Club japonés despide a Yulieski Gourriel por incumplimiento de contrato

Univision Deportes

"Él no entiende completamente lo que un contrato es", afirmó Takada, quien recientemente envió un emisario a Cuba para tratar de convencer al pelotero de viajar a Japón en la fecha convenida.

The Associated Press

El destacado beisbolista cubano Yulieski Gourriel, quien bateó el jonrón que dio la victoria a Cuba en la pasada Serie del Caribe, fue excluido del club japonés Yokohama DeNA BayStars por no presentarse al inicio de la temporada, informó este jueves un medio local.

Gourriel, de 30 años, debía incorporarse al club nipón a finales de marzo, tras concluir su participación en la temporada nacional de Cuba, en la que jugó con los Industriales de La Habana, pero alegó una lesión en el muslo para no llegar a tiempo a Japón.

"El club Yokohama DeNA BayStars cerró el contrato de Yulieski Gourriel, una de las estrellas del béisbol cubano, porque el infielder no se ha presentado en Japón para comenzar a jugar la temporada", dijo Radio Habana Cuba en su sitio web, citando como fuente a medios japoneses.

"El gerente general del Yokohama BayStars, Shigeru Takada, reveló el jueves que el club informó que el contrato del infielder Yulieski Gourriel ha sido anulado", agregó.

Según Takada, Gourriel pretendía tratarse la lesión en Cuba antes de partir a Japón, pero no informó la fecha en que viajaría. Además, "no hay evidencia de la lesión", según el dirigente.

"Él no entiende completamente lo que un contrato es", afirmó Takada, quien recientemente envió un emisario a Cuba para tratar de convencer al pelotero de viajar a Japón en la fecha convenida.

Como el emisario no tuvo éxito, el club BayStars anuló el contrato de Gourriel, quien jugó 62 partidos en la temporada pasada con el club japonés y promedió para 305 con 11 jonrones.

La madre del beisbolista, Olga Lidia Castillo, lamentó el tratamiento dado al tema en medios de prensa japoneses afirmando que éstos "han especulado sin averiguar".

"Directivos japoneses estaban aquí en una serie de conversaciones, pero tengo entendido que todavía no se ha llegado a una conclusión. Mi hijo está ahora para el gimnasio en el tratamiento para el fortalecimiento del músculo (lesionado). Hay que esperar", declaró Castillo a Radio Habana Cuba.

El pelotero ha representado a Cuba en Juegos Olímpicos y en los tres Clásicos Mundiales de Béisbol. Una de las grandes estrellas del béisbol de la isla, Gourriel anotó el jonrón que le dio la victoria 3x2 al reforzado equipo cubano Vegueros de Pinar del Río sobre los Tomateros de Culiacán de México en febrero en la Serie del Caribe en San Juan de Puerto Rico.

Fue la primera victoria cubana en este torneo regional desde 1960 tras su regreso en 2014 luego de medio siglo de ausencia.

Gourriel ocupa indistintamente la segunda o tercera base, pero es más reconocido por su potente bateo, y jugaba en Japón con permiso de las autoridades deportivas cubanas. La Habana restituyó en 2013 el profesionalismo en el deporte con el fin de contener la deserción de astros.

Yulieski Gourriel, el pelotero más mediático en Cuba e ídolo entre los fanáticos del club japonés, iba a ganar esta temporada tres millones de dólares en el club de Yokohama, según Radio Habana Cuba.

El BayStars también contrató esta temporada por dos años al hermano menor de Yulieski, el jugador del cuadro Lourdes Jr. Gourriel, de 21 años, quien tampoco ha llegado a Japón debido a una lesión en la muñeca izquierda, agregó.

La Federación Cubana no se ha pronunciado sobre este tema.

Roberto Barbon 1er pelotero cubano en jugar en Japon

The Japan Times

Former Hankyu Braves greats Roberto “Chico” Barbon (right)

NISHINOMIYA, HYOGO PREF. – Sixty years have passed since Roberto Barbon touched down in Japan for the first time in what he thought would be a two-year stepping stone on the way to playing baseball in the major leagues.

A native of Cuba, Barbon arrived in February 1955 to join the Hankyu Braves, the forerunners of the current Orix Buffaloes, for whom he still works. Barbon was Nippon Professional Baseball’s first Latin player, a 21-year-old whose dream of playing in the big leagues was something his Japanese teammates could not share. His stay became a lifetime, during which the country’s game became exposed to the world and young Japanese men now grow up sharing the dream of playing in the majors that brought him here in the first place.

“My father cut sugar cane,” Barbon told Kyodo News earlier this month near his home in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. “My brothers helped my father. I never worked in Cuba. I was lucky. During the week, I went to school. On Saturday and Sunday, I played baseball, only baseball.”

Barbon, known everywhere in Japan as “Chico-san,” said he was discovered by legendary baseball man Al Campanis, who signed him and sent him to play in North America in the Dodgers organization. There the boy who idolized late Cuban outfielder Minnie Minoso got as high as class C, a few rungs below the majors.

“In Cuba, there are a lot of differences (in terms of racial variety), so I didn’t care too much about it,” Barbon said. “In America it was different. California was like Cuba, but my first year I went to Georgia, Milledgeville, then on to Atlanta, then Macon. It was tough out there in the early ’50s. It was really tough.”

After hitting .283 in a 1954 season split between Hornell, New York, and Bakersfield, California, the Dodgers wanted to send Barbon to Tennessee, back to class D in the racially segregated South. Fed up, he wanted to go back to Cuba, but instead got an offer to play for Hankyu.

“A friend of mine before I left Cuba, he used to go to the States. He said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s like Hawaii, like the Philippines.’ So, when I got to Hawaii, I bought Hawaiian shirts. It was the beginning of February, when I landed at Haneda, I looked around and saw everything was white, and I was thinking, ‘What’s up with this?’”

At Hankyu’s training camp in Kochi, there was also snow on the ground, and his new teammates were practicing in it.

“I said, ‘I can’t play ball here. It’s too cold. I’m going,” Barbon said.

But instead of leaving, he made an impact. In his debut season, the second baseman stole 49 bases and became the first Pacific League middle infielder to score 100 runs in a season.

Barbon built an impressive career in the Pacific League, playing in 1,353 games over 11 seasons, the first 10 with the Braves and his final one with the Kintetsu Buffaloes. After that he worked as a coach and then an interpreter. During that time, the amiable Cuban said he was never ejected — although one reason might have been the language barrier.

“I never got angry,” he said. “OK, in the beginning, I didn’t speak the language. So I used to say everything in Spanish, they didn’t understand what I’m saying: ‘What are you talking about?’ “

He learned Japanese, however, and eventually had to deal with Hall of Fame catcher Katsuya Nomura distracting batters by constantly talking to them.

“Every time you stepped into the batter’s box, Nomura would be talk, talk, talking to you,” Barbon said. “I’d say shut up man, shut your mouth — in Japanese.”

And though the PL was loaded with stars, the schedule was hard, train travel was slow, double headers were frequent and fans were scarce as baseball played second fiddle to professional wrestling.

Japan’s wrestling boom was inspired by the stage-managed heroics of a Korean former sumo wrestler, Rikidozan, who was promoted as a Japanese hero. Barbon got a taste for wrestling’s popularity when he remarked to a writer that Rikidozan’s matches were obviously decided in advance. His comments ended up in the paper, and Rikidozan, who had strong organized crime connections, was reportedly furious.

“The guy interviewed me, and we were just talking. I didn’t think it would go in the paper. If he told me, ‘I’m going to write,’ (then) I’m not going to say that,” said Barbon, who helped settle the matter by writing an apology to the superstar. “I was afraid to go to Tokyo.”

But that was an isolated incident in what has been a joyful existence.

“I love this country,” said Barbon, who now conducts youth baseball clinics for Orix and whose principle advice to new guys here is to just get used to things.

“You’ve got to get accustomed. The practice is too long, you know, but you’ve got to do it. It’s tough to get accustomed to the way the Japanese practice. You’ve got to play by their rules or hit 40 dingers. But if you get accustomed, you’ll be here a long time.”

Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto

The New Yorker
By George Packer

www.cogninotech.com

Why did ISIS execute a second Japanese hostage? Before the beheading of the journalist Kenji Goto, Japan didn’t think that it was even in a fight with the Islamic State. All Japan had done was contribute a couple of hundred million dollars in humanitarian aid to countries fighting ISIS. Then the man who has come to be known as Jihadi John, the executioner with the London accent seen in several of the group’s videos, threatened death to every Japanese person on the planet as he prepared to slaughter Goto. As a result, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo told the Times, “The cruelty of the Islamic State has made Japan see a harsh new reality. … We now realize we face the same dangers as other countries do.” People in Japan are now calling Kenji Goto’s murder their 9/11.

Why did ISIS allow its negotiations with Jordan to collapse? Jordan’s 9/11 occurred on November 9, 2005, when Iraqi suicide bombers blew up fifty-seven people in three Amman hotels, including twenty-seven members of a wedding party. One of the wedding-bombing team was a newly married woman named Sajida al-Rishawi, whose vest failed to detonate, and who is currently held in a Jordanian prison under a death sentence. The failure of the talks—a potential deal might have involved trading Goto and/or the Jordanian Air Force pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh, an ISIS captive, for Rishawi—has apparently turned public opinion in Jordan, which is fertile ground for infiltration by the Islamic State, against ISIS. For its trouble the Islamic State got no cash and no Sajida al-Rishawi, only worldwide revulsion. (Update: The barbaric burning alive of Lieutenant al-Kasasbeh by ISIS makes no tactical sense. Nor does the release, Tuesday, of a video of his death. It will only enrage Jordanians. The Islamic State did it, the organization stated, to gladden the hearts of “believers”—as a morale booster.)

Meanwhile, the group is running out of high-profile hostages whom it can use to threaten, extort, and terrify the world. (The hundreds of Syrian journalists and activists who disappeared in ISIS territory, the hundreds or thousands of Yazidi women taken into sexual slavery, the tens or hundreds of thousands of ordinary Syrians and Iraqis living against their will under the Islamic State’s control—none of them, unfortunately, have much influence over international opinion.) So what’s the strategy behind the beheadings, other than to lengthen the list of countries that now talk about “their” 9/11? Why would ISIS want to make more enemies than it already has?

Why, for that matter, would ISIS send thousands of its men to besiege Kobani, a strategically unimportant Kurdish town on the Turkish-Syrian border where more than a thousand ISIS fighters, including many foreigners, perished after months of street fighting and American air raids? The Kurds, having secured a bitter victory, regard the destroyed city, with justified pride, as their Stalingrad. (Based on the pictures, the comparison does not seem like a stretch.) The world owes the people of Kobani a debt, and in the coming years the battle might be seen as a crucial milestone on the road to Kurdish nationhood. But why would ISIS throw away a large fraction of its fighting force there?

Is the larger aim to control all the lands in the Tigris and Euphrates river basin? If so, why do Islamic State spokesmen have a habit of declaring war against millions of citizens of various far-flung countries—Japan, France—on YouTube and Twitter?

It’s natural to ask these questions. We want to understand the Islamic State’s thinking, to anticipate its next moves, to assess its relative strength. But ISIS keeps on defying ordinary questions. The Islamic State doesn’t behave according to recognizable cost-benefit analyses. It doesn’t cut its losses or scale down its ambitions. The very name of the self-proclaimed caliphate strikes most people, not least other Muslims, as ridiculous, if not delusional. But it’s the vaulting ambition of an actual Islamic State that inspires ISIS recruits. The group uses surprise and shock to achieve goals that are more readily grasped by the apocalyptic imagination than by military or political theory. The capture of Mosul last June shocked the Iraqi and U.S. governments; for a while, ISIS seemed to believe that it could even take Baghdad. The genocidal attack on the Yazidis of Sinjar, in August, shocked the conscience. The videotaped beheadings that began at the same time shocked the West. Last week’s decapitation shocked Japan. Sooner or later, it seems, everyone will have a turn. And yet, if the group thinks that it will intimidate countries into keeping out of or leaving the anti-ISIS coalition, its tactics have so far been a failure.

In the end, it isn’t very useful to hold ISIS to the expectations and standards of other violent groups. Even Al Qaeda admonished Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of the Islamic State’s predecessor organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, for his nasty habit of beheading hostages on camera. Why not a bullet to the back of the head, Ayman al-Zawahiri helpfully suggested from his hideout in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistani border? But Zarqawi knew what he was doing, and he kept on, though he’s been vastly outperformed by his successors in ISIS. The point isn’t to use the right level of violence to achieve limited goals. The violence is the point, and the worse the better. The Islamic State doesn’t leave thousands of corpses in its wake as a means to an end. Slaughter is its goal—slaughter in the name of higher purification. Mass executions are proof of the Islamic State’s profound commitment to its vision.

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Un millon de dolares por Gourriel en Japon

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www.radiorebelde.cu

LA HABANA (AP) — El celular de Yulieski Gourriel no dejó de sonar mientras se dirigía a la sala de embarque del aeropuerto capitalino acompañado por sus familiares. Los amigos le llamaron para desearle mucha suerte.

Viajeros y trabajadores del aeropuerto no dejaron pasar la oportunidad de sacarse una foto o pedirle un autógrafo a una de las mayores estrellas del béisbol cubano actual, poco antes que se montara en el avión rumbo a Japón para integrar el equipo profesional Yokohama Dena Baystars.

"¡Suerte, mucha suerte Yuli!", le gritaron varios aficionados.

Un sismo causó en el mundo del béisbol cubano el contrato de cerca de un millón de dólares de Gourriel con Yokohama Dena Baystars, como también el de un millón y medio de su compatriota Frederich Cepeda, con los Gigantes de Yomuiri, ambos equipos de la Liga Central japonesa.

Los fichajes son productos de la nueva política deportiva en Cuba, un país que eliminó el profesionalismo en 1961, algo que no trastornó a Gourriel quien afirmó a la AP antes de su viaje a Japón que "para mí lo principal siempre ha sido la camiseta de Cuba y nunca el dinero, si no pensara así no estaría aquí en mi país".

"Estaba esperando esta oportunidad desde hace mucho tiempo, quiero saber cuál es el techo de Yulieski como pelotero. Para mí es un sueño hecho realidad, intervenir en el béisbol profesional de Japón, el segundo del mundo después de Estados Unos" agregó el pelotero.

El antesalista cubano de 30 años comenzó bien en Japón; después de tres cotejos bateó para .417 con cinco hits, un cuadrangular y un doblete. En tanto Cepeda ostentó un discreto .182 con 10 hits, 4 jonrones y 1 doble en 21 juegos.

Gourriel consideró que, junto con Cepeda, tienen "una responsabilidad grande; el primer objetivo es jugar béisbol y hacerlo bien para abrirles las puertas a los demás jugadores cubanos".

Se desconoce el monto exacto que recibirán Cepeda y Gourriel por su contrato en Japón. Sin embargo en un programa de la televisión cubana dedicado a la remuneración de los deportistas, Vladimir Regueiro, director de ingresos del ministerio de Finanzas, explicó que se les aplicará la Ley del sistema tributario, "con adecuaciones atendiendo a la corta vida del atleta en el alto rendimiento".

De acuerdo a la nueva escala de compensaciones para los deportistas puesta en vigor este año, Cepeda y Gourriel, ambos campeones olímpicos en 2004, tienen un ingreso mensual de unos 460 dólares. Antes de la nueva regulación, los deportistas de alto rendimiento cobraban mensualmente entre 400 y 600 pesos cubanos (16-24 USD), y además un estímulo de entre 300 y 50 USD para los medallistas olímpicos y mundiales.

Según Regueiro no será un impuesto sobre el salario básico, sino un tributo de cerca de 20% por los diversos ingresos y contribución al Seguro Social.

En Cuba más del 90% de los trabajadores son estatales, no pagan impuestos sobre los salarios ni contribución al Seguro Social, los servicios médicos son gratuitos para los cubanos.

Con las nuevas medidas económicas del presidente Raúl Castro y la apertura al trabajo privado se retomó el pago de ciertos impuestos con tasas bastantes altas para los trabajadores no estatales.

Alexander Malleta, infielder de Industriales, aseguró que la nueva política es "un estímulo que esperábamos y necesitábamos, debe seguir y pienso que podría mejorar un poco más".

Circulan versiones de que los clubes japoneses quieren contratar más cubanos, y la lista de los candidatos incluye astros como el pitcher novato del año Vladimir Gutiérrez, de 18 años, y los jardineros Yadiel Hernández y Yasmani Tomas.

Cuba, donde el béisbol es el deporte rey, erradicó el profesionalismo en el año 1961, dos años después del triunfo de la Revolución encabezada por el exmandatario Fidel Castro, y por su hermano menor Raúl Castro, actual presidente de Cuba.

Pero durante más de 50 años se coqueteó con el deporte rentado, y Omar Linares, por ejemplo, jugó en la Liga profesional de Japón con los Dragones de Chunichi en el 2000, si bien lo hizo después de retirarse en la isla.

Otro cubano, Alfredo Despaigne, incursionó en 2013 y 2014 en el Béisbol Mexicano con los Piratas de Campeche, pero fue suspendido por utilizar un pasaporte falso.

Los peloteros cubanos que desertaron para jugar en Grandes Ligas firmaron contratos millonarios, como José Abreu, 68 millones con los Medias Blancas de Chicago, o Yasiel Puig, 42 millones con los Dodgers de Los Angeles, por mencionar algunos.

La contratación de los cubanos en activo en la isla por Grandes Ligas está sujeta a las leyes del embargo de Washington contra Cuba, que desde hace más de 50 años prohíbe casi todas las transacciones comerciales con el país caribeño. Cuba necesitó un permiso especial del gobierno estadounidense para participar en las tres ediciones del Clásico Mundial de Béisbol (2006, 2009 y 2013) y la Serie del Caribe que organizan Grandes Ligas.

Para Lourdes Gourriel, padre de Yulieski, integrante del equipo Cuba campeón olímpico en 1992, es hora de cambiar de política en la isla como en Estados Unidos.

"Esta puerta que se abre para el béisbol cubano era necesaria porque nosotros estábamos estancados... es hora también que se acabe el embargo y esas limitaciones a las contrataciones de los cubanos que viven en Cuba. El mejor béisbol del mundo es el de Grandes Ligas, todo beisbolista sueña con medirse allí, a Yulieski le gustaría, a mí me hubiera gustado en mi época".

Gourriel padre explicó que "Yulieski y los demás cubanos tienen representantes que se van a hacer cargo de las cosas del dinero", en tanto agregó que los nuevos ingresos son "de una gran ayuda para el jugador y para toda su familia".

A pesar de la gran diferencia entre los contratos de Cepeda y Gourriel con los cubanos de Grandes Ligas, Gourriel dijo: "yo creo que la separación con la familia, que para mí es crucial, no vale ningún dinero del mundo".

En tanto Malleta consideró que "un millón dentro de Cuba representa mucho más que fuera, porque aquí uno lo tiene todo, su familia, sus amistades, su vida".

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El embajador Rodriquez [d] Foto: Granma

al parecer el embajador cubano en japon marcos rodriquez viajaba en el avion de malaysia airlines que desaparecio en el mar al sur de china y vietnam. el "orgasmo" oficial  del regimen cubano no ha dado cuenta del hecho, mientras marti noticias equivoca el nombre del diplomatico cubano.

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Japanese WWII soldier who refused to surrender for 29 years dies

worldnews

Kyodo via AP, file Hiroo Onoda salutes after handing over a military sword and surrendering on the Philippine island of Lubang in 1974.

By Arata Yamamoto and Alexander Smith, NBC News

TOKYO -- A Japanese soldier who hid in the jungle and refused to surrender until 29 years after the end of World War II died on Friday aged 91.

Hiroo Onada was one of the last of many so-called "hold-outs" dotted around Asia who refused to give themselves up after Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrendered to the Allies in 1945.

Onada died on Friday after a short stay at a Tokyo hospital, The Associated Press reported. 

The soldier became a war hero in Japan after he hid on the Philippine island of Lubang until March 1974. He only gave himself up after his former commander flew out and reversed his orders from 1945, which had instructed him to spy on U.S. troops.

After his death on Friday Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga praised his spirit.

"I vividly remember when Mr. Onoda returned to Japan. That's when I personally felt that the war was over," Suga said when asked about Onoda's passing during Friday’s daily briefing.

Japan had several dozen other men who stayed in various parts of Asia long after the war. Another hold-out, Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi, emerged from the jungle in 1972 to widespread praise in Japan.

Most Japanese troops surrendered when U.S. forces landed on Lubang in February 1945. After they left, Onaoda’s biggest challenge had been survival. He stole rice and bananas from locals and shot their cows to make dried beef, according to The Associated Press.

When Onoda surrendered to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, he wore his 30-year-old imperial uniform, complete with cap and sword, all of which were in good condition.

In a 1995 interview with the AP, he said: "I don’t consider those 30 years a waste of time. Without that experience, I wouldn’t have my life today."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Biden urges China to take steps to lower tensions in region

U.S. bombers fly over disputed island chain without informing China

behindthewall

Kyodo via Reuters file

A group of disputed islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, is seen in the East China Sea. Japan and the United States sharply criticized China's move to impose new rules on airspace over islands at the heart of a territorial dispute with Tokyo.

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

Two American B-52 bombers flew over a disputed island chain in the East China Sea on Monday evening, a U.S. defense official confirmed, just days after the Chinese government included the area in an air defense identification zone.
The official said the flight was a training mission and the bombers were not armed. The flight was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
The Chinese announced over the weekend they were expanding their air defense identification zone to include the islands, known as Diaoyu in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese. Japan also claims ownership.
The extension of the air defense identification zone includes an expectation by the Chinese government that all aircraft declare a flight plan and frequency and provide other information before entering.
The U.S. administration denounced the decision and declared that the U.S. will continue to conduct flight operations in and around that area.
"We will not in any way change how we conduct our operations," Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said, adding that the U.S. maintains that the newly expanded ADIZ is in international waters.
Monday evening ET, two B-52 bombers took off from Anderson Air Force Base in Guam as part of an ongoing training exercise called Coral Lightning Global Power Training Sortie. The bombers were in the ADIZ for less than one hour, Warren said.
This was a "long-planned training exercise," and the U.S. did not inform the Chinese of their flight plan, Warren said.
The flights occurred without incident, Warren said, adding that there was no reaction, no Chinese aircraft were spotted in the air, and the Chinese did not contact the U.S. military about the flight.
"Nobody is talking about the possibility of armed conflict coming out of this [ADIZ decision]," Warren said.

Denny Cantrell / U.S. Navy for AP

A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber from Andersen Air Force base in Guam during an training exercise Tuesday.
(AP Photo/U.S. Navy, Denny Cantrell)

War Between China And Japan?

War News Updates

Tensions heightened after Beijing announces rules for “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone” that includes territory claimed by both nations

The announcement came on a weekend, just as the world’s attention was diverted by tense negotiations towards an Iranian nuclear deal. On Saturday, Nov. 23, Beijing announced “aircraft identification rules” for an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone” that includes the skies over a scattering of rocks that China calls the Diaoyu.

Japan, which currently administers the outcroppings and uses the name Senkaku to refer to the contested territory, has cried foul. On Sunday, Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that Tokyo refused to recognize Beijing’s division of the heavens. “It was a one-sided action and cannot be allowed,” Kishida said, warning that Beijing’s move was “expected to trigger unpredictable events.”

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Wrecked Fukushima nuke plant leaking 330 tons of contaminated water a day

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By Arata Yamamoto, Producer, NBC News

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday ordered increased efforts to stop radiation-contaminated water from spilling into the Pacific Ocean from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.

A government official told reporters Wednesday that an estimated 300 metric tons (330 tons) of contaminated water was leaking into the ocean every day from the Daiichi plant, which was devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Reuters reported.

The official also said the government believed the leaks had been happening for two years.

Few people are granted access to the radioactive Fukushima exclusion zone in Japan, which remains abandoned and frozen in time on March 11, 2011 — the day a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a triple nuclear meltdown in the city. Channel 4's Alex Thomson reports.

The plant’s operators Tokyo Electric Power Company has been building an underground wall by injecting “liquid glass” into the ground in an attempt to contain the contaminated water.

TEPCO has insisted that so far the level of contamination in the ocean does not pose a risk to health.

But some of the contaminated water has made its way through parts of the underground barrier and started to rise above ground.

In response, TEPCO announced that it would begin pumping out the contaminated underground water at a rate of 100 metric tons (110 tons) a day starting this week.

The main government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, told the press that the government was considering providing financial assistance to help with the project.

The cleanup operation is expected to take more than 40 years and cost $11 billion, Reuters reported.

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China Defence Mashup/ The J-10 fighter

After repeatedly flying surveillance aircraft into disputed airspace with Japan, which made Tokyo scramble F-15s in response, China sent fighters of its own on Thursday into the East China Sea.  A Friday press release out of China confirms the incident began when Beijing was flying a Shaanxi Y-8 on a "routine Thursday patrol" over the "oil and gas fields in the East China Sea."
The fact that the aircraft was a Shaanxi Y-8 is interesting in that the Y-8 isn't necessarily any one particular aircraft.
The Diplomat calls the Y-8 a transport plane, and it can be, but the aircraft has more than 30 variants. The Y-8 performs everything from Mineral Research, to Geophysical Surveying, to Electronic Warfare to Intelligence Gathering and one variant is simply an innocuous but lethal fully loaded gunship, with two heavy cannons and three heavy machine guns.

Google Maps

Naha, Okinawa with bar scale and regional map inset (click to expand)

It's the perfect plane for a game of cat and mouse because if the Y-8 ever received fire from Japan's F-15s, China could simply maintain it was an unarmed transport model carrying troops, or the Y8-F model that carries only livestock. In the meantime, the plane can perform all manner of sophisticated tests on the seabed floor, while eavesdropping on Japanese communications. China has been flying these planes consistently lately to surveil the contested island chain that's supposed to hold billions in oil and gas reserves.
So, again, on Thursday Japan spotted aircraft in its Air Defense Identification Zone (above the islands) that it believed to be Chinese J-7 interceptors, along with some J-10 fighters whose combat abilities rival that of Western jets. Japan responded with two F-15s scrambled from Naha, Okinawa — just a couple hundred miles away. There are minor variations from either side about who sent what first, but all agree the aircraft met above the islands.
The Chinese planes scattered soon after, but this marked the first time China and Japan flung military assets at one another over the East China Sea island dispute. A line was crossed and staying behind it in the future will only be more difficult.

Google/ Air base Shuimen, China — disputed island chain — Naha, Japan

The U.S. assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell announced that he will be traveling to Seoul, and Tokyo. What he decides in Tokyo will filter south to Naha and the Japanese unit confronting the Chinese.
An interesting fact about Naha, aside from its proximity to the contested territory, is that while being fairly remote, it is also home to Alfred R. Magleby, a United States Consul General who holds a M.S. in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College. This is appropriate, since the Naha Port (formerly Military) Facility is part of U.S. Forces Japan and the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is less than nine miles from where Japan's F-15s scrambled.
It looks like the islands everyone's talking about are a few dots in the middle of nowhere, but all of this is taking place close to the U.S. Consulate and a contingent of several thousand U.S. Marines whose former commanding general told Time in 2010: "All of my Marines on Okinawa are willing to die if it is necessary for the security of Japan."

In the future, when responding to China's fighter deployment, if Japan considers permitting its F-15 pilots to fire tracer bullets as warning shots against Chinese planes, it is now reasonable to assume that U.S. forces at Futenma may have an indirect say in that decision.

Firing tracers, which usually contain phosphorous or some highly flammable material, sends a line of light through the air like a laser. Tracers are usually loaded in about every tenth round to let gunners know where they're shooting, but in this case they would be fired to show Chinese pilots they're being fired upon.

An editorial in China's state-run Global Times called this possibility, "a step closer to war," warning a military clash is "more likely" while its people need to prepare "for the worst." With a U.S. presence so close at hand to where these Japanese decisions are being made, and tactical practices employed, we can hope for at least a bit of immediate tempering.

The Chinese jets are likely flying from air base Shuimen, built east of the islands in Fujian Province, not too much farther from the islands than Naha, Okinawa. So both sides have assets equally within reach of the islands.

Defense Updates One of the many variations of the Y-8

Satellite imagery of the base  came to light in 2009, and experts believe it was completed late last year. 

The Taipei Times reported in May 2012 that J-10 combat aircraft, Su-30 fighters, and various unmanned drones were arriving at the base.

In addition to aircraft, experts believe Russian made S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles ring the

airbase, providing some of the best missile protection in the world. The S-300 is comparable to the U.S. made Patriot missile recently sent to Turkey for its first line of missile defense against Syria.

The Shuimen airbase compliments China's East Fleet that maintains 35 ships in the region, including its newest warship the Type 054, seven submarines, and eight additional landing craft.

Among the subs are four Kilo-class diesel-electric Russian made submarines capable of the most advanced underwater warfare.

All of this located just 236 miles from the contested islands, which have been in dispute between Japan and China for some time. Han-Yi Shaw writes an interesting history of the dispute, for those interested in more background.

While the U.S. takes no official position on who owns the Islands, it would be expected to honor its U.S.-Japan security treaty signed in 1960.

Though this is a formal agreement that the U.S. will aid Japan if it comes under attack, there are few who believe the U.S. would risk a full-blown war with China over a few uninhabited islands, regardless of how much oil and gas lies beneath them.

But with a U.S. presence so closely intertwined in these events, and a contingent of Marines standing by, it seems that whatever happens could involve American input — one way or another.

Associated Press

What it's all about — or what's beneath them — the Senkaku Islands

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-fighter-jet-flights-diaoyu-senkaku-islands-2013-1#ixzz2Hu2VbCno