UTATSU, Japan – At first light, the cove at Utatsu is a picture of tranquility, the silence broken only by the chugging of engines as a fleet of small boats makes its way out across the flat blue water.

But the small harbor from which they leave is cracked and has sunk by two and a half feet. Beyond the beach is the crumpled remains of a seawall, tossed aside by the tsunami, and behind that the foundations are all that are left of a cluster of homes.

"I can't even find the words to describe it," said Hiroko Mirura, who heads a local women's fishing association, and who lost her husband in last year’s tsunami.

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Before the disaster, the local economy was built around scallops, oysters and seaweed – with the seaweed from here prized across Japan. But Utatsu lost 80 of its 100 fishing boats.

 

The boats that survived were mostly out at sea when the raging water swept in, but for the first time since the disaster, they are now back out, harvesting seaweed.

 

"It's a start," Mirura told me, "but we still need to fix the fishing facilities." Now up to 200 people are back at work.

Slimy mess tastes good
We joined the seaweed farmers on a bitterly cold morning as they pulled from the water giant branches of the slimy weed, known in Japan as wakame. It's grown from long frames, marked by rows of buoys. Mostly this is a family business, and men and women with craggy weathered faces worked methodically at the weed with their curved knives.

Few words were spoken, though one man, taking a break, cigarette hanging from his lips, told us: "It's good, the quality is very good this year." They expect it to fetch high prices in the market.

Back on shore, the Wakame is dunked in boiling water, to soften and clean it, before being salted as a preservative. In the past this processing machinery had been kept at their homes, but was mostly swept away with those houses.

The new equipment has been provided under a program backed by the U.S. charity Mercy Corps and their Japanese partner Peace Winds. The giant U.S. retailer Walmart also provided support.

"This is really the beginning of seeing their economy come back to life," said Randolph Martin, who heads Mercy Corps' East Asia operations, and has spent a good chunk of the last year in Japan looking for this type of high impact micro-investment.

"It’s more than just getting the economy going. It's about getting their lives and livelihoods back," Martin told me. "You look here and you don't see helpless victims of a disaster. You see resilient survivors."

 

Around 100 sets of processing equipment have been supplied to the community here. One elderly man bent over his tank of boiling water, stirring the weed with his gloved hand. He stepped back to hand me a stalk of Wakame with a sort of cork-screw type head on it, and regarded as a particular delicacy. It was slimy, crunchy and salty – but surprisingly tasty.

The elderly man laughed, so did several women seated on the ground nearby, sorting through more seaweed, just dragged like some slimy alien off another boat.

The task of rebuilding this battered coast is enormous, but for the small hamlet of Utatsu the return of their seaweed business is an important step towards restoring their livelihoods and sense of community.

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OTSUCHI, Japan – When 79-year-old Junko Takashi saw the tide fast receding in the bay below her house, she remembered the warnings of her mother and her grandmother, that this was a sign of a tsunami.

But still she hesitated.

"I lived on high ground, on the hillside," she said. "I never thought the water could reach here."

She decided to take no chances, and leaving all her belongings behind her, she climbed to higher ground. She didn't see the tsunami rolling in, but remembers the terrible noise – like a waterfall, only far, far louder, she recalled.

By the time it was over, all that was left of her house were its foundations.

Some 70 percent of her town, Otsuchi, was destroyed and 10 percent of the town’s population of 16,000 are dead or missing. Its fishing industry, the backbone of the local economy, was obliterated.

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Yellow flag marks sign of life
One year on and Takashi lives in a temporary home, consisting of a tiny living room, narrow kitchen and bathroom. It's one of a cluster of 80 temporary homes erected on the outskirts of what remains of Otsuchi.

She lives alone, her belongings neatly arranged in little cubicles around her. We could barely squeeze into her living room as she pointed to the television, fridge, microwave and heater, all donated by charities who were at the forefront of a massive aid operation in the weeks and months after the disaster.

Now much of that initial support has gone. "We're on our own now," she said.

"You've got to be positive. I am 79-years-old, who knows how many years I have left."

She told me that before the tsunami she was pretty self-sufficient, since she had land to grow all the vegetables she needed, and her two brothers were fishermen. Now she had to buy everything with her pension, while trying to save for an uncertain future.

But free temporary housing, in which 2,000 of Otsuchi's people now live, is only available for two years.

Outside her home, and outside those of many of her neighbors, flutters a little yellow flag. I asked her what that was for.

"They are for everybody over 65 and living alone," she replied. They are asked to put the flags out in the morning and take them down in the evening. If no flag appears in the morning, then officials will come and check on them.

Mountains of debris and uncertain plans
Otsuchi appears to have made great strides in cleaning up the twisted wreckage that was once their town, and removing the fishing boats flung inland.

Looking down from the surrounding hills and all you see is a flat plain with a dusting of snow, just the foundations marking where buildings used to stand.

But the remains of the town has essentially been scooped up and piled into vast mountains of debris, which will take years to dispose of.

Takashi believes she will be allocated a new apartment once she leaves her temporary home, but the town of Otsuchi has been slow to draw up plans for the future. There is still no blueprint for what will replace a town virtually wiped from the map.

The local mayor has pledged to build a new 50-foot high seawall, more than twice the height of the one tossed aside by the tsunami. But there is no agreement as to where any new town will be built, nor how it can be made economically viable.

Elderly people, who dominate many of these small coastal towns, are wary of grand plans for new (and more economically sustainable) towns. They form an important political group.

"I want to live where I used to live," Takashi said. "I was comfortable there."

Staying positive
The future looks daunting, but Takashi is remarkably upbeat, showing me photos of some of the charity workers and celebrities who have visited over the months.

"I like visitors. I like to talk with people," she said.

"It's always been my policy to be positive about what lies ahead."

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could be forgiven for believing she's visiting two different countries – one called Naypyitaw, the other Myanmar.

Naypyitaw is the new capital of Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma. It’s been built from scratch in the middle of nowhere. It's still a work in progress, it was only designated as the administrative capital in 2005, and until recently was largely off-limits to foreigners.

It’s a sprawling, surreal place with so few people that its eight-lane highways are almost deserted – a somewhat shocking site in this congested part of the world.

For several miles down one stretch, I saw just three motorcycles and a truck transporting a group of workers who had been tending the landscaped gardens on either side of the road.

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Despite the apparent lack of people, Naypyitaw does have plenty of monstrous government buildings and villas, and several hotels and an international airport are under construction.

"Where's downtown?" I asked a Myanmar journalist. "I keep asking them that," he replied, “But nobody seems to know."

For many, Naypyitaw is a symbol of military ego, a metaphor for the former junta's isolation from the world – and its own people.

Myanmar's new president, Thein Sein, a former army officer, is reportedly a modest man. But there's little modesty about his sprawling palace, where he and other officials from the new and nominally civilian government received Clinton in an ornate reception room. It was so new you could almost smell the paint.

The police made a big show of stopping what little traffic there was to make way for the Clinton cavalcade as it crisscrossed the city.

There was never any danger of congestion.

Myanmar has been so secretive that it's not clear precisely when work began on the city, nor how much it cost. It is lavish by any standards, but almost obscenely so against the backdrop of the enormous poverty elsewhere in the country.

It's hard to say where the money came from – but the military had its finger in many business pies, of various degrees of legitimacy. China has also been a big benefactor.

The government justified the move by saying Yangon was too crowded, and that Naypyitaw was chosen because it is smack in the middle of the country. Though one bizarre explanation was that former military strongman Than Shwe was shaken by an astrologer's warning that an American attack was imminent and Yangon was too exposed. Cynics suggested he was afraid of his own people as well.

The real Myanmar
Clinton flew late in the afternoon Thursday to the country’s old capital, Yangon, the city also known as Rangoon, seemingly a world away. Yangon, 200 miles from Naypyitaw, is a city of stunning pagodas and dilapidated, colonial-era buildings, including the run-down lakeside residence of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

It’s a real city, with real people and a real soul. And for the most part, its residents are giving the benefit of the doubt to the reforms coming from Naypyitaw.

Clinton met Suu Kyi for a private dinner Thursday evening, the meeting itself a remarkable sign of change.

Many are still skeptical about the government's intentions – although Suu Kyi isn't among them.

She was expected to tell Clinton she thinks President Thein Sein is sincere in wanting change, that he truly believes it is the best way forward for the country.

Suu Kyi will likely test the reforms by standing for a vacant parliamentary seat early next year.

It is an unusually positive response to the government’s claims of reform – she’s been persecuted for years by the regime for her pursuit of democracy, spending 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest.

Thursday evening was the first time the two have met, and Clinton, while welcoming the reforms, is taking a more cautious public line.

That, after all, is her job.

Though it’s my guess that she'll be enchanted both by Suu Kyi and Yangon – a good deal more so than the sterile meeting rooms of Naypyitaw.

 

Updated at 5:15 a.m. ET: Hillary Clinton arrives in Myanmar, becoming the first U.S. secretary of state to visit the country in decades.

YANGON, Myanmar – U Nine Nine has spent 17 of the past 21 years behind bars as a political prisoner, and on the face of it, he would seem to have little reason to be upbeat about Myanmar's recent reforms.

"Time will tell," he told me. "But I'm cautiously optimistic. It is difficult for them to turn back now [from the recent changes]. The next few weeks will be crucial."

After 49 years of totalitarian rule, Myanmar’s military junta is beginning to loosen up.

Just last November, in what was widely condemned as a rigged election, Myanmar's ruling generals exchanged their uniforms for civilian suits. There was little hope for change.   

Yet beginning in October of this year, the government has introduced a series of dizzying changes: The new government led by a former general, Thein Sein, has eased censorship, released political prisoners, introduced a limited right to strike and protest, and started a dialogue with the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi that has convinced her not only of their good intentions, but also to run for what she had dismissed as a rubber-stamp parliament. 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is flying in here Wednesday to judge the "Burma Spring" for herself – she is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country in more than 50 years.

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Political party back in action
The recent developments are cause for excitement at Nine Nine’s office. He runs an assistance program for political prisoners and is also in charge of the Yangon division of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi, which has just decided to contest elections again.

Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest, is now planning to stand in an election before the end of the year.

I met Nine Nine at the bustling office of the NLD, which is close to Yangon's famous Shwedagon Pagoda. He told me that by his calculations around 290 political prisoners have so far been released, but close to 500 remain in jail.

There's a real buzz at the NLD office, but they are quick to remind you that they won the last freely contested election, in 1990, by a landslide, only to have the result annulled by the generals. That heralded the beginning of Nine Nine's first stint in prison.

Yet something is stirring in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma.

‘Hillary repairs’
Myanmar authorities have thrown the door open to international journalists to cover Clinton’s trip. It's the first time that I have been issued an official visa in 10 years, and while they didn't quite roll out the red carpet, our welcome has been warm.

My guide pointed to the hasty road repairs on the drive in from the airport. "Hillary repairs," he called them. And later, on a visit to the Shwedagon Pagoda, I came across a group of giggling young women scrubbing the floor. "Hillary Clinton is coming," they said.

Along one of the city's many dilapidated streets, I came across a stall heaving with photographs of Suu Kyi and her father, the independence hero Aung San. That would have been a dangerous act of defiance and almost unheard of just a few weeks ago, but no longer. It was clearly still a novelty, though, and I watched as passersby stopped and pointed out the signs to friends. 

An elderly monk stopped me in the street and handed me an old currency note, no longer in circulation, but sporting a picture of Aung San. "For you. A real hero," he told me, before moving off into the crowd. A monk-led uprising four years ago was crushed by the generals.

Local newspapers, which have been carrying prominent stories about Suu Kyi – again unheard of until very recently – were carrying upbeat features Tuesday about the desire for closer relations with the U.S. (and by implication, a little loosening of their dependence on China, which goes down well in Washington these days).  

Real change?
There certainly does seem to be hope here, but many remain wary. Can one of the world's most thuggish regimes really change its stripes so quickly?

Clinton will meet with President Thein Sein on Thursday and will likely push for faster democratic change. She'll meet Suu Kyi on Friday to gauge more fully how Myanmar's pro-democracy leader judges the reforms, and whether an easing of international sanctions might be merited.

Among the former political prisoners released so far is Zarganar, Myanmar's most famous comedian, who got into hot water for poking fun at the generals. He was jailed for criticizing their response to Cyclone Nargis, a 2008 disaster that left 135,000 people dead or missing. 

On his release from prison he reportedly cracked another joke at the expense of the president. This time he got away with it, and is expected to be among those briefing Clinton on Friday about the intentions of the former generals, not known for humor or compassion, but who just might have decided that change and dialogue is the only way forward for impoverished Myanmar.

BANGKOK, Thailand – One of the most striking things about the Thai floods is the sheer ingenuity people have shown to simply get around.

I've seen all manner of aquatic contraptions, from rafts made from empty drinking water bottles to crafts fashioned from larger plastic drums, with a bicycle mounted on the deck driving a home-made propeller through the increasingly fetid waters.

Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency even ran a competition called "Mobility in the Time of Flood," which attracted 89 entries and was won by another bicycle-driven raft cobbled together by a bunch of students. The Bangkok Post devoted most of its back page to the contest Tuesday under the headline "Amateur Inventors to the rescue.”

It provided a note of humor amid increasingly angry recriminations over who's to blame for a deluge that's swamped a third of the country and killed more than 600 people. The floods have also affected some 10,000 factories, and hit the global supply chain for automotive parts and hard disk drives.

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Nearly half a million workers have been affected. Japanese-owned factories are particularly badly hit, and the government fears that many will curtail future investment plans. Japan is the largest foreign investor in Thailand.

The clean-up and recovery will cost billions of dollars, and shave an estimated 2.5 percent off economic growth.

The good news is that the floodwaters are receding to the north of the city. In Bangkok, the authorities say the eastern suburbs should be dry within a week or so, though it could be the new year before the water drains from western areas.

Don Muang airport and its surrounding areas still resemble a lake. The airport is only home to a couple of low-cost carriers these days, most flights now departing from a new airport, but it’s still a remarkable sight.

Blame game begins
Of course, few people now trust the predictions of the authorities, which have changed constantly, with officials frequently contradicting each other from day to day.

National government officials are in a constant sparring match with their city authorities, and, of course, rival political camps are accusing each other of mismanagement.

There's anger in the outer suburbs, where many believe they were sacrificed to keep downtown Bangkok dry. Angry residents have even ripped down dikes in some areas to allow the floodwaters to shift.

Some blame irrigation officials for failing to release water from up-country dams earlier in the year.

Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong had a simpler explanation in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. It was unfair to accuse the government of mismanagement, he said. "This has to be the result of climate change and global warming."

Well, up to a point, Mr. Kittiratt.

Many reports have suggested that low-lying Bangkok is vulnerable to rising sea levels, and, yes, Thailand had heavy rain this year – roughly 25 percent more than normal by some estimates.

But the great flood of 2011 was a largely manmade disaster.

The country has seen years of mindless development, much of it on what has historically been a flood plain to the north of the capital. Paddy fields have been paved over with concrete to make way for vast industrial estates and urban sprawl. Natural drainage routes have been blocked.

In the city, too, a once massive network of klongs (canals), the city's drainage system, has been replaced by roads; housing developments sit where water used to flow.

That so many people and businesses were in harm's way in areas that are historically vulnerable to floods, with the waters left with nowhere to go, is the result of decisions taken over the years by short-sighted and often venal politicians. To blame it all on climate change is an enormous cop-out.

Photoblog: Thais adjust to life in waist-deep water 

 

BANGKOK - It's election time in Thailand and a forest of posters has been planted along the capital's roads.

The voters of Bangkok spend a good chunk of their time stuck in horrendous traffic, so the 26 competing parties see this as a pretty effective way of getting their message across to a captive audience.

Among the most colorful are a series of placards featuring animals including buffaloes, monkeys, dogs and lizards, all wearing suits. They feature a large caption in Thai, which translates as "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament".

The nationalist party behind these posters is urging voters to reject all the candidates and tick a "vote no" box on their ballot papers.

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Other parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic.

Offensive to animals?
But perhaps the most heartfelt complaints have come from Thailand's vets. A seminar of the Thai Veterinary Medical Association last weekend suggested that the posters areoffensive to animals. "'Beastly' posters vex vets," was the Bangkok Post's headline.

Nantarika Chansue of Chulalongkorn University's veterinary science department pointed out that dogs and lizards are incapable of lying, which could not be said of certain parliamentary mammals.

Among the clutter of posters, the others that really stand out are those of Chuvit Kamolvisit, who leads one of the smaller parties.

Chuvit was once knows as the "massage parlor king", as he owned a series of these notorious establishments, the biggest of which are almost industrial-scale brothels. He has re-invented himself as a crusader against corruption, exposing the cart-loads of cash (and payments in kind) he used to make to police and politicians to keep his sex businesses running smoothly. Chuvit appears angry in his election posters, which urge the public to let him fight corruption.

The posters of the two front runners, Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party and Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party, are by comparison, well, rather dull.

Abhisit led the most recent and rather lackluster government. Yingluck is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. From self-imposed exile in Dubai he remains the force behind the party, though his sister has brought a fresh face and some excitement to the campaign. With just over two weeks until the July 3 election, most polls show her in the lead, and there is much talk of Yingluck becoming the country's first female prime minister.

If, that is, the army allows her.

Deadly military crackdown
The military remains the most powerful beast in the Thai political jungle. Not only did they kick Thaksin out in 2006, but since then they've worked hard behind the scenes to undermine his supporters and keep them out of power. Last year's military crackdown against red-shirted protesters, who support Thaksin, resulted in the deaths of more than 90 people.

If the army were to interfere this time, though, the anger against them might be far greater than in the past.

The election posters may offer clues of this. 

During previous election campaigns, many candidates have been pictured wearing their crisp military-style uniforms. Most government servants (and a good many others in official and semi-official positions) have these. They are common sight at official gatherings, replete with medals for various achievements in public service.

But not this time, not in the current crop of placards.

Thai friends say this might reflect a desire by candidates to distance themselves from the coup-culture, and the popular suspicion of the military.

Something for the top-brass to reflect on next time they find themselves stuck in traffic.

OTSUCHI, Japan – A seemingly endless line of trucks rumble through the remains of Kamaishi Port, laden with twisted debris from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. They empty their load at the foot of a fast-growing mountain of debris, shaped and groomed by a fleet of diggers.

A man in a hard hat and face mask was supervising the trucks, and I asked him how long it would take to clear the rubble.

He shrugged. “It’s going to take some time,” he said. “Maybe two years; this is only the beginning.”

Nearby a salvage company was picking metal from a pile that had been separated from the main mountain. Others were draining oil from a tuna fishing ship that had been marooned inland.

Japan's Environment Ministry estimates there are 25 million tons of debris scattered along the coast, mainly from collapsed buildings. The figure doesn't include cars or boats, or radioactive debris in the evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.
They say it could take up to five years to remove and dispose of it all, though even that seems optimistic as officials can't say exactly where it will go, and the rubble is a potential environmental and health nightmare.

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One of the biggest fears is of asbestos, once used widely in the construction industry here. Tiny asbestos particles when inhaled can increase the risk of lung cancer, and other lung disorders.

Experts fear that with warmer, drier weather, and as the debris is moved and cleared, dust will rise and the risk will grow.
One activist recently told The Associated Press: "There are people not even wearing masks. This is like a suicidal act."
The authorities say they will set up a series of new incinerators to burn debris, but there are fears about harmful emissions from burning wood saturated with sea water.

Just outside the city of Sendai, several other debris mountains were taking shape, with diggers excavating vast round holes in which to put it. But local authorities all along the coast say they are short of space in which to build either debris mountains or holes to bury it. They say they are sorting the debris as best they can, but there is simply too much of it.

In many devastated coastal communities, the authorities are facing conflicting pressures: on the one hand to quickly clean up and re-house the survivors (preferably on higher ground) and on the other to be as sensitive as positive to the possibility of finding bodies and valuable possessions.

Almost 11,000 people are still missing.

We witnessed the more sensitive approach in Otsuchi, a coastal town almost wiped out by the tsunami. The town is the sister city of Fort Bragg, Calif., a fishing town (not the bigger Fort Bragg in North Carolina). Soldiers from Japan's self defense were not only carefully checking for bodies, but also collecting photographs from the wrecks of houses – almost a quarter of a million of them so far, a quarter of a million memories as they put it.

"For them, this is everything. It is all they have got now," said one young woman supervising the photos, which are displayed for people to collect.

"We need to take care," said Ken Sasaki, a town official. "It takes time to do that."

Only after carefully checking through the debris is it piled into heaps with a red flag indicating it is good for clearing, to be taken to one of the growing mountains.

When we left Sendai, we took the newly restored bullet train back to Tokyo. The authorities are rightly proud of getting the service up and running again after making about 1,500 repairs from quake damage. They see it as another sign of the return to normality.

But for a reminder of the real challenges the region still faces, one only needs to peer across the green fields as the train picks up speed outside Sendai.

There they are: more mounds of debris fast becoming mountains.