Blogs

Back in 2001(my emphasis):

Around 20 companies affiliated with English-language school operator GEOS Corp. failed to declare some 280 million yen in income in the five years to March 2000, industry sources said Thursday.

This total includes 130 million yen in concealed revenues, the sources said.

GEOS Judas president and CEO, Tsuneo Kusunoki has issued an apology for the closures of the eight schools in Australia. Sadly, like the brief blurb on the GEOS website a couple of days ago, Kusunoki tries to assure everyone that things are OK while denying any connection to the schools. The apology in Japanese can be found here [PDF]. Here's a quick and dirty translation.

Good news if you're worried about the possibility of your visa renewal being denied due to your lack of national health insurance coverage:

The Immigration Bureau is planning to change a new guideline for foreign residents to ease concerns that those without social insurance will be forced to choose between losing their visa and entering the insurance system, a bureau official said Monday.

[...]

Earlier today:

The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) says it will protect the 2,300 students affected by the possible closure of a number of English language schools across Australia.

[...]

"If a decision is made by the administrators for the college to close, all overseas students will be protected by the tuition insurance scheme," she [Lynn Glover, director of the VRQA]said.

The debate about opening the polls to long time residents of Japan, who are not citizens has been raging in Japan for months now. The current discussion is focused on whether Japan should adopt legislation to extend voting rights to Permanent Residents, who are not Japanese Citizens.

The story of the GEOS Australia schools shutting down has started to make the news in Australia and Japan. From Perth Now:

EMOTIONAL scenes erupted outside a Perth language school today after it closed unexpectedly due to financial problems.

Dozens of foreign students, who have already paid thousands of dollars for courses, were still arriving for night English classes at St Mark's International College in Perth tonight.

Add this to the list of GEOS's woes: voluntary administration.

Eight English language schools operated in Australia by the GEOS group have gone into voluntary administration, leaving about 2300 foreign students unsure of their future.

Justin Walsh and Adam Nikitins of Ernst & Young have been appointed administrators to nine companies operating the schools in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Cairns.

Does the company make the man? Interac seems to think so. Just think of the adventure that awaits as you are transformed from an amoeba-like university graduate into an upright-walking sensei! Um, yeah...

h/t Fucked gaijin

Japan is notorious for the long hours of work that companies expect from their employees. This service overtime is unpaid overtime that a company expects and often demands from employees. Periodically this culture of unpaid overtime ends up killing otherwise healthy employees who cannot physically handle the stress and the hours involved. The Japanese have a word (karoshi) which translates to roughly “death from overwork.” The latest death by overwork scandal is levied against McDonald's and is winding its way through courts here in Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa are under constant criticism by the Japanese media, regarding some allegedly sketchy financial deals and some questionable election funding. The continued probes are limiting the ability of the Democrats to govern effectively. As of Monday the DPJ will be beginning their first ordinary Diet session and will be under increased attack from the Liberal Democrats regarding the financial affairs of the both Hatoyama and Ozawa.