G21 Student Forum 2002

Environment Problems         by Hitomi Ryokawa
 
Do you know our earth has how many ecological problems? There are so many problems on our planet (which could be divided in five categories) that have malignant effects on us. Our life has been become convenient. We get this convenient life from resources, such as electric power, the power of atom, oil and trees. When we use these resources too much in daily life, it causes bad effects around the globe. I will show you five examples now. I hope that this paper would be effect a change in your thinking of ecological problems more seriously than before you read it.

First of all, our earth is faced with a serious deforestation problem. Human beings have been cut down so many trees to make farm lands, pasture for livestock, and use wood resources to make many things. The wild animals might be threatened with extinction one species becomes extinct every thirteen minutes, because of environmental deforestation, decrease of their habitat and over hunting. 40,000 species of wild animals have died out during the period from 1975 to 2000. Deforestation causes not only a damaged ecosystem, it causes desertification which has extended all over the world. According to UNCOD (United Nations Conference On Desertification) in 1997, our 60,000 kms of land has become desert area per year - that is almost as large as Shikoku and Kyushu put together. It caused from over grazing and ill-use of farmland. Trees have great function to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, however, human beings do not want to stop cutting down forests. As a result of that, it causes serious air pollution. To convert carbon dioxide into oxygen has not succeeded with out trees or other plants.

Second, recreational vehicles can go everywhere and can enjoy driving, however, there are a lot of bad effects on our planet. Some drivers entered to prohibit area such as nature reserves, and they drive all over plants in their vehicles. Not just cars or bikes either motor boats left their oil in the ocean. Automobile exhaust causes serious air pollution problems especially in the big cities. This bad substance which causes air pollution is called nitrogen dioxide. It caused by automobile exhaust, and origin of a global warming. The vehicles left many deep scars on the earth.

Third, some factories discharge toxic effluent into the river, so it caused water pollution and various fish were killed by polluted water. Moreover, it causes serious disease on human beings such as Minamata disease. Also, the air thick with factory fumes has bad effects in our body which may well cause asthma. Factories use a great amount of energy. High energy consumption producing carbon dioxide may cause the green house effect which causes some freaks of nature such as deluges, typhoons, heavy blizzards snow, and heat waves.

Nowadays, there are various types of disposable things, such as chopsticks, cameras, lighters and cans that may be thrown away easily after use. Some impolite people leave empty beverage cans everywhere. Using disposable chopsticks is common, especially for Japanese people, but chopsticks are made of wood. We always throw them away so easily after use them in spite of the fact that trees are precious resource for us. To throw away easily increases rubbish, and over packing causes bad effects on trees as same as disposable chopsticks. Over packed wrapping paper would become rubbish. We should not forget that it made of wood. Not only these kinds of rubbish, the Japanese family exhaust as garbage about 51,150,000 ton per year that is serious problem too. If this garbage is incinerated with low heat, it would cause dioxin which was made from incinerator.

Finally, "Recycling" is known us, but "Reuse" is better than recycling, because it needs a lot of power to recycle something. That energy might have other bad effects on the earth. But reuse does not need much power than recycle something. Reuse could have avoided using up natural resources. We should reuse cans and bottles. If Beverage Company decided to use same shape of bottles, it would become easily to reuse them.

I introduced you to five main problems of our environment. What do you think? Did you get any information that you never heard before? Now, we have to think about this problem seriously. If you think about this seriously, I suggest you to take a bus or train instead of car, to use your own chopsticks instead of disposable ones, and to reduce using energy or resources too much. Although these are really small steps, it will result in a big change. Remember, our environment is getting worse day by day. It depends on us whether our planetﾕs environment gets better or worse. We must take this situation seriously.


Carriages only for women        by Ayako Ohara

Imagine how many women have been molested in crowded trains over the years. It is obvious that the act of molestation not only gives women physical discomfort but mental ones. Therefore, This problem is worth considering and we have to find the sure way of solving it immediately.

Concerning the act of molestation, the introduction of carriages only for women in trains is starting in every place in Japan now. The main reason is to save women from molesters. Many school and office girls are victims of molesters on the trains. They touch womens' hips and breasts in places such as the jammed- packed trains to just satisfy their sex desire.

When I was in high school, one of my friends was molested on the train on her way to school. It wasn't direct one as touching body though, she told me with an expression almost about to cry that her school uniform had had been gotten wet with some semen. When I heard this story from her, I couldn't stop getting angry about it. As it shows us, some women are hurt by molesters in daily life. So, if carriages for women are provided, more women would feel less stress from it. Moreover, as long as women and men are separated, there would be no worries about false accusations of molesters that one of other problems often happens to men riding on the trains with women.

It was a few days ago that I rode on a carriage only for women for the first time. Taking a seat in it, I was surprised at not only there were only women took seats but the atmosphere of it was calmer than that in the rest of carriages. I could find many women relaxed and doing something they like freely not interfered by nasty people riding in other carriages.

But, it's actually each train company has different policies on times that carriages for women will be available. For example, some provide for it the whole day, on the other hand, some provides for it just during in the overcrowded times. Every train that introduces this system provides for it still tentatively and placements of them, I think it can't be good positions in the trains, because most of them are provided in the each carriage that is the least convenient for us to get off and change trains. So, some women like me give up to get on it for fear that we would be late for school and also only a one carriage is used for women in trains, that leads to crowding and a shortage of seats. For these reasons, some problems should be solved by a complete the system of carriages for women and it'll still take time to be popular among in Japan.

Lastly, even though the carriages for women haven't become popular yet, I think it's a good tendency that Japanese society looks at women's problems more seriously and be aware that some practical solutions should be given.

Generally speaking, compared with men, women are more likely to be victims of sexual harassment. Therefore, I hope that privileges only for women should be more widely introduced where men and women being together such as transportation not only trains but airplanes, public buses etc.


No More Starving People!        by Hiroko Itakura

According to Youth Hunger Japan, there are over eight million starving people and 1.2 billion poor people in the world. Nowadays, there are many worldwide issues like terrorism therefore; we can't look at poor countries. However, starvation is not a temporarily matter, it has continued annually. Actually lots of poor people are suffering from it but it is also problem that media doesn't have special program or news. I will list the present situation of malnutrition.

Most people believe that malnourishment is caused by a lack of food. However, it is not true from my research. This is an example; there are nine meals for ten people but two people who are arrogant and eat eight meals and less of poor eight people share rest of one meal with all of them (Youth Ending Japan). It is also a problem that food shortages are caused by increasing population or destruction of the environment in our future. Even so, we have to point out inequalities in sharing food for everybody. From it, numerous people, even children, can't get enough nutrition. Lack of nutrition arrests the growth of the body and knowledge. This issue is really dangerous and serious problem for children. They don't have resistance to even easily heated aliments and so it is not rare that they would die. Everybody finds it hard to survive.

People who live inland area where they don't have freshwater have to walk for a long time to get to where a well is. It is really hard and sometimes the well has only unsanitary water. There are no clean lavatories in some areas. It is very hazardous for small kids to catch infections (Youth Ending Hunger Japan). In addition, numerous issues are available like very low salaries and hard working, child labor, sexual abuse, AIDS, homeless. The living standard is very low.

I strongly argue that the problem is not just about money. The big issue is they can't be given education. In the world, children who can't go to school are over a hundred million. Even though, people who can't read or write are more than 8 hundred million in the world (Youth Ending Hunger Japan). Because of it, all of them can't get good jobs and can't decide what they want to do. The truth is that malnourishment and poverty are deeply connected to their ability to support themselves. We might not give them money any more but we should provide many opportunities to escape the poor livelihood.

Today, lots of people or organizations like The United Nations, governments and NGOs have worked for elimination of starvation. As a result, the decade of 1990 to 2000, children under the age of five mortality was reduced by two thirds (Youth Ending Hunger Japan). It was a great job and big hope for future peace. And also, poliomyelitis of infectious disease which used to be the highest cause of child mortality is approaching extermination. Some effects advanced to no starvation in the world step by step.

Japanese are living in a country where there is no malnutrition. If we could not get any information or do not live in international country, we could not know about the present situation there. Through media information, most of us just think that people who are living in poor country were miserable. We are unconcerned about those who are confronted with death, and living our ordinary life. People should stop giving up that until malnourished or poor disappear in the world. We especially young people must be concerned about world wide issues and think about what can do for people other than not only providing money.


Bibliography
Youth Ending Hunger Japan (http://www2.hungerfree.net)
Last accessed December 11,2002


Growing Pains in Asia            by Mayu Aiyama

Developing countries in Asia faced with many problems!! Their economies are growing, but they have a lot of problems of poverty, education, environment and crimes. Japanese people should know more about the countries. I will show you examples of what is happening there.

Environmental pollution is one of their problems. They pollute the atmosphere and water because they make many factories and they do not keep up garbage properly. They also cut down many forests for export, especially to Japan. They cause natural destruction, but they are not advanced countries. Therefore, they cannot help continuing natural destruction. They know they destroy nature but they cannot stop. However if Japan decreases their demand for timber, they do not have to cut so much wood. We can help them!

There are big differences between poor and rich people. If people have large fields, they can be landowners and become rich. However if people have no fields and do not know how to work at office, they will become poor. Poor people have many problems. They live without water and electricity. It is serious for their health. They also bother with eating and sickness. There are few doctors, nurses and medicine. When they are sick, they do not go to see a doctor because they have no money and medicines are expensive. Some people can not bring up their children in orphanages. They really do not want to do it but they are desperate.

Crimes are caused by poverty. Poor people get money and food from stealing. It is part of their lives. There is no order in developing countries. If they get jobs and more money, the crimes will decrease and the order will be restored. If the crimes decrease, the countries will activate more.

Most of these countries spend a lot of money on the military than on education. It is too terrible. Their lives get worse and worse and there is not good education available to everyone. For example, there are a lot of students but there are few teachers. Therefore, teachers cannot take care of their students well. They also do not have many teaching materials. They cannot afford to care about education. However it is more important for the countries and children to receive an education than to spend money on military. If they do not know how to calculate, they cannot go shopping. They will be cheated out. If they cannot read, they cannot participate in democracy and force politicians to improve their lives. Some children are so poor that they cannot go to school. We think studying is natural, but in the world, there are many children who cannot go to school but want to learn. We should keep it in mind.

In conclusion, we should know about developing countries and the world. We do not know too much. We have to understand and help each other. Developing countries are not rich so we advanced countries, can support them by giving jobs and helping teaching that something necessary to live. It is a good example to trade with them. People can get jobs and their lives improve. We can also supply goods and utilities. If we do not know about them, we cannot act and do not try to do. It is bad only to know. We do not take problems seriously. When we find how to act for developing countries, they will be better. Their problems will decrease. They can afford to think more about their peoples. Then the world will also be more peaceful.



Poverty in Africa            by Hiroko Osaka

If you ask someone to name a very poor country, probably they will say an African country. But actually, people seldom know why African countries are poor. I'll discuss poverty in Africa in this paper.

African countries have a lot of complex problems. Some of them have come from historical background. As you know, there are many countries in Africa and of course, they are all different from each other. Many of them were colonized by different European countries. After they became independent of their colonists, they fought with other countries, actually with various tribes, because they had different ways for everything, which came from their colonist's way. That's why; they have a lot of troubles especially in politics and economy. I think this is one of the reasons for poverty.

What do they need? They might need enough foods, clothes, housing. That's true. But the most important thing they need is medical care. There are a lot of serious disease in Africa like HIV, malaria, yellow fever and other troubles. But they can't take treatment, because they don't have money. Also these medical treatments are very expensive. For instance, medicines are imported from developed countries, especially from Western. But the drug companies want to sell drugs with good price for their profits. So, medicine becomes expensive so that people can't get it. In addition, there are few capable doctors in Africa. Actually, there are some efficient doctors from overseas, but they are sometimes headhunted away to European countries. Therefore, citizens can't get medical treatment adequately.

Compared with these poor countries, rich countries like America and Japan live in luxury. We have never been in trouble. Especially in foods, there are a lot of convenience stores in Japan. Producers make huge quantities of food, and after the best for eating. these foods are all dumped. It is absolutely waste of wealth. One of my friends who works at cake shop had to throw away beautiful cakes completely after the shop was closed. She told me she was so sad and crying. Why have the producers been making so many and why don't they share it? We have to think of people who can't eat enough and we should expend those extra on the earth.

From these aspects, how about economic assistance for poor countries? Japanese government has been helping them, but our government has expected them to return the fund. On the other hand, European countries had given money to African countries, but they decided to stop doing that. Which way is better for poor countries, to help or not to help? In my opinion, European way is better so far. We are not sure how poor countries use this money. The government might use it in illicit way. Actually they have a lot of money, bit citizens are still poor. The gap is so large. Thinking of not only assistance of money, bit also assistance of things, we are not sure how they use it. People might change these things, which were given by developed countries to money. Poor countries, also people, get used to be helped and they don't try to be good by themselves. They need to try to improve by themselves. "Is economic assistance good way?" This question is quite tough to answer.

I've told some aspect of poverty. We are puzzled what to do at the moment. But the first thing we have to do is not only to take pity on the poor and give money, but also to know the present condition and think of it. This process is necessary for us.


What are the problems with North Korea?        by Hiromi Izaki

What do you think about restoring relations with North Korea? Do we really know about the country, North Korea? Now Japan and North Korea begin to restore relations, but we still have many problems.

Firstly, The biggest problem is the abductions. This problem has been left unsolved for 20 years. The families of the abducted negotiated with the government to examine the abductions by North Korea, however government hasn't acted, but the prime minister Junichiro Koizumi made a decision to visit North Korea. It was a great advance. In this, an earnest conference affecting world peace, Kim John Il who is the prime minister of North Korea, recognized the fact that Japanese people were abducted. He gave Japan the data of the abductee's safety.

North Korea has almost no international relations with other countries. They are an independent country so we have little information about North Korea. We haven't been doing any kind of cultural exchange but North Korea launched missiles over Japan before and they are making nuclear bombs.

From these 2 problems, the Japanese nation thinks that North Korea behavior defies understanding but the Japanese government decided to restore relations with North Korea for peace. They made a treaty under which Japan will give North Korea economic assistance, a solution to the abducted people, and Japan puts an apology into words concerning the Japanese army of occupation.

For this treaty, the families of abducted people and also the nation complain about the government. They think to clear the mystery is the first priority, but I think that we should not blame North Korea too much.

Firstly, Japanese army also did horrible things in North Korea under Japan.   

Secondly, the North Korea nation is having difficulty making a living so early economic assistance will do well for their economy.

In additions to these two reasons, Japanese people feel fear of North Korea because we really don't know about this country - therefore Japanese mass media should not take up just abductions but also take up their culture and their concepts. Then, I believe the Japanese nation could take a positive attitude to restoring relations.

Beginning to restore relations is difficult for both countries but to restore relations is an important step on the road to peace.


AIDS and HIV            by Akiyo Urakawa

What do you really know about AIDS? Many people just know AIDS is a serious problem. Why is it so serious? Because many people died of its disease and it is infectious disease. To make matters worse, medical treatment is not found as yet.

The main routes of AIDS infection are sex with an infected person, polluted blood production, sharing the hypodermic needle in drug abuse and infection from mothers to their children. In the early 1980's, the biggest cause of infection was known as sexual contact between two males in developed countries. But after the late 1980's, the cause of infection resulted to sex in developing countries.

Though HIV infectious disease is spreading easily, there is no medical treatment for infected people. It might be very difficult to find a cure. Many treatments for disease caused from AIDS were found by today. But there are no treatments for AIDS, or for diseases that are caused by AIDS. For 14 years AIDS thought as terminal disease that became curable chronic infectious disease after germs were found. But medical treatment couldn't make progress in curing AIDS.

There were 28,000,000 HIV carriers from the first report in 1981 to the late 1996. An estimated 5,400,000 HIV carriers have died. What is more in 1996, 3,100,000 people became infected. AIDS is a serious problem in developing countries. Infected people in South Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia account for 85% of the world are AIDS patients. Then by the 1997, there are 8500 people newly infected everyday (1000 people are under 15 children and 3000 people are women). Why are so many people infected with AIDS? In developing countries many people cannot receive education so they don't have much knowledge. I think it's important to give chance to get a lot of knowledge about such diseases to reduce HIV infections.

How about Japan? HIV infection is not so serious problem than other countries. But in fact in October 1997, it is reported that there are 3543 HIV infected people and 1705 AIDS attacked people. A big problem in Japan is infection from infectious blood products. The cause of incidence was blood transfusion in the situation that cannot do examination of HIV. That is why more than 1800 Japanese were infected HIV in this time. It became a big social problem. And it is predicted that there will be 16,000 HIV cases in Japan by 2003 and up to 50,000 cases by 2010. But in my country, we have many chances to know about that disease such as at school, public utilities and so on. So we have to try not to become infected by such a disease and we can absolutely prevent from infecting others.

We sometimes misunderstand AIDS. Some people may think AIDS is very scary. And other people may think AIDS infects other people by touching to or speaking with infected people. Please be considerate. The people who feel sad strongly are infected people and her or his family. So we must not have incorrect knowledge. I wish the day that someone will find a medical treatment for HIV infection and AIDS and the day that there is no person who suffers from these diseases.


The Causes and Effects of Global Warming            by Tomoko Ide

In the world, global warming is one of the biggest problems today. Do you know causes and effects of it? I will give you some examples of it.

Today almost all people have their own cars, and there are air conditioners TVs and a lot of electrical appliances in their own houses. They are very convenient, but they become a cause of increasing carbon dioxide. When we generate electricity, it produces carbon dioxide. Furthermore, it is included in automobile exhaust. In 1999, we produced about 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide in Japan. Compared with 1990, the rate of it increased about 9 percent. Gradually, the rate is increasing.

Another reason is our destruction of nature. Around us, a lot of trees are cut down, and almost all places are paved with concrete. Can you live comfortably? Especially in summer. Compared with the countryside, the difference in temperature is obvious. We can realize global warming keenly. In developing countries, to make grazing lands, slash-and-burn agriculture is carried out. Once the environmental destruction happens, it is connected with an irretrievable loss.

There is climate change. It leads to changing plants, rising death rates and drought. If the temperature keep rising, a lot of plants will disappear and our foods will be influenced. For example, beeches and zelkova trees are difficult to grow. So, there is a possibility like that trees will disappear from Japanese mountains. In addition to it, production of wheat, potatoes, rice and so on will decrease in the world. What is more, Malaria infections and heat exhaustion will spread, and the death rate of old people will rise.

Rising sea level is also a problem. If sea level becomes higher, we need to built banks
and dykes to prevent floods and tidal waves. But it costs a lot of money. It is said that, in 2100, the sea level will rise 50 cm. The Maldives, the Netherlands and another 40 countries face a crisis that they will sink in the sea. If it rises 65 cm, over 80 percent of Japanese beaches will be eroded.

The ecology movement offers some solutions. To prevent global warming, we can do a lot of things. For example, when we don't use electrical appliances, we need to pull out of plugs, when we go shopping, we need to take a shopping bag and when we park our cars for a long time, we need to stop the engine. If all people attend to those movement, it is possible to reduce about 13 percent of carbon dioxide.

People keep creating a lot of useful things to make their lives comfortable. It is convenient for us, but it has bad effects on the environment. We are destroying the environment by ourselves. We need to keep a balance between humanity and the environment.


Don't be Selfish!            by Sayaka Ishihara

What do you think about our life? Do you think it's convenient and comfortable? Of course you do! These days we can control our life in many ways, but not our environment.

We can use a car to go anywhere or we have air conditioning so we can stay cool place anytime and anywhere even in the midsummer. In wintertime, too. We don't have to suffer the cold. We can keep food fresh in the refrigerator and heat it up in the microwave. Only one push of a button turns the TV or lights on. By using Internet, we can know information from all over the world while we are just sitting in the chair. There is no end of example to bring up. Without these things, our life would be almost unlivable. But while we are having comfortable life, environmental deterioration is getting worse and worse. We need to keep it in mind. We can't live without modern technology, but we also can't live without nature or other animals.

We are destroying our planet to live comfortable. There are many problems made by human beings on the earth. Global warming is a very serious problem because it is a result of other pollutions. The biggest reason of global warming is air pollution. It is caused by cars, factories or air conditionings, mainly. Exhaust gas, for example, comes out from cars. Every time we use a car, it discharges the gas. The problem with cars is that they produce Carbon Dioxide ﾐ a green house gas ﾐ which causes global warming.

Deforestation also has a great influence on global warming. Trees are cleaning the air. They absorb carbon dioxide and breath out oxygen. In spite of that, we are cutting down so many trees day after day. That means we are killing ourselves. According to the article, we will cut down the very last tree in the Amazon by 2045.

Global warming is a universal problem. We have to find some good idea to solve this problem. Therefore, there is a project to decrease carbon dioxide. In 1997, "The Kyoto Protocol" was proposed. This protocol aimed at cutting CO2 5 to 8 percent. COP wanted it to take effect in 2002, but USA didn't agree with the protocol. They still haven't agreed yet, so it hasn't taken effect yet. Because of USA's disagreement, Japan can't make a decision. Whether USA agrees or not, Japan has to make a decision because other countries agree with the protocol and showing positive attitude. Besides, the protocol was suggested in Japan and that was named "Kyoto Protocol." Japan has to take leadership. Japan conform USA's opinion too much.

Against the problem like global warming, we have to be patient. It will take a long time to show the result. Our first small steps will have a big effect in the future. For example, we should use a car as little as possible and take a train or bus, instead. Only doing small things can save our land. We have to save the earth where we live. The earth is only planet where we can live. Not just for human beings, but for other animals or plants. We are making huge troubles for the whole earth. Have you ever thought of that?
 

What's happening to North Korea?     by Akishi Oshita

What's happening to North Korea? They are changing recently. The country had closed their diplomatic relations for a long time. The country has made their army public and has had diplomatic discussions to improve their society and their relationship with the rest of the world. I will discuss the North Korea state and it's changes.

Korea and Japan have a long historical relationship. Kanji came from Kudara which is an ancient county in Korea to Japan. In this age, Japan and Korea is on  relationship. But time goes by and there is terrible incident between them and us. Toyotomi's army attacked to Korea to get their land and slaves. It is called "Chyosen Syuppei" in Japanese , so Hideyosi Toyotomi was regarded as terrible ruler. Japan, in addition, colonized many Asian counties which included Korea in World War_. After the war, the Korean war occurred in 1950s and North Korea began to close their diplomatic relations.

Korean children's stomach is very big, because they are very hungry and they cannot eat enough food, because the county's climate is bad condition for crops and they cannot grow some kind of harvest. Another reason is that the North Korean army spends a lot of money on buying new weapons. Many countries supported money to help poor people and children. But this money seldom reaches these people.

There are a lot of rumors about Korean army. Some people said that the army has nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. A few years ago, Tepodon which is kind of missile fell near Japanese sea. Furthermore, a North Korean boat attacked the Japanese Self-Defense Forces this year. Their ship was look like fishing boat, but the ship had large variety of weapons and can move quickly. This is surprising news.

In October 2002, historical incident happened. Kim Jong Il discussed peace with Japan Prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. Due to the discussion, the abduction problems were revealed. North Korea admitted to the affair for the first time. This result was not satisfied some relatives. Some abductees were killed and other abductees are alive. But the discussion made their and our relationship better.

Japan and North Korea took a new step. Japan should continue talks, give economic assistance to North Korea and form official diplomatic relations with North Korea. Diplomatic relationship is very important for peace. Through communication, we can build good relationship. This Korean change brings a new light to achieve peace.


Global Warming                by Naoki Otsubo

"While the average global temperature has risen one degree in the past 100 years, in Alaska, Siberia and Northwest Canada it has increased five degrees in just 30 years." (http://www.ee/lists/infoterra/1999/01/0006.html) We shouldn't make light of this situation. This paper will show the process and people's thoughts of global warming.

Now we are using a lot of energy. When we use electric products, they are sure to generate carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide causes the greenhouse effect. So if we use a lot of energy, the earth will be warmer and warmer. That is global warming.
Using too much energy affects the climate. If it becomes warmer, ice in the Arctic will melt gradually. Then, if ice melts, sea levels all over the world will rise. Rising sea levels will make some areas sink under water. Also, if it becomes warmer, plants and animals in very cold areas will move or die out. Then, the ecosystem may change.

People have different kinds of opinions. In 1997, the United States didn't sign the Kyoto Protocol, in which reducing carbon dioxide was discussed and all the other countries signed. On the other hand, people in Tuvalu, whose island country is said to sink someday, think that they wouldn't move even if their country sinks.

It is important for all of us to join the activities to reduce the energy we are using. It will help to stop global warming and also global problems such as air pollution and acid rain. All we can do is quit using energy. For example, we shouldn't use electricity very often.

The Tuvalu people know well about this dangerous case and the other people seem ignorant about that. It means that the earth will be ruined much earlier than we anticipate; otherwise people will no longer live on the earth. In order not to destroy the earth, each person must learn and think about this situation and find the solution as soon as possible.


Poverty Today                by Fumi Umino

How much do you know about poverty? Poverty is one of the problems which the world is facing and the actual conditions are very severe. I would like to look at the actual conditions, causes and effects.

According to UNICEF, more than 8 hundred million people are always hungry and more than 1.2 billion people lead a poor life in the world. Many people in developing countries especially are suffering from poverty. As for the number of the dead, 15 million people die of poverty every year in the world. In some countries which are distressed with poverty, there are the differences of wealth between officials and citizens ﾐ like North Korea. In those countries, citizens can't get enough food in spite of the wealth of the nation. Most wealth goes to the officials.

Poverty is caused by various things, for example, wars, disasters and slash-and-burn agriculture. Because of the outbreaks of the wars, the nations and the people focus on the war, and make the economy stop; or disasters and desertification by slash-and-burn agriculture bring poor crops. The use of landmines can mean there is also little land for agriculture. These all things finally lead to the lack of food. The differences of wealth above are caused by unequal distribution of income and disregard of the poor.

Poverty leads to malnutrition and starvation. In the countries which are facing poverty, there is not enough food to eat because of the causes above. Even if there is food, some people can't afford to buy food. So many people can't enough eat food and get malnutrition. In worst cases, they can die. They are also liable to become sick, because they are undernourished and they don't have enough resistance to disease. In addition, medical treatment is not sufficiently developed, and even though it is, some people can't afford to have treatment. Thus, even in the cases which they could avoid or recover from the disease if they were in normal circumstances, they are likely to die.

In conclusion, poverty is a serious problem in the world and they can't overcome it by themselves. We all should help each other and work on it together.




Can you explain Global Warming?            by Naomi Irita
 
Can you explain Global Warming? Global Warming is one of the biggest environmental issues which people are paying attention to in a lot of countries. But we lack knowledge about it. We should know and think about Global Warming more and more.

The one of the main courses of Global Warming is the increase of CO2. When we ride cars and use air conditioners, CO2 is released into the air. From factories CO2 is released into the air, too. When we cut trees that absorb CO2, the amount of CO2 doesn't decrease -far from it- the amount of CO2 increases. So we cause Global Warming without caution. The breakdown of the layer of ozone also causes Global Warming. When we use refrigerators and air conditioners etc, the freon gas breaks out. The freon gas destroys ozone. If ozone is destroyed, the ultraviolet rays come in the air directory. It causes not only raising of temperature but skin cancer. Actually scientists are saying that since we stopped CFCs (freon), the ozone hole is getting smaller.
 
Global Warming is a world problem. People all over the world should think about it deeply. If Global Warming continues in the future, many problems will happen. For example, the temperature will rise and the ice of Antarctic will melt and so the water level will also rise. Then many islands will be underwater. In fact in 10 decades the temperature has risen 0.3-0.6_C and the waterlevel will also rise 10-35cm. The infectious illnesses like malaria are also spreading, deserts are growing, plants and animals are losing their place to live and are killed, and pollution like photochemical smog increase, IPCC-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change- says.
 
Now how can we stop the progress of Global Warming? Economy is good way to stop this problem. We can save electricty like lights, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc. by decreasing the number of times we use them. We should decrease the amount of garbage and then the number of times to burn them also decrease. So the amount of CO2 it is created when the garbage is burned also decrease, I think.

In this way, if we keep on going as we are, the future of humans, animals, plants, and the earth itself will be terrible. So we should think about this problem seriously and take measures to solve it.
 

North Korea                by Yuko Edohata

There are some problems between Japan and North Korea. Do you know what happened between them in the history? And now, what's happened? I will show these problems.

In World War 2, the Manchurian Incident broke out. Japanese planted a colony in Korea, and they made many Koreans come to Japan to make them do very hard work. Also after World War 2, many Koreans didn't have a way of returning to their country, so they remained in Japan.

Now there is discrimination against Koreans who live in Japan. They can't have rights in politics. They and their offspring are caught in racial them to Japan after the Manchurian Incident.

Recently the problem of Japanese abduction by North Korea is noted. The occurrence happened more than twenty years ago, but still now, many Japanese are lost. Their families have been searching for them for a long time. I don't understand why North Korea did like this. Some critics say North Korea tried to show of their force to Japan and other countries. I think their hostile deed was only to quarantine their selves. They should develop immediately new facts of this affair.

The other day, the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi visited Korea for the first time. It was a historical event. He tried to solve some problems and tried to make a good relationship between Japan and North Korea, but it wasn't enough to solve the abduction problem. The answer of North Korea was very ambiguous and seemed to be untrue. Japan never gives up to develop the abduction problem. North Korea must not the abduction again. The problem is concerned not only with Japan. This is the problem that is concerned with all over the world. I think it will be first step to solve the problem to have good relationship with North Korea.

North Korea needs help to improve their life. I knew that the condition in the North Korean hospital was very bad. I have never seen so bad condition till I watched it on TV. A lot of children need some treatment, clean sickroom and foods. I also watched unbelievable situation in North Korea on TV. I knew they have secret town where operatives practice to set their selves up for Korean under the ground. The town was imitated Korean town by North Korean government. It looks very funny. I think they shouldn't waste the money for like this thing, instead they should spend the money for children.

Because of like these reasons, the problem between Japan and North Korea is difficult to solve. We have to face the problem to make a peace in world. And we shouldn't forget people, especially children who are suffering from disease and hunger in North Korea. I hope to solve the problem and also I hope to save children from present bad situation in North Korea.


Global Warming                        by Tomoka Otsuki

Have you ever thought about the end of that the world? We should think about it. There are some reasons. One of them is Global warming obviously. We know the word but we do not know exact meaning of that. I am going to tell you some example of Global warming.

Global warming temperatures are rising. Observations show over the last century suggest that the average land surface temperature has risen 0.45 degrees to 6 degrees in the last century. The surface of the ocean has also been warming at a similar rate. It has warmed 0.3 to 0.6. About two-thirds of this warming took place between 1900 and 1940. (It is researched by yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html)

The sea level has risen 15-20cm in the last century. About 2-5 cm of the rise has resulted from the melting of mountain glaciers. Another 2-7cm has resulted from ocean water that resulted from warmer ocean temperatures. It is hard for people who live in low places to live there.

The increase of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a big problem. If we continue to use today's technology, then as the population and the economy grow, emissions of CO2 will continue. Some people make efforts to decrease energy consumption, smaller cares, and more energy efficient appliances, but it is not enough.

Finally, governments held conference about Global warming. We just know the conference was held but we do not know what governments are doing. Conference is good but not working. It means their advice has no effect on us, in fact the result of problem is getting worse.

In conclusion, we should know about Global warming actively and think about it seriously. Global warming is getting to be more serious than we think. We should do something for this problem each of us little by little. It means that Global condition is getting better when we do. We should hope that world is not going to end.


The problems between Japan and North Korea        by Sakiko Otsu

This year, the prime minister Koizumi had a ceremonial visit to North Korea and it seemed to be a great achievement between Japan and North Korea, however, it creates a sensation not only in Japan but also in the world. We leave several problems unsolved so this time, everyone expected too much of Mr. Koizumi, especially, the parents of the people who are taken away by North Korean operatives. Also it was a first time to visit North Korea so several countries noticed this ceremonial visit.

North Korea severed relations with Japan after the war. This year, they asked us to come to North Korea and the Japanese government accepted because we have to find a solution to some problems that are between us, and it was a first time to officially visit North Korea.

They are isolated in the world now so they do not have much information about outside. After the Russo-Japanese war, we urged to colonize and we annexed Korea in 1910 but we were defeated in the war and Korea split at the 38 border. Then North Korea became a socialist country. However, they are under financial pressure so some other countries have to give economic assistance.

It is difficult to have information of outside. So how do they get it? We are not sure about it, however, many Japanese people went missing from long time ago so everyone was saying "They were taken away by North Koreans surely." But it was just conjecture and nobody knows what the truth is. However, we gradually started realizing what happened to them in Japan and North Korea. People who used to be operatives started talking about the actual circumstances on TV.

One day, I watched television and they broadcast about the operative of North Korea and I felt kind of fear at the same time, because they had a special training to become a operative and their projects were detailed carefully. They go to several countries and accomplish all projects under the veil of secrecy as pretending to be a normal person.

According to these statements, they do not do anything beneficial for the world and they always undermine the world piece, for example, they threaten us, they night have some nuclear weapons, they have a big army etc. It is certain that their economic situation is dire and they need our monetary support but they do not appreciate that. In addition, they admit more and more, and they sometimes threaten us if we refuse their demands. Now, we are solving problems of missing people and trying to get back their children to Japan and the Japanese government desires that they can stay together in Japan permanently. However, North Korea says if this problem takes more time, they night use nuclear weapons. I think it is really cowardly way and it makes worse relations between us. If North Korea changes their way, we could walk towards each other.


What are the problems in developing countries?    by Eri Ishikawa
 
In this world, there are differences in countries between rich and poor. The differences are getting wider. The number of developing countries are more than that of developed countries. Some developing countries are going through with the economic growth fortunately. Even now there are many people who suffer from a lot of problems, such as hunger, medical treatment and agriculture. This paper will discuss some of these problems.

There is a want of food in the poor countries. In Africa, the climate is very severe, so it is hard to grow plants. If people have much knowledge and technique of agriculture, they will be able to get stable harvests every year.

We can see the remarkable increase of population such as in India and China. In the developing countries people do not have accurate knowledge of birth control. Then, many babies are born. The parents have many babies and they cannot support them without plenty more food. The population explosion is connected with hunger closely. I think the government should give skills about it to citizens.

Poor babies and children cannot have a vaccination. They suffer from illnesses which are preventable in developed countries and people rarely suffer from Most babies and children cannot have enough medical services because their parents do not have a lot of money and the number of hospitals, doctors, nurses and medicines is less.

The developing countries need food, medical services, knowledge and skills. People in the poor countries cannot solve the problems without help.



Global Warming            by Keiko Ueoka

Can you imagine that a planet which has no land, or there is only sand as far as one can see? These are real situations that might happen on the Earth in the near future. Everything is caused by global warming. This is one of the biggest problems in the world. It may cause a lot of problems to our environment and ourselves.

Increasing carbon dioxide causes global warming. There are some reasons. One is the car. Today almost all families have cars and use them everyday. It means too much exhaust gas; carbon dioxide is released everyday. Moreover, a lot of factories release such gas, too. Sometimes they give the poisonous gas to humans or animals. Other reason is the deforestation. As everyone knows, trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. However, a number of trees are cut down for many reasons. For example, trees used for paper, houses and so on. What is even worse, planting does not catch up with cutting. It doesn't keep a balance. Some countries gradually turn into desert.

There's another reason for global warming. A few decades years old Freon gas was accumulated above the earth. It was released by scientific technology like refrigerators. This gas made ozone hole above the North Pole. Because of that, ultraviolet rays are getting stronger than before. And then, the heat of the sun raises the temperature. On the other hand, global warming would expose us to danger in the future. Carcinogenicity, especially skin cancer became high by strong ultraviolet rays.

Our lands are also exposed to the danger. Antarctic and Arctic ice started to melt by global warming. If all ice melted, any big cities around the world would sink under the sea. Imagine the movie "Water world". Do you think you can survive such the world? As I said, there is no land. All we have is the seawater. In the case of Japan, only the tip of Mt. Fuji will be able to appear on the sea.

Today, many countries are thinking seriously about this big problem. In 1997, a big conference was held in Kyoto. Many countries signed COP3, called "Kyoto Protocol" in Japanese. This treaty is to limit the carbon dioxide emissions in each country. But the United States of America did not sign that. It became another problem.

Now, there are many things to try stopping global warming. For example, recycling paper is for stopping the deforestation. And the solar power is becoming more popular, like solar cars, solar heating, and a solar house. These are very close to our life. It's not so difficult to think and do for stopping warming. So, we should know and think about it and do something for our future by little by little.  



North Korea and Japan                        by Jun Igarashi

North Korea admitted that they took Japanese people away though before, they said that they never abducted. Something was started by that. We hope that they are good for people who were taken away to North Korea, their family and our countries.

11 people had been missing since 1970s in Japan. Many people had doubted that they were taken away to Korea. That had been a big and serious problem but the Japanese government had not done anything until recently. After the prim minister Koizumi's visit to North Korea, it emerged that 6 of them had died in North Korea. Though it is big progress between Japan and North Korea, there are many problems left the normalization of relations or the abduction. We do not believe the cause of their death told by them at all because they are very unnatural. So we think that North Korea must define why 6 people died so young and other people can live there now. The problem of the abduction has not been solved yet.

Japan and North Korea are going to advance the normalization of relations gradually based on the Japan-North Korea Pyonyang proclamation. Some people say we have to solve the problem of the abduction first. Normalization can be fulfilled without solving it. 5 people taken away to North Korea about 20 years ago came back to Japan on October 15. They seemed happy to meet their relatives but kind of nervous and somber. I could from their expression or words that the problem was really serious and deep.

A new problem appeared in Japan recently. It is that North Koran students living in Japan and going to Korean school were sworn at and harmed by Japanese people because of the abduction by North Korea. We think that some Japanese victims were taken away by North Korea, by the country, though the part of the North Korean regime did it. What they did is too wrong but we must not think all Korean people were wrong. We must not consider them as enemies of Japan and we should not forget the history Japan had dominated Korea and inflicted.

North Korea is certainly a very terrible country. But it is a big mistake to think all people living there are terrible and enemies. We should keep calm and think about the true root of the problem.
       

Global Warming                        by Yukiko Oishi

Now, the globe faces a most important problem. It's Global Warming. The world temperature goes up day by day. How can we endure the extraordinary heat?

The cause of the problem is a sudden increase of carbon dioxide and other gases called greenhouse effect gases. These have the role to keep properly the temperature of earth. According to a page of Internet, if these were not on the earth, the temperature would be 18 degrees below zero and freezing land on which creatures can't live. But people have consumed a lot of fossil fuel and pioneered forest since 19 century, as a result, the greenhouse effect gases increased 30 percent compared with 200 years ago. It makes the state that is covered thickly on the whole world; the heat doesn't escape into space and the world temperature increase gradually.

The temperature of this summer was nearly 40 degrees everyday. It was uncomfortable for us to spend time outside, so we had used air conditioner at house. But the more we use air conditioner, the more the temperature of the earth will rise. We have repeated this vicious circle for years. We use some energies expect air conditioner for our life. The carbon dioxide occur by we use the energy, that is to say, various actions of our daily life cause the increase of greenhouse effect gas and the global warming. We have to stop the waste of energy in our daily life and economy it without reluctance for ourselves.

The country that discharges most carbon dioxide is the United States with about 24 percent of the world emissions. The next is China, third is Russia and fourth is Japan. The advanced nations that include Japan, U.S, Europe, etc. cause 75 percent of the discharge in whole world. But, in the result of global warming, the developing nation that there are lowland and desert get more damage than the advanced nation. We give big damage to poor people indirectly.

Finally, if the temperature goes up at this pace, the biggest average temperature of the world will rise 5,8 degrees after 100 years. In consequence, many troubles will occur on the earth. For example, the radius of tropical infection that includes malaria and others spread more. The face of sea will rise and small lands sink in the sea. By the phenomenon, the loss of land and property, the migration of people and the destruction of natural ecosystems along the coast will increase.

We have to stop the phenomenon at once, or we cannot see our future. We must keep the globe for our children.


Religions and World Peace          by Hanako Ikeoka

Do you know much about religions? Or do you believe in a religion? Religions have many meanings in today's world. It effect our economy, politics and diplomatic relations, and more. It connects people and also divides them, as you know.　However, especially the Japanese are not interested in religions so much.　We should know more about religions, shouldn't we?

On 2001 September 11th, terrorism happened in the United States. It was one of the biggest religious attacks by Islamic fundamentalists. By the terror, human beings realized the power of religions and belief. Precisely, religions are born to help peace in this world, however what's happening now is the reverse. From ancient times, there were many troubles caused by difference of thinking. Also now, there're many wars and battles in the world. The best example would be India VS Pakistan. The battle has been going since 1947, and it is so serious that there're many sacrifices. We can't stop it, can't we?

To get real peace, we should always be thinking and seeking. Maybe the shape of peace would be same for everyone - happiness, fairness, smiles and no discrimination. But the ways of thinking may be different from each other. The ways to reach happiness, that difference causes troubles. Wars are a result of that.

Why do we continue seeking happiness? For what purpose were we born? Religions and their gods give us the answers. Religions save people and unite them. It would be great power. So sometimes it may be dangerous. Because often it is selfish thinking. It's easy to believe in religions, because the answers are already there, given by their great gods. To believe something like gods, it's just human. It's very fantastic! However, I believe that the answer should be found by your own self. It's a life!

I do not mean that I want to you to in religion but know more about religions as a human. Anyway, Japanese do not know about religions. As a result of that, Japanese were confused and surprised by the September's terrorism. If you know more about religions, your view would open more! As you do that, the world's problems come to close to you. The religions are one of the great lead!



The Problem of Refugees                    by Makiko Ueno

Have you ever thought deeply about the problem of refugees? There are many refugees all over the world today, for example in Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Indo-China and many other countries. The present condition of this problem was shock for me to go through the first time.

The most basic international rule about refugee is "Agreement about position of refugees" which was adopted in 1951 and there is a protocol which was written in 1967. In the agreement, refugees are the people who are living out of their countries, because they have persecution for their race, religion, nationality or other reasons. What's more they cannot protected by their countries or who do not want their countries to protect them, because they could have fear persecution.

There are a total of over 2000 million refugees in the world include the people must necessarily get out from their countries because of wars and confusions of politics. About half of all refugees are women or girls. For them whose husband or father died (or maybe no news of where they are), lives would be very cruel. When they try to escape, they have fear sexual violence by soldiers or guerillas. Also, after their arrival at refugee camps, they would be attacked or threatened by security soldiers and other refugees of camp

If refugees could be permitted to settle in Japan, they get certificate, then they would usually be able to settle. There are about 10000 Indo-Chinese refugees who were permitted to settle in Japan, and about 250 refugees who apply refugees status at the immigration office. But in fact, Japan hasn't taken much refugees than it should and maintaining of "education of Japanese", "secure houses", and "system of necessary assistance" are not enough yet.

I didn't know about refugees before I started getting the information to write this, but still there are many things which I don't know and I should know. I think Japanese government should think more tenderly and deeply about this problem. Maybe headlining on the TV or magazine is one of the best way for people to be interested in. There are some things we can do like raising money so we should start doing whatever we can do for them if we have a chance.



Greenhouse Gasses                by Manabu Oikawa

In the future, our children or grandchildren may not live on the earth comfortably. I think everyone knows that Global Warming is a serious problem. We only get a little information from newspaper and TV, but we don't try to carry on to stop Global Warming. It is caused by us and affects us. So we should consider the problem and stop it. I will discuss the factor and solutions.

Global Warming is caused by greenhouse effect gases, which are carbon dioxide, methane gas and Freons. Carbon dioxide appears from exhaust gas and generation of electricity, and now it continues to increase. Freon breaking the ozone layer is discharged from refrigerators. We have made our life better, the other hand, we have began to break the earth.

Global Warming not only melts ice in the Arctic quickly, but also helps to spread infectious diseases, for example malaria and yellow fever. Mosquitoes, which usually range through humid and warm climates, give human beings these diseases. If Global Warning goes on and on, the region will increase where it is easy for mosquitoes to range. And these viruses will spread to new regions. Someday, the diseases from the tropics may affect Tokyo.

Recently, freaks of nature have happened frequently. It is possible that Global Warming causes it. In Japan, the equatorial days over thirty-five degrees and a lack of water in summer continued in some regions, but then typhoon hit Japan many times beyond our expectation and out of season. We had a poor crop because of strange weather such this. A lot of people got sunstroke and old people easily died from the high temperature. In addition, some regions have a lot of floods, the other hand, the others may have a shortage of water and drought because of the changing weather.

The hotter it is in summer, the more we use air conditioners. An increase of use of air conditioners means a demand for electricity grows widely. As a result, much greenhouse gas is given off. We bring about the worse circulation by Global Warming. What is worse, a heat island phenomenon happens in big cities where there are many buildings, because we use too many electrical appliances. So big cities get hotter with the continuous factors. All we should do is reduce the discharge of greenhouse gas that is chief factor of Global Warming.

Like this, Global Warming is important problem. We should try to stop it. We are making the factor ourselves, so we have to solve the big problem. Not only do scientists study about it, but also we have to learn it and carry on with the solution in order to bring down the beautiful earth to the next generation.    


On Landmines                                by Asuka Uno

When can the people live safely? Even now, landmines are exploding and threatening people all the time in spite of no war. They are ordinary people like us. They just tried to play to work for their lives. 0ne day they lost part of the body. They don't have a person whom they can by angry at. It is irresponsible. We should know the fact and think about the problem.

People suffer a lot of injury from landmines. About 110 million landmines are buried all over the world for war. About 70 people suffer injury when they are playing; the injury of landmines is indiscriminate. Most of the victims are farmers, fishermen or stock farmers. Some people who lost part of their body by landmines receive discriminatory treatment. They are not given only injury of landmines, but also discrimination.

The cost of producing one landmine is 3 US dollars. One thousand landmines can be produced a minute. On the other hand, the removal of landmines is all done by hand. The work was done at the risk of our lives. 100 thousand landmines are removed every year, but more 60 people suffer injury removing them every year.

According to Cambodia Mines-Removal Campaign, Landmines have three terrible points. The first point is atrocity. The purpose of landmines is not to kill a person, but rather to wound a person because they want people who being around the victim to get afraid. At that time, the victims still arrive, so their friends have to carry into safety place to rescue. During those times, military strength becomes weak. Also, after that, it takes a lot of money to treat then. Second, once landmines are buried, those work semi permanently until someone steps on them. Third landmines explode indiscriminately without choosing the person.

Landmines were buried when people have war. Landmines are very irresponsible arms. Many people suffer great injury even now. They are not soldiers. They are just ordinary persons who want to enjoy life sane as us. We must remove all landmines and must not produce more landmines. The countries that have land mines are poor country. It's difficult to make good condition. So we should cooperate with each other. This is a common problem all aver the world.



On North Korea        by Kensaku Isobe

This year, September 17th, a historical conference was held in Pyongyang , North Korea. The Japanese Prime Minister Jyunichiro Koizumi visited North Korea and had a talk with the leader of North korea, Kim Jong - Il for the first time. At the talk, the North Korean side admitted the fact of kidnapping many Japanese people and the Japanese govornment apologized to North Korea for colonial rule during the period of World War.

At the Prime Minister's official residence, the Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi apologized that Japan had once colonized North Korea and South Korea during the period of World War 2 and the Japanese government announced that they would apologize for this more minutely when diplomatic relations are established. But it is unlikely that there is a prospect of resuming negotiation of diplomatic relations in the near future.

Five Japanese survivors, Hitomi Soga who is from Sadogashima, Nigata and other four people, returned to their hometown, Japan by airplane at 2:30 p.m on October 15th. Their family had longed for the moment and they welcomed five Japanese survivors pleasantly. They will return to their hometown the day after tomorrow and stay from 1 to 2 weeks and after that they will go back to North Korea.

At the press conference on November 26th , the U.S. secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld announced about the treatment of Mr. Charles Robert Jenkins who was a husband of Hitomi Soga and a former U.S. Forces soldier that as long as he was a deserter, legal procedures are needed. It is supposed that Mr. Jenkins defected to North Korea in 1965, and was married to Ms. Soga in 1980. The Japanese government is planning to accept that Mr. Jenkins stays in Japan together with Ms. Soga, and is asking the U.S. government for co-operation so that delivery of Mr. Jenkins as a deserter may not be required. I wish Mr. Jenkins and Ms. Soga could live in Japan forever.

According to these problems, Japan and North Korea are in trouble recently, especially from the beginning of the negotiation of diplomatic relations between two countries. As Japanese government has been extending the length of stay of people who were kidnapped twenty-four years ago, the North Korean side confessed that they have the possibility of not suspending nuclear tests. I think, if so, the Japanese government should consider the calling off of the negotiation of diplomatic relations. I also think that the North Korean government spend much money on rather food of people to solve starvation than nuclear weapons. Anyway these problems between two countries seem never be easily solved. I hope that these problems will be solved peacefully and tragedies such as the kidnapping can never be repeated.


Global Warming                                 By Misa Oe

Do you feel the danger of global warming? Now, the world is developing gradually. We spend a more comfortable life now than before, but the environment is being destroyed by the effects. There are many kinds of environmental pollution, global warming is one of the most serious problems. I will explain global warming.

Global warming occurs mainly because of the greenhouse effect gases. The gas is CO2 or Freon, caused by driving car, using electricity. So recent years, industry is developing rapidly, the gas increases rapidly too.

The gas doesn't transmit heat. So the earth is surrounded by the gas, heat doesn't get away from the earth, and earth's air warm up. This phenomenon is global warming. If this phenomenon continues, many problems will happen. First, the average temperature of the world will go up by 1.5 degrees to 3.5 degrees, then glaciers melt, the sea level will rise from 20cm to 110cm. Because of this, every lowland in the world will go down under the sea. Second, harmful insects also cause rage of infection. In Japan, cherry trees, the symbol flower of April ceremonies will bloom at graduation ceremony season. If these things happen, all life on earth may die.

So we must do some measures which defend the earth from this phenomenon. First, we must make economies in using electricity. Second, we must make decrease garbage. Third, we must stop idling. As specific example, when we don't watch TV, we should put it off. We should raise the temperature of air conditioner or not use it at all. We should work at recycling actively. We try to use public transport. Only doing them, we can save our earth.

Environmental pollutants including global warming are corroding the earth solely, it is difficult for us to see this condition. We know the danger of these phenomenon, we must try to save our earth and future from now.    


Light side and Dark side of the Self-Defence Force    by Junichi Itou

What do you think about the necessity of The Self-Defense Force? I think it is needed to defend ourselves against other countries use of force, and to save people from disaster. I introduce about the organization below.

Today, The Self-Defense Force is dispatched to foreign countries, like Afghanistan, to remove landmines or to save people in devastated areas. The Self-Defense Force is able to remove landmines by grace of the revision of PKO law. Japan has valuable techniques in removing landmines. There are from sixty million to seventy million landmines in over seventy countries in the world.

If The Self-Defense Force did not exist in Japan, other countries like China or North Korea would attack immediately, because Japan invaded China and North Korea in the old days. Japan was targeted on North Korean missiles in practice. I think Japan needs the organization to defend itself from other countries, but must not invade or attack for our own benefit.

These days, Swiss Self-Defense Force is dispatched to foreign countries' battlefield to earn money, but they never fight in their own land. Switzerland uses war as a tool of earning money. Swiss bank benefits from force dispatching so the bank has a lot of money. Swiss force should not exist.

The people of Okinawa have hated the Japanese Self-Defense Force, because The old Japanese force massacred the people in World War 2. This is true that the people do not think the necessity of The Self-Defense Force because of the American forces.

The Self-Defense Force has many problems but it is good for us to use right. We must not use the organization for our own benefits.


Air Pollution                        by Yuka Imanishi

These days air pollution is one of the biggest problems in the world. You may recognize this problem in the street or somewhere else. I will give some examples.

One of the causes is some kind of exhaust. Cars discharge harmful exhaust gas in to the air, not only when they are running, but also stopped at traffic lights. It is called " idling". If all the people quit it, we will be able to take step for success. Freon is also an important cause of air pollution. Air conditioners discharge Freon. Exhaust and Freon bring about a destruction of the ozone layer. When it is destroyed, ultraviolet rays fall on people, animals and plants. Then people and animals will get skin cancer because of too many ultraviolet rays.

In this year, scientists announced that the ozone layer hole is getting smaller through banning Freon. It is a good improvement but it is not enough to solve the air pollution.

We have to make more effort. Take some cars, for example. Ecology-car use gasoline and electricity as fuel. Further solar cars use only solar energy. It is so helpful to keep the air clan. In the future all the cars will be replaced by ecology-cars.

It is very hard to recover the primary condition of the environment, but if all the people pay attention, we will be able to get a successful result. It is up to people's consciousness and understanding about our earth.   


The problems in Developing Countries    by Miyuki Azuma

Don't you think we are leading a privileged life?? Japan is favor with resources, weather and food. If you don't go to the developing countries, you'll never know it. There are a lot of serious problems in those countries. We should think it seriously and try to solve those problems. In the world, there are many people who need our help. I'll give you several examples showing what is going on in those countries.

Firstly, the order isn't good in developing countries especially in the big cities. One of the reasons why it happens is the difference between the rich and the poor. Rich people can get good education then get jobs. However, it's hard for poor people. The difference between them is getting bigger and bigger. Also the economy is not stable so it makes crimes increase.

People can't have well-balanced diet, because they don't have good condition fields to raise plants and vegetables. They don't also have much money to buy those things. That's why nutrition isn't good enough for them and it's easy to be malnutrition. At this moment, a lot of people are dying around the world.

It's hard to get clean water in developing countries. There are no waterworks except in the big cities, so people who live in the country side get water from the river, spring or tank etc. this depends on the situation where they live. It sometimes takes a long time to get water, but it might be dangerous to drink. For example, the water from the river, people do a lot of things in the water. It's like washing their bodies and clothes. Also it is sometimes their bathroom so people should be careful about it. However they don't have this kind of knowledge.

When people get sick, they don't go to see a doctor that much. There are no hospitals around their houses or it costs a lot, so people can't afford to pay for it. In addition, there are not enough doctors and nurses. People get sick easily because of their sanitary conditions. Because of this, some children are motherless or fatherless.

Education is the most important thing for children. Unfortunately, it's hard to study in those situations, because there are not enough teachers, textbooks and classrooms. Moreover, some children can't go to school even if they want to go. Because their families are poor, children need to help out their families. When children grow up and want to get jobs, it'll be problems that they don't know how to write, read and calculate.

There are a lot of people who are suffering from hunger and the other problems. The problems which are written above are not the only problems, there are more problems we don't know. We should realize what is going on in those countries and try to help them out as much as we can, because it's hard to develop in these situations without our help. Someday, people will have no worries about those problems anymore and live in a safe, clean and the peaceful world.


On Global Warming         by Kazuho Asai

Recently, we have many problems in our environment. Global warming is an especially big problem. We often use cars to go to everywhere. The car discharges too much exhaust. There are also many factories, which produce carbon dioxide and other pollutions. By their exhaust gas, there is carbon dioxide too much in the atmosphere. It prevents the heat from leaving. So, it is becoming hotter on the earth. If it advanced more, the level of the sea would rise because glaciers and polar ice would melt because of the rising temperature. Apart from this we have many problems with global warming. For example, we will be able to see increase of downpour. On the other hand, the shortage of water will also increase. In addition, food production will decline, and malarial cases will increase. Global warming wouldn't make us happy at all.

Japanese percentage of carbon dioxide discharge in the world is about 5 percent. But this is the fourth largest discharge in the world. Japan is one of the world discharge powers. On the other hand, the treaty about the global warming was adopted in 1997. That purpose was to stabilize the concentration of the greenhouse effect gas in the world. The conference about the treaty was held in Kyoto. Japan clamped down as a chairman country. Then, Japan pledged to reduce much of its greenhouse effect gas. Japan was leader of the conference, and a world discharge power, so Japan needs to start the ball rolling of cutting down carbon dioxide.

I think that the individual should make efforts for resolution of this problem. We have to find things we can do. There are many things we can do. For example, we try to ride a car as little as possible, try to keep having low electricity consumption, wouldn't cut down a forest, and conserve forests.

All over the world people are wrestling with the problem of global warming. It is very important to have a strong will to make efforts. In addition, we have more concern for this, and contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide.



Landmines                        by Kimi Oseto

What would you do if your family died from landmines? What if you lose your leg because of landmines? It is hard for us to take the problems realistically, but, in fact, there are over 70 countries under such a difficult condition in the world. Landmines are horrible and cause extensive damage. I'll tell you about how dangerous landmines are and their terrible conditions.

Landmines are dangerous. They burst easily when people approach, step on landmines or catch the wires of them. As every year landmines are causing extensive damage to people. People who are injured by them often lose their legs, hands, eyesight or hearing and also a lot of people are dead. These victims have to face injuries the whole life through.

There are a lot of landmines in the world. The developing countries have almost all of them. The countries are Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mozambique and so on. It costs much money to remove them, because the work is needed high level techniques. Therefore the countries can't remove them easily.

Landmines are often used in wars. There are two reasons for that. First, they are so cheap that it is easy to get a lot. Second, they are useful to cause damage to enemies by not killing but hurting because enemies who have hurt people should care about them.

Now, many landmine removing movements are happened. For example, in Japan, campaign CDs are sold and the sales of them are made use for removing landmines. These movements are useful not only to gather funds for removing them but also to popularize the problem to various people.
 
This arm, landmines, is very awful and foolish. Also they did extensive damage around the world. We should know the real rightly. There is no sense, however, only to get knowledge. It is necessary for resolving the problem to put ideas into action by people who become conscious of the gravity of this problem.   


The Aids Crisis             by Kanako Ueda

We are faced with a desperate crisis! AIDS is spreading all over the world. There are some reasons below and I found the information from Internet. Many teen-agers have sexual acts. Some of them often smoke or take drugs and they can't quit them. Others are selling their bodies or becoming prostitutes. People do illegal blood transfusions for money. There are many people to be unable to have given vaccine injections in the poor countries.

It's called AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which arise many kind of disease because his immunity is going to decline. AIDS is thought to be a fearful disease by people and almost all have a biased view of it.

HIV was reported for the first time in the US in 1981, and it is still increasing now. It is based on the investigation about the number of people who carry the HIV virus. There are from 14,000,000 to 23,000,000 HIV carriers now in Russia, China, India, Nigeria and Ethiopia, but it will increase from 50,000,000 to 75,000,000 people by 2010. On the other hand there are from 25,000,000 to 27,000,000 people now in Central and Southern Africa, but it will increase from 30,000,000 to 35,000,000 people by 2010.

It is a modern disease that doctors haven't found how to cure of it. Although, some of the diseases are possible to cure, the declining immunity caused by HIV virus is impossible to block now. If people get the disease, everyone would think they are going to die no matter when. In case they get STD (Sexual Transmitted Disease), it is high rate to HIV infectious disease.

It is called HIV (Human Immunodeficiency virus) virus in AIDS. It can be in a body fluid of only infected human. It is impossible to exist out of a human body fluid. As how to be infected with the virus, it needs to make inroads into the body, but the HIV virus can't break through the skin. It is the only way to through the mucous membrane those are genital organs or inside the oral cavity. Other cases are to infect by wound and blood transfusion.
Even if the virus made inroads into the body, it would be annihilated by human immunity. Therefore, to be infected, it needs quantity or concentration. Saliva, perspiration and urine are not infected origin because body fluids are light of their concentration. On the other hand, it is blood, semen and breast milk are body fluids of the strong concentration can be infected HIV virus.

AIDS disease is the big problem in the world. I'm sure doctors will get how to cure of it by now and the future. Of course we need to take care of our own and tell those around us.



The Problem of Global Warming            by Rika Umemoto  

For the past some years, we have had mild winters. And sometimes the abnormal weather patterns happen. These problems are related to the greenhouse-effect gases.

The greenhouse-effect gases are carbon dioxide, methane, Nitrogen Dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, alternatives to chlrofluorocarbons, ozone, vapor, sulfur fluorination and so on. Global warming is brought out a rise of the density of the greenhouse-effect gases in the atmosphere. The surface of the earth absorbs the heat from the sun and emits that as the infrared rays. The greenhouse-effect gases have the trait to absorb the infrared rays and emit them. A part of the infrared rays will return to the surface of the earth. If the density of the greenhouse-effect gases rise, the heat becomes difficult to escape from the earth and temperature also rise.

The consumption volume of the fossil fuel tends to increase remarkably since the Industrial Revolution, and the density of greenhouse-effect gases, especially that of carbon dioxide continues to increase. If discharging the greenhouse-effect gases continues without any measures, the average temperature of the earth is expected to go up 3 degrees centigrade in 2100, about 1.5 degrees centigrade in 2050 than now. It is said that various influences will appear, even the rise of the average temperature of only several degrees. A lot of problems are born of the temperature raise and those are serious. So I would like to tell some of that.

First, if the temperature rises, the sea level rises up because of the melting of mountainous glaciers and the expansion of the seawater. It is expected that the sea surface will go up 0.5 metres than presen, by 2100. Therefore the areas as low as the sea level will sink under the seawater. Islands that are low attitude will lose large regions by this.

Second, the water vapor pressure rises by the rise of the seawater temperature and the water vapor quantity in the atmosphere increases. Therefore the whole rainfall will increase, but the abnormal weather will often happen, and in the interior of continents rainfall decrease and desertification will happen.

Third, it is said that the methane that is saved in permanent soil areas will be discharged by rising temperature, and it invites further warming.

Fourth, the ranges of plants and animals will be moving to the north following with the temperature rise. Then the ecosystem will change and some of them will become extinct. Furthermore, ticks, mosquitoes and flies at present inhabit in tropics, expand their inhabitant area to subtropics and temperate zones such as Japan. So tropical epidemics will spread.

Finally, when temperature becomes high, the people advanced in years and their adjustment function of temperature became weak are easy to die with sunstroke and so on. It is expected especially in developing countries that there are no air conditioners.

In conclusion, we never look on the global warming brightly. Because weather, sea, mountains, air, water, plants, animals and so on are all connected together. If we lose only one of them, our ecosystem goes wrong and the earth will come to an end. So from now, we have to do something for saving the earth if it is a minor thing.  


We should not overlook poverty.                By Mayumi Ueda

Recently, there occurs a lot of war, terrorist actions and disasters in the world. The results are many people die or fall poor every day. 70% of people in the world are poor and get into difficulties. If we supported them, they could live peacefully.

In poor countries, food shortage is a big problem. It leads to starvation and malnutrition. The causes of them are poor crops by drought and flood. But the biggest cause is that developing countries don't have enough money because of conflicts and wars. Conflicts and wars get countries into trouble. The economy becomes bad and many people lose houses and money. If there were no conflicts and wars, every country could build a lot of sanitary hospitals and everyone could get enough medical treatment.  

In addition, now not only wars and conflicts but also peacetime military spending causes poverty. For example, North Korea uses a lot of money for not the nation but security forces. The country has many combat planes, tanks and nuclear bombs. To manage and develop them, the country use national budgets. It is spent so much that many people in North Korea are in great trouble.

We often see refugee's pictures in newspaper and on TV. Refugees look as thin as a stick because they have no houses and food. It is common for us to have houses and enough food. But poor people cannot live ordinary.

People have the right to receive an equal education, but street children cannot do it because they don't have money at all. They have to work not to earn school expenses but to live. Children can make a bright future by receiving an education. Because of being poor, street children cannot learn even if they are eager to study.

We can eat enough food, receive education and live houses. They are common for us. But many people in poor countries cannot live ordinary lives. We will give them what help we can.  


Global Warming                                by Mami Imoto

The world is getting warm. Global warming is caused by many factors. It is one of the big problem on the earth.

One of the main reasons for global warming is deforestation. The trees absorb carbon dioxide and excrete oxgen in the air. So when we cut the trees in the forest, there will be less oxgen.

 Another reason of global warming is consumption of fossil fuel. When the fossil fuel is burned in many factories, they discharge a great deal of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere.

For these reasons carbon dioxide which increase in the atmosphere prevent the escape route of discharged carbon dioxide and the world becomes warm as a result. When the temperature rises on the earth the ice in the Arctic or Atrantic to be expected to melt in the ocean and the sea level will rise. As a result many lowlands in the world will sink in the ocean and the people who live there will lose their places to live.

These are the main factors which cause global warming. We have to take care about the problems on our mother earth and make efforts to solve them for our bright future.


Weak-kneed Diplomacy                By Kyohei Arakawa

The Japanese Government has continued its weak-kneed diplomacy. For example, the compensation for the Second World War, the suspicious ships, and the abduction of Japanese by North Korea. We must settle these serious problems.

The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, visited North Korea in order to meet with Kim Jong Il on September 17. As a result of the conference, we know that eight Japanese abductees have already died. Japanese people got very angry about it. Junichiro Koizumi declared that the Japanese Government would reopen the conference of normalizing the diplomatic relations between Japan and North Korea in October.

Families of the deceased objected to this course. It is natural-the Japanese Government should not normalize diplomatic relations without solving these problems first. This course will make North Korea happy, because they want economic aid from Japan.

Several days ago, the Japanese Government announced the cause of death of the victims. They were not natural and very suspicious. The Japanese Government emphasized that this information was from North Korea. The Japanese Government should hurry up with the investigation.

Recently The Japanese Government is going on with the negotiations gradually, so the Government must not compromise.

Japan has many problems that we must solve. They are very serious. However we must not compromise to solve them. If Japan compromised on them, Japanese would be made to look a fool by other countries.


Landmines                                by Nao Utsumi
 
Do you know how many landmines there are in the world? It's about 120 million. It's an amazing number. And how many people are killed or injured by them per year? It's more than 28,000. This means that one person is damaged every 20 minutes. I was shocked when I know that.
 
When I was a high school student, I learned about "Landmines" in detail. At that time, I didn't know much about it, and I wasn't interested in it. I watched a video in class. One man was injured by a landmine when he was removing it. He had one leg and one hand. In that video he taught about landmines to British junior high school students. He taught the number of landmines, the type of them, the way to remove them and his experience. He stepped it in an area where it said there were no landmines. To remove them is very dangerous. His body was proof. He said that making them was very cheap but removing them was very costly and needs many people. There are landmines that look like toys. Their target is children. There are important workers. Children are injured by it, but they can't be treated enough.
 
There is campaign to remove landmines. Recently Sacamoto Ryuichi composed a piece called "0 landmines". Its profit use for removing landmines. The music moved me. I think it's important to do something not only to think about it. Now the thing I can do is raising funds.   



The Pollution Threat     By Kimiko Ikemori


Today, our health is threatened by a lot of pollution. In this paper, I will tell you about 5 types of pollution (noise pollution, water pollution, environmental pollution, industrial pollution and air pollution) and I will mention the reasons and the effects.

These days the automobile industry improves very quickly. Cars and bikes have become necessary for our life. But on the other hand, it causes many problems. For example, young people converted their motor vehicles into more noisy ones and drive at midnight. There are many reasons for noise pollution, but I think this is the most terrible.

I also want to describe water pollution. It is said that the most serious reason of water pollution is in our home. Home drainage that contains garbage, oil, scraps and synthetic detergents pollute rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea. In polluted seas, plankton increased remarkably and it might break food chain.

There is other pollution that is caused by our daily lives. It is environmental pollution. Take our wastes for example. The amount of it is increasing from year to year. In contrast, waste treatment centers are not enough. But we cannot burn our wastes at home, because when they are burned, harmful dioxin comes out. So we are prohibited from burning wastes by ourselves. That is why we deforest and construct new waste treatment centers. Deforestation become reasons of many problems. Desertification, landslide, global warming and so on.

Next, I want to talk about industrial pollution. Above all, I want to point out industrial waste and atomic power plants. Industrial wastes cost a lot of money to treat. So there are a lot of people who disposal them illegally. As poisonous gas comes out from them, the neighborhood is damaged. An atomic power plant is necessary for power generation, but sometimes accidents happen. It is a very serious problem. It has an effect on the human body for a long time.

I believe these pollutions will be able to disappear if we really try to, but almost all people are indifferent to these environmental problems. I strongly contend that we have to know about pollution and change our lifestyle. For example, if each of us try to reduce our consumption, finally a lot of wastes can be reduced. A trifling thing is all right. I think it is important to act.


Air pollution             by Yoshimi Imaki

In Japan, our economy has developed after Word War.Many dirt roads changed into asphalt roads and there are a lot of cars now. Those cars produce a huge amount of carbon dioxide and anther pollutants. The factories or power stains produce carbon dioxide too. Moreover carbon dioxide causes many public nuisances that we are suffering from it, the most serious problem is that air pollution has many effects the earth and our bodies.

First, the acid rain from the air pollution kills forests. Now we can see some mountains filled with trees or grasses are balding. Plants are breathing take carbon dioxide in and oxygen out. If deforestation continues, carbon dioxide will increase more and more.
Next, the carbon dioxide gathering inside the atmosphere means the rising of the temperature on the surface of the earth. Because of this ice near the South Pole and North Pole have been melting. When the ice melts, the sea level will rise and less land will exist on the earth. Even now there are a lot of people who are sugaring from hunger.
Consequently, we will not be able to live.

Finally, carbon dioxide destroys the ozone layer and makes the ozone holes. The ozone holes admit the ultra violet lays comes inside of the ozone layer. The ultra violet lays effects us in many ways, for example, skin cancer and cataracts.

Air pollution and green house effect are caused by our progress. We have to think about nature more and more. I think about what I can do to reduce of carbon dioxide by using good gasoline. We avoid using product which use Freon. Now many people start think about reduce carbon dioxide. Some of Car Company creates an electronic car, and Japanese government prohibits using products which produce Freon.

If we will not do anything, our land will disappear and we will vanish. To think about nature is connected with our future. So we have to create to care about nature more and more.


The Aging Society            by Hitomi Irie


Can you imagine what society would be like in the middle of twenty-first century? Our country plunged into the aging society.

The elderly is increasing year after year. According to a investigation of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a percentage of those over sixty-five years old in the entire population of Japan increased remarkably from the year 1970 on ward, which went over seven percent, and became more than fifteen percent in 1997. It is changing with unprecedented speed in the world. According to the trial calculation of our country, it is expected that one in four will be an elderly in 2016 and one in three in the middle of twenty-first century. The elderly population is increasing, while the children are decreasing. We have to deal with the problems.

Many people are waiting to entire a nursing home. Some old people need care, and it may impossible to take care of them at home. So we have to build institutions to care for them. When he or she takes care of old people at home, there are many problems. Advisers are necessary for families with old people.

To reduce care responsibility, the elderly have to do by themselves as much as possible. It is good idea to invent welfare instruments.

The number of young people is much less than old people. As young generation who supports pension is few, a young person has to pay much money.

It is important for the elderly to communicate with each other. They need a chance to communicate with each other. For example, elderly meetings, gate ball etc. The chances become their lives.

Though there are many problems in the aging society, there are also good chances for us. Old people have wisdom and they have experienced many things. So it is good for young people to make a chance to talk with them. Let's consider about aging society to make society comfortable for everyone.


What is going on in America?                        by Chika Isoda

We have never known what is going on in America. There is a strange fact of the American economic system. We can learn those truth by this article. I'm going to give some information in the following paragraphs.

Recently, the American economy is declining down. Some of companies went bankrupt by the bad times. They are changing rapidly. In these days, president Bush try to have a war with Iraq. It might be very painful for their economy, but some people think that war is good to solve and increase the economy. There is a precedent for this ﾐ it is World War 2. After this circumstance, they set their economy finances in order.

After the Gulf war, America started to add sanctions to Iraq. America stands by multinational peoples. They imagine their country is the number one in the world. They can take oil from Iraq by American order. Therefore Iraq decided to increase its oil rate. They want to stop American domination. Although America thinks they can make their idea from unclear. In this way, America attempts to counterattack to Iraq.

There are lots of nuclear weapons in the world ﾐ especially "Iraq and North Korea have a lot of them" We have to protect producing those things by them. America think same way. On the other hand, some people want to stop American acting. They try to have a war to be the best country around the world. We also ought to protect people from war is difficult society.

We often think about America, which now has strong authority in the world. Even American desire to invade Iraq. They aren't anxious for a peaceful life for people. We have to fix our eye in equal way of our thinking which is peace.



An American War in Iraq                            by Ho Oh

America is just about to attack Iraq. Perhaps America has started the attack. America's government doesn't tell about that. Information warfare has already started, but most people in the world think that America should not attack Iraq. I hope all people wish for world peace, but some people don't want it. I'm so sad about that. I do hope all people think that America should not attack Iraq and America will not do so.

We all know about September 11,2002. America was attacked by terrorism and because of that there were a large number of bodies and thousands of people were injured. Most people said it was terrible, awful and horrible. On the other hand, especially in Islam area, people said it was natural thing. In my opinion, it was the worst and I sympathize with the victims, but I object to the attack on Afghanistan by America. America declared war Afghanistan and attacked quickly. Because of this a lot of blameless people citizens were killed in Afghanistan. America didn't notice that they did the same thing that Afghanistan did, in other words, Afghanistan killed blameless American people and America also killed guiltless Afghans. This is a big problem.

It is often said that Americans are selfish. I think it is true and particularly President Bush is so selfish. He doesn't hear voices of the American nation and he does everything as he wants to do. It cannot do to control the whole world, but he wants to control it and to be number 1 in the world. He is like child, but he is very popular and an approval rating of him is high. I cannot understand it.

What is the purpose of attack Iraq? In my opinion, the answer is oil. Of course America's government wants to kill Saddam Hussain, but the most important purpose is getting oil without killing Saddam. There is a lot of oil in Middle East area and Middle East countries have ownership of oil, of course Iraq has it. America's aim is that they will annihilate Iraq and make stop Iraq government. And America deprives Iraqi political rights and also ownership of oil.

In this world, from major to minor, there are various religions and each of them has original belief, doctrines and ways of thinking. Every religion think that our religion is right, others are wrong, especially fundamentalists, like Osama bin Laden, tend to think so. America also thinks like that. The one of reason attack Iraq is that Christianity destroy Islam. I think that Christianity wants to exhibit their justice by rooting out believer of other religions. If the reason is so, Christianity will destroy other religions. It is a big problem for us. For stopping, se have to understand other religion's beliefs or customs and we also have to have respect for them.

For world peace, we have to do our role. I do think each person has their own role. Take myself for instance, the role that I think is that I have to be a go-between for Japan and China. Now there are some prejudices or differences between them. My role is taking away those things and trying to make both of them to have respects each other. No matter what the roles are, we have to accomplish it. Those efforts will pile up and someday world is swallowed up peace.

All we have to put our power together to stop America. Black or white, Christianity or Islam, rich or poor, these things are not important. Everyone throws weapons away, sing love and peace instead, like John Lenon did, because no one in this world wants to attack Iraq by America.



Global Warming                                by Ikumi Ota


What is the most serious problem for mankind? I think it is "global warming," because although it may not appear the critical affair now, in the future the affair must arise from global warming. So I'll discuss four typical problems below.

I couple the name of global warming with carbon dioxide easily. Carbon dioxide causes global warming, because it surrounded the globe and cannot make solar heat emitted. So the temperature is rising. Originally we breathe in oxygen and out carbon dioxide. And that oxygen and carbon dioxide was made from trees. But we have cut many forests and we continue deforestation still now. Even though many people forest with a lot of trees, fellers cut down them before growing. Then many animals and plants that live in the forest may die out.

Next I'd like to talk about animals and plants. If the temperature keeps rising, it would change flora and fauna in all over the world. Have you considered a problem about changing flora and fauna? Of course I haven't. For example in Japan, on the one hand we can raise various kinds of tropical fruits or vegetables; on the other hand, we cannot grow delicious rise. I mean, we cannot make any tasty sake. Therefore we have to do breeding. Since we can do breeding, we don't get relief. The reason is it doesn't mean to reach the solution of the problems, global warming.

The third problem is about the disease of tropics like malaria. If such disease with tropics will come Japan, we would confuse, because in Japan doctors seldom have those diseases' specific remedy. We always think malaria and yellow fever won't be raging in Japan. While doctors have to have a vaccination. For people who don't like injection, it might be very unpleasant events. But if we don't have any vaccination, our death rate would more increase.

Finally I'll talk about melting Arctic. Maybe it is the most famous story about global warming. By the running of global warming, Arctic and Antarctic's ices are melting. Then of course, sea level is rising, and low land will sink below the sea level. It means there are left only small high area where we can live.

I can come to the conclusion which global warming causes very serious problems like I wrote above. So we have to control it, otherwise Japan will surely sink below the sea level. Japan has a lot of lowland areas. Actually the mean temperature for the glacial period is lower than today's one only 3 degrees. I mean only few degrees drop, world come to the glacial period. So global warming is a serious problem.



Landmines                                    by Aya Onishi

These days, one of hot topics around the world is landmines, but people seem not to pay attention to it. I would like you to think and know more about landmines. I also did not give a lot of care or take it seriously, but I looked through by using books or internet and I realized we should turn our efforts to this problem.

In Japan or other countries which do not have any landmines, we do not know very much about how dangerous they are. Britain and France have already made treaties and stopped producing landmines, but India, Israel, Pakistan and America have never decided to quit making them. So we may not be stop them forever.

People who live in Afghanistan do buy and sell people because they do not have enough money. They earn like that way. People spend on landmines after saving some money. If you tried to get rid of all of them, it would take 1100 years. We need a lot of time, money, searching relief and great technology. It is difficult to solve the problem so these areas like Angola, Egypt or Afghanistan are cannot develop.

If you touched landmines, they would not kill you but they might give you a heavily damaged body. For example, they cut off your own hand or foot. You have to take a lot of hours to treat yourself after such terrible attacked. But if you got damage and you could be found by anyone and time went on, finally, you were found later 5 or 6 days since you were injured. It means you got more serious illness and you might lose both hands or feets. People who work for curing patients have to prepare 2 times of blood transtusions for a patient, but that is hard to get them.

There are more than 100,000,000 landmines in 68 countries of all over the world. Landmines killed 26,000 casualties every year. Can you image people everyday are frightened by landmines? People do not know where they are buried. Afghan or Cambodian etc cannot fell relief.

There is one of man called Akila. He only knows he was born in 1973. He does not know much about himself. He lived in North Cambodia called Siemreap, when he was a very little child. He dwelled in dread of weapons and landmines. Khmerrouge killed his dad and mum when he was 5 years old but there was nothing doubt. It is to be surprised he was taken care of himself by Khmerrouge and he was brought up as a soldier so he was drilled correct use of gun or method of laying landmines' establishment or how to make bomb easily. He was given his own gun when he was 10 years old. Vietnam occupied his village when he was 13. He was in a tight squeeze whether to surrender or be killed. He registered for the draft eventually. He made an enemy of Khmer rouge though they were foster parents for him. In 1990, he spent time with Vietnamese armies together until they retreated from Cambodia. After that, he got into Cambodia army. A few years later, he worked at the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, Blue Helmet. What he had to do was to remove landmines. Of course, there were landmines, which he buried in field. Now he is working for eliminating them.

In my conclusion, we should be more thoughtful about them. We must help each other whatever you can do everything.


North Korea                                    by Mizuho Amiya

North Korea is a terrible country! We often hear the topic about it in conversation between friends, and on the radio and TV. Recently, almost all of the TV's information is about it, so_I am interested in the theme, North Korea.

I hear that there are some problems in North Korea- the most common and the latest topic is about the abductions. The North Korean government had rejected the idea that it ha abducted some people from Japan to North Korea but they finally admitted it about one month ago and also they allowed those abducted people to go to Japan temporarily. While the government admitted that, there are still a lot of doubts.

Firstly, one of them is whether the abducted Japanese really died from bad weather or sickness or not? The bereaved families worry about their abducted daughter and son and they believe their children are still alive. Also, the Japanese government ordered the Korean government to let the abducted people stay in Japan forever and to send their families living in North Korea to Japan. Will the Korean government allow that? In this connection, the negotiation for peace between the North Korean and the Japanese governments is held now and the North Korean may use the abducted people's family still remaining there to make sure it goes well because they want support, especially money. They seem to have a lot of hidden agendas.

Secondly, the North Koreans have created atomic bombs and the government had denied about it but they admitted it recently. The American government is also criticizing the North Koreans now. However, we are not sure whether they stop it or not.

Thirdly, Kim Jong Il controls the North Koreans and politics. He encourages his army to be much stronger and he spend a lot of money on the Military budget. The people are starving because of it. In the Korean movie, Shuri, one actor, he is from North Korea in the movie, said that "the North Korean is starving and parents eat flesh of their dead children". I don't know if it's true but I can see their national condition is very bad. However, the people worship Kim Jong Il extraordinarily. I wonder why nobody advises him to change his policy and also I cannot understand why the government creates atomic bombs in spite of the terrible poverty and starvation in the country.

However, there is a point for Japanese to consider. It is about miserable attitudes to North Koreans when it was World War 2. we, Japanese ill- treated them and hurt them. It is incorrigible for them and they call for compensation.

The negotiation between the North Korean and the Japanese governments was introduced an a large scale in the American newspaper, I heard. Our problem is not only ours but worldwide. We have to consider unreasonable North Korean policies toward other country's people and solve the problem of what we, the Japanese people did to the North Koreans during the World War 2 by ourselves. North Korea is a very very near neighbor so, I hope we create a better relationship with them someday.


Sports                                        by Yukiko Imai

Sports can give peace us, but can they more than that?I'd like to think about other points which are concerned with sports. The points are about health and peace, economy and crime.

Sports effect both physical and mental health. You know,sports make good health, and the good condition of your bodies gives us positive thoughts. For example, if you are healthy, you will be active and can triumph over adversity. So, I think that people can have big dreams and strong wills if they are healthy. The same can be said for people who have handicaps. For such a reason, the Paralympics were organized. Another example, children who play a lot outdoors can make themselves strong and flexible. Sports make healthy constitutions. Besides, when you play competitive sports, you need prompt decisions, because there are many unexpected actions from your cotetitors.

Sports are also connected with peace. They can prevent war. In the olympics, many athletes from different countries gather to participate. It means that they can make friends with foreigners who have various different values.If people have foreign friends, it will be natural that they do not want war, because it means that they have to battle with their own freinds. Global sports may prevent wars.

Finally, I will talk about sports connected with economy, which is related to crime. Generally in developing countries, there are many poor people. Some of them tend to commit crimes. However, if they are instructed in sports and have a dream to be athletes, they may have high will in the future instead of having interests in crime. People who have dreams do not tend to commit crimes. If they become athletes, they will earn by not crimes but themselves. It contributes to economic activity and also a decrease in crimes.

Therefore I would like to state that sports have a lot of advantages. Isn't it wonderful that sports are related to health and world peace?


Guess What?                                    by Emiko Inoue

Guess what? Don't you think we don't think about global warming? It is a very serious problem because it is caused by a lot of cases. But we don't recognize how nearly it is facing us. Global warming attacks us from the various points. I give you some explanations of global warming. Global warning is very close to us now. So we can't  linger! Hurry up! We have to get the knowledge of global warming right now, and let's think it over!

Global warming is caused by the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. CO2 is made from human beings, plants, animals, cars, factories, and so many things which use energy. If CO2 increases too much, it will cause the "greenhouse effect". CO2 builds up inside the ozone layer. Then the temperature rises all over the world and the earth gets warmer. This is the greenhouse effect. If it continues, global warming is caused. So if we want to stop global warming, we should try to decrease CO2. So we should control the discharge of CO2. We can make use of our seven oceans. Oceans absorb a lot of CO2, so we were endowed with really splendid thing. We should also increase plants. Plants absorb CO2, so to increase plants is one way to decrease CO2 directly.

Next, why we are upset if the earth gets hotter? It is said that the temperature is rising 1 degree every 10 years. If it continues, all creatures will not be able to live by at least 2300. It also causes the dissolution of the ice of the Arctic. If the earth gets hotter and hotter, the ice will melt and the sea level will rise up all over the world. Then the seawater will submerge our lands. It means it will cause deludes. Then we will lose our houses and farming lands.

Deforestation  is also a big problem. Plants absorb a lot of CO2, so if we continue it, global warming will come to the surface absolutely. For another reason, deforestation causes acid rain. Acid rain causes next deforestation. Once acid rain is caused, there will be a vicious cycle. But we can check this problem. Now a lot of people try to check it, so we have to try to check things that we can do that.

In addition to this, a lot of things else can cause global warming. These things that I explained are only a few of them. If  we face to causes of global warming, we have to think over what we can do against them. I want our efforts to bear fruit. Then we will check absolutely . I believe so.



Why Discrimination Occurs?                               by Tomoko Iida

Has someone ever discriminated against you? Or have you ever seen someone suffer discrimination? Even if it was small problem, like bullying among children, it is some kind of distinction. Actually, there is still remaining the discrimination in the world. Why does it occur? There are 3 main reasons. First, towering Lincoln's death, second, the discrimination by skin color, third, people's thoughts and parents' discipline.

In American discrimination history, there is very important and unforgettable person, whose name is Abraham Lincoln. He was the 16th president of America. In 1863, he declared the Emancipation Proclamation. Of course, slavery is a kind of discrimination. Before he announced it, people thought the slavery was common and necessary. But then, some people changed their minds. It is just signal for abolition, far from the end of the slavery. In 1865, someone who disagreed with his idea assassinated the smart person Lincoln. America lost such an important person to abolish slavery and discrimination.

Further, we, the humans have skin, which is different from race. It is character and individuality, not the rank of people. The color of skin is handed down to offspring. Children never can choose it. White people, however, often look down on African Americans or Asians. And also sometime these people hate white people. There is historical background. African Americans, called "blacks" were used to slave of whites. It is a relic of a bygone age. There again, many people make a point of one's career. The high position man wants the woman who has good job and place. Even if some upper class man fell in love with poor girl, most surroundings will disagree with his marriage.

These problems were coming from people's thoughts. It is natural for people to feel secure when they saw the person who is below them. People always want to live with ease. And also that concept was made by parents' discipline. Small children don't have discriminative thoughts. But year-by-year, though parents' education, children may learn needless information. And then, these bad wrong thoughts might be cause of vicious circle.

Finally, It is certain that discrimination was made by people. It will not disappear if people keep the vicious circle. So, what can we do? We, Japanese have no religion to speak of. And Japan is an island country, so we don't have racial prejudice, especially young people. Chiefly the students of Kyoto University of Foreign Studies must have broad understanding and interest to solve these problems. We can be the bridge between person and person.



Environment                                by Yumiko Aoki

Do you think our earth is healthy? The answer is no. Now, the environment of the earth is being damaged. If we can't change our life as usual, the earth will be destroyed. We have to protect the environment.

The 20-century has witnessed great progress in science. Human beings are trying to make we to live more conveniently and more comfortably. But instead we invited the crisis of environmental destruction.

For example, we give off a lot of exhaust gas by car or factory, and we are causing atmospheric pollution. For that, global warming is progressing. Also we are polluting the water and the earth. The latest news says that ecosystem of fish is changing, because the environmental balance is changing.

We also cut trees a lot. Plants will make the environment better and we know that, but still we are destroying the forests.

In recent years, we are trying to improve the environment. When we watching the TV, we often see the commercial oh electrical appliances. Most of it says, it is good for the environment. Like having to save economize energy. Their have a lot of activity to restore the environment. For example, plant trees, clean the river, try to reuse the resources, reduce garbage and so on. We have to reuse the resources more. Most people want to have new things. But if you buy a new appliance, the old one goes to garbage. To make new one, it will need a lot of energy. Sometimes it is better for the environment to keep the old appliance.

We are quick to destroy the environment, but it will be difficult to restore. Therefore we have to protect our earth. For that, everyone should think and act on the environment.


A Sea Change in Japan-North Korean relations?     by Sayaka  Ikezoe

There will be a great historical day soon. Now a big sea change is coming between Japan and North Korea. Recently Japanese prime minister, Mr.Koizumi and the North Korean president, Kim Jong Il continue to negotiate about normalizing diplomatic relations. We are facing a lot of problems and I'd like to focus on them.

The biggest problem for Japanese is the abductions. 13Japanese people were taken away to North Korea over 20 years ago and recently the fact that 8 people had already died and 5 people are still alive became clear. For a long time North Korea had not touched the problem, but for the first time, North Korea recognized that the abductions were committed by an administrative organ and the president, Kim Jong Il, apologized to Japan. But still now a lot of riddles and problems remain - for example, the cause of the 8 people's deaths, or about the permanent residence of 5 people and their families have not been solved yet. So we must continue the conference in the hope that everything will be revealed.

The other biggest problem is about compensation. During World War 2, Japan took many Korean people to Japan for labor. It is horrible history. Before the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, South Korea and North Korea were the same country. But when the Second World War was over Japan compensated only South Korea and did not give anything to North Korea. Therefore before normalizing diplomatic relations it is essential far Japan to pay the indemnity to them.

If Japan establishes diplomatic relations with them, we shall expand trade. Until now Japan has traded with North Korea as private businesses. But even though North Korea buys Japanese products, they don't or can't pay money for them, so the debt keeps on increasing. Ordinary other countries have an insurance system for a debt. But North Korea does not have one. So now there are few companies who trade with the country. They must clear their debt and set up an insurance system.

In conclusion North Korea, which has kept complete silence, is opening up to us positively. Both countries have many problems as was mentioned above, but the historical day that everything will become clear may come soon. It is not only subject for Japan and North Korea, so it's very complicated, but we must know about it and wait for the solution.


The Olympics                                   by Hiroyuki Ichihara             

You know of course the Olympics are held every four years. The Olympics is the biggest sports festival in the world. The Olympics has had long history since 1896. There are other Olympics do you know? It is said that it is winter Olympics and Pararimpic. These Olympics give us lots of things which is movement, information of other country, courage , passioun and dreams. To my joy , these days the more countries participate in the Olympic, the more international it is. That is sound good. But the Olympics may have several provlems to have to solve. There are few black swimmers. This is because of racial segregation in former times. White people did not swim black people together. This discrimination still remains a little , so the black does not like to be swimmer, I think. This discrimination should be removed and more black swimmers should have been chosen to swim in Olympics.

In 2000 Sydney Olympics, a black swimmer took part in this from Kenya. His name was Musanbani . Like him, more blacks must be given chances. There are big differences. What do you think rich countries and poor countries are equal? The problem now is more that black swimmers do not have access to good facilities and training. So particularly for African athletes, money is the problem.

The  parolympics is that it can give dreams to different a group people. Bat points some of us see them as a differently abled people, not a player. So we should them as a player when they are performing. I think The Olympics has several problems. But this is most biggest and greatest sports festival. So I hope that the Olympics lead to world peace.


Global Warming                    By Sawako Ishida

According to the National Academy of Sciences, "the Earth's surface temperature has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past century with accelerated warming during the past two decades."

There is carbon dioxide around the earth. This is called the greenhouse effect-gas. The energy that is carried from the san warms the ground. The heat is radiated to space and becomes infrared rays. But the greenhouse gases can absorb infrared rays, and they have property, which can reradiate to the ground. Soothe earth is heated again. This is called the greenhouse effect. However, human beings consume a lot of fossil fuel. That accounts for consuming. It breaks out as a consequence of a concentration of the greenhouse effect-gas into the atmosphere rising and it is rising in temperature which is the atmosphere of nearby ground. This is a problem about global warming.

We have a many problems about global warming. The glacier or ice of Antarctic dissolves into water. Then, that pours into the sea, and it is happened to rising sea level by inflate with warm seawater.

It is affected for ecosystem by rising temperature. Japanese configuration is complexity. So rising temperature threaten moving ecosystem, and maybe it is possible that abnormality weather and typhoon is expanded in scale.

In fluency on global warming reach a water resources. In the future, the water resource will be decreased in Europe, Africa, and America which in granary. Also, it is impossible that producing foods, and the detriment of our health.   

So we should find out the best solution. For example, we can decrease carbon dioxide the discharge from our home. At the same time, diminish the number of electrical appliances. And we can stop burning fossil fuel. I think that decreasing carbon dioxide, we can use bicycle or walk. So it is the best way for important choosing transportation.


Landmines            Mana Ando               

What do you know about landmines? Many people are afflicted by them. There are lots of facts. This paper will show you some examples which illustrate this ideal.

Landmines have been used in 88 countries so far. They caused people in Afghanistan, Angola, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chechnya and Mozambique extensive damage. Landmines usually injure people, not kill them. These people often lose their sight, hearing, legs, arms and many die. From then, they have faced each other with this fact for the rest of their lives. If people are affected by landmines, they will not be able to do the job which they were doing before.

The risk to women is very big. Even if they injured by landmines, they have to go to the place where are many mines to fetch wood and farm. Unmarried female survivors often have difficulty finding a husband. They are given the responsibility of taking care of family members who are injured by mines.

Victims die from lack of blood. They need about twice as many blood transfusions as other diseases. But there is not enough blood. The treatment for people takes a long time. Patients need an average of 4 operations and 32 days in hospital to recover. It is very expensive. So they cannot afford to pay. Also many people may have artificial limbs. They cost about $125.000.

Did you know these facts? We should know about landmines more and more. Then we had better think about what we can do for them. For examples, what are the solutions to reduce landmines? I do not know that, so I must think deeply it.


The Negotiation with North Korea by Chika Ishikawa

On September 17th, 2002, a historically important summit of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean President Kim Jong Il was held in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea. On that day, from early in the morning, news media broadcast information about it. I watched it wondering whether the missing people would come back because of this summit or not.

As a result of the summit, we got tragic news that 8 people were dead among 13 missing people. Everyone in Japan had thought about whether there really is the necessity for us to begin negotiations with such a terrible country right now. But we have to have future visions with North Korea about what situations will be best for us. So the negotiation must be done slowly over the coming years.

With setting a long-range goal that we change North Korea into a peaceful democratic country, we should think how we carry on negotiations as a first step for that goal hereafter. When we think so, it will only have the contrary effect for it to give economic assistance to the present Kim Jong Il Administration. Former Rice assistance for starving citizens was all distributed among the military authorities. We must not give such assistance like that helps to maintain the present Kim Jong Il Administration. This is a major premise.

One more thing we should think about is that we must not plunge Kim Jong Il into the depths of despair. If he becomes desperate and makes war against South Korea, it will turn into a serious situation. The death moment of the Kim Jong Il Administration is most dangerous. So it would be good to take years for looking at its condition over negotiations. He will try to hold a discharge of the military authorities as far as he has negotiations with Japan and can get economic assistance, and so has a hope that he can keep his position.

Meanwhile, North Korea has about three scenarios. First, the regime will come to a deadlock and be in a state of anarchy and be swallowed up by South Korea. Secondly, other inside power will overthrow the Kim Jong Il Administration and make peaceful democratic power, or there is a bare possibility that the present regime itself will change its mind and become peaceful. Thirdly, another new power will take stronger attitude. The third is an undesirable case and can lead to war for the worst. The first and second cases also have possibility that the military authorities raise a riot in confusion. Anyway, for those cases, we have a need to reduce the North Korean military power as much as possible.

America puts pressure on North Korea militarily, on the other hand, Japan hangs a food that economic assistance after normalizing the relationship. It is the outcome of this "the carrot and the stick" policy that Kim Jong Il confessed the abduction and apologized for it. We should stay this policy over cooperation with America.
About the abduction problem, we should show a clear attitude that we cannot go forward in talks without taking up this problem above all as the first step of the negotiations. We have a need to demand that they explain the truth about 8 dead people and make them come back to Japan the families of 5 people who came back to Japan safely. It is said that there are still more about 80 abducted people from Japan to North Korea, and from South Korea, I heard that there are about 500 abducted people now on TV. So we should take up this topic and make a framework of two countries, Japan and South Korea to deal with this problem.

One more thing that I worry about is that starving people will continue increasing while long-range negotiations. So we have a need to think good method that food assistance will not be taken away from the military authorities and go to starving citizens. If this point become clear it is good to give humanitarian assistance side by side. For example, how about this proposal that the UN organ or NGO themselves supply boiled rice for people? If Kim Jong Il rejects this, he cannot avoid the international criticism.

Japan has big responsibility for neglecting such dangerous country just near itself. Japanese politicians and bureaucracy have let North Korea grow dangerously until now. At present what moves politicians and bureaucracy is people’s voices. This is just one hope to carry on the above negotiations. Real democracy is that the public opinion moves politics, I think. We must continue to give the voice of us and work on for this problem.



The Danger of Aids by Miho Iida

There are many people who suffer from incurable illness all over the world. Almost everyone knows about "AIDS" as a terminal illness. AIDS stands for "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome" and this is a newer disease. In addition, AIDS is increasing in the world year after year.  Can’t we prevent the extent of the disease?

At first, we should know about differences of HIV and AIDS.AIDS causes by HIV. HIV stands for "Human Immurodeficiency Virus" There are some routes which people become infected by HIV. There are mother and child contagion, blood transfusion, sharing needles, and sex. First, if a child was infected from the mother, there are these three routes.

1. In the womb
2. Before and after birth
3. Mother’s milk of after childbirth.

A researcher says that possibility is 5-10% of HIV infection all over the world for babies with infected mothers. Second, in Japanese case, all blood transfusions are examined and prepared, so then is a very low probability of transfusion. Third, in this sharing needles case, high probability of infection is from sharing needles while using drugs. To prevent the infection of sex, we must use a condom. In fact probability of infection of sex, we must use a condom. In fact probability of infection with sex is very low. While Japan is slated to host the Seventh International Congress on AIDS in Asia experts say the level of concern about the danger of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is low.

Do you know that AIDS is not an old disease? There is new history in the world. On 5th June, 1981, America prevention at epidemics center reported five pneumonia patients who became the first AIDS cases. In 1982, they decided the name of AIDS. In 1983, in Japan a hemophiliac died, so Japanese reported "AIDS came to Japan". In 1985, the Ministry of Health and Welfare authorize reported that two homosexuals who were living in America Became first patients in Japan. Thereafter AIDS was up to today.

Everyone knows the name of AIDS. However they do not know enough about the causes or symptoms of disease. Everyone should know about HIV, not AIDS. HIV is a virus that can live only in human body. The virus is also found sputum or tears, but it doesn’t infect because a consistency is lacking for necessary quantity. Consequently , we can’t be infected by HIV easily.

In conclusion, we must protect our body by ourselves, and AIDS isn’t just any disease it’s an infections disease. Therefore we have to know this and we should be sure to take good care of ourselves.


North Korea by Noriko Ishikawa

Children by Yukari Ito

There are many problems facing children all over the world. The problems get more and more serious every year. People should think and suggest countermeasures for the children’s welfare. Also, people must support or help children who have serious problems as soon as possible.

Children have some big problems with their health in developing countries because of the situation that there aren’t better medical services. For example, the children drink very dirty water in their daily life. There are various kinds of minor germs in the water. Also, children can’t receive enough medical treatment even if they are injured.

Moreover, some developing countries like Rwanda and Thailand had wars, and there are too many landmines now. Children don’t know where there are the mines, so they often step on the mines when they play outside. As a result, many children are seriously injured.

Children in developing countries have difficulty getting an education. They have no money and time to take an education every year, because it is as much as they can do to work hard to support their families. Almost all children must work hard to support their families when they are very young. For example, delivering newspapers, polishing shoes clean, and gathering rubbish. Because of the hard work, many children get ill through overwork or pass away. They keep working hard from morning to evening. In the situation, some of their parents don’t work in developing countries. Moreover, the children are bought and sold by foreign operatives, if they can’t work enough; that is, they are killed, and their internal organs sold on the black market.

Today, there are some international organisations all over the world. For example - UNICEF, the United Nations (UN), and Amnesty International. Especially, UNICEF has dealt with and appealed over the terrible problems. Developed countries such as Japan and America also appeal to help each other all over the world. Some of the countries said , "Children are very important for the future." Also, there is a big foundation called "Peaceful village" for children who sustained terrible injuries. In the village, 1000 children come from Afghanistan. Moreover, the institution has to become bigger and bigger because there are too many children.

What do we think about the children’s problems in daily life? There aren’t enough chances to think about the problems. We should do something to solve the problems, even if it’s small. For example, volunteer activity, fundraising, and relief. Anyway, we need to know the terrible situation in the world before we can act.



Troubles in the world by Junko Adachi


Will a time when the threat of troubles be taken away from the world come someday? There are many troubles and incidents in the world. Most of them happen not between different nations but in the same nations. Groups who oppose each other do it using primitive weapons. For example, in Rwanda, a lot of atrocities are happened by using machetes. In contrast to poor country like it, wealthy country use high-tech weapons. The causes of these troubles become to be more intricate than before. As a result, it is difficult to stop it.

Because of troubles, many land mines still remain in the ground, especially in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Cambodia. About 70 people are died or injured by them everyday. Most of victims are citizen not soldiers. So, children are injured too. Now, some people and organization try to remove landmines. It takes much time and cost. At the same time, it is attended by many risks.

For example, if we try to remove all landmines in Cambodia, we have to use all incomes of everyone there for a few years. Even if we could raise enough money, it will take about 100 years in Cambodia. If we remove all landmines in the world, it could take over 1000 years. While people remove one landmine, 20 landmines are buried. So, there is no end to the troubles caused by them.

Thus, many places are dangerous now. The number of refugees is increasing rapidly, and about 30 million people are suffering in the world. The trouble spots expand because more slaughters are happened by modern weapons like missile, gun, and cannon and so on. Therefore, more refugees increase. They try to flee from dangerous place to other countries. Lack of food makes that problem worse.

In conclusion, "We must finish these troubles. If not, these troubles may finish mankind." One day in America, John F. Kennedy said so. We should think about the importance of those words. We should help each other beyond the countries to get suffering people out of their current



Environmental Problems by  Fumie Asano

                      
There are many environmental problems now a day. We should know that and try to solve these problems.

There is air pollution, which is caused by vehicle exhaust emissions and factory smoke that includes dioxin and more poisonous things. They are not good for human health. For example, many people are asthma because of these. When we burn the plastic, dioxin occurs. Sometimes these made people die.

A second problem is ozone depletion. Chlorofluorocarbon breaks ozone layer so ultraviolet rays strengthen. It affects human skin. It makes people cataract, skin cancer and decline of immunity. Moreover it’s not good for animal and plant. Now the ozone hole is twice of Antarctic continent.

A third problem is global warming. That is caused by carbon dioxide. Using air conditioner and driving car increases carbon dioxide. Also, cutting down forest is connected with global warming. It’s even linked with desertification. Now Antarctic ice is melting because of global warming. Temperature has been raising every year.

The last problem is water pollution. It happens cause of domestic waste and many kinds of detergents. This has a bad influence upon fish and people who eat fish.

To solve these problems, we can do a lot of things. We should recycle or reuse something. Some supermarkets withdraw milk carton and plastic tray to recycle. We should not use disposable wooden chopsticks, paper cups, paper towels and plastic trays. It helps to stop desertification and global warming. If we drive ecological car or didn’t use air conditioner many times, we can stop global warming. We should realize how to solve these problems and how bad it is. If we don’t do that, the natural resources will run out and people will be sick.


                  
North Korea by Chihiro Ishikawa


On September 17, 2002, the Pyong Yang Declaration was concluded between Japan and North Korea. Japanese people do not know very much about North Korea, because there was no relationship between Japan and North Korea after World WarÖ† North Korea is an unknown and inscrutable country for us. The Japanese government has been trying to make contact with North Korea for a long time. It was realized at last this time. Gradually, knowledge of North Korea’s environment will emerge for us.

It is said that North Korea has a serious problem of poverty. It is considered the army is the most important, and they spend a lot of money on weapons. So, people are suffering from lack of food. In North Korea, the land, the companies, and the factories belong to the nation. The government parcels out the work and residences to people. They distribute the bare necessities of life to the people. I am really sorry for North Korean people who are suffering from poverty. The North Korean government is also making nuclear weapons. This is a world problem. The countries which have not economic power, tend to have nuclear weapons. They defend their country with nuclear weapons. I am afraid that North Korea uses it someday.

There is another problem between Japan and North Korea. Some North Korean took many Japanese away to their land about twenty_five years ago. This is the biggest problem for the Japanese. The North Korean government has never acknowledged this fact until now. This shows that they are in a corner. They really need economic assistance now, so they are trying to go round with Japan. While the abductions of Japanese citizens was wrong, it is less important than what the Japanese did to North Korea in WWÖ†. But I cannot understand North Korean purpose of abduction. It is odd to take someone away. I think that families of missing Japanese spent painful days for a long time. Now, five people of missing Japanese have being returned. These are many problems about this. It will be take a lot of time for these five Japanese make a permanent home in Japan.

Now, almost all people think that North Korea is a dangerous country, but I hope that the day will come that the Japanese and the North Korean visit each country. I think people cannot live without other’s help; country cannot live without other country’s



Animals by Kazuaki Akazawa 


Now, humans have had great power. Sometimes the power gives us some influence on nature. Inevitably, we have a big influence on animals. We cause many problems for animals. Now, I am going to introduce some problem in our relationship with animals.


We have destroyed nature, cut down a lot of trees, crushed a lot of forests, polluted everywhere and hunted many kinds of animals for various reasons. These acts exterminated many animals. Now, many animals are also becoming extinct. Many animals become extinct everyday. There are some animals that become extinct naturally, but other many animals are exterminated by us.


There is some problem by our side. One of the problems is pets. Now, many people keep various animals as a pet, for example dogs, cat, bird, fish…etc… Pets give us many favors. On the other hand some of us give up to keep their pets, and dump them. The act also cause many trouble. One of the troubles is naturalization. Naturalization is one of the problems that lead to extinction. Now, many animals are naturalized in Japan. Some of these animals destroyed nature. They sometimes eat other animals that live there from the beginning, excessively. Sometimes these animals are harmful for us. Now, many animals are naturalized in Japan. The problem is close to us.


We have another problem with animals. It is abuse. There are unusual people who are cruel to animal. We can see the news on TV. There are many causes. It is an unusual thing, but it is one of the problems concerning animals.


We could not live without animals. We need to live with animals forever. However, now, we are making animals fall into a crisis. We could not ignore the problem. We have to make effort to live together for each other.



Smoking by Takafumio Aikou

I want to write about smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes do harm to us by various way so I write them.

At first the most dangerous point of smoking is a fire. If a smoker does not take a fire enough care in putting out the fire of tobacco or smoking in bed, it causes a fire. A fire snatches everything from us and sometimes it takes even our life. So a fire is the most things that smokers have to take care.

Second bad point of smoking is toxicity. The smoke of cigarettes is bad for hearth of smokers’ lungs and even lungs of someone who is around smokers. To give an actual example of smoke’s harm is lung cancer. The most famous cause of Japanese death is cancer and smoke of cigarettes is one of the biggest factors to increase death by lung cancer. In addition to the influence, the smoke affects children who will be born on future. Smoking women’s children have possibility to be deformed children or born with serious disease.

Next bad factor is give injures to someone who are around smokers. As I wrote above the smoke causes lung cancer and its bad influence do harm to some persons than smokers, themselves. Besides
The harm of smoke, the fire also injures someone, especially children. If there is someone who smokes as walking, the height of fire is just the height of children’s eyes. It is very dangerous.

By the many bad points of above, recently anti-smoking campaigns spread rapidly. At one area of Tokyo, someone who smokes as walking is punished with a fine. In the future price of cigarettes rise and smokers will feel ashamed. Smokers have to think about to smoke cigarettes.



Japan and North Korea by Yasuhiko Ajisaka
 
About twenty four years ago, what happened between Japan and North Korea. Some Japanese disappeared from Japan. The Japanese government thought North Korea have been a cause of that mystery. Before, suspicious ships came near to Japan. Some of its was found by the Maritime Safety Agency of Japan. According to rador,Å@suspicious ships went back to port of North Korea. The Maritime Safety Agency tried to stop the ships, but they ran away from Japanese ship. The outside of ship looks like Japanese fishing boat, But mysterious boat could a lot faster than real Jpanese fishing boats. Japanese governor related kidnap with that suspicious ships. But North Korea have never admited to doing the kidnaps.
 
 The other day, There was a meeting between the Japanese prime minister, Mr,Koizumi and the leader of North Korea, Kim. The theme was to normalize relations between Japan and North Korea, and talk about the kidnaps. Some former prime ministers tried to take up this matter, but they couldn't get any results. This time there was progress. Kim admited to the Kidnaps. Eleven Japanese people were caught about twenty years ago. Five people are now alive. But two people were dead, and four people were unknown. Five people came back to Japan, But it's a temporarity homecoming. From now, we will start to solve this matter gradually.
 
 In Japan, there are Koreas living. In them, There is a boxer who's name is Tokuyama. His real name in Korea is Hon-Chan-Su. He was shocked and he had deep regrets about what had happened. But after the meeting, he had big regrettable feeling and was shocked about that fact. The effect of this event spread the world. Everyone should think about this carefully.