The Marines are lucky this window did not hit a kid at the school. Could you imagine the protests that would have happened if some kid at the school was killed by this window? Fortunately no one was injured by this negligence:
This image from an NHK broadcast shows a window from a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter after it fell onto an elementary school sports field near Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017.
The Marine Corps says human error caused a helicopter window to fall onto the grounds of a crowded elementary school last week on Okinawa.
The incident occurred Wednesday morning when a CH-53E Super Stallion’s window inexplicably became separated from the aircraft and landed on Futenma Daini Elementary School’s sports field, which is adjacent to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma’s fence line. More than 50 schoolchildren were playing at the time, and one boy was slightly injured from a pebble that flew up during impact.
The 1st Marine Aircraft Wing has completed a “thorough” investigation into the incident and determined it was caused by human error, officials said a statement released Monday evening.
The window, which was not properly secured before takeoff, was designed to be removed so that the crew can evacuate during an emergency, the statement said.
Marine officials said they have conducted additional training for both air and maintenance crews to reinforce proper procedures. Also, all CH-53E aircraft have been thoroughly inspected and checked for mechanical or structural issues with the windows. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but really this incident should serve as an example of why the Marines are trying to move Futenma to the northern part of Okinawa away from the major population center of the island.
It looks like the fishing boats that don’t become “ghost ships” have become a major nuisance for the Japanese Coast Guard:
The Japan Coast Guard wages a constant battle to chase North Korean fishing boats from Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
From July, it began using water cannons on a regular basis to warn such boats to leave, but those efforts seem to have had little effect.
Instead, the number of boats operating in Japanese waters has increased, as well as those washing ashore, sometimes with dead crew members.
On Dec. 15, the coast guard released photos and video footage of its relentless campaign to rid Japanese waters of the unwelcome visitors.
The photos and videos released were taken between September and November in the Yamatotai fishing ground located about 400 kilometers west of Akita Prefecture’s Oga Peninsula. [Asahi Shimbun]
The sad Cold War era tale of Charles Robert Jenkins has come to an end:
This file photo taken on October 12, 2005 shows U.S. army deserter Charles Jenkins, who spent 40 years in North Korea, showing off his new book “To Tell the Truth,” which was published in Japanese last week, at a press conference in Tokyo. Charles Jenkins, a U.S. Army deserter who spent four decades in communist North Korea and married a Japanese woman abducted by Pyongyang, has died at the age of 77, officials said on December 12, 2017. / AFP-Yonhap
Charles Jenkins, a U.S. soldier who defected to North Korea and became a movie star there, has died in Japan, according to reports on Tuesday. He was 77.
The former U.S. sergeant died on Sado island on Monday, where he was living with his wife Hitomi Soga, also a former prisoner of North Korea.
He was among four U.S. soldiers who defected to the North in 1965 and was the only one who was released. The others reportedly died in the isolated state, including James Dresnok, who was said to have died of a stroke in 2016.
According to the BBC, Jenkins collapsed outside his home and died of heart problems in hospital. His wife said in a statement that she was “very surprised” by his death and “cannot think of anything,” according to AFP. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but what is interesting about this death is that back in August 2017 Jenkins said in an interview that the North Koreans wanted him dead:
Then there was the apparent assassination of Kim Jong Nam — Kim Jong Un’s half-brother — in a Malaysian airport in March. Two women ambushed Kim with VX nerve agent, one of the world’s most toxic substances. To Jenkins, it was a reminder that Pyongyang’s brutality knows no bounds — and no one is immune.
“I worry about my daughters more than anything,” he said as he drove his Subaru along the coast. He has forbidden them to comply if Japanese police should attempt to pull them over while driving. Anyone could be a North Korean agent.
“North Korea give them enough money, you don’t know what they’ll do,” he said. “North Korea wants me dead.”
Jenkins’ death is probably just a coincidence, but it is kind of eerie how he died so soon after making that statement. Jenkins was a heavy smoker so heart problems from his smoking is definitely plausible.
It looks like the North Korean fishermen who are not washing up on Japanese shores dead have become thieves instead:
Japanese police on Saturday arrested three North Korean crew members for suspected theft, a spokesman said, amid a fresh wave of North Korean “ghost ship” fishing vessels washing up in Japanese waters.
The three were among the 10 North Korean “fishermen” spotted aboard a tiny wooden boat struggling in bad weather off the northern island of Hokkaido late last month.
The 45-year-old captain and two other crew members, who all identified themselves as North Korean nationals, were arrested on suspicion of stealing a power generator, a Hokkaido Police Department spokesman said.
The arrest came after some of them reportedly admitted to “taking out” some electronic products from a remote Japanese island where they landed briefly to take refuge.
Soon after the group left, officials noticed items — TV sets, fridges, a washing machine, a motorbike, an electric saw — had vanished from buildings on the island, local media said. [Korea Herald]
The alcohol restriction for US military personnel in Japan due to a recent deadly drunk driving incident has been relaxed:
A servicemember reaches for a pack of bottled beer at Yokota Air Base, Japan. STARS AND STRIPES
U.S. Forces Japan has loosened alcohol restrictions imposed after a fatal Nov. 19 vehicle accident involving a 21-year-old Marine on Okinawa.
The revised rules, which took effect at 4:30 p.m. Thursday local time, allow servicemembers to purchase alcoholic beverages on base and drink them in their on- or off-base homes, Maj. George Tobias, a 5th Air Force spokesman, told Stars and Stripes.
“The purchase or consumption of alcohol off-base is still not permitted with the exception of one’s own off-base residence,” he said. [Stars & Stripes]
Good luck trying to convince people this is a good idea:
Storage tanks for contaminated water stand at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima. The government has still not decided what to do with the water. Getty Images
Japan has still not come to a consensus on what to do with a million tons of nuclear water six years after their primary nuclear power plant in Fukushima was rocked by a tsunami.
The water stored in 900 large, dense, packed tanks on site could spill if another major natural disaster should strike, The Japan Times reported.
The government has been urged by experts to gradually release the water to the Pacific Ocean, as all the radioactive elements of the water except tritium—which has been said to be safe in small amounts—have been removed through treatment. But if the tank breaks, the contents may not be able to be controlled.
Local fishermen are extremely hesitant to this solution because many consumers are still uncertain to eat fish caught off Fukushima, despite tests that say the fish is safe to eat.
“People would shun Fukushima fish again as soon as the water is released,” Fumio Haga, a drag-net fisherman, told The Japan Times. (……..)
Currently, the amount of radioactive water at Fukushima is still growing by 150 tons a day. [Newsweek]
This is something that many people who don’t understand missile defense think until they realize the physics behind it:
U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic sources have said, despite the difficulties and potential ramifications of doing so.
The revelation came ahead of Trump’s arrival in Japan on Sunday at the start of his five-nation trip to Asia. Threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs were set to be high on the agenda in his talks with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday.
Trump questioned Japan’s decision not to shoot down the missiles when he met or spoke by phone with leaders from Southeast Asian countries over recent months to discuss how to respond to the threats from North Korea, the sources said.
The U.S. president said he could not understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the missiles, the sources said. [Japan Times]
You can read more at the link, but the reason is quite simple why the missiles were not shot down. The missile were flying 770 kilometers above the country in outer space; this is higher than the international space station. The Japanese Aegis ships and Patriot interceptors cannot engage missiles flying that high. To shoot down the missiles the Aegis ship would have to be located out in the ocean where the missile was coming down at. There is no way the Japanese would could have known when and where North Korea was going to fire the missile at to have a ship sitting there waiting to shoot it down.
The real story here is why are diplomatic sources leaking this information to the news media? This is a natural question that many people wondered initially after North Korea fired the missile over Japan. I would hope by now someone has briefed President Trump on missile defense capabilities.
It seems the US President has received a very warm welcome in Japan:
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) meets Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Kasumigaseki Country Club to play golf in Saitama Prefecture on Nov. 5, 2017. Trump came to Japan for the first time as a President, and will stay in Japan until Nov. 7th.
Landing in Japan on the first stop of his marathon five-nation tour of Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the nation a “treasured partner” and “crucial ally” of the United States while asserting that “no dictator” and “no regime” should ever underestimate America — a not-so-veiled rebuke of nuclear-armed North Korea.
After paying a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii on Friday, Trump on Sunday marked the start of his trip to Asia by disembarking from Air Force One at the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. Cheers erupted as he appeared on stage with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, prompting thousands of U.S. military personnel there to welcome the pair with enthusiastic chants of “USA! USA! USA!”
“Japan is a treasured partner and crucial ally of the Unites States,” Trump told a packed aircraft hangar after changing into a bomber jacket. “Today we thank them for decades of wonderful friendship between our two nations.”
It was the first visit by Trump to Japan since his astonishing rise to the presidency last year. The trip will give him and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — touted as one of his best friends among world leaders — a chance to reaffirm their shared strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on the North while also demonstrating anew the strength of the two nations’ alliance.
After delivering his speech, Trump flew to Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama Prefecture for two hours of golf diplomacy with Abe — an informal setting that also involved 25-year-old professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama.
Before hitting the links, Abe presented Trump and Matsuyama with white baseball caps, each embroidered with the message “Donald & Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.” [Japan Times]
You can read more at the link, but President Trump gave a nice speech to US troops at Yokota Airbase as well.
that was actually a very good read. Despite being a deserter, I always appreciated how Jenkins took responsibility for his own actions and did not try to blame others for what happened to him.
