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Japan: World
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When World War II came to an end in 1945, Japan was in ruin. The extent of the devastation is difficult for most Americans to comprehend. All of Japan's major cities, with the sole exception of Kyoto, had been bombed extensively during the last few months of the war. Everyone is familiar with the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; few... realize that Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and many other Japanese cities were equally devastated. The only difference is that their destruction occurred over a period of months rather than in one instant of time. In either case, the result was the same-smoldering rubble.
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Japan is one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific research, particularly technology, machinery and medical research. Nearly 700,000 researchers share a US$130 billion research and development budget, the third largest in the world. For instance some of Japan's more prominent technological contributions are found in the fields of electronics, automobiles, machinery, industrial robotics, optics, chemicals, semiconductors and metals. Japan leads the world in robotics production and use, possessing more than half (402,200 of 742,500) of the world's industrial robots used for manufacturing. It ... produced QRIO, ASIMO and Aibo. Japan is the world's largest producer of automobiles and home to six of the world's fifteen largest automobile manufacturers and seven of the world's twenty largest semiconductor sales leaders as of today.
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Japan had an active biological weapons (BW) program prior to 1945. The focal point was the now infamous Unit 731 based at a laboratory complex in northeastern China during the Japanese occupation. Unit 731 experimented on Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war with various biological agents, including plague, cholera, and hemorrhagic fever. In addition to the living body test, the Japanese military used biological weapons against China. Most of the data the Japanese military accumulated during WWII was confiscated by the US military. After World War II, the Japanese government abandoned its BW program.
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On the arable land, which is only 11% of Japan's total land area, the population density is among the highest in the world. The climate ranges from chilly humid continental to humid subtropical. Rainfall is abundant, and typhoons and earthquakes are frequent. (For a more detailed description of geography, see separate articles on the individual islands.) Mineral resources are meager, except for coal, which is an important source of industrial energy. The rapid streams supply plentiful hydroelectric power. Imported oil... is the major source of energy.
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Japan's farming population has been declining steadily and was about 6% of the total population in the 1990s; agriculture accounted for only 2% of the GNP. Arable land is intensively cultivated; farmers use irrigation, terracing, and multiple cropping to coax rich crops from the overworked soil. Rice and other cereals are the main crops; some vegetables and industrial crops, such as mulberry trees (for feeding silkworms), are ... grown, and livestock is raised. Fishing is highly developed, and the annual catch is one of the largest in the world. The decision by many nations to extend economic zones 200 mi (322 km) offshore has forced Japan to concentrate on more efficiently exploiting its own coastal and inland waters.
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"CTC Group, a leading provider of total computing solutions in Japan and the Asia/Pacific area, offers Nettech's wireless solution products as part of their Smart Computing Enterprise Solution. Founded in 1972, the CTC Group provides total solutions with NT, UNIX, and networking products for approximately 30,000 corporate clients worldwide in industries including telecommunications, service, finance, distribution and manufacturing, as well as systems for governmental, educational, and medical use. Over the last two years CTC has been the number one provider of Sun Microsystems products worldwide, and the number one provider in Japan of products from Oracle, Sybase, Netscape, and Cisco Systems. CTC operates more than 70 branches with over 2,500 employees throughout Japan. They provide services ranging from consultation to system development, post-delivery operations, maintenance, support, training, and outsourcing, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
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