February 7th, 2010

Toyota decides to recall over 170,000 Prius cars in Japan

 
 
 
 
       
 
 
       
 
       
       

1.  What was the number one car sold in Japan last year?                   Mini-car?

2.   What do you think were the next most sold cars?  Make two top ten lists:  One for regular cars and one for Mini-cars.  Each car you get correct will give you one point.  good luck

regular 1.                  2.                   3.                     4.                        5.                            6.                                 7.

8.                                               9.                                     10.

Mini-cars   1.                      2.                              3.                       4.                                     5.                                6.

7.                                 8.                                 9.                        10.
Toyota Motor Corp has decided to recall and repair free of charge the latest model of its Prius hybrid sold in the domestic market due to complaints over brake problems, sources close to the matter said Sunday.

Subject to the recall are at least 170,000 units of the Prius car, which went on the market last May.

The automaker has begun notifying its dealers and is expected to report the plan to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry early this week, before announcing it to the public, the sources said.

Toyota has sold more than 300,000 units of the Prius in about 60 countries. The company intends to begin recalls or voluntary repairs outside Japan as well, they added.

In Japan, manufacturers need to report a recall plan to the ministry when their products are found not to meet safety standards and the cause lies in the design and production processes.

Toyota has said the problems with the Prius are not fundamental defects and has sought to fix them under a voluntary ‘‘service campaign.’‘

But the company has apparently concluded that a recall is unavoidable if it wants to regain the trust of its customers.

Toyota has received a number of complaints involving the brakes on the latest model of its popular Prius hybrid car in Japan and abroad. The complaints allege that the car suffers from momentary brake failure when traveling over uneven surfaces, potholes or bumps in the road.

Under the recall, the company plans to fix the problem by improving the software for the antilock brake system.

The fix can be made at Toyota dealerships in less than an hour. Vehicles manufactured in late January and after already have the updated software.

The company has reportedly began informing its dealers in the United States about a similar recall plan involving some 100,000 Prius vehicles sold there.

The gas-electric Prius hybrid car has been a symbol of Toyota’s technological strength and was the best-selling car in Japan last year.

Prius recalls would deal a heavy blow to the automaker, which has already recalled millions of vehicles from other product lines around the world over different problems.

Penguin Thief

January 29th, 2010

Pet shop manager arrested for stealing penguin from zoo

SAIKAI, Nagasaki — A pet shop manager was arrested Wednesday for allegedly stealing a penguin from a zoo here, police said.Akira Honda, 24, the manager of a pet shop in Fukuoka, was arrested on suspicion of theft.Honda is accused of stealing a Humboldt penguin — worth about 400,000 yen — from the Nagasaki Bio Park in Saikai at around 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The suspect has reportedly admitted to the allegations.

According to police, an officer patrolling around the zoo questioned Honda, who was acting suspiciously, and found the penguin in his bag



1)  Penguins are classified as …Mammals  Birds  Reptiles  Amphibians

2)  True or False: Some species of penguins can fly.

3)  How many species of penguins are there?    1,   7,    17,    170

4)  True or False: Penguins have knees.

5)  Where do penguins live?

 a)

Southern Hemisphere

 b)

Only at the South Pole

 c)

Northern Hemisphere

 d)

Only at the North Pole

6)  True or False: Penguins can leap 1.8 meters (6 feet) out of the water.

7)  Where do the emperor and king penguins lay their eggs?

 a)

in a nest of rocks

 b)

in tall grass

 c)

in trees

 d)

on the tops of their feet

8)  True or False: Some species of penguins are vegetarians.

フォームの始まり

9)  Which penguin species has the deepest recorded dive?  Gentoo   Adelie   Chinstrap  Emperor

10)  True or False: When they hatch, penguin chicks immediately head to the water to go swimming.

(below are the answers)

1.   Penguins, like all birds, have the characteristic that sets them apart from other animals ― feathers. They also lay eggs, are warm-blooded, and have front limbs modified into wings, just like other birds.

2.   Penguins are too heavy and stocky to fly through the air, but they can really fly through the water! They flap their flipper-like wings up and down, just like flying birds do. However, a penguin’s wings have flattened, dense bones covered with short, scale-like feathers ― perfect for speeding through the water.

17
4. Penguins do have knees, but we can’t see them because they are covered by feathers!
5. With the exception of a small population of Galapagos penguins that live on Isla Isabela a few miles north of the equator, all penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere.
6. Why do penguins leap so high? Some penguins live along rough or high terrain, like ice floes and rocky shorelines. Leaping out of the water is the only way for the penguins to get up on land.
7. Emperor and king penguins incubate a single egg on the tops of their feet. The egg is nestled against the skin of the feet and a featherless section on the lower abdomen called the brood patch. The males and females take turns with incubation by carefully passing the egg back and forth.
8. Penguins eat krill (a small, shrimp-like crustacean), squids and fishes. All of their food comes from the ocean. When they are on land, penguins don’t eat. During nesting and molting seasons, some penguin species will go for as long as 120 days without eating.
9. The deepest recorded dive for an emperor penguin was 535 meters (1,755 feet)! The longest dive time was 21 minutes. However, these are the extremes. Most observed dives are about 21 meters (70 feet) and last two to eight minutes.
10. Penguin chicks have to grow water-proof feathers before they are able to go swimming. When they hatch, the chicks are covered with a thin covering of down feathers and can’t regulate their body temperature. They must rely on their parents for warmth. As they get older, the chicks grow thick coats of down feathers that keep them warm. Fledging into adult feathers occurs between seven weeks and 13 months, depending upon species.フォームの終わり

 

The Humboldt Penguin  is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Peru and Chile. Its nearest relatives are the African Penguin, the Magellanic Penguin and the Galápagos Penguin. The penguin is named after the cold water current it swims in, which is itself named after Alexander von Humboldt, an explorer.

Humboldt Penguins are medium-sized penguins, growing to 65-70 cm (26-28 in) long and a weight of 3.6-5.9 kg (8-13 lbs).[2] They have a black head with a white border running from behind the eye, around the black ear-coverts and chin, to join on the throat. They have blackish-grey upperparts and whitish underparts, with a black breast-band extending down the flanks to the thigh. They have a fleshy-pink base to the bill. Juveniles have dark heads and no breast-band. They have spines on their tongue which they use to hold their prey.

Humboldt Penguins nest on islands and rocky coasts, burrowing holes in guano and sometimes using scrapes or caves. In South America the Humboldt Penguin is found only along Pacific coast,[3] and the range of the Humboldt Penguin overlaps that of the Magellanic Penguin on the central Chilean coast.[4]

The current status of this penguin is vulnerable, due to a declining population caused in part by over-fishing. Historically it was the victim of guano over-exploitation. Penguins are also declining in numbers due to habitat destruction. The current population is estimated at between 3,300 and 12,000.

In 2009 at a zoo in Bremerhaven, Germany, two adult male Humboldt penguins adopted an egg that had been abandoned by its biological parents. After the egg hatched, the two male penguins raised, protected, cared for, and fed the chick in the same manner that regular penguin couples raise their own biological offspring.[

In the News

January 25th, 2010

Toyota City Struggles 

Greetings, this is Kyung Lah from CNN’s Tokyo Bureau.

What a difference a year makes!

Just last year, Toyota City, home and birthplace, to Toyota Motor Corporation, was experiencing one of the best times in the city’s history.

Fast-forward to 2009 and factories are scheduled to shut down on nearly a dozen scheduled days in an attempt to bring production in line with falling global demand.

Toyotas incoming president, Akio Toyoda, called the current economy“ unprecedented, the likes of which havent been seen in 100years.”

The cost control is having a damaging effect on Toyota City public coffers.

The city of 400,000 estimates it will lose 90 percent of its tax dollars as Toyota falls into the red and pays fewer taxes. It comes at a time when Toyota City is seeing historic levels of unemployment. This region, according to Toyota City, carries the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of unemployment in Japan.

Alberto Dilone, already fired from a Toyota parts subsidiary, showed up at the Toyota City Job Center to search for a new job. Dilone says half of the people in his plant have been fired and the jobs in Toyota City are scarce.

Like the hundreds of unemployed filtering through the center every day, he is leaving with no new job leads.

————————————–

First Woman to Swim the Atlantic

American athlete Jennifer Figge has become the first woman to swim across the Atlantic. The exact distance she covered has not yet been computed, but she pushed off from Cape Verde Islands January 12th and arrived in Trinidad on February 5th. She swam in a cage because of the danger from the sharks.

The 56-year-old Figge woke most days around 7 in the morning. Her longest stint in the water was about eight hours; the shortest was 21minutes.

She burned about 8,000 calories a day.

Ozawa looks like a raccoon.

January 20th, 2010

Survey: 67% say Ozawa should resign as DPJ secretary-general.

Sixty-seven percent of voters believe Ichiro Ozawa should resign as secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan over the latest scandal involving political fund reports, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.

The telephone poll, conducted over the weekend, also found that the support rate for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Cabinet slipped further to 42 percent, down from 48 percent in December.

The disapproval rate increased from 34 percent last month to 41 percent, nearly matching the support rate.

Only 23 percent of the respondents said Ozawa should not resign. Among DPJ supporters, 51 percent said the political bigwig should quit.

Three of Ozawa’s current and former aides, including Lower House member Tomohiro Ishikawa, were arrested on Friday and Saturday on suspicion of falsifying political fund reports in connection with the 2004 purchase of residential land in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward for about 350 million yen ($3.85 million).

Ozawa has refused to submit to voluntary questioning by prosecutors in the case, instead vowing to fight what he suggested was a politically motivated investigation.

Eighty-eight percent of the respondents said Ozawa’s handling of the issue is not “convincing,” including 81 percent of DPJ supporters. In addition, 79 percent said the same thing about Hatoyama, who backed Ozawa’s decision to remain at the post.

Fifty-nine percent of the respondents said the scandal has lowered their assessment of the DPJ, while 36 percent said their assessment remained the same.

Lingering questions remain over Hatoyama’s own political fund scandal, in which two former aides were indicted late last month on charges of falsifying political fund reports for his fund management organization.

Fifty-nine percent of the respondents said the prime minister should not have to resign, compared with 30 percent who said he should. But 77 percent said they do not buy Hatoyama’s explanation on the scandal.

Hatoyama said he was unaware of any wrongdoing in the reports, which allegedly included shady donations from his mother.

The Asahi Shimbun received valid responses from 2,182, or 60 percent, of the 3,628 eligible voters randomly chosen for the survey.

Among unaffiliated voters, the disapproval rate for the Cabinet rose from 45 percent last month to 54 percent. The approval rate among unaffiliated voters fell from 24 percent to 20 percent.

The support rate for the DPJ among all respondents continued to decline, from 42 percent in December to 36 percent.

The support rate for the opposition Liberal Democratic Party also went down, from 18 percent to 16 percent.

Guam

January 10th, 2010

Guam braces for population explosion with Marines from Okinawa

HAGATNA ―

Guam is bracing for a deluge of people when thousands of American troops and their families relocate to the island from Japan in what will perhaps be the biggest military buildup in the Pacific since World War ll.

Already concerns are being raised over the ‘‘boomtown effect’’ of the rapid and large spike in Guam’s population and related economic activity on the island’s limited resources and inadequate infrastructure.

At least 8,600 Marines and 630 army personnel plus their 9,900 dependents are expected to be relocated to Guam from Okinawa. There will also be a transient military component of as many as 9,000 troops.

Joining the crowd will be the thousands of foreign workers needed to build new roads, deep-raft wharves, aircraft carrier berthing, barracks, houses and similar infrastructure on Guam and on Tinian off Saipan, 160 kilometers northeast of Guam.

Construction will begin this year despite funding concerns that stem from the new Japanese government’s reluctance to share in the multi-million dollar relocation cost.

The immediate concern is whether the Japanese government will honor the 2006 deal struck by its predecessor to chip in $6.09 billion into the relocation, which is estimated to cost between $12 billion and $15 billion.

The biggest concern, however, is the social cost of the relocation.

Relocation of most of the Marines and their families will start in 2014, and the peak in construction activities and expenditures will coincide with the arrival of the marines.

‘‘At this peak, the total increase in Guam residents from off-island would be an estimated 79,178 people,’’ said the draft study Environmental Impact Statement commissioned by the U.S. Defense Department.

After 2014, when infrastructure projects are completed, the population is expected to level off to an estimated 33,608 people, on top of Guam’s current population of about 178,000.

Based on the estimates of the project planners, the proposed actions would result in approximately $12 billion, in 2008 dollars, worth of construction occurring on Guam between 2010 and 2016.

Although the desired completion date for Marine relocation is 2014, the construction will likely continue into 2016, the study notes.

Guam’s population will dramatically increase by more than 25% in the four to six years of relocation, said Paul Shintaku, executive director of the Guam Buildup Office.

‘‘The impacts will be wide-ranging and far-reaching. It would be every aspect of the community and our social structure,’’ Shintaku said.

‘‘It’s overwhelming,’’ added Shintaku’s deputy Nora Camacho. ‘‘It can be from traffic to the hospital to our social services, schools, transport of goods coming into Guam and goods going out of Guam to Micronesia. It doesn’t only affect Guam. It affects the entire Micronesia because we’re a regional hub.’‘

Labor seekers from the Philippines, the United States, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and even Samoa are expected to descend on the island.

‘‘There is cause for concern over the impacts on crime and social order due to other factors,’’ the study says, adding construction booms ‘‘are typically accompanied by a sense of loosened norms and social disorder.’‘

‘‘In-migrants from the Freely Associated States of Micronesia―whose numbers may increase in both the construction and operational stages due to more job opportunities―have high crime rates associated with adapting to less traditional social structures,’’ it says. ‘‘There is a potential for more prostitution, alcohol and substance abuse, and family violence associated with young military populations in general, including sailors taking shore leave after weeks at sea.’‘

‘‘The particular reputation of Marines as fighters could well trigger a transitional period of adjustment in which local young men test themselves against Marines in fights,’’ it says, adding a ‘‘potential social friction’’ between military personnel and off-island civilian in-migrants.’‘

There are also concerns over the possibility that some of the workers will stay on the island for good and contribute to the ‘‘growing minoritization’’ of Chamorros due to influx of other groups.

Prior to World War II, Chamorros comprised more than 90% of Guam’s population. The percentage dropped below 50% by 1980 and fell to 42% by 2000, the study says.

‘‘There will be an expansion in non-Chamorro voting population that could affect the proportion of Chamorro office-holders and government workers, eventually affecting the current government budgets and activities dedicated to cultural issues and practices. It could also affect outcomes of any future votes about Guam’s political status,’’ it says.

‘‘The buildup is so beneficial, beyond our comprehension and beyond what you see in the past,’’ Camacho said.

Guam Chamber of Commerce President David Leddy says there is overwhelming support on the relocation of the Marines to Guam.

‘‘We treat it as another industry,’’ he said. ‘‘The local government is the ‘‘biggest beneficiary in terms of revenues that can be generated from the economic activities.’‘

‘‘There are positive and negative impacts. We just have to weigh the positive and negative and see what’s good for the people,’’ Leddy said.