Am I Missing Something Here?

I thought Mr. Noda was Prime Minister of Japan, not the US. Who should he be keeping faith with?

Futenma plan once again thorn in side of DPJ


By MASAMI ITO and ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writers
The submission of the environmental assessment on Henoko in Okinawa sparked polarized reactions from the governments in Tokyo and Washington and the people of Okinawa, underscoring the gap in awareness over the contentious relocation of the Futenma air base.

Despite thunderous public outrage among Okinawa residents, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had repeatedly expressed his intention to submit the report by the end of the year. And in the end, the Defense Ministry was unable to hand the report to the Okinawa Prefectural Government directly as planned and was forced to use the mail.

Pundits say Noda was adamant about submitting the report by Dec. 31 as a show of good faith to the United States. (italics mine) Amid the gridlock facing the Futenma plan, the U.S. Congress lost patience and recently decided to cut $150 million from the 2012 budget to move thousands of marines from Okinawa to Guam, which was a major part of the relocation package.

Monkeys to the Rescue!

It's hard to be everywhere, monitoring everything that needs monitoring in the wake of the giant tsunami and the nuclear generation disaster it caused. There aren't enough scientists to go around, so the scientists are enlisting some funny allies.

Why not? When the world goes to pot, everyone suffers, even the monkeys.

Here's what today's Japan Times online and Kyodo news have to say about monkeys and monitoring.

Wild monkeys to carry forest fallout monitors

FUKUSHIMA, Kyodo — Fukushima University researchers plan to measure forest radiation levels in Fukushima Prefecture by placing special monitoring collars on wild monkeys, in light of the nuclear crisis.

Each of the collars contains a small radiation meter and a Global Positioning System transmitter, and can be unclipped by remote control. This will allow a team led by robotics professor Takayuki Takahashi to recover the collars and collect the data within one to two months after the monkeys are released back into the wild, they said.