Tag Archives: japan

Business/Economics, International, Technology

What Economic Recovery? For the first time in 62 years, TV maker Sharp will layoff 5,000 workers! Despite profits Panasonic will let go 7,000 workers! Sony 10,000!

01 August 2012, Sharp announced that it will layoff 5,000 employees between now and March 2013, then, on 02 August reported a record loss of $1.6 billion USD for the quarter April-June!  That’s three times its loss from the same quarter last year!

The layoffs will affect workers in Japan, and in other countries.  Sharp hopes most of the layoffs will come from convincing older workers to retire early.

Sharp now expects to lose $3.2 billion for the year 2012!

Sharp has reported record losses, but, Panasonic recently reported profits and still plans to layoff 7,000 employees!

On 30 July 2012, Panasonic revealed that it plans to reduce its headquarter staffing by 7,000, leaving only 150 HQ staff employed!

Panasonic reported profits for the past quarter, but they (just like Sharp) suffered huge losses in 2011, and they expect sales to drop for the rest of 2012.

Panasonic executives say they hope to find other jobs for the 7,000 HQ staffers in Japan.

Back in April 2012, Sony revealed they will layoff 10,000 employees, both in Japan and in other countries.  On 02 August 2012, Sony reported a loss of $315 million for the quarter Arpil-June.

Sony officials revised their expected losses for this year, almost doubling it!

All three of these companies are losing big money in one sector of their industry: Televisions with LCD screens!  They say people around the world just aren’t buying enough LCD TVs.

Or is it that company execs messed up and ordered the production of way too many TVs with liquid crystal displays?

Fukushima

One Year Later: They survived the Tsunami, but died because of botched rescue attempts!

“I sent off all the hospital staff because I believed that SDF [Self Defense Force] troops and police would arrive at any minute to rescue us.”-Suzuki Ichiro, Futaba Hospital

On 24 July 2012, Japanese media reported that a government investigation, into the rescue efforts after the 11 March 2011 tsunami, actually caused people to die!

In one example the hospital director had the staff evacuate the damaged Futaba hospital thinking the rescue of the patients would be soon.  Their rescue was a full two days later, and four patients had died as a result.

The rescue effort at the Futaba hospital still took five days to complete and another 19 patients died!

The recently released government investigation showed that SDF units were not trained to handle such large natural disaster rescues. But to make things worse, the investigation said lack of communications and logistical coordination problems with rescuers were the main problems.

“Those in charge of a lifesaving mission should have handled their task with a stronger sense of responsibility.”-Government report, released 23 July 2012

Local governments are to blame as well. The Fukushima prefectural government had designated four hospitals to receive people from damaged hospitals, but, local government officials never notified the SDF, and they never even notified their own local disaster response task force!

 

Fukushima

One Year Later: Scientists cooking the books on radiation contamination. Now say radiation exposure was not at dangerous levels!

Reported on 13 July 2012, a group of Japanese and Russian scientists, working through the Hirosaki University’s Institute of Radiation Emergency Medicine and the Institute of Radiation Hygiene in St. Petersburg, greatly lowered the official radiation exposure records for victims of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Now they say no adult was exposed to dangerous levels, claiming the highest dose was 33 millisieverts.  Previously they said people had been exposed to as much as 87 millisieverts!

The international standard is 50 millisieverts, before you have to start taking iodide pills.

The scientists based their new claims on data for radioactive iodine concentration in thyroids taken between 12-16 April last year, then tried to extrapolate using recent radiation plume tracking and various dosimeter data.  So they’re making their claims based on one week of human thyroid gland data, then cooking their scientific books with more recent numbers from other measurements that do not look specifically at the health of a person!

Oh, the scientists did warn that children were still exposed to levels of contamination above the international 50 millisieverts range.  So why not the adults?

Fukushima

One Year Later: Japanese tsunami hit town so contaminated with radiation, officials can’t dump radioactive debris, instead they want to burn it!!!

31 July 2012, the Japanese government is considering plans to incinerate highly radioactive debris from the tsunami hit towns of Hirono and Namie.

The destroyed houses and buildings have been contaminated by fallout from the ongoing nuclear disaster at the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power factory.

The contamination is so high that local officials have been hamstrung because the debris can not be handled through usual removal methods.  A plan to build two new incinerators within the area was scrapped because of concerns about the radiation.

But wait, there’s more! In their wisdom officials have now rationalized that it’s OK to incinerate the radioactive debris as long as it’s outside of the contaminated area!

They are asking six municipalities to consider build incinerators for burning radioactive ruble from Hirono and Namie towns!

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

LIBOR: EU to make rate fixing a crime. Rate fixing scandal an excuse to create One World Bank! New CIBOR scandal!

26 July 2012, the European Union’s European Commission is asking its members to pass a new law making currency and interest rate manipulation a crime.

The scandal involves mainly U.S. and British Too Big to Fail banks and the British based LIBOR, Belgium based EURIBOR and Japan based TIBOR systems.  Recently it was revealed that such systems are also being used to help elites hide $20 trillion USD worth of wealth from tax collectors.

In Denmark, the Danish government is wrapping up their investigation into their own CIBOR system.  Officials running the Copenhagen Interbank Offered Rate are suspected of setting rates unjustifiably higher than the EURIBOR.

The Wall Street Journal recently said the scandal “…could lead to a new system of calculating a benchmark…”

Too Big to Fail Morgan Stanley is asking British officials to put the Bank of England in direct control of LIBOR.

Also, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, stated he will be reviewing the proposed introduction of a new global rate system that will replace current LIBOR like systems.

The rate fixing scandal involves banks in North America, Europe and Japan (the regional members of the Trilateral Commission).

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Sales up, yet profits down for Nissan. Sales & profits down for Ford!

26 July 2012, Japan’s Nissan Motor has reported an increase in sales for the April to June quarter, but decreased profits.

Nissan officials said sales were up in China and North America, but, because of the rising value of the Japanese yen, and increasingly stiff competition, the overall profits fell 19.7%.  Their profit was still a hefty $1.5 billion USD (oh those greedy stockholders)!

Nissan said the only way they can keep profits up is to send more of their Japanese production to other countries, and use parts made in countries where the money is worth less than the yen.  Of course, this means more job losses in Japan!

U.S. based Ford also reported down profits, by 57%!  Ford, a much bigger company than Nissan, made about the same profit as their Japanese competitor, but Ford’s profit loss is tied directly to decreased sales worldwide.

Officials with Ford said they lost money big time in Europe, where the iconic car company saw a 15% drop in sales, losing more than $400 million USD.  They also lost sales in Asia, and profits were down in South America.

Ford expects that by the end of the year they will lose more than $1 billion USD because of the European crisis!

International, U.S.

World War 3: Trilateral Commission advances; United States, European Union & Japan to go it alone against Syria, no longer working through United Nations!

25 July 2012, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the United States will no longer use the United Nations Security Council, instead it has formed an alliance with the Arab League and the new French led group called Friends of Syria (which is made up of the European Union and Japan).

Clinton also said that the U.S. no longer cares what Russia and China thinks, saying their concerns are now “on the far backburner” as far as the U.S. is concerned.

Back on 06 July 2012, Clinton told the Friends of Syria they needed to stand up to Russia and China in order to make sure “…that Russia and China will pay a price.”

Now the United States has joined the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in officially announcing they will increase support for rebels, however Clinton did not go into details.

Note that this new alliance is made up mainly of the EU, Japan and North America, who are the regional members of the Trilateral Commission (the true shadow government).

 

Fukushima

One Year Later: Prosecutors to launch criminal investigations into Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster!

25 July 2012, after a final government initiated, independent investigation report was filed, NHK (nippon housou kyoukai/Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is reporting that Japanese prosecutors will now accept and investigate criminal complaints regarding the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

The final report basically said that it is not clear that the nuclear disaster was caused by the natural disasters on 11 March 2011, in fact, in an earlier report the investigators said it was a “man made” disaster.

The final report also blamed the ongoing disaster on gross negligence, both by corporations and the government!  This is why Japanese prosecutors are now accepting criminal complaint cases.  Of course corporate officials, and government officials, deny such gross negligence.

 

Business/Economics, International, Technology, U.S.

Corporate Incompetence or Evil? Investigation into Bile duct cancer spreads from Printing industry to Semiconductors and Metal industries. U.S. workers suffering same cancer!

“The research conducted in the United States shows that the hazardous nature of dichloromethane had been pointed out some time ago. The warning of the health hazard to humans was issued more than 20 years ago!“-Shinji Kumagai, University of Occupational and Environmental Health

Back at the end of June 2012, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced an investigation into the high rate of bile duct cancer among workers in the printing industry.  Now, they are warning the semiconductor and metals industries they will be investigated as well.

The common factor is a cleaning chemical called dichloromethane (aka methylene chloride).  “Dichloromethane is reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity from studies in experimental animals.”-Report on Carcinogens, Twelfth Edition (2011)

According to a study by University of Occupational and Environmental Health, cancer rates among printing industry employees is 600 times higher than than the average Japanese man who dies from bile duct cancer!

The identification of dichloromethane, and other cleaning solvents, is leading investigators to look at other industries that also use those chemicals.

Japanese doctors will now question people who get bile duct cancer (or related cancers), as to what industry they work in.  Health officials are concerned that industries are not taking the proper precautions, such as proper ventilation of work place.

On 10 July 2012, a report by The Mainichi revealed that workers in certain U.S. industries suffer high rates of cancer.  The thing is the study was released back in 1990, not in U.S. publications but in a European magazine!  (Mortality update of cellulose fiber production workers)

U.S. health researchers studied 1,271 people who worked at a factory in South Carolina between 1954 and 1977.  Workers had developed liver cancer, from cancerous bile duct cells.  The mortality rate was 20 times higher than the U.S. average! The main culprit;  dichloromethane!

When Japanese health researchers read the study, more than a decade later, they decided to investigate Japanese industries. It was that initial study that revealed the outrageously high cancer rates of printing industry workers!

Fukushima

Corporate Evil: Subcontractor admitted to falsifying radiation exposure of employees!

21 July 2012, Japanese health officials were alerted to a case of cover up by a subcontractor to Tokyo Electric Power Company.  TEPCo operates the GE designed nuclear disaster reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.

The president of a subcontractor called Buildup, says one of his executives has just admitted that back in December 2011 he ordered their employees to cover their dosimeters with lead.

By covering their dosimeters the radiation exposure readings were much lower than what the workers were really being exposed to.  As a result Japanese health officials were given lower falsified exposure level data, which allowed the executive to keep his men working in highly contaminated areas.

The executive said he issued the order to falsify dosimeter readings when a radiation alarm went off in the area they were working in.  His main concern was not the safety of his men, but the completion of their work.  He claims he now regrets that decision.