Global News Journal

from Environment Forum:

The power of a soccer ball

Anyone who watched the women's World Cup final might have wondered if it's possible to harness that pure human energy. Turns out, it is. There's enough power in a soccer ball to light the night -- or at least a part of it.

It's done via sOccket, a soccer ball that kids kick around all day, where its movement generates energy. When the sun sets, plug an LED lamp into the ball and it turns into a light for reading or other purposes. Play with the sOccket for 15 minutes and use the light for up to three hours. Sustainable, non-polluting, safe.

SOccket was created to solve a pervasive problem -- the lack of reliable electricity -- with a pervasive game. More than one-fifth of the world's population, about 1.4 billion people, lack electric power, but kids almost everywhere play soccer.

Conceived as a group project at Harvard University by Jessica Matthews and Julia Silverman when they were undergraduates, sOccket has been tested in South Africa, Nigeria, Spain and Haiti. Now, Matthews said in a telephone interview, it's on track for mass production and distribution later this year.

Testing has led to significant improvements, Matthews said from London. "We've pretty much changed everything from the prototype ... One thing that people can expect is definitely a redesign of the soccer ball, to think of our end-user, which is the resource-poor child." That includes making the internal mechanism a lot sturdier. Early versions lasted a few months; the new ones to be unveiled in August or September should last at least a year, she said.

The latest version will also be able to power more than an LED lamp, but Matthews wouldn't say exactly what appliances it might energize.

SOccket is a "movement" of an enterprise called Uncharted Play Incorporated, co-founded by Matthews and Silverman.

Hope and Fear at the World Bank

It was early March and Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner of International Cooperation Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, was traveling in Asia. Her plan was to attend a 7.5 magnitude earthquake simulation that would hit Indonesia and generate a tsunami. A few things, however, changed in her itinerary: The destination turned out to be Japan, the earthquake was 9.0 and it not only generated a huge tsunami, but also a nuclear catastrophe. Plus, it was real.

“Usually our fears are bigger than reality. In this case our reality was worse than our fears,” Georgieva said recently at a World Bank panel on the climate, food and financial crises the world is facing today and the way they all intertwine. Georgieva’s strong Slavic optimism brightened the gloomy panel, but the data she threw in didn’t back up her positive view:

Hold on for a second. How can these disasters have such a devastating impact on us when cutting-edge technology, extensive knowledge and interconnectedness are here to help us mitigate them?

This question left the representatives of Uganda – who followed the event via webcast — puzzled. So they raised the simplest but toughest question for the panel:

“We seem to know the problem and we also seem to know the answer. The question is then: Why are we not responding?”

No one on the panel disagreed with World Bank’s managing director, Ngozi Okonjo-Iewala, who wasn’t shy to name those she blamed and to evoke “the fear of God” in them:

from MacroScope:

APEC’s robots stealing the show

A guide at the "Japanese Experience" exhibition talks to Miim, the Karaoke pal robot, on the sidelines of the APEC meetings in Yokohama, Japan on Nov. 10. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

    Miim is one of the more popular delegates at the APEC meetings in Yokohama Japan. She sings. She dances. She tosses her shoulder length hair. She may not be able to spout an alphabet soup of APEC acronyms like the other Asia-Pacific delegates. But she's still pretty lively. For a robot.

    This week's meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have been earnest and most comprehensive . Foreign and trade ministers issued a 20-page statement about all the things they talked about -- a giant free trade zone, protectionism, the Doha round, easing restrictions on businesses, simplifying customs procedures, promoting green industries, cooperating on health and security, you name it. They also have been, and pardon my French here, excruciatingly dull. So far, the meetings and their stupefying statements have been a testimonial to Japan's skill at stating the ambiguous. Call it the opaque meetings. Journalists from around the Pacific rim have been desperately trying to find news as the 21 APEC leaders gather for their annual pow-wow this weekend.

     The annual "silly shirts"  photo shoot, in which leaders don native attire for the class picture of their summit is usually good news fodder, but is going to be a  big let-down this year. The leaders are merely being asked to show up wearing "smart casual" for the photo shoot on Saturday night, before they head inside for a Kabuki show.

   Which brings us back to Miim, the karaoke robot. She, er it, is one of 130 exhibits on display at  "Japan Experience", a government-sponsored exhibition in  the Pacific Yokohama convention center where the APEC meetings are taking place. The exhibit also features "personal mobility vehicles",  a cyborg suit named HAL that enables the wearer to lift really heavy stuff and perform heroically in disaster relief, a talking delivery robot, cute robotic seal pets for use in pediatric therapy, and much other cool stuff . 

    "Welcome to APEC Japan 2010," the anatomically correct Miim says. "This exhibition shows Japan's strengths and attractions. Please see, feel and touch advanced technology and initiatives of Japan."

from Andrew Marshall:

Risks to watch in Asia: Country guides

For Reuters analysis of risks to watch in Asian countries, kept updated in real time and with graphics and video, click on the links below.

Japan’s not-so-hot election

Candidates on the campaign trail in Japan are sweating through the summer heat but voters have been cool towards this Sunday’s upper house election.

Sure, the government won’t change because the ruling Democratic Party will still control the more powerful lower house.

But the election matters because failure for the Democrats to win a majority would split parliament and stall policymaking, blocking Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s pledge to cut Tokyo’s huge public debt, create jobs and fix the creaking social security system.

So why aren’t voters fired up? For one, the campaign has been pretty dull.

Rules require media to give equal coverage to all the political parties — not great for viewership when there are more than 10 of them. TV debates have had no fewer than seven party leaders arguing over issues ranging from the economy to diplomacy.

The debates are squeezed into shows lasting an hour or less, and include brief intervals showing pre-recorded comments from other party heads. Even Yasuo Tanaka, leader of New Party Nippon with just one seat in parliament, gets air time.

Japan PM gets face-time with Obama

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who took office earlier this month, hoped to impress voters as he made his debut at a meeting of G8 and G20 leaders in Canada last weekend, but saw media play at home overshadowed by the World Cup and a scandal roiling Japan’s traditional sport of sumo.

Still, Kan did manage to claim one prize from his summit debut – lots of face-time with U.S. President Barack Obama. Kan’s predecessor Yukio Hatoyama quit after just eight months in office in part because he botched up relations with Japan’s biggest ally over the relocation of a U.S. military base on Okinawa. So brief chats with Obama in between sessions, including one on Obama’s love for green tea ice cream, and a full, 30-minute meeting with the U.S. President at the end of his trip should comfort voters. An improvement from a mere 10 minutes Hatoyama was allotted when he met Obama at a nuclear safety summit in April.

Media were super-alert for Kan’s interaction with other leaders, too.  Kan appeared at ease as he talked to Russian Presdient Dmitry Medvedev on their way to an outdoor G8 leaders’ “family photo”. But after the photo, Kan was left standing outside a circle formed by other leaders as they chatted and laughed. “Go, elbow yourself in!” reporters cheered on as they watched footage broadcast into the media centre. But by the time Kan squeezed himself in, leaders had started to disperse and move on.

Japan’s new “voluntary militia” cabinet under PM Kan

When Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshito Sengoku, was asked — as new Japanese leaders often are — to characterise the government’s new cabinet line-up, he fumbled a bit and then awkwardly said something about it being “fresh and hardworking.”

Doubtless hoping to come up with a zippier sobriquet, new Prime Minister Naoto Kan responded to a similar query a little later by comparing his 18-member cabinet to the “kiheitai” – a 19th century volunteer militia that played a key role in helping to topple Japan’s feudal overlord to open the door to the country’s modernisation.

The “kiheitai” were notable for breaking norms of the time by bringing together men of different social classes, including farmers . At a time when hereditary samurai warriors were usually the only ones joining such groups, the kiheitai chose its leaders based on their abilities rather than family status.

“The kiheitai was not a militia of the sons of feudal lords. People outside of the warrior class participated and made this group, just like the Democratic lawmakers who come from a wide range of people,” Kan said. “We need to courageously act to make a breakthrough from the current stagnating condition of Japan.”

Kan, a former grassroots activist whose father was an ordinary salaryman, may have hoped to capitalise not only on the colourful imagery of a militia fighting a worn-out established order but on Japanese voters’ resentment of the political dynasties that have produced many of his recent predecessors as premier, including the indecisive and unpopular Yukio Hatoyama, who quit office this month after just eight months in the job.

Critics say the dynastic tradition has been a big factor behind Japan’s lack of strong political leaders in the country because it floods the system with lawmakers of questionable ability and puts pressure on potential leaders who lack connections and riches to fund their campaigns.

“I am a son of a normal salaryman, and many of us are sons of salarymen or those running their own businesses. Democracy, by nature, should allow for young people who grew up in such regular families to have goals, work hard, and be able to flourish in the political world,” Kan said.

from Andrew Marshall:

Political risk in Asia: What to watch this week

My regular roundup of key Asian political risk themes to watch in the week ahead, with links to the news stories and analysis produced by Reuters correspondents across the region.

JAPAN GETS A NEW PRIME MINISTER (AGAIN)

Japan has its fifth prime minister in three years -- Naoto Kan, 63, a fiscal conservative with a reformist image.

But while the politicians in charge may change, the key problems facing the country remain the same -- a vast and growing debt burden, years of stagnation and deflation, and a worsening demographic burden with an increasingly elderly population having to be supported by a shrinking workforce.

Many analysts have written off Japan as a worthwhile long-term investment prospect, saying its economic and strategic decline is a virtual certainty. Japan's recent political history has done nothing to dispel that pessimism. It is now up to Kan to show whether he has what it takes to make a difference.

Japan prime ministers haunted by ever-present media

Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama at a news conference on April 28, 2010. (REUTERS/Toru Hanai)

It’s not unusual for a politician whose popularity has slumped to want to avoid the media. But for Japan’s premiers it’s not just a question of keeping critical newspaper editorials out of sight.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, just like his five predecessors, faces questioning from a posse of reporters morning and evening at least five days a week. And just like his predecessors, he seemed to find these brief  “doorstep news conferences” exhilarating while voter support for his government soared around the 70 percent level after a landslide election victory last year.

Now that only about 20 percent of Japanese say they support him in the run-up to a key upper house election, Hatoyama has visibly lost enthusiasm for commenting twice a day on camera. At first known for lengthy explanations, he has become increasingly curt. He even admitted recently that he’d prefer to skip the doorsteps in favour of holding more frequent sit-down news conferences, inviting a broader range of reporters from magazines and internet outlets.  ”But this is the custom,” he said forlornly.

Life was not necessarily easier for Japanese prime ministers before the doorstep idea was introduced by the popular Junichiro Koizumi, who served as premier from 2001-2006. Before his time, young reporters from Japan’s generously staffed big media companies were sent to camp out by the door of the prime minister’s office, taking note of whoever visited him and following him every time he left the room. Some leaders made it clear they found this constant attention irritating.

A move from the quaint 1920s building to a modernist new prime ministerial office in 2002 cut off reporters’ access to the premier’s office door and Koizumi sought to quell media protests by promising to speak to reporters twice a day. No matter how far their support falls, none of his successors has dared abandon the system for fear of sparking a media backlash. 

But some have sought to look beyond the cub reporters sent to quiz them and speak directly to the electorate. Shinzo Abe, premier from 2006-2007, became known for staring straight into the camera lens while speaking to reporters, in an effort to give the impression he was speaking directly to television viewers.

MP’s nosedive mirrors Japan leader’s sinking ratings

With voter popularity for Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama sinking to new lows, there was little sympathy even when a lawmaker from his Democratic Party fell flat on her face in parliament last week. Internet chatrooms and blogs have accused Yukiko Miyake of  faking her fall, which the Democrats blamed on a shove by a stocky opposition party lawmaker.  Footage of the scene in slow motion has flooded YouTube. One comment: “Miyake needs acting lessons”.

Just  9 months ago, the government’s support ratings stood above 70 percent after the Democrats won a landslide election, ending a half-century of nearly non-stop conservative rule. Miyake was one of many first-time lawmakers on whom voters pinned their hopes  for change – reviving the economy, cutting wasteful spending and fixing the pensions system. But polls now show the Democrats may struggle to win an election for parliament’s less powerful upper house, expected in July. Failure to win a majority risks policy deadlock at a time when Japan needs the political mandate to push through reforms and cut huge public debt.

What’s gone wrong for Hatoyama? Plenty. His credibility is in tatters, so much so that a fashion critic recently poked fun at a multi-coloured, checkered shirt the leader wore to a barbecue gathering back in April. Voters are frustrated with his handling of a row with the United States over where to relocate a Marine base on the southern island of Okinawa. He has promised a solution by the end of May, but the chances for one are looking slim. Hatoyama and Democratic Party kingpin Ichiro Ozawa are also under fire for political funding scandals. Both have refused to resign despite polls showing the scandals are hurting support.

Hatoyama has called for patience. Government spending on the economy takes time to trickle down to households.  Plus, not only are the Democrats in power for the first time, they are trying to revolutionise policymaking by reducing bureaucratic control and centralising power to the cabinet. But voters worry that Hatoyama, known more for his consensual style, lacks the strong decision-making skills needed to make the new initiative work.

The Sankei newspaper last month went so far as to report a rumour in the Democratic Party that the Hatoyama had been optimistic about resolving the U.S. base row because of a prophecy his wife heard from a fortune teller in India.  ”The fact that these rumours are going around, means we’re over,” the paper quoted a party staff member as saying.

The media bashing is reminiscent of the final days of other Japanese administations under the Democrats’ rival, the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party. Hatoyama’s predecessor Taro Aso was repeatedly lampooned for verbal gaffes as his own and his party’s ratings slid ahead of last year’s resounding defeat at the polls.