Every morning in a city in Indonesia’s far east, sleepy teenagers can be seen trudging zombie-like through the streets on their reluctant way to school.

It is not a scene from some cheesy sci-fi offering but a controversial experiment to get the day off to a much earlier start for the sleep-deprived teens.

The pilot project in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province, has twelfth-graders at 10 high schools starting classes at 5:30 am.

Authorities say the scheme, announced last month by governor Viktor Laiskodat, is intended to strengthen children’s discipline.

According to parents, though, their children are “exhausted” by the time they get home. Schools in Indonesia generally start between 7:00 and 8:00 am.

Teens in their school uniforms are now walking down dark streets or waiting for motorcycle taxis to get to school on time.

“It is extremely difficult, they now have to leave home while it’s still pitch dark. I can’t accept this… their safety is not guaranteed when it’s dark and quiet,” Rambu Ata, a mother to a 16-year-old, told AFP.

Her daughter Eureka now has to wake up at 4:00 am to get ready and ride a motorbike to school.

“Now every time she arrives home, she is exhausted and falls asleep immediately because she is so sleepy,” Ata said.

At least one scholar seems to agree.

“It has no correlation with the effort to improve the quality of education,” Marsel Robot, an education expert from Nusa Cendana University, told AFP.

In the long run, sleep deprivation could endanger the students’ health and cause a shift in behaviour, he said.

“They will only sleep for a few hours and this is a serious risk for their health. This also will cause them stress and they will vent their stress by acting out.”

Policy extended

A 2014 study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schoolers start classes at 8:30 am or later to allow enough time for sleep.

The Kupang rule change was also challenged by local lawmakers, who demanded the government cancel what they called a baseless policy.

The government has maintained their experiment despite the criticism and even extended it to the local education agency, where civil servants also now start their day at 5:30 am.

Not everybody is unhappy with the policy.

Rensy Sicilia Pelokilla, a civil servant at the agency, told AFP that starting earlier made her healthier because she now has to join group exercise sessions in her office that she once slept through.

“As a civil servant I am ready to comply with the regulation and I’m going to do my best,” Pelokilla said.

As Tokyo spins up its defence industry for the country’s largest military expansion since World War Two, it has run into a challenge: some of Japan’s best-known brands are reluctant to invest in the military side of their businesses.

Japan, which renounced war in 1947, last year unveiled a five-year $315 billion military expansion to deter Beijing from using force in the East China Sea.

But a key part of Tokyo’s strategy hinges on persuading commercial firms such as Toshiba Corp, Mitsubishi Electric Corp  and Daikin Industries Ltd, which for decades have quietly armed its Self Defence Forces (SDF), to ramp up production.

In a country with an ingrained public sentiment against militarism, that is proving a hard sell for some of its suppliers, according to Reuters interviews with six government and company officials.

In private meetings with the defence ministry over the last year, some firms have raised concerns such as low profit margins, the financial risk of building manufacturing plants that could be left idle after Japan completes its military expansion, and potential damage to their public image from arms sales, an official directly involved in the talks told Reuters.

The official declined to be identified or attribute the complaints to specific companies, citing the confidential nature of the talks.

The government is preparing legislation that includes raising profit margins on military gear from a few percent to as much as 15%, and the provision of state-owned factories that companies can use to expand production risk-free. Some are concerned that might not be enough.

“Until now, the ministry has taken the defence companies for granted,” said Masahisa Sato, an influential ruling party lawmaker and former deputy defence minister.

Sato said it was increasingly difficult for Japanese executives to justify defence sales out of “patriotic duty” to shareholders focused on more profitable civilian ventures.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s military buildup plan identifies defence manufacturing as a key pillar of national security.

Japan, however, does not have a national defence champion such as Lockheed Martin Corp in the United States or Britain’s BAE Systems PLC, and many of the firms supplying the SDF are associated with more mundane products.

At Japan’s biggest defence company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which is developing Japan’s next jet fighter and new longer-range missiles to help deter China, military contracts account for only a tenth of its $29 billion in revenue last year. Most of its business is civilian aircraft components, power plant equipment and factory machines.

Aircon manufacturer Daikin has a munitions sideline; Toshiba, which makes electronic goods such as printers, also produces military-grade batteries; and Mitsubishi Electric makes radars and missiles alongside fridges and vacuum cleaners.

Since early last year, defence officials have been meeting with these firms and other top suppliers, such as car-and-helicopter maker Subaru Corp, to urge them to expand their lower-profile military units.

Reuters contacted 15 leading Japanese defence manufacturers, whose CEOs the defence ministry invited to talks with then- defence minister Nobuo Kishi in April, and in January with his successor, Yasukazu Hamada.

Three of them, Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi Electric and IHI Corp, which makes jet engines, bridges and heavy machinery, confirmed they had also taken part in other lower-level discussions.

Five firms did not reply, and the rest declined to say whether they had joined in other discussions. The companies who responded declined to give details of the meetings or any concerns they raised during the talks.

Sweeteners

Many companies are reluctant to talk about their defence units, fearing it might put off customers at home, where anti-military sentiment lingers, or overseas, particularly in China, where resentment over Japan’s wartime past could be politicised.

Reuters asked 10 of Japan’s military suppliers, including Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric, Daikin and Subaru, for interviews with their defence unit managers. Only Mitsubishi Electric agreed.

Masahiko Arai, the head of Mitsubishi Electric’s defence systems division, said he welcomed government proposals and hoped that contributing to Japan’s “safety and security” would be beneficial for the firm.

His biggest concern, he said, was what would happen after Japan’s five-year military buildup ends, adding that other companies “are troubled by reputation risk”. His unit accounted for about 4% of the $34 billion in sales the company recorded last business year.

An official at another major Japanese defence supplier, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said being directly involved with regional tensions might be bad for business.

“Reputation risk worries us a lot,” the official said. “There have been occasions when our Chinese customers have expressed their discomfort when the topic of defence has come up.”

Despite diplomatic tensions, China is Japan’s top trade partner and a major manufacturing base for many Japanese companies.

When Japan ended a decades-long ban on military exports in 2014, it did not spur industry growth because of corporate timidity and overly cautious bureaucrats, analysts say. Mitsubishi Electric is the only company to have sold defence equipment overseas, with a deal in 2020 to supply radars to the Philippines.

Meanwhile, chemical company Daicel announced it would close its pilot-ejection system unit in 2020, and Sumitomo Heavy Industries said it told the defence ministry in 2021 it would stop making machine guns. Daicel cited low profitability, while Sumitomo Heavy said it was difficult to maintain production and train engineers.

‘Special equipment’

An opinion poll published by the government this month suggests there is growing public support for a bigger military as regional tensions with China and North Korea escalate.

In the survey of 1,602 people, 41.5% said they wanted to expand the SDF, up from 29.1% in the last poll five years ago.

Even so, Japanese companies often refer to their military products as “special equipment,” the government official said.

Daikin, which generates 90% of its revenue from air conditioning, is among them. It does not list the artillery and mortar shells it makes at its Yodogawa plant in Osaka, western Japan, on its website.

“We aren’t keeping our defence business secret; we disclose information about it in a regular way,” a Daikin spokesperson said. “It’s not about reputation risk.”

On a street outside the barbed-wire topped wall that surrounds the Daikin factory, Reiko Okumoto, 66, said she had lived in the working-class neighbourhood surrounding it for more than 40 years without knowing it produces shells.

“It would be good if (Daikin) could step away from military work,” she said. “But given how the world is, I know that’s unrealistic.”

($1 = 133.6900 yen)

SHETLAND, UK — On the edge of a coastal pool on one of Scotland’s Shetland Islands, Pixie, a plump grey seal grunts and rolls towards the water to retrieve a fish that’s been left for its lunch.

Pixie is one of hundreds of rescued seals, many of which were sick and emaciated from ingesting food and sea water contaminated by micro plastics and chemicals when they arrived at a sanctuary on the north coast of the main island.

Others had severe neck wounds from getting entangled by plastic straps or fishing nets.

Pete and Jan Bevington — who run the sanctuary at Hillswick, a village north of Shetland’s main town, Lerwick — say pollution is taking its toll on seal populations on the archipelago, known for its rugged coastlines, dramatic cliffs and diverse wildlife.

“It used to be a lot easier to look after seals,” Pete Bevington, 70, told AFP.

“They came in bigger, they came in stronger, they came in more resilient. Now it’s much harder work to keep them alive. We’re losing more than we used to.”

According to a report by the UK government’s Environment Agency, published in January, climate change impacts have been linked to the increased release of hazardous chemicals washed in from water bodies and sewers.

Those chemicals can include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which although banned in the mid-1980s still find their way into the marine environment through the destruction and disposal of industrial plants and old equipment.

An increasingly common problem seen by the sanctuary is entanglement wounds.

“They get stuck with plastic straps around their neck and they can’t free themselves from it,” Pete Bevington said.

“The seal grows, but the plastic doesn’t. You see more and more seals with neck wounds here.”

Fattest seal

Pods of orcas, most likely from Iceland, that have been hunting Shetland’s shores in increasing numbers in search of new feeding grounds, were also hitting seal populations.

“Killer whales are turning up more than they used to,” he said.

“We assume that’s because they are not getting the food supply that they were getting elsewhere before.

“Everybody loves to see Orcas but it does put an added pressure on the seal population.”

The sanctuary has rehabilitated hundreds of animals since is was founded by Jan Bevington, 76, in 1987 when she came across a sickly seal washed up on a nearby beach.

“I didn’t know what to do with it so I rang around England and Scotland and found out what to do and that’s what started the whole thing off,” she said.

Covering Shetland’s vast 1,500-mile coastline is challenging, but the Bevingtons have established a network of trained volunteers around the archipelago to help them rescue seals and otters.

“We rehydrate them, we keep them warm, we let them rest and then we feed them up,” Pete Bevington said.

The couple admit to becoming attached to some of their rescues, all of which are christened with a new name, but they remain mindful of not interfering with nature.

Their job is to undo the harm done by man.

So returning animals like Pixie — now at over 60 kg (132 pounds) officially the sanctuary’s fattest seal — to their natural environment is a joyful experience.

“When they’re about 40 kilos, 50 kilos we let them go out into the wild,” Pete Bevington said with a shrug.

“After that, they’re on their own.”