Posts Tagged ‘america’

U.S. Navy uses manga for PR in Japan

Reuters reports that the U.S. Navy will be giving out free comic books aimed at improving relations with Japanese who live near a major naval base:

The navy will distribute free copies of a 200-page manga in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, where the aircraft carrier USS George Washington will be based, with downloads also available online, U.S. Naval Forces Japan said in a statement on Wednesday.

The manga features a Japanese-American sailor and includes a scene in which the character quickly snuffs out a small fire on the warship, scheduled to be deployed in August, Kyodo news agency said.

Japan to supply America with gasoline

Japan may soon be expanding its gasoline exports to America:

Japan and the United States will set up a forum of public- and private-sector officials to promote Japan’s gasoline exports to the United States, it was learned Wednesday.

The forum will hold its first meeting in San Francisco on Thursday, according to officials of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The United States, which is faced with a chronic shortage of oil- refining capacities, imports gasoline from European and other countries.

Meanwhile, Japan is looking to export gasoline since domestic demand is unlikely to grow markedly and the oil industry has excess refining capacities.

Japan Suspends Beef Imports From U.S. Plant

Japan has suspended US beef imports after discovering a illegal shipment:

A pack of beef, imported for the major Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya from the Californian plant of National Beef, contained spinal tissue, the agriculture ministry said.

Japan in July 2006 agreed to resume US beef imports on condition the cattle were not more than 20 months old at the time of slaughter, with brains, spinal cords and other risky parts removed.

The illegal shipment was among 700 packs or 17 tonnes of beef imported through Japanese trading company Itochu last August, the ministry said in a statement.

The spinal tissue was discovered on Tuesday at a Yoshinoya meat processing plant in Tokyo’s suburbs.

“The beef in question has not been sent to the market,” said Takashi Himeda, an official in charge of food safety at the ministry.

It was the first time that a risky cut has been found in a US beef shipment since Japan resumed imports, he added.

Bloomberg has reported that a shipping error caused a California-based plant of the National Beef Packing Co. to send the banned beef to Japan.

Preferential Treatment For U.S. Soldiers In Japanese Jails

Today’s Mainichi WaiWai column summarizes a tabloid magazine’s investigation into the treatment given to members of the U.S. military doing time in Japanese prisons:

On June 8, 2006, a U.S. military prisoner in Yokosuka Prison was served a breakfast of fruit, scrambled eggs, a sausage patty, French toast with jam and cereal. His lunch comprised pot roast, boiled rice, asparagus, coleslaw and baked custard. And his evening meal, meanwhile, was vegetable soup, steak with tomato sauce, curry and rice, corn, macaroni salad and spice cake.

On the same day, Japanese prisoners at the same institution were served onion in miso soup, natto fermented soybeans, grated radish and pickled vegetables. For lunch, they got twice-cooked pork, bean sprouts and marinated fish. Dinner was a croquette, macaroni salad, miso soup with egg and salted cucumber.

And it’s not just food where the American military offenders are getting it better than their Japanese counterparts.

“They have individual cells about three tatami mats (around nine square meters) big and the toilets are Western-style,” a journalist tells Sunday Mainichi. “They also have their own TVs and are allowed to watch some American TV shows.”

The treatment is a result of an agreement made between the U.S. and Japan in the 1950′s, apparently “in consideration of the cultural differences between the countries.” While U.S. troops in Japanese jails are given about 4,000 calories of food a day — far more than the 2,620 calories other prisoners in the same jail receive, it should be noted that the U.S. government covers the bill.

Paper Folding Project: U.S. Presidential Candidates

NYC-based designer Adi Marom, who studied at the University of Tokyo, writes to inform us of a website she has created where users can download PDF templates for paper finger-puppets of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, & John McCain. Users from all around the world, including Japan, have been sending in photos of their completed finger puppets, which Marom uploads to a special Flickr gallery.

Oh, and since I don’t want to make two posts in one day about the U.S. elections, here’s a weird video from Youtuber Undochu showing some people in Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, doing an ‘Obama Dance’ of some sort:

Mentally Ill Japanese Man Stabs Author Rupert Sheldrake

BoingBoing has reported that Rupert Sheldrake, a British author famous for his views on human consciousness, was stabbed in the leg the other day while giving a lecture. The dagger was stabbed into Sheldrake’s leg by a mentally ill Japanese man:

My attacker was Japanese, and had arrived from Japan only a few days beforehand. He had spoken to me the day before my lecture, telling me he was hearing voices. He was obviously in distress. I later learned that he had told several other people about the voices, and some had tried to help him.

But no one anticipated that he would turn violent, and neither I, nor anyone else I know of, had any premonition of it. Although the report in USA Today said that he was “disturbed” by my lecture, which was on the extended mind, this was misleading; he was disturbed anyway. In any case, his English was probably too poor to understand much of what I said. The fact that I was speaking in the final session of the conference may have had more to do with it – if he was going to do something spectacular, this was his last chance.

After stabbing me, he was rapidly brought to the floor by an Australian rugby player, and was held down by several men until the police led him away in handcuffs. While on the ground, he apparently said that the voices had told him to attack me. He is now in Santa Fe jail awaiting trial. I feel no anger towards him, but am pleased that he is locked away and unable to harm anyone else.

[Hat tip to VonSkippy]