Japan is calling the resolution regrettable.

The U.S. House of Representative has passed its resolution demanding that Japan issue a formal apology for forcing women into service as comfort women during World War II.

Though largely symbolic, the nonbinding resolution has caused unease in Japan and added tension to an otherwise strong alliance. Officials in Tokyo say their country’s leaders, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, have apologized repeatedly for the Imperial Japanese Army’s forcing of women to work in military brothels in the 1930s and 1940s.

The resolution’s supporters, however, say Japan has never assumed responsibility fully for the treatment of the women.

Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., labeled as “nauseating” what he said were efforts by some in Japan “to distort and deny history and play a game of blame the victim.”

“Inhumane deeds should be fully acknowledged,” said Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “The world awaits a full reckoning of history from the Japanese government.”

The resolation demands that Japan “formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner.”

After decades of denial, the Japanese government acknowledged its role in wartime prostitution after a historian discovered documents showing government involvement. In 1993, the government issued a carefully worded official apology, but it was never approved by parliament. Japan has rejected most compensation claims, saying they were settled by postwar treaties.

According to Wired magazine, exercising is a big problem for Tokyo gals. Manga club meetings and cram school fill up their free time, and there’s no money for a gym membership after paying for cell phone bills and Pocky snacks.

Enter a spate of new “conbini fitness” outlets. No pain no gain–and at a mere 500 yen a shot!

That’s the exact equivalent of five McPork burgers at McDonald’s. Which do you think would be healthier? Hard to say, but it’s clear that for 1000 yen you could have five McPork burgers and then work them off too–perfect!

These health outlets offer coin-op workout stations for impulse exercising. The contraptions’ foot pads churn up and down and back and forth at up to 1,560 times per minute. (One 500 yen coin — about $4.10 — buys 10 minutes.) Maintaining your balance while you shake supposedly has an aerobic effect, though users never break a sweat. “I love that I don’t even have to change clothes,” says 17-year-old Midori Nishioka as she bounces on a conbini machine in Osaka.

Wired adds that, in case gals are worried about pervs ogling their jiggle, many of the clubs are ladies-only or feature privacy partitions.

The Philippine government has ordered the discontinuance of strip searches of suspected Japanese yakuza by immigration officers to look for tattoos. Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan took the action because of complaints about the strip search policy.

Libanan said, “Henceforth, the conduct of monitoring, examination and inspection of departing and arriving passengers shall be limited only to their travel papers and documents.”

At the same time, the immigration chief orders immigration officers to stop inspecting hand-carried luggage of passengers, as this is the function of customs authorities and security officials at the airports.

Libanan adds tattoos alone cannot be the sole basis to bar any foreigner from entering the country. He said immigration officers must only send back anyone to their port of origin if they receive derogatory information about them.

According to Libanan, “Unless a tattoo is morally offensive, indecent and vulgar or [of a] politically and racially insidious depiction, it should be treated as an art.”

The Philippines still, however, will maintain its ban on yakuza entering the country.

Via Mulboyne at FG

Do you think the ruling coalition members learned anything from their election defeat this past weekend?

According to Kazuo Kitagawa, secretary-general of Komeito, which is the coalition partner of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), there wasn’t anything worth learning.

“I think that voters aren’t necessarily rejecting the reform policies of Abe and (former Prime Minister Junichiro) Koizumi,” Kitagawa said.

Kitagawa talked with reporters late Sunday night after voting for the Upper House election finished.

Meanwhile, a survey of voters assign traits like “arrogance” and “untrusworthiness” to the LDP, and “immaturity” and “expectation raising” to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).

Only 14 percent of respondents said the LDP “raises expectations,” a drop of 8 percentage points on an identical survey carried out last year, while other positive images of the party also declined.

Meet the gPod, a device produced by a Japanese sex products company that magically outputs the audio signals of a music player, TV, mobile phone, or other device to a specially shaped vibrator.

According to the manufacturer, everything from your boyfriend’s voice to Barry White performances “sounds” better on a gPod.

Via Steve Levenstein at InventorSpot.com

Click here for a pretty good rundown on the LDP’s election loss over the weekend and what it means for the future.

The Japan Times has published a story about Shun Akida, a reporter who is investigating the tunnels that lie beneath Tokyo and the possibility that there is are hidden tunnels that are being deliberately concealed from the public.

The bulk of Shun’s book covers the development of the subway system and questions the many inconsistencies between maps of the past and present — even those that were contemporaneous. “Even allowing for errors, there are too many oddities.”

Shun claims to have uncovered a secret code that links a complex network of tunnels unknown to the general public. “Every city with a historic subterranean transport system has secrets,” he says. “In London, for example, some lines are near the surface and others very deep, for no obvious reason.”

Sitting on the Ginza subway from Suehirocho to Kanda, he says, you can see many mysterious tunnels leading off from the main track. “No such routes are shown on maps.” Traveling from Kasumigaseki to Kokkai-gijidomae, there is a line off to the left that is not shown on any map. Nor is it indicated in subway construction records.

The full article can be found here.

Air China recently reported a 2000 percent rise in net profit over the first six months of 2007. Though it sounds like business must be booming, China blog Danwei, claims that there may be other reasons for the rise: “Air China does not spend any money on edible food, enjoyable inflight entertainment, or computer systems that make their planes depart on time.”