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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grafton
“The revelation contradicts initial confidence among U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials………..”
Trying to come to terms with a sentence that includes both “confidence” and “intelligence officials” has given me a really bad head ache.
Posted in: Pakistan Taliban chief now believed to be still alive
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grafton
There is a growing idea in Europe that Greece, and perhaps Portugal, could leave the Euro for a period of time so to be free to revalue their currency. If “get back in” conditions were set at a higher level of stringency than were when Greece first joined the EU it might just teach that country to play by the rules rather than believing they can lie their way passed any problem. Spain losing it’s rating feels wrong, there really is something not right about this, both the US and the UK are in far worse states yet haven’t been downgraded and why Ireland didn’t raise a white flag weeks ago I really don’t know. Spain isn’t in a good state but it is not this high up the list of dodgy states. Maybe what we are seeing here is a weaken of the Euro in an effort to strengthen both the dollar and the pound. After the last two or three years believing anything a financial expert says is anything but easy.
Posted in: Europe debt crisis widens as Spain's credit rating lowered
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grafton
TheQuestion at 12:36 PM JST - 27th April
“Nothing, the trauma inflicted by the explosion would have reduced his brain to paste the second the blast went off.”
Thank you, but maybe that was a little more detail than any of us really needed.
Posted in: British ambassador escapes suicide attack in Yemen
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grafton
Noriega’s guilt or not is not the issue here. The fact that the US agreed to keep him in prison as a prisoner of war means they had no legal right to extradite him to France, send him back to Panama yes, but not France. The US kept him in prison for two years longer than his sentence while he fought extradition to France which under the circumstances of his arrest was probably illegal too. As a head of state the US illegally “kidnapped” him from Panama so it is possible to argue that he was from the start illegally held in the US. Noriega is not by any reasoning a good guy, but if the US expect their own people to be treated with respect and within the law they need to be careful how they treat others, this ghost might well come back to haunt them.
Posted in: Panama's ex-dictator Noriega extradited to France
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grafton
“Elsewhere in Afghanistan, witnesses said hundreds of people blocked a main road in Logar province, west of Kabul, and burned several trucks to protest what they said were civilian deaths in NATO operations.”
When the people block roads and demonstrate about the Taliban killing innocent civilians then it will be news, but this orchestrated nonsense is not news, it’s propaganda and no news agency should touch it.
Smart women have always terrified stupid men and the Muslim men do seem to fear intelligent women, even when they are only 9 years old………
Posted in: 80 Afghan schoolgirls sick in one week; poison feared
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grafton
Sabi please, I have come to expect better from you than this nonsense, and you can, and often do much better.
“What is so stunningly hypocritical about Islam here is that Muslims view themselves as being so incredibly precious...” “Are you saying that it is the Muslims who view themselves as the chosen ones?”
Putting the quote back in context shows how you tried to distort what I wrote. What I wrote was, “What is so stunningly hypocritical about Islam here is that Muslims view themselves as being so incredibly precious that they can meet what they see as an insult with death threats.” And in a sense that does make Muslims sound like they think of themselves as being “chosen”, or at least so special as to be beyond criticism
“He [Sabiwabi] would rather make the suggestion that this Muslim group isn’t in fact a real Muslim group but a front set up to give Muslims a bad name.”
“Since others here have apparently confirmed my suspicion, this threat really has nothing to do with Islam. It is not a Muslim group.”
This was a general statement and did not relate to any particular group though even had it done so I can’t see where you find your confirmation that this group is fake and not a real Muslim group. Granted you may not like this group for personal reasons but that does not mean they are fake. I was under the impression that conversion to Islam was seen as a good thing by most Muslims.
“If nothing else SouthPark does a wonderful job of bringing out such people from wherever it is they lurk”.
“I guess you agree then that this is a fake Muslim group”.
I am hard pressed to understand how you failed to recognise yourself as being the one of the “people” I had in mind. Granted I do think that Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee or whatever his real name might be is a serious nutjob and was brought out of the woodwork by this SouthPark episode, but even you must agree that there are Muslim nutjobs out there, born or converted isn’t the point, they do exist. I am however still waiting for you to say that you are a man of peace that does not believe in the use of violence as a way of countering insults. You have in the past expressed your feelings that violence is used against Muslims and is wrong, but have never said that you believe mush of the violence Muslims use is wrong. Defence is one thing, but you have never condemned suicide bombings in crowded markets. Claiming that all these things have been done by others pretending to be Muslims simply doesn’t work and only undermines anything of value that you might actually say.
Posted in: Muslim group warns 'South Park' creators of death
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grafton
“Benedict was the architect of the 2001 Vatican norms which required diocese to send all their abuse cases to Rome, which then decides whether the diocese should handle a church trial or whether the priest should be defrocked immediately.”
This is nothing to do with the Vatican, it is a suspected crime pure and simple and it is for the local police to investigate, it matters not who the suspect is.
MistWizard at 06:21 PM JST - 22nd April
Are you suggesting that because a man is a priest he should be given some extra right that all other men do not have? What if the suspect is a teacher, policeman would they be given some special protection during an investigation? The Catholic church has lost all credibility given its past behaviour, nobody is going to trust it in relation to child abuse again. In the past it protected itself at the cost of many thousands of children who were abused by perverts the church could have and should have handed over to the police. And no, it is not the sole responsibility of a parent to report such crimes to the police, it is a responsibility that we all have. Remember the church employed these people to care for the children they were abusing, so the church does have a direct responsibility. Indirectly we all have that responsibility.
Posted in: Pope promises action on sex abuse
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grafton
sabiwabi at 01:52 PM JST - 22nd April
“Is this "Muslim group" truly a Muslim group, or is it another group that was set up just to give Muslims a bad reputation, probably started by recent "converts" to Islam?”
Islam needs no help from anybody acquiring a bad reputation.
SouthPark isn’t my programme of choice but whenever I have seen it I have always been entertained by it, it is no so harmless fun, but then that in itself is what makes it special. Almost everything TV shows now is neutered so as not to offend anybody. Milk for the masses, but who wants to live on milk when a nice stiff drink can be so much more enjoyable? What is so stunningly hypocritical about Islam here is that Muslims view themselves as being so incredibly precious that they can meet what they see as an insult with death threats. Is life of so little importance to Muslims that it can be taken to balance an insult? Sabi is quick to defend Islam and defame others with the free speech he is given here, but even with his free speech fails in anything he writes to condemn even the threat of murder. He would rather make the suggestion that this Muslim group isn’t in fact a real Muslim group but a front set up to give Muslims a bad name. If nothing else SouthPark does a wonderful job of bringing out such people from wherever it is they lurk.
Posted in: Muslim group warns 'South Park' creators of death
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grafton
A dead boxer, died by his own hand, so no loss to the world in any way. If this is any kind of news surely it’s sport and should be in the sports section where people interested in such things can fine it and read it, why waste our space with this?
Posted in: Boxer Valero kills himself in Venezuela jail, police say
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grafton
Hezbollah everybody’s sacrificial puppet, Iran wants them to fight with Israel so supplies them with weapons, now Syria wants the same so they supply weapons and good old dumb Hezbollah just go out and kill and get killed. The Lebanon it now seems to want Hezbollah to do its fighting for it too. I could almost feel sorry for these fools. But I don’t. Israel may be very heavy handed in the way it goes about protecting itself and as such comes in for a great deal of flack, but what the Israeli bashers seem to miss is that a lot of other counties seem to spend an inordinate amount of time and money creating trouble for Israel and you can’t all be so dumb as to believe it is because these counties love the Palestinians so much that they just can’t stop themselves helping. I have a couple of very bountiful gold mines in Hokkaido for sale if any of you gullible souls are interested, going at a good price, but I do need the money in cash, it’s for my sick old grandmother you see and she doesn’t have a bank account.
Posted in: Israeli officials say Syria gives Hezbollah Scuds
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grafton
If it’s a simple choice between Islam and lead down the ears I’ll go for the lead down the ears any day. Far less painful.
Posted in: Somali Islamists ban songs on radio
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grafton
It’s been asked again and again why the Catholic Church is getting such a bashing over this while other establishments are not and would not. Perhaps the answer is that when you set your self up as the moral voice of mankind you need to be 100% sure you are more than just the voice but the action too. Telling the world to do as I say not as I do is not the way to win friends. The Vatican has put it self in a position where it cannot defend it self because it’s own history shows that serious mistakes have been made by protecting those that it knew were committing crimes against children. For my own part I couldn’t care less if the whole establishment were to disappear without trace tomorrow. That however is not going to happen so the best anybody can hope for is that it cleans up it’s act and comes clean on past mistakes and punishes those responsible, and by that I do not just mean the child molesters but also the those that did everything in their power to protect the church at the expense of future harm to children. I wouldn’t go as far as some and say that these protectors were a part of a “pedo ring”, but their actions did facilitate the future actions of people they knew were paedophiles. They were protecting the image of the church and as such they failed to protect the children.
Posted in: Vatican blasts anti-Catholic hate campaign
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grafton
It’s a very positive picture of two well known Japanese sports people being shown respect in America, it is however sad that the expat Americans here lack the that same generosity.
Posted in: Q-chan meets Godzilla
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grafton
cleo at 03:41 PM JST - 30th March
“I attended church schools up to the age of 17 and had Scripture lessons every week”
“I seem to have completely missed all the coded references to guns and militias and uprisings against the government.”
Yes but wasn’t that the Derbyshire version of the scriptures?
Posted in: Christian militia accused of plotting to kill police in U.S.
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grafton
Are these people not to be seen as a reflection of the society that they come from, are we not to see them as being representative of all Americans? Perhaps we could reason that they are the product of a bad education system, parents that didn’t give them the time to teach them to be good people. We might add that weak government has failed over many, many years to amend the constitution a remove an out dated clause that allows for “the people” to carry guns. Perhaps we could go on to reason that American patriotism has been infected by a paranoia based on an historic fear of the British returning. Are these Christian nutters no more than the tip of the iceberg?
Posted in: Christian militia accused of plotting to kill police in U.S.
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grafton
I am just happy that some of you lot are not police, normally the same people that would condemn the Jpolice for being inept. It is quite possible that this man saw the case and reported it because unlike some he is genuinely honest. That may seem a little difficult for those whose honesty is a little flexible to understand but truthfully there really are such people in the world. No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I am one but I have met some.
I feel sorry for the lady in the case but might we all wait until it is proved to be a murder before we start damning the “killer”. Chances are it is a murder given the head was cut off but as yet we simply do not know. Try this for an innocent caught up in something he wants not to be caught up in. Man with prostitute, prostitute dies of drug over dose. How does he stop his life from going down the tubes because of one stupid accident? It’s as possible as anything else at this point in time.
mayhem at 01:41 PM JST - 30th March
“Where's the head?”
Do you really think the answer to that was accidentally left out of the story? I am sure if JT knew they would have told you, this is not a who done site though it might at times seem that way.
Posted in: Headless body of woman found in suitcase in Kanazawa mountains
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grafton
HeyLars at 12:15 PM JST - 30th March
“I think your sympathy was about the last thing they were fishing for. Given the POLITICAL situation in Chechnya, there is no reason at all to make this a religious thing. That is stretching.”
No they will not be getting my sympathy but in what I wrote I was addressing a general attitude to their inane actions, not my personal feelings. Have you not read why these mad women attacked those trains? I don’t think you have or you haven’t taken it in. One of their leaders was recently killed; he wanted to create a “caliph” in the Caucasus, something that not even the locals want, certainly not along the Taliban lines that he had in mind. So this is very much a religious matter even if you don’t want to see it that way. This is not to say that Russia has not and will not use this Muslim terror angle to give them a sense of freedom to act against these people, of course they will, and they have just been given exactly what they want, a Muslim terrorist attack in Moscow. But one wrong does not make the other a right, that level of simplicity is why people think killing innocents leads somewhere.
Posted in: Two female suicide bombers kill 38 on Moscow subway
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grafton
wiz at 05:42 AM JST - 30th March
“I hope the Russians are very effecient at brining these people to justice.”
I am sure the Russians will be very efficient in bring people to justice, but will they be the guilty people and will it really be justice?
This act of murder presents us all with a hard call, have Russia’s past actions brought this on the country, but then again is this the way to retaliate? Like so many I am getting so very tired of hearing the phrase “Muslims killed …..”. If they ever had any good reason for taking action it has long since been lost in their murderous actions, if they ever did deserve any degree of either sympathy or understanding that too is being lost in their insane actions. After yet another act of insane mass murder I simply cannot find it in me to care what or how the Russians deal with this. We are building towards a religious war but the pressure that is pushing the world that way is coming from Muslim actions. Daily we hear western leaders trying to make conciliatory remarks to Muslims while equally we are hearing of yet another killing. Somebody isn’t listening and maybe it is because they don’t want to hear, because they believe they are winning a war they have already started while the west is trying to pretend there is no war. Maybe Russia will fight fire with fire and maybe that is wrong, but only to western minds, to many Muslims it will be what they want. Many here will hide behind the moral judgement that killing is wrong, they will argue that a few evil terrorists are not to be used to judge a whole religion, maybe today they are right, but maybe they should look at the trends we have been seeing over the last twenty years, this is growing, it is not decreasing, it is not levelling off. And the day might just come when many will be asking themselves if they were really right to be so complacent.
Posted in: Two female suicide bombers kill 38 on Moscow subway
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grafton
East Jerusalem and West Bank were Jordanian and the Gaza was Egyptian.
The twin British mandates covered all of what is now Israel and also Jordan so where does this nation of Palestinians come from? Are they perhaps the rejects from other Arab countries who simply don’t want them?
Strange that neither Jordan nor Egypt are making demands to have land returned, but then neither Jordan nor Egypt wanted the Palestinians either. It says a lot about Arab unity doesn’t it?
Posted in: Netanyahu tries to play down tensions with U.S.
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grafton
I have already expressed my total disgust of this killing. And I do blame both mother and boyfriend, what I will not do is point a finger of blame at all the people of Japan.
Posted in: Man, 19, arrested for beating girlfriend's 2-yr-old son to death