Friday, November 16, 2007
Humpback Whale Hunting to Resume in Japan
For the first time since a 1963 moratorium on hunting the animals, the Japanese whaling fleet is soon to launch a large-scale whale-hunt. Although it is ostensibly for scientific purposes, environmental activists plan to track and impair the hunt.
Chris Marker and Mario Ruspoli's THREE CHEERS FOR THE WHALE chronicled the history of mankind's relationship with the largest and most majestic of marine mammals, and graphically exposed their slaughter by the fishing industry in 1973, shortly after the moratorium was effected. Labels: activism, articles, Asia, Chris Marker, international relations, Japan
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
New Study on Link Between Happiness and Contentment
Shankar Vedantam in the Washington Post on October 1st discusses a new study concerning the effect of positive and negative events on people reporting being "generally happy". A high level of happiness, the article reports, causes an increase in expected happiness and thereby diminishing returns from positive events and increased disappointment in negative events. The article also discusses possible cultural links to attitudes toward happiness as well as genetic predisposition to this condition.
For more information on genetic and cultural links to happiness as well as further discussion on causes of happiness, watch HOW HAPPY CAN YOU BE? by Line Hatland.Labels: Europe, Japan, Shankar Vedantam
Rearming Japan
The
NY Times reports that the militarization of Japan is continuing with recent practice bombing of a tiny island in the Pacific. Japan's pacifist constitution bans offensive military action but slowly the country's leadership has turned the tides of public opinion.
JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION explores in depth the political maneuvering that continues.
The article also notes that while the rearming of the country might be understandable given current potential threats, it is "causing anxieties in a region where distrust of Japan has deepened in direct proportion to Japanese tendencies to revise the past," including the massacre of China's capital, Nanjing in 1937, and its wartime sexual slavery.
SENSO DAUGHTERS is made by a Japanese filmmaker who reveals this history through eyewitness testimony, which stands in stark contrast to the Japanese denial.
Labels: Article 9, Asia, comfort women, Japan, politics, Shinzo Abe
Japan Refuses Apology to Comfort Women
Gathering steam in the US Congress, a recent non-binding resolution passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that asks Japan to acknowledge and apologize for drafting women into sexual service during WWII. It will move on to a vote in the House and is expected to pass. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promoted "historical amnesia" (
Norimitsu Onishi in the NY Times), refusing to issue any apologies regardless of any Congressional resolution.
SENSO DAUGHTERS by Noriko Sekiguchi offers powerful testimony from women who lived through it. The film caused an uproar when it came out because Sekiguchi, Japanese herself, not only condemns the abuse but the society that continues to deny it happened.
Labels: Article 9, comfort women, Japan, Shinzo Abe, women's issues
Shigeru Ban - "The Accidental Environmentalist"
Michael Kimmelman reports recently on the work of architect Shigeru Ban, calling him an "
accidental environmentalist," as Ban's use of recycled, easily available and inexpensive building materials has been part of his repertoire since long before it was cool to be "green." From temporary housing for refugees in Rwanda and later for victims of the 1995 Kobe earthquake and later in Turkey, to multi -million dollar corporate buildings such as a new Swatch office building in Ginza and a new design that will sit on New York City's West Side highway next to Frank Gehry's recent contribution, Ban maintains his commitment to thrift.
SHIGERU BAN, a film by Michel Quinejure, goes in depth with Ban through interviews and tours of his most significant structures to reveal that an emphasis on issues of conservation, economy, and accessibility does not necessarily involve a sacrifice in architectural beauty.
Labels: architecture, articles, Japan, shigeru ban, urban studies
Japan’s Neonationalist Offensive and the Military
As reported on japanfocus.org, when Abe Shinzo was installed as prime minister of Japan in September 2006, there was some concern that he would push the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s proposal to revise Japan’s constitution and gut the no-war provisions of Article 9. But his "go slow approach" has reassured Japan’s neighbors, while masking a very ambitious agenda.
The acclaimed recent release JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION is a timely, hard-hitting documentary places the ongoing debate over the constitution in an international context: What will revision mean to Japan's neighbors, Korea and China? How is the unprecedented involvement of Japan's Self-Defense Force in the occupation of Iraq perceived in the Middle East?
Labels: Article 9, international relations, Japan, politics, Shinzo Abe
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Shinzo Abe Almost Certainly Japan's Next PM
The Washington Post reported that the nationalist who has pledged to make Japan a more robust force on the world stage, Shinzo Abe, won the contest to become leader of Japan's ruling party Wednesday, all but clinching election as prime minister next week. Abe favors revising Japan's peace constitution.
The acclaimed recent release JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION is a timely, hard-hitting documentary places the ongoing debate over the constitution in an international context: What will revision mean to Japan's neighbors, Korea and China? How is the unprecedented involvement of Japan's Self-Defense Force in the occupation of Iraq perceived in the Middle East?
Labels: Article 9, articles, Japan, Shinzo Abe
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Japan’s Likely Next Premier in Hawkish Stand
As reported in the New York Times, Shinzo Abe, the nationalist politician who is expected to become Japan's next prime minister, said that Japan should revise the pacifist Constitution imposed on it by the United States. He made the statement as he formally declared his candidacy for the presidency of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, a post that would give him the prime ministership.
The acclaimed recent release JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION is a timely, hard-hitting documentary places the ongoing debate over the constitution in an international context: What will revision mean to Japan's neighbors, Korea and China? How has the US-Japan military alliance warped the constitution and Japan's role in the world? How is the unprecedented involvement of Japan's Self-Defense Force in the occupation of Iraq perceived in the Middle East?
Labels: Article 9, articles, international relations, Japan, Shinzo Abe
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Japan's Constitution and Tension with China in the News
Are China and Japan on a collision course? An article by Wieland Wagner in der Spiegel discusses the recent increase in age-old distrust between the two countries . In the near future, the governing Liberal Democrats in Japan want to change the pacifist post-War constitution - and they have the backing of the opposition.
Through interviews conducted with leading thinkers around the world our New Release JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION explores the origins of the Constitution in the ashes of war, and the significance of its peace clauses in the conflicted times of the early 21st century.
In an online piece from the AP via Yahoo! News, the film's Oscar-nominated director warns of Japan military resurgence. Japan's plans to change its pacifist constitution could rekindle historical animosities in Asia and lead to another war in the region. JAPAN'S PEACE CONSTITUTION is thus also a reminder of the mistrust that still runs deep in much of Asia over Tokyo's militaristic past, and the potential backlash against any resurgence of that militarism.
Labels: Article 9, Japan, politics, Shinzo Abe
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