„Evangelisches Missionswerk in Südwestdeutschland" wandelt sich zu „Evangelische Mission in Solidarität"
EMS feiert 2012 vierzig Jahre internationale ökumenische Partnerschaft

(Stuttgart, den 26. Januar 2012)
Am 28. Januar 2012 begeht das EMS seinen 40. Gründungstag. Fast zeitgleich hat das 1972 in Landau/ Pfalz als Evangelisches Missionswerk in Südwestdeutschland gegründete Werk zum Jahresanfang 2012 mit dem Inkrafttreten einer neuen Satzung seinen Namen geändert. Die neue Bezeichnung „Evangelische Mission in Solidarität" bringt die dynamische Entwicklung der Beziehungen zwischen deutschen Mitgliedern und ausländischen Partnern in den vergangenen vier Jahrzehnten hin zu einer Gemeinschaft gleichberechtigter „Kirchen und Missionen in internationalen Partnerschaft" zum Ausdruck.

Seit den neunziger Jahren hatte das EMS seine Programme und Arbeitsweisen unter dem Leitbild des „Gemeinsamen Zeugnisses vom kommenden Reich Gottes" zunehmend internationalisiert. Künftig werden die sechs Kirchen und fünf Missionsgesellschaften in Deutschland und der Schweiz sowie die 17 Kirchen in zehn Ländern in Asien, Afrika und dem Nahen Osten als juristisch gleichberechtigte Mitglieder die Entwicklung des  Werks gestalten. „Wir erfahren uns in der EMS als Teil voneinander", so Dr. Habib Badr, Leitender Pfarrer der Nationalen Evangelischen Kirche in Beirut. „Die Internationalisierung der EMS und ihrer Entscheidungsgremien bedeutet auch, dass die Solidarität der Kirchen und Missionsgesellschaften in Afrika, Asien, dem Nahen Osten und Europa untereinander deutlich gestärkt wird".

Japan's Supreme Court Limits National Anthem Punishments for Teachers
Jan. 22, 2012
Asia-Pacific Journal Feature

The Asia-Pacific Journal has closely followed the case of a group of Tokyo teachers punished because they refused to stand during school ceremonies for the playing of Kimigayo, Japan's national anthem. Some consider the anthem, a hymn of praise to the emperor, to be too closely connected to Japan's history of militarism and imperialism. For them, not standing is a form of conscientious protest. From 2004, Tokyo Governor and staunch conservative Ishihara Shintaro has led a drive to have the anthem played at Tokyo schools and to take punitive action, including fines and suspensions, against teachers who refuse to stand. That crackdown has spread, moreover, to Osaka and other cities.

In 2011, the Tokyo High Court rejected the claim of the teachers to protection based on based on constitutional language which declares "Freedom of thought and conscience shall not be violated."

Last week, however, the teachers won a victory of sorts when the Supreme Court deemed that punishments for not standing during the national anthem must not be "excessive". Below are editorials on the issue from the Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun outlining this new development and its potential consequences.

Mainichi Shimbun Editorial: Supreme Court's national anthem decision a call for restraint

Atsuko Watanabe, left, smiles after a ruling removing her pay cut for refusing to stand during the national anthem, while representative of the plaintiffs Naoyuki Hoshino is seen at right, in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, on Jan. 16. (Mainichi)

Is it truly valid to punish teachers who don't stand for the singing of "Kimigayo" -- Japan's national anthem -- at school ceremonies, as many Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education teachers have been? The Supreme Court presented its opinion on the matter for the first time on Jan. 16, when it ruled on a suit brought by some of those Tokyo teachers to have their punishments revoked.

Hooked on Nuclear Power:
Japanese State-Local Relations and the Vicious Cycle of Nuclear Dependence 

By Hiroshi ONITSUKA

Abstract
This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions.  It analyzes the situation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanese state-local relations.


Signboard of Futaba Town saying "Nuclear Power: Eneergy for Bright Future"
(genshiryoku akarui mirai no enerugi) on 29 March 2011. (Source)

The crisis of the crippled nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi has continued for nine months and will continue for some time to come.  One of the reasons that this has been such a protracted crisis is that four nuclear reactors within close proximity of each other were damaged simultaneously, making efforts to repair any one of them extremely difficult.  Fukushima Daiichi was equipped with six reactors (operation had been suspended at two of its reactors on March 11, 2011), and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), together with the local government of Futaba Town, where the fifth and sixth reactors are located, had been planning to add two more reactors.  Japanese nuclear power plants are characterized by having multiple reactors within one plant, and being concentrated in specific regions.  The concentration of plants on the coastline of Fukushima Prefecture (two plants and ten reactors) and the Wakasa Gulf Coast of Fukui Prefecture (four plants and 13 reactors) has earned the two regions the nickname "Genpatsu [nuclear power plant] Ginza"1.  At the site located between Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village, Niigata Prefecture, TEPCO has what is, with seven reactors, the world's largest nuclear power plant complex (See Map).  This geographic concentration of nuclear reactors significantly increases the probability of a crisis occurring when any of those regions are struck by natural disasters.  Given the risks that they present, why do Japanese nuclear power plants have these features?

Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top

By DAVID MCNEILL
Special to The Japan Times

Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?

Official lines: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano on April 17, 2011,
during his first visit to Fukushima after the disasters triggered by
March 11's Great East Japan Earthquake. KYODO PHOTO

No, says independent journalist Shigeo Abe, who claims the authorities, and many journalists, have done a poor job of informing people about nuclear power in Japan both before and during the crisis — and that the clean-up costs are now being massively underestimated and underreported.

Am 2. Februar 1922 wurde Elsbeth Strohm geboren.

Am 2. Februar 2012 feiern wir ihren 90. Geburtstag.

Am 10. - 12. Februar 2012 treffen sich ihre Freunde und Verwandten, insbesondere auch die Vertreter der drei Stiftungen, die aus der Arbeit von Elsbeth Strohm herausgewachsen sind, zun einem kleinen Symposium auf dem Schwanberg bei Kitzingen. Elsbeth Strohm hat über 20 Jahre in Japan gearbeitet, die meiste Zeit in Kamagasaki in Osaka. In diesem Viertel, in das zu gehen vor 40 Jahren jeder ausländischen Frau abgeraten wurde, hat sie viele Jahre gearbeitet, gekämpft, sich geärgert, Freude erlebt und Hoffnung weitergegeben.
Frau E. Strohm war eine Missionarin der Evang. Landeskirche in Braunschweig, die dieses Symposium tatkräftig unterstützt.

Nach dem Symposium werden wir auf diesen Seiten ausführlich berichten.