China Has Taken Its Propaganda Campaign Against Japan To Far

Usually when leaders make state visits they deal with economic and political ties and how they might be strengthened.   They usually don't schedule a state visit as part of a propaganda  campaign against a nation they are having a diplomatic row with.   

China's Premier Xi Jinping is proposing just that.  He would like his upcoming trip in March to Germany focused on World War II and how the Germans dealt with defeat of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.   One small problem the Germans would rather that he did not.

"China wants a strong focus on World War Two when Xi visits Germany and Germany is not happy," said one diplomatic source who has been briefed on China's plans for the Xi trip.
The German government declined to comment. But the diplomatic sources said Germany did not want to get dragged into the dispute between China and Japan, and dislikes China constantly bringing up Germany's painful past.
A second diplomatic source with knowledge of the trip said China had proposed Xi visit the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. When that was immediately rejected by Germany, Beijing suggested Xi go to Berlin's Neue Wache Memorial, which honors war dead but not recognized war criminals.
"The Holocaust is a no go area," the source said, adding it was unclear if the Neue Wache Memorial visit would go ahead.
Germany does not want the negative legacy of the war to dominate or take centre stage during a state visit, the source added, explaining the objection to the Holocaust Memorial visit.

Welcome to Hong Kong

Mainland Chinese migrants are caught in limbo without healthcare or housing as they wait years for Hong Kong residency.



Some 50,000 mainland Chinese people obtain one-way permits to move to Hong Kong each year.

They then have to wait a further seven years before gaining residency and, in the meantime, have no status whatsoever and no access to healthcare, education, or public housing.

They suffer routine discrimination, even from other migrants who have already gained residency, and live in pitiable and squalid conditions - for example, a family of five can often live within a space of 100 square feet.

For some, this raises problems of mental as well as physical illness, and their only help comes from the New Women Arrivals League, which lobbies on their behalf and supports them however they can.

Most worrying to me is how this rocky integration after the handover has evolved into a racism that is now in constant circulation. In songs and on viral videos online, mainlanders are called "locust aliens" and their children "spawn". They are accused of having no manners, spitting and defecating on the street. One particularly discriminatory song, The Locust Song , was so popular, it inspired flash mobs of people to pop up and sing it at mainland tourists while they shopped downtown.

So it is in this context that I met some members of the New Arrivals Women’s League. The group is headed by the indomitable Yeung Mei, who is passionate about protecting these vulnerable mainland women and the freedom to voice their concerns. Yeung Mei explained how her family had been persecuted in the Cultural Revolution, which left her afraid to speak out. At the end of the film she says, "Hong Kong is like an expansive sky". It is, of course, another reason we must welcome our new arrivals.

Japan drafts revision of arms exports ban

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is man who lives for the past a past that the world finds abhorrent.  During his first term as Prime Minister his policies were focused on reviving a Japan of the past through revisions to the constitution which restricts Japan's rights to a military and doesn't allow for the export of arms.  Abe's vision is the complete reversal of these constraints allowing as he sees it a return of Japan to a great nation.  

His laser focus on these dreams led to his resignation after a single year in office and several years in the political wilderness until his return to power in a landslide election for him and the Liberal Democratic party.   Having learned his lesson, upon returning to the center of Japanese power he concentrated on reviving Japan's morey bound   economy.  Now little more than a year into his second term Abe has once again turned towards that what which holds most dear breathing new life into a past most of Asia would rather not live through again a militarized Japan.

Abe is determined to achieve these goals and the first step is the removable the ban on exporting arms and armaments to the world believing that this will allow to Japan to reach his other goal a true military and not an aberration called the Self Defense Force.  Giving Japan once again the right to a collective self defense without restrictions.

Japan has drafted new guidelines that would reverse a decades-old ban on weapons exports, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday, a move that could further strain ties with neighbors China and South Korea.
Tokyo has been reviewing the self-imposed export ban under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new security strategy, aimed at bolstering the self-reliance of the military.

The draft principles omit the ban of exports to governments that are involved in international conflicts, a move that Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said on Sunday was aimed at paving the way for more sales to countries like Israel, which last year bought Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jets with Japan-made components.
“It’s not necessarily aimed at boosting exports so much as clarifying the types of cases in which exports were previously allowed under exceptional circumstances,” the source said, declining to be identified because the draft is not public.

That these revisions will alarm China and South Korea doesn't matter to Shinzo Abe its all about returning Japan to its past greatness as he sees it.

SIx In The Morning Monday February 24

Will Rio Be Ready? Countdown Begins to 2016 Summer Games

BY BILL NEELY AND DANIEL ARKIN

Hours after the Olympic flag was lowered in Sochi, many eyes were already fixed on Rio de Janeiro, the city of sun, samba and soccer — and soon the host of the 2016 Summer Games.

Rio is set to bask in the global spotlight with back-to-back hosting duties for two of the crown jewels of the sporting world. "Futbol" fans will descend on the Brazilian city for soccer's World Cup this June — and just two years later, the Olympic torch will blaze in sparkly Rio.

But amid the fanfare greeting these mega-events, local officials are faced with big-league financial headaches and a chorus of public complaints, leaving many asking: Will Rio be ready in 2016?

The bustling metropolitan capital — the first South American city to host the Summer Games — is feeling the heat from Olympics officials worried about busting budgets, delayed construction projects and sewage-filled waters around the site of the future Olympic Park.

Brazil is scrambling to avoid the embarrassment Russia suffered amid reports of filthy water, unheated hotel rooms, stray dogs, balky toilets and other logistical quirks. But the preparations come with challenges.

Poison feared as seven Sumatran elephants found dead

Dozens of the critically-endangered animals have been killed on Indonesian island in recent years

• AFP in Jakarta
• theguardian.com, Monday 24 February 2014 08.37 GMT
• Jump to comments (0)

Seven Sumatran elephants have been found dead in western Indonesia and it is thought they were poisoned, a wildlife official said on Monday.

Dozens of the critically-endangered animals have died after being poisoned in recent years on Sumatra as the creatures come into conflict with humans due to the rapid expansion of palm oil plantations which destroy their habitat.

The latest to die were an adult female, five male teenagers, and a male calf believed to be from the same herd, said local wildlife agency spokesman Muhammad Zanir.

ROBERT FISK

Pluralism was once the hallmark of the Arab world, so the exodus of Christians from the Middle East is painful to one Islamic scholar

“It is a tragedy and a blow to the basic pride of Arab Islamic civilisation"

Tarif Khalidi is a big, bearded bear of a man, the kind you would always choose to play Father Christmas, or perhaps a Cossack leader sweeping across the Russian steppe, reins in one hand, sword in the other. But Tarif – or Uncle Tarif as I invariably call him – is an Islamic scholar, the most recent translator of the Koran and author of a wonderful book of Muslim stories about Jesus. I am thus surprised – but after a few seconds not at all surprised – to hear how well this Palestinian from Jerusalem got on with the Imam Musa Sadr, the Shia leader in southern Lebanon who did more to lift his people from squalor than any I can think of – until Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had him murdered in Libya in 1978.

“He took on the Christians of Lebanon in an extraordinary manner,” Tarif says. “He revived Islamic interest in Jesus and Mary. He was an extraordinary performer. He almost embraced Christian theology. He would lecture in churches with the cross right behind him!” But as we weave our way between religions, I realise what is grieving this most burly of professors – he teaches at the American University of Beirut – as he speaks slowly and eloquently of the almost biblical exodus of Christians from the Middle East.

Madrid rash to respond so half-heartedly to Eta arms handovers

Analysis: Eta’s efforts should be received more warmly in the interests of peace

Paddy Woodworth

You could be forgiven for thinking that the bloody conflict between the Basque terrorist group Eta and the Spanish state was well and truly over. Eta’s “permanent, general and verifiable ceasefire” has indeed held remarkably firm since it was declared in January 2011.

However, the release of a video last Friday showing two masked Eta members handing over weapons – a risibly small quantity, it must be said – to an “international verification commission” is a reminder of serious unfinished business in this often shameful chapter in Basque and Spanish history.

Eta (“the Basque Country and Liberty”) was born in 1959 to campaign for Basque independence and to combat the dictatorship of Gen Franco.

Trained snipers escalate violence in Bangkok

February 24, 2014 - 7:03PM

Lindsay Murdoch

South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

Bangkok: Mysterious gunmen who appear to be highly trained are backing anti-government protesters on Bangkok’s streets as Thailand’s three-month political crisis becomes increasingly violent.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban has acknowledged the presence of the gunmen despite claiming his movement to topple prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra is peaceful, telling his supporters: “They are helping us. They help us as we are fighting Yingluck with only our bare hands.”

The gunmen have become known as the “popcorn shooters” after one of them used a popcorn bag to cover his automatic rifle during a gun battle outside a shopping centre in a northern Bangkok suburb on February 1.

24 February 2014 Last updated at 08:16

Ugandan President Museveni 'to sign' anti-gay bill

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is set to sign into law a controversial new bill under which homosexuals could be given long prison terms.

He wants to approve the law before foreign media to assert "Uganda's independence in the face of Western pressure", a spokesman said.

US President Barack Obama has cautioned the bill would be a backward step.

Mr Museveni had previously agreed to put the bill on hold pending US scientific advice.

"The president is signing the anti-homosexuality bill today [Monday] at 11:00 [0800 GMT]," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo told Reuters news agency.

Post-tsunami deaths due to stress, illness outnumber disaster toll in Fukushima

The March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami displaced thousands of people not just from the twin natural disasters but the subsequent meltdown of TEPCO's Daiichi-Fukushima nuclear power plant.   Given the magnitude of these 3 events the Japanese government offered huge sums of money for cleanup and rebuilding of the Tohoku area of northeast Japan but somehow these pronouncements haven't improved the lives of those affected by the disasters.  


People living in temporary housing have discovered they were poorly constructed with sloping floors, lack of funding for rebuilding,  lack of government accountability and isolation from their communities.


     Data compiled by officials and police show that almost three years after the huge waves smashed ashore, 1,656 people living in Fukushima Prefecture have died from stress and other illnesses related to the disaster, compared with 1,607 who were killed in the initial calamity.

“The biggest problem is the fact that people have been living in temporary conditions for so long,” Hiroyuki Harada, a Fukushima official dealing with victim assistance, told AFP.

“People have gone through dramatic changes of their environment. As a result, people who would not have died are dying,” he said.

Officials say that as well as those who died in the early stages of the disaster, through lack of initial care because medical facilities were hobbled, a growing number of people are dying from the physical and mental stress of staying at shelters, including through suicide.

Some families of those who have killed themselves have tried to hold plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) accountable through the legal system.

Last year, relatives of Hisashi Tarukawa won an out-of-court settlement after the 64-year-old hanged himself from a tree in a vegetable field when authorities banned the shipment of some farm produce from Fukushima.

“This is different from normal, natural disasters. People who live in shelters are forced to live there, away from their home towns and villages, where they lived for a long time,” Harada said. “They are forced to live the kinds of lives they are not used to.”

Qatar's World Cup preparations shouldn't include abusing its workers

As the Persian Gulf emirate prepares to host the 2022 World Cup, the world must demand that it treat its foreign workers humanely.

By The Times editorial board

February 23, 2014

The Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, flush with oil riches and seeking to push its way to the front of the international stage, is in the midst of an enormous, decade-long building boom to construct facilities and infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, the largest and most-viewed sporting event in the world. Unfortunately, Qatar is preparing for that moment of international cooperation and sport by grievously exploiting its foreign workers, subjecting them to dangerous conditions that should be drawing forceful condemnations from the world community.

A report last week by the government of India, which supplies a large share of Qatar's workers, suggests that more than 500 of its citizens have died there since 2012, primarily, according to the Guardian, in either on-site accidents or from working in inhumane conditions. Nepal, another big supplier of Qatar's labor force, recorded the deaths of 383 Nepali workers in that country in 2012-13.

International observers and human rights groups have described working conditions for foreign laborers in Qatar as intolerable and inhumane, citing dangerous work sites, confiscations of passports by employers, withheld wages, oppressively overcrowded worker dormitories and limited access to food and water despite 12-hour work shifts often in triple-digit temperatures. Although conditions are difficult for foreign workers in many gulf countries, Amnesty International notes that Qatar is different because of its unusual exit permit system — under which foreign nationals can't leave the country without permission from their employers — its ban on unions and the sheer size of its foreign labor force.

The Lost Boys

We explore the plight of thousands of children working in the dangerous coal mines of India’s Meghalaya state.
Karma,16, has worked as a miner for over a year in India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, crawling deep inside a 'rat-hole' tunnel to dig coal for seven hours a day.

"Inside it is very unstable. The smell is awful," he said sitting on a pile of coal. "It is so dirty, and it is difficult to move. You breathe in the coal and the dust. People get sick like this. There is no water to drink and it is so muddy. It is not nice at all."

Child rights activists have reported that there are thousands of children like Karma working in Meghalaya's coal pits, because only those who are small in size are able fit in the claustrophobic tunnels. Many of them, like Karma, are believed to be from neighbouring Indian states, or from nearby Nepal and Bangladesh.

Hasina Kharbhih has been fighting the exploitation of these children for several years through her NGO Impulse. She said agents working for mine owners help traffic children to the coal-rich Jaintia Hills district of Meghalaya.