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Disputed islands are ours, Japan’s new teaching manuals claim

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Kyodo via Reuters, file

The disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China that Japan claimed are an integral part of their territory in new teaching manuals.

By Arata Yamamoto and Henry Austin, NBC News

TOKYO -- Japan risked further irking their close neighbors China and South Korea on Tuesday, when the government announced textbooks were being changed to make it clear that two sets of remote islands at the center of sovereignty disputes are integral parts of their territory.

Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura said the ministry was revising the teaching manuals so junior high and high school students learn "properly" about Japanese history and to make it clear that there is no dispute over the ownership of the rocky Senkaku islands in the South China Sea.

The island chain that China calls the Daioyus, have been a flash point between the two countries since Tokyo nationalized the group of uninhabited archipelagos in 2012.

China claims almost all the South China Sea and in November announced it was expanding its air defense identification zone to include the disputed islands.

A few days after they began to enforce this, American bombers flew over the islands on what was described as a training mission.

South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador on Tuesday to protest claims to the Takeshima islets, known as Dokdo in South Korea. They are situated most equidistant between the two countries.

"Our government strongly condemns this and asks Japan to immediately withdraw it," Seoul, who haveadministered the islets since the end of World War II, said in a statement.

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Disputed islands are ours, Japan's new teaching manuals claim

Disputed islands are ours, Japan’s textbooks claim

Posted on by

Kyodo via Reuters, file

The disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China that Japan claimed are an integral part of their territory in new teaching manuals.

By Arata Yamamoto and Henry Austin, NBC News

TOKYO -- Japan risked further irking their close neighbors China and South Korea on Tuesday, when the government announced textbooks were being changed to make it clear that two sets of remote islands at the center of sovereignty disputes are integral parts of their territory.

Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura said the ministry was revising the teaching manuals so junior high and high school students learn "properly" about Japanese history and to make it clear that there is no dispute over the ownership of the rocky Senkaku islands in the South China Sea.

The island chain that China calls the Daioyus, have been a flash point between the two countries since Tokyo nationalized the group of uninhabited archipelagos in 2012.

China claims almost all the South China Sea and in November announced it was expanding its air defense identification zone to include the disputed islands.

A few days after they began to enforce this, American bombers flew over the islands on what was described as a training mission.

South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador on Tuesday to protest claims to the Takeshima islets, known as Dokdo in South Korea. They are situated most equidistant between the two countries.

"Our government strongly condemns this and asks Japan to immediately withdraw it," Seoul, who haveadministered the islets since the end of World War II, said in a statement.

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Disputed islands are ours, Japan's textbooks claim

We Discovered Too Late That Tortoises Are Expert Landscapers

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Countless biology students have dutifully learned to associate the Galapagos Islands with finches. Here Darwin noticed that birds on different islands had different beak shapes, and ta-da, theory of evolution. Butgalpago is Spanish for tortoise, and young Darwin also learned from watching these huge reptiles lumber across the archipelago. Today, thegalpagos are only a fraction of their former population. And as theyve disappeared, the landscape of the islands has transformedbecause although Darwin didnt know it, the tortoises were driving the evolution of an entire ecosystem.

The story starts before Darwin ever reached the Pacific island chain. So to get details from a time before naturalists were taking notes, Swansea University ecologist Cynthia Froyd and her colleagues searched a different set of records: fossilized tortoise poop.

There used to be 100,000 to 250,000 tortoises living and relieving themselves in the Galapagos. Those numbers dropped after European settlers arrived in the 16th centurythe slow-moving giants were eaten, hunted for oil, and tormented by invasive egg-eating rats. By the 1970s their numbers had dropped to 14,000 or fewer.

Now Galapagos tortoises are being reintroduced to the islands. But has the ecosystem changed in their absence? Froyd wondered specifically about the islands highest points. These areas are mostly empty of tortoises today, even though the animals are known to travel to higher ground for water during the dry season.

Froyd took sediment samples at lofty bogs on the island of Santa Cruz. (This island is also called Indefatigable, like a tortoise climbing an 800-meter volcano.) These bogs are packed with moss, surrounded by lush vegetation, and frequently covered in a cold, thick mist calledgara.

The researchers scoured the ancient mud samples for fossilized fungus spores, pollen, and plant remains. At all three of their sample sites, they found dung-affiliated fungispecies that grow on the droppings of herbivores. This was a clue that a large plant-eater used to live and poop at those spots. Judging by radiocarbon dating, the animal had lived in the bogs for thousands of years, but disappeared around 500 years ago. Dung-rich areas were also full of plant pollen, as from the gut of a grazer. All signs pointed to the Galapagos tortoise, the only large herbivore around. (Theres also an extinct giant rice rat that could have left enough dung, the authors note, but it wasnt known to hang out in swamps.)

When the researchers collected fresh tortoise dung and examined it in the lab, they saw similar patterns of fungus to those in their ancient samples. The same was true of sediment samples taken from a pond where tortoises still live today.

At the same time the dung fungi disappeared, about 500 years ago, certain plant species disappeared from the dirt samples too. The plants that vanished were those that prefer a muddy, churned-up environmentlike the home tortoises would have provided as they trampled and sloshed through a wetland. Some of these plant species are now rare or extinct in the Galapagos.

All this evidence added up to tell a story: Tortoises used to cover Santa Cruz Island, from the coasts to the highlands. At the top of the island they wallowed in wetlands with open ponds or lakes. Here they drank, grazed on plants, and kept their bodies cool. Then, around the time humans settled on the island, the turtles left the highlands. Its still not clear whytheir reduced numbers from hunting may have meant less competition from other tortoises, and thus less need to travel for water. There might also have been a shift in the islands climate that discouraged tortoises from hiking the volcano.

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We Discovered Too Late That Tortoises Are Expert Landscapers

Japan issues teachers new instructions on disputed islands

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TOKYO - Japanese education chiefs will instruct schools to teach children that islands at the center of disputes with China and South Korea belong unequivocally to Tokyo, the government said Tuesday.

The move could further inflame already-strained ties in the region, where clashes over differing interpretations of history frequently mar important economic relationships.

Revised teachers' manuals for junior and senior high schools will be issued to education boards across the nation, an education ministry official said.

"From the educational point of view, it is natural for a state to teach its children about integral parts of its own territory," Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura told a news conference.

The move comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stirred controversy with his unabashed nationalism, including with a visit to a war shrine widely viewed by neighbouring countries as a symbol of Tokyo's wartime aggression.

Japan is embroiled in a row with China over the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, claimed as the Diaoyus by Beijing.

The dispute regularly sees standoffs between paramilitary ships and has also involved military vessels and planes. Some observers say the islands represent a key fault line for the region and could be the spark for an armed conflict.

Tokyo and Seoul, meanwhile, are at odds over the sovereignty of a pair of sparsely-inhabited rocks in waters between them, administered by Seoul as Dokdo, but claimed as Takeshima in Japan.

The new manuals describe both sets of islands as "integral parts of Japanese territory" for the first time, the official said.

The manuals will also note that the Takeshima islands are "illegally" occupied by South Korea, and that Japan does not even recognize the existence of a territorial dispute over the Senkaku islands, the official said.

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Japan issues teachers new instructions on disputed islands

Japan to teach of ‘undisputed’ islands

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AFP January29,2014,12:08amTWN

The announcement immediately prompted anger in Seoul, which called in the Japanese ambassador and warned of reciprocal countermeasures if the changes are not withdrawn immediately.

Revised teachers' manuals for junior and senior high schools will be issued to education boards across the nation, a Japanese education ministry official said.

From the educational point of view, it is natural for a state to teach its children about integral parts of its own territory, Education Minister Hakubun Shimomura told a news conference on Tuesday.

The move comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stirred controversy with his unabashed nationalism, including a visit to a war shrine widely viewed by neighboring countries as a symbol of Tokyo's wartime aggression.

Japan is embroiled in a row with China over the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, claimed as the Diaoyus by Beijing.

The dispute regularly sees standoffs between paramilitary ships and has also involved military vessels and planes. Some observers say the islands represent a key fault line for the region and could be the spark for an armed conflict.

Beijing's reaction was muted, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying saying the Chinese government was severely concerned and had launched solemn representations.

We want to stress that the Diaoyu islands and their affiliated islands have been China's inherent territory since ancient times, she said.

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Japan to teach of 'undisputed' islands

Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey – Video

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Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey
Korte vlucht aan het begin van een zonnige avond van Alderney naar Guernsey met een Britten Norman Trislander van Channel Islands Aurigny Air. Onderweg een m...

By: Hans Visser

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Channel Islands Aurigny Air Britten Norman Trislander from Alderney to Guernsey - Video

Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne – North Cape) – Part 4 (Arctic Circle – Lofoten Islands) – Video

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Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne - North Cape) - Part 4 (Arctic Circle - Lofoten Islands)
http://motorcyclepilgrim.blogspot.de/ On my motorcycle trip from Cologne (Germany) to the North Cape in Part 4 it takes me from the Arctic Circle to the Lofo...

By: Ulrike Fell

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Motorcycle Tour to Norway 2013 (Cologne - North Cape) - Part 4 (Arctic Circle - Lofoten Islands) - Video


  1. Islands