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Japanese firm shrugs off rape game protests

A Japanese computer game maker on Friday dismissed a protest by US rights campaigners against the game "RapeLay", which lets players simulate sexual violence against females.
New York-based Equality Now launched a campaign this week "against rape simulator games and the normalization of sexual violence in Japan".
It urged activists to write in protest to the maker and Prime Minister Taro Aso, arguing the game breaches Japan's obligations under the 1985 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The Yokohama-based games manufacturer Illusion brushed off the campaign.
"We are simply bewildered by the move," said spokesman Makoto Nakaoka. "We make the games for the domestic market and abide by laws here. We cannot possibly comment on (the campaign) because we don't sell them overseas."
Players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including stalking girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and forcing females to get abortions, according to the group's online statement.
Japan, often criticized as a major producer of child pornography, in 1999 banned the production, distribution and commercial use of sexually arousing photos, videos and other materials involving those aged under 18.
However, the law did not criminalize possession of such materials, and the ban also failed to cover child porn in animation and computer graphics, often categorized as "hentai" (pervert).
US online retail giant Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites after receiving complaints but clips of the game were still available this week on popular video sharing websites.
A Japan Committee for UNICEF spokeswoman said the Japanese loophole hindered international efforts to crack down on child porn.
"In this globalized world, connected via the Internet, even one loophole could jeopardize all the regulations," she said. "The world trend is to try to ban even the accessing and looking at websites of virtual images."
A spokeswoman for the Japanese government's gender equality bureau said the office "realizes the problem is there".
"While we recognize that some sort of measures need to be taken, the office is currently studying what can be done," she said.

Obama has come to the White House

Download Chris/Glenda

The just concluded US presidential election A| in state of the art digital automation A| is cause for envy in so far as RP is concerned. But, It is not as if steps in this direction have not been initiated except that the Supreme Court according to its worldview A| believes that it cannot be applied in our contemporary political culture. Thus, it will always be the case that counting the votes would proceed manually such that the longer it takes to finish the count A| in days and weeks A| the more likely it has opened windows of opportunity for cheating. America on the other hand counts push-button and RP counts scandalously primitive.

Obama and McCain were luminous figures seen in the world stage as arch contenders to who should run corporate America after President George W. Bush. And Obama got 64,414,843 of so-called popular votes and 364 of so-called electoral votes against McCain getting 56,735,145 and 162, respectively. ObamaAfs victory in this presidential race flips a new page in US political history as the first ever African-American president with McCain conceding even before the last vote is counted.

In the realm of the senses, there is nothing McCain can do to outsmart Obama whose oratory is par excellence. Given images of two competing candidates, McCain receives the short end of the bargain, McLuhan-wise A| where Aethe medium is the messageAf. Obama is seen and heard to have presented his promissory note under the terms and conditions that come agreeable to any contracting party. Thus, there is little difficulty for every voting American to sign this social contract offered by Obama as the simple epitome of the American dream.

Obama is highly educated, McCain isnAft. Obama is an eloquent orator, McCain just isnAft. Obama carries charisma, McCain is yet to acquire the virus. Obama attracts patronage from both the blacks and the whites in, more or less, equal degree while McCain only got half of the racial deal. With another under-educated as chosen running mate, McCain failed to check his political equation. Obama has been better paired with his running mate. With just these two presidential wannabes viewed in the viewing screen, there is no way McCain can attract adherents any more than Obama can A| with such ease and facility A| typical of the educated class in the US social pyramid. Obama, after all, graduated his law magna cum laude at Harvard Law School while McCain almost at the tail-end of the graduating class in the US Naval Academy.

Perhaps, speech power has been the name of the game in this US election. Every word spoken by Obama seems calculated to summon favor from any average listener or viewer. His speech proceeded from a methodology already known to most Americans with delivery alone qualifying as superb and a cut above the rest. The text of his message comes as though God has spoken before a revering flock A| a speech that has warmed the hearts of most Americans, whites or non-whites. ObamaAfs overall audience impact has really touched every a listener who has been so frustrated with the way Bush has run US politics that one school of thought believes Obama has been a principal beneficiary of this hatred for Bush war policy A| viewed as Aecrimes against humanityAf.

No wonder then that the punchline A| AgChange has come to AmericaAh A| really placed the viewing universe in some kind of trance. Bush bedeviled the American people, and Obama kind of probably AeangelizedAf the new and contemporary American population. Between the devil and the angel, Americans across social ladders, tend to like Obama better than any Bush proteALgeAL, or McCain. Given then a prevailing national mood, Obama can skillfully order how his chips will fall in place. And he did just right for his dream to become the next and 44th president of the worldAfs superpower that is America.

What will US politics be like under an Obama administration? Policy issues have already been drawn, even maybe neatly by the new world leader. Some of these send Agshark attacks effectAh making the world uncertain for countries that used to benefit economically from US policy directions under Bush. If Obama pursues the creative approach of going insular by focusing largely on its domestic economy, then world trade as we used to know it might have to be configured differently under an Obama regime. If all jobs go to citizens of America, if all goods go to the American people, if all services are just for the Americans A| this consuming all-American protectionist policy might mean making US a closed society than what it used to be and imperiled its own national life.

Whatever policy directions Obama will take ought to be beyond fault. With two wars A| that in Irag and Afghanistan A| first in the political agenda, Obama is left with not much choice but perhaps to withdraw troops in this beleaguered nations if only to cut on the defense budget. With the economic meltdown US is into, Obama might have to make drastic fiscal reforms without having to reinvent the wheel like say A| strengthening a protectionist policy in the best tradition of the Democrats where he belongs. A host of pressing social, economic, political, and security issues have to be addressed and Obama thinks too honestly that indeed US meets the challenge in his favorite line A| AgYes we canAh.

It still bears watching how Obama will reformat a prevailing if irreversible economic curse that appears to be redeemable only with as much as a $700 billion bail out. Bush is heard to have wished Obama hits the ground running. Truly, US has been seen to be at the verge of a cliff to such extent that it seems like there is only 24-hour left to save present-day America.

After the whole electoral exercise, Obama must get down to business. An economic turnaround or a miracle cannot just come about A| from a culture of overspending A| that has characterized the BushAf government. Nor can USAf global position as world policeman be compromised as though pulling out US troops in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan will do the trick. It bears watching whether Obama can bring US economy back on its track especially by giving middle class tax cuts to some 95% of American workers if true anything can be done to uplift some 37 million poor Americans that corporate American has neglected for many years. With Obama breaking the century-old racial barrier, it is hoped that political assassinations by some kind of feudal supremacist vogue would be a thing of the past.

Japan Overview

Japan, with the world's second-largest economy, is now at a crossroads, re-evaluating its place in Asia, its relationship with the United States and what course to take at home. With the rejection of the long-dominant Liberal Democratic Party in national elections in August 2009, and the ascendancy of the archrival Democrats, major changes appear to be in store.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was elected on a tide of voter dissatisfaction, after three bumbling Liberal Democratic leaders lasted a year or less in office, and Japan was hit hard by the global economic slowdown. In power, he has moved cautiously on putting his campaign promises into action.

During President Obama's first visit to Tokyo in November 2009, he announced that he would establish a high-level working group on the contentious issue of the continuing presence of a Marine base in Okinawa.

The decision, announced at a news conference with Mr. Hatoyama just a few hours after he touched down in Tokyo to begin his first presidential trip to Asia, appears to represent a concession by the Obama administration to at least consider JapanAfs concerns about the base, which is deeply unpopular in Okinawa and which the newly-elected Japanese government had promised to relocate.

The visit came as the two countries were grappling with a shift in their overall relationship. In the past, squabbles between the United States and Japan have focused mostly on economic issues, with the Washington and Tokyo engaging in trade wars over luxury cars and semiconductors. The security alliance, meanwhile, was more stable.

Now, things appeared to have flipped, with economic ties on a solid footing, and the most contentious part of the relationship falling squarely in the security arena.

Beyond the specific points of friction, like the Okinawa base, leaders of the Democratic Party have been blunt about seeking a more AgequalAh relationship with the United States, and Japanese officials say they now intend to focus more on cementing their relationships with other Asian nations.