The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current, August 20, 2018, Page Page 2, Image 2

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    Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
August 20, 2018
Japan queries medical schools on gender discrimination
TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government is investigating whether other
medical schools also discriminated against female applicants following
revelations that one had done so for more than a decade. The Education Ministry
sent a questionnaire to all of Japan’s medical schools asking them for six years of
data on the gender and age of those who applied, of those who passed the
entrance exam, and of those who were admitted. It set a deadline of August 24
for responses. A Tokyo medical school released an internal investigation that
confirmed media reports that it had altered entrance exam scores to limit the
number of female students. Tokyo Medical University said it believed female
doctors would shorten or halt their careers if they had children, affecting
staffing at school-affiliated hospitals.
China sentences six in graduate exam cheating scheme
BEIJING (AP) — Six people have been imprisoned for up to four years for their
part in a scheme to cheat on China’s national graduate school exam, according to
state media. Exam takers were provided with wireless transmitters and re-
ceivers and told to read the questions out loud, according to reports. Researchers
off-site would then find the answers in textbooks and read them to the test
takers through the receivers. Among those sentenced were two exam takers who
helped recruit clients. It wasn’t clear how much the cheaters paid for the service
or what punishment they received, although permanent disqualification from
the exams is the usual sanction in such cases. The six plaintiffs were sentenced
to between 20 months and four years and fined up to 40,000 yuan ($5,900). They
could have faced as much as seven years in prison under a 2015 amendment to
the law. Exam scores make up the overwhelming preponderance of criteria for
acceptance in the Chinese education system from early education onward.
Boy is only survivor of light plane crash in east Indonesia
JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) — A 12-year-old boy is the only survivor from the
crash of a light commercial plane in a mountainous region of Indonesia’s
easternmost province of Papua that left eight other passengers dead, according
to rescuers. The Swiss-made Pilatus PC-6 Porter single-engine plane operated
by Dimonin Air was reported missing during a 45-minute flight from Tanah
Merah in Boven Digul district to Oksibil, the district capital of Pegunungan
Bintang, bordering Papua New Guinea. The local army chief said the plane
crashed near Oksibil airport. Col. Jonathan Binsar Sianipar said the boy,
identified only as Jumaidi, was the only passenger found alive and was
evacuated to the Oksibil hospital. A statement from the army said the boy was
conscious but gave no other details. The plane with two pilots and seven
passengers lost contact after communicating with the control tower in Oksibil
just before it was due to land, said local police chief Lt. Col. Michael Mumbunan.
The cause of the crash was not clear. Airplanes are the only practical way of
accessing many areas in the mountainous and jungle-clad easternmost
provinces of Papua and West Papua. Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago
nation, with more than 260 million people, has been plagued by transportation
accidents on land, sea, and air because of overcrowding on ferries, aging
infrastructure, and poorly enforced safety standards.
China newspaper defends Xinjiang Muslim crackdown
BEIJING (AP) — An official Communist Party newspaper is defending
China’s campaign of pressure and internment against the country’s Uighur
Muslim minority, saying it had prevented the far-northwestern region of
Xinjiang from “becoming ‘China’s Syria’ or ‘China’s Libya.’” The Global Times
editorial came after a U.N. anti-discrimination committee raised concerns over
China’s treatment of Uighurs, citing reports of mass detentions that it said
“resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.” Following
attacks by radical Muslim separatists, hundreds of thousands of members of the
Uighur and Kazakh Muslim minorities in Xinjiang have been arbitrarily
detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and
profess loyalty to the party. The Global Times said that was merely “a phase that
Xinjiang has to go through in rebuilding peace and prosperity.”
RELIVING HISTORY. Namio Matsura, a 17-year-old member of the computation skill research club at Fukuyama
Technical High School, watches the city of Hiroshima before an atomic bomb fell in a virtual reality (VR) experience at the
high school in western Japan. Although it’s impossible to relive a moment in history, a group of the students re-created the
moment the atomic bomb dropped over the city through VR to portray the livelihood of people that was taken away as a re-
sult of the bombing. (AP Photo/Haruka Nuga)
Japanese students use VR to
re-create Hiroshima bombing
By Haruka Nuga
The Associated Press
UKUYAMA, Japan — It’s a sunny
summer morning in the city of
Hiroshima, Japan. Cicadas chirp in the
trees. A lone plane flies high overhead. Then a
flash of light, followed by a loud blast.
Buildings are flattened and smoke rises from
crackling fires under a darkened sky.
Over two years, a group of Japanese high
school students has been painstakingly
producing a five-minute virtual reality (VR)
experience that re-creates the sights and
sounds of Hiroshima before, during, and after
the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city 73
years ago.
By transporting users back in time to the
moment when a city was turned into a waste-
land, the students and their teacher hope to
ensure that something similar never happens
again.
The August 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima
killed 140,000 people. Three days later, a
second U.S. atomic bomb killed 70,000 people
in Nagasaki. Japan surrendered six days after
that, ending World War II.
“Even without language, once you see the
images, you understand,” said Mei Okada, one
of the students working on the project at a
technical high school in Fukuyama, a city
about 60 miles east of Hiroshima. “That is
definitely one of the merits of this VR
experience.”
Wearing virtual reality headsets, users can
take a walk along the Motoyasu River prior to
the blast and see the businesses and buildings
that once stood. They can enter the post office
F
PROTECT YOUR FAMILY
AND SAVE MONEY
Kelaiah Erickson
South Korea bans driving BMWs under recall due to fires
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has banned driving recalled BMWs
that haven’t received safety checks following dozens of fires the German
automaker has blamed on a faulty exhaust gas component. South Korea’s
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport said the ban affects about
20,000 vehicles. Drivers cannot use the cars except for taking them to safety
checks. While violating the ban is punishable by up to one year in prison, the
ministry said the focus is on persuading drivers to take their vehicles for safety
checks as soon as possible. However, the government is “aggressively” pursuing
charges against drivers if their vehicles catch fire after continuously defying the
ban, ministry official Kim Gyeong-wook said. Nearly 40 fires of BMW vehicles
this year are suspected to have been caused by engine problems. Images and
videos of BMW sedans engulfed in smoke and gutted by fires caused alarm
among drivers. Some parking lots reportedly refused to allow in BMW drivers
and other drivers said they were trying to avoid BMWs on the road. In July,
BMW recalled about 106,000 vehicles of 42 different models. The company
identified the cause of the engine fires as leaks in their exhaust gas recirculation
(EGR) coolers, which it said caused fires when the vehicles were driven at high
speeds for long periods of time. The ministry said about 27,000 recalled cars
hadn’t received safety checks, but it expected a portion of them to be checked
before the ban goes into effect.
and the Shima Hospital courtyard, where the
skeletal remains of a building now known as
the Atomic Bomb Dome stand on the river’s
banks, a testament to what happened.
The students, who belong to the computa-
tion skill research club at Fukuyama Techni-
cal High School, were born more than half a
century after the bombing. Yuhi Nakagawa,
18, said he initially didn’t have much interest
in what happened when the bombs were
dropped; if anything, it was a topic he avoided.
“When I was creating the buildings before
the atomic bomb fell and after, I saw many
photos of buildings that were gone. I really felt
how scary atomic bombs can be,” he said. “So
while creating this scenery, I felt it was really
important to share this with others.”
To re-create Hiroshima, the students
studied old photographs and postcards and
interviewed survivors of the bombing to hear
their experiences and obtain their feedback on
the VR footage. They used computer graphics
software to add further details such as lighting
and the natural wear and tear on building
surfaces.
“Those who knew the city very well tell us
it’s done very well. They say it’s very
nostalgic,” said Katsushi Hasegawa, a
computer teacher who supervises the club.
“Sometimes they start to reminisce about their
memories from that time, and it really makes
me glad that we created this.”
The students worked through summer
vacation in a classroom without air condition-
ing, as temperatures reached 95º Fahrenheit.
With the survivors aging, Hasegawa said, it’s a
race against time.
(Key-lay or Mrs. Erickson)
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Kelaiah.Erickson@DignityMemorial.com
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84.354
4069.9
6.8741
2.0958
7.852
70.092
14540
42005
110.46
8519.0
4.0847
112.2
123.1
3.2626
53.331
67.477
3.733
1.3691
1122.5
160.49
30.628
33.045
23359