<h3>We hit the headquarters of each party without appointment during the summer vacation!</h3>
 The timing of the ocean release was decided after the August 18 Japan-U.S.-Korea meeting without the understanding of the Japanese people, the people of Fukushima Prefecture, or the Federation of Fishermen&#8217;s Associations. Did the &#8216;concerned parties&#8217; in &#8216;understanding of the concerned parties&#8217; mean the U.S. President? (see below).&#8221;
 These were the words muttered by the account name &#8220;The Japan Chugakusei Shimbun&#8221; on X (formerly Twitter) on August 29.
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 The &#8220;Japan Chugakusei Shinbun&#8221; is a &#8220;democratic reading material created by junior high school students,&#8221; which was launched in March this year by Daiji Kawanaka, a first-year junior high school student in Osaka City, all by himself.
 Kawanaka researched the Yumeshima casino issue, covered the Sakai City mayoral election and the Osaka City Council election, and published his own newspaper and notebook, as well as the aforementioned SNS.
<figure id="attachment_331466" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-331466" style="width: 4032px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="959fbd72"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/09/a99d20e1e106857fea51942039b9307b.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-331466" class="wp-caption-text"> In August, Kawanaka says he went to Tokyo and visited the party headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the People&#8217;s Democratic Party, the Communist Party, and the newly elected Reiwa Party. In front of the LDP headquarters, he points to the signboard of the Expo headquarters.</figcaption></figure>
 In August, Kawanaka says he spent three days in Tokyo, visiting the headquarters of the LDP, the Constitutional Democratic Party, the KDP, the Communist Party, and the Reiwa Shinsengumi.　When we interviewed him remotely, he told us about his frank impression of &#8220;visiting the headquarters of each political party.
 The LDP&#8217;s party headquarters was heavily guarded. I couldn&#8217;t go inside, so I only saw it from the outside, but there were many police and security guards around, and I was surprised at how intense the atmosphere was. 
 At the LDP party headquarters, I approached an SP and handed a newspaper to the representative of the LDP, Mr. Kenta Izumi. （I asked him to give the newspaper to Mr. Izumi (Kenta Izumi), the representative of the DPJ, and he accepted it. 
 The KMT arrived too late and I pressed the intercom, but no one answered. Reiwa Shinsengumi was able to talk to the staff and I was grateful for their kindness.&#8221;
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 In fact, he had given a newspaper to Taro Yamamoto, the representative of the Reiwa Shinsengumi, when he went to a chat meeting in Ashiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, in May of this year, and at that time he was told, &#8220;You are doing a great job.
 He said, &#8220;Then I went to the Communist Party headquarters and said I wanted to talk to Mr. Taku Yamazoe, but Mr. Yamazoe was away because he was in the Diet, so I handed him the newspaper and he gave me a postcard from Mr. Yamazoe and wrote, &#8216;Please work hard on the next issue. I was able to ask many questions to the person who took over for Mr. Yamazoe at the party headquarters. 
 He told me that the Self-Defense Forces would be eliminated after the people voted and approved, but that since we never know when a disaster will occur, we would create another organization, such as the Disaster Reserve Corps, that would focus on disasters to deal with disasters. He also said that he would establish a separate organization that would focus on disasters like a disaster reserve corps. 
<figure id="attachment_331467" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-331467" style="width: 1238px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c4e2fa56"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/09/56bacc49273df546883bc06eea3ccf74.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-331467" class="wp-caption-text"> At a &#8220;chat meeting&#8221; held in Ashiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, in May of this year, he handed his business card and newspaper to Representative Taro Yamamoto.</figcaption></figure>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Interviewing for the G7 Hiroshima Summit, which was turned away at the gate"></div>
 
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<h3>Because I am a student&#8221; or &#8220;I have no track record&#8221;&#8230;I was not even allowed to apply to cover the G7 Hiroshima Summit.</h3>
 Kawanaka says that his interest in politics was sparked by the &#8220;Osaka Metropolis Plan,&#8221; a concept that he says was a surprise for a first-year junior high school student who visited the headquarters of a political party without an appointment during his summer vacation.
 Kawanaka says that his interest in politics was triggered by the Osaka Metropolis project. &#8220;At the time of the Osaka Metropolis project, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party, who usually don&#8217;t seem to get along with each other, were working as one against the project, transcending party lines. 
 I was in the fourth grade at the time, and my teacher would get angry at me for talking during recess about things like, &#8216;If Osaka City is abolished, we will lose services to our citizens,&#8217; or &#8216;It would be easier to live without the consumption tax. He would say things like, &#8216;If you talk one-sidedly like that, other opinions will not be respected.
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 Kawanaka thought, &#8220;If I am not allowed to talk about politics, I should write a newspaper and spread the word. However, he had a frustrating experience when he simply wrote, &#8220;Let&#8217;s go vote,&#8221; and was not allowed to post it on the school bulletin board because it was considered a political statement.
 This led him to publish the &#8220;Nihon Chugakusei Shinbun&#8221; (Japan Junior High School Student Newspaper) on his own.
 I was very curious as to why Prime Minister Kishida had not signed or ratified the Nuclear Weapons Convention, despite the fact that Japan is the only country to have suffered from the atomic bombings of war and the nuclear power plant accident. 
 Then I learned that there was an application in March to cover the G7 Hiroshima Summit in May, and I thought that would be my chance to interview Prime Minister Kishida, so I launched &#8220;The Japan Chugakusei Shimbun&#8221; to ask him questions as a reporter. 
 The online application for the G7 summit required me to attach a photo ID, but I only had my health insurance card, so I asked the G7 jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs what I should do. But I only had my health insurance card, so I asked the G7 Ministry of Foreign Affairs what I should do. They wouldn&#8217;t even let me apply, saying that I was a student and that I didn&#8217;t have any achievements. 
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 What is always strange to me when I watch press conferences is the press club system in Japan. When I looked into it, I found that there is no press club system in other countries. It seems to be an old system that has been in place in Japan since before World War II, and I would like to see it changed. 
 I once wondered if I could make friends with some of the Liberal Democratic Party&#8217;s elders and get some good coverage (laughs). 
<figure id="attachment_331468" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-331468" style="width: 1259px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="44c96c68"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/09/2f60c2b45d296b77a0644eaa199c3d2c.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-331468" class="wp-caption-text"> The first time I went to cover the Osaka gubernatorial election in April 2011, the day the election was to be held. With Mr. Kotaro Tatsumi</figcaption></figure>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Calling the Osaka Prefectural Government&#39;s Environment Bureau about the soil contamination issue"></div>
 
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<h3>Calling the Osaka Prefectural Government&#8217;s Environment Bureau on the issue of soil contamination in the &#8220;Casino IR&#8221; and &#8220;Osaka World Expo.</h3>
 It is surprising to see that he has already come up with the idea of &#8220;laying the groundwork politically&#8221; with a face that still has an innocent look. Mr. Kawanaka is now very interested in the &#8220;casino IR&#8221; and &#8220;Osaka Expo &#8217;70&#8221; issues.
 Yumeshima is on soft ground and has liquefaction problems. It is also a disposal site for general and industrial waste, and waste from the areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake is buried there. 
 In the Diet session held on March 16, Reiwa 2023, Mr. Shu Sakurai of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan submitted a question regarding soil contamination countermeasures on Yumeshima, and he stated that heavy chemical industries are located around the Port of Osaka, and dredged soil and sand from the Port of Osaka containing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and dioxins were buried in the 2nd and 3rd wards of Yumeshima. The Yumeshima 1 district also contains PCBs and dioxins. In addition, incinerated ash containing dioxin, PCBs, and other toxic chemicals was landfilled in Ward 1 of Yumeshima. 
 In addition, there is a pond of contaminated water between Wards 1 and 2 of the planned Expo site, and there is a possibility that PCBs and other substances could be blown away by the wind. 
 The Osaka Prefectural Government said, &#8216;We are following the Ministry of the Environment&#8217;s standards,&#8217; and &#8216;We are treating the water, so we don&#8217;t anticipate any health hazards.&#8217; But I am emotionally scared, and I am worried that there may be a leak in the treatment, so I don&#8217;t trust them. 
 Even at the time of the nuclear power plant accident, they did not anticipate the possibility of health hazards, but they were saying that it was &#8216;safe&#8217; and &#8216;secure.
 He also expressed the following concerns about IR casinos: &#8220;Even in junior high school, people play games late at night.
 There are kids in junior high school who play games until late at night, but the IR casinos are targeted at the time when our generation will become adults. I&#8217;m worried that it will make them addicted to games and that more and more people will drop money one after another just to play games. 
 When I watched the debate before the Osaka gubernatorial election on TV, we talked about casinos and the subject of addiction came up. Mr. Yoshimura (Hirofumi) said that until now Japan had not taken measures against addiction, and that by building casinos, measures against addiction would be strengthened, and that therefore it would be safe. 
 However, when I looked at the casino materials, it said that clocks would be placed inside the casino as a countermeasure, but I did not know how many or where they would be placed, or whether they would be placed in a place where I could see them properly, so I contacted him. I inquired about this, and was told that it had not yet been decided. 
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 If all they want to do is to counter addiction, why build a casino at the same time when they can just build a center to counter addiction? I don&#8217;t see the need for a casino.&#8221; 
<figure id="attachment_331469" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-331469" style="width: 860px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="82d794f3"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/09/fb0fae5ba2e44b761156b207a34f3829.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-331469" class="wp-caption-text"> The first issue published in March of this year</figcaption></figure>
<h3> What we can do is to increase the voter turnout. What we can do is to increase the voter turnout, because I believe that &#8216;increasing the voter turnout = improving the country and improving people&#8217;s lives.</h3>
 Kawanaka says that even as a first-year junior high school student, he is sometimes slandered on social networking sites because of his daily activities. He sometimes consults with journalist and freelance writer Rihito Hatakeyama, author of &#8220;Silent Kill: The Fight of the Unreported Independent Candidates&#8221; and &#8220;The Election Romantic Journey of the Corona Era,&#8221; about his concerns.
 On X (formerly Twitter), I am sometimes called &#8216;red&#8217; or &#8216;the face of the Communist Party,&#8217; and I wonder what kind of face I have. When I asked Mr. Hatakeyama about this, he told me, &#8220;Concentrate on your own activities and don&#8217;t worry about such comments as just an opinion. 
 I just want everyone to be more interested in politics, and I am not anti-anyone, nor do I support any party. I am unbiased. I write what I think is wrong without hesitation. I believe that is democracy.
 Kawanaka says that his future goal is &#8220;to cover all the candidates for the Osaka 1st Constituency in the House of Representatives election,&#8221; and that his dream is to become a journalist or a politician. On the other hand, he also shared his awareness of current problems.
 At junior high school, I have very few friends with whom I can talk about politics. There are almost no children who are interested in politics. Some children&#8217;s parents don&#8217;t vote, and I think the reality is that this has been passed on to their children and the voting rate among young people has been declining. 
 What I want to convey most through the activities of the Nihongakusei Shimbun is that politics determines most of our lives. I am also afraid of nuclear power plants, and with the 80% probability of the Nankai Trough, I wonder what would happen if a nuclear power plant exploded. 
 I am also concerned about the continuation of the poverty that is being talked about today. 
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 In such a situation, what we can do is to increase the voter turnout. I believe that raising voter turnout is the key to improving the country and improving people&#8217;s lives. I would like you to approach more young people, regardless of party affiliation. 
 Besides, I want the media to properly explain both positive and negative aspects of the situation, including my number and casinos. Because right now, every article I read seems to be biased in each direction.&#8221; 
 It seems that we on the media side, and each and every adult, have a lot to teach one junior high school student.
<figure id="attachment_331470" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-331470" style="width: 4032px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="16b13658"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2023/09/e100c7a13bbb21e0fca105aa5fa97442.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-331470" class="wp-caption-text"> I just want everyone to be more interested in politics, and I&#8217;m not anti-anyone, nor do I support anyone. I am unbiased,&#8221; said Kawanaka.</figcaption></figure>

 Wakako Takou

 When he was in elementary school, he wrote "Let's go vote" and was not allowed to post the newspaper in the school because it was considered a political statement. So, as a junior high school student, he decided to publish his own "Nihon Chugakusei Shinbun" (Japan Junior High School Student Newspaper).

Yumeshima Casino Can Be Stopped&#8221;&#8230; &#8220;The Japan Junior High School Student Newspaper,&#8221; launched by a single junior high school student, is as good as an adult.

Yumeshima Casino Can Be Stopped”… “The Japan Junior High School Student Newspaper,” launched by a single junior high school student, is as good as an adult.

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