Word: fukui
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...basalt cliffs in Fukui prefecture, north of Kyoto on the western coast of Japan, are a well-known site for suicide in a country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world; at 23.8 per 100,000, Japan's rate is significantly higher than that of the U.S., for example, where the rate is 11 per 100,000. One in 5 Japanese men and women has seriously considered taking his or her life, according to a recent government survey; each year over the past decade, more than 30,000 people have killed themselves. And as the economic downturn...
...retired detective from nearby Fukui City has patrolled the cliffs two or three times a day since 2004, wearing white gloves and a floppy sun hat, carrying binoculars to focus on three spots on the cliffs where suicides are most common. He has set up a nonprofit foundation to aid the work and says he has helped prevent 188 potential suicides. After he's talked them off the cliffs, Shige--a trained counselor--takes them to his small office, where two gas heaters keep a kettle boiling, ready to make the tea that accompanies his counseling sessions. For men, Shige...
...opposition party that controls the Upper House, finally approved Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's third choice - Masaaki Shirakawa - for governor of the Bank of Japan. Shirakawa, 58, became the deputy bank governor in mid-March and then took over as interim governor after former central bank governor Toshihiko Fukui retired from his five-year term on March 19. The DPJ refused the two previous nominees - Toshiro Muto and Koji Tanami - over concerns that their ties to the Finance Ministry might compromise the bank's independence. The lack of a permanent leader in the BOJ's top desk, however...
...course, this doesn't mean the country is facing economic chaos. Central bank policies will continue to be carried out by Masaaki Shirakawa, who was approved by parliament last week as a deputy BoJ governor and who will temporarily take over for Fukui. But the Diet's inability to compromise with Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and choose a new bank chief is seen by many as unsettling evidence that Japan has reached political gridlock and could face serious problems in the months ahead. "This is the kind of thing harms the image of Japanese governability," says Jun Iio, director...
...central bank debacle is just the latest example of paralysis. After months of bickering over Fukui's successor, DPJ politicians last week rejected Fukuda's first nominee, BoJ deputy governor Toshiro Muto, and this week shot down his second choice, Koji Tanami, the governor of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. Both Muto and Tanami are former Ministry of Finance (MOF) officials; the DPJ says it won't accept a former MOF bureaucrat as central bank chief because it wants to ensure the independence of the central bank and to insulate monetary policy from meddling by the administration...