Fwd: Japan Focus Newsletter

[Aaron Gerow]

Japan Focus just uploaded a conversation between documentarists  
Kawanaka Hitomi and Tsuchimoto Noriaki, introduced by Norma Field.

http://japanfocus.org/

Begin forwarded message:
>  An Asia Pacific Newsletter
>  New Articles Posted December 24, 2007
>  in this issue
> Kamanaka Hitomi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki and Norma Field, Rokkasho,  
> Minamata and Japan's Future: Capturing Humanity on Film
> Daniel P. Aldrich, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities, NIMBY and  
> Civil Society in Japan and the West
> M K Bhadrakumar, Russia, Iran and Eurasian Energy Politics
> Cemil Aydin interviewed by Michael Penn, Imperial Japan's Islamic  
> Policies and Anti-Westernism
> Rumiko NISHINO, The Women's Active Museum on War and Peace: Its  
> Role in Public Education
> Anna Fifield and Ruediger Frank, Famine and the Market: North Korea  
> Meets Keynes
> Kato Shuichi, Two Trivial Matters
> Interview with Hatoyama Kunio, "Why I Support Executions"
>
> Greetings!
> Go to our home page to access more than 1,000 articles: http:// 
> japanfocus.org
>
> Japan Focus is a peer-reviewed e-journal and archive on the Asia  
> Pacific. Its fully indexed site contains more than nine hundred  
> articles. In addition to Japan Focus exclusives, it provides  
> translations from Japanese and other languages as well as reprints  
> of important articles. The coordinators of Japan Focus are Andrew  
> DeWit, Laura Hein, Gavan McCormack, David McNeill, Mark Selden,  
> Yuki Tanaka and William Underwood. Contact Japan Focus by email at  
> info at japanfocus.org
>
> Kamanaka Hitomi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki and Norma Field, Rokkasho,  
> Minamata and Japan's Future: Capturing Humanity on Film
>
> In this first decade of the twenty-first century, nuclear weapons  
> and nuclear power have returned to haunt us with a vengeance. In  
> fact, they had never disappeared, of course, but the end of the  
> Cold War and a hiatus in the construction of nuclear power plants- 
> owing much to citizen activism, let us recall-lulled many of us  
> into putting these concerns on the backburner. Now, thanks to 9.11  
> and newly visible U.S. bellicosity, nuclear weapons are beginning  
> to resume their rightful place high on the list of worries about  
> the planet and the species. And, in an irony that would be comical  
> were its implications not dire, global warming itself has prompted  
> endorsement of nuclear power as a source of clean energy.
>
> Rokkasho Village in northern Japan, the site of a reprocessing  
> plant is the focus of documentarist Kamanaka Hitomi's new film,  
> Rokkasho Rhapsody. This article is a dialogue between Kamanaka and  
> Tssuchimoto Noriaka, the celebrated documentarist of Minamata  
> disease with an introduction by Norma Field.
>
> This is a slightly abridged translation of a dialogue between  
> Kamanaka Hitomi and Tsuchimoto Noriaki published in Kamanaka  
> Hitomi, Hibakusha: From the Scene of Documentary Filmmaking (Tokyo:  
> Kage Shobo, 2006). Translated by Ann Saphir. Posted at Focus on  
> December 23, 2007.
>
> Read More...
>
>
> Daniel P. Aldrich, Site Fights: Divisive Facilities, NIMBY and  
> Civil Society in Japan and the West
>
> In modern democracies, governments face formidable challenges in  
> locating essential facilities. Everyone wants cheap gasoline and  
> lower heating bills, but no one wants to live near an oil refinery  
> or a fuel storage facility: not in my backyard (NIMBY). Huge  
> segments of the population desire the convenience of a major  
> airport, but no one likes to be awakened by the roar of a landing  
> red-eye. The public needs clean water and flood control, but what  
> families want to see their homes destroyed to make way for a new dam?
> As of 2007, Japan has more than 3,000 dams, 8 international  
> airports and more than 80 regional airports, as well as 52 nuclear  
> reactors in a land area roughly the size of California-and the  
> government is planning to build more of each. What happens when the  
> public encounters the planners in Japan's construction state?
>
> Daniel P. Aldrich is Assistant Professor of Political Science at  
> Purdue University and currently Visiting Abe Scholar at Tokyo  
> University. Posted at Japan Focus on December 19, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
>
> M K Bhadrakumar, Russia, Iran and Eurasian Energy Politics
>
> In recent months Russia's Foreign Minister met his Iranian  
> counterpart four times. The Moscow-Tehran tie is now becoming a  
> major factor in world energy geopolitics. Moscow and Tehran have  
> worked hard in recent months to successfully put behind them their  
> squabble over the construction schedule of the Bushehr nuclear  
> power plant in Iran. The first consignment of nuclear fuel for  
> Bushehr from Russia under the International Atomic Energy Agency  
> safeguards finally arrived in Tehran on Monday.
> But nuclear energy is not the be-all and end-all of Russo-Iranian  
> cooperation. Iran is a crucially important interlocutor for Russia  
> in the field of energy. The Bushehr settlement is a necessary  
> prerequisite if the trust and mutual confidence essential for  
> fuller Russo-Iranian cooperation is to become reality. Evidently,  
> Moscow is hastily positioning itself for the big event on the  
> energy scene in 2008 - Iran's entry as a gas-exporting country.
>
> M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign  
> Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's  
> ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).  
> This article appeared at Asia Times on December 22, 2007. It was  
> posted at Japan Focus on December 23, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
>
> Cemil Aydin interviewed by Michael Penn, Imperial Japan's Islamic  
> Policies and Anti-Westernism
>
> In this wide-ranging discussion, Cemil Aydin offers comparative  
> reflections on Japan-Muslim relations at the height of Japanese  
> empire.
> Cemil Aydin is the author of The Politics of Anti-Westernism in  
> Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought .  
> Michael Penn is Executive Director of the Shingetsu Institute for  
> the Study of Japanese-Islamic Relations and a Japan Focus  
> Associate. This is a slightly abbreviated version of an interview  
> conducted by Michael Penn for the Shingetsu Newsletter published by  
> the Shingetsu Institute for the Study of Japanese-Islamic Relations  
> It was published in the newsletter on December 21, 2007 and at  
> Japan Focus on December 22, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
>
> Rumiko NISHINO, The Women's Active Museum on War and Peace: Its  
> Role in Public Education
>
> This is the second article of a three part series introducing  
> historical museums in Japan and their role in public education on  
> issues of war, peace, war crimes and reconciliation. The first  
> article is Takashi Yoshida's "Revising the Past, Complicating the  
> Future: The Yushukan War Museum in Modern Japanese History." The  
> final article is by Mr. Kim Yeonghwan, the former associate  
> director of Grassroots House Peace Museum who describes the peace  
> and reconciliation programs that the Museum sponsors.
> What we euphemistically call the "comfort women" system was a  
> violent system initiated by the Japanese state to coerce women into  
> sexual slavery and deprive them inhumanely of bodily control,  
> pride, security, future and hope. In August 2005, sixty years after  
> Japan's defeat, we opened the Women's Active Museum (WAM) on War  
> and Peace in Tokyo in order to preserve the history and memory of  
> the wartime violence committed by the Japanese military against women.
>
> There were three reasons that we opened WAM. The first was to  
> preserve records of the Women's International Tribunal on Japan's  
> Military Sexual Slavery (hereafter, the Women's Tribunal), which  
> was held in Tokyo in December 2000 with judges from five continents  
> who specialize in international law. Women's International War  
> Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery The second was  
> to honor the women of Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines,  
> Indonesia, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Burma, Papua New Guinea,  
> Guam, and Japan who dealt with trauma, psychological suffering, and  
> physical torment not only during the war, but also in the postwar  
> period, as a result of their maltreatment. The third was to  
> establish a base for peace and human rights activism in order to  
> wipe out wartime violence against women and to promote a more  
> trusting relationship between Japan and its neighbors in Asia.
>
> Nishino Rumiko is Director, Women's Active Museum on War and Peace,  
> Tokyo. Posted at Japan Focus on December 16, 2007.
>
> Read more... »
>
>
> Anna Fifield and Ruediger Frank, Famine and the Market: North Korea  
> Meets Keynes
>
> We present two articles on the market response to North Korean  
> famine. The first by Anna Fifield is Selling to Survive: on the  
> North Korea-China Border. Fifield conducted extensive interviews  
> with North Korean refugees across the Chinese border.
> In the second, Ruediger Frank reflects on the conjuncture when  
> North Korea Meets Keynes: Demand and Supply in Our Style Socialism.  
> What is the future of North Korean economy and society?
>
> Anna Fifield is a correspondent for The Financial Times. Ruediger  
> Frank is Professor of East Asian Economy and Society and Director  
> of the Vienna School of Governance. Posted at Japan Focus on  
> December 21, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
>
> Kato Shuichi, Two Trivial Matters
>
> Kato offers reflections on Japanese society in light of two endemic  
> problems.
> Kato Shuichi is a critic and writer whose many books include A  
> History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years. This  
> article is an installment from his column Sekiyo mogo (Random  
> sunset talks) which appeared in the Asahi Shinbun on November 24,  
> 2007. Published at Japan Focus on December 23, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
>
> Interview with Hatoyama Kunio, "Why I Support Executions"
>
> Hatoyama Kunio, current Justice Minister of Japan, is one of  
> Japan's most candid politicians. He has a penchant for speaking his  
> mind, and startling the public, his party and even his ministry. In  
> the wide ranging interview below, originally published in the  
> weekly magazine Weekly Asahi (Shukan Asahi) on October 26, he  
> sounds off on a number of timely and important issues regarding  
> Japan's justice system, particularly the death penalty, and  
> upcoming changes to the socio-legal structure.
> Posted at Japan Focus on December 19, 2007.
>
> Read more . . . »
>
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