Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:27 am Post subject:
Rescue teams searched for missing people after a typhoon pounded western Japan, leaving at least 37 people dead and more than 50 unaccounted for.
Torrential rain brought by powerful Typhoon Talas, which made landfall on Saturday and was one of the deadliest in years, caused rivers to swell and triggered floods and landslides that swept away buildings, homes and roads.
Police and firefighters resumed a search for the missing early on Monday, warning the number of victims was set to rise as the continued threat of landslides and damaged access routes hampered relief efforts.
In the deadliest typhoon since an October 2004 storm killed nearly 100 people, floods triggered by Typhoon Talas gave rise to scenes eerily reminiscent of the aftermath of the March 11 tsunami that hit north-east Japan.
In Nachikatsuura town, a railway bridge was swept into a river, while TV footage showed splintered trees, crushed houses and cars tossed onto walls and buildings by the raging floodwaters that inundated entire neighbourhoods.
By Sunday, Talas had been downgraded to a tropical storm after it moved over Japan and into the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the Meteorological Agency said, but risks of further landslides posed a threat to rescue and recovery efforts.
The storm came after new prime minister Yoshihiko Noda was sworn in on Friday, replacing Naoto Kan, who was heavily criticised for the government's response in the aftermath of the March 11 disasters.
"We will do our best in saving lives and finding the missing," Mr Noda told reporters on Monday.
The Talas weather system dumped 1.8 metres of rain on a village in Nara prefecture for five days through Sunday, more than Tokyo's annual average rainfall, said the Yomiuri daily.
"We are struggling to get a hold on the current situation ... electricity is out and destroyed roads are preventing our vehicles from going into affected areas," said an official at the fire department in Tanabe, Wakayama prefecture.
"We are conducting operations everywhere in the city. With phone lines down, however, we have no means of communication" with those stranded in areas hit by landslides or flooding, the official said.
Mayor's daughter killed
The daughter of Nachikatsuura town mayor Shinichi Teramoto was killed as the official ran disaster relief operations on Sunday. His wife was also missing.
His house was destroyed by a torrent of water.
"I saw the body of my daughter. The best I could do was to be by her side for half an hour," NHK footage showed the mayor saying in his office.
"While I'm here, I don't want to show my sorrow even though I have this in my mind," he said.
Television footage showed massive landslides crushing wooden houses in mountain communities, with muddy water submerging streets and washing away wooden debris and cars.
A tally by Kyodo said at least 3,600 people were left stranded by landslides and collapsed bridges.
In hard-hit Wakayama and Nara prefectures, officials said more than 1,300 people were staying at evacuation centres with around 7,000 households being asked to flee.
Enraged customer parks car at McDonald's drive-thru window for two hours
CRIME SEP. 10, 2011 - 06:20AM JST ( 46 )AICHI �\
A man has been arrested in Konan, Aichi Prefecture, for obstructing business at a McDonalds drive-thru restaurant last Wednesday night, police said Friday. The man, who has been identified as Daigo Yumioka, 38, reportedly lost his temper at one of the restaurant employees and stopped his car at the order collection window for almost two hours between 9:20 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The Sports Nippon paper quoted witnesses as saying that the employee asked the man to hold on for a moment as the restaurant was busy, before switching off the microphone. Yumioka appeared to get angry, witnesses said. He then parked his car at the order collection window and began to drink alcohol. When police arrived and asked him to move his car, he was quoted by officers as saying he was too drunk to drive. Daigo was arrested for obstruction of business.
Well, at least he had the sense not to drive drunk.
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:02 am Post subject:
shin2 wrote:
Enraged customer parks car at McDonald's drive-thru window for two hours
CRIME SEP. 10, 2011 - 06:20AM JST ( 46 )AICHI �\
A man has been arrested in Konan, Aichi Prefecture, for obstructing business at a McDonalds drive-thru restaurant last Wednesday night, police said Friday. The man, who has been identified as Daigo Yumioka, 38, reportedly lost his temper at one of the restaurant employees and stopped his car at the order collection window for almost two hours between 9:20 p.m. and 11 p.m.
The Sports Nippon paper quoted witnesses as saying that the employee asked the man to hold on for a moment as the restaurant was busy, before switching off the microphone. Yumioka appeared to get angry, witnesses said. He then parked his car at the order collection window and began to drink alcohol. When police arrived and asked him to move his car, he was quoted by officers as saying he was too drunk to drive. Daigo was arrested for obstruction of business.
Well, at least he had the sense not to drive drunk.
My only question is why did it take two hours to resolve this situation. In L.A. somebody would have pulled him out of the car and beat his ass if the cops didn't do it first.
The Sports Nippon paper quoted witnesses as saying that the employee asked the man to hold on for a moment as the restaurant was busy, before switching off the microphone. Yumioka appeared to get angry, witnesses said.
Japanese return cash recovered after tsunami
In a testament to Japan's culture of honesty, finders have turned in $78 million to authorities and some have waived their right to the money even when the rightful owners cannot be found.
By Tom Miyagawa Coulton and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
10:49 PM PDT, September 22, 2011
Reporting from Tokyo and Seoul
The unmarked envelope floated into the living room of the home in northeastern Japan, riding the wave of tsunami floodwaters. Inside, the astounded resident found $40,000 in yen notes.
More money has been found in wallets, paper bags, and other containers swept away from their owners and scattered across a landscape ripped apart by the March 11 earthquake. One woman found $26,000 in a purse she had spotted atop a pile of debris. One police locksmith opened the heavy door of a recovered safe to find $1.3 million in yen notes.
What followed is a testament to a culture of honesty and altruism: The Japanese have turned over more than $48 million in loose cash to authorities.
"People tell me they just want the money to go to its owner," said Kouetsu Saiki, a Miyagi prefecture police officer who oversees the collection, identification and return of salvaged money and valuables.
It will never be known whether the less altruistic pocketed what they found. But add the $30 million collected from recovered safes, and Japanese citizens and authorities in the three main prefectures damaged by the tsunami have helped salvage a stunning $78 million.
Just as remarkable, authorities say, some finders have waived their right to the money even when the rightful owners cannot be found in a region where 25,000 people are either confirmed or presumed dead.
According to Japanese law, any unclaimed money reverts to the authorities after three months. It was unclear whether the government was planning to offer the uncollected proceeds to a general victims fund.
Police officers and firefighters scouring the debris recovered much of the lost cash, but individual citizens have also done their part.
"Everyone wants to help each other in any way that they can," Saiki said.
The powerful tsunami in March carried away houses, automobiles and safes, dragging many of them out to sea. However, more than 5,700 safes have been recovered, many spotted by residents who summon police to provide the muscle needed to lift the heavy objects.
In privacy-conscious Japan, the names of the finders and the people who have seen money returned have been kept confidential. But Saiki says the stories continue to amaze him.
The recovered safe was the largest single find. The money belonged to the owner of a local company whose offices were swept away. All of the cash, police say, was given to company employees.
"He was so grateful to have his money back," Saiki said. "He didn't keep it but distributed it among his workers and their families. It's not about personal gain here. Everyone has suffered in this tsunami."
So far, all but $500,000 of the $30 million found in the safes has found its way back to the rightful owners, Saiki said.
Miyagi prefecture has also seen a high return rate in the salvaged loose cash. Of the $24 million that has been turned in to police in the prefecture, authorities have managed to return $21 million to owners.
Altruism and honesty among different cultures are difficult to measure and compare, but in 2003 a University of Michigan Law School professor conducted what he called a comparative study on recovering lost property in the United States and Japan.
The professor, Mark West, left 20 wallets on the street in Tokyo and 20 in New York, each containing the equivalent of $20. In New York, he said, six wallets were returned with the cash intact and two were brought back empty. In Tokyo, finders returned 17 of 20 wallets, all with the cash intact, and all but one waived the right to claim the money if the owner wasn't found.
"There's no evidence Japanese people have extreme norms of honesty," West recently wrote in an email about his 2003 study. "It's partly cultural training, but mostly the law urges people to hand in lost property to the police."
Brigitte Steger, a researcher at England's University of Cambridge, recently spent a month observing the daily lives of people displaced by the tsunami who were still housed in evacuation shelters.
She found that residents were driven toward honest behavior by what she called the social balance that provides the cohesiveness of any community.
"That social balance would be destroyed as soon as you're caught stealing someone else's belongings," Steger said.
Saiki said the case that moved him most didn't involve cash, but something more valuable: a set of lost family photo albums. When the owner saw the pictures, he broke into tears.
"His family and his home were all lost in the tsunami," Saiki said. "The photographs in the safe were the only connection he had to his life before the disaster."
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2011 10:46 am Post subject:
Tokyo Report Card: Peak Energy Use Cut 18%
By Yoree Koh
September 27, 2011
As Tokyo powered down this summer, ubiquitous monitors tracking daily energy consumption served as a constant reminder of how much cushion was left in the day�fs supply. The big picture �\ exactly how much overall energy was being saved compared to last year – was less clear. The report card is in and it�fs an impressive read.
Throughout the month of August, demand within the area serviced by Tokyo Electric Power Co. was consistently about 9,000 to 10,000 megawatts lower than the time with comparable temperatures in 2010 – even as the mercury hovered above averages from previous years, according to a report released by Tepco on Monday. Starting July 1, most users were required to reduce consumption by 15% during the weekday, though there were some exceptions to the rule, for fear of sudden blackouts.
Demand peaked on Aug. 18 at 49.22 gigawatts, as Tokyo boiled at 36.1 degrees Celsius (96.98 degrees Fahrenheit). That high point is about 10.8 gigawatts lower than the maximum amount last year, an 18% reduction. To compare, the peak demand amount was slightly shy of the gross electric output of the nine remaining nuclear power plants online in Germany. What is more, the 2011 peak is a 23% decrease compared with the historic daily high of 64.3 gigawatts logged a decade ago.
Large customers, a silo that includes the likes of the massive auto industry, cut power the most on Aug. 18, reducing power use by about 29% compared to the most in-demand day in 2010 when temperatures were a hair lower at 35.7 degrees Celsius. Households chipped off the least, consuming about 17 gigawatts, or about 6% less. Tepco said in its reports that large customers were able to lop off demand because of altered production schedules. Aug. 18 was a Thursday, which became the new first day of the weekend this summer at many blue chips. Operating hours were adjusted to minimize power consumption during peak demand times.
While Tokyo squirmed through summer without the usual abundant aid of air conditioners, capital dwellers caught a couple breaks. This year, the humid rainy season in July ended 12 days earlier than average and summer cooled off earlier than normal. The average temperature last year in late August was 34.4 degrees Celsius while it was 29.1 degrees during the same period this year.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:00 pm Post subject:
An independent investigation in Japan has revealed a long history of nuclear power companies conspiring with governments to manipulate public opinion in favour of nuclear energy.
One nuclear company even stacked public meetings with its own employees who posed as ordinary citizens to speak in support of nuclear power plants.
"The number one reactor has been operating for 30 years and I've never had a problem selling my rice or vegetables because of fears of radiation," a man posing as a farmer told a gathering of citizens discussing a proposal to use plutonium fuel at the Genkai nuclear plant on the southern island of Kyushu.
The man was not a farmer at all. It turns out he is an employee of the Kyushu Electric Power Company, the operator of the Genkai nuclear plant.
In another meeting aired live on TV after the Fukushima meltdowns, the company asked viewers to email in questions.
But again, the questions were all written by the company and sent in by employees posing as ordinary citizens, and these emails urged the company to restart reactors left idle after the Fukushima disaster.
The head of an independent investigation panel, Nobuo Gohara, says the meetings were supposed to be an opportunity for the public to ask questions, but Kyushu Electric blatantly planted leading questions and favourable comments.
Not only that, the panel found that the utility also destroyed important documents relating to its investigation.
Audio: Japan nuclear companies manipulated public opinion (AM)
Governor implicated
It also implicated the governor of the prefecture, saying Yasushi Furukawa was colluding with the nuclear company to manipulate public opinion.
"There's a lack of transparency between Kyushu electric and local officials," Mr Gohara said.
The panel recommended that the utility stop making political donations and refrain from buying tickets to political fundraisers and has called on the governor to disentangle himself from the nuclear company.
"I've been urged in the report to rethink my relationship with Kyushu Electric Power Company," Mr Furukawa said.
"So I will consider what an appropriate relationship should be."
The Kyushu Electric Power Company has promised not to rig, stage or manipulate public meetings ever again.
"This is the moment of truth for our company," said vice-president Yoshinori Fukahori. "We will do out utmost to prevent a recurrence."
But if you think this was a one-off case involving one Japanese nuclear power company, you would be wrong.
Another investigation has found that at least three other nuclear firms also rigged meetings in an attempt to manipulate public opinion and they did it in collusion with the Nuclear Safety Agency - the very government body supposed to keep them on the straight and narrow.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Register
Log in
Of course not! 
