Free Republic

Exploding Rocket Launch Here The 10-meter long MOMO rocket is the first rocket designed to be sent into space by a private company, without the assistance of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). A previous attempt to launch MOMO into space 11 months ago failed as well. Interstellar Technologies Inc. failed to launch a rocket in Japan on Friday, as the vehicle exploded a few seconds after liftoff, Japanese NHK news agency reported. There were no injuries from the blast, as the start was remote and the closest spectators were at least 1,5 km away from the launch pad. Interstellar...

Japan's Hayabusa-2 spacecraft will collect a piece of the asteroid Ryugu and bring it back to Earth. The asteroid Ryugu, recently imaged by the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft that will now prepare to collect a sample. JAXA _____________________________________________________________________________________ Japan’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft has been traveling through space for almost four years, and it has finally reached its destination. The spacecraft has traveled all this way to a small asteroid, named Ryugu, for a singular purpose: to collect a piece of it and bring it back to Earth. Hayabusa-2 is the successor to Japan’s original Hayabusa spacecraft, which visited the asteroid Itokawa in 2005....

Legendary investor Jim Rogers believes that unification would bring great prosperity for Korea but it would be a nightmare for Japan, which has shown a lukewarm attitude toward the South Korean and U.S. decision to halt joint military exercises. "Japanese companies want to invest in North Korea but Japan is against it because Japan cannot compete with a united Korea," Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said in a recent interview with The Korea Times at his residence in Singapore after the June 12 summit. The 75-year-old multimillionaire investor thinks that the two Koreas can create great synergy by just combining...

The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology Tuesday announced that it has developed the world’s first next generation seawater distillation technology that allows consumable water to be produced in low temperatures and under low pressure, which increases energy efficiency and production capacity. Additionally, the institution has set up the world’s largest seawater distillation plant. According to the institution, it developed a membrane distillation that only allows vapor to pass through while keeping the liquids contained. The vapor is compressed to create a liquid that can be consumed or used for industrial purposes such as irrigation by removing salt...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is asking U.S. allies around the world to lower their level of oil imports from Iran to zero by November 4th of this year, a senior U.S. Official said on Tuesday. The official added that the administration isn't planning to produce any waivers that will exclude certain countries or companies from this requirement. "We are pushing allies to cut oil imports to zero by November," the senior official said. "We view this as one of our top national security priorities." Talks on this demand have been ongoing for recent weeks, but the senior official said...

The Supreme Court just quietly overturned a decision that upheld the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as part of a ruling upholding President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban that primarily targets majority-Muslim countries. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led the US government to force more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent into detention camps. The decision overruled by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Korematsu v. United States, was centered around a man named Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American who refused to comply with the order. On December 18, 1944, the Supreme...

Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft is closing in on its asteroid target ahead of a planned rendezvous just a few days from now. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) released several new images that Hayabusa2 snapped recently of the asteroid Ryugu, whose shape has now become clear. "From a distance, Ryugu initially appeared round, then gradually turned into a square before becoming a beautiful shape similar to fluorite (known as the 'firefly stone' in Japanese)," Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda wrote today (June 25) in a description of the newest photos, which the probe took Saturday and Sunday (June 23 and...

Hermit who escaped civilization to live naked on a desert island is forced to return to Japan by authorities after 29 YEARS 82-year-old Masafumi Nagasaki 'escaped' civilisation in 1989 for life of solitude He stayed on rarely visited Sotobanari island — even fishermen don't go there But Japanese authorities moved him back to mainland after he was found 'weak' Nagasaki can't return to the island and lives 60km away in a house in the cityJapanese authorities denied a man the chance his wish to die a castaway on an island he called home for three decades. Masafumi Nagasaki was the...

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) released several new images that Hayabusa2 snapped recently of the asteroid Ryugu, whose shape has now become clear. "From a distance, Ryugu initially appeared round, then gradually turned into a square before becoming a beautiful shape similar to fluorite (known as the 'firefly stone' in Japanese)," Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda wrote today (June 25) in a description of the newest photos, which the probe took Saturday and Sunday (June 23 and 24), from as close as 25 miles (40 kilometers). "Now, craters are visible, rocks are visible and the geographical features are seen...

President Donald Trump attacked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday, saying the New York Democrat was wrong when he criticized the president's historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "all hat and no cattle." "Thank you Chuck, but are you sure you got that right? No more nuclear testing or rockets flying all over the place, blew up launch sites," the president wrote on Twitter. "Hostages already back, hero remains coming home & much more!" Schumer, in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, questioned just what the U.S. gained from the summit. “The summit...

North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un’s latest visit to Beijing this week cannot obscure the fact that China, once the primary conduit between Washington and Pyongyang, is at risk of being largely left on the outside. The White House has eroded China’s leverage by establishing a direct telephone link — a virtual hotline — to Mr. Kim. In fact, U.S. President Donald Trump, by directly engaging Pyongyang over a nuclear and peace deal, has effectively cut out the middleman, China. Beijing, which values North Korea as a strategic buffer against the U.S. military presence in South Korea, has reason to be...

It’s not far-fetched to consider ‘The Art of the Deal’ applied to North Korea’s allegedly vast rare earth resources. This may not be about condos on North Korean beaches after all. Arguably, the heart of the matter in the Trump administration’s embrace of Kim Jong-un has everything to do with one of the largest deposits of rare earth elements (REEs) in the world, located only 150 km northwest of Pyongyang and potentially worth billions of US dollars. All the implements of 21st century technology-driven everyday life rely on the chemical and physical properties of 17 precious elements on the periodic...

Japan’s commitment to addressing its dismal record on work-life balance has been called into question after a civil servant was punished for “habitually” slipping away from his desk a few minutes early to buy a bento lunch. The 64-year-old, an employee of the waterworks bureau in the western city of Kobe, was fined and reprimanded after he was found to have left his desk just three minutes before the start of his designated lunch break on 26 occasions over a seven-month period. Senior officials at the bureau then called a televised news conference, where they described the man’s conduct as...

One week after the high-profile meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Americans are generally satisfied with what was accomplished in the summit between the leaders, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS that was released on Tuesday. Just over half -- 52% -- were satisfied with how the meeting went, with 36% saying they were dissatisfied. Eighty-five percent of Republicans were happy after the summit, with 52% of independents, and 28% of Democrats saying the same. Over a third say the outcome of the summit was a major achievement for the US, with...

Russian gas giant Gazprom has resumed talks with South Korea over a decade-old idea to build a gas pipeline from Russia’s Far East to South Korea through North Korea, Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, said on Friday. “To date, the political situation has been somewhat different, and the South Korean side has asked Gazprom to resume the project, and a series of talks has been held on this issue, and these talks are continuing." “The ideas behind the pipeline look very difficult to implement, especially given the complex political-military context continuing on the Korean peninsula, and the...

Walking along Michigan Avenue the other day, my 8-year-old nephew who is visiting from Georgia noticed the shiny glass building towering over the Chicago River. “Look, it says Trump!” he shouted. “What do you know about Trump?” I asked. “Do you like him?” “Yeah,” he answered without hesitation. “He’s our president. He keeps us safe.” Granted, my nephew comes from a small town in a red state that gave Donald Trump 50 percent of the vote against Hillary Clinton’s 45 percent. It is quite possible that he has managed to escape much of the Trump disdain that is displayed so...

Just had an "instant" EQ here, pretty big (especially for the Kansai Area).. Anyone here please check in.

There is no visible indication that North Korea has begun dismantling missile launch sites as reportedly promised, according to satellite imagery shared by 38 North. The program, hosted by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, analyzed and posted imagery of the known locations of North Korea’s missile launch facilities on Thursday and Friday. According to the analysis, 38 North reported that it could not identify “any activity associated with the dismantlement” at any testing sites. There are six known launch and engine testing facilities as well as two eject test stands scattered throughout North Korea. "Of these...

TOKYO (Sputnik) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe considers setting up an international foundation to finance North Korea’s denuclearization, media reported. Abe mentioned a global "mechanism" on Saturday that would accumulate donations by the international community to aid the North in its bid to get rid of nuclear weapons, Kyodo said. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un committed to a complete nuclear disarmament in a joint declaration signed after a historic summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12. Abe said Japan would benefit from the North's denuclearization but added Pyongyang would have to make concrete steps to...

TOKYO -- Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone gave a positive evaluation of the first-ever U.S.-North Korea summit as he appeared in public on June 15 for the first time since he turned 100 late last month. "Because of the U.S.-North Korea summit talks, Northeast Asia, including our country, is about to make huge headway," Nakasone told a Tokyo news conference organized by the Nakasone Yasuhiro Peace Institute, which he heads, and the Seoul Forum for International Affairs (SFIA). The institute and the SFIA, chaired by former South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hong-koo, issued a joint statement at the conference underscoring...