Japanese Business..[ 1776 ]

Renovated Ginza Mitsukoshi department store boosts appeal to younger shoppers

Customers relax on a ninth-floor terrace of the newly refurbished Mitsukoshi Department Store's Ginza outlet in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 11. (Mainichi)

(Mainichi Japan) September 11, 2010

The renovated Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo's Ginza district opened on Sept. 11 with additional floor space and more youth-oriented features.

The move comes amid the ever intensifying competition among stores to attract more customers in the upscale shopping district, with the Lumine commercial complex becoming most likely to replace the Seibu department store's Yurakucho outlet after the latter closes at the end of this year and other nearby rival stores coming up with various promotion measures.

According to Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings, the Mitsukoshi department store in Ginza will have a 12-story annex that will be connected to the main eight-story building from the third through eighth floors as well as at the basement. The combined floor space will be about 36,000 square meters, or 1.5 times the original space, becoming the largest department store in the Ginza and Yurakucho area.

A clothing shop in the Mitsukoshi department store's Ginza outlet in Tokyo's Chuo Ward features a cafe to attract younger customers. (Mainichi)

The renovation, which is aimed at expanding the customer base mainly among younger generations, is the first full-scale project for Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings since the business integration of Mitsukoshi and Isetan department stores in 2008 and will "put the true value of the integration to the test," according to Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings President Kunio Ishizuka.

As part of its efforts to attract more female customers in their 20s and 30s, the remodeled Ginza Mitsukoshi will allow for more discretion among sales staff in each shop in the department store in selecting which products they will purchase and sell, a method adopted by Isetan. Another Isetan feature of abandoning partitions between neighboring brand stores will also be introduced.

Following Ginza Mitsukoshi's offensive, other department stores in the area are also desperate to boost their appeal to younger shoppers. The Matsuya department store in Ginza renovated its floors selling clothing lines for young women while launching a new space featuring brand products for women in their 20s and 30s at the Ginza Inz 2 shopping mall near the department store on Aug. 25.

The Matsuzakaya department store has already opened its "Forever 21" fast fashion boutique in its Ginza outlet, while opening in October the "Ufufu Girls" brand shop of clothes for women in their 20s and 30s, which became a hit at the Matsuzakaya group's Daimaru department store in Osaka's Shinsaibashi district.

The Takashimaya department store in the Nihonbashi district, about 1.5 kilometers away from Ginza, has also introduced a child clothing line from a Northern European brand amid concerns that the store's predominantly family-based customers could switch to stores in Ginza.

On Sept. 8, Lumine became most likely to succeed the Seibu department store premises in Yurakucho after its Dec. 25 closure and is set to open a new outlet there in the fall of 2011. A subsidiary of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), Lumine currently operates 13 outlets mainly at major train stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area, featuring youth-oriented fashion brands. The Yurakucho outlet will be Lumine's first venture outside train stations.

Year-on-year sales at department stores nationwide dropped for the 29th consecutive month in July. 

A senior official with a major department store expects that Ginza Mitsukoshi's renovation will "prompt department stores to draw renewed attention from customers," but the emerging budget apparel stores in the Ginza district, including Uniqlo and H&M, are threatening to foil such expectations. Lumine's foray into the Ginza and Yurakucho fashion market could further escalate the fierce competition between fast fashion apparel stores and conventional department stores.

Click here for the original Japanese story

Democracy Meeting in Russia..[ 1775 ]

Putin Overshadows Medvedev's Democracy Meeting

Photo: AP

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev poses on the embankment in the ancient Russian city of Yaroslavl, about 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow, 10 Sep 2010

James Brooke | Yaroslavl, Russia / VoA., 10 September 2010

Russia's president talked democracy Friday at an annual gathering of intellectuals and political leaders.  But more than half-way through his four-year term in office, some of those in attendance at the gathering say President Dmitry Medvedev's talk about democracy has made that a topic of national debate, but that has not been able to implement concrete change.

While an autumn sun lit freshly painted white walls of this 1,000-year-old city, a long shadow was cast over the gathering by Russia's prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin.

Several foreign visitors here had a dinner meeting with Mr. Putin under the auspices of the Valdai Discussion Club, a group of foreign intellectuals.  They came away with the impression that Mr. Medvedev's time to establish an independent political profile is running out, with presidential elections 18 months away.

Alexander Rahr, Russia director for the German Council for Foreign Relations, said of the group dinner with Mr. Putin:  "After seeing and speaking to [Mr.] Putin during the meeting of the Valdai Club, I think each of the members of the Valdai Club got the impression that [Mr.] Putin is not departing.  It remains to be seen if he will return as president, or stay as an even stronger prime minister.  Intentions are clear that he wants to form the strategy of Russia, and he wants to be an active politician."

When Mr. Medvedev was elected and Mr. Putin assumed the role of prime minister, many in Russia and in the international community wondered whether the new president would have the blessing of Mr. Putin, his mentor, to pursue his own agenda and the strength to carry it through on his own terms.  

In recent weeks, Mr. Putin has been cultivating his image as a man of action.  Night after night, Russians watched on the evening television news as their prime minister piloted a fire-fighting plane, shot an arrow into an Arctic whale, inaugurated a pipeline to China, launched construction of a space center and drove a bright yellow Russian-made Lada car across Siberia.

Nikolai Petrov, political analyst of the Moscow Carnegie Center, said Mr. Putin's image contrasts with that of President Medvedev in the public's mind.

"What is understandable for ordinary Russians is the fact that [Mr.] Medvedev is speaking, and [Mr.] Putin is doing. So [Mr.] Putin did manage to create the image of the guy who not only controls the situation almost entirely, but who is doing, who is acting, who is coming to ordinary Russians, who is visible on the ground, while [Mr.] Medvedev is sticking in his office and communicating with a few officials," said Petrov.

In his meeting this week with the visiting intellectuals, Mr. Putin cited the case of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the wartime U.S. president who was elected to four terms in office.  No other U.S. leader had been in office that long, and the U.S. Constitution was later amended to limit a president's service to two terms.

Russia's constitution limits presidential terms to two in succession. In 2008, after two consecutive terms in office, Mr. Putin stepped aside. His protégé, Mr. Medvedev, was elected to a four-year term.

Because the Russian constitution only limits terms that are consecutive, Mr. Putin is eligible to run again in elections in March 2012.  If he were elected to two additional consecutive terms, Mr. Putin could conceivably serve as president through 2024.

Anatol Lieven, a Russia expert at King's College London, also participated in the two meetings this week, first with Mr. Putin then with Mr. Medvedev.

"I am not sure whether [Mr.] Putin will run for president in 2012," said Lieven.  "I am sure that, as long as he wants to be, he will remain the strong man in the state.  He may be content, it is possible, unlikely, but possible, that he will leave [Mr.] Medvedev to occupy the bully pulpit and to sort of move reform along in a limited way along the edges, while [Mr.] Putin retains the real power over the real institutions of the state."

Russia's president complained recently that ministers and governors have checked their Blackberries and sent tweets during his meetings.

A Black Day of the 9/11 anniversary..[ 1774 ]

US to mark 9/11 anniversary amid Koran-burning row

 

Bells will toll in New York at the time the Twin Towers were struck

BBC., 11 September 2010 Last updated at 07:54 GMT

The US is preparing to mark nine years since 9/11 amid controversy over plans for an Islamic centre nearby and a threat to burn the Koran.

President Barack Obama urged respect for other religious faiths after the threat, now on hold, sparked protests across the Muslim world.

The Florida pastor behind the threat has arrived in New York.

This year's anniversary is likely to be the most contentious and fraught yet, says the BBC's Laura Trevelyan.

Once the city's official commemorations are over, rallies will begin both for and against the proposed Islamic community centre and mosque near Ground Zero.

Both sides want to use the emotion of the day to highlight their causes, our correspondent says.

Some relatives of the 9/11 victims says it is disrespectful to have a reminder of Islam by the place where so many died but other families support the project as an expression of America's commitment to freedom of religion.

And there are still more relatives who believe this emotional day is not the one to be making a political point, our correspondent adds.

About 3,000 people died in the attacks in 2001, in which four airliners were hijacked. Two were crashed into the towers of New York's World Trade Center (WTC) and one into the Pentagon, while the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after passengers apparently fought back.

US Vice-President Joe Biden is to attend the official ceremony in New York at which the names of all the people who died at the WTC will be read out.

Houses of worship across the city have been asked to toll their bells at 0846 (1346 GMT), the moment the first hijacked plane struck the North Tower

President Obama will attend the ceremony at the Pentagon and his wife Michelle will attend the event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, along with former first lady Laura Bush.

Pressure on pastor

 

Police escorted Mr Jones after his arrival in New York's Laguardia airport

The controversial pastor, Terry Jones, said he hoped to meet a leading imam to discuss the proposal for the Islamic centre, to be located a short distance from Ground Zero, the WTC site.

He said he had suspended the book-burning only because he had received a guarantee, from an imam in Florida, that the centre would be moved.

But the planners of the Islamic centre have said they did not speak to the Florida imam, and would not be moving their project.

Koran-burning row timeline

• July Terry Jones announces his church in Gainesville, Florida, will stage International Burn a Koran Day. National Association of Evangelicals asks the church to call off the event
• 18 August Gainesville Fire Rescue denies Mr Jones a fire permit, saying the church will be fined if it goes ahead.
• 6 September Top US commander in Afghanistan Gen David Petraeus warns that burning could put troops' lives will be in danger
• 8 September Vatican condemns bonfire plans as "outrageous"
• 9 September US President Barack Obama joins international condemnation. Mr Jones then says he has cancelled the burning, before saying it is only suspended.
• 10 September Protests break out in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and President Barack Obama calls for religious tolerance in the US

Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed centre, said on Friday that he was "prepared to consider meeting with anyone who is seriously committed to pursuing peace" but added that he had no current plans to meet Mr Jones.

Mr Jones is the pastor of the tiny and previously little-known Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, and author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil.

He had planned to stage an International Burn a Koran Day on Saturday, saying the book was "evil".

But pressure was put on the pastor to cancel the burning. The FBI visited Mr Jones to urge him to reconsider his plans and he was telephoned by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

In his remarks on Friday, Mr Obama denied that his administration's intervention in the affair had elevated it to greater prominence.

He appealed to Americans to respect the "inalienable" right of religious freedom and said he hoped the preacher would abandon his plan to burn the Koran, as it could add to the dangers facing US soldiers serving abroad.

"This is a way of endangering our troops, our sons and daughters... you don't play games with that," he told reporters.

NASA Image of the Day, Sep 10th.(2) ..[ 1773 ]

The latest NASA "Image of the Day" image.

Ushering in the Future

Dr. Werhner von Braun, Marshall Space Flight Center's first director, points out a detail regarding the first stage of the Saturn rocket to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

 

President Eisenhower was at Marshall to participate in the Center's dedication ceremony, Sept. 8, 1960. 

 

Image Credit: NASA

Παρασκευή, 10 Σεπτέμβριος 2010 7:00:00 πμ

Μourning for Russian car bomb victims..[ 1772 ]

Day of mourning for Russian car bomb victims

In this image made from television, the wreckage of a car destroyed in a suicide car attack is seen in a square outside a market in Vladikavkaz, North Caucasus, Russia, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. A suicide car bomber hit the central market of Vladikavkaz on Thursday, killing more than a dozen and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst terror attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said. (AP Photo/AP Television News)

By Sergey Ponomarev Associated Press Writer / September 10, 2010

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia—September 10, 2010 
Flags flew at half-staff in the southern Russian city of Vladikavkaz on Friday and stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140.

Thursday's bombing near the central market of the capital of the North Ossetia republic was the most serious attack in Russia since the March subway bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people.

Of those wounded, 107 were in local hospitals and 11 severely injured victims had been flown to Moscow, North Ossetian Health Minister Vladimir Selivanov said Friday, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass.

The Vladikavkaz market was cordoned off Friday, with investigators combing the site for clues about the bombing. The blast was so powerful that glass in nearby buildings shattered. The area was cleaned of blood and shreds of clothing but twisted wrecks of several cars littered the streets, grim reminders of the attack.

A few blocks away, weeping relatives and neighbors mourned two bombing victims: 54-year-old Yaselin Mamedova and 9-year-old Elnus Ashimov. Their bodies were being prepared for burial later in the day in line with Muslim practice.

There has been no public claim of responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell on Islamic militants who launch frequent small attacks in neighboring North Caucasus republics, including Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Russia's ethnically diverse North Caucasus region has been gripped by violence stemming from two separatist wars in Chechnya and fueled by endemic poverty and rampant official corruption. Human rights groups say law enforcement officers frequently resort to extrajudicial killings, kidnappings and torture, breeding hostility and provoking retaliatory attacks.

Unlike the provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, where Muslims make up most of the population, North Ossetia is predominantly Orthodox Christian but has a sizeable Mulsim minority.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Russia's top Muslim cleric after the blast and said Russia's 20 million Muslims should play a key role in eradicating Islamic extremism in the nation.

"
The crimes like the one that was committed in the North Caucasus today are aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens. We mustn't allow this," Putin said at the Thursday meeting.

In Dagestan, another republic in Russia's violence-plagued North Caucasus region, officials said Friday that a policeman and a prison warden were shot to death in separate attacks.