Rains in the West & more –11th July 2023

Konnichiwa from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 11th of July twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Western Japan started experiencing heavy rain on Saturday the 8th, and it’s expected to continue, spreading northward until Tuesday the 11th. So far, at least nine people are missing and two are dead. The Meteorological Agency advises people to stay alert for flooding, landslides, lightning, strong winds, and to pay attention to evacuation information in their area.

On Monday the 10th, weather officials issued a heavy rain emergency warning to Fukuoka, Saga, and Oita Prefectures. They encouraged residents to remain alert due to the increased risk of mudslides and flooding. A mudslide engulfed one home in Fukuoka, but firefighters were able to rescue the seventy-year-old couple trapped inside. Unfortunately, the wife was unconscious and later confirmed dead. Her husband sustained only minor injuries. Landslides caused further property damage in other cities in Fukuoka, including Kurume City and Tanushimaru Town, as well as Karatsu City in Saga Prefecture.

Shortly after putting out Fukuoka’s alert, weather officials issued another heavy rain emergency warning to northern Kyushu residents. They stated that residents should immediately evacuate to designated shelters or move to high ground and stay in buildings away from cliffs. It is highly likely that rain-related disasters already occurred over the weekend, though reports have not come in yet as the rain is still ongoing.

Although eastern Japan did not experience the same torrential rainfall, it did not escape the week disaster-free.

On Thursday the 6th, an elevated highway in Shizuoka City collapsed, killing two construction workers and injuring six others. The thirty workers were building a multi-level bypass and were shifting the highway's sixty-five-meter-long steel frame when a bridge girder slipped off a platform, causing the road to collapse. Police are currently investigating the construction company's safety procedures to see whether there was any professional negligence at play.

In other news, the Group of Seven (or G7) urban development ministers finished their two-day meeting in Takamatsu on Sunday the 9th. They agreed to work together to reduce carbon dioxide produced by cities, in part due to a United Nations report that stated that seventy percent of global CO2 emissions comes from cities. As Japan is part of the international Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gases and even pledged to reduce its CO2 emissions to net zero by twenty fifty, the government took the report seriously. The urban development ministers believe that countries should focus on making cities have net zero CO2 pollution, so they should add more greenery, such as trees, gardens, parks, and ivy, in and around cities. The ministers also encouraged governments to use subsidies and tax incentives to encourage businesses to add greenery to their buildings.

The G7 meeting wasn’t the only instance of international cooperation.

In light of increased Chinese activity in the central Pacific Ocean, the Japan Coast Guard offered technical support to the island country, Kiribati, in cracking down on illegal fishing boats in June. Kiribati is located northeast of Australia, far from China, so the increased Chinese presence is unusual. Japan originally set up this special team in twenty seventeen to help foreign coastguards keep the Indo-Pacific region free, open, and safe.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida plans to strengthen international relations even further during his trip to Europe. On Tuesday the 11th, he will attend the NATO summit in Lithuania, where he will discuss whether to invite Ukraine into the alliance. He will later travel to Belgium, where he will meet with EU leaders.

Even as Japan worked with its allies, another less-friendly group from across the sea launched a cyber attack against Nagoya Port, the largest port in Japan. On Tuesday the 4th, the Russian hacker group LockBit sent a document infected with ransomware to a printer connected to the port's computer system. This encrypted the system's data and prevented the Nagoya Port Authority from loading and unloading containers at all five of its terminals. Lockbit demanded a ransom to restore the data, but the Port Authority was able to get rid of the virus without them. The port returned to service on Thursday the 6th.

Meanwhile, Saturday the 8th marked the one-year anniversary of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s death. Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple held a memorial service for Abe. His family, the current Prime Minister, and the secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party attended the service. The public also offered flowers at a stand the Temple set up. The Liberal Democratic Party also held a separate event that same day in another part of Tokyo. Recall Shinzo died when Tetsuya Yamagami, the forty-one-year-old son of a member of a religious group called the Unification Church, shot the former prime minister during a campaign speech in Nara in twenty twenty-two. Yamagami held a grudge against both the church and Shinzo, whose grandfather apparently helped the church settle in Japan in the nineteen sixties.

Yamagami stated that the church, and by extension, Shinzo Abe, financially ruined his family because of the exorbitant donations they demanded from their members. As a result, the government created a new law to help victims of religious entities abusing their power and modified child abuse guidelines to address those abused through religion. However, some argued that the members are not pressured into making donations; that people donate willingly because they believe in the church’s message. Lawyers supporting former members of the church issued a statement urging the government to remove the church’s status as a religious organization so that it will no longer be entitled to tax benefits.

Moving on, over 4,000 thousand businesses declared bankruptcies in the past six months, the highest number of corporate bankruptcies in five years. 304 of these companies took out interest- and collateral-free COVID relief loans, which they couldn’t pay back now that they’re due. Loan repayments aren’t the only reason businesses are struggling. A research company stated that rising prices and a labor shortage are also making things hard. Over 800 retail businesses went under, almost 50% more than last year. The service industry also had a rough time despite the rise in tourism, with almost 1,000 businesses going bankrupt, around 25% more than last year.

In technology-related news, Seibu Railway introduced some new translation technology on Monday the 10th to accommodate the recent flood of foreign tourists. The system uses a transparent screen set up at station workers’ booths to automatically translate a foreign language into Japanese and vice versa, and then display it on the screen for both the tourist and the staff member to see. It takes into account not just the words spoken, but facial expressions as well in order to make translations as accurate as possible. Staff will be able to talk with foreigners in twelve different languages, including English, Vietnamese, and Portuguese. The railway plans to run the technology on a trial basis for three months at its station in Shinjuku.

In the sports world, a Japanese rookie for the New York Mets, Kodai Senga, has been added to Baseball’s National League team for the twenty twenty-three All-Star Game. The former Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks player will replace Marcus Stroman, who wanted to rest for the second half of the season.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo’s Asakusa District, Sensoji Temple is hosting a week-long summer fair from the 10th to the 17th of July. The fair’s main featured product is the Chinese lantern plants, also known as the strawberry tomato, whose vibrant orange seed pods resemble paper lanterns. The fair is said to bring good health to its visitors and has existed for over two hundred years, though it was put on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In case you couldn’t listen to our previous update, we have two new shows! These are the Rorshok Multilateral Update, covering the world's major multilateral institutions, and the Ocean’s Update about 70% of Earth's surface covered in salt water.Intrigued? Listen to them in your podcast favorite app. You can also check out the rest of our Country Updates, to see what’s going on in the rest of the world!

That’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

Mata Ne!