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A year into the coronavirus epidemic, a Japanese retailer has come up with a new take on the theme of facial camouflage - a hyper-realistic mask that models a stranger’s features in three dimensions. Shuhei Okawara’s masks won’t protect you or others against the virus. But they will lend you the exact appearance of an unidentified Japanese adult whose features have been printed onto them. “Mask shops in Venice probably do not buy or sell faces. But that is something that’s likely to happen in fantasy stories, Okawara told Reuters. “I thought it would be fun to actually do that.”...

The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake that hit eastern Japan triggered massacres of Korean people, and it's clearly established that false claims were behind the acts. But in recent years, hate speech that outright rejects clear historical facts has become more widespread. For nonfiction author Naoki Kato, 53, the situation shows that "the same ideas of discrimination that existed 100 years ago remain today." The Mainichi Shimbun interviewed him to find out more about his view of the current situation. Mainichi Shimbun: As the author of "Trick: The people who want to deny the massacres of Korean people," (rough translation) what's...

A startup near Tokyo has recently begun accepting orders for a service beginning next spring to fly customer items high into the stratosphere by balloon and capture images of them against the backdrop of Earth and outer space. Space Balloon Inc. based in Mito, northeast of Tokyo, will launch a balloon carrying remote-controlled cameras and objects of a customer's choice that will travel to an altitude of around 25,000 meters above sea level to capture images giving the impression that the items are floating in space. The balloon, inflated with helium gas and measuring about 2 meters in diameter, will...

Locked within the capsule is the first ever subsurface sample from an asteroid. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that the 16-inch container had touched down on the flat, ochre plains of the Woomera Prohibited Area more than 200 miles southeast of Coober Pedy at approximately 4:37 a.m. local time (10:07 a.m. PT, Saturday). The landing is the culmination of a decade of work by JAXA scientists and engineers, and it comes six years after Hayabusa2, which is about the size of a washing machine, departed Earth. The spacecraft travelled over 3.2 billion miles on its journey to near-Earth...

With far more political acuity than critics expected, President George Bush disarmed world government proponents while promising more aid to developing nations. The U.N.'s High Level Panel on Financing Development concluded its four-day conference in Monterrey, Mexico, without explicit authorization for U.N. taxes on currency exchange, fossil fuels and a host of other tax targets. The conference, publicized as a poverty-reducing initiative, was, in fact, another effort by the U.N. to gain taxing authority. Ernesto Zedillo, head of the U.N. panel, issued a report on June 28, calling for the new taxing authority. U.S. delegates to the conference made it...

Nike is facing a backlash in Japan over a controversial video ad that takes on racism and the bullying of mixed-race schoolchildren. The 2-minute ad, “Keep Moving Yourself: The Future,” features three teenage girl soccer players who are bullied at school, on a train and in a locker room, each questioning whether they should accept it. One scene depicts a teen, whose father is black, surrounded by girls who are pulling at her hair. In the end, each of the bullied kids scores goals for their teams and are celebrated by their teammates with a declaration by Nike, “You can’t...

Patriots around the world rallying for Trump: Video...

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan plans to launch an H-IIA rocket on Sunday, 29 November to deploy a top secret communications satellite to support the country’s reconnaissance and scientific programs. Liftoff is scheduled for a two-hour window opening at 16:25 local time (07:25 UTC or 02:25 EST) from the Tanegashima Space Center. The Optical Data Relay Satellite payload aboard this mission will be used to relay data collected by Japan’s fleet of Information Gathering Satellites (IGS) – including both optical and radar-imaging reconnaissance spacecraft – back to Earth for analysis. It is a joint mission with the Japan Aerospace Exploration...

Ever since Kamenya Omoto, a Tokyo-based specialty mask maker and store, announced its intention to buy the rights to people’s faces for 40,000 yen ($380) a pop, it’s been overwhelmed with offers. The company wants to reproduce people’s faces in the form of hyper-realistic masks and sell them for an estimated ($940). If a mask proves popular with clients, the person whose appearance inspired it stands to earn a percentage of the profits as well. The controversial project, named “That Face”, reportedly aims to give a sci-fi twist to the idea of buying and selling faces. Anyone over 20-years-old and...

“You’re already unsellable.” This week in inexplicable crimes: police in Kushiro City, Hokkaido Prefecture announced the arrest of a woman suspected of puncturing 13 melons with her finger. However, rather than the simple greed that compelled a man to damage several Demon Slayer packages to get to the toy he wanted, her motives remain a mystery. The crime occurred on 28 July, when the 64-year-old suspect entered a supermarket and allegedly stabbed the baker’s dozen of melons with her finger at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. It’s important to note that these aren’t just ordinary melons, but the renowned Yubari...

This gyoza with a flaky croissant crust is so sought after it took a year for our order to arrive. We’ve tried a lot of gyoza in Japan, ranging from Wasabeef wasabi gyoza through to varieties covered in gold leaf and ones made by former prisoners in Kabukicho. However, there’s one type of gyoza that’s alluded us since we heard about it a year ago, and it’s caused such a sensation around Japan that 4,000 boxes of them have been known to sell out in 30 minutes. Called Croissant Gyoza, this very special type of pot sticker comes from Tareya...

Because of Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden thundered during the campaign, the U.S. "is more isolated in the world than we've ever been ... America First has made America alone." Biden promised to repair relations with America's allies. And he appears to have gone some distance to do so in the congratulatory phone call he received from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan. According to Suga, during the brief call, Biden said Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, islands Japan controls but China claims as its...

A town in northern Japan has recently been plagued by a plethora of wild bears, roaming around neighborhoods and petrifying residents. In an attempt to prevent attacks, the town of Takikawa has now installed terrifying robotic wolves to howl at the bears and scare them off, Reuters reports. The residents of Takikawa, located on the northernmost island of Hokkaido, have been increasingly concerned by the potential of bear attacks, as sightings in the country hit a five-year high, according to national broadcaster NHK. There have been dozens of reported attacks this year, two of them fatal, leading to an emergency...

I am walking you through every jot and tittle of My Word as my fire dresses and consumes you in My Glory for you have overcome as Enoch and Elijah. So now I shall walk with you as Enoch and My fire will come down for you when you call upon my name as it did for Elijah for now you are My Holy place of rest and my healing hands saturated in the oils of Exodus shall bring healing to all you touch and speak over with the oil of Unity for As I was with Moses now I...

George Lucas has one of those faces I just want to punch. (His hair bugs me, too.) Would I feel the same way if he weren't the father of the ever-metastasizing Star Wars franchise, with its rickety mythology, shallow philosophy and, from what I hear, ever-diminishing creative returns? I tamp down this irrational hostility by remembering the two good things that came out of Star Wars: Harrison Ford, and Lucas' repeated acknowledgement that his film was inspired by Akira Kurosawa's samurai saga, The Hidden Fortress (1958). Of course, many directors have "borrowed" from the Japanese master: The Seven Samurai was...

How many mandarin oranges can you buy with one million yen -- or roughly $9,600? For one fruit-loving buyer at an auction this week in Japan, the answer is just 100. A single, 20-kilogram crate of 100 Japanese mandarins (also called mikan) hit the auction block on Thursday at Tokyo's central wholesale Ota Market.

Had to download ballot request form , copy , fill out and post from Japan . Nothing . Contacted them and they " said " it was sent . The Japanese don't lose mail . Most reliable postal service in the world methinks . Anyway , couldn't vote for Trump , sadly .

TOKYO (AP) — Japan has picked Mitsubishi Heavy Industries as a main contractor to develop the country’s own next generation stealth fighter for launch in the 2030s, the defense minister said Friday. Separately, Mitsubishi announced that it was suspending its civilian aircraft project given uncertainties for the travel industry due to the coronavirus pandemic. The next generation fighters, currently known as F-X, are part of Japan’s upgrading of its aging fighter jet fleet as the country builds up its military capability to counter growing threats from China and North Korea. The next generation stealth jet will replace F-2s that Japan...

Tokyo has agreed to supply Southeast Asian governments with patrol boats – Indonesia and Vietnam in particular – so they can secure their coasts amid tensions in the South China Sea, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said in Jakarta on Wednesday. Japan strongly supports preservation of the rule of law in international waterways and is troubled by some recent activities in the South China Sea that go against maritime law, the new prime minister said. “Japan will support measures against illegal fishing by providing assistance in the form of patrol boats to ASEAN countries, including Indonesia and Vietnam,” Suga told...