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politics (Page 13)

Alright, let’s recap.

Last Tuesday, a flotilla of Taiwanese fishing boats was rumored to have set off for the disputed Senkaku islands, located near the Japanese islands of Okinawa, seeking to assert their ownership among China and Japan.

At around 6 a.m. on Sept. 25, the 50-strong Taiwanese flotilla arrived in the disputed waters. At least eight patrol ships were sailing alongside the fishing vessels and many of the boats were displaying banners reading “We swear to defend the Senkaku islands!”

Japanese coastguard patrol boats moved in to intercept the tiny fleet and warned them to vacate the area. However, the Taiwanese boats maintained their position, asserting that they were in Taiwanese waters and their presence perfectly legitimate. Tensions were running high and it seemed only a matter of time before the conflict turned hostile.

And that’s when Japan decided to bring out the big guns.

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On August 31, Greenpeace uncovered a study backed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) involving feeding genetically modified (GM) rice to children in Hunan province, China.

Chinese officials in Hunan immediately denied that the study had taken place but a few days later, a representative from Tufts University in the United States confirmed that they had indeed tested a new strain of GM rice on Chinese children in rural areas of Hunan.

Whoops! Looks like someone’s a tattletale.

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Japan and Korea have not been on the best of terms recently, thanks mostly to a territorial dispute over literally a couple of rocks known as Takeshima to the Japanese and the Dokdo islands to Koreans.

As so, now may not be the most welcoming time to visit Korea if you’re Japanese, and vice versa.

To cite an extreme, in Korea there is even one net cafe that has gone so far as to post a sign outside reading: “No Japs Allowed.”

But if you read the fine print, you’ll notice that the management isn’t being completely unreasonable with the ban.

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Beautiful Japanese City Councilor: “I don’t wash my face or go to the bathroom”. Loses Job, Might be a Yakuza Alien.

Asuka Tachikawa, 27, famous for being a “beautiful city councilor,” has had pressure put on her to quit her job because she is actually an alien in disguise trying to ruin the city of Niizu in Saitama (near Tokyo).

Elected as a city councilor in February this year, the Saitama Prefectural Electoral Office has decided that her election is invalid because she may not have lived in the city for more than the required 3 months. In other words, she is an alien.

But what evidence do they have?
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Fukushima Refugees Rather Gamble than Work, Claims Iwaki City Mayor

The city of Iwaki lies 30km south of the Fukushima Daiichi just outside of the evacuation zone created after the nuclear disaster struck.  As such it has become home to approximately 25,000 displaced people from Futaba District, where the Daiichi reactor is located.

On 9 April, Iwaki Mayor Takao Watanabe had this to say about the evacuees: “With the compensation money they received from TEPCO, most people are choosing not to work.  The pachinko parlors, however, are packed every day.”  Pachinko is a highly popular game similar to pinball that is often used for gambling much like slots or video poker in other parts of the world.

Although this may sound like another case of a Japanese politician putting his foot in his mouth, it appears Mayor Watanabe is not alone with his opinion.

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Energy Companies Make Move Toward Massive Geothermal Development in Fukushima

Idemitsu Kosan, INPEX and other energy corporations began speaking with locals on April 3 about building a geothermal power plant inside Bandai-Asahi National Park in Fukushima Prefecture. If locals agree with the plan, research would begin this year with operation commencing in about 10 years. The area is expected to produce 270,000 kilowatts of geothermal energy, higher than anywhere else in Japan.

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Govt Website Gets 45 Million Yen Redesign, Righteous Anger of the Taxpayers

On the second of April, the official website for the Japanese prime minister and his cabinet underwent a major update and redesign. According to Chief Cabinet Minister Osamu Fujimura, the update will allow them to disseminate easily understandable information to the public by gathering together all policy explanations prepared by individual agencies in one place. They have also added a section of the website aimed at children, which includes some specially developed games. The cost of all this? About 45 million yen (about $547,000). And that’s what has Japanese taxpayers’ attention.
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Help the Police Find Grenades and Land Yourself $1250 – Per Grenade!

In these hard economic times there aren’t many ways to make a buck.  The Fukuoka Prefectural Police are pitching in during these cash strapped times.  All you have to do is help them locate some deadly unexploded ordnance.

Yes, on 30 March, Fukuoka Prefectural Police announced that they will be giving cash rewards to anyone who can provide tips leading to an arrest of anyone in possession of grenades.  And I’m announcing that I’m cancelling my trip to Fukuoka.

In what’s called the Grenade 110 Incentive Program (110 is the emergency number for police in Japan) you can receive a whopping $1250 (100,000 yen) per grenade that they find on a suspect. It starts on 2 April and is open to anyone in the country.

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Japanese City on the Verge of Bankruptcy Puts Name Up For Sale

They say the only thing you have after losing everything is your name.  Not so, says the Izumisano City officials who in the dying moments of their failing economy are considering a plan to sell their naming rights off amongst other ideas.

Residents of the Osaka Prefecture city will be pleased to know that they wouldn’t be selling it to just anyone with money, so the threat of the name becoming Poopiehead City is minimal. From June till the end of November they will be accepting proposals from both foreign and domestic businesses interested in unique ways to advertise using their city’s government and resources.

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Earlier this month in Kanagawa Prefecture, a high ranking government official was arrested for allegedly assaulting  his wife’s “male acquaintance.”  The attack took place when Mr. Noda (47) discovered his wife entering a hotel with another man (44) after following her when she left home late in the evening.  In the heat of the moment, Mr. Noda confronted them and allegedly ended up severely beating the man in the face and chest, breaking several ribs.

A few days after the confrontation, the alleged victim filed a complaint with the authorities.  After Mr. Noda was arrested, the story hit blogs across the internet and triggered a landslide of support for him.

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Revisit 20 Photos of Some of The Most Powerful Moments and People in Modern History

Thanks to the proliferation of the internet we can see countless images in an instant with the click of a mouse.  Most of the pictures available online, however, are of cats with misspelled captions or people confusing Joseph Kony with Carl Weathers.

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An acquaintance of mine visited Ulleungdo Island, a volcanic island in the Sea of Japan over which Japan and Korea are locked in a territorial dispute. Three Japanese politicians aiming to visit Ulleungdo last month were denied entry into Korea, but Japanese are normally able to tour the island. There is even a tourist website for the island that targets Japanese.

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