Free Republic

Friday’s landmark decision by the Supreme Court that permanent foreign residents of Japan are not entitled to welfare benefits will discourage more municipalities than ever from doling out such aid amid ballooning public assistance expenditures, experts said Saturday. Responding to a lawsuit filed by an 82-year-old Chinese resident of Oita, the top court stated in the first ruling of its kind that, legally speaking, permanent foreign residents don’t qualify for public assistance because they aren’t considered Japanese nationals. The ruling is significant in that it finally clarifies whether permanent residents are eligible to claim welfare...

Mount Fuji, or Fujisan as it is known in Japanese, is the highest point on the archipelago (rising to 3,776 metres) and the national emblem, immortalised in countless etchings. In June last year Unesco added it to the World Heritage list as a "sacred place and source of artistic inspiration". But it is still an active volcano, standing at the junction between the Pacific, Eurasian and Philippine tectonic plates. Though it has rarely stirred in recorded history, it is still potentially explosive. The Tohoku – or Great East Japan – earthquake on 11 March 2011 triggered a devastating tsunami, which...

Mitsubishi ATD-X Shinshin stealth fighter has rolled out. Last month, a leaked, blurry image provided an interesting preview of the first prototype of the Advanced Technology Demonstrator-X (ATD-X), the indigenous war plane that Japan Air Self-Defense Force will operate in the air defense role, replacing the ageing Mitsubishi F-2. On Jul. 12, the first official photos of the ATD-X (serialled 51-0001) were released by the Japanese Ministry of Defense Technical Research and Development Institute (TRDI), the Ministry of Defense’s agency that has developed the Shinshin (“spirit of the heart”, an early codename within the Japan Self Defense Force) for research...

---snip--- Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines have been forming an alliance against China, as China has been moving to annex other countries' territories in the South and East China Seas. Relations between Vietnam and China have become particularly hostile since China deployed an oil rig in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). (See "China's neighbors react to new South China Sea claims" from last week.) Now Australia is signaling that it is also joining this alliance. The change in policy was indicated in a statement by Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, during a visit by Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe to...

Moments ago, at 4:22am local time, a major 6.8 magnitude quake struck eastern Japan, off the Fukushima coast. FLASH:M6.8 QUAKE JOLTS OFF FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN, TSUNAMI ALERT EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING ISSUED FOR JAPAN, OFF FUKUSHIMA:JMA EARTHQUAKE EARLY WARNING ISSUED FOR JAPAN, OFF FUKUSHIMA:JMA TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED AFTER JAPAN QUAKE: AP From the USGS: So far there have been no reports of damage. Those curious can keep track of Fukushima in real time at the live webcast below:

Many of the graphic images being shared on social media are really from Syria or Iraq, finds the broadcaster. […] “A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq.” …

Photo of Crime Scene It is not often that you read of homicides in Japan that involve firearms.   Firearms are tightly controlled; Japanese are some of the most law abiding people on the planet; and firearms have never been widely available. It is not surprising that when such a homicide occurs, it involves foreigners.  In this case, a Chinese man appears to be the perpetrator and a Chinese woman the victim.   The article assumes that the victim was married to the man, but the police had not identified her.   From japantimes.co: The pair reportedly started to quarrel after entering...

Michael B KelleyJuly 7, 2014Super Typhoon Neoguri, a "once in decades storm," is about to hit the southern Okinawa island chain with heavy rain and powerful winds before making landfall across the entire island of Japan this week. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said the system, which is already producing winds up to 150 mph, may develop into an "extremely intense" storm by Tuesday as it moves north. (snip)

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)A large super typhoon is gathering force as it barrels along a path that is expected to take it close to the Japanese island of Okinawa. By the time it nears Okinawa early Tuesday, Super Typhoon Neoguri is likely to be generating winds as strong as a Category 5 hurricane, meteorologists say. "This is a beast," said CNN International Meteorologist Tom Sater. Okinawa, where multiple U.S. military facilities are situated, regularly finds itself in the path of big typhoons. Many of the buildings on the island are designed to weather the powerful winds that come roaring in off the Western...

How does the U.S. economy do it? Europe is floundering. China faces slower growth. Japan is struggling to sustain tentative gains. Yet the U.S. job market is humming, and the pace of economic growth is steadily rising. Five full years after a devastating recession officially ended, the economy is finally showing the vigor that Americans have long awaited. Last month, employers added 288,000 jobs and helped reduce the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since September 2008. June capped a five-month stretch of 200,000-plus job gains - the first in nearly 15 years. After having shrunk at a 2.9...

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the joint suffering of China and South Korea under Japanese militarism during a speech in Seoul Friday that came days after Tokyo announced a landmark shift in military policy. “In the first half of the 20th century, Japanese militarists carried out barbarous wars of aggression against China and Korea, swallowing up Korea and occupying half of the Chinese mainland,” Xi said in an address at Seoul National University. “When the war against Japan was at its highest pitch, the Chinese and Korean people shared their suffering and helped each other with sweat and blood,” he...

Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner and war hero who survived 47 days at sea and three years in a Japanese POW camp after his plane crashed in the Pacific during World War II, died of pneumonia late Wednesday. He was 97. "After a 40-day long battle for his life, he peacefully passed away in the presence of his entire family, leaving behind a legacy that has touched so many lives," Zamperini's family said in a statement, according to Deadline. "His indomitable courage and fighting spirit were never more apparent than in these last days." The Olean, N.Y., native's astonishing...

Two Chinese government ships sailed into disputed waters off Japan-administered islands in the East China Sea Monday, the Japanese coastguard said, as Tokyo prepared to strengthen its military posture. The two vessels were sailing in territorial waters extending 12 nautical miles around one of the Senkaku islands, which China also claims and calls the Diaoyus, as of 10:30 am (0130 GMT). Since Tokyo nationalised some of the islands in September 2012, Chinese vessels and aircraft have regularly approached them, playing cat and mouse with the Japanese coastguard.

Postwar constitution bans use of force in international disputes, which Shinzo Abe says inhibits country's ability to protect itself. Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is to defy public opinion and announce a dramatic shift in the country's defence policy that would make it easier for its troops to fight in overseas conflicts. Abe's cabinet is expected to adopt a resolution on Tuesday that would end Japan's long-standing ban on exercising collective self-defence, or coming to the aid of an ally under attack even if Japan itself is not threatened. Japan's postwar constitution prohibits the use of force to settle international...

China Now Claims Japan’s Okinawa 25 July 2012 The Global Times, the newspaper run by China’s Communist Party, ran an editorial this month suggesting that Beijing challenge Japan’s control of Okinawa, part of the Ryukyu island chain. Why would China want to start a fight over Okinawa? At the moment, China, Taiwan, and Japan are engaged in a particularly nasty sovereignty dispute in the East China Sea over five islands and three barren rocks called the Senkakus by the Japanese and the Diaoyus by the other claimants. The disputed chain is north of the southern end of the Ryukyus and...

Angry farmers from Fukushima brought a large cow to the centre of Tokyo on Friday to demand Japan's government investigate a disease they say cattle have developed since the nuclear disaster three years ago. Operators of non-profit "Kibo no Bokujo", or "Farm of Hope", delivered a full-size black cow to the front of the agriculture ministry to demand an investigation into why it and many other animals have developed white dots on their skin since reactors went into meltdown

KOHIMA: India soldiers died by the dozens, by the hundreds and then by the thousands in a battle here 70 years ago. Two bloody weeks of fighting came down to just a few yards across an asphalt tennis court. Night after night, Japanese troops charged across the court's white lines, only to be killed by almost continuous firing from British and Indian machine guns. The Battle of Kohima and Imphal was the bloodiest of World War II in India, and it cost Japan much of its best army in Burma. But the battle has been largely forgotten in India as...

“Hey idiot, hurry up and get married!” Japan is up in arms about insensitive and sexist remarks made by male members of The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly (the equivalent of a U.S. State Government Assembly) toward a female representative during her presentation earlier this week. She was speaking on issues of raising children in Japan. Ayaka Shiomura, a 36-year-old member of the opposition Your Party, called for the Tokyo metropolitan government to support women who need assistance while pregnant or raising children during a June 18 assembly session. She also suggested that the government should help Japanese women who have fertility...

China’s first aircraft carrier—the refurbished Ukrainian-built flattop Liaoning—entered testing in 2011. The People’s Liberation Army Navy is building a second carrier itself—a conventionally-powered vessel like Liaoning. A third carrier currently in the planning stage could be bigger than her two predecessors—as big as an American Nimitz-class supercarrier, in fact—plus nuclear-powered, just like U.S. flattops. Atomic propulsion confers greater sailing range and supports more sensors, weaponry and other systems. Lots of countries have one or two aircraft carriers. But none build flattops as big and capable as America’s 11 Nimitzs and new Ford-class CVNs. Evidence indicates that’s about to change. In...

While his government’s focus remains squarely on domestic issues, Mr Modi is also charting a rather ambitious foreign policy course. He has already visited Bhutan and his future destinations over the next few months are likely to include Japan, Brazil, Southeast Asia, Australia and Nepal. Meanwhile, the Chinese foreign minister has saluted the new Modi government for injecting “new vitality into an ancient civilisation”.