Now that Governor Takeshi Onaga has revoked authorization for the land reclamation needed to proceed with the construction of a new U.S. base in Henoko, Nago to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, it has been decided that on November 15, members of the “Island-Wide Council for Leading to the Future and Realizing the Okinawa Statement “or Shimagurumikaigi will travel to the United States to announce Onaga’s policy and call for the cancellation of the Henoko relocation plan to US congress members and others. On October 18, this plan was announced at an emergency meeting of the Shimagurumikaigi member organizations held in Naha. This is the first time the council will plan a trip to the United States.
Around thirty people will join the delegation to the United States, including Morimasa Goya, co-representative of the council, representatives from g northern, central, and southern Okinawa, representatives from each faction in the prefectural assembly, and members of civic organizations.
The delegation will visit the United States from November 15 to 22. They will arrive in San Francisco, California on November 15, and plan to visit the local office of the congressional representative from Berkeley, where the city council recently passed a resolution opposing the Henoko base construction.
On November 19 and 20, the delegates will meet with US congress members, environmental organizations, and human rights organizations in Washington DC. They are also planning activities to express opposition to the new base while they are there.
The 45th the Naha Tug of War was held at Kumoji intersection of Route 58 in Naha on October 11. About 275,000 people took part in the event.
The rope used in the tug of war is 200 meters long and weighs about 43 tons, and is recorded in the Guinness World Records. People pulled the rope for 30 minutes, with the East side winning.
The East leads with 14 wins, 13 losses, and 15 draws against the West.
The Ufunn-nes-nei standard-bearer parade, which started from Tsuboya Elementary School in Naha, included a prayer for the success of the Naha Great Tag of War.
Once the standard-bearers of both sides met at the Kumoji Intersection, they began the Ga-e a flag-waving competition. After they carried out the Kanuchichiji ceremony to connect the male and female ropes, about 15,000 people started to pull the ropes.
Singer and songwriter Kazufumi Miyazawa, a member of former Japanese rock band The Boom, will become a lecturer at the music department of Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts in April 2016. This was revealed at a lecture presented at the university on October 19.
The group’s song Shima Uta, which is about Okinawa, became a worldwide hit in the 1990s.
Miyazawa said, “I cannot teach Okinawan traditional music, but I have something to teach students, because I have been coming to Okinawa for about 20 years. I would like to convey what I felt from the landscape of Okinawa.”
The university will start the Okinawa culture course, in which Miyazawa will give a lecture, from 2016. The course will target modern Okinawan music.
Secretary-General of the university Hajime Terukina said, “We want students to learn the spirituality of music and Okinawan pop.”
Three experts of the 13 members of an environmental oversight panel set up by the Okinawa Defense Bureau of the Ministry of Defense have received donations totalling 11 million yen from the companies that received orders to build a new U.S. base in Henoko, Nago, since they assumed their post in April last year. The governments of Japan and the United States are advancing with the project to build the new base in Henoko, where they will relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan.
Professor Nobuaki Arai, a dugong expert at Kyoto University, has received 8 million yen from an environment construction consultant company. Professor Hajime Kayane, a coral reef expert at the Graduate School of the University of Tokyo, was paid 2 million yen from a construction company and 500,000 yen from a construction consultant company.
The chairman of the panel Yoshiyuki Nakamura, a professor of the Graduate School of Yokohama National University, has received a 500,000 yen donation from a construction company.
The donations were paid through the universities as research grants. However, professors have no obligation to report on how they use donation money to university authorities and donors.
According to professors Arai and Kayane, the donations have not influenced the deliberations of the panel. However, even thought it is not illegal to receive donations, they are considering resigning from the panel if society deems the donations inappropriate.
Panel member Takeshi Hara, president of the Japan Fisheries Science and Technology Association, has received a 2-3 million yen annual salary as a board member of a nonprofit organization (NPO) since 2008. The representative of the organization is president of the environment construction consultant company that received orders for the Henoko project.
The four members of the panel have admitted they received the donations.
One of the companies, which donated money to the members of the panel, has received an order to do the seawall construction for the new base. The company revealed on October 19 that it had employed retired officers from the Ministry of the Defense.
The company did not reveal how many former Ministry of the Defense staff it employed and would not comment on their involvement of the new base construction.
According to a Ministry of Defense publication, one of the two environment construction consultant companies has been employing retired officers from the Ministry of the Defense since 2010.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a press conference on October 19, “The panel has discussed the matter from a fair and neutral position.” He claimed that there was no problem with the donations and remuneration the panel members received from the companies.
On the night of October 4, at a beach of Kijoka, Ogimi, the Okinawa Churashima Foundation’s Research Center released ten baby turtles. They were from artificially raised and hatched eggs, which were taken from a female green sea turtle that was run over by a car on National Highway 58 at Kijoka on the night of August 16.
According to the foundation, there is no example in the world of baby turtles being raised from the eggs of a mother turtle that died, and released to the sea.
About 50 people, families and animal experts, watched the baby turtles being released into the sea at the beach.
Two typhoon experts, 44-year-old associate professor Hiroyuki Yamada and 33-year-old assistant professor Kosuke Ito have formed a rare partnership in their research into mesoscale meteorology and numerical weather prediction systems in the Geoscience Section at the Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of the Ryukyus. Masahide Furukawa, the associate dean of the department, says, “University of the Ryukyus is the only one among the other regional universities where experts in observation and numerical prediction work together.” The department is expected to be a hub for studying typhoons.
Yamada worked as a researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology before moving to Ryudai in August 2012. His research examines the strength of wind and rain using Doppler radar that analyzes electromagnetic waves from typhoons.
While the Japan Meteorological Agency predicts the strength of typhoons by analyzing cloud distribution using satellites, Doppler radar provides more accuracy. However, there are challenges as Doppler radar can only fully assess the strength of typhoons within a 200-kilometer radius and above a 2-kilometer altitude. Future researches are expected to improve the technology.
Along with analyzing the rapid development of typhoons and improving the accuracy of predictions, such research is also aimed at contributing to disaster management. Yamada is passionate about the work.
“I want to establish methods that analyze strengths of typhoons more accurately such as equipping aircrafts with the observation system in future,” he says.
Ito has worked at Ryudai since April last year, while also serving as a visiting researcher at the Forecast Research Development of the Meteorological Research Institute in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. His research considers atmospheric and ocean water conditions to predict typhoon intensity using a unique method called “high-resolution atmosphere-ocean coupled model”. Although the calculation takes a time, the result is more accurate than the model used by the Meteorological Agency.
The model employed by Ito uses the super computer K, and his research has drawn acclaim for being one of next generation post K-projects. Ito declares he will “aim for the cutting edge of simulation research”.
Yamada is eager to work with Ito, saying, “I would like to contribute to development of the atmospheric researches in Okinawa, complementing Ito’s work”. Ito is also enthusiastic about the partnership.
“We are discussing visions for research 5 to 10 years from now.”
Under the blue sea off the coast of Katsuren Peninsula, Uruma City, where helicopters belonging to Japanese Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military fly over frequently, precious coral colonies such as blue coral and Pavona cactus, commonly known as ‘lettuce coral’, abound. Small creatures, such as sea slugs and anemone fish, live there.
Masayuki Tamae, 60, from Henza Island, who works as a diver, said, “A rich natural environment remains in the sea of Uruma, but this is not known to people.”
Takaya Kinra, a Ryukyu Shimpo photographer who went diving in the sea in September, reports.
Mizutama coral Plerogyra sinuosa (front left) and Ishobana Melithaea flabellifera have a symbiotic relationship at Tsuken reef 20 (water depth of about 16 meters).
Colorful Chromodoris kuniei at Sand Way (water depth about 18 meters)
Hoplophrys oatesii or Candy crab mimics a soft coral Alcyonaria at Tsuken reef 20 (water depth about 9 meters).
Huge hamasango corals or Porites cylindrica, which is 6 meters in diameter, at Yokobishi reef (water depth about 13 meters)
Komonshikoro coral (Pavona cactus), commonly known as ‘lettuce coral’, is 17 meters in diameter and 12 meters in height. Some parts of it have collapsed due to a typhoon. However, it is still spectacular. At Yokobishi reef (water depth about 5 meters)
On October 15, President Arturo Yara of Peru Okinawa Kenjinkai and board members visited Governor Takeshi Onaga at the Okinawa Prefectural Government to ask for his attendance at the 110th Peru immigration anniversary celebration ceremony next August. Governor Onaga received the invitation letter and replied, “Nife debiru (Thank you). I will try to attend.
President Yara said, “It has been 110 years since the first migration. I am happy that we still have a connection.
Third- and fourth-generation Okinawans from Peru who go to Okinawa for training come back to Peru with much energy.”
Governor Onaga said, “There is the 6th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival after the 110th-anniversary ceremony coming up. I hope I can welcome our connection and enjoy next year’s ceremony as well as the festival.”
On October 14, officials from the Okinawa Defense Bureau (ODB) visited prefectural offices and the towns and cities hosting base compounds, announcing that beginning in 2017 U.S. Air Force CV-22 Osprey vertical take-off and landing aircraft deployed from Yokota Air Base (Tokyo) will be used at “training sites in Okinawa.” The ODB did not specify which training sites.
This is the first time the Japanese and American governments have officially approved Osprey deployments from Yokota for training in Okinawa. People from the cities and towns hosting military base compounds have conveyed to the ODB their intention to oppose training conducted by Osprey aircraft from Yokota in Okinawa, and the increase in the base burden that will come with this move. Upon hearing news of these intended flights, local governments in the surrounding areas unanimously opposed them.
Past noon on October 14, in Okinawa, Moriyoshi Shiroma, director of the Local Coordination Bureau (Ministry of Defense), delivered to Osamu Unten, head of the Military Base Affairs Division (Executive Office of the Governor of Okinawa), a compiled environmental review of American military deployments from Yokota. In the review there are mentions of the CV-22 Osprey from Yokota using shooting ranges in Okinawa. It also notes the same activity in Misawa, Higashifuji, Guam, and South Korea.
Unten, who heard the announcement from the ODB, has repeatedly explained Okinawa’s position of wanting Osprey deployments from Yokota retracted, saying that it is the public wish that flights to Okinawa do not take place. On the same day, Masaru Machida, head of the Executive Office of the Governor of Okinawa, criticized the ODB’s move as being the opposite of a base burden reduction. From now on, the prefectural government will maintain discussions on these issues.
At this time there are 24 U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft operating from Futenma Air Station. The U.S. military considered deploying U.S. Air Force CV-22 Osprey aircraft at Kadena Air Base also, but due to concerns about resistance from Okinawan people, instead Yokota will be used.
Used for special operations, CV-22 aircraft also operate in conjunction with the U.S. Special Operation Forces stationed at Torii Station communications institution in Yomitan Village. There are concerns flights over Okinawa will be incessant as a result of the additional deployment.
The plan is to put three Osprey aircraft on Yokota Air Base in 2017 and deploy seven more over the following years, adding up to 10 additional Osprey altogether. The rate of “class A” accidents, the most severely harmful accident classification, is between 2 and 12 per 100,000 flight hours for the MV-22 models, but between 7 and 21 per 100,000 flight hours for the CV-22 models (calculated as of January 2015). The CV-22 is 3 to 4 times more likely to have a class A accident than a MV-22 aircraft.
On October 15, it was discovered that the Okinawa Defense Bureau sent a request to the Okinawa Prefectural Board of Education asking for permission to capture and relocate Coenobita hermit crabs, designated a natural monument by the national government, in advance of starting construction of a new U.S. military base in Henoko. Under the Cultural Properties Protection Law, the board of education is obligated to compile a written opinion and send it along with the necessary documents to the head of the Agency of Cultural Affairs, who will make the final decision. The cultural property division of the prefectural education bureau is currently preparing the documents.
According to the cultural property division, the Defense Bureau submitted the request on September 14. After the board of education requested submission of maps and other necessary documents that had been missing, all the necessary documents were submitted in early October. Members of the board of education received notice on October 15. The next board meeting will be held on October 22. Satoaki Moromi, head of the Education Agency, said that the board will take into account all relevant circumstances and opinions from the board members when moving forward.
The Cultural Properties Protection Law stipulates that when a government agency plans a project that will impact the conservation of a designated national monument, permission must be granted by the head of the Agency of Cultural Affairs after the issue is reviewed by the local board of education. The board of education will discuss the issue, consult with experts, and then compose a written statement of opinion to be sent to the Agency of Cultural Affairs.
The Defense Bureau has explained that they aim to ensure the conservation of individual hermit crabs by relocating them to shoreline areas where they can thrive. This plan is based on the former governor’s written statement on the environmental impact assessment of the Henoko land reclamation and base construction. When the former governor authorized the Henoko land reclamation, he ordered the establishment of an environmental surveillance committee. The committee was asked to provide an opinion on measures to conserve land and sea animals, including Coenobita hermit crabs, at their meeting in June.
According to environmental conservation documents submitted to the former governor by the Defense Bureau along with their request for authorization to reclaim land in a public body of water, 1,189 breeding Coenobita hermit crabs were found in a 2008 survey of the area where the Futenma replacement facility and construction yard are to be built.
On October 8, Taketomi Town, Okinawa and Tsushima, Nagasaki announced,”Yamaneko Ai (love)! Land Joint Declaration” in an effort to promote the conservation of the Iriomote Yamaneko and Tsushima Yamaneko. The cats are the only endangered wildcat species in Japan.
At the Taketomi Town Remote Islands Development Center, Taketomi Mayor Eicho Kawamitsu and Tsushima Vice Mayor Naoki Hitakatsu read the joint declaration and stated that both municipalities would work together to conserve the Wildcats.
The joint declaration was part of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Iriomote Wildcats.
Webcam(Kokusai Street)
