The day Hiroshima turned into hell

Sixty-six years after the atomic bomb was dropped, survivor Keijiro Matsushima tells of a day of death and destruction.

Sixty-six years ago, Hiroshima was turned into a burning inferno as the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city.

Keijiro Matsushima was 16 years old when he witnessed the attack which claimed roughly 100,000 lives in one day.

He recalls how August 6, 1945, was a beautiful day, with a blue sky. Matsushima had returned to school only a week earlier, after he and his peers were mobilised to work for a year and a half in a factory producing military uniforms.

At 8.15 in the morning, his class had just started. He was listening to his teacher explaining a question on differential and integral calculus.

"I was looking out through the window and saw two American B-29 bombers. I just thought 'American planes again', assuming they were out for some routine work."

When he looked back at his books, the bomb exploded.

"There was a very strong flash and a heat wave. The whole world turned into something orange. I felt like I was thrown into an oven for a moment".

Later, he learned that temperatures on the ground near the hypocentre, 2km from his school, had reached at least 3,000 degrees centigrade.

Australia's boomtown curse

When you travel what is the worst thing that could happen? Some might say missing a flight, others might say you get crammed into the centre seat on a full flight. But when you are part of a film crew, one of the more difficult challenges is travelling with 181 kilogrammes of camera equipment.　

When an international film crew from Al Jazeera English calls you and says they want to come to Australia and film a story about the mining industry in two weeks time, the first thing you say is "I would love to be a part of this incredible story". The second thing you do? Start working fast.

The scope and depth of the mining industry, its impact on the country and the state can be broken down into small digestible chunks as political, economic and social, but the bigger picture is a great deal more complicated. The Australian mining industry has seen exponential growth over the last 10 years with increasing exports to China.

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Brown blames US and Europe for 'throwing away' recovery
Former prime minister mounts an extraordinary attack on world leaders for mishandling economic crisis and risking 'a decade of joblessness'
By Matt Chorley, Jane Merrick, Stephen Foley and Margareta Pagano Sunday, 7 August 2011
Gordon Brown today launches an extraordinary attack on the leaders of America, France and Germany, accusing them of being "wrong" on the big economic decisions and failing to heed his warnings over the EU debt crisis.

The former British prime minister breaks his silence to claim wrong-headed EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had "thrown away" another chance of economic recovery. They ignored his warnings about their banks' debt levels and are exacerbating the financial crisis which, in turn, risks condemning millions of people to a decade of joblessness.

Emergency talks called to calm global financial crises
Finance chiefs from major powers are to hold emergency talks by telephone to discuss ways to contain the latest turmoil on world financial markets, reports say.
The BBC 7 August 2011
Twin debt crises in the eurozone and the US have caused sharp falls.

Analysts say world leaders want to calm international markets ahead of exchanges reopening on Monday morning.

The rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday downgraded America's top-notch AAA rating to AA+.

Markets have also been rocked by suggestions that the debt crisis in the eurozone could spread to Italy and Spain.

Sources in Rome quoted by AFP news agency said finance ministers of the G7 nations - the US, Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada, and Italy - would hold a telephone conference call to discuss the situation.

Muslim Brotherhood holds first open vote in Egypt

SARAH EL DEEB CAIRO, EGYPT - Aug 07 2011

After decades spent underground because of an official ban, the public vote is also part of a concerted push by the Islamist group to show off its organisation and dispel its reputation as a secretive and closed group. It looks poised to win big at the November polls, largely because of its well-organised political machine and social outreach programs.

Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie hailed Saturday's vote -- which chose three new members to the group's executive board -- saying "the open and transparent elections show the world that the Brotherhood works in the open, to restore Egypt's freedom and standing".

Five myths about Africa
Matt Damon, listen up: After five years of covering Africa, our departing correspondent tells how his perceptions have changed about a complex continent, including why some Africans resent celebrity visits.

By Scott Baldauf, staff write
Johannesburg, South Africa
Here we were, stuck axle-deep on a muddy road in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, after a very impressive midafternoon rainstorm. Ten miles behind us was a small village with a deep hole in the ground where the village men would dig up chunks of tin and sell them to traveling salesmen. This was the last village under government control before the tin trade fell into the hands of a genocidal rebel group called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.
So, with dusk falling, the rain starting, and a mile or two to walk to the closest friendly village, there was nothing to do but get on the cellphone to inform my wife I wouldn't make it to the hotel that night in Bukavu. Later, in the village, my colleague Stephanie Nolen of the Toronto Globe and Mail would send an e-mail from her BlackBerry to her paper's editors, explaining that she was safe.

Hip-hop moments that shook the world
From Kool Herc spinning in the Bronx to Jay-Z blinging in the mud, Matilda Egere-Cooper counts down the flash points that turned hip-hop from a marginalised inner-city culture into a global phenomenon
Sunday, 7 August 2011
It wasn't meant to last. When hip-hop emerged in the 1970s, it aspired simply to capture the sentiments, camaraderie and frustrations of inner-city New York. Yet, refusing to give in to early prophecies that it would come and go, the genre continues to thrive 35 years on, spilling over from music into art, fashion, TV and film. How Hip Hop Changed the World, a new documentary airing this week on Channel 4, will examine the story of the movement and how it has influenced pop culture – but for those who don't know their hips from their hops, here's a quick primer of the 10 most notable moments in the genre's history.

Albert Camus might have been killed by the KGB for criticising the Soviet Union, claims newspaper
Car crash in which French literary giant was killed in 1960 was no accident, claims new theory
Kim Willsher in Paris
The Observer, Sunday 7 August 2011
When the French philosopher, author and inveterate womaniser Albert Camus died in a car accident in 1960 just two years after winning the Nobel prize for literature, France's intellectual beau monde mourned what seemed an almost freakish tragedy.

In Camus's pocket was an unused return train ticket from his home in Provence to Paris. The 46-year-old writer had intended to travel back after the Christmas holidays by train with his wife Francine and their teenage twins Catherine and Jean. Instead, his friend and publisher Michel Gallimard offered to drive him.

Bahrain Shouting In The Dark

On February 15 the peaceful uprising began in Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout these people the Shiite majority are ruled by a family that are Sunni. When it all ended in March the monument at Pearl roundabout had been destroyed, hundreds were injured and unknown number were killed. With the help of the Saudi National Guard all dissent was crushed. Among those arrested and tried for crimes against the state included the medical personal who tried to help the injured.

Philanthropist Izzat Majeed's Sachal Orchestra pulls off unlikely musical coup

The rich strains of eastern music have for centuries wafted across the rooftops of old Lahore. But listen today and you might hear something new: jazzy riffs and a bossa nova beat.

An ensemble of veteran Pakistani musicians have pulled off an unlikely coup with an innovative jazz album which has topped western charts – prompting comparisons with the Buena Vista Social Club which rediscovered a generation of lost Cuban musicians.

The Sachal Studios Orchestra has captured imaginations with a catchy interpretation of Dave Brubeck's Take Five which blends sweeping classical violins with sitars, tablas and other eastern instruments.

The piece has brought praise from jazz greats – Brubeck, now 90, says it is "the most interesting" version of Take Five he's ever heard – and propelled the orchestra's album to the top of the iTunes jazz charts in the US and UK. The album, which includes versions of The Girl from Ipanema, Misty and Desafinado, reached the top 10 in both countries

Wealth Gap: Keeping The Poor Poor

Though this program focuses on the income disparity in America and its return to the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th century the reality is this. Income inequality isn't endemic to the United States. China, South Korea, Japan and Thailand are just a sample of countries that face the growing problem of income inequality. China which has sustained almost double digit economic growth for almost ten years has failed to come to grips with the problem as millions are left behind to scrape the bottom of the economic ladder just to survive. Without mentioning the word in the program what those interviewed didn't say is that a new oligarchy has emerged. One not founded on manufacturing as happened 100 years ago but one based on control of the financial markets thereby giving them control of governments and the political power that comes with it.

Some clarification: In 2005 the last full year of Junichiro Koizumi's Premiership the Japanese Diet at the behest of their corporate masters passed the Temporary Workers Dispatch Law creating an employment underclass. A group of workers hired on short term contracts completely beholden to the corporations that employed them. When the 2008 financial crisis struck Japan almost 1 million people found themselves with concealed contracts and no means of financial stability. This all happened in less than 8 weeks.

In the China this underclass was created by internal migration with millions of Chinese living in the rural eastern parts of that country uprooting themselves seeking employment in the Pearl River Special Economic Zone. Because the Chinese government requires its citizens to register with local governments to prove they actually lived in the city in which they were employed to receive any form of benefits the local and provincial governments would refuse all permanent resident requests which continue to this day leaving these workers on he margins of society.

With so much despair and seeing no way out governments and the wealthy had better heed the warning signs or there will be a an uprising and it will be televised.

Random Japan

BREAKTHROUGHS

Tohoku University Hospital will begin testing a drug that may delay the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Researchers from three Japanese universities published a paper in the British journal Nature that “revealed the three-dimensional structure of the central part of human chromosomes.” The finding could help scientists better understand Down’s syndrome and cancer.

It was announced that a 4,300-year-old pottery shard unearthed in Aomori in 1993 may contain the “oldest depiction of a shaman on an artifact uncovered in Japan.”

The University of Tokyo asked the education ministry if it would be OK to begin the academic year in the fall, just like schools overseas.

Leading Japanese e-tailer Rakuten announced that it will open an online shop for electronic books early next month. Panasonic will provide the tablet device for the service.

Stats

66.4
Percent of female university graduates who found full-time employment this spring, according to a newspaper survey

57.7
Percent of male graduates who found jobs, according to the same survey

2996
Number of suicides in Japan in June, according to the National Police Agency. That’s the highest for the month since the NPA began recordkeeping in 2008

TO PROTECT AND SERVE
Police officers in Gifu admitted that they dealt with rowdy detainees by serving them tea spiked with “excessive doses of a hypnotic drug.”

The government was ordered to pay ¥80 million to the family of an Air Self-Defense Forces officer who committed suicide after his superior “abused him and gave him a huge amount of assignments.”

Police in Nagoya believe that a man arrested for robbing two Sukiya beef-bowl restaurants researched his crimes by consulting an online manual that offers tips for stealing from the fast food outlet.

While being investigated for insider trading, the former deputy head of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy blamed the crimes on his wife.

Nationalistic

And Stupid

They Couldn't

Find Their Way

Taking The Taxi

Wasn't Cheap

Utility says NISA sought 'plants' to talk up MOX bid

By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer
Chubu Electric Power Co. said Friday it was asked by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to set up supportive or neutral questions from the audience at a 2007 symposium about a plan to use a controversial fuel mix at the Hamaoka nuclear plant.

According to Chubu Electric, NISA orally requested that it draft such questions and give them to people who would attend the symposium to make sure not all the questions would be against the use of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel