Aussie Nova teachers to be helped by consulates...and Seoul...Damn expensive!

Aussie Nova teachers to be helped by consulates
Japan Times

SYDNEY (Kyodo) Australia is offering consular assistance to its nationals who are working in Japan for struggling, scandal-hit language school chain Nova Corp., Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said Friday.

"We'll provide them with consular assistance if they need it," he said. "If they get into real personal difficulties, we'll obviously help them out."

Some 1,300 Australians work for Nova and face the real possibility of losing their jobs while living in a very expensive country, he said.

While Nova has not gone completely bust yet, Downer said he fears the company would "fall over."

Nova has been operating on shaky ground since June, when the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ordered it to suspend part of its operations for lying to customers in advertisements about its services.

Since then, Nova has been hit with decreasing student enrollments and canceled contracts.

Some 4,000 foreign teachers are currently registered with Nova in Japan, with many coming from Australia and New Zealand.

Several foreign Nova workers have complained to media in Australia and New Zealand that they have not been paid recently.

Downer said he believes Nova's operating difficulties were due to poor management and would not have broader implications for Japan's English-language teaching market.

"I think there is growing demand for English-language teaching in Japan. So I think we needn't be pessimistic about it in a broader sense. We just need to think about the 1,300 Australians who are suddenly finding themselves out on the street there in Japan," he said.

Australia Asia Centre for Education Exchange, an Australian company coordinating international education exchange programs, has stopped dispatching teachers to Nova.

The body said on its Web site that following the abrupt closure of some Nova schools and Nova's delayed payments to instructors, it ended its recruitment relationship with the Japanese company Oct. 1.


Seoul, Exorbitant City
Chosun Ilbo

Seoul is among the world’s most expensive cities despite the fact that Korea only ranks 49th in terms of per capita income. Some international compilers of price indexes put Seoul above notoriously exorbitant Tokyo, New York and London. In a survey of the cost of living in 144 cities in March last year, Mercer Human Resource Consulting found Seoul the second most expensive city after Moscow. Seoul moved up three notches from 2005.

According to the 2006 Corporate Travel Index by Business Travel News of the U.S., a stay in Seoul cost US$567, the third most expensive among 100 cities after Monte Carlo and Paris. In a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Seoul was cheaper than other cities but the price increase was steep. In the index of 130 cities, Seoul ranked 13th, above New York and up 12 notches from the previous year. The institute put Seoul’s prices at 110 against the benchmark 100 of the United States.

The Mainichi Shimbun's Seoul correspondent Tetsuo Nakajima lives alone in a studio apartment in Yeonhee-dong, Seoul. He pays W800,000 (about 100,000 yen) rent for the room, for which he also forked out a W10 million (US$1=W936) deposit. In Tokyo, his wife and three children live in a four-room public apartment. They pay 130,000 yen (about W1 million) in rent without deposit. In other words, he pays nearly as much for a studio here as for his four family members back in Tokyo. The BBC’s Charles Scanlon, previously stationed in Japan, says housing prices in Seoul are almost the same as in Tokyo. With the exception of Hong Kong, Seoul's housing prices seem to be three to four times higher than elsewhere in Asia.

Scanlon spends days off in the mountains or by the seaside but can’t understand the high hotel room rates. Elsewhere in Asia, he says, visitors can stay at a luxury hotel for $150 to $200 a night. In Korea, that only gets them somewhere middling. Divine Munguia from Los Angeles, who teaches English at a private tutoring institute, was shocked when she first saw what organic vegetables cost at a superstore. In the U.S., she says, she can buy a bagel for $1. But one shop in Seoul sells bagels for W3,000, more than three times as much. Scanlon is also baffled by the high price of imported beer, which is twice as expensive as Korean brands. An imported beer costs about W7,000 in Seoul, double the price in London and about three times higher than in other Asian cities.

Munguia does not bother with a cell phone. According to her, there is almost no difference between the prices of the handsets themselves in Korea and the U.S., but the difference in monthly charges is huge. Books are another puzzle. In the U.S., each thick volume of the Harry Potter series sells for $10 (about W9,000). In translation, each installment is divided into four volumes costing W8,000 each or W32,000 for the set and W200,000 for all six books.

"Since last year, Japanese diplomats based in Seoul have outrun their colleagues in Washington, D.C. in terms of their living allowance,” Nakajima says. High prices are the reason. Scanlon says Koreans are not necessarily unhappy just because of the high prices. But asked if he enjoys living in Seoul, he shakes his head: "Schools are average. Medical facilities are average. There are not many good weekend destinations. Why are the prices so high?"



Get Ready for Water-Powered Cell Phones
Chosun Ilbo

In 2010 your mobile phone may be powered by water. Samsung Electro-Mechanics announced Thursday that it has developed a micro-fuel cell and hydrogen generator that runs on H20.

"When the handset is turned on, metal and water in the phone react to produce hydrogen gas," explained Oh Yong-soo, vice president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics' research center. "The gas is then supplied to the fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power." Other fuel cells need methanol to produce hydrogen, while Samsung's needs only water. Read More...


Pope appeals to South Korea to reject human cloning
CNN

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI appealed Thursday to South Koreans' "inherent moral sensibility" to reject embryonic stem cell research and human cloning after the country decided to let embryonic stem cell research resume.

Benedict also praised South Korea's efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear ambitions in comments to Seoul's new ambassador to the Vatican, Ji-Young Francesco Kim, who presented his credentials to the pontiff.

"It is my ardent hope that the ongoing participation of various countries involved in the negotiation process will lead to a cessation of programs designed to develop and produce weapons with frightening potential for unspeakable destruction," Benedict said.

Separately, the pope noted South Korea's "notable successes in scientific research and development." But he said such research must be carried out with "firm ethical standards" that always respect the dignity of human life.Read More...


AND...on a much less serious note...but I'm somewhat saddened by the fate of this little tutrle....

Turtle stuck in track switch delays Nagasaki trains
Mainichi Daily News

NAGASAKI -- A turtle got stuck in a railway switch in Nagasaki Prefecture on Friday, delaying three trains by up to 46 minutes, the railway operator said.

At about 10 a.m. on Friday, a limited express train bound for Nagasaki from Hakata made an emergency stop at Yue Station on the Nagasaki Line in Isahaya in response to a red signal light.

The railway traffic control center later found that a switch at the station was not functioning properly, preventing the signal to turn to green.

Track maintenance workers examined the switch, and found that a 25-centimeter-long turtle caught inside. Services on the line were resumed 46 minutes later after the turtle was removed from the railway switch.