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Photo courtesy of Popsci

Japanese group aims to put humanoid robot on moon by 2015

Looking largely to inspire dreams of space among the Japanese, a manufacturing cooperative named Astro-Technology SOHLA announced on April 27th that they are planning to create and send a two-legged humanoid robot to the moon, have it draw the Japanese flag on the surface, and then hopefully get it back to the Earth, all by the year 2015. Making inspirational ideas about space technology a reality is not new to the Osaka-based cooperative of six small and medium sized enterprises. SOHLA had previously built a small-scale satellite, named Maido-1, as a demonstration of the ability of SMEs to research and create short-term, low-cost space technology which could help improve local economic activity.

Number of children in Japan falls to record low for 29th year in row

The number of children in Japan under the age of 15 is estimated to have dropped 190,000 in the last year to 16.94 million, marking a record low for the 29th consecutive year, the government said Tuesday. In a report issued on the eve of Children's Day, a national holiday, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said kids comprised 13.3 percent of the population as of April 1. It was the 36th straight year the percentage has fallen and remained the lowest worldwide.

LDP to submit draft constitutional revisions

The leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party has decided to submit a draft proposal of constitutional revisions to the current Diet session, after the National Referendum Law is enforced May 18, sources said. The LDP is primarily considering easing the requirements for amending the Constitution, which are stipulated in Article 96 of the nation's top law. As the Deliberative Council on the Constitution in each chamber of the Diet has been dormant, there is no prospect the draft will actually be examined. Nevertheless, the LDP is aiming to demonstrate its resolve for constitutional revision ahead of the House of Councillors election in summer.

Portable beauty appliances powering lunch-time pampering

Younger women wanting to pamper themselves in the office are providing a ready market for a new breed of portable electric devices. While older generations of women may have tended to confine their crimping and preening to their own boudoirs, twenty- and thirtysomethings are increasingly demanding electric beauty equipment they can take on the go. "Men cannot even imagine the 'heat' in ladies' rooms at work places during the lunch break or after work," one female employee of an electric goods manufacturer said.

Japan's Green zones itchy to be global geoparks

Local residents and groups across the nation are stepping up efforts to have their areas certified as global geoparks, where rare landscapes useful for learning how the Earth was formed will be preserved and utilized as natural parks. Preparations are under way in eight areas, such as Muroto in Kochi Prefecture, to follow in the footsteps of Itoigawa river in Niigata Prefecture, which became the nation's first global geopark last year. Associations to promote areas as global geoparks have been established in 20 regions, including the Chichibu area in Saitama Prefecture. Geoparks are areas that are internationally certified as geological inheritance parks, where precious geographical landscape or geological layers remain.

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Japan's response to its ageing crisis

An ageing population, coupled with a declining birth rate, is an unprecedented challenge for Japanese policymakers. The issues created by this situation can be readily identified in the administration of Japan's pension system. It is widely recognised that record management for Japanese pensions has been, moderately speaking, incomplete, and more strictly speaking, defective. On the occasion of the introduction of the basic pension identification number, the Social Insurance Agency identified some 250 million numbers out of 300 million and consolidated them into 100 million basic pension identification numbers. As a consequence, 50 million pension numbers still remain to be identified.

Ministry unveils strategy to boost 'Cool Japan'

The government has drawn up a list of strategies aimed at boosting Japan's pop culture industry, thereby making Japan and its contemporary culture more competitive internationally. Japan's pop culture--namely its anime, games, food and fashion--is believed to have great potential for improving Japan's image and making its products more competitive in Asia, Europe and North America, where it is popular and being promoted under the name "Cool Japan."

New party set to be launched this week

Former Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano, who is set to leave the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party after severely criticizing the party leadership, and former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma confirmed Monday evening their plans to launch a new party by the end of the week.

Sumo: Fans hope 15-year-old Japanese prodigy can rise to the top

A 15-year-old boy, who has joined the Takadagawa sumo stable, has drawn attention as a possible future star. Despite his young age, Ryoya Tatsu, who is 193 centimeters tall and weighs 145 kilograms, is almost equal in size to Yokozuna Hakuho, who is 192 centimeters tall and 152 kilograms. Tatsu was among the newcomers who were introduced to the audience during the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament held in Osaka in March. The spring tournament, which coincides with the school graduation season, is also dubbed the "job placement tournament."

Japanese carriers to end mobile phone locks?

Japan's regulators decided to end restrictions on mobile phone users switching operators or changing the SIM card in their phones. The communications ministry and the country's four major carriers reached the agreement and will set up new guidelines for the plan, Jiji Press reported. At the moment, Japan's major mobile networks sell handsets that accept only their respective SIM cards only, and cannot work with handsets bought from other carriers. In other words, they sell network-locked devices.

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Japan's famous Tsukiji fish market braces for tuna trade ban

As bartenders close the shutters in Tokyo's glitzy nightlife district, just a short walk away handbells ring in the pre-dawn tuna auctions in an old warehouse in Tsukiji. Veteran auctioneers call for bids for hundreds of snap-frozen tuna laid in neat rows in the world's largest fish market, the size of more than 40 football pitches. The famous market on Tokyo Bay, long a must-see tourist spot, is facing a disputed relocation plan in coming years - but another threat is looming large, a possible cross-border trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Disney high-speed support may boost Japan, China trainmakers

Walt Disney World in Florida may be the next stop for bullet-train makers in Japan and China. Central Japan Railway Co. and China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp. are competing for the $8 billion President Barack Obama granted for 13 high-speed corridors across the U.S., including a Tampa-Orlando line that may include a station at the Walt Disney Co. resort in Orlando. The Japanese company, also known as JR Central, is eyeing North America as a shrinking population at home limits its growth.

Hatoyama's brother quits LDP, aiming to form new party

Former internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama, the younger brother of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, announced Monday that he has left the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party and will form a new party. "The current LDP alone cannot bring about a major change in Japanese politics," Kunio Hatoyama, 61, told reporters Monday evening after tendering his resignation letter to the LDP, indicating he hopes to create a new party before the Golden Week holidays starting at the end of April.

Japan and Friends: Foreign Relations

There has recently been some friction between Japan and the United States over the Futenma base in Okinawa and over the existence of secret Cold War-era agreements with Washington that, among other things, had allowed American nuclear-armed warships to sail into Japanese ports in violation of Japan’s non-nuclear policies. Martin Fackler for The New York Times summed the issue up succinctly:

"The existence of the pacts, known in Japan as the “secret treaties,” has long been known from declassified documents in the United States and the testimony of former American and Japanese diplomats. But successive prime ministers denied their existence, turning the agreements into a symbol for many Japanese of how Liberal Democratic governments had turned their country into a stunted democracy run without full consent by the public."

After ending the Liberal Democrats’ nearly unbroken 54-year grip on power last summer, the new Democratic Party government opened an investigation into the pacts as part of their promised housecleaning of Japan’s postwar order. Exposing the truth about their nation’s secret dealings with the United States was also part of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s pledges to put Tokyo on a more equal footing with Washington. This fed concerns among some in Washington, particularly conservatives, that revealing the treaties was part of an effort by Mr. Hatoyama’s administration to push away from the United States."

Tobias Harris contributed some much-needed perspective on both situations in his essay Japan: The importance of open diplomacy for East Asia Forum, which was posted today. Here is a snippet:

"The Hatoyama government deserves some blame for not being clearer about why it wanted a review in the first place, which enabled some to paint the government as anti-American. But those who see the Futenma dispute in the worst possible light have misinterpreted the Hatoyama government’s position. I think that the Hatoyama government is approaching Futenma less as a foreign policy issue than as a domestic policy issue, because a bilateral agreement as complicated the realignment plan involves too many actors within Japan to be simply a bilateral matter for governments in Tokyo and Washington. Indeed, if the 2006 agreement has a flaw it is that the Koizumi government acted without the full approval of Okinawan constituents, which explains at least in part why subsequent LDP governments did little but drag their feet on implementing the agreement."

According to The New York Times, by March 3rd the Japanese government had approached United States officials with a tentative proposal for resolving a festering dispute over the American air base in Okinawa. The proposal would relocate the Futenma Marine Corps air station, a busy helicopter base, from a crowded city in southern Okinawa to a less populated area in the island’s north, but would be smaller and have a diminished impact on local residents and the environment than previously agreed upon.

It is unclear whether the proposal is going to be acceptable to Washington, or indeed to members of Prime Minister Hatoyama’s own coalition, particularly the Social Democratic Party, a tiny leftist group that wants the base removed from Japan altogether. Harris concludes:

"But whether or not the Hatoyama government succeeds, it is important to recognise that it is acting on the basis of an old idea, that a democratic foreign policy must necessarily be conducted in the sight of the people in whose name it is being conducted. In its pursuit of this aim, the Hatoyama government has also implicitly suggested that an alliance conducted behind closed doors is inappropriate for a more democratic Japan, that the alliance will not endure if it continues to rest upon secret agreements and understandings."