Feast your eyes on yet more adorable 8-bit GIFs depicting daily life in Japan evie lund A while back, we shared a series of super-cute 8-bit GIFs created by talented Tumblr user 1041uuu which depict everyday scenes of life in Japan in a whimsically awesome, old-school way. Now we’re happy to report that the artist has been busy creating even more GIFs in the same great style!
Get ready for some super sweet moving pixel art!
STATS
38: Percent of respondents to a Cabinet Office poll who say they “don’t want a boyfriend or girlfriend”
11,279: Number of scholars who signed a statement against the government-sponsored security bills after the legislation cleared the Lower House of the Diet
9,139,900: Number of foreigners who visited Japan during the first six months of 2015—the most on record
WRAPPING UP
It was announced that Pope Francis will likely beatify Takayama Ukon (1552-1615), a feudal lord who gave up his title and was forced into exile because of his faith.
Officials at the meteorological agency have begun receiving data from the Himawari-8, the first geostationary weather satellite that can shoot color photos of the Earth.
At long last, Japan’s major mobile carriers are mulling a plan to eliminate their standard two-year contracts, which are universally reviled by consumers.
Bottom Story of the Week: “Gunma Town Signs Dinosaur Research Partnership with Mongolia” (via Mainichi Japan)
4 workplace occurrences that could land you in hot water in Japan By Krista Rogers, A Japanese website recently published a list of four commonly occurring behaviors at work which are actually considered to be crimes by Japanese law. The scariest thing is that regardless of where you are in the world, you might have been doing them all along!
Perhaps take a moment to check whether you have explicit permission before doing any of the following four things at your place of employment, or else you could find yourself in a legal mess in the worst case scenario.
In a stunning development (only if you've hiding under your bed for the last few years) the IOC has awarded the 2022 Winter Olympics to Beijing. Yes, Beijing which has no mountains or snow in the winter but hey! Why not. As usual the IOC will like FIFA when they awarded Qatar the World in that same year it will help open up China. Ha Ha Ha. Just the opposite happened with hundreds arrested, people forced to sell their property, while others simply had their homes confiscated. Since no other city besides Almaty Kazakhstan which is also an ongoing human and civil rights disaster were willing to go into massive debt for the privilege the IOC was left with little choice in their money grubbing minds but to award the games to Beijing rather than reassessing the bidding process.
A Palestinian toddler has been killed in an arson attack in the West Bank, suspected to have been carried out by Jewish settlers, Israeli police say.
The 18-month-old boy was killed in the night-time attack on two homes in the village of Duma. His parents, brother and another child were injured.
Slogans in Hebrew, including the word "revenge", were found sprayed on a wall of one of the firebombed houses.
Israel's prime minister called the attack "reprehensible and horrific".
"This is an act of terrorism in every respect. The State of Israel takes a strong line against terrorism regardless of the perpetrators," Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet.
German government accuses news website of treason over leaks
For the first time in more than 50 years journalists are facing treason charges, which is being denounced as an attack on the freedom of the press
Reuters in Berlin
Germanyhas opened a treason investigation into a news website a broadcaster said had reported on plans to increase state surveillance of online communications.
German media said it was the first time in more than 50 years journalists had faced treason charges, and some denounced the move as an attack on the freedom of the press.
“The federal prosecutor has started an investigation on suspicion of treason into the articles ... published on the internet blog Netzpolitik.org,” a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said.
She added the move followed a criminal complaint by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), over articles about the BfV that appeared on the website on 25 February and 15 April. It said the articles had been based on leaked documents.
Mullah Omar dead: Afghan Taliban struggles to maintain unity in the wake of leader's death – as exclusively seen letters apparently reveal
The terror group have named deputy leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as his successor, but the handover has exposed deep divisions among top commanders
The radio silence gave way to frantic conversations. Local Taliban commanders sought reassurance. Mullah Omar, the mujahedin commander of Kandahar, had finally been declared dead and along the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, confusion reigned. Listening to the hurried conversations in Kandahar on Wednesday night were the Afghan border police.
“What are our orders now?” one Taliban soldier near the Pakistan city of Quetta said. “We don’t know,” another replied. “Is Mullah Omar dead? Who is leading us?”
A border police officer, 32, who has lost six members of his family to Taliban attacks, told The Independent that district commanders of the Afghan Taliban were unsure whose orders to follow. “They don’t know who their leaders are,” the police commander said. “The Taliban are worried and confused. They are not fighting they are just talking on the radio.”
Textbook protest: Taiwanese students storm education ministry
Hundreds of students occupied the Taiwanese Ministry of Education compound on Friday, intensifying anti-China protests over textbooks they say are aimed at promoting Beijing's "one China" policy.
The protest came a day after one of the students, reportedly Lin Kuan-hua, a spokesman for the movement against a controversial high school curriculum revision, committed suicide.
About 700 students climbed barricades around the ministry and as of Friday morning about 200 students were encamped inside the ministry compound, demanding an audience with the island's Education Minister, police said.
"We have received orders not to remove the students," a police spokesman said.
Keisaburo Toyonaga helps Koreans and other non-Japanese atom bomb survivors
Though Japanese himself, he's spent decades aiding non-Japanese survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
ByTakehiko Kambayashi, Correspondent
HIROSHIMA, JAPAN — Keisaburo Toyonaga fumed when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his speech here two years ago that Japanese are “the only people” to have suffered from an atomic bombing.
The hawkish leader’s words at the anniversaries of the 1945 US bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted Mr. Toyonaga and others to lodge a strong protest. There were foreigners living in Japan at the time who also suffered, they said.
Mr. Abe did not use the phrase in speeches marking last year’s anniversaries.
Toyonaga, a longtime crusader for Korean survivors of the atomic bombings, says Abe’s remarks were insensitive because tens of thousands of Koreans and other non-Japanese living in those cities were also killed and injured.
Eritrea blames migrant exodus on human trafficking
Foreign ministry calls on UN to bring smugglers to justice, saying rights abuses not behind huge numbers leaving nation.
31 Jul 2015 07:54 GMT
Eritrea has urged the UN Security Council to help bring human traffickers to justice, saying smuggling groups, not human rights abuses, were causing an exodus of migrants to Europe.
About 5,000 people flee Eritrea each month, according to the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
Thousands of migrants have been picked up in the Mediterranean trying to cross to Europe, and many say they are fleeing military conscription and rights abuses.
"The principal objective of this organised crime is to prevent Eritrea and its people from defending their sovereignty by dispersing and debilitating their human resources," Eritrea's foreign ministry said in a statement.
During the second Iraq war the American Defense Department came to the utterly brilliant conclusion that it would be just wonderful if they outsourced large portions of the war effort to private security firms. It didn't workout so well. But, instead of learning anything from that disaster the Pentagon has once again become reliant on private security firms to help it prosecute its drone wars. You, know those little undeclared conflicts in such places as Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. Of course it'll be the perfect symbiotic relationship. Until the usual f-up and innocent people are killed. Wait, that's already happening. Corporate staff are reviewing top-secret data and helping uniformed colleagues decide whether people under surveillance are enemies or civilians
Contracts unearthed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveal a secretive industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars, placing a corporate workforce alongside uniformed personnel analysing intelligence from areas of interest.
While it has long been known that US defence firms supply billions of dollars’ worth of equipment for drone operations, the role of the private sector in supplying analysts for combing through intelligence material has remained almost entirely unknown until now.
Approximately one in 10 people involved in the effort to process data captured by drones and spy planes are non-military. And as the rise of Islamic State prompts what one commander termed “insatiable” demand for aerial surveillance, the Pentagon is considering further expanding its use of contractors, an air force official said.
Malaysia has said that it would be "premature" to speculate on whether debris washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion comes from the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
A two-metre long piece of wreckage was found on Wednesday.
Malaysia's Deputy Transport Minister, Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, said it was "almost certain" that the wreckage was from a Boeing 777 aircraft.
MH370 is the only Boeing 777 to have disappeared over an ocean.
There were 239 people on board the plane when it went missing in March 2014.
Aviation experts who have studied photos of the debris found on Reunion say it does resemble a flaperon - a moving part of the wing surface - from a Boeing 777.
UK denies Ai Weiwei full business visa based on disputed 'criminal' history
British embassy officials say celebrated Chinese artist failed to declare his record on application – but supporters say he was never actually charged with a crime
The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has accused British authorities of turning their backs on human rights defenders after UK immigration officials rejected his application for a six-month business visa, claiming he had not declared a criminal conviction in his home country.
Ai spent 81 days in secret detention in 2011 after being seized by Chinese security agents during a crackdown on activists who Beijing feared were trying launch a “jasmine revolution”.
He was subsequently ordered to pay a $2.4m fine for allegedly unpaid taxes although supporters said the penalty was a politically motivated punishment for the artist’s fierce criticism of the Communist party.
Israel passes law sanctioning force-feeding prisoners
Medical Association considers force-feeding a form of torture, urges doctors not to abide by the law
Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed into law the ability to force-feed prisoners on hunger strike, a move that has met vehement opposition from the country’s medical association.
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition weathered a lengthy parliamentary debate and the law passed with 46 in favour and 40 opposed in the 120-seat Knesset.
Israel has long been concerned that hunger strikes by Palestinians in its jails could end in death and trigger waves of protests in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But Israel’s Medical Association, which considers force- feeding a form of torture and medically risky, has urged Israeli doctors not to abide by the law.
INDIA29/07/2015
Man fights climate change by planting a forest
Abdul Kareem
Thirty-five years after planting his first tree, Abdul Kareem, an environmental activist, has succeeded in growing a 32-hectare forest on land that was once dry and arid in Kerala state, southern India. His forest has provideed numerous benefits: it has helped the local environment, tourism and is also a powerful response to climate change.
With more than 800 plant species, 300 medicinal plants, thousands of trees and hundreds of birds and insects, “Kareem’s forest” looks very much like a naturally occurring forest. However, all of it was planted using his two hands and sheer willpower. Until the early 1980s, the land was dry, cracked and rocky. But that didn’t discourage Kareem, who has worked tirelessly since 1977 to make this hostile terrain verdant.
Researchers, students and environmentalists from all over the world now visit Kareem’s forest. In fact, ‘Kareem’s model” has been added to the curriculum in Indian universities as an example of how to reforest an area without using a single chemical product.
Egypt court 'adjourns Al Jazeera trial for ninth time'
Court adjourns long-running retrial of Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed, and Mohamed Fahmy until August 8, reports say.
30 Jul 2015 08:49 GMT
An Egyptian court is reported to have adjourned the long-running retrial of three Al Jazeera journalists for the ninth time, according to security at the courthouse.
The defendants, their lawyers and Al Jazeera have not been formally informed of the decision.
Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian Baher Mohamed, and Canadian Mohamed Fahmy were found guilty in June 2014 of aiding a terrorist organisation, a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, which was outlawed in Egypt after the army overthrew President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Greste and Fahmy received seven years, while Mohamed was given 10 years.
The former 'Kremlin banker' describes how Putin's mind works
By Elena Holodny
The man who used to be the "Kremlin's banker" argues that Vladimir Putin is a born-and-bred Sovetskiy chelovek (Soviet man) — and that it has informed his view of the world.
“Everything in his consciousness flows from the Soviet Union,” Sergei Pugachev told The Guardian's Luke Harding. “He’s of this epoch. He saw [former Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev and the politburo. Like any simple person he formed his opinions from watching Soviet TV.”
During Putin's first two terms, Pugachev was a big player in Moscow. He founded Mezhpromback (International Industrial Bank) in Moscow in 1992 and soon became known as the "Kremlin's banker." He even claims to have been one-third of threesome that put Putin into power.
However, relations between Putin and Pugachev soured in 2010, and he ultimately fled to London in 2011.
2,000 migrants try to storm Channel Tunnel in France to reach UK
By Margot Haddad and Holly Yan, CNN Updated 0734 GMT (1434 HKT) July 29, 2015
About 2,000 migrants tried to enter the Channel Tunnel through the French terminal near Calais on Monday night in an attempt to reach the UK, operator Eurotunnel said.
Some of the migrants were injured, Eurotunnel France spokesperson Cecile Carreras told CNN. French authorities and Eurotunnel personnel were able to enter the tunnel and intervene
The tunnel, also known as the Chunnel, runs 50 kilometers (31 miles) from a point near Calais, in northern France to Folkestone, in southeastern England.
British Home Secretary Theresa May said France and Great Britain agreed to work together "to return migrants, particularly to West Africa, to ensure that people see that making this journey does not lead to them coming to Europe and being able to settle in Europe."
Philippines bids to save Mary Jane Veloso from execution in Indonesia
Woman who says she was duped into smuggling drugs was given last-minute reprieve from firing squad but remains on death row
Oliver Holmes in Bangkok and Carmela Fonbuena in Manila
Officials from the Philippines arrived in Indonesia on Wednesday to discuss a case against drug traffickers that they hope can prove that a Filipino former domestic worker was tricked into smuggling heroin and save her from a firing squad.
Mary Jane Veloso was given a temporary reprieve by Indonesian president Joko Widodo just hours before she was due to be executed in April. Eight men were killed by firing squad that day.
Her alleged trafficker had handed herself in to the police in Manila, and the Philippines president, Benigno Aquino, made a last-minute appeal on the basis that Veloso would be needed as a witness in the case against her alleged recruiter.
World internet use: 15 per cent of Americans remain offline
Poorer Americans are more likely not to use the internet
Research indicates that individuals who do not use the internet correlate to a number of variables – including age, ethnicity and household income.
Broadly, the poorer the household the less likely its occupants are to use the internet. Online usage in households earning less than $30,000 annually are approximately eight time less likely than adults from more affluent households to use the internet.
World| Wed Jul 29, 2015 2:10am EDT
Pakistan police say kill leader of banned sectarian group
LAHORE, PAKISTAN| BY MUBASHER BUKHAR
Pakistani police killed the leader of the sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, his two sons and 11 others on Wednesday in a shootout after gunmen attacked a police convoy and freed him as he was being moved, police said.
Malik Ishaq was on a U.S. list of terrorists and the group he founded has claimed responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, mostly minority Shi'ite Muslims.
He has faced several murder trials but always been acquitted after witnesses refused to testify. He was arrested again on Saturday, under a public order act, along with his two sons.
On Tuesday, police took Ishaq and the sons to an area near the Punjab province town of Muzaffargarh where they had seized an arms cache, to identify men they had detained on suspicion of being members of Ishaq's group.
What teenage refugees taught me about art
As a teen, Kate Hairsine hated school trips to art museums and talks on fusty paintings that bored her. But her eyes were opened when she saw young asylum-seekers cherish the kind of art that put her to sleep.
The group of young asylum-seekers sit attentively on folding chairs in front of a self-portrait painted by the 19th-century German artist Anselm Feuerbach. The oil painting hangs in a dimly-lit corner of a cavernous room dedicated to the artist and shows a middle-aged man sitting in a brown suit against a brown background.
It's exactly the kind of painting I would normally walk straight past without a second glance.
But today, I'm listening to a talk about the painting being given by art educator Petra Erler from the Karlsruhe State Art Gallery. And amazingly, the group of 14 young men discussing the self-portrait don't seem bored at all.
Uighur tensions hang over Turkish president's visit to China
July 29, 2015 - 5:32PM
Philip Wen
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Beijing on Tuesday eager to highlight trade and investment between the two countries – including the controversial purchase of a Chinese surface-to-air missile system.
But his visit risked being overshadowed by growing tensions over the diplomatic assistance Turkey is extending to China's ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic minority native to China's restive far-western region of Xinjiang.
A recent Reuters report kindled further tension over the highly sensitive issue, exposing the apparent practice of Turkish embassy officials in south-east Asia, particularly in Malaysia, to furnish Uighurs with travel documents allowing them to avoid deportation.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has died, Afghan government sources say, but the militant group has not commented
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One journalist is determined to help China's millions of migrant workers suffering from the deadly black lung disease.
An estimated six million people in China suffer from pneumoconiosis, also known as black lung disease. After reporting on this disease, journalist Wang Keqin was compelled to launch an online civil movement to increase public awareness and set up a dedicated fund to provide victims with medical aid.
Wang is committed to raising public awareness through fund-raising events and visiting villages in rural China affected by the disease. He remains uncertain about how his efforts are helping to fight what is now the deadliest workplace disease in China.
This is the story of one newsman and his fight for the workers of China.
By Phil Yan and Richard Liang
"In China, there are about six million pneumoconiosis sufferers. They have no way out and their only option is to wait for death with no dignity."
These were the words of Wang Keqin that hurt us the most when we filmed him for the first time. As we quickly discovered, the six million figure that Wang was referring to not only included the six million people who currently suffer from pneumoconiosis, but the six million families who have also been dragged into a nightmare that often results in the death of their relatives.
Thailand has hit back after being blacklisted in a US report for the second consecutive year for not combatting modern-day slavery, arguing it has made serious steps to tackle human trafficking.
The ministry of foreign affairs said the US state department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report, released on Monday, “does not accurately reflect the significant efforts undertaken by the government”, which had made “tangible progress”.
Bangkok has been lobbying for an upgrade from the lowest tier 3 rank in the report. Under US law, countries on tier 3 could trigger non-trade-related sanctions such as access to the World Bank and bars on US foreign assistance.
Jehovah's Witnesses Church 'did not report more than 1,000 allegations of child sex abuse'
Angus Stewart, counsel for The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, told the inquiry that Jehovah's Witnesses' rules were designed to prevent the reporting of sexual abuse
The Jehovah's Witnesses Church failed to report more than 1,000 allegations of child sex abuse to police dating back more than 60 years, an Australian inquiry has heard.
A national inquiry was set up into child abuse in the country in 2013 after reports emerged of serial child abuse inside the country’s Catholic Church.
Members of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has a mandate to examine religious and secular organisations, has heard how the Jehovah’s Witnesses were an insular sect with rules designed to prevent reporting sexual abuse.
Greece's Varoufakis defends covert plan to hack tax codes
Latest update : 2015-07-28
The start of new bailout talks between the Greek government and its international creditors has been overshadowed by revelations that Greece's maverick ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was secretly planning for a parallel system of liquidity.
The European Commission confirmed on Monday that technical talks on Greece's third bailout had started in Athens, where the embattled leftist government has been forced to implement a further slew of austerity measures in return for much-needed bailout cash.
But the return of the reviled “troika” of creditors – EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – was eclipsed by news Varoufakis had "hacked" into his own ministry weeks earlier to create duplicate files for millions of Greek taxpayers.
In a telephone conversation with a group of London-based investors after he resigned his post on July 6, Varoufakis claimed that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had "given the green light" for a Plan B before coming to power in January, according to a recording released Monday.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has dumped his deputy and four others in a cabinet reshuffle, with the attorney-general also replaced amid the fallout from a graft scandal at state investment fund 1MDB.
Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had called on his leader to explain a growing graft scandal at debt-laden state investment fund 1MDB.
Mr Muhyiddin had said on the weekend the ruling coalition could lose the next election if Mr Najib and others did not better manage issues stemming from the scandal.
Mr Najib named Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to replace Mr Muhyiddin.
Why did 'Jihadi John' flee Islamic State? (+video)
British terrorist 'Jihadi John,' one of the most well-known members of ISIS, has reportedly fled the terrorist group, fearing for his life.
British terrorist “Jihadi John” has reportedly left the Islamic State (aka ISIS) group, fearing for his life after being identified six months earlier as a Kuwaiti-born Londoner from a well-to-do family.
Jihadi John left because the terrorist organization might drop him "like a stone or worse if they feel he is no longer of any use to them," according to a source for the British news outlet, the Daily Express.
The Daily Express report has not been confirmed by government sources or other news outlets.
Born Mohammed Emwazi, he initially gained international notoriety both personally, and for the terrorist organization, after a video was released by Islamic State in August 2014, showing him beheading American journalistJames Foley.
Killer robots: Tech experts warn against AI arms race
Among the signatories are scientist Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
The letter will be presented at an international AI conference today.
"Killer robots" are currently the subject of much debate and have recently been discussed by committees at the United Nations, which is considering the potential for a ban on certain types of autonomous weapons.
Now, the experts have called for a specific ban on the use of artificial intelligence to manage weapons that would be "beyond meaningful human control".
