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from Breakingviews:
Japan quake anniversary shows lessons unlearned
By Wayne Arnold
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Japan’s remarkable recovery from last year’s tragic earthquake leaves big lessons unlearned. The economy bounced back more quickly than expected after March’s earthquake, tsunami and resulting nuclear leak. But the government flunked a bigger test by failing to push through painful reforms. Now Japan is a year older, deeper in debt and facing the same economic downward spiral it was in before the catastrophe.
The Japanese spirit of gaman – enduring the unendurable – enabled the country to cope with the disaster. Industrial production is on track to return in March 2012 to where it was at the end of 2010, according to Merrill Lynch. That’s small triumph: GDP is likely to grow just 1.7 percent in 2012 and slow thereafter, the IMF projects. Japan’s trade balance fell into deficit last year for the first time in 31 years and it has net debt equivalent to 131 percent of GDP.
The post-earthquake period was a chance to administer economic remedies. Civic-minded citizens were switching off appliances and taking stairs instead of elevators to help conserve power. But squabbling politicians squandered the mood of public sacrifice. Rather than cut pensions or raise taxes to help ease the national debt, the government has managed only to pass 21 trillion yen ($253.6 billion) of emergency reconstruction packages. Winning opposition support for those cost former Prime Minister Naoto Kan his job.
from Photographers Blog:
One year from that day
By Toru Hanai
It will soon be one year from that day - March 11, 2011.
Greetings among friends who meet after a long absence begins with, "Where and what were you doing on March 11?"
On March 11, 2011, I was photographing Prime Minister Naoto Kan during a committee session at the Parliament building in Tokyo.
from Full Focus:
Tsunami: Before and after
The moment when the tsunami struck Japan and the same view today.
from Photographers Blog:
Healing power of photography
By Yuriko Nakao
The 3.11 Portrait Project brings smiles to the victims of the triple-whammy disaster through the power of the photograph
After the magnitude 9.0 earthquake rocked Japan in March 11 last year, as a photographer for a newswire service, I had many chances to document reality, which was often depressing and shocking. However, at times, I would feel rewarded when my work brought positive results by inviting support and compassion from around the world to those who were suffering. However, still, the support was often not directed specifically to the person pictured in my shots, which often made me feel helpless.
from Photographers Blog:
A fisherman’s sad tale
By Yuriko Nakao
Seaweed grower Takaaki Watanabe took to the sea in his boat before the massive tsunami roared into the northeastern Japanese town of Minamisanriku, becoming one of a lucky few to save the vessel essential for their livelihood.
But back on shore the raging waters of March 11 swept away his wife, his mother and his house, built on land in his family for 13 generations, though his three teenaged daughters managed to survive.
from Photographers Blog:
With or without you
By Yuriko Nakao
One photo of a young woman, wrapped in a beige blanket and standing in front of a pile of debris, became one of the iconic images right after Japan’s massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which triggered huge tsunamis that devastated a wide swathe of northern Japan.
Reuters, along with other major agencies, picked up the photograph run by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, shot by Tadashi Okubo, a photographer with the paper. The image was published extensively around the world, and many people came to know her as the woman wrapped in a blanket.
from Photographers Blog:
Flirt
Photographer Damir Sagolj won second place in the multimedia story section of the POYi awards for the following piece on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011.
View more of Damir's photographs from Japan here.
from Global Investing:
Being chic and not saving
Japanese people are generally regarded as saving a lot and not spending much, but in olden times when Tokyo was called Edo (until the mid-19th century), it was considered iki (chic or sophisticated) not to keep one's earnings overnight.
The latest survey from the Central Council for Financial Services Information (part of the Bank of Japan) may suggest that people are going back to that tradition -- although perhaps not for style reasons.
from Global Investing:
Emerging market local bond rally has more legs
Just a month and half into 2012, emerging local currency bonds have already returned 9 percent, one of best performing asset classes. But the rally has further to go, says J.P. Morgan which runs the most widely used emerging debt indices. The bank is now predicting its benchmark local currency debt index, the GBI-EM, to end the year with returns of 16 percent, upping its original expectation for 11.9 percent.
There are several reasons for this bullishnesss. JPM's latest client survey reveals investors' positioning is still neutral, meaning there is potential for more gains. Cash inflows to EM local debt have been dwarfed this year by investments into dollar bonds, considered a safer, albeit lower-yielding asset than locally issued bonds. So when (and if) euro zone uncertainties abate, some of this cash is likely to make the switch.
from Ian Bremmer:
Japan’s year of resilience
Almost a year on from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that left the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in its wake, it’s fair to say Japan has experienced a crisis unlike any other since the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War Two.
Over 13,000 people died from the quake, many from drowning. The final death toll, which will include those who were unable to receive proper medical care during the disaster, will be even higher. An estimated 100,000 children were uprooted from their homes after the quake, along with some 400,000 adults. And in the areas affected by fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, cleanup work is really just beginning. With all of this coming in the teeth of the global economic crisis and Japan’s national industrial slowdown, the densely populated main island of Japan has not seen anything like this in decades.
