Who is John Ashburne?

Why, he's the British husband of Sasha Ashburne of Global College Friends World fame!

Of course, since the CIA has basically sanitized its former front-company website, the scant remains are documented scarcely anywhere, except here.

I'm just going to leave a couple of links and brief comments for now, coming back to this tomorrow, probably. Incidentally, John has published a number of articles and the like on Japanese food, in the Japan Times, Michelin, etc., as well as at least one book and photos.

In case you missed the Ashburne missuses nomenclature and job description, here is the link to the archived page.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070430181159/http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/globalcollege/east_asia/faculty.htm

Sasha Ashburne, Administrative Assistant
Sasha is our secretary and despite the anglicized nickname, a native of Kyoto.  In a past incarnation she was a chef and still works on developing her culinary skills.  She is currently studying how to prepare traditional Japanese temple food.  In addition to cooking she is a cat lover and a lover of beaches and has been known to frequent Okinawa of late.

Johnny's blog:

http://johnashburne.com/ 

On Johnny's blog there's a link to two Wall St. times articles he penned for a business man setting up shop in Osaka. The businessman sees it fit to sing the praises of Mayor Toru Hashimoto's "business friendly political leadership" in Osaka. 

The articles are from before the blow up due to Hashimoto's ill-received remarks regarding the "comfort women", not to mention split with his potential ultranationalist LDP ally Abe before instead allying with ultranationalist Ishihara. 

Was it just a coincidence that these articles praising a "TV personality turned politician" who was an attorney that basically didn't pursue a practice of law and was known to associate with affiliates of organized crime, including another "TV personality" Shinsuke Shimada http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/25/shinsuke-shimada-resigns-yakuza-links. 

Ashburne's articles are basically paid marketing articles for Osaka, but they embody a push for the radical political decentralization program by "the ardent reformer" that was being trumpeted by Hashimoto (a proxy?) and resembled that being pursued by the Tea Party movement in the USA. I have mentioned elsewhere that Hashimoto is of Burakumin descent and his father was affiliated with the yakuza. 

At the very least, Hashimoto's agenda appears to have won favor among the Western intelligence agencies. It definitely has the divide-and-conquer component and represents an attack on the central government of Japan. 

Is it simply a coincidence that his wife worked at the CIA front "Global College" where Preston Houser was teaching the course about Burakumin while he published two articles in the WSJ praising Hashimoto, a person of Burakumin descent known to associate with affiliates of the yakuza? 

Or is it the case that he is another espionage officer in the MI6? I've described my personal experience with JapanToday--also a CIA front company--scenario with respect to Hashimoto and campaigns already.

Did I mention that Dougill once told me that he went to Preston Houser's recital upon receiving his shakuhachi teaching license? Note that these people are all connected through the Kansai Time Out, Kyoto Journal, and DeepKyoto blog. I've examined two of those thus far.


Link to first Wall St. Journal piece:
http://www.investosaka.jp/pdf/twsj_2012.pdf

The city’s mayor, TV personality turned politician Toru Hashimoto, makes no bones about his admiration for China, having visited the country on several occasions and met with its Premier, Hu Jintao. Within a month of his own election to office in November 2011 Hashimoto declared, “My idea is that Osaka’s Strategic Growth Special Zones, such as Yumeshima and Sakishima, will become the hub of a movement towards Asia.”

Hashimoto and his burgeoning national political party seek a move away from Tokyo-centric policies. Should the ardent reformer succeed in his goal of uniting Osaka City and Osaka Prefecture into a single metropolitan government entity, representing a total population of 8.84 million... 


Link to second Wall St. Journal piece:
http://o-bic.net/pdf/WSJ130426.pdf

Mr. Furuta cites the city’s “robust, business-friendly political leadership,” under Mayor Toru Hashimoto, and its freedom from the web of bureaucratic restrictions that ensnares Tokyo, as positives.  


Link to Japan Times pieces:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/author/int-john_ashburne/
Lecture advertized on DeepKyoto website:
http://www.deepkyoto.com/?p=4846
Piece in book published by DeepKyoto blog:
http://www.deepkyoto.com/?tag=john-ashburne

Kansai Time Out interview:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/author/int-john_ashburne/

Book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Of-Kansai-Kyoto-Osaka/dp/0756775868


'The Flame'
You can see  John perform at an open mic event called The Flame in Kyoto, which features a number of individuals I've reported to the US State Department and Justice Department for intelligence activities here. The one thing about their propensity to rely on networking is that once you crack the code, their whole microcosm becomes accessible and subject to evaluation. You might say that some of these people are flamers from the 'intelligence community'. It is their aim to hide in the open and establish a local persona after they have been on location for a sufficient period of time. 
There are some interesting performances at The Flame, and I doubt that everyone participating is an espionage officer from their respective country. You will have to take note, however, that many of these expats have a lot of time on their hands to participate in overlapping extracurricular activities of this nature, not to mention publishing articles and blogs and just being all around expat community cretins that apparently don't have a life outside of the expat community.I will be introducing more of them in the not-too-distant future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mme4TUtG4EA

Sasha's blog and cafe pages

Foodelica blog

http://foodelica.wordpress.com/

Foodelica café, w/map

http://hibikuatfoodelica.wordpress.com/cafe-foodelica-%E3%83%95%E3%83%BC%E3%83%87%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB/