Japan CO2 emissions
TBS News uses balloons to illustrate how other countries emit a lot more carbon dioxide than Japan:
The announcer notes that the Japanese government’s unilateral decision to cut its CO2 emissions won’t have much of an effect unless other big countries take similar steps.
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Categories: General Japan
Shin Tzu = SHEs
A commercial for Yakult’s SHEs shows us that the product’s name sounds like the Japanese pronounciation of “Shih Tzu“:
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Categories: General Japan
FBI sketch artist appears in Japanese commercial
An odd Morinaga chocolate commercial that uses a former FBI sketch artist to describe a drawing of Japanese reactions to Dars:
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Categories: General Japan
Company fined 10.53 million yen for selling “copyrighted” Charlie Chaplin movies
Japan’s Supreme Court has ordered a budget DVD company that sold copies of Charlie Chaplin movies produced in the 1940′s to pay 10.53 million yen to a Liechtenstein-based company that claims copyright ownership of the films:
Under the old Copyright Act, copyright was valid for 33 years when claimed under the name of a group such as a film company, or for 38 years following the death of the original author. In its defense, the DVD company had asserted that copyright on the Chaplin films had lapsed under the first provision.
While Chaplin — who died in 1977 — authored and directed all nine films in question, the copyrights for some were registered under the name of a film company. However, the First Petty Bench of the Supreme Court chose to base its definition of copyright on “the person who provided the creative force in producing the films in their entirety,” and recognized Chaplin as the author of the movies. Moreover, “in cases where works are presented in the real names of their authors, even if the work is temporarily released under the name of a (film company), the second copyright provision takes precedence,” meaning copyright on the films will remain valid until 2015.
In other copyright news, the Osaka High Court overturned a ruling that had convicted the man who created the Winny file-sharing software of “assisting violations of the Copyright Law.”
The appeal ruling sided with the defense, saying: “Anonymity is not something to be looked on as illegal, and it is not something that applies specifically to copyright violations. The technical value of the software is neutral.”
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Categories: General Japan
Super Typhoon
The day before Typhoon Melor hit Japan, FTV rolled out some computer generated footage of a super strong typhoon hitting Japan and flooding the streets of Nagoya:
The doomsday scenario shown in the animation was created based on the predictions of researchers who believe an ultra strong super typhoon may hit Japan in the next 50 or 60 years. Apparently the super typhoon will be far stronger than Typoon Vera, which hit Japan in 1959 and killed nearly 5,000 people.
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Categories: General Japan
US Navy families lived next to Japanese trash incinerator complex
America’s ABC News reports on how the families of US Navy personnel in Japan were exposed to dangerous chemicals from a nearby Japanese garbage incinerator:
The Shinkampo Incinerator Complex was known to release volatile organic compounds, poly-chlorinated biphenyls, pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydro-carbons, dioxins, furans, particulates and heavy metals into the air. Dioxin is also a key toxin in Agent Orange, a defoliant widely used by the U.S. military in Vietnam.
The Department of the Navy warned Atsugi residents of the risks of the incinerator in 1997 and instructed people to stay indoors when the plume blew toward the base. In 2001, the incinerator was closed.
Since that time, at least 61 cases of cancer from former residents — many children — have emerged, along with occurrences of other toxic-related disorders.
“We trusted the Navy to provide a safe environment for our family members. But they failed to do so by knowingly housing our families in a toxic waste zone,” Paganelli said.
A video about the story can be viewed here.
[hat tip to faerielfire]
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan