On August 26th, we published our inaugural post, and set out to begin Trans-Pacific Radio by producing Seijigiri, a podcast discussion program focusing on the Japanese and East Asian political scene. On September 14th, we published the announcement that we had transferred our first gigabyte of audio data from the site, eighteen days after our first release.

In October, however, we did not post anything ‘about’ Trans-Pacific Radio. We focused on developing our programs, improving sound quality, and rolling out the Shasetsu and TPR News programs.

Later in November, we plan to debut our latest effort, tentatively titled the Business of Japan (BOJ) podcast. We have other programs in the early developmental stages, but no announcements on those quite yet…

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Business

Woes continue for Sony, who reported a 94% plunge in profit for the second quarter. Though sales had risen 8%, Sony spent approximately $429 million in an effort to recall some 9.6 million laptop batteries. The company’s share price dove from just over $50 per share in early May to just under $38 in early October, though it has recently fought its way back to the $42 range while trading on heavy volume. On Friday, although it was reported that a user of a Fujitsu laptop in Japan had suffered minor burns from an overheated Sony battery, Forbes weighed in with the opinion that “the worst may be past for Sony.”

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 TPR News - Oct 29, 2006: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Reporters Without Borders, the press-freedom advocacy group, released its annual Press Freedom Index on Tuesday, in which the freedom of the press in almost all of the world’s countries is assessed and the countries ranked. Results are determined by tabulating factors such as the number of journalists killed, imprisoned, or otherwise hindered, the amount of censorship to which journalists and media are subjected, etc.

Unsurprisingly, North Korea was at the bottom of the list, coming in at number 168, but it was closely challenged by Turkmenistan (no. 167), Eritrea (no. 166), and Cuba (no. 165.) (Take that, American college faux-leftist hippies. Is it really worth sticking up for Cuba just to justify your trendy, purchased Che Guevara T-shirt or poster?) In North Korea, people who attempt to resolder radios so as to receive more than one station are sent to labor camps, in Turkmenistan, journalist Ogulsapar Muradova was tortured to death. This ought to give you and idea of what the bottom of the list is like.

Equally unsurprisingly, Northern European countries, specifically, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, and the Netherlands tied for number one, with no reports of intimidation of journalists and other good indicators of a free press.

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 Japan is Falling!: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Business

The big domestic news story all week - headlining newspapers, websites, TV news shows, and radio alike - has been the introduction on Tuesday of cellular phone number portability, which enables customers to keep their phone numbers, but not their cellular e-mail addresses, as they move from one cellular service provider to another. The move has sent Japan’s three major cellular companies - NTT DoCoMo, au by KDDI, and SoftBank - scurrying to introduce new features, primarily centered around music downloading and network accessibility, to keep current customers and attract new ones. SoftBank emerged has an early winner by offering its customers free daytime calls and e-mails to all other SoftBank customers. It’s been a good year for SoftBank in some respects, their baseball team, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, just barely missed going to the Japan Series.

The impact on any of the companies’ bottom lines is still unclear.

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This edition of Shasetsu comes to us via What Japan Thinks. This is a great blog that publishes English translations of Japanese opinion polls; it’s a very useful resource for getting a view into the Japanese public’s thoughts and opinions. We at Trans-Pacific Radio would like to express a huge ‘thank you’ to Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson, who runs What Japan Thinks and has graciously allowed us to republish his work. So, without any further ado…

Ken’s original article, which was published as New boy at the helm rated highly on October 18th, follows:

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From Burkhard Bilger’s “The Lunchroom Rebellion” under the heading “In the Kitchen” in the September 4, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, in the course of an otherwise fine article on a chef trying to improve public school food:

“Children can learn to eat almost anything, given time. In Mexico, they consume fiery chilies; in Japan, whale meat; in Sweden, pickled herring.”

Wait a second. Hold on. In Mexico, kids eat fiery chilies. OK. As far as I know, that’s (Read on …)

Welcome to the first post of TPR News. We’ve been offering discussions on politics as part of our Seijigiri podcasts and political news updates with our Seijigiri supplements, but we’ve decided to broaden the horizons a bit and offer a ‘channel’ with a look at more general news from Japan and other parts of East Asia.

As often as possible, we will be recording these news summaries so that you can listen to them as streaming audio from your home computer, or grab the mp3 file and listen as you ride the train or walk about town.

That said, let’s get into the recent news:

Crazy Politician Words of the Day

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Ken and Garrett keep up with what’s going on in response to the DPRK’s nuclear test and return to domestic issues. Condi Rice visits Japan to talk about North Korea and renews America’s promise to defend Japan against all threats, Abe Shinzo’s education board meets to improve teacher quality and student morality, and Yasukuni pops up again. 84 lawmakers decided to stop by for a visit at the Shrine’s autumn festival. What does it mean for relations with China and South Korea?As promised, here’s an image of the 84 lawmakers and 90 assistants as they head into the Yasukuni Shrine on Wednesday, October 18. Although prime minister Abe Shinzo was not among them, Chinese officials have publicly ‘warned’ the prime minister against making a future visit. Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa, who was meeting with Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist party’s International Liaison Department, said that Abe would be sure to visit the shrine. According to Ozawa, it would be difficult for Abe to honor China’s request as doing so would cause him to lose popular support at home.

The Shiki Theatre Company (劇団四季), which we mentioned during our discussion, is Japan’s largest theatre company.

Thank you for listening.

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 Seijigiri #10: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What does the Japanese press have to say about the performance of new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe thus far? I’ve dug in and found some pieces that ordinarily wouldn’t get translated into English. I have a perspective from each of Japan’s three largest daily newspapers: The Asahi Shimbun, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Yomiuri Shimbun.

The Asahi is generally spoken of as Japan’s most liberal daily broadsheet, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (literally Japan Economic Newspaper) could be considered Japan’s version of the Wall Street Times Journal, and the Yomiuri is generally touted as Japan’s conservative voice. The Yomiuri has the largest daily circulation of any newspaper in the world. Here’s what they each had to say:

Asahi Shimbun

“Youthfulness, cleanliness, and a spirit to challenge” - these are the words often used by Abe’s supporters to describe his new cabinet. Unfortunately, none of these words seem to fit the new regime. “Cronyism” is more like it, as important cabinet and party leadership positions went to those folks who had supported Abe in the LDP presidential election. The makeup of this new leadership looks more like a new version of NHK’s weekly drama Komyo ga tsuji.

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 Shasetsu #4: Abe in the editorials: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The Russians said five to fifteen kilotons, the rest of North Korea’s neighbors and the deeply involved US said more like 550 tons. The general agreement is that the DPRK, in some capacity, tested a nuclear weapon. The general agreement also seems to be that the North Korean - American rivalry and the Kim Family Regime’s strained relations with China are the points to watch, that this means regional tensions are on the rise, that South Korea, the PRC, and Japan will put their differences aside and act largely together, so that TV commentators throughout the English-speaking world can tell their half-interested viewers who’s good, who’s bad, and, if you’re a Fox viewer, who needs to be attacked with overwhelming force and obliterated for not following instructions.

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