Tag Archives: japan

Fukushima

McDonald’s so desperate for employees they turn to Anime!

20 March 2016 (04:04 UTC-07 Tango 01) 01 Farvardin 1395/10 Jumada t-Tania 1437/12 Xin Mao 4714

Five years after the 11 March 2011 disasters began in Japan McDonald’s has been struggling, first with lack of food due to supply cutoff caused by the quake-tsunami-nuke meltdowns, then with fleeing customers caused by contaminated meat from U.S. suppliers using Chinese slaughter houses, now they can’t find anybody to work for them!

https://youtu.be/5e-zAljAgqs

McDonald’s Japan has turned to Anime (cartoons) and the J-Pop group AKB48 Team 8 to recruit high schoolers.  Miyazawa Yasunari, in charge of hiring for McDonald’s, admitted that every year fewer and fewer people apply for a job with the so-called burger joint.  Their new employee recruitment campaign is called Join The Crew.

It’s not just McDonald’s, apparently all U.S. style fast food restaurants in Japan are having trouble finding employees.  Mos Burger has established a call center specifically to recruit potential employees, and

Skylark (sold to evil Mitt Romney co-created vulture capitalist Bain Capital in 2011) is now targeting people over 50 years of age for employment!

Oh, by the way, in January McDonald’s Japan introduced a new version of French Fries covered with chocolate, called McChoco.  Hope you don’t choke on it like the people who ate burgers with human teeth in them!

Currency Wars force foreign investors to flee Japan!

Japan intentionally suiciding teenagers? Or just more gross incompetence by officials!

No more McDonald’s, Japan style? 131 restaurants shutting down due to lack of food? 

Sabotage as McDonald’s investigates food contaminated with metal & even human teeth? 

Report shows that Japanese contracted nuclear plant workers are paid the same wage as McDonald’s! 

McDonald’s, Subway & Starbucks struggle in Japan

Business/Economics

Currency Wars force foreign investors to flee Japan!

17 March 2016 /21:49 UTC-07 Tango 01 (27 Esfand 1394/07 Jumada t-Tania 1437/09 Xin Mao 4714)

“The market is saying we’re worried no matter what Yellen says and shows there can be no real relief until we can truly see what’s happening in the U.S. economy.”-Wako Juichi, Nomuro Holdings strategist essentially blaming Japan’s investor exodus on the United States

Foreign investors have sold-off a record amount of stocks in Japanese companies. Could this be the final death blow to an economy that’s been struggling since the 1990s?

Foreigners make up 70% of the investments in Japan and for the past ten weeks they’ve been dumping those investments at record rates.

Tokyo Stock Exchange reports that just last week ‘bears’ beat out ‘bulls’ by $10.7-billion USD, beating the last record sell-off from 1987!

The number one concern of foreign investors is the value of the yen (JPY) against the U.S. dollar (USD).

An analyst with Citi Group’s Citi Research also blames the neo-imerialist government’s tax increases (part of what’s called Abenomics).

Others blame the Bank of Japan’s controversial use of negative interest rates. Believe it or not, yesterday Bank of Japan said they could drop rates even more!

“wild swings in currency” killing U.S. shoe stores?

Currency wars kill tens of thousands of U.S. jobs! 

How the Currency Wars can double your profits without increasing sales! 

Currency Wars Pushing Global Inflation

International

Japan intentionally suiciding teenagers? Or just more gross incompetence by officials!

09 March 2016 /18:42 UTC-07 Tango 01 (20 Esfand 1394/30 Jumada al-Ula 1437/02 Xin Mao [2nd month] 4714)

“Our child would never have taken his life if the school’s data management had not been sloppy and the school had not made the mistake.”-Parents of suicide school victim

If the earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear melt downs don’t kill you then Japan’s Jisatsu Junior Highs will!

In Hiroshima Prefecture, a junior high school principal was no pal when he admitted he and his staff’s incompetence might have caused a 15 years old boy to kill himself in December!

Sakamoto Hiroshi, the junior high principal who is no pal of students

The boy thought he was moving on to high school when school administrators denied it on the grounds he was a criminal, and that he wasn’t smart enough for high school entrance exams.  It turns out he was not a criminal, he was being confused for another student, but school A-hole officials didn’t realize it until after the wrongly accused boy committed Jisatsu!

But wait there’s more!  Up until now school A-hole administrators kept the suicide a secret, telling fellow students and parents that the boy died of “heart failure”.  The boy’s father finally went public with the scandal on 08 March 2016.    Now school ‘officials’ say they lied about the suicide at the father’s request!

And what about that accusation of the boy being a criminal?  Turns out it was totally word of mouth, spread from teacher to teacher until one of them officially entered it in the boy’s school computer records.    An investigation after his death revealed the truth, found in the hard copy school records, whom ever entered the data into the computer mixed up the students.

Fukushima

Five Years Later: Court orders shutdown of Japanese nuke reactors!

09 March 2016 (12:49 UTC-07 Tango 01) 19 Esfand 1394/29 Jumada al-Ula 1437/01 Xin Mao (2nd month) 4714

In an unexpected development a Japanese court has agreed with petitioners and ordered the shutdown of Kansai Electric Power Company’s Takahama nuclear power plant, in Fukui Prefecture!

Petitioners argued that the nuclear reactors are unsafe and on the verge of a “major accident”.  The Otsu District Court agreed.  Reactors 3 and 4 were restarted in the past few months, however, reactor 4 shut itself down just three days after startup.  Operators still don’t know why.

The pro-nuke governor of Fukui Prefecture, Nishikawa Issei, called the court order “inconsistent”.

And the national government has admitted failure in trying to find  storage sites for all the nuke waste building up in Fukushima Prefecture.  Their original plan was to pay property owners to store the waste, however, of the 2-thousand 3-hundred property owners approached (in Futaba and Okuma towns) so far only 69 have agreed to the deal.

Fukushima

Five Years Later: TEPCo screws up another nuclear reactor, admits it can’t stop the deadly water! Government screws over thousands of survivors!

08 March 2016 (15:15 UTC-07 Tango 01) 18 Esfand 1394/28 Jumada al-Ula 1437/30 Xin Mao 4714

Five years after the ongoing nuclear melt downs at Fukushima Daiichi, another nuclear power plant is in trouble!  Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reported the sudden unexplained movement of a highly explosive nuclear fuel rod!

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, in Nigata Prefecture, is operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the same outfit operating Fukushima Daiichi.

Reator 5 of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has 185 explosive fuel rods and during the operation of some valves one of the rods moved out of place.  If rods touch each other, that’s all she wrote man!  TEPCo administrators swear the operation of valves on the reactor should not cause any rods to move.  They say one minute later the rod repositioned itself.  An investigation is underway.

This isn’t the first time Kashiwazaki-Kariwa has been in trouble.  Back in 2007 a transformer exploded and caught fire due to an earthquake, which also released cobalt-60 and chromium-51 into the air.

More proof why you can’t trust TEPCo:  Five years after promising the world that it could handle the nuclear disaster, TEPCo administrators are now going to the government of Fukushima Prefecture for help!  Specifically they’ve admitted to the local government that they can’t handle the ongoing contamination of water, to the tune of 5-hundred tonnes per day!  TEPCo’s Fukushima Daiichi Decommissioning Officer Masuda Naohiro made the revelation during a recent interview with NHK.

And several anniversary reports by NHK (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) reveal that thousands of homeless disaster survivors are being screwed over not only by the national government, but by local governments as well.

Several prefectures are forcing survivors out of taxpayer funded temporary housing into non-subsidized permanent housing.  Many surviving families are concerned as they have yet to find permanent jobs and can’t afford to pay rent.  One news reports revealed that disaster survivors are intentionally being shunned by employers! Some prefectures are playing a shell game, shuffling survivors from one housing project to the next, claiming it’s part of a plan to provide them with permanent housing.

Recently the Reconstruction Agency revealed that thousands of people have died, and hundreds of thousands are still in temporary homes.  One of the reasons for so many deaths of survivors is the game that’s being played with their housing, and health administrators warn the ongoing games by government will lead to more deaths by stress.

Fukushima

Five Years Later: 3,400 dead! 349,000 domestic refugees! No more fat kids?

05 March 2016 (11:45 UTC-07 Tango 01) 15 Esfand 1394/25 Jumada al-Ula 1437/27 Xin Mao 4714

Five years after the March 2011 quake-tsunami-nuclear disaster the Japanese Reconstruction Agency revealed that more than 3-thousand 4-hundred “survivors” have died.  Not surprising, 56% of those deaths took place in the nuclear disaster reactor prefecture of Fukushima!

Other data proving the failure of Japan’s response to the 2011 disasters; by mid-February this year more than 174-thousand people are still in temporary housing.  I should point out that back in 2011 government officials were expecting the ‘temporary’ housing to be used for no more than six months!  Many administrators were not prepared for the radiation levels that, in some areas, are still preventing people from returning to their homes.  Another 156,234 survivors are living in homes/apartments that are being rented by local governments.  18,237 survivors are living with relatives.  All together about 349-thousand people are living as refugees in their own country!

43,139 survivors of the initial 2011 disaster from Fukushima are still living outside the prefecture, however, the ongoing nuclear disaster is blamed for an exodus of 115-thousand residents since then!

For more proof that living as a refugee, even in your own country, is worse than staying put NHK  (Nippon Housou Kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) surveyed more than 5-hundred survivors: 42% said their standard of living has not improved. 37%  said their situation is worse. 11% said they are struggling.

In a sign of some improvement, children in Fukushima are no longer fat?  After fours years of gaining weight school aged children in the nuclear disaster are suddenly losing it.  That’s according to the Ministry of Education.  It’s assumed that reason why school kids got fat was because they were not allowed to play outside due to the radiation contamination.  In the past year the ban on playing out side was lifted, and education administrators think that’s why the kids have suddenly lost weight.  It must be pointed out that being fat in Japan does not mean you’re actually fat, it’s based on the government standard for being overweight.  The government has somehow determined how much a person should weigh, and if you’re 20% or more over that limit you’re a fatty!

But don’t credit declining radiation contamination for the lifting of the outside play ban, the real reason is that the number of parents keeping their kids out of Fukushima schools has jumped; 1-thousand 785 children were kept out of school in 2015, that’s 2-hundred more than before the March 2011 disaster!

Confirmed: Population death spiral for Japan!

Japan admits Fukushima workers dying of cancer!

Fukushima

Mysterious reactor shutdown in Japan! Corporate cronyism blamed for Fukushima disaster!

29 February 2016 /21:29 UTC-07 Tango 01 (11 Esfand 1394/21 Jumada al-Ula 1437/23 Geng Yin 4714)

Only three days after re-start a nuclear reactor in Japan suddenly shutdown, automatically.

Kansai Electric Power Company restarted reactor 4 at their Takahama facility on Friday, then on Monday it shut itself down.  Administrators say an alarm went off when technicians were connecting the reactor to the consumer power grid, the computers sensed ‘abnormal currents’  and automatically shutdown the reactor.  Administrators don’t know what caused the problem.  (just a week prior the same nuke plant leaked contaminated water)

France based OECD Nuclear Energy Agency concluded its investigations into the ongoing nuclear disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi.

One finding is that Japan’s ‘tradition’ of involving corporations in the government regulation of industries is a major factor for the failure of proper response to the disaster that began on 11 March 2011.  In other words, the government nuclear regulation is a farce because it allows the nuclear industry corporations to essentially self-regulate.

It’s not just Japan, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency criticized several countries of doing the same thing: “The principle of regulatory independence, in particular the effective separation between the functions of the regulatory body and those of any other body or organisation concerned with the promotion or use of nuclear energy, is fundamental and requires vigilance to ensure it is maintained.  Some member countries have reviewed, and other member countries are in the process of reviewing, their regulatory frameworks and are making changes as appropriate to update their legislation so as to reflect lessons learnt from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.”–FIVE YEARS AFTER THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI ACCIDENT: Nuclear Safety Improvements and Lessons Learnt

International

Confirmed: Population death spiral for Japan!

26 February 2016 (03:34 UTC-07 Tango 01) 07 Esfand 1394/17 Jumada al-Ula 1437/19 Geng Yin 4714

The results of the 2015 census prove what social administrators in Japan have been warning about for several years; massive population decline.

Over the past five years Japan’s population has suffered a net decline of 947-thousand people!  That even includes the increase in foreigners who’ve moved to Japan!

The eastern Asian nation is now in an official population death spiral as deaths far outpace births and the influx of foreign residents combined!

Not surprising the prefectures suffering the highest population decline are Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the ones hardest hit by the 2011 quake-tsunami and nuclear disasters.

Nursing shortage continues for Japan, only 30 applicants pass new certification test!

“Developed Country” status for Japan to end, could officially regress to “Less-Developed” 

One Year Later: Big Exodus continues; most number of people flee Japan since 1950! 

Airline pilot? Need a job? Japan needs you! 

Japan’s nuclear family Myth busted: Family households now at Record low. 

130,000 Japanese flee 11 March 2011, disaster areas!

Think your taxes are bad here in the U.S.? Try 45% income tax and 10% sales tax, welcome to Japan!

Fukushima

5 years later Fukushima Hell continues!

26 February 2016 (03:11 UTC-07 Tango 01) 07 Esfand 1394/17 Jumada al-Ula 1437/19 Geng Yin 4714

Three former executives of TEPCo are finally going to face trial over the 2011 nuclear melt downs and resulting explosions at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.  They are charged with professional negligence resulting in deaths and injuries. Prosecutors accuse the former executives of knowingly ignoring procedures for handling nuclear emergencies.  The deaths include numerous patients evacuated from the nearby Futaba Kosei hospital.

Despite the criminal charges, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCo) continues to amaze at its level of seeming ignorance concerning the never ending melt downs at Fukushima Daiichi.

Five years later the basements of the reactor buildings are still flooding with contaminated water, and TEPCo adminstrators announced yet another plan to stop the flooding.  In the meantime TEPCo has been pumping the radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean (of course they claim they filter it down to ‘safe’ levels).  By the way, the new plan to stop the flooding the basements is expected take four years to complete!

On top of that TEPCo will begin incinerating accumulated mixed nuclear waste.  Japan has no official nuclear waster storage and the Fukushima Daiichi property is piling up with nuclear waste.  Interestingly news reports say that reducing the mixed waste (clothing, tools, etc) to ash will actually increase the concentration of radiation by volume.  TEPCo wants to burn 14 tonnes per day.

The incinerators were in use before the 2011 disasters, it took TEPCo five years to get them up and running again (maybe, they still have to test fire them), the reason is the same reason TEPCo has given for almost all their problems dealing with the melt downs; unexplained contaminated water leaks.

Now, if you work at Fukushima Daiichi would you trust what your supervisor tells you?  Workers are now being told they don’t have to wear protective clothing while working on certain areas of the nuclear plant’s grounds.

TEPCo administrators say it’s because they’ve completed removing contaminated topsoil from a large area of the complex.  They claim radiation levels in those areas are low enough that protective clothing is not required, but workers can still wear them if they want to (good idea).

The ongoing nuke disaster is blamed for an exodus of 115-thousand residents, the largest population drop of all the prefectures.

Business/Economics

Bad economy revives Yakuza violence! U.S. connection?

25 February 2016 (09:08 UTC-07 Tango 01) 06 Esfand 1394/16 Jumada al-Ula 1437/18 Geng Yin 4714

“This is a tough time for them as their revenue sources have shrunk dramatically…because of tougher laws…pressuring members for regular payments…some do not want to pay and that’s why there was a split.”-Yamanouchi Yukio, attorney for Yamaguchi-gumi

An attorney representing some of the larger factions of Japan’s mafia (known as Yakuza in the United States) is blaming the declining economy for recent shootings between rival gangs.

He says because of the bad economy members of the biggest Yakuza group, Yamaguchi-gumi, are having a hard time paying their membership dues, with many Yamaguchi-gumi members breaking away forming new Yakuza gangs.  The result is a spike in violence.

Yakuza violence had been subdued after Japan’s government passed tougher anti-Yakuza laws because of the Yakuza war in the 1980s.  However, news reports say a new ‘Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi’ gang has somehow avoided being officially classified as a violent gang and is immune from those laws, which helped it to become the third largest Yamaguchi-gumi group in only a few months time!

The formation of Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi took place at the end of 2015.

Attorney Yamanouchi warned that because of declining revenues the various branches of the Yamaguchi-gumi are now in survival mode.  A former Yakuza bodyguard blames it on an obsession with money: “…loyalty and brotherhood….are long gone…..It’s now all about money-money and money alone. It is no longer duty or honor.”-‘Takegaki’, explaining why he left theYamaguchi-gumi

While looking over recent Yakuza articles I found a picture of current neo-imperialist Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo with U.S. politician (and professed ‘christian’) Mike Huckabee standing next to a man the Japanese National Police associate with Yamaguchi-gumi;  Nagamoto Icchu.

Nagamoto was arrested and charged in 2012 with strong arm loansharking.