Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Fukushima Soil at same contamination levels as Chernobyl Dead Zones

Radioactive soil in pockets of areas near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have reached the same level as Chernobyl, where a "dead zone" remains 25 years after the reactor in the former Soviet Union exploded.

Soil samples in areas outside the 20-km exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant measured more than 1.48 million becquerels per sq. meter, the standard used for evacuating residents after the Chernobyl accident, Tomio Kawata, a fellow at the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, said in a research report published May 24 and given to the government.

Radiation from the plant has spread over 600 sq. km, according to the report. The extent of contamination shows the government must move fast to avoid the same future for the area around the Fukushima plant as Chernobyl, scientists said.

Technology has improved since the 1980s, meaning soil can be decontaminated with chemicals or by planting crops to absorb radioactive materials, allowing residents to return.

"We need to finish this treatment as quickly as possible, within three years at most," said Tetsuo Iguchi, a specialist in isotope analysis and radiation detection at Nagoya University. "If we take longer, people will give up on returning to their homes."

Soil samples showed one site about 25 km northwest of the Fukushima plant with radiation from cesium-137 exceeding 5 million becquerels per sq. meter, according to Kawata's study. Five more sites about 30 km from the plant showed radiation exceeding 1.48 million becquerels per sq. meter.

Asked to comment on the report Monday, Tepco spokesman Tetsuya Terasawa said the radiation levels are in line with those found after a nuclear bomb test, which disperses plutonium. He declined further comment.

The government introduced a mandatory exclusion zone 20 km around the plant soon after the crisis began. Kawata's study didn't include samples from inside the exclusion zone, where only government and Tepco staff may enter.

The government in April ordered the evacuation of towns including Iitate, Katsurao and Namie that are outside the 20-km zone after finding high levels of radiation.

"Basically, the way in which the current zones have been drawn up aren't a concern in terms of the impact on health," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. "Using Mr. Kawata's report as a guide, we want to do what we can to improve the soil, so people can return as soon as possible."

Although the area containing soil pockets over 1.48 million becquerels per sq. meter is smaller than around Chernobyl — 600 sq. km compared with 3,100 sq. km — the level of contamination means soil needs to be cleaned or removed before residents can return, Kawata said in his report.

"It might take about one or two years for people to return to land outside the 20-km zone," the University of Nagoya's Iguchi said. "If we replace the soil, it is possible for people to return even inside the zone."

The "dead zone" around Chernobyl remains at 30 km, Mykola Kulinich, Ukraine's ambassador to Japan, said in Tokyo on April 26, the 25th anniversary of the disaster.

Belarus, which absorbed 80 percent of the fallout from the Chernobyl explosion, estimates that 2 million people, or 20 percent of the population, was affected by the Chernobyl catastrophe, while about 23 percent of the country's land was contaminated, according to a Belarus Embassy website. About a fifth of the country's agricultural land has been rendered unusable, which means some $700 million in losses each year, according to the website.

Using crops was one solution being considered by Belarus with the idea that grain harvested from contaminated areas could then be processed to make ethanol. A study funded by a philanthropy arm of Heineken NV found that radioactive elements do not transfer into ethanol and this would allow Belarus to become a major supplier to the European Union of the liquid used to dilute gasoline.

Planting crops was restarted in areas of "low-level" radiation, Michael Rietveld, chief executive officer of Ireland's Greenfield Partners, which agreed with the Belarus government in 2007 to develop an ethanol business project to decontaminate the soil, said in October 2009.

"There are cows walking over this land now," Rietveld said in reference to Belarus. "People are living over there. It's not a dangerous venture to use crops in low-contaminated areas. Most of the contamination is in the soil, not the air."

The global financial crisis hampered Greenfield's ability to raise funds and the project closed last year.
Another solution for Fukushima may be chemical treatment of the soil to allow cesium to be absorbed into porous crystals, such as zeolite, which are more visible and simpler to remove, the University of Nagoya's Iguchi said.

Restoring the land may be more critical in Japan than Belarus, where the population density is about 46 people per sq. kilometer, according to United Nations data. That's more than seven times less than in Japan, where 127.6 million people live on about 378,000 sq. km.

Restoring land use in Fukushima hinges on Tepco ending the crisis at the nuclear station, where three reactors went into meltdown.

The utility on April 17 set out a so-called road map to end the crisis in six to nine months. Tepco said it expects to achieve a sustained drop in radiation levels at the plant within three months, followed by a cold shutdown, where core reactor temperatures fall below 100 degrees.

The chance of Tepco achieving that goal is six or seven out of 10, William Ostendorff, a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Tepco has yet to decide how to deal with the plant site, Megumi Iwashita, a spokeswoman for the company, said last Thursday.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110601n1.html?

April - Jobless Rate Rises 1st time in 6 months to 4.7%

Japan's unemployment rate in April rose for the first time in six months, while the nation's factory output posted a weaker-than-expected rebound amid sluggish output following the March earthquake and tsunami.


The April jobless rate climbed to 4.7 percent from the March unemployment rate of 4.6 percent, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said Tuesday.

The number of jobless people in Japan stood at 3.09 million in April, down 300,000 from a year earlier, the ministry said.

Japan's industrial output in April rose 1.0 percent from the previous month, recovering from a record 15.5 percent drop in March, the government said.

But factory output — a key barometer of Japan's economic health — posted a weaker-than-expected rebound as economists forecast a 2.2 percent output increase on average in a Kyodo News survey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110531/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_economy

Sunday, May 29, 2011

TEPCO Gets More Fuzzy with timetable to Cold Shutdown

On 17 April they talked about a nine month timetable to cold shutdown at Fukushima - now it sounds like thats getting pushed out by another couple of months - so, shutdown wont be achieved within 2011 and it may be well into 2012 before this can happen

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110530a2.html

Saturday, May 28, 2011

April - Consumer Prices Rise for 1st time in 2 years on energy and tabacco price rises

Japan's consumer prices in April rose for the first time in more than two years on a spike in energy and tobacco prices, the government said Friday.
Japan's core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, climbed 0.6 percent last month from a year earlier, marking the first year-on-year increase since December 2008, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
The rise in Japanese consumer prices was mainly due to a jump in gasoline and tobacco prices. The ministry said education costs were also higher in April. On a month-on-month basis, Japan's core consumer price index was up 0.4 percent last month.
But economist Hiroshi Watanabe at the Daiwa Institute of Research said the April increase in consumer prices does not mean Japan's economy has emerged from deflation.
"The April results were mainly lifted by temporary factors, such as a surge in tobacco prices. Overall, Japan's economy still remains under deflationary pressure as the economy has yet to post a steady recovery," he said.
The world's No. 3 economy has been battling periods of deflation — or a steady decline in prices — since the 1990s. Deflation is a burden as it can hamper economic growth by depressing company profits, sparking wage cuts and causing consumers to postpone purchases. It also can increase debt burdens.
Faced with tumbling output and exports following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Japan's economy recently slipped into a recession after contracting at an annualized rate of 3.7 percent in the January-March quarter.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110527/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_economy

May - High radiation found on seabed in 300-km stretch off Fukushima

Radiation levels up to several hundred times normal have been detected on the Pacific seabed in a 300-kilometer-long area off the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the science ministry said Friday.
The ministry said high-level radioactive materials were detected on the seabed in a north-south stretch ranging from Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture to Choshi, Chiba Prefecture and warned the contamination could affect the safety of seafood.
The science ministry said it detected iodine and cesium on the seabed at 12 spots 15- to 50-km from the coastline between May 9 and 14.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NFSP8O0&show_article=1

May - Rainy Season Hits Central Japan 12 Days early

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NFLGBO1&show_article=1

Thursday, May 26, 2011

April - Record-low 91% of new university graduates get jobs

The employment rate of new university graduates at the April 1 start of fiscal 2011 edged down 0.7 percentage point from the year before to match the record-low 91.1 percent recorded in 2000, as the March 11 quake and tsunami hit employers' sentiment, the government said Tuesday. 


The rate for high school graduates as of March 31 rose 1.6 points to 93.2 percent overall, but dropped in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, the hardest hit by the natural disaster and subsequent nuclear crisis, by 3.3 points to 87.6 percent and by 2.4 points to 93.1 percent, respectively.

Corporate sentiment on employment was hit by the disaster and the resulting power shortages that affected businesses in the last stage of the recruitment season, an official of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

Even among those who found jobs, 206 high school graduates and 139 university graduates had offers canceled as of May 18, according to a survey by the labor and education ministries.

A record-high 33,000 university graduates are estimated to have failed to find a job while an estimated 337,000 got jobs. The rate for men lost 1.0 point to 91.0 percent, while that for women was down 0.3 point to 91.2 percent.

About 170,000 high school graduates also entered companies, with the rate for men up 1.0 point to 95.1 percent and that for women up 2.4 points to 90.6 percent, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said.

The survey results are provisional, however, as the ministries failed to obtain data from six universities and colleges in quake-hit areas out of 112 selected from across the country, and from 10 schools in Iwate and Fukushima prefectures out of all high schools covered.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NDFKBO0&show_article=1

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Ex Suruga Chief Arrested Over Insider Trading

A former president of real estate company Suruga Corp. and two others were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of insider trading in connection with shares in the Yokohama-based firm, prosecutors said.
The Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office and the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission searched the company and the home of the former company chief, Kazuo Iwata, 73, of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, the same day.

Iwata and the others are alleged to have averted losses by selling about 14,500 Suruga shares between Feb. 25 and March 3, 2008, for about 19 million yen after learning that police were investigating the company. The police made the case public after the alleged trading.


In March that year, Tokyo police arrested the president of a real estate company in Osaka with an alleged link with a crime syndicate on suspicion of negotiating on Suruga's behalf with a building tenant over its occupancy despite having no proper legal credentials.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NDJ3EO0&show_article=1

TEPCO Confirms 3 Reactor Meltdowns

The operator of the nuclear power plant at the center of a radiation scare after being disabled by Japan's earthquake and tsunami confirmed Tuesday that there had been meltdowns of fuel rods at three of its reactors.


Tokyo Electric Power Co said meltdowns of fuel rods at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant occurred early in the crisis triggered by the March 11 disaster.

The government and outside experts had said previously that fuel rods at three of the plant's six reactors had likely melted early in the crisis, but the utility, also known as Tepco, had only confirmed a meltdown at the No.1 reactor.

Tepco officials said a review since early May of data from the plant concluded the same happened to reactors No.2 and 3.

The preliminary finding, which was reported to Japan's nuclear safety agency, represents part of an initial effort to explain how events at Fukushima spiraled out of control early in the crisis.
Also Tuesday, the government appointed Yotaro Hatamura, a Tokyo University professor of engineering who has studied how complex systems and designs fail, to head a committee that will investigate the cause and handling of the nuclear crisis.

The moves came as a team of investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency began a two-week visit to Japan to prepare a report on the accident to be submitted to the United Nations agency in June.

Some analysts said the delay in confirming the meltdowns at Fukushima suggested the utility feared touching off a panic by disclosing the severity of the accident earlier.

"Now people are used to the situation. Nothing is resolved, but normal business has resumed in places like Tokyo," said Koichi Nakano, a political science professor at Tokyo's Sophia University.

Nakano said that by confirming the meltdowns now, Tepco may be hoping the news will have less impact. The word "meltdown" has such a strong connotation that when the situation was more uncertain more people would likely have fled Tokyo, he said.

Engineers are battling to plug radiation leaks and bring the plant 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo under control more than two months after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and deadly tsunami that devastated a vast swathe of Japan's northeast coastline and tipped the economy into recession.

The disaster has triggered a drop of more than 80 percent in Tepco's share price and forced the company to seek government aid as it faces compensation liabilities that some analysts say could top $100 billion.

Japanese trade minister Banri Kaieda said the government would approve the formation of a committee later Tuesday that will make sure Tepco follows through with restructuring plans.
Tepco officials said damage to the No.2 reactor fuel rods had begun three days after the quake, with much of the fuel rods eventually melting and collecting at the bottom of the pressure vessel containing them.

Fuel rods in the No.3 reactor were damaged by the afternoon of March 13, they said.
TSUNAMI

The Tepco officials repeated that the tsunami had disabled power to the reactors and knocked out their cooling capability.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, expressed a similar view.

"We don't think the quake affected the important parts of the plant, such as its cooling capacity," Nishiyama told reporters Tuesday, although he added there were still some aspects that needed to be clarified by inspecting the site directly.

That process is likely to make months because of the high radiation readings in areas of the plant, experts have said.

"It could very well be that Tepco is rushing to conclude that the tsunami is to blame to prevent further questions and give more momentum to the nuclear camp. It's not just Tepco, it's the whole nuclear industry, maybe business circles as a whole. It's highly political," said Sophia University's Nakano.
Others said that from a very early stage the tsunami, not the quake, was the likely cause of the overheating and subsequent damage of the reactors at Daiichi.

"As with the other nuclear reactors, such as Onagawa (in northeastern Japan), those at Daiichi deactivated after the quake. It is our belief that it was the tsunami that knocked out power and took out the systems and pumps that cool the reactors, resulting in their damage and radiation leakage," said Kazuhiko Kudo, a Kyushu University professor who specializes in nuclear engineering.

Despite a steady flow of information on how the clean-up is proceeding -- Tepco and the government's nuclear watchdog hold news conferences twice a day on most weekdays -- the authorities have faced criticism for what some have said is a lack of timely disclosure.

"I am very sorry that the public is mistrustful of the various disclosures made by the government on the accident," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said in parliament Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110524/wl_nm/us_japan_tepco_reactors

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Q1 2011 - Japan Leisure Hotel Operator Shows Impressive Revenue and EBITDA Growth Despite Earthquake

Tokyo, Japan May 19, 2011 – Alchemy Japan’s Japanese Leisure Hotels reported Q1 2011 results producing EBITDA of ¥146million, a 13% improvement on the previous year, from a Net Operating Income of ¥211million being a 7% growth on net income for Q1 2010.  Sales grew to ¥497 million, a 6% increase on Q1 2010. Revenue growth was led by a 12% increase in customer numbers as Q1 2011 average Occupancy Rate (OCR) reached 260%.

“Following revenue and EBITDA growth in 2010, we commenced 2011 with strong growth momentum; despite the March 11 earthquake and its aftereffects which impacted our hotels in the Kanto region, we are pleased that in the first quarter of 2011 we have achieved our best revenue and earnings growth since we entered the sector in 2004.” noted Mr. Mijatovic.

“While our Kanto area hotels, representing half of our hotels and 40% of our room inventory, escaped major structural damage in the earthquake and after shocks, they did suffer in the immediate aftermath with some damage to rooms and facilities, power outages and disruptions in supply chains, but were able to quickly recover by the last week of March.  Nonetheless, the March 11 earthquake and its aftereffects interrupted the sales growth of 9%, achieved prior to March 11, with sales growing only 1.2% in March 2011. Since March, we have again returned to strong positive growth in top and bottom line results"noted Mr. Mijatovic.

Our positive results can be attributed to a combination of factors said Mr. Mijatovic:

·         the success of our operating partner, Urban Resorts Japan’s Guaranteed Value® customer retention and acquisition strategy evidenced by OCR increasing by 12%,
·         Food & Beverage sales, growing 12% during the Q1 2011, to reach a high water mark of 6% of sales, doubling the industry average of 3%,
·         continuous improvement in operational efficiency,reaching a 42.4% NOI margin in the first quarter (+1% year-on-year), and most importantly a 12% growth of EBITDA.

“While it is difficult to fully assess the medium and long term impacts of the aftereffects of the March 11 earthquake on our operational business, early results show that we continue to be well placed to continue to deliver revenue and EBITDA growth in 2011 in excess of levels achieved in 2010.”

“In relation to valuations, we believe that the recently announced transaction, of London AIM-listed Japan Leisure Hotels Limited proposed disposal of its trading subsidiaries to Sanglier Pte, comprising Japanese and foreign based investors, represents a historic low in the leisure hotel mark for cap rates and could mark the bottom point of this market cycle in terms of valuation. With the clearance of that transaction, which was causing an overhang in the market, we foresee a contraction of cap rates in the future, while increased interest from overseas investors attracted by the Japan Leisure Hotels transaction may improve liquidity in the market” stated Mr. Mijatovic.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Alchemy Japan is an asset management, investment and advisory company that creates value by transforming and managing real estate, investments, and financial assets.
Alchemy Japan commenced management of Leisure Hotel assets in Japan in 2004 with an asset management mandate for one of the first foreign institutional investors into the sector. Its Leisure Hotel division now owns and manages a nationwide portfolio of 15 hotels.

Urban Resorts Japan is one of Japan’s leading and most dynamic leisure hotel operators and is ranked 10thnationally in terms of room inventory.

http://www.hospitalitybusinessnews.com/article/10607/alchemy-japan-kk-announces-its-japanese-leisure-hotels-1st-quarter-2011

Japan Economic Outlook Cloudy

Uncertainties over lingering disruptions to supply chains, weak spending from an anxious consumer base and a growth rate shackled with a first-quarter loss--the economic recovery after the March 11 disaster is looking dim, many analysts have said.

The nation's gross domestic product shrank a shocking 3.7 percent on an annualized basis in the first quarter of the year, according to Thursday's government announcement, indicating the Great East Japan Earthquake dealt a much bigger blow to consumer and corporate spending than previously thought. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced domestically.

Although many manufacturers remain troubled over snarled supply chains, some economists have predicted a surge in domestic demand in the coming months from reconstruction and repairs to disaster-damaged infrastructure, businesses and homes.

Most signs, however, point to a long and treacherous road before the national economy is fully resuscitated. Another major fear is a continued depression of consumer spending, which makes up about 60 percent of the GDP, caused by worries the job market will further deteriorate.

Snarled network no easy fix
"Supply chain disruptions were no doubt the largest factor" behind the worse-than-expected shrinkage of the economy in the January-March period, according to Kaoru Yosano, state minister in charge of economic and fiscal policy.

Consumers keep wallets shut
Although the mood of self-restraint that enveloped the nation following the earthquake has largely subsided, a worsening employment environment could lead to further drops in spending.

Credit Suisse Securities (Japan) took a consumer sentiment survey from April 16-21, asking people if and why they had trimmed spending. Most respondents who reduced outlays, 60.4 percent, said the cuts were "due to anxieties about the economy and income," followed by 32.2 percent who said they held back "in consideration of people in the disaster-hit areas."

The findings suggest self-restraint born of sympathy is having only a limited effect on people's spending habits.

Respondents who said they were considering buying energy-saving air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances in preparation for possible summer power shortages stood at 19.2 percent, according to the survey.

"Since a lot of consumers are worried about the labor market getting worse, it's very possible the slowdown in consumption will continue for quite a while," a Credit Suisse official said.

GDP hobbled at starting block
Some analysts have said a sharp surge in demand in the July-September quarter because of disaster recovery projects could kick-start the economy.

But Mitsumaru Kumagai, a senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd., has cautioned the future of the nation's economy will hinge on whether the electricity supply issue can be solved, as business activity "could be greatly affected by [a limited] power supply situation in the April-June period and afterward."

The national economy for fiscal 2010 grew 2.3 percent compared to fiscal 2009, the first year-on-year expansion in three years. The total value of GDP in the year was 538.5 trillion yen in real terms, adjusted for inflation.

Annualized GDP for the last quarter of fiscal 2010, the January-March period, however, shrunk to an annualized 534.9 trillion yen, meaning the national economy at the start of fiscal 2011 was saddled with a minus 0.7 percentage point drag on growth.

Therefore, if the economy does not grow at all in fiscal 2011, the growth rate for the year would be a negative 0.7 percent from the previous year.

Healthy economic growth could be difficult to achieve this fiscal year given the handicap at the outset.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T110520005119.htm

Q1 - Japan Slumps Back into Recession as a result of Earthquake

Japan's economy plunged back into recession in January-March, contracting sharply on the impact of the nation's biggest recorded earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis, data showed Thursday.
Gross domestic product fell 0.9 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, and marked the second consecutive quarter of contraction, which economists define as a technical recession.

The drop was equivalent to a 3.7 percent fall on an annualised basis.

In the aftermath of the disasters, industrial output saw its biggest ever fall and spending plunged as consumer and business confidence took a tumble.

Many analysts see the downturn worsening in April-June, as nationwide supply chain problems in the wake of the quake continue to disrupt production and the threat of power supply disruption prevails.
"The economy was weak before the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on 11th March and the full impact of that catastrophe has only just begun to be reflected in the GDP data," noted Capital Economics.

The fall in annualised terms was nearly double the 2.0 percent drop forecast in a Dow Jones Newswires poll of analysts and was the first successive contraction since the global financial crisis.

"The Japanese economy is expected to remain weak for the time-being," Economy Minister Kauro Yosano told reporters, adding that a third straight contraction in April-June was likely.

However, he stressed Japan's plight was temporary given the difference between the impact of the earthquake and the financial crisis, which sapped overseas demand.

Japan's economy contracted for four straight quarters during the downturn and remains mired in deflation as falling prices encourage consumers to hold off purchases.

"The situation is totally different from the time in the wake of Lehman Brothers' collapse. The Japanese economy is seen to be strong enough to show resilience," he said, adding the decline "is not due to sluggish overseas demand."

Yosano said he expected Japan to grow nearly 1.0 percent in the current fiscal year.
The January-March contraction was the worst slippage since a record 18.3 percent tumble in January-March 2009.

Private consumption, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the economy, was down 0.6 percent. Japan adopted a mentality of self-restraint in the aftermath of the disasters, which is slowly easing.
Data earlier this week showed consumer sentiment plunging by its steepest measure on record in April.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a devastating tsunami has left around 25,000 dead or missing, and with a subsequent emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant it plunged Japan into its worst post-war crisis.

Many of Japan's biggest companies saw profits tumble in the quarter and have been unable to offer forecasts due to the scale of the disaster's impact on production and sales.

The likes of Sony and Toyota were forced to halt production. Many component manufacturers are based in the worst-hit regions of Japan, their facilities damaged by the earthquake or inundated by the giant wave that followed.

While fears of an electricity supply-demand imbalance going into the summer months have eased slightly, the situation remains volatile, analysts warn.

Before the disasters, analysts had predicted that the nation's economy would return to growth in the first quarter on rising overseas demand.

Having gone into recession, analysts say the economy should start to grow again in the third quarter as initial earthquake-related disruption is overcome and reconstruction spending starts to boost the official figures.

"The point to watch in coming quarters is how well production can recover," said Daiju Aoki, economist at investment bank UBS. "It is unlikely that (the economy) will stay mired in recession."
An early government estimate put the rebuild cost at 16-25 trillion yen ($195-$300 billion) over the next three fiscal years, not accounting for wider issues such as the unresolved crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Analysts say the rebuild cost will further pressure a public debt that at around 200 percent of GDP is the industrialised world's largest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110519/bs_afp/japaneconomy

2010 - Wages rose for first time in 4 years

Average monthly gross pay in fiscal 2010 edged up 0.6 percent from a year earlier to 317,307 yen, the first rise in four years, as overtime pay grew particularly in the manufacturing sector amid an economic recovery, the labour ministry said Wednesday. 


In fiscal 2009, the figure marked a 3.3 percent year-on-year decline in the face of the 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

In March, however, monthly pay slid 0.1 percent to 275,442 yen as production activities were hit by the massive earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster, which also brought about electricity shortages, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Wages could be adversely affected down the road in the face of the disruption of supply chains, a ministry official said, saying the situation needs to be monitored.

In fiscal 2010, scheduled wages at businesses with five or more employees fell 0.3 percent to 244,687 yen while non-scheduled wages including overtime pay jumped 8.0 percent to 18,349 yen. Bonuses and other special payments rose 2.3 percent to 54,271 yen.

Overtime hours in the manufacturing industry, an important economic indicator, surged 21.5 percent to 14.0 hours.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9N9OVUO0&show_article=1

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Japan's hotels need 2 years to rebound

Japan's hotels are not expected to fully recover from the collapse in revenues that followed the March earthquake and tsunami until the first quarter of 2013, according to a report by agency Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels. 


The agency says the revenue per available room (revPAR) of Tokyo's full-service hotels were down 38 per cent in March compared with the same month last year.


The Japan National Tourism Organisation announced that in March the number of inbound visitors to Japan dropped 50.3 per cent compared with the same month a year ago, to 352,800. Before the March 11 earthquake numbers were up 4 per cent, but plunged by 73 per cent after the twin disasters.
Tomohiko Sawayanagi, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, said most bookings by inbound guests were cancelled in the first 30 days after March 11, hitting international luxury hotels in Tokyo hard. Full-service hotels reported occupancy rates of between 10 per cent and 40 per cent as of April 15.

Many domestic business trips were also cancelled because transport systems were not functioning properly. People also cancelled leisure trips. However, the situation had improved in eastern Japan since April 25, the report noted, since most countries had lifted their travel warnings, public transport was back in operation and sentiment in Japan showed signs of improving.

The firm interviewed several hoteliers in April and found that the domestic business volume, both in the leisure and corporate sectors, had begun to recover.

The domestic corporate business segment was likely to be the first to recover in full, possibly as soon as the second half of this year, though a recovery in inbound leisure visitors could take until next year.
Sawayanagi said the meetings, incentive, convention, and exhibition business and corporate banquet business would face challenges for some time as many Japanese corporations suffered extraordinary losses due to the earthquake. Because of this, he does not expect revPAR for the industry to return to the 2010 level until the first half of 2013.

The Tokyo limited-service hotel market is expected to be the first sector to recover, as these hotels are focused on domestic corporate demand. Even so, in the coming year revPAR would languish at 10 to 15 per cent below that of the previous year, he said. Tokyo's full-service hotel market will experience a 20 to 30 per cent drop in revPAR in the coming year because of the delayed recovery in inbound leisure and meeting and convention bookings.

Sawayanagi said there was a chance of a quick recovery of inbound volume in the short term if Japan could address concerns about radiation leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station northeast of Tokyo. He noted that the revPAR of New York hotels took three years to recover from the September 11 attacks. 





http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=25a68a788cdff210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&s=Business

Fukushima No Go Zone Expanded

Residents in Kawamata and Iitate began leaving their homes Sunday after their living areas were included in an evacuation radius the government widened last month around the radiation-leaking Fukushima nuclear power plant. 


Kawamata Mayor Michio Furukawa met with some 50 residents in the first group of evacuees, including babies and toddlers, telling them, "I know you are worried but we will overcome difficulties together."

The government designated Kawamata and Iitate on April 22 as part of the area from which residents would be required to leave in roughly one month's time, as cumulative radiation exposure is expected to exceed the yardstick of 20 millisieverts during the course of a year.

Masahiro Kanno, a 34-year-old Kawamata resident with two sons aged 5 and 8, was unhappy with the evacuation order. "It sounds strange that the government first said we have nothing to worry but suddenly told us to leave," he said.

The government set the additional no-entry area outside the original evacuation zone in the 20-kilometer radius of the Fukushima Daiichi complex crippled by the March 11 mega earthquake and tsunami waves.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9N7ML080&show_article=1

May - Radiactivity Taints Grass in Iwate, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi and Saitama prefectures

About 20,000 livestock farmers in seven prefectures have been asked to refrain from grazing cattle for the time being because radioactive substances in excess of safety limits have been found in pastures, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry's request, made to prevent milk and beef from being contaminated with radioactive substances, will affect 700,000 head of cattle and cost an additional 50 billion yen a year in forage.

"If we have to buy forage, we'll incur more than 10 million yen in additional costs," Kenji Takahashi, 47, sighed in front of 60 tons of hay at his farm. Takahashi breeds 150 milk cows in Isumi, Chiba Prefecture.

In Ichihara, four kilometers from Isumi, 1,100 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of grass were found in pastureland on April 28.

Livestock farmers in Isumi have been instructed by the Chiba prefectural government not to feed cows with fodder from the area.

Besides Chiba Prefecture, radioactive substances have been found in grass in excess of safety limits in Iwate, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi and Saitama prefectures.

Grass takes root in shallow soil and therefore tends to absorb more radioactive substances.

The ministry has asked local governments to urge livestock farmers to refrain from having milk cows graze in pastures or fed with hay when radioactive iodine is in excess of 70 becquerels or cesium in excess of 300 becquerels per kilogram of grass.

With regard to beef cattle, no safety limit has been set for radioactive iodine, which has a short half-life, while a safety limit of 300 becquerels has been set for radioactive cesium.

According to the farm ministry, most of the 20,000 livestock farmers in the seven prefectures, with the exception of certain areas, have complied with the ministry's request.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110517005442.htm

May - BOJ Says Economy in Severe Condition

Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said the country's economy was in a very severe state due to damage from the March earthquake, signaling that the central bank was sticking to its ultra-loose monetary policy bias.


Shirakawa repeated that the BOJ would do its utmost to beat deflation but added that any price rises needed to be driven by solid economic growth, emphasizing the need for policies to boost Japan's potential growth.

"Deflation is a very serious problem. But the more serious problem is that Japan's economic strength is gradually declining," Shirakawa told a parliamentary committee meeting on Tuesday.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told the same committee that beating deflation was a top priority for the government, even as it battles to contain the damage from the devastating earthquake.

Japan has been mired in deflation for much of the past decade but the fall in core consumer prices narrowed to a 0.1 percent year-on-year drop in March, due largely to a spike in commodity prices.

The BOJ expects core consumer prices to rise 0.7 percent in both the current fiscal year from April and the following year, due largely to rising fuel and food costs. But it has said price rises alone will not prompt it to unwind its ultra-easy policy.

The BOJ is expected to keep policy on hold this week but stress its readiness to ease further if the quake's damage to the economy proves bigger than expected.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War Two after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a deadly tsunami battered its northeast coast on March 11, leaving about 25,000 dead or missing and crippling a nuclear plant.

The world's third-largest economy is set to log three straight quarters of contraction at the end of June, sliding back into recession, a Reuters poll showed.

While the downturn is as severe as during the financial crisis, the BOJ has made a distinction between what happened then and what the economy has faced after the quake.

"The Japanese economy faced a 'demand' shock caused by the financial crisis" after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, BOJ Executive Director Hiroshi Nakaso told Reuters in an interview last month.

"This time around, Japan is facing a 'supply' shock as factories over a vast area were destroyed and there is disruption in the supply chain," he said.

The BOJ has said that once supply constraints ease, the economy will recover moderately because demand for goods is still there. Unless this view comes under threat or a renewed yen spike hurts business sentiment, it is expected to hold off on easing policy further.

The government, for its part, eyes a second extra budget to fund spending for reconstruction after the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has signaled that total spending could be quite big, although Japan's huge public debt limits room for additional bond issuance.

Noda said that if the government were to issue bonds to fund costs for quake reconstruction, one idea would be to do so under a separate account than for regular Japanese government bonds.

That way, the government will commit itself to coming up with a source of revenue to redeem the quake-related bonds, which would mostly likely be through a tax hike.

Japan's struggle to put a lid on the ever-rising public debt, which at double the size of the $5 trillion economy is the biggest among leading nations, has triggered rating cuts and a slew of warnings from credit rating agencies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110517/wl_nm/us_japan_economy_boj

May - Radiactive Cesium above safe levels found in Kanagawa

Radioactive material above designated safety limits has been detected in tea leaves harvested in 5 municipalities in Kanagawa Prefecture, neighboring Tokyo. The prefectural government checked samples of leaves harvested in 15 municipalities in the region. Officials say that samples from 5 of those were found to contain unsafe levels of radioactive cesium. They say 780 becquerels of cesium were detected in tea leaves in Odawara City.

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/89659.php

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Health Risks from Fukushima Nuclear Reactors


Radioactive substances have been leaking from Japan's tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for nearly two months, and the plant is likely to continue emitting radiation into the atmosphere, and possibly into the ocean and ground water, for many months to come.

People living within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant have been evacuated, while those in five towns downwind from the plants have also been told to prepare to leave their homes.

Following are some questions and answers about the health risks from continued radiation exposure from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) from Tokyo, as operator Tokyo Electric Power Co struggles to bring it under control:

HOW MUCH RADIATION HAS BEEN MEASURED OUTSIDE THE EVACUATION
ZONE?

The highest radiation reading outside the evacuation zone on Thursday measured 0.046 millisieverts an hour in Namie, Fukushima, which is one of the towns whose residents are preparing for evacuation.
Most areas outside the evacuation zone logged readings around 0.001 millisieverts an hour or less.

Japan's National Institute of Radiological Sciences calculated that in the month from March 14 to April 11, following the earthquake and tsunami, a person in Tokyo who spent eight hours a day outdoors and drank tap water would have been exposed to about 0.12 millisieverts.

In absolute terms, these quantities are extremely small. People in Japan are on average exposed to 1.5 millisieverts of natural background radiation a year.

HOW MUCH EXPOSURE IS DANGEROUS?

Experts' opinions vary. One benchmark from the Symposium on the International System of Radiological Protection recommends maximum exposure levels of 1 millisievert per year for the general public.

Children, whose cellular activity is more active than in adults, are especially vulnerable, and public health officials say they should be shielded as much as possible from unnecessary exposure.

CAN LONG-TERM EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF RADIATION CAUSE
CANCER?

Yes. Radiation is cumulative, and in theory, every radioactive particle that makes its way into the body increases the risk of cancer.

But there is no conclusive study that links a rise in cancer to cumulative radiation doses of less than 100 millisieverts. Experts are divided on the policy implications for these lower dosages.

Researchers are stumped in part because it can take decades and even generations before cancer emerges, and because so many other lifestyle choices can increase cancer risk. Researchers also had very poor quality data on dosage measurements after Chernobyl.

Japan's National Institute of Radiological Sciences says that cumulative exposure to 100 millisieverts of radiation raises the risk of death from cancer by 0.5 percent.

Every day, people are exposed to a vast array of other cancer-causing substances through cigarette smoke, eating and drinking habits, chemicals, viruses and bacteria.

IS SOME RADIATION MORE HARMFUL THAN OTHERS?

Yes. Radioactive particles are most harmful when inhaled or ingested, and particles that are easily absorbed and which have longer half-lives can cause more damage to cells and genetic material inside.
When examining radiation from the Fukushima plant, health officials focus especially on Iodine-131.

Inside the body of an adult, it has a half-life of 7 days, but it accumulates quickly in the thyroid gland. Children are especially at risk because their thyroids are still developing.

Another by-product, Cesium, spreads throughout the body, concentrating in muscle tissue. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, but inside an adult, the amount will be halved in 90 days.

Strontium and plutonium are rarer by-products of nuclear fission. But if they are ingested, they tend to collect in bones, where they are likely to stay put. Strontium can cause bone cancer. Plutonium is more dangerous when inhaled, increasing the risk of lung cancer.

HOW CAN RISK BE MINIMIZED?

Everything depends on how good the Japanese government is in monitoring radiation levels and how thoroughly it samples food products.

"The Japanese are very sensitive when it comes to food safety, so I am confident that children will not be exposed to radiated milk products," said Shunichi Yamashita, professor of biomedical sciences at Nagasaki University.

"Just as we have become attuned to pesticide risk, we will have to learn to live with radiation risk and do what we can to avoid contaminated food and water."


http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/06/us-health-risk-troubled-japan-nuclear-pl-idUSTRE74557520110506

Golden Week - Shinkansen Passengers down 11%

A total of 9.12 million people used shinkansen and other express trains operated by the Japan Railway group during this year's Golden Week holiday season, marking a record 11 percent year-on-year fall, according to data released by six group member companies.

East Japan Railway Co. reported a 27 percent drop in passenger numbers, also the steepest drop on record since the group was established in 1987 through the breakup and privatization of Japanese National Railways.

An official at the Tokyo-based railway better known as JR East blamed the sharp decrease on the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, saying the disaster prompted many people to refrain from going out during the season from April 28 through Sunday.

The Tohoku Shinkansen Line, which resumed full services throughout its route from Tokyo to Shin-Aomori Station on April 29 after disruptions resulting from the disaster, posted a 33 percent fall to 1.11 million passengers, JR East said.

The Tokaido Shinkansen Line of Central Japan Railway Co. ( JR Tokai) marked a 5 percent decline.
The JR group logged a 5 percent drop in passenger numbers during the Golden Week period in 1997.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20110511a3.html

Housing Contractor Sees Boom from Post EQ Rebuilding

Sekisui House Ltd., the nation's second-largest home builder, will focus on the domestic market after expanding overseas as it expects Japan's biggest housing boom in at least 15 years after the March 11 disaster.


Housing starts, which dipped below 1 million in 2009 and 2010 for the first time in four decades, may rebound as homeowners rebuild in the quake area, Isami Wada, chairman of the Osaka-based company, said in an interview.

"We had to expand overseas because signs of a slowdown in Japan's housing demand were alarming," Wada said in Tokyo. "Unexpectedly, the earthquake struck. I now anticipate annual housing demand to reach the 1 million unit level again due to revival efforts and reconstruction demand."

Sekisui, which expanded into markets including Australia and China in the past three years, is predicting demand in Japan will exceed that of 1996, when 1.6 million new homes were built a year after the Great Hanshin Earthquake hit the Kobe area.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has proposed a ¥4 trillion extra budget that is likely to be the first of several packages to rebuild areas devastated by March's magnitude-9 temblor and tsunami that destroyed and damaged almost 350,000 homes.

Housing starts rose for 10 months through December 1996, after the 7.3-magnitude Hanshin earthquake hit parts of western Japan on Jan. 17, 1995, according to government data. Apartments put up for sale in Osaka and its surrounding areas rose 15 percent to 44,430 units that year, according to the Real Estate Economic Research Institute.

Prior to the housing boom in 1996, housing starts rose for 21 months ended February 1994, according to Bloomberg data. New homes built in Japan peaked at 1.7 million in 1990, according to the land ministry.

New home starts fell to 788,410 units two years ago, the lowest since 1964, and remained below 1 million last year as falling wages and mounting job losses sapped demand.

"This time, the earthquake damaged a much wider area," said Wada, who is also chief executive officer. "The need for revival is greater than the Hanshin earthquake. With so many aftershocks, I expect more homeowners will seek to rebuild."

About 90 percent of Japan's 30.3 million homes haven't been assessed for quake resistance, according to the Statistics Bureau.

Sekisui had expected revenue from its overseas operations to reach as high as ¥200 billion by January 2014. That's about 13 percent of sales in the past year. Sekisui and bigger rival Daiwa House Industry Co. have sought revenue growth overseas because of a decline in Japan's population and the slowing economic growth.

Sekisui entered real estate markets in Singapore and the U.S. by forming alliance with local partners after it established an overseas division in August 2008. The company is targeting higher profitability from countries with increasing population, economic growth and rich in resources, Wada said.
The extra budget and spending that may benefit the housing market is putting pressure on the government to raise taxes, a move that Wada said would hurt the economy, jeopardizing the revival plan.

"A housing boom can only take place as long as the consumption tax is left alone and the government sells more debt to boost growth," he said.

Only 0.4 percent of 29,692 homes built by Sekisui and located in quake-affected areas were destroyed during the Hanshin quake, while 9.3 percent of those homes were slightly damaged, according to the company's website.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20110511n1.html

Toyota to Return to Full Production Sooner than expected



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110510/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake_toyota

April - Soil Radiation in Namie, Futaba, Minamisoma, Iitate and KatsuraoFukushima Far Higher than Chernobyl

The levels of radiation accumulated in soil near the crippled nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan far exceeded the level of radiation the then-Soviet Union had used as a criterion for urging people to evacuate at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, threatening to plague local residents for a lengthy period.

Using aircraft, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology checked the cesium-137 (half life of about 30 years) and cesium-134 (half life of about two years) accumulated in soil in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy in April.

Cesium-137 that has longer effects, ranging from 3 million to 14.7 million becquerels per square meter, was detected in Namie, Futaba, Minamisoma, Iitate and Katsurao, northwest of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, in Fukushima Prefecture. The levels far exceeded 550,000 bacquerels per square meter, the level the then-Soviet Union had used as a criterion for urging people to evacuate at the time of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Based on recommendations from the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), the Japanese government used 20 millisieverts per year of radiation in the atmosphere as the criterion to designate evacuation areas in the wake of the nuclear accident in Fukushima. Therefore, there are areas that have not been designated as evacuation zones although they have larger amounts of accumulated radiation.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology says, "Radioactive substances in soil do not enter human bodies immediately." On the other hand, when authorities try to decide whether to allow local residents to return to their homes or resume farming, levels of soil contamination could be one of the hot topics of debate.

Hiromi Yamazawa, professor of environmental radiology at Nagoya University, said, "The problem with soil contamination is external exposure through gamma rays emitted from cesium adhered to soil." He said that replacing soil with non-contaminated soil is an effective way of reducing the concentration of radiation. He also said, "Replacing soil in lower layers with that from upper layers is also effective."

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110511p2a00m0na018000c.html

2010/11 - Bank Profits back to Pre Lehman Shock Levels on JGB rises

Japan's five major banking groups are expected to report a combined net profit of 1.7 trillion yen for the business year ended March, close to the level recorded prior to the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in autumn 2008, indicating the industry's improving business conditions, industry sources said Saturday.
But the likely size of the financial conglomerates' profits in the current business year through March 2012 remain unclear given the worsening prospects for the Japanese economy following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the nation's northeast.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. appears to have surpassed its 500 billion yen net profit goal for fiscal 2010, while Mizuho Financial Group Inc. is expected to report less than the 500 billion yen it had forecast, according to the sources.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. said its net profit would be roughly 470 billion yen, down from its earlier forecast of 540 billion yen.
Both Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho are taking evaluation losses on holdings of Tokyo Electric Power Co. shares, which have been battered in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami that crippled one of the utility's nuclear power plants in Fukushima Prefecture.
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc., created in April in a merger between Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. and Chuo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc., is expecting a net profit of roughly 130 billion yen based on the projections of the merged firms.
Resona Holdings Inc. is likely to report a higher net profit than the 135 billion yen previously forecast, the sources said.
The recovery trend is mainly attributable to gains made on a rapid rise in prices of government bonds last year. The prices of such bonds, however, have since dropped and business in the January-March quarter also suffered as a result of the quake and tsunami disaster.
The groups' earnings have also been tempered by losses taken by consumer loan companies under their wings.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20110508p2g00m0bu014000c.html

April - Toyota China Sales down 23/5%

New vehicle sales by Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. in China in April tumbled 23.5 percent and 22 percent from a year earlier to 48,700 units and 43,000 units, respectively, their local subsidiaries said Friday.


The sales declines came after the Japanese automakers reduced production in the local market due to difficulty procuring auto parts from Japan in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeast.
Both companies are scrambling to bring their production back to pre-quake levels, but it remains unclear when the supply disruption will recede to enable them to regain their footholds in China, the world's largest auto market.
Among other Japanese automakers, Nissan Motor Co.'s new vehicle sales in China rose 5 percent to 95,000 units in April but sales of passenger cars fell 1.8 percent to 55,700 units, according to its local subsidiary.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/business/news/20110507p2g00m0bu068000c.html

2010 - Disney Profits down 9.9%, Sales down 4.1% due to EQ

Net profits of the Tokyo Disney Resort operator plunged 9.9 percent in fiscal 2010 to 22.9 billion yen ($286 million) due mainly to an extraordinary loss of 9.7 billion yen from the March 11 earthquake.
It was the first decline in net profits in three years for Oriental Land Co., which released its consolidated financial statement on May 6.

The company's sales fell 4.1 percent from the previous year to 356.1 billion yen.
After the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, Oriental Land temporarily closed Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture. The company's hotels were also forced to suspend operations.

Those measures cost Oriental land 5.3 billion yen, including wages it continued to pay its employees. It also spent 4.4 billion yen to repair facilities and dispose of merchandise.

The number of visitors to the resort decreased 1.8 percent from fiscal 2009, the company said.
Still, Oriental Land's operating profits surged 28 percent to 53.6 billion yen thanks to its cost-cutting measures and streamlining efforts. For example, it instructed restaurants and other eateries at the theme parks to use the same food materials.

The company's operating profits marked a record amount for the third straight year.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105070160.html

February - Record High Number of Welfare Recipients

The number of welfare recipients in Japan totaled 1,989,769 as of February, and would likely have topped the 2 million mark if data from Fukushima Prefecture, unavailable due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis there, had been included, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Thursday.
The likely national total for February is close to the record high monthly average of about 2.04 million recorded in fiscal 1952, which ended in March 1953, when the country was still in a state of postwar confusion.
In Fukushima Prefecture, about 16,000 people were living on welfare as of January.
The figure may continue rising for some time as many people who lost their homes and jobs in the quake-tsunami disaster that hit northeastern Japan were expected to have sought welfare benefits in and after March, officials said.




http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9N5LIB04&show_article=1

March - Economic Impacts of the 3.11 EQ

Economic reports made public April 28 by the government and the Bank of Japan underscore the rapid deterioration of the Japanese economy in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear plant accidents.
A trade and industry ministry report states that the industrial and mining production index for March sank a record 15.3 percent from the previous month — surpassing the 8.6 percent drop in February 2009 after the Lehman Brothers shock. Overall production activities fell 31.9 percent in the devastated areas and 13.5 percent in other areas.
Transport machinery production suffered a record 46.4 percent drop, apparently due to the disruption of the parts supply chains. Japan's car industry, which is expected to play an important role in bringing back the economy to a path of steady recovery, is in bad shape.
The psychological effects of the disasters and the subsequent economic downturn are damping consumer spending. An internal affairs ministry report showed that spending by households of two or more people in March was 8.5 percent lower than it was in the same month the previous year — the worst tumble since February 1974 when spending went down 7.2 percent due to the oil crisis.
It is no surprise that the Bank of Japan has taken a pessimistic stance. In its economic report the central bank lowered its forecast of economic growth in real terms for fiscal 2011 from the 1.6 percent it made in January to 0.6 percent.
Yet, the central bank's thinking suggests that it expects nationwide supply chains to be repaired and power shortages caused by the nuclear crisis to lessen by autumn. The bank forecasts that the economy will grow 2.9 percent in fiscal 2012, up from the 2 percent forecast in January.
Outside Japan, food and raw material prices are rising. Consumer prices in Tokyo rose 0.2 percent in April from a year before — the first rise in 25 months — reflecting price rises abroad as well as the shortage of goods following the earthquake and tsunami.
The Bank of Japan should carry out a monetary policy designed to help stimulate economic activities while paying close attention to price movements.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

May - Minute Amount of Radiation Show up in Tokyo Women's Breast Milk

While amounts are minute - Tokyo, Fukushima and Ibaraki women are showing effects of radiation-
A minute amount of radioactive substances have been found in breast milk of seven women in a survey covering 23 women in Tokyo and four other prefectures, including Fukushima and its neighboring Ibaraki, the health ministry said Saturday. The amount found is below the interim limits for milk and dairy products under the Food Sanitation Law and poses no health risks to babies, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. 
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9MTT7LG0&show_article=1

May - High Wages on offer for cleanup workers in Fukushima

Details of hourly wages offered to subcontractors of TEPCO in Fukushima - and who is doing this dangerous work

Job offers come not from TEPCO but from Mizukami Kogyo, a company whose business is construction and cleaning maintenance. The description indicates only that the work is at a nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture. The job is specified as three hours per day at an hourly wage of 10,000 yen (about US$122). There is no information about danger, only the suggestion to ask the employer for further details on food, lodging, transportation and insurance.

Those who answer these offers may have little awareness of the dangers and they are likely to have few other job opportunities. A rate of $122 an hour is hardly a king's ransom given the risk of cancer from high radiation levels. But TEPCO and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) keep diffusing their usual propaganda to minimize the radiation risks.

Rumor has it that many of the cleanup workers are burakumin (a minority group dating from Japan's feudal era and still often associated with discrimination). This cannot be verified, but it would be congruent with the logic of the nuclear industry and the difficult job situation of day laborers. Because of ostracism, some burakumin are also involved with yakuza, or organized crime groups. Therefore, it would not be surprising that yakuza-burakumin recruit other burakumin to go to Fukushima. Yakuza are active in recruiting day laborers of the yoseba (communities for day laborers): Sanya in Tokyo, Kotobukicho in Yokohama, and Kamagasaki in Osaka. People who live in precarious conditions are then exposed to high levels of radiation, doing the most dirty and dangerous jobs in the nuclear plants, then are sent back to the yoseba. Those who fall ill will not even appear in the statistics. [1]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Japan/ME04Dh01.html

2010 - Number of children aged under 15 in Japan has fallen to the lowest level since records began in the 1950s,

The number of children aged under 15 in Japan has fallen to the lowest level since records began in the 1950s, as the population as a whole gets older and smaller, the government said Monday.
There were an estimated 16.93 million children as of April 1, down 90,000 from a year earlier, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said.
The estimate was based on 2010 national census data.
Children accounted for 13.2 per cent of the population, the ministry said. In contrast, the ratio of people aged 65 or older was a record-high 23.2 per cent. 

Of the 27 countries with a population of at least 40 million, Japan had the lowest ratio of children to the total population -- compared with 20.1 per cent for the United States and 18.5 per cent for China, the ministry said.
"The ratio of children kept declining since the first baby boom (1947-1949) to reach about one fourth of the total population in 1965, reflecting a decline in the number of new-born babies," the ministry said.
After the second baby boom (1971-1974), the ratio fell back again to slip below 15.7 per cent for people aged 65 or older in 1997, it added.
The ministry said in February that Japan's population stood at 128.06 million as of last October 1 and that it was expected to roughly halve on current trends to 60 million by 2100.
The population has been declining year-on-year since 2007.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-05-02/news/29496267_1_baby-boom-population-ratio

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Yakuza members in Japan lowest since 1992 anti-organized laws went in to effect; National Police Agency announces 2010 figures

Yakuza members in Japan lowest since 1992 anti-organized laws went in to effect; National Police Agency announces 2010 figures

Shiga: What’s a few tons of paper to spread the word against yakuza?

Shiga: What’s a few tons of paper to spread the word against yakuza?

Love hotel businesses left reeling in wake of the quake

After brief spurt of demand, love hotel businesses left reeling in wake of the quake | The Tokyo Reporter - "All the News That's Fit to Squint"

Seems that LH sales are down 30-50% after the EQ

Ex-Goto-gumi members assassinated in Thailand!? Dead men have no mouths. 死人に口なし

Ex-Goto-gumi members assassinated in Thailand!? Dead men have no mouths. 死人に口なし

The Water Industry Moves South

Tohoku tremors send sex-service gals scampering southward | The Tokyo Reporter - "All the News That's Fit to Squint"

April - Iitate 'wagyu' farmers blast evacuation order

Iitate 'wagyu' farmers blast evacuation order | The Japan Times Online

Golden Week - holiday travelers to fall 27% due to quake

Golden Week holiday travelers to fall 27% due to quake+:

"The number of travelers during Japan's Golden Week holidays will fall 27.6 percent from a year earlier, the biggest year-on-year decline since 1990 when comparable data is available, in the wake of the massive earthquake, JTB Corp. said Monday. 
The major travel agency said 16.09 million people are expected to set out on an overnight or longer trip between April 24 and May 4 -- 15.66 million domestic travelers, down 27.8 percent, and 431,000 overseas ones, down 16.6 percent, marking the first year-on-year decrease in three years. 
The considerable decline of travel in one of the biggest holiday seasons in Japan is likely to deal a heavy blow to the tourism industry, including tour agencies and hotel operators, analysts said."

April - Co-op sold banned radiated spinach

Co-op sold banned spinach | The Japan Times Online

CHIBA — A Tokyo-based cooperative has delivered spinach grown in the town of Tako, Chiba Prefecture, to consumers in three eastern prefectures despite a government ban on shipments due to concerns about radiation, the Chiba Prefectural Government said Thursday.



Some of the 74 lots of Tako-grown spinach - home-delivered by Pal System Consumers Cooperative Union to 70 households in Gunma, Saitama and Chiba prefectures - had already been consumed, it said.
A dealer in the town of Shibayama, which also has vegetable fields in Tako, shipped the spinach in question as part of 380 lots on April 10 and has said it did not know of the shipment ban, prompting the local government to issue a verbal warning, it said.
Pal System, a co-op association formed by nine consumer cooperatives in Tokyo and nine surrounding prefectures, claimed it thought there were no problems with the spinach shipped, as the dealer was based in Shibayama, but was alerted to the possibility of a problem through documents submitted by the dealer.
It tried to exclude Tako products from its delivery service, but failed to entirely prevent their delivery, it said, apologizing for the trouble, while adding it had detected small amounts of radioactive iodine and cesium far below the allowable levels in some produce.
On March 25, the Chiba Prefectural Government urged producers and dealers to voluntarily refrain from shipping spinach grown in Tako.
On April 4, the central government imposed a ban due to radiation concerns on the shipment of spinach grown in the town as well as the neighboring city of Katori.
The government also banned at the time the shipment of spinach, parsley, celery, bok choy, garland chrysanthemum and "sanchu" Korean lettuce from the city of Asahi, also in the prefecture.
On April 13, major supermarket chain Aeon Co. said it had sold sanchu leaves produced in Asahi at its retail stores for nine days through April 7, despite the shipment ban imposed after the prefecture directed that the produce be voluntarily kept off the market.
Aeon said at that time that even if consumed, the produce posed no threat to human health because the amount of radioactive material found on it was below the allowable limit

Cigarette sales drop 10.1% in FY 2010, largest fall on record+

Cigarette sales drop 10.1% in FY 2010, largest fall on record+:

"Sales of cigarettes in Japan in fiscal 2010 plunged 10.1 percent from a year earlier to 210.2 billion cigarettes, marking the largest fall on record, due to a sharp rise in prices, the Tobacco Institute of Japan said Friday.
The decline in sales, the sharpest since comparable date became available in 1990, stemmed from weakening demand as cigarette prices spiked following the imposition of the largest-ever tobacco tax hike on Oct. 1.

The sales value in the business year ended March increased 2.0 percent from the year before to 3,616.3 billion yen, the institute said.

By cigarette brand, Seven Stars topped the ranking for the third straight year, accounting for 4.8 percent of the sales volume."

Japan Leisure Hotels Announcements | Japan Leisure Hotels: Proposed Disposal

Investegate |Japan Leisure Hotels Announcements | Japan Leisure Hotels: Proposed Disposal

Japan Leisure Hotels announced that it is selling its 6 hotels and business for JPY1.4bn - a discount of 70% on the JPY5bn value claimed by JLH for the assets. The JPY5bn value was basically the original investment amount into the assets by hedge fund DKR Oasis - although most of this was invested in around 2005 and 2006 when most of the hotels were originally acquired and renovated.

JLH was listed on AIM in January 2008 at 50P a share trying to raise GBP100m; but eventually only raised GBP3 million before expenses.
http://www.propertyweek.com/investors-turned-off-by-love-hotels/3103082.article

JLH came to AIM offering
investors an absolute return, supported by a ‘stable and growing’ income stream.
http://blog.amoncorp.com/?eid=533342
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/08/investing.japan

In August 2008, using the proceeds from its IPO, JLH acquired another hotel to take its total to 6 hotels
http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp?ArticleCode=w8bn7w49qp4ten8&ArticleHeadline=Japan_Leisure_Hotels_buys_additional_leisure_hotel_for_410_mln_yen

In May 2009, JLH went back to the market, unsuccessfully, looking to raise GBP50million
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23693741-japan-love-hotels-owner-seeks-50m-for-growth.do

Another attempt was made to raise equity in its 3rd year on AIM in May 2010.

But again this was unsuccessful - even though this attempt was made after the payment by JLH of its first ever dividend of 1P per share (total - GBP440,000 on an investment of GBP20m) in 2010 - as its analyst Hardman put it in May 2010 -
Japan Leisure Hotels (LON:JPLH, market cap £24m) produced results ahead of our forecast this morning. We are both pleased and reassured by the numbers. There is a maiden dividend, and EBITDA margins are at an all time high. The business model has been proved and we believe a capital raising to purchase more hotels would be good news for shareholders.
http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/research/good-results-proof-of-business-40436/

But 2 months later, in July 2010, Hardman hurriedly had to re-issue a restatement of their guidance -
http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/research/reaction-to-trading-statement-45157/
as JLH revenues and EBITDA and share price began to slide in 2010 as it was hit by a loss of revenues due the closing of their most recently acquired hotel for renovations - leaving it closed the first half of 2010, and also loss of market share to competitors and their hotels requiring refurbishments (ie., further investment) -
Japan Leisure Hotels warns that revenue and EBITDA for the year to the end of December will be lower than current market expectations. 
The Yokkaichi hotel was closed for renovation for the majority of the first six months of the current financial year. 
Some other hotels were experiencing reduced occupancy due to competitors aggressively reducing prices and some hotels nearing their scheduled refurbishment. 
The firm said: "The asset manager is taking immediate steps to address these short term issues, where possible, and is confident that it they will be quickly resolved." 
http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/20100722/japan-leisure-hotels-revenue-below-market-forecasts.htm

In December 2010, JLH's main investor DKR Oasis announced it was selling out  - presumably as it was faced with holding an investment which on top of providing little or no yield since its inception in 2005 - was now faced with declining revenues and with the operator foreshadowing requirements for future investments in renovations.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/15a512b6-0d2e-11e0-82ff-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LNI0zBZp

JLH says that investors can expect to get 22P a share on winding up. The FT reports on the deal as follows-
In some cases, boards are not entirely happy with the prices being paid when companies with dominant shareholders are sold...

Now the board of Japan Leisure has announced “considerable misgivings about the price to be paid for the trading subsidiaries, especially in view of its underlying value as a going concern”...
The company tried to raise £100m in 2007, convinced that it would be able to consolidate the fragmented Japanese industry. But it had to settle for £3m at 50p a share, leaving DKR Oasis, a US hedge fund that specialised in pre-IPO fundraising in Asia, holding 88 per cent of the shares. Another attempt at a £50m fundraising in 2009 failed.
At the end of last year DKR announced that it wanted to realise its investment and last week JLH said that it had agreed to sell its operations to Sanglier, a private buyer, for £10.4m. Shareholders were told to expect to receive 22p a share from the deal, against the last reported net asset value of 77p a share.
The company is being realistic about its position, pointing out that DKR could push the deal through regardless of the board’s misgivings about the price. The simple truth is that, even allowing for the credit crisis and Japan’s natural disasters, the flotation should never have gone ahead. The market’s lack of interest was clear from the beginning.
 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/31b0e34c-7672-11e0-b05b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1LNI0zBZp



Nintendo's annual profit down 66 percent to $947M - Yahoo! News

Nintendo's annual profit down 66 percent to $947M - Yahoo! News

BBC News - Japan's small firms struggle to stay afloat after quake

BBC News - Japan's small firms struggle to stay afloat after quake:


Another challenge for businesses is Jishuku, the voluntary self-restraint mood that people have been in.
"Travel agents and hotels are also affected because jishuku," says Mr Oohira of Tokyo Shoko Research.
"Out of solidarity with those in disaster-hit areas, people are cancelling their trips to enjoy hot springs for example."
By 26 April, some 22 firms hade gone bust because of the earthquake. and a further 27 had started their preparations to file for bankruptcy, too.
Out of the 49 companies, there were eight hotels and three travel agents.



"The pessimistic mood is evident in a monthly survey conducted by the National Federation of Small Business Associations.

'The result for March was much worse than expected,' says Masaru Oikawa of the Federation.

'Small businesses are suffering much more than after the Kobe earthquake or the Lehman shock.'

The government has freed up funds for them.

Financial institutions are also doing their part to prevent cash-flow problems and a domino effect resulting in further bankruptcies.

Norinchukin bank, for example, is offering interest-free loans worth $36.7bn to farmers and fishermen.

'So far, there are enough funds and that's why we haven't seen too many bankruptcies yet,' says Mr Oikawa of the National Federation of Small Business Association."

Disney Reopens But Hard times for Mickey

Hard times for Mickey | The Japan Times Online


The national mood of self-restraint in the face of the disaster in the Tohoku-Pacific region, the dropoff in visitors from abroad because of the nuclear threat, and the uncertainty of the electricity supply in the all-important summer months spell hard times for Tokyo Disneyland and other Japanese leisure facilities.
However, the rolling outages and restrictions on mass transit in the Tokyo area after the quake forced Tokyo Disneyland to close until April 15. It then reopened for limited hours to 6 p.m. with energy conservation in effect for interior lighting, escalators, and fountains.
On April 23 it extended its hours to 10 p.m. and resumed its popular evening electric parade. (A spokesman explained that the lighted floats are powered by batteries that are recharged late in the night when demand for electricity is low.)
However, it still faces the problem of sufficient electricity for the summer, as it relies on Tokyo Electric Power Co. for total daily consumption at the two parks of 570,000 kilowatts.
Therefore, it is purchasing three generators run on natural gas at a cost of ¥300 million. Longer term, a new Disney theme park near Shanghai — groundbreaking took place April 8 — threatens to draw away Chinese and other Asian tourists.
It is to be hoped that such a well-run and well-loved facility as Tokyo Disneyland can overcome its difficulties and continue to provide promise of a return to happier times, as Mickey Mouse and other characters did on their visits to evacuation centers in
Miyagi Prefecture on April 23 and 24.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Japan to Release Secret Radiation Data Despite Fear of Mass Panic

Japan to Release Secret Radiation Data Despite Fear of Mass Panic « VOA Breaking News


Japanese officials say they will begin releasing data on the potential spread of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear accident that has been withheld for fear of causing mass panic.
National NHK television said the data would be posted Tuesday on websites operated by the Science Ministry and nuclear regulatory agencies.
Goshi Hosono, head of a task force dealing with the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, said Monday the government has made about 5,000 measurements through a computer system designed to project radiation patterns in the event of various scenarios.
He said the data have not been released for fear that some of the worst-case scenarios could cause mass panic. But he said the government now believes that, even if the information is shocking, panic can be avoided with proper explanations.
Hosono apologized for the delay in releasing the data.
Japan's national police say more than 14,700 people are now confirmed dead in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that knocked out the cooling systems at the plant and led to the leakage of radiation.
Another 10,800 people still are unaccounted for, while about 126,000 still are living in temporary shelters.