Silver-lining to Japan's energy crisis

[unhappycamper]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/JAP-01-240214.html



Silver-lining to Japan's energy crisis
By Aiko Shimizu
Feb 24, '14

Since returning to office, Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has made national security reform one of his top priorities. He has introduced a series of initiatives to strengthen the country's defense posture: the creation of a National Security Council, the publication of a National Security Strategy report, promotion of a new defense doctrine, and an increase in defense spending. He has also undertaken efforts to lift constraints on Japan's security policies: a revision of the pacifist constitution, are-interpretation of the right of collective self-defense, and a removal of the restriction on exporting defense-related equipment.

Those moves have attracted considerable attention. Less noticed, but no less important to Abe's national security agenda, is energy policy. Energy security is of special concern for Japan, a country with few indigenous energy resources. Always important, Japan's energy situation has become an even greater concern after the March 2011 "triple catastrophe".

The accident at Fukushima resulted in the closure of all the country's nuclear power plants, facilities that generated around 30% of its energy supplies. Imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ballooned to replace the energy produced by those shuttered plants, and as a result Japan has become the world's largest importer of the fuel, reaching a record US$68.98 billion last year. The nuclear shutdown has transformed Japan's trade balance, contributing to a trade deficit of $112 billion in 2013 and doing great damage to long-term economic stability.

Tokyo has responded to these energy concerns by reinvigorating its diplomacy. Japan has put a priority on efforts to secure a share of the US shale oil bonanza, lobbying hard to get the US Department of Energy (DOE) to change its rules on energy exports. The DOE has obliged, approving the export of US natural gas from four out of six LNG terminals to Japan. Those exports - and perhaps even the approval - were facilitated by Japanese investment in LNG facilities in the US, such as Mitsubishi and Mitsui's investment in the $6 billion Sempra natural gas terminal in Louisiana.

[Demeter]

1. Silver lining?

The complete contamination of the planet and the people there on? I don't see any silver lining, except for the cockroaches.

[bananas]

4. Right-wing fascist neocons are like that.

In the US, they saw 911 as a good excuse for the Patriot Act and getting international cooperation in new wars.

In Japan, they see 311 as a good excuse for new secrecy laws and a military build-up that requires rewriting the constitition so they can provoke new wars.

[bananas]

2. That's a right-wing nationalistic fascist organization

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryoichi_Sasakawa

Ryoichi Sasakawa (笹川 良一 Sasakawa Ryōichi?, May 4, 1899 – July 18, 1995) was a Japanese businessman, politician and fascist[1][2][3] born in Minoh, Osaka. He was imprisoned as a Class A war criminal after World War II but later released without a trial,[4][5][6] kuromaku (political power-broker), and the founder of the Nippon Foundation. While he is widely known throughout Africa and much of the developing world for the wide-ranging philanthropic programs that he established, he is at the same time viewed with hostility by many intellectuals[7][8] for his right wing ideals and ties to Japan's motorboat racing industry and support for the Unification Movement.[9][10][11][12][13][14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_A_war_criminal

<snip>

"Class A" crimes were reserved for those who participated in a joint conspiracy to start and wage war, and were brought against those in the highest decision-making bodies

<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippon_Foundation

The Nippon Foundation (日本財団 Nipponzaidan?) of Tokyo, Japan, is a private, non-profit grant-making organization. It was established in 1962 by Ryoichi Sasakawa <snip>

The current chairman is Yohei Sasakawa, <snip> the son of the foundation's founder, Ryoichi Sasakawa.

<snip>

Controversy

Despite its funding of many public health and welfare programs, the foundation has been criticized, primarily by scholars and journalists on the left, as an organization with right-wing, nationalist motives.[15]

The Foundation has stated its principal commitment is "to support international humanitarian initiatives aimed at improving the social, cultural, and economic well-being of developing countries, and combating poverty worldwide." In addition, however, it has engaged in politically motivated activities such as spending millions to help support Japan's claim that Okinotorishima is an island, by building a lighthouse there and investing in a project to "grow" the island through microorganism breeding.[11]

The grants that The Nippon Foundation makes are overseen and coordinated by the Japanese government. While no official connection exists, one article claims that the foundation’s philanthropic work constitutes an important part of the official Japanese lobbying effort to foster and maintain a favorable image of Japan - known by the euphemism "improving mutual understanding." The article states that although many Japanese institutions refrain from seeking a grant from The Nippon Foundation, the combination of reduced US funding for Japanese studies and the efforts of the Japan Lobby for many years have virtually deprived the US and other countries of an independent capability for research and teaching on Japan. Further, it contends that The Nippon Foundation has also had considerable success in reducing the range of opinion and advice on which US government policy is based.[16]

The Nippon Foundation <snip> supported a massive family planning campaign in Peru, known as Voluntary Surgical Contraception. It was later revealed that under the campaign, undertaken by Alberto Fujimori's administration in Peru from 1996 to 2000, nearly 300,000, mostly indigenous, women were forcibly sterilized.[17][18][19] The United Nations, USAID and other international aid agencies also supported this campaign.[20]


Organizations established

<snip>

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation

<snip>

[bananas]

3. "nearly 300,000, mostly indigenous, women were forcibly sterilized" by it's parent organization.

And they called it "Voluntary Surgical Contraception".