Good Old Japan

One third of Canadians fine with prescribing assisted suicide for homelessness

Starting in March 2021, Canada became one of only a handful of countries to legalize assisted suicide even in instances where a patient does not have a terminal illness. Ever since, a Canadian can be approved for MAID simply for having a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
Research Co. found that 73 per cent of poll respondents favoured the current regime, and only 16 per cent opposed it.
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If a Canadian’s only affliction was “poverty,” 27 per cent said they would be fine with legalizing that person’s access to MAID. Another 28 per cent pegged “homelessness” as an appropriate bar to qualify for MAID.

And 20 per cent of respondents were fine with MAID being handed out to anybody for any reason. In other words, one fifth of respondents agreed with the sentiment “medical assistance in dying should always be allowed, regardless of who requests it.”
nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-maid-assisted-suicide-homeless

Japan: Man arrested after taking hostages at post office

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A suspected gunman has been arrested after a shooting at a hospital and a hostage situation at a post office in Warabi City near Tokyo. The incident came as police probed a shooting at a hospital earlier in the day.
An 86-year-old gunman who took a number of people hostage at a post office in Warabi City, just outside Tokyo, has been arrested by police.
An eight-hour-long standoff ensued with police communicating with the man by phone before finally storming the building and detaining him.
His motive remains unclear but police believe he was involved in an earlier incident at a hospital and have also linked him to a fire at an apartment near the hospital, which is reportedly the suspect's home.

US military starts bulk buying Japanese seafood to counter China’s ban following Fukushima waste water release

The first purchase of seafood under the scheme involves just shy of a tonne of scallops – a tiny fraction of what Japan exported to China last year

Washington plans to use the seafood to feed soldiers in messes and aboard vessels. It will also be sold in shops and restaurants on military bases
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Emanuel said the purchases – which will feed soldiers in messes and aboard vessels as well as being sold in shops and restaurants on military bases – will increase over time to all types of seafood. The US military had not previously bought local seafood in Japan, he said.

www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3239775/us-military-starts-bulk-buying-japanese-seafood-counter-chinas-ban

Fukushima nuclear plant workers sent to hospital after being splashed with tainted water

The operator Tepco says the workers came in contact with the wastewater when a hose came off accidentally and have been taken to hospital as a precaution

Four workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant were splashed with water containing radioactive materials, with two of them taken to hospital as a precaution, according to the plant operator.

The incident, which took place on Wednesday, highlights the dangers Japan still faces in decommissioning the plant. The reactor was knocked out by an immense tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst atomic disaster since Chornobyl in 1986.

Five workers were cleaning pipes at the system filtering wastewater for release into the sea when two were splashed after a hose came off accidentally, according to a spokesperson for operator Tepco.

Two others were contaminated when they were cleaning up the spill, the spokesperson added.

The radiation levels in the two hospitalised men were at or above 4 becquerels per square centimetre, the threshold which is considered safe.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/27/fukushima-nuclear-plant-workers-hospitalised-after-being-splashed-with-tainted-water?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says five workers there may have been exposed to several liters of liquid containing radioactive substances, instead of about 100 milliliters as initially announced.

The workers were accidentally splashed with the liquid last Wednesday when they were cleaning pipes for the plant's Advanced Liquid Processing System, or ALPS. The system is used to treat water that accumulates at the plant.

www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20231030_32/index.html

The Japanese yen fell close to its lowest point in 33 years against the dollar on Tuesday. It hit 151.74 to the US currency during New York trading hours.

The yen's fall came after leaders at the Bank of Japan wrapped up a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday. BOJ Governor Ueda Kazuo announced that the bank would be more flexible in its monetary policy. However, he did not say when policymakers might intervene.

The BOJ has kept short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 percent, even as US central bankers have raised them above 5 percent. The yen's plunge indicates that traders are not convinced the BOJ will start to narrow that difference.

Officials at Japan's finance ministry revealed they did not intervene when the yen fell a few weeks ago to 150 to the dollar. Some traders took that as a cue to sell the Japanese currency again.

Edward Al-Hussainy, a senior analyst at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, said the BOJ's lack of intervention is "massively profitable" and "skewed in favor of the dollar."