Falling birth rate raises problem for Japan

From CNN
January 11, 2010
Posted: 1016 GMT

Young people celebrate Coming of Age Day in Tokyo.

Tokyo, Japan - Today is a joyous national holiday in Japan known as the Coming of Age Day. The day marks the time when girls and boys become women and men.

All over Tokyo, young women who are turning 20 this fiscal year are decked out in the fanciest, brightest, and most expensive kimonos you’ll ever see. Young men show up in the sharpest (and likely their first) black suit. The women are adorned with all the stylings of youth: huge hair, flowers, furs and silk. You have to forgive them if they’ve gone a bit over the top — you only become an adult once in Japan.

At the Shibuya ward office, 1450 people arrived at the important Coming of Age Day this January 11, 2010. Compare that number to years past, and you get a glimpse into one of Japan’s most pressing economic problems.

Five years ago, Shibuya ward had 1,917 people turn 20. Ten years ago, that number was 2,462. Twenty years ago, it was 4,380. That’s a steady decline in 20 years, down almost 70 percent. The number of young people is declining, not just in Shibuya, but all over Japan.

The birth rate in Japan is 1.37, among the lowest in the world. Japanese women, in survey after survey, report they’re holding back from having children because of the lack of daycare, inequity of domestic duties in marriage, career concerns and the high cost of living in Japan.

At the same time, the number of elderly is growing. By 2050, Japan’s government predicts 40 percent of its population will be over the age of 65. It’s a crippling population problem which analysts say will make this current recession and recovery look like a brief hiccup.

Japan celebrates its young today. But the joy diminishes every year.

Laos first stop as P Penh goes complaining

Monday January 11, 2010
Saritdet Marukatat
Bangkok Post
COMMENTARY

A small story sometimes has big implications. What is happening between Cambodia and Laos nicely fits this definition.

Cambodian Deputy Foreign Minister Long Visalo went to Vientiane last Tuesday. His mission to the northern neighbour was clear. The Cambodian government wanted to brief Laos about its dispute with Thailand.

In the Laotian capital, Long Visalo lectured some 200 Lao Foreign Ministry officials on the history of Preah Vihear, the ruling by the International Court of Justice in 1962 that the Hindu temple belonged to his country, as well as Cambodia's right to list it as a World Heritage Site under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in July 2008.

The Cambodian deputy minister also told his hosts about the border dispute between his country and Thailand, which started after the latter country made a U-turn on its previous stance which had been in support of Cambodia's attempt to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.

The Cambodian campaign cannot be seen as anything but the start of its efforts to drum up backing from other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to help sort out the border conflict with Thailand for good.

And Laos will not be the only stop in this tactic. On the list, of course, are Burma and Vietnam (the latter is scheduled to take the Asean chair till December).

Phnom Penh's strategy is to turn the dispute over the overlapping land boundary of 4.6 square kilometres into a regional issue by trying to bring in the involvement of other Asean members.

Thailand thinks otherwise, with its intention to keep the matter as a quarrel between two neighbours which should be settled by the two neighbours only.

The more countries jumping in, the more difficult it will be to resolve the problem.

The talks in Vientiane did not cover the issue of ousted Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - at least as far as the information made public shows.

But then again, the Thaksin issue is not a main factor at all for Cambodia.

Ending Thaksin's role as an economic adviser to Phnom Penh is Bangkok's condition for diplomatic normalisation with Cambodia. No country can stand seeing its citizen, who has been sentenced to jail, given recognition by another government.

But for Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the root cause goes beyond last year when he added Thaksin to the long list of advisers to his government. It began right there on the border between Cambodia' Preah Vihear province and Kantaralak district in Si Sa Ket province.

The whole issue is about the temple and the land dispute in that area.

"You raise the issue of Thaksin, but you forget the issue of Preah Vihear," Hun Sen said in October, during one of his verbal onslaughts on Thailand.

It is not difficult for anybody to guess that there is no way in sight for the two countries to end the sour ties, given their vastly different positions which are beyond the reach of a compromise. But, as Asean members, they cannot leave relations festering this way, either. Other countries view what is happening between Thailand and Cambodia as an obstruction to Asean's attempts to bring unity into the club which, five years from now, is to become one single community. However, what can other Asean countries do but watch and hope that there will be a miracle to end the two neighbours' quarrel?

Another worry from the Thai-Cambodian spat is that it could spill over to poison ties between Thailand and other members in Asean who are very close to Cambodia. One of them is Laos. The history of their jungle warfare to drive out, first the colonialists and then the Western-supported governments, has made Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam brothers, who also have same positions on issues in Asean. As countries with Thailand as their immediate common neighbour, Cambodia and Laos have long been aware of the rising Thai influence in their country.

So far there are no problems in the relations between Thailand and Laos. But that does not mean everything will go smoothly. Problems still exist but they have been swept under the carpet by Vientiane over the past years because it needed help from Thailand to host the SEA Games last year.

Now the Games are over. Now the Cambodian deputy minister has visited Vientiane. And now the story of Thai-Laos relations in the post-SEA Games era begins.

Saritdet Marukatat is News Editor, Bangkok Post.

City's birth challenge linked to sex change

From The Japan Times
Monday, Jan. 11, 2010

KOBE (Kyodo) A Hyogo Prefecture man who has legally changed his sexual status said Sunday that the city where he lives told him to register his son, who was born through artificial insemination, as an illegitimate child.

Children born through artificial insemination by donors are ordinarily accepted as legitimate, experts say, because municipal offices do not necessarily know the details of a particular birth.

But in the man's case, the municipal office knew he had changed his sex in his family registration record, apparently leading it to reject the legitimacy of his son, they said.

"This man is lawfully married. It is discriminatory not to recognize him as the father," said Toshiyuki Oshima, a Kyushu International University professor and head of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder.

The man, whose name is being withheld, is a 27-year-old resident of Shiso, Hyogo Prefecture. He received approval for the sex change under a special law concerning people with sexual identity disorder and changed his family registration record to reflect it in March 2008. He married the following month.

On Nov. 4, 2009, his 28-year-old wife gave birth to the boy through artificial insemination using semen from the man's brother.

The man went to register the boy the following day but was unable to do so and later told by the municipal office to register him as adopted.

After getting legal advice, the man sent his son's birth report to the city office and is waiting for it to respond.

If his request is refused again, he will take the case to court, he said.

"I am recognized by the country as a man but not as a father. I wonder why the special law (for people with sexual identity disorder) exists."