OK here are two great things! The first is of course our tour of Asahi Newspaper this coming Monday. The other is a new and wonderful resource for Journalists and researcher offered free by the New York Times:
http://tech.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html
Check this out! Go through a bunch on the items and familliarize yourself with this resource.
See you Monday.

NO CANADIAN TROOPS TO IRAQ: MARTIN
Prime Minister Paul Martin reaffirmed Ottawa's stance that it will not
commit troops to Iraq, saying Canada should instead play a role where it
can "make a substantial difference."
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/14/martiniraq041014.html

The Canadian Embassy, together with the Embassy of Ireland, will be holding
a Higher Education Fair at the Canadian Embassy on Wednesday, November 3,
2004 from 10:00 to 17:00. The purpose is let students and teachers know
about studying in Canada.

Institutions participating from Canada:

1. The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, B.C.)
2. The University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario)
3. The University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta)
4. Acadia University (Wolfville, Nova Scotia)
5. The University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

6. The University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
7. Kwantlen University College (Surrey, B.C.)
8. Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C.)
9. Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario)
10. Langara College (Vancouver, B.C.)

11. Red Deer College (Red Deer, Alberta)
12. Nova Scotia Agricultural College (Truro, Nova Scotia)
13. Algoma University College (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
14. McGill University (Montreal, Quebec)
15. The University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)

16. Fleming College (Peterborough, Ontario)
17. Saint Mary s University (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
18. Brock University (St. Catherines, Ontario)
19. The University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario)


Canadian Embassy, Public Affairs Section
7-3-38 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8503
Fax: (03) 5412-6249
Access: Exit #4 Aoyama Itchome station on the Ginza,
Hanzomon or O-edo subway lines
Map:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ni-ka/site/images/tokyo_map-embassy.jpg

For fair enquiries and pre-registration:
Email: (English or Japanese) e-canada@zas.att.ne.jp
Website: (Japanese) www.canadanet.or.jp/study/univfair.shtml

--

This is an interesting article for many reasons. There is a strong reliance on "some people say" -were some people can say anything, but that does not make it true or even important unless some people listen and think it is. Again a discussion point for the class this week. Clark
This is from todays 'Japan Times' and well done.


Politicians block comic over 'fake' Nanjing Massacre tale

Shueisha Inc. said Wednesday it will halt publication of a "manga" comic featuring the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 in response to complaints by Japanese politicians who claim the slaughter never happened.

The comic series "Kuni ga Moeru" ("The Country is Burning"), authored by popular comic writer Hiroshi Motomiya, is a fictional tale about a bureaucrat in the turbulent times of the early Showa Era (1926-1989).

Publication of the series, which has been carried in Weekly Young Jump magazine since November 2002, will be temporarily suspended from the Oct. 28 edition. Weekly Young Jump is popular among Japanese men.

In the magazine's Sept. 16 and Sept. 22 editions, the comic described Japanese soldiers massacring civilians in Nanjing, China.

Thirty-seven members of local assemblies protested to the publisher on Oct. 5, saying the massacre was presented as if it really happened. They say the story deliberately distorted history by using a photo whose authenticity they claim cannot be confirmed.

According to the assembly members, there is strong evidence that the massacre never happened and that there is no proof that it did.

A Shueisha representative said: "Some people say the photo used for reference in the drawing cannot be authenticated. It was inappropriate to use such material."

"The parts related to the use of the photo as pointed out will be edited or deleted when the comic book is published," Shueisha said in reply to the complaint.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal concluded that more than 140,000 people were killed. Some Chinese historians put the death toll at 300,000 in Nanjing alone. Japanese accounts vary from several thousand to 200,000 dead.

The Japan Times: Oct. 14, 2004

Papyrus is a newsletter which is now coming from Japan which covers education and current affairs topics. Usually worth looking at. In this issue there are a lot of topics which touch on journalism and an informed press. We'll go over them in class today and next week as well. Clark
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.............................................................. now that big TV media are joining
the branches of government including the Supreme Court in being partisan
to the Republicans, the Democrats seem to have no opening to expose the
facts. My apologies that much of this may be tedious to non-Americans,
but the post-War international order is breaking down due to American
unilateralism, and the Goebbels playbook is proving again that it works.
Who but Orwell could have predicted that democracy in America would not
survive into the 21st Century? - Ed.]

* Periodical articles

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff
tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 27 October 2003
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Peace Prize Goes to Environmentalist in Kenya
"OSLO, Oct. 8 - Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who started an
environmental movement that has planted 30 million trees in Africa and
who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy in her
home country, was announced the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize"
Patrick Tyler, New York Times, 9 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/international/africa/09nobel.html

The Verdict Is In
"Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line
of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ...
nothing in the voluminous record provides Mr. Bush with the justification
he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs did not exist.
And as the war continues to bog down, the power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more muscular every day."
New York Times Editorial, 7 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07thu1.html

The Battle of the Pump
By Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 7 October 2004
"The energy policy of President Bush and Dick Cheney is supporting the
worst Arab oil regimes and the worst trends."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html

Bush's Crimes
"Impeach the president? Yes. A well-documented case ties him to Abu Ghraib."
Bob Norman, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Florida, 30 November 2004
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-09-30/news/norman.html

Insane reality spins the head
Jimmy Breslin, Newsday.com, 10 October 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/ny-nybres104001677oct10,0,2659563.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets
of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 11 October 2004
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml

President Bush Unfit to Command
Yoshi Tsurumi [Bush's former professor]
Japanese Institute of Global Communications, 7 October 2004
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/colloquium/20041007_tsurumi_president/index.html

TV channels to rubbish Kerry on eve of poll
Julian Borger, The Guardian, 12 October 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1325120,00.html

Japan mulls multicultural dawn
Sarah Buckley, BBC News Online, 5 October 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3708098.stm

5. BAGHDAD CONFIDENTIAL
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/10/08/e_fassihi.html
"Can a journalist be too truthful?" That's a question that some
media pundits are asking after Farnaz Fassihi, the Wall Street
Journal's Middle East correspondent, sent a private email to
friends with an unusually candid description of the deteriorating
U.S. control over Iraq and the dangers of doing her job there. A
copy of her email began circulating on the internet. "One could
argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation," she wrote. "For
those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing
could  salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of
terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as
a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a
bottle." Shortly after the email became public, Los Angeles Times
reporter Tim Rutten spoke with two Wall Street Journal reporters,
who told him that the paper has responded by forbidding Fassihi to
write about Iraq for the paper until after the election,
"presumably because unauthorized publication of her private
correspondence somehow called into question the fairness of her
journalism" -- even though other journalists in Iraq privately
share her assessment. Journalism professor Jay Rosen has reviewed
the subsequent pundit fuss and asks the obvious question: "Why
can't reporters on the ground occasionally speak to the 'public'
like this one occasionally spoke to her friends?"
SOURCE: PressThink, October 8, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097208003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097208003

Thought you might be interested in this and it's at the Foreign Correspondents' Club:

Ghosts and Ghouls are in the Air!

The 14th eigoTown/ELT News international party will be held on Saturday, October 30th in Tokyo. Over 300 people, a good mix of Japanese and foreign, male and female, is expected at the prestigious Foreign Correspondents' Club in Yurakucho.

Of course, the theme of the party is Halloween - come in fancy dress and you'll get ¥1,000 off the admission price!
• Date: Saturday, October 30th
• Time: 6.30pm - 9.00pm
• Admission: ¥4,000 (includes beer, wine, beverages, food and snacks)

Read more details here: http://www.eltnews.com/party/

As the bible belt says:Treat others as you would have yourself treated:


In other words: American suspects in world terror can also disappear and also be held responsible for atrocities against humanity. It's simply tit for tat. Who is responsible for disappearances in custody- well the commander in chief comes to mind.


New York — At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have “disappeared” in U.S. custody, and some may have been tortured, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday.

The prisoners are probably being held outside the United States without access to the Red Cross or any oversight of their treatment, the human rights group said. In some cases, the United States will not even acknowledge the prisoners are in custody.

The report said the prisoners include the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as well as Abu Zubaydah, who is believed to be a close aide to Osama bin Laden.

In refusing to disclose the prisoners' whereabouts or acknowledge the detentions, Human Rights Watch said, the U.S. government has violated international law, international treaties and the Geneva Convention. The group called on the government to bring all the prisoners “under the protection of the law.”

“I think the U.S. demeans itself when it adopts the philosophy that the ends justify the means in the fight against terror,” said Reed Brody, special counsel with Human Rights Watch.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency has not seen the report and declined to comment.

The report — titled “The United States' ‘Disappeared:' The CIA's Long-term ‘Ghost Detainees”' — said many of the prisoners have provided valuable intelligence to U.S. officials. But it also cited reports that some detainees have lied under pressure to please their interrogators.

Human Rights Watch has no firsthand knowledge of the treatment of these detainees. Much of the report stems from news accounts that have cited unidentified government sources acknowledging the torture or mistreatment of detainees.

The report provides a brief sketch of 11 detainees believed to be incommunicado in undisclosed locations. They hail from countries across the Arab world, including Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S. authorities have confirmed the detention of six of them, the report said.

CANADA CHURNS OUT NEW JOBS; UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS TO 7.1%
Canada's unemployment rate edged down to 7.1 per cent in September
- the lowest in more than three years - as the country
generated a better-than-expected 43,200 new jobs, Statistics Canada
reported Friday.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/jobless_041008.html

U.S. JOBS REPORT DISAPPOINTS
The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 per cent in September, as
96,000 jobs were added to payrolls, diappointing analysts who'd been
expecting 150,000 new jobs.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/USjobless_041008.html

SLOW PROGRESS IN IRAQ GUN AMNESTY
A five-day weapons-exchange program got off to a slow start in Baghdad's
Sadr City with Shia militiamen surrendering a handful of rusty old guns.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/11/alsadr_041011.html

The Americans are buying weapons from the rebels in Iraqi. They are paying $200 for an assualt rifle which sells for $45 to $75 in Iraqi. Do the math. They sell one to the Americans and are able to buy four or five new ones for them selves. Those boys in charge of the American operation sure are smart! Right?