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The Japan Times: News & Business

Ex-Mizuho credit exec Rekeda may face SEC lawsuit over dodgy CDO U.S. regulators, as part of a broad probe of how Wall Street firms bundled mortgage-linked financial products as the housing crisis worsened, notified a former Mizuho Financial Group Inc. executive he may be sued for his role in structuring the securities. Alexander Rekeda, who was previously head of structured credit in the Americas at Mizuho, received a so-called Wells notice in October informing him that Securities and Exchange Commission staff intend to recommend enforcement action against him for allegedly making misrepresentations about a collateralized debt obligation, according to his public broker filings.

A false spring in South Asia From the armed coup that recently ousted the Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, to the Pakistani Supreme Court's current effort to undermine a toothless but elected government by indicting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on contempt charges, South Asia's democratic advances appear to be shifting into reverse. Nasheed's forced resignation at gunpoint has made the Maldives the third country in the region, after Nepal and Sri Lanka, where a democratic transition has been derailed. The Maldives, a group of strategically located islands in the Indian Ocean, now seems set for prolonged instability.

Micronesia to spend aid in Tohoku Japan will extend ¥250 million in foreign aid to Micronesia for the purchase of industrial products from the Tohoku region, which was hit by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Micronesia will buy items using the aid from a list of products manufactured by small firms operating in 10 prefectures, including Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, that have been designated Tokyo as disaster-affected areas.

Hitachi unveils humanoid service robot A new humanoid service robot that can communicate with people has the potential to work in hospitals and offices. On Tuesday, Hitachi Ltd. showed media the EMIEW2, which can recognize objects based on an image database containing some 100 million items and determine its location in a room by cross-checking the data with photos taken by indoor cameras. It can also guide people to objects when asked.

Test faulty; no warp speed yet to disprove Einstein Researchers have found a flaw in the technical setup of an experiment that startled the science world last year by appearing to show particles traveling faster than light. The problem may have affected measurements that clocked subatomic neutrino particles breaking what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein considered the ultimate speed barrier.

Grandparents stifle grief to raise orphaned boy In the three prefectures hardest hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake last March 11, 1,580 children lost either one or both of their parents, according to a health ministry survey of Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi conducted at the end of last year. According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's poll, most of those children are being cared for by relatives.

Is the World Wide Web about to be 'closed'? Within the tech community, there is much angst about whether the Web is about to be "closed." Will it be controlled by companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google, or will it remain "open" to all? Will individuals be able to reach any content they choose? Will developers be able to serve users on any platform?

Obayashi planning nanotube 'space elevator' in 2050 A space trip using an elevator may come true in 2050, as general contractor Obayashi Corp. is planning to construct a "space elevator" stretching 96,000 km above the ground. While the concept of such an elevator has been described in science fiction novels, the construction has become possible after the 1991 discovery of carbon nanotube, a lightweight material more than 20 times stronger than steel, the company said.

Hashimoto's no a big hurdle in Osaka nuke plebiscite drive Efforts by a citizens' group to hold a plebiscite in Osaka on the future of nuclear power hit a major stumbling block when Mayor Toru Hashimoto formally announced his opposition to the plan this week. Earlier this month, the group pushing for a plebiscite to allow residents to vote on whether to abolish local atomic power plants submitted a petition with the signatures of more than 55,000 Osaka residents eligible to vote. The total is more than the number required to force the municipal assembly to vote on whether to hold the referendum.

Lithuania follows nuclear path While the meltdown crisis in Fukushima has raised awareness around the world of the dangers of nuclear power, Lithuania, with its limited natural resources, appears to have little choice but to rely on atomic energy to reduce its heavy reliance on natural gas from Russia. "We now import about 70 percent of electricity from other countries to Lithuania," Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said in a recent interview in Tokyo. "We do not have oil resources, gas resources and coal (resources). So for us, nuclear energy is an obvious choice."

Nagoya mayor won't budge on Nanjing remark Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura on Wednesday refused to retract his contentious comments about the veracity of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and said he is ready to visit the city to explain his views. Speaking Monday to a group of Chinese Communist Party members from Nanjing, Kawamura said he was skeptical about whether the Imperial Japanese Army actually raped and slaughtered thousands of Nanjing residents during the war.

Monkeys' Parkinson's woes eased via stem cells Researchers have succeeded in improving the treatment of Parkinson's disease by using human embryonic stem cells to create nerve cells that produce dopamine and then transplanting the cells into monkeys' brains. Four monkeys with Parkinson's disease — and previously unable to walk due to their symptoms — improved substantially after the human nerve cells were transplanted into their brains, reducing the shaking in their limbs and leading to some regaining the ability to walk, the research team, including Kyoto University professor Jun Takahashi, said Tuesday.

Fearing radiation, Naha cuts Aomori snow fete The city of Naha, Okinawa, will cancel an event using snow from Aomori Prefecture amid concern that it might be tainted with radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The 600 kg of snow carried to Naha from the Aomori town of Towada — roughly 350 km away from the crippled plant — was proved safe after Naha checked it for radiation, city officials said.

Relief over another Greek deal Greece and the European Union have reached another deal. A second bailout will avert a Greek bankruptcy, although the reprieve is likely to be only temporary. The harsh austerity measures that the EU is demanding as a condition of its aid, ironically, are likely to make it even harder for Athens to reach its debt targets. But the deal has bought Greece and the EU time to prepare for the next crunch and its potential to spill over into other parts of the union. Both Greece and the EU have struggled with that country's solvency since the scale of its indebtedness became known a couple of years ago. (Creative budgeting hid the size of the country's problems from the Greek public, opposition politicians and the EU itself.) The prospect of bankruptcy and a subsequent contagion among other euro economies spurred the EU to inject $145 billion in May 2010, an effort that ultimately failed as restructuring measures could not put the economy back on its feet.

Hitotsubashi mulls five-month lag A panel at Hitotsubashi University is considering a five-month lag between student enrollment in spring and the start of classes in fall to avoid changing the academic year from April and fall in line with the international norm, officials said Wednesday. The idea may have an impact on other universities that are thinking of switching the start of their academic year from April to fall to facilitate the acceptance of international students.

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