JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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couversaka
The pirates commit numerous violent crimes even before they hijack cargo ships. Hundreds of Yemeni dhows have been hijacked by the pirates, with crews often killed or tossed overboard.
Those dhows are then used as low-profile stalking and surveillance ships that relay information to speedboats. This is not a peaceful enterprise. The main victims of piracy are local Yemeni fisherman along with impoverished workers at ports like Mombasa who are now unemployed since no one wants to dock there anymore.
The pirates have thus far refused to share any of the proceeds from their ransoms with these victims of their crimes.
The existing hostages are, unfortunately, as good as dead.
Posted in: Norwegian shipper: Kill pirates on the spot
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couversaka
That's bad news; this took place in Guadalajara's club district, and not some grim barrio up in Juarez.
Posted in: 6 dead, 37 injured in attack on Mexican nightclub
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couversaka
If they were sailing toward Christmas Island, they already would have passed by Indonesia. Why did they skip over Indonesia and head into those dangerous seas instead?
Posted in: 27 asylum seekers die as boat sinks off Australia
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couversaka
I notice that Japanese-language Wikipedia has a lot fewer photos than English-language Wikipedia. I wonder why this is the case.
Posted in: What do you think of Wikipedia?
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couversaka
Well, we also have to note that there are two different Acapulos. The same with Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, or any other Mexican beach resort. The tourist strip is quite secure, and is not really connected to the "interior" - the broader region of houses and bars where the "locals" live and eat and drink.
This is where the violence takes place, since even the cartels have a financial interest in pushing their "product" onto tourists. They know better than to sever one of their own revenue streams.
Posted in: 7 killed in shootout in Acapulco
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couversaka
It's sad; Nuevo Leon and Chihuahua states are in near-total social breakdown right now. Then there is the ongoing war in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The real question is, can Matamoros escape the bulk of the violence? Because with CJ and NL both on the wane, that port of entry has been picking up a lot of business.
Posted in: Police chief decapitated in northern Mexico town
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couversaka
Mexican cartels use military weaponry. Not small-calibre semi-automatic civilian weapons that are sold in the US.
Try again...
Posted in: New border violence erupts with Mexico cartel rift
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couversaka
Sounds like "la guerra" is becoming more intense down in Oaxaca.
The Mexican people as a whole need to rise up against the cartels and corrupt officials, and arm themselves heavily for personal protection. That's how El Paso manages to keep violence so low despite being directly opposite from the open warzone of Ciudad Juárez - in CJ, average citizens are disarmed and helpless against the unregulated cartel "sicarios."
Posted in: Gunmen kill 13 in southern Mexican town
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couversaka
Sadly, this is not surprising. The level of violence in CJ has been extremely high for over 2 years now, and there is an entire generation of criminal sociopaths in that area who will kill anyone for virtually any reason.
Mexico really needs to crack down on these murderers. But so far, the Mexican state has refused to do so. Oh, sure, there are some symbolic deployments of military units. But how often do they actually effect arrests? They don't have proper investigative capabilities.
Posted in: 13 young students murdered at party in Mexico border city
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couversaka
Does anyone remember a show called "Oregon Kara Ai" ("オレゴンから愛") that aired on Fuji TV in the 1980's? That was a curious bit of TV drama...
Posted in: What are your most fondly remembered TV shows?
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couversaka
Sounds like a domestic dispute, if seven of the dead were in a single house.
Posted in: Lone shooter kills 8 in central Virginia
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couversaka
The point is, when you get hit by a "team" of 50 zealots and ex-soldiers, you are not going to prevail. That is what often happens in Mexico. Labour is cheap; the cartels can throw wave after wave of men after any given "problem." If you make yourself a problem, you will die. It doesn't matter if you are well-armed, or if you are a cop, or even (increasingly) if you are in Arizona rather than Chihuahua or Sinaloa.
If the cartels want you dead, you die. The cartels have people within the US Border Patrol and the FBI working for them. How do you plan to deal with that?
Posted in: Mexico reports 69 drug-related murders in one day
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couversaka
Well, the cartels fight each other to a large extent. The death toll is high because both sides are heavily-armed, often with actual Browning machine guns mounted on armoured SUVs, as well as grenades and RPGs from El Salvador's old civil war.
Unfortunately, the figure of "69 drug-related murders" only refers to the bodies that were actually found. Many more are dissolved in acid and never found. Look into the case of "El Pozolero" (The Stewmaker) for more details about that horrific aspect of the drug wars.
I always laugh at Americans who think that their puny little semiauto handguns or civilian rifles would be any good against a cartel attack. Look; the top cartels have weapons like the AT4 anti-tank missile. You'd die if you tried to fight them with a Winchester or Sig-Sauer.
Posted in: Mexico reports 69 drug-related murders in one day
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couversaka
Some are targeted; some are random. For instance, if a cartel wants to extort money from a bar owner, and the owner holds out, the cartel won't necessarily kill the owner or burn down the bar right away. That would eliminate the chance of future payments.
Instead, the cartel will raid the bar, kidnap several customers at random, and torture/execute them. That terrifies everyone, and forces the bar owner to pay up.
But that's Mexico for you... that's just how it is down there. Can't really change it; it's just part of their culture.
Posted in: 2 men decapitated, 2 women killed on Mexico border
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couversaka
29 people have been killed in Juarez in the past 24 hours, bringing the year's murder total to 61 for the year.
It's kind of incredible to think about how Juarez - a city of 1.6 million or so - has more than twice as many murders each year as the entire nation of Japan - a country of 127 million.
But that's Mexico for you...
Posted in: 13 slain in single day in Mexican border city
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couversaka
Wait; why didn't the cartoonist have a firearm with him?
Posted in: Police shoot man attacking Muhammad cartoonist in Denmark
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couversaka
Rifles and pistols protect against grenade attacks?
Posted in: Gunmen attack mosque in Pakistani city; 35 killed
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couversaka
The media in Guam reported that the shooter was a Chinese national angry over a business deal gone wrong.
Posted in: Saipan reels after deadly shooting
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couversaka
What is all this nonsense about "China?"
First of all, El Salvador has diplomatic relations with Taiwan, not the mainland.
Second, 25% of all Salvadorans live in the US, and many are US citizens. So of course they will be a large part of the aid effort.
This isn't 1986. It seems like people's impressions of the country and its politics became fossilized around then.
Posted in: El Salvador floods, mudslides kill 124; 60 missing
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couversaka
It is never appropriate to fire a "warning shot" inside of a city. The "golden rule" of defensive firearms usage is to draw only when you must shoot, and shoot only when you must kill, and therefore, only draw if you must shoot and kill.
It is staggeringly irresponsible to send bullets out on a parabolic arc into the air, from which they can retain a lethal velocity as they return to the ground. An extreme example would be a country like Iraq, where over a dozen people were killed by "celebratory gunfire" after the capture of Saddam Hussein. This is mainly because of simple physics. If you fire a bullet directly vertically, it can return safely to the ground at a nonlethal velocity. But if you vary even slightly from true vertical, your round remains deadly, even kilometers away.
You are supposed to fire into a suitable backstop. And in the case of a defensive use of firearms, that means someone's skull or centre mass.
'Warning shots' are only appropriate if blank cartridges (cartridges without bullets) are being used.
Posted in: Policeman fires two shots during brawl with foreigners in Mie