politics – Page 24 – Kiyoshi Kurokawa.com

“GLOBE Tokyo G8+5 Legislators Forum,” a movement initiated by politicians throughout the world

Posted on 2008/07/012014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

"GLOBE Tokyo G8+5 Legislators Forum" was held in Tokyo on June 28th and 29th. Japan was represented by Mr. Yatsu, the former Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan. Mr. Morley, the Minister of Environment of Mr. Blair’s regime, presided the 1st session on day 1 (I saw him at the G8 Environment Ministers meeting also), which started off with the greetings by Mr. Fukuda followed by key note speeches by Mr. Blair, the former Prime Minister of England, and Mr. Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan. Everybody spoke very well.

Photo1　Greetings by Mr. Fukuda with Mr. Blair and Mr. Abe

Photo2　Key note speech by Mr. Blair

Photo3　Mr. Abe

Though this forum was founded in 1989, since after the Earth Summit held in Rio in 1992 it constituted mainly of the nonpartisan congress members of all the countries. Framework for "G8 Gleneagles Climate Change Dialogue" was formed during the Gleneagles Summit held in 2005.

Video messages from the U.S. senators, Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Snowe were also played. A common theme that their messages held was that "With the new U.S. President, the Parliament, the large-size U.S. corporations, more than 500 U.S. Mayors and U.S. State Governors participating, America will make a historic transformation towards ‘Cap and Trade’ and formation of a ‘Low-carbon Society’." Japan, it seems, is the only country adopting a wait-and-watch policy. It is vital that politics, the government, the corporations as well as the citizens be well-prepared.

Discussions during the forum were highly dynamic.

I had a speech on day 2 (photo4), though it was a bit difficult for me since the session was on forests and biodiversity. I heard the request for a lecture a week before, and considering the fact that my speech was to be interpreted simultaneously in 9 languages so I decided to use the lecture that I had delivered at Kobe as a basic document, prepared a manuscript by including the above mentioned themes and circulated its copies among the interpreters as well the participants (the manuscript contained many errors since I was unable to proofread it sufficiently) before I spoke.

Photo4　My speech on Day 2

Tony Blair and his team reports their outcomes

Posted on 2008/06/282014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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On June 27th (Friday), the report "Breaking the Climate Deadlock" prepared by the team that Mr. Tony Blair represents, was presented in Tokyo. Mr. Blair is the first person who put "climate change" in agenda at G8 summit, and also has launched "Gleneagles Process" to tackle this problem. As a leader of the world he continues worldwide lively activities even after retiring from his post as a Prime Minister. I have written about it before, and his purpose this time, I assume, is to announce the results of these activities and to promote them in the G8 summit.

Photo 1　Mr. Tony Blair

Photo 2　With Mr. Blair and His Excellency Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa

Photo 3　With former prime minister Mr. Abe

On June 28th and 29th, GLOBE International, an activity of legislators of the states in G8+5 will be held. I understand that Mr. Blair is going to give a keynote speech there also.

On the evening of 27th, a reception was organized at British Embassy in Tokyo in which many members of parliament from England were also present. After that, I moved to Roppongi Hills to be a part of the panel with 100 young people and Mr. Miliband, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Miliband is a 42 years old, up-coming star who is expanding the public relation activities by posting information on his personal Blog. The panel was focused mainly on these topics, but unfortunately, the duration was too short i.e. just an hour. I would like more of various programs like this to be organized. You can view the sight of the panel in his Blog.

Photo 4　Mr. Miliband and Moderator, Ms. Edahiro on the panel

Seattle, USA

Posted on 2008/06/232014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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I am now in Seattle, participating in Pacific Health Summit which is held annually in June since last 4 years. I have attended the first conference four years ago, but could not make it to the 2nd and 3rd conference due to some other schedule.

This year’s theme was "Nutrition" and I participated in a panel on "Soaring Food Prices, MDG (Millennium Development Goals)." The host was Peter Singer from Toronto University, one of my old friends. The problem of nutrition and food is a global challenge. As the FAO conference held in Rome 2 weeks ago was not so successful, it may not be easy, but the topic is expected to be in the agenda of Toyako Summit to be held in July.

Photo 1 Dr. Kondo of HPI and Dr. Sunil Chacko

Photo 2 At the panel with Dr. Peter Singer on my right, Dr. Marc Van Ameringen, Director General of GAIN on my left(we were together in the Conference held in February.)

Recently, I am immersed in TICAD as well as G8 Summit, greenhouse, energy, poverty, development and issues in Africa, etc. It’s nice, I see same people (refer 1 and 2 ) on one hand and also get acquainted with new people on the other hand. The world is "flat" now and issues have become global. I feel that challenges that Japan and each one of us will face in the future will be very big. I also met Dr. Margeret Chan, Director General of WHO whom I haven’t seen since last year. She is also exercising great leadership skills.

Seattle is a very beautiful city with beautiful waterfronts and woods. The weather was fine and I enjoyed my stay very much. I even went to see the game of Mariners using my free time. This year their condition was not so good. Audience was small (almost 1/4th of the capacity of stadium), and Ichiro had 2 strikeouts. It was a boring match since the team lacked the "winning" spirit. But applause for Ichiro was greatest in his home ground and I think he will appear in the "All Star Game" this year too (last year he was the MVP). What a pity that Jojima was not a part of starting member! As expected, the replacement of the manager was announced on the next day.

Photo 3 Mariner’s Game

Photo 4 Ichiro at bat

Cape Town

Posted on 2008/06/112014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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After finishing TICAD in Yokohama, I left Narita on June 3rd in the afternoon and came to Cape Town near Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost Africa via Singapore to attend the Africa Conference on World Economic Forum. The conference is being held here annually for the past 17 years and this is the 18th conference, which is quite an achievement.

Dr. Sadako Ogata, the president of JICA, who is also one of the leading persons in the promotion of TICAD, is the co-president of this conference. She was very active during these three days, attending a number of panels every day. I truly appreciate her effort. Approximately 10 companies from Japanese business sector such as Tokyo Electron (chief executive, Mr. Sato), Hitachi, Mitsubishi Corporation, Sojitz etc, have participated. His Excellency Odano, the ambassador of TICAD also participated which had a very good effect of impressing the presence of Japan. No growth is possible in anything without the involvement of business. Number of conflicts taking place in entire Africa are reduced and the rate of economic growth is 5-6%. This is a place of good business opportunities. Japanese businesses should also get a grip.

I also participated in 2 panels, and talked especially about achievements of TICAD and expectations to G8, MDG, from the viewpoint of energy, food crisis, and development.

Photo 1　The sight of a Panel

Photo 2　 Conference by participants from Japan, with Dr. Ogata as main person

Photo 3　From the left side Dr.Tsuchiya from WEF, Dr. Kurokawa of JICA and Dr. Kondo of Health Policy Institute, Japan.

Photo 4　Mr. Haccyoji and Mr.Okada from Hitachi

Many attendants from Africa including Mr. Mbeki, the President of South Africa Federation, also participated in TICAD, so the presence of Japan here was strong which was great. But above all, it was the presence of Dr.Ogata. She is known and respected by everybody here as elsewhere and her comments always make a very good point. She is really the "Pride of Japan."

In the afternoon of the 2nd day, I left the conference, as the weather was too good and came down to Cape of Good Hope. It was like California, since there were many places just like Santa Monica and Malibu.

Photo 5　Cape of Good Hope, from the left Mr.Okada and Mr.Hacchoji from Hitachi.

I went to Abu Dhabi via Dubai after finishing the 3 days conference. Visited His Excellency Ambassador Hatano, discussed with the government officials related to university and the person in charge of health policy etc., thus spending 20 hours, I finally started my return journey. On June 8th, I arrived in Japan in the evening.

TICAD4 Yokohama and Asahi newspaper chief editor Bono

Posted on 2008/06/102014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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A large number of achievements were released from Japan at TICAD4, held in Yokohama, I can say. Having heads from 40 countries in Africa to the conference, the Prime Minister Fukuda met and talked personally with them almost every day. In addition, he talked with Dr. Bono as well as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, UN Secretary-general Adviser. Japanese Government certainly worked hard and did a good job. I feel that the Prime Minister strengthened his recognition of the importance of the activities of NGO.

Photo 1 From left, with my staff members Hara kun and Ms. Sugiyama, Dr. Pablos-Mendes at the TICAD Conference

I also attended the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize ceremony and lectures of the prizewinners at the United Nations University on the next day, participated in the panel of "Action Wave" organizer Mr. Koji Omi, with the President of Rwanda and Professor Juma of Harvard University. Since I had just received the photograph of a lecture by Mr. Ito Ken of Tokyo University in Rwanda, I was inspired to start this panel with his story. Here also, many Japanese young people are working hard.

Photo 2 Dr. Ito teaching at Rwanda

In the excellent project of "one day chief editor" of Asahi Newspaper, Dr. Bono edited the newspaper of May 31, and discussed various topics such as Africa and TICAD and it was sparklingly different from regular newspaper. In addition, he wrote about Africa support program budget of Japan that was announced at TICAD.

Our Article in Nikkei Shinbun on Global Health Summit

Posted on 2008/05/302014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

We organized in February, "Global Health Summit; TICAD, G8 and beyond" with World Bank and other leading agencies on Global Health. The program could be seen through our website. To disseminate our core messages, we published them as an article in Nikkei Shinbun, leading press widely read by business sector of Japan.

I hope you will enjoy and support our messages. Now appears in English.

　Japan Should Demonstrate Leadership in Global Health
　（JAPAN ECHO.　June 2008 pp51-53.）

Week of Africa: A day with Jeffrey Sachs, Bono and Tony Blair.

Posted on 2008/05/292014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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The public relations of "Table For Two" activity which I am also involved was held in Diet Member’s office welcoming Dr. Jeffrey Sachs.

It is a wonderful thing that social entrepreneurial activity like this originated in Japan and is spreading to the world into a movement that works on problems of scarcity of food on one side of the world and overeating on the other. I encourage you to participate.

I went to Keio University in the afternoon. Various events are being held on its 150th anniversary this year. There was a presentation of a degree of "Doctor of Law" to Mr. Bono of Rock band U2 (Photograph 1 to 3) followed by commemorative speech. The award presentation ceremony was held at the auditorium, a prestigious place for Keio University, which was built by the initiative of Yukichi Fukuzawa, the founder of Keio. I was invited to this ceremony by Mr. Bono. Ever since our meeting in the Davos Forum this year I am helping him along with Dr. Sadako Ogata and others.

Photo1 Mr. Bono, at the presentation of ‘Doctor of Law’, and Dr. Anzai, the President of Keio University.

Photo2 With Mr. Bono.

Photo3 Jeffrey Sachs also participated.

The speech was a series of lectures on Shibusawa Ei’ichi memorial lectureship of Keio University that promotes the movements of "Civil Society."

Then, I went to a meeting with the staffs of Mr. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of UK, whom I have reported to you in my past column.

These are all related to Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) that will start in Yokohama this week and Toyako G8 Summit in July (Reference 1 TICAD, 2 Toyako Summit). Attention and expectations for Japan are very high.

G8 Dialogue at United Nations University

Posted on 2008/05/202014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

United Nations University(UNU) with its Institute for Advanced Studies(IAS) hosts a series of lectures "G8 Dialogue" in support of the role of Japan, that hosts 4th TICAD(Tokyo International Conference on African Development) in later this month in Yokohama and G8 Summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, early July.

I was invited to talk on Global Health and its excerpt is attached for your interest. The lecture can be viewed on the web.

　Global Health: What is Necessary to Make it Possible?（PDF）

From St. Gallen

Posted on 2008/05/192014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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Mt. Santis （2503m）located in south of St. Gallen

As you can see in my earlier column, I participated last year, and also this year at the St. Gallen Symposium. It is a project started by the students of St. Gallen 38 years ago, and even today the planning and administration is performed by the students. Isn’t it wonderful? About 200 students around the world and 400 persons (mostly from Europe) from various fields such as business, participateed. For the first time in its history, 20 students are participating from Japan this year and they were selected from nearly 500% of competitive ratio. They are not just Japanese students, 50% of them are international students. The selection was performed by reviewing English thesis.

This year’s topic is "Global Capitalism – Local Values." It is a very timely theme, isn’t it? The opening session started with the wonderful opening addresses of President Pascal Couchepin of Swiss and President Dr. Heinz Fischer of Austria.

Besides the regular members, this year, Mr. Yoshimasa Hayashi, a Diet member, participated in plenary of day one and Dr. Yoko Ishikura of Hitotsubashi University participated as a faculty and took lead in the workshop on the same day.

Photo1 Lord Griffiths (on the right), Martin Wolf of Financial Times (on the left).

Photo2 with the students participating from Japan. Mr. Suzuki (Credit Swiss Japan president, 3rd from the left) and Dr. Ishikura (right end).

Photo3 with Mr. Suzuki, Mr.Hara, my staff member (left end), Mr. Philipp Kuhn-Regnier of St. Gallen (right end).

I attended the workshop on the second day. Last year, when I participated in the first Plenary Panel, the speech and message I delivered to the students were very good (said Lord Griffiths of England), so this year they planned that I should act as a commentator, hosted by Mr. Peter Day of BBC, and comment to a South American student honored in the essay contest, Rhodes Scholar Mr. Cillier (will pursue studies in Oxford University from September), and Mr. Klaassen, student of St. Gallen who wrote contradicting opinions to the views of the former two. The topic is "Global Capitalism and Local Cultures of Innovation." It was fantastic. Please look on the conference site.

Photo4 with Mr. Hara and Mr. Philip.

Photo5 with Mr. Y.C. Deveshwar, a wonderful Social entrepreneur and Entrepreneur.

Photo6 with Mr. Owada, Ambassador Abe, Mr. Akashi, Energetic student Ms. Imai.

Photo7 with Mr. Cillier, Mr. Klaassen, Mr. Bay of the Panel.

The reception was held in the evening of 14th. On 15th, we went a dinner at Der Gupf, the same restaurant I came last year (this restaurant is known for its wine collection and wine cellar). It is a place that offers a view of Lake Bodensee and I was able to take a look at the surrounding scenery for the first time, since weather was good this year.

Photo8 with Dr. Ishikura in Gupf.

Photo9 with Mr. and Ms. Owada, Mr. Akashi, Ambassador Abe.

Global Financial Crisis. Lessons from Japan?

Posted on 2008/05/152014/10/01 by kiyoshi kurokawa

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It is said more often than not, Japan is not clearly visible, particularly in last decade or so, in global scene be it domestic issues, and internationally and globally relevant issues. Sometimes, messages may appear from government officials in some critical issues defending their own position when questioned by the foreign press, but such messages could be one-sided. It is very important that more voices have to be expressed from independent parties and individuals, particularly opinions that may be against, but maybe more rational, prevailing views reported in Japan. Such voices will provide better and balanced understanding of Japan.

In a recent Financial Times, one of the most widely read newspaper throughout the world, Professsor Sadatoshi Ito of Tokyo University, also a member of Economic and Fiscal Policy of the Government, contributed an article on recent global financial crisis triggered by the US subprime-loan and commented on arguments by some Japanese leadership that lessons could be learned by US from Japan on what Japan had taken over a decade 90’s until recently to respond to burst of bubble economy.

Professor Ito clearly makes a point commenting the more rational and fast responses by US private sector and the government, demonstrating clear resilience of the nation.

Leaders and members of every sectors of the society of Japan follows the act of Professor Ito to express their own opinions to the world as appropriate otherwise Japan remains insular, irrelevant and incomprehensible to the rapidly globalizing world affairs as you see many places in this website.