Free Republic

Russia said on Monday (Sep 26) it had detained a Japanese diplomat based in the eastern city of Vladivostok for carrying out espionage-related work and declared the official person non grata, news agencies reported. "A Japanese diplomat was detained red-handed while receiving classified information, in exchange for money, about Russia's cooperation with another country in the Asia-Pacific region," the FSB security service said in a statement, carried by Russian news agencies. The diplomat had also been soliciting information about "the impact of Western sanctions" on the eastern Primorsky region, the FSB said, according to news agencies.

Japanese model Kiko seen in the discontinued ad campaign for Valentino’s Japan spring/summer 2021 collection. Photo: Weibo Photos for Valentino showing Japanese model Koki walking in high heels on a traditional obi kimono belt, and wearing shoes inside, have whipped up a storm of social media criticism amid accusations the luxury Italian fashion house was “trampling on” Japanese culture. The images, part of a promotional shoot for the Milan-headquartered company’s Japan spring/summer 2021 collection ‘Valentino Collezione Milano for Women’, show Koki sitting on an obi , which is traditionally made of the same material as a kimono and worn as...

MISSILES TEST U.S.-JAPAN TIES By GARY SCHMITT and DAN BLUMENTHAL July 19, 2006 -- ALTHOUGH U.S. policy toward North Korea is ostensibly about "keeping the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous regimes," the reality is that we haven't even come close to doing that. North Korea almost certainly has nuclear weapons, and it is slowly developing the missiles to carry them. And there is no prospect that, short of a regime collapse, North Korea will give up those weapons. Why would it? Nukes give the DPRK a decisive deterrent against its enemies and, as the...

Chirac pleads in Tokyo for an international tax in favour of Africa TOKYO - French president Jacques Chirac pled Monday in Tokyo in favour of creation before the end of the year of an international tax on air transports to fight against pandemias in Africa. In front of an economic forum free-Japanese, Mr. Chirac recalled that "together, France and Germany defend creation, by the end of this year, with all the countries which wish it, of a first international taking away of solidarity on the kerosene or the plane tickets in order to finance the fight against the AIDS...