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Condoms will be available in all entertainment venues in Shanghai within three years... yeah right they'll be tainted like everything else.

The Japanese trace the lineage of their emperors back for over 2,000 years. Today the Japanese people celebrate the birth anniversary of Emperor Akihito who was born on December 23, 1933, and acceded to the throne in 1989. Called Tenno No Tanjobi, the date of the national holiday changes as each new emperor takes power in Japan.

What do movie star Orlando Bloom, who plays young pirate Will Turner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, R&B diva Tina Turner and Shunsuke Nakamura, an ace midfielder for Scottish soccer team Celtic, have in common?

To boldly brew where (almost) no one has brewed before. At the very least, we now know that if we establish colonies on other planets, we can still have Sapporo. Good to know.

Silly, crazy, and fun: the Face Bank is a money eating piggy bank robot designed by Japanese designer Takada. Its mouth will start to water when you wave coins in front its motion-sensitive eyes. Then stick the coin in its mouth and it will chomp away. Watching it eat money is somewhat disturbing--yet impossible to look away. Two coins, one Facebank.

This might have surfaced before (I'm not sure) but here it is.

Now this has been previously reported - but here is a video - ok?

Looks like the Walmart Greeter is about to be replaced by Wall-E

When your body does not produce enough insulin to regulate the breakdown of blood sugar, you are said to be suffering from type1 diabetes. It is the most serious kind of diabetes and also the most common. It must be checked for and treated in time to avoid any future complications.

An executive of a jewelry shop on Monday was robbed of his bag, which contained some 500 pieces of jewelry worth 100 million yen, by three men on a street in Osaka, police said. Takashi Kinoshita, a 45-year-old executive at Kinpodo, was hit by a car from behind when he was walking on the street pulling the bag, which had wheels on it.

And if the country had atomic weapons in 1945, it should have used them against the Allies, General Toshio Tamogami added.

Rule #2: It's difficult to let your self go. So in the meantime, fake it til you can make it. Props and camouflage help a lot! Fake a phone call in Japanese, pretend to read a Japanese newspaper, whatever relaxes the masses.

Exactly 100 years ago the behaviour of colonial agents of Belgian King Leopold II provoked just that. Then, Congo was "the issue," igniting a publicity firestorm from Europe to the US that drew vast crowds to public debates to condemn the behaviour of Leopold's representatives as they pillaged the Congo river basin for natural rubber.

this is late news but because I was travelling and doing other things I didnt have a chance to follow up on this - now the article doesnt mention if Francis Aso was in attendance but I have a hunch he was.....

A 42 year-old man with no arms, was recently caught driving with his feet in Beijing.....
ever since he lost his arms in an industrial accident several years ago, he had used his feet to steer his vehicle without difficulty. He has no arms from the elbows down.