The Soviet Union occupied several disputed islands off Hokkaido in 1945, and this resulted in Japan and the USSR – now Japan and Russia – feeling unable to sign a peace treaty to end World War II. The Northern Territories, as they are known in Japan and Kuril Islands in Russia, have been a...
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Japan seeks better ties with Russia TOKYO (majirox news) — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda congratulated Vladimir Putin, Russian President-elect, on his election victory on Monday. In their five-minute conversation, Noda also said that he wants to improve his country’s ties with Russia. However, yesterday Noda said he would only sign a peace treaty...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Russia and South Korea are nervous about Japan’s radiation runoff into the Pacific and increasingly skeptical about the Japanese government’s announcements about it. In the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, Russia sent radiation-collecting airplanes into Japanese airspace, which had to be chased off by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force....
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Japan and Russia’s undeclared peace revolves mainly around energy. Without an energy issue, it’s doubtful that the two countries would be talking at all and their relations would be confined to exporting a few used cars from Japan to Vladivostok. Russia’s Rosatom, the state-run nuclear energy company, wants to change...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Lying abandoned and forgotten near Niigata is the Niigata Russian village. Scattered throughout Japan are various “villages,” which are exact replicas of foreign locations — or, at least, recreations of what the Japanese think foreign cities look like — without the inconvenience of having real foreigners going about their daily...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Dr. M. Romachev presented a worrisome report on the connection between radiation on childhood cancer in Belarus, which borders Chernobyl. The presentation was given at a symposium on Nov. 18 in Chiba, Japan. Romachev is a doctor and specialist in juvenile cancer and the head of the Russian Commonwealth of...
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TOKYO (majirox news) –”Satellite export” sounds impressive and Japanese newspapers moan about “Japanese infrastructure exports,” but there are a lot of things going on. For example, Japanese companies have won an observation satellite order for the first time from the Vietnamese government. The two environmental observation satellites will be used to monitor damages from...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — North Korea will be holding military exercises with Russia and Japanese observers believe it will take place within the year. “This is unusual,” said a spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Defense. “Outside of sending a few delegations to African countries, and pilots to Egypt during the Arab-Israeli War, North...
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Update The Russian Ambassador held a press conference Friday. He was asked about Russian violations of Japanese airspace on March 28 and 29, then again on April 3. “These were flights to gather radiation data,” he said. “It was only natural that as a neighboring country we should be fearful about the situation.” TOKYO...
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TOKYO (majirox news) – On January 24, 2011, Marina Babenko was waiting for a group of tourists from Japan in the arrival zone at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport when a terrorist bomb claimed her life. The attack was a suicide bombing by Islamist rebels that killed 37 people and wounded 100. The 45-year-old woman was...
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