Helping, listening, caring: Japanese prefecture leads dramatic decrease in suicides

Taeko Watanabe, whose son Yuki who committed suicide in 2008, talks in front of his portrait at her home in Akita, Japan February 9, 2019. (REUTERS)
Updated 08 April 2019
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Helping, listening, caring: Japanese prefecture leads dramatic decrease in suicides

  • Suicide has a long history in Japan as a way to avoid shame or dishonor, and getting psychological help was stigmatized

AKITA, Japan: Taeko Watanabe awoke one cold March night and found a trail of blood in the hallway, a bloody cleaver on her son Yuki’s bed and no trace of him in the house. Then police discovered a suicide note in his bedroom.
“They found him in a canal by the temple and wrapped him in a blanket. After an autopsy, he came home in a coffin. I fell apart,” she recalled, eyes welling up as she sat by a photo of Yuki and a Buddhist altar laden with flowers and Fuji apples.
Yuki, who was 29 when he died in 2008, was one of many who committed suicide that year in Akita prefecture, 450 km north of Tokyo. For nearly two decades, Akita had the highest suicide rate in all of Japan, which itself has the highest rate in the Group of Seven.
But things have changed, Watanabe said. If her son faced the same situation now, “he would never have died. There are people who can prevent it.”
Watanabe, who contemplated suicide herself after Yuki’s death, now leads a suicide survivors group, part of national efforts that have brought Japanese suicides down by nearly 40 percent in 15 years, exceeding the government target. Akita’s are at their lowest in 40 years.
These efforts took off nationally in 2007 with a comprehensive suicide prevention plan, as academics and government agencies identified at-risk groups. In 2016, regions got more freedom to develop plans that fit local thinking.
Corporations, prompted by lawsuits from families of those who took their lives because of overwork, have made it easier to take leave; more offer psychological support, and a law caps overtime. The government mandates annual stress tests in companies with over 50 employees.
Suicide has a long history in Japan as a way to avoid shame or dishonor, and getting psychological help was stigmatized.
But when suicides hit a peak of 34,427 in 2003, it alarmed policymakers and drew foreign attention, often a catalyst for change in Japan.
“For a long time, thinking was that suicide was a personal problem and so the government didn’t really deal with it — not just Akita, but the whole country,” said Hiroki Koseki, an Akita civil servant in charge of suicide prevention.

POOR, ELDERLY, ALONE
Suicides have multiple causes, but experts say Akita has so many because of its remoteness, lack of jobs, long winters, a large number of isolated and lonely elderly, and accumulating debt.
In 1999, Akita’s governor became the first in Japan to budget for suicide prevention. Amid positive media coverage, citizen and volunteer suicide prevention groups sprung up. Akita, with a population of just 981,000, now has one of the largest citizen help networks in Japan.
“Because it was a personal problem, even governments said tax money shouldn’t be used. That paradigm shift occurred in Akita; the rest of Japan followed,” said Yutaka Motohashi, director of the Japan Support Center for Suicide Countermeasures, who worked in Akita in the 1990s identifying at-risk groups. Akita began depression screening, and public health workers checked in on at-risk people. There was also enthusiastic participation by volunteers such as Hisao Sato, who fought depression for years after his business failed in 2000.
“During that time one of my friends threw himself off a bridge and others had companies fail,” added Sato, 75, whose own father probably committed suicide. “I was angry, I wanted them not to be forced to choose suicide.”
To help, in 2002 he created “Kumonoito,” or Spiderweb, a network of lawyers and financial experts offering practical help. About 60 percent of his funding comes from the Akita government; the rest is from donations.
Japan’s parliament is drawing up a law to create a national organization similar to Sato’s.
“A business failure isn’t just an economic problem, it’s also a human problem,” Sato said.

GATEKEEPERS
Akita also has an ever-growing network of “gatekeepers” — people trained to identify those contemplating suicide and, if needed, put them in touch with help. Anybody can undergo several hours of training from Akita public health personnel and take part.
“Basically, everybody is part of community suicide prevention. It’s everybody’s business,” Motohashi said.
Japan’s national barbers’ association has called on its members to get training, though few have so far. But 3,000 people in Akita have been trained since 2017 and the goal is 10,000, or one for each 100 people, by 2022.
Akita also has volunteer “listeners” — people like 79-year-old Ume Ito, who talks to at-risk people, many of whom are elderly, for hours at a time.
“About 70-80 percent of those we deal with say they want to die, but while they talk they stop thinking about suicide and eventually say, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you,’” she said.
One of her clients is Sumiko, 73, bedridden after a fall. She spends her days alone until her son’s family returns at night.
“I thought I’d be stuck in bed the rest of my life. Is this it for me? I thought I’d lose my mind,” said Sumiko, who declined to give her last name.
“If she wasn’t coming it’d be so depressing. I can’t tell my family everything in my heart and darkness remains,” she added, smiling at Ito. “I tell my son: being listened to saved me.”
Akita’s suicide rate has fallen from a high of 44.6 per 100,000 in 2003 to 20.7 in 2018, according to preliminary data — a drastic improvement, but still the sixth-highest nationally.
Japan’s suicides have fallen from the 2003 peak to 20,598 while the rate dropped from 27 per 100,000 to 16.3. The government aims to hit 13 per 100,000 by 2027. By contrast, the suicide rate in the US, with more than twice Japan’s population, was 14 per 100,000 in 2017.

SHADOW ON SUCCESS
But 543 Japanese 19 and younger killed themselves in 2018, a 30-year high.
Youth suicides were given unprecedented importance in a 2017 suicide-prevention plan, with counsellors now at many schools, often starting in primary grades, said Ryusuke Hagiwara, who works on suicide prevention at the Health Ministry.
Japanese youths often drop out of community activities and focus on school affairs by junior high, limiting possible confidants.
“Just at the time when stress increases for them, their world narrows,” said Yoshiaki Takahashi, a suicide researcher with the Nakasone Peace Institute. “We need to open things out.”
Education Ministry pamphlets aimed at primary school children allow them, through cheery comics, to assess how they’re feeling, teaching stress-reduction measures such as deep breathing and encouraging them to seek help.
“If we teach children it’s okay to get help, and how, they’ll be more open to it later too,” Akita’s Koseki said. “Raising adults like this may help reduce future suicides.”


Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris

Updated 04 April 2025
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Gaza heritage and destruction on display in Paris

  • Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground”

PARIS: A new exhibition opening in Paris on Friday showcases archaeological artifacts from Gaza, once a major commercial crossroads between Asia and Africa, whose heritage has been ravaged by Israel’s ongoing onslaught.
Around a hundred artifacts, including a 4,000-year-old bowl, a sixth-century mosaic from a Byzantine church and a Greek-inspired statue of Aphrodite, are on display at the Institut du Monde Arabe.
The rich and mixed collection speaks to Gaza’s past as a cultural melting pot, but the show’s creators also wanted to highlight the contemporary destruction caused by the war, sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
“The priority is obviously human lives, not heritage,” said Elodie Bouffard, curator of the exhibition, which is titled “Saved Treasures of Gaza: 5,000 Years of History.”
“But we also wanted to show that, for millennia, Gaza was the endpoint of caravan routes, a port that minted its own currency, and a city that thrived at the meeting point of water and sand,” she told AFP.
One section of the exhibition documents the extent of recent destruction.
Using satellite image, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO has already identified damage to 94 heritage sites in Gaza, including the 13th-century Pasha’s Palace.
Bouffard said the damage to the known sites as well as treasures potentially hidden in unexplored Palestinian land “depends on the bomb tonnage and their impact on the surface and underground.”
“For now, it’s impossible to assess.”
The attacks by Hamas militants on Israel in 2023 left 1,218 dead. In retaliation, Israeli operations have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated the densely populated territory.

The story behind “Gaza’s Treasures” is inseparable from the ongoing wars in the Middle East.
At the end of 2024, the Institut du Monde Arabe was finalizing an exhibition on artifacts from the archaeological site of Byblos in Lebanon, but Israeli bombings on Beirut made the project impossible.
“It came to a sudden halt, but we couldn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged,” said Bouffard.
The idea of an exhibition on Gaza’s heritage emerged.
“We had just four and a half months to put it together. That had never been done before,” she explained.
Given the impossibility of transporting artifacts out of Gaza, the Institut turned to 529 pieces stored in crates in a specialized Geneva art warehouse since 2006. The works belong to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank.

The Oslo Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, helped secure some of Gaza’s treasures.
In 1995, Gaza’s Department of Antiquities was established, which oversaw the first archaeological digs in collaboration with the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem (EBAF).
Over the years, excavations uncovered the remains of the Monastery of Saint Hilarion, the ancient Greek port of Anthedon, and a Roman necropolis — traces of civilizations spanning from the Bronze Age to Ottoman influences in the late 19th century.
“Between Egypt, Mesopotamian powers, and the Hasmoneans, Gaza has been a constant target of conquest and destruction throughout history,” Bouffard noted.
In the 4th century BC, Greek leader Alexander the Great besieged the city for two months, leaving behind massacres and devastation.
Excavations in Gaza came to a standstill when Hamas took power in 2007 and Israel imposed a blockade.
Land pressure and rampant building in one of the world’s most densely populated areas has also complicated archaeological work.
And after a year and a half of war, resuming excavations seems like an ever-more distant prospect.
The exhibition runs until November 2, 2025.
 

 


US tariffs take aim everywhere, including uninhabited islands

Updated 03 April 2025
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US tariffs take aim everywhere, including uninhabited islands

  • The Australian territory in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean was slapped with 10% tariffs on all its exports

WASHINGTON: The world’s remotest corners couldn’t hide from US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs onslaught Wednesday — even the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands.
The Australian territory in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean was slapped with 10 percent tariffs on all its exports, despite the icy archipelago having zero residents — other than many seals, penguins and other birds.
Strings of ocean specks around the globe, including Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands and the Comoros off the coast of Africa, were likewise subjected to 10 percent new tariffs.
Another eye-catching inclusion in the tariffs list was Myanmar, which is digging out from an earthquake that left nearly 3,000 people dead, and whose exports to the United States will now face 44 percent in new levies.
Britain’s Falkland Islands — population 3,200 people and around one million penguins — got particular punishment.
The South Atlantic territory — mostly famous for a 1982 war fought by Britain to expel an Argentinian invasion — was walloped with tariffs of 41 percent on exports to the United States.
The Falklands’ would-be ruler Argentina only faces 10 percent new tariffs.
According to the Falklands Chamber of Commerce, the territory is ranked 173 in the world in terms of global exports, with only $306 million of products exported in 2019. This included $255 million in exports of mollusks and $30 million of frozen fish.


Australia PM Albanese falls off stage during election campaign event

Updated 03 April 2025
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Australia PM Albanese falls off stage during election campaign event

  • Albanese was posing for photos following his speech when he stepped back and lost his footing
  • Albanese promptly got back on his feet and gestured to the crowd with two hands that he was fine

SYDNEY: Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appeared to fall off a stage on Thursday during a campaign event for May’s national election, but quickly recovered and insisted he was “sweet” afterwards.
The leader of the center-left Labor party, 62, was posing for photos following his speech at the Mining and Energy Union Conference held in New South Wales, when he stepped back and lost his footing, drawing gasps from the audience.
Albanese promptly got back on his feet and gestured to the crowd with two hands that he was fine.
Video footage from the event showed Albanese had tumbled off the stage, although he shrugged off the incident when asked about it during a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“I stepped back one step. I didn’t fall off the stage ... just one leg went down, but I was sweet,” he said.
Albanese is currently on the campaign trail for an election on May 3. The Labor party is running neck-and-neck in opinion polls with the conservative Liberal-National opposition led by Peter Dutton.


Starbucks faces new hot spill lawsuit weeks after $50m ruling

Updated 02 April 2025
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Starbucks faces new hot spill lawsuit weeks after $50m ruling

  • The suit, filed at the city’s superior court, claims one of the cups in her order was not properly secured
  • The negligence suit seeks unspecified general and special damages

LOS ANGELES: Starbucks was facing another lawsuit over a spilled hot drink Wednesday, just weeks after a court ordered the coffee giant to pay $50 million to a man who was injured by a cup of tea.
A lawsuit lodged in California claims Sabrina Michelle Hermes was seriously hurt when hot liquid tipped into her lap at a drive-through in Norwalk, near Los Angeles, two years ago.
The suit, filed at the city’s superior court, claims one of the cups in her order was not properly secured when it was handed to her, and the drink sloshed out onto her legs, a hip, a knee and her feet, causing severe injuries.
Starbucks “owed a duty to exercise reasonable care with respect to the preparation, handling and service of hot beverages so as to prevent them from spilling onto and injuring customers such as plaintiff,” the suit says.
The negligence suit seeks unspecified general and special damages, including reimbursement for past and future medical costs and lost earnings.
A spokesperson for Starbucks told AFP on Wednesday the company would be contesting the claim.
“We have always been committed to the highest safety standards in our stores, including the handling of hot drinks,” the spokesperson said.
“We are aware of Ms. Hermes’ claims and firmly believe they are without merit. We look forward to presenting our case in court.”
Last month a jury in Los Angeles ordered the firm to pay $50 million to delivery driver Michael Garcia, who suffered burns when a super-sized drink spilled in his lap at a drive-through.
Garcia’s lawyers claimed the server who handed him three large drinks in February 2020 did not push one of them into the cardboard cupholder properly.
Starbucks said at the time of the ruling that it would appeal the award, which it said was “excessive.”
A landmark legal ruling against McDonalds in New Mexico in 1994 established something of a precedent for Americans suing fast food companies when 79-year-old Stella Liebeck was awarded over $2.8 million after spilling hot coffee on herself.
Although the award was reduced on appeal, the case was often cited as an example of the need to reform US tort laws.


Slovakia allows culling 350 bears, riles conservationists

Updated 02 April 2025
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Slovakia allows culling 350 bears, riles conservationists

  • Fico’s government has also declared a state of emergency in most Slovak districts over “undesirable” bear presence
  • The Slovak parliament already eased the rules for bear culling in May 2024

BRATISLAVA: The Slovak government on Wednesday approved the shooting of 350 bears citing danger posed to people, a move conservationists slammed as unlawful.
The decision follows several bear attacks on people, including the discovery of the remains of a man in central Slovakia probably killed by a bear on Sunday.
“We can’t live in a country where people are afraid to go to the woods,” Prime Minister Robert Fico told reporters.
Fico’s government has also declared a state of emergency in most Slovak districts over “undesirable” bear presence.


The Slovak parliament already eased the rules for bear culling in May 2024, allowing exemptions from a ban in several districts.
But the country must follow an EU directive that allows culling only of problem bears damaging property or attacking people, and only if there is no other solution.
A total of 93 bears were shot in the EU member country of 5.4 million people in 2024, while 36 died in car accidents, the daily Dennik N said earlier.
But journalists from the Jan Kuciak Investigative Center said hunters probably never killed bears that had attacked people, based on a study of 50 cases from 2024.
Environment Minister Tomas Taraba said on Wednesday there were more than 1,300 bears in Slovakia, and that 800 was a “sufficient number,” as the population keeps growing.
But conservationists criticized the government, saying Wednesday’s decision was in violation of international obligations and that the environment ministry knowingly breached the law.
They called on the ministry to instead teach people how to stay safe in nature.
“Instead of ineffective solutions, we need to strengthen prevention — education, provision of garbage removal, regulation of baiting of game or informing the public about safe movement in nature,” the Aevis Foundation said on Facebook.