Month: April 2010

Major English school operator Geos goes bankrupt

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Major English school operator Geos Corp. filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday at the Tokyo District Court with liabilities of about 7.5 billion yen, company officials said.

Tokyo-based Geos operated 329 schools that had approximately 36,800 students. Nagoya-based G.Communication Group is set to take over 230 of the schools with some 29,000 students, while 99 other schools will be closed down.

All Geos schools will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday, and schools taken over by G.Communications will be reopened from Friday.

Geos officials said students who have already paid tuition fees will be able to continue to learn at nearby Geos schools without paying any extra charges.

Students who live in areas where there is no Geos school can attend lessons at NOVA schools, also operated by G.Communications, if they pay extra charges. However, they cannot get back tuition they have already paid.

Geos was founded in 1986. It operated English conversation schools across the country while offering overseas study and homestay programs.

However, its subsidiary in Australia closed all its schools in February after getting into financial trouble. The number of students had since decreased sharply because of a loss of confidence and intensifying competition in the industry.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100421p2a00m0na023000c.html

Wife presses for details in death of deportee

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The Japanese wife of a Ghanaian who died last month while he was being deported for overstaying his visa called Tuesday on police and the Immigration Bureau to disclose exactly how he died.

“I want the government to unveil the truth as soon as possible to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents,” the wife of the deceased man, Abubakar Awudu Suraj, told journalists at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo.

The FCCJ agreed not to reveal the wife’s name.

Police said Suraj was confirmed dead in a hospital March 22 after an undisclosed number of immigration officers overpowered him when he became violent in an airplane before it departed Narita International Airport that day for Cairo.

The wife’s lawyer, Koichi Kodama, questioned the police investigation, which has not resulted in any arrests.

“If a man died after five or six civilians, not public servants, held his limbs, they would undoubtedly be arrested,” Kodama said, adding he told “exactly that to the prosecutors” he met with Monday in Chiba.

The Chiba police are questioning about 10 immigration officers and crew of Egypt Air, Kodama quoted a Chiba prosecutor as saying. Police said March 25 the cause of death was unclear after an autopsy. Kodama said a more thorough autopsy is being performed.

Suraj’s wife is considering suing the government, but she and Kodama are holding off pending further evidence of malpractice by immigration officers.

“Lawyers have no authority to collect evidence, and thus we have to wait for police to disclose evidence,” he said.

According to Mayumi Yoshida, the assistant general secretary of Asian People’s Friendship Society, she and Suraj’s wife went to the Justice Ministry, which oversees the Immigration Bureau, on March 25 to ask the ministry for details of how Suraj died.

Yoshida quoted a ministry official as saying immigration officers “seem to have used a towel for (Suraj’s) mouth and a handcuff.”

“That is all we know” about how Suraj died, she said.

Suraj came to Japan on a temporary visa, which expired in 15 days, in May 1988, according to Yoshida. He was arrested on suspicion of staying illegally in September 2006, and received a deportation order in November that year. The same month, his wife registered their marriage.

In February 2008, the Tokyo District Court ruled the deportation order be waived. But in March 2009, the Tokyo High Court repealed the district court’s ruling on grounds the couple was childless and the wife was economically independent, Yoshida said.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100421a4.html

Worker health checks to cover depression

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The health ministry plans to make mental health checks mandatory in regular health examinations given at the workplace, health minister Akira Nagatsuma said Monday.

The step is aimed at preventing depression and suicide, problems that have been making headlines in recent years, he said.

A ministry task force, formed in January, is expected to propose adding mental health checkups in its interim report to be released soon.

The ministry will consider revising the Industrial Safety and Health Law or related ministry ordinances.

Businesses are required under the law to give their employees at least one health examination a year. Those violating the law are subject to a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($5,450).

Related rules require blood pressure, liver function and blood sugar checks to be included, but there is no clear stipulation about mental health examinations.

In fiscal 2008, 927 applications for workers’ compensation were filed for depression and other mental ailments, of which 269 were approved.

The number of applications was more than four times greater than in fiscal 2000 and that of approved cases was seven times greater than in the same period, according to the ministry.

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201004200336.html

Foreigner suffrage opponents rally

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Conservative politicians express outrage at DPJ plan

Conservative intellectuals and key executives from five political parties were among the thousands who gathered in Tokyo on Saturday to rally against granting foreign residents voting rights for local elections.

On hand were financial services minister Shizuka Kamei, who heads Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party), Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Tadamori Oshima, former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma, who recently launched his own political party, Tachiagare Nippon (Sunrise Party of Japan), and Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe.

Jin Matsubara, a Lower House member from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, also attended.

According to the organizer, a total of 10,257 people attended the convention at the Nippon Budokan arena in Chiyoda Ward, including representatives of prefectural assemblies and citizens from across the nation.

Oshima, the LDP’s No. 2, promised that “in the name of protecting the nation’s sovereignty” the largest opposition party would do everything in its power to prevent such a bill from being enacted.

Your Party chief Watanabe accused the DPJ of using the suffrage issue to lure New Komeito, which supports foreigners’ local election rights, before the upcoming Upper House election. “This is nothing but an election ploy by the DPJ,” he claimed.

In an opening speech preceded by the singing of the “Kimigayo” national anthem, Atsuyuki Sassa, former head of the Cabinet Security Affairs Office and chief organizer of the event, expressed his concern about granting foreigners suffrage.

“I was infuriated when I heard of plans to submit to the Diet a government-sponsored bill giving foreign residents voting rights,” he said.

“Our Constitution grants those with Japanese nationality voting rights in return for their obligation to pay taxes,” he said. “Granting suffrage to those without Japanese nationality is clearly a mistake in national policy.”

Sassa also pointed out that 35 prefectures have adopted statements against granting foreigners suffrage, up from less than half that number in January.

“Our local governments clearly do not desire granting suffrage to foreigners,” he said.

DPJ heavyweights Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa are advocates of giving foreigners the right to vote at the local level, and the party has been preparing to craft the legislation it has been calling for since the party’s launch in 1998.

But the government scrapped a plan to submit the bill during the current Diet session after encountering fierce opposition from the financial services minister.

Taking the podium to a round of applause, Kamei emphasized his party’s role in preventing the government from submitting the bill to the Diet, and said that “it was obvious that granting suffrage will destroy Japan.”

Kamei, who has in the past argued that giving foreigners voting rights could incite nationalism during polling, went so far as to declare that his party would leave the ruling coalition if the government submitted the bill to the Diet.

Foreign nationals cannot vote in national or local elections, and changing the law has long been a controversial issue, particularly under the administrations of the LDP, whose conservative ranks have argued against granting suffrage, insisting that permanent foreign residents must first become naturalized citizens.

As of the end of 2008, 912,400 foreign nationals were registered with the government as permanent residents. Among them, 420,300 were special permanent residents, including Koreans and Taiwanese who lived in Japan before and during the war and were forced to take Japanese nationality, and their descendants. The remainder are general permanent residents.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100418a1.html

英語指導助手：千葉県柏市で「偽装請負」認定　授業できず

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千葉県柏市の市立小中学校全６１校で３月末まで英語を教えていた外国人の指導助手（ＡＬＴ）２３人について、厚生労働省千葉労働局が、業務請負契約なのに学校の指揮下で働いていたとして１３日付で違法な「偽装請負」と認定した。是正指導を受けた市教委が１６日発表した。これにより、学校はＡＬＴの授業が新年度始められない事態に直面。同様の実態は全国的に多数あるとみられ、影響が広がる可能性がある。

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Chiba city’s native speaker English classes canceled after ALT contracts found illegal

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Public schools here have been unable to start their native speaker-taught English classes this school year after the city’s board of education was accused of violating labor laws with foreign language teachers.

According to the Kashiwa Municipal Board of Education, it has been instructed by the local labor office to change its labor relationship with foreign assistant language teachers (ALTs) in the city’s elementary and junior high schools after it engaged in illegal employment practices.

The local education board entrusted part of its English curriculum for primary and secondary school students to a Tokyo-based staffing agency between 2007 and 2009, and a total of 23 foreign teachers belonging to the agency worked as ALTs at 61 local public elementary and junior high schools during this period. Their contracts expired at the end of last month.

A local labor union supporting foreign language teachers complained to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s Chiba labor office that the teachers were forced to work as temporary workers under the guise of subcontractors, while demanding the municipality extend their contract periods.

In response to the complaint, the labor office launched an investigation and confirmed that each school placed the foreign teachers under its direct supervision even though they worked under consigning contracts. The labor office then concluded that the education board forced the teachers to work as temporary workers under the guise of subcontractors, a practice that constitutes a violation of the Worker Dispatching Act.

Under the current law, companies and other business operators must offer a direct contract to their temporary workers after they have completed the first three years of work. Moreover, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s labor guidelines require a minimum three-month interval before the two parties enter into another temporary contract.

The city’s board of education had planned to terminate its English class teacher outsourcing contract and employ temporary English teachers directly starting this April. However, as the labor office judged that the education board had already forced its contracted foreign teachers to work as normal temporary staff, it became impossible for the city to renew the contracts right away, in accordance with the ministry guidelines prohibiting consecutive temporary contracts of over three years.

The local education board has announced that it will comply with the labor office’s order and will resume relevant English classes after the three-month waiting period expirees in July.

In August last year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology instructed local boards of education nationwide to switch consigning contracts for ALTs to either direct or temporary employment. A subsequent survey by the ministry has revealed that 670 municipalities still maintained their outsourcing arrangements for native English class teachers, of which 439 responded they were not planning to change their current practices.

The ministry’s International Education Division has requested each education board consult with their local labor office and make corrections as needed.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100417p2a00m0na019000c.html

Japanese population declines by record 180,000 to 127.51 mil.

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Japan’s estimated population decreased for the second year in a row, declining by a record 183,000, or 0.14 percent, from a year earlier to 127,510,000 as of Oct. 1, 2009, government data showed Friday.

By prefecture, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Aichi, Shiga and Okinawa saw population increases as they did in 2008.

Okinawa saw the largest year-on-year increase with a 0.45 percent rise to 1,382,000.

Tokyo remained the most populous region with 12,868,000 people as of Oct. 1, accounting for 10.1 percent of Japan’s total population. Tokyo was followed by Kanagawa with 8,943,000 and Osaka with 8,801,000.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20100417p2g00m0dm036000c.html

Population shrank by record 183,000 in ’09

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Japan’s population has entered full-scale decline and shrank by a record 183,000 people over the past year, government data showed Friday.

As of Oct. 1, the population stood at an estimated 127,510,000 after shrinking by a record 0.14 percent, contracting for the second year in a row.

The year-on-year drop is the third to strike Japan since 1950, when comparable data first became available, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said in the report. The other two shrinkages occurred in 2005, when it fell by 19,000, or 0.01 percent, and in 2008, when it contracted by 79,000, or 0.06 percent.

Japan’s population has entered a stage of full-scale decline as both men and women recorded natural decreases, ministry officials said.

The figures in the latest report included foreigners who stayed in Japan for 91 days or more and foreign students. The number of Japanese came to 125,820,000, revealing a decline of 127,000, or 0.10 percent.

The number of people who entered Japan totaled 3,114,000, up 250,000 from the previous year, while those who left the country stood at 3,237,000, up 329,000, meaning that social factors caused the total population to shrink by 124,000.

Of the 124,000, foreigners accounted for 47,000, marking the first decline in 15 years linked to social factors.

The officials attributed the decline in the foreign population to the recession triggered by the collapse of trading house Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008.

Many foreigners lost their jobs and returned to their home countries as the financial crisis unfolded, the officials said.

The number of people aged 65 and older came to 29,005,000, up by 789,000 and accounting for 22.7 percent of the population.

In contrast, those aged 14 or younger fell by 165,000 to 17,011,000. The productive segment of the population, or those between the ages of 15 and 64, came to an estimated total of 81,493,000, shrinking by 806,000.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100417a1.html

Japanese population declines by record 180,000 to 127.51 mil.

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Japan’s estimated population decreased for the second year in a row, declining by a record 183,000, or 0.14 percent, from a year earlier to 127,510,000 as of Oct. 1, 2009, government data showed Friday.

It was the third year-on-year decline in Japan’s population since 1950 when comparable data became available, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said in a report. Japan’s population previously declined twice — in 2005 by 19,000, or 0.01 percent, and in 2008 by 79,000, or 0.06 percent.

The ministry said its estimate of Japan’s population in the latest report was based on the results of the 2005 national census and annual data on new births and deaths as well as people who entered and left the country.

The number of women stood at 65,380,000, a decrease of 61,000 or 0.09 percent, marking the first natural decline with 5,000 more deaths than births.

The male population stood at 62,130,000, down 121,000 or 0.20 percent, marking the fifth straight annual decline with 54,000 more deaths than births.

Japan’s population has entered a stage of full-scale decline as both men and women recorded natural decreases, ministry officials said.

The figures in the latest report included foreigners who remained in Japan for 91 days or more and foreign students. Of the total, the population of Japanese nationals came to 125,820,000, a decline of 127,000, or 0.10 percent.

The number of people who entered the country totaled 3,114,000, an increase of 250,000 from a year earlier, while those who left Japan stood at 3,237,000, up 329,000, meaning that social factors caused Japan’s population to decline by 124,000.

Of the 124,000, foreigners accounted for 47,000, marking the first decline in 15 years due to social factors.

The officials attributed the decline in the number of foreigners to the country’s economic slump triggered by the collapse of major U.S. brokerage Lehman Brothers in the fall of 2008.

Many foreign workers lost jobs and returned to their home countries amid the slow economy, the officials said.

The number of people aged 65 and older came to 29,005,000, an increase of 789,000, accounting for 22.7 percent of the total population.

In contrast, the population of people aged 14 or younger declined 165,000 to 17,011,000. The productive population of those aged between 15 and 64 totaled 81,493,000, down 806,000.

By prefecture, Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Aichi, Shiga and Okinawa saw population increases as they did in 2008.

Okinawa saw the largest year-on-year increase with a 0.45 percent rise to 1,382,000.

Tokyo remained the most populous region with 12,868,000 people as of Oct. 1, accounting for 10.1 percent of Japan’s total population. Tokyo was followed by Kanagawa with 8,943,000 and Osaka with 8,801,000.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=d9f441ng2

Homeless fighting park renovation

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Protesters fear Nike deal leaves them in cold

A group of protesters camped out in Tokyo’s Miyashita Park [the site of most March in Marches] has stalled Shibuya Ward’s plan to renovate the site in collaboration with sporting goods maker Nike Inc.

The protesters argue a public park built with taxpayer money should be available to anyone for any purpose — even for the homeless to stay in.

Miyashita Park, just one minute on foot from JR Shibuya Station, is one of the few patches of green in the bustling district.

Under the plan, Nike, which bought the right to name the park from the ward for ¥17 million annually for 10 years, will renovate two existing courts for “futsal,” a variant of soccer, and build rock climbing facilities and skateboard ramps.

The protest group, made up of dozens of people ranging from students to artists, argue the park will become a giant advertisement for Nike, not a public place where people can relax as they please.

They also point out Shibuya Ward has already “forced” about 30 homeless people to leave in preparation for the construction of the Nike-sponsored facilities.

“(Nike and Shibuya Ward) think Miyashita Park cannot be a relaxing place for everybody because the homeless are here. We strongly protest such an idea,” said Tetsuo Ogawa, a core member of the Coalition to Protect Miyashita Park from Becoming Nike Park. Ogawa, who lives in a tent in the park, describes himself as an artist.

The protesters have set up about 10 tents to physically block the renovation work, which was to have begun April 1. It isn’t clear if the work will be completed by November, as originally planned by Nike.

Nike will cover the undisclosed costs of construction on what is to be named Miyashita Nike Park. The ward is planning to charge for the use of the futsal courts, rock climbing facilities and skateboard ramps.

The protesters claim that by doing so the ward is permanently depriving the homeless of a place to stay.

But ward officials deny they are trying to drive away the homeless, pointing out that other parts of the park will remain open to everyone free of charge.

“We are not saying we will deploy security guards to monitor the park 24 hours a day, so technically the homeless will be able to stay even after the park is rebuilt,” said Akihiko Ozawa, a Shibuya Ward official in charge of park management.

Ozawa adds, however, that he isn’t encouraging anyone to camp out in public places because it is illegal.

He said the ward diplomatically asked the homeless to vacate while the construction work is carried out.

Shibuya Ward said it sold the naming right to Nike in response to requests by local residents for sports facilities without spending taxpayer money.

Nike and the ward have not reached a decision yet on design details, such as whether the Nike logo will be displayed, Nike spokeswoman Yoko Mizukami said.

“Our company’s mission is to contribute to society through sports. We have offered the plan to provide a place for people to play sports as Shibuya Ward had said not many people were using the park,” she said.

Many local residents and a majority of ward assembly members welcome the Nike plan.

The ward assembly approved the Nike plan March 31 by a vote of 26 to 7.

Seiji Saito, director general of the Meiji Street Miyashita Park Merchant Association, said the plan is welcome because a clean park will likely attract more visitors.

However, this may no longer be just a local issue.

According to the protest group’s Web site, No-Vox, an international network of grassroots social movements against poverty, joined the Tokyo demonstrators March 31 in Paris, Sydney and Bangkok.

In Tokyo, 200 to 300 people marched in Shibuya to support the protest group’s activities.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100416f2.html