Japanese Prince Wants Women Kept Off Throne

Thursday, November 3, 2005 Posted at 3:25 AM EST

Associated Press

 

Tokyo — Japan should exhaust all other options before allowing a woman to ascend to its imperial throne, including adoptions and bringing back concubines, Emperor Akihito's cousin said in a newsletter obtained Thursday.

With the Chrysanthemum Throne facing a severe succession crisis -- Japan's imperial family has not produced a male heir in 40 years -- a government panel agreed last month to propose allowing women to reign. Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako have one child, a three-year-old daughter named Aiko.

But Prince Tomohito, Emperor Akihito's cousin, said old traditions, such as allowing concubines, should be revived instead.

“We should try various other ways first,” before allowing female monarchs, Prince Tomohito wrote in an essay published in a newsletter circulated among staff of the Imperial Household Agency.

“The question is whether it is a right thing to change the unique tradition and history so easily.”

Tomohito is the eldest cousin of Japanese Emperor Akihito and is fifth in line for succession to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

His comment appeared in the Sept. 30 newsletter, the latest edition of the quarterly, which is not sold, said Koji Okubo, an Imperial Household Agency staff member at the prince's residence.

In the essay, Sea Lion's Chat, Tomohito suggested bringing back male royals who were forced from the old aristocracy after the Second World War, allowing adoption of sons of former royals, or reviving a system in which the sons of concubines were allowed to ascend the throne.

“Using concubines, like we used to, is also an option. I'm all for it but this might be a little difficult considering social climate in and outside the country,” Tomohito wrote, noting both the father and grandfather of his uncle, the late emperor Hirohito, were sons of concubines.

Under the 1947 Imperial Household Law, only males who are descended from emperors on their father's side can succeed to the throne. Under that law, neither Princess Aiko nor her future children can ascend the throne.

The royal family is prohibited from interfering in politics under Japan's Constitution and they have no say over the panel's discussions.

Mr. Okubo said he did not know whether Tomohito wrote the statement to represent members of the royal family, or whether he planned to submit his proposals to the government panel.

In July, the panel compiled an interim report suggesting as options a legal change to allow a female monarch or to bring back members of the old aristocracy -- or their offspring -- who were forced from the imperial household in 1947 after Japan's defeat in the war.

The idea of allowing a woman to take the throne has broad popular support in Japan.

• I am jealous of my friends
• My friends' girlfriends / boyfriends are indeed duds / dudettes
• I am possessive of my friends
• I hope for the best for my friends
• I like to play the role of the relationship advisor who is wiser than my friends
• I try to save them from heartache, turnmoil and in some cases, unnecessary expenses
• I listen to only one side of the story (my friends')
• But some of the things I hear cannot be seen in a different light so as it make it seem better
• I take my friends' side, always

And then I think of how few times I actually came right out and tell my friends what I think of their other halves. I often feel that I am somehow deficient as a friend by not speaking my mind, but...

• It's really none of my business
• It really doesn't matter what I think of their boyfriends / girlfriends
• I can be wrong
• I have been wrong
• I have been wrong many times
• I don't want to damage / destroy our friendship
• I want to be supportive of my friends' choice
• My friends are probably better judge of their boyfriends' / girlfriends' character

What do you think -- are those good enough reasons to a) stand back with our arms folded when we see our friends walking into disasters, or b) are we obligated as friends to do the unpopular thing and tell them what we know / think?

Click here for more information. 

Toby: "I turned it on just as they got to the scene when Richard, Jeffrey, and John were locked in the dungeon and Henry was coming down to execute them, and Richard tells his brothers not to cower, but to take it like men, and Jeffrey says, 'You fool.  As if it matters how a man falls down.' And Richard says, 'When the fall is all that's left--"

President Bartlett: "'When the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal.'"

 

-- The West Wing, Season 3, Episode 10,
"H.Con 172"

 

• friends and family
• my grandma and mum's cooking
• the Lions Gate Bridge (minus the traffic)
  
  
  Breath-taking views of our favourite bridge
  
  
• the water
• the west end, esp. English Bay and the sea wall
  
  
  
  DO YOU KNOW: We got engaged at English Bay
  
  
• Horseshoe Bay
• Granville Island
• Shiro Sushi on Cambie
• Kits Beach
• being able to get anywhere in 15 minutes
• less pollution, more greenery
• more relaxed people
• cleaner, friendlier streets
• pigeons and baked tapioca pudding at Sun Sui Wah
  
  
  Kind of a scary picture, isn't it?
  
  
• night market in the summer
• Deep Cove
• the Aquarium esp. the sea otters
  
  
  Our favourite animal at the Aquarium
  
  
• my jetta

"We Strive to Screw Our Customers
in More Ways than you can Imagine"

(1) when Gromit went to visit his prized zucchini, stroking and hugging it and finally wrapping it in a blanket - t's about the only thing Gromit did for himself, as the rest of his time was devoted to feeding and taking care of Wallace

(2) Gromit locking the doors to the truck when he saw the scary were-rabbit the first time in the forest - reminds me of how I always lock the car doors when I'm in Toronto!

My friend Betty got married this past weekend [congrats, Bear-Gau!].

See the website for their wedding HERE.

I was able to get an idea of the couple's happiness via the digital pictures that my friends Katy and Cara took and kindly shared with me. After marvelling at the bride's hair, dresses, makeup, jewelery, I started scrutinizing the faces that I once saw every day and comparing them to images of them that I keep in my head. When I was done, I breathed a sigh of relief: no one had been altered beyond recognition. I wonder whether my friends would find me a very changed person if they see me now.

I don't think I look very different - except of course I can no longer pass for a 16-year-old; the checkout clerks at the liquor store has stopped asking me for I.D. But would they find me different? Am I wiser or dumber / more or less confident / thinner or chubbier / more or less witty or "吋" / more or less fashionable etc. etc.? Would they laugh at my 退化了的廣東話?

 

Bush said God told him to invade Iraq, Arab leaders say
Palestinian officials confirm comments from documentary

Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Friday, October 7, 2005

 

Jerusalem -- President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and then create a Palestinian state to bring peace to the Middle East, they recall during a documentary on Middle East peace that airs next week in Britain.

"President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God,' " said Nabil Shaath, who was the Palestinian foreign minister at the time of a top-level meeting with Bush in June 2003. Mahmoud Abbas, then Palestinian prime minister and now the Palestinian Authority president, was also present for the conversation with Bush.

"God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...' And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God I'm gonna do it," Shaath quotes the president as saying in the three-part series.

Shaath, who is now Palestinian minister of information, said he was encouraged, not dismayed, by the president's comments.

"President Bush was saying that, 'Having been imbued with a message of God to free the people of Afghanistan and then Iraq, I have a calling now to give the Palestinians a state of their own and their freedom, to give Israel security and bring peace to the Middle East,' " Shaath told The Chronicle, confirming the accuracy of the BBC report.

But Shaath said the Palestinians at the meeting did not think the president was suggesting that God actually spoke to him. "I think it's a manner of speech," Shaath said. "I don't think he meant an actual call from God. He was talking about a commitment. The man wasn't saying there was an angel hovering over his head talking to him.

"We took it as a commitment of the highest level by Mr. Bush to really invest his effort and his determination to get an independent Palestinian state. We welcome this commitment by the president and hope he will fulfill it."

It wasn't the first time Bush used the symbolism of his Christian beliefs to describe the U.S. role on the international stage. U.S. foreign policy is still paying for Bush's post-Sept. 11 description of the U.S. war on terror as a crusade, a term that reminded many people in the Middle East of the medieval Christian crusades in which European warriors trying to wrest Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Islamic rule killed untold thousands of Muslims.

"One of the biggest problems the Bush administration has is the translation of American Christian culture to the world, and specifically to Muslim countries," said commentator Micah D. Halpern, author of "What You Need to Know About: Terror."

"It's not that these societies are foreign to Christians, it's just that the Christianity that Bush embraces is not the Christianity that these Muslim countries see at home," Halpern said. "In that mistranslation, his message is ballooned out of proportion. One of America's biggest diplomatic mistakes is their lack of understanding of local Muslim and Arab cultures abroad. You can't just throw out the word God and assume that everyone's on the same page."

When Condoleezza Rice arrived in the West Bank last June for her first visit as secretary of state, Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar went on Palestinian television to accuse Bush of launching a wave of crusades that had already claimed the lives of 70,000 Islamic martyrs.

"This is a new ... war of crusades that Bush is leading," said Al-Zahar, interspersing the English word crusade with the Arabic equivalent "hamla salibiyya." In 2001, Pentagon officials junked the name "Operation Infinite Justice" for the war on terror after realizing it could upset Muslims' belief that only God can dispense "infinite justice."

Although U.S. officials have tried to play down the war on terror as a clash of civilizations or a war of Christians against Muslims, the imagery of the United States as the reincarnation of those medieval warriors has taken hold.

Osama bin Laden's videotaped speeches are laced with references to crusaders and infidels, designed to stoke religious sensitivities.

Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Abd Al-Latif, a professor at Um Al-Qura University in Saudi Arabia, told viewers on Saudi Channel TV1 last year that the U.S.-led wars to oust the leasers of Afghanistan and Iraq was evidence of the Christians' "cruel aggression against Islamic countries."

"This is a crusading war whose goal is to harm Muslims," he said.

Page A - 12

 

REPORT ON HONG KONG: EXPATRIATES RETURN

A growing tide of Canadian passport-holders are returning to the city, lured back by the booming economy and growing business opportunities, GEOFFREY YORK writes

By GEOFFREY YORK

Thursday, September 29, 2005 Page H4

Synda Tse still remembers the fears and anxieties of the early 1990s, when she left Hong Kong and emigrated to Canada.

Everywhere in the British colony, there was mounting nervousness over the approach of 1997, when the territory would be handed over to China. "There was a feeling of huge uncertainty and instability," she recalls. "Everyone was talking about emigrating. It kind of brainwashed me. Everyone was doing it, so I felt it was the only way to go."

But after moving to Toronto with her parents in 1990 and toiling for 14 years as a salaried worker in Toronto's financial sector, Ms. Tse and her husband moved back to Hong Kong last year. They wanted to build their own business -- and they believed that China was the place to be.

They joined a growing flow of Canadian passport-holders who are returning to Hong Kong. The tide of migration is swiftly reversing itself. Of the estimated 200,000 people who fled in the exodus to Canada from 1992 to 1997, about one third have now returned to Hong Kong -- lured back primarily by the booming economy and growing business opportunities here.

Although she often misses Canada, Ms. Tse is convinced she has a brighter future in Hong Kong, where her business career can advance faster. She was unhappy with the complacency of Canada's business culture and the high rates of taxation (she was paying income taxes of more than 50 per cent in Toronto, compared to a rate of 16 per cent in Hong Kong).

"The Canadian work culture is: 'Why should I put in the extra effort if others are not?' Most people don't take ownership of their work. In Hong Kong, we are risk-takers. People are more adaptable. If you prove yourself and work hard, you'll get there."

Ms. Tse, 40, decided with her husband to open a Hong Kong branch of Children's Technology Workshop, which provides scientific and technological programs for young children. Their business has tripled in the past year.

Some of their adjustment was difficult. Because of higher housing costs, they had to move into a 118-square-metre apartment in Hong Kong, much smaller than their 360-square-metre house in a Toronto suburb. Their four-year-old son has less space to play, and he complains about the hot steamy weather. But they enjoy the Hong Kong lifestyle and abundant restaurants and the chance for their son to master the Chinese language and culture.

And the early fears about Beijing's control of Hong Kong have subsided. "I have a lot more confidence in the Chinese government," Ms. Tse says. "They know the Hong Kong people much better now. We feel that China will back us up. We don't feel a threat any more. We're in the same boat. They have the same interests as us: to keep Hong Kong a very strong economy, and to protect the prosperity of the entrepreneurs."

The back-and-forth flow of the emigrants has helped build a powerful connection between Hong Kong and Canada. A survey this year by a Hong Kong university, commissioned by the Canadian consulate here, concluded that almost a quarter million people (3.4 per cent of Hong Kong's population of 7 million) are Canadian passport-holders. Almost 8 per cent of the population has studied in Canada, and 14 per cent say they travel to Canada at least once a year.

Moreover, 16 per cent of the territory's population -- about 1.1 million people -- have close family links to Canada. The survey confirmed that Hong Kong's connections with Canada are closer than those with any other overseas country. Those connections are maintained by a tight network of community groups. There are 24 Canadian university alumni associations in Hong Kong, for example. The Chinese Canadian Association of Hong Kong has about 3,000 active members.

Many of Hong Kong's top business tycoons have Canadian citizenship or other close links to Canada. Among them are Victor and Richard Li, two of Hong Kong's most powerful businessmen, who are both Canadian citizens. They are the sons of Li Ka-shing, the wealthiest tycoon in Hong Kong.

Some of the territory's leading politicians also have Canadian connections. Frederick Ma, the secretary for financial services and the treasury in the Hong Kong cabinet, worked as a banker and securities analyst in Toronto from 1979 to 1985. He became a Canadian citizen, although he was required to give up his Canadian citizenship when he entered cabinet in 2002. His brother still lives in Toronto and his wife and two daughters are still Canadian citizens.

"My experience on Bay Street really helps me," Mr. Ma said in an interview in his cabinet office. "I bump into a lot of people in Hong Kong with Bay Street experience. It's great that people who spend a few years abroad are coming back to Hong Kong now. This town needs talent. I'm a perfect example -- I learned a lot in Canada and I'm happy to bring that back to Hong Kong."

He still has fond memories of picnics on Centre Island in Toronto and fishing expeditions in the Thousand Islands. "Canadians are very friendly, and I learned a lot about that in Canada."

Of the estimated 300,000 people who emigrated from Hong Kong in the 1990s before the handover, almost 70 per cent chose Canada as their destination. Some critics accused them of cynically buying their passports in a transaction of convenience. But Gerry Campbell, the Canadian Consul General in Hong Kong, argues that the flow of people between Hong Kong and Canada has been beneficial for both sides.

"It's a huge but invisible asset," he said in an interview. "Those connections pay dividends for us. It's wonderful for us. Canada has a relatively high profile in Hong Kong, whereas that would be an uphill struggle in most places in the world. The Air Canada flights between Canada and Hong Kong are just chock-a-block all the time."

Canadian exports to Hong Kong are about $1.4-billion annually, and Hong Kong has invested about $5.3-billion in Canada. Both figures are extremely high for a territory of just seven million people.

The benefits to Hong Kong are equally significant. "The people who went to Canada are bringing back skill sets that they learned in Canada and, hopefully, some Canadian values too, such as environmentalism and corporate responsibility," Mr. Campbell said. "Any cross-fertilization of ideas is good for them. We're probably an influence on a lot of issues: civic awareness, respect for the environment, even politeness."

Christine Loh, chief executive of a Hong Kong think-tank called Civic Exchange, says the territory was hard-hit by the exodus of migrants in the 1990s. "It was devastating for Hong Kong," she said in an interview. "They were the best-educated people. But now they or their kids are interested in coming back."

Those who return from Canada are bringing the "young blood" that Hong Kong needs, she said. "They're well trained and they have a global outlook, which helps to fill a gap in Hong Kong. They represent the future. They bring a mixing of ideas and diversity, so we can innovate."

Geoffrey York is The Globe and Mail's Beijing bureau chief.

Bellingham shoppers beware!

Activists target Minutemen

By harsha walia

Publish Date: 29-Sep-2005

 

Lawyer Zool Suleman worries about U.S. vigilantes entering Canada.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a right-wing U.S. paramilitary group, is bringing its binoculars and armed, border-watching volunteers to the B.C.–Washington border on October 1. Activists and community residents across the country, including groups from Vancouver, are gearing up to counter its message.

The Minuteman project has been steeped in controversy, including claims of racism and vigilantism, since its announcement in October 2004 by Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper owner and editor Chris Simcox, along with Vietnam War vet James Gilchrist. It formally began on April Fools’ Day this year with a 30-day patrol of a 36-kilometre stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, for which Gilchrist and Simcox claimed to have 1,300 recruits. However, fewer than 150 volunteers came and were outnumbered by a swarm of reporters, camera crews, protesters, and American Civil Liberties Union legal observers.

The Minuteman northern project is scheduled to dispatch patrols to a 32-kilometre stretch of the border, from Blaine to Sumas. Gilchrist has said that critics—including President George W. Bush, who called his group “vigilantes”—are wrong. He told USA Today that his volunteers only bring attention to the social problem of illegal immigration and are “white Martin Luther Kings”.

Gilchrist promised that volunteers would be carefully screened, with FBI help, to keep out white supremacists. No one would be allowed to bear guns except those who had permits to carry concealed weapons.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group tracking hate crimes, an FBI official denied that the agency was screening Gilchrist’s members. At least four-fifths of volunteers carry weapons, and almost none were checked for permits. And at one of their first rallies, members of the National Alliance—the largest neo-Nazi group in America—were visible.

For many critics, however, the Minuteman group is just part of a larger, more systemic issue. “The Minutemen represent a disturbing approach to border issues that does not take into account basic human rights,” Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council of Refugees, told the Georgia Straight.

Zoe Hammer of the U.S.–based Border Action Network agrees. “The Minutemen are a symptom of border policies that are homicidal,” Hammer told the Straight. “The real solution is comprehensive immigration transformation, including civil and workers’ rights, and a path to legal residency and citizenship.”

The U.S. Border Patrol is the nation’s largest law-enforcement agency, with 12,000 agents. According to the religious-based No More Deaths campaign in Arizona, more than 2,000 people have lost their lives since 1998 while attempting to cross the border. The U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection confirmed that last year in Arizona alone, more than 200 people died.

Tom Williams, leader of the Washington Minuteman Detachment, told the Straight, “I don’t want terrorists coming in.”

Vancouver immigration lawyer Zool Suleman told the Straight that he is more worried about Minutemen coming into this country. Wilson has confirmed that members have visited groups and individuals in Canada. “The Minutemen are an extralegal group, against whom I urge the Canadian government to take a strong line,” Suleman said. “The view must be adjusted that armed, white male citizens of America are not themselves a security threat. If they fit a different profile, perhaps the authorities would not be as lax with them.”

Canada’s security legislation has increasingly come under fire for encouraging racial profiling. According to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, individuals are inadmissible to Canada if they are a danger to the country’s security; if they engage in acts of violence that would endanger lives or safety; or if they are members of an organization that engages in such acts.

Dench said that a reasonable interpretation of Canada’s inadmissibility regulations could include vigilante groups like the Minutemen.

A Border Action Network report entitled Hate or Heroism recommends that the attorney general investigate whether such groups have violated the USA PATRIOT Act, which holds that committing or threatening violence for the purpose of changing government policy is an act of terrorism. Simcox, for example, has threatened to use violence against immigrants to force the U.S. government to send troops to the Arizona-Mexico border.

Hammer characterized the Minutemen as “a group that sees the world in brown and white”.

"an independent primary health care provider who specializes in the examination, diagnosis, treatment, management and prevention of disease and disorders of the visual system, the eye and associated structures as well as the diagnosis of ocular manifestations of systemic conditions".