ペンギン堂支店

Hong Kong authorities have barred a group of Chinese activists from heading to the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Japan considers the Senkakus part of its territory. China and Taiwan also claim sovereignty over the islands, which are known as the Diaoyu islands in Chinese.

Hong Kong’s Coast Guard says a fishing boat carrying a group of activists left Hong Kong on Tuesday at around 1:00 PM. Six people from Hong Kong, 4 from mainland China, and one from Taiwan, along with 3 crew members, were on board.

The group gave up on the voyage about three hours after departure because Hong Kong’s Coast Guard ordered the vessel to return just as it approached the high seas.

The activists say they had planned to catch fish in waters near the islands to assert China’s sovereignty over the territory.

They say the demonstration would have marked the first anniversary of the launch of their group.

The Coast Guard blocked similar attempts by another Hong Kong-based civic group from visiting the Senkakus in September 2010. That happened shortly after a Chinese trawler collided with two Japanese Coast Guard patrol ships in Japanese territorial waters near the islands.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012 22:40 +0900 (JST)

Doctors in Japan made a record number of organ transplants in 2011 involving brain-dead donors. It followed a legal revision that allowed the operations to go ahead without a donor’s written consent.

The Japan Organ Transplant Network says the number of brain-dead donors rose to 44, more than triple the high set in 2007 and 2008. The revised law took full effect in July 2010. Transplants from 32 brain-dead donors happened that year.

Of the donations made in 2011, more than three quarters went ahead with family consent only, which is allowed under the revised law.

But the total was half the prediction made by the Japan Society for Transplantation. Members of the group estimated the revised law would lead to transplants from 81 brain-dead donors annually.

A medical ethics researcher says the number remains low because the support available for families of prospective donors is insufficient.

The researcher notes there is a need to help and inform family members so they can decide whether or not to donate the organs of their loved ones.

Tuesday, January 03, 2012 22:40 +0900 (JST)