Japan probably produced its first trade deficit last year in more than three decades as energy imports surged to cover for the loss of nuclear power following the Fukushima disaster, a major blow to an economy built on its exports prowess.

For decades Japan used an exports-orientated economic policy to build up global brand names such as Toyota, Sony and Canon and a manufacturing might that was the envy of the world.

Official trade figures due for release on Wednesday are expected to show that Japan swung to a deficit for the first time since 1980, as utilities purchased fossil fuels for power stations to make up for the loss of nuclear power.

Economists say Japan's trade will be in deficit for the next few years

THE Australian government says its priority is to make sure the three whaling activists who climbed on board a Japanese whaling security ship are being well cared for, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said.
Ms Roxon told reporters in Melbourne the government has been in touch with the Japanese government to find out exactly where the security ship is in Australia's exclusive economic zone in the waters off Western Australia.

"It's early days and it's happened just a number of hours ago,'' Ms Roxon said.

"Our top priority is to make sure Australian citizens are safe and that they are being well cared for.''

Record numbers of young Japanese do not have boyfriends or girlfriends, and many do not want one, according to a survey by the country's government.

There have been some positive developments in the last 24 hours, but the overall situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious. ...
Radiation levels in major Japanese cities have not changed significantly since yesterday and remain below those which are dangerous to human health.

During a state of emergency it is not unusual to hear about looting, so why have there been very few reports of this in Japan? Commentators from across the media have their say.

By Thursday morning the last line of defense came down to this: a police water cannon, a helicopter maneuver designed for wildfires and a race against time to get the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant rewired to the grid.

Japan's atomic safety watchdog declared that tsunamis posed no threat to its nuclear reactors in official guidelines published in 2006.
The guidelines on earthquake-proofing nuclear facilities, issued by Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission, stated that the country's nuclear facilities would "not be significantly affected" in the event of a tsunami.
Experts claimed that the "robust sealed containment structure around the reactor would prevent any damage to the nuclear part" and that "no radiological hazard would be likely".
Documents seen by The Daily Telegraph also disclose that Japan faced detailed questioning by the international nuclear safety watchdog over whether its nuclear facilities could withstand a tsunami, and repeatedly gave assurances that there was no credible threat.

Japan has told the ambassadors of Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands to take action against anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd, whose harassment cut short its Antarctic hunt this season.

On Friday Japan announced it was bringing home its harpoon ships a month early, citing a need to guarantee the safety of the whalers.

"It is extremely regrettable that the obstructionist activities by Sea Shepherd were not prevented," Japan's foreign minister Seiji Maehara said in remarks directed to the three countries that allow Sea Shepherd to fly their flag or use their ports.

The Japan Sumo Association (JSA) has cancelled next month's grand tournament over allegations of match fixing.

It is the first such cancellation since 1946 - when Tokyo's main stadium was being renovated.

Police are investigating allegations of match fixing in which 13 senior wrestlers have been implicated.

It follows another scandal over illegal gambling last year which saw live television coverage of the sport dropped by national broadcaster NHK.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has called the match-fixing scandal a betrayal of the people.

Sumo has its origins in religious rites and wrestlers are expected to observe a strict code of behaviour.

The organisation in charge of Japan's scientific whaling program has accused the Sea Shepherd conservation group of endangering its crews in the Southern Ocean.

The two sides have clashed for the first time during this season's Antarctic hunt.

Militant anti-whaling activists from the Sea Shepherd group say they have begun pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet through the icy waters of the Antarctic.

They say the whaling ships used water cannons on their inflatable boats during high-speed chases.

But the Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs Japan's scientific whaling program, accused the Sea Shepherd activists of throwing glass bottle projectiles and deploying ropes to try and foul the propeller and rudder of one of its ships.

For centuries Japanese have worn beautiful, hand-crafted kimonos, but soon there will be no one left with the skills to make one of the nation's most enduring cultural symbols, say craftsmen.

Bear attacks have risen in Japan this year and sightings of the animals have spiked in the last six months, as climate change means they have left their natural habitat in the search for food.

A rather ominous graph accompanies a review of the United States economy this week by Mary Daly, vice-president at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Japan’s experience beginning in the early 1990s, notes Daly, underscores the risk of getting into a long period of sustained disinflation. Japan fell into deflation in the mid-1990s and has yet to recover.

Japan is hosting its 10th national poem boxing championships where contestants are given three minutes to deliver a verse and record a win.
The verbal sparring takes place in a boxing ring and each contestant is given three minutes to deliver a poem. The panel of judges awards points for originality and style, as well as the delivery of the piece, before declaring the winner.
Unlike chess boxing however, where contestants are required to alternate between a round of chess and boxing, the poets do not have to spar at any point.

Two Japanese towns have declared war on a band of marauding monkeys that have attacked more than 60 people in the forested foothills of Mount Fuji, local officials say.

Alarmed by an unusual spate of biting and scratching attacks, officials in Mishima and Susono have deployed hundreds of volunteers, city staff, police, rescue workers and animal researchers to ward off and catch the animals.

 The Bank of Japan is considering holding an extraordinary policy meeting early next week to discuss further monetary easing that would help stem the yen's recent sharp rise, sources close to the matter said Saturday.
     By holding an emergency meeting before its regular session scheduled on Sept. 6 and 7, the central bank could show its stance on cooperating with the government to address the yen's appreciation and the country's economic slowdown, the sources said. Prime Minister Naoto Kan says he will outline fresh fiscal stimulus by Tuesday.

Japan's core consumer prices index fell for the 17th month in a row in July, underlining the country's entrenched problems with deflation.

The index, which excludes fresh food, fell 1.1% from July last year.

Deflation is adding to economic worries in Japan, where the strong yen is making exports more expensive.

Japan's "lost decade" of deflation in the 1990s hit company profits as consumers delayed purchases to await even cheaper deals.

The fall in the consumer prices index was slightly bigger than the 1% drop in June.

Japanese sumo wrestlers have been given iPads to communicate because their fingers are too fat to use a standard mobile phone

Japan's economy grew at a much weaker than expected pace and was overshadowed by China in the second quarter, data showed Monday, amid further signs the global recovery is losing steam.

What happens to a generation of young people when:

They are told to work hard and go to college, yet after graduating they find few permanent job opportunities?
Many of the jobs that are available are part-time, temporary or contract labor?
These insecure jobs pay one-third of what their fathers earned?
The low pay makes living at home the only viable option?
Poor economic conditions persist for 10, 15 and 20 years in a row?
For an answer, turn to Japan. The world's second-largest economy has stagnated in just this fashion for almost 20 years, and the consequences for the "lost generations" that have come of age in the "lost decades" have been dire. In many ways, Japan's social conventions are fraying under the relentless pressure of an economy in
seemingly permanent decline.

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others.

He was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo - but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed.

Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which came to power with a promise to stamp out old patronage politics, is now engaging in a more explicit form of pork-barrel elections than the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

DPJ Secretary-General Ichiro Ozawa stumped in Nagasaki for a DPJ-backed candidate in the Nagasaki gubernatorial election campaign, saying, "If you elect X, we will be able to build a highway here."

The thing is, whether we are for or against whaling has absolutely nothing to do with whether we condone the violence perpetrated by Sea Shepherd. Prime Minister Rudd should be able to provide a sober explanation of this fact, and take a resolute stand against the organization's disregard for law and order.

If the purpose is to stop Japanese whaling, the matter should be taken up with the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and obtain the support of its member nations. Quietly condoning the actions of Sea Shepherd, which has ignored the democratic processes in the IWC, is tantamount to an announcement that any means -- both fair and foul -- are acceptable in striving towards a goal. This reasoning is no different to that of a terrorist.

The Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza gang handed out cash to local children at an event here in an apparent attempt to appease local opinion.

the Cabinet will have to issue ¥44.30 trillion in new government bonds — an alarming increase of 33.1 percent on the previous initial budget.

The latest amount equals the sum of the bond issuance planned by the previous government for the initial budget, and the first extra budget for fiscal 2009.

In this regard, Hatoyama fulfilled his promise because he repeatedly vowed to cap new bond issuance at around ¥44 trillion to avoid eroding confidence in the bond market. But this is the first time since the war that new debt issuance has exceeded tax revenues on an initial budget basis, according to the Finance Ministry.

THE high seas battle between Japanese whalers and the Sea Shepherd conservation group has gone hi-tech with the use of a military grade laser, a stealth ship and sonic cannons.

Among the alarming increase in child pornography cases to strike Japan in 2009 are a number of particularly disturbing incidents: Child porn made and sold by the children's own mothers.

In many cases, mothers or other relatives agreed to sell nude photographs of their children to men they met on Internet underwear shops. So far this year, at least 12 guardians have been arrested on child porn suspicions related to their own children.

An Osaka restaurant chain operator faces charges of labor law violations after working one of his employees to death.

The Osaka Central Labor Standards Inspection Office sent an investigation report on local restaurant chain operator Isoji and its 60-year-old president to the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office on Thursday, for overworking a 29-year-old restaurant manager in violation of the Labor Standards Act.

The Financial Services Agency plans to ease classification standards for bad loans to help enforce a new law to promote lending, despite criticism it will cloud the actual health of financial institutions.

The plan represents a major shift in FSA policy concerning its inspections and supervision of financial institutions, which emphasized checking the risks of loans becoming uncollectible.

Instead, the FSA will allow the financial institutions themselves to decide whether the loans have soured under vague standards.

That way, according to the plan, borrowers who may have been considered too risky can still receive loans from financial institutions. It will also ease repayment terms for struggling borrowers.

An elderly mother who fatally stabbed her leukemic daughter last month was suffering from heavy medical bills, investigators said.

The 77-year-old mother stabbed her 53-year-old daughter in the neck at home in Tokyo's Adachi Ward on Oct 21. Police said that the mother, who also underwent breast cancer surgery in April this year, said that she was worried about expensive medical fees she had been paying for her daughter and herself.

Perhaps the reason George W. Bush did not know what the G20 was when he spoke with our leader Kevin Rudd was that the United States is not really very interested in it. Certainly the diplomatic talk in recent days is that the US wants a grouping with Japan, China and the European Union to be the really influential economic decision making body.

The Japanese newspaper The Mainichi Daily News had a lengthy piece this week discussing the origin back in 2005 of the American plans for a Group of Four. In that year the US, China and Japan met together before a meeting of the G7 and nutted out an agreement, which saw an appreciation of the Yuan.

Key to the US interest is the harsh truth that it is China and Japan, which together largely finance the huge US budget deficit. The European Union was tossed in to make up a quartet, much to the annoyance of major European nations who think they should be in the big-time in their own right.

The Mainichi Daily story says that in the upcoming summit with President Barack Obama, the new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is expected to not only confirm that the two countries should strengthen their bilateral alliance but also consider how Japan can serve as a go-between between the United States and China.

Machines with heated seats, built-in bidets and a dynamic range of flushing options are almost ubiquitous in homes and public buildings.

But lavatories here can do much more than keep you warm. One even sends a tiny electrical charge through the user's buttocks to check their body-fat ratio.

10,000 HIV carriers confirmed in Japan
A total of over 10,000 HIV carriers have been confirmed throughout Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has announced.
According to the ministry's AIDS surveillance committee, a record number of 294 HIV-infected individuals were newly confirmed from July to September, which was the largest figure ever on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The total number of HIV-positive patients -- excluding HIV-tainted blood product victims -- surpassed 10,247 (8,305 men and 1,942 women).

Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda has hinted that he may dissolve the House of Representatives next spring through negotiations with opposition parties if he is elected ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader and prime minister.

Toyota Motor Corp. looks certain to unseat General Motors Corp. as the world's No. 1 automaker in 2007 in terms of global production, taking the title for the first time, it has emerged.

Toyota has announced a yearly output this year of 9.42 million vehicles. In comparison, General Motors has announced a target of 9.285 million vehicles. It is the first time that figures have emerged supporting Toyota's likelihood of taking the industry's top position in 2007.

I did not really want to hear what Paul Keating was saying during a television interview last week about how he experienced the seemingly irrational views of Japanese and Chinese leaders when he was chatting informally with them as our Prime Minister. The distrust between the two nations that Mr Keating detected from his talks just seemed too incredible to take seriously. Surely Paul was taking an egg-beater to some meaningless asides that were well short of meriting the concern he was showing about future conflict in north Asia.

Then at the weekend I came across the story on the website of the Chinese People's Daily which appears alongside:

It was a measured but pointed Chinese response to a visit that the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made while

visiting Kolkata (Calcutta) in India to meet the 81 year old Prasanta Pal, whose father Radhabinod Pal, according to another and earlier People's Daily report, was the only member of the 11-judge Allied war crimes tribunal after World War II to voice dissent at the process, criticizing the panel as an example of victors' justice.

The Chinese report said Japanese media have said Abe's meeting in Kolkata could fray improving relations with China, which suffered under Japan's military aggression in the first half of the 20th century. An editorial last week in Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest newspaper, criticized Abe's planned meeting with Pal, saying that it was aimed at claiming innocence for the war criminals. "He will travel all the way to India to embrace the descendants of a judge hailed as a hero by Japanese militarists for claiming innocence for Class-A war criminals," it said.

Reading this made me ponder again what Paul Keating had said in that 7.30 Report interview with Kerry O'Brien.

Well, I was at a dinner with him one night and I was Treasurer then and he was Finance Minister of Japan. He later became Prime Minister.

And, you know, I've been friendly with him a long time and he said to me, "Mr Keating, let me ask you this, do you think the Chinese will attack us?"

And I said, "No, Mr Miyazawa, I don't". He said quizingly, "But why not?" And you could feel the hair on the back of your neck go up, a thing like that.

Another event I had was on the Chinese side one of the three people who managed China in the '90s said to me quite candidly, "If the Japanese ever go to nuclear weapons, we would take them out before they started", meaning they would attack them first.

No good ever happens in that relationship between China and Japan. It's just simmered along in resentment and mistrust since the war.

And then a little later in the interview, this exchange:

KERRY O'BRIEN: Do you believe, really, that the tensions between China and Japan are as potentially explosive today as they were back when you had those conversations with Miyazawa and the Chinese?

PAUL KEATING: They're kind of worse. Worse than then, because China, I mean, in those days China was on the ropes trying to come out of Tiananmen Square, you know. And Japan was still top of the pops in economic growth, it hadn't gone through the big '90s recession.

Now, it's reversed. China is now the second or third largest economy in the world. It's the same size as Japan. Japan grows at 1 per cent, China grows at 11 per cent. China's ageing demographic means the country's shrinking. China has got a much younger demographic.

And the Japanese very much resent the rising power of China, and the Chinese resent the fact that the Japanese are still trying to call the war history like some kind of self defence thing. So, the game remains nasty, and anyone in the Australian polity who doesn't know that, knows nothing.

KERRY O'BRIEN: But why aren't the major leaders seeing this, if it's such a compelling argument?

PAUL KEATING: In the end they're turkeys Kerry, they won't take the big issues on.

To get up and say to the Chinese, "You will find a place for the Japanese in your scheme of things," and to the Japanese, "You will atone for the sins of the Second World War and make a point of accommodation with China".

The Americans are in there playing their game with their mates, the Japanese, and trying to push the Chinese off to one side, and they might need the Japanese to defend the old colony, Taiwan, in the past, their old colony of the past.

But this is where leadership comes in. This is why we've now wasted two US presidencies on these issues. At least with Bill Clinton the last thing I did as Prime Minister was get Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin to have reciprocal visits. That bettered the relationship between China and the US, got China into the World Trade Organisation.

The number of children sexually abused after meeting their offenders through Internet dating sites increased in the first half of 2007 from last year, the National Police Agency (NPA) said on Thursday.

A record 1,808 cases of "cyber crimes" -- illegal activities committed through Internet sites -- were handled by police in the first six months of 2007. The number of such crimes investigated by officers or those sent to prosecutors in the first half of 2006 stood at 1,802. The total number in 2006 was a record 4,425 cases.

KANDA, Fukuoka -- A man was arrested Monday after assaulting a neighbor who refused to participate in a gymnastic exercise event organized by the neighborhood association, police said.

Who said Japanese salarymen were all work and no play? The love for schoolgirl uniforms is just one of many secret salaryman fetishes being catered to at the three-day Adult Treasure Expo this week in Chiba, Japan, near Tokyo.

Call it cheeseburger diplomacy. Japan's prime minister says he and U.S. President George W. Bush munched their way to a relaxed first-name basis, befitting their countries' close alliance during his first U.S. visit as premier.

"President Bush and I were able to deepen our friendship and trust -- in fact, we are now on a first-name basis, calling each other 'George' and 'Shinzo,'" Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wrote Thursday in his e-mail newsletter of his April 26-27 American visit.

Bush even sealed the bond with a lunch of "quintessentially American fare, a large cheeseburger," said the Japanese leader, himself a known ice cream fanatic.

Some examples of the Japanese sense of humour

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tried to play down the debate over whether Japan should possess nuclear weapons following controversial remarks by two Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) members.

Abe commented on the issue on Wednesday, when Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) leader Ichiro Ozawa asked him about his opinion on controversial comments by Foreign Minster Taro Aso and LDP policy affairs chief Shoichi Nakagawa.