rowiko68 comments

"Japan plans to review its self-imposed ban on weapons exports as it seeks to play a more active role in maintaining global peace..."

Anyone else see the irony in this?

'Knowing that time was of the essence, police rushed to the scene.'

Not sure whether the writer is being sarcastic or not, but surely the police have more serious crimes to solve than someone stealing a neighbour's electricity?

I have lived here for 17 years, and I can't remember ever having seen so many typhoons at any one time. Hell, they're practically queuing up to bear down on Japan! I certainly wouldn't consider this normal, but then what is 'normal' these days anyway...

“I’d feared issuing an evacuation advisory in the middle of heavy rains in the dark could lead to a secondary disaster"

I would have thought the idea of an evacuation advisory would be to issue it BEFOREHAND and not in the middle of a bloody typhoon! Lives could have been saved here.

So the strongest in 10 years, eh? The HR dept of my company sent out an e- mail to everyone saying 'Please come to work carefully tomorrow morning'. LOL

Oh jolly good. As if we didn't have enough trouble back home already. Now we're waiting for a nuclear facility somewhere in Europe. Russia or Australia to blow up, because an unchecked vital part fails. This is getting better and better...

Whatever genius thought up this stupid idea must have more than a few screws loose. Jesus!

A foolish thing to do, but she certainly didn't deserve to pay for it with her life. Tragic.

@falseflagsteve: Makes me wonder what business you're in, where your income has risen by 25% in only 12 months thanks to Abenomics. Care to share that information? I'm sure those people on the poverty line that you advise to simply 'change the career or add a part-time job' would appreciate the info... Once we're all in a job with double-digit income growth, we will no longer have to worry about rising prices and taxes, will we?

Only one word: DISGRACEFUL.

And who will 'soften the blow' for the ordinary people???

I guess we know now where Abe's priorities are: Gold, gold, gold... The initiative for the government to take charge in the Fukushima mess already seems forgotten, only 2 days after the Olympic vote. Wow, that was quick!

I wondered when Abe on Saturday assured the IOC and the world that 'everything was under control', whether he knew something the rest of us didn't. Well, I guess not.

I think China is hardly in a position to judge the success of the games based on how Japan deals with its past. Whether they want to congratulate Tokyo or not - who cares?

Until a few months or even weeks ago, I was fairly positive that Tokyo would get the nod. I myself supported the bid, thinking it would benefit the country despite the high cost.

Now, however, I no longer thinks it's really safe, nor do I believe the country actually deserves the games until that whole mess is sorted out and the cover-ups and lies stop once and for all.

The grilling by the IOC confirms their grave concerns about this so- called 'issue', and I would expect that quite a few IOC members who may have been undecided until now will get swayed in favour of one of the other two contenders as a result of what is going on here.

But then, who could blame them?

@ Disillusioned: No, definitely no improvement there - on the contrary. So certainly agree with you there!

@ Disillusioned: I'm just as concerned as you are, but why does the YouTube clip say 'Fukushima out of control August 2013'? Are you aware that both speakers mention that we're '160 days into this crisis'? This very much looks like a news report from 2 years ago!

Sounds like he can hardly wait to start 'playing the war game'. Moron. Sadly, war is not a game, and a war in Asia must be prevented at any cost! And I wish the war of words would stop. Who knows where that might lead.

Poppler, I agree. I don't really understand the fuss. I think temperatures have been fairly average for Japan. But it's been more humid with lots of cloudy skies, I feel.

I do not think that messing with the weather is a very good idea!

Innovative??? This is a joke, right?

WTF??? It is truly unbelievable how many totally deranged folks are walking around here!

Apparently it's 182% of the average, not 182% increase.

All we had been hearing until recently was their whining about the lost profits because of the high yen. And after just 6 months of a sliding yen , losing 20% of its value, they post a record profit? Me thinks they can't have been suffering under the strong yen as much as they had us believe.

And what's with the huge profits they just announced? The shareholders must be laughing themselves stupid. And in the meantime the government is expecting the consumers to go out and buy stuff in order to get the economy going... Good one! Probably not gonna happen.

OMG!!!!!!!

" In separate figures released Tuesday, household spending last month slipped 0.4% from a year earlier, despite expectations of a rise as consumer prices went up for the first time in more than a year."

And this is where the logic of Abenomics doesn't make sense to me. The figures basically show that any increase in household spending is more than offset by LOWER spending by people, as they can no longer afford to buy as much as before, BECAUSE of the rising prices and salaries that stay the same. Hence the drop. So I fail to see how this is supposed to aide the economy and the consumers...

How would they know what the weather is gonna be like in Sep/Oct if they can't even predict the weather for the next day? For weeks I've been hearing that the weather is 'fuantei' (unstable), forcing the forecasts to change every day... But hey, should they be right, let the hot summer to last until October. I have enough shorts in my closet. ;-)

Very well said, NZ2011! I feel exactly the same way and have nothing to add to that.

Whenever I hear 'school activities outside' in connection with heat-related victims, I find it unbelievable that teachers seem to possess so little common sense! If I were a parent of a kid being made to run around in this blistering heat, I would go to the highest authorities to get this stopped immediately.