I had no idea that the Japanese road tax sticker was designed by a USFJ civilian employee. This is a pretty cool story:
Tomoko Hyatt has no formal art training, but her designs are in high demand across Japan, displayed by tens of thousands of people and growing in popularity. Hyatt, a civilian employee at this U.S. airlift hub in western Tokyo, creates the colorful sticker that anyone under the status of forces agreement must display each spring on their personal vehicle to prove they have paid the annual Japanese road tax. (………)
Her husband, Matthew Hyatt, a meteorological technician with the 374th Operations Support Squadron, has a background in graphic design and introduced her to Adobe Illustrator. Her work has sparked a following. She recently launched a Facebook page — Tomoko’s Tokyo Treasures — where she sells items featuring her designs, including patches, ceramic ornaments and stickers.
You can read more at the link.
With the current political uncertainty in South Korea, the ROK military probably does not want to something as significant as direct military cooperation with Japan, even if it is in the Philippines:
The South Korean Marine Corps on Tuesday denied Japanese media reports that claimed the two countries will hold a joint military drill in the Philippines next month.
Earlier in the day, Kyodo News Agency and NHK reported the Korean Marine Corps will hold its first-ever joint exercise with the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) during KAMANDAG, an annual international military exercise in the Philippines, slated for next month.
The Marine Corps, however, rejected the reports, saying it has no such plan.
“We will conduct combined drills with the United States and the Philippines, but have no plan to do so with the JGSDF,” an official from the Marine Corps told Yonhap News Agency over the phone.
You can read more at the link.
At some point the Japanese have got to give the Senkaku Islands the Dokdo treatment and just put a small military garrison on it in order to show the island is and always will be Japanese:
Japan and China are accusing each other of violating the airspace around the Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands that Beijing also claims. Japan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that it has protested to Beijing after a Chinese helicopter that took off from one of China’s four coast guard boats had entered Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku island, violating the Japanese airspace around them for about 15 minutes on Saturday.
In response to the airspace intrusion, Japan’s Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter jets, the Defense Ministry said. China routinely sends coast guard vessels and aircraft into waters and airspace surrounding the islands, which China calls the Diaoyu, to harass Japanese vessels in the area and force Japan to scramble jets in response.
You can read more at the link.
