1.     Western Japan Devastated By Heavy Rain

 

Record high volume of rain caused many landslides of mountains and floods of rivers in the western area of Japan in the last weekend.

The Meteorological Agency had forecasted that it would be a monster rain of once-in-several-decades, and had warned the residents of the western region to evacuate from home beforehand if they were living close to rivers, valleys or slopes of mountains.

Almost six days passed, it revealed that 188 people were killed either by the floods or landslides and 72 people were still missing as of the evening of the 12th of July.

Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime Prefectures suffered from the disaster most although 12 other western prefectures including Kyushu and Shikoku regions recognized the casualty of their residents.

There are now 7,085 evacuees and 24,150 houses are either broken or damaged.

The Abe Administration decided to call up Ready Reserve Self Defense Force Officials besides the local Ground Self Defense Force members to provide the local people in need with life-line support and fix the damaged roads, bridges and other infrastructures.

 

2.     Aum Death Rows Executed

 

The seven condemned criminals of a Japanese cult group by the name of Aum Shinrikyo were executed on the 6th of July, Justice Minister Kamikawa announced to the public on the same day. 

The seven death rows were recognized as ringleaders of the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and some other mass murder cases killing 29 people in total. 

Shoko Asahara (real name is Chizuo Matsumoto) founded this cult group in 1984.

At its peak time, the number of believers reached 15,000 in Japan and 35,000 in Russia.

Although Aum Shinrikyo itself stopped activity in 1999, the Public Safety Intelligence Agency and the National Police Agency are closely watching some derivative groups out of Aum Shinrikyo.

 

3.     Japan-China Military Protocol Mechanism

 

In order to avoid accidental conflict between the Chinese military forces and the Japan Self Defense Forces around the Senkaku Archipelago, the two governments created an ocean-air military protocol mechanism a month ago.  

It opened direct communication between Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force’s ships and Chinese Navy’s ships as well as JASDF’s aircraft and Chinese Air Force’s aircraft.

It, however, has not opened a hotline between the top leaders of the two forces yet.

China stiffened its attitude against Japan when Japan announced its nationalization of the Senkaku Archipelago in 2012, and the diplomatic relationship between the two nations had been sour and deactivated. 

With its own global and geopolitical agenda in mind, Chinese Communist Party’s leaders are recently changing the attitude against Japan and reactivating several fronts including diplomacy, trade, economy and cultural exchanges.

How this thaw leads to mitigating the tension between the two nations around the Senkaku Islands is yet to be seen.

 

4.     Population Declined By 370,000

 

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced on the 11th that Japan’s population declined by 374,055 to 125,209,603 as of January 1, 2018 in comparison with a year ago. 

Japan’s population peaked out in 2009 and since then, it has been declining consistently.

Among the 47 prefectures, Hokkaido declined most, followed by Hyogo and Niigata, while Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, Okinawa, Chiba and Aichi rather increased the number of residents.

The number of foreign residents in Japan increased by 174,228 to 2,497,656, which accounts for 1.96% of the total population (the ratio is the highest ever).

 

5. Imperial Household’s Cherished Treasure To Be Presented To The Public

 

According to Yomiuri, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga indicated that the Administration is planning to build a new facilities in 2025 to present to the public the collection of the Imperial Household, which the Imperial Household Agency stores in its warehouse.

There are 9,874 collected items in the warehouse including national treasure or important cultural property class items as well as historically important items.