Birth Control Crackdown Sparks Riots In Rural China Ⅱ

Article title: Birth Control Crackdown Sparks Riots In Rural China
Source: The Washington Post
Published: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Downloaded from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201496.html on Thursday, May 24 at 0.42am

Bobai authorities traditionally have been tolerant of collecting the money. In consequence, many Bobai area families, especially in tradition-bound farming villages, have three or more children. For them, the new enforcement of the rules means financial stress and impossibility. In the one-child policy, families whose first child is a daughter can try again for a son. But they have to pay a $375 fine for their second offspring. If they have third and forth children, they have to pay progressively higher fines. But families think it is worth because they need a son to be taken care of them when they are old. So, some families pay $375 or more.

Birth Control Crackdown Sparks Riots In Rural China Ⅰ

Article title: Birth Control Crackdown Sparks Riots In Rural China
Source: The Washington Post
Published: Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Downloaded from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201496.html on Thursday, May 24 at 0.42am

Birth control bureaucrats threatened to knock holes in the homes of people who had failed to pay fines imposed for having more than one child and confiscated everything from sacks of rice to color televisions. The brutal fine-collection drive was launched last week around Bobai, China. China’s leadership says that is vital to maintaining swift economic growth and spreading its benefits more evenly among a population already at 1.3 billion people. The problem in the Bobai area was that lax enforcement of the policy over the years led to a high number of families with several children, and suddenly the local family planning bureau wanted to collect its fines or else. But the farmers of Bobai have been known rulers were highhanded. They stoned riot police brought in to quell the unrest and trashed local offices. The townspeople were unwilling to accept authorities’ demands for payment because they believed that local officials were generally corrupt and that the money for fines would go to their pockets rather than into government coffers. The disorder caused a number of injuries to police and protesters. Authorities imposed an overnight curfew. Similar outbreaks of violence were reported in the other towns where offices were ransacked and police cars were burned.

Man held for riding on "mikoshi"

Article title: Man held for riding on "mikoshi"

Source: The Japan Times Online

Published: Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Downloaded from: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070522a9.html on Wednesday, may 23 at 0:10 am

A 56-year-old man was arrested for getting on a “mikoshi” portable shrine and causing a disturbance during the Sanja Matsuri festival in Tokyo. That festival which is the annual event is one of Japan’s biggest festivals. Asakusa shrine that is the organizer of that festival proposed cancelling this year’s festival following an incident last year in which carrying bars broke after some people got on a mikoshi. But it decided to hold the festival as usual as participants submitted a pledge not to ride on mikoshi. Depite the pledge, 25 people rode on a mikoshi during Sunday’s event. Two other men were arrested on charges of insisting with police officers who tried to get people off mikoshi.

Many amusement parks lax on safety rules

Article title: Many amusement parks lax on safety rules
Source: The Japan Times Online
Published: Sunday, May 13, 2007
Downloaded from: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070513a2.html on May 13, 2007

One-third of the nation’s major amusement parks have not been aware of government standards for safety checks and the inspection norms under the Japanese Industrial Standards. The standards oblige park operators to conduct one or more safety checks every year to find defects in the parts used in their attractions. 51 amusement parks with roller coasters responded to the survey. 17 of the 51 amusement parks didn’t know the JIS norms existed. Even if some parks knew the JIS norms, they didn’t think they had an obligation to follow them. Some parks use their own standards. Actually, Expoland in Suita, Osaka, where killed a woman and injured about 20 people didn’t conduct a checkup for 15 months.

Cool Biz returns to fight global warming

Article title: Cool Biz returns to fight global warming

Source: The Japan Times online

Published: Saturday, May 12, 2007

Downloaded from: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070512a5.html on May 12, 2007

[Article]
The Cool Biz campaign to combat global warming will start again on June 1 and run through the end of September. Japanese workers are urged to ditch their neckties and dress lightly in open-collar short-sleeve shirts. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has urged all of his Cabinet ministers to Okinawan shirts. The energy conservation campaign was introduced in summer 2005 to help Japan meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and is going strong. In 2006, the Cool Biz campaign cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1.14 million tons.

[Opinion]
I didn’t know that last summer Cool Biz campaign cut much carbon dioxide emissions. The Cool Biz campaign became the peg to consider global warming seriously. But we shouldn’t be satisfied with that outcome. We should go on striving to resolve global warming.

Nation's child population declines to new postwar low

Japan’s child population has decreased since the end of World WarⅡ. It is the 26th straight year of decline in the child population. Children formed 13.6 percent of Japan’s total population of 127.8 million. Japan’s child population ratio is the lowest in the world and it ranked below Italy and Germany. Japan’s birthrate declines too. On the other hand, the population of people age 65 or older has increased as 21.2 percent. Japan’s total population is anticipated becoming one-third by 2055. So, Japan fears for tax revenue shortfalls and labor shortages.