News Stories

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by TheForsaken

Who are still angry with Japan other than China and Korea?
I doubt two countries can represent "the rest of Asia", much less "the world".

They have economic influence over many other Asian countries and may use it to their advantage.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by TheForsaken

Who are still angry with Japan other than China and Korea?
I doubt two countries can represent "the rest of Asia", much less "the world".

You are right...










Not like anyone (whose voices matter at any rate...because I can vouch that in the greater part of Asia, contrary to what the chinese say, people are not constantly getting an aneurysm from anti-Japan rage....If anything, it's anti-own goverment rage while what Japan does, no one gives a shit) cares about such semantics when trying to twist their way in foreign relations of course

[SeijiSensei]

Was North Korea Responsible for the Attack on Sony's Servers?

While rivals focused on the holiday box office, Sony Pictures Entertainment spent Thanksgiving weekend coping with the continuing effects of a cyberattack — and investigating what provoked the onslaught, including whether there were any ties to a coming comedy that has elicited the ire of North Korea.

On Monday, a hacker group that self-identified on the company’s computer screens as “#GOP,” for “The Guardians of Peace,” hijacked accounts, posted unflattering images of Sony’s top two executives and claimed to have taken files with confidential information about the studio and celebrities who work with it.

Several Sony executives reached on Saturday were similarly tight-lipped, though one said the studio was exploring multiple causes and had no direct information to support a theory that surfaced on the technology news site ReCode on Friday: that the attack may have been retribution by North Korea for Sony’s planned Christmas release of “The Interview,” an R-rated comedy about two American journalists who are recruited by the C.I.A. to kill the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

[maplehurry]

Abe's approval rating dropped; economics most important issue to voters.

In the poll conducted Friday and Saturday, 47.3 percent of respondents expressed disapproval against 43.6 percent who backed the Abe Cabinet.

Asked about specific issues, 84.2 percent of the respondents said they do not feel the economy has improved under the prime minister’s “Abenomics” policies.

As for the most issue they considered most important in next month’s election, 35.1 percent cited economic policy in deciding which candidate or party to back, followed by 27.4 who nominated social security, 10.4 percent who opted for fiscal rehabilitation, 8.2 percent who picked nuclear power and energy policy, and 4.1 percent who chose constitutional amendment.

Despite this setback, it seems Abe's LDP is still going to win the most seats because the voters ain't really confident in other parties at dealing with the econ. So it's like "yea, Abenomics' not very effective, but what if other parties make things even worse ?"

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by maplehurry

Despite this setback, it seems Abe's LDP is still going to win the most seats because the voters ain't really confident in other parties at dealing with the econ. So it's like "yea, Abenomics' not very effective, but what if other parties make things even worse ?"

Well, what does the opposition propose to do instead?
I do believe it is fair that voters support the guy with a plan, than the opposition who don't really have one.

Do nothing is no longer an option for Japan. People prefer to hope for improvements than to just expect everything to stay the same for the next decade.

[Soliloquy]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

I do believe it is fair that voters support the guy with a plan, than the opposition who don't really have one.

Yeah the LDP plans to raise the consumption tax rate even further. So far that's what I read in terms of the plan next year. Financially bad news for Japanese citizens in both middle and lower class. I honestly wouldn't want to see Japan going through recession but this one seems very difficult to get out of.

[maplehurry]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Well, what does the opposition propose to do instead?
I do believe it is fair that voters support the guy with a plan, than the opposition who don't really have one.

I certainly understand the sentiment of voting LDP since they have been in power for 90% of the time after the end of the war. In other words, other parties have little experience in governing, so it's understandable that people don't want to take risks during tough time.

Though I am not sure about the part on "the guy with a plan". Abe himself has recently decided to delay the tax hike, but there's also huge pressure from his own LDP party to implement the tax hike. So even when LDP wins, we are not sure if there's gonna be tax hike or not. On the other hand, Abe will look good to the public (for a while) if he does stick to his words.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Was North Korea Responsible for the Attack on Sony's Servers?

So, is there anyone nowadays who is game to hit back at something that is said to be "vital" for North Korea? God, I just hate that country.

At least, Iraq had the decency to stay quite cool with the parodies that were made about Saddam.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

So, is there anyone nowadays who is game to hit back at something that is said to be "vital" for North Korea? God, I just hate that country.

At least, Iraq had the decency to stay quite cool with the parodies that were made about Saddam.

North Korea makes a convenient scapegoat. I'm not sure how a country with technology several decades old (at best) is capable of such a huge breach. I'll keep my bloodthirst in check. Consider me skeptical.

[Soliloquy]

This site sums up well what the stance of the major parties in Japan. Just because LDP has been the talk of the news all the time, it doesn't mean the other parties have absolutely nothing in offering. I assume they lack the good spokesperson like in the British politics. It doesn't help most of Japanese media seems to be a little too biased.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Solace

North Korea makes a convenient scapegoat. I'm not sure how a country with technology several decades old (at best) is capable of such a huge breach. I'll keep my bloodthirst in check. Consider me skeptical.

Well it is said that the attack originated from China. So China probably did it on behalf of North Korea so as to show a message that North Korea is an ally.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

This site sums up well what the stance of the major parties in Japan. Just because LDP has been the talk of the news all the time, it doesn't mean the other parties have absolutely nothing in offering. I assume they lack the good spokesperson like in the British politics. It doesn't help most of Japanese media seems to be a little too biased.

Official political positions aside, the reality of it is that the Japanese electorate gave a historic chance to the main opposition party, DPJ, and they fucked up. They fucked up bad. You could have the most sparkling progressive positions in the world -- i.e. being the good guys, not that DPJ is anywhere close to being the good guys -- but if you cannot govern, you aren't up to the job.

LDP will rule Japan for the foreseeable future, until the sheer mass of scandals knock it down again.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by Soliloquy

This site sums up well what the stance of the major parties in Japan. Just because LDP has been the talk of the news all the time, it doesn't mean the other parties have absolutely nothing in offering. I assume they lack the good spokesperson like in the British politics. It doesn't help most of Japanese media seems to be a little too biased.

In other words, Japan are in dire need of an equivalent to Tony Blair as young charismatic leader of a non-LDP party in order to lead the "revolution".

[Vallen Chaos Valiant]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

In other words, Japan are in dire need of an equivalent to Tony Blair as young charismatic leader of a non-LDP party in order to lead the "revolution".

Japan had been going through leaders on a near yearly basis after Koizumi left, until Abe got the job. If such a leader exists, that person hasn't been found yet.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Vallen Chaos Valiant

Japan had been going through leaders on a near yearly basis after Koizumi left, until Abe got the job. If such a leader exists, that person hasn't been found yet.

i could be wrong but i remember reading a article saying that Japan's problem is the entrench bureaucracy that both keeps the government working despite the PM roulette but also the main reason why almost nothing gets done. A more dynamic PM isn't going to make things "go" overnight.

[AnimeFan188]

Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests:

"Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he
had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last
year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling.

But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a
nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country
opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between
the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with
Chevron, was run out of town, reviled as a corrupt sellout in what activists
presented as a David versus Goliath struggle between impoverished farmers and
corporate America.

“I was really shocked,” recalled the mayor, who is now back at his office on
Pungesti’s main, in fact only, street. “We never had protesters here and suddenly
they were everywhere.”

Pointing to a mysteriously well-financed and well-organized campaign of protest,
Romanian officials including the prime minister say that the struggle over fracking
in Europe does feature a Goliath, but it is the Russian company Gazprom, not the
American Chevron.

Gazprom, a state-controlled energy giant, has a clear interest in preventing
countries dependent on Russian natural gas from developing their own
alternative supplies of energy, they say, preserving a lucrative market for itself —
and a potent foreign policy tool for the Kremlin."

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/01/wo...ref=world&_r=0

[SaintessHeart]

It’s official: America is now No. 2

The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.

[RRW]

PPP though not GDP

[kyp275]

Yea... I dunno about using a measurements designed to compare QoL between diff. countries to measure size of econmy.

That's like using interior room measurements to compare the power output of different cars.

[SeijiSensei]

Sony Pictures and F.B.I. Widen Hack Inquiry

Though most of the speculation about the Sony breach has centered on North Korea, there are other possibilities under investigation, including that the attack was tied instead to an employee or former employee.

Jaime Blasco, a malware researcher at AlienVault, a security company in San Mateo, Calif., said that the attacks were routed through Internet Protocol addresses in Bolivia, Cyprus, Italy, Poland, Thailand and the United States, but that these were most likely hacked systems “that the attackers use to hide their origin.”

Mr. Blasco said that the Sony hacker or hackers “clearly had insider information into the company’s system, such as the names of the company’s internal directories and passwords to its internal servers.”

There's also a related story about the release of salary information for 30,000 employees at Deloitte, a consulting firm that has worked for Sony. This will prove embarrassing for Deloitte which has been touting its ability to help identify employees who steal data. Whether the salary data was on Sony's servers, or stolen from somewhere else, remains unclear.

[T]he hacking at Sony stands out from the scores of other attacks at American companies in the last year. The attackers did not just steal data, they also defaced Sony’s websites with ominous images of red skeletons and warnings and filled the company’s Twitter feeds with rants. The may have also facilitated the online pirating of five Sony films, including the unreleased “Annie.”

Someone tell me again why we need another version of Annie.