Shumatsu_Samurai comments

spend on natural disaster relief. the big tokyo one is predicted to kill 350000 and smash ageing infrastructure and an estimated 1000000 building

Surely you spend on disaster relief when it happens. There's not really a lot Japan can do to avoid a big earthquake. If one hit, the government can just issue as much debt as it likes to pay for dealing with the aftermath.

our defences are strong enough to stop invasion

Who's talking about an invasion? The issue is whether Japan has sufficient defences to deal with something like a North Korean missile attack. The jury is out on that one. And it's possible North Korea might attack Japan if it thought the US would stop short of nuclear retaliation. Trump isn't exactly consistent on policy issues.

Then there's the issue of what Japan would do if China tried to seize strategic islands like the Senkakus. Those islands aren't garrisoned, so Japan needs an offensive capability to retake them, or defences to dissuade attack. China isn't going to attack today, but with such an ultra-nationalist society it's hard to predict what the Chinese Communist Party might do in the near future to preserve its rule.

A 2.5% increase is not significant given Japan spends so little as a proportion of GDP on defence - it's barely above 1%. Even with these increases it would take more than a quarter of a century to get military spending to 2% of GDP, which is a reasonable amount for a major country like Japan.

To put it in perspective, both China and South Korea spend more than 2% of GDP on defence.

I watch the morning and evening news every day, and I don't ever remember them reporting on these things.

Ahem, that's very ironic given that one of the criticisms made of countries like Germany and Sweden is that the media has largely underplayed problems caused by migrants/asylum seekers because it's not politically-correct.

Sure it's not like those countries are being overwhelmed by foreigners. But there are significant problems there caused by large numbers of people arriving who don't speak the language and don't necessarily share the same values as the host country. The latter especially is anathema to Japanese people.

One thing about the article, I would comment that Liliane's story is interesting. She said that "Sometimes I think refugee status has no meaning". Well, it does. It means that you're able to stay in Japan and not be sent back to your country - you've been granted refuge. It doesn't mean you're given a free house and income. Yes, that's fairly harsh, but it's the way it is in Japan for all foreigners. Japan just takes the view that if you travel there for anything other than tourism, you just need to crack on with it.

There is significantly more acceptance of it, and a vast difference in the "see no evil, hear no evil" approach to it... 

Hmm, I'm not sure if that's possible to verify. I remember issues regarding schools back home claiming that they "didn't have a bullying problem", which was obviously a case of deliberate ignorance to pretend the schools were better than they were.

One problem with bullying is that frequently it happens outside of lessons/classrooms when students are on their own. Unless schools are equipped with cameras and microphones everywhere, teachers are in the difficult position of dealing with "he said, she said" - or the incident simply isn't reported.

As for punishment, expulsion is the last resort. There are other steps to take before then. Remember that if you expel a bully, they're only going to go to another school. You can't just stick them in a black hole for the rest of their lives.

What measures can practically be provided to replace this dependence

Easy - robo-cars. Let's hope they can be rolled out in the next 5-10 years.

The attack happened in the early afternoon, so the robbers probably fled rather than take the possibility they might get caught.

Pretty average film. Looked good, boring script and predictable story.

I have to admit I can't disagree with the "why ruin everyone else's day" sentiment. It's always sad when people commit suicide, but there other ways of doing it if you're set on it.

Just think about the poor drivers who have to live with the fact that they were at the controls when their train killed someone - saying "it wasn't your fault" doesn't cut it.

If it happened at 11am, I can understand why no one was around. Everyone at work, no one going out for lunch, no reason to be going in or out at that time for shopping. It was just unfortunate.

I'm not sure this is really news. Younger people who are unmarried/not in relationships are likely to live by themselves. They're also far less likely to die suddenly than those over 70. Some will die suddenly, but it's probably going to happen anyway. Living with someone isn't going to change that.

Well done, a great win.

They say 2016 was the hottest year on record and the planet is only warming up but so far this winter I have been buried in snow in Japan

That's because the weather gets more extreme, rather than universally hotter. "Global warming" is a confusing term, because it suggests everywhere gets hotter.

"Climate change" is a better term.

If he had been shouted at by a Japanese person, would he have stopped collecting admission fees from them as well?

It just leads to the suspicion that he did collect the money but kept it for himself and when found out came up with a "I'm a feeble old man, I was scared....." story. Hence the fact he had no problem with offering up some money, because he would still be ahead in the game.

Konta is in good form at the moment, so Osaka was never going to win. Not that I don't think she didn't try, of course.

If North Korea did the same, Japan would be condemning them

Well, unlike North Korea, Japan isn't trying to develop ballistic missiles to use against other countries. Japan also isn't subject to UN sanctions over its missile project, like North Korea is.

Before anyway criticises the local services, if this young lady found the rubbish in the evening, it's quite possible the garbage people hadn't found out about it yet - I guess they don't have roving 24 hour patrols.

But it's great to hear about a young person being so proactive in helping keep their neighbourhood clean.

There isn't anything wrong per ce with having a statue like this somewhere. However, it is arguably a provocation to have the statue directly outside the consulate. It is being interpreted as a middle finger to Japan, and I'm sure that's the protesters' objective.

As for the local ROK government, I don't buy that they're powerless to do anything. Private citizens cannot simply erect statutes wherever they please. For example, I could not erect a statute commemorating the murder of the last Korean Empress outside the ROK embassy (not that I would want to). So this was clearly a deliberate decision.

What I find unfortunate is that the ROK is far more willing to bang on about Japan's past than confront current North Korean aggression. If anything, the ROK's behaviour just seems to encourage it. Currently relations are a little cold, but soon enough Pyongyang will get given a big bag of money and rice to get it to "play nice". Then it will murder some more South Koreans and the cycle will repeat. This just suggests that the ROK keeps going on about Japan because it's an easy target.

At the same time Hokkaido University is saying to us that it will reduce by 14% its research and teaching staff because of serious financial problems caused by the reduction of the government fundings to universities.

Defence spending in Japan remains at 1% of GDP. The small increase in the defence budget isn't the reason why funding might be dropping in other areas. Social security and debt servicing remain by far the largest parts of the budget - around 84% from what I can calculate.

http://www.mof.go.jp/english/budget/budget/fy2017/01.pdf

If you want more spending on university research budgets, your best bet would be to advocate slashing social security or raising taxes.

If these submarines are based on the French nuclear submarines, I'm not surprised that Australia chose them. France's SSNs are relatively small, so it's conceivable that they could be scaled down to fit Australia's needs. That would be better than any conventionally powered submarine.

Of course, it may be a bit of a risk, but if they're willing to take it, fair enough.

Oh, that's right, she doesn't have much to say because she fears losing the votes of those carrying out the atrocities.

There isn't a lot she can do about it, because the Burmese military have independent control over military issues. All she can do is protest in cabinet meetings - that's about it.

As Japan keeps hoping and wishing for a weaker yen so their exports will sell more, it will hurt the number of foreign tourists coming to Japan.

Umm, no it won't. A weaker yen means foreign tourists will find Japan relatively cheaper (they're own currency will buy more yen), so they'll be more likely to come, stay longer or buy more.

the JSDF seriously need to get some help from the japanese highschool on fashion. Those skirts are hideous, somehow felt that the women have weird short legs.

You probably didn't mean it that way, but you're implying you want them to have shorter skirts so their legs are more visible.

The skirts are probably that way because it's just more practical or cheaper. Sure I guess the material or style could be changed, but then is the objective to make the personnel look smarter in a professional sense or make them look more attractive to men? After all these are women in dress uniform - they're dressing to be smart, not to be compared favourably to "more attractive" female personnel in other countries.

Alex, it's a trial period. They're giving it a go.

I hope this is successful and the project expanded.

Why does Princess Kako always look like she's done something incredibly naughty?

Why police departments around the world continue to engage in these needlessly risky high speed chases

Presumably so they can catch criminals? Can you imagine a world where a criminal can automatically get away just by going X mph over the speed limit?

Yes, police officers should and sometimes do abandon chases where it simply gets too dangerous. But it's obviously a fine line, otherwise as I mentioned the police will just let anyone accelerate away from them and give up.

This is a cultural 'tit-for-tat' that has been going on for the better part of a thousand years

Actually you're mistaken. I remember that every year, polls from I think Pew Global were released on how various countries viewed each other. For a long time after 2000, views of Chinese were very negative of China but Japanese were slightly more positive than negative in their views of China. Then by maybe 2009, the Japanese started to be more negative of China. I think it was simply that they'd have enough of the Chinese newspapers and social media screaming about Japan, the war, how they weren't sorry enough, how they mustn't revise Article 8, etc, etc.

All the Japanese I've spoken to about Chinese don't hate China, they just feel they're constantly hounded for something they didn't do - and they're tired of it.

It's just that my Aussie friend told me about Peaty's acheivement which I heard was very impressive while no Japanese person in the office who follow the swimming had even heard of him

Did you ever consider that there could be a reason Peaty is known in Australia? He won two golds and a silver medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, beating Australians in two of the finals, so I can see how they got on their radar. Whereas Peaty has never beat a Japanese swimmer in a major final (to my knowledge). So why on earth would the Japanese know who he is - or care about him?

I appreciate that you probably didn't know that, but you shouldn't jump to conclusions and make nasty comments about how Japanese engage in "silly, narrow, patriotic nonsense", not least because most countries that tend to win a large number of medals tend to focus on their own achievements.

Have you ever tried watching the Olympics on TV in France (at least pre-digital)? It's as if you were in parallel universe where the only Olympic sports are equestrian, fencing and cycling.

And if we're talking about other Asian countries, the Chinese and Koreans are ridiculously patriotic about their athletes, the former especially.

I can't say as I think the Japanese attitude is particularly unusual or overly patriotic. Indeed, as a country it remains extremely apathetic when it comes to patriotism. The USA, UK, China, France, Korea, even Germany are more patriotic than Japan in a general sense. Let them be excited about their athletes, it doesn't hurt anyone.

I just think a quick reference to Phelps would have been normal.

Except that your earlier post was about Adam Peaty and how the Japanese media hadn't been mentioning him, despite the fact that he hasn't won any Olympic medals before.

Peaty's treatment by the Japanese media is little different to the treatment of Kaneto by the British media.

Jimizo, the BBC haven't given any coverage to Kaneto's gold save for showing the finals live. There's no articles about her that I can see in the British media, just one liners in articles about other people. And I can assure you next to no Brits will know about her victory. Indeed, she's probably less likely to get coverage because she's Japanese, whereas Europeans and Americans tend to get a mention.

I think there should be a stand-alone story on Kaneto. Her quest to get a gold medal was a long one and her competitive career is full of quite a lot of heart-break - she almost quit before coming here, because she had a run of awful results. Only willpower led her to give it one more chance.