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Debt-riddled Japan relaxes decades-old arms exports ban

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Debt-riddled Japan Tuesday relaxed its self-imposed decades-old ban on military equipment exports in a move that will open new markets to its defense contractors and help the nation squeeze more out of its defense budget. The government's security council agreed to the relaxing of the ban to allow Japan to take part in the joint development and production of arms with other countries and to supply military equipment for humanitarian missions, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said at a news conference. "The new standards (on weapons exports) are a result of the government considering measures that required attention amid recent changes to the environment surrounding international defense equipment," Fujimura said, referring to rising arms costs that could put strain on the government, with public debt twice the size of its economy. (Reuters)

Activists using drones against Japanese whalers

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The longstanding battle against whaling has mostly been a game of wait, watch, chase and hope for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. But activists are now hoping they'll be able to chase down whaling vessels before they ever make their first kill - with the help of drone aircraft. Two of Sea Shepherd's ships are outfitted with long-range drones fitted with cameras and detection equipment, which help the ships scan hundreds more miles of ocean for whaling vessels, thanks to a donation from Bayshore Recycling Corp. of Woodbridge, New Jersey. "We can cover hundreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valuable assets," Capt. Paul Watson said on board the ship Steve Irwin. (CNN)

Japan leads the way in sexless love

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t's not easy being a young man in Japan today. Every few months sees the release of a new set of figures, stats and stories trumpeting the same meme: today's Japanese men are unmanly - and worse, they don't seem bothered by it. Tagged in the domestic media over the past few years as hikikomori (socially withdrawn boys), soshoku danshi (grass-eating/herbivore men, uninterested in meat, fleshly sex and physical or workplace competition), or just generally feckless, Japan's Y-chromosomed youth today elicit shrugs of "why?", followed by heaving sighs of disappointment from their postwar elders and members of the opposite sex. With the country's economy stagnant at best, its geopolitical foothold rapidly slipping into the crevice between China and the United States, and its northeast coastline still struggling with the aftermath of disaster and an ongoing nuclear crisis, the reaction to a failure of Japan's men to take the reins, even symbolically, has evolved from whispers of curiosity to charges of incompetence. (guardian.co.uk)

Women beat men to jobs as Japan 'mancession' spurs deflation

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Three times a week, Seiya Ogawa bikes to an unemployment center in Kadoma, home to Panasonic Corp., looking for work to help pay for his son's final year at college. "At this point, I'm willing to take any job," said the 49-year-old, who assembled electronic circuit boards in what was once a bustling manufacturing suburb of Osaka, Japan's third- largest city. This month, it's officially one year since he first signed on at the center, and "it's like my humanity's been stripped from me," he said. Ogawa and his son rely on the incomes of his wife and daughter, a social role reversal that is spreading in Japan as factories and building companies fire workers and services that hire mostly women add employees. The new jobs pay lower average wages, making it harder for Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to spur consumer spending and pull the world's third-largest economy out of a decade of deflation. The increasing burden as breadwinners also gives women less incentive to marry and have children early in a country that already has the fastest-aging population in the developed world. (BusinessWeek)

Japanese judo champ charged with rape

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Japanese prosecutors have filed rape charges against a two-time Olympic judo gold medalist. Tokyo prosecutors said Masato Uchishiba, 33, was formally charged Tuesday. He is accused of raping a teenager at a hotel in September after intoxicating her with an alcoholic drink and taking advantage of her inability to resist. Her identity is withheld because she is a minor. Police arrested Uchishiba in early December. He has denied the accusation, saying the sex was consensual. He was fired as a judo coach in September by a university over sexual harassment allegations. (AP)

Japan's industrial output down, unemployment flat

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Japan's industrial output dropped last month - with production, shipments and inventory figures all decreasing - but government forecasters had manufacturing and production looking for a rebound this month and next, officials said Wednesday. The unemployment rate adjusted for seasonal differences was unchanged in November from the previous month, at 4.5 percent, the government also announced. Industrial output dropped a seasonally adjusted 2.6 percent in November, according to the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry. It was the first decline in two months. (AP)

U.S. says China not currency manipulator; chides Japan

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The U.S. Treasury again shied away from labeling China a currency manipulator on Tuesday, but it rapped the country for not moving quickly enough on exchange rate reforms. The United States also chided Japan for stepping into the currency market to stem the yen's rise, and urged South Korea to use such interventions sparingly. The U.S. Treasury, in a semi-annual report, as usual said that statutes covering a designation of currency manipulator "have not been met with respect to China." The report did point the finger at Japan this time, criticizing Tokyo for its solo yen-selling interventions in August and October that followed a joint Group of 7 action in the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake. (Reuters)

Japanese boffins crack arse-based ID recognizer

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Researchers at Japan's Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology have developed a seat that can identify the user by the shape and heft of their buttocks. The seat, currently designed for use in the car industry, contains 360 sensors measuring pressure points, on a scale or one to 256, and uses the data to build a US-style fanny fingerprint of the designated driver. The system is 98 per cent accurate, associate professor Shigeomi Koshimizu told Physorg. "I'm feeling your bottom Dave" If the auto makers take a liking to the technology the seat could be in use by 2014, but it's not just the car industry that could be interested. (The Register)

Last shelters in Fukushima Pref. close

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The last two evacuation centers in Fukushima Prefecture were closed Wednesday, more than 9-1/2 months after the March 11 disaster. All shelters set up in hard-hit Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures--which held 448,000 evacuees at their peak--have now closed. The evacuees have moved to temporary housing units, apartments rented for the evacuees or secondary shelters at hotels and other facilities. At the evacuation center set up in the Hibarigahara athletic stadium in Minami-Soma, 13 evacuees of nine households from the city and Namiemachi started packing up their belongings at about 9:30 a.m. Six individuals moved to temporary housing units in the city in the morning, and seven people of three households moved out in the afternoon. (Yomiuri)

9 lawmakers submit resignations from DPJ

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Nine lawmakers of the Democratic Party of Japan submitted their resignations from the party Wednesday to protest a planned consumption tax hike and other policies of the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. Akira Uchiyama, a former parliamentary secretary of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry who was elected three times as a House of Representatives member from Chiba Constituency No. 7, and eight other lower house members handed their resignation letters to Shinji Tarutoko, the DPJ's acting secretary general, at the Diet Building. The rift in the ruling party that led the nine to leave is likely to deal a blow to Noda's handling of the government. (Yomiuri)

Few options for left-behind parents even if Hague OK'd

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For years, Japan was the object of international criticism for not joining the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction that prevents cross-border parental kidnapping. But in May, the government announced its decision to begin preparations for signing the treaty, which would make it the last country among the Group of Eight industrial powers to join the international convention. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in October said he would submit the legislation to the Diet when it opens in early 2012. But for the international community, signing the treaty is only a step in the right direction. A larger problem for many is that the Hague Convention is not effective retroactively - meaning that even if Japan joins the pact, it won't help parents like Toland. (Japan Times)

Shonen Knife celebrates 30 years

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Today we celebrate 30 years under the Knife. Yes, it was on Dec. 29, 1981, that three teenage girls - Naoko Yamano, her sister Atsuko and their friend Mitchie Nakatani - entered an Osaka rehearsal studio for the first time. They emerged as Shonen Knife. Perhaps the world's sunniest band, Shonen Knife has carved out a niche playing poppy punk songs with Japanese and English lyrics about candy, animals and anything else that strikes them as fun. This approach has won them fans as diverse as Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening - and even Knife's lifelong heroes, The Ramones. (Japan Times)

Deflation's grip returns as production, retail sales slide

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The rebound from the March earthquake and tsunami sputtered in November as production and retail sales tumbled, deepening the return to deflation that first took hold a decade ago. Industrial output slumped 2.6 percent from October, a government report showed Wednesday. Retail sales slid 2.1 percent. Consumer prices excluding fresh food fell 0.2 percent from a year earlier after a 0.1 percent decline the previous month. The weakening economy, hurt by Europe's debt crisis and plans by companies from Panasonic Corp. to Nissan Motor Co. to shift production abroad, may undermine Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's plan to raise taxes and cut the world's largest debt burden. (Japan Times)

No executions in 2011 for 1st time in 19 yrs

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It was confirmed Wednesday that no execution would be carried out in 2011, the first time in 19 years that the state has not carried out the death penalty during a calendar year. There has been at least one execution per year since 1993 when then Justice Minister Masaharu Gotoda approved of the first execution in more than three years. Under the administration of the Democratic Party of Japan, however, there has been a succession of justice ministers holding cautious stances toward execution, which put a halt to executions. (Yomiuri)

Skilled foreigners to get grades, perks

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The government announced Wednesday that it will start grading skilled foreign workers this spring and granting those with higher marks preferential treatment amid intensifying international competition for skilled workers. Justice Minister Hideo Hiraoka told a news conference that he hopes an increase in foreign workers with high-level skills will help to complement Japan's workforce. Under the new system, the government will classify professions into three categories - academic research, work requiring highly specialized skills, and management and administration. (Japan Times)

Japan has year without executions

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JAPAN has not executed anyone so far in 2011, the government says, setting it up to be the first year in nearly two decades the country has not carried out a single death sentence. However, the number of inmates on death row stands at a post-war high of 129 as a debate on the rights and wrongs of capital punishment continues. In a legal quirk, executions - always carried out by hanging in Japan - are banned over the New Year period, with a moratorium between December 29 and January 3 as well as on weekends and public holidays. Justice Minister Hideo Hiraoka has not signalled his intention to order the execution of any inmate in the year's remaining days. (Herald Sun)

Japan PM says to invest $4.5 bln in India industrial corridor

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Japan will invest $4.5 billion in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor over the next five years, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Wednesday after meeting his Indian counterpart in New Delhi. The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is a mega infrastructure project of $90 billion with the financial and technical aids from Japan, covering an overall length of 1,483 kilometers between the political capital and the business capital of India. (The Economist)

Japan's cramming schools: Testing times

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The yells of children pierce the night, belting out the elements-"Lithium! Magnesium!"-as an instructor displays abbreviations from the periodic table. Next, two dozen flags stream by as the ten-year-olds shout out the names of the corresponding countries. Later they identify 20 constellations they have committed to memory. Timers on desks push older students as they practise racing through tests. The scene at Seiran Gakuin, a juku or crammer on the edge of Tokyo, repeats itself nightly at 50,000 juku across Japan. Seen as a brutal facet of Japan's high-speed post-war growth, crammers are as powerful as ever. Almost one in five children in their first year of primary school attends after-class instruction, rising to nearly all university-bound high schoolers. The fees are around ¥260,000 ($3,300) annually. School and university test-scores rise in direct proportion to spending on juku, often a matter of concern in a country that views itself as egalitarian. The schools are also seen as reinforcing a tradition of rote learning over ingenuity. (The Economist)

Japanese drinks company launches vending machine with free Wi-Fi

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In a country where vending machines can be found not only on every street corner, but in between every street corner, across from every street corner and beside every street corner (in other words, there are a lot of vending machines), the idea of turning them into Wi-Fi hotspots is a stroke of genius. The new machines are being introduced in Japan by drinks company Asahi over the next 12 months, with plans for more in the coming years. The Wi-Fi signal from the machines should cover a distance of around 50 meters and will be available for free. Users won't even have to buy something from the machine to get onto the network. (Reuters)

Can Web-savvy activist moms change Japan?

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Japan's nuclear crisis has turned Mizuho Nakayama into one of a small but growing number of Internet-savvy activist moms. Worried about her 2-year-old son and distrustful of government and TV reports that seemed to play down radiation risks, she scoured the Web for information and started connecting with other mothers through Twitter and Facebook, many using social media for the first time. The 41-year-old mother joined a parents group - one of dozens that have sprung up since the crisis - that petitioned local officials in June to test lunches at schools and day care centers for radiation and avoid using products from around the troubled nuclear plant. "It's the first time for anyone in our group to be involved in this type of activism," said Nakayama, who now carries a Geiger counter with her wherever she goes. (AP)
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