The Senkaku boat collision video leaked on Youtube

It seems the Senkaku boat collision video was leaked on Youtube.

Video recorded from Japanese coast guard patrol ship, Hateruma.


Video recorded from Japanese coast guard patrol ship, Mizuki.




[UPDATE] The person who uploaded the video clips has deleted his/her videos and account. Since Japan Probe is keeping links to copies of the video clips, please visit that site to watch the videos.

Mud-slinging among Korean researchers

This week's Nature has a news article entitled "Retracted paper rattles Korean science", which anounces a retraction of a paper published in Nature in 2000. The data presented in the original paper promised an advance in diabetes treatment using gene therapy.

The paper's authors, led by Hyun Chul Lee of Yonsei University in South Korea, claimed to have created a treatment for type 1 diabetes, a condition in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells needed to regulate glucose levels. Lee's team constructed a recombinant virus that contained a gene for an insulin analogue, which was expressed in response to blood glucose levels. By introducing the gene construct into diabetic rats and mice, they succeeded in alleviating symptoms, according to the paper published in 2000. Their result, however, has not been reproduced.

According to the news article,

Now, having yet to repeat the experiment, Lee has asked Nature to retract the paper (see page 660). I don't know the reason why the experiments are not reproducible, says Lee. He suggests that the original gene construct, pLPK-SIA, a combination of the virus vector, the insulin analogue and a promoter that regulates the expression of the analogue in response to glucose levels — might have mutated after the original experiment.

According to Lee, the reason they cannot repeat the experiment is that some unknown mutation might have occured to their gene construct. However, an anonymous researcher who had worked in Lee's laboratory to repeat the experiment is claiming that the laboratory did not have the gene construct in the first place.

The background to the retraction is contentious. A researcher who joined the laboratory in 2001 tried and failed to initiate preclinical trials in bigger animals such as dogs and monkeys. But the researcher, who does not want to be identified for fear that acting as a whistleblower could harm his career, says he didn't find any pLPK-SIA in the laboratory, so with another researcher in the lab he tried to remake it according to the methods section from the original paper. Lacking essential ingredients, they eventually gave up.

A co-author of the paper who had created the gene construct were working in Canada, but she did not give the construct to the anonymous researcher.

The anonymous researcher says one of the paper's authors, Su-Jin Kim, who created the gene construct before moving to the University of Calgary in Canada, refused to send him samples. Kim says she deferred on this matter to her new boss, Ji-Won Yoon. The researcher, however, says that in e-mail exchanges, Yoon told him to ask Kim for samples. Yoon, also a co-author on the Nature paper, died in 2006.

It seems that the anonymous reseacher and Lee are now mud-slinging at each other.

Lee fired the anonymous researcher in August 2005, citing unhappiness with his work. Lee says that in 2008 the researcher threatened to disclose faults in the paper unless given money, grants and a new job. The researcher admits that he asked for a new position as compensation for losing what he calls four-and-a-half years trying to reproduce the results. He alleges that he was fired after advising Lee to retract the paper, which Lee denies.

In April 2008, Yonsei University started an investigation.

On 30 December the committee recommended a retraction based on multiple points, including the apparent duplication of figures and the fact that it could not confirm the key construct existed when the experiment was carried out. Won-Yong Lee says that the committee members examined Kim's lab notes and thesis, and alleges that the duplication was more than a simple mistake, including the reuse of data as well as cutting, pasting and otherwise adjusting figures.

Kim is now trying to stop the university from releasing its full report.

The committee says that Kim and Yoon tried to reproduce the experiments; Kim, who is now at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, says she did not, and didn't know there was a problem until last year. She says she has some of the pLPK-SIA and that the problems with figures were probably a mistake made when forwarding to colleagues, or in labelling. She faults the committee for choosing to rely on the memory of witnesses who were testifying about experiments that took place 8–10 years ago. Kim refused to sign the retraction letter, calling the original experiment a success, based on lab notes. She also filed an injunction, currently under consideration in the Seoul District Court, to prevent the university releasing its full report.

According to the news article, Kim says she will resolve the situation by reproducing the experiment.

I will never visit Papua New Guinea

So I decided reading this report.

Brave Italian photographer Iago Corazza travelled the country, the island at the end of the world, and took photos of its fascinating inhabitants, who still live a Stone Age existence.

“You find people here who can describe the taste of human flesh,” the photographer said of his travels.

Anthropologist Olga Ammann describes it more succinctly in the book. She quotes people who have eaten other humans: “The meat of white people smells too strongly and is too salty.

The Japanese are meant to taste the best, according to her study - the only thing that beats it is the meat of their own women.

Update: According to comments on 2-channel concerning this topic, it seems that cannibalism of native tribes had been a problem for the Japanese soldiers that stationed in Papua New Guinea during WWII. In the translation below, notes in parentheses are mine.

541 : Anonymous @ 9th Anniversary: 2008/12/15 (Mon) 23:28:32 ID:UExy4qZp0 (2-channel is cerebrating its 9th anniversary.)

An old man who was in the same line of business as mine once told me a story. He had been a ground man stationed in the Rabaul base. (The Imperial Japanese Navy had a base of naval air-force in Rabaul on the New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea.)

Newly assigned fleshy rookies were the most common targets. They were advised not to act alone in the night even if they were in the base.

Even though they were so advised, still some guys were abducted. When someone is abducted, there comes a sound of drums from far away. Since they couldn't neglect it, they used to organize rescue parties but in most cases they were too late; The abductee being bound on a log had already been barbequed like a pig roasted whole.

When they realized that they were too late, they just looked on the event. Perhaps their feeling was atrophied, since death was too common among them in those days. Well, anyway they couldn't kill civilians for retaliation.

------------
546 : Anonymous @ 9th Anniversary: 2008/12/15(Mon) 23:36:00 ID:uHZTJRP00

The day has finally come!
The day that Japan, which has been a food-importing country, can become a food-exporting country!

--------------
558 : Anonymous @ 9th Anniversary: 2008/12/15(Mon) 23:40:54 ID:RJG5I8ce0

Oh, what my granddad told me was true... orz.
He told me that this was scarier than the war when he served in the war. I am sorry, my granddad, for taking your story as a half-truth.

The followings are original texts of the above quote. They were found on this thread on 2-channel.

541 ：名無しさん＠九周年：2008/12/15(月) 23:28:32 ID:UExy4qZp0
昔ラバウル基地で整備兵してたという同業のじいさんに聞かされたことがある。

配属されたばかりの肉付きの良い新兵が特に狙われやすかったみたいで、夜間はラバウル基地内でも決して一人で行動するなと注意されてたらしい。

それでもやはりいくら注意してても攫われる奴はいるもので、誰か捕まると遠くの方からドンドコドンドコ音が聞こえて来るそうな。
ほっとくわけにも行かずに救助隊を編成して一応救助に向かうわけだが、大抵すでに手遅れ、一本の棒に手足括り付けられ豚の丸焼きのように焼かれていたんだと。

まあ当時は死人が珍しくなく感覚が麻痺してたのか、手遅れだとなると後は興味本位で見物してたとか・・・
民間人を報復で殺すわけにもいかんしね。
---------
546 ：名無しさん＠九周年：2008/12/15(月) 23:36:00 ID:uHZTJRP00
来たな。ついに。
日本が食糧輸入国から輸出国へと変わる、チャンスのときが。
---------
558 ：名無しさん＠九周年：2008/12/15(月) 23:40:54 ID:RJG5I8ce0
これか！爺さんの言ってた事は本当だったか・・・orz
従軍した時の、戦争よりも怖かった話として語ってたんだが「話半分・・・」と思って聞いてしまって悪かったなぁ。ゴメン爺ちゃん。

Green algae in Quingdao city have found the way to go

In the Beijing Olympic, Quingdao (青島, Tsingtao) of China is hosting several events of the sailing competitions which will take place along the coastline by the city.

On July 1, Sankei MSN News reported that an algal bloom choked the coastline of the city and was threatning to impede the competition. In order to remove the green algae, 400 boats and 3000 people were mobilized for cleaning up the algal bloom. Perhaps, nutrients in the wastes flown out of the city caused the heavy algal bloom.




According to Asahi Shimbun on Aug. 1, the Quingdao City Communist Party stated that the algae were found to be green laver (Enteromorpha sp.) that is used for food in Korea and Japan and that they plan to export the algae to South Korea as a test for commercializing them.

I hope they never export the algae to Japan.

Olympic Torch in Shenzhen, China

Meine Sache has a video and photographs of the Torch relay held in Shenzhen on May 5th, 2008. The article is in Japanese language, but the photographs on the page are worth taking a look at. It seems the original article on Asia Sentinel website has been removed.

Violence in Seoul

The following video shows the activity of Chinese during the torch relay in Seoul. Chinese group attacked a person who had a Tibetan flag.

Today's news report on Fuji News Network (FNN) aired a scene of violence in Seoul that happened to be recorded by a security camera.
http://www.fnn-news.com/news/headlines/articles/CONN00131771.html

They started quarreling in a bar and a Korean was killed in the one-sided violence. The arrested murderer was Chinese. According to the news report, the Chinese explained that the reason he killed the Korean was that the Korean's use of words was impolite.

The video above reminded me of another video that recorded one-sided violence in China. Two victims in the video were killed in the violence. It is so disturbing that I have not watched it till the end. However, I could notice that the kicking style of the two Chinese murderers, the one in the FNN video and the one below, are similar to each other.
http://www.youmaker.com/video/sv?id=7f35bab2c4da430a88b7f0757fd4e1b7001

Update: ROK Drop has more videos and links that show the activity of Chinese youth during the torch relay in Seoul.

Update 2: According to this report in Korean, the victim and the murderer in the second video are naturalized citizens of South Korea. Both of them were formerly Chinese nationals of Korean descent.

Pre-Olympic game in Seoul

Torch relay for the Olympic Beijing 2008 was held in Seoul yesterday. Jiji press distributed a photo of a pre-Olympic game held there. A Chinese high-jumper and a wrestler is attacking a Korean protester.

Torch relay for the Olympic Beijing 2008

Yesterday, torch relay for Beijing 2008 was carried out in Nagano. Young PRC citizens living in Japan gathered in Nagano. They shouted their country name, "Zhung guo (中国)," waving PRC's flag, and followed Japanese carrying Tibetan flags.

Near the end of the video, a Japanese guy is claiming policemen to arrest one of the Chinese guy who allegedly attempted to rob his Tibetan flag.

Compare the above video with that of the Athens 2004.

It was a good decision that Zenkoji temple in Nagano refused to serve as the starting point of the torch relay.

Japanese Buddhists' Silent Protest held at the Zenkoji temple.

Staged video and photo of riot in Tibet

Here is an analysis of a video of riot in Tibet. In the beginning of the video, an attacker hit a motorcyclist with stones. Curiously the stones used by the attacker had been around the motorcycle before the attack started, whereas there was no stone in other places on the street. The victim of assault walk away with the attackers...

This article in the Secret Tibet and this article in buddhism.kalachakranet.org are also interesting.

Tibet

Liaison Office of H.H.the Dalai Lama for Japan & East-Asia has a news release on the Tibet uprising. ROK Drop and One Free Korea have good information, videos and links on the uprising.

Threat Level from Wired.com also has good links. (via Coming Anarchy)

The website of Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy has posted photographic evidence (*) on the bloody crackdown of the protest. (*) Viewer discretion is advised, since it cantains disturbing pictures.