Japanese Uni student shows App-titude for wiki-uni-leaks

Student under arrest admits uploading 4 universities' entrance exam questions and Student arrested for posting exam questions online hid mobile phone between legs

A 19-year-old student, arrested for uploading Kyoto University entrance exam questions to an online bulletin board, has admitted responsibility for the online leakage of questions in three other universities' entrance exams he took, police sources said.

The 19-year-old stands accused of using a mobile phone to upload questions in the entrance examination of Kyoto University to the "Yahoo Chiebukuro" ("Yahoo pearls of wisdom") online bulletin board on Feb. 26, adversely affecting the fair implementation of the exam and obstructing the institution's operations.

This is reportedly the first time that law enforcers have formed a [criminal] case against someone who cheated in a school examination on suspicion of obstruction of business.

"I was sitting in a corner of the examination site, so I thought it was out of the proctors' line of vision. I did it repeatedly."

Kyoto Prefectural Police plan to re-enact the exam, paying attention to the student's position in the classroom and the placement of the exam supervisor, to determine whether it would have been possible for him to operate the phone without being noticed. They also plan to question the exam supervisor.

Guambat is impressed that the kid's name wasn't released. Very unAmerican, that. And maybe a factor that will mitigate suicide tendencies, let's hope.

But there's more to this story, in a very Japanesey way, too.

Kyoto U. faces backlash, charges of irresponsibility in wake of exam cheat's arrest

Following a preparatory school student's arrest over the recent online leak of entrance exam questions at Kyoto University, the elite school has come under fire from the public for not only failing to prevent the cheating but underlining its position as the "victim."

According to Kyoto University's public relations section, after the arrest of the 19-year-old student of a Sendai prep school was reported on the news on the afternoon of March 3, the university was flooded with angry phone calls, with most of them claiming that the school was too lax in monitoring the test takers or that its decision to file a complaint with police over the leak was wrong. Some also reportedly argued that arresting the culprit over cheating was "going too far," showing pity for the prep school student.

Meanwhile, Kyoto University's handling of the situation has also irked some at the Kyoto Prefectural Police.

"I seriously wonder why the university overlooked the supervisors' failure and immediately left everything to police. Without even conducting an in-house investigation, the school is probably just evading its responsibility in a bid to avoid criticism," one high-ranking Kyoto Prefectural Police officer commented.

On March 3, Kyoto University President Hiroshi Matsumoto attended a press conference for the first time since the leak was detected on Feb. 26.

"We always monitor exam takers properly," Matsumoto said, raising his voice. "If it's an Internet crime that occurred outside (Kyoto University exam supervisors') area of responsibility, we have to take (legal) action."

More old "news"

This story in today's NYT is the last act of a play that was foretold at the start.

Japanese Leader Gives In to U.S. on Okinawa Base

Apologizing for failing to fulfill a prominent campaign promise, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States.

On his second visit to Okinawa this month, Mr. Hatoyama for first time conceded what Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands and honor a 2006 agreement to move the United States Marine Air Station Futenma to the island’s less populated north.

The decision is a humiliating setback for Mr. Hatoyama on a problem that has consumed his young government and could prove its undoing. Before last year’s historic election victory, he had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. But his apparent wavering on the issue helped drive his approval ratings below 25 percent.

In the end, he seemed to decide it was more important to keep good ties with the United States, Japan’s longtime protector, at a time when his nation faces a nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly assertive China. Washington had consistently demanded that Tokyo honor the 2006 agreement to move Futenma and its noisy helicopters to a new facility to be built in Camp Schwab, near the northern Okinawan fishing village of Henoko.

Mr. Hatoyama explained his decision by saying that since taking office, he had learned to appreciate the role that the Marines play as a deterrent in the region, and that Okinawa was the most strategic location for them.

Mr. Hatoyama called it a “heartbreaking” decision, and said he extended his “heartfelt apology for causing much confusion” among islanders.

Six months ago, when Hatoyama was making the wild claims about ending US military support and presence, Guam posted,

the outcome is written.

Marines will come to Guam, some other adjustments will be made to mend fences and save faces, and the New Government will become a footnote in Japanese political history.

Given recent form of the Hatoyama government, don't get excited

Japan, Australia sign bilateral defense logistics agreement

Japan and Australia signed a bilateral defense logistics agreement Wednesday in Tokyo to strengthen security cooperation between the two nations.

Er, "defense"??

Not exactly. As that article goes on to reveal,

"The Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement, signed by Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and their Australian counterparts, would enable the two governments to provide food, water and medical services"

As BusinessWeek explains,

"The agreement follows talks that began in February and builds on the Australia-Japan Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation signed in March 2007 covering areas such as law enforcement, border security, counter-terrorism, disarmament, disaster relief and peacekeeping."

Indeed, BW particularly points out,

"The accord differs from the 1996 agreement Japan has with the U.S. that deals with the use of force and security in areas surrounding Japan, as well as goods and services, Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said at yesterday’s news conference."

Japan has dithered, procrastinated and all but disavowed the US 1996 agreement, only to waffle its way into something that resembles, but may not be, a capitulation over that one:

Japanese PM's Reversal on US Base May Have Political Cost

The U.S. Marine Corps Futenma air station on Okinawa has long been a target of protesters. A large city has grown around it over the past 50 years, and residents complain the base's aircraft are noisy and dangerous.

Okinawa hosts about half of the 49,000 U.S. troops in Japan, on several bases, as part of an alliance forged after World War II.

In 2006, after years of negotiations, the U.S. and Japan agreed to move Futenma to a coastal area in northern Okinawa, and to move about 8,000 other Marines to the U.S. island of Guam.

But Mr. Hatoyama's Democratic Party won a landslide victory last August, boosted partly by pledges to move Futenma entirely off Okinawa. He had promised a new plan for the base this month.

Tomohiko Taniguchi, adjunct political science professor at Japan's Keio University, says Mr. Hatoyama repeated the pledge "dozens of times," and has embarrassed himself by backtracking.

"It is none other than himself who dropped a huge stone on his own feet … he's made an absolute about face," said Taniguchi.

Japan's current Government obviously can't distinguish between "security" and "food, water and medical services". Perhaps, in a sort of Chamberlain-esque sense, Hatoyama's government figures humanitarian aid suffices for security arrangements.

If Guambat's comments have stomped on any geta, gomenasai.

Hatoyama caves

Japanese take to baseball, US to play hardball (December 2009)

For the decades after WWII in which the LDP ran the show in Japan, there developed a certain standardized pas de due between the US and Japan that was pragmatic, commercial and static. Each could be counted upon to go no further than the dance choreographed.

Then, in August this year, the LDP finally got back-footed. In an expression of exasperation, the Japanese people voted for Anyone But LDP. The darts landed on hapless Mr. Hatoyama and his "visionary" wife, and his more inept than hapless comrades without arms coalition.

The new Japanese coalition government can't make up its mind to implement the US/Japan Guam relocation agreement because nothing less than the wholesale removal of all US troops from Okinawa will currently satisfy its vision of self. Anything less than that is seen as a defeat, not a start. So they refuse to even start.

These will be very tense times in the coming months. Guambat only senses the tension, and guesses at the game. But the outcome is written.

Marines will come to Guam, some other adjustments will be made to mend fences and save faces, and the New Government will become a footnote in Japanese political history.

Guambat here abjectly apologizes to his family and friends who might find offense in anything said here. It is meant only dispassionately and affectionately for all concerned.

Some things in realpolitik are simply hard to swallow, even when being jammed down the throat.

Japan PM abandons plan to move US base off Okinawa By Harumi Ozawa (AFP) – 9 hours ago

Japan's embattled premier Tuesday abandoned a plan to move an unpopular US airbase entirely off Okinawa island, backtracking on a key election pledge after months of dithering that angered Washington.

"I really feel sorry as I visit here today that I must ask for the Okinawan people's understanding that part of the base operations would have to stay" on Okinawa, Yukio Hatoyama told reporters after meeting the local governor.

Under the latest compromise plan -- not formally announced by the government but widely reported in domestic media -- Japan is proposing to stick with the original plan, with some modifications.

Hatoyama -- whose approval ratings have dived into the 20 percent band amid the row ahead of upper house polls due in July -- was meeting officials in Okinawa in a bid to sell the compromise plan.

"Initially, there was an argument to move it overseas. But when we consider the Japan-US alliance and matters related to neighbouring nations, it is difficult to do so from the viewpoint of deterrence"' Hatoyama said.

"It is impossible in reality."

“It has gotten to the point where the only way to make progress on this issue would be for Prime Minister Hatoyama to resign,” said Satoshi Machidori, a politics professor at Kyoto University.