M3M3M3 comments

Even $15,000 is ridiculously expensive when you realise how much cheaper cars could be. I wonder how many struggling people would willingly buy a $3500 Tata Nano if it were street legal in the US.

As wages and living standards continue to decline and the divide between 1st and 3rd world begins to blur, how long until our current safety standards are viewed as a luxury that society can no longer afford, and people should not be forced to pay for?

@browny1

I'm not sure the Fujimori case shows Japan's hypocrisy. According to the Japanese govt, Fujimori was born in Peru (some question this) which gave him Peruvian citizenship by birth, but his parents also registered him with the Japanese consulate which granted him Japanese citizenship.

Today, the Nationality Law stipulates that a young person must choose one nationality by a certain age, but those who fail to do this are not automatically stripped of citizenship if they don't file the paperwork.

To complicate things further, Fujimori was born in 1938 before these laws were on the books. What was the law at the time? Should the new law be retrospectively applied to every dual citizen, or only those under 21, or those born before it was enacted? It's not a clear cut situation.

For those who insist on allowing dual citizenship, would you accept certain restrictions or a second class of citizenship such as in Australia and some other countries where duel citizens are prohibited from sitting in parliament, or holding certain public positions, ie judges, police officers, etc? This seems like a very fair compromise to me.

Kondo, who was born in Japan, acquired U.S. citizenship in 2004.

I'm sympathetic to those who were born with 2 citizenships, and even those who acquire citizenship in a third country which doesn't require an oath of allegiance. But the idea that Japan should tolerate or make any allowances for someone who became a US citizens by swearing the following oath seems absurd:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America

Call me old fashioned but I think words matter and they should have consequences.

Haiti is a small outpost of west-Africa in North America. The living standards, social norms, and economic development of Haiti mirror those found in most west-African countries. Some people will bend over backwards to avoid seeing this.

If you look past the seemingly futuristic vehicles, there's no real innovation here. It's just a helicopter. In Sao Paulo, helicopters have always been a popular way for the wealthy to hop from building to building, avoiding the out of control crime, poverty and disorder below.

If companies like Joby Aviation become successful, it will mostly be due to deteriorating living standards and the Brazilification of American cities rather than any major advances in quadcopter or AI technology.

@OssanAmerica

"If correct, the France can charge him with murder as well"

Would you care to explain that comment? The crime occured in Japan where only Japanese law has jurisdiction.

One assumes that Japan should be the only country with jurisdiction in this case, and in practice it will probably be the only country to actually excercise jurisdiction, but travelbangaijin's comment is not entirely absurd.

Under domestic French law, French courts reserve the right to excercise jurisdiction in any case where a perpetrator or even a victim is a French national. So if you assault a French tourist on the streets of Tokyo and the victim is unsatisfied with Japanese police response, a French court could theoretically issue a warrant for your arrest even if you are not French and have never set foot in France. Unsurprisingly, Japan and most other countries do not recognise this broad jurisdiction and it is rarely excercised, but it does exist in France.

To give a real example, there was a controversial case a few years ago where a French court issued an arrest warrant for a Japanese woman involved in a custody battle with a French man because the children being 'abducted' were French citizens. The couple had lived, married, had children, and divorced entirely in Japan under Japanese law.

"As long as my tax money doesn't go towards their healthcare"

American healthcare is by private health insurance.

Are you ready for a mind-boggling statistic?

Despite having a privately run system, the US government still spends $1.5 trillion in public funds on healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, etc). That's roughly $4500 per capita. The UK spends $242 billion (£181 billion) to publicly fund the entire NHS. That works out to only around $3560 per capita.

More tax money is spent on healthcare in the US than the UK, largely due to exorbitant prices.

The AUKUS sub will be nuclear, based off tech from the UK Dreadnought Class and US Virginia class

I think the bigger question is whether the AUKUS sub "will be" at all. Alot can change by the late 2030s when these subs are expected to set sail.

@itsonlyrocknroll

M3, a lawyer friend suggested the other day, a prolonged interrogation from a J prosecutor, some times over days/weeks possibly without periods of sleep/rest, and I would admit to stealing the crown jewels.

The interrogation is effectively the trial in Japan. You will be locked up for weeks, and you probably will lose your job, but the other way the system works is that if you persevere, insist on your innocence, and don't confess, there is a very high likelihood that prosecutors will drop all charges against you. The reason they are so eager to extract that confession is because they are extremely reluctant to proceed without it.

@David Brent

One thing which terrifies me about living in Japan is being arrested for something I didn't do. There's no pursuit of truth here; it's just about ticking boxes and getting a conviction.

I think everyone in Japan shares this fear to some extent.

But have you ever considered that this fear is also part of what keeps the crime rate so low? When people are scared that they might easily be swept up by the police or wrongly accused, they go out of their way to avoid even the appearance of doing anything illegal. They shun anyone and anything associated with criminal activity. For better or worse it's a form of detterence.

They just have to mind control 12 jurors and a judge now. Oh, also all of the appellate judges.

Which probably won't be difficult because I'm sure it will be shown that he took some funds tied to foreign sources. With the amount of money floating around US politics, it's inevitable.

The problem with charges like this is not that they are entirely concocted, but that scrutiny and prosecution might be applied selectively. Obviously we'll have to wait and see if that is the case here.

It would be nice to stick with the old system that worked well in a high-trust society, but times have changed.

There are cases where people gain residency status and then rent out their health insurance certificates to other foreigners who pretend to be the insured person to get surgeries and expensive medical treatments. Presumably the photo on the MyNumber card will add an additional layer of difficulty for such scammers.

@Simon Foston

Did you have anyone in particular in mind.

Yes. The CDP candidate who ran in my district in the previous election had been a member of something like 6 or 7 different political parties over the past decade. These people spend their time playing politics by feuding amongst themselves and forming new parties and dissolving old ones to gain influence, status and prestige.

Just think about the psychological profile of someone who goes into opposition politics in Japan. They know that they will likely never touch the levers of power in their career, never craft or even contribute to any legislation, never have any impact on policy debates, never make any difference. And yet they do it. Why? The problem with opposition politics in Japan is the type of people it attracts.

To draw a comparison, I have an acquaintance in China who's a rabid Milton Friedman-style libertarian. But he's also an active card carrying communist party member, because he's smart enough to realise that unless he promotes his policy ideas within the existing power system, he's just wasting his time.

In a one party state the opposition is usually a joke. The people who join these fringe parties are usually petty narcissists who like to see their own face on an election poster even if they have no chance of winning.

Any talented young person with strong opinions on government policy would be far better off joining the LDP and one of its many internal factions, even if they oppose everything the LDP currently stands for. This at least gives them a seat at the table and an opportunity to shape policy.

Words rhetoric, taken straight out from Nazi Germany playbook, circa 1937, to justify invasion, horrors that led to WW2.

Russian speakers must leave, return to Russia where they belong.

You do realise that Russian speakers have lived across Ukraine for centuries? Zelenskyy, his closest advisors, and his top generals are all Russian speakers who could barely speak a word of Ukrainian before this conflict broke out. Invoking the horrors of WW2 and then calling for genocide (forced population transfer) in the same post is not exactly a good look.

what it requires is a minimum moral standard for the government to hold.

Can you define the moral standard you're appealing to? Because I would say 99% of Japanese people I've spoken to about this topic are unflinchingly supportive of the death penalty. They aren't even interested in sophisticated arguments about detterence. They simply see the death penalty as a justified revenge killing.

I think Westerners, even fervent atheists, often fail to appreciate the dense layer of Christian morality that permeates every aspect of our thinking. For better or worse, people in Asia are unencumbered by this. Putting murderers to death is part of their moral framework.

Unless we can come up with some better ideas.. 

What's the better idea? Lock them up at taxpayer expense for their entire lives? Is that really better? And better for who?

@Strangerland

The problem is that when you set the death penalty as a policy, sometimes you take out an innocent person's eye. Or rather, execute them.

I don't want those people's blood on my hands, and if I were to support the death penalty as a policy, morally, their blood would be on my hands

The same argument could be made against punishing someone with a lengthy prison sentence. If society convicts an innocent person and releases them decades later, are you not also morally responsible for destroying their lives by keeping them locked up for so long? Or do you sleep better at night knowing that they can still piece together some semblance of a life with the years they have left? In both cases you are effectively destroying a life.

I used to be against the death penalty in my youth but as I grow older I now think it should remain in place, if only as a tradition that connects us to our past and a symbolic reminder that our very lives and continued existence depends partly on peaceful coexistence with other people who make up society. It is used so sparingly in Japan that it can only be symbolic.

It is indeed a war crime to place or hide combatants inside schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure.

The entire Gaza strip is civilian infrastructure. It's one of the most densely populated areas of the planet. The idea that Hamas should stay away from schools is laughable given that Israel is killing Palestinian children everywhere.

I don’t know if you can exterminate a bunch of terrorists

The idea that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation is laughable at this point given the context of tens of thousands of dead civilians in Gaza.

The total number of deaths attributable to all supposed Hezbollah terror attacks is only around 540 people, and the overwhelming majority of these were military personnel and government officials in the 1980s.

Considering the substantial finances and weaponry at their disposable, they would have to be one of the most restrained and least effective terror organisation in history.

If the pagers were targeted to specific enemy combatants and their leadership then there is no war crime. 

And what exactly is an 'enemy combatant'? This term was invented and used by the US government during the 'war on terror' but it has no recognised definition or relevance in the context of war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed U.S. thinking toward a new philosophy - "affordable mass,"

It makes sense, but it misses the underlying reason the US shifted to ultra-hightech weapons in the first place. After Vietnam, it became obvious that the US public lacks the stomach to absorb the huge losses inherent to low-tech combat, especially in a foreign conflict.

We need an emotional tribute song for Ukraine as support stalls,” he wrote. “I have lyrics and music.”

Has the FBI released these yet? The people have a right to see them.

Seriously all the people already getting fed up with the illegal immigration.

The problem with complaining about "illegal" immigration is that it barely exists these days. According to asylum laws in almost every western nation, the entire world has the legal right to show up at the border, apply for refugee status, and remain while their case is being processed. If they are rejected, they can re-apply indefinitely by claiming material facts in their case have changed. Illegal immigration doesn't really exist as long as the current asylum framework remains in place.

Well....., he might but that would be the end of him, Russia or possibly all of us so is that a gamble he is willing to take, I'm highly betting not.

The question boils down to whether you really think that NATO and liberal western governments would immediately decide to annihilate millions of Russian civilians with nuclear missiles if Russia launched a single limited strike on an arms depot or shipment within a NATO state. Would that not be irrational and unhinged?

The problem for NATO is that its credibility relies on that commitment of an immediate and overwhelming response to defend its members at any cost. If that response doesn't come for whatever reason, the alliance is finished. It's tempting bluff to call for someone in Putin's position.

I don't imagine Russia could even find one of these shipments. Otherwise they could just hit it when it crosses the border.

The point would not be to successfully hit an actual shipment. It would only be the pretext for a limited strike within NATO territory.

Putin will never attack a NATO country.

I would not be surprised if Putin does this before the war is over. He's not getting any younger and the temptation to call NATOs bluff might become irresistible for him.

If Russia were to launch a pinpoint strike on military supplies crossing the border while still in a country like Romania or Poland, and then issue a statement acknowledging the extraordinary nature of this strike and how the decision was not taken lightly but was considered vital for Russia's security, how would NATO actually respond?

Would there be a retaliatory strike on Russia? Would there be a declaration of war and triggering of Article 5? What would it look like? Which NATO nation would authorise the attack to be launched from its territory given the obvious risks?

For better or worse, NATO would likely be frozen with indecision and disagreement on how to proceed, calling into question its relevance.

Most of you probably weren't around back then, but we had a similar issue with Palestinians 20 years ago. Japan has never recognised the Palestinian state, so under Japanese law any Palestinian who managed to find their way to Japan was considered stateless and immediately eligible for Japanese citizenship. A friend of mine is actually a Palestinian who managed to get Japanese citizenship this way. However, after the numbers started to increase, the government simply issued a Ministerial Ordinance or some other type of interpretive guidance that effectively said "even though Japan doesn't recognise Palestine, it doesn't actually mean Palestinians are stateless because... reasons". The Afghan situation is far less complex than Palestine because Japan does continue to recognise Afghanistan as a sovereign state despite not recognising the current government. Whatever trick they used 20 years ago to change the interpretation of statelessness will likely be re-deployed here.

@ian

The Japanese govt ruled that the baby is Japanese. Where does it say that the govt denied the baby citizenship?

Logically, the only way for this case to have reached the Nagoya High Court is if an application for citizenship was denied by the Minstry of Justice and the parents sued.

@Ian

in the eyes of the Japanese government, her parents are stateless and have no nationality. Under Japan’s Nationality Law, a child born in such a situation is considered to have Japanese nationality.*

Regardless of what the article claims here, the Japanese government clearly disagrees. Otherwise they wouldn't be in court trying to defend their decision to deny the baby citizenship.