NISA Needs To Take Evil Lessons

Sneaky attempts to manipulate public opinion meltdown

The US Declares War On The Yakuza

President Obama cancels his yakuza fanzine subscription

Book: Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works

What is the future of Japan? Can the country get back on its feet? It’s a question that the world and the people of Japan are asking themselves. McKinsey & Company have edited a book that aims to answer this question. Reimagining Japan is a collection of eighty essays that aim to shed light on [...]

US report: human trafficking inside government’s foreign trainee program

Just two months after Japan got burned in the US State Department’s 2010 Human Rights Report, a new paper pins the country’s foreign trainee program as being almost as close as you can get to state-sanctioned labor trafficking. According to the 2011 Trafficking in Persons report, the Industrial Trainee and Technical Internship Program run by JITCO, [...]

Einstein, Insanity, Nuclear Meltdowns and Tokyo Electric Power Company

“Would there have been a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant even without the tidal wave?” 福島原発事故の記録：津波が来なくてもメルトダウンは起きた？ The July 11 edition of the 週間エコノミスト (The Weekly Economist, a respected Japanese publication but not The Economist) has a long interview with Mitsuhiko Tanaka (田中三彦氏) a former nuclear reactor manufacturing technician, who in a very [...]

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO): Is it time to turn off the lights?

“Jump in a nuclear reactor and die!’ Those were the words directed at the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) by one angry man at the tense stockholders meeting held today on June 28. It captured the sentiment of many people in Japan who are demanding the company take responsibility for the meltdown on [...]

9 Day Warning: On March 2nd, NISA disciplined TEPCO on lax equipment checks before meltdown

On March 2nd, approximately nine days before the TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Reactor One melted down, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) formally disciplined TEPCO for failure to conduct inspections on critical pieces of equipment at the Fukushima Number One and Number Two Reactor. NISA found that TEPCO had [...]

Tokyo Prosecutor Special Investigation Unit Takes Lead on TEPCO case, as new evidence contradicts TEPCO claims.

As reported on April 4th here, Japanese law-enforcement continues their investigation into TEPCO, the managing entity of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor for charges of professional negligence resulting in death or injury, but now the Tokyo Prosecutor Special Investigation Unit has begun their own independent investigation. Update: The investigations may extend to public officials as well.  In [...]

Child pornography, government corruption color 2010 US Report On Human Rights in Japan

One that totally flew under our radar: On April 11, the US State Department released their 2010 Human Rights Report for Japan, detailing human rights conditions on everything from the right to collective bargaining to institutionalized hazing. While Japan is hardly a major violator like, say, friendly neighbours China and North Korea, it is surprising (and in some [...]

The jury is in: Japan's new jury system is a farce.

This news story slipped under my large nose in the last few days of earth-shaking quake related news. On March 30th (2011) the Tokyo High Court overturned the not-guilty verdict of a 60 year-old office worker accused of smuggling in meth-amphetamines and other crimes. He was the first person to be found completely innocent under [...]