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Sometimes it’s hard for Leonardo to impress
Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It’s a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in ...
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Ms. Park’s triumphant U.S. visit
The prospect of a clash over defense policy between South Korea's new president and the U.S. has been diminished by North Korea's own ham-fisted ...
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Watching what the church does
-bashing. Catholics are bashed quite enough by their own pedophile priests. 2. She says my letter ';falsely portrays the Cathars as a … wrongfully persecuted religious minority.'; So, in Kim’s opinion, they were obviously a rightfully persecuted minority. 3. She says ';the Cathars had murdered a papal envoy.'; And that justifies the murder over decades of an ...
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Inventors of human rights
Jennifer Kim, in her letter of May 16, seems to be doing a bit of an Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto special. She appears to be suggesting that the mass murder of heretics [Cathars] was necessary at the time. She seems to take the apparent wrongness of their teaching — which supposedly took the anti-life bias of Christianity a little too far — as justification for a ...
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Perfect material for bullying
It ain’t easy being a bilingual girl ';: I agree that bilingual Japanese face obstacles today as they did 30 years ago. We are constantly subjected to bullying in private as well as in the media. Look at all the television shows that persistently make fun of returnees, portraying them as some unidentified creature. We are considered stuck up because of our opinions, and our good ...
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Hitler cited his religious faith
While there does seem to be some disagreement among historians about the degree of Adolf Hitler’s religious beliefs, I think it’s inaccurate for Jennifer Kim, in her May 16 letter, to claim his Catholicism was abandoned in his youth. Published in 1925 and 1926, ';Mein Kampf'; includes a plethora of religious statements. For example, on page 46, Hitler wrote, ';I ...
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Use of ‘force’ was the difference
Perhaps I am in a rare position to comment, from almost firsthand experience, on the statements [about the inevitability of wartime prostitution] made by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara. In the 1960s I served my country as a fighter pilot and, as such, was often on foreign bases and in the company of pilots and other military personnel from other countries. I ...
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Embarrassing for the Japanese
Many of us who are of Japanese descent, but who are now citizens of foreign countries by birth or emigration, are totally in shock and disbelief over the continuous stream of distortions of history that emanate from Japanese politicians. For what the world community describes as rape, kidnapping, slavery and crimes against humanity, Japanese leaders use the phrase ';voluntary support for ...
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Not for impressionable men
';I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
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‘Obama scandals’ could actually hurt Republicans
NEW YORK - Republican politicians and activists can barely contain their glee at the simultaneous eruption of three major controversies about the Obama administration. Conservatives are at a low boil over the administration’s dissembling about its actions after the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The public is concerned about the targeting of conservative groups ...
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Yen eases after Japan’s trade deficit
Tokyo - The yen edged down against the dollar and euro in Asia on Wednesday after Japan posted its worst ever April trade deficit, fuelling yen-negative ...
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Japans humble space dream to come true triumphantly
"I came to Japan for the first time in 1987, when I attended the well-known Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF), which gathers nuclear scientists from around the world. It takes place in spring when cherry trees blossom, so everything was very beautiful and unusual. I delivered a speech on Chernobyl, and, among other things, Academician Legasov. Some time later, I went to Japan for the ...
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Japan’s trade deficit hits $8.6bn
Tokyo - Japan reports its trade deficit widened to a larger-than-expected 879.9 billion yen ($8.6 billion) in April as its weakening currency accentuated surging import ...
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Tokyo stocks close up
Tokyo - Tokyo stocks climbed 1.60 percent to close at their highest level in more than five years with investor appetite unabated on a weak yen and record-setting levels on Wall ...
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BOJ target at risk as spreads show tame G-7 prices
The extra yield on Group of Seven nations' notes over Japan's narrowed to 61 basis points last week, the lowest since 1990, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. While central banks in G-7 countries keep borrowing costs at record lows and maintain unprecedented stimulus, consumer-price increases have lost momentum in most of those economies. The BOJ affirmed its ...
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Cesium levels in water plankton baffle scientists
Plankton and seawater sampled at 10 points less than a year after the Fukushima meltdowns found concentrations of radioactive cesium were highest at different locations in the Pacific, puzzling scientists. The group collected zooplankton and surface seawater at 10 points between Hokkaido and Guam, 500 to 2,100 km from the crippled power plant, between Jan. 14 and Feb. 5, 2012. Cesium 134, with ...
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As Hashimoto self-destructs party also reels
Recent remarks by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto justifying the Imperial Japanese Army’s ';comfort women'; brothel system have upset relations with the United States and South Korea and enraged human rights activists both at home and abroad. The impact on domestic politics has also been great, as major parties distance themselves from Hashimoto’s Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan ...
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Kim sends special envoy to Beijing
PYONGYANG/BEIJING - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dispatched a high-profile official and close confidant to China on Wednesday at a time of strained relations and ahead of a China-U.S. summit. Choe Ryong Hae, a top Workers’ Party official and a vice marshal tasked with supervising the North Korean military, departed on a chartered flight with a political and military delegation. Chinese ...
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NRA backs Tsuruga active fault finding
The Nuclear Regulation Authority on Wednesday accepted an assessment that reactor 2 at the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture is sitting on an active fault, increasing the likelihood that the unit can never be restarted. ';We have received a report from a panel of experts that said there is an active fault. . . . I think there is a need to accept the conclusion sincerely,'; NRA ...
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Japan approves joining international child custody treaty amid concerns about abductions
In this May 5, 2010 file photo, fathers that lost their children to spousal abduction to Japan hold photos of their children during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Japan’s parliament has approved joining an international child custody treaty amid foreign concerns that Japanese mothers can take children away from foreign fathers without recourse. The upper house of ...
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UPDATE 1-Nomura eyes Asia alliances boosts Japan asset target
Wed May 22, 2013 8:21am EDT (Recasts, adds COO comments and details) By Nathan Layne TOKYO May 22 (Reuters) - Japan's largest brokerage firm Nomura Holdings Inc said on Wednesday it was seeking partners to expand its retail and asset management operations in Southeast Asia and was in talks with several financial institutions in the region. Chief Operating Officer Atsushi Yoshikawa did not ...
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Premarket Bernanke in spotlight Nikkei hits fresh 5 12-year high
Stock markets aren't straying too far from unchanged this morning, as traders await an important appearance from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke later today. U.S. stock futures are just slightly in positive territory, though European markets are a little in the red. In Asia overnight, Japanese equities were again outperforming most other markets, with the Nikkei rising 1.6 per cent to ...
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Japan watchdog Nuclear plant sits on active fault
TOKYO -; Japan's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday endorsed a panel's conclusion that a seismic fault running underneath one of two reactors at an atomic plant in western Japan is active, making the reactor's restart virtually ...
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Bank of Japan not concerned about increase in bond yields
There were no major surprises in connection with today's Bank of Japan (BoJ) meeting and the market impact should be neutral. The expansion of the monetary base (now the main policy instrument) was maintained at JPY60- 70trn. In addition BoJ as expected upgraded its view of the economy and now believes that the economy has started to ...
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Peso in slight dip as market weighs Japan central bank’s heavy bond buying
AFP FILE PHOTO MANILA, Philippines -- The peso was almost unchanged on Wednesday as the market digested reports the Japanese central bank is poised to continue with its heavy bond buying to stimulate the world's third-biggest economy out deflation. The local currency closed at 41.175 against the US dollar, down by just half a centavo from the previous day's finish of 41.17:$1. ...
Tokyo in Focus
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Tokyo's new international airport making waves
Haneda airport was renamed Haneda International Airport with the opening of the new International Terminal, which will see several million passengers pass through it each year as the airport regains its status as a global airport with connections to major cities across the world.
When Haneda first opened in 1931 it was the largest civilian airport in the whole country and during the Second World War became a major US Air Base after the invasion of Japan and the country’s surrender. Read more
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