既に非常勤職員の大量雇い止めが報道された京都大学において、ユニオンエクスタシーの組合員が無期限ストに突入した。

On 26th January 2009, members of "The Association of Blacklisted Students of Tokyo" (burakkurisuto no kai in tokyo) visited the office of the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) in Ichigaya, Tokyo, with the aim of demanding the withdrawal of the "Blacklisting Plan" aimed at those who cannot afford to repay their scholarship loans. They also demanded the realization of providing true scholarships as opposed to State-sponsored student loans [under the name of “scholarships”]. As of this writing, they are still waiting for an answer from JASSO.

Below is the Open Letter addressed to JASSO.

ついに８０％を超えた不支持率。ところが麻生首相は政権の座を手放そうとしません。加えて奇妙なことに、内閣を倒す人々の行動がほとんど見えてこない。
「有力政治家」の離党騒ぎはニュースになったし、野党議員の動きは伝えられるけど、なぜだか動いているのは国会やテレビの中だけ。これはやばいだろう民主主義的に。

ということで、私たち自身の手で麻生内閣を倒すことにしました。

おかしいと思ったらすぐに言う。街頭や家庭や職場や学校で、なにかアクションを起こしましょう。街頭宣伝、デモ、政党まわり、インターネットアクション、などなど。とにかく政権倒せばなんでもいいんでやりましょう。あなたも一緒に麻生政権を倒すための行動を起こしませんか？

New documentary about the December 2008 insurrection in Greece (in english)

パレスチナ・ガザに滞在しながら長年フィールドワークを行い、被占領地の社会経済的構造分析に関して高い業績を上げて来たサラ・ロイ氏の講演と対談。

Foreign Policy In Focus posted this essay by Walden Bello, president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition.
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As goods pile up in wharves from Bangkok to Shanghai, and workers are laid off in record numbers, people in East Asia are beginning to realize they aren't only experiencing an economic downturn but living through the end of an era.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG_11h5iQ-o

[Introduction: Japan Focus first reported in May 2006 that 300 Allied prisoners of war performed forced labor for Aso Mining Company in 1945. (See English and Japanese versions.) The ensuing Aso POW controversy led then-Foreign Minister Aso Taro to hastily withdraw an invitation to a POW memorial service near Osaka that he had issued to foreign ambassadors, as reported in August 2006. When a New York Times reporter mentioned forced labor at Aso Mining in November 2006, the Japanese government launched a counteroffensive. (See English and Japanese versions of Norimitsu Onishi's article.) The Consulate General of New York, reportedly at Foreign Minister Aso's direction, published an online rebuttal (reproduced below with a Japanese translation) insisting that the news article was not grounded in historical evidence. A 1946 report produced by Aso Mining, detailing living and working conditions for the POWs, was mailed to Foreign Minister Aso's office in June 2007. (See English and Japanese articles about the report and the English version of the document itself.) Aso's policy secretary was subsequently interviewed about the POW records at length (see English and Japanese accounts), but the prime minister stated in parliament earlier this month that the records were never brought to his attention.

Mainstream Japanese media belatedly began to cover the POW story in November 2008 after newly installed Prime Minister Aso was confronted with the 1946 records in parliament by an opposition lawmaker. Last December the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare confirmed the authenticity of the records by producing other proof of POW labor at Aso Mining, as Lawrence Repeta recently recounted. In January 2009, Prime Minister Aso finally admitted that Allied POWs indeed dug coal for the family firm, whose successor company he had headed in the 1970s. He offered no apology for the wartime reality or his failure to acknowledge it earlier.

Japan's opposition Democratic Party has continued to aggressively question the Aso administration in the Diet about forced labor at Aso Mining -- asking why the Foreign Ministry disputed media accounts even though the Health Ministry possessed numerous records confirming them. In the article below, Michael Bazyler, a leading authority on the use of American and European courts to redress genocide, atrocities and other historical injustices, deconstructs the rebuttal that was removed from the New York Consulate General of Japan website in December 2008. Bazyler compares the refusal of Japan's government and industry to make amends for wartime forced labor with the very different German approach: a forced labor compensation fund that recently finished paying out a total of 4.37 billion euros to more than 1.6 million people in almost 100 countries, according to the website of the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future". At the center of Bazyler's analysis is the recognition that Germany's apology and compensation not only constituted appropriate coming to terms with the past, but that they paved the way for improved relations with nations that had been victimized by Nazi policies.

Following Bazyler's critique and the text of the Consulate General's comments, we present English translations of recent Diet proceedings concerning Allied POWs at Aso Mining. The scope of questioning of the Aso administration by several Democratic Party members has broadened from Allied POWs to include Korean labor conscription, as at least 8,000 Koreans also were forced to work at Aso Mining. Japan Focus plans to present additional English translations of the ongoing, unprecedented Diet discussion of Japan's wartime use of forced labor in the near future. We thank the office of Upper House member Fujita Yukihisa, who has led parliamentary inquiries involving Aso Mining, for making the translated Diet transcripts available. -- William Underwood]

2009年2月8日「ないかくだとうデモ」CM編　麻生太郎＠巣鴨