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Hollywood actor Richard Gere, French film star Alain Delon and Russia’s figure skating sensation Alina Zagitova have one thing in common: They adore Japan’s Akita dogs. And they’re not alone. In recent years, foreign ownership of one of Japan’s most famous indigenous breeds has skyrocketed, outstripping domestic demand for the fluffy, perky-eared pooches. Earlier this year, the trend hit the headlines when Zagitova proclaimed her love for Akitas after spotting them while training in Japan, and local officials pledged to get one to her. Her affection for the cute canines comes as no surprise to veteran breeder Osamu Yamaguchi, 64,...

Seventy three years ago today the United States Marine Corps sent waves of teenaged men onto the black foreboding beaches on a Japanese held island called Iwo Jima. Capturing Iwo Jima was essential to the American war against Japan as it offered a place for battered bombers to safely land which would save the lives of hundreds of airmen returning from sorties over Japan in barely flyable planes. The average age of these men was just under nineteen. They knew what was at stake and charged up Iwo’s beaches sometimes straight into enemy machine gun fire that would have stopped...

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia. Former history teacher and scholar Tamaki Matsuoka holds Japan's education system responsible for a number of the country's foreign relations difficulties. "Our system has been creating young people who get annoyed by all the complaints that China and South Korea make about war atrocities because they are not...

A Japanese company is granting non-smoking employees an extra six days of paid holidays a year after they complained that they were working more than staff who took time off for cigarette breaks. Tokyo-based marketing firm Piala Inc. only introduced the non-smokers' perk in September, but employees have been quick to take advantage. "One of our non-smoking staff put a message in the company suggestion box earlier in the year saying that smoking breaks were causing problems", said Hirotaka Matsushima, a spokesman for the company. "Our CEO saw the comment and agreed, so we are giving non-smokers some extra time...

Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier at World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never gotten his body or — until that moment — anything else of his. Yasue and Tatsuya’s sister Sayoko Furuta, 93...covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. ... The flag’s white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue’s safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find...

In the old days, when fishermen caught pufferfish, chances are they would be thrown back into the sea. After all, pufferfish, from the order Tetraodontiformes, are known to be poisonous to humans as they contain tetrodotoxin, a substance toxic enough to kill a person in a few hours when ingested in amounts of as little as 25mg. In addition to this, there is no known antidote to this toxin, which is considered even deadlier to humans than cyanide. Those days are gone, as some enterprising fishermen have deci­ded that filleted pufferfish can be sold to the unwary. Filleted pufferfish is...

Tony Podesta's firm failed to file legally required disclosures after emails with his WH adviser brother A high-dollar lobbyist and fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign failed to file legally required disclosures for his advocacy on behalf of a foreign government in discussions with Clinton’s future campaign chairman, according to a political law expert. High-powered Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta emailed his brother John, a top White House adviser who would later chair the Clinton campaign, in January 2015. Tony wondered if John would attend a meeting with the Indian ambassador to the United States. “I’m at Camp David Friday,” John...

Video URL is; https://youtu.be/ZbM6WbUw7Bs?list=PLg_CV0vugqaJ-4yQJ2WyabgZW1O1ACoqg

Seventy two years ago today the United States Marine Corps sent waves of teenage men onto the black, foreboding beaches on a Japanese held island called Iwo Jima. Capturing Iwo Jima was essential to the American war against Japan as it offered a place for battered bombers to safely land which would save the lives of hundreds of airmen returning from sorties over Japan in barely flyable planes. The average age of these men was just under nineteen. They knew what was at stake and charged up Iwo’s beaches sometimes straight into enemy machine gun fire that would have stopped...

Japanese polling firms found solid support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Florida this past weekend to spend time with his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, though far-left politicians condemned expanding U.S.-Japan ties. The newswire service Kyodo published a poll following Abe’s return to Japan finding that 70 percent of Japanese respondents were “satisfied” with Abe’s visit to the White House and Trump’s estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. The New York Times adds that the Kyodo poll found approval of Abe’s work as prime minister generally to be 62 percent, a slight uptick from a month earlier. The Japanese broadcaster...

Full title....................................... The Supper Bowl! The Trumps, the Japanese prime minister and his wife are joined by New England Patriots owner for dinner at Mar-a-Lago after the First Family fly to Florida on Air Force One..........................................President Donald Trump welcomed the Japanese prime minister and his wife to his ‘winter White House’ in Mar-a-Lago after jetting off for a weekend of ‘golf diplomacy’. At a dinner on Friday evening at the luxurious resort, President Trump was joined by his wife Melania, Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie as well as Robert Kraft, the owner of the Super Bowl winners the New...

The spacecraft, named HTV-6, arrived at the space station in December filled with 5 tons of food, water, clothes, science experiments and other gear. It intentionally burned up in Earth's atmosphere at 10:06 a.m. EST on Sunday (12:06 a.m. Japan StandardTime), according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The HTV-6 spent 45 days docked at the station's Harmony module while Expedition 50 crewmembers unloaded the cargo and filled the empty space with nonrecyclable trash After departing from the space station on Jan. 27, HTV-6 spent a week orbiting the Earth 12 miles (19 kilometers) below and 23 miles (37 km)...

Japan's attempt to launch one of the smallest-ever rockets into space has ended in failure. The 9.5-meter (32-foot) rocket lifted off around 8:30 a.m. local time Sunday from the Uchinoura Space Center in southwestern Japan, according to state broadcaster NHK. The rocket was carrying a micro-satellite that is 35 centimeters (13 inches) tall and weighs 3 kg (6.6 lbs.). However, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), communication systems malfunctioned after the rocket launched, causing the ignition of the second booster to be terminated. The rocket fell into the sea southeast of Uchinoura. The launch, which was delayed from...

Although most couples have experienced a long and awkward period of silence after a row it is unlikely to compare to a husband and wife who have not spoken for two decades - but continue to live with each other. Otou Katayama, from Nara, southern Japan, continues to live with his three children and wife, Yumi, who perseveres in making conversation with him but has only ever received a nod or a grunt in response for 20 years. The Japanese couple's silence was revealed by their 18-year-old son Yoshiki, who wrote into a TV show asking them to fix the...

'Leaning on that Old Whistle Cord' Proceedings Magazine - December 2016 Vol. 142/12/1,366 By Captain Gordon I. Peterson, U.S. Navy (Retired) A Navy veteran-turned-civilian machinist at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard had “the unusual presence of mind” to sound the air raid alarm 75 years ago, never thinking he was witnessing one of the most cataclysmic events in history. Rudolph E. Peterson—Uncle Rudy to me—left home before dawn on 7 December 1941 to report for duty as the watch engineer at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard’s Power Plant No. 2, Building 149. Located south of the Naval Air Station on Ford...

“If these people are radicalized and they don’t support the United States and they are disloyal to the United States as a matter of principle, fine. It’s their right, and it’s our right and obligation to segregate them from the normal community for the duration of the conflict.”Thus spoke retired General Wesley Clark, a former Democratic Party presidential candidate, in an interview on MSNBC this past Friday.Back in 2004, Clark, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, was harshly critical of what he considered the Bush administration's excessive response to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers...

So the latest round of sheer nuttiness from the mainstream media? The idea that President-elect Trump intends to resurrect the infamous and quite decidedly racist “internment camps” established for Japanese-American citizens in 1942. How did this start? It started last week on FNC’s The Kelly File during a segment with Trump surrogate and former Navy Seal Carl Higbie (whom I know). Kelly cited this story from Reuters: “Immigration hardliner says Trump preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry” The story goes on to say that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach informs Trump advisers “had discussed drafting a proposal for...

The strangest thing about this is that Carl Higbie mentions a key distinction between the two proposals early on in the clip below, before he brings up the Japanese example. The registry involves immigrants, and immigrants don’t get all of the same constitutional protections that citizens do. (Another key distinction: It’s, er, a registry, not an internment camp.) The Japanese interned during World War II were citizens; Trump’s registry would apply to non-citizens entering the United States from terror hot spots abroad. Why Higbie’s reaching for the former to explain the latter, especially when Team Trump has been at...

The eyes of a visiting archaeologist lit up when he was shown the 10 tiny, tarnished discs that had sat unnoticed in storage for two and a half years at a dig on a southern Japan island. He had been to archaeological sites in Italy and Egypt, and recognized the “little round things” as old coins, including a few likely dating to the Roman Empire. “I was so excited I almost forgot what I was there for, and the coins were all we talked about,” said Toshio Tsukamoto of the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property in Nara, an...

A U.S. Navy sailor was sentenced Friday to two-and-a-half years hard labor for raping a Japanese tourist in Okinawa. Justin Castellanos, 24, who was based in the district's Camp Schwab, pleaded guilty in May to raping the 40-year-old victim in his hotel room in Naha, south Japan on March 13. The serviceman had found the woman, who was drunk and asleep in the hotel lobby, and taken her up to his room where he assaulted her. 'I am sorry for what I have done,' he told the court. 'My heart is filled with regret,' Stars and Stripes reports.