(LinkAsia: February 1, 2013)
Thuy Vu:
The man who helped pioneer cell phone coverage has been awarded what's considered to be the Nobel of engineering. Dr. Yoshihisa Okumura is responsible for developing a formula that predicts how radio waves travel through cities and urban areas. His breakthrough, known as "Okumura curves", helped create cellular networks. For more on Dr. Okumura and his award, here's NHK.

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: February 20, 2013

Reporter:
Yoshihisa Okumura is the first Japanese to win the annual Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering. He won it for his contributions to the way radio waves can be relayed. Okumura was a top research for Japanese telephone giant NTT. One of his achievements was to divide a wide service area into smaller cells containing many antennas and this has enabled mobile phone users to communicate despite a weak radio signal. He also determined that antennas in close proximity to each other could create interference when sharing the same frequencies. He solved the problem by allocating different frequencies to antennas that are close together but using the same frequency for areas far away. Okumura also conducted field experiments to measure changes in signal strength due to buildings or mountains. His research resulted in what are known as field strength curves. They're used all over the world to establish mobile phone services. The research led the first cellular telephone network in Japan in 1979. It was an automobile communications system.

Yoshihisa Okumura:
I just worked hard and tried to do my best. I'm glad that my efforts turned out to be useful for society and humanity.

Reporter:
Thirty-eight engineers have received the Charles Stark Draper Prize for development such as the internet, fiber optics and other technologies. Four of the winners later won the Nobel Prize.

(LinkAsia: August 31, 2012)
Yul Kwon:
Over in Japan, the concerns of anxious parents are finally being heard. Japan is conducting thyroid tests on more than four thousand children who live outside Fukushima prefecture. The test results will be compared with those of children living within the area surrounding last year’s nuclear disaster. According to Japanese broadcaster, NHK, the goal is to reassure parents in Fukushima. 

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NHK World NEWSLINE
Airdate: August 27, 2012

Reporter:
Healthcare professionals discovered lumps in the thyroid glands of 1 in 3 children in the prefecture. Radioactive iodine released from Fukushima-Daiichi can accumulate in the glands of children and raise their risk of developing cancer. So healthcare professionals are testing all children aged 18 or younger. They had checked 38,000 of them by the end of March. They didn't diagnose anyone with cancer, but they found lumps in the thyroid glands of 36% of those tested. Prefectural officials explained that lumps can be found in healthy children. Still, parents were concerned. Thyroid checks will now be conducted on 4500 children in three areas outside Fukushima. Researchers will compare the data with the results from Fukushima.

(Al Jazeera English: 0406 PT, May 9, 2011) Opposition "Red Shirt" supporters in Thailand say they are being silenced ahead of an upcoming general election. Police have reportedly closed down several anti-government radio stations for "lacking licenses or permits to broadcast." But activists say the only stations targeted were ones run by Red Shirt supporters. Wayne Hay reports from Bangkok, the Thai capital.

 

 

(Democracy Now! 0821 PST, March 28, 2011) As many as 500,000 protesters marched in London on Saturday to protest Britain's deepest cuts to public spending since World War II. The protests come after UK officials estimated corporate taxes would be reduced even as it tackles a $235-billion deficit and plans to cut more than 300,000 public sector jobs.

 

 

Democracy Now! interviews British journalist Johann Hari who writes for The Independent of London and Allison Kilkenny of Citizen Radio in New York.

 

 

Spending Cuts Demo: Police and Protesters Clash in London

(Channel 4 News: 1408 PST, March 26, 2011) As hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against government spending cuts in London on Saturday, clashes broke out between police and protesters.

 

 

(Al Jazeera English: 1727 PST, March 1, 2011) With state television in Libya reporting that the situation in the country is normal, anti-government activists have taken to creating their own media outlets to get their message out. Several activists in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi have set up a radio station, getting updates from protesters on the ground and disseminating them to the wider public. Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reports from Benghazi, eastern Libya.

 

 

The Chechen leader of a children's charity and her husband were found shot dead today, the latest victims in a string of murders of human rights activists and journalists in the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya. Zarema Sadulayeva and husband Alik Dzhabrailov were kidnapped from the offices of Save the Generation, an NGO led by Sadulayeva dedicated to helping children suffering the effects of the devastating wars in Chechnya. The bodies of the couple were later found in the trunk of their own car.

Chechen leader and Kremlin comrade Ramzan Kadyrov denounced the killings, blaming them on a faction looking to destabilize and divide Chechen society. This tone of condemnation was a very different sentiment from the one Kadyrov recently leveled against Natalya Estemirova, human rights activist and journalist killed in Chechnya in July. In comments from an interview with Radio Free Liberty, Kadyrov claims Estemirova "never had any honor or sense of shame" and also rather crassly denied any role in her murder -- "Why would Kadyrov kill women that no one needs?"

 

 

Human rights organizations have called on the Russian government to stop the murders, and to staunch what Amnesty International called the "complete disregard for rule of law that prevails in Chechnya today." Kadyrov's response to these kinds of accusations, in a fashion popular among Russian politicians, was to change the subject to the open wound of the 2008 Russian-Georgian War in South Ossetia and blame America: "Human rights are violated all over the world. America pressures absolutely everyone. And no one says anything about it. Take South Ossetia. The Americans snuck in there at night, shot up the entire population, and left. And everyone's silent about it."

Mssrs. Kadyrov, Putin, and Medvedev: How many more need to be killed in Chechnya before that silence is broken? And who is left to break the silence? NPR reports that a major Russian radio station, Ekho Moskvy, tried to contact other human rights activists in Chechnya for their comments on the story, with no luck: ""We looked down our list and next to almost every name is the word 'died,' 'died,' 'died."'