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Tackling signs in Japan that you’re not welcome “MOTHER F——- KISS MY ANUS. F—- OFF Mother F——-… foreigner. Sneaking PHOTO.” A hand-written sign bearing these words is among several decorated with similar insults that greet shoppers outside a fashion store that sells rock-style clothing in Tokyo. The sign sits among shirts emblazoned with designs featuring overseas rock bands such as Iron Maiden, Children Of Bodom and Marilyn Manson in the fashion and kawaii culture mecca of Harajuku’s Takeshita Street in Shibuya Ward. The Japan Times visited the shop after being approached by a foreign resident who was disgusted to see the signs while he was with his young daughter. “The shop is absolutely covered in these messages,” wrote the reader. “I walk past this place from time to time. The thing that annoys me most is that Harajuku is such an anything-goes area full of all kinds of subcultures and minorities, not least of all foreigners, so this place is like a nasty litt...

Japan has been gearing up to attract more foreign workers to address its severe labor shortage, with its cabinet approving a plan to expand the number of industries covered by the blue-collar skilled worker visa that effectively grants permanent residency. But the country faces headwinds as an attractive workplace amid a weakening yen and competition from other Asian locations such as Taiwan and South Korea with fewer visa requirements. Weng Fei, an employee of the construction company in Gifu Prefecture in central Japan, obtained the Specified Skilled Worker No. 2 visa in April last year as the first person in Japan to do so. As the visa allows holders to bring in family members and has no limit on the number of times they can renew their visa, the 36-year-old has been reunited with his wife from China and now seeks to work longer in his company, where he leads a group of employees made up of Japanese and foreign workers. I trust him enough to make him responsible as a foreman; said T...

The roar of the Japanese f-35 fighter jets above Misawa, in northern Japan, is formidable. At the base, which houses Japanese and American forces, pilots from the two countries practise flying together. ⇒ The risk of war with China over Taiwan has made those preparations ever more urgent. Japan plans to raise its defence budget by two-thirds by 2027 and acquire long-range missiles to make its Self-Defence Forces (sdf) fiercer. But it has not fired a shot in battle since 1945. Will Japan fight? Geography puts Japan on the front line: its westernmost island sits 111km from Taiwan. Conflict is probably less likely if China believes Japan would join the fray. If war does break out, keeping Taiwan from falling may hinge on Japanese support and firepower. At a minimum, America would need to use its bases in Japan. And if Japan’s forces engaged in combat, success would be far more likely.  If a crisis around Taiwan were to occur, “there’s no way Japan won’t be involved,” says a lawmaker w...

 1. Stadiums are among the oldest forms of urban architecture: vast stadiums where the public could  watch sporting events were at the centre of western city life as far back as the ancient Greek and Roman Empires, well before the construction of the great medieval cathedrals and the grand 19th- and 20th-century railway stations which dominated urban skylines in later eras. 2. Today, however, stadiums are regarded with growing 1 scepticism. Construction costs can soar above £1 billion, and stadiums finished for major events such as the Olympic Games or the FIFA World Cup have notably fallen into disuse and disrepair. 3. But this need not be the case. History shows that stadiums can drive urban development and adapt to the culture of every age. Even today, architects and planners are finding new ways to adapt the mono-functional sports arenas which became emblematic of modernization during the 20th century. 4. The amphitheatre of Arles in...

1. You may have seen photographs that suggest otherwise, but former president Donald Trump wasn’t arrested last week, and the pope didn’t wear a stylish, brilliant white puffer coat. These recent viral hits were the fruits of artificial intelligence systems that process a user’s textual prompt to create images. They demonstrate how these programs have become very good very quickly—and are now convincing enough to fool an unwitting observer. 2. So how can skeptical viewers spot images that may have been generated by an artificial intelligence system such as DALL-E, Midjourney or Stable Diffusion? Each AI image generator—and each image from any given generator—varies in how convincing it may be and in what telltale signs might give its algorithm away. For instance, AI systems have historically struggled to mimic human hands and have produced mangled appendages with too many digits. As the technology improves, however, systems such as Midjourney V5 seem to have cracked the problem—at leas...

 1. If you’ve ever eaten a piece of fruit, a vegetable, or a packaged food made with corn or soy, it’s likely that you’ve eaten a genetically modified organism (GMO). These are foods that have been changed in a laboratory to have specific traits, like being pest-resistant or being able to grow in certain conditions. 2. Though GMOs have been around for a few decades, people are sometimes concerned about whether or not they’re safe to eat. So far, studies don’t show any health risks associated with eating genetically modified foods, but there are still unknowns and concerns about their safety. Here, we’ll review what GMOs are used for, some common concerns about them, and what the research says so far. 3. What are GMOs? GMOs are living beings that have had their DNA (genetic material) changed. This is done in a lab through a process called genetic engineering. With this process, scientists can move desirable genes from one plant, animal, or microorganism...

An owner’s struggle in Japan’s northern dairy region illuminates one of the potentially devastating economic impacts of an aging society. Hidekazu Yokoyama has spent three decades building a thriving logistics business on Japan’s snowy northern island of Hokkaido, an area that provides much of the country’s milk. Last year, he decided to give it all away. It was a radical solution for a problem that has become increasingly common in Japan, the world’s grayest society. As the country’s birthrate has plummeted and its population has grown older, the average age of business owners has risen to around 62. Nearly 60 percent of the country’s businesses report that they have no plan for what comes next. While Mr. Yokoyama, 73, felt too old to carry on much longer, quitting wasn’t an option: Too many farmers had come to depend on his company. “I definitely couldn’t abandon the business,” he said. But his children weren’t interested in running it. Neither were his employees. And few potential o...

Artificial intelligence is confronting white-collar professionals more directly than ever. It could make them more productive — or obsolete. In December, the staff of the American Writers and Artists Institute — a 26-year-old membership organization for copywriters — realized that something big was happening. The newest edition of ChatGPT, a “large language model” that mines the internet to answer questions and perform tasks on command, had just been released. Its abilities were astonishing — and squarely in the bailiwick of people who generate content, such as advertising copy and blog posts, for a living. “They’re horrified,” said Rebecca Matter, the institute’s president. Over the holidays, she scrambled to organize a webinar on the pitfalls and potential of the new artificial-intelligence technology. More than 3,000 people signed up, she said, and the overall message was cautionary but reassuring: Writers could use ChatGPT to complete assignments more quickly, and move into higher-...

The Central American country changed diplomatic recognition to Beijing, leaving 12 nations and the Vatican still recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign state. Taiwan’s Embassy in Tegucigalpa on Thursday. Taiwan recalled its ambassador to Honduras on Thursday over a visit by Tegucigalpa’s foreign minister to China, Taipei’s government said in a statement. TAIPEI, Taiwan — Honduras has severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of recognizing China, dealing a blow to Taipei’s international standing and Washington’s diplomatic efforts in Central America. The diplomatic win for China further reduced the small number of countries that have ties with Taiwan, the island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. The decision was announced in a statement by the   Honduran Foreign Ministry on Saturday. While not directly addressing Honduras’s move away from Taiwan, Honduran government officials had said days earlier that forging closer links with China was vital to improving the coun...