Free Republic

The Japan Sumo Association is preparing to host Donald Trump at an upcoming tournament after learning the U.S. President wants to watch a live sumo bout during his visit to Japan at the end of May, a source with the organization said Friday. The sport’s organizing body has reserved seats for Trump on May 26, the final day of the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo, and has been considering its security measures since March, the source said. Trump and his aides have requested box seats located near the first three rows at Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan during his visit, which...

There’s something about Japan and electronics that go hand and hand, and there may be no better showcase of that than Maker Faire Tokyo. The Tokyo Faire is a favorite to many who have had the opportunity to see it, with an incredible assortment of innovative creations. Tiny electronics, intricate art, and traditional crafts all meld together in new and wonderful ways throughout the entire exhibition. Produced by the O’Reilly Japan team (Fumi Yamakawa, Hideo Tamura, and Yuko Asahara), their latest event brought in over 24,000 visitors to see the incredible projects of 600 makers set up inside the largest...

Nine people are hurt after a driver deliberately rammed his vehicle into pedestrians in the Shibuya Ward in Tokyo on New Year’s Day in what the suspect told law enforcement was an act of terror, according to Japanese media. 21-year-old Kazuhiro Kusakabe was reportedly arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of attempted murder after plowing his rental car, fitted with an Osaka license plate, into people on the Takeshita Street in the city’s Harajuku district, which was closed to vehicles for the first day of the year. One unnamed source revealed to Kyodo News that the suspect told police that he...

Sex robots are coming to America, and Houston is the first battleground.The first “robot sex brothel” in America is set to open in Houston, Texas, this November. The mayor is currently investigating how to restrict or regulate it.The owner plans to expand to 10 locations in the U.S. by 2020.This disturbing development is sure to have a negative impact on society.The brand of brothels, KinkSdollS, is owned by Yuval Gavriel. The first location opened in Tokyo in 2017. Clients can test the merchandise and pay by the half-hour to be alone with a doll.Concerned citizens in Houston are right to...

For such a modern and technologically advanced nation, the Japanese can be extremely superstitious, and this can even be seen in mega cities like Tokyo. One area where this superstition comes to the fore is in choosing a place to live, and one type of residence that is typically shunned are what are known as “stigmatized properties,” or jiko bukken in Japanese, which are places that have some association with death and suffering. Such apartments or homes come in several levels of stigmatization. For instance, if a place is located next to a cemetery this is seen as mildly stigmatized,...

A Tokyo suburb is working on clearing a cache of long-buried ordnance unearthed while working on a local elementary school. The Nishitokyo Municipal Government has released details of stacks of seriously deteriorated military rifles, machine guns, swords, and grenades found last week during construction at Tanashi Elementary School. The vintage hardware came to the surface when crews performing drilling work started running into the items at a depth of 3-7 feet on July 27. Since then, an estimated 1,400 firearms, 1,200 “swords” and eight practice grenades have been cataloged. From the images, most of the well-decayed weapons are pre-1945...

USGS reported 11 earthqaukes (the largest a magnitude 5.6) off the Oregon coastline today, right at the Oregon-CA border on the Juan de Fuca rise associated with the subduction zone of the Pacific plates and North American plates. This area, the Juan de Fuca fault subduction zone, has been quiet since 1700 - when a magnitude 9.0 quake occurred dropping land as much as 2 meters (9 feet) over the entire 800 mile Vancouver-Washington-Oregon coastline. That quake in 1700 caused documented 10 meter (30 foot) high tsunami's recorded in Japan that crushed many villages and towns. Many previous large earthquakes...

Shoko Asahara, founder of the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo and mastermind behind the deadly 1995 nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway system — and a number of other horrific crimes in the 1980s and ’90s — was executed on Friday, Justice Minister Yoko Kamikawa confirmed. She also confirmed that six other condemned Aum members — Tomomasa Nakagawa, 55, Kiyohide Hayakawa, 68, Yoshihiro Inoue, 48, Masami Tsuchiya, 53, Seiichi Endo, 58, and Tomomitsu Niimi, 54 — were also executed. In total, Asahara, 63, whose real name was Chizuo Matsumoto, was found guilty for his role in 13 crimes that led...

Japan’s commitment to addressing its dismal record on work-life balance has been called into question after a civil servant was punished for “habitually” slipping away from his desk a few minutes early to buy a bento lunch. The 64-year-old, an employee of the waterworks bureau in the western city of Kobe, was fined and reprimanded after he was found to have left his desk just three minutes before the start of his designated lunch break on 26 occasions over a seven-month period. Senior officials at the bureau then called a televised news conference, where they described the man’s conduct as...

Cape Town is in the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to face the threat of running out of drinking water. However, the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme example of a problem that experts have long been warning about - water scarcity. Despite covering about 70% of the Earth's surface, water, especially drinking water, is not as plentiful as one might think. Only 3% of it is fresh. Over one billion people lack access to water and another 2.7 billion find it scarce for at least one month...

A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper with 90 percent of the building made of wood. Sumitomo Forestry says its wooden high-rise — dubbed the W350 — will be 350 meters tall and the planned structure will be a hybrid of mostly wood and steel. The 70-storey building, expected to be built in Tokyo, will comprise of stores, offices, hotels and private homes, the company noted in plans released earlier in February. Sumitomo Forestry, which notes on its website that "happiness grows from trees," said it aimed to create environmentally-friendly, timber-utilizing cities which "become forests...

A flight that was four hours into its course, bound for Tokyo's Narita Airport Tuesday, had to return to its origin of Los Angeles International Airport after an 'unauthorized person' was on-board. The flight from LAX to Tokyo is about 12 hours long. The total time for the flight to take off and return was just over eight hours.

The United States and East Asian allies must unify to constrain China’s “frightening, “audacious,” and “global” ambitions, said Breitbart News’s Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon on Sunday. President Donald Trump, he added, has begun ushering in an American resurgence toward this end.Bannon’s remarks came as he headlined a J-CPAC event in Tokyo, Japan, hosted by the The American Conservative Union.

A violent attack with Japanese swords and survival knives at Tokyo’s famed Tomioka Hachimangu shrine has left three dead — including the chief priestess and her brother — in an apparent family feud that turned deadly. Head priestess Nagako Tomioka, 58, and the two suspected attackers, her brother Shigenaga, 56, and a woman in her 30s, died Thursday evening, Metropolitan Police Department sources said. After attacking his sister, Shigenaga Tomioka apparently killed the female suspect and then himself, police sources added. Nagako Tomioka’s driver, 33, was also seriously injured in the attack. Authorities suspect a row between the brother and...

A US military assault on North Korea could prompt a last gasp retaliatory nuclear attack by Pyongyang on Seoul and Japan killing as many as 3.8 million people, according to a new analysis of the destructive potential of Kim Jong-un arsenal. Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that all options remain on the table – including the use of force – in dealing with the North Korean threat. However, analysts say the US is hamstrung by Pyongyang’s growing weapons stockpile and the fact that major population centres lie well within its range. A detailed analysis by 38 North, a programme at...

A United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Shanghai, China was diverted from flying over Russian airspace for "diplomatic reasons" early Wednesday morning, passengers on the flight say.Those diplomatic concerns forced the flight to refuel at Tokyo's Narita airport, the flight's captain told passengers, several of whom posted about it on social media. On @United 857 enroute to PVG, diverted to NRT. Captain: Due to diplomatic reasons, Russia denied access to air space. Now refuelling-- brianlinca (@brianlinca) April 12, 2017 One passenger named Andy Brown says that the airplane almost ran out of fuel before landing at Narita. "Then they...

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It's snowing! In Tokyo. First time in fifty years...

A patient in a Tokyo hospital has been left with serious burns after she passed wind during an operation that ignited the laser a surgeon was using during the procedure. The woman, in her 30s, was undergoing surgery at the Tokyo Medical University Hospital which involved a laser being applied to her cervix and lower part of her uterus. However, as the surgeon carried out the procedure, the patient passed wind as the laser was being used. It then caused the gas to ignite, sparking a fire, which set her hospital gown and legs ablaze. She suffered serious burns but...

There is no compromise in My Kingdom for I AM THE WORD ETERNAL therefore I AM both Provider and the lover of your soul. I know the plans I have for you and there is no need for you to compromise with the evil one for he has already been judged by me as un-righteous therefore remain in My will and in My WORD for it is your rudder and key to open each door I have set before you and it is My Spirit that moves these doors as you declare My will in your life. So come and...