This news out of the U.K. is a bit off topic, but it is too good to pass up. . .
People labelled “idiots” and “lunatics” under archaic mental health laws could soon be allowed to stand for Parliament.
Thanks to remora, who said, “Why bother? the old laws never stopped them?”

In any other country (that I’ve lived in, at least) it’d be akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but this is Japan, and the Jimintou (the governing Liberal Democratic Party) are of course the party that the public won’t punish.
Today Prime Minister Fukuda is 10 months into his stewardship, with approval ratings below […]

or yet another entry in my long series of crap that no one reads
in response to the horrible stabbing spree in akihabara, tokyo, japan a few weeks ago the japanese national police agency has once again shown why policy changes proposed during the height of public panic and tragedy have such a reputation for being […]

Japan has been undergoing a “Miyazaki Prefecture Boom,” lately, thanks to its governor, former TV comedian Sonomanma Higashi, a discovery of director/comedian Takeshi Kitano, who appeared on Takeshi’s Castle for years.
The TV comic gave up his career as a “talent” to run for governor of this rural prefecture last year, winning despite having no […]

Just when Prime Minister Fukuda was thinking he might have been doing a good job avoiding the sorts of frequent rows with neighbouring South Korea that marked the terms of his predecessors, another furore kicked off this weekend, culminating in Seoul announcing that they were recalling their Japanese envoy.
Yes it’s the continued dispute of the […]

Check out this video in which Oiwan Lam talks about how China pays people to go onto blogs and into chatrooms to tout the party line.

Via Danwei
More on this story here.
By some estimates, these commentary teams now comprise as many as 280,000 members nationwide, and they show just how serious China’s leaders are about […]

The New York Times has a report about Huang Qi, a Chinese human rights advocate who, ironically told National Public Radio recently that there have been great improvements in the human rights situation in China.
BEIJING — Three weeks after the earthquake in Sichuan Province, five bereaved fathers whose children died in collapsed schools sought help […]

Newsweek has an online article about whaling, focusing on Japan and the upcoming International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting. It is an interesting topic which pits national sovereignty against international consensus with no easy or obvious solution.

The Japanese delegation at the IWC parley is expected to lobby other countries to relax the moratorium on worldwide commercial whaling […]

Norimitsu Onishi reports in the New York Times that the Japanese government has recognized the indigenous rights of the Ainu people.
The Ainu had lived on Japan’s northernmost island for centuries, calling their home Ainu Mosir. But just as with America’s expansion West, the Japanese pushed north in the late 19th century in the first sign of their imperialist ambitions. Japanese settlers decimated […]

News about the following TV commercial for a company named EMOBILE has gotten Obama supporters the world over up in arms.
The voice over has the monkey giving in a speech in which he promises that EMOBILE is committed to change. Obama supporters claim that the monkey is a racist reference to Barack Obama.

The following is from a Washington Post report on the cancellation of a trip to Seoul by U.S. President George Bush due to demonstrations against U.S. beef imports there. Emphasis is mine.
President Bush canceled plans Tuesday to visit Seoul next month amid protests over U.S. beef imports, and his administration made a key concession to […]

There are some big differences between how elections work in Japan compared to the U.S.
Because Japan uses a British-style Parliamentary system, the elections aren’t held as regularly as they are in the States, and you never know when the Prime Minister will disband the government and throw us all into Election Hell, with candidates […]

The Washington Post is reporting that North Korea has agreed to reinvestigate the Japanese abductions.  It surprised the Japanese government but prompted them to pledge to lift some economic sanctions as a result.  The agreement was reached in bilateral negotiations in Beijing on Friday.
The abduction issue is a big deal in Japan and was the subject of […]

Reuters is reporting that Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will likely face a censure motion next week by the opposition-controlled upper house of parliment. The reason seems a bit dubious: introducing a confusing national health care insurance scheme that has outraged many elderly by forcing some aged 75 and over to pay more.

Other notes […]

The issue of the North Korean abductions is one of the most thorny issues between Japan and North Korea.  I saw the documentary, The Megumi Yokota Story, on that subject at the Cleveland International Film Festival in 2006 (it turns out that it will be broadcast on U.S. Public television in a few weeks). In a nutshell, in 1977, […]

Brighter, sunlit summer evenings are something I miss since moving to Japan. I hide inside under air-conditioning during the day, and by the time I finish work, night has already fallen. In winter you expect that, but in summer?
Really, who needs bright sunshine and searing heat waking you hot and sweaty at 4.30 […]

Reuters is reporting on the release of the Global Peace Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  The report is based on 24 indicators including U.N. deployments overseas, respect for human rights, levels of violent crime, and arms sales.
The Group of Eight economic powers ranked as follows: Japan (5th), Canada (11th), Germany (14th), Italy (28th), France (36th), Britain […]

Yes, that really is a photo of the Obama Fishing Port Entrance.

The NY Times has a straight-up report of the visit of Hu Jintao to Japan. Interesting points from the article:

It is the first visit by a Chinese leader in a decade.
They discussed some thorny issues including control of an underwater natural gas field in the East China Sea and an unsolved case of poison found in frozen Chinese-made […]