"East Sea, Sea of Japan"

[xomputer]

The IHO(International Hydrographic Organization) meeting held in 2007 discussed the "East Sea, Sea of Japan" dispute between Korea and Japan. The dispute was based on the publishing of an official map of the oceans, and whether to include both East Sea and the Sea of Japan notation or not. Despite a much heated debate, the meeting ending with no straightforward results.
However it has been concluded that it is problematic to simply publish the map with the Sea of Japan notation.
It is important to understand the historical significance of the East Sea notation.
Currently the Sea of Japan notation that is official in many foreign maps are based on the IHO map that was published in 1929. Korea was occupied by Japan during that time, and that is when Japan forcefully named East Sea as Sea of Japan. However, Korea is no longer occupied by Japan and it must be noted that the East Sea(or Chosun Sea) notation has been used as early as the 4th century up to the early 20th century.

 

[Unkotare]

The name of that body of water is The Sea of Japan. Almost all of the rest of the world refers to it as such. This is just another emotional issue for Korea. Understandable, but not very rational.

 

[Unkotare]

Agency rejects South Korea's request to rename Sea of Japan - Korea - Stripes

 

[Mad Scientist]

Meanwhile, the Yellow Sea is feeling all left out!

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Well, at least dey won't be able to sneak attack us an' bomb Pearl Harbor again...

Japan faces 'extinction' in 1,000 years
11 May `12 - Japanese researchers on Friday unveiled a population clock that showed the nation's people could theoretically become extinct in 1,000 years because of declining birth rates.

Academics in the northern city of Sendai said that Japan's population of children aged up to 14, which now stands at 16.6 million, is shrinking at the rate of one every 100 seconds. Their extrapolations pointed to a Japan with no children left within a millennium. "If the rate of decline continues, we will be able to celebrate the Children's Day public holiday on May 5, 3011 as there will be one child," said Hiroshi Yoshida, an economics professor at Tohoku University. "But 100 seconds later there will be no children left," he said. "The overall trend is towards extinction, which started in 1975 when Japan's fertility rate fell below two." Yoshida said he created the population clock to encourage "urgent" discussion of the issue.

Another study released earlier this year showed Japan's population is expected to shrink to a third of its current 127.7 million over the next century. Government projections show the birth rate will hit just 1.35 children per woman within 50 years, well below the replacement rate. Meanwhile, life expectancy -- already one of the highest in the world -- is expected to rise from 86.39 years in 2010 to 90.93 years in 2060 for women and from 79.64 years to 84.19 years for men. More than 20 percent of Japan's people are aged 65 or over, one of the highest proportions of elderly in the world.

Japan has very little immigration and any suggestion of opening the borders to young workers who could help plug the population gap provokes strong reactions among the public. The greying population is a headache for policymakers who are faced with trying to ensure an ever-dwindling pool of workers can pay for a growing number of pensioners. But for some Japanese companies the inverting of the traditional ageing pyramid provides commercial opportunities.

Unicharm said Friday that sales of its adult diapers had "slightly surpassed" those for babies in the financial year to March, for the first time since the company moved into the seniors market. Unicharm started selling diapers for babies in 1981 and those for adults in 1987, said spokesman Kazuya Kondo, who declined to give specific figures on the sales.

can be seen at: 日本の子どもの数

Japan faces 'extinction' in 1,000 years - Yahoo! News

 

[Unkotare]

The future for all nations eventually.

 

[waltky]

Japanese quake picked up by space satellite...

Japan quake 'heard at edge of space'
10 March 2013 - The great Tohoku earthquake in Japan two years ago was so big its effects were even felt at the edge of space.

Scientists say the Magnitude 9.0 tremor on 11 March 2011 sent a ripple of sound through the atmosphere that was picked up by the Goce satellite. Its super-sensitive instrumentation was able to detect the disturbance as it passed through the thin wisps of air still present 255km above the Earth. The observation is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Goce flies lower than any other scientific satellite

It has long been recognised that major quakes will generate very low-frequency acoustic waves, or infrasound - a type of deep rumble at frequencies below those discernible to the human ear. But no spacecraft in orbit has had the capability to record them, until now. "We've looked for this signal before with other satellites and haven't seen it, and I think that's because you need an incredibly fine instrument," said Dr Rune Floberghagen from the European Space Agency (Esa). "Goce's accelerometers are about a hundred times more sensitive than any previous instrumentation and we detected the acoustic wave not once, but twice - passing through it over the Pacific and over Europe," the mission manager told BBC News.

Monday marks the second anniversary of the quake and tsunami that claimed more than 15,000 lives

Goce's prime purpose is to map very subtle differences in the pull of gravity across the surface of the Earth caused by the uneven distribution of mass within the planet. These variations produce almost imperceptible changes in the velocity of the satellite as it flies overhead and which it records with those high-precision accelerometers. This gravity signal is very weak, however, and that means Goce must fly incredibly low to sense it - so low, in fact, that it actually drags through the top of the atmosphere. It is these special circumstances that put the satellite in a position to detect the infrasonic disturbance on 11 March 2011.

Goce's principal objective is to make maps of the variation in the pull of gravity across the Earth

The acoustic waves perturbed the density of air molecules and changed their speed. It was the faintest of winds at an altitude of 255km, but strong enough to be registered by Goce. The Esa spacecraft encountered the signal as it passed over the Pacific some 30 minutes after the onset of the M9.0 event, and then again 25 minutes later as it moved across Europe. Because of the way the accelerometers are arranged in Goce, it was possible to reconstruct the detection in three dimensions and so confidently trace the infrasound back to its source - the earthquake.

More BBC News - Japan quake 'heard at edge of space'