Page 11 - Aruba Today

WORLD NEWS A11
80-year-old Tokyo fish market holds final New Year auction
E. KURTENBACH
AP Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) — It’s
among the biggest of Ja-
pan’s many New Year
holiday rituals: Early on
Tuesday, a huge, glisten-
ing tuna was auctioned for
about 14 million Japanese
yen ($118,000) at Tokyo’s
80-year-old Tsukiji mar-
ket. Next year, if all goes
as planned, the tradition
won’t be quite the same.
The world’s biggest and
most famous fish and sea-
food market is due to
move in November to a
massive complex further
south in Tokyo Bay, making
way for redevelopment of
the prime slice of down-
town real estate.
The closure of the Tsukiji
market will punctuate the
end of the post-war era
for many of the mom-and-
pop shops just outside the
main market that peddle a
cornucopia of sea-related
products, from dried squid
and seaweed to whale
bacon and caviar.
The auction is typical of Ja-
pan’s penchant for fresh
starts at the beginning of
the year — the first visit of
the year to a shrine and
the first dream of the year
are other important firsts
— and it’s meant to set an
auspicious precedent for
the 12 months to come.
Sushi restaurateur Kiyo-
shi Kimura has prevailed
in most of the recent new
year auctions, and he did
so again this year in the
bidding for a 200-kilogram
(440-pound) tuna.
In 2013, a bidding war
drove his record winning
bid to 154.4 million yen (at
today’s exchange rates
about $1.3 million) for a
222-kilogram (490-pound)
fish.
That drew complaints that
prices had soared way
out of line, and the win-
ning price in 2014 was
Wednesday 6 January 2016

dramatically lower. Last daily tuna auctions are “outer market” is under all our efforts to the revital-
year, a 180.4-kilogramme Tsukiji’s best-known events, construction. Conceptual ization of our historic Tsukiji,”
(380-pound) tuna caught the market is about much drawings from the Tokyo said a banner emblazoned
off Japan’s northern region more than just tuna. city government show with the logos of the archi-
of Aomori fetched a win- On a recent year-end the 23-hectare (nearly tect and other contractors
ning bid of 4.51 million yen day, shop owners in rub- 57-acre) market site that hanging from scaffolding
of the new building.
Kiyoshi Kimura, second from left, president of Kiyomura Co., poses a bluefin tuna at his Sushi Zan- Tsukiji’s predawn auctions
mai restaurant near Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016. It’s among the biggest of Ja- are a fixture on the tourist
pan’s many New Year holiday rituals: Early on Tuesday, the huge, glistening tuna was auctioned circuit, and since it was not
for about 14 million Japanese yen ($118,000) at Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji market. Next year, if all set up to accommodate
goes as planned, the tradition won’t be quite the same. large crowds the manage-
ment has gradually limited
(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) access for safety’s sake.
Planning for the move be-
($37,480). ber boots and aprons were fronts the Sumida River’s gan nearly 20 years ago.
Japanese eat about 80 rushing to clean up and sell outlet into Tokyo Bay being But the shift was delayed
percent of all bluefin tuna off the last of their invento- transformed into an open for years due to toxins
caught worldwide, and ry, as the last few hundred waterfront park surround- found in the soil at the new
stocks of all three blue- shoppers milled around ed by greenery, with a location, the former site of
fin species — the Pacific, hunting for bargains. wide shopping plaza and a coal gasification plant
Southern and Atlantic — Already, some shops out- a passenger terminal for run by Tokyo Gas.
have fallen over the past side the market have been tourist ferries traversing the The city announced in 2001
15 years amid overfishing. razed and a new building bay and river. that the market would be
But while the new year and that will house a smaller “We are contributing with moved by 2012. But clean-
up work dragged on, and
in 2013, Tokyo Gas dis-
closed it had found more
toxins at the site.
Critics of the move said city
authorities were swapping
worries over cramped and
some say unhygienic con-
ditions in Tsukiji for a new
set of health problems: un-
safe levels of lead, arsenic,
hexavalent chromium and
other toxins.
Cleanup of the tainted site
required the removal and
replacement of 2 meters
(6 feet) of topsoil, con-
struction of retaining walls,
pumping out of polluted
ground water and an in-
jection of fresh water.q
Chinese woman dies of H5N6 bird flu, another critical
BEIJING (AP) — Health au- so far only been seen in province is in serious condi- nization says that human
thorities in southern Chi- people in China. tion in hospital, the official cases of bird flu remain
na said Tuesday that a A press officer at Shen- Xinhua News Agency re- uncommon, with sporadic
26-year-old woman has zhen’s Center for Disease ported. Six human cases of cases occurring following
died of a strain of bird flu, Control and Prevention H5N6 have been reported exposure to infected poul-
and another woman is re- confirmed the death of the in total, all in China, since try or a contaminated en-
portedly in serious condi- local woman on Dec. 30. May 2014. The virus has vironment. It says there is
tion. He wouldn’t identify him- been detected in poultry no evidence of sustained
The two contracted H5N6, self. A 40-year-old woman in China, Lao and Vietnam. human-to-human transmis-
a strain of bird flu that has also from Guangdong The World Health Orga- sion of bird flu.q