Category: Japan

Only a high trust society could pull this off. Could you imagine what would happen in parts of the U.S. that had staffless stores?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, unmanned shops drew interest as a way to prevent infection and cater to contact-averse customers. Now such shops are again in the spotlight as a means to help solve serious labor shortages. Research is underway on systems to run unmanned shops safely and efficiently, and such systems have been introduced by a wide range of businesses, including cosmetics companies and a bookstores.

In May, cosmetics company Orbis Inc., based in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, opened an unstaffed store in the Granduo Tachikawa shopping mall at JR Tachikawa Station. While the company has 93 directly managed shops across the nation, this is the company’s first unstaffed shop. The shop is small, about 7 square meters, and offers about 90 cosmetics, such as lotions and serums. When a customer picks up a product, several cameras installed in the ceiling and a weight sensor installed in the shelf instantly recognize the product. The customer then pays the amount displayed on a cash register screen, and a gate opens to let the customer out.

Yomiuri Shimbun

You can read more at the link.

Another example of the increasing cooperation between South Korea and Japan. Previously South Korea had flew Japanese citizens out of Israel as well:

This Kyodo News photo, filed Oct. 23, 2023, shows a Japanese Air Self-Defense Force aircraft parked at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo on Oct. 21, after returning from Israel with Japanese nationals, 18 South Koreans and one foreign family member in an evacuation from the war-torn region. (Yonhap)

A Japanese aircraft carrying a group of South Korean nationals, along with its own people, returned from Israel on Friday, Seoul’s foreign ministry said, the second such flight Japan has offered after South Korea brought Japanese citizens home on its plane last month. 

The Air Self-Defense Force aircraft carrying 15 South Koreans and one foreign national family member related to a Korean national landed at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo, at 6:45 p.m., the foreign ministry said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It appears this was likely a major mistake by this restaurant in Japan, but the Korean couple that was poisoned by the bleach are claiming it was a hate crime:

The Korean government has requested Japanese authorities to conduct a swift and fair investigation into a case where a Korean national was served water containing bleach at a restaurant in Tokyo. 

“We contacted the local police station as soon as we were notified about the incident,” said an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that the victim reported the case to the Korean Embassy in Tokyo on Sept. 6.

The official noted, “The Japanese police responded that they will do so, but refused to share details of the investigation at this stage.”

The official also said the ministry was informed that the restaurant’s operations were suspended for four days in relation to the incident.

On Aug. 31, a Korean woman surnamed Kang and her Japanese husband visited a high-end restaurant, famous for tempura, located in a department store in Tokyo’s Ginza. 

The couple was served two cups of drinking water upon their request, but after taking the first sip, Kang noticed a strange odor from the water.

“After the second sip, my throat began to hurt so bad I couldn’t even talk properly,” she said during an interview with local broadcaster JTBC, Monday.

She made complaints about the water immediately to the waitress and the manager, but they attempted to take the cup back without offering any explanation. Only after her husband strongly protested to the chef, the waitress admitted that the water was poured from a bottle of water containing bleach.

After showing symptoms of stomach pain and nausea, the victim was taken to a nearby hospital where she was diagnosed with acute food poisoning.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link where the couple is claiming this was a hate crime.

The opposition party and these protesters do not care about the saving the oceans, if they did they would be protesting the stopping of dumping of waste water from Korea’s nuclear plants as well. Better yet they need to protest hospitals that give out CT scans which is more dangerous than the waste water being released. This is all about politics and sliming the Yoon administration:

Korean public sentiment over Japan’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating rapidly, with the opposition bloc spearheading protests on Tokyo’s “irresponsible behavior.”

Despite the worsening public sentiment, President Yoon Suk Yeol remains silent on the matter, having Prime Minister Han Duck-soo speak for the government on the matter. 

Reps. Woo Won-shik and Yang Yi Won-young of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), Rep. Kang Eun-mi from the minor opposition Justice Party and independent lawmaker Rep. Yang Jung-suk participated in a protest organized by Japan’s Social Democratic Party and a number of civic groups in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture. 

“This protest is not about a fight between Korea and Japan, it is about taking action to protect the ocean and the future generation,” DPK Rep. Woo Won-shik said during the protest. 

“The most appropriate way of recovering Japan’s reputation is an immediate stop of the release. Through solidarity between the two countries, Japanese people should fix the problems of the Fumio Kishida administration and Koreans should fix that of the Yoon administration.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The fact that the U.S. and Japan plan to build this within 10 years may be to late to need:

Fumio Kishida, Japan’s prime minister, speaks during a news conference at the prime minister’s official residence on Oct. 4, 2021 in Tokyo. U.S. President Joe Biden will host Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a summit on Aug. 18. (Toru Hanai /Pool/Getty Images/TNS)

The U.S. and Japan are expected to announce an agreement to jointly develop missile interceptors for hypersonic weapons when the leaders of the two nations meet later this week, the Yomiuri reported, citing several people in government.

U.S. President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for a summit on Aug. 18. Biden will also meet with Kishida separately and one of the issues on which they are expected to reach agreement is the collaboration on missile interceptors, the Yomiuri said.

The U.S. and Japan will aim to develop the new missile defense system within 10 years, according to the report.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Definitely not the best marketing strategy for the Oppenheimer movie in Japan:

Sachiko Ishikawa, a YouTube video blogger from Tokyo, talks about the “Barbenheimer” controversy in Japan against a backdrop of the fan poster on Aug. 9, 2023. (Sachiko Ishikawa/YouTube)

When “Barbie,” the live-action movie about a plastic doll, opened Friday in Japan, it did so without “Oppenheimer,” the rival film with which it shared a bill in the United States.

“Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the father of the atomic bomb, has no opening date in Japan, thus far, and Universal Studios has said nothing about the film coming to the only country targeted in anger with atomic weapons. 

“Barbie” arrived divorced from its trendy “Barbenheimer” partner, a phenomenon in July in the United States but a cultural faux pas in Japan. (…………..)

Warner Bros.’ official “Barbie” account on X, formerly known as Twitter, re-tweeted a fan-art poster showing Murphy’s Oppenheimer carrying Robbie as Barbie superimposed over a mushroom cloud.

“It’s going to be a summer to remember,” declared the tweet, since deleted.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

So when are the Korean leftists going to start protesting their own nuclear power plants that are releasing more becquerels of tritium per year than what the Fukushima plant is scheduled to release?:

The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric Power say the concentration of tritium in the discharged water will be lowered to 1,500 becquerels per liter, using a unit that refers to the amount of ionizing radiation released from a radioactive element. Officials say the annual limit will be 22 trillion becquerels.

That figure is smaller than what many other nuclear facilities around the world routinely release into water or air. Grossi of the IAEA said the release of radionuclides into water “has a proven record.” He said China, South Korea, the U.S. and France were among the countries doing it.

A nuclear-fuel recycling facility in northwestern France discharged 10,000 trillion becquerels of tritium into the English Channel in 2021, according to operator Orano.

Orano’s spokesperson Gwénaël Thomas said in an email that tritium discharges from its facility “have no health impact,” because the radiation is a tiny fraction of natural radioactivity in France and tritium is a naturally occurring radioactive element.

A spokesman for Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the leading operator of nuclear plants in South Korea, said the country’s discharges into water last year totaled about 214 trillion becquerels of tritium. He said that level was safe for the public.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link, but it is pretty clear that if the Japanese stick to the IAEA approved plan, what they are doing is within international norms. This means much of these protests are more politically driven than any concern about the environment. It reminds me of the THAAD protests in South Korea where the activists were saying the radar was going to poison the agriculture around the area which was scientifically proven to be nonsense. However, these protesters are not going to let science ruin a good narrative.