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WITH no shops, cars, restaurants or kiosks selling snacks, Aoshima is not the ideal hotspot for tourists. But cat lovers are not complaining. Aoshima Island is one of about a dozen 'cat islands' around Japan - small places where there are significantly more feline residents than people.

Shizuo Kakutani sees no great mystery in the things that wash ashore in Monzen, his quiet fishing village on the Sea of Japan — the fishing boats ravaged by fierce winter storms, the Chinese garbage carried to land by the strong winds, the occasional body that drifts in from Yaseno, the nearby cliffs notorious for suicides. The ghost ships, however, are harder to explain. On an early morning in November, the 71-year-old retired fisherman received a call from his colleagues at the town's civilian coast guard. A black mass bobbling in the water — most likely a boat — had...

Beginning today, all Earth imagery from a prolific Japanese remote sensing instrument operating aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft since late 1999 is now available to users everywhere at no cost. The public will have unlimited access to the complete 16-plus-year database for Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument, which images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet. ASTER's database currently consists of more than 2.95 million individual scenes. The content ranges from massive scars across the Oklahoma landscape from an EF-5 tornado and the devastating aftermath...

I AM looking for unity, I AM looking for my love working in you in such a way that you see your brother and sisters’ needs above your own.Let there be great charity among you, yes, but this love comes from me through you and as you see others as part of your body without paper or pen. It is then they become part of you and you come to abide in Me. There is no room for arrogance and vanity, just my love and the fruit thereof,For it is only in oneness you then have gained the access “as...

HIROSHIMA, Japan — For nearly 71 years, the consequences of the world’s first atomic bombing have remained close to the surface here. Construction workers digging under the Peace Memorial Museum recently discovered the charred and mangled remains of a bicycle, a rice paddle, a toothbrush and a fountain pen, tangible artifacts of a civilization that was buried in ash on Aug. 6, 1945.

There’s a recurring question among the Republicans gathering in Colorado at state and local conventions to choose delegates this week: "Where’s Donald Trump?" Colorado is a rare state where party officials choose delegates without any input from a primary or caucus vote. The bulk of the state’s 37 delegates will be picked at a series of congressional district conventions on Friday and a state convention on Saturday in Colorado Springs. Prospective delegates can run as unaffiliated free agents or pledge to back a candidate. "There just doesn’t seem to be any Trump organization at all, to be honest," Dick Wadhams,...

It’s been said so often but never actually examined in great detail – the Future Submarine Program is strategic for Japan and Australia. In speaking to the submarine community, past and present, what comes through is that cooperation with Japan results in a Future Submarine that can approach the performances of Collins but only with a completely new design and one that will definitely not be regionally superior post 2030. This is alarming and requires pause for thought. The root-cause of this problem is that Japan does not have any technology that is, well, regionally superior. Indeed it is the...

Don't Abandon Japan Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, arriving in Washington this week for President Obama’s nuclear-security summit, is America’s strongest ally in Asia — a region crucial to America’s future. Since taking office, Abe has pursued politically risky policies that have steadily bolstered not just Japan’s, but also America’s position in Asia. So he must be puzzled to find himself at the center of a U.S. political dispute. Battling for votes, the Trump presidential campaign suggests that Japan is an economic and military drain on the U.S. After criticizing China, the campaign smacks Japan. Such overheated rhetoric is as...

You are my children of choice for you chose to serve me and to love me and in this same manner I AM The Shepherd of your lives and your path, and your way upon it is of my design. . . So when this world hates you and scorns you remember this path I have already laid out for you is eternally before you for I have seated you in heavenly places with me for I AM your inheritance as the Levites . So remain in my peace for nothing I have given you can ever be taken away...

In the early 1940s, the U.S. Navy still expected to need huge, first rate battleships to fight the best that Japan and Germany had to offer. The North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa-class battleships all involved design compromises. The Montanas, the last battleships designed by the U.S. Navy, would not.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump doubled-down Sunday night on his comments that the US should “do a better deal” with Japan, South Korea and other allies, saying they should pay more for America’s protection while taking a greater role in their defense — including building their own nuclear weapons "If you start raising that minimum wage, you're going to make a lot of our companies even more non-competitive," he said. Trump also delved into his plans to change the nation's tax code by "simplifying" it. He also renewed his promise to repeal ObamaCare — though he again wouldn’t offer specifics...

Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican Donald Trump on Saturday told a crowd of thousands he was sanguine about potential hostilities between North Korea and its neighbors. Speaking at a rally in Rothschild, Wisconsin ahead of the state’s primary on Tuesday, the Republican presidential frontrunner said that if conflict between Japan and nuclear-armed North Korea were to break out, “it would be a terrible thing but if they do,...

"I think we’re sitting on an economic bubble. A financial bubble... We’re not at 5 percent unemployment. We’re at a number that’s probably into the 20s if you look at the real number. That was a number that was devised, statistically devised to make politicians – and in particular presidents – look good. And I wouldn’t be getting the kind of massive crowds that I’m getting if the number was a real number." "I’m talking about a bubble where you go into a very massive recession. Hopefully not worse than that, but a very massive recession. Look, we have money...

Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his belief that Japan should arm itself to deter a threat from North Korea rather than have the U.S. military protect the longtime ally against the rogue nuclear nation. Meanwhile, Trump throughout the day maintained that the U.S. should pressure NATO member states to begin "paying their fair share." "I would rather have them not arm, but I'm not going to continue to lose this tremendous amount of money. And frankly, the case could be made that let them protect themselves against North Korea. They'd probably wipe them out pretty quick," Trump said at a...

It’s hard to believe the resolve the United States once showed in defeating enemies. One wonders if in a 24/7 news cycle of “living room wars” whether this nation could have ever mounted the sustained effort it took to join the Allies in stopping Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Americans today would find such will to win at any cost difficult to comprehend. Perhaps with Easter just passed, it is fitting to remember Easter of 1945 when the invasion of Okinawa, the last battle of World War II and the largest sea-air-land operation in history, began. It would also be...

Tokyo (AFP) - A region of Japan looking to use "ninja" warriors to boost tourism has made an American man the first foreigner to draw a salary for joining the ranks of the stealth assassins. Aichi prefecture in central Japan had been seeking six full-time ninja -- the covert martial arts masters and agents of sabotage who prowled the shadows in feudal times -- and in a job posting last month said candidates of any nationality were welcome. Of the 235 applicants eager to don the black costume of the deadly denizens of the night, an astonishing 85 percent were...

Dormant places are about to come alive ! Blessings being held back about to arrive , Water in arrid places and streams where there had been none , Now the Glory of God arrive upon his daughters and sons , Making a way in the desert places "The Oasis of Christ", Prayers being answered not once but twice , Behold a double portion each time you pray , For each time you lift up JESUS he will make a way ! Isaiah 41:18 18 I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I...

The operator of Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant switched on a giant refrigeration system on Thursday to create an unprecedented underground ice wall around its damaged reactors. Radioactive water has been flowing from the reactors, and other methods have failed to fully control it. The decontamination and decommissioning of the plant, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, hinge of the success of the wall.

Radar experts are casting doubt on claims that King Tutankhamun's tomb contains hidden, undiscovered chambers — and they're calling for more data to be released. At a March 17 newsconference, officials at Egypt's antiquities ministry released radar data that they said showed the presence of hidden cavities inside the tomb of King Tut. The scans, carried out by Japanese radar technologist Hirokatsu Watanabe, "suggest the presence of two empty spaces or cavities beyond the decorated North and West walls of the burial chamber," they said in a statement. The scans also suggest the "presence of metallic and organic substances," and...

You "ARE" My Spearhead,staff and Sword You are my Jobs that stand in adversity, My Samuels that go and declare for me, My Ezekiels that speak life to dead bones, My mighty men that fearlessly face the enemy alone, My Daniels that pray until My angels come with breakthrough, My Johns of the wilderness speaking My testimony each day anew, My Matthews, Lukes and Timothys, Bringing words of hope and eternal life setting wellsprings free, My pauls with lifes turned over to me, Never looking back as Lot's wife but instead into what My spirit sees, For you are constructed...