Free Republic

The smug self-confidence of financial analysts and writers who predicted that Japan's monstrous sales tax increase would have no long-term effect on its economy should be severely shaken. An Associated Press report tonight by business writer Elaine Kurtenbach tells readers that the Land of the Rising Sun's economy "contracted at a larger than earlier estimated annual rate of 7.1 percent in April-June, as companies and households slashed spending following a tax hike." This means that the "experts" who assured everyone that the second-quarter contraction would be smaller than or merely offset the brisk first-quarter expansion of 6 percent were horribly wrong. The...

CANBERRA, Australia—Australia is close to buying up to 10 submarines from Japan for as much as 20 billion Australian dollars (US$18.7 billion) in a move that would turn the north Asian country into a weapons exporter for the first time since World War II. The deal, which senior defense officials said they expect to be signed this year, risks stoking regional tensions since it positions Tokyo as a major guarantor of Australia's security at a time when relations between China and some of its neighbors, including Japan, are strained. A purchase of Japanese submarines also sits uncomfortably next to the...

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has signalled a rare attempt to mend fences with China when he appointed two MPs considered friendly towards Beijing to two senior posts in his governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP). […] In his first cabinet reshuffle on Wednesday, Abe also increased the number of female ministers to five—equaling a record set by his LDP predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, in 2001—as part of his program to increase the number of women in the workforce, a key part of his long-term growth strategy. His decision to appoint Sadakazu Tanigaki as LDP’s secretary general, and veteran MP Toshihiro Nikai...

Indian PM Narendra Modi and Japan's Shinzo Abe have agreed at a summit in Tokyo to accelerate talks on a nuclear energy pact. They also agreed to strengthen security ties and Mr Modi welcomed Japan's easing of restrictions on exports of defence equipment and technology. Mr Modi is on his first major foreign visit since winning May's election. The trip is being seen as an attempt by the two democracies to balance the rising weight of China across Asia. Mr Modi arrived in Japan on Saturday and visited the former imperial city of Kyoto over the weekend. "The two prime...

With the Soryu-class submarine, Japan can compete with the best the global submarine market has to offer. As Clint Richards noted earlier, it now appears likely that Japan will sell advanced Soryu-class submarines to Australia. In addition to strengthening the relationship between Australia and Japan, and making Australia’s submarine force considerably more lethal, this represents a major move by Japan into the global submarine market. Germany, France, and Russia have long dominated the existing market for diesel-electric submarines. The German Type 209 submarine serves in over a dozen navies, with more than 60 boats currently in service. While the design...

MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press TOKYO (AP) -- A message Japan began delivering Monday is a bit unusual, but true enough: Don't wait until it's too late to think about toilet paper. The government and paper companies kicked off a "Let's stockpile toilet paper!" campaign to mark Disaster Prevention Day, warning of a possible crisis because nearly half of the supply comes from one of Japan's most earthquake-prone areas. Officials said people immediately think of food and water as emergency supplies, but easily forget toilet paper, and get desperate when it's too late. "After running out of toilet paper, people start...

A message Japan began delivering Monday is a bit unusual, but true enough: Don’t wait until it’s too late to think about toilet paper. The government and paper companies kicked off a “Let’s stockpile toilet paper!” campaign to mark Disaster Prevention Day, warning of a possible crisis because nearly half of the supply comes from one of Japan’s most earthquake-prone areas. Officials said people immediately think of food and water as emergency supplies, but easily forget toilet paper, and get desperate when it’s too late. …

This is just hilarious. I’ve watched it four times already and still can’t stop laughing. I guess the biggest question I have is how do you come up with such a brilliant idea? Yes, I am jealous. So, the video was shared with us by Reddit user nomer2 under the title This cat was hired to work at pizza hut in japan. This is his job.

Japan’s defense planners are seeking their biggest budget ever for the coming fiscal year to pay for stealth fighters, drones and a hi-tech submarine, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bolsters the military amid an intensifying rivalry with China. The Defense Ministry on Friday requested a 3.5% increase to 5.05 trillion yen for the year starting next April. If approved, this third increase in a row will more than reverse the decade of cuts that Abe ended after coming to office in December 2012. Abe, taking a more assertive stance on national security, has also ended a ban on Japanese soldiers...

The Japanese laboratory that retracted a paper reporting a potentially major breakthrough in stem cell research said Wednesday its researchers have not managed to replicate the results. Scientists at the government-affiliated Riken Center for Developmental Biology said they are still trying to match results reported in two papers published by the journal Nature in January and then retracted in July. […] (Riken scientist Haruko) Obokata and other researchers in Boston and Japan participating in the project said they used a simple procedure to turn ordinary cells from mice into stem cells. They exposed cells from spleens of newborn mice to...

Japan's GDP Shrinks 6.8% As Sales Tax Bites A sales tax rise takes its toll on spending by consumers and businesses but the painful effects are expected to be temporary. Efforts to shore up Japan's public finances have had a negative impact on its economy, with GDP shrinking 1.7% in the second quarter alone. A sales tax increase from 5% to 8%, which came into force in April, was blamed for the contraction in output during the period which came in at at annualised rate of 6.8%. The decline in GDP was the worst since the economic tailspin that followed...

$1bn lawsuit accuses Tepco of failing to avoid the accident and of lying about radiation levels that have caused health problems to themselves and their families stationed in Japan The first time it occurred to James Jackson that there could be lasting damage from his US Navy service during Japan’s tsunami and nuclear disaster came when his eldest son, Darius, was diagnosed with leukaemia.Darius, now 15, spent a month in hospital in early 2013, soon after his diagnosis. “I thought I was going to have to bury him,” Jackson recalled. The teenager who aspired to play college basketball now has...

Okay. I'm not sure how I missed the updates/reports other than the fact that they appear not to have been posted here at FR. Principal source link is the PDF report to Congress in regards to a prior post here:("Final Report to the Congressional Defense Committees in Response to the Joint Explanatory Statement Accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, page 90, “Radiation Exposure” "). (link will open/download the PDF) An update on the USS Ronald Reagan crew lawsuit re their mysterious illnesses in the wake of Operation Tomodachi is here: ("USS Reagan Sailors’ Lawsuit Found ‘Lacking’ Nuclear Expert...

We now mark the 69th anniversary of VJ-Day preceded by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WW II. The generations which made the decisions for World War II have passed away. The generation which faced the tragic violence required for carrying out those decisions is rapidly leaving us. As this personal knowledge becomes ever rarer, we must increasingly listen without response to revisionist contra-factual analyses expounding about what a needless, tragic and profoundly immoral decision the United States had made. The arguments advanced display a pleasing, deliberate ignorance which burnishes this peculiar new morality. However, these views...

A Japanese company claims to have reached the next level in developing the most genuine looking sex doll which comes complete with realistic feeling skin and authentic looking eyes. Orient Industry say their new range of dolls, made from high quality silicon, are so realistic there is very little to distinguish them from a real girlfriend at first glance. The dolls, which are non inflatable, are sold under the name 'Dutch Wives', a Japanese term for a sex doll, and adverts in the media boast that anyone who buys one will never want a real girlfriend again.

NEW DELHI: On April 2, 1946, the Reuters correspondent in Melbourne, Australia, cabled a short message, which was carried by all newspapers a day later, including The Times of India. It read: "The Japanese Lieutenant Hisata Tomiyasu found guilty of the murder of 14 Indian soldiers and of cannibalism at Wewak (New Guinea) in 1944 has been sentenced to death by hanging, it is learned from Rabaul." The nationalist narrative has long projected the Second World War as a clash between the patriots of the Indian National Army (INA), supported by the Japanese Empire, and the evil British Empire. The...

In the summer of '45, the United States concluded a war that had come to be seen by some as unwinnable after the carnage at Iwo Jima with a bang. ~~snip~~ The two bombs stand in stark contrast to our endless nation-building exercises in which nothing is ever finished until we give up. Instead Truman cut the Gordian Knot and avoided a long campaign that would have depopulated Japan and destroyed the lives of a generation of American soldiers.

TOKYO -- Nearly three months after lifting its long-standing arms embargo, Japan recently approved plans to supply missile parts to the U.S. and conduct joint military research with a British company. Behind the scenes, however, there was a deal that fell through. Under new guidelines governing the transfer of defense equipment and technology, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on July 17 convened the National Security Council to look into two applications submitted by private companies. One was Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' request for permission to export seeker gyros used in Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the U.S. The other involved Mitsubishi Electric, which...

Japan will give six navy boats to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance in the East Sea (aka South China Sea), Japan's foreign minister said on Friday, in the latest sign of a strengthening of alliances between states locked in maritime rows with China. The used vessels, worth 500 million yen (US$4.86 million), would be accompanied by training and equipment to help the coastguard and fisheries surveillance effort, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after talks with Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh. The deal represents a notable shift in the two countries' close diplomatic and investment ties towards defense,...

Poland has asked the United States to open its market quickly to Polish apples banned by Russia in a sanctions war over the crisis in Ukraine. Poland's ambassador to Washington, Ryszard Schnepf, said he had met Michael Scuse, a senior official in the US Department of Agriculture, about the steps needed to open up the US market, the Polish press agency PAP reported. "We are interested in a quick decision because the situation is extraordinary," Schnepf was quoted as saying. "He told us to begin the procedure. We have a new meeting planned for August 18 with the heads of...