Tokyo's decision to ease arms exports ban is fraught with danger, for it could start a new arms race in Asia and worsen Mideast security
Japan's decision to effectively lift the long-standing ban on export of arms is shortsighted, if not dangerous. Worse, it could backfire on domestic, regional and international fronts in the long run.
On Tuesday, Osamu Fujimura, chief secretary of Japan's Cabinet, announced that Tokyo was easing its decades-old ban on arms exports to pave the way for joint development and production of advanced weapons with other countries.
It is widely perceived that huge defense costs prompted Tokyo to relax the rules, which it had been mulling for years. Such concerns may be seemingly relevant given the financial pinch Japan is feeling in reviving the national economy after the triple disaster of the earthquake, tsunami and the subsequent leak from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The triple disaster dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese economy, which had already been suffering from slow growth since the country's asset-price bubble burst in the early 1990s.
(China Daily)
During many years, and 2011 has been one such year, the Tokyo stock market seems like a geriatric ward whose residents grow weaker, frailer, and more infirm by the day, and where at yearend the prognosis is further deterioration.
Granted, 2011 was extraordinary in visiting upon Japan a series of major, unprecedented disasters and difficulties: the 3.11 Northeastern earthquake/tsunami; the Fukushima nuclear accident; prolonged financial crisis in Europe; massive flooding in Thailand; and-through it all-an historically strong yen.
But even if 2011 was annus horribilis for the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), 2010 was not much better, and it is not hard to imagine that 2012 could be more of the same, or worse. (Forbes)
The Japanese government's decision to relax rules on defense exports has the potential to give the country a much-needed national security boost.
By deciding this week to relax its rules prohibiting the export of defense equipment, the new Japanese administration of Yoshihiko Noda has done something that local defense industry and the country's security experts have for many years been crying out for.
Until now, the numbers just didn't add up for Japan's big defense firms, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. heir only customer, the Japanese government, has stubbornly held defense spending below 1 percent of GDP, with much of that money going towards imported American weaponry; indeed, the defense budget has generally been declining in recent years. (The Diplomat)
Yakushima Island off Kagoshima Prefecture in 1993 became the country's first natural site to be entered on UNESCO's World Heritage list, together with the Shirakami Mountain Range in northeastern Japan.
Known for its many large cedar trees and hot springs, Yakushima is still enjoying a boom in tourism 18 years after registration. The increase in the number of visitors, however, has caused the island's environment to deteriorate, and the local town government has been exploring ways to make tourism compatible with environmental protection.
The number of visitors to the famous Jomon Sugi cedar tree on the island's 1,396-meter Mount Miyanoura, the highest peak in the Kyushu region, reached about 90,000 in 2010, a threefold increase from 2000. (Japan Times)
It seemed to be a typical festive winter scene, with crowds of smiling skiers of all ages dressed in colourful hats and goggles making their way down snow-covered slopes.
But the setting is perhaps less predictable: for the ski scene was unfolding in Fukushima, a region of Japan that has become synonymous globally as home to the world's worst nuclear crisis in decades.
Last week, thousands of skiers took to the snow-covered slopes of Fukushima for the official seasonal start of the ski season in resorts across the mountainous region following heavy snowfall.
However, there were clues that this was no ordinary ski season - in particular, the daily postings of radiation readings in the region alongside the more standard snow reports as well as the regional authorities monitoring food safety levels. (telegraph.co.uk)
