians who take a while to develop close ties.

Harry to be formally reprimanded for racist remark
LONDON: Prince Harry is likely to be formally reprimanded for the use of "racist" remarks against one of his Asian colleague while training with the
British Army, which has initiated a probe into the issue that has sparked a row.

The 24-year-old Prince, who has already had one meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Harry Fullerton, the Household Cavalry's commander, is set to be formally interviewed.

Even as the Prince has publicly apologised for calling one his colleague a "Paki" in 2006, the military has initiated a probe, determined to deal with the matter in line with "normal Army procedures". Paki is a derogatory term for Pakistanis.

"The Army does not tolerate inappropriate behaviour in any shape or form," a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence was earlier quoted by The Daily Telegraph as saying.

According to senior sources, it is likely the Prince, the third in line to the British throne, will be formally reprimanded over his remarks and made aware that the army has a zero-tolerance policy on racism, the daily said.

Even though the young Pakistani officer, Captain Ahmed Raza Khan, has not made a formal complaint, the publication of the tape by a British tabloid, in which Harry was filmed making the "racist" remarks, forced the Household Cavalry to begin an investigation.

According to British paper, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army, was "disappointed and extremely cross" at the racist term used by the Prince.

A senior official said the row had done "immense damage" to attempts at attracting more Asians to the army.

"We have been going to great lengths at trying to make inroads into the Asian community because we want them to join the armed forces. Now what will they think? The term 'Paki' is deeply abusive - it is not a term of endearment," the army official said.

Raju beats Obama on web popularity charts!
New Delhi He may be popular for all the wrong reasons, but Satyam's disgraced founder Ramalinga Raju has beaten US President-elect Barack Obama on internet popularity charts in India, and is closing the gap abroad too.
By now infamous IT czar Raju shot to limelight earlier this month after disclosing what has emerged as the country's biggest ever corporate fraud in India and has been called 'India's Enron' right from the word go.

Google's search volume index shows Raju and Obama were generating almost equal searches from India during the first six days of the year, with Obama leading by a small margin.

However, Raju jumped up the charts on January 7, when he admitted to a massive fraud of about Rs 7,800 crore.

The search volumes for Raju are estimated to have been over 10 times more than that of Obama on January 7, after which it has been declining consistently but Raju is still holding an edge over the US President-elect.

In terms of search volumes generated from various regions, Raju's own state Andhra Pradesh is on top, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi. In terms of cities too, the maximum search volume has been from Hyderabad, where both Raju and Satyam are based, followed by Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, Mahape and Delhi.

As regards searches for Obama, Tamil Nadu has been on the top, followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka and Delhi among the regions. For cities, the maximum search volumes for Obama has come from Chennai, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi.

Outside India too, Raju has generated significant search volumes from UAE, Singapore, Finland, US, Poland, Australia, UK, Canada and Germany, but has lagged Obama.

Raju has been searched for in Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Dallas and San Fransisco, while search queries have come in Polish language too, other than English.

Just ASSESS the MIGRATION TREND! Just think of the BRAIN DRAIN and Migrating Displaced INDIANS Faceless and then lok on other South Asians!

At Least 300 Bangladesh, Myanmar Boat People Missing, NYT Says

By Luzi Ann Javier



Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- At least 300 people from Bangladesh and Myanmar are reported to be missing at sea as Thai authorities turn illegal migrants away, sending them back in boats without engines, New York Times reported.

The missing were part of 410 ethnic Rohingya minority who tried to enter Thailand and were sent out to sea onto an open barge with just four barrels of water and two sacks of rice, the newspaper reported, citing human rights groups.

About 100 of the migrants were rescued on the Andaman Islands after drifting at sea for two weeks, the newspaper said.

Thailand has detained as many as 1,000 boat people from Bangladesh and Myanmar in the past month and sent them back to sea, the newspaper said. Thailand denied the expulsions, the report said
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a9Lzj3pOBOIg&refer=asia

Dalai Lama says faith in Chinese people unshaken
Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:17pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] By Abhishek Madhukar

NEW DELHI, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said he had faith in China's people and held out hope for an eventual change in policy towards Tibet, even though his faith was faltering in the Chinese government.

"Our faith towards (Chinese) government is getting thinner and thinner, however our faith in the Chinese people has never shaken," he said on Sunday, replying to questions on what he thought could resolve the issue of Tibet 50 years after he fled.

China has stepped up its defence of its rule over Tibet, but the Dalai Lama said he had seen change even in China.

"Now it is no longer a true socialist country, but rather a communist, dictatorial, capitalist country," he said, adding criticism of its leaders was more prevalent now.

"Nowadays, in restaurants and shops, tea shops, criticism of leaders is quite common. So things are changing .... governments change, leadership changes, and eventually, the policy will also change," he said at a Delhi college on a visit to the capital.

China last week lashed out at the Dalai Lama, accusing him of "sabotage" to slow the development of Tibet.

Tibet plans to start construction this year on the region's first expressway, a four-lane road stretching 40 km (25 miles) from Lhasa, and to provide all counties with roads by next year and electricity by 2015.

Demonstrations by monks in Lhasa last March escalated into deadly riots and triggered protests against Chinese rule across the Tibetan plateau, particularly in the run-up to the summer Olympics in Beijing last August.

CID begins interrogating Raju bros, Srinivas
Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh CID, which took former Chairman of Satyam Computer B Ramalinga Raju, his brother and ex-MD Rama Raju and former CFO V Srinivas into its custody from the Chanchalguda Jail here has begun a thorough interrogation of the trio.
The Sixth Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on Saturday granted permission to the CID, investigating the Satyam fraud, to take the company executives into custody for four days for further probe. The court allowed the probing agency to question the accused during day hours in the presence of their counsels.

Following the magistrate's direction on providing medical treatment to the three, a doctor visited Ramalinga Raju and checked his health at the prison before being taken into the police custody.

A five-member CID team, led by investigation officer N Balaji Rao, took the custody of accused at around 1145 hrs amidst tight security. All the three accused were taken to CID's office at A C Guards here for further interrogation into the Rs 7,800-crore financial fraud. The road passing by the Chanchalguda prison was packed with media vehicles camped outside the jail premises since 7.30 am.

The CID team is being assisted by auditors and chartered accountants in its investigations to retrieve information from the documents of laptops, hard disks, papers and also CDs seized during raids from their residences, sources said.

The Raju brothers were in judicial custody since January 10 after their arrest on January 9 while Srinivas was in judicial remand after his arrest on January 10. They were arrested following Ramalinga Raju's admission that he cooked company balance sheet for the past 7 years to the tune of Rs 7,800 crore.


Tamil Tiger head may have fled Sri Lanka-army chief
Sun Jan 18, 2009 4:21pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The elusive leader of the Tamil Tigers may have already fled Sri Lanka with the army charging fast toward the separatist rebels' final strongholds, Sri Lanka's army commmander said.

Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, commanding the most successful army offensive in the history of one of Asia's longest-running wars, also predicted victory in a matter of months as the Tigers' resistance was weaker than expected.

"Prabhakaran is a man who loves food, a man who loves his family, so I don't think he would wait until the military got so close to him," Fonseka told reporters late on Saturday. "He must have already escaped through the sea." He declined to speculate on where the Tamil Tiger leader would have fled to.

Fonseka said Tiger founder and leader Velupillai Prabhakaran would neither commit suicide as he exhorts his followers to do with cyanide capsules worn around their necks, nor allow himself to be captured like former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Fonseka said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) now hold an area of 30 km (18 miles) by 15 km (9 miles), and said troops had marched 17 km toward Mullaittivu in as many days.

The LTTE could not be reached for comment.

"When the war started, I used 50 map sheets to plan it. Now I only need one sheet to plan it," he said.

Fonseka, who spoke at an annual dinner he hosts for defence correspondents at his residence, joked that he expected most of them "to be out of work by this time next year." He wore a black shirt, adorned with a dragon strangling a tiger. Continued...

For Obama, high hopes and a global honeymoon
Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:52pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama enters the White House on Tuesday with enough foreign goodwill to buy at least a brief global honeymoon as he wades into the crush of international crises awaiting his attention.

But high expectations around the world could lead to disappointment if he and a foreign policy team led by incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton make little headway on long-standing problems from the Middle East to Iran, Pakistan, North Korea and elsewhere.

"Expectations are too high around the world for the Obama administration and its foreign policy," said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"Just because you change administrations doesn't mean all these problems get any easier," he said. "You can't expect miracle solutions when administrations have been grappling with these problems for a long time."

Reconciling expectations abroad -- where his election as the first black U.S. president sparked a bout of Obama-mania -- with the constraints of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a global economic crisis could be one of the new president's toughest tests.

The first signs of Obama's difficult balancing act have surfaced in recent weeks as his silence on the Israeli offensive in Gaza has led to some rare criticism in foreign media.

"There is ample opportunity for disappointment here if expectations are too high or more importantly if you expect results too quick," said Daniel Serwer, a vice president at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

U.S. welcomes Gaza ceasefire, Iran says not enough
Sun Jan 18, 2009 8:17pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Peter Millership

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States welcomed Israel's ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and said it expected all parties to stop hostile actions immediately while the United Nations expressed relief.

Iran said the ceasefire was not enough and that Israel's military must withdraw, Turkey urged Western countries to engage with Hamas, and the pope urged the world to pray for peace in Gaza and the hundreds killed in the conflict.

"The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilisation and normalisation in Gaza," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after Israel called off its three-week offensive in the area.

"The United States commends Egypt for its efforts and remains deeply concerned by the suffering of innocent Palestinians," she added. "We welcome calls for immediate coordinated international action to increase assistance flows and will contribute to such efforts."

Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire by its fighters and allied groups in Gaza on Sunday, senior Hamas official Ayman Taha told Reuters, adding that the Islamists gave Israel a week to pull out its troops.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the Israeli ceasefire and urged Israel to withdraw all of its troops.

"I am relieved that the Israeli government has decided to cease hostilities," Ban told reporters. "This should be the first step leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza," he said, adding he wanted the withdrawal "as soon as possible".

He said Hamas militants also needed to do their part to bring an end to the violence by halting their rocket attacks against southern Israel. "Hamas militants must stop firing rockets now," he said. Continued

"Erroneous" Western democracy not for China - official
BEIJING (Reuters) - China must build defences against "erroneous" ideas involving Western-style democracy, a top government official said in comments published on Sunday, shooting down recent calls by dissidents for political reform.

China's ruling Communist Party has stepped up efforts to stifle dissent and protest ahead of politically sensitive anniversaries this year, and amid concerns that rising unemployment in a slowing economy could fuel broad social unrest.

Jia Qinglin, China's fourth-most senior official, demanded officials throw their weight behind the one-party state in an essay in the Party's main ideological journal "Seeking Truth" (Qiushi), which was reproduced on major web portals on Sunday.

"Build a line of defence to resist Western two-party and multi-party systems, bicameral legislature, the separation of powers and other kinds of erroneous ideological interferences," said Jia, who is also head of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a largely toothless parliamentary advisory body.

"Consciously abide by the Party's political discipline and resolutely safeguard the Party's centralised unity," Jia said, calling on CPPCC members to strengthen "ideological unity".

The essay comes weeks after hundreds of scholars, dissidents and former Party officials signed "Charter 08", a petition campaign calling for open democratic elections and an independent judiciary.

Authorities have since detained prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo and other rights activists over the manifesto, and earlier this month launched a crackdown on Internet pornography and other "vulgar" online content.

China's Communist Party leadership faces a number of politically sensitive anniversaries this year, including the 20th anniversary of the brutal crushing of student-led pro-democracy protests centred on Tiananmen Square in June, 1989.

B'desh yarn firms seek help against India rivals
Sat Jan 17, 2009 4:38pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladeshi textile manufacturers need protection from rivals in India, with whom they cannot compete on price due to the relative weakness of India's currency, a senior business leader said on Saturday.

Bangladeshi ready-made garment exporters who used to buy raw materials from local manufacturers now prefer to import them from India for cheaper prices, said A Matin Chowdhury, managing director of Rahim Textile Mills Ltd, a major yarn manufacturer.

"Our ready-made garment exporters are now preferring to import yarns from India, where a much devalued currency favours the Indian exporters," said Matin, a former president of the Bangladesh Textile Mills' Association.

He told reporters that manufacturers sought government safeguards as Indian spinners were shipping yarns to the Bangladeshi apparel makers at dumping prices.

He said the present five percent cash incentives for using local yarns, provided by a government fund, should be raised to 15 percent.

He called for exporters, as a temporary measure, to receive a bonus of six percent of the value of exports, to be paid out of a research and development fund.

More than 100,000 tonnes of yarns worth about $290 million were stockpiled at spinning units, which had been forced to cut production by 30 percent on average.

Matin said that since Jan. 1, 2008, the Indian rupee had been devaluated by 24 percent against the U.S. dollar and the rupee of Pakistan, another major yarn exporting country, had been devalued by 26 percent.

The Bangladeshi currency, by contrast, experienced only a 0.05 percent devaluation, he added. Continued...


Israel shells Gaza school again


Those slain in the war also include 410 children, 108 women, 113 elderly people, 14 paramedics, and four journalists


Sunday January 18 2009 10:13:07 AM BDT


AFP.Gaza City -A woman and a child were killed early on Saturday in an Israeli strike on a UN-run school in northern Gaza where civilians were sheltering from the fighting, medics and witnesses said.

‘This yet again illustrates the tragedy that there is no safe place in Gaza. Not even a UN installation is safe,’ Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said. ‘There is no place to flee,’ he said.

In the deadliest such strike, 43 people were killed when an Israeli tank shell hit a UN-run school in the northern town of Jabaliya on January 6.

Israeli troops assaulted Gaza from land, air and sea as the Jewish state said it was close to reaching its goals and its powerful security cabinet prepared to vote on a unilateral ceasefire.

Despite weeks of heavy fighting in which more than 1,200 Palestinians have been killed, Hamas vowed to fight on until all Israeli forces withdraw from the battered enclave and open its border crossings.

Israeli warships and tanks, dug in on the outskirts of Gaza City, kept lobbing shells into the densely populated urban area, while to the north in Beit Lahiya a UN-run school was set ablaze by bombs.

A woman and a child were killed and another dozen people wounded in the attack, in which burning embers rained down on a school where some 1,600 people were sheltering, setting parts of the building alight.

Rights groups have accused Israel of using phosphorus bombs, which are designed to send up a smokescreen on open battlefields, in crowded civilian areas. Israel has said its weapons are all legal under international law.

The UN demanded an investigation into the incident, the fourth time Israel has targeted its facilities in the territory, where 80 per cent of the 1.5 million population relies on foreign aid.

An Israeli military spokesman said investigations have been launched into all incidents in which civilian targets have been hit, but said initial investigations revealed that troops had been fired upon from each location.

At least 1,205 Palestinians, including 410 children, have been killed since the start of Israel’s deadliest-ever assault on the territory on December 27, according to Gaza medics, who said another 5,300 people have been wounded.

Those slain in the war also include 108 women, 113 elderly people, 14 paramedics, and four journalists, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.

The Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, said however that Israel was getting closer to achieving its goals of halting Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel and the smuggling of arms into the Hamas-ruled territory from Egypt.

He cautioned however that ‘the defence forces must continue their operation and be ready for any development.’

The army said that it had carried out 70 aerial attacks against weapons smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt, Hamas’s rear supply route.

But Hamas remained defiant, despite talk of a unilateral ceasefire.

‘This unilateral ceasefire does not foresee a withdrawal’ by the Israeli army, Osama Hemdan, the movement’s Lebanon representative, said. ‘As long as it remains in Gaza, resistance and confrontation will continue.’

The Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, who had been trying to broker a bilateral truce between Hamas and Israel, also said troops must leave Gaza immediately.

The anticipated stop to the violence came after the Jewish state won pledges from Washington and Cairo to help prevent arms smuggling into the Islamist-run enclave from Egypt, a key demand for ending the war.

Britain, France, and Germany have also said they would help prevent smuggling.

But Egypt has not given any details about what assurances it has given Israel, and on Saturday the president, Hosni Mubarak, said he would never allow international monitors on Egyptian soil.

‘Egypt, in its efforts to stop the aggression, is working on securing its borders with Israel and the Gaza Strip and it will never accept the presence of foreign observers on its territory,’ he said in a television address.

Mubarak said an Israeli ceasefire would not be enough on its own, saying its troops must leave Gaza as well.

The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit, also fired a warning shot across Israel’s bows by saying that Cairo is ‘absolutely not bound’ by the US-Israeli agreement on arms smuggling.

Diplomatic sources in Cairo meanwhile said Egypt has invited several international leaders, along with the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to a summit on the Gaza crisis on Sunday.

Under the terms of the proposal being discussed by the security cabinet, Israel would silence its guns even without a truce with Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since June 2007, a senior government official said.

The official said however that the army would respond to any Hamas attacks even after a ceasefire order from the security cabinet.

Gaza militants meanwhile fired some seven rockets into Israel on Saturday, without causing any casualties.

Since the start of the operation 10 soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or in rocket strikes. The army says more than 700 rockets and mortar rounds have been fired into Israel during that period.

AFP/ The New Age BD
Law enforcers killed 149 people in 2008: Odhikar
Having Her Cake And Eating It Too



The Bahujan Samaj Party left no stones unturned in its quest for funds for Mayawati’s birthday, reports SRAWAN SHUKLA

AS SHE turned 52 on January 15, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati added an estimated Rs 12 crore to Rs 15 crore to her personal wealth through donations and gifts on the occasion of her birthday, which was celebrated as Aarthik Sahyog Diwas (economic cooperation day).

Though Mayawati’s birthday celebrations were low-key, keeping in mind the Mumbai terror attacks, donations poured in from across the country. Even the unsavoury December 25 incident, in which BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari battered PWD executive engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta to death near Kanpur, did not stop her from accepting huge sums as gifts and donations from party workers and leaders on her birthday.

Party workers, MLAs, MPs, ministers and district presidents were all given collection targets. “It’s an annual ritual to please behenji for her contribution to the BSP and dalits,” admits a party leader who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Collection targets were increased 50 to 100 per cent this time, and were fixed last November. Each BSP MLA was asked to donate Rs 3 lakh. Ministers were directed to collect Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh from their respective departments, and MPs Rs 5 lakh. District presidents were asked to give Rs 2 lakh, up from Rs 1 lakh last year.

“I have submitted a draft of Rs 1 lakh,” said Vimal Gautam, former BSP district president, Etawah. Talking to TEHELKA, Gautam said that each district donates about Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh every year to Mayawati for running the party. “There is nothing unusual or fishy about the donation drive. It has been on since Kanshi Ram’s days,” he clarifies.

Intriguingly, the party does not issue any receipts for the donations made to behenji on her birthday. “No receipt is required as these are personal gifts. It is the moral duty of each party worker to make contributions for the Bahujan Samaj mission and the party,” points out Gautam, claiming that “no ‘black money’ is involved in the collection drive”.

“The party records all donations. Accounts are duly presented during the national executive and are audited annually. Anyone can check the party balance-sheet,” he says. However, neither Gautam nor any other BSP leaders can explain why these donations are being made to Mayawati’s personal account instead of the party’s account, if they were meant for running the party. They also remain mute when asked how Mayawati’s personal wealth has swelled 400 times in less than four years. They remain silent when questioned about the large number of properties bpought in her own name and that of her numerous relatives.

Earlier, the party used to print Rs 100 denomination coupons when collecting birthday donations, but the practice was discontinued when a hue and cry was raised in 2003. Donations in the form of diamonds, gold and silver and other valuable goods were no longer accepted, as the party found it difficult to exchange them for hard cash and have them all accounted for.

As a result of the CBI investigations in a disproportionate assets case bought against Mayawati in 2004, cash donations in her name are now discouraged. However, most donations are made in small denominations from party workers, and are aggregated and converted into drafts and cheques from allegedly fictitious accounts by party fund managers. No cheques or drafts are accepted from persons without a PAN card. Each draft carries the name and PAN number of the donor and an affidavit to ensure that the donations are legally unchallengeable.

Donations came from across the country but being the home state, UP contributed the most. Donations from western UP and other states were collected at the party office in Delhi while funds from eastern UP came directly to the party headquarters in Lucknow.

Besides party ministers, MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and workers, donations came from bureaucrats, industrialists and contractors as well. Ever since a district magistrate was accused of forcing a PWD engineer to contribute to the birthday collection drive by a minister, bureaucrats are tight-lipped about the process.

Even government departments like the UP Rajkiya Nirman Nigam, the Public Works Department, the Power Department, UP Irrigation Department and the UP Pollution Control Board have not been spared. They are understood to have contributed their share, collecting donations from engineers and contractors.

A recently retired Chief Engineer told TEHELKA that they were given a target to raise Rs 1 crore by a BSP minister and a senior bureaucrat in the CM’s Secretariat. “Naturally, this target was passed on to contractors and engineers who pooled in the money across the state for her birthday kitty,” he confided. A PWD executive engineer claims that they raise funds similarly. Those who fulfil donation targets are rewarded with plum postings, he adds.

Samajwadi Party State President Shivpal Singh Yadav alleges that this year, the target for donations is a staggering Rs 100 crore. SP General Secretary Amar Singh released a CD to prove the party’s charge and demanded a CBI inquiry and de-recognition of the BSP by the Election Commission. The CD exposes how BSP functionaries were given targets to collect donations on her birthday.

INTERESTINGLY, MAYAWATI and her trusted lieutenants openly admit that donations are being collected and have also been collected in the past. The UP Chief Minister has gone on record, saying that her personal wealth was raised through the donations from party workers. “No one is ever forced to make any donations on my birthday,” she claimed, in a recent press conference.

“The BSP is not only a party but a mission and a movement for the uplift of the Bahujan Samaj. We take contributions from partymen to meet organisational and election expenses,” says BSP State President Swami Prasad Maurya.

Unlike the SP, the Congress and the BJP, who accept secret donations from industrialists, we run our party with the contributions from BSP workers,” clarifies Swami Prasad Maurya.

The Supreme Court ordered Maya - wati this week to answer within a month the CBI’s charges about her disproportionate assets. Yet she accepted the donations without any qualms. In 2004, her personal wealth was Rs 1.35 crore. It rose to Rs 52 crore in 2008, her 52nd year. Birthdays for the UP Chief Minister Mayawati are very happy indeed.

WRITER’S EMAIL:
srawan@tehelka.com


From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 3, Dated Jan 24, 2009


Parliament should not grant blanket indemnity to acts and ordinance of CG


Saturday January 17 2009 22:59:55 PM BDT


A total of 149 people were killed by law enforcement personnel across the country in the year of 2008, according to annual report of Odhikar, a coalition for human rights. "Of them, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) killed 68 people, police killed 59 people, RAB and police acting together killed 25, the 'Joint Forces' killed 1, Coast Guard killed 4 persons and BDR killed 2 persons," the report said.(The Bangladesh Today)

This was revealed at a discussion meeting held at the National Press Club yesterday.

Eminent columnist Farhad Mazhar, also the adviser of the organisation, presented the report and said, "Extra judicial killing should be stopped soon. In the name of crossfire, killing people is a violation of the process of natural justice." he said, adding, the Election Commi-ssion (EC) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) failed to play its due role to establish a democratic country during last two years caretaker government regime.

In the report, Odhikar says another form of violation of right to life, are deaths in custody. This trend has continued regardless of types of government in power. In 2008 it was reported that a total of 66 people died in jail custody.

It also says, "In the last year a total of 454 women and girls were reported as victims of rape. Among them, 202 were women and 252 girls. Of them, 68 women and 30 girls were killed after being raped and one women committed suicide. Among those raped 110 women and 70 girls were the victims of gang rape."

Odhikar demanded that the next parliament should not grant blanket impunity and ratify acts of the caretaker government. There are a number of ordinances such as the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance, Right to Information Ordinance, and others that should not be approved without major reviews and changes.

"The parliament should not ratify also those Ordinances promulgated during the state of emergency that are not consistent with international human right norms and standards. The parliament must make sure that the emergency provision, after its withdrawal, cannot continue to violate human rights. Cases filed under emergency provisions should no longer run under the emergency provisions." The report said.

Odhikar believes, "the caretaker government system as contemplated in the constitution has to be re-examined and replaced to make space for institutions to work. A caretaker system disrupts constitutional development. Also the tenure of the caretaker government has to be addressed as well, so that in future, people do not live under unelected oppressive regimes."

The organisation called upon all political parties to respect democratic and human rights norms and reminds the newly elected government of its obligations to create an environment for the opposition to play a due role and make contributions towards successful and democratic government.

Among others journalists Ataus Samad, Motiur Rah-man Chowdhury, and professors Mahfujullah, Mahmudur Rah-man and Khushi Kabir were present.

The Bangladesh Today

Over 8 in 10 corporations have tax havens

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (AP): Eighty-three of the nation's 100 largest corporations, including Citigroup, Bank of America and News Corp., had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007, and some of the companies received federal bailout funding, a government watchdog said Friday.

The Government Accountability Office released a report that said Bank of America Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley all had more than 100 units in countries that maintain low or no taxes. The three financial institutions were included in the $700 billion financial bailout approved by Congress.

Insurance giant American International Group Inc., which has received about $150 billion in bailout money, had 18 subsidiaries. JPMorgan Chase & Co. had 50 units and Wells Fargo & Co. had 18.

Two US banks fail, first casualties in 2009

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters): Bank regulators closed two small banks Friday, the first US banks to fail this year but the latest in an upsurge that began last year as the struggling economy and falling home prices took their toll on financial institutions.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said National Bank of Commerce of Berkeley, Illinois and Bank of Clark County of Vancouver, Washington were closing with other banks taking over their insured deposits.

In 2008, 25 banks were seized by officials, up from just 3 in 2007.

National Bank had $430.9 million in assets and $402.1 million in deposits, with Republic Bank of Chicago assuming its insured deposits, the FDIC said. Republic Bank will also purchase $366.6 million in assets at a discount of $44.9 million, it added.

Umpqua Bank, a subsidiary of Umpqua Holdings Corp, agreed to assume insured deposits of the Bank of Clark County, which had $446.5 million in assets and $366.5 million in deposits, the FDIC said.

The FDIC insures up to $250,000 per account through 2009 and individual retirement accounts at insured banks.

But Bank of Clark County had about $39.3 million in uninsured deposits in 138 accounts that may exceed the insured limit, the FDIC said. It added that "is likely to change once the FDIC obtains additional information from these customers."

Bank of Clark County will reopen on Tuesday as branches of Umpqua Bank. The FDIC said customers at National Bank should continue to use existing branches until Republic Bank can fully integrate National's deposit records.

Customers at both National Bank and Bank of Clark County can access their money over the weekend by check, teller machine or debit card, the FDIC said.


Modi gets PM pitch- Mittal, Ambani
(02:10) Report
Jan. 15 - The heads of two of India's largest telecommunication companies, Sunil Bharti Mittal and Anil Ambani praised Narendra Modi's leadership and hinted at him being India's next Prime Minister.


An ANI report.


Pakistan, India urged to cooperate
(01:51) Rough Cut
Jan 15 - Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband says that Pakistan must adopt a zero tolerance approach against the militant organization blamed for carrying out the Mumbai terror attack.

Miliband also urged cooperation between nuclear-armed neighbours Pakistan and India.

Tension has been simmering since the late November attack in which gunmen killed 179 people in Mumbai, India's financial capital.

Miliband said that it is very clear that militant organizations operating in Pakistan have carried out the Mumbai attack and thus perpetrators must be brought to justice.

(SOUNDBITE) (English) DAVID MILIBAND, BRITAIN'S FOREIGN SECRETARY

REHMAN MALIK, PAKISTAN'S TOP INTERIOR MINISTRY OFFICIAL

India appoints chief of NIA
(01:49) Report
Jan 15 - India's Home Ministry has appointed senior police officer R.V. Raju as the chief of the National Investigation Agency or NIA set up after the Mumbai terror attacks.

Making the announcement at a press conference in New Delhi on Thursday, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said Raju would also be tasked with helping in other recruitments in the NIA.

An ANI Report

Rahul shows Miliband rural India
(00:50) Report
Jan. 15 - Rahul Gandhi took Britain's Foreign Secretary, David Miliband on a visit to Amethi on Wednesday to get a first hand experience of progressive rural India.


An ANI report.


India should be ready for war
(01:17) Report
Jan 14 - The Indian Army chief on Wednesday said the country should always be war ready considering the fragility of the region.

Addressing a gathering of army officials at New Delhi, General Deepak Kapoor said the country should always maintain high level of combat readiness to meet any emergency.

An ANI Report.


Villagers turn to solar power
(01:26) Report
Jan 17 - Villagers from Jaunpur district in India are using solar power as a source of electricity.

The solar powered lamps cost around 60 U.S dollars, and international organisations are helping villagers from Uttar Pradesh state to power up their homes.

Basmah Fahim reports.


Indians protest Israeli offensive
(01:45) Report
Jan 16 - Twelve people were wounded in clashes with police at a Kashmir rally against Israel's offensive in Gaza.

Similar rallies were also held in Mumbai and New Delhi. Israel launched its military campaign into Gaza on December 27, 2008 with the stated goal of halting rocket salvoes.

Kimberley Lim reports.


The week that was: Satyam's board
(02:37) Report
Jan. 16 - Here is a wrap of this week's top news stories, including:


Satyam's fraud saga continues.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband's remark on India and Pakistan.
Narendra Modi gets a pitch to become India's next Prime Minister.
Madhu Soman reports.


Women have better sex 'with wealthy men'
London The important bulge in a man's pants is his wallet, they often say. And, now a new study has found that women have better sex with wealthy blokes.
Researchers in Britain have carried out the study and found that women's sexual pleasure is directly linked to their partner's bank balance -- in fact, the wealthier a man is, the more frequently his ladylove has orgasms.

"Women's orgasm frequency increases with the income of their partner," lead researcher Thomas Pollet of the Newcastle University was quoted by 'The Sunday Times' as saying.

The researchers came to the conclusion after analyzing data gathered in one of the world's biggest lifestyle studies, the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey which targeted 5,000 people for in-depth interviews about their sex lives, income.

Among these were 1,534 women with male partners whose data was the basis for the study.

They found that 121 of these women always had orgasms during sex, while 408 more had them "often". Another 762 women ‘sometimes’ orgasmed while 243 had them rarely or never. Such figures are similar to those for western countries.

There were of course, several factors involved in such differences but money was one of the main ones, according to the researchers.

Pollet said: "Increasing partner income had a highly positive effect on women's self-reported frequency of orgasm. More desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms."

And, this is not an effect limited to Chinese women as previous studies in Europe have looked at attributes like body symmetry and attractiveness, these findings are also linked with orgasm frequency. Money, however, seems even more important.



The rosy picture US media paints of genocide
Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:39:14 GMT
By Shirin Barghi and Dex A. Eastman, Press TV, Tehran

A wounded Palestinian woman is escorted to the hospital after an Israeli strike in Gaza City. The war on Gaza has so far killed around 1200 Palestinians and wounded over 5300, many of them women and children.
For those who still believe the United States of America is the land of freedom of speech, US news coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza provides a second insight and more than enough evidence to the contrary.

In the follow-up to Tel Aviv's Operation Cast Lead on Gaza, the US media for three weeks has silently watched Israel kill innocent civilians day in and day out without so much as a wince.

At a time when world news outlets -- some of which are owned by Tel Aviv's allies -- are condemning the war, the so-called free media of the US has virtually cheered and championed Israel for its courage to kill, providing a completely divorced-from-reality version of what is happening in the virtual ghetto.

The New York Times has so far provided one-sided coverage of the conflict with little editorializing and commentary, and the Washington Post has -- in its usual contortionist manner -- described the offensive as "risky" but thoroughly "justified".

So this brings us to the inevitable question: Why have American news outlets opted to follow Washington's example of abetting Israel even when it has time and again proven to see no obstacle in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity?

Perhaps it is because of its forced but sacrosanct marriage with Tel Aviv that Washington continues to feed the US media, think tanks and academia with billions of taxpayer dollars to manipulate the realities on the ground at the expense of US national security and its image worldwide.

"Especially since the Six-Day War in 1967…the centerpiece of US Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel … the United States has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interest of another state (Israel)," say political strategists John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt.

For a country that has long trumpeted its provision of "first amendment rights" to its nation and claims on top of that to be "the freedom of speech beacon for the rest of the world", what a total disgrace to stand behind Europe with a rank of thirty-sixth in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index -- according to the latest report by Reporters without Borders.

The annual rankings have been established based on the amount of self-censorship and government abuses of the press as well as physical abuse of journalists, all of which have become prevalent in the United States.

America set a glaring example of the extent of its eroding press freedoms in September, when nearly 100 journalists were arrested and detained in Minnesota while trying to report on the Republican National Convention.

The US government also showed its biased colors when it decided to prolong the imprisonment of Al Jazeera's Sudanese correspondent Sami al-Hajj for six years. His crime? He was of the wrong color, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion and working for the wrong news outlet covering the wrong war -- the war on Afghanistan.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that has its roots in the injustices of history, the average American who follows the news has almost no knowledge of the endless problems faced by the Palestinians as well as their philosophy of resistance.

Most Americans therefore know not even the simplest fact about the conflict: that there was no Israel before 1948 and that their own corrupt government joined European powers to steal the native land of the Palestinians.

The issue becomes even more shocking when one considers that the US media has propagated the lies of Zionist histrionics by having suggested that not that many Palestinians resided in the currently occupied territories when Israel was created.

In a world where the occupier becomes king of the land and the hearts of countless unknowing Americans go out to the invaders, it is indeed not of relevance to know that the very people living in the Gaza Strip have been crammed into this sliver of land due to the hostile takeover of their homes elsewhere in their native Palestine.

While the US disinformation campaign continues to blow out of proportion the insignificant rocket attacks against the Israelis, what receives no media attention in the United States is that the Palestinians have been subject to over sixty years of horrific crimes.

The US media has not only managed to portray Hamas as the violator of the ceasefire, but also makes no mention of the fact that the Gazans have been under an 18-month blockade. How can rocket retaliations therefore be unjustifiable?

For the rational American thinker, there are many questions that have been left unanswered and have even been avoided.

Have the Palestinians been given the state they have been promised? Did the Israeli invaders not have sixty years to relinquish control of land for the creation of a Palestinian state? Why did the US and Israel label the Palestinian Hamas as the terrorist just after it was democratically elected?

Having drawn lessons from its many wars on democracy, Washington should be expected to at least know that terrorism spawns terrorism and that it is also responsible for the various crimes committed against the Palestinian population. Nevertheless, the cozy relationship between Israel and the US has created only world hatred toward America and has further provoked Israeli acts of terrorism.

In this serious time of crisis when over 1,200 Palestinians have been brutally killed and nearly 5,000 others have been injured, it is a relief to know that America has finally found its role model journalist, 'Joe the Plumber'.

Covering the onslaught in Gaza from an Israeli perspective, the most popular plumber in the United States has set aside his wrench to remind Americans just how bizarre the world of US media can become.

The Ohio plumber, Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, arrived in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Sunday and began tackling the BIG issues from the start, just to show local and foreign reporters "how to do it right".

The people of Sderot "can't do normal things day to day" like get soap in their eyes in the shower for fear of rockets, said Joe.

"I'm sure they're taking quick showers," he said. "I know I would."



"You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started," said the newly-discovered American talent.

"Why hasn't Israel acted sooner?" asked Wurzelbacher, who was dubbed the embodiment of the common American man by Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

"I know if I were a citizen here, I'd be damned upset," he said.

While Joe's one-sided propaganda has prompted both American and international media outlets to send correspondents to cover the giant steps he is taking for mankind, one man has managed to expose the harsh reality of life in Gaza.

"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories Richard Falk says of the ongoing blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza.

The Jewish professor of law is the embodiment of everything American reporters lack; he stands for his beliefs and not for the Zionist agenda in spite of being subject to humiliation, imprisonment and subsequently deportation from Israel in December.

"This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live," Falk adds.

This is the reality of the ghetto created by Washington and Tel Aviv and what the US government and media will never let Americans know.

If you would like to contact the writers please write to eastman@presstv.ir

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=82694§ionid=3510303

Pak concedes India has got proof against Pak nationals
17 Jan 2009, 2245 hrs IST, TIMES NEWS NETWORK & AGENCIES
ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: Giving in to international pressure to "cooperate" with the investigation into the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan
acknowledged on Saturday India's 26/11 dossier has "proof" of involvement of the complicity of Pakistani elements.

The first-ever admission that India had proof came from Pakistan's interior ministry chief Rehman Malik who said that the newly-appointed probe panel has been asked to complete the task in 10 days.

Acknowledging the veracity of the information provided in the Indian dossier, Malik said there were "leaks and good clues", enough material to start a probe. "All actions which will be taken against the terrorist involved in the Mumbai terror attack will be carried only on the basis of proof shared by India. Now we have significant proof of the involvement of Pakistani nationals in the Mumbai terror attack and we assure of a fair justice. Pakistan's investigation team will complete the probe into Mumbai attacks within 10 days," he said.

Malik, who was addressing a press conference in Islamabad, promised to file criminal cases if prima facie evidence was found. "Quite a lot of material was provided by India and the Pakistani investigators will work to convert this into evidence that can stand up to judicial scrutiny."

Malik, however, refused to commit himself to any time frame to complete the prosecution, saying it would depend on the judiciary.

India's grouse has been that Pakistan had refused to even consider a probe based on the information provided. This signalled a lack of intent, India had held.

On Saturday, France joined a growing list of countries to express solidarity with India on the attacks, saying the Indian dossier was perfectly "credible". Nicholas Sarkozy's diplomatic adviser, Jean-David Levitte, said there could be no criticism of the evidence provided by India. "We want Pakistan to cooperate fully. This is the least we can ask, and it's also in their interest to do so."

However, like the UK, France too refused to accept any suggestion of involvement of the Pakistani official agencies in the attacks. Levitte said clearly that while the Indian dossier was above reproach, even the dossier did not point fingers at anybody in the Pakistani official hierarchy.

Security officials dealing with their counterparts in other countries also say there are few takers for India's allegation, famously made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, that Pakistani official agencies were involved. They're willing to grant the involvement of LeT, but stopped short of the ISI. It blows a hole in the continuing Indian contention, not because there wasn't any, but that India has not made any clear case for any official involvement.

Just as after 9/11 French paper `Le Monde' wrote "we are all Americans", Levitte said, France felt the same way after the Mumbai attacks. "When India is challenged, we feel challenged."

In Islamabad, however, Malik insisted that Pakistan was not acting under Indian pressure or any other country's pressure. British foreign secretary David Miliband got the Pakistani version of an earful as well, when Malik refuted his demand to go "farther and faster" on the investigation. "We will not accept anyone's instructions to do things faster."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pak_concedes_India_has_got_proof/articleshow/3994542.cms

Pak law allows fugitives to be handed over to India
18 Jan 2009, 1354 hrs IST, PTI
NEW DELHI: Pakistan, which is claiming it has no legal arrangement with India for handing over terror suspects following the Mumbai attacks, is
forgetting one of its own Acts which provides for transfer of such people to a country with which it has not signed an extradition treaty.

The Extradition Act, 1972 of Pakistan clearly specifies that Islamabad can hand over anyone accused of terrorism or any other criminal act in a foreign country to that government even if there is no Extradition Treaty.

The Act underlines that a suspect, sought for any offence by a country with which Pakistan has no extradition treaty, should be "surrendered" irrespective of whether a court in Pakistan has jurisdiction to try that offence.

"Where the Federal government considers it expedient that the persons who, being accused or convicted of offences at places within, or within the jurisdiction of, a foreign state, are or are suspected to be in Pakistan should be returned to the State (country), notwithstanding that there is no extradition treaty with that State," says Section 49(1) of the Act.

The law, enacted on September 24, 1972, says that under the Act the suspects can be handed over to a country with which there is no extradition treaty exactly like it is done in the case of a country with which Pakistan has such inked such an accord.

The Act makes it clear that "every fugitive offender shall be liable to be apprehended and surrendered in the manner provided in this Act, whether the offence in respect of which his surrender is sought was committed before or after the commencement of this Act and whether or not a court in Pakistan has jurisdiction to try that offence."

India has been pressing Pakistan to hand over about 40 fugitives of Indian law, including Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, who are wanted in serious crimes of terrorism here.

Pakistan, however, has been claiming that since it has no extradition treaty with India, it would not be able to hand over any of the Pakistani nationals.

Commenting on the Extradition Act of Pakistan, official sources here wondered why Islamabad is claiming it cannot hand over anybody if such a law exists in that country.

"This raises questions over Pakistan's sincerity," the sources said, adding the world should take note of it.

The Act says that a requisition for the "surrender of a fugitive offender" shall be made to Federal government of Pakistan by a diplomatic representative in Pakistan of a country asking for the surrender, or by the government of a country asking for the surrender through the diplomatic representative of Pakistan in that country.

The requisition can also be made in any other manner "as may have been settled by arrangement between the Federal government (of Pakistan) and the government of the State asking for the surrender," the Pakistani Act says.
—
The sources pointed out that India has already made requisitions to Pakistan government in the format prescribed in that country's law but still it is not acting. "This, in fact, amounts to violation by the Pakistan government of its own law," they said.
The law also makes it clear that a fugitive may be extradited even if an offence has been committed on board any vessel on the high seas or any aircraft in the air outside Pakistan or the Pakistan territorial waters and such vessel or aircraft comes into any port or aerodrome of Pakistan with the fugitive offender on board. PTI AKK India has been pressing Pakistan to hand over about 40 fugitives of Indian law, including Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, who are wanted in serious crimes of terrorism here.

Pakistan, however, has been claiming that since it has no extradition treaty with India, it would not be able to hand over any of the Pakistani nationals.

Commenting on the Extradition Act of Pakistan, official sources here wondered why Islamabad is claiming it cannot hand over anybody if such a law exists in that country.

"This raises questions over Pakistan's sincerity," the sources said, adding the world should take note of it.

The Act says that a requisition for the "surrender of a fugitive offender" shall be made to Federal government of Pakistan by a diplomatic representative in Pakistan of a country asking for the surrender, or by the government of a country asking for the surrender through the diplomatic representative of Pakistan in that country.

The requisition can also be made in any other manner "as may have been settled by arrangement between the Federal government (of Pakistan) and the government of the State asking for the surrender," the Pakistani Act says.

The sources pointed out that India has already made requisitions to Pakistan government in the format prescribed in that country's law but still it is not acting. "This, in fact, amounts to violation by the Pakistan government of its own law," they said.
The law also makes it clear that a fugitive may be extradited even if an offence has been committed on board any vessel on the high seas or any aircraft in the air outside Pakistan or the Pakistan territorial waters and such vessel or aircraft comes into any port or aerodrome of Pakistan with the fugitive offender on board.

Now, ISI training women for jihad in J&K
18 Jan 2009, 0127 hrs IST, M Saleem Pandit, TNN
JAMMU: At the time when militancy in Jammu & Kashmir has fallen to its lowest levels in two decades, desperation across the border is evident
with Pakistan's ISI preparing women terrorists squads to fuel violence in the state.

The revelation of a Pakistani woman, Asiya Bibi (23), who is in J&K police's custody, that ISI is training about 100 women for terror assignments in the state has sent the security establishment into a tizzy. Asiya, arrested from Rajouri along the LoC in November last year, told her interrogators that the women fidayeen were undergoing arms training in various terror camps at Bimbar, Kotli and Sena in PoK. "In Bimbar, dozens of women are receiving arms training along with men,'' an interrogator quoted Asiya as saying. "Pakistan army soldiers are training women in Sensa and Kotli while ISI men are incharge at Bimbar.''

Asiya, wife of a Pakistani soldier Mohammed Sajjad, confessed that ISI had deputed her for spying along the LoC. "She was on mission to take photographs of the fencing and collect information on the deployment along the LoC,'' a source said. She also told her interrogators that ISI was initially planning to push 17 girls into India to mix with the local population. "As per the plan, they were to marry locals and finally act as spies,'' the source said.

But an intelligence source refused to accept Asiya's confession and said she could be exaggerating. "Asiya had a quarrel with her husband and crossed over to this side in a fit of rage,'' he said.

Jammu SSP Manohar Singh said women have been involved in terrorism in the past too. "Dozens of women may be directly involved in militancy but most of them are driven by money and not conviction,'' Singh said. He said last year in March, police identified six such women. "We arrested three of them and kept the rest under surveillance,'' he said.

In November 2005, a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber Yasmeena (22) had blown herself up at Awantipora in south Kashmir's Pulwama district. In 2006, police arrested an LeT terrorist Khalida Akhter, who had undergone arms training in PoK in 2002. "She was sent back with a mission to befriend security forces and kill them,'' a police officer said. Khalida was provided a safe house in Srinagar from where she coordinated terrorist activities along with two of her associates.
In March 2008, police arrested two women Rafiqa Begum and Rubeena Begum after intercepting an ammunition-laden vehicle on its way from Doda to Qazigund in the Valley. "The two told their interrogators that they were assisting the terrorists for money. They also confessed to having delivered Rs 2 lakh hawala money to LeT commanders Abu Yasir and Mohammed Iqbal in Doda,'' SSP Manohar Singh said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pakistan/Now_ISI_training_women_for_jihad_in_Jammu_and_Kashmir/articleshow/3994900.cms


Full text of PM's speech at the Economic Times Awards in Mumbai
17 Jan 2009, 1955 hrs IST, ECONOMICTIMES.COM


Full text of PM's speech at the Economic Times Awards in Mumbai
17 Jan 2009, 1955 hrs IST, ECONOMICTIMES.COM

Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Single page view Text:



Following is the text of the speech of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh at the award function organized by the Economic Times in Mumbai:


"This function, originally scheduled for November had to be postponed because of the terrorist attack on Mumbai in that month. Although I visited the city along with Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi, immediately after that event, I had no opportunity to speak in public on that occasion. I would, therefore, like to use this opportunity to say a few words on that painful subject.

Although that horrific event is behind us, the scars it has left remain. I was a resident of Mumbai for three happy years and I feel keenly the pain and anger of the city. To the people of Mumbai, I can only say that we will spare no effort to ensure that their city does not suffer any such attack in the future.

My heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives and also those who suffered injuries. I particularly wish to salute the bravery and sacrifice of the men of the Mumbai police and the NSG who laid down their lives fighting against this attack.

Before I proceed further, I would request you to rise and observe one minute of silence as a mark of respect to the victims of the tragedy

The choice of Mumbai as the target of this barbaric attack was not without deeper intent. It was meant to be an attack on our very nationhood. Mumbai is the best-known symbol of free, pluralistic, dynamic and cosmopolitan India. That is precisely why the terrorists chose to attack it.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Full_text_of_PMs_speech_at_the_Economic_Times_Awards_in_Mumbai/articleshow/3994581.cms


The Palestinian story: Enter Zionism
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:24:19 GMT
By Anna Denise Aldis and Dex A. Eastman, Press TV

A Palestinian woman protests the Gaza siege
We have become the majority in the cemetery and ripped of our land. Our death is what they seek, but only if the world knew how it all began…

He spoke words in private that he would not say in open. He knew how to use the persecution of Jews in Europe as a tool to forbid us our right to Palestine.

He was called the father, the father of Zionism, and those he touched would later carry on his legacy and unleash upon us a whole new system of persecution and hate.

Between June and July 1895, he spoke of a solution to the problem of his comrades -- the Jews in Europe. In his book Der Judenstaat (German, The Jewish State), Theodor Herzl envisioned the establishment of an independent Jewish state during the twentieth century.

The father floated the idea that the realization of political Zionism would be in the best interests of European powers -- powers that did not welcome Jews in their lands.

His aspirations were perhaps the result of the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal in the 1890s that divided France and showed the anti-Semitic colors of the cultured European society.

"The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution," proclaimed the Jewish Hungarian.

The father argued that Jews "introduce" anti-Semitism wherever they go and therefore need to establish a Zionist state in "Palestine or Argentina".

Argentina is among "the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has a sparse population and a mild climate" while Palestine serves as our ever-memorable historic home, he wrote.


The father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl
The very name of our Palestine, according to the father, would attract Jews with a force of marvelous potency.

As shown by his writings and the Zionist slogan of 'A land without a people for a people without a land', us Palestinians were nothing but barbarians that did not even consist of a nation.

In his eyes, we were barbarians that needed to be shielded from the cultured anti-Semitic people of Europe.

He himself has said that his proposed Zionist state would be "a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization opposed to barbarism".

According to Herzl, Jews returning to their "historic fatherland" would do so as representatives of Western civilization, bringing "cleanliness, order and the well-established customs of the Occident to this plague-ridden, blighted corner of the Orient".

"The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness and whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity," so he claimed.

His proposal did meet with fierce resistance from Jewish religious leaders who argued Jews were not a nation and that Zionism was incompatible with the teachings of Judaism but such opposition did not stop the floodgates from opening on us.

Although he was not the first to suggest the eradication of our communities for the sake of Jews fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe, Herzl is indeed the person who systematically planned the elevation of his vision into a program of action.

He met with key international figures of the time -- the Sultan, the Kaiser, the Pope, King Victor Emmanuel, Chamberlain and prominent Tsarists. He strived to persuade them to support the Zionist cause of creating a secular Jewish state in Palestine.

Herzl did not live to see the creation of his envisaged 'Judenstaat' but did provide the inspiration, the leadership and the establishment of the Zionist movement.

David Ben Gurion -- the first prime minister of Israel -- publicly pronounced the declaration of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948 in Tel Aviv beneath a large portrait of the father.

The natural element of Zionist ideology clearly was and is to evict us -- the native Arab population -- from Palestine or from areas of Palestine intended to become the Jewish state.

Priest and theologian Michael Prior says Zionism would not realize its goals without us Palestinians being booted out of our homeland.

"Privately, Herzl and the majority of Zionists after him were in no doubt that the realization of the Jewish dream would require a nightmare for the indigenous population," he writes in his book Zionism and the State of Israel.

A June 12, 1895 entry in Herzl's personal diary reveals the words he spoke in private and exposes the true nature of the Zionist monster unleashed upon us.


A map showing how we were spirited across the border
"We shall try to spirit the penniless population [us Palestinians] across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly," he wrote.

But in public, how could he speak of entering our lands and banishing us into exile? In a letter on March 19, 1899, he assured a concerned Arab that Zionists do not want to send them away from their lands.

"But who would think of sending them away? It is their well-being, their individual wealth, which we will increase by bringing in our own," Herzl wrote.

The father then drafted a charter for a Jewish-Ottoman Land Company (JOLC), which gave the JOLC the right to obtain land in Palestine by giving its owners comparable land elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.

According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the Zionist initiative indicates Herzl's "bland assumption of the transfer of the Palestinian to make way for the immigrant colonist."

Our real torment began when the emerging powers of the World War II decided to give in to Zionist demands by establishing Israel in compensation for the crimes Europe had committed against the Jews.

The justification of sixty years of the theft of our land by the violent Israeli settlers and the children of Zion began with our holocaust -- the Nakba -- when the world proved that the Palestine we cherished was nothing but 'a land without a people'.

Even after years of suffering and the massacre of our children, let those who cannot understand the inherent violent nature of Zionist Israel continue to contemplate only on current events and think we have had any choice other than resistance.

And to all who think that the Israelis are the victims, I ask why it is that we were chosen to suffer under Zionist oppression? Were we even involved in the mass killing of the Jews in the Holocaust?

Why is it that those supporters of Israel who speak of human rights advocacy still fool themselves into believing that Tel Aviv wants a two state solution?

I also ask how many of us have to die?

'The Palestinian story' is the title given to a series of articles that will look at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a different perspective than that of mainstream media. 'Enter Zionism' is the second part of the series. The writers have dedicated this article to the many Palestinians that have lost their lives in the deadly Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Click here to read part 1

If you would like to contact the writers please write to eastman@presstv.ir
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=81247§ionid=3510303



The New Nazis
Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:03:56 GMT
By Alan Hart

Alan Hart
Knowing the documented truth about the creation of Israel by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing, and watching - mainly thanks to Al Jazeera and Press TV live feeds - the war on Gaza, Israel's latest display of state terrorism, I have come to a conclusion. It is time to give Israel's hardcore Zionists their real name. They are the New Nazis.

Europeans and Americans could have stopped the original Nazis and prevented the extermination of six million Jews. If Europeans and Americans do not stop the New Nazis, it is likely that their end game will be the extermination of millions of Palestinians.

In his book An Ethical Tradition Betrayed, The End of Judaism, Dr. Hajo G. Meyer, a Nazi holocaust (Auschwitz) survivor, compared Israel's policies - as of 2007 when the book was published - with the early stages of the Nazi persecution of Germany's Jews.

He stressed that he was not seeking to draw a parallel between Israel's current policies and the Nazis' “endgame” - the slaughter of six million European Jews (and also the mass murder of many non-Jews).

He was merely trying to point out, he wrote, “the slippery slope” that eventually led to that catastrophe, and the necessity of “foreseeing the possible consequences” of a policy that oppresses and marginalizes the Palestinians in their own homeland.

The Gentile me is privileged to have Hajo Meyer as a dear friend and I have just talked with him. In the light of what Israeli forces are doing over and in the Gaza Strip, I asked him if he was still not seeking to draw a parallel between Israel's policies and the Nazis' endgame.

He replied, “It's becoming harder and harder not to draw that parallel.” And he agreed that it was now time to describe Israel's hardcore Zionists and those Israelis who follow their orders as “Nazis”.

As we were speaking, I opened an e-mail from another Jewish friend. It contained quotes from a statement made yesterday in the House of Commons by Sir Gerald Kaufman, the only Jewish MP who has been consistent for many years in his criticism of Israeli policy.

His statement included this: “Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass murderers and war criminals?” I read that to Hajo. He said, “Kaufman is right. Every effort must now be made to bring Israel's leaders to trial.”
Of course that will not happen, so how might their endgame be played out?

In my analysis, there is no mystery about Israel's current real purpose. It is to put Hamas out of political as well as military business in order to improve the prospects for bullying and bribing President Abbas and his Fatah-dominated, quisling Palestine National Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism's table - the crumbs being an Israeli withdrawal from parts of the West Bank to provide the Palestinians with two or three Bantustans which they could call a state if they wished.

Would President Abbas actually be prepared to settle for very much less than a complete Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank including Arab East Jerusalem? The answer ought to be “No” because to do so would be to betray his own people and their 60 years of struggle for an acceptable minimum of justice.

But what if he came under pressure from President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, and their message to him, endorsed by Quartet envoi Tony Blair, was something like, “You've got to be pragmatic. This is the best deal you Palestinians are ever likely to get.”

Obama and Clinton would not need to add, “Because we're not going to press the Israelis to do what they don't want to do.”

Under such pressure, and also that applied by the regimes of the existing corrupt, repressive and impotent Arab Order, it is not impossible that President Abbas would buckle completely and accept the crumbs on offer from Zionism's table, but if he did, he and they would be rejected by the overwhelming majority of the occupied Palestinian people.

Then what?

Israel creates a pretext for war with them all. Endgame. A Zionist holocaust.

In my view, which Hajo Meyer shares, that could happen unless enough Israelis and the Jews of the world are prepared to acknowledge that a terrible wrong was done to the Palestinians by Zionism (the few) in the name of all Jews.


The American edition of Alan Hart's book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is to be published by Clarity Press Inc in April, beginning with Volume One (of three with possibly a fourth) which has the subtitle The False Messiah.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=82545§ionid=3510303

Note:These are notes that I took while reading Pyle's The Making of Modern Japan. They are not much use to anyone who does not actually own this book, and I have only put these online so that those who do own the book might find them useful in remembering some of the salient points. In fact, why don't you go buy the book on Amazon? If you do own the book but are using these notes in lieu of actually reading the book, shame on you, as it is a fine book that you should read.

The Making of Modern Japan
Second Edition

Kenneth B. Pyle





The Making of Modern Japan. 1

Chapter 1. 2

Warring State Period 1467-1568. 2

Power Consolidation. 2

Castle Towns. 2

Toward Unification. 3

Chapter 2 Establishment of Tokugawa System.. 3

Tokugawa Bakufu. 3

Tokugawa Control System.. 4

Government at Domain Level 4

Village Government 4

Family and the Role of Women. 4

The Character of the Tokugawa System.. 5

Chapter 3 Growth of Tokugawa Society. 5

Roots of Change. 6

Transformation of the Samurai Class. 6

Change in Agrarian Society. 6

Growth of Merchant Class. 6

Genroku Period 1688-1704. 7

Chapter 4 Crisis in the Tokugawa System.. 7

Economic Problems. 7

Social Problems. 7

Ideological Problems. 8

Alternate Visions. 8

Movements for Reform in Government 9

Chapter 5 The Meiji Restoration. 9

Tokugawa Foreign Relations. 9

Coming of Foreign Crisis. 10

The Treaties. 10

Declining Fortunes of the Bakufu. 10

Samurai Activists. 11

Choshu-Satsuma Alliance. 11

The Significance of the Meiji Restoration. 12

Chapter 6 Revolution in Japan’s Worldview.. 13

Fukuzawa and New Westernism.. 13

Women, Family, and the Limits of Reform.. 14

Agents of Cultural Revolution. 14

The Challenge of the Japanese Enlightenment 14

Chapter 7 Beginnings of Industrialization (1868-1885) 15

The Catch-up Vision. 15

The Beginnings of an Industrial Policy. 16

The State of the Economy in 1868. 16

The Role of Government 16

Chapter 8 Building the Nation State. 16

Initial Problems. 16

The Movement for Constitutional Reform.. 17

The Meiji Constitution. 17

Establishment of a Modern Bureaucracy. 18

The New Nationalism.. 18

Chapter 9 Imperialism and the New Industrial Society. 19

Japanese Imperialism.. 19

The Problem of Industrial Society Come to Japan. 21

Origins of Japanese Labor-Management Relations. 21

The Role of Women in Industrialization. 21

Agrarian Society. 21

Chapter 10 Crisis of Political Community. 22

Evolution of the Political System.. 22

Elitist Nature of Taisho Political System.. 22

Turmoil in Society. 23





Chapter 1
1543: First Europeans (Portuguese) arrive

1549: Jesuits arrive to proselytize Japanese. First effort to understand Japanese culture

Ruling class of military leaders

Military code of honor

Vassalage and enfeoffment (to invest w/ feudal estate or fee)

Fragmented political authority

Warring State Period 1467-1568
‘World without a center’: no central authority, full-blown feudalism



Local control by lords and his samurai, unstable. Takeovers by neighbors/own samurai

Power Consolidation
Local lords gained more power through better land tax assessment and by forcing vassals to live close by. Feudal lords (daimyo) began to emerge. Local lords allied themselves with daimyo for protection

Castle Towns
Kyoto: capital, 250,000 inhabitants

Sakai: fishing port, 50,000 inhabitants



1580-1610: Castles emerged as daimyos stabilized power. Over 200 daimyos. New cities emerged: Osaka, Hiroshima, Nagoya, Wakayama, Kanagawa, etc…



Most importantly, rise of castle towns moved samurai from the countryside into the city.

Greater stability: Castle over local area, daimyo over samurai
Samurai lost ties with land. Stipends instead. More bureaucratic
Development of local administration. Written law more enforceable
Rise of merchant class
Growth of market economy and specialization/commercialization of agriculture
Urban culture development
Toward Unification
Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu: 3 daimyo in central Honshu. Assembled powerful coalition. Strengthened control over land and peasants. Forbade nonsamurai to carry weapons. Bound peasants to villages. Assessed land value better.



Stabilization culminating in Tokugawa hegemony



Chapter 2 Establishment of Tokugawa System
1598: Death of Toyotomi. Start of two-year war to determine successor



October 1600: Sekigahara. Victory of Tokugawa forces over western daimyo alliance. Victory gave Tokugawa huge spoils of war – disposed of daimyo who would not accept his leadership and distributed lands to followers.

Tokugawa Bakufu
The Emperor was still the source of political legitimacy, locus of sovereignty, and symbol of national unity.



Emperor gave Tokugawa position of Shogun. Tokugawa family carefully established family ties with nobility to further legitimacy.



Established Shogun government in Edo. Administration along two lines:

1) Controlled roughly ¼ of the land. Administered through samurai retainers

2) Remaining ¾ of land were in hands of daimyo who had sworn allegiance. The bakufu regulated the external affairs of the daimyo, but did not interfere with internal matters (so long as allegiance was still present).



Daimyo: lord possessing a han (domain) measured in koku (1 koku=4.96 bushels). At least 10,000. Three categories:

1) shimpan (related): related to Tokugawa family. Future shoguns. ~23

2) Fudai (house): retainers of Tokugawa house. Relatively small han. ~140

3) Tozama (outer): pledged allegiance after Sekigahara. Regarded as less trustworthy (Satsuma and Choshu domains eventually helped overthrow shogunate). Several large domains.

Tokugawa Control System
1) Rearrangment of domains: disloyal daimyo reassigned to remote positions or surrounded by loyal daimyo.

2) Alternate attendance system: daimyo had to alternate residency between domains and Edo. Had to leave wives and children in Edo as hostages. Substantial financial drain on the daimyo: maintain two houses and had to pay periodic levies

3) Strict management of foreign relations: sakoku (seclusion) policy. Cutoff possible power ties to foreign nations via trade. Strove to eliminate Christianity (almost completely eliminated by 1650). Dutch were the only officially permitted traders. Tokugawa maintained a strict monopoly on all trades (China, Ryukyu, Korea).

4) Ideology: adaptation of Confucianism (neo-Confucianism) to provide a philosophical foundation for the new social and political order. Each class, age, and group had to maintain its proper place in society. Political legitimacy from an ethical basis. Ieyasu was rendered a Shinto deity. Daughter was married to emperor in 1620. Daughter of this marriage was crowned princess in 1629 (first time since eighth century). Transformed rule into ‘Way of Heaven.’

Government at Domain Level
Daimyo were sovereign within own domain



Samurai constituted 6-7 percent of population. There was a strict hierarchy within samurai (e.g. 40 levels). Lower samurai had to prostrate themselves before upper samurais.

Village Government
Village headmen took care of administration as samurai withdrew from countryside. Villages were largely self-governing, and daimyo did not interfere so long as taxes were paid. Headsmen allowed some symbols of status, though still a peasant. Successful headsmen governed by consensus.

Family and the Role of Women
Fundamental unit of society was the household. Extended family: grandparents, eldest son, and his children. Younger sons started branch families.

Economic interdependence in family.
Solidarity and continuity of family: family name, honor, and status of great importance.
Greater emphasis on parent-son than husband-wife. Husband is wife’s lord, and parents-in-law come before wife’s family.
Male primogeniture (inheritance to eldest son).
Power and responsibility resided with househead.
The Character of the Tokugawa System
System of centralized feudalism. Centralization under Tokugawa, but considerable autonomy present in local domains.



Tokugawa Shogunate did:

- Instituted policies to prevent disturbances of the peace

- Disarmed peasantry

- Removed samurai from countryside

- Controlled foreign affairs

- Eliminated religion as independent force

- Contrained daimyo independence



But they stopped short of complete centralized control.

They did not:

- achieve monopoly of military power

- establish national system of taxation

- control production and distribution of food

- create a national bureaucracy



Thus, the Tokugawa Shogunate is known as baku-han – hybrid of bakufu and han rule – ‘feudal-central system.’ Several reasons are given for stopping short:

- The daimyo and Shogun were interdependent – each needed the other to maintain the unity.

- Further centralization would have meant more rebellion.

- The level of power was sufficient enough to maintain stability and order.



‘refeudalization thesis’: belief that Tokugawa system halted progressive trends, such as fluid class system, free cities, international contracts. Tokugawa reformulated the elements of feudalism into a more stable and organized form. Repressive, rigid, and reactionary.



Modern historians interpret the Tokugawa regime in a more favorable light. ‘Early modern period’ of Japan. More attention to trends that resulted in the emergence of the modern Japanese state after 1868.



Chapter 3 Growth of Tokugawa Society
The Tokugawa period succeeded remarkably well in ending the feudal warfare and constant upheaval. Politically, the system remained fairly stable/static. Socially, however, there was great change.

Roots of Change
Control measures established by Tokugawa promoted economic changes that began to undermine Tokugawa order. Powerful stimulant to new economic activity. Alternate attendance system lead to rise of money system to allow for the daimyo, as well as rise in population of Edo. Commerce in tax rice and specie exchanged for this tax rice emerged. Trade converged on Edo and Osaka-Kyoto.



Social order in countryside changed as market network grew around castle towns.

Transformation of the Samurai Class
Transformation from feudal military class to bureaucratic elite, as warfare ceased to be aspect of life. Civil administration/bureaucracy arose, with new procedures for administration.



Effective government depended upon orderly civil administration and rule of public law.



Learning was necessary in order to acquire the practical techniques of operating a bureaucracy as well as the moral principles upon which samurai government was founded. Samurai became much more educated than their Warring States counterparts. Confucian law was very important, as the Samurai were expected to rule by ethical example.

Change in Agrarian Society
Farming villages were self-sufficient, producing only what they needed to consume. By the 18th century, however, farms began to commercialize/specialize, and market networks provided means to sell surplus and acquire other goods.



There was an increase in the standard of living, though this was not equal within the village.



Large increase in peasant uprisings in the last century of Tokugawa rule.



Population sharply increased, then leveled off. Infanticide, abortion, and late marriage were used to keep family size/mix at ‘desirable’ levels. Some have theorized that this prepared Japan for its industrialization: with population in check, greater technological efficiency produced a great surplus in the economy for export.

Growth of Merchant Class
Merchant class emerged during Tokugawa regime. Ranged from high level financiers to low level shopkeepers/pawnbrokers/peddlers. Great merchant houses built on rice-brokering business. Banking/credit systems emerged in Osaka area. Financiers controlled silver/gold exchange rates, as well as the rice market. Some financiers obtained quasi-samurai status.

Genroku Period 1688-1704
Most brilliant flowering of Japanese culture during Tokugawa period.

Ukiyo – floating world. Expressed tenor of culture. Originally Buddhist term for sad impermanence of things, but was redefined as ‘a life of pleasure that one accepts without thinking what might lie ahead.’

Ukiyo-zoshi (stories of floating world), ukiyo-e (pictures of…)



Bakufu attempted to control ostentation, opulence, and extravagence of Genroku culture. Fought against kabuki theater, eventually banning women from it in 1629 and censoring play content.



Rapid growth of publishing industry.

This popular culture marks the first time comers became culturally important.



Chapter 4 Crisis in the Tokugawa System
Economic Problems
Expenditures of daimyo began to exceed their incoming. Urban gov’t became more complex with laxity and corruption common. Expenditures rose b/c of extravagance, corruption, and increased complexity of gov’t, while revenues fell short due to bad luck and bad management. Land assessments weren’t up-to-date and did not account for productivity increases. No uniform system for taxing commerce.

Social Problems
Warrior stipends began to fall (as much as 50%) as daimyos were unable to keep up with their expenses. Lower samurai had to resort to marrying children to merchants, pawning family armor, infanticide, etc… If not economically impoverished, many lower samurai were psychologically impoverished.



Members of the gono (wealthy peasant) class also added discontent. Growing prosperity among these ‘peasants’ gave them many privileges of the warrior class and allowed them to live like aristocrats. Likewise, the peasants were frustrated at the limits on their social advancement.



Peasant protests began more frequent, but the peasants did not protest against the daimyo or samurai. Instead, they lashed out mostly at the gono – the wealthy peasants and village leaders.



The bounds of the Tokugawa system were too tight to contain the social and economic changes.

Ideological Problems
Appointments were determined by heredity. Lower-ranking samurai grew restless at their immobility, and the foolishness and corruption of the upper-ranking samurai. The educational system further highlighted some of the incompetence of the upper samurai.



There was also a fundamental change in the nature of loyalty. During the Warring States Period:

1) Loyalty was conditional: there was a mutual relationship between lord and vassal; each depended on the other, and each had a bargain to fulfill. If a lord became weak, a vassal often deserted him

2) Loyalty was personal: loyalty was an intimate, emotional relationship; there was no higher authority mandating it

During the Tokugawa Period, this changed:

1) Loyalty became unconditional: it was a unilateral relationship. A vassal could not leave his lord, even if his stipend was decreased

2) Loyalty became impersonal: the lord no longer led them into battle. The lord had less contact with his retainers



This transformation in the nature of loyalty helped prepare the way for modern nationalism. Samurai were loyal to their han more than their lord. This helped grow into a belief of belonging to Japan, that was awakened with the arrival of Perry.

Alternate Visions
Kokugaku (national learning) began to arise as new vision of order. Nativist scholars wished to study what culture was uniquely Japanese before the influx of Chinese culture. Motoori, one of Japan’s great scholars, believed that the introduction of Confucian philosophy corrupted the pure and spontaneous spirituality the people had possessed when worshipping the Shito deities. He rejected the secular rationalism of Confucianism and encouraged a greater understanding of Japan’s cultural essence.



How vain it is

For the men of China

To discuss the reason of things

When they know not the reason

Of the miraculous



This nativism was a threat to the Tokugawa regime, for it depended upon Confucian ideals of order. Motoori’s followers advanced the notion that all were subjects of the divine emperor (descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu).



The Mito school also helped to promote the position of the emperor. The Mito writers held that all elements of the nation, each within it’s role in the hierarchy, was responsible for serving the emperor, and the bakufu and the domains must show their reverence by protecting the population from hardship.



Another school of thought departed from the idea of rule by ethics, and instead pressed the role of economics in rule. They held that economic knowledge was essentially to governing, and that the merchants and other commoners should be allowed to participate.

Movements for Reform in Government
Two main strands of reformist thinking:

1) Fundamentalist approach: restore the fundamental/purer conditions of the early Tokugawa Period. The purely agrarian economy was idealized. Simplicity, austerity, and frugality. Movement relied on edicts seeking to limit and curtail consumption. Some even urged return of samurai to countryside, which was expected to raise the morale of samurai and weaken the merchants.

2) Realist approach: urged adjusting to economic changes. They also believed that the warrior class could not stay aloof from financial matters, and that the Tokugawa thinking needed to recognize the government could profit from it’s commercial segments and that trade could be productive. They urged the government to establish state enterprises and monopoly organizations. Some extremists also urged the reopening of foreign trade. The proposals for state-sponsored trade and industry were increasingly accepted by the shogunate.

Mizuno reforms: leaned towards fundamentalist approach, relying on sumptuary legislation and attempted to disband merchant organizations. Also tried to stem the flow of immigrants into Edo from the countryside. These reforms failed, as they targeted symptoms, not causes. Furthermore, the economy and society had already changed too much to revert back to the early Tokugawa period.



Chapter 5 The Meiji Restoration
Tokugawa Foreign Relations
Historians have overestimated the amount of Japanese isolationism. The seclusion edits between 1633 and 1639, historians believe, were meant to bring foreign relations under the control of the shogun, not actually eliminate foreign relations. More than 5500 Chinese ships came to Nagasaki between 1635 and 1852. Significant commerce with Korea through Tsushima.



‘Dutch scholars’: Japan learned a great deal about Western sci&tech through Western books brought by Dutch traders. Knowledge of astronomy, chemistry, geography,

mathematics, physics, ballistics, metallurgy, and military tactics.



Seclusion policy became stronger during the early 1800s. Dutch supremacy of Far East was ending and other Western powers began to challenge. Expulsion Edict of 1825 declared that foreign ships should be expelled by force (justified by fears of Western religious proselytizing).

- Sakoku, ‘closed country’, described the policy of national isolation.

Coming of Foreign Crisis
Western threats to Japan grew during the 1800s. Russia made unsuccessful forays into Japan. British colonization was spreading into China (Opium War 1839-1842 which lead to acquisition of Hong Kong). American manifest destiny had lead to Oregon Territory in 1846 and California in 1848. Fillmore approved Perry mission in 1852.



Two schools of thought:

- kaikoku(open country). Realist school of reform, guided by rangaku (Dutch learning). Believed that in the face of superior technology of the West, Japan should open its ports to avoid a foreign war, as well as acquire this technology

- joi (expel the barbarian). Xenophobic. China’s defeat was due to contamination of Western thought, not technology. Confucianists also believed that Western thought would undermine the ethical basis of Japanese society by bringing more wealth to merchants, who would be destructive of morals. Resistance would also revive samurai morale and restore habits of discipline and frugality.

- Kokutai (spiritual unity): bakufu should propagate Japanese state religion to cultivate national unity and mass loyalty

The Treaties
The arrival of Perry in 1853 weakened the bakufu government. The shogun was incompetent, and Abe Masahiro, head of the bakufu’s Council of Elders, attempted to govern by consensus. This admitted the weakeness of the bakufu and did not build any united base for action.



When Perry returned in 1854, bakufu eventually agreed to limited opening of ports. The Kanagawa Treaty of Friendship of 1854 provided that two ports, Shimoda and Hakodate, would be open to American ships. American consular was allowed residence in Shimoda. Similar treaties followed with Britain, Russia, and Holland.



Japan was further opened due to pressures from the American consular agent, Townsend Harris. Harris used Anglo-French War (1856) and British fleet to build up argument that trade was inevitable, and that a broader treaty should be signed. The Harris Treaty of 1858 was an unequal treaty that gave the West extensive power in Japan. Similar treaties followed with Britain, France, Holland and Russia.

1) Edo, Kobe, Nagasaki, Niigata and Yokohama were opened to foreign trade

2) Japanese tariffs were placed under international regulation and import duties were fixed at low levels

3) Foreign residents were subject to own consular courts, not Japanese law

Declining Fortunes of the Bakufu
Hotta Masayoshi, the effective head of gov’t, sought approval of the treaty from the imperial court – a further confession of weakness. When the emperor refused, Hotta was forced to resign.



Ii Naosuke, strongest of the daimyo, attempted to rebuild strength of gov’t. Ordered Harris Treaty signed despite imperial objections. Also order into retirement or house arrest all daimyo who opposed his policies. Ii was assassinated in March 1860. Anti-bakufu sentiment swung into control.



The shogun had to restructure the bakufu in order to regain control. The daimyo of Satsuma convinced the shogun to unite with the imperial court. In order to gain approval of the court, the shogun had to relax the alternate attendance system by allowing the family hostages to leave Edo, and decreasing the requirement to 100 days every 3 years. Furthermore, the Shogun had to travel to Kyoto to consult with the emperor on national policies, establishing for the first time since the 1600s that the shogun was compelled to visit the emperor.



The Choshu domain challenged the authority of the shogun by firing on foreign ships and then marching on Kyoto. This first coup was stopped, but the bakufu then tried to reestablish its former supremacy by reimposing the alternate attendance system and sending troops to Kyoto to control the court. The Choshu and Satsuma domains formed a secret alliance, and in a second coup, the bakufu’s forces were defeated.

Samurai Activists
Shishi (men of spirit) became driving force in Japan. They were young samurai who would form the base of leadership in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration. They flouted conventional standards of morality and feudal disciple, and were passionately devoted to the imperial cause. They sought a more satisfying loyalty and new political/social order.



The shishi became more involved in politics and sought removal of officials who stood in way of radial opposition to foreigners. Yoshida Shoin (1830-1859) opened school dedicated to imperial institution and national defense. Shoin was convinced of need to get Western military technology.



In 1864, when the combined fleets of Britain, France, Holland, and US demonstrated their might in response to the Choshu attacks, shishi ideology shifted. They became convinced of the superiority of Western technology and the inevitability of trade. Instead, they redirected their efforts into military reform and industrial/financial reorganization.

Choshu-Satsuma Alliance
Resistance to bakufu was instilled in culture. In Choshu, on the first day of the new year, ceremony was held where the daimyo would be asked, ‘has the time come to begin the subjugation of the bakufu?’ Mothers would have their boys sleep with their feet to the east as an insult to the bakufu. In the Satsuma domain, on the 9/14 of every year, they would don armor and meditate on battle of Sekigahara.

Choshu and Satsuma domains were among the largest, as well as financially solvent. Both had large samurai population, who had high morale due to financial solvency. During the 1860s, these domains were able to purchase rifles, cannons, and ships.



At first domains were rivals. Satsuma favored union of court and bakufu. Choshu was proimperial and anti-foreigner. Choshu philosophy was altered by shelling by Western fleet. Satsuma mind was changed by bakufu’s attempts to undo reforms. Eventually, both domains were united by mutual interest in opposing reassertion of Tokugawa rule.



Choshu domain experienced civil war that put former followers of Yoshida Shoin in control. Determined to fight against shogunate. New Choshu government was able to defeat bakufu forces on second punitive expedition using better discipline and armament. Satsuma forces implicitly aided Choshu by refusing to join bakufu forces.



January 3, 1868 Choshu and Satsuma domains seized control of imperial court and had the boy emperor, Mutsuhito (Meiji), proclaim the end of the Tokugawa regime and restoration of imperial rule. Choshu and Satsuma forces engaged remaining bakufu army and defated them despite being outnumbered.

The Significance of the Meiji Restoration
Historians are divided on nature of Meiji Restoration. Debate between the Meiji Restoration as a revolution (change in name of new values) or coup d’etat (displacement of one feudal government with another).



Situation is very hard to label, as the backbone of causation was fairly complex.

- Satsuma and Choshu clans were motivated by long-time enmity towards Tokugawa clan. Craig concludes that dissatisfactions were not sole or chief cause of restoration. Instead, restoration stemmed from strength of values and institutions of old society (clan/feudal society), rather than their weaknesses.

- Craig’s explanation does not explain revolution that ensued after 1868. bakufu was not rebuilt by Satsuma and Choshu, and instead old order was destroyed. Some hold that this was done to preserve national sovereignty. Needed a firm base for building national defense.

- However, broader base of discontent than just samurai. Radical dissatisfaction with social order. Social foundation for revolutionary change. New religions, millenarian movements, mass pilgrimages, urban riots, peasant uprisings.

- Wilson: the malaise that pervaded the populace emboldened the unhappy samurai elite. The samurai and popular movements were looking for a new and stable order in Japan. Breakdown of public order: disobedience, abuse of public officials, and less deterred by threats of punishment. The new government suppressed many of the signs of disarray and malaise, consolidated power, and created a national ethic that was an answer to need for surety and direction.

- In looking at the effects of the Western/Perry visits, important to see that the county was ready for change. Conviction that traditional social order was not itself a source of strength.



Chapter 6 Revolution in Japan’s Worldview
Japan displayed a great deal of intellectual mobility following Restoration. There was a complete reversal of xenophobia in very short time. Suddenly became very enamored of Western culture. In the Imperial Charter Oath, it was proclaimed that ‘knowledge shall be sought for all over the world, and thereby the foundations of imperial rule shall be strengthened,’ and that ‘all absurd customs of olden times shall be abandoned and all actions shall be based on international usage.’



Anti-Western thought as motivation for Westernization: modification of joi school of thought that believed that by acquiring Western technology, they could eventually build up the strength to drive the West out. However, by the 1880s, other elements of Western culture (top hats, etc…) were in vogue, showing that anti-Western thought, at least in culture, wasn’t overwhelming.



Remodeled institutions on Western models. Constitutional form of government (though constitution was largely meant to satisfy activists and did not provide true freedoms).

Source
Organization
Year

Britain
Navy
1869


Telegraph System
1869


Postal System
1872


Postal Savings System
1875

France
Army
1869


Primary school system
1872


Tokyo keishi-cho (police)
1874


Judicial system
1872


Kempeitai (military police)
1881

United States
Primary school system
1879


National bank system
1872


Sapporo Agricultural College
1879

Germany
Army
1878

Belgium
Bank of Japan
1882




Foreign threat as well as discontent with traditional system allowed radical reforms. The goal of national strength justified the many social and economic changes.



Meiji leaders were extremely young. Average age of 30. Mostly from lower samurai classes. Satsuma and Choshu clans contended for leadership.



Despite being in a feudal system, their power was rooted in bureaucracy rather than landholding. Movement from countryside to castle towns had broken tie between samurai and land. Furthered by the fact that leaders were of lower class of samurai. Free of aristocratic fears.

Fukuzawa and New Westernism
Fukuzawa was from a lower samurai family was dissatisfied with system of hierarchy. Went to San Francisco in 1860 as party of Harris Treaty ratification. Fukuzawa began to publish his records of Western social structures. As it became more apparent that Meiji government was receptive to Western thought, Fukuzawa turned his writings towards promoting Western cultural ideas. Believed that ideals of Confucianism were not reconcilable with Western science. The essence of modern civilization was found in cultivating qualities of independence, initiative, and self-reliance. “Heaven did not create men above men, nor set met below men.”



Essence of modern civilization was the cultivation of individual qualities of independence, initiative, and self-reliance. Fukuzawa attacked Japanese traditions.

Women, Family, and the Limits of Reform
Fukuzawa and other reformers held that the family, as a basic institution that promoted values of absolute power on one hand and absolute deference on the other, provided foundation of authoritarian government and suppressed the spririt of independence needed for modern scientific civilization.



Argued for replacing hierarchical family groups with independent nuclear households, with an elevation in the status of women (modern education and right to inherit). Reformers did not live up to ideals, however.

Agents of Cultural Revolution
Optimistic belief that Japan could catch up to industrial revolution of other countries.



Japan imported engineers to spark its modernization. Japanese were also sent abroad, mostly to US, to study.



National education system with less Confucian-oriented learning. High literacy rate prepared Japanese for new learning. Education system helped promote achievement and advancement. Heritage of Tokugawa educational system also established base for new education system.



New educational system was an agent of change. Trained Japanese for new professions, instead of inheriting professional skills through family. Young men left the countryside to enter new occupations in the cities.



Attempt to move away from Asian identity. Wanted to be identified with Western powers, rather than Korean and Chinese cultures.

The Challenge of the Japanese Enlightenment
Advocates of Western values were dominated by a negative view of Japan’s traditional institutions and learning that underlay them.
Advocates were limitlessly optimistic about the future
Cultural example of West was important to progress in development.
Commitment to science, technology, and utilitarian knowledge
New view of humanity that opposed old forms of social stratification and government by a closed elite. More open and mobile
However, extreme adulation of Western culture was destructive of Japanese pride and could not sustain itself. Many of the new values ran counter to deeply ingrained values of the Japanese people, and were very incompatible with the Japanese countryside.



The Meiji leaders saw that the values of the enlightenment could not coexist with the formation of a strong national consciousness.

Chapter 7 Beginnings of Industrialization (1868-1885)
Japan was the first non-Western society to successfully carry out an industrial revolution. Japan was able to accomplish this revolution without a large supply of natural resources and without much financial assistance from foreign nations.



Pyle – tendency to credit state with a larger role than it actually played in industrialization. The private individual and enterprise was an equal force in the industrialization. However, the government did provide the setting for industrialization, destroyed old institutions that were obstacles, and provided communication and financial infrastructure.

The Catch-up Vision
Half of the Meiji leadership studied abroad for nearly two years.



Fukoku-kyohei (enriching the country, strengthening the military)

- Slogan of Meiji Restoration

- Okubo transformed it into a far-reaching goal of catching up with West



Caretaker gov’t during Iwakura Mission pushed new education law in 1872 and national conscription law in 1873. Pushed for a Korean invasion, but return of Iwakura Mission put an end to this.



1873-1878: “Okubo despotism.” Okubo Toshimichi emerged as most powerful of the oligarchs after Iwakura Mission. Believed fukoku-kyohei meant transforming Japan into an all-out effort to catch up with West. Long-term vision; rejected plan to invade Korea. Did not believe in free trade theories of Fukuzawa and instead pursued state promoted industry. Assasinated in 1878.

- Influenced by German economic theory, which opposed laissez-faire economics of Adam Smith. Intervention of the state to ensure interests of nation-state served.

o Looked at America and Britain as examples of countries that used protective tariffs to promote domestic products.

- Meiji leaders, including Okubo, convinced of need for self-reliance (saw international politics as predatory), reinforced by the advice of Bismarck: “although people say that so-called international law safeguards the rights of all countries, the fact is that when large countries pursue their advantage they talk about international law when it suits them, and they use force when it does not” (p. 98) Preserve independence through policies of strength and cultivation of patriotism.

The Beginnings of an Industrial Policy


Fight west through economics and trade.



Okubo became the head of the Ministry of Industry. Characteristics of policy:

- Japan pushed for development of industries required for military buildup: mining, iron-making, railroad, and telegraph.

- Promoted industries to compete with foreign imports. Low tariffs had allowed Western goods to create trade deficit.

- Adopt Western technology as quickly as possible. Evolved from importer of textiles to exporter.

- Development of exports (initially handicrafts, tea, and raw silk). Increased quality

- Avoidance of foreign loans. Meiji gov’t took over bakufu debts and several large han, but managed to pay back foreign loans by 1875.

The State of the Economy in 1868
Mostly agrarian. Remarkable potential and responsiveness to economic stimuli. Land tax transferred funds into new growth.

The Role of Government
1) blah

2) reform of class structure

3) Land Tax Reform. Perhaps single most important reform. Changed from fixed percentage tax system to fixed amount based on land assessment. No longer subject to rice prices. Stabilized tax revenues of government. Made sale and disposal of land legal. Land titles issued. Replaced Tokugawa system without raising taxes, and also eliminated inequities.

4) Railroad construction

5) New standardized currency with National Bank. Capital supplied by samurai commutation bonds. Nationally integrated structure of interest rates. Easy to adapt to because merchants already trained in many money-lending practices. Mastsukata Masayoshi, finance minister, managed to stop galloping inflation and spearheaded several years of severe deflation that allowed stabilization of currency.

Chapter 8 Building the Nation State
Meiji government had to consolidate 200 semiautonomous fiefs into a single centralized government. This required a mass-mobilization of the populace and an effective ideology.

Initial Problems
The Constitution was established from above by a loose alliance of oligarchs, as opposed to a rising bourgeoisie bent on achieving political rights (ala Western style). There was on agreement between the Satsuma and Choshu clans as to the structure of a new government, and it required two decades before a constitutional government was finally established. There was consensus that the feudal domains needed to be abolished. Daimyos, weakened by the Tokugawa bakumatsu, were easily induced to take imperial governor titles.



Samurai saw their benefits of the hereditary system stripped away. Superior education, bureaucratic offices, stipends, and sword bearing were done away with. Conscription law of 1873 unified samurai forces into single national army and also made all able-bodied men subject to conscription. This new system was tested by several samurai uprisings.



Most famous uprising was Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Led by Saigo Takamori, who had pushed for the invasion of Korea and resigned when Okubo opposed the move on the grounds that it would drain vital resources. Saigo was “the most potent personality in Japanese history.” Apotheosized as great national hero, class samurai with single-minded sincerity who would not compromise to changes of new system. Saigo took own life on battlefield.

The Movement for Constitutional Reform
Itagaki lead the People’s Rights Movement (jiyu minken undo). Itagaki had argued for abolition of class restrictions. Itagaki resented the power the Satsuma-Choshu alliance was gaining. People’s Rights Movement demanded formation of elected assembly.



There is a debate over whether or not the People’s Rights Movement compelled the Meiji government to establish the constitution, or the Meiji government was already predisposed to do so. Imperial Charter Oath had already represented a commitment to broaden basis of government. A Constitutional government was also viewed as essential to legitimacy to the West.



Yamagata argued for Constitutional government on basis that it would establish a national unity. Economic discontent, failure to follow orders, and suspicion of government would be solved by a popular assembly.



Ito Hirobumi (leading oligarch) voiced opinion that constitutional government was inevitable based on the model of Western revolutions (Western civilization still represented a universal path of progress at this time).



Crisis of 1881: Oligarch from Hizen moved to establish British-style system. This move failed but the oligarchs agreed to promulgate constitution by 1890.



Ito Hirobumi lead group to draft constitution. Ito departed from Europe in 1882, mainly studying the Prussian-style system. He studied under German scholars, believing the British, French, and American systems to be too radical. Returned in late 1883.

The Meiji Constitution
Constitution promulgated on February 11, 1889 and was met with national acclaim.

- The Emperor was the central symbol, with the constitution as a gift from him

- Emperor exercised all executive authority with the ministers being directly responsible to him

- Emperor had supreme command of army and navy

- Diet: Bicameral legislature

o Lower House: elected by all males paying taxes of 15 yen or more (5% of total male population). Right to pass all permanent laws and had control of budget (with small loophole that provided for the budget of the previous year to go into effect if the Lower House could not approve a budget).

o Upper House: peerage and imperial appointees.

- Emperor had right to temporarily suspend Diet and dissolve Lower House

- Emperor could issue ordinances when Diet was not in session

- Emperor had sole power to amend constitution

Establishment of a Modern Bureaucracy
“The key to understanding Japanese political life is given to whoever appreciates fully the historical role and actual position of the bureaucracy.” Bureaucrats wrote 91% of laws enacted by Diet from 1890 to 1947.



Yamagata worked to establish bureaucracy independent of the influences of parties. Between 1887 and 1899 a modern civil service was created with an examination system that tested knowledge of jurisprudence and law. Required university level education to pass, which kept most party members unqualified. 1899 ordinance instituted by Yamagata removed vice-ministers, bureau chiefs, and prefectural governors from political appointment. By 1900, political appointment limited to cabinet ministers, ambassadors, and confidential secretaries.



Bureaucracy grew into a powerful elite with strong imperial and national pride. 1,300,000 employees by 1928.

The New Nationalism
Several differing viewpoints:

- Westernization threatened patriotism and nationalism because it stripped away traditional culture

- Cultural nationalism was reactionary. Study physics, psychology, etc… not because they are Western but because they are universal truths

- Government leaders concerned about preserving unity. Sought out imperial ideology.

o Sought to create new image of emperor to inspire national veneration.

o (Re)Invented tradition. Family state ideology, State Shinto, industrial harmony, ideal image of Japanese womanhood.

o 1890: Imperial Rescript on Education. Set forth cardinal principles of new imperial ideology. “be filial to your parents, affectionate to you brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious; as friends, true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation… always respect the constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth.”

§ Emperor became substitute for charismatic leader of other nations, as well as more permanent. Emperor was father of nation.

§ Concept of family state.

§ Tighter control on education

§ Number of local Shinto shrines fell, while new National shrines were established

o New ideology took hold because it built upon existing values and resonated with populace, so much so that the hard line supporters (minkan) were outside the government.

Chapter 9 Imperialism and the New Industrial Society


Japan was able to end unequal treaties in mid-1894 and two weeks later declared war on China.



Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95

- Revealed extent of China’s weaknesses

- Set off competition for resources in East Asia



1895-1915: Japan emerged as a great world power.

Japanese Imperialism
Factors for imperialism from 1894-1914:



- Desire for equality with West. Colonial empire was mark of status. Comparisons to Romans role in ‘uniting’ Europe and Mediterranean

- Did not want to be denied access to raw goods

- Impending collapse of Korean and Chinese governments due to political instability. Strategic

o Line of Sovereignty and Line of Advantage (shukensen and riekisen): Yamagata. “If we wish to maintain the nation’s independence among the powers of the world at the present time, it is not enough to guard only the line of sovereignty; we must also defend the line of advantage… and within the limits of the nation’s resources gradually strive for that position.” Initial implication was Korea.

§ Invaded Manchuria because it was line of advantage from Korea and necessary to maintain security in Korea. Strategic.

§ Yamagata: “Father of modern Japanese army” for his attention to its development. Military man in younger days. Prime Minister. Commanded First Army at outset of Sino-Japanese war in 1894.

- Pyle: In final analysis, strategic (line of advantage) reasons were motivating force for expansion, not economic

- Korea

o “Dagger pointed at heart of Japan”

o Worried that Russia would build railway through Korea to reach warm water terminus

o Control of Port Arthur and Liaotung Peninsula viewed necessary for security

o Sino-Japanese war:

§ Only lasted 8 months due to superior preparation of Japanese

§ Treaty of Shimonoseki, 4/17/1895. Ceded Pescadores, Formosa, and Liaotung Peninsula to Japan. Established ‘independence’ of Korea, obliged China to pay indemnity, to open additional ports, and negotiate commercial treaty

§ New self-confidence abruptly halted by intervention from the West

§ Triple Intervention: Germany, Russia, and France forced Japan to give up Liaotung Peninsula.

§ Bitterness arising out of Triple Intervention fueled further military development and preparedness.

- 1893 to 1903: military spending tripled, with preparations for war with Russia

- Temporary treaty with Russia to balance interests in Manchuria and Korea

- July 30, 1902: Anglo-Japanese Alliance. First military pact on equal terms between Western nation and non-Western nation. British support promised if Japan involved in conflict with more than one power.

- Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)

o Negotiations of interests in Manchuria and Korea broke down

o Surprise attack on Port Arthur by Japanese.

o Japan defeated Russian forces but did not have enough resources to crush Russia

o Battle of the Japan Sea (1905): decided fate of Japanese empire. Compared to Battle of Trafalgar. Japanese fleet routed Russian Baltic fleet intent on overwhelming Japan.

o US mediated negotiations. Japan got southern half of Sakhalin, recognition of its paramount interests in Korea, and lease of Liaotung Peninsula and railway in southern Manchuria

o Stretched Japanese economy to limit, justified as great popular undertaking

o Japanese political consciousness was heightened. Disappointed by treaty.

o Historians describe war event that brought Japan its great power status and won it worldwide acclaim.

§ Defeat of West by East

- More Korea:

o Ito Hirobumi sent as resident-general to Korea. Attempted to bring about benevolent modernization. Assassinated.

o Year after assassination Korea annexed into Japan

- Economic problems

o Japan stretched thin by imperial ambitions. Plans required a stronger fleet as well as stronger army.

o Extensive foreign borrowing, international payment problems, and mounting tax burden

o Voices to halt Japan’s ambitions were in the minority

- New industrial society was shaped by economic pursuits. Successful imperial policy required a unified nation at home, with state taking precedence over citizen. National loyalties would have to be reinforced to overcome psychological strain and social dislocation of expansion.

The Problem of Industrial Society Come to Japan
- Japan had Western examples of industrialization to study

o Japan more aware of potential problems of the balance between agrarian and industrial sectors, cooperation of capital and labor, etc…

- Peace Preservation Law of 1900, Article 17: Outlawed strikes and other primary activities of unions

- Socialist movements. Dissident labor movements sprung up to fight government. Socialist movements. High Treason Case of 1911: 12 hanged for plot to assassinate emperor.

Origins of Japanese Labor-Management Relations
- Evolution of industrial relations into present day system:

o Lifelong employment

o Loyalty with place they work

o Wages determined by seniority, not ability

o High levels of welfare services

- System emerged through dialectic process, as well as cultural ideals of loyalty and quasi-kinship. Also, employers had to counteract high turnover rate (as high as 50-100%/year).

- Government pushed ideology of vertical relations of loyalty and obedience, as well as concept of “family nation” that shaped industrial relations. Also passed Factory Act of 1911 that established minimum standards for employment.

The Role of Women in Industrialization
- leading sector was textiles

- Model of import substitution followed by worldwide export success (importer of cotton yarn in 1890, leading exporter by 1920s)

- “From Below” argument support: many relatively small mills which were not a result of zaibutsus or government. Private capital

- 80% of workers in textiles female. Textile work among worst working conditions anywhere. 12-15 hour workdays. Recruited from poor families. Lived in dormitory prisons. Prepaid families in advance to create high cost of quitting.

Agrarian Society
- Agrarian economy provided food source for rapid growth, land taxes, produced exports, and provided foreign exchange for industrial materials

- Because of agriculture expansion, industrialization occurred without a drastic lowering of standards of living in countryside

- Stratification on country-side increased with a large jump in tenant farming (foreclosing on lands that did not pay taxes passed much land to creditors)

- Government campaigns to reward model villages, as well as improve landlord-tenant relations, developing new crops and industries, and reclaiming lands. Tried to ease unrest in village life caused by stratification and increased tax burden.

- Government established local military associations under supervision of army to build respect for military

- Rapid growth of school attendance. More indoctrinating of national ideology.

- National ideology: subordinate everything to national greatness.

Chapter 10 Crisis of Political Community
Death of Meiji in 1912. Outpouring of emotion. Samurai ritual suicide of General Nogi Maresuke, military hero of Russo-Japanese War as well as educator to Hirohito.



Emperor Yoshihito’s reign (1912-1926), Taisho era, troubled by mental instability of Taisho. He rolled up scroll during ceremonial message to Diet and used it as a telescope.



Period up to WWI provided many opportunities to advance industrial and colonial ambitions. Following WWI, however, a political crisis emerged. Call for broadened suffrage, as well as more militant labor movement and increases in landlord-tenant disputes.

Evolution of the Political System
- First Phase: 1890-1894: implacable hostilities between oligarchy and parties. Oligarchy frequently dissolved Diet

- Second Phase: 1895-1900 – tentative short-lived alliances struck between cabinet and elements of house

- Third Phase: 1900-1918 – mutual accommodation between two elements. Inaugurated by Ito’s decision to join parliamentary party. Modern basis for current conservative parties. Parties became bureaucratized, and bureaucracy was penetrated by party men. Emergence of two party system.

- Fourth Phase: 1918-1932 – started with naming of Hara as prime minister. Parties obtained position of quasi-supremacy. Era of Taisho Democracy.

o Parties built up strength at local level

o Ascendancy of Parliamentary politics

o Growing influence of common man over government

Elitist Nature of Taisho Political System
- Traits:

o Two-party politics

o Responsible party cabinets

o Extension of civil rights to larger numbers of citizens

o Rise of democratic political philosophies

- Nevertheless, system dominated by complex interplay of elites

- No real democratic breakthrough achieved

- Fractured power centers

o Genro: advisors to emperor (Saionji)

o Bureaucratic leaders. Drafted most legislation

o Upper House: virtual veto powers

o Each Minister of State individually responsible to Emperor

o Business elite. Zaibatsu

o No constitutional means of bringing ministers together.

- Parties interpenetrated various power centers to build alliances/consensus

- Theorists of Taisho Democracy: government for the people, not by the people. Sovereignty constitutionally was in the hands of the emperor. Populace did not have political education for governing. Elitism.

Turmoil in Society
- Taisho Democracy used in two sense: emergence of party cabinets and the possibility of revising the political structure, as well as awakening of the masses to politics and appearance of liberal and radical movements

- Economic impact of war created complex society. Social unrest, militant labor, and radical ideologies

- Government, in general, chose to suppress radical and liberal movements, rather than make reforms

- Rice Riots in 1918. Largest popular demonstration in Japanese history. 1 million people protesting rise in price of rice.
http://kwc.org/memorylane/mit/523/Pyle%20-%20Making%20of%20Modern%20Japan.htm





PM seeks UK’s assistance to combat terrorism


She goes over ‘Anti-Terrorism Task Force’ in South Asia


Saturday January 17 2009 22:48:02 PM BDT


The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has sought cooperation of the British Government and the international community to combat terrorism in Bangladesh. The Awami Leauge President further reiterated her intention for the formation of an 'Anti-Terrorism Task Fore in South Asia' and said, "Terrorism has no boundary. We need cooperation from Britain in fighting against terrorism."(The Bangladesh Today)

Quoting Sheikh Hasina, her Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said this after about one hour meeting of British High Commissioner in Dhaka Stephen Evans with Hasina at her Dhanmondi Sudha Sadan residence on Saturday morning.

The Press Secretary said the UK envoy conveyed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's felicitation to Sheikh Hasina for assuming office of the Prime Minister.

During discussion, the Prime Minster urged the British Government to extend greater cooperation for different bilateral issues, poverty alleviation, overseas investment in different sectors like Solar Energy and supports to train up young members of parliament (MPs).

Abul Kalam Azad said, "The UK High Commissioner expressed his country's eagerness for investment in Bangladesh as our Premier assured to ensure a business friendly atmosphere in the upcoming days."

The PM also requested the British government to take necessary measures in resolving problems of the expatriate Bangladeshis in the UK.

She urged the International Community - including UK- to take effective steps to end brutal killings of civilian in Gaza.

Briefing the newsmen, the British Envoy said he had a fruitful and satisfactory discussion with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

He said British Government wants to work collectively for sustainable democracy in Bangladesh and assured his government's assistances to face the challenges of the changing climate.

Terming terrorism as worldwide problem, Stephen Evans said terrorism has no boundary and terrorists poses threat to different countries across the globe. The British High Commissioner further assured to stand by the people of the country to fight against the widespread terrorism.

Evans termed the victory of December 29 General Election as an outstanding achievement of Bangladesh and hoped that through the upcoming parliament session on January 25, a new journey for the restoration of democracy in the country would start.

Meanwhile, CARE Ambassador for Maternal Health Christy Turlington met the Prime Minister and discussed programs to improve maternal health.

The Bangladesh Today
Bangladesh Human Rights Report 2008


Report by Odhikar


Friday January 16 2009 20:22:31 PM BDT


In this report Odhikar, a human rights organization of Bangladesh, covers the year 2008. It highlights critical areas that require immediate and urgent national, regional and international actions. Odhikar is committed to uphold human rights by promoting civil, political, economic, social, cultural and collective values of human rights including the implementation of obligations of the government prescribed by the national constitution as well as by international instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Socio, the Economic and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Torture and CEDAW.

----------------------------------------------------------
Please see the full Report in MS word Doc - Click Below
----------------------------------------------------------

Odhikar
House 35 (3rd floor), Road – 117
Gulshan, Dhaka – 1212,
Bangladesh.
Tel: 88-02-9888587, Fax : 88-02-9886208
E-mail: odhikar@citech-bd.com
odhikar.bd@gmail.com
odhikar@sparkbd.net
Website: www.odhikar.org


Read Full Story
Odhikar annual human rights report 2008.doc

Obama's first 100 days
Barack Obama has a mandate like no other and scarcely time to succeed

JOHN IBBITSON

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

E-mail John Ibbitson | Read Bio | Latest Columns
January 17, 2009 at 11:16 AM EST

WASHINGTON — This could be dangerous.

A bond has formed between Barack Obama and Americans unlike any we have seen between a new president and the people.

So much of this country's psyche has become intertwined with the promise of his presidency that the potential for disappointment - no, for betrayal - is immense.

What appears to be cool confidence could be hubris. The hope of a redemptive presidency could end in hostile recriminations.


Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate in economics, was born in what is now Bangladesh, but has lived much of his life in Great Britain and the United States, where he teaches at Harvard. Barack Obama's election, he observes, derides that shibboleth that Americans are a populist, Gods-and-guns anti-intellectuals. “American society isn’t as stupid as that,” he believes. Quite the opposite. People voted for a Harvard-educated law professor “because they thought that he was intelligent.”

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Americans are an impatient people. The Obama administration has little time to act on its unprecedented agenda of rescuing the economy, protecting the environment, reforming health care and restoring the country's respected place in the world.

Fair or unfair, the first 100 days could define this presidency.

"He is being given the opportunity to be a Franklin Delano Roosevelt," believes Alan Dershowitz, lawyer to celebrities and theorist on civil rights, who watched in wonder from his perch at Harvard as Mr. Obama became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

"He's getting a real honeymoon from the American people. But that won't last long."

Never have so many invested so much in a man. On the eve of becoming president, Mr. Obama enjoys an "extraordinarily high" favourable rating of 78 per cent, according to Gallup. Even Republicans are Democrats now.

Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics and wise man of both Harvard and Cambridge, has seen nothing like it.

Americans' desire to repudiate their initial support for the war in Iraq, their respect for Mr. Obama's obvious intelligence and their longing to turn the page on their painful history of racism: "All these play a part in turning an exceptional human being into almost the kind of godhead that he has become," Prof. Sen said in an interview.

But in the midst of this adulation, what was once a recession threatens to disintegrate into permanent decline, wars plague the Middle East, the population ages, services deteriorate and the planet warms.

The incoming administration is navigating an economic stimulus package through Congress that will probably top $1-trillion (U.S.) in an effort to heal the recession while also tackling any number of social deficits, while adding greatly to the real one.

Prof. Sen, who was born in India but who has spent much of his life in the United States and Britain, believes that the first goal of the stimulus package must be to restore a sense of confidence among Americans. "And that will depend on how much in command Obama looks and his economic team looks," he said.

It was the inability of the existing Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, to convince investors and consumers that the Bush administration was in control of the situation that caused it to spiral out of control.

Along with tax cuts and infrastructure spending, the Obama stimulus package seeks to foment a revolution in energy production and security, while simultaneously tackling global warming.

Daniel Yergin, author of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning book on the global struggle over oil, The Prize, believes Mr. Obama's visit to Canada soon after the inaugural will focus not only on the economic crisis but on a potential Canada-U.S. agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Such an agreement, might also increase the output of the Alberta oil sands in a environmentally responsible fashion.

Mr. Yergin is hopeful about the Obama administration's energy policy, but also worried that the recession and falling oil prices are starving the energy sector of capital.

"There are a lot of wind projects out there that are hurting," he observed, "along with many other energy projects."

Beyond the economy and energy, there is national security and restoration of the rule of law.

For Prof. Dershowitz, the "the first symbol will be closing Guantanamo. And it will only be a symbol."

The incoming administration is struggling with the complex problem of how to handle those inmates of the offshore prison who pose a danger to national security, but who could not be convicted in a court of law because the evidence against them was obtained by torture.

How is Mr. Obama to deal with such an intractable issue as he seeks to restore his country's global reputation?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090116.whundreddays0116/BNStory/obamainauguration/home

Holocaust in Palestine: Israeli tactics





Kashmir Watch, Jan 17

By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal




Artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff


The global operations by the Pentagon-CIA-Mossad operations have left the entire world terrorized. USA insists that Israel has a right to defend itself, but does not think Palestinians also have the same right to defend themselves form a fascist Israel killing them in Palestine and they should protected or provided with necessary defense equipment to successfully face and drive away the expansionist terrorists. This US policy has emboldened the barbaric Israel to invade Gaza now again.

I

UN and UNSC is least bothered about the Palestinians being brutally murdered by Israel. A large majority of the dead are civilians. USA promotes Jewish terrorism in Palestine and wants Israel to kill the remaining Palestinians as well quickly before Bush departs. President-elect Barack Obama keeps his silence intact and US senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, as a terror strategy.

Fascist Israel knows the shameless Islamic world as well as the terrorist anti-Islamic world quite well. Despite world outcry over the carnage and damage to media and UN aid facilities, Israel has vowed to fight on until Palestinians become slaves but says rocket salvoes should stop and measures are imposed to stop the Palestinians from defending themselves from US-Israeli attacks and bringing in arms via tunnels from Egypt.

After proving to the world a crucial point that no Muslim nation would come out to shield another Muslim nation if an enemy invades and attacks it on any pretext, Israel now says it might ends the hostilities one day soon. As if he were a gate keeper of Israel and not protector of weak nations under fascist occupation and genocides, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said the Israeli government was due to make an important decision on a ceasefire but that it might take "a few more days". Now the global democratic world stands fully exposed threadbare, but, pathetically it is of no consequences for the Islamic world.

Trying to prove to be a neo-fascist state, Israel does not spare even Mosques schools and UN establishments. Badly shaken by the turn of terror events and pathetic gestures of Arab world, Hamas has offered a year-long, renewable truce under which the Jewish state would withdraw its troops within a week and all Gaza's border crossings would open immediately. But Israel is in no mood to end holocaust program immediately. One does not know the details of bulk military orders it has so far received from the prospective terror state customers world wide for the new weapons systems.

II

The Zionist Israel ever since their invasion of Gaza has being killing some key Hamas leaders to silence the movement leadership. In what may be the final push against Hamas, Israeli troops pushed deep into central Gaza on15 Jan, killing Interior Minister Said Siam, a key figure in Hamas who oversaw thousands of security agents. However still refusing to fix a “final date” for end hostilities, Tel Aviv cuts jokes mocking the Islamic world and UN. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said its three-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip could be entering its "final act". "Hopefully.” and added: "there may be a full security cabinet meeting and decisions will stem from that." Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the premier hopeful left for talks in Washington five days before Barack Obama was due to be inaugurated as US president. Many West Asian “experts” see a deadline for the offensive with the departure of the Bush administration, after which Israel may be reluctant to test the support of the new leadership.

The Israeli offensive on the coastal enclave has killed some 1,105 Palestinians on record (but the number could be in several thousands) and wounded more than that but the Gaza Health Ministry said officially over 5,100. A Palestinian human rights group put the civilian death toll at around 700. Israel wants to cripple the Hamas in every respect and make them slaves to surrender before the Fascist Jews and is working to secure foreign guarantees that arms smuggling to Hamas militants will end under any deal to call off its three-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Badly shaken by the turn of terror events and pathetic gestures of Arab world, Hamas has offered a year-long, renewable truce under which the Jewish state would withdraw its troops within a week and all Gazan's border crossings would open immediately.

Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits, prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.

Operation Cast Lead is one of the Great War crimes of our era. The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public. One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza .

There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special reporter on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anaemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel. Since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza’s government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone. Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza.

Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? A Palestinian said: “We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."

III

Imperialism, colonialism and fascism have caused terrorism and this is the crucial issue causing serious problems for global Muslims and Islamic world of nations at large. Muslims and Islamic nations willingly lay into the dirty hands of the anti--Islamic forces for pursuing some narrow or personal interests but harming the overall interests of the Muslim world. Whether they are in Jammu Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives or Malaysia or petro-dollared Arab world, the Muslims are more interested in wealth than Islam or collective fellow Muslims and Islamic world. This has resulted in anti-Islamic forces occupying Muslim nations on some fictitious pretexts. Anti-Islamic forces could be Christians, Jews, Hindus and other races or even Muslims themselves. Not only they occupy Muslim nations, but also are engaged in perpetual killing as the UN and other world bodies fuel the process by watching the shows with great enthusiasm and pleasure.

Israel invasion is a part of USA global terror agenda. India is keen to enter the partnership zone of global terrorists. USA is pursing its nefarious designs in South Asia after collapsing Afghanistan’s Islamic rule. Less than two months after a series of terrorist attacks on the people of India, senior officials from the U.S. Army, Pacific, joined by the Marine Forces Pacific and Special Operations Command, Pacific, met with members of the Indian army for the 13th annual Indian Executive Steering Group to coordinate training engagements between the ground forces of the two countries. “Since 1995, we have met annually to enhance our relationship and we have made significant progress over the last many years,” said Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander, U.S. Army, Pacific. “India is the world's largest democracy and a very close ally to the U.S," said H. Ali Mohammed, U.S. Dept. of the Army Headquarters international affairs interoperability analyst and ESG attendee. So Muslims are working against Islam and Muslim interests. But now Bangladesh with a Bengali Indian Ambassador guiding its policies also trying to fall in line to pursue anti-Islamic polices to join, eventually, the US-led cartel of anti-Islamism.

The world may browbeat, the UN may interfere, the US may keep quiet forever, the Arab world may seethe in anger, and Israel is unfazed. The pounding at the Gaza Strip continues, taking the toll to over 1000. The advanced countries create and abet tensions every where and sell their weapons and technology the third world countries fall into their dirty traps. India strategists want to siphon off some resources for their friends as dealers for commissions. Already India spends huge sums on terror equipment and is using the Nov26 event to further help its friends to make more cash, as USA as its global terror policy wants to sell its second rate equipment to India on sea terror pretext. The Indian and US armies are planning a new series of joint exercises, a set of which will draw on lessons in urban warfare in the wake of the November attack by terrorists in Mumbai. India last month decided to place an order for eight Boeing-made P8i maritime surveillance aircraft for the navy. Earlier in 2008, India contracted six C-130J Hercules transport aircraft for its special forces for $962 million (Rs 4,646 crore).

On January 9th the U.S. Congress passed House Resolution 34 in support of the Zionist Terrorist Massacre in Gaza, a loss of life for Palestine proportionate to one thousand 9-11 attacks on America! The resolution recently passed by the House of Representatives (HRES 34 EH) with only 5 dissenting votes, to know who rules America. It condemns Hamas and the people of Gaza as terrorists but has no mention of the decades long Israeli occupation and strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza, or the bloody terrorism of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who have been killed, maimed, tortured or made homeless by years of Israel’s terrorism.

The very recent human casualties of over 850 dead and over 4500 maimed from Israel’s recent terror bombings of the 1.5 million people of Gaza would by their population percentage be equivalent to 175,000 murdered and 900,000 maimed Americans, more than one million American casualties. The percentage of Palestinian victims of Zionist terrorism over the past two weeks is proportionately one thousand times greater than the loss that Americans suffered in the 9-11 attacks!
The Jewish control of the United States Government and the mass media can be in clearly seen the exact wording of the resolution: In three places this short resolution endorses the survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish State with secure borders. That’s a “JEWISH STATE,” not a multicultural or multi-religious state but a state exclusively dedicated to Jews. The controlled media had not a word in criticism of the resolution supporting Israel as an ethnic and religious state exclusively dedicated to Jews!

The resolution is the clear proof of Jewish supremacy over the U.S. government. One could not even imagine the U.S. Congress or the mass media tolerating a resolution which called for the control immigration and secure American borders so as to preserve an overwhelmingly White and Christian America.

IV

Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza’s coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza’s civilian population. But Israel’s 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.

But Israel terrorizes the Palestinians with regular genocides. Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel’s current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza 's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews. In 2002 Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. In spite of a six-month truce on June 19, 2008 by Hamas and Israel, Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007, making life of Palestinians more miserable. Israel 's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes.

According to an official of the Egyptian government, Iran has warned Hamas not to accept Egypt’s proposal for a cease fire with Israel. Two Iranian emissaries "threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel," the Egyptian official told the Jerusalem Post. It is in Egypt’s interest to discredit Hamas by depicting it as a tool of Iran and claiming that this relationship is preventing an end to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza. In doing so, Egypt also seeks to discredit Iran which, it points out, "never fired one bullet at Israel” but is "trying to appear as if it is participating in the war against Israel." But just because the report is self-serving doesn't mean it is false. In fact, the report is quite plausible. Having invested in Hamas, Iran probably does not want the fighting to end without Hamas having produced more of return. To that extent, Iran’s perceived interests may align with Israel’s. For Israel probably does not want the fighting to end until the value of Iran 's investment plummets further.

V

Even while the Arabs and Muslim world are seen playing fiddle when Palestinians are being killed by Fascist Israel after invading its neighboring Palestine, it is a non-Muslim nation, Venezuela which dared to take disciplinary action against the expansionist Israel and its blood thirst in Palestine. Demonstrators hold up placards in front of the Israeli embassy in Caracas, December 29, 2008, during a protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The placards (from L-R) read: "Stop the genocide against Palestine "; "Israel: Assassins of the world" and "It is enough! We are fed up with this injustice!” After the falloff Afghanistan and Iraq, every nation of Muslims, as expected by US-Israel combine, does not oppose them significantly. Perhaps they don’t know they are cowards, and not Muslim nations.

Hats off to the Venezuelan governement!. Venezuela announced that it "has decided to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the Israeli Embassy's personnel."

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 600 Palestinians in ground and air strikes. Israel launched the attacks Dec. 27 to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. "How far will this barbarism go?" Chavez asked on state television before the ambassador's expulsion was announced. "The president of Israel should be taken before an international court together with the president of the United States, if the world had any conscience." Venezuela 's Foreign Ministry said its U.N. mission is joining with other countries in demanding the Security Council "apply urgent and necessary measures to stop this invasion." While many countries have protested Israel’s offensive, none besides Venezuela so far have expelled the ambassador.

Mauritania, which established relations with Israel in 1999, called home its ambassador from the Jewish state on Monday. Jordan and Egypt, the other two Arab nations with relations with Israel, summoned their Israeli ambassadors to protest the Gaza attacks, but they have resisted popular calls to expel them. Chavez has long been critical of the Israeli government's policies in the Middle East and has supported the Palestinians' stance in the conflict. During Israel’s 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Chavez withdrew his top envoy from Israel, calling the bombings there "a new Holocaust." Relations have remained at a scaled-back level since. Chavez accuses Israel of acting on behalf of the United States in the Mideast, and he has forged close ties with Israel’s top enemies - Iran and Syria. Chavez's condemnations of Israel’s offensive in Gaza have grown gradually more severe in recent days. On Monday he called the Jewish state a "genocidal government," and on Tuesday urged Jews in Venezuela to take a stand against the Israeli government.

In Argentina, which has the third-largest Jewish population outside Israel, hundreds of people marched to the Israeli Embassy to call for an end to the offensive. Brazil's government, like Venezuela, has said it is sending food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip. And in Bolivia, about a hundred Palestinians and Arabs marched to protest the violence.

USA, Israel and India are the so-called largest “democracies” of the universe today ready to export it globally especially to Mideast. Look at their credentials now ? USA has militarized Afghanistan and Iraq for years now on fictitious pretexts and killing innocent Muslims in these countries.; Israel has illegally occupied Palestine, and kills them regularly, also secures land of Lebanon and Syria; India has very tactfully, rather "democratically", annexed its neighbor Kashmir in 1947 and has killed lakhs of innocent Muslims in Kashmir and using the "Kashmir terrorism" cause to torture Muslims in India denying them their legitimate rights.

Post-script

Israel as a strategic partner of the USA , the global terrorist nation, is helping the USA in establishing a new Middle East according to Western concepts. US polices are influenced and even shaped by Israeli strategists over years. One of the foundations of the New Mideast theory is to kill as many Muslims in Arab world as it is feasible at a given time under some pretext. USA supports and aids Israeli fascism and lrsfrtd og both terror states should be tried in spcially constituted tribunals.

Not only it strikes on innocnet and defenseless Palestinians, the Hamas people, but Israel also stops any possible outside help for Palestinians.Hamas is at a disadvantageous position to retaliate against the Israeli armed attacks or terror invasions. These uneven postures make the Palestinians suffer too much. The petro-dollar loving Arabs are also enjoying the killing of their fellow Muslims both Arabs and non-Arabs.

There is no scientific evidence to prove that camel meat or beaf is not good for human brain. But it is shocking that none of the Muslim nations, leave alone poor Arab nations, has so far asked the Israeli envoys to quit these countries. And, none of the Arab nations that have forged diplomatic ties with Israel has broken that, or at least temporarily withdrawn as the usual practice of any country that an enemy has done damage to their common cause of collective goals. It is by now certain the anti-Islamic fascists are enjoying their terror attacks, genocides and expansionism beyond any usual description.

US-led democrats are killing Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, while expansionist Jewish state has invaded Palestine and repeat what the USA has been telling about the need to stay on in the countries under their brute occupation: “A lot of work remains to be done in Palestine". It seems Olmert called a Saturday night security cabinet session to decide on a ceasefire, which could come less than 72 hours before the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president.

First, what exactly is democracy, is it just holding regular elections in a so-called 'free and fair' manner when the outcome is almost predetermined by the national-cum-international network that effectively controls the governments?

Finally what is democracy? Invasions of alien nations and militarize them killing the inhabitants, making rules for them? Is democracy a perfect tool to fool the world and for revenge alone"? Is democracy a forum to help a few advance their private goals? Is it not for people's welfare?

With the innocently silent UN and UNSC over the Palestinian holocaust in Palestine unleashed by a fascist Israel and silence of the Arab and Muslim world watching the Israeli terrorism like live film shows, general Muslims have no need to worry too much about the pre-panned massacre in Palestine and are advised to watch some Hollywood or bollywood films especially on non-state terrorism actions.

US always influences and controls the global foreign policies and so much so many countries check their foreign policy course at a given time with that of USA and make necessary concurrent changes. It is funny to watch some of Muslims across the globe trying to “influence” the White House decision as Obama is getting ready to take over reign from President Bush. They are very particular not to anger the new incumbent with their critical comments on his possible regime in the USA in advancing US global interests. US policies are made in accordance with Israeli interests in Mideast and many Jews are involved in formulating the US foreign policy. Obama’s team includes some of the Jewish hawkish too. It is awful to see several Muslims making strenuous efforts to appease the imperialist USA . Is US capable of reform?

However, I am happy I could influence some parts of the world in depicting the state terrorism and terrorism planks and slowly several articles are pouring in to denounce state terrorism and the process of terrorization of innocent world Muslims. Even expressions like US-led terror wars are now in vogue to the discomfort of the anti-Islamic nations and media.

The author is Delhi based Research Scholar in International Studies and can be reached at abdulruff_jnu@yahoo.com
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1232213796&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news



PM seeks UK’s assistance to combat terrorism


She goes over ‘Anti-Terrorism Task Force’ in South Asia


Saturday January 17 2009 22:48:02 PM BDT


The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has sought cooperation of the British Government and the international community to combat terrorism in Bangladesh. The Awami Leauge President further reiterated her intention for the formation of an 'Anti-Terrorism Task Fore in South Asia' and said, "Terrorism has no boundary. We need cooperation from Britain in fighting against terrorism."(The Bangladesh Today)

Quoting Sheikh Hasina, her Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said this after about one hour meeting of British High Commissioner in Dhaka Stephen Evans with Hasina at her Dhanmondi Sudha Sadan residence on Saturday morning.

The Press Secretary said the UK envoy conveyed British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's felicitation to Sheikh Hasina for assuming office of the Prime Minister.

During discussion, the Prime Minster urged the British Government to extend greater cooperation for different bilateral issues, poverty alleviation, overseas investment in different sectors like Solar Energy and supports to train up young members of parliament (MPs).

Abul Kalam Azad said, "The UK High Commissioner expressed his country's eagerness for investment in Bangladesh as our Premier assured to ensure a business friendly atmosphere in the upcoming days."

The PM also requested the British government to take necessary measures in resolving problems of the expatriate Bangladeshis in the UK.

She urged the International Community - including UK- to take effective steps to end brutal killings of civilian in Gaza.

Briefing the newsmen, the British Envoy said he had a fruitful and satisfactory discussion with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

He said British Government wants to work collectively for sustainable democracy in Bangladesh and assured his government's assistances to face the challenges of the changing climate.

Terming terrorism as worldwide problem, Stephen Evans said terrorism has no boundary and terrorists poses threat to different countries across the globe. The British High Commissioner further assured to stand by the people of the country to fight against the widespread terrorism.

Evans termed the victory of December 29 General Election as an outstanding achievement of Bangladesh and hoped that through the upcoming parliament session on January 25, a new journey for the restoration of democracy in the country would start.

Meanwhile, CARE Ambassador for Maternal Health Christy Turlington met the Prime Minister and discussed programs to improve maternal health.

The Bangladesh Today
Bangladesh Human Rights Report 2008


Report by Odhikar


Friday January 16 2009 20:22:31 PM BDT


In this report Odhikar, a human rights organization of Bangladesh, covers the year 2008. It highlights critical areas that require immediate and urgent national, regional and international actions. Odhikar is committed to uphold human rights by promoting civil, political, economic, social, cultural and collective values of human rights including the implementation of obligations of the government prescribed by the national constitution as well as by international instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Socio, the Economic and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Torture and CEDAW.

----------------------------------------------------------
Please see the full Report in MS word Doc - Click Below
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Odhikar
House 35 (3rd floor), Road – 117
Gulshan, Dhaka – 1212,
Bangladesh.
Tel: 88-02-9888587, Fax : 88-02-9886208
E-mail: odhikar@citech-bd.com
odhikar.bd@gmail.com
odhikar@sparkbd.net
Website: www.odhikar.org


Read Full Story
Odhikar annual human rights report 2008.doc

Obama's first 100 days
Barack Obama has a mandate like no other and scarcely time to succeed

JOHN IBBITSON

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

E-mail John Ibbitson | Read Bio | Latest Columns
January 17, 2009 at 11:16 AM EST

WASHINGTON — This could be dangerous.

A bond has formed between Barack Obama and Americans unlike any we have seen between a new president and the people.

So much of this country's psyche has become intertwined with the promise of his presidency that the potential for disappointment - no, for betrayal - is immense.

What appears to be cool confidence could be hubris. The hope of a redemptive presidency could end in hostile recriminations.


Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate in economics, was born in what is now Bangladesh, but has lived much of his life in Great Britain and the United States, where he teaches at Harvard. Barack Obama's election, he observes, derides that shibboleth that Americans are a populist, Gods-and-guns anti-intellectuals. “American society isn’t as stupid as that,” he believes. Quite the opposite. People voted for a Harvard-educated law professor “because they thought that he was intelligent.”

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Americans are an impatient people. The Obama administration has little time to act on its unprecedented agenda of rescuing the economy, protecting the environment, reforming health care and restoring the country's respected place in the world.

Fair or unfair, the first 100 days could define this presidency.

"He is being given the opportunity to be a Franklin Delano Roosevelt," believes Alan Dershowitz, lawyer to celebrities and theorist on civil rights, who watched in wonder from his perch at Harvard as Mr. Obama became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

"He's getting a real honeymoon from the American people. But that won't last long."

Never have so many invested so much in a man. On the eve of becoming president, Mr. Obama enjoys an "extraordinarily high" favourable rating of 78 per cent, according to Gallup. Even Republicans are Democrats now.

Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics and wise man of both Harvard and Cambridge, has seen nothing like it.

Americans' desire to repudiate their initial support for the war in Iraq, their respect for Mr. Obama's obvious intelligence and their longing to turn the page on their painful history of racism: "All these play a part in turning an exceptional human being into almost the kind of godhead that he has become," Prof. Sen said in an interview.

But in the midst of this adulation, what was once a recession threatens to disintegrate into permanent decline, wars plague the Middle East, the population ages, services deteriorate and the planet warms.

The incoming administration is navigating an economic stimulus package through Congress that will probably top $1-trillion (U.S.) in an effort to heal the recession while also tackling any number of social deficits, while adding greatly to the real one.

Prof. Sen, who was born in India but who has spent much of his life in the United States and Britain, believes that the first goal of the stimulus package must be to restore a sense of confidence among Americans. "And that will depend on how much in command Obama looks and his economic team looks," he said.

It was the inability of the existing Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, to convince investors and consumers that the Bush administration was in control of the situation that caused it to spiral out of control.

Along with tax cuts and infrastructure spending, the Obama stimulus package seeks to foment a revolution in energy production and security, while simultaneously tackling global warming.

Daniel Yergin, author of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning book on the global struggle over oil, The Prize, believes Mr. Obama's visit to Canada soon after the inaugural will focus not only on the economic crisis but on a potential Canada-U.S. agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Such an agreement, might also increase the output of the Alberta oil sands in a environmentally responsible fashion.

Mr. Yergin is hopeful about the Obama administration's energy policy, but also worried that the recession and falling oil prices are starving the energy sector of capital.

"There are a lot of wind projects out there that are hurting," he observed, "along with many other energy projects."

Beyond the economy and energy, there is national security and restoration of the rule of law.

For Prof. Dershowitz, the "the first symbol will be closing Guantanamo. And it will only be a symbol."

The incoming administration is struggling with the complex problem of how to handle those inmates of the offshore prison who pose a danger to national security, but who could not be convicted in a court of law because the evidence against them was obtained by torture.

How is Mr. Obama to deal with such an intractable issue as he seeks to restore his country's global reputation?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090116.whundreddays0116/BNStory/obamainauguration/home

Holocaust in Palestine: Israeli tactics





Kashmir Watch, Jan 17

By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal




Artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff


The global operations by the Pentagon-CIA-Mossad operations have left the entire world terrorized. USA insists that Israel has a right to defend itself, but does not think Palestinians also have the same right to defend themselves form a fascist Israel killing them in Palestine and they should protected or provided with necessary defense equipment to successfully face and drive away the expansionist terrorists. This US policy has emboldened the barbaric Israel to invade Gaza now again.

I

UN and UNSC is least bothered about the Palestinians being brutally murdered by Israel. A large majority of the dead are civilians. USA promotes Jewish terrorism in Palestine and wants Israel to kill the remaining Palestinians as well quickly before Bush departs. President-elect Barack Obama keeps his silence intact and US senators and representatives who obediently parrot American Israel Public Affairs Committee's lines, forgiving the occupier and blaming the occupied, as a terror strategy.

Fascist Israel knows the shameless Islamic world as well as the terrorist anti-Islamic world quite well. Despite world outcry over the carnage and damage to media and UN aid facilities, Israel has vowed to fight on until Palestinians become slaves but says rocket salvoes should stop and measures are imposed to stop the Palestinians from defending themselves from US-Israeli attacks and bringing in arms via tunnels from Egypt.

After proving to the world a crucial point that no Muslim nation would come out to shield another Muslim nation if an enemy invades and attacks it on any pretext, Israel now says it might ends the hostilities one day soon. As if he were a gate keeper of Israel and not protector of weak nations under fascist occupation and genocides, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said the Israeli government was due to make an important decision on a ceasefire but that it might take "a few more days". Now the global democratic world stands fully exposed threadbare, but, pathetically it is of no consequences for the Islamic world.

Trying to prove to be a neo-fascist state, Israel does not spare even Mosques schools and UN establishments. Badly shaken by the turn of terror events and pathetic gestures of Arab world, Hamas has offered a year-long, renewable truce under which the Jewish state would withdraw its troops within a week and all Gaza's border crossings would open immediately. But Israel is in no mood to end holocaust program immediately. One does not know the details of bulk military orders it has so far received from the prospective terror state customers world wide for the new weapons systems.

II

The Zionist Israel ever since their invasion of Gaza has being killing some key Hamas leaders to silence the movement leadership. In what may be the final push against Hamas, Israeli troops pushed deep into central Gaza on15 Jan, killing Interior Minister Said Siam, a key figure in Hamas who oversaw thousands of security agents. However still refusing to fix a “final date” for end hostilities, Tel Aviv cuts jokes mocking the Islamic world and UN. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said its three-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip could be entering its "final act". "Hopefully.” and added: "there may be a full security cabinet meeting and decisions will stem from that." Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the premier hopeful left for talks in Washington five days before Barack Obama was due to be inaugurated as US president. Many West Asian “experts” see a deadline for the offensive with the departure of the Bush administration, after which Israel may be reluctant to test the support of the new leadership.

The Israeli offensive on the coastal enclave has killed some 1,105 Palestinians on record (but the number could be in several thousands) and wounded more than that but the Gaza Health Ministry said officially over 5,100. A Palestinian human rights group put the civilian death toll at around 700. Israel wants to cripple the Hamas in every respect and make them slaves to surrender before the Fascist Jews and is working to secure foreign guarantees that arms smuggling to Hamas militants will end under any deal to call off its three-week-old offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Badly shaken by the turn of terror events and pathetic gestures of Arab world, Hamas has offered a year-long, renewable truce under which the Jewish state would withdraw its troops within a week and all Gazan's border crossings would open immediately.

Gaza is an immense concentration camp -- 1.5 million people squeezed into 140 square miles hemmed in on all sides by 25-foot-high walls separated by a vast expanse of bulldozed earth. The 2005 "pull-out" left Gaza still controlled by Israel from air and sea, its entries and exits, prisonlike mazes electronically controlled and under constant surveillance. Bombing it, assaulting it with tanks and Uzis, is like shooting animals in a pen.

Operation Cast Lead is one of the Great War crimes of our era. The Israel of Operation Cast Lead is still the Israel of Plan Dalet, under which 750,000 Arabs were expelled from Palestine in 1948. It is the Israel of massacres under Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir on April, 9, 1948, at Deir Yassin; of the Phalangist massacre of 1,500 Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps Sabra and Shatila, overseen by Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. 60-year-long legacy rages on in Gaza under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to the applause of a vengeful Israeli public. One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza .

There have been eight military assaults on Gaza since 2004; blockades started in 2005, and then a siege of medieval proportions in 2006, punishment for Gazans having elected the wrong party for Israel and its U.S. patron. By December 2008, Richard Falk, special reporter on the Occupied Territories for the United Nations, reported an overall Gaza malnutrition rate of 75 percent, a childhood anaemia rate of 46 percent and a devastated infrastructure. This latest war -- called Operation Cast Lead -- is the "holocaust" promised by Israel. Since Dec. 27, Israel has bombed Gaza’s government buildings, universities, mosques, schools, medical clinics. The Times of London, Human Rights Watch and B'tselem all report the illegal use of white phosphorous to strike civilians. When white phosphorous adheres to flesh, its flames continue to burn for five to 10 minutes, often penetrating to the bone. Israel is also using a new weapon called dense inert metal explosive. It was developed by the United States to create lethal, powerful blasts within small areas. DIME inflicts wounds never before seen by surgeons in Gaza.

Israel trapped hundreds of civilians inside a school as if in a box, including many children, and then crushed them with all the might of its bombs. What were the world's reactions? A Palestinian said: “We would have been better off as animals rather than Palestinians. We would have been more protected."

III

Imperialism, colonialism and fascism have caused terrorism and this is the crucial issue causing serious problems for global Muslims and Islamic world of nations at large. Muslims and Islamic nations willingly lay into the dirty hands of the anti--Islamic forces for pursuing some narrow or personal interests but harming the overall interests of the Muslim world. Whether they are in Jammu Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives or Malaysia or petro-dollared Arab world, the Muslims are more interested in wealth than Islam or collective fellow Muslims and Islamic world. This has resulted in anti-Islamic forces occupying Muslim nations on some fictitious pretexts. Anti-Islamic forces could be Christians, Jews, Hindus and other races or even Muslims themselves. Not only they occupy Muslim nations, but also are engaged in perpetual killing as the UN and other world bodies fuel the process by watching the shows with great enthusiasm and pleasure.

Israel invasion is a part of USA global terror agenda. India is keen to enter the partnership zone of global terrorists. USA is pursing its nefarious designs in South Asia after collapsing Afghanistan’s Islamic rule. Less than two months after a series of terrorist attacks on the people of India, senior officials from the U.S. Army, Pacific, joined by the Marine Forces Pacific and Special Operations Command, Pacific, met with members of the Indian army for the 13th annual Indian Executive Steering Group to coordinate training engagements between the ground forces of the two countries. “Since 1995, we have met annually to enhance our relationship and we have made significant progress over the last many years,” said Lt. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander, U.S. Army, Pacific. “India is the world's largest democracy and a very close ally to the U.S," said H. Ali Mohammed, U.S. Dept. of the Army Headquarters international affairs interoperability analyst and ESG attendee. So Muslims are working against Islam and Muslim interests. But now Bangladesh with a Bengali Indian Ambassador guiding its policies also trying to fall in line to pursue anti-Islamic polices to join, eventually, the US-led cartel of anti-Islamism.

The world may browbeat, the UN may interfere, the US may keep quiet forever, the Arab world may seethe in anger, and Israel is unfazed. The pounding at the Gaza Strip continues, taking the toll to over 1000. The advanced countries create and abet tensions every where and sell their weapons and technology the third world countries fall into their dirty traps. India strategists want to siphon off some resources for their friends as dealers for commissions. Already India spends huge sums on terror equipment and is using the Nov26 event to further help its friends to make more cash, as USA as its global terror policy wants to sell its second rate equipment to India on sea terror pretext. The Indian and US armies are planning a new series of joint exercises, a set of which will draw on lessons in urban warfare in the wake of the November attack by terrorists in Mumbai. India last month decided to place an order for eight Boeing-made P8i maritime surveillance aircraft for the navy. Earlier in 2008, India contracted six C-130J Hercules transport aircraft for its special forces for $962 million (Rs 4,646 crore).

On January 9th the U.S. Congress passed House Resolution 34 in support of the Zionist Terrorist Massacre in Gaza, a loss of life for Palestine proportionate to one thousand 9-11 attacks on America! The resolution recently passed by the House of Representatives (HRES 34 EH) with only 5 dissenting votes, to know who rules America. It condemns Hamas and the people of Gaza as terrorists but has no mention of the decades long Israeli occupation and strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza, or the bloody terrorism of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children who have been killed, maimed, tortured or made homeless by years of Israel’s terrorism.

The very recent human casualties of over 850 dead and over 4500 maimed from Israel’s recent terror bombings of the 1.5 million people of Gaza would by their population percentage be equivalent to 175,000 murdered and 900,000 maimed Americans, more than one million American casualties. The percentage of Palestinian victims of Zionist terrorism over the past two weeks is proportionately one thousand times greater than the loss that Americans suffered in the 9-11 attacks!
The Jewish control of the United States Government and the mass media can be in clearly seen the exact wording of the resolution: In three places this short resolution endorses the survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish State with secure borders. That’s a “JEWISH STATE,” not a multicultural or multi-religious state but a state exclusively dedicated to Jews. The controlled media had not a word in criticism of the resolution supporting Israel as an ethnic and religious state exclusively dedicated to Jews!

The resolution is the clear proof of Jewish supremacy over the U.S. government. One could not even imagine the U.S. Congress or the mass media tolerating a resolution which called for the control immigration and secure American borders so as to preserve an overwhelmingly White and Christian America.

IV

Although Israel withdrew its settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005, it continues to tightly regulate Gaza’s coast, airspace and borders. Thus, Israel remains an occupying power with a legal duty to protect Gaza’s civilian population. But Israel’s 18-month siege of the Gaza Strip preceding the current crisis violated this obligation egregiously. It brought economic activity to a near standstill, left children hungry and malnourished, and denied Palestinian students opportunities to study abroad.

But Israel terrorizes the Palestinians with regular genocides. Deliberate attacks on civilians that lack strict military necessity are war crimes. Israel’s current violations of international law extend a long pattern of abuse of the rights of Gaza Palestinians. Eighty percent of Gaza 's 1.5 million residents are Palestinian refugees who were forced from their homes or fled in fear of Jewish terrorist attacks in 1948. For 60 years, Israel has denied the internationally recognized rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes -- because they are not Jews. In 2002 Israeli forces killed about 2,700 Palestinians in Gaza by targeted killings, aerial bombings, in raids, etc., according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. In spite of a six-month truce on June 19, 2008 by Hamas and Israel, Israel refused to substantially ease the suffocating siege of Gaza imposed in June 2007, making life of Palestinians more miserable. Israel 's current assault on the Gaza Strip cannot be justified by self-defense. Rather, it involves serious violations of international law, including war crimes.

According to an official of the Egyptian government, Iran has warned Hamas not to accept Egypt’s proposal for a cease fire with Israel. Two Iranian emissaries "threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel," the Egyptian official told the Jerusalem Post. It is in Egypt’s interest to discredit Hamas by depicting it as a tool of Iran and claiming that this relationship is preventing an end to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza. In doing so, Egypt also seeks to discredit Iran which, it points out, "never fired one bullet at Israel” but is "trying to appear as if it is participating in the war against Israel." But just because the report is self-serving doesn't mean it is false. In fact, the report is quite plausible. Having invested in Hamas, Iran probably does not want the fighting to end without Hamas having produced more of return. To that extent, Iran’s perceived interests may align with Israel’s. For Israel probably does not want the fighting to end until the value of Iran 's investment plummets further.

V

Even while the Arabs and Muslim world are seen playing fiddle when Palestinians are being killed by Fascist Israel after invading its neighboring Palestine, it is a non-Muslim nation, Venezuela which dared to take disciplinary action against the expansionist Israel and its blood thirst in Palestine. Demonstrators hold up placards in front of the Israeli embassy in Caracas, December 29, 2008, during a protest against Israel’s attacks on Gaza. The placards (from L-R) read: "Stop the genocide against Palestine "; "Israel: Assassins of the world" and "It is enough! We are fed up with this injustice!” After the falloff Afghanistan and Iraq, every nation of Muslims, as expected by US-Israel combine, does not oppose them significantly. Perhaps they don’t know they are cowards, and not Muslim nations.

Hats off to the Venezuelan governement!. Venezuela announced that it "has decided to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the Israeli Embassy's personnel."

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 600 Palestinians in ground and air strikes. Israel launched the attacks Dec. 27 to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel. "How far will this barbarism go?" Chavez asked on state television before the ambassador's expulsion was announced. "The president of Israel should be taken before an international court together with the president of the United States, if the world had any conscience." Venezuela 's Foreign Ministry said its U.N. mission is joining with other countries in demanding the Security Council "apply urgent and necessary measures to stop this invasion." While many countries have protested Israel’s offensive, none besides Venezuela so far have expelled the ambassador.

Mauritania, which established relations with Israel in 1999, called home its ambassador from the Jewish state on Monday. Jordan and Egypt, the other two Arab nations with relations with Israel, summoned their Israeli ambassadors to protest the Gaza attacks, but they have resisted popular calls to expel them. Chavez has long been critical of the Israeli government's policies in the Middle East and has supported the Palestinians' stance in the conflict. During Israel’s 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Chavez withdrew his top envoy from Israel, calling the bombings there "a new Holocaust." Relations have remained at a scaled-back level since. Chavez accuses Israel of acting on behalf of the United States in the Mideast, and he has forged close ties with Israel’s top enemies - Iran and Syria. Chavez's condemnations of Israel’s offensive in Gaza have grown gradually more severe in recent days. On Monday he called the Jewish state a "genocidal government," and on Tuesday urged Jews in Venezuela to take a stand against the Israeli government.

In Argentina, which has the third-largest Jewish population outside Israel, hundreds of people marched to the Israeli Embassy to call for an end to the offensive. Brazil's government, like Venezuela, has said it is sending food and medical aid to the Gaza Strip. And in Bolivia, about a hundred Palestinians and Arabs marched to protest the violence.

USA, Israel and India are the so-called largest “democracies” of the universe today ready to export it globally especially to Mideast. Look at their credentials now ? USA has militarized Afghanistan and Iraq for years now on fictitious pretexts and killing innocent Muslims in these countries.; Israel has illegally occupied Palestine, and kills them regularly, also secures land of Lebanon and Syria; India has very tactfully, rather "democratically", annexed its neighbor Kashmir in 1947 and has killed lakhs of innocent Muslims in Kashmir and using the "Kashmir terrorism" cause to torture Muslims in India denying them their legitimate rights.

Post-script

Israel as a strategic partner of the USA , the global terrorist nation, is helping the USA in establishing a new Middle East according to Western concepts. US polices are influenced and even shaped by Israeli strategists over years. One of the foundations of the New Mideast theory is to kill as many Muslims in Arab world as it is feasible at a given time under some pretext. USA supports and aids Israeli fascism and lrsfrtd og both terror states should be tried in spcially constituted tribunals.

Not only it strikes on innocnet and defenseless Palestinians, the Hamas people, but Israel also stops any possible outside help for Palestinians.Hamas is at a disadvantageous position to retaliate against the Israeli armed attacks or terror invasions. These uneven postures make the Palestinians suffer too much. The petro-dollar loving Arabs are also enjoying the killing of their fellow Muslims both Arabs and non-Arabs.

There is no scientific evidence to prove that camel meat or beaf is not good for human brain. But it is shocking that none of the Muslim nations, leave alone poor Arab nations, has so far asked the Israeli envoys to quit these countries. And, none of the Arab nations that have forged diplomatic ties with Israel has broken that, or at least temporarily withdrawn as the usual practice of any country that an enemy has done damage to their common cause of collective goals. It is by now certain the anti-Islamic fascists are enjoying their terror attacks, genocides and expansionism beyond any usual description.

US-led democrats are killing Muslims in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, while expansionist Jewish state has invaded Palestine and repeat what the USA has been telling about the need to stay on in the countries under their brute occupation: “A lot of work remains to be done in Palestine". It seems Olmert called a Saturday night security cabinet session to decide on a ceasefire, which could come less than 72 hours before the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president.

First, what exactly is democracy, is it just holding regular elections in a so-called 'free and fair' manner when the outcome is almost predetermined by the national-cum-international network that effectively controls the governments?

Finally what is democracy? Invasions of alien nations and militarize them killing the inhabitants, making rules for them? Is democracy a perfect tool to fool the world and for revenge alone"? Is democracy a forum to help a few advance their private goals? Is it not for people's welfare?

With the innocently silent UN and UNSC over the Palestinian holocaust in Palestine unleashed by a fascist Israel and silence of the Arab and Muslim world watching the Israeli terrorism like live film shows, general Muslims have no need to worry too much about the pre-panned massacre in Palestine and are advised to watch some Hollywood or bollywood films especially on non-state terrorism actions.

US always influences and controls the global foreign policies and so much so many countries check their foreign policy course at a given time with that of USA and make necessary concurrent changes. It is funny to watch some of Muslims across the globe trying to “influence” the White House decision as Obama is getting ready to take over reign from President Bush. They are very particular not to anger the new incumbent with their critical comments on his possible regime in the USA in advancing US global interests. US policies are made in accordance with Israeli interests in Mideast and many Jews are involved in formulating the US foreign policy. Obama’s team includes some of the Jewish hawkish too. It is awful to see several Muslims making strenuous efforts to appease the imperialist USA . Is US capable of reform?

However, I am happy I could influence some parts of the world in depic


O THE PRIME MINISTER SHEIKH HASINA:

BIJOY BIJOY BIJOY HOLO,

SHEIKH HASINAR BIJOU HOLO. FOR BEAUTIFICATION AND GLORIFICATION OF GOLDEN BENGAL.

The Bangladeshi battle cry, and the vote war conqueror the Bangokhona Hasina the daughter of the joy Bangla revolution

By father of the Bangladeshi nation Sheikh Majibur Rahman

Joy Bangla, joy Bangobhandhu

Victory to Bengal and victory to Banghobhandhu against anti Bangladeshi miscreant and the against Razakar and their associates

Became a realty and victory of Bangladeshi Muslim, Bangladeshi Hindu, Bangladeshi Christian and Bangladeshi Buddhist and Bangladeshi secularist.

Now, once your mind is set, the heart of the work begins. This is what’s called the requickning.if you look it up in the dictionary, quickening means bringing something to life, or adding something to life. So, requickning means bringing something back to life. It starts with the rhetorical gesture that we call the rare word: wiping the eyes, cleansing the throat and unblocking the ears. These are symbolic gestures to pacify grieving people, or the former adversary in a treaty process. The reason you have to pacify those people is that they are in pain:

They can’t see properly.

They canot hear and

They don’t speak the truth.

Something serious has happened to them, and the challenge for the strong-minded, the peacemakers, is to take them beyond the pain to a place of peace. What happened to bring them pain? In the ritual and all your life, if you desire peace you have to figure out a way of saying something to those people, doing something, or giving them something that will make them capable of seeing, hearing, and speaking their way back to peace. To the society, to what needs to happen. The first have to do with recognizing the discomfort in our body. Here again the question is, what’s wrong? This overlap in the traditional ritual is deliberate, and it’s consistent with the way knowledge was conveyed in oral cultures. The question being addressed here is what’s wrong in our society?

What is the fundamental concern that we are dealing with as a people? That’s why at this stage I will begin to talk about leadership. Damage to our space. The term space I take to mean nationhood, or our society as a whole. Traditionally this idea was expressed metaphorically: as if one chef were sitting there, in his proper space, and another nation, or another set of chiefs came too close; then there would be a problem. You need your sace, everyone and every nation have their proper allotment in the circle, and this how our nationhood was expressed. Part of the problem now is that our space hasn’t been respected, that we have had structures and ideas imposed on us. We need to reclaim our:

 Intellectual.

 Political and

 Geographic space properly managed.

Consciousness: here being our sense of our Bangladeshi nationhood. In fact, a lot of our people imagine themselves to be different not knowing themselves and that’s not true. In the words of ritual those thinking are in the darkness; they have had their eyes shut to there true being, they count envision a future in which we are nations. They canot see a positive future, they are wallowing in the pain of being dependent words of the others. Then, in the ritual the scan is lost. This is another metaphorical statement of the truth.

Remembrances:(DURNITIR KHABOR) was it fair from our previous government’s and political leader spent hundred times as much money for their lives. Shame to them? Shame to them? Are they human being? Surely not!

Investigation shows: and is it fair in a time of material prosperity for many that 99 % people still lives in absolute poverty or that millions of children die each year of preventable diseases? Surely not? (TO BE CONTINUED)

2nd part: a world divided by wealth: poor and rich:

Any way what hope is there for the poor? It is said that the world is split into two camps the wealthy and the poor grow, what hope is there for them? During the second half of the 20th century, the world was embroiled in a cold war and divided politically into three parts.

 The world of communism, chiefly embodied in the union of soviet republics.

 The world of non communist nation led by the united state, stared at one another across an invisible iron curtain

 Nations not aligned with either side formed the so-called third world.

The term third world later came to be viewed as a derogatory description, however, and was replaced with underdeveloped nations with time this too took on negative connotations for which reason economists began using the term developing nations. Thus the terminology moved away from emphasizing political differences and more to ward pointing up economic ones. Now in the 21st century, a world divided into the above –mentioned three political parts no longer exists. In an economic and industrial sense, however, the differences between developed and developing nations are still a reality. Tourists from affluent lands are rubbing shoulders with economically less fortunate individuals struggling to put food on their table.

Therefore, the question is relevant: is the world destined to remain economically divided. Or can those who have, the wealthy, and those who have not, the poor, achieve parity by enjoying a common standard for living?

Regardless of the terminology used to describe them, highly developed, industrial, and economically advanced nations boast high living standards, whereas those with less industry, which are thus less, developed economically, make do with lower standards. It is almost as though they belong to two different worlds. Of course, even within one nation, these two worlds may exist. Think of the comparatively affluent countries mentioned in the previously these have both their rich and their poor. In the United States, for example, about 30 percent of the nation’s total income goes into the pockets of the upper 10 percent of households. At the same time, the lower 20 percent of households must make do with just 5 percent of the total income. This situation or one similar to it may exist in the country where you live, especially if the middle class there is small. But even governments in countries with a comparatively large middle class have until now have been unable to bridge completely the economic gap between those who have and that have-not.

Nine richest countries: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, and United States.

Eighteen most poorest countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Congo, republic of Ethiopia, guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, sierra Leone. Tanzania, Yemen, Zambia.

Neither world can rightly lay claim to perfection. Think of the obvious disadvantages of these living in poorer countries. Health care is seriously limited. Whereas the 9 percent richest countries mentioned boast 1 physician for every 250 to 5550 inhabitants, the 18 poorest countries fall far behind. With just 1 physician for every 4000 to 50,000 of their citizen. So, understandably, the life expectancy of the more affluent countries is 75 years or above, whereas is more than half of the poorest, life expectancy is well below 60 years. In our Bangladesh even lot people don’t go physician want of money, instead of going doctor they are obliged to by rice to their babies. In a result the head of the family father or mother dying and keeping their babies in street. Obesity may soon surprise both hunger and infectious disease as world’s most pressing public-health problem. In poor countries the possibilities for education also lag far behind, often dooming children to a life of poverty. This lack is reflected in literacy rates. Whereas 7 of the 9 richest countries have literacy rates of 100 percent the other 2 have rates of 96 and 97 percent, the 18 poorest countries have literacy rates ranging between a high of 81 percent and a low of 16 percent, with 10 of them under 50 percent. But the inhabitants of wealthy nations also have certain disadvantages. Whereas those in poor countries may suffer from a lack of food, those living in abundance are increasingly eating themselves to death. The food fight claims that over consumption have replaced malnutrition as the worlds top food problem. Some nine million American are now morbidly obese meaning roughly a hundred pounds or more overweight, and weight related conditions cause about 300,000 premature deaths a year in this country. And so, obesity may soon surpass both hunger and infectious disease as the world’s most pressing public health problem. True, citizens of wealthy countries have a higher standard of living, but at the same time, they may attach more meaning to possessions than to relationships, thus placing too much emphasis on having and too little on being. They then to measure a person’s importance and worth according to his job, salary or possessions, rather than his knowledge, wisdom, abilities, or positive characteristics. Stressing that a simple life is what makes for happiness, what about a little less? I found most citizen of the western world is no happier now than they were decades ago, despite the dramatic upsurge in prosperity. Anyone who sets his whole heart on objects is more likely to end up unhappy.

Yes, facts prove that both worlds, rich and poor, although having certain positive aspects, also have their downsides. Whereas the world of the poor may be overly simple, the world of the rich can be overly complex. How beneficial it would be if these two worlds could learn from each other. But is it realistic to think that such a perfect balance can ever be achieved?

From a human standpoint, you may feel that this goal, although desirable, is simply beyond human ability to accomplish. And history backs you up in thinking so. Still, the situation is far from hopeless. You may have overlooked the most logical solution to the problem. What could that be?

Needs a righteous and incorruptible government

Bridging the gap the real solution: hundreads of millions of people worldwide try to survive each day in spite of abject poverty. It is evident that mankind needs a righteous and incorruptible government that sincerely desires to change this injustice. Such a government must also be powerful enough to follow through on its good intentions. Can we realistically expect humans to produce such a government?

Can present government of Bangladesh change the days?

Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. Have you found that trusting human governments or leaders often leads to disappointment? Yet, to whom else can we turn?

Actually, millions of people have tried for a righteous government to change the unjust situation. Perhaps everybody, every government tried: let the righteous government come, let righteous will take place as in happiness prosperous bangladesh, also upon earth. Tried to gave bread or food for the day or day to come and solve debts, or economic crises, not bring temptation but deliver them from wicked one.

Change we need: is this we need righteous government, the one we need? Is it righteous and incorruptible? Is it powerful enough to follow through on its good intentions? Without a doubt, it is! The honesty that set up this government, righteous government is the righteous and righteous savior, who is righteous in all his work

Attention to prime minister: you are too pure in eyes to see what is bad.

So we are sure that your government will never become corrupt. And since you are not partial, but in every citizen, the man that fears you and works righteousness is acceptable to you.

And that he is impartially interested in the welfare of every single individual on our beloved Bangladesh. Will Bangladesh ever be free of crime and corruption? Hijacking, torturing women and children, exploiting poor people, throwing acids to women’s, robbing, car accident, violence driving, having proper driver license or not, without proper checking car, car is ready for drive or not, always news come accident occurred due to driver lost motion or velocity or out of control steering, killing in the name of politics without knowing philosophy of these politics, these are just some of the shocking crimes making the news now a days. Do you feel safe your neighborhood, your children, your wife, your husbands, your relatives especially if you are inside or outside home at day or night? Have you or your family been affected by crime? Lot of people in Bangladesh. According to scientist studies show that most repeat offenders even after prison will continue to prey upon the community, and the costs, not measurable in money alone, will continue astronomical. No matter where you live in the village or city, everyday seems to bring in another crop of lurid crimes. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask: are present deterrents –stiff penalties, prison terms, and so on-working? Does prison reform criminals? I like to say as our present homeland minister said: more important, we are addressing the root cause of crime, I welcome her philosophy. This is the righteous way she can solve the problems and hope bangladesh will free from criminal, where our women, our children, our parents, our brothers and sister can walk day or night seven days a week without fear using proper ornamented dresses.

(TO BE CONTINUED)


DR.S .I. SHELLEY
M.S, M.Phil, Ph.D. Candidate D.Sc. RSC and Recommended.FRSC.
E-mail address: drsishightech@hotmail.com
http://newsfrombangladesh.net/view.php?hidRecord=241475

Report suggests that Toyota is ready to halve its Japanese vehicle output
18 hours ago

TOKYO — In yet another sign of Japanese automakers' deepening distress, Toyota Motor Corp. between February and April plans to make just half the number of vehicles it produced the previous year.

A major newspaper reports Japan's top carmaker will slash production during the period to about 9,000 vehicles a day.

Toyota may need to trim its full-time work force as a result.

Japan's automakers have so far managed to avoid layoffs of regular employees by instead cutting nearly all of their temporary assembly line workers.

The news adds to an already dire outlook for Toyota and other Japanese automakers.

They are reeling from plunging demand in key markets like the U.S. as well as a stronger yen. Appreciation of the Japanese currency reduces the value of overseas profits.

"Even emerging nations' sales entered negative territory in October, and we think an increasing number of countries will see year-on-year declines in 2009," said Goldman Sachs auto analysts Kota Yuzawa and Yukihiro Koike in a report Friday.

Toyota, which expects its first operating loss in 70 years for the fiscal year through March, said earlier this week that it would make further production cuts in North America to cope with slumping sales and high inventories.

The company had initially planned to produce 4.21 million vehicles in Japan for the current fiscal year, but trimmed its projection to 3.85 million.

On Friday, rival Honda Motor Co. said it's cutting 3,100 temporary workers and lowering output by 56,000 vehicles in Japan and 17,000 vehicles in Europe for the fiscal year through March.

Nissan Motor Co. said this week it was reducing domestic production by another 64,000 vehicles in February and March.

And, starting 2010, Japan's No. 3 carmaker plans to shift some production of its top-selling compact, the March and counterpart Micra model, to India, Thailand and other lower-cost countries from Britain and Japan.






Palash Biswas



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palashcbiswas,
 gostokanan, sodepur, kolkata-700110 phone:033-25659551