Free Republic

If John Kerry's remarks in Japan are any indication, you can be sure that President Barack Obama will apologize for the U.S.'s World War II atom bombing of Hiroshima. Obama seems bent on coming full circle by ending his two terms in office the way he began it --with an apology tour, Cuba lately, Japan next. Apologizing for America is an Obama theme, and he is expected to continue it during his visit to Japan, a World War II enemy that provoked a war with the U.S.

Efforts to monitor a spike in Mount Aso's volcanic activity are in disarray after the recent earthquakes and aftershocks in Kumamoto Prefecture. Power outages caused by the seismic jolts that began April 14 mean that monitoring devices on the mountain are unable to transmit data, leaving experts with few means to gather information on a possible impending volcanic eruption. This grim situation came to light April 18 during a meeting of a task force to deal with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions set up under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. The Japan Meteorological Agency, Kyoto University, the...

As they have for 110 years in a row, residents and emergency crew members met early Monday morning at Lotta’s Fountain in San Francisco to mark those who died and suffered during the great quake and fire on 1906. Except this year was different. It was the first time that no original survivors were left. The death of Bill Del Monte earlier this year at age 109, marked the end of the last 1906 survivor — an inevitable page turning in the long tale of the Bay Area’s most famous catastrophe. Still, a sizable crowd gathered at the gold fire...

We'd been living in our brand new home for 2 weeks when the first of 2 killer quakes hit our city . I'd experienced myriad quakes in various parts of Japan during my 30 years of living here , but nothing like these . I really thought it was the end of the world when that first quake struck : the house rocked and shook that strongly . I'm still in a bit of a shock so forgive brevity at this time . My wife and I survived unscathed , but eveything inside the house was destroyed . It'll be...

China's fame will soon be delivered, A shot from My quiver, For where there has been scorn against My Word, A standard shall be heard, Revival , restoration My kingdom taking hold, Destroying this kingdom of old, Soon a new leader will show His face, The Lord Almighty in battle filled with Grace ! No longer will man stand where I have placed my throne, I am threshing this floor for my very own, The cries of the righteous have come unto me, Now watch beauty come from the ashes that must be, A joy in my children from under...

<p>Plumes of smoke rose some 100 meters into the sky, according to local media and videos captured by witnesses. The eruption of Mt. Aso, located in southern Japan, was recorded at around 11:30pm GMT Friday.</p> <p>Since small eruptions had been recorded at Mt. Aso even before the series of deadly quakes hit the area on Thursday and Friday, the Japanese Meteorological Agency has reportedly decided to keep the alert level at 2 on a scale of 1-5.</p>

Rescuers and a search dog check the damage around a landslide area caused by earthquakes in Minamiaso, Kumamoto prefecture on April 17. ============================================================================================================ TOKYO -- Seismic activity in southern Japan is mystifying geologists and keeping the nation on edge. The island of Kyushu has been struck by a series of significant earthquakes, with the epicenters moving progressively further inland. The cluster started with the deadly quakes that hit Kumamoto Prefecture last Thursday and Saturday. Temblors subsequently rocked the Mount Aso region and neighboring Oita Prefecture. There is a known concentration of faults in the area. Still, experts say it is...

Japan's Kumamoto earthquake, which took place early on Saturday, was upgraded from a provisional magnitude of 7.2 to 7.3. The temblor was felt across wide swathes of southern Japan and triggered a tsunami warning, although the advisory was later lifted. As the situation in Kumamoto continues to escalate, a second quake registering magnitude-5.8 also struck in the region at 03:55 local time. Prior to that, numerous aftershocks jolted the region that had already been pummeled by a series of quakes and aftershocks striking a day earlier. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's planned trip to the already quake-ravaged region, scheduled for...

(3rd LD) N. Korea fails 1st mid-range ballistic missile launch: military 2016/04/15 15:46 (ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES throughout) SEOUL, April 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea conducted its first test-launch of the medium-range ballistic missile Musudan early Friday from its east coast, but the launch ended in failure, officials said. "North Korea seems to have tried a missile launch from the East Sea area in the early morning today, but it is presumed to have failed," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Sources said the launched missile was the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), also known as the BM-25. The...

AUDIO LINK (40 MINUTE SEGMENT) “Cruz's roots: Asked by (Anderson) Cooper if he was more a product of the Northeast or Texas, Cruz chose the Lone Star State. "When I went off to Harvard Law School my dad jokingly referred to it as missionary work," Cruz said. Cruz had completed his undergrad studies at Princeton University by then, becoming the first member of his family to attend an Ivy League school. "To be admitted to Princeton was an extraordinary thing," he said. "It was a world, frankly, that I didn't know. When I arrived there it was a scary place....

The quake was only 10km deep.

On April 11, John Kerry became the first Secretary of State to pay his respects to at Hiroshima’s memorial to those who died when the atomic bomb was dropped on that city on August 6, 1945. That event, and the dropping of a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, brought a victorious and rapid end to World War II, and a Japanese surrender 6 days after Nagasaki, saving potentially millions of casualties on both sides if the U.S. had been forced to invade the Japanese home islands. Kerry’s statement during the visit, as reported by...

RadarOnline.com has obtained a top-secret State Department briefing that rips U.S. Ambassador Kennedy’s work at the American Embassy in Japan, citing “confusion among staff” and other “major” issues! President Obama appointed Kennedy, 58, as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan in 2013. Since then, an investigation has uncovered and detailed 65 charges against the facility, which employs 727 people and has a yearly budget of almost $100 million. Most notably, the report revealed that Kennedy often runs over that budget, and that they found $2.3 million in “funds [that could be] put to better use.” There is also reported “confusion among...

A STRONG earthquake has hit southwestern Japan, bringing down buildings, killing at least nine people and injuring hundreds, as rescuers scramble to find residents feared trapped in rubble. Eight of the dead were from the hardest-hit town of Mashiki, about 15km east of Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu. The initial 6.5-magnitude quake struck at 9.26pm (10.20pm AEST) at a depth of 11km near Kumamoto city on the island of Kyushu, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. There was no tsunami risk. More than 100 aftershocks strong enough to be felt followed in the same region.

A Japanese housewife in Hiroshima looked up from her sweeping when she saw the bright flash. Has Hillary Clinton's actions endangered us? Has her mishandling of our nation's secrets actually endangered us? Providing our nation's secrets to our enemies can have devastating consequences. The Japanese attacked us in the Pacific with great confidence that they could force us through military action to negotiate peace with them. The people of Japan may not have zealously advocated for war with the U.S., but things had been going good for them and they only cared that the good times continued. There is a...

He's been terrorizing mainly American audiences for more than a decade. But now Godzilla is returning to his native Japan. The first trailer for Shin Godzilla - or Godzilla Resurgence - has debuted online.

TOKYO (AP) — A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck southern Japan on Thursday evening, collapsing walls and a number of houses. There are no immediate reports of casualties.

Our new motto: Strength through moral equivalenceWhen John Kerry toured the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum this week before meeting foreign ministers at the G-7 Summit, Reuters reports that he had witnessed “haunting displays [of] photographs of badly burned victims, the tattered and stained clothes they wore and statues depicting them with flesh melting from their limbs.” “It is a stunning display. It is a gut-wrenching display,” explained Kerry. “It is a reminder of the depth of the obligation every one of us in public life carries … to create and pursue a world free from nuclear weapons.” Iran exempted,...

WITH no shops, cars, restaurants or kiosks selling snacks, Aoshima is not the ideal hotspot for tourists. But cat lovers are not complaining. Aoshima Island is one of about a dozen 'cat islands' around Japan - small places where there are significantly more feline residents than people.

Shizuo Kakutani sees no great mystery in the things that wash ashore in Monzen, his quiet fishing village on the Sea of Japan — the fishing boats ravaged by fierce winter storms, the Chinese garbage carried to land by the strong winds, the occasional body that drifts in from Yaseno, the nearby cliffs notorious for suicides. The ghost ships, however, are harder to explain. On an early morning in November, the 71-year-old retired fisherman received a call from his colleagues at the town's civilian coast guard. A black mass bobbling in the water — most likely a boat — had...