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Japan has been working hard to meet the energy requirements layed out by the UN’s Kyoto Protocol:

Even though Japan is already among the most frugal countries in the world, the government recently introduced a national campaign, urging the Japanese to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles, all part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming. And big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, counting on the moves to increase sales of their latest models.

On the Matsushita appliance showroom floor these days, the numbers scream not the low, low yen prices, but the low, low kilowatt-hours.

It is good to see the Japan is trying to improve energy efficiency. According to the NY Times article other nations are also working hard to improve energy efficiency. I only hope that my own country jumps on the band wagon to improve energy consumption in the coming years.

Today is the 16th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Simon’s World has a great posting to commemorate this tragedy. Here is a preview:

There’s plenty that could change. The CCP plays a delicate balancing game between socio-economic tensions and its grip on power. What’s worse is it is good at it. But without the effective feedback mechanisms that democracy provides the powers-that-be need to hope they remain good at the game. It will only take one slip for the edifice to come crashing down. Which is why in situations like June 4th, 1989, the CCP is likely to err on the side of crackdown and confrontation. There’s no upside in compromise and they hold the guns.

The CCP has a clear desire to remain in power at all costs. Democracy and freedom is not an inevitability for China. That’s the legacy of Tiananmen Square.

I couldn’t agree more.

In response to comments about the lack of Asian male news anchors I have decided to do some research on this subject. The first place I checked out was TV news stations in LA because I remember seeing an Asian male news anchor on the news there. Guess what I found him. On ABC7 in LA they have a male news anchor Rob Fukuzaki. Then in San Francisco on KRON4 they have an award winning Asian male reporter Vic Lee. Here is a quick list of his notable accomplishments:

Lee’s reporting has earned local and national recognition. He was honored with the prestigious George Polk Award of Journalism for Best Local Reporting for “Clean Rooms, Dirty Secrets,” a 1985 investigative news series on hidden health hazards in Silicon Valley’s semiconductor industry. “Clean Rooms, Dirty Secrets” also received a Best Investigative Reporting award from the Associated Press (AP).

Lee has won local Emmy awards for Best Writing, Best News Story, Best Series, Best Specialized Reporting, and Best Multi-Part Feature from the Northern California Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS). Other awards include: Best Spot News Story from United Press International (UPI); Best Live Coverage, Best Investigative and Best Enterprise awards from the AP; Best Television Enterprise Reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ); and Best TV Reporting, Unlimited Subject Matter and Asian American Issues national awards from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

Then I found Robert Handa who is on KTVU News in San Francisco. He is another award winning reporter and anchor for that station. Here is some of his recognitions:

During his career, Handa has won numerous awards including:
an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Investigative Reporting
a UPI Western Regional Award for Best News Reporting
an Associated Press Award for Best Documentary
two awards from RTNDA (Radio Television News Directors Association) for Best Live/Breaking News and Best Multi-Part Series
California School Boards Association for Best Education Reporting
Handa has won several national journalism awards including top prizes from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) as well as a first place award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

In addition, Handa was given the ‘Community Star’ award from Asian Americans for Community Involvement ( AACI) and the first-ever ‘Media Excellence’ award from the South Bay Islamic Association.

I’m beating a dead horse here now, but Asian male news broadcasters do exist. Asian males are much fewer and far between than Asian females though. During my research I was actually surprised by the amount of Asian female reporters out there compared to Asian males. Here is some more interesting data I uncovered in a USA Today article:

An Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) study last year found that 86 Asian-American women but only 20 men were employed on the air in the USA’s top 25 markets. The ratio was even more lopsided among news anchors: Thirteen women held such jobs in those markets; only one man did.

So in the top 25 news markets there are 86 Asian female reporters. That is over three Asian female reporters per market but less than one Asian male reporter per market.

So what can be the cause of the disparity between Asian female and Asian male reporters? Could it be that not enough Asian males are studying journalism and broadcasting? If so why? Or are news stations racist against Asian males? I don’t think that is the case because there are many hispanics and African-Americans on the news. Alright Asian males out there you are more qualified to answer this question than I am. I’m interested to hear what you think.

The Chosun Ilbo is reporting that the US Air Force’s stealth bombers will come to Korea every year on a rotational basis:

The F-117 will carry out exercises here for four to six months a year, a strategy that would boost the U.S. Forces in Korea’s fighting strength no less than if they were based here permanently and is therefore expected to draw protests from North Korea.

Kim said besides normal training, pilots would also familiarize themselves with the terrain of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. Air Force rotates its F-117s in areas of strategic importance worldwide.

With the cancelling of the program that finds Korean War casualties remains in North Korea and the deployment of the stealth bombers; Washington is definitely turning up the pressure on Pyongyang.

The 3,000 soldiers of the ROK Army’s Zaytun Unit serving in Northern Iraq alledgedly came under mortar attack from Iraqi insurgents, marking the first direct attack against Korean forces since the start of their deployment.

Korea’s Zaytun Division in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil took cover late Sunday evening when four shells presumably fired by insurgents landed near the unit’s base compound, the first direct attack on Korean troops since they were deployed to the area last September. There were no casualties among Korean soldiers or civilians, but the division’s activity is likely to be curtailed for some time.

(…)

A JCS official said, “Insurgent forces are presumed to have fled immediately after launching vehicle-carried rockets and mortars about 4-5 km away from the base walls.” Kurdish militia forces have set up checkpoints and are patrolling the area 3-5 km outside the base walls.

(…)

Immediately after the incident, the Zaytun Division beefed up security and took shelter in underground entrenchments. At 11:40 p.m., U.S. helicopters started searching the area.

The incident follows suspension of the Zaytun Division’s civil operations after a May 4 car bombing of a police recruitment station in downtown Irbil and intelligence of possible attacks on Korean troops. Meanwhile, political controversy is also possible over whether to accept a UN request for Korean troops to guard an office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) being constructed in downtown Arbil.

Let me get this right, 3,000 ROK Army soldiers have been completely neutralized by four mortar rounds that landed 500 meters from their camp? These soldiers do not conduct any operations within the city because of a car bombing that occured three months ago not even directed against them, they don’t guard their own camp; the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters do that, and they don’t want to guard a UN building in Arbil. So what do they do over there?

This is something I have been wondering about since the beginning of the deployment. I have been against this deployment since it was first initiated because I have had reservations about if Korea would actually carry out meaningful reconstruction. The Kurdish people may be feeling the same way now.

The Kurdish Peshmerga keep tight security over there for the ROK Army causing me to wonder if this mortar attack is nothing more than the Kurds sending the Koreans a message to quit playing Starcraft and to get off their base and do something or get the heck out of here. The Peshmerga are tough, battle hardened, & proud group of fighters and they cannot be to impressed by these 3,000 Korean soldiers hiding inside their base doing nothing after Korea promised reconstruction and all the Kurds got to show for it is a few new toilets.

Dropping a few mortar rounds is well used tactic over there against American forces if the locals feel they are not receiving the reconstruction aid they believe they are due. I was on an airbase over there for awhile when a bunch of Iraqis that worked on the base were fired by the new incoming commander for security reasons. The base had never been mortared before but the next day the mortar rounds started coming in. Not close enough to kill anyone but close enough to send a message. Two weeks later Iraqis were working on the airfield again and the mortaring stopped. Sound familiar?

Recently there have been reports of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers left over from World War II being found in the mountains of the Phillipines. Check out Oranckay’s blog for more details on this. However, Yahoo News is reporting that the reports may not be accurate:

The astonishing claim that World War II holdouts may still be alive has attracted huge interest in Japan, where veterans are marking the 60th anniversary of the war’s end. But the Japanese government urged caution, saying the report came from somebody who had not seen the men himself. Efforts to contact the pair also were complicated by the fact that the area in which they supposedly were found is notorious for ransom kidnappings and attacks by Muslim separatists, who have waged war for three decades. Communist rebels also are active there.

Tokyo first learned of the former soldiers in January, from a Japanese trader on Mindanao who has been trying since Friday to arrange a meeting so officials could try to confirm the men’s’ identities, Japanese Embassy spokesman Shuhei Ogawa said. But Ogawa stressed that the trader had not seen the men and was relying on a Filipino contact, who himself got word of the mystery soldiers from yet another Filipino. “You should know this type of information comes in all the time,” he said. “We really have no idea if these two people exist.”

I have my doubts about this story because of the way the rumor of these two guys spread without anyone even have actually seeing them. Why would these guys come out of hiding now? Doesn’t make much sense but I guess we will see how this plays out.

According to the Japundit, the Nork ferry running between Japan and North Korea has been playing loud music causing local citizens to complain.

The Niigata prefectural government has warned the crew of Mangyongbong-92, a NORK ferry that makes regular trips between North Korea and Japan, to turn down the music when anchored at the Japanese port.

The government said that the music played through the ship’s loudspeakers during its last visit was too loud, and that future port calls may be denied if “the volume of sound emitted from loudspeakers, etc., at Niigata Port [is not] kept within the socially acceptable range.”

Maybe the Norks party like South Koreans on their ferry boats too.

The Chosun has an article about the sexual attitudes of Koreans in college. If find it a little surprising that only a quarter of students have had sex while in college among some other interesting findings:

Only 354 of the 1,276 — 27.7 percent — said they were sexually experienced. About half of them — 46.3 percent or 164 respondents — had their first sexual experience when they were 20-21, but a third of the group had their first sexual experiences in middle or high school.

Of the 175 that said they are having sex, 30 said they thought of their bedfellow as “just a sexual partner.”

Overall, students appeared fairly liberated in their attitudes, with a robust 61.1 percent (780 respondents) saying they were against the idea of chastity before marriage at least in theory, while 40.9 (522 respondents) said it was possible for men and women to live together without getting married. An overwhelming 85.3 percent (1,088 respondents) said they did not think it necessary for two people to get married if they have slept together.

Asked if prostitution helps prevent sex crimes such as rape, most men or 51 percent said yes, but most women or 65.5 percent said no.

This article in the Korea Times thinks that if the US disarms its nuclear arsenal all the world including North Korea will be good neighbors and get rid of theirs:

Since the U.S. has the lion’s share of the world’s armaments, both conventional and nuclear, it is incumbent on the U.S. to lead the rest of the nuclear nations in disarmament. After all, the U.S. is the main reason for North Korea’s current nuclear ambition. They are noticeably concerned that they are next on the U.S. hit list, and can anyone really blame them for thinking this way?

Only after the U.S. promises to start doing something about this ridiculous escalation of armaments, then, and only then, can Iran and North Korea be called to the negotiating table. Let’s remember that when it comes to weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. outspends the rogue regimes of Iraq, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Cuba by a ratio of 22-1.

The US could probably decrease some of its nuclear arsenal but to get rid of it would be ridiculous. The writer thinks that the main reason the North is pursuing nuclear weapons is because they fear being attacked by Washington. Yes, they fear an attack from Washington but they could destroy Seoul with or without nuclear weapons many times over with just their conventional weapons. This fact is what has been the biggest deterent to war on the peninsula since the Korean War. The human cost of war on the peninsula is to costly. It is better to keep the peace.

The North Koreans want to build nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip for international aid (money, oil, electricity) since their economy is so horrible. The US has never attacked them (they started the Korean War) and would never attack them due to the threat to Seoul if it wasn’t for the nuclear weapon issue. The US would just assume to sit back and let them implode. So to think that if the US got rid of its nuclear arsenal and the North Koreans would just suddenly stop their nuclear program and be good neighbors is at best naive.

It is additionally naive to think that other countries would stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons if the US got rid of theirs. Imagine how different the Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo wars would of been if those countries had nuclear weapons. The international community would have never intervened if a dictator threatened nuclear weapon use, thus leaving these dictators in power to further ethinically cleanse their own people and seek additional military ventures.

Countries will always seek military superiority over other countries. It has been that way since the beginning of time and the US disarming itself will not change that. It will only encourage people to pursue more aggressive and hostile policies. If the US greatly cut its military and got rid of its nuclear deterrent do you think China would cut theirs? Heck no, they would invade Taiwan. Many other nations would feel free to attack their neighbors as well. The strength of the US military is what has prevented large scale warfare the likes of World War II from happening.

Now these rogue elements in the world have turned to terrorism because of their lack of conventional military power. Terrorists will never inflict the amount of casualties large scale warfare inflicts unless they get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. Thus the need to do something about North Korea.

Last month’s elephant “rampage” in Seoul has allowed one restaurant owner to try and capitalize on this strange incident:

The restaurant that serves barbecue and other traditional Korean foods was closed for a month for repairs after three elephants rampaged through its plate-glass front. It has just reopened with a new name: “Restaurant Where Elephants Have Been”. Owner Keum Taek-hoon said on Monday she had used the 18 million won ($18,000) insurance money to remodel her eatery.

Three of them crashed through the eatery, sending staff and patrons fleeing in terror. The elephants crushed tables and stools and also munched on carrots. Keum said patrons have been heading to her newly reopened restaurant out of curiosity and sales have doubled.