Tag: Japan

Many personnel in USFJ lost their cost of living allowance (COLA) and the falling yen is helping to soften the financial blow for these service members:

 Japan’s plunging currency is softening the impact of inflation on American military personnel stationed in the country, even as the government cuts their allowances.

A dollar bought just over 149 yen on Monday for the first time in 32 years and was hovering around that level Tuesday evening. The yen has dropped 23% against the dollar this year as Japan continues to keep interest rates near zero.

In contrast, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest rate at each of its past three meetings, most recently in September, bringing the rate to between 3% and 3.25%, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

A higher interest rate is expected to slow inflation, but by promising higher yields it also attracts investment to the United States, which strengthens the dollar compared to other nations’ currencies.

The strong dollar is welcomed by U.S. service members in Japan, most of whomhave hundreds of dollars less to spend each pay period due to cuts in their cost-of-living allowance this month.

Most are no longer receiving COLA — tax-free money to help offset the costs of living in expensive areas overseas — following changes announced by the State Department on Oct. 1.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This line of attack was so predictable from the Korean left:

Nothing is wrong with holding joint military exercises with Japan to cope with the common threat of North Korea, a presidential spokesperson said Tuesday, rejecting opposition criticism that such drills could lead to the stationing of Japanese troops in South Korea.

Rep. Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, has been voicing such concerns while denouncing trilateral naval exercises, which South Korea held with the United States and Japan in the East Sea last week, as a move legitimizing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces as a regular military. 

His point was that such exercises would help advance Japan’s ambitions to become a normal country capable of waging war and South Korea could fall victim to Japan’s renewed militarism and face a fate similar to the 1910-45 colonial rule.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but in a war with North Korea, the ROK is going to need Japanese support so it is best to train for it now. The Korean left seems more concerned about Japan taking over Korea than the Kim regime or China. This argument would be like NATO countries saying they cannot train with Germany because then they would be taken over again by a rising Germany. This argument is stupid just like the Korean left’s argument about Japan.

Cynically they know their argument is flimsy and without merit, but they are just trying to tap into deep rooted anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea to further erode President Yoon’s poll numbers.

A big pay cut is coming to U.S. troops stationed in Japan at the same time prices are rising on just about everything:

Cost-of-living allowance cuts have left U.S. service members stationed in Japan with hundreds of dollars less to spend each pay period, amid a weak yen and rising prices for off-base goods and services. 

Most service members in the country are no longer receiving COLA — a tax-free allowance to help offset the costs of living in expensive areas overseas — following changes announced by the State Department on Oct. 1.

COLA fell to zero this month for troops on Okinawa, home to more than a dozen U.S. bases and the lion’s share of the 55,000 service members in Japan; at Yokosuka Naval Base, homeport of the U.S. 7th Fleet about 35 miles south of Tokyo; and at Yokota Air Base, an airlift hub that serves as headquarters for U.S. Forces Japan.

An online COLA calculator provided by the Defense Department shows that a sergeant stationed at Yokota with six years’ service and two dependents would have received more than $600 in COLA last October. A captain with the same family size and length of service would have gotten more than $800.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see what increasing military cooperation with Japan will do for President Yoon’s extremely low polling numbers:

South Korea said its military will strengthen security cooperation with the U.S. and Japan, including the deployment of “U.S. strategic assets,” after Kim Jong Un’s North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles Sunday.

The provocations, in violation of United Nations Security Council’s resolutions, will strengthen sanctions against North Korea, worsen public welfare and make the regime “very unstable,” South Korea’s National Security Council said in a statement after an urgent meeting to brief President Yoon Suk Yeol. The missiles were launched from the Munchon area in Kangwon province between 1:48 a.m. and 1:58 a.m., the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an email.

The missile tests add to 10 launched by North Korea over the past two weeks. The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier group made a U-turn after one of those missiles flew over Japan. The group returned to waters off the Korean Peninsula and held missile defense exercises with naval forces from Japan and South Korea on Thursday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but it appears the ROK is overselling sanctions making the regime “very unstable”. The Kim regime has shown it knows how to whether sanctions with help from China and Russia plus their criminal activities.

Can you idiots stop trying to smuggle drugs through the U.S. mail? How many people have to get caught before they realize this has been tried before and doesn’t work?:

A Japanese man has been sentenced to 13 years in prison and fined about $35,000 for leading a ring that smuggled illegal narcotics into Japan through the U.S. military postal system on Okinawa.

Ken Kominami, 30, who is unemployed and has no fixed address, was first arrested in October 2021 after Japanese police were tipped off to a potential drug-smuggling ring by the U.S. military, a spokesman for Okinawa prefectural police’s organized crime department told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Kominami and nine others imported approximately five pounds of cocaine, two liters of cannabis liquid and nearly four ounces of cannabis flower from unnamed individuals in the United States, a spokeswoman from the Naha District Prosecutors Office said by phone Tuesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the arrests included a DA civilian and Marine who were sent to jail for their idiocy.

For anyone stationed in the Tokyo area be on the look out for this deadly fungus:

The world’s second-deadliest fungus, known in Japan as kaentake, or “fire mushroom,” has been spotted at a park in western Tokyo that’s not far from a popular U.S. military recreation area.

The highly toxic bright-red fungus — also called Podostroma cornu-damae, or poison fire coral — grows on dead trees, causes severe skin inflammation if touched, and is lethal when ingested, according to a safety briefing slide distributed to Yokota units this week by the 374th Civil Engineer Squadron. 

“Commonly, symptoms start about 30 minutes after the fungus is eaten and it takes about 48 hours before a person dies,” Tamon Fukazawa of the squadron’s environmental element told Stars and Stripes by email Tuesday.

Just touching a fire mushroom can cause a host of issues, according to the squadron’s safety slide. These include severe itching, sores, red skin, skin shedding, distortion of senses, loss of muscle coordination, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, nose and throat pain, cough, sneezing, difficulty breathing, wheezing, spitting up blood and bleeding disorders.

Ingesting the fungus, which is prevalent in Japan, China and Korea, but has recently popped up in Australia, can result in weakness, shock and death. 

“There is no anti-toxin,” the safety slide said. “[Medical staff] will make you as comfortable as possible, but it will be excruciatingly painful.”

The fungus is typically found on dead, diseased trees during late summer and fall, its peak growing season, according to the slide.

Tama city, where fire mushrooms were spotted sprouting last month, notified its residents to look out for the fungus on Aug. 23, Fukazawa said. The area — about 14 miles from Yokota and 12 miles from Camp Zama — is home to the Tama Hills Recreation Area, a U.S. military-run facility popular for its golf course, horseback riding trails and rental cabins.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The ties to the Unification Church to the Japanese LDP political party has really struck a negative chord with the Japanese people and this is just another example of it:

A man set himself on fire near the Japanese prime minister’s office in Tokyo on Wednesday in an apparent protest against the state funeral planned next week for former leader Shinzo Abe, officials and media reports said.

The man, believed to be in his 70s, sustained burns on large parts of his body but was conscious and told police that he set himself on fire after pouring oil over himself, Kyodo News agency reported.

A note was found with him that said, “Personally, I am absolutely against” Abe’s funeral, Kyodo reported. (……..)

The planned state funeral for Abe has become increasingly unpopular among Japanese as more details emerge about the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s and Abe’s links to the Unification Church, which built close ties with party lawmakers over their shared interests in conservative causes.

The suspect in Abe’s assassination reportedly believed his mother’s large donations to the church ruined his family. The LDP has said nearly half its lawmakers have ties to the church, but party officials have denied ties between the party as an organization and the church.

NPR

You can read more at the link.

It will definitely be a sign of improving relations if South Korea takes the Japanese up on this offer of joining their fleet review. Considering that the Yoon administration will probably get hammered domestically for joining this fleet review, hopefully the Japanese offer something equal in value in return for ROK participation:

South Korea’s Defense Ministry is considering an invitation from Japan to stage a naval fleet review together, but old enmities and unresolved disputes stand in the way, according to South Korea’s defense minister.

South Korea is determined to build “future-oriented” ties with Japan and their military relationship “should be improved” if mutual cooperation, along with that of the United States, can boost security in the region, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup told Yonhap News on Wednesday.

“Japan-[South Korea] defense cooperation is under the influence of the overall relations between Japan and South Korea,” he said. “The conditions to improve Japan-[South Korea] ties are currently being set.”

But cooperation between the two countries have been hampered by long-standing territorial and historical differences, Lee said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This may be an example to other military bases that the juice is not worth the squeeze to start up an e-scooter program on other U.S. military bases:

The flock of electric scooters that helmeted riders used to zipped around this sprawling airlift hub in western Tokyo is taking wing, for good.

The Bird Scooter Program at Yokota, the headquarters for U.S. Forces Japan, 5th Air Force and the 374th Airlift Wing, ends Sept. 30 and will not be renewed, Joshua Toellner, CEO at YokoWERX, the innovation hub on base, told Stars and Stripes by phone Tuesday.

The contractor, Bird Rides Japan, elected not to renew the contract and will remove the 30 electric scooters at 26 parking stations around the base between Wednesday and Monday, Toellner said. 

Bird Rides Japan, based in Shibuya, did not respond Tuesday to messages from Stars and Stripes seeking comment. 

The Air Force paid more per ride than it earned from scooter user fees, Toellner said. Bird’s earnings were also disappointing, he said.

“Bird runs throughout Tokyo and other locations,” he said. “They are seeing they are not making the money that it takes for them to come out and do maintenance, recharge and relocate the scooters.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It is arguable that the use of the occupied Kuril Islands for this military exercise is to signal to Japan that China will help Russia defend them in a contingency. With the Russian military so bogged down in Ukraine it is likely Russia could not hold these islands if the Japanese made a move on them:

 Japan has protested to Russia over multinational military exercises being conducted on Russian-held islands claimed by Japan, and is seriously concerned about shooting drills by Russian and Chinese warships off Japan’s northern coast, an official said Monday.

Beijing has been increasing its military cooperation with Moscow, and has been taking part in the multinational “Vostok 2020” drills since late August at a number of locations in Russia’s far east.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno criticized Russia for holding exercises on two of the four disputed islands, which Japan calls the Northern Territories, in the Kuril chain off Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido. It was not clear whether China was part of the exercises on the disputed islands.

He said Japan’s Defense Ministry spotted six Russian and Chinese warships firing machine guns into the Sea of Japan about 190 kilometers (118 miles) west of Cape Kamui on Hokkaido on Saturday.

“Japan will continue to monitor the movements of these ships with serious concern, and will take all possible measures to conduct warning and surveillance activities in the waters surrounding Japan,” Matsuno said at a news conference.

SF Gate

You can read more at the link, but Russian and Chinese warships also passed through the Soya Straight between Honshu and Hokkaido once again demonstrating how they are trying to intentionally be provocative towards Japan.