Japan – Page 2 – Blazingcatfur

China hacked Japan’s sensitive defense networks, officials say

In the fall of 2020, the National Security Agency made an alarming discovery: Chinese military hackers had compromised classified defense networks of the United States’ most important strategic ally in East Asia. Cyberspies from the People’s Liberation Army had wormed their way into Japan’s most sensitive computer systems.

The hackers had deep, persistent access and appeared to be after anything they could get their hands on — plans, capabilities, assessments of military shortcomings, according to three former senior U.S. officials, who were among a dozen current and former U.S. and Japanese officials interviewed, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

by Blazingcatfur•August 8, 2023August 7, 2023•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Japan, USA

Warner Bros apologises for replying to Barbenheimer memes

Warner Bros has apologised for replying to tweets about Barbie and Oppenheimer that used the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the background for jokes.

The hashtag #NoBarbenheimer began trending in Japan over the weekend, with hundreds of posts taking memes to task for making light of the atomic bombings and criticising an official Barbie film Twitter account for engaging with them.

@warnerbros

There is no need to come to Japan.

There is no need to release films in Japan.

Did your mother teach you that it is ok to discriminate and laugh at war victims? Or did God teach you that?#NoBarbenheimer pic.twitter.com/yumhhhKB30

— 桐生らいらぷす (@Laelaps_jp) July 31, 2023

Japan has never come clean as the Germans have with their record of atrocity in WW II.

by Blazingcatfur•August 1, 2023August 1, 2023•0•Hollywood, Japan

Why Japan doesn’t do Pride

Want to avoid Pride month? Bit tired of the, almost literally, in your face, carnival of uninhibited sexual freedom we see on our streets throughout June? Then come to Japan. It’s not that Pride doesn’t happen here at all, just that the Japanese for various cultural and historic reasons, don’t make a song and dance – or a borderline street cabaret – out of it.

Japan’s version ‘Rainbow Pride’ is held in April and lasts just two days. It was back on this year for the first time since 2019 and was apparently reasonably well-attended. I say ‘apparently’ because I saw no sign of it, nor watched or read a single report in the media. It was, to use an old-fashioned term, discreet.

by Blazingcatfur•June 19, 2023June 19, 2023•0•Big Gay, Japan

Japan will ignite the depopulation bomb

Demographers have a different kind of catastrophe to worry about

This week saw the unsurprising news that Japan’s population has fallen again. A sombre Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told the nation that there are now 556,000 fewer people in the country, a twelfth consecutive decline, and a record fall offset only by an influx of 175,000 immigrants in 2022.

Related …

by Blazingcatfur•April 16, 2023April 16, 2023•0•Demography, Japan

Aging Societies

Asia’s population is shrinking faster than any other continent’s.

Asia faces a problem: Its population is aging faster than any other continent’s. A growing percentage of people in Japan, South Korea and China are over 65, and those countries’ economies are suffering because of a lack of available workers. Governments are struggling to find the money to support retirees.

by Blazingcatfur•February 19, 2023February 19, 2023•0•Demography, Japan

Japanese pacifism is dead

The Ukraine war has been a powerful catalyst

Japan is on manoeuvres. The country for so long tethered — or protected, according to your point of view — by the “pacifist” constitution imposed upon it by the occupying Americans after the Second World War may be about to break free of its bonds. Last December, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a doubling of the defence budget over the next five years and the acquisition of counter-strike capability to deal with the perceived threat from China, principally, and North Korea to a lesser extent. It is a policy shift which can only be described as seismic.

by Blazingcatfur•February 4, 2023February 3, 2023•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Japan

Japan’s prime minister says country on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate.

Japan’s prime minister says his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate.

Fumio Kishida said it was a case of “now or never.”

Japan – population 125 million – is estimated to have had fewer than 800,000 births last year. In the 1970s, that figure was more than two million.

Birth rates are slowing in many countries, including Japan’s neighbours.

But the issue is particularly acute in Japan as life expectancy has risen in recent decades, meaning there are a growing number of older people, and a declining numbers of workers to support them.

by Blazingcatfur•January 23, 2023January 23, 2023•0•Demography, Japan

Japan downgrades Covid amid vaccine safety concerns

The country is one of the most vaccine-sceptical in the world

The Japanese government is planning to downgrade the status of Covid-19, reclassifying the disease to the level of seasonal flu. Covid is currently at the second most serious threat level, on a par with tuberculosis and SARS, but after reclassification it would be at number 5 of 5. The move would mean the lifting of nearly all remaining restrictions, and would place barriers in the way of their reimposition. We could be close, it seems, after three wearisome years, to returning to something resembling the old normal.

by Blazingcatfur•January 23, 2023January 22, 2023•0•"China eats weird animals disease", Japan

Japan approves biggest military buildup since second world war amid China fears

Japan has approved its biggest military buildup since the second world war, warning that China poses the “greatest strategic challenge ever” and outlining plans to develop a counterstrike capability funded by record defence spending.

The plans, announced by the government on Friday, reflect growing alarm over a more assertive Chinese military and a North Korean regime that continues to improve its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

But the changes have also triggered criticism that Japan is abandoning more than seven decades of pacifism under its postwar constitution.

by Blazingcatfur•December 17, 2022December 16, 2022•0•"China - Communist Slave State", Japan

‘Road sleeping’ deaths soar in Tokyo as socialising returns to pre-Covid levels

I must one day visit Japan. Cat Island calls.

The end of Covid-19 restrictions on Japan’s nighttime economy has brought more people out on to the streets of Tokyo – but it could also be contributing to a spate of deaths among people who are struck by cars as they sleep on the road.

The number of deaths among people who sleep where they drop on the capital’s roads has nearly doubled from last year, from seven to 13, according to police.

Concern is rising that the death toll will rise again over the coming fortnight, as office workers get together to mark the end of the year at alcohol-fuelled bonenkai parties – a custom many shunned during the pandemic.

by Blazingcatfur•December 14, 2022December 14, 2022•0•Japan, WTF?

Will Japanese people ‘cease to exist’?

Declining fertility is turning the country into one big retirement home

In May of this year that keen observer of future trends Elon Musk caused a storm when he observed that, if their ultra-low birthrate were to continue, the Japanese would eventually ‘cease to exist’. He was responding to an eleventh consecutive drop in population numbers caused by a lack of births and the ever-increasing longevity. Japan now has a record 86,000 centenarians, and adult diapers have outsold those for babies since 2011.

Musk was accused of alarmism but more evidence to support his grim hypothesis emerged recently with a survey of attitudes to marriage among the Japanese young.

by Blazingcatfur•September 17, 2022September 17, 2022•0•Japan

Emperor Naruhito to Attend Royal Funeral

Here:

Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako will travel to London from Sept. 17 to 20 to attend the state funeral for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, their first overseas trip since Naruhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne in 2019.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno announced at a news conference on Sept. 14 that the Cabinet will grant official approval on Sept. 16 for the couple’s visit to London. Elizabeth’s funeral is scheduled to be held in Westminster Abbey at 11 a.m. on Sept. 19.

While it is unusual for the emperor to attend the funeral of a member of a foreign royal family, the government took into account the traditional close ties between the imperial family and the British royal family.

The late queen, the world’s longest-reigning monarch who died on Sept. 8 at age 96 after 70 years on the throne, had interactions with not only Naruhito but also his father, Emperor Emeritus Akihito, and his grandfather, Emperor Hirohito (1901-1989), posthumously known as Emperor Showa.

“Although the plan was shelved by the outbreak of the global novel coronavirus pandemic, the queen herself had invited the emperor and empress to visit Britain,” Matsuno said of the major reason behind the latest decision.

He added that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other Japanese government officials will not attend the funeral.

According to Imperial Household Agency officials, Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko attended the state funeral in 1993 for Belgian King Baudouin, the only other time an emperor has attended a state funeral for a foreign head of state or royal family member.

by Osumashi•September 14, 2022•0•Britain, Japan, Politics, Royals

Japanese Scientists Find Protein That Determines COVID Severity

Here:

A team of Japanese researchers identified a protein that can foretell severe COVID-19 cases, potentially making it possible to determine the severity of a patient’s symptoms.

Scientists from Chiba University said they discovered the protein–called myosin light chain 9 (Myl9)–rose in volume in blood vessels among patients with more serious signs of the novel coronavirus. Myl9 is one of the components that make up blood platelets.

The research was carried out primarily by a team headed by Kiyoshi Hirahara, an immunology professor at the university’s graduate school.

“If a simple kit could be developed that could measure the concentration of Myl9, the severity of patients’ conditions could be predicted,” Hirahara said at an Aug. 1 news conference. “That would help determine which patients to hospitalize first.”

The findings have been published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Creating a therapeutic agent featuring an antibody against Myl9 could help doctors prevent symptoms from worsening,” Hirahara said.

Hirahara and his colleagues examined inflammation around the pulmonary blood vessels of individuals who deaths were due to COVID-19.

The researchers then found the virus damaged blood vessels, leading to the platelet-constituting Myl9 to swarm around blood clots generated in the process.

Analyzing the blood samples of 123 hospitalized patients from 11 medical centers, including Chiba University Hospital, the scientists discovered Myl9 levels were three to five times higher among those with moderate conditions than seen in mild cases.

It was 10-fold among patients who died of the virus.

Patients who showed higher Myl9 levels when they were admitted to hospital ended up being hospitalized for longer periods, according to the team.

Myl9 exists in the blood of healthy people but in only limited amounts.

According to the team, Myl9 levels among COVID-19 patients rise more markedly than in those with severe blood vessel problems, such as sepsis, and underwent cardiac and other surgical procedures that took a heavy toll on their bodies.

by Osumashi•September 14, 2022•0•Covid/Coronavirus, Health, Japan, Science

If We Are So Worried About China, Why Trade With It?

Indeed:

The French foreign minister said Wednesday that the war in Ukraine will not overshadow France’s commitments to the Indo-Pacific region, where India and its allies view China’s rising influence with suspicion.

Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and her Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed the security situation in the region and the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including concerns about food security and rising inflation, officials said.

Colonna said the two countries share the same concern about China’s role in the region.

“We spoke a lot about the general situation in the Indo-Pacific and the many challenges that have emerged because of China. We have basically the same analysis, we also share the same concerns, because we know the role the Chinese are playing and we want to make sure that there is no imbalance in the Indo-Pacific,” Colonna said at a news briefing.

Jaishankar said that it was important for like-minded countries to work together in the region to ensure peace, security and prosperity. “We consider France as an Indo-Pacific player that has a long-standing presence in the Indian Ocean,” he added.

Indian and Chinese soldiers last week began pulling back from a key friction point on their disputed border as part of efforts to lower tensions in a more than two-year standoff that has sometimes led to deadly clashes. The two countries have stationed tens of thousands of soldiers backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets along the de facto border, called the Line of Actual Control.

In June 2020, India said it lost 20 troops and China said it lost four soldier when the two sides fought with clubs, stones and fists.

Jaishankar said Wednesday that the disengagement of troops was completed.

The Chinese ambassador called on Japan for caution in dealings with Taiwan at a symposium in Tokyo on Sept. 12 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of normalization of ties between Japan and China.

“We hope (the Japanese government) is cautious in its words and actions with regard to the Taiwan issue, not sending a wrong signal to people supporting Taiwan’s independence, as well as not participating in any provocative moves that use Taiwan to keep China in check,” said Kong Xuanyou, the Chinese ambassador to Japan.

by Osumashi•September 14, 2022•0•China, France, India, Japan, Politics, Taiwan

Shinzo Abe: Killing of Japan’s ex-PM described as ‘barbaric’

Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe has died in hospital after he was shot at a political campaign event, say local media.

Mr Abe was shot at twice while he was giving a speech in the southern city of Nara on Friday morning.

He immediately collapsed and was rushed to the nearest hospital. Pictures taken at the scene showed him bleeding.

Security officials at the scene tackled the gunman, and the 41-year-old suspect is now in police custody.

More at the Mail…

by Blazingcatfur•July 8, 2022•0•Japan