Category: Current Events

Guantanamo Bay better than my hometown, says Rep Simmons


This is what my representative, Bill Simmons (R-CT) has to say about Guantanamo Bay:

Simmons: Guantanamo conditions better than critics claim

By RAY HACKETT
Norwich Bulletin

U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, said recent criticism of U.S. activities at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba are unfounded, based on his tour of the facility Monday.

“My impression was that the military personnel there are highly professional, well-trained and very much in charge of the situation,” Simmons said Tuesday during a telephone conference call from his Washington office. “It appeared to be very professionally run and, from what I saw, very different than what I had expected.”

Simmons and 10 other members of Congress toured the facility Monday, witnessing an interrogation of a detainee, eating a detainee-style lunch and visiting the base’s detainee hospital.

…

The treatment of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq has come under sharp criticism.

But Simmons said conditions at Guantanamo are significantly better than most maximum security prisons in the United States, such as Somers in Connecticut.

I’ve never been inside the prison, but they just killed a guy there and from what I hear it’s every bit as gruesome as Oz.

Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro sued for insane claim that ‘French cannot be used to count’

Translated from Yomiuru. Do I really need to comment? Whether or not the suit has any legal merit, Ishihara is a complete and total nutjob.

Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro being sued for statement that “French is disqualified from international use”

The head of a Tokyo French language school filed suit on July 13th against Tokyo prefectural governor Ishihara Shintaro (72) in response to his statement that “French is unable to count numbers, and so is disqualified from use as an international language.” In the suit, which was presented to the Tokyo district court, the plaintiff claims that the governor’s statement “damaged my reputation and interfered with my business” and is demanding total damages to the order of ￥10,500,000, as well as a public apology.

The plaintiff is Malik Berkane, head of the Class de France (Tokyo Minato-ku), as well as 21 other French interpreters/translators and researchers.

According to the complaint, the statement in question was uttered in October of last year during a meeting of the General Support Foundation for the Establishment of a Metropolitan University of Tokyo at the Tokyo governmental office. Teachers from the former Prefectural University’s literature faculty, which includes French, were speaking in opposition to the establishment of the new university, which decreased the size of their faculty. Ishihara, in addition to his statements on “French’s disqualification” also said that “it is utterly ridiculous that that these people still clinging to French are opposed to the opening of this school.”

The plantiff’s claim states that “It is in fact possible to count in French, and it is also a common language in international organizations.”

According to the governor’s office, “Because the complaint has not yet been delivered, we cannot offer any comment at this time.”

Two busted with illicit beef

Today’s Taipei Times has this brief news item.

Two people were caught last Wednesday at the CKS International Airport trying to bring in beef from Japan, despite a ban on its import, the Taipei Customs Offices said yesterday. Japan is the only Asian victim of mad cow disease and has reported 20 cases since September 2001. The government has banned the import of Japanese beef since 2001. Inspectors seized nearly 20kg of frozen beef from the luggage of the two passengers, including a Taiwanese and a Japanese, when they arrived from Tokyo aboard a China Airlines flight. The smuggled beef was shipped to a quarantine center in Hsinchu where it will be destroyed.

It’s almost funny that Japan, which has had 20 confirmed cases of mad cow disease, has banned beef from the US, which has had no cases of human transmission in that same time period.

DPJ’s Okada Has Big Aims for Next Election


In a town meeting in Shinza City, Saitama Prefecture, Katsuya Okada (profile), president of the Democratic Party of Japan, Japan’s main opposition party, made a big claim among his usual policy statements: in the next election he thinks he can take the government.

“Our goal is regime change. When we overtake the Liberal Democratic Party in the next elections and take over the government, then it will be time to celebrate.”

On the recent [very close] passage of the postal privatization bills in the upper house, Okada said, “I was so excited.” He offered harsh criticism to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and LDP Secretary-General Tsutomu Takebe, calling their recent comments [threats to dissolve the Lower House] “incoherent.” He then restated his commitment that “the bills must not pass the Upper House [where they will enter deliberation next week].”

He then set his sights on the weakened LDP: “Right now the Koizumi government can’t do anything big without the approval of the New Komeito. He won’t be able to dissolve the Lower House.” But he did not rule it out, saying “I don’t know what will happen. I can’t deny the possibility of dissolution and a general election.”

About the DPJ’s prospects for the next election: “If we win in 170 single-member districts and combine those with proportional seats, we will be able to form a DPJ government.” When considering the prospects of a DPJ government, he added, “If we stayed in power for 2 terms (8 years) we could do quite a lot.”

Besides his big election hopes, the town meeting gave him the chance to repeat the DPJ’s populist platform, including the “Japan isn’t 100% at fault, but then neither are Korea or China” stance on the recent diplomatic troubles in the region (he called Koizumi’s stance “narrow-minded nationalism”), his continued stance against raising taxes (including the consumption tax), a push to reform the national pension system and the highway system.

Comment: That’s a tall order for the DPJ. They are now hurrying to prepare for the snap elections since they haven’t even fielded candidates in 42 of those districts. This meeting was likely an effort to promote DPJ Lower House candidate Hideo Kazuki and to accumulate election funds, an area in which the DPJ severely lags behind the LDP. But who knows, they might just be able to ride the anti-postal privatization sentiment to victory. 51 LDP members refused to side with the government out of fears that they would be voted out of office.

The sad thing is postal privatization is a painful but necessary step for Japan to rebuild its economy. The DPJ is being short-sighted in opposing it, and I don’t see much of an alternative plan coming from them. My next post on the DPJ will take a closer look at their policies.

Reporter convicted of revealing state secrets

No, I’m not talking about Judith Miller, but considering that a judge has just ordered her incarceration, this story from yesterday’s Japan Times is particularly timely.

Trial opens over denial of secret accord with U.S.

A court battle opened Tuesday on a damages suit filed by a former Mainichi Shimbun reporter who claims his career was ruined after he was wrongly convicted for reporting on an alleged secret pact between Japan and the United States over the 1972 reversion of Okinawa.

Takichi Nishiyama, 73, is seeking 33 million yen in compensation and an apology from the government, arguing his report that Japan secretly shouldered $4 million of the costs for Okinawa’s reversion from the U.S. has been backed up by the release of U.S. government documents in 2000 and 2002.

“It is a state crime to submit a false treaty text to the Diet for discussion and approval, and it is an abuse of power to indict a reporter who tried to inform the public of the state crime,” Nishiyama says in the complaint.

[Read the rest of the article at the original site]

Asia Private Equity

Here’s an excerpt from the July 6 edition of the Asia Private Equity newsletter. You may want to re-read Saru’s earlier posts on Chinese currency as background.
RMB Notes Part 1
RMB Notes Part 2

These days, however, there is really no place in America that hums with the kind of 24-hour activity that Beijing has. But this week in Beijing, an official of the State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE) showed up at one of China ‘s principal private equity events and delivered enough bad news to make every Beijing Duck eating capitalist dyspeptic. SAFE, the government agency that has brought private equity in China to its knees in six short months by issuing two controversial circulars in January and April, is, according to the official, pretty pleased with itself and the progress it’s making in developing regulations to prevent rich Chinese entrepreneurs from secreting away hundreds of millions from their IPOs in the U.S., in banks in the Cayman Islands or other places.

The problem with the understandable desire of Chinese authorities to tax its citizens is that in trying to accomplish that goal, it has effectively brought down the curtain on the clever legal structures, WOFEs, developed in 1999, which private equity firms have used for the last six years to get their money back out of China investments. And according to SAFE’s Li-Ping Lu, there is nothing on the horizon, other than a bunch of cranky Chinese and American VCs, that is likely to change the current situation.

When Lu shared those and other less positive views, the PE professionals in Beijing this past week turned as surly as a bunch of striking teamsters. WOFEs are, it seems, pretty much dead in the water. And until somebody in the Chinese government does or says something different, private equity firms are having to retreat into joint ventures (sometimes referred to as Chinese PE roach motels–investors check in, but they don’t check out) or giving their portfolio companies bridge loans until or even more troublingly, working with Chinese partners on the basis of “gentleman’s agreements.” When is the last time you saw a VC fork over a million for a handshake?

To paraphrase Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, it’s going to be a long, hot summer. And it’s never going to end.

— Editor Jerry Borrell (jerry.borrell@thomson.com)

Crazy — Namco and Bandai to Merge


VS.

I’m too tired to think of anything but postal privatization these days, but here you go:

Japanese toy and game firms merge
May 3, 2005

By Shingo Ito

Japan’s top toy maker, Bandai, known for its Gundam sci-fi robots, yesterday announced it would merge with Pac-Man maker Namco to survive tough competition in an ever tighter market of fewer and fewer children.

The merger, which would create Japan’s second-largest toy and game firm after Sega Sammy Holdings, could take on the dominance of Walt Disney, Bandai president Takeo Takasu told a news conference.

“It is the best match considering the characteristics and strengths of both companies,” Takasu said.

“In terms of content, Disney may become our competitor and as for the location [of game arcades], we will compete with Sega.”

The two companies said they needed to consolidate to face up to demographic realities in Japan, which has one of the world’s lowest birth rates as young people increasingly push back marriage, leaving the population ageing quickly.

“Global competition is intensifying in the world’s entertainment industry as technological innovation has enhanced the networking environment,” the two companies said in a joint statement.

“On the domestic market, we face the strong need to win customers with the number of children decreasing and hobbies and pastimes diversifying,” the statement said.

What better way to celebrate the 25th birthday of Pacman, the character that built Namco into what it is today, than to destroy the company as it has always existed? Just for the hell of it, here are some reviews from some of both companies’ great products:

Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam

July 4, 2005 – I’m lazy, and I’m writing this review (if you even call it that) in an attempt to equalize the absolutely astoundingly high reviews some of you gave this game. Why not give the general public some respect. A good show does not reflect a good game, so use some common knowledge, and throw your fanboyism out the window. Here are some quotes by Ed in his recent mailbag that I would like you all to read:

“Yeah, it’s obvious that this is a game for the fans. It has the word Gundam in the title three times over so that the idiots who like the series couldn’t miss it even if they tried. Seriously, who the hell has the franchise name done in triplicate? But as for the casual gamer who wants to jump into it, I couldn’t recommend it at all. The battles were boring, the controls pathetic and the graphics could barely hold up the meager attempt at any visual style they tried to project.

As an overall experience, the game was just lacking in several ways. After hours of play I couldn’t see any reason to go on unless you really loved the sword-wielding bots.

How about Namco?


Namco Museum Volume 1

PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A GOOD GAME
I played this game and I hated it. The game isn”t even worth playing because it has so little to it. Its just the same boring games rereleased so namco could make a quick buck from an old classic. I wouldn”t even give this game 1star if I had the choice.

Looks like they both suck. Case closed. Just kidding, they are two of the coolest companies ever.

The Dragon Awakes

Howard French has reposted a very good article on China’s military buildup and the corresponsing politics written by Ian Bremmer for The National Interest. Still, can we finally stop using such cliched titles? Let’s just all accept that ‘the dragon’ is already awake and stop beating a dead horse.

The whole thing is good reading, but this quote really jumped out at me.

The “Taiwan lobby” in the U.S. Congress is also sounding an alarm. On February 16, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate proposed a joint resolution to resume diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The proposal would have proven political dynamite if it had any chance of passing. It did not. While the Bush Administration resolutely opposed the move as a dangerous encouragement of Taiwan’s independence movement, China treated the resolution as a grave insult.

Does anybody have more info on this? In particular, the resolution in question and its voting record. I’m a little surprised that this didn’t make the news when it hit the senate floor.

Another question:

Nor was Washington able to dissuade Beijing from going ahead with a March “anti-secession law”, which provides a quasi-legal basis for invasion should Taiwan declare formal independence.

Now, Taiwan’s international status is at best ambigious. Were it universally considered an independent, sovereign nation than any invasion by China would be a clear violation of international law, but is their any actual standard for acceptable behavior regarding breakaway territories? Clearly nobody seems to be bothering Russia about their campaign against the separatist Chechnyans, but on the other hand East Timor had fairly broad international support in their independence movement. Are there any other noteworthy cases in the past 30 or so years?

Ritsumeikan to Open Confucius Institute

As I reported before, the Chinese government is set to open Chinese language schools called “Confucius Institutes” around the world. This just in from Xinhua tells us that the first such Institute to open in Japan will be at my alma mater, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto:

Confucian Academy to have 1st branch in Japan

BEIJING, June 29 — China and Japan have agreed to establish the first branch of Confucian Academy in Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto.

The Chinese ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, hopes the academy will help improve understanding and friendship between Chinese and Japanese people.

Confucian Academy is a non-profit institution, which is devoted to teaching Chinese language and culture.

Calling it a non-profit institution is a little misleading, since it is, after all, funded and created by the Chinese government!

Kuro5hin.org is smarter than me

Some of our readers might have heard about the landmark Supreme Court decision regarding Grokster and the legality of P2P software. As someone deeply concerned about P2P issues I wanted to point you guys in the direction of some enlightened commentary on the subject from kuro5shin:

To quote the ruling itself on inducement:

The rule on inducement of infringement as developed in the early cases is no different today. Evidence of “active steps … taken to encourage direct infringement,” such as advertising an infringing use or instructing how to engage in an infringing use, show an affirmative intent that the product be used to infringe, and a showing that infringement was encouraged overcomes the law’s reluctance to find liability when a defendant merely sells a commercial product suitable for some lawful use.

What this means is that simply making a product that can be used for infringement is not illegal. Even if the overwhelming majority of the people are using the product for infringement it is still not illegal. Grokster, the company, is only in the wrong because it marketed its product as being a tool specifically for infringement. Take note of how I say the company as opposed to the product. The Supreme Court of the United States has just ruled that P2P software is legal. Grokster — the product — is legal, but Grokster, the company, may be sued. I don’t see how one could reasonably want a better decision than that.

Read the rest and learn. Most reporting on the issue, like the above Post article, says the decision means that any P2P service can be sued successfully if it is used for infringement. Kuro5hin disagrees, claiming that the decision merely faulted Grokster because they specifically marketed their product’s infringing abilities. If he’s right (and it looks like he is) then things like BitTorrent would seem to have a much better case — and a more substantial reason to exist in terms of non-infringing uses.