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英語学習などにご活用を!リンク先の英文記事を見ながら、聴いていただけます。
▼01.Komeito calls for caution on arms exports with 1976 Miyazawa quote( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16434504 )
▼02.Major firms meet wage demands to retain talent in labor crunch( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16433618 )
▼03.Chudo, CDP, Komeito to join panel on cutting taxes for food( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16433459 )
▼04.New tech gives bullet trains a 20-second edge on megaquake( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16433435 )
▼05.Fecal geographer professor pushes restroom studies in textbook( https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16407012 )
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Thursday March 19, this is the the Asahi Shimbun Asia and Japan watch news briefing.
Komeito calls for caution on arms exports with 1976 Miyazawa quote.
Quoting a prominent liberal Democrat party statesman from a half a century ago, a senior
Komeito official urged Prime Minister Sanahi to kai-ching out to let Japan stoop solo
as to profit off the exports of lethal weapons.
At an upper-house budget committee session on March 17, Makoto Nishita, Secretary General
of Komeito, read out remarks made by Foreign Minister Keichi Miyazawa in 1976 and calling
on to kai-cheat reconsider her administration's plan.
Even if some foreign exchange surplus could be earned, our nation has not stoop solo as
to make money by exporting weapons, Miyazawa Prime Minister between 1991 and 1993, said
before the lower-house foreign affairs committee.
In response, to kai-chi countered, we must expand our network of like-minded partner nations
and achieve regional stability.
I feel that the times have changed.
She went on to argue that many useful technologies have emerged from the defense industry, citing
electronic toll collection, ETC, systems and titanium bolts used to repair fractured
bones as examples.
I do not believe that linking defense to industry and earning money amounts to a nation, having
stoop so low, to kai-chi said.
Japan adopted a ban on arms exports to the Communist bloc and other destinations in 1967
under Prime Minister Isaku Sato.
In 1976, Prime Minister Takedo Miki went further and effectively decided on a comprehensive
embargo.
Miyazawa, known as a security dove, served as foreign minister in the Miki Cabinet.
Komedo, which left the coalition government with the LDP last autumn, prided itself on
acting as a break on the conservative partner's hawkish policies.
The passiveist party, backed by the nation's largest lay Buddhist organization, has maintained
a cautious stance toward the sweeping deregulation of arms exports.
Nishida pressed to kai-chi further, asking whether Japan should be a country that greedily
pursues short-term economic gains at the expense of peace.
The Prime Minister only said, the defense industry is positioned, so to speak, as being
our defense capability itself.
She added that the matter was an urgent issue.
The LDP in Nippon, Eishin, Japan Innovation Party, which formed a new governing coalition,
submitted proposals to Takedo Miki on March 6 that included abolishing a rule that restricts
the purposes of weapons exports.
The government is expected to revise the implementation guidelines for the three principles on transfer
of defense equipment and technology in April to fully lift the ban on exports of lethal
weapons.
Nippon Eishin has vowed to serve as an accelerator within the coalition government to push its
hawkish agenda.
Major firms meet wage demands to retain talent and labor crunch.
A wave of major companies accepted pay-hike demands from their labor unions in full, driven
by inflation and labor shortages, in this year's Shuntos spring wage negotiations.
Toyota Motor Corporation on March 18 fully agreed to its unions demands for the six consecutive
year, although it did not disclose the specific amount of its wage increase.
March 18 marked the peak response day of this year's labor offensive, when management
of many large corporations presented responses to their labor unions.
According to the Confederation of Japan Automobile Workers' unions, all 12 major member unions
have reached agreements with management that met or exceeded their demands.
The average increase agreed came to 19,333 yen, $122 per month, up 863 yen from last year
and marking the highest level since comparable data became available in 1993.
The amount combines a base pay-hike, which lifts the underlying wage scale, and the regular
annual increment.
Even Honda Motor Company, which is projected to post a loss of hundreds of billions of
yen due to a review of its electric vehicle strategy, fully accepted its unions demand
for a monthly base pay raise of 12,000 yen.
Labor unions at major electronics manufacturers submitted a unified demand for a monthly
base pay-hike of 18,000 yen, the highest since the current negotiation format was adopted
in 1998.
Most of the 12 major companies, including Hitachi Limited and Panasonic Holdings Corporation,
responded in full.
The driving forces behind these high-level offers are intense competition to secure
competent personnel as well as efforts to improve workers' living standards.
Speaking to reporters on March 18, Yoshino-Butsutsui, chairman of Kaidan Ren, Japan Business Federation,
set a string of full responses reflect companies' efforts to overcome labor supply constraints,
and attract talented workers through investment in people.
Investing in human capital enhances corporate value and also leads to appropriate distribution
of wealth to workers, he said.
Hisashi Yamada, a professor of labor economics at Housai University, said, dealing with structural
labor shortages has become the most critical management challenge for companies.
By contrast, major steel makers, which have been facing sluggish business performance, fell
short of their union's demands for a 15,000-yen monthly base pay increase.
Nippon Steel Corporation offered 10,000 yen, while JFE Steel Corporation granted 7,000
yen.
The Japan Council of Metal Workers' Unions, which brings together unions in auto, electronics
and other key manufacturing industries, said the average wage increase offered to 49
major member unions stood at 15,450 yen as of 1230 pm on March 18.
The figure is the highest since comparable data became available in 2014.
However, escalating tensions in the Middle East have fueled concerns about further price
increases.
Shudo, CDP, Commado to Join Panel on Cutting Taxes for Food
Worried about being left out, the main opposition block decided to join Cross-Bardi Council
sessions on Prime Minister Sanyi de Kaichis planned to remove the consumption tax on food
items and introduce refundable tax credits.
Leaders of the Central Reform Alliance, Shudo, the Constitutional Democratic Party of
Japan and Commado reached the agreement at a meeting in the Diet Building on March 18.
Shudo consists of lower-house members from the CDP and Commado, but upper-house members
of the two parties have not joined the alliance.
The three parties intend to join the Council sessions as early as next week after confirming
its objectives, the structure of the Council's Secretariat and how to disclose minutes of
the meetings.
If the conditions are met, we'd like to begin coordinating our participation together
as three parties, Shudo leader Junyao Gawa told reporters after the meeting.
Ogao emphasized that the primary shared interest of the three parties is a refundable tax
credit, while indicating his intention to take part in other discussions as well.
As for a consumption tax cut, he said he would like to make it a precondition for the ruling
parties to take responsibility.
The opposition parties initially refused to take part in the Council, citing such reasons
as the Takaichi administration's forceful handling of budget deliberations in the lower
house.
However, the government intends to compile an interim report on the tax issues as early
as June, and other opposition parties the Democratic Party for the people and team Mariah
participating in the Council.
Consequently, Shudo, the CDP and Commado decided to join out of concern that they would
otherwise be left out.
The three leaders also discussed their strategies on the unified local election scheduled for
spring 2027, confirming they would cooperate to maximize the total number of seats
one.
While the CDP and Commado have decided to feel their own candidates in the unified local
elections, the three leaders said they intend to move forward with developing shared policy
proposals.
New tech gives bullet trains a 22nd edge on megacquake.
West Japan Railway Company, JR West, will integrate data from NNET, a new submarine observation
network in the Nankai troughs assumed at the central region, into its earthquake emergency
system for the Sano-Sing Kong Sen starting in April.
JR West President Shoji Kurosaka announced at a news conference on March 18 that the update
will enable emergency stops of the bullet train up to 20 seconds faster than previously.
JR West first introduced the detection system in 1996, the year after the Great Hanchen
earthquake.
The urgent earthquake detection and alarm system utilizes seismometers on the coast and along
the railway line to detect the small primary tremor or P-Wave.
If a large tremor is predicted, it activates an emergency break for the Shing Kong Sen before
the arrival of the more destructive secondary S-Wave, which travels more slowly.
Since 2010, the system has used data from the Japan Meteorological Agency's earthquake
early warning.
The system also began incorporating data in 2019 from Donut, dense ocean floor network
system for earthquakes and tsunamis.
The submarine observation network operated by the National Research Institute for Earth
Science and Disaster Resilience, and IED, stretches from off the coast of Mia prefecture
to off the eastern coast of Kochi prefecture.
And Net is a similar observation network using submarine cables, installed by Need last
year, which covers the area from off the coast of Kochi prefecture to off the coast of Miyazaki
prefecture.
Integrating and net data will speed earthquake detection by up to 20 seconds, allowing
for quicker emergency stops on the Shing Kong Sen to mitigate potential damage.
Be enforcing the tracks.
This upgrade is part of JR West broader earthquake countermeasures.
Following the derailment of a Joetsu Shing Kong Sen during the 2004 Nikita Chats of earthquake,
the company has been installing derailment prevention guards inside the tracks to prevent
trains from deviating significantly if they derail.
JR West aims to complete the installation on approximately 395 km of high priority sections
by the end of fiscal 2027, with the entire line scheduled for completion by the end of
fiscal 2052.
Fecal Geographer Professor pushes restrooms studies in textbook.
A piece of poop rests on the right shoulder of Noriko Yuzawa, a professor with Housai University
in Tokyo, drawing grins from people attending her classes in public lectures.
The excrement is actually a plush toy of her own making?
Yuzawa would normally be described as a human-jin bun-geographer.
But the 51-year-old has come up with a different title for herself, a fecal-jin bun-geographer.
Her job is to focus on poop and studying history and society.
Yuzawa wrote society with access to safe restrooms of diverse forms, a double-spread column
in Yamakawa Shupinja Limited's Geography, a senior high school textbook to be used in
the next school year from April.
The column is about sewage sludge and the diversity of restrooms that depends on the living
environment, culture and habits.
Yuzawa was discouraged by the lack of teaching materials about restrooms, although sanitation
is featured in one of the UN's sustainable development goals.
Restrooms are so essential to life, Yuzawa said she thought as she wrote the column.
The historical Geographer started out as a girl who loved to cook.
She discovered records of transactions and human waste along with documents showing
dietary habits at factories during the Taisho era, 1912 to 1926.
I got that letter about poop from a century ago, she said.
The documents show that a circular economy, where human waste is reused as fertilizer, existed
at that time.
The finding expanded Yuzawa's scope of research.
She also realized the distinctive nature of contemporary Japan, where people have grown
so fast, didious about cleanliness that they tend to conceal things that smell foul.
Yuzawa's current research subjects include public restrooms and complaints that women's
toilets are sometimes unavailable.
Thank you for listening, for full and more articles, visit osahi.com slash ajw slash.
See you next time and stay safe.
朝日新聞AJW 英語ニュース(The Asahi Shimbun Asia & Japan Watch)



