JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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Confrontation
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U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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gonemad
Look, I have no intention at all to make Hamas an angel. It would be vain endeavour. But I hope you are realist enough to recognize that Hamas is important enough that you cannot reach to any lasting peace without them. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not. If you start to talk with them, you may come to results - or not. whatever the probabilities you personally give to both events, you don't lose anything, do you? On the other hand, if you don't talk, you can be 100% sure that you won't ever come to a peaceful agreement.
Posted in: Palestine becomes member of UNESCO; U.S. cuts funds
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gonemad
For the Greek themselves, it will be a desaster. For the rest of the world, including European nations, it will be small economic hiccup. Greece is not important enough and a default is nothing terrible at all. The only reason why this makes so many headlines is the fear that a Greek default would only be the start of a chain reaction. That danger should be banned since the European nations agreed on the stability fund. So calm down and let the Greek have their referendum.
Antonios, do you really believe that Papandreou would have had a chance to propose the referendum during negotiations? I don't believe so. Sure, it may cost him his political life, but I think it is the only way to get a stable government in Greece, which is able to implement the austerity measures.
Posted in: EU holds Greece crisis talks on eve of G20 meet
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gonemad
Ben, may I remind you this one for example: http://aljazeera.com/archive/2006/04/200849142359963362.html There were a lot of rather moderate statements by Haniya as well at that time. Olmert did not listen. So we will never know how serious they were. And sure, even if al-Zahar and Haniya were indeed serious, they still would have had to fight for their positions against the hardliners inside Hamas. You cannot expect from anybody or any political organization that they abandon their programs in exchange for nothing. Demonizing your adversary makes you blind to the little signs of detente.
Posted in: Palestine becomes member of UNESCO; U.S. cuts funds
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gonemad
That should have been "Greece was the cradle of democracy..."
Posted in: Greek government in chaos with debt deal in doubt
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gonemad
Greek was the cradle of democracy and again it seems that Greece brings back a bit of missing democratic culture to Europe. Reading the comments here, do you really believe voters are so stupid that they cannot grasp the consequences of their votes? Whatever way they vote, the consequences are serious in one way or the other. If decided by the government only, the necessary adaptions will become the playing field of party politics, the country will remain split for a long period and the street battles will continue. I find Papandreou's decision perfectly plausible as a means to restore political leeway for the Greek government, be it his own or any other.
If the speculators find it worthwhile to move to Italy or whatever other European state as their next target they will do that anyway, independent from any decision in Greece.
Thumbs up to Papandreou!
Posted in: Greek government in chaos with debt deal in doubt
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gonemad
naruhodo, seems you're a bit weak at maths. Do you really believe Israel could stem a sum 17 times it's GDP (if I take your million dollar as a basis)? And which countries would be willing to take 4 million immigrants within a short timeframe? Independent from whether you are able to convince people to move out when you give them enough money, there are some very basic questions which you probably cannot answer.
Posted in: Israel: Army has green light to stop Gaza rockets
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gonemad
PS3 - Problem Solving by Stupid Stunts. Part of the basic education program any parlamentary newcomer has to go through.
Posted in: Lawmaker drinks decontaminated water from Fukushima plant
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gonemad
Ben, nobody knows whether Hamas is seriously willing to negotiate. Since many years, Israel does everything to systematically undermine any negotiation attempts, including even dismantling Abbas to the benefit of Hamas. I think it was before the elections that high-ranking Hamas officials conceded that they would indeed recognize Israel as a state. Unfortunately back then Israel didn't use the chance to test them. To use your words: demonizing Hamas solves nothing.
Both parties need a strong push from the international community to join the negotiation table - and to stay there. At the moment, it is Israel who needs the bigger push. No more, no less.
Posted in: Palestine becomes member of UNESCO; U.S. cuts funds
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gonemad
'Under 100 degrees' sounds fine, but what does it really mean? Where and how do they measure it? I haven't seen any report that confirms that TEPCO has finally managed to measure the temperatures inside the reactor vessels or at the bottom of the containments in a reliable way (or at all).
Posted in: New fission suspected at Fukushima nuclear plant
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gonemad
There are certainly reasons why not to admit Palestine as a UNESCO member, but for sure not that it undermines any peace negotiations. Let's remember that Israel insists that Hamas recognizes Israel as a state before any meaningful negotiations could start. Then it's logical that Israel should do the same. Or both drop their preconditions and leave it as a result of the negotiations. It is sad that the US just plays the petulant child instead of providing some meaningful support to peace negotiations.Obama started with lots of ambitions, but his middle-east politics have been a complete failure so far.
Posted in: Palestine becomes member of UNESCO; U.S. cuts funds
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gonemad
Cos, I think you and Johannes are both right. The difference is whether you are submerged in a completely foreign environment for a long time.
Posted in: Adopting English as workplace language in Japan has its downside
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gonemad
So far we don't know where the money really went, so we can only speculate. Even in the "best case", that the money ended up in company-owned slush funds, at least since the advent of the internal control part (also known as J-SOX) of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (金融商品取引法) in 2008, there is no way to call it common business practice any more. We will see more heads rolling, not just Kikukawa's.
Could it be that Kikukawa brought in Woodford specifically because he doesn't speak Japanese so that he would have more difficulties to poke in past stories?
Posted in: Do you think that the problem unfolding at Olympus is a difference in perception of how business is done in Japan? For example, could deals that ousted British CEO Michael Woodford considered dubious, be thought of as normal business practices by Japanese executives?
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gonemad
This won't bring any short or mid-term savings, so independent from whether it will become necessary or not, it doesn't make sense to link raising the pension age to the current debt crisis. It was Merkel with her back and forth who severely aggravated the greek problems. Now what kind of games does she want to play with Italy?
Posted in: Italian government on the brink as EU plan stalls
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gonemad
Japan depends on resources from these countries, if not directly then indirectly through price fluctuations. A stable supply can only be provided when these countries become politically stable. Hence it must be Japans interest to contribute to political stability.
Posted in: Do you agree with Japan's decision to provide financial and other aid to Libya and South Sudan?
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gonemad
There is a positive correlation, but that correlation exists in just the same way for other religions or ideologies. Islam is not at all special. The less people understand something - the more they believe - the easier they can be manipulated politically.
The election results in Tunisia are hardly surprising since all parties emerging from the old Ben Ali regime, including "opposition" parties, were discredited. They were located on the "progessive" side of the political spectrum, so Tunisians voted for a conservative alternative. There are plenty of conservative christian parties in Europe, which we have also learned to judge by their respective politics but not their names. The same should be done with Ennahda.
Posted in: Tunisia's Islamist party claims election victory
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gonemad
Although there is a separation between religions as well, this is primarily an ethnic conflict.
Posted in: 10,000 flee fighting in southern Philippines
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gonemad
It's a common misconception that the TPP doesn't allow Japan to support it's farmers. Instead of duties on imports, Japan will have to move to direct subsidies of the farmers. In terms of macroeconomic costs, it doesn't make a difference. The food self sufficiency of Japan can be kept independent from joining the TPP. Japan should do both, join the TPP and finally do it's homework in agricultural reforms, which long overdue anyway...
Posted in: More than 100 lawmakers oppose Japan's participation in TPP
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gonemad
It's true that they don't care. But they should, because it is their pensions which will go down the drain when the sh*t hits the fan...
If you care to look up the numbers you will find it is the opposite. And I'm pretty sure that when the Euro crisis is finally overcome, we will see a Dollar and Yen crisis not so long afterwards.
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gonemad
@TigersTokyoDome: under most jurisdictions covering up criminal action is considered criminal as well. As a CEO he has some personal liabilities and once he knew about the Facta article he had to investigate this in order to cover his own ass.
@The Munya Times: no, he cannot be sued for reporting to authorities. But he can be sued for disclosing confidential information to the press - which unfortunately was the first thing he did.
Posted in: Olympus discloses $687 mil advisory fee amid row over CEO's ouster
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gonemad
When a group like the LRA is made up of muslim fundamentalists, they are called terrorists. When it is made up of christian fundamentalists, they are called rebels. Thanks AP for teaching us the difference.
Posted in: Why set U.S. troops on African militants?