Marc Penn comments

@Designer 02 - I would recommend NERV app, I find it very clear. You may need to log in to Japan App Store if you’re on iPhone but you can download and use for free.

@smithinjapan - tsunami warnings of 3m later adjusted to 5m on the peninsula, so evacuation alerts seem justified. But good that you know better…

Isabelle, sorry, you just beat me to it.

Now you know where the bias lies. The headline could easily reads " Half of Japanese firms in China foresee increase in investment: survey"

There’s nothing to say that any proportion at all foresee an increase. The 50% not slashing or forgoing altogether may simply be keeping investment at the same level. (Or perhaps even rescuing a little, since that would hardly be dramatic enough to fall into the ‘slashing’ contingent).

@TigersTokyoDome

'The Commonwealth is not an Empire

Ahahaha That's quite funny. What is it then? Is it just a coincidence that commonwealth countries were also the same countries subjected to that invading empire? '

It's a free association of sovereign states, has no formal constitution or bylaws, and no legal obligations among it's members. The overlap between the territories of the British Empire and membership of the Commonwealth is because, as they became independent, countries were invited to become members of the Commonwealth. But some chose not to (eg. Myanmar), some joined but later left (eg the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Pakistan), and some members were never part of the British Empire and have joined only relatively recently (eg. Mozambique in 1995, Rwanda in 2010)

JeffLee: ‘General Motors released the EV1 in 1996, recognized as the world's first mass-produced modern EV’

Depends a little on what you consider ‘mass production’ in the auto industry - EV1 production was a bit more than 1000 vehicles over about 4 years? That’s mass production in the same way as an Italian supercar..!!

And not really a commercial program either - built only to enable GM to continue to sell in California under the regs there at the time, and described by GM itself as a ‘Real World Engineering Evaluation’..

But with those caveats, yes, EV1 was first…

The UK is not perfect but:

’The World Values Survey is an international research program that studies "social, political, economic, religious and cultural values" including racial tolerance and racism. The WVS survey asks respondents from more than 80 countries….

The Top 10 Least Racist Countries in the World in 2021 - Best Countries Report

Netherlands

Canada

New Zealand

Sweden

Denmark

Finland

Switzerland

Norway

Belgium

Austria

Generally, the most tolerant countries in both studies were Scandinavian countries, Latin countries, and the United Kingdom and its former colonies (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand). In contrast, the least racially tolerant countries (Qatar, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka) tended to be located in Africa and Asia. There were also outliers. For example, although other former U.K. colonies landed near the top of the list, the United States ranked 69th out of 78 countries in 2020…’

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries

Painkiller:

’Just to reiterate my point, in the Premier League, there is zero requirement that any player for a team be English.’

Correct. The Homegrown Player rule is meant to encourage the development of more English players but as you say, there is zero requirement that they - or any of the players in a club’s squad - HAVE to be English.

painkiller:

‘Never worked there but as Cardiff City and Swansea City are located in Wales, what does that do with your "premier league is English" argument?’

They’re an anomaly.

England, Scotland, Wales all have their own Football Associations (all under the auspices of UEFA) governing football and overseeing leagues (all the way down to amateur, weekend, kids) in their respective countries, for clubs in their own countries. And the international bodies generally object to cross-border or ‘multi-national’ tournaments other than the ones they themselves organise. (Way back they rejected a tentative plan for a combined league in the Low Countries, or something like that).

But Wales is a small country and football was not necessarily the ‘first’ sport there, and their larger clubs - Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, Newport (maybe I miss one) are exceptionally allowed to compete in the English league structure.

In conclusion The Premier League is the top English league - but sometimes one or more of those Welsh clubs compete in it. You can decide for yourself how that impacts your debate with Redstorm Today!

@Luddite;

No, you are at the very least out of date. JSA is almost phased out and UC is paid to both those in work and out. The total number of recipients in May’22 was 5.1 million, of who 3.5million were not working.

You can download all the data on UC for yourself from Dept Work & Pensions DWP Stat Xplore.

GBR48: between 2019 and 2022 the number of EU citizens employed in the UK fell by just 20k. The total number of non-UK citizens working rose by more than 400k. And post-Covid, labour shortages are reported in many countries.

Also, over the last 2 years the number of people not working and receiving benefits (chiefly, Universal Credit) has risen sharply, no doubt reinforced by the Govt’s furlough scheme and people then not returning to the labour force. The number not working receiving Universal Credit as of May this year stood at a massive 3.5million.

It very much appears that the shortage has everything to do with people’s attitude to working and very little to do with Brexit.

‘Americans do not like Nissan Automobiles. Sorry, but true’.

And yet, about 1.2m Americans bought a new Nissan every year (prior to Covid).

If Bojo keeps this up he is going to wake up one morning to find the EU has erected border crossings with customs inspections on every road between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It would serve the Brits right too.

Would be fine for ‘the Brits’. The EU would be responsible, and blamed, for imposing a hard border between RoI and NI, the UK could abandon the controls on movement of goods between mainland and NI that the Protocol requires.

Won’t happen though.

Alfie Noakes -

appalling food and conditions

Any actual evidence for that? There’s 10’s of thousands being catered for, you point to a couple of petulant tweets from one individual who apparently isn’t happy because there isn’t a Waitrose…

Commodore, I don’t think your suggestion for long life is a bad one - not too much steak, mind - our main point of difference is your generalizations of Japanese food as unhealthy and a western diet as healthy, supported by selective references to dismiss the first and the use of an idealized description to support the later.

My point is that there is much that is good in traditional Japanese cooking and plenty that is bad in much of what passes for Western diet these days.

i think the issue is not Japanese vs Western but that there’s good and bad in both, and it’s necessary to be selective and balanced in either case.

(And I did already acknowledge that diet was not solely responsible for Japanese life expectancy).

Anyway - I wish you good health and an appetizing lunch!

I stay away from Japanese food as much as possible for health purposes…

Your comparison is hardly like for like Commodore. Your idea of Japanese food seems to be based on what you found within 100m of the train station… Taking the same approach, a ‘typical Western meal’ would not be as you describe but burgers and fries, lathered in fatty mayonnaise and sugary ketchup and accompanied by sugary sofa. Topped up in between by volumes of hot milk masquerading as ‘coffee’ washing down a sugar filled brownie.

i maybe exaggerate to make a point but you should get out and learn something about traditional Japanese cuisine (which like other countries’ varies by region - you complain about salt, have you experienced traditional Kyoto style cooking?)

Life expectancy in Japan is still higher than pretty much any Western country, and while diet is only one component of that, it’s important. And obesity in the west is a far bigger (no pun intended) than in Japan (although an obsession with ever more bread, patisserie and ‘cheese’ in everything doesn’t seem to be helping - there certainly seem to be more overweight Japanese than I recall 30 years ago..)

The Brits of course have the right to do whatever they feel is best for their nation. But this whole Brexit thing seems like they cut off their nose to spite their face, without a plan for how they would deal with not having a nose. I don't think the people who voted for it really thought it through.

Strangerland, perhaps partly that, but the debate about EU membership was also about much more than trade.

The same thing can be seen in the strong support for Scottish independence - in terms of the Scottish economy, leaving the UK would be a much tougher transition than Brexit, but again, it’s driven by many other things..

Britain left the EU after a national referendum and years of tough negotiations with the EU countries. Now the country is joining the TPP and ready to hand over part of its sovereignty to the trade organization. What’s the point?

Irrespective of one’s view on the EU, the TPP, and Britain’s membership of either, it should be recognized that the EU and TPP are utterly different things.

TPP is simply a free trade agreement. The EU is an (incomplete) single market with common rules and regulations and freedom of movement, with institutions with law-making and law enforcing powers, sole control of trade policy, a diplomatic service, aspirations to common foreign policy and a military force under it’s direct control, etc.

Like it or loathe it, the EU is a whole different thing to TPP. And has a direct bearing on Britain’s aim to be a member of one and not the other.