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☆ A Woman Who Shows Age Is No Barrier to Talk Show Stardom
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Motoko Rich | More About Motoko Rich | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

She has championed the deaf and is a good-will ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Yet critics say that despite her pioneering career, she has done little to advance women’s causes. In the interview, Ms. Kuroyanagi did not dwell on the indignities of being the sole woman in many rooms. In a society that she said retained “feudalist” elements in gender relations, she advised women to bootstrap their way through their careers. “Don’t ever say you can’t do anything because you are a woman,” she said.

Persons: Kaori Hayashi, Kuroyanagi, “, “ Don’t, ”, it’s Organizations: UNICEF, United Nations Children’s Fund, University of Tokyo Locations: Japan

A U.S. military aircraft crashed near a small island off the coast of southern Japan on Wednesday with six people onboard. Japan’s Coast Guard said that at least one of those onboard had been confirmed dead. The aircraft, a CV-22 Osprey operated by the U.S. Air Force, crashed close to 3 p.m. near Yakushima, according to a spokesman for the Japanese Coast Guard, which is conducting a rescue operation. It was initially thought that eight people were aboard the craft. The crash came just three months after three U.S. Marines died in another Osprey accident during a training exercise in Australia.

Persons: Hiroyuki Miyazawa, Hiroki Shimano Organizations: U.S, Japan’s Coast Guard, U.S . Air Force, Japanese Coast Guard, Marines, Osprey Locations: Japan, Yakushima, Australia, Kagoshima

A man believed to have a gun was holed up in a post office in a Tokyo suburb on Tuesday and holding one hostage after releasing another, in an episode that was unsettling in Japan, where gun violence is extremely rare. An employee inside the post office, in Warabi city, called the police at around 2:15 p.m., saying there was a gunman inside, according to Taira Masuda, a spokesman for the police headquarters in Saitama Prefecture. Around 7:15 p.m., NHK, a public broadcaster, showed footage of the woman in her 20s walking out of the post office without injury. Another official, the mayor of Toda, said on social media that a man had fired a handgun at Toda Chuo General Hospital and fled on a motorcycle. In the broadcaster’s footage, it appeared that the woman who was released on Tuesday evening bowed as she left the post office.

Persons: Taira Masuda, Masuda, Toda Organizations: NHK, General Hospital Locations: Tokyo, Japan, Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, Toda city

Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that requiring transgender people to undergo sterilization in order to legally change their gender identity is unconstitutional, a step forward for L.G.B.T.Q. rights in a nation that has been slow to recognize them. In practice, that means many transgender people will still be unable to make the legal change. The top court said it would send the case back to the High Court for further discussion of the transition surgery clause. “I’m very disappointed that my case still has to go on.”

Persons: ”, Kazuyuki Minami, “ I’m Organizations: High Court Locations: Japan’s

In Guangdong Province, on China’s southern coast, a woman posted a photo of a boxed-up Japanese-brand air-conditioner that she planned to return in protest. In southwest China, the owner of a Japanese pub posted a video of himself ripping down anime posters and smashing bottles, saying he planned to reopen the business as a Chinese bistro. In many social media posts like these, the phrase “nuclear-contaminated wastewater” has appeared — the same wording used by the Chinese government and state media to refer to Japan’s release into the ocean of treated radioactive water from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Even before Japan started pumping out the first tranche of more than a million tons of wastewater last week, China had mounted a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about the safety of the release, stirring up anger and fear among millions of Chinese.

Locations: Guangdong Province, China, Japan

☆ Japan Begins Releasing Treated Radioactive Water at Fukushima
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Motoko Rich | More About Motoko Rich | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Within Japan, fishermen’s unions fear that public anxiety about the safety of the water could affect their livelihoods. BackgroundEver since a huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011 led to a meltdown at the Fukushima plant, Tepco, as the power company is known, has used water to cool the ruined nuclear fuel rods that remain too hot to remove. As the water passes through the reactors, it picks up nuclear materials. What’s NextThe first release of 7,800 tons of treated water is expected to last about 17 days. To compensate fishermen who lose business due to public anxiety, the Japanese government is allocating 80 billion yen ($552 million).

Persons: Yoon Suk, Miharu, Hisako Ueno Organizations: Japan, Tepco, International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA Locations: China, South Korea, Japan, Tokyo

For Japan, it is as much a political problem as it is an engineering or environmental one. Despite the determination by the international agency that it was safe to release the water, opponents at home and in neighboring countries have questioned both the government and the agency’s motives. When Japan’s cabinet approved the treated-water plan in 2021, it described the controlled ocean release as the best available disposal option. Although it has been a dozen years since the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl forced tens of thousands of people to flee the area around the ruined Fukushima plant, the cleanup is still in an early phase. The government says the water release is likely to take place over a period of 30 years.

Organizations: Communist Party, ”, Tokyo Locations: Japan, China, South Korea, Fukushima

“I respect you and believe you deserve to hear this directly from me,” he said, reading from a letter he had prepared. “For years, I struggled to accept a part of myself. But now, after all I have been through, I finally have the courage to open up to you about something. I am a gay man.”Such an announcement is extremely unusual in conservative Japan, the only G7 country that has not legalized same-sex unions. Earlier this summer, the Japanese Parliament passed an L.G.B.T.Q rights bill but it had been watered down by the political right, stating that there “should be no unfair discrimination” against gay and transgender people.

Persons: “, Shinjiro, ” Locations: Tokyo, Japan

The world’s advanced economies have committed to phasing out coal over the next seven years. But not Japan, which stands alone in insisting it can make coal less damaging to the planet. Nowhere is that more evident than at the nation’s largest coal-fired power plant in Hekinan, a small city in central Japan where 400,000 tons of jet-black piles are spread across a plot the size of 40 soccer fields. Starting next spring, Jera, the company that owns the site, wants to demonstrate that it can blend ammonia — which does not emit carbon dioxide when burned — with coal in its boilers. The use of this new technology is prompting a debate over whether it is better to find cleaner ways of using coal, or to scrap it as soon as possible in favor of renewable energy.

Locations: Japan, Hekinan

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