Blacksamurai comments

Drawing attention to this is fair enough but what needs to be adressed is how are the Japanese police supposed to know that Black/White/Arabic people whose ethnicity is very obvious in Japan are in fact Japanese citizens?

Something's not being given attention here in this case and you have to say it's the J citizens with foreign roots who are not providing that context.

When Mr Sayad's been stopped, has he ever referred the police to his local koban's officers who have records of every citizen/resident in their areas of responsibility?

For example a few years ago I experienced an issue with mistaken identity and instead of getting hostile with the police showed my driver's license and told them where I lived including the name of an officer in my local koban. Problem solved without escalating. I'm not a citizen but I've taken the time and effort to get to know the local law enforcement, chonaikai etc.

Has Mr Sayed made an effort to get to know local police that way? Or the other people in the lawsuit? I wouldn't be surprised that all the plaintiffs have done the argumentative way instead of being cool and showing ID.

And regardless of any 'But they shouldn't have to!' - how the hell do the J police and anybody else including other foreigners know they are Japanese citizens on sight or should assume that? Anybody who doesn't know these men wouldn't have a lick of recognition that they're Japanese citizens.

Once protesters start to burn cars and property as well as loot others' private property then they step over the line into criminals. Nobody with any common sense should be out there now even if watching.

Cue the hypocritical condemnation of oppressive Central and South American leaders and politicians who do much worse to their own people as a matter of course in their own countries with little respect for or history of the rule of law and a lot of military involvement in law enforcement.

And of course the self righteous wimp 'leading' Australia 'condemned' as 'horrific' an Australian reporter whose network was dumb enough and uncaring enough to put her right near the line of fire. The hypocrisy of those 'outraged' by this but not by so called protests becoming excuses for thuggery and destruction never ends.

Anyone who expects food prices incuding those of popular chain restaurants to remain at the deflated cheap prices they were for around the last two decades has no idea about basic economics.

Japanese food/snack/beverage prices were underpriced for around the previous 2 decades and are now catching up due to different realities. Some people know nothing about supply chains whether domestic or international, how inflation works, completely ignore the fact that businesses that are real businesses unlike speaking your own language 'teaching' in eikaiwa have big costs and cumulative wages.

Just reading comments by foreigners on different websites related to Japan including those crying about onigiri going up in price and 'now becoming a luxury food' shows that many of them are out of touch with reality and too broke to live in Japan.

Memo to all foreign residents of Japan - yep some good advice on here like don't sign anything you can't read/if you don't understand what it is really saying but most important of all, never step up to Japanese police with an attitude. Especially when the matter is something small like showing ID.

There was a video on youtube showing a male foreigner who's a permanent resident getting into unnecessary conflict with the local police because he refused to show ID during a bicycle check. The video was filmed some time ago. I understand his annoyance and frustration and he's married or was then to a Japanese national but all he had to do was show ID, could have been a driver's license or his particular PR ID.

It turned into a drama because the guy was a drama queen. He was aggressive and challenging the police on a simple matte which is the best way to draw attention to yourself and get the matter taken further.

You can take the supposed 'high ground' and say that you won't stand for discrimination but I've seen Japanese people showing ID to the J police when asked and they weren't all young, sketchy or attention drawing in their appearance. That includes a bicycle check in the area near Tokyo Dome and two middle age Japanese women were asked for their ID.

When the J police ask you to move from a place then just do it asap. It's not your right to aggressively ask them 'Why?' and keep asking while refusing to move. It's a crime to push somebody away including J civilians and police and to kick izakaya signs - criminal damage.

The countries western foreigners come from emphasise all this confronting the police and demanding your rights but all it does in Japan is turn situations that are a big nothing burger into a potential trip to the koban and stay there while you learn that the J police are no joke or an escalation into detention, interrogation and charges of obstructing lawful police business. At the least.

Koizumi is a lightweight who's going to contribute just about zero to any meaningful political discussions and actions. A future Prime Minister? What an absolute joke based only on the fact he is PM Koizumi's son.

And PM Koizumi had the strength of character to go ahead with necessary economic reforms even if today some are still lamenting the J Post one - but that needed dealing with. Koizumi and his supportive Ministers are the reason why the J economy started to be more open to foreign markets and why today we have so many consumer items from other countries on the shelves. Just one of a number of examples.

Koizumi's government broke up some of the monopolies because it knew Japan couldn't keep operating like that in a global reality. Unlike most Japanese PMs he took action instead of being scared of some key interest groups and the public. People always mentioning his son in relation to him are insulting him.

No mystery at all about rising rice prices and unavailability - when you have a cartel like Japan Agriculture based on monopoly and over-subsidising by taxpayers, that's what you get.

Throw in ageing farmers into the mix and it looks like those who eat rice - I don't - will just have to get used to it or we will all have to give more of our taxes to this industry just the way we will be doing with the health system more and more.

By her status as a permanent Korean resident of Japan under the laws relating to the Zainichi, this woman isn't required to show a foreign resident card because her status means she doesn't have one.

It's not up to these kinds of permanent residents of Japan to train hotel staff about when it's correct to ask for foreign resident ID. Her healthcare card has her address and unless she was being sketchy about when she would pay and how, she shouldn't have been subjected to all this including the insistence she give her Japanese name.

I get why Japanese hotels want foreign tourists/residents to show ID but their ignorance about Japanese law on this matter including on special permanent residents is their responsibility. Hopefully this hotel's shiranai attitude about its own country's laws will be slapped down in court.

A lot of good perspectives here and I voted up a no. of them including Abe's and Guru Mick's. The Japanese NHI manages to get it right most of the time even with the shortcomings. Somebody made a good point that we can see a specialist without the ring fencing of having to go thru a GP first to get a recommendation. The dental is superior, Japan does us a favor by including it in the public system because that's not the case in a lot of other countries.

By an interesting coincidence had a message from a friend living in Australia, they had a dentist scale down a tooth where the filling had come out and the tooth looks like it will too. Dental isn't included in the public health system there and they paid what would be around 10,000 yen for that. Expensive but they don't have dental in their private health converage, probably wanted to avoid paying more for the cover.

No complaints from him there, the dentist was cool and they told him that the tooth needed to be removed and he'd need a replacement which was true. But they had to recommend a dental specialist, this dentist couldn't do it herself. She wrote the exact code for the procedure and other details for him to give the dental specialist and a copy for himself. This dentist said looking at the state of his remainng tooth it would be a simple procedure for the specialist to take the tooth out. The replacement tooth of course would take another appointment.

Seemed reasonable but when he called the specialist and told them the procedure info, he was told that the first appointment would 'only be a consultation'. The specialist would NOT be doing any work on it despite knowing exactly what it was. He asked if they could make enough time on his appointment day to take the tooth out but that was just dismissed.

They sent my friend the usual forms to fill out but it was the equivalent of some Big Bro paperwork with questions requiring him to list all his family members - he' s single but they wanted all iinfo about his siblings and parents, what health conditions they had etc.

He was prepared to state if he had any allergies, blood conditions etc that might make a dental procedure complicated but not all of this horse$ He phoned and said he was busy, couldn't come and decided to get his dental work done as a tourist when he visits Sth Korea later this year. I appreciate the Japanese system more when I hear true stories like that.

Yeah, some good aspects of the NHI especially the affordable medications and operations. But we all pay a very high cost each month for it, the myth that it's 'cheap' is just that. It's especially hard for income earners where the tax paying threshold starts to around 3.5 million yen a year salary.

Left English teaching years ago but know people still doing it and the 30,000 yen or so they're paying per month for health insurance wouldn't be payable in most western countries on national health systems. Very expensive for the income level.

The UK, Australia, NZ are only 3 of the countries where public health systems are way cheaper and don't charge a monthly fee. And Japanese average incomes are lower in most areas yet people here pay much more for national health. Private health cover in countries like Australia is around the same price as the J national health. And pays for private beds etc.

It's also a myth that 'poor/low income people can't get healthcare in the US'. People who can't pay still get treated for medical operations, it's just that a lot of them never pay it back. Just ask health staff at hospitals in cities with a lot of gang activity and shootings. People who shoot up each other still get treated, operated on and take up bed space.

With the older demographic increasing, we can all expect to pay more to the NHI. It's still worth it but the price per month is steep relative to income.

So can the poster who claims other countries charge non citizens/residents to enter around 10,000 Japanese yen let us all know which countries do that?

Tourist taxes are different from what the poster claims is an entry fee to so many other countries. Apparently. As for how expensive everything is supposedly becoming now in Japan especially in Golden Week, guess what? Japanese hotels that offer very sparse conditions and small rooms have often been expensive for what you get.

I remember staying in a business hotel in Osaka in 2014 and it was 8,000 yen per night. It was a very basic room with not much room. Not in Golden Week. A jump in prices for capsule hotels in central Tokyo so that it's 10,000 yen per night doesn't sound a big deal at all when it's central Tokyo and 2025. During a peak time for staying in a hotel.

All the hysteria about Japanese people being 'poor' now is just that. The days of big spending power for ordinary Japanese was over years ago and before PM Koizumi opening up the J markets more, food was expensive, usually in small sizes and there just wasn't a lot of variety or access to foreign consumables unless you lived in Tokyo or Osaka. And those supermarkets were charging something like 4,000 yen for a block of foreign cheese, 400 yen for a foreign chocolate bar etc. In the early 2,000s.

Japanese people now aren't as willing to put up with all the inconvenience of Golden Week, there's more of a slow life priority. And yes the dumb focus on milliions of tourists has made it harder but they still don't go to some of the best places we know as residents in Japan and that Japanese nationals know.

Sure, there are groups of foreign visa holders on work visas who have situations that are way more difficult than some other groups and there needs to be more of a focus on companies breaking Japanese labor law as well as that Immigration law re what they're supposed to provide to foreigners brought in on working visas.

But come on now - in many countries in the world, overstaying your visa especially in ways that are clearly deliberate and designed to evade authorities for whatever reasons is a criminal offense. No ifs, no buts. Why on earth should Japan starting adopting the easier attitudes in some western countries that have led to significant communities of illegal residents with accompanying problems of breaking the law in worse ways?

Japan doesn't have the atittude of the US for example where Mexicans and other citizens of central and southern America were supplying cheap labor and so under some authorities were ignored provided they kept doing work for cheaper pay including some difficult work like slaugherhouse work for example. In Japan illegal residents are likely to be employed by people from their own countries with legal businesses and visas.

Should this be just a case of 'Oh, they're just undocumented'? Nope, will set a bad precedent for Japan. Things are different in Japan, same with many non western countries.

Similar situation to Japan's attitude to asylum seekers/refugee applicants - western countries governments take them in and usually give free housing until the benefits offically start getting paid and even then the rent and utitlities etc all come out of the welfare that is paid by the host countries' taxpayers. Even now when their own citizens and residents are already struggling to find housing let alone buy property, there's been a jump in homelessness and social services etc are overstretched already but priority will be given to the newcomers who didn't pay to come like immigrants.

Japan will never be so generous especially if its own citizens/residents are facing a housing crisis etc. Why should it be? Japan will never behave as if illegal overstay/residency in Japan is just one of those things and will never incentivise it by pretending that those people who break the law are simply 'undocumented' and have the right to select their residency in Japan despite the MOJ stating clearly what their obligations are.

Gee, 'a survey of 1,000 Americans' shows zip, zero, nada regardless of what you think of Trump. The US has around 330 million people, some of you need to take time out from your political hatreds and think in a rational way.

Quoting that 'statistic' as some kind of authoritative judgement is just symptomatic of the fact that many people cannot have a grown up debate and discussion about politics anymore. But but but 1,000 people outta 330 million think/say.........................

No sympathy for Japan over the Kurils - this is what happens after one expansionist country is defeated by another in war. Japan lost WW2 and therefore lost that territory.

If Japan feels so strongly about the Kurils then it should give Okinawa its independence because traditionally Okinawa has nothing to do with Japan. The native Okinawans have similar genes and culture to the native people of Formosa commonly known as Taiwan who were not from the Chinese mainland.

Not sure about Takeshima either because it seems the claims by the Japanese came with the rise in the Black Ocean Society type militarist, elitist societies after the Meiji Restoration and their designs on Korea - Koreans seem to have been way on Dokdo and in that area more active there for centuries.

And let's not have another round of apologist propaganda activities this time targeted at the new young generations of Japanese - it's bad enough that those in the 21st century haven't been taught any significant 19th century and 20th century Japanese/World History apart from outlines of the Meiji Restoration and concentration on the atomic bombs without the context of Japan's dark tunnel of fascist militarisation in the 20th century.

This includes widespread ignorance of extremist assassinations of moderate politicians leading up to the imposition of military dictatorship including secret police and a medical system endorsing experimentation on live humans who belonged to the 'inferior' and 'enemy' groups. Many of these generations don't even realise that Imperial Japan was allied with Nazi Germany. Promoting nationalistic museums seems part of this problem.

Wishma wasn't only let down not only by callous people at the detention center who aren't suitable to be doing that job.

She was let down by her family who knew she was doing all this and probably encouragd it because there was obviously no arrangement to send money for a one way ticket back to Sri Lanka when their daughter's student visa was cancelled back in 2018. Wishma should have been out of Japan at the latest by the end of July - her student visa was cancelled in June.

The priority should have absolutely been getting out then especially given Japan's very clear messages to all visa holders including students about the MOJ definition of an Immigration crime. If Wishma had applied for refugee status when her student visa ran out it's doubtful she would have been given it but she still would have not been obviously and consciously evading the authorities until 2020. She would have been given the time to prepare to go back to Sri Lanka.

She was also let down by the organisation/individuals who encouraged her to make a refugee case after 2 years of demonstrating no intention to communicate with Immigration after being told she was no longer a student under Japanese law and she had to go home. There was no way she was going to be considered then regardless of being an alleged victim of domestic violence by the Sri Lankan man was living with in 2020, still unregistred with authorities.

And everywhere in the world - you don't want to commit any offense/crime according to a country's laws because ending up in detention/prison will put you into contact with individuals who do not see their job as making your life easier or being professional towards detainees/prisoners. No matter how decent or professional other warders/officers are. Do not take that risk of ending up in detention/prison.

Nobody on here is saying Wishma did not deserve basic human rights and more in detetnion. Nobody.

Rational people are saying that when your visa is cancelled in Japan or runs out, you must like in every other country make a real effort to go home. If you can't, you go to the relevant Immigration Office ASAP and explain why you need time to get your act together to leave. You show evidence you've been looking for flights, making arrangements to start the process. The correct approach and intent will be accepted.

The people I knew overstayed did so by less than 4 months. They were still told they had to leave, had to show proof of an airline ticket and would be detained if they did not leave by the date agreed with Immigration. The fact they did not get detained started with them going to Immigration and apologising after the overstays.

Immigration will not approve but will accept that an overstay up to a certain time whilel illegal does not necessarily show intent to keep doing it when the overstayer goes in person to inform them.

Wishma's case was clearly an evasion of the authorities and system from June 2018 to August 2020 after her student visa was cancelled, she played a very risky game doing this and then to apply for refugee status after Immigration had the information about why she was no longer allowed to be on a student visa in Japan or in Japan all was the wrong move made by her in a series of wrong moves.

Her family has never dealt with the question of why they did not send her a cheap one way ticket in 2018 when her visa was cancelled. Supposedly they couldn't pay her tuition but it's hard to believe they would let daughter commit an Immigration crime in a foreign country rather than borrow a one off airfare back to Sri Lanka. Wishma was apprently working illegally but again, if she had gone to Immigration and said she had to work to pay for an airline ticket to go home after her student visa was cancelled, it's likely some flexibility would have been given.

Wishma never gave Immgration any reason to believe she was sincere in accepting her visa cancellation, following all the Immigration laws she was bound by and intended to go home as she was directed. The 2 years of evading the system showed that alone. She would not have been detained had she simply accepted she was no longer entitled to live in Japan.

And people saying that if Wishma did all that as a white European she'd be fine have zero knowledge of Japanese Immigration Law and the system. As far back as the year 2,000 the J Immigration Law was changed to get tougher and there have been even more changes made over the last two decades. I've known a few white westerners who overstayed their visas,one even got a lawyer in one case but had to go and were banned from Japan for a number of years.

The difference between these foreigners and other foreigners regardless of ethnicity/nationality and Wishma is that they went to the Immigration Office with their ID, said they made a mistake, apologised and were not detained pending Immigration's action. When Immigration told them they had to leave they bought a one way ticket and went again to the Immigration Office to show it. They signed documents saying they had overstayed and understood they had broken Japanese law and were prohibited from entering Japan in any way for a set number of years.

Wishma basically tried to go undetected by the system and didn't contact Immigration that way. She couldn't afford a lawyer but neither could a couple of those foreigners I mentioned. She didn't front up at the Immigration Office until she left a foreign male she'd been living with unregistered at the address, and then said she was a victim of domestic violence.

Even then if she had said at Immigration she would return to Sri Lanka as soon as possible and signed a document saying she had broken Japanese law by overstaying, would purchase a one way ticket and acknowledged she would not be able to enter Japan again for a certain amount of time, the odds are she would not have been detained. Her parents could have sent her the money for a one way ticket by Western Union or another service like that if Wishma's bank account had been frozen They could have sent her funds for cheap accommodation until her leaving date.

Some people on here don't understand that Japan doesn't want to detain overstayers - it wants them to return home and expects them to demonstrate they can and will do this seriously. Wishma did not prioritise this and it ended up horribly.

As usual some here are asserting that others are 'victim blaming' and the entire point is only that this detention center's staff's neglect led to the unnecessary death of this lady.

The others here are pointing out that nobody on this topic is condoning any abuse of power, neglect of detainees and failure to deliver adequate medical care as a key part of this Immigration Detention Center's responsibility. Its legal duty of care. We are saying that Wishma's death was so needless in two basic ways.

The first is her failure to follow Immigration laws and return home when her visa was cancelled and she was refused an extension which led to her deliberate overstay and then detention The second is the failure of this center in Aichi to follow its legal obligations to detainees and to ensure all its staff carry out their duties correctly without any prejudice and with accountability.

But the bad choices were made by Wishma herself. It seems she was doing what some international students do in some of the developed countries they study in - focus on working rather than studying, usually outside the rules.

Her visa was likely cancelled because her focus wasn't study and the authorities found out. She probably didn't have the necessary funds to continue study as the main focus of her residency in Japan but that's one of the requirements for being able to continue as a student in Japan. And elsewhere. And going on the lam and avoiding the system after her permission to stay ran out was her choice. She chose the wrong country to break the laws governing her stay.

Time to drop this - obviously somebody else is paying for this legal case and lawyer. What happened to that Sri Lankan woman is tragic but Japan's way of looking at it is yes, there is failure of duty of care in the detention center and there needs to be accountability. However, Wishma committed an immigration crime by wilfully over stayng her visa for narly 3 years.

Her choices were very bad - instead of heading off home when her visa was coming to an end she moved prefectures and then lived with a man she said was violent. Again, a terrible thing but all these complications happened because she chose to stay in Japan illegally which is a significant immigration crime here regardless of what others like to say. If she supposedly.

As for the assertion some put up that she had no money to go home which is why she overstayed - doesn't make sense. No money to go home but you can live in Japan illegally? When you look at all the travelling her parents and siblings have done pursuing this case, it shows us that they could have paid for a cheap one way ticket for their daughter to come home. Bad choices can have fatal consequences and Japan isn't going to drop its laws for foreign law breakers. Safer being responsible and following a country's laws anywhere in the world.

The deflationary trajectory is finished in Japan, not going back to it especially as it lasted for decades. Alcoholic drinks going up? So they should compared to non alcoholic regardless that I like drinking alcohol in Japan sometimes.

If you want a cheap lunch on the run during your working day you can still buy a coffee, cake and sandwich at conbini for under 700 yen. In most first world countries you can cancel out one/two of those items for the same total price and the cheapest store coffee to self serve and go is from 300 to 400 yen, more in Scandinavian countries, some European countries, Canada and Australia.

As for those English teaching jobs not paying enough and staying stagnant in pay for a decade or more - no difference if they're university/college or eikaiwa. They pay the value of those whose first language just happens to be English, no extra qualifications needed for so many so called 'teaching' jobs. And when they are, if you're still complaining about stagnant pay then you know what you need to do - improve yourself to work in another industry. But the forever gap year mentality is very strong among people in the 'English teaching industry'.

Yeah, nobody likes rising prices but Japan had deflation for years, the covid pandemic gave govts the world over the excuse to re-set their economies and that includes inflation and tax increases. Japan's food and drink prices are still cheaper than in many first world countries.

And if you're still working at the same English teaching job for a decade and noticing that your new contract includes no change then that's your responsibility, not Japan's. Nobody's forcing any foreigners to work in low paid Eikaiwa especially western foreigners who have more options than foreigners from developing coutries.

Any economic problems English teachers are experiencing doing low paid jobs because they've never had the smarts, skills and grown up attitude to improve themselves are their own responsibility. Living a forever gap year lifestyle in Japan doesn't deserve higher pay,

Sure we get the family of this convicted murderer doesn't want to believe their mother and wife could do this and more importantly in Japan, don't want the stigma of being associated with a woman executed for the crime of poisoning neighbors at what should have been another pleasant J community event.

But that doesn't mean they have a case. Anybody bringing in the ol 'Oh but the Japanese police get people convicted on no evidence but confessions' etc seriously underestimate the detection work the police do in cases of murder including this one.

There was enough circumstantial evidence to convict Hayashi, people just didn't read about that at the time it was fresh news. She wasn't hanging out away from anybody, she was near that pot of curry and unlike other attendees didn't have anybody who could vouch for the fact she was with him and couldn't have done it. Her connection to insurance fraud and arsenic poisoning is another piece of legit evidence showing what kind of person she is along with her husband.

Don't put the western system of justice's flaws onto Japan's system. Western countries like to go with 'Oh nobody actually saw them do it so we can't convict' and ignore a chain of evidence and background pointing to actual criminality.

The Japanese do get it right the overwhelming majoirty of the time especially when it comes to capital crimes and the dude who is off death row also gave them reasons to believe he did it regardless of any interference by individuals. It's the process there that got him off, not his supposedly pristine 100 percent 'innocence' which is the narrative his supporters and others want to believe.

I get the locals' feelings and worries but they also have to be realistic - they admitted that the town is no longer a hot spring town that used to have enough Japanese visiting. Foreigners aren't responsible for the demographic declines in the Tohoku region and others in Japan with similar drastically ageing populations and no viable local economy to attract younger Japanese to live there, have kids there and stay there.

Skiing and snowboarding are the only attractions there and they will bring an influx of foreign investment. If the Japanese govt's laws permit this kind of foreign investment then it will come. Niigata's young/younger people leave in droves and most end up in Tokyo and other big Japanese cities. Local city ordinances and policing can be used more effectively to stop anti social behavior by foreign visitors/residens.

As for Mr Koji Miyashita saying he no longer feels as if he's in Japan - welcome to the world where countries like the UK and England with centuries of culture that developed countries have embraced in the sciences, arts, philosophy, political theory have seen big immigration intakes for decades ofpeople from countries with little in common. And maybe Mr Miyashita forgets or was completely unaware of the Japanese spending spree in the 80s and 90s in other countries that saw an over abundance of golf courses and in some cases ugly developments that had nothing to do with the local interests/benefits. As well as laundered money.

There were always some in the Republican circle who believed that billions and billions of US dollars should not have been thrown at the Ukrainian government. Even if Russia did invade the Ukraine.

Simplistic attitudes towards a complex situation between Russia and the Ukraine achieve zero. Billions of any other country's wealth should not be handed over without some deep scrutiny of exactly who is running a country. Trump happens to be in that camp judging by what he has said and done.

This topic is financial aid and some of us believe it should not have got to this point with the Ukraine-Russia situation. Before the war there were question marks over Zelensky and his govt which came to power with the help of a broadcasting network he and friends were connected to. Among other connections. There's the massively expensive properties in the UK and the offshore character of his and his allies' other propety acqusitions/investments even before the 8 million dollar houses abroad after the billions came in from the west.

More details in the Organized Crime and Corruption Offshore Reporting Project. This man is no Churchill and his govt is no British War Cabinet. Gvts in the west don't care about all these facts but some citizens of countries everywhere do. No support for corruption while denouncing it on the other side - no more billions for the Ukraine until an anti oligarch leader and govt can be elected. Then the moral high ground can be taken.

Somebody listed prices for food items including steak, yoghurt, peppers, kimchi that are no evidence of high prices - just the opposite. Japan may not be raising wages across the board but its food/beverage prices are way below those in many other first world countries. Some are even the same as countries like Thailand.

If you think grocery shopping is expensive in Japan, you need to change jobs or return home.

Ms Ito was mickey finned and raped when she could not resist, had to be dragged out of the hotel in that shocking state. By a male journalist with a hell of a lot of influence, especially political.

Yet a few posters on here are saying that she is after attention and money - what a disgraceful way to talk about a brave woman who really is standing against a very closed male club in powerful places including the media cartels. Her lonely bucking against the system has turned into a movement - power to Ms Shiori Ito and I hope her documentary wins the accolades and awards it deserves.

The UN has no elections, none open to anybody who helps fund this massive, non accountable organisation made up of the same ol political associates/favor doers/family/ex politicians who want to keep putting their snouts in more of the money trough. It has no open job advertisements so that the populations of its member countries who fund it the most cannot find out what is on offer, except for very few occasionally placed in govt publications that the public never sees.

The UN is about political networks doing themselves and theirs favors. It has literally thousands of 'committees' and 'panels' unanswerable to the tax paying populations that fund them and many of those on them have never been heard of as accomplishing anything for the citizens of member countries because it's all about the closed political circles.

Why on earth should Japan put up with these gravy train riders preaching to them about its internal affairs? Cutting off money and the freeloading like international trips to Japan and other countries to lecture them on their own culture is a good start. Other member countries with some commonsense still and sovereignty need to copy Japan.

Pointing to a list of countries that don't recognise Israel doesn't say much considering most of those countries are not even democratic let alone supportive of any diversity including religious. In fact some of those countries have horrific human rights abuse records and do not have the rule of law.

As for an anti Israel poster having an issue with the term 'Jewish westerners' - this refers to the Jewish populations of countries like the US, UK and Australia, many of whom have lived for more than a century there. The Jewish people in the UK are proud to call themselves British and Jewish and even sang God Save The King when they had their demonstrations in London to bring back the hostages.

Not one of them attacked a police officer or police horse, sprayed graffiti, expressed hatred agains the UK/the wish to do violence in the UK, used discriminatory slurs or prevented people from going about their lawful business. Many people in the entertainment industry in the UK have Jewish ancestry and other notable people like David Beckham who is Jewish on his mother's side. Jewish people are well integrated in the US and Australia to name only 2 other countries.

As for the IDF etc reference, the Jewish population of Israel have many who come from the Jewish diaspora to the west. Including British, American and European Jewish people. And a fact that is often unrecognised, deliberately in some cases, is that there are Arabic citizens of Israel with full rights.

Trump said the area was 'a demolition zone', nothing wrong with that and demolition zones need time to be cleared out and cleaned out. The peanut brigade in the left leaning mainstream media and elsewhere always fasten on to what they want to hear and put their nasty spin on it.

As somebody said, Saudi Arabia could fund the renewal all by itself. It could also take the Palestinians - after all, Hamas used public executions and violent punishments as part of its 'governance' yet we keep reading how terrible the west is. If our countries are so bad, stop asking us to do everything especially as most Palestinians are Muslim.

Don't demand to go to British founded countries like Aus, NZ and Canada and then scream that the locals who built those modern states are 'occupiers', 'murderers' etc as has happened in demonstrations there. You're happy to get all the free money and housing and other freebies from those states but want to insult the host and insist you are separate.

The trillions of dollars in foreign aid that have flowed to Palestinians from the west, some of it used for weaponry, are a reason alone to now no more. As for Arafat, he and the Israeli leader Barak tried to solve the problem but it was Arafat who refused to compromise on something key and that put an end to that.

Nothing will work for the Palestinians until they and the oil rich Arab nations who should be the ones to assist them instead of ordinary taxpayers in western countries who have to bear the burden of taking in them as refugees even while many are unsuitable for a contemporary western society. Including unsuitable for living alongside Jewish westerners without bringing old resentments and hatreds.

Many times since the state of Israel was founded, were there attempts to provide solutions which were rejected by Palestinian leaders and their Arab world supporters. Time for them all to take responsibility.

European and other western countries no longer have their homelands for themselves due to the asylum seeking/refugee seeking people like Palestinians and Middle Easterns and the Irish who had the English for 600 yrs in their native land and weren't even allowed to know their own language now have their Republic have many, many people there now from countries and cultures with no historical, cultural or geographical connection.

Stop giving exceptionalism to Palestinians. They and their leaders rejected solutions for decades and then elected Hamas in Gaza. Why should western countries and asian countries pay the price for the Arab countries' refusal to also take responsibility? And don't give me the 'right of return' false argument.

Colonised western people like the Irish and others have no right of return even with both sides of the family being fully Irish in ancestry stretching back hundreds of years. You have to have a parent or grandparent born there. If not, you can't go home and you don't even have the right to go there that somebody from Africa or the ME does. The Palestinians should be given all their aid and where they live by the Arab nations - their responsibility.

No surprises there whatsoever. If you've ever been to Kannami Town you'll know why kids are bored enough to do something like this that was guaranteed to get them caught right away.

Nothing to do there tho the town of Mishima itself near the station is a nice old place. A dude who worked in Kannami at an English school there used to go jogging at tnight and was reported by the locals to the police. For jogging while foreign at night. Not so long ago. The kind of place I never worked at in Japan and never will even if there were the business jobs I do there. Which there will be never be.