There are legitimate questions, nevertheless, about whether Japan could actually shift away from nuclear power. Japan is incredibly dependent on nuclear energy -- the country's 54 nuclear reactors account for 30 percent of its electricity; pre-earthquake estimates noted that the share to grow to 40 percent by 2017 and 50 percent by 2030. The prime minister today offered few details on how he'll transition away from nuclear reliance.  

Japan joins a list of nuclear countries that have grown increasingly skittish about the controversial energy source since the disaster in March.

Germany

Germany announced plans in late May to close all the country's nuclear power plants by 2022 -- making it the largest industrialized nation to do so. Nuclear power supplies 23 percent of its energy grid. Since the Japan disaster it has permanently shuttered eight plants (including the seven oldest in the country). That leaves nine plants to go -- six of which, the government announced, will close up by 2021.

This isn't the first time Germany tried to shutter its nuclear plants. The previous center-left government had a similar plan, though it was reversed last September by Chancellor Angela Merkel and her coalition, which said the technology was still necessary. Fukushima changed all that.

The country plans to make up the difference by cutting energy usage by 10 percent, it said, with more energy efficient appliances and buildings and to increase the use of wind energy. 

Switzerland

No neutrality here -- the government announced in May it too was taking a side against nuclear technology, in response to Japan's disaster. Nuclear energy accounts for roughly 40 percent of Switzerland's energy supply. Its five nuclear reactors won't fully be phased out, experts estimate, until 2040.

The move is popular with the Swiss citizens -- 20,000 of whom demonstrated against the technology before the government's decision.

Italy

Last month, Silvio Berlusconi's plans to return Italy to the nuclear club were dashed by a referendum that found 90 percent of Italians rejected the technology.

As a result the embattled prime minister said, "We shall probably have to say goodbye to nuclear [energy]." He noted that the government will instead shift its energies to developing renewable energy sources.

Berlusconi had been trying to reconstitute an industry that was already abandoned once before -- back in 1987. Currently there are no nuclear plants, but the prime minister hoped to get nuclear power to account for a quarter of the country's energy needs and planned to begin building new plants by as early as 2013.

Mexico

Despite the fact that nuclear energy only accounts for less than 5 percent of the market in Mexico, which has only one plant, a recent worldwide survey found that Mexico was one of the most anti-nuclear countries in the world, with about 80 percent of its population opposing the power source. That doesn't bode well for future nuclear development.

Mexico is one of only three Latin American nations that uses nuclear power. And last year the country delayed a decision until at least 2012 on whether to go ahead with plans to build 10 more plants, according to the country's energy minister.

President Felipe Calderon has said he'd push to make sure "clean energy" accounts for at least 35 percent of the country's energy needs. 

France

Let's be clear, France is unlikely to ditch nuclear power completely anytime soon. A longtime champion of the technology, it accounts for 75 percent of the country's energy needs. But there are indications political leaders are falling out of love -- ever so slightly -- with the power source. On Friday, July 8 the government launched a study of energy technologies that included one potential scenario of completely doing away with nuclear power by 2040. It's the first time the government has ever even mentioned the possibility. A more likely result of the study will be cutting the nuclear share of the market. Indeed, France has increased its investment in wind energy lately.

The government is likely responding to growing public pressure to do away with nuclear energy. A recent BBC survey found 57 percent of French respondents opposed the technology.

Last we checked in on Japan's transformation into a stagnant third-world hellhole the world's third largest economy, we heard the horrifying story of healthy young men running around in skinny jeans and buying presents for their moms instead of getting wasted with coworkers and neglecting their families like real men are supposed to. Today, CNN adds its own entry to the genre, using a classic experimental method, the twin study.

Meet Toshiko and Fukuko Kubo, identical Japanese twins. Fukuko has imigrated to China, where she has a stable, well-paying job. Toshiko lives in Tokyo where she also has a stable, well-paying job. But wait, it's not that simple:

[Toshiko] has a graduate degree in art history and longs to work amid the works of the great artists of the classical era of art. Those dreams are shelved, she says, for a job with a steady salary and benefits. She works in a job outside of the field of her choice, logging the typical 14-hour work day expected in Japan. Toshiko doesn't hate her job, but it doesn't exactly inspire her, either.

So you're telling me that in Japan, it's hard to find employment in the lucrative field of art history? Clearly, the Japanese economy is completely and irrevocably screwed.

Let's meet Fukuko:

Fukuko decided in high school to study abroad in the UK. She became fluent in English, a key to unlocking the job possibilities with multinational companies overseas. Like her sister, Fukuko also graduated with a master's degree, but in contemporary art, with an undergraduate in architecture.

At first, she says, she tried to work in Japan. She was employed at a Tokyo-based company when the sub-prime crisis struck the U.S. and unraveled into the Lehman Shock in Japan. The company downsized and bought out employees, including Fukuko.

Fukuko looked around and saw little hope for her young life in the mature economy of Japan. "I think people are getting less optimistic about life," says Fukuko. "You feel this kind of depression. People are sort of stuck in this environment where they are just worried about everything, and then work for so many hours. I wasn't feeling happy either, because of all these things around me. I needed to get out of that so I could feel fine."

Without a job or any concrete employment plan, Fukuko took off to Beijing, China. Three days later, she landed an interview and then subsequently was hired by an interior design company.

So we have two twins who both majored in art and got jobs out of college. We don't know what these jobs are because the piece doesn't tell us, but from the context it doesn't sound like they're flipping burgers. One of them got laid off and moved to China where she got another job. We have no idea how much money either one makes or what, or what they actually do. I'm sorry that Toshiko doesn't feel fulfilled by her career, but that's not a condition that's unique to stagnant economies.

The piece also tells us that there are approximately three times as many Japanese people living in China today as 10 years ago but admits that "the numbers are not dramatic," -- it's still about a 10th of a percent of Japan's population. (It might be higher if not for those unfortunate riots.)

So what have we learned today? That you can get a job in Japan with an art history degree, though maybe not one involving art history, and that if you're fluent in English and have a master's degree from a Japanese university, you can get hired as an interior designer in Beijing. Good to know.

Video appearing to show a Chinese fishing boat ramming a Japanese patrol boat near disputed islands in the East China Sea in early September, an incident which set off a major diplomatic row between the two countries, leaked to YouTube yesterday. The video had previously only been seen by senior Japanese lawmakers. 

There are dozens of versions of the clip floating around YouTube today. The one above shows the actual collision a little after the 2 minute mark.

As anti-Japanese protests flare across China, the Japanese media is reporting that the government may have unwittingly violated a secret pact with China over the disputed Senkaku islands, leading to the current round of tension:

Aera magazine reported that under Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled for half a century until last year, Tokyo and Beijing had made "secret promises" to each other over the territorial issue.

"Under the secret promises, Japan was in principle to prevent landings (of Chinese nationals) on the islets and not to detain them unless it develops into a case of grave concerns," the magazine said, citing unnamed government sources.

"The Chinese side promised to block (anti-Japanese) protesters' boats from sailing off to reach the islands," the weekly added.

In an illustrative case, Japan in 2004 immediately deported seven Chinese activists who had landed on one of the rocky islands, Aera said.

When power changed in Japan last summer, the earlier promises may not have been mentioned to the new centre-left Democratic Party of Japan government, an unnamed government source was quoted as saying by Aera.

If true, this would be the second revelation this year about a secret foreign policy pact made by the LDP government. In March, it came out that under an undisclosed passage of a 1960 treaty with the United States, Japan had been allowing nuclear-armed U.S. vessels to use its ports in violation of longstanding anti-nuclear principles.

Obviously, secret agreements between countries are hardly unheard of. But it's certainly starting to seem like the LDP had been trying to avoid public outcry on some of Japan's most contentious foreign-policy issues and that after decades of unquestioned rule, didn't anticipate having to let the opposition in on the secret.

CHIBA, JAPAN - SEPTEMBER 16: Visitors play Sega Corp.'s 'Phantasy Star
Portable 2 Infinity' on Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PlayStation
Portable (PSP) handheld game consoles while a booth assitant looks on
during the Tokyo Game Show 2010 at Makuhari Messe on September 16, 2010
in Chiba, Japan. The computer and video game convention, which will be
held until September 19, features exhibitions of upcoming game software
and hardware from 194 companies and organizations to draw business
visitors and the general public.

Another side effect of summer heat? In August, according to CNNGo, Japanese monkeys "get most feisty." This year, at least 43 people in Shizuoka prefecture have been injured due to monkey transgressions. On August 25 alone, about 15 people in the city of Susono were injured. Residents have been bitten and scratched; one 73-year-old woman reported that a monkey grabbed her leg from behind.

In Tokyo, a wild monkey was caught two weeks ago after hiding out in a three-story house. In Mainichi, the local newspaper reported a lack of progress in halting the monkey mayhem: "Police, firefighters and local hunters have been searching for the monkeys but so far none have been captured."

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuyo Okada is in India this week holding talks on civilian nuclear cooperation, but he is also pushing for a clause to attempt to limit India's future nuclear weapons tests:

Before leaving for his two-day visit to India, Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said any civilian nuclear deal between the two countries needed a clause to define how Tokyo would respond to any nuclear test by New Delhi.

"Japan will have no option but to suspend our cooperation" in the event of a nuclear test by India, Okada told a news conference in New Delhi

The two countries launched talks in June on signing an atomic civilian cooperation agreement which will allow Tokyo to export nuclear power generation technology and related equipment to energy-hungry India.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government has been criticized at home for negotiating the deal with India, which developed nuclear weapons outside the framework of the global non-proliferation treaty. Japan's Mainichi Shimbun editorializes: 

Cooperation with any country like India on atomic energy could make the NPT a dead letter and give Iran and other countries that are suspected of developing nuclear weapons even though they are parties to the treaty an excuse to develop nuclear arms.... [I]n negotiating with India, Japan should assert its position as the only country that has suffered from nuclear devastation.

India seems unlikely to agree to further pledges against nuclear testing, beyond those it has already made. As a member of the international nuclear-suppliers group, Japan finally overcame years of resistance in 2008 when it agreed to a waiver that allowed India to receive nucelar assistance despite its non-NPT status. Japan's willingness to cooperate on nuclear energy with India is a pretty good indication of how China's military and economic rise has changed the equation for its neighbors.

It's no secret that Japan seeks an end to the longstanding moratorium on commercial whaling passed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986. Nor is Japan a stranger to allegations that it's bribed other IWC members to vote for its position. But now, the London Times is carrying what it says is proof that at least six states agreed to vote for Japan's position in exchange for aid:

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting [...] They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.

The governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.

The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings.

If the Times' report is true, Japan's efforts to overturn the whaling ban may have suffered a major setback. But anti-whaling activists shouldn't rejoice just yet. Debate surrounding the issue has gotten progressively more intense in the last few months as the IWC prepares to consider just what Japan is looking for -- a (temporary) suspension of the moratorium, to be voted on later this month in Morocco. The meeting also follows a recent breakdown in relations between Japan and Australia, whose government sued Tokyo on June 1 for repeatedly violating the IWC whaling ban.

The International Whaling  Commission unveiled a new proposal today that would lift the blanket ban on commercial whaling while reducing the number of whales caught each year by Japan, Iceland, and Norway and further regulating the trade .

Japan's response has essentially been, "we like that lifting the ban part":

Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu, while welcoming the endorsement of coastal whaling, said: "Regarding the total catch allowed, it is different from Japan's position. We want to continue negotiating with patience."

The U.S. lead the effort to put together the new proposal -- a painful compromise for whaling opponents -- which will be voted on at an IWC meeting in June. 

It doesn't seem like anti-whaling countries have a whole lot of leverage here. The U.S. has rejected plans to impose economic sanctions against Japan's "scientific" whale hunts in the past and it's not clear how serious Australia is  about its threats to take Japan to the International Criminal Court. Japan's best strategy seems to be to keep the IWC talking -- while recruiting more allies for its cause -- and continue the hunt in the meantime. 

France isn't the only government dealing with bizarre revelations about a politician's past. It turns out that Mieko Tanaka, a recently elected Diet representative from Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party, had a very interesting career prior to entering politics. This included a stint as some sort of cosplay sex columnist:

A publishing company employee explains that Tanaka used to pen a rather racy column in the magazine Bubka titled “Beautiful costume play writer Arisu interviews sex workers: a real battle of beauties” under the name Arisu Shibuya. “She would interview fuzoku [sex industry] girls while she herself was outfitted in some kind of costume. It become somewhat of a topic of conversation because nobody knew why she had to dress up like that,” the employee chuckles.

Tanaka had a bit of a film career as well. She appeared nude in cult director Teruo Ishii's 2005 slasher film Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf:

Tanaka plays one of four widows named Reiko, and she first appears sixty-eight minutes into the film. The ladies are initially seduced by the blind beast, who in reality is a killer, and succumb to his sensual massage, for which Tanaka is seen writhing in ecstasy as the beast fumbles with her breasts beneath her robe.

The politician then reappears at around the eighty-three-minute mark, when she tricks the sightless creature into thinking a doll is her body and subsequently flees in desperation.

Thanks to Tanaka's election, sales of Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf are apparently through the roof.

Tanaka is one of the so-called "Ozawa girls," a group of young female politicians recruited by DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa to unseat aging, male LDP incumbents.

Between Tanaka's cult-film past and first lady Miyuki Hatoyama's close encounters, Japanese voters may have gotten more change than they bargained for with the DPJ.

Photo: Democratic Party of Japan

Two days into its new government, the Democratic Party of Japan is wasting no time setting new policies for the country. Yesterday, the Defense Minister suggested a withdrawl from Afghanistan; today, the country looks set to suspend use of the death penalty.

The new Japanese Government has in effect suspended the death penalty by appointing an outspoken opponent of capital punishment as Justice Minister.

Keiko Chiba, 61, a lawyer and former member of the Japan Socialist Party, has the final say in signing execution orders for Japan’s 102 death row inmates.

Although she has declined to say explicitly whether or not she will authorise them, her 20-year-long record as a death penalty abolitionist makes it a certainty that hangings will be put on hold.

The article goes on to note that the United States would now be the only "industrial democracy" to still use capital punishment. However, a look at Amnesty International's list of "retentionist" countries does show that the death penalty remains on the books in several of the largest developing nations, including India and China. Those looking for meaningless correlations should also note that other "retentionist" countries include North Korea, Chad, and Sudan.

YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty Images

Wow.

Japan's voters have handed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party an unprecedented beatdown in the country's lower-house elections, meaning the opposition Democratic Party of Japan -- long the Washington Generals, if you will, of Japanese politics -- is coming to power. It's only the second time the LDP has been ousted since World War II.

What does it mean? We'll have more on that in a bit (and you can read smart takes on the subject by Tobias Harris [twice!] and Dov Zakheim), but my view is that's it's a healthy development for a country that has never been quite as democratic as most of us assumed it to be. Japanese voters have finally punished the ossified LDP for its economic management and arrogance ignoring their everyday concerns, and it's punishment well deserved. And as an editor, anything that makes Japanese politics more interesting is welcome.

The U.S. State Department has issued a statement congratulating the DPJ on its win and pledging "close cooperation" with the new government "in moving toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, addressing the threat of climate change and increasing the availability of renewable energy, bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and addressing international humanitarian and health issues," among other top priorities.

But will the DPJ be as easy to work with as its predecessor? Yukio Hatoyama, the likely new prime minister shown above, wrote last week in a frankly loopy New York Times op-ed that Japan would "aspire to move toward regional currency integration," making headlines around the world. He said it would probably take at least 10 years to accomplish, after which the goal would be EU-style "political integration" of the region. Hatoyama also made clear that he views the United States as a declining power and that Japan would be taking a more independent line in foreign policy.

We'll see if he carries it out. More on this later.

UPDATE: Jeff Kingston weighs in from Japan with his expert take on what the DPJ's win means for Japan and the world. He argues that Tokyo's new government may have a lot more trouble on the economic front, and a lot more success in foreign policy, than most folks think. Check it out.

... Tobias Harris has more.

Junko Kimura/Getty Images

For decades, all that Japan knew of jury trials came from foreign legal dramas. Now, for the first time since 1943, Japan is watching a real jury decide the fate of a criminal, as six "lay judges" join three professional judges for four days of deliberations over the fatal stabbing of a 66 year-old South Korean woman by her 72 year-old neighbor. 

Since the end of trial by jury during World War II, Japan's trials have been carried out under professional judges, which led to accusations of too much secrecy. The 99 percent conviction rate that currently accompanies these trials has increased concern that many innocent people are being convicted, and the reintroduction of juries, which was passed five years ago, is designed to bring the public into the judicial process (though only for serious crimes such as murder). However, the public has been skeptical of the new system, especially the hassle involved in taking time off to serve. Furthermore, many Japanese do not enjoy the open forum of deliberations; a New York Times article from 2007 reported that even a mock trial "had left [participants] stressed and overwhelmed." Overall, polls show that almost 80% of the public does not want to serve, and there have been intermittent protests (shown above) since the law's passage. 

But while the hassle of serving and the confusion at a new system are at the top of the public's complains, the legal community is more concerned about something else: sentencing. Many critics in Japan have expressed unease at the power given to jurors to pass sentence on criminals, including the death penalty (though at least one professional judge must agree with the lay judges' recommended sentence). Since the accused has already pled guilty in this case, the jury will likely be focusing on the appropriate penalty -- as will the nation.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

It's behind the paywall, alas, but the Wall Street Journal has an interesting item about how some former Lehman Brothers employees are doing at their new Japanese firm. The short version? Not so good:

Japanese brokerage firm Nomura Holdings Inc. kicked off a training session for new hires in April by separating the men and women. The women, including Harvard graduates hired by Lehman Brothers before it collapsed, were taught how to wear their hair, serve tea and choose their wardrobes according to the season, say executives who fielded a complaint about the session.

Some folks, of course, would argue that that's about all Harvard graduates are good for.