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Widespread flooding and landslides in north-east Japan have forced more than 90,000 people to abandon their homes. The city of Joso, north of the capital, Tokyo, was hit by a wall of water after the Kinugawa River burst its banks. Helicopter rescue teams have been plucking people from rooftops.

An enemy surface ship, almost surely part of a U.S. carrier strike group, comes under Chinese attack in a newly released military propaganda film. (“Battle to Capture an Island: a Full View of Chinese Military Strength,” Tencent and Visions Media, September 3, 2015) Alongside the military spectacle that passed through Tiananmen Square in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Chinese media conglomerate Tecent also released a new computer-generated video, “Battle to Capture an Island: a Full View of Chinese Military Strength.” Available via the social media platform QQ, the five-minute video appears to...

China unveiled an export version of its light Z-19 assault chopper several days before the start of the 2015 China International Helicopter Exposition. The helicopter can provide offensive air support and destroy the armored vehicles of any potential enemy with its “air-to-surface” armament including anti-tank missiles, a 23mm cannon and other weapons. It also has gun pods and can carry air-to-air missiles, and its tandem-seated cockpit is armored. The aircraft can carry out reconnaissance missions as well. In contrast with its basic version, the new chopper features modernized systems protecting it from the enemy’s air defense, and it sports new...

Airbus said on Tuesday its defence division would not bid for a Japanese air-to-air refueling tanker aircraft deal estimated to be worth over a billion dollars because the terms of the tender favoured its U.S. rival Boeing Co. Japan's government had said in June that it wants four tankers to supplement its existing four Boeing 767-based tankers. On Tuesday, a Japanese Ministry of Defense spokeswoman confirmed that a request for proposals (RFP) has been issued, but was unable to provide any other details or respond to the Airbus decision. In a statement, Airbus said the RFP allowed Japan to buy...

Japan aims for investment pact with Iran "as soon as possible" TOKYO, Sept 4 Japan will begin negotiations with Iran on a bilateral investment pact next week, Japan said on Friday, and aims for agreement as soon as possible to allow Japanese companies to rebuild a presence in the oil-rich country. Iran reached a landmark pact in July with the United States, Germany, France, Russia, China and Britain on limiting it nuclear programme to ensure it is not put to making bombs in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Since then, international delegations have been flocking to Teheran seeking...

SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Yonhap) — South Korea is moving ahead to introduce refurbished S-3 Viking anti-submarine warfare (ASW) planes to counter threats from North Korea, a military source said Sunday. The defense ministry insider said the proposal to incorporate 12 former U.S. Navy Vikings into service was approved late last month by a military program review group. The latest development comes after the Navy proposed taking over 20 Vikings that have been kept in storage since 2009 to shore up the country’s detection and attack capabilities against Pyongyang’s submarine fleet. The twin-turbofan powered planes served as the primary ASW platforms...

Japan’s government has lifted a 4½-year-old evacuation order for the northeastern town of Naraha that forced the town’s 7,400 residents to leave following the 2011 nuclear disaster at the nearby Fukushima power plant. Naraha is the first town to get the evacuation order lifted, among seven municipalities forced to empty because of radiation contamination following the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the plant’s reactors. The central government has said radiation levels in Naraha have fallen to levels deemed safe following decontamination efforts. ... Residents have been given personal dosimeters to check their own radiation levels. To accommodate their concerns, the...

In April 2014 the Japanese government finally lifted its postwar ban on the export of defense products. Tokyo approved its first arms export this summer — the supply of PAC-2 missile parts to the U.S., which will then sell the completed Patriot missiles to Qatar. It’s only a matter of time before Tokyo sells a major military platform rather than just parts. With a wealth of experience in manufacturing armor, ships, submarines and helicopters, there’s a lot for potential buyers to choose from. But Japan’s first sale will probably be a search-and-rescue amphibious aircraft — a seaplane — called the...

Type 022 Fast Attack Missile Craft Houbei Class of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) test fires C-803 antiship missile. PLAN Photo via Global Military Review “Improved maritime strike capability has given Chinese warships a much greater chance of competing against their U.S. counterparts” and improved naval air defenses allow its warships “the ability to operate at increasingly great distances from shore”—major advances in large part speeded by arms, vessels and technology sales from Russia since the end of the Cold War. Those were two observations contained in a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Center...

In a speech in Iowa on Tuesday night, Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump -- who has regularly promoted his negotiating skills as a selling point for his presidency -- used broken English to briefly impersonate Asian negotiators. "When these people walk into the room, they don't say, 'Oh hello, how's the weather? It's so beautiful outside. How are the Yankees doing? They're doing wonderful, that's great," Trump said, to some laughter from the crowd. "They say, 'We want deal!'"

There are few uglier phrases in the modern conservative lexicon than "anchor baby," not least because of the literal imagery the term brings to mind of a human infant, wrapped in chains and flung overboard to secure a vessel in place. But even as a figure of speech, it's a despicable concept. It refers to the notion that undocumented immigrants exploit the quintessentially American policy of birthright citizenship, which confers the status of citizen to anyone born on U.S. territory, by sneaking across the border to give birth to their children. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush recently stumbled into the...

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and senior staff at the U.S. embassy in Japan used personal email accounts for official business, an internal watchdog report said Tuesday -- making Kennedy the latest Obama administration official to run afoul of email security guidelines. The State Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) report said it received reports concerning the use of private email accounts for official business, and identified instances where emails labeled "sensitive but unclassified" were sent from or received by personal email accounts.

Celebrity ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the former president, but someone with zero experience with or knowledge of Japan, has been taken to the woodshed by the State Department's Office of Inspector General. The OIC issued a blistering report that highlighted the mismanagement and ignorance of the ambassador and her staff, including the use of private emails for official business:

Ambassador Caroline Kennedy was singled out by the State Department's watchdog for using a personal email account to conduct official business. Kennedy, who has served as the U.S. ambassador to Japan since 2013, "used personal email accounts to send and receive messages containing official business," according to a State Department inspector general report made public Tuesday. Other senior embassy staff also used personal email accounts to handle government communications, occasionally transmitting information marked "sensitive but unclassified" on commercial accounts ... The embassy in Tokyo has no records management policy, nor does it enforce federal regulations that dictate how federal records...

Having a celebrity socialite run the huge embassy was as foolish as it looked. [Caroline] Kennedy came to her ambassador’s post with no foreign policy experience, no particular background in Japan or Asia generally, and apparently not much skill at running the $93.6 million-per-year operation that is the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. [Snip] [A]lmost two years into Kennedy’s ambassadorship, the U.S. Embassy in Japan is a mess.

Breaking News... RT is the first English language source with this, but is not allowed on FR. NHK saying there were several explosions at the Sagami Depot in Kanagawa.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced she’ll be traveling to Japan later this month to talk about global warming just as Congress is demanding she testify about the agency-caused toxic waste spill in Colorado that happened earlier this month. “After spilling millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the Animas River, the EPA has an obligation to be forthcoming about what went wrong and potential long-term impacts on local communities,” Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said in a release, demanding McCarthy appear before the House science committee to answer lawmakers’ questions about the spill.

A North Korean military official says a meeting of senior party and defense officials led by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Thursday night and "reviewed and approved the final attack operation." He gave no details on what kind of military retaliation North Korea would see as appropriate punishment for South Korea's shelling of its territory on Thursday. Kim Yong Chol, director of the general reconnaissance bureau of the North Korean army, on Friday denied South Korean allegations that Pyongyang has been raising tensions on the peninsula. He denied the North fired anything across the Demilitarized Zone and says...

This Just In ... South Korea sent artillery shells into North Korea after a rocket was fired across the Western section of their border at around 4 p.m. local time on Thursday.

Should the United States apologize for the nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of World War II? The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 70 years ago this month, killed as many as 250,000 people, most of them civilians. For many of the victims, it was a horrible, excruciating death, and for many others, the effects of burns and radiation, although not immediately lethal, produced years of agony. Should we say we’re sorry? My answer is no, but I do not dismiss the question out of hand. It is, after all, naggingly relevant, raising issues of proportion, race and culture....