Frozen food exists all over the world, but Japan is at the cutting edge of research and development. Modern products are almost identical to fresh goods both in texture and nutritional value. This time on Japanology Plus, our theme is frozen food. Our guest is university professor Toru Suzuki, who discusses the challenges involved in frozen food research. And in Plus One, Matt Alt tries cooking with frozen ingredients. His teacher is Takashi Nishikawa, a man some call the Freezer King.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
#114 Frozen Food - Japanology Plus
Frozen food exists all over the world, but Japan is at the cutting edge of research and development. Modern products are almost identical to fresh goods both in texture and nutritional value. This time on Japanology Plus, our theme is frozen food. Our guest is university professor Toru Suzuki, who discusses the challenges involved in frozen food research. And in Plus One, Matt Alt tries cooking with frozen ingredients. His teacher is Takashi Nishikawa, a man some call the Freezer King.
Boris Johnson: Playing the clown for the media circus?
What is the role of UK media in Boris Johnson's bid to become the next PM? Plus, nostalgia in Iranian diaspora media.
Boris Johnson and the UK media
Boris Johnson, the odds-on favourite to become Britain's next prime minister, had one distinct advantage going into the race to succeed Theresa May: name recognition.
When the UK media drop that name - Boris - Britons know who exactly they are talking about. As it happens, the news business is where Johnson got his start. As a correspondent in Brussels in the 1990s, Johnson produced a slew of Eurosceptic stories that readers found amusing; stories that could well have sown seeds in peoples' minds for an eventual Brexit.
Six In The Morning Sunday 30 June 2019
Donald Trump invites Kim Jong-un to visit US after stepping into North Korea
US president steps over demarcation line as two leaders chat in historic meeting
After announcing that the sides would be setting up new teams to take forward negotiations, Trump was asked during the press conference if he believed that North Korea’s previous negotiators were still alive.
“I think they are.. I know one of them is alive,” he replied.
Meanwhile, Trump talked up the fact that there has been no recent ballistic missile tests by North Korea.
Japan gives Trump colourful map to help him understand its investment in US
‘Kudos to Japan, they figured out how best to interact with a toddler. So sad’Jane Dalton
The Japanese prime minister has appeared to reveal a deep insight into Donald Trump’s thinking – when he gave him a colourful chart as a simple visual representation of Japanese investment in the US.
It depicted a map of America, with arrows leading to boxes of information on where and what the investments were.
The headline “Japan has five additional investments in just one month” was in big red letters with the words “five” and “just one month” both underlined and in capital letters – possibly designed to mirror Mr Trump’s liberal use of capital letters in his tweets.
Turkey's Democratic HopeIstanbul Mayor Poses Existential Threat to Erdogan
After opposition politician Ekrem Imamoglu won the first Istanbul mayoral election, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had the vote repeated. The new mayor's second victory heralds the arrival of a great democratic hope for Turkey -- and perhaps even the beginning of the end of the Erdogan era.
By Maximilian Popp
No matter where Ekrem Imamoglu goes these days, his fans await him: Women with headscarves who want to touch him, teenagers asking for a selfie. That's the case in Istanbul, where Imamoglu was elected mayor last Sunday by an overwhelming margin, but it's also true of conservative strongholds like the city of Trabzon on the Black Sea.
Videos recorded in Trabzon shortly before Imamoglu's election as mayor of Istanbul, show people celebrating him like a savior. They swing flags with this portrait, yelling: "President Ekrem!" His election song blasts from the speakers: "Her sey cok güzel olacak!" All will be good. The Imamoglu hype has swept across all of Turkey.
Sudan braces for 'million march' in opposition to military rule
Sudan braced Sunday for a mass protest in the capital against the country's ruling generals, as calls mounted for restraint to prevent a new military crackdown on demonstrators.
The planned "million-man" march is seen as a test for protest organisers who have been hit by a June 3 raid on a Khartoum sit-in and a subsequent internet blackout that has curbed their ability to mobilise support.
Dozens of demonstrators were killed and hundreds wounded when armed men in military fatigues stormed the sit-in outside army headquarters, shooting and beating protesters who had camped there since April 6.
Russia plans to tow a nuclear power station to the Arctic. Critics dub it a 'floating Chernobyl'
By Mary Ilyushina, CNN
Next month, a floating nuclear power plant called the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed via the Northern Sea Route to its final destination in the Far East, after almost two decades in construction.
It's part of Russia's ambition to bring electric power to a mineral-rich region. The 144-meter (472 feet) long platform painted in the colors of the Russian flag is going to float next to a small Arctic port town of Pevek, some 4,000 miles away from Moscow. It will supply electricity to settlements and companies extracting hydrocarbons and precious stones in the Chukotka region.
A larger agenda is at work too: aiding President Vladimir Putin's ambitious Arctic expansion plans, which have raised geopolitical concerns in the United States.
'Madrid Central' protest: Thousands oppose suspension of anti-pollution plan
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Madrid on Saturday to oppose the newly elected conservative mayor's decision to reverse car pollution restrictions.
The People's Party-run city hall has provoked an outcry by suspending a ban on most petrol and diesel cars in Madrid's centre.
The policy aimed to ensure the city complied with the EU's clean air rules.
Fines were levied on drivers who broke the rules.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Why Japanese Are ANGRY With Kim Kardashian
Many Japanese people are angry with Kim Kardashian because she launched a new brand and called her garment "kimono" which is a type of traditional Japanese clothes. Not only her garment has nothing to with kimono, but she also trademarked and tries to trademark names that include "kimono".
These photos ended child labor in the US
The 1900 US Federal Census revealed that 1.75 million children under the age of 16, more than one in five, were gainfully employed. They worked all over the country in cotton mills, glass blowing factories, sardine canneries, farms, and even coal mines. In an effort to expose this exploitation of children, the National Child Labor Committee hired a photographer to travel around the country and investigate and report on the labor conditions of children. Lewis Wickes Hine photographed and interviewed kids, some as young as 4 years old, and published his findings in various Progressive magazines and newspapers. Once the public saw the plight of these children, state legislatures were pressured to pass bills regulating labor for workers under the age of 18, effectively bringing an end to child labor in the United States.
Six In The Morning Saturday 29 June 2019
G20 summit: Trump and Xi agree to restart US-China trade talks
The United States and China have agreed to resume trade negotiations, easing a protracted row that has fuelled a global economic slowdown.
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached the agreement on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan.
Mr Trump said the talks had been "excellent".
He had threatened to impose an additional $300bn (£236bn) in tariffs on Chinese imports.
However after the meeting in Osaka, he confirmed that Washington would not be adding the additional tariffs, and that he would continue to negotiate with Beijing "for the time being".
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope is contagious'
One is America’s youngest-ever congresswoman, the other a Swedish schoolgirl. Two of the most powerful voices on the climate speak for the first time
by Emma Brockes
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enters a boardroom at her constituency office in Queens, New York, after a short delay which, a political aide hopes, hasn’t been caused by a constituent waylaying her in the corridor. (“They can get really excited to meet her.”) Greta Thunberg is in her home in Sweden, her father testing the technology for the video link while the teenager waits in the background. The activists have never met nor spoken but, as two of the most visible climate campaigners in the world, they are keenly aware of each other.
Sea-Watch enters Lampedusa, captain Carola Rackete arrested
German charity rescue ship with 40 migrants on board docks after 'tense' days-long standoff with Italian authorities.
A German charity rescue ship with 40 migrants on board defied authorities and docked in the port of the Italian island of Lampedusa early Saturday, after it was at sea for more than two weeks.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that an Italian customs police boat attempted to prevent the Sea-Watch 3 charity ship from docking on multiple occasions, but had to get out of the way in order to not be trapped against a wharf.
Chinese infiltrators plotting Taiwan takeover
Hands of the United Front seen in false news reports and distortion of results of last municipal elections
ByJONATHAN MANTHORPE, TAIPEI
Beijing’s long-threatened invasion of Taiwan is well underway, but its shock troops are not the foot-soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army. They are the shadowy agents of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “magic weapon,” who over the past decade have infiltrated Taiwanese society and institutions.
Since 2015 Xi has doubled the budget and responsibilities of the United Front, which aims to rally support for Chinese Communist Party objectives at home and abroad, often by creating groups and organizations that have no obvious affiliations with the party.
THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS PLANNING MASS VIDEO PROCEEDINGS FOR IMMIGRANTS IN TENTS ON THE BORDER
A TRUMP ADMINISTRATION program that banishes asylum-seekers to perilous Mexican border cities could expand exponentially — and disastrously — with a new plan to hold mass video proceedings in tents along the border.
Officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Trump program has already pushed over 15,000 migrants seeking asylum out of the U.S. and into areas just across the international line, many of which the State Department advises Americans to limit travel to because they are so crime-ridden. Many immigrant rights advocates call the program the “Migrant Persecution Protocols.”
Ancient palace emerges from drought-hit Iraq reservoir
Jack Guy, CNN • Updated 29th June 2019
A 3,400-year-old palace has emerged from a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought.
The discovery of the ruins in the Mosul Dam reservoir on the banks of the Tigris River inspired a spontaneous archeological dig that will improve understanding of the Mittani Empire, one of the least-researched empires of the Ancient Near East, the Kurdish-German team of researchers said in a press release.
"The find is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region in recent decades," Kurdish archeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim said in a press release.
Friday, June 28, 2019
Neutrinos - Elementary particles from the edge of the universe | DW Docu...
Neutrinos are spectral particles that are not only extraterrestrial but also extragalactic. Scientists have discovered that they make up a miniscule part of the cosmic rays that constantly bombard the Earth's atmosphere. We’ve known about neutrinos for a long time, but exactly where and how they are formed remains a mystery. International research teams at the South Pole and on the Mediterranean coast are now using gigantic detectors to "capture" the high-energy particles.
Six In The Morning Friday 28 June 2019
India has just five years to solve its water crisis, experts fear. Otherwise hundreds of millions of lives will be in danger
Updated 0536 GMT (1336 HKT) June 28, 2019
The world's second-most populous country is running out of water.
About 100 million people across India are on the front lines of a nationwide water crisis. A total of 21 major cities are poised to run out of groundwater next year, according to a 2018 report by government-run think tank NITI Aayog.
Much-needed monsoon rains have only just arrived in some places, running weeks late, amid a heatwave that has killed at least 137 people this summer.
French city shuts down public pools after two women wear burkinis
Grenoble authorities say shutdown was requested by lifeguards at the pool
Despite the unprecedented heatwave sweeping across western Europe, lifeguards in Grenoble have shut down the city’s two municipal swimming pools after Muslim women went swimming in burkinis.
The women went to the pools twice at the initiative of the Alliance Citoyenne rights group to challenge a city ban on the full-body swimwear.
According to a statement from the town hall, the lifeguards at the pools asked for the shutdown because “they are there to maintain safety and they can’t do that when they have to worry about the crowds”. It added: “We are working towards a positive solution.”
Father, Neighbor, KillerGermany's Chilling New Far-Right Terror
The recent politically motivated assassination of a prominent local leader in Germany has raised concern about the growing threat of far-right extremism in the country. As investigators search for possible accomplices, politicians are struggling to find answers to the escalating violence. By DER SPIEGEL Staff
Looking back, it was almost as if the group of high-ranking officials tasked with protecting Germany had had some dark premonition about what would soon transpire.
As the interior ministers of Germany's 16 states convened in a hotel in the northern city of Kiel, the first item on the agenda was a "security report." Sinan Selen, the vice president of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which is responsible for monitoring all forms of extremism, began enumerating the gravest threats to the country.
Why United Nations failed to save Rohingya
Insiders say UN sought to downplay criticism of Myanmar and was hamstrung by China, Russia opposition to firm response.
When Liam Mahony travelled to Myanmar to advise the United Nations on its handling of the Rohingya crisis, the dozens of aid workers he spoke to were almost unanimous in their appraisal of the organisation's approach.
Their view, the researcher recalls, was "this was all screwed up... this was not going to help the Rohingya population".
An aid worker who was helping to manage the detention camps in the western state of Rakhine - where the UN and others provide food and other basic necessities to tens of thousands of Rohingya who were forcibly relocated after riots in 2012 - offered Mahony a grim assessment of her role there.
Trump jokes to Putin: 'Don't meddle in the election, please'
By Jonathan Lemire
U.S. President Donald Trump met Russia's Vladimir Putin on Friday for the first time since the special counsel found extensive evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. When asked if he would warn Russia not to meddle in the next election, Trump wore a bit of a smile, pointed his finger at Putin and dryly said: "Don't meddle in the election, please."
The tone of the president's comments were immediately open to interpretation but would seem to do little to silence questions about Trump's relationship with Russia in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller's conclusion that his campaign did not collude with Russia in 2016. Their meeting in Japan was the first time the two sat together publicly since their summit in Helsinki nearly a year ago in which Trump pointedly did not admonish Putin over election interference and did not side with U.S. intelligence services over his Russian counterpart.
India arrests after women's heads shaved for resisting rape
Two people have been arrested in India's Bihar state after a group of men shaved the heads of two women as "punishment" for resisting rape.
The group, which included a local official, ambushed the mother and daughter in their home with the intent of raping them, police said.
When the women resisted, they assaulted them, shaved their heads and paraded them through the village.
Police say they are searching for five others involved in the incident.
"We were beaten with sticks very badly. I have injuries all over my body and my daughter also has some injuries," the mother told the ANI news agency.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Living in the Coldest Place on Earth (Siberia) - BBC Documentary
This is Oymyakon, a settlement of some 500 people in Russia’s Yakutia region, that has earned the reputation as the coldest permanently occupied human settlement in the world.Oymyakon, Siberia (-96.16 Fahrenheit/-71.2 Celsius) Oymyakon, in Siberia, holds the record for being the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth. The village, which sits 217 miles (350 km) below the Arctic Circle, is home to more than 210,000 people, despite its ground being in a constant state of permafrost.
Six In The Morning Thursday 27 June 2019
Dalai Lama says Donald Trump has a 'lack of moral principle'
Tibetan spiritual leader also reiterates that his female successor must be ‘attractive’
The Dalai Lama has said Donald Trump lacks moral principle and that he is open to the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists being a woman, but only if she is “attractive”.
In an interview with the BBC, the Dalai Lama also said that while he was a supporter of the EU and thought it would be better for the UK to remain part of it, he did not want to see Europe become “Muslim” or “African”.
Asked about the US president, whom the Tibetan spiritual leader has previously unflatteringly impersonated, he said: “His emotions [are] also a little bit,” and made a gesture waggling his finger near his temple. “One day he says something, another day he says something. But I think [there is a] lack of moral principle. When he became president, he expressed America first. That is wrong. America, they should take the global responsibility.”
China’s destination of choice
by Christine Chaumeau
For Sale and For Rent signs in Chinese are prominently displayed on buildings and construction sites in Sihanoukville, a Cambodian port city on the Gulf of Thailand that has become a destination of choice for Chinese investors in just a few months. On Independence Beach, two 38-storey towers are going up as part of the Blue Bay development, dwarfing everything around them. In the sales office, there’s a model of the development and brochures in Chinese and English. ‘We’ve already sold all the apartments in the first tower and 65% in the second. Our clientele is Chinese, Cambodian and Singaporean,’ the saleswoman told me. Bungalows on stilts and a swimming pool will be built on the beach. A casino and shopping centre will go on the mezzanine. The 1,450 apartments are due for release in 2019 and priced at $2,500-3,500 per square metre, a rate previously unheard of in this city.
Migrant rescue boat reaches Lampedusa, defying Italy's orders to stay out
The charity ship Sea-Watch entered Italian waters on Wednesday with 42 migrants aboard, defying an order from Rome to stay away and provoking a furious response from Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
The captain of the German-owned boat, which flies the Dutch flag, had decided to head to the island of Lampedusa because the situation on board was "now more desperate than ever", the group said in a statement.
It said captain Carola Rackete felt that maritime emergency law permitted the ship to enter Italian waters.
In his first reaction, Salvini, of the far-right League party, did not mince his words.
Australian student detained in North Korea was preparing to return home
Australian student Alek Sigley, reported to be detained in Pyongyang, had recently handed in his master's thesis and was preparing to return home.
He was interviewed by North Korea's official newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, and praised the country, in a report published this week, around the time he is believed to have been detained in Pyongyang.
Sigley complete the degree at Kim Il-sung University, where he had been studying literature, and was in good spirits in recent days, says his friend, the Australian National University North Korea expert Leonid Petrov.
'Big loss': Libya's UN-recognised government 'retakes' key town
Government of National Accord claims it has wrested Gharyan from Khalifa Haftar's forces who say fighting is ongoing.
Forces allied to Libya's UN-recognised government say they have retaken Gharyan, a strategic town south of the capital, Tripoli, although forces loyal to renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar denied the claims.
Gharyan is the main forward base for the eastern-based Libya National Army (LNA) under Haftar which has been fighting to take control of Tripoli for almost three months.
Mustafa al-Mejii, a spokesman for forces loyal to the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord, told AFP news agency: "Gharyan is under our total control."
Trump Criticizes Megan Rapinoe Over Refusal to Visit White House
The American soccer star had used an obscenity to dismiss the idea of a White House visit if her team won the Women’s World Cup.
By Andrew Keh
Megan Rapinoe was still sweating through her uniform on Monday night, moments after scoring two goals for the United States women’s soccer team, when she was asked what the atmosphere around the Americans’ next World Cup match, an elimination game against France on Friday in Paris, might be like.
“Hopefully a complete spectacle, just an absolute media circus,” she said, with the blend of sarcasm and sincerity that has made her one of the most popular women’s soccer players in the world. “I hope it’s huge and crazy.”
Her wish has begun to come true — though perhaps not in the way she imagined.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
How this border transformed a subcontinent
The British tasked Cyril Radcliffe with the job of drawing a line to separate Punjab and Bengal provinces from India into East and West Pakistan. Muslims and Hindus weren’t the only ones being separated from each other. Sikhs and people from other faiths were affected as well. A Sikh pilgrimage was divided because of the new border, Punjabi people of all faiths were separated from each other, and a culture was ultimately divided.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, Chinese leaders agreed that Hong Kong would be able to keep its economic and political systems, including some of the civil freedoms denied to China’s citizens on the mainland, for the next 50 years. Although Hong Kong still has nearly 30 years of semi-autonomy left, China has started tightening its grip, and many believe it is chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms. In this episode, I explore how Hong Kong is dealing with the looming deadline and China’s premature moves.
Six In The Morning Wednesday 26 June 2019
Democrats get their man -- Mueller -- for blockbuster hearings
Updated 0522 GMT (1322 HKT) June 26, 2019
Robert Mueller's long-awaited public testiomony next month will give Democrats their best and perhaps last chance to seize on the Russia scandal to try to inflict a decisive political wound on President Donald Trump.
The former special counsel's appearance on Capitol Hill on July 17, announced late Tuesday, represents a serious blow to a President who has spent weeks misrepresenting Mueller's final report.
Democrats hope the spectacle of the respected former FBI director testifying on television will move Americans against Trump in a way Mueller's dense, 448-page report did not.
Hong Kong protesters call on foreign leaders to raise crisis at G20
Demonstrators march on consulates to petition overseas governments to assist in fight against ‘authoritarian regime’
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