The Worst Traffic in Japan is not in Tokyo

 

Okinawa Shopping Street Experience | Kokusai Dori Naha

 

How My Okinawa Trip Went HORRIBLY Wrong | 48 Hours in Japan's Paradise

 

Ishigaki island is Japan's ultimate tropical paradise. In the final episode of Journey Across Japan: Escape to paradise, we explore it by land, sea and air in numerous hellish ways.

The Lost Textile of Ryukyu - NHK WORLD PRIME

 A textile designer travels to Okinawa on a quest to unravel the mysteries behind an enigmatic fabric. With the help of artisans and researchers, common threads connecting to the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa's former name) begin to emerge.

Japanology Plus - Okinawan Dance

BEGIN Japanology - Ryukyu Kimono

Bingata (Okinawan: 紅型, literally "red style") is an Okinawan traditional resist dyed cloth, made using stencils and other methods. It is generally brightly colored and features various patterns, usually depicting natural subjects such as fish, water, and flowers. Bingata is worn during traditional Ryūkyū arts performances and historical reenactments.

LDP comes under fire over anti-newspaper comments

A friend of Shinzo Abe's Naoki Hyakuta and former member public broadcaster NHK suggested in a speech to Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) backbenchers that two Okinawan newspapers be forced to cease publication over their criticism of government policy concerning Okinawa and the U.S. bases there.

      The furor erupted on Thursday when novelist Naoki Hyakuta—a former NHK board member and close friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—said during his lecture that the Okinawa Times and the Ryukyu Shimpo should be put out of business, Fuji TV reported. Other lawmakers present suggested the government put pressure on the Japan Business Federation to urge members not to advertise in the two Okinawan newspapers.

 On Friday in the Diet, opposition lawmakers questioned Abe. “Don’t you feel ashamed or sorry as the LDP leader? Is there anything you want to say about it?” asked lower house member Kiyomi Tsujimoto of the Social Democratic Party. Abe said that freedom of the press is a fundamental part of democracy and called the remarks regrettable, if that is what was actually said. However, he said it was not up to him to apologize but the speakers, because the attendees at the gathering were just putting forward their personal opinions.

That's rich coming from group of people who have done this.

8,700 Japanese consrvative wingnuts have filed suit agianst the Asahi Shinbun over a series of articles published in the 1980's and 1990's about Confort Women which is just a substitute for forced prostitution   by the Japanese Imprial army.   

The 18 articles were formally retracted last year. 

According to the suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, the plaintiffs, including researchers, journalists and lawmakers, demanded that ¥10,000 in compensation be paid to each person, arguing the major daily “damaged Japanese people’s personal rights and honor.” 

It also demands the paper run an ad to apologize for “spreading erroneous facts to international society.”
The left-leaning daily withdrew the 18 stories last August because they focused on a man named Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have participated in rounding up females for use as sex slaves by the Japanese military.

 

Of course the LDP loves a free press

Shinzo Abe And The LDP Work To Stifle The Press And They're Suceeding

The Japanese government under the leadership of Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party have since returning to power in December of 2012 worked hard to marginalized, intimidate and quash any voice which is critical of the ruling party.   Members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are about half a step from being out right authoritarian.

When Abe appointed the new director of NHK Japan's national public broadcaster (paraphrasing here) he stated that the broadcaster wouldn't stray from the government line.  NHK is supposed to be neutral, giving all sides a place to voice their agreement or disagreement with government policy.  By coming straight out and articulating a policy that parrots the governments NHK can no longer be seen as objective observer of the news or government policy.


NHK hasn't been the only target of the government the Asahi Shinbun has been on the receiving end of an endless string of abuse from the government and more than 8,000 right wing activists  who have sued the newspaper over a series of articles they published in the 1980's and 90's about Comfort Women.

The 18 articles were formally retracted last year. 

According to the suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, the plaintiffs, including researchers, journalists and lawmakers, demanded that ¥10,000 in compensation be paid to each person, arguing the major daily “damaged Japanese people’s personal rights and honor.” 

It also demands the paper run an ad to apologize for “spreading erroneous facts to international society.”
The left-leaning daily withdrew the 18 stories last August because they focused on a man named Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to have participated in rounding up females for use as sex slaves by the Japanese military.

Abe heckled at ceremony in Okinawa on 70th anniversary of battle

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was given an unwelcome greeting by the people of Okinawa at a ceremony commemorating the battle for the island which cost 10's of thousands of lives.   Protesters greeted Abe over his insistence that U.S. Marine Corp Futenma air station be moved not off of the island but to rural Henoko.   The Japanese government treats the people of Okinawa like shit.  Insisting that the island host the majority of U.S. forces stationed in Japan in one of the countries smallest prefectures. 

Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party have this unrealized dream ( more like a fool's earned.) that Japan must be stored to the stature it held prior to World War II.  They truly believe that Japan was and continues to be humiliated by the Constitution imposed by the U.S. following Japan's surrender at the end of the war.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was heckled Tuesday at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa, the bloodiest episode in the Pacific War, as anger flared over the U.S. military’s continuing presence.
In a highly-charged ceremony on Okinawa also attended by U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Abe was openly heckled by locals angry at the size of the United States’ presence on the subtropical islands.
Shouts of “Go home!” could be heard as the prime minister took the podium. It is relatively unusual for a Japanese prime minister to be jeered by the public.
Abe, who appeared rattled, told the audience Japan had for decades enjoyed the dividend of peace after the horrors of World War II.
  

“People in Okinawa have long been asked to carry a big burden for our security,” he said. “We will continue to do our best to reduce it.”
Okinawan Gov Takeshi Onaga was warmly applauded by the 5,000-strong crowd after using his speech to denounce “the heavy burden” of American bases in Okinawa, host to more than half of the 47,000 US service personnel in Japan.
“Some 73.8% of U.S. military facilities in Japan are still concentrated in our prefecture, which makes up only 0.6% of the country’s land area,” he said.

  

Okinawa governor orders halt to work related to U.S. base relocation

The government in Tokyo treats Okinawa and its citizens like trash.  Opposition the relocation of Futenma has been unwavering for almost 20 years. Yet, the present and previous governments have ignored Okinawa's insistence that based be moved, just not anywhere in Okinawa.  In an effort to force the issue Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's most recent budget reduced financial support to the island to levels from 10 years ago.

The governor of Okinawa on Monday ordered a Defense Ministry branch to suspend all work in the area where a key U.S. military air base is to be relocated, in a growing confrontation between the island and the central government.
Gov Takeshi Onaga said that a concrete anchor thrown into the sea for a drilling survey at the site is believed have damaged coral.
It was his first specific action to interfere with the relocation since taking office four months ago. His predecessor’s approval of the plan had allowed the Defense Bureau to begin preparing the site in Henoko for the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
Onaga told a news conference that the use of concrete blocks had not been authorized. He said the prefecture needs to assess the damage, and demanded the Defense Bureau stop all activity related to the relocation within one week or lose its license for the drilling work, which could put the entire relocation on hold.

Battle over US military base in Japan intensifies

In 1996 the Japanese and American governments concluded an agreement that would move the U.S. Marine Corp Futenma Air Station which sits in the middle of Ginowan city to a location on the northeast coast of Okinawa.  20 years have passed since and Futenma remains where its always been while the people of Okinawa and the prefectural government have fought not for the air stations relocation to another part of the island, but to any place but Okinawa.

Last December the outgoing governor in a completely surprising move issued the necessary environmental impact statement giving the green light for Futenma to be relocated after having been opposed to the bases relocation for his entire term as governor.

With Shinzo Abe's return to the Prime Minister's office pressure has been building on the new elected governor to give the final approval something he his loath to provide.

  
  

Okinawa construction has led to activists being dumped offshore

A diminutive, silver-haired warrior, Fumiko Shimabukuro (85), has one goal: to stop a US military base from being built near her home. For nearly two decades, she has been an iconic local figure in the struggle against the Marine facility in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture. Now the battle that has defined her sunset years appears to be nearing a climax. 

Shimabukuro was recently knocked unconscious in scuffles with the police. She is one of over a dozen elderly protesters injured since Japan’s government began last year its long-delayed survey to build the base. This week, US security detained two demonstrators, intensifying a standoff that has becoming increasingly treacherous. 

The two protesters were released after angry Okinawans converged on a local police station. Coast guard officers have recently taken to grabbing anti-base activists from kayaks and dumping them 4km offshore. Many fear it is only a matter of time before someone is badly hurt or killed.

For their efforts retribution was necessary and so it has come. 

Budget policy

The budget cut Tokyo’s annual subsidy to Okinawa by 5 per cent, a sign, say locals, they are being punished for the result of November’s election. Just in case the message is not clear, they say, Abe has twice snubbed Onaga – Okinawa’s main political representative – on recent visits to Tokyo.

Onaga this month ordered a review of his predecessor’s controversial decision to green light the base. But the review is not due to release its findings until the summer, by which time it may be too late to stop construction. Workers have begun laying giant concrete blocks around the bay, destroying its coral, say the protesters.

Extremely Powerful Typhoon To Hit Japan

Japanese forecasters are calling it a "once in decades storm." And at Kadena Air Base, a US military installation on the island of Okinawa, one commander dubbed the storm "the most powerful typhoon forecast to hit the island in 15 years."

Super Typhoon Neoguri, currently sporting maximum sustained winds of nearly 150 miles per hour and just shy of Category 5 strength, is heading straight at Japan's islands, and its outer bands are currently battering the island of Okinawa. Here's the forecast map from the Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center. As you can see, the forecast for tomorrow brings the storm up to maximum sustained winds of 140 knots (161 miles per hour), or Category 5 strength.

The Western Pacific basin, home to typhoons (which are elsewhere called tropical cyclones or hurricanes), is known for having the strongest storms on Earth, such as last year's devastating Super Typhoon Haiyan. July is, generally, when the Western Pacific typhoon season really starts getting into gear, but August, September, and October are usually busier months.

Neoguri will weaken by the time it strikes Japan's main islands, but as meteorologist Jeff Masters observes, "the typhoon is so large and powerful that it will likely make landfall with at least Category 2 strength, causing major damage in Japan."

Parts of Okinawa have already entered the storm zone.  NHK earlier today showed live pictures from Miyakojima which is where the storm will first make landfall.   If the storm moves to the east it could make landfall on Honshu.

Does America Really Care About Okinawa?

In 1996 the United States and Japan came an agreement about the U.S. bases located there among them was the Futenma Marine Air Station located in the middle of the city of Ginowan. The proposal was to move the air base to Nago city on the northeast  coast of Okinawa.  Unfortunately the citizens of Nago city want nothing to do with that Marine air station or its relocation.  That hasn't stopped the Japanese or American governments from  pressuring Nago city into accepting the relocation.  Frustrated, the mayor of Nago has taken his fight to America.


 “The very principle of democracy is that local citizens should make decisions,” Inamine told AFP.

“If this happened anywhere else in the world, I’m sure that this would not be acceptable. So why should it be okay for Okinawans to suffer this burden?” he said.

Okinawa, a subtropical region strategically close to areas disputed with China, was administered by the United States until 1972 and remains the home of half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan, which was stripped of its right to maintain a military following World War II.

In hopes of easing local grievances, the United States and Japan agreed in 1996 to dismantle the Futenma air station which lies in the crowded city of Ginowan and move it to sparsely populated Nago but the plan has been delayed by protests.

What apparent is that the people of Okinawa just don't count in the decision making process. No matter what they want the Japanese and American governments are going to ignore their concerns.  

Mayor Opposed to Okinawa Base Relocation Wins Reelection

17 years ago the U.S. and Japan reached an agreement to move the Futenma Marine Corp airbase from the middle of Ginowan city to Nago on Okinawa.  Since the that agreement was reached there has been no movement on this issue as the people of Okinawa and the city where it is to be relocated have fought the relocation since the agreement was reached.   Until December of 2013 the governor of Okinawa has refused to issue the necessary environmental impact statements needed for construction and relocation to take place.

People living in Okinawa near those bases are concerned not only about the environmental impact but the associated crimes and possible crashes of the aircraft stationed at the facility.

Inamine’s victory will make it more difficult to move forward, analysts said.
“I don’t think it’ll be easy now for the U.S. base to be relocated, but I think there is a limit to what a local mayor can do,” said Toshiyuki Shikata, a former Japanese military officer and professor of political science at Teikyo University in Tokyo.
The Futenma air station would be moved from Ginowan city to sparsely populated Henoko district in Nago, because of concerns about aircraft noise, accidents in civilian areas and base-related crimes such as rape. The proposed move is part of a broader plan to consolidate and reduce the U.S. military presence in Okinawa, currently home to about half of the U.S. troops in Japan.

“Despite all the efforts, the Liberal Democratic Party has lost,” said Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “I think it reflects how strongly people are opposed to a base relocation.”

  

US troops are stationed in Japan to protect the nation. But to sex workers in Okinawa, they bring fear, not security

Business is slow in Okinawa’s biggest red-light district. Touts stand idle beneath neon signs advertising “soap-land” brothels, where prostitutes lather male clients for money. A handful of men loiter to peer at the photos of women pasted on billboards outside, though few appear willing to part with Y15,000 (£100) to spend an hour with one inside. Desperate as some of the businesses are, however, many still decline one type of customer: US military servicemen.

“Too much trouble,” explains one tout working the Tsuji-machi district of Naha, Okinawa’s capital. 

“The only reason why some “soaps” accept American military personnel is because there are too few customers,” says a prostitute in Tsuji-machi who requested anonymity. She says she’ll have sex with older men during the day time but refuses younger troops at night.

“They get rough, grabbing you by the neck and slapping your face,” she says. “I’d prefer not to work at all than endure that. Why should we have to absorb the hatred in the world?”

T

China Really Really Really Really Owns Okinawa

I once asked who owns Okinawa?  That was in reference to the large number of U.S. military bases there and the amount of land they occupy.  But I was wrong.


You see last week two Chinese academics associated with China's top think tank liad claim to Okinawa because as an independent kingdom they once paid tribute to the Ming dynasty.   They were followed my a general in the Peoples Liberation Army also laying claim to them because they were occupied by the United States following World War II and the U.S. government had no right to return them to Japanese control because they were occupied territory.

So, two clowns  working for the Bozo Institute of Stupidity publish an article in the   Peoples Daily laying claim to Okinawa because their puppet masters tell them too.   In the firm belief that with the weight of the mighty Bozo Institute of Stupidity behind them  the Japanese would cave on the real issue that of the Senkaku  islands thus happily returning  them to Chinese control.

Then along comes General Disaster who talking out of his rather large posterior decides China owns the Senkaku islands because they were once occupied by a decadent western power hell bent on world domination.  

Instead Japan tells them all to get stuffed.

Japan refuses to offer any concessions to China over Tokyo’s control of the uninhabited East China Sea islands, which are called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. Tokyo issued a formal protest to Beijing over the comments about Okinawa, made last week in the ruling Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily.
Scholars in Japan and elsewhere, meanwhile, warn Beijing may be shooting itself in the foot by arousing fears of a creeping campaign to nibble away at Japanese territory.
“If China’s goal is to hold talks with Japan over the Senkakus, articles like these are counterproductive,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a Chinese foreign policy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “As a result, Japan has an even stronger incentive now to stand firm with China and not hold talks.”

China called: They'd like Okinawa back

Two Chinese academics who allegedly  believe they are scholars published an article in the Peoples Daily claiming that Okinawa belongs to China.  Supposedly these two geniuses work for a "top" Chinese Think Tank.     The Ryukyu Kingdom and islands of the same name which includes Okinawa was once an independent nation and remained so until its integration into Japan.

  So, lets review:   According to these two Baghdad Bob's because the Ryukyu Kingdom once paid tribute to the now long gone Ming  dynasty China can force a hostile takeover like this is some kind  of business deal

What I'm thinking is that these junior Einstein's need to either reevaluate their decision making paradigm or quit hitting the crack pipe so hard.

“Unresolved problems relating to the Ryukyu Islands have reached the time for reconsideration,” wrote Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang, citing post-World War II declarations that required Japan to return Chinese territory.

The article also repeated Chinese government arguments for China’s historical claims over a set of tiny uninhabited islets in the East China Sea known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese.

U.S. lied about storing Agent Orange on Okinawa

Since 1945, the small Japanese island of Okinawa has been unwilling host to a massive US military presence and a storehouse for a witches' brew of dangerous munitions and chemicals, including nerve gas, mustard gas, and nuclear missiles. However, there is one weapon the Pentagon has always denied that it kept on Okinawa: Agent Orange.

Now, for the first time, a recently uncovered US army report reveals that, during the Vietnam War, the United States stockpiled 25,000 barrels of Agent Orange on the Pacific island. The barrels, containing over 1.4 million gallons of the toxic defoliant, were brought to Okinawa from Vietnam before being taken to Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, where the US
 military incinerated its stocks of the compound in 1977.

Contradicting decades of denial by Washington, the report is the first direct admission by the US military that it stored these poisons on Okinawa. A series of photographs was also uncovered, apparently showing the 25,000 barrels in storage on Okinawa's Camp Kinser, near the prefectural capital of Naha.

The army report, published in 2003 but only recently discovered, is titled "An Ecological Assessment of Johnston Atoll." Outlining the military's efforts to clean up the tiny island that the United States used throughout the Cold War to store and dispose of its stockpiles of biochemical weapons, the report states directly, "In 1972, the US Air Force brought about 25,000 55-gallon (208 liter) drums of the chemical Herbicide Orange (HO) to Johnston Island that originated from Vietnam and was stored on Okinawa."

Agent Orange

Agent Orange is the combination of the code names for Herbicide Orange (HO) and Agent LNX, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use.^[1] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.^[2]
A 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, it was manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The 2,4,5-T used to produce Agent Orange was later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallon (208 l) barrels in which it was shipped, and was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides".^[3]
During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 US gallons (76,000,000 l) of material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of Operation Ranch Hand.^[4][5] The program's goal was to defoliate forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover; another goal was to induce forced draft urbanization, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, and forcing them to flee to the U.S. dominated cities, thus depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base and food supply.^[5][6]