Gadget Samurai

China and the Cascading Geopolitics of Lower Mekong Dams
Philip Hirsch
Much has been written on the downstream impact of China’s dams on the Lancang-Mekong River, which flows through or along the borders of five other countries after exiting China.   Most of the discussion relates to the hydrological impact of impounding water in the eight dams along the mainstream Lancang Jiang in Yunnan Province.  Particular concern surrounds the recently completed Xiaowan Dam and the recently approved construction of the Nuozhadu Dam, each of which is of a scale to impound quantities of water that can affect river hydrology throughout the basin.  The Lancang Cascade, as it is termed, has caused considerable controversy in downstream countries, most notably during the 2008 floods and the 2010 drought.  Both the floods and the droughts were blamed by many in Thailand, and some in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, on China’s actions.  Recent articles on the downstream imp…

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The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System [Updated May 15, 2011] Peter Dale Scott The present NATO campaign against Gaddafi in Libya has given rise to great confusion, both among those waging this ineffective campaign, and among those observing it. Many whose opinions I normally respect see this as a necessary war against a villain – though some choose to see Gaddafi as the villain, and others point to Obama.  My own take on this war, on the other hand, is that it is both ill-conceived and dangerous  -- a threat to the interests of Libyans, Americans, the Middle East and conceivably the entire world. Beneath the professed concern about the safety of Libyan civilians lies a deeper concern that is barely acknowledged: the West’s defense of the present global petrodollar economy, now in decline.. The confusion in Washington, matched by the absence of discussion of an overriding strategic motive for American involvement, is symptomatic o...

The Libyan War, American Power and the Decline of the Petrodollar System [Updated May 15, 2011] Peter Dale Scott The present NATO campaign against Gaddafi in Libya has given rise to great confusion, both among those waging this ineffective campaign, and among those observing it. Many whose opinions I normally respect see this as a necessary war against a villain – though some choose to see Gaddafi as the villain, and others point to Obama.  My own take on this war, on the other hand, is that it is both ill-conceived and dangerous  -- a threat to the interests of Libyans, Americans, the Middle East and conceivably the entire world. Beneath the professed concern about the safety of Libyan civilians lies a deeper concern that is barely acknowledged: the West’s defense of the present global petrodollar economy, now in decline.. The confusion in Washington, matched by the absence of discussion of an overriding strategic motive for American involvement, is symptomatic o...

Contamination: From Minamata to Fukushima Christine L. Marran A Slowly Emerging Picture On 22 March 2011, an exhausting court battle finally ended for over 2000 victims of mercury poisoning in Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures. In sum, the agreement, decades in the making, was as follows as outlines in the Japan Times (31 March): “Chisso will provide some 90 percent of the plaintiffs with a ¥2.1 million lump sum each as well as a ¥2.29 billion fund, and the central and prefectural governments will shoulder part of their medical costs.” Chisso Corporation’s dumping of methyl-mercury in nearby waters caused Minamata disease, as the painful ailment came to be known after it was first recognized in 1956. Half a century later, time is running out for these victims to receive the official recognition they deserve, as their bodies are growing increasingly frail. The mercury that poisoned their bodies was carried through the fish they ate and accumulated as it moved ...

Waiting for Doomsday: Living next to the ‘world’s most dangerous nuclear power plant.’ David McNeill & Nanako Otani in Omaezeki, Shizuoka Prefecture Japan Watanabe Norihiko is pointing to his home, 600 meters from what he calls the most dangerous nuclear power complex on the planet. “There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world,” he says, eyes widening. “If it blows up, we’re all finished.” For years, Mr. Watanabe’s unofficial tour of Omaezeki, a small city of about 30,000 people, has included a pit stop at the exhibition center in the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant. The center, complete with cartoon figures for children, says the energy it generates is safe, cheap and clean: One section explains how seawater discharged from the plant’s cooling system is used to incubate shellfish. From the observation deck of the center, the five-reactor complex can be seen nestling between...

Mount Fuji: Shield of War, Badge of Peace1 H. Byron Earhart Invitation to Fuji Mount Fuji2 The exquisite shape of Fuji, its symmetrical triangle dominating a broad plain, has delighted the Japanese for two millennia, and pleased Western eyes for several centuries. Unlike the manmade symbols of other countries––the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the pyramids of Egypt––this universally recognized sign for Japan is a natural landmark. From its first mention in ancient Japanese poetry, this volcano became a mainstay of not only poetic and literary expression of diverse genres, but also of various graphic forms. Also, not unlike most peaks in the Japanese islands, it was esteemed as a sacred mountain, worthy of worship as a deity itself, or revered as the dwelling place of the divinities of Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist origin. For most of its history, Fuji has been viewed as a physical, aesthetic, and spiritual phenomenon, but our focus here is on its ap...

China and the Cascading Geopolitics of Lower Mekong Dams Philip Hirsch Much has been written on the downstream impact of China’s dams on the Lancang-Mekong River, which flows through or along the borders of five other countries after exiting China.   Most of the discussion relates to the hydrological impact of impounding water in the eight dams along the mainstream Lancang Jiang in Yunnan Province.  Particular concern surrounds the recently completed Xiaowan Dam and the recently approved construction of the Nuozhadu Dam, each of which is of a scale to impound quantities of water that can affect river hydrology throughout the basin.  The Lancang Cascade, as it is termed, has caused considerable controversy in downstream countries, most notably during the 2008 floods and the 2010 drought.  Both the floods and the droughts were blamed by many in Thailand, and some in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, on China’s actions.  Recent articles on the downstream imp...

Mount Fuji: Shield of War, Badge of Peace1 H. Byron Earhart Invitation to Fuji Mount Fuji2 The exquisite shape of Fuji, its symmetrical triangle dominating a broad plain, has delighted the Japanese for two millennia, and pleased Western eyes for several centuries. Unlike the manmade symbols of other countries––the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the pyramids of Egypt––this universally recognized sign for Japan is a natural landmark. From its first mention in ancient Japanese poetry, this volcano became a mainstay of not only poetic and literary expression of diverse genres, but also of various graphic forms. Also, not unlike most peaks in the Japanese islands, it was esteemed as a sacred mountain, worthy of worship as a deity itself, or revered as the dwelling place of the divinities of Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist origin. For most of its history, Fuji has been viewed as a physical, aesthetic, and spiritual phenomenon, but our focus here is on its ap...

China and the Cascading Geopolitics of Lower Mekong Dams Philip Hirsch Much has been written on the downstream impact of China’s dams on the Lancang-Mekong River, which flows through or along the borders of five other countries after exiting China.   Most of the discussion relates to the hydrological impact of impounding water in the eight dams along the mainstream Lancang Jiang in Yunnan Province.  Particular concern surrounds the recently completed Xiaowan Dam and the recently approved construction of the Nuozhadu Dam, each of which is of a scale to impound quantities of water that can affect river hydrology throughout the basin.  The Lancang Cascade, as it is termed, has caused considerable controversy in downstream countries, most notably during the 2008 floods and the 2010 drought.  Both the floods and the droughts were blamed by many in Thailand, and some in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, on China’s actions.  Recent articles on the downstream imp...

Young Japanese Temporary Workers Create Their Own Unions Emilie Guyonnet Translated by Ludwig Leibenguth From the early 2000’s onwards, a new kind of trade unionism has been steadily gaining ground in Japan. While the country’s major trade unions are stagnating or losing workers, temporary workers, especially young people, have begun to create their own structures. In contrast with the trend of deunionization prevailing in Japan (and many other countries) since the 1970’s, the number of unionized temporary workers rose from 400,000 to 700,000 between 2005 and 2009.1 Marginal though this may seem – Rengo, the country’s main trade union claims 6.8 million members – this trend is breathing new life into a defeated union movement: after remaining stagnant since 1975, during the "lost decade" beginning in the mid 1990s, union membership declined by 2 million to level off at 10 million people today. Moreover, the percentage of union members in the labor fo...

Pan-Asianism as an Ideal of Asian Identity and Solidarity, 1850–Present Sven Saaler and Christopher W. A. Szpilman This is a revised, updated and abbreviated version of the introduction to the two volume collection by the authors of Pan-Asianism. A Documentary History Vol. 1 covers the years 1850-1920; Vol. 2 covers the years 1850-present, link. The economic and political power of Asia, the world’s largest continent, is increasing rapidly. According to the latest projections, the gross domestic products of China and India, the world’s most populous nations, will each surpass that of the United States in the not-too-distant future. China’s economy, like Japan’s, is already larger than that of any single European country. With this new economic might comes growing diplomatic influence. The twenty-first century, many pundits agree, will be an Asian century. This undisputed Asian success story, together with its accompanying tensions and discontents, has ...

Small Islets, Enduring Conflict: Dokdo, Korea-Japan Colonial Legacy and the United States1 Mark Selden At a time when territorial conflicts in East Asia repeatedly raise tensions between China and Japan (Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands), North and South Korea (the Northern Limit Line) and Japan-Russia (the Northern Islands/Kurils), it is worth recalling that disputes continue to simmer not only between long-time rivals, but also among allies. Dokdo/Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks (hereafter Dokdo) remains a sharp thorn in the side of contemporary Japan-ROK relations. The contentiousness of the issues is emblematic of unresolved political and territorial legacies of two centuries of colonialism in East Asia as well as of the post-war territorial disposition of the San Francisco Treaty and the global conflict that it mirrored and defined. The story has frequently been told in terms of Japan-ROK conflict. We explore its historical and contemporary ramifications here in a triangular century-long framewor...

  Japan, the Atomic Bomb, and the “Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Power” Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick In this two part article Yuki Tanaka and Peter Kuznick explore the relationship between the atomic bombing of Japan and that nation’s embrace of nuclear power, a relationship that may be entering a new phase with the 3.11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima. “The Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy” and Hiroshima Yuki Tanaka The ongoing grave situation at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, which continues to contaminate vast areas of surrounding land and sea with high levels of radiation, forces us to reconsider the devastating impact of the so-called “peaceful use of nuclear energy” upon all forms of life, including human beings and nature. The scale of damage to human beings and the environment caused by a major accident at a nuclear power plant, where radiation is emitted either from the nuclear vessel or spent fuel rod...

Dying for TEPCO? Fukushima’s Nuclear Contract Workers
Paul Jobin
While the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) experiences difficulties in recruiting workers willing to go to Fukushima to clean up the damaged reactors, the WHO is planning to conduct an epidemiological survey on the catastrophe. This is the first of two reports by Paul Jobin offering a worker-centered analysis of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Liquidators recruited by ads
In the titanic struggle to bring to closure the dangerous situation at Fukushima Nuclear Plant No1, there are many signs that TEPCO is facing great difficulties in finding workers. At present, there are nearly 700 people at the site. As in ordinary times, workers rotate so as to limit the cumulative dose of radiation inherent in maintenance and cleanup work at the nuclear site. But this time, the risks are greater, and the method of recruitment unusual.
Job offers come not from TEPCO but from Mizukami Kogyo, a company whose business is construc…

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Complicity and Victimhood: Director Kamanaka Hitomi’s Nuclear Warnings
Introduced and translated by Norma Field
“They keep saying on television that it’s safe, there’s nothing to worry about. I regard this as criminal.” So Kamanaka Hitomi stated on a recent talk show. ["The harm caused by trace amounts of radiation will show up ten years later ... Director Kamanaka Hitomi appeals to her fellow citizens to awaken to the threats posed by radiation: 'Tokyo is now a contaminated area, too.' Cinema Today, April 17, 2011, link.]

Kamanaka Hitomi

Kamanaka’s pursuit of the issue of nuclear power over a dozen year has resulted in three films to date.  The first, Hibakusha at the End of the World (2003), followed the ravages of radiation from Iraq (depleted uranium contamination following the Persian Gulf War) to Hanford (downwinders of the plutonium factory) to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The second, Rokkasho Rhapsody (2006), explored both the health effects of radiation and t…

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