Category: Current Events

Death sentence of Aum sarin subway terrorist upheld

Saru forwarded me the AP story, but I don’t have a link so I’ll just post it below.

Japan: Death for Man in Subway Gassing

By CHISAKI WATANABE
The Associated Press

TOKYO —

Tokyo’s High Court upheld the death penalty for a doomsday cult member convicted in the 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attack that killed 12 people, a court official said Wednesday.

Tomomitsu Niimi, a high-ranking member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, was sentenced in 2002 to hang for murdering 26 people in seven separate attacks.
Continue reading Death sentence of Aum sarin subway terrorist upheld

Japan called upon to curb small arms trade

You may have read this post I made a little while back, discussing Japan’s international trade in small arms under the guise of “sporting equipment,” in defiance of their official stance against exporting weapons. Well, the Japan Times is carrying a brief Kyodo article stating that a London based group is now asking Japan to lead the fight against international small arms trade.

Japan urged to champion curbs on firearms trade

By WILL HOLLINGWORTH
LONDON (Kyodo) Campaigners on Monday called on Japan to lead efforts to strengthen the international code on the export of small arms.

The London-based International Action Network on Small Arms, a group of more than 700 civic organizations around the world, wants the rules to be made more explicit to deter exports to countries that abuse human rights.

It will call on members of the United Nations in June to strengthen the code and wants Japan to take more of a lead in discussions.

IANSA estimates that more than 300,000 people are killed each year by small arms, with the largest number of deaths occurring in Russia, Latin America and the United States. Legal trade in small arms is worth $ 4 billion annually, with another $ 1 billion generated on the black market.

“In its domestic laws, Japan recognizes how deadly small arms can be. There are a growing number of countries which are getting behind the idea of an international treaty to stop small arms transfers to countries which abuse human rights, or where they are going to be an obstacle to sustainable development,” said Rebecca Peters, director of IANSA.

Have you noticed the curious omission from this article? Nowhere does it mention why Japan should be the country taking the lead. Is it because Japan is known as a nation of pacifism with an official policy of not selling weapons, or is it because they violate that very policy and are being asked to begin the reforms at home?

Saipan, Desperate for Japanese Tourist “reparations,” Offers to Open its Own Version of Yasukuni

The governor of Saipan has made a morbidly cynical offer to the Japanese families of those who died in the bloody Battle of Saipan:

Banzai Cliff as cemetery for Japanese war dead?

By Agnes Donato
Reporter

Monday, March 13, 2006

The Banzai Cliff in Marpi could soon turn into a cemetery for the Japanese war dead, with the governor offering the property to the families of World War II soldiers who lost their lives on Saipan.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial announced Friday that he had received two pledges of donation amounting 10 million Japan yen (about $84,000) each for the planned cemetery.

A separate offer of $100,000 has also been made for the sole benefit of the Public School System, he said.

“I am making land available at Banzai Cliff for Japanese groups to build a temple. This temple will be a token of our appreciation for the Japanese people visiting Saipan. I am also offering the same property to all the families and relatives of 47,000 war heroes who lost their lives here on Saipan to come and erect monuments,” Fitial said during his weekly press conference.

I can’t think of a more depressing idea. The Banzai Cliff was what hundreds of Japanese civilians jumped from in the aftermath of the battle. They chose to end it all rather than be raped and tortured by the Americans (UPDATE: …or so they may have believed. Another blogger, objecting to this “spin” – though it was unintentional – helpfully pointed out some of the sacrifices US soldiers made to save Japanese civilians in Saipan. Take a look.). I remember seeing on the History Channel a mother jump with her child no more than 50 feet from the American soldiers who looked on with a video camera rolling.

But will this save Saipan’s embattled tourist industry? It remains to be seen:

Tourist arrivals from Japan continue to drop as a result of Japan Airlines’ decision to cease all regular, scheduled flights to Saipan in October 2005.

Data from the Marianas Visitors Authority showed that the CNMI received only 25,555 visitors from Japan in January 2006. This represents a 29-percent decline compared with the 35,795 Japanese who came to the islands in January 2005.

But MVA is hopeful that the Japan market would recover when Northwest Airlines increases the frequency of its Tokyo flights beginning next month.

Northwest, which currently operates seven weekly flights between Saipan and Narita, will have 10 flights a week between the two points starting April 24, 2006.

The new service will operate a second Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Tokyo, flying three times a week. The aircraft will carry 400 economy and 30 business class passengers.

Homework assignment: Does anything similar exist in the world? There are certainly things like the Normandy memorial or Auschwitz, but are there any war memorials designed almost purely as tourist traps? I’m kind of offended — maybe Saipan does suck!

Best hits of Aum – Part I

Earlier this year I spent an entire month working fulltime translating documents about Aum Shinrikyo into English to be used as research materials for a report on international religious terrorism being created by a Washington DC based organization that shall remain nameless.

While I did a couple of articles and some excerpts from various books, I spent almost the entire time translating large sections of Aum and I, the confessional jailhouse memoir of Ikuo Hayashi, a former medical doctor who helped to spread sarin gas in the Tokyo subway on that infamous day.

Although I was paid to do this translation, it was not intended for publication and my client has no rights over the material, only requesting the translation in the first place for their own reference. Therefore, I’ve decided to excerpt some of my very favorite sections of evil cult related goodness to post every once in a while.

Here is the very first installment – my translation of page 133 of Aum and I.

***

There was nothing I could say in response to that, but I do remember feeling terribly remorseful about delaying the salvation plan. Because of that., I thought that maybe I could perhaps advance my training a bit, and even performed a bit of secret surgery, cutting my tongue’s frenulum with the aim of perfecting my Yoga’s “Nagomdoni.” I also thought I had failed to become a Siddha because I hadn’t pushed myself to the limit, so I started fasting. The result was that my body became progressively weaker, and I became unable to do breathing exercises. Whenever I tried I would develop an irregular pulse.

Over the course of three days of fasting I was able to maintain consciousness even without getting any sleep. I tasted one part of the “experience” described as the so-called “sequential states of consciousness.” As a “prithag-jana” [an unenlightened person still a slave to their worldly desires], I had trouble during the period after the fasting, when I started eating again. I was reading an article by someone who had achieved Siddha, which contained some sections specifically talking about people tormented by gluttony, or pained by fasting. Upon reading these sections, I was swept up by the images of food, and felt the same lust to eat say, eel or bread. I thought that I had been overcome.

At exactly that time, the Aum magazine Mayahana printed a story about the Buddhist training from the time of Shakyamuni. It said that during the time of Shakyamuni’s spiritual training, there was a practice of eating the feces of some animal, say a dog. Thinking that the reason I hadn’t yet become a Siddha was because I just hadn’t been pushing my limits, I thought that perhaps I should try doing the same thing as the original Buddha. I decided to begin eating my own feces.

When first facing my own feces I seriously hesitated. It was originally a part of me though, and there are even living things that eat feces. Since it’s the same E. Coli that just came out of me, it couldn’t upset my stomach, right? Inflammation of the pharanyx is a possibility though… I tried to reason through the various possibilities before finally eating it.

Perhaps because at that time I had been eating nothing but roots and vegetables for three months solid, there was actually no smell.

A question of national economic security

I’ve been posting recently on the global backlash against FDI. So, in scanning today’s news, this headline caught my eye: “INTERVIEW-China official slams foreign investment spree.”

Here’s a sample:

Li Deshui, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, called for legislation to curb “ill-willed” acquisitions of domestic companies by foreign firms… Echoing recent concerns over China’s sale of stakes in its major banks to foreign investors, Li said that unchecked acquisitions by foreign multinationals could pose a threat to China’s economic security.

Reading this latter remark made me wonder just how one nation’s “economic security” should be defined. Where does one draw the line? Borders are the obvious place to start, but everyone knows that this is no longer true. The same may be said of nationality.

Let’s face it, when it comes right down to it, when someone (be it a company or an individual investor) stands to lose millions or even billions of dollars on an investment, national economic security goes right out the window along with concern for everything else but one’s own ass.

Think about a bank run: are those people lining up to withdraw their deposits before the next guy concerned with national economic security? Of course not. They’re worried about their own damned money.

I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of the issue. “Bank runs” on an international scale are exactly what governments are worried about. But they should consider other ways of preventing such things from happening (i.e. better policy or more effective regulation) than by prohibiting them altogether. You don’t deal with bank runs by outlawing banking; you deal with them by creating systems of deposit insurance, by providing lenders of last resort, and by requiring banks to keep a certain percentage of deposits on hand at all times.

OMG, more kabuki!

When I saw the editorial titled Kabuki Congress, I knew what the next blog post would be.

The question is whether the Bush administration broke the law by allowing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans and others in the United States without obtaining the required warrant. The White House wants Americans to believe that the spying is restricted only to conversations between agents of Al Qaeda and people in the United States. But even if that were true, which it evidently is not, the administration has not offered the slightest evidence that it could not have efficiently monitored those Qaeda-related phone calls and e-mail messages while following the existing rules.

In other words, there is not a shred of proof that the illegal program produced information that could not have been obtained legally, had the administration wanted to bother to stay within the law.

…Putting on face paint and pretending that illusion is reality is fine for Kabuki theater. Congress should have higher standards.

I mean, it’s the usual NYT line, but you gotta love the kabuki.

When Robots Are Used for Evil, Nobody Wins (Except the robots)

Somehow, political robotic telemarketing seems even more annoying than robotic telemarketing that’s trying to sell me something. Thankfully, I haven’t gotten any of these calls:

Column: Just a bit of hypocrisy in Simmons’ attitude regarding robo calls


By RAY HACKETT
On Politics

Congressman Rob Simmons wants to share a phone number with his constituents in the 2nd Congressional District, and he’s urging people to call it: (202) 393-4352.

The number belongs to “American Family Voices,” the group behind the recent rash of the so-called robo calls — automated phone messages — that have flooded homes in Eastern Connecticut, urging residents to call Simmons’ office and tell him they don’t like his position against federal funding for port security.

Simmons has, in the past, claimed these calls have caused a major disruption of his staff’s ability to do its work as hundreds of constituents have called to complain about receiving the unwanted automated messages. So his solution to the problem is ask residents to call “American Family Voices” — and tell them to knock it off.

According to Simmons — and these are his words — American Family Voices is “notorious,” “a shadowy, partisan” organization using “these sleazy and deceptive” calls to distort his voting record.

I don’t recall the congressman being as equally outraged back in 2002 when another organization — United Seniors — flooded the homes of Eastern Connecticut with automated calls asking residents to call the congressman and “thank him” for passing a prescription-drug bill for seniors.
Continue reading When Robots Are Used for Evil, Nobody Wins (Except the robots)

It’s not just for Catholics anymore

Zakzak reports:

At Nagata Jinja in Nagatu-ku in Kobe city it was learned on the 4th of this month that a male priest(30) at the Shinto shrine (shrine head: Masakatsu Fujiwara) had installed a hidden video camera in the dressing room used by the shrine’s Miko and recorded them changing clothes. The shrine then fired him. The Nagata office of the Hyogo Prefectural police then filed charges with the Kobe District Prosecutor on suspicion of the minor offense of peeping.

According to the investigation, when on February 14th a worker was cleaning the shrine, they discovered that a video camera had been installed in an unused locker inside the girl’s changing room. Fujiwara shrine manager, along with reporting this to the Nagata police, also asked the 11 male staff about the situation, and one of the lower ranking male shrine priests known as “Gonnegi”
confessed to the crime.
The man made a statement that he had “made recordings on several occasionas.” The girl’s changing room was normally used by two Miko.

The Nagata shrine is said to have been built in the year 201 A.D. by Goshintaku(御神託). It is counted as one of the representative Shinto shrines of Kobe, along with Ikuta(生田) Jinja and Minatogawa(湊川) Jinja.

Note: Miko are so-called “shrine maidens” who assist in rituals, somewhat like an altar boy in Catholicism, but often with more responsibility and a wider range of dutied. They can be aged anywhere from early teens to mid-twenties, and despite the name virginity, or even marital status, is not a consideration in modern times.

Watch who you talk to

From today’s NYT article on the contents of newly released documents on the Guantanama Bay prisoners.

Another Saudi, Mazin Salih Musaid al-Awfi, was one of at least half a dozen men against whom the “relevant data” considered by the annual review boards included the possession at the time of his capture of a Casio model F-91W watch. According to evidentiary summaries in those cases, such watches have “been used in bombings linked to Al Qaeda.”

“I am a bit surprised at this piece of evidence,” Mr. Awfi said. “If that is a crime, why doesn’t the United States arrest and sentence all the shops and people who own them?”

Another detainee whose evidence sheet also included a Casio F-91W, Abdullah Kamal, was an electrical engineer from Kuwait who once played on his country’s national volleyball team. He was also accused of being a leader of a Kuwaiti militant group that collected money for Mr. bin Laden.

As for the Casio allegation, Mr. Kamal said the watch was a common one in Kuwait and had a compass that could be used to find the direction of Mecca for his prayers. “We have four chaplains” at Guantánamo, he said. “All of them wear this watch.”

Obviously the real issue is not are any of these men innocent, but how long as Casio been in league with the terrorists.

Now You Can Listen to anti-Japanese Rap Song “Fuck Zapan” Courtesy Mutant Frog Travelogue

DJ Doc
One of my first posts for Mutant Frog Travelogue concerned the strange case of an anti-Japanese rap song from Korean rap group DJ Doc (pictured above). In my infinite magnanimity, I translated the unintentionally hilarious lyrics:

Are you going to lie about your own history?! (Hai!) Go ahead and lie, you deceitful pigfeet!
Pussies! How much will you lie, pigfeet?! Keep on lying, Japs!
Lie to your mom and dad! Lie to your mom and dad!
Will you eat your mom? (Hai!) Is that OK? Yeah, that’s fine! That’s just fine!
Retard bitches! Go and have a seizure!
You barbarian, epileptic Japanese!
Mouse-dicked Jeps “Japan is our toilet!”… FUCK!
Pucking nation.. Chapan is a Pucking nation*4 (repeat 2x)

The post proved to be one of our most popular and generated comments that ranged from the merely curious (“Can’t we ALL just get ALONG?!”) to the downright deranged (“You’ll never look as good as the white man. so go eat some kemchi or sushi or shrimp fried rice you slit/slant eyed freaks.”).

Unfortunately, the site I originally linked to took down the audio clip, and I accidentally deleted the MP3 I had. But now I’m feeling generous again, so here it is again in all its amateurish glory! I’ve saved the file here, so this song will never again be lost to history. Try singing along using my English version of the lyrics!

(Thanks to ZMPK for making the song available again and Saru for taking the time to search for it)