Phones injure, China not feeding Japan

Snippet of an article in the Dallas Morning News-

Study: Cellphones quadruple crash risk

07:46 AM CDT on Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Using a cell phone -- even a hands-free one -- while driving quadruples the risk of getting into a crash with serious injuries, a study finds.

Research released Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggests that using a hands-free device instead of a handheld phone while behind the wheel will not necessarily improve safety.

"You'd think using a hands-free phone would be less distracting, so it wouldn't increase crash risk as much as using a handheld phone. But we found that either phone type increased the risk," said Anne McCartt, one of the study's authors and the institute's vice president for research.

[More reason for not using the cell during transport; broken bones, loss of bodily fluids, death, anyone?]
...

"Food means having to say you're sorry"

Tue Jul 12,10:33 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - Japanese customers must apologize for their country's wartime occupation of China before getting a seat at a restaurant in former Manchuria or find another place to eat, Japan's Kyodo news agency said Tuesday.

No Japanese had tried to enter the restaurant in the northeastern Chinese city of Jilin since it started the new apology policy and hung a sign that read "Japanese people barred from entry."

"We totally welcome those Japanese customers who can correctly view history," the manager, surnamed Tian, was quoted as saying.

"But as for those customers who still refuse to admit to history, we want to say we don't like them."

Staff at the Western-style restaurant were told to ask Japanese customers who walked through the door to give their views of Japan's 1931-1945 occupation of parts of China, including the northeast, and to turn away those who did not apologize and share the owner's opinions, Kyodo said.

Many Chinese feel Japan has never owned up to atrocities committed during its occupation, including the 1937 Rape of Nanjing in which Beijing says as many as 300,000 Chinese men, women and children were slaughtered by Japanese troops.

The 1948 Tokyo war crimes tribunal found Japanese troops killed 155,000 people, mainly women and children.

China has repeatedly asked Japan to "take history as a mirror" and "correctly" view history to repair ties between the two countries, which this year have sunk to their lowest point in decades.

[Hmm, China is being like this because they do have a point about past Japanese brutality that has been hushed up. But currently, I am more incensed at the Chinese government than at Japan's war crimes of the past.]