week3:Japan, Korea, comfort women, deal/agreement

Public divided over ‘comfort women’ agreement

On 28 December 2015, the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea surprised the world with the announcement of a deal designed to ‘finally and irreversibly’ conclude the long-standing ‘comfort women’ dispute. Both South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have championed the agreement, but the deal’s implementation is fraught with difficulty. Apologies, admissions of guilt and financial support provided by Japan since the early 1990s have not been accepted by many civil groups in South Korea. And majorities in both countries have come out in opposition to the latest agreement.

Under the new agreement, Japan is required to provide a lump sum of 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million) to the surviving ‘comfort women’ in South Korea, to help restore their ‘honour and dignity’. Prime Minister Abe was also required to provide a formal apology.

South Korea pledges that if Japan meets the terms of the agreement, it will refrain from reprobation and criticism regarding this issue in international forums and will make an effort to address Japan’s concerns about the ‘comfort women’ statueoutside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. But the statue was erected by and belongs to civil groups, so the South Korean state may face political and legal obstacles in removing it.

While the governments of Japan and South Korea are satisfied with the agreement, there has been a largely negative response from civil society groups in both countries. In Japan, prior to the foreign minister’s meeting, a Nikkei survey showed that 75 per cent of respondents support Prime Minister Abe’s efforts to improve Japanese–South Korean relations. But, attitudes regarding the ‘comfort women’ agreement diverge from their overall satisfaction with Abe’s South Korea policy.

According to Yomiuri Online’s survey on the agreement, only 49 per cent of respondents support the agreement while 36 per cent of respondents indicated that they don’t support it. Japanese ambivalence is rooted in a common belief that South Korean civil society is disinterested in genuinely solving the dispute.

While it has become the norm for anti-Abe protesters to amass outside the National Diet, the prime minister is politically secure. Even with the prospect of an alliance between the opposition Democratic Party of Japan and the Japan Innovation Party in the forthcoming 2016 upper house election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is likely to maintain its majority. Abe’s political risk is mitigated as opposition parties have not yet taken aim at the new ‘comfort women’ agreement.

In South Korea, opinion on the agreement among the citizenry is divided. According to a public survey conducted by Realmater, 50.7 per cent of respondents don’t support the agreement. Support for the agreement differs dramatically according to age: 71.3 per cent of respondents in their 60s view the agreement positively, but only 31 per cent of respondents in their 20s feel the same. This may be due to the much higher support for the ruling Saenuri Party among elderly South Koreans. Of those respondents that support the Saenuri Party 78.1 per cent also support the agreement, while only 8.5 per cent of respondents who support the opposition Minjoo Party view the agreement positively.

Some former ‘comfort women’, as well as citizens groups representing them, have also expressed their disatisfaction. Out of the 46 former South Korean ‘comfort women’ who are still living today, two joined a 6 January 2016 demonstration against the agreement outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. And media reports have indicated that other former ‘comfort women’ have been angered by this agreement. In light of this, President Park will struggle to gain the support of her political opposition.

The South Korean government has been busy defending the agreement amid growing pressure to amend or reject it. Even before the ‘comfort women’ agreement, the government had been under significant pressure from the political left over a series of controversial policy decisions.

South Korea’s two main opposition parties, the Minjoo Party and Justice Party, havedemanded that the agreement be renegotiated to ensure that Japan clearly takes on legal responsibility, which they claim it does not in the current agreement. Thepressure of the upcoming legislative elections on 13 April 2016 significantly reduces the likelihood that opposition parties will throw their support behind the deal. Park’s term will extend until 2017, but she may become a lame duck president if her Saenuri Party loses control of the National Assembly.

The new agreement made by the two governments is significant as both countries demonstrated the will to improve their bilateral relations. Public dissatisfaction was inevitable as so many of the interested groups have different goals. Japan and South Korea cannot do much to appease those taking an emotional or political stance, but they can and should focus on explaining the merits of the agreement to groups genuinely interested in reaching a conclusion.

If civil society refuses to embrace this agreement, the legacy of Japan’s colonial rule of Korea may continue to weigh down South Korean–Japanese relations for another generation, a situation that will benefit neither Japan nor South Korea. Sadly, based on civil society’s response so far, it is unlikely that the issue of ‘comfort women’ will be solved ‘finally and irreversibly’ with this agreement and in this political atmosphere.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/01/22/public-divided-over-comfort-women-agreement/

Week Two： Myanmar, jade mine, landslide, Hpakant,2015

Myanmar jade mine landslide kills around 100

Death toll soars after disaster hits people scavenging through a mountain of waste rubble in search of Myanmar’s most valuable stone

About 100 people have been killed in a landslide as they picked through mountains of waste rubble in a remote mining area of northern Myanmar searching for precious jade, state media has reported.

Those killed were thought to have been mainly itinerant miners, who make a living scavenging through mountains of waste rubble dumped by mechanical diggers used by mining firms at the center of a secretive multibillion-dollar industry in the restive Kachin state.

Saturday’s massive landslide crushed dozens of shanty huts clustered on the barren landscape and which were home to an unconfirmed number of people.

The disaster happened at about 3.30am local time (9pm GMT) and lasted just a couple of minutes, according to Zaw Moe Htet, a local gems trader whose village overlooks the devastated area in the Hpakant mining area.

“Even people living in villages further away could hear the cries of those who rushed to the scene,” he said.

Video footage of the area shot on Saturday shows men carrying several bodies slung in blankets watched by a crowd of local people in a dusty plain near the village of Sai Tung.

Nilar Myint, an official from the local administrative authorities in Hpakant, said rescue teams have so far found 97 people killed in the landslide.

Landslides are a common hazard in the area as people living off the industry’s waste pick their way across perilous mounds under cover of darkness, driven by the hope they might find a chunk of jade worth thousands of dollars.

Scores have been killed this year alone as local people say the mining companies, many of which are linked to the country’s junta-era military elite, increase their operations in Kachin.

Myanmar is the source of virtually all of the world’s finest jadeite, a translucent green stone that is prized above almost all other materials in neighboring China.

In an October report, advocacy group Global Witness estimated that the value of jade produced in 2014 alone was $31bn (£20.4bn), the equivalent of nearly half the country’s GDP.

But that figure is about 10 times the official $3.4bn sales of the precious stone last year, in an industry that has long been shrouded in secrecy with much of the best jade thought to be smuggled directly to China.

Local people in Hpakant complain of a litany of abuses associated with the mining industry, including the frequency of accidents and land confiscations.

The area has been turned into a moonscape of environmental destruction as huge diggers gouge the earth looking for jade.

Itinerant miners are drawn from all parts of Myanmar by the promise of riches and become easy prey for drug addiction in Hpakant, where heroin and methamphetamine are cheaply available on the streets.

“Industrial-scale mining by big companies controlled by military families and companies, cronies and drug lords has made Hpakant a dystopian wasteland where locals are literally having the ground cut from under their feet,” said Mike Davis of Global Witness, calling for companies to be held accountable for accidents.

The group wants the jade industry, which has long been the subject of US sanctions, to be part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global scheme designed to increase transparency around natural resource management.

Vocabulary:

1.  moonscape月球表面

2.  dystopian反烏托邦

3.  transparency透明度

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/22/at-least-30-killed-in-landslide-at-myanmar-jade-mine

Week One：California, San Bernardino, shoot/kill

At Least 14 Dead in California Shooting, Two Suspects Killed

. At least 14 people were killed and two suspects were dead Wednesday after two people on a mission that authorities described as "possibly terrorism" barged into a holiday party in a California conference room and unleashed a bloodbath.

The shooters fled in a black SUV after the rampage at about 11 a.m. (2 p.m. ET) inside the Inland Regional Center, a state-run center for people with developmental disabilities in San Bernardino, about 55 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, police said.

Seventeen other people were wounded, they said. Authorities said that no motive had been determined and that terrorism had not been ruled out.

Police said "explosive devices" were found inside the resource center during a secondary sweep and that they were rendered safe.

Marybeth Feild, president of the center's board of trustees, said the gunfire erupted in a conference room where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was holding a banquet.

About 4½ hours after the shootings, police checking a lead in the nearby town of Redlands began chasing a car believed to be related to the incident, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said. The chase led back to San Bernardino, where two people described as suspects — a man and a woman — were killed, he said.

They were identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a U.S.-born environmental specialist for San Bernardino County, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, about whom little was known.

A third person who was seen running away from the shootout scene was in custody, Burguan said. Investigators weren't able to begin searching the vehicle until Wednesday night, after they had rendered explosives at that scene safe, he said.

He said an officer was shot in the confrontation but didn't suffer a life-threatening wound and was expected to be OK.

Burguan said Farook and Malik were related in some fashion, possibly as husband and wife or as an engaged couple. A person named Syed Farook is listed in public records as a resident of the Redlands address from which police tracked the SUV involved in the shootout.

Burguan said the suspects were armed with assault-style rifles and semiautomatic handguns. Sources close to the investigation told NBC News that the ATF had traced four firearms and that two of them were known to have been purchased legally by an individual connected to the investigation. Information on the two other firearms wasn't available.

'These people came prepared'

Authorities said 10 of the 17 injured were taken to hospitals in critical condition. Fire Chief Tom Hannemann said three people were in serious condition.

It appeared to be the worst mass shooting since the December 2012 slaughter of 20 first-graders and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

"These people came prepared to do what they did as if they were on a mission," Burguan said. "They were armed with long guns, not with handguns."

California Gov. Jerry Brown canceled the state's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony Wednesday night "out of respect for Californians affected by today's tragedy," although the tree itself will still be lighted.

"California will spare no effort in bringing these killers to justice," Brown said.

All San Bernardino County offices within the city of San Bernardino will be were closed Thursday, county officials said.

Luis Gutierrez said that he spoke to his wife, who works in the facility, and that she told him that a gunman she saw was dressed all in the black, wearing a flak jacket of some kind and a mask on his face. He said the people on her floor began barricading their doors after hearing the shots.

'No parallels'

President Barack Obama was briefed by Lisa Monaco, his homeland security adviser, and asked to be updated as the situation develops, a White House official said.

Vocabulary:

1. semiautomatic半自動

 

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/san-bernardino-shooting/authorities-respond-report-shooting-san-bernardino-california-n472976