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posted by martyb on Friday October 27 2017, @12:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-best-defense-is-a-good-offense dept.

Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) coalition has won big in the recent elections and may eventually push for changes in Japan's constitution, although such plans are tentative:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc scored a big win in Sunday's election, bolstering his chance of becoming the nation's longest-serving premier and re-energizing his push to revise the pacifist constitution. Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led (LDP) coalition won a combined 312 seats, keeping its two-thirds "super majority" in the 465-member lower house, local media said.

A hefty win raises the likelihood that Abe, who took office in December 2012, will secure a third three-year term as LDP leader next September and go on to become Japan's longest-serving premier. It also means his "Abenomics" growth strategy centered on the hyper-easy monetary policy will likely continue.

[...] The U.S.-drafted constitution's Article 9, if taken literally, bans the maintenance of armed forces. But Japanese governments have interpreted it to allow a military exclusively for self-defense. Backers of Abe's proposal to clarify the military's ambiguous status say it would codify the status quo. Critics fear it would allow an expanded role overseas for the military. Abe said he would not stick to a target he had floated of making the changes by 2020. "First, I want to deepen debate and have as many people as possible agree," he told a TV broadcaster. "We should put priority on that."

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly benefited from tensions with North Korea and is likely to serve as Prime Minister until 2021:

The elections were a result of a risky move on Abe's part. He dissolved the lower house of parliament last month and called for fresh elections a year earlier than scheduled to "face a national crisis" in North Korea. It was a gamble, considering Abe's approval ratings over the past year have ranged from iffy to dismal. One Washington Post headline from the summer read "Japanese prime minister's poll numbers are so low they make Trump's look good." "Abe is personally not that popular of a guy," Hu said. "But after North Korean missiles flew over Japan two times this year, Abe's popularity shot back up."

Also at The Diplomat and Bloomberg. Japanese general election, 2017.

Related Stories

How Japan and the U.S. Remember World War II 92 comments

An interesting phone interview with Carol Gluck, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University.

"The Japanese ignore everything before Hiroshima and the Americans ignore everything after Nagasaki."

On Tuesday, President Obama announced his decision to visit Hiroshima, Japan, the site where the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb in August 1945. Obama will specifically visit Memorial Park, which commemorates the event; he will be the first sitting American president to do so, although he does not plan to offer any sort of apology. The bombing of Hiroshima killed around 100,000 people; three days later, tens of thousands more were killed after the United States bombed Nagasaki.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2016/05/the_u_s_and_japan_have_very_different_memories_of_world_war_ii.html


Original Submission

MonarchyNews: The King is My Co-Pilot and Japanese Succession "Crisis" 30 comments

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has revealed to a Dutch newspaper that he has flown as a co-pilot for the airline KLM about twice per month for the last 21 years. His flying hobby will require retraining to fly Boeing 737s, as the airline is phasing out its Fokker 70s. The King says he was not recognized often, especially after 9/11 as passengers now have less contact with the cockpit.

Japan's Princess Mako will reportedly lose royal status due to marrying a commoner, as Japan's current imperial law requires. The move is "expected to reignite debate" over the nation's imperial succession law and is "raising fresh questions about the status of women in the imperial family". Emperor Akihito, who is 83, has recently hinted that he wants to step down, which would require a legislative change or a one-time exemption. [This bill is expected to be introduced on Friday.] Only males can currently become Emperor, and there are only four heirs left to the Chrysanthemum Throne. However, the restriction on female succession dates back to an 1889 Meiji government law, and was retained in the 1947 postwar Constitution. Japan has had six Empress regnants in the past, the most recent reigning from 1762 to 1771. The sons of female royal family members are also not currently in the line of succession, as only the male offspring of the male line can succeed the throne.

MonarchyNews is subjects.


Original Submission

Japan Clears Way for Emperor to Step Down in 1st Abdication in 200 Years 62 comments

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Japan has passed legislation paving the way for 83-year-old Emperor Akihito to abdicate. The law sets the stage for the first abdication of a reigning monarch in two centuries, in a royal family which has a history stretching back 2,600 years.

[...] According to the 1947 Imperial House Law that regulates the line of imperial succession, the emperor cannot step down. The last Japanese monarch to abdicate was Emperor Kokaku, who left in favor of his son back in 1817.

Another issue the Japanese government will discuss is the continuity of the heirs, as women are not allowed to inherit the throne. Additionally, a woman from the imperial family who marries outside the family is then excluded. Akihito has another son, Prince Akishino, and a grandson, Hisahito, aged just 10. All the other members of the royal family are female.

Source: RT


Original Submission

North Korea Has Reportedly Miniaturized a Nuke, and is Threatening Guam 98 comments

A confidential Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence asessment has concluded that North Korea has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to make it capable of being launched by its ballistic missiles:

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country's atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.

[...] Although more than a decade has passed since North Korea's first nuclear detonation, many analysts thought it would be years before the country's weapons scientists could design a compact warhead that could be delivered by missile to distant targets. But the new assessment, a summary document dated July 28, concludes that this critical milestone has been reached.

"The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles," the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. Two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment verified its broad conclusions. It is not known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially claimed last year that it had done so.

Meanwhile, President Trump and Kim Jong Un have traded barbs:

President Donald Trump appears to have painted himself into a corner: He must now follow up on his pledge of hitting North Korea with "fire and fury," or he risks further blowing U.S. credibility.

Kim Jong-un's regime said late on Tuesday that it may strike Guam. That came shortly after Trump warned Pyongyang it would face "power, the likes of which this world has never seen before" if the renegade state continued to threaten the U.S.

"If the red line he drew today was 'North Korea cannot threaten the U.S. anymore,' that line was crossed within an hour of him making that statement," said John Delury, associate professor of Chinese studies at Seoul-based Yonsei University.


Original Submission

North Korea Claims Successful Hydrogen Bomb Test; Seismic Activity Reported 120 comments

We had three Soylentils submit stories about North Korea's claims it had detonated a hydrogen bomb and reports of seismic activity.

North Korea has Conducted a Major Nuclear Test.

North Korea said on Sunday it detonated a hydrogen bomb, possibly triggering an artificial earthquake and prompting immediate condemnation from its neighbors -- despite the rogue regime calling the test a "perfect success." http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/09/03/quake-in-north-korea-may-have-been-nuclear-test.html

North Korea Claims Successful Hydrogen Bomb Test

North Korea claims to have successfully developed and tested a hydrogen bomb. Observers have detected tremors associated with a blast several times larger than previous underground nuclear bomb tests. North Korea also claimed to have developed a hydrogen bomb capable of being fitted on a missile:

North Korea carried out its most powerful nuclear test to date on Sunday, claiming to have developed an advanced hydrogen bomb that could sit atop an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The bomb used in the country's sixth-ever nuclear test sent tremors across the region that were 10 times more powerful than Pyongyang's previous test a year ago, Japanese officials said. While the type of bomb used and its size have not been independently verified, if true, the pariah state is a significant step closer to being able to fire a nuclear warhead to the US mainland, as it has repeatedly threatened it could if provoked.

[...] The device was more than eight times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, according to NORSAR, a Norway-based group that monitors nuclear tests. Based on the tremors that followed the test, NORSAR estimated it had an explosive yield of 120 kilotons. Hiroshima's had 15 kilotons. But South Korean officials gave a more modest estimation, saying that Sunday's bomb had a yield of 50 kilotons.

がんばれ! 你能行的!! 화이팅!!!

Also at BBC, Reuters, and NYT.

4.1 Magnitude Seismic Event in North Korea at a Low Depth

Earthquake News Today initially reported that a 5.1 magnitude event designated 2000aert had occurred near Sungjibaegam, North Korea at a depth of less than 1km at 03:30 UTC September 3.

Their updated report 2.5 hours later gave a magnitude of 4.1.

All reporting stations were in the USA.

NPR, formerly Nation Public Radio, subsequently reports

North Korea has claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb

The blast was picked up by seismic stations all over the world, and it was big.

[...]North Korea's previous nuclear tests have been in the tens of kilotons range. That corresponds roughly to a weapon the size of the ones used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. It's believed that the North's earlier tests were of nuclear weapons that use uranium or plutonium (or both) for their explosive yield.

This time, the North claims to have mastered a far more powerful hydrogen weapon. Some early estimates are putting this test in the hundreds of kiloton range.

[...]Modern nuclear weapons of the sort possessed by the U.S. and Russia are almost all thermonuclear in nature. It allows the weapons to pack a huge punch while fitting in a warhead small enough to be delivered by a missile.


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Under Pressure Over Cronyism Cover-Up 6 comments

Japan PM, finance minister under fire over suspected cover-up of cronyism

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his close ally, Finance Minister Taro Aso, faced growing pressure on Monday over a suspected cover-up of a cronyism scandal that has dogged the premier for more than a year.

Copies of documents seen by Reuters showed that references to Abe, his wife and Aso were removed from finance ministry records of the discounted sale of state-owned land to a school operator with ties to Abe's wife, Akie.

Abe, now in his sixth year in office, has denied that he or his wife did favors for the school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, and has said he would resign if evidence was found that they had. Excised references seen by Reuters did not appear to show that Abe or his wife intervened directly in the deal.

Suspicion of a cover-up could slash Abe's ratings and dash his hopes for a third term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Victory in the LDP September leadership vote would put him on track to become Japan's longest-serving premier. The doubts are also putting pressure on Aso to resign.

Moritomo Gakuen is the school at the center of the scandal.

Previously: Land Deal for Nationalist School Linked to Japanese Prime Minister Abe by Critics

Related: Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Wins Election, Could Revise Pacifist Constitution


Original Submission

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:42AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:42AM (#588074)

    Japan wants to be a normal country. The only country that got nuked. Country that doesn't want to/can't face up to its history.

    So "normal".

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:59AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @12:59AM (#588079)

      > Country that doesn't want to/can't face up to its history.

      That much is normal, isn't it?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @01:15AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @01:15AM (#588083)

        Dang, I wish I can I argue, but I can't. All the more reasons that countries that managed to face up to it deserve ... I don't know what.

        • (Score: 1) by Arik on Friday October 27 2017, @01:43AM

          by Arik (4543) on Friday October 27 2017, @01:43AM (#588086) Journal
          Face.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @01:50AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @01:50AM (#588090)

      The only country that got nuked...

      Google Japan plutonium stockpile
      Google HII-A Japan

      Make 2+2=5 (Factor in return to overt militarism...)

      Old saying: one years not seven....

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:28AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @03:28AM (#588113)

        You misspelled H-IIA [wikipedia.org]. I'm unfamiliar with the saying you allude to.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @09:21AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @09:21AM (#588166)

          H-IIA .. ouch ... I plead serious lack of sleep over the past week (caring for a sick relative)

          One years not seven: didn't realise it was a rather parochial saying, best way of summing up the meaning is

          'We'll have our revenge, maybe not this year, maybe not the next, maybe not this decade, maybe not this generation even, but we *will* have our revenge' (though it's hard to emphasise here the right degree of 'malevolance' with which it is usually uttered.)

          Probably very Celtic in origin, both the Irish and Scottish sides of my family have muttered it over the years, usually against other family members, and I'd hate to tell you how many of these 'vendettas' are still extant, some of them have been going on now for over 40 years..

      • (Score: 2) by julian on Friday October 27 2017, @04:19AM (1 child)

        by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 27 2017, @04:19AM (#588120)

        Liquid fuel rockets are terrible for ICBMs. Some fuels are cryogenic, so they are constantly boiling off and require a lot of power, and infrastructure to keep them liquefied, which is expensive and difficult. Once you fuel up a liquid rocket, your fuel and oxidizer (hydrogen and oxygen, typically) start evaporating and you have to keep topping the tank off until launch. Even if you use other fuels that can be stored at higher temperatures, they're so corrosive that you can't keep a rocket tank fueled up and on standby for too long. So typically rockets are fueled right before launch--this is also for safety reasons. Fueling takes a long times. For large rockets, it could take hours.

        So while you're doing this lengthy process, every other nation state with satellites has noticed you're preparing to launch and they might have hours to destroy your delicate and exposed launch site, or just preemptively launch their own nukes. You could bury the entire launch complex, and use different propellants than hydrolox, but these days that's an absurd anachronism. It's more dangerous, expensive, and you still have a lag-time for fueling.

        What you want is solid-fuel rockets with multiple stages arranged in a linear stack. You can keep them underground, for years, and they can launch in minutes. The JAXA rockets aren't immediately suited for military use. They do incorporate solid-fuel boosters, so Japan has the technology to make the right fuel but they've never built the kind of rocket they'd want for a nuclear program. They have all the technology, but they need to spin up a substantial engineering program to actually turn working concepts into a unified weapons platform. Then they'd have to convert their civilian nuclear program to a military one (their plutonium stockpile would need substantial processing), including testing real nuclear bombs. Although wealthy countries like Japan can do substantial work simulating these weapons with supercomputers (which they already have). They'd still probably want to do at least one live test for real.

        This could take years, and it would be obvious to the international community it was happening.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @08:04AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @08:04AM (#588151)
          The Soviet Union used liquid fuels in some of their ICBMs, most notably the R-36M [wikipedia.org] (known to NATO as the SS-18 and given the ominous reporting name "Satan") used nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetric dimethyl hydrazine which aren't cryogenic liquid fuels. This ICBM still seems to form much of the backbone of the current Russian strategic nuclear arsenal. The new RS-28 Sarmat (SS-X-30 Satan 2) that Russia is building in order to replace the R-36M (which design dates back to 1971) seems to also be liquid-fuelled, though exactly which liquid fuels it uses are as yet unknown. The Russians evidently don't seem to think that use of liquid fuels for ballistic missiles is such an "absurd anachronism".
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday October 27 2017, @01:13AM (2 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Friday October 27 2017, @01:13AM (#588082)

    The LDP for those wondering is neither liberal, nor particularly democratic.

    They have held government for almost the entire time since WW II with the help of the CIA and huge subsidies to rural voters.

    The Japanese people are wealthy though, so probably don't really care, which is fair enough. I can't see them invading any neighbours any time soon either.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday October 27 2017, @10:59AM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Friday October 27 2017, @10:59AM (#588182) Homepage Journal

      A so-called Democratic Party that rigs elections, where have I heard that before?

    • (Score: 1) by Guppy on Friday October 27 2017, @09:27PM

      by Guppy (3213) on Friday October 27 2017, @09:27PM (#588435)

      huge subsidies to rural voters

      Yet those rural populations are gradually dying out, regardless. I wonder, could the subsidies actually be hastening the process, by driving out younger folks (who don't own land and so don't get the subsidies)?

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @02:07AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @02:07AM (#588096)

    Sure, the Nazi gassed the Jews (and others) in industrial fashion, but the Japs pulled the Unit 731, live vivisection among others.

    I suppose we are no better for confiscating all the reports and cover it up, though.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 27 2017, @01:30PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 27 2017, @01:30PM (#588210) Journal

      It's not covered up in China. I've been to the Unit 731 Museum outside Harbin. Nothing hidden there. It's also in living memory of professors still teaching university, who grew up next to the compound. The Japanese didn't advertise what they were doing exactly, but neither were they particularly circumspect.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:34AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @06:34AM (#588133)

    The Empire needs more foreigners to help fighting its wars. Even Swiss soldiers are deployed nowadays.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @08:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @08:54AM (#588159)

      Nowadays? Switzerland was built on mercenary wages and arms export sales for centuries. Swiss neutrality meaning is "all (well, most) paying customers welcome".

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @07:25AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 27 2017, @07:25AM (#588148)

    If they revise their constitution, they should also revise the bit that forces all Japanese pr0n to be censored.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 27 2017, @01:27PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 27 2017, @01:27PM (#588208) Journal

      That might take care of the pixelation, but it won't fix the screaming.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 27 2017, @01:41PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 27 2017, @01:41PM (#588214) Journal

    If Japan revises its pacifist constitution it will revive the specter of their militarism and re-awaken memories of the atrocities they committed and never atoned for. To this day no matter where you go within the area of the former Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, people will candidly tell you how much they deeply hate the Japanese for what they did. All of them have stories of massacres, grandparents abducted to forced labor camps or as "comfort women." They did not confront and make good for the pain they caused the way Germany has genuinely tried to.

    On the other hand, the Chinese and North Koreans aren't sweethearts either, and would do the same to the Japanese and all the rest of us on Earth in a heartbeat, if given the chance. So as fraught as it is, we could use a muscular military ally in Japan to help us counter that threat.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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