Tokutaro Takayama
Tokutaro Takayama was a yakuza, the president of the Fourth Aizukotetsu-kai. An ethnic Korean, he rose to power as the head of the Kyoto-based gang until his retirement in the 1990s; when he was a young man, his parents returned to Korea, leaving him to earn a living alone in Japan: "At that time," Takayama said in 1998, "I had no choice but to join the Japanese gangster world. This is because segregated people at that time had no way to survive in Japan." For a yakuza boss, he was a remarkably public figure granting interviews to Japanese and foreign reporters for articles in which he always came off as a gentleman. He filed a lawsuit against the Shiga Prefectural Police for infringing on his rights to free expression.. He viewed himself as an honorable outlaw, championing the weak and upholding the yakuza code of ninkyo: "We did not regard ninkyo as a bad thing," he said. "Thus, we never killed anyone without reason. I believed ninkyo must help the people, it was my job." In 1992 the Aizukotetsu-kai became one of the first yakuza syndicates named under Japan's new anti-violence group legislation, which gave police expanded powers to crack down on yakuza.
Takayama campaigned publicly against the new laws writing a book on the subject, the group launched a lawsuit challenging their constitutionality. Takayama faced pressure from outside and from within his group to drop the suit, but he refused to compromise. According to Manabu Miyazaki, Takayama said at the time: "I can't accept what the government is doing. If I pull out now, I won't be able to die in peace. I'm not prepared to make any compromises, I don't intend to quit." But in September 1995 the Kyoto District Court threw out the lawsuit. Takayama retired as kaicho in 1997, he died in June 2003. His eldest son, Yoshiyuki Takayama, is a yakuza, he began his yakuza career in 2003 when he founded the Omi-ikka, in Otsu, Shiga. Omi-ikka is a branch of a Yamaguchi-gumi clan; as of 2017 Yoshiyuki was serving an 8-year prison term. Photo Article & profile Article Interview 1 Interview 2 Court testimony
Port of Nagoya
The Port of Nagoya, located in Ise Bay, is the largest and busiest trading port in Japan, accounting for about 10% of the total trade value of Japan. Notably, this port is the largest exporter of cars in Japan and where the Toyota Motor Corporation exports most of its cars, it has piers in Nagoya, Tōkai, Chita, Yatomi and Tobishima, Aichi. Its mascots are Mitan. According to Japanese media sources, Kodo-kai, a Yakuza faction in the Yamaguchi-gumi group, earns large revenues by controlling the stevedoring and warehousing companies at the port; the port draws tourists from the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area as one of its primary tourist attractions. The main attraction is the port's famous Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. Nearby is an amusement park and the now-retired Antarctic survey ship Fuji which moors at the Port of Nagoya as a museum of the South Pole and its journeys there; the Isewangan Expressway includes three impressive bridges, collectively known as the Meikō Triton, which span the port. In the waters of the port on a small artificial island, there is a wildflower garden called Bluebonnet.
Port of Los Angeles, United States Port of Fremantle, Australia Port of Baltimore, United States Port of Antwerp, Belgium Port of Shanghai, China Port of Sydney, Australia Nagoyakō Station Isewan Terminal Service List of East Asian ports Nagoya Port Drawbridge Aonami Line English Website
Yakuza
Yakuza known as gokudō, are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police, media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan, while the Yakuza call themselves ninkyō dantai; the Western equivalent for the term Yakuza is gangster, meaning an individual involved in a Mafia-like criminal organization. The Yakuza are notorious for their strict codes of conduct, their organized fiefdom nature, several unconventional ritual practices such as "Yubitsume". Yakuza members are described as males with tattooed bodies and slicked hair, yet this group is still regarded as being among "the most sophisticated and wealthiest criminal organizations."At their height, the Yakuza maintained a large presence in the Japanese media and operated internationally. In fact, in the early 1960s police estimated that the Yakuza had a membership of 184,100. However, in recent years their numbers have dwindled with the latest figure from the National Police Agency estimating that as of 2016 the number of members in all 22 designated gangs was 39,100.
This decline is attributed to changing market opportunities and several legal and social developments in Japan which discourage the growth of Yakuza membership. Yet, despite their dwindling numbers, the Yakuza still engage in an array of criminal activities, many Japanese citizens remain fearful of the threat these individuals pose to their safety. However, there remains no strict prohibition on Yakuza membership in Japan today, although much legislation has been passed by the Japanese government aimed at increasing liability for criminal activities and impeding revenue; the name Yakuza originates from the traditional Japanese card game Oicho-Kabu, a game in which the goal is to draw three cards adding up to a score of 9. If the sum of the cards exceeds 10, the second digit is used as the score instead, if the sum is 10, the score is 1. If the three cards drawn are 8-9-3, the sum is 20 and therefore the score is zero, making it the worst possible hand that can be drawn. Despite uncertainty about the single origin of Yakuza organizations, most modern Yakuza derive from two classifications which emerged in the mid-Edo period: tekiya, those who peddled illicit, stolen, or shoddy goods.
Tekiya were considered one of the lowest social groups during the Edo period. As they began to form organizations of their own, they took over some administrative duties relating to commerce, such as stall allocation and protection of their commercial activities. During Shinto festivals, these peddlers opened stalls and some members were hired to act as security; each peddler paid rent in exchange for a stall protection during the fair. The tekiya were a structured and hierarchical group with the oyabun at the top and kobun at the bottom; this hierarchy resembles a structure similar to the family as the oyabun was regarded as a surrogate father, the kobun as surrogate children. During the Edo period, the tekiya were formally recognized by the government. At this time, the oyabun were appointed as supervisors and granted near-samurai status meaning they were allowed the dignity of a surname and two swords. Bakuto had a much lower social standing than traders, as gambling was illegal. Many small gambling houses cropped up in abandoned temples or shrines at the edge of towns and villages all over Japan.
Most of these gambling houses ran loan sharking businesses for clients, they maintained their own security personnel. The places themselves, as well as the bakuto, were regarded with disdain by society at large, much of the undesirable image of the Yakuza originates from bakuto; because of the economic situation during the mid-period and the predominance of the merchant class, developing Yakuza groups were composed of misfits and delinquents that had joined or formed Yakuza groups to extort customers in local markets by selling fake or shoddy goods. The roots of the Yakuza can still be seen today in initiation ceremonies, which incorporate tekiya or bakuto rituals. Although the modern Yakuza has diversified, some gangs still identify with the other. During the formation of the Yakuza, they adopted the traditional Japanese hierarchical structure of oyabun-kobun where kobun owe their allegiance to the oyabun. In a much period, the code of jingi was developed where loyalty and respect are a way of life.
The oyabun-kobun relationship is formalized by ceremonial sharing of sake from a single cup. This ritual is not exclusive to the Yakuza—it is commonly performed in traditional Japanese Shinto weddings, may have been a part of sworn brotherhood relationships. During the World War II period in Japan, the more traditional tekiya/bakuto form of organization declined as the entire population was mobilised to participate in the war effort and society came under strict military government. However, after the war, the Yakuza adapted again. Prospective Yakuza come from all walks of life; the most romantic tales tell how Yakuza accept sons who have been abandoned or exiled by their parents. Many Yakuza start out in junior high school or high school as common street thugs or members of bōsōzoku gangs; because of its lower socio-economic status, numerous Yakuza me
Nagano (city)
Nagano is the capital city of Nagano Prefecture in the Chūbu region of Japan. As of October 1, 2016, the city had an estimated population of 375,234, a population density of 449 persons per km², its total area is 834.81 square kilometres. Nagano is located in former Shinano Province and developed from the Nara period as a temple town at the gate of the famous Zenkō-ji, a 7th-century Buddhist temple, relocated to this location in 642 AD, as a post station on the Hokkoku Kaidō highway connecting Edo with the Sea of Japan coast. During the Sengoku period, the area was hotly contested between the forces of the Uesugi clan based in Echigo Province and the Takeda clan based in Kai Province; the several Battles of Kawanakajima between Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen were fought near here. During the Edo period, much of the area came under the control of the Sanada clan based at Matsushiro Domain; the area suffered from flooding in 1742, from a destructive earthquake in 1847. Following the Meiji restoration and the creation of the municipalities system on April 1, 1889, the modern town of Nagano was established.
Nagano was elevated to city status on April 1, 1897. It was the first city founded in the 43rd city in Japan; the city borders expanded on July 1, 1923, with the annexation of the neighbouring town of Yoshida and villages of Sarita and Komaki. During World War II, construction of the Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters as the last redoubt for the Japanese government following the projected American invasion of Japan was started in 1944, but was aborted in 1945 due to the end of war; the city again expanded on April 1, 1954 by annexing neighbouring villages of Asahi, Yanagihara, Asakawa, Amori, Odagiri and Mamejima. In 1959, due to the flooding of Chikuma River, 71 people died or were missing and 20,000 homes were flooded. On October 16, 1966, the city again expanded by annexing the neighbouring towns of Kawanakajima and Wakaho, villages of Shinonoi, Kohoku and Naniai. During the 1985 Matsushiro earthquake, 27 people died and 60 homes were destroyed or badly damaged due to landslides.
In 1998, Nagano hosted the Paralympics. It was elevated to a core city with increased local autonomy in 1999. Nagano continued to expand on January 1, 2005, by absorbing the municipalities of Toyono, the village of Togakushi, Kinasa, the village of Ōoka. Nagano hosted the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games. On January 1, 2010, Nagano absorbed the town of Shinshūshinmachi and the village of Nakajō from Kamiminochi District. Nagano hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, the third Olympic Games and second winter Olympics to be held in Japan, after the Tokyo 1964 Summer Olympics and the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo; as of 2018, Nagano was the southernmost host of the Winter Olympic Games. The Nagano Olympic Commemorative Marathon is held annually to commemorate the occasion. Nagano is located in north-central Nagano Prefecture, near the confluence of the Chikuma River and the Sai River. Nagano Prefecture Shinano Nakano Suzaka Obuse Ueda Chikuma Ōmachi Omi Chikuhoku Ikusaka Ogawa Hakuba Otari Niigata Prefecture Myōkō Nagano has a hot-summer humid continental climate that borders on a humid subtropical climate.
Its location in a sheltered inland valley means it receives less precipitation than any part of Japan except Hokkaidō. The city receives heavy winter snow totaling 2.57 metres from December to March, but it is less gloomy during these cold months than the coast from Hagi to Wakkanai. Nagano is home to several public universities. Four of the ten universities recognized as major universities in the prefecture have campuses in the city, including the newest prefectural university, The University of Nagano. Shinshu University Seisen Jogakuin College Nagano Prefectural College Seisen Jogakuin College Nagano Women's Junior College Nagano College of Economics Nagano University of Health and Medicine National Institute of Technology, Nagano College The University of Nagano Nagano has 55 public elementary schools and 24 public middle schools operated by the city government, along with one public middle school operated by the national government and four private middle schools; the city has 12 public high schools operated by the Nagano Prefectural Board of Education, one public high school operated by the city government, five private high schools.
In addition, the city has four special education schools. The city's main railway hub, Nagano Station, the smaller Shinonoi Station, were expanded for the Olympics; the Hokuriku Shinkansen opened in 1997, connecting Nagano to Gunma. JR East - Hokuriku Shinkansen Nagano JR East - Shin'etsu Main Line Shinonoi - Imai - Kawanakajima - Amori - Nagano JR East - Shinonoi Line Inariyama - Shinonoi JR East - Iiyama Line Toyono - Shinano-Asano - Tategahana Shinano Railway - Kita-Shinano Line Nagano - Kita-Nagano - Sansai - Toyono Shinano Railway - Shinano Railway Line Shinonoi Nagano Electric Railway Nagano - Shiyakushomae - Gondo - Zenkojishita - Hongō - Kirihara - Shinano-Yoshida - Asahi - Fuzokuchugakumae - Yanagihara Buses for Kawanaka-jima Bus and the Nagano Dentetsu Bus Co. service the city, departing both Nagano Station and the Nagano Bus Terminal just west of the station. Local bus provider, Alpico Kōtsū, departs from a dedicated office across the street from the Zenkō-ji Exit of Nagano Station.
Long-distance highway bus services depart from the East Exit of Nagano Station. T
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cooperation with other institutions, evaluation of public sources; the assembly and propagation of this information is known as intelligence analysis or intelligence assessment. Intelligence agencies can provide the following services for their national governments. Give early warning of impending crises. There is a distinction between "security intelligence" and "foreign intelligence". Security intelligence pertains to domestic threats. Foreign intelligence involves information collection relating to the political, or economic activities of foreign states; some agencies have been involved in assassination, arms trafficking, coups d'état, the placement of misinformation as well as other covert operations, in order to support their own or their governments' interests.
List of intelligence agencies List of defunct intelligence agencies List of intelligence gathering disciplines Security agency Secret police Secret service Books Encyclopedia of Espionage and Security, hrg. von K. Lee Lerner und Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, 3 Bände, Detroit: Gale, 2004 Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence, Yale University Press, 2002 Richard C. S. Trahair, Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage and Secret Operations, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004 Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, NSC, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1999 Цибулькін В. В. Рожен Л. М. Вєдєнєєв Д. В. та ін. Нариси з історії розвідки суб'єктів державотворення на теренах України / Заг. ред. П. Д. Морозов. — К.: «Преса України», 2011. — 536 с. іл. Journals The Journal of Intelligence HistoryReports Ruiz, Victor H. 2010. "A Knowledge Taxonomy for Army Intelligence Training: An Assessment of the Military Intelligence Basic Officer Leaders Course Using Lundvall's Knowledge Taxonomy".
Applied Research Projects. Texas State University Paper 331. Txstate.edu Outsourcing Intelligence Proposal for a Privacy Protection Guideline on Secret Personal Data Gathering and Transborder Flows of Such Data in the Fight against Terrorism and Serious Crime by Marcel Stuessi The Literature of Intelligence: A Bibliography of Materials, with Essays and Comments International Intelligence History Association
Kyoto
Kyoto Kyoto City, is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture, located in the Kansai region of Japan. It is best known in Japanese history for being the former Imperial capital of Japan for more than one thousand years, as well as a major part of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area. In Japanese, Kyoto was called Kyō, Miyako, or Kyō no Miyako. In the 11th century, the city was renamed Kyoto, from the Chinese calligraphic, jingdu. After the city of Edo was renamed Tokyo in 1868, the seat of the Emperor was moved there, Kyoto was for a short time known as Saikyō. Kyoto is sometimes called the thousand-year capital; the National Diet never passed any law designating a capital. Foreign spellings for the city's name have included Kioto and Meaco, utilised by Dutch cartographers. Another term used to refer to the city in the pre-modern period was Keishi, meaning "urba" or "capital". Ample archaeological evidence suggests human settlement in Kyoto began as early as the Paleolithic period, although not much published material is retained about human activity in the area before the 6th century, around which time the Shimogamo Shrine is believed to have been established.
During the 8th century, when powerful Buddhist clergy became involved in the affairs of the Imperial government, Emperor Kanmu chose to relocate the capital in order to distance it from the clerical establishment in Nara. His last choice for the site was the village of Uda, in the Kadono district of Yamashiro Province; the new city, Heian-kyō, a scaled replica of the Tang capital Chang'an, became the seat of Japan's imperial court in 794, beginning the Heian period of Japanese history. Although military rulers established their governments either in Kyoto or in other cities such as Kamakura and Edo, Kyoto remained Japan's capital until the transfer of the imperial court to Tokyo in 1869 at the time of the Imperial Restoration; the city suffered extensive destruction in the Ōnin War of 1467–1477, did not recover until the mid-16th century. During the Ōnin War, the shugo collapsed, power was divided among the military families. Battles between samurai factions spilled into the streets, came to involve the court nobility and religious factions as well.
Nobles' mansions were transformed into fortresses, deep trenches dug throughout the city for defense and as firebreaks, numerous buildings burned. The city has not seen such widespread destruction since. In the late 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi reconstructed the city by building new streets to double the number of north-south streets in central Kyoto, creating rectangle blocks superseding ancient square blocks. Hideyoshi built earthwork walls called odoi encircling the city. Teramachi Street in central Kyoto is a Buddhist temple quarter where Hideyoshi gathered temples in the city. Throughout the Edo period, the economy of the city flourished as one of three major cities in Japan, the others being Osaka and Edo; the Hamaguri rebellion of 1864 burnt down 28,000 houses in the city which showed the rebels' dissatisfaction towards the Tokugawa Shogunate. The subsequent move of the Emperor to Tokyo in 1869 weakened the economy; the modern city of Kyoto was formed on April 1, 1889. The construction of Lake Biwa Canal in 1890 was one measure taken to revive the city.
The population of the city exceeded one million in 1932. There was some consideration by the United States of targeting Kyoto with an atomic bomb at the end of World War II because, as an intellectual center of Japan, it had a population large enough to persuade the emperor to surrender. In the end, at the insistence of Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War in the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the city was removed from the list of targets and replaced by Nagasaki; the city was spared from conventional bombing as well, although small-scale air raids did result in casualties. As a result, the Imperial City of Kyoto is one of the few Japanese cities that still have an abundance of prewar buildings, such as the traditional townhouses known as machiya. However, modernization is continually breaking down the traditional Kyoto in favor of newer architecture, such as the Kyōto Station complex. Kyoto became a city designated by government ordinance on September 1, 1956. In 1997, Kyoto hosted the conference.
Kyoto is located in a valley, part of the Yamashiro Basin, in the eastern part of the mountainous region known as the Tamba highlands. The Yamashiro Basin is surrounded on three sides by mountains known as Higashiyama and Nishiyama, with a height just above 1,000 metres above sea level; this interior positioning results in cold winters. There are three rivers in the basin, the Ujigawa to the south, the Katsuragawa to the west, the Kamogawa to the east. Kyoto City takes up 17.9% of the land in the prefecture with an area of 827.9 square kilometres. The original city was arranged in accordance with traditional Chinese feng shui following the model of the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an; the Imperial Palace faced south. The streets in the modern-day wards of Nakagyō, Shimogyō, Kamigyō-ku still follow a grid pattern. Today, the main business district is located to the south of the old Imperial Palace, with the less-populated northern area retaining a fa
Chubu Centrair International Airport
Chubu Centrair International Airport is an international airport on an artificial island in Ise Bay, Tokoname City in Aichi Prefecture, 35 km south of Nagoya in central Japan. Centrair is classified as a first class airport and is the main international gateway for the Chubu region of Japan; the name "Centrair" is an abbreviation of Central Japan International Airport, an alternate translation used in the English name of the airport's operating company, Central Japan International Airport Co. Ltd.. 10.2 million people used the airport in 2015, ranking 8th busiest in the nation, 208,000 tons of cargo was moved in 2015. Chubu Centrair is one of Japan's five off-shore airports, developed after Nagasaki Airport and Kansai International Airport and before Kobe Airport and Kitakyushu Airport. Chubu Centrair is the second airport built in Japan on a manmade island, after Kansai International Airport. Chubu Centrair serves the third largest metropolitan area in Japan, centered around the city of Nagoya.
The region is a major manufacturing centre, with the headquarters and production facilities of Toyota Motor Corporation and production facilities for Mitsubishi Motors and Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation. With much lobbying by local business groups such as Toyota for 24-hour cargo flights, construction started August 2000, with a budget of JPY¥768 billion, but through efficient management nearly ¥100 billion was saved. Penta-Ocean Construction was a major contractor. In addition to cost-cutting measures, a number of environmental protection measures had been taken after learning from Kansai International Airport; the artificial island itself was shaped like the rounded letter "D" so that sea currents inside the bay will flow freely. Its shores were constructed with natural rocks and sloped to aid sea lifeforms to set up colonies. During the construction a species of little tern came, so a part of the island was selected and set aside to aid nesting. According to Japanese media sources, Kodo-kai, a Yakuza faction in the Yamaguchi-gumi group, earned an immense amount of money by being the sole supplier, via a front company called Samix, of dirt, rock and gravel for the airport construction project.
Although several Samix executives were criminally indicted for racketeering, the prosecutions were dropped. According to the sources, Kodo-kai had informants working within the Nagoya police who fed the organization inside information which allowed them to stay a step ahead of investigating authorities; when Chubu Centrair opened on 17 February 2005, it took over all of the existing Nagoya Airport's commercial flights, relieved Tokyo and Kansai areas of cargo shipments. As a replacement for Nagoya Airport, it inherited its IATA airport code NGO; the airport opened in time to service the influx of visitors for Expo 2005, located near Nagoya. The airport is speculated to have some competition with Shizuoka Airport, which opened on 4 June 2009. Japan Airlines was the first airline to land an aircraft at Chubu Centrair: a Boeing 767-300ER, carrying around 206 passengers on board a charter flight from Saipan to commemorate the opening of Chubu Centrair. There were several withdrawals from Chubu Centrair.
American Airlines operated a route to Chicago for less than seven months in 2005, but said the service was "not as profitable as we had hoped". In 2008, after a few years of service from Chubu Centrair, several airlines cancelled certain flights and put others on hiatus, including Malaysia Airlines' suspension of flight to Kuala Lumpur, Jetstar ending its airport operation, Continental Airlines stopping its Honolulu flight and United Airlines' suspension of flights to San Francisco, citing low premium cabin demand; this flight continued to Chicago until 2007. Emirates and Hong Kong Express Airways left the airport in 2009, although HK Express resumed service from September 2014. Garuda Indonesia ended service from Denpasar in March 2012, but resumed service to Nagoya with the opening of direct flights from Jakarta in March 2019. EVA Air left the airport in June 2012. TransAsia Airways subsidiary V Air withdrew from Centrair and ended operations in October 2016. Nagoya continues to offer intercontinental flights through Delta Air Lines' services to Detroit and Honolulu, Lufthansa's service to Frankfurt and Finnair's service to Helsinki.
Three construction projects are ongoing to the southeast of the main terminal: "Flight of Dreams" to be completed in summer 2018, a low-cost carrier terminal to be completed in early 2019, the Aichi International Convention Center to be completed in fall 2019. The main terminal is shaped with three piers radiating from a central ticketing area; this design keeps check-in distances below 300 m. Designers planned to make the main terminal resemble an origami crane from above, but this plan was abandoned due to cost; the northern side of the terminal holds domestic flights, while the southern side holds international flights, each with dedicated ticket counters, security checkpoints and baggage carousels, for international flights and customs facilities. Arrivals are processed on the second floor, departures on the third; the lower level is used for maintenance and other ground operations, as well as for passenger buses to hardstands in the middle of the airport ramp. There are thirteen gates for domestic flights, fourteen for international flights.
Central Japan International Airport Sta
