Free Republic

The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000 - almost 90 per cent of them women - government data showed on Tuesday (Sep 17). The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world's fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sep 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the health ministry said in a statement. On Sunday separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting...

Bernard Stein never talked about his combat experiences in Southeast Asia during World War II, but he’d brought the flag home as a war trophy after fighting with the U.S. Army’s 38th Infantry Division in the Philippines, said Scott Stein.

Renowned Japanese brand Panasonic has announced today that it is returning with immediate effect to the U.S. TV marketplace after a near decade-long absence. The brand has confirmed, too, that its return won’t be some half-hearted toe-dipping exercise; in fact it’s going to be giving U.S. AV fans the opportunity to get their hands on its most premium OLED models—models deemed so good by the home entertainment world that they’re sometimes used as reference monitors in professional mastering suites. It came as a shock to many, including me, when Panasonic announced in 2016 that it was no longer going to...

Two Delta Airlines planes have collided on the tarmac at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia. Two Delta Airlines aircraft were involved in a collision on the taxiway at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. ... The shocking incident occurred at the United States’ “busiest airport,” according to stratosjets.com, with photographed images displaying the back end of the Louisiana-bound flight bent at a 90 degree angle. The dramatic crash occurred after Delta Air Lines Flight 295 Airbus A350 was taxiing for departure to Tokyo, Japan, hitting the tail of an Endeavor Air Flight DL5526 going to Lafayette, Louisiana. The report...

The Asahi Shimbun reports that scientists from Japan's Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties have identified the function of a six-inch strip of wood unearthed in 2001 at a government workers' office in the ancient capital of Fujiwara-kyo. Infrared imaging of the object revealed that the fragment is part of a 1,300-year-old multiplication table written in kanji. The entire multiplication table with all of the equations written out was likely about 13 inches long, explained team member Kuniya Kuwata. In this section, which was likely from the upper-right corner of the document, the equations were written in five rows...

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a large floating accumulation of debris in the Pacific Ocean, can be cleaned up within 10 years at a cost of $7.5 billion — or within five years with a more aggressive strategy costing $4 billion. That’s according to the Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit organization that has led the fight to remove the dangerous plastic from the Pacific — most of which, it says, consists of discarded fishing equipment from Japan and China. The patch is one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems — one that Vice President Kamala Harris said, incorrectly, can be...

He states that there will be “Rapid Approvals” for the following: —— new drillings, new pipelines, new refineries, new power and electric plants, and new reactors of all types (nuclear) —— “This will quickly reduce the prices of everything almost immediately.”

US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris visited Pittsburgh for the Labor Day holiday with President Biden. There, she declared that United States Steel should remain domestically owned and operated, yet another high-profile critic of US Steel’s proposed sale to Japan’s Nippon Steel. “US Steel is a historic American company, and it is vital for our nation to maintain strong American steel companies,” Harris told the audience at Union Hall in Pittsburgh, where US Steel is headquartered. She said, “I couldn’t agree more with President Biden — US Steel should remain American-owned, and American-operated. And I will always...

Fusion power is one of those things that's just 10 years away - and has been for 50 years. Granted, if someone could make it work, and unless some major collapse of, well, civilization occurs, then eventually someone probably will, then fusion reactors would change everything. Energy would be cheaper and more available than ever with practical, steady-state fusion power. The climate change worries over the use of fossil fuels would be greatly reduced, in no small part because the use of fossil fuels would be greatly reduced. Cheap, widely available electricity from fusion reactors would change the calculus for...

Almost 40,000 people died alone in their homes in Japan during the first half of 2024, a report by the country’s police shows. Of that number, nearly 4,000 people were discovered more than a month after they died, and 130 bodies went unmissed for a year before they were found, according to the National Police Agency. Accounting for 7,498 of the bodies found, the dataset’s largest group belonged to 85-year-olds and above, followed by 75-79-year-olds at 5,920. People aged between 70 and 74 accounted for 5,635 of the bodies found.

Two Ukraine wide air raid alerts late tonight... Israel's military conducting an attack in Tulkarm in the "West Bank" with five terrorists killed... Biden Administration special prosecutor Jack Smith seeking to revive the "classified documents" case... The Palestinian health ministry says Jewish settlers attacked a village near Bethlehem with one killed... French law enforcement acknowledging the questioning of an 'unnamed person' who is in reality Telegram owner Pavel Durov...arrest has been extended... In the midst of constant Israeli evacuation orders the United Nations suspending humanitarian aid in Gaza... A sea drone and small boats reported near a merchant vessel off...

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran, which the United States accuses of secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, has a stake in the world's biggest open-pit uranium mine in the African state of Namibia, the mine's owner told Reuters. Rossing Uranium Limited, which is majority owned by Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto, sells its uranium to nuclear power plants in the United States, Japan, South Korea and Sweden. Graham Davidson, the general manager for operations at Rossing, said in a letter to Reuters that the company's board of directors only permits the sale of uranium for use in generating electricity. "The government of Iran has...

Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese military plane, for the first time, violated the island nation's airspace, the Japanese government confirmed Monday. According to Japan's Defense Ministry, a Y-9 intelligence-gathering plane at about 11:29 a.m. local time flew over the East China Sea near the Danjo Islands off the southwestern prefecture Nagasaki for roughly two minutes. The incursion prompted the Air Self-Defense Force to scramble its fighter jets, defense ministry officials said. The Y-9 reportedly circled above the water southeast of the islands multiple times before it entered Japanese airspace and before flying back toward...

Japan's Defense Ministry says it has confirmed the first-ever intrusion by a Chinese military aircraft into the country's airspace. The ministry said a Y-9 intelligence-gathering aircraft entered the Japan's Air Defense Identification Zone over the East China Sea and was flying in the direction of Kyusyu on Monday morning. The ministry said its Air Self-Defense Force fighters were scrambled to respond and radioed the Chinese aircraft not to get close to Japanese airspace. It said that around 10:40 a.m, the Chinese plane started to circle over waters southeast of the Danjo Islands in Goto City in the southwestern prefecture of...

Plus a further 200 delays, rockstars knocked off stage … all on a holiday weekendThirty-six flights were cancelled at Japan's New Chitose airport on Saturday after a pair of scissors went missing. Japanese media report that retail outlets at the airport – which serves the regional city of Chitose on Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido – are required to store scissors in a locker. When staff need to cut something, they withdraw the scissors and then replace them after they're done snipping. But last Saturday, an unnamed retailer at the airport was unable to find a pair of scissors. A...

If ever there were an economic example of the dog that caught the car and has no idea what to do now—it’s Japan, circa 2024. For 25 years now, a succession of leaders tried—and largely failed—to defeat deflation and produce sustained inflation. As many Americans not feeling the economic boom in the globe’s biggest economy will tell you, inflation has a way of clouding all else. Here in Japan, it’s rising faster than wages. In 1999, the BOJ became the first major central bank to slash rates to zero. Two years later, it pioneered quantitative easing. All that free money...

Recycling food scraps back into food you can eat sounds disgusting at first. But I’m sure everyone hearing about Japan’s way of tackling waste would want to know how the process works and how the resulting food tastes. It turns out the process is not disgusting at all once you get to learn about it. It’s ingenious, and everyone should be doing it. Spoiler alert: people don’t aren’t being fed the liquid mass that results from fermenting food scraps with this technology. Instead, pigs get the liquid ecofeed, and then people ultimately eat the pigs. The technology aims to fix...

The President of Columbia University resigning... A massive data breach with hackers perhaps getting the Social Security number of every American... The situation regarding talks in Qatar tomorrow regarding some sort of deal on a ceasefire and release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. It's a murky situation... In Israel a key political opponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saddled with a bill... An American citizen being held in Moscow accused of attacking a police officer... The World Health Organization declaring worldwide emergency related to 'mpox' formerly called "Monkeypox"... Two French warplanes colliding in the skies over France...One crew...

The warning of a tremor that could kill more than 320,000 people is forcing Japan to think of the abstract danger of disaster in more concrete terms, says Gearoid Reidy for Bloomberg Opinion.To live in Japan is to live with the risk of a devastating earthquake at any time. Usually, however, people tend to view that threat in the abstract. It’s kind of like thinking about death - I know I’ll die someday, but I hope it won’t be today. And so far, at least, I keep getting lucky. Until we don’t. Thursday’s announcement from Japanese authorities, warning of an...

Rolls-Royce breaks all luxury limits and unveils new engine: the end of hydrogen with something better The first biomass engine in history beats hydrogen: It’s submersible, and no one understands how it works This engine was a prediction a century ago, and it runs on steam: It’s the end of EVs and FCEVs Nowadays, cars use batteries and motors to move, however, this way of movement is very inefficient because overcoming friction and gravity takes most of the energy. But Japan presents a very innovative solution which is magnetic levitation and will be the (supposed) end of hydrogen engines. Will...