LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Japan: Years
built 650 days ago
Japan's whale research vessels left port last week to begin the second year of a two-year research feasibility study in the northwestern Pacific. Dr. Seiji Ohsumi, Director General of the Institute of Cetacean Research that conducts the research authorized by the Government of Japan under Article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, said "The priority for our research in the north Pacific is to study the consumption of fish by whales in relation to the fisheries that provide food for humans."
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Just when you all are starting to get GDC fever, Japan comes along to steal its thunder and announces the theme for this year's Tokyo Game Show. Are you ready for that excitement? Here goes:
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Japan adopts a parliamentary democratic system, in which the Diet, the sole legislative organ of the state, is the highest organ of state power. The Diet consists of two houses, the House of Representatives (500 seats, 4-year- term) and the House of Councilors (252 seats, 6-year term).
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There is no law prohibiting child pornography in Japan. 5000 pornographic films are approved each year by an ethics commission composed of major representatives of studios. Japan's obscenity laws require pornographers to blur out pubic hair and genitals. 1,000 illegal pornographic, that do not blur the genital regional, are produced in Japan each month - 35 new titles a day. Media Jack Productions makes 500 approved pornographic videos a year and makes US$31.7 million ("An industry seen through the eyes of one pornographer," Christian Science Monitor, Cameron W. Barr, 2 April 1997) & (Director Mitsuhiro Shimamura, "Pornography Easy To Find in Japan," Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, October 1997)
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The early years of this period of economic growth were ... marked by a shift in Japan's primary industrial energy source from coal to the then less expensive form-oil. This was accompanied by the development of a strong petrochemical industry. As strange as it may seem today, Japan benefited initially from this shift to oil as its primary energy source. At the time, no one could foresee the OPEC oil embargoes of the 70s and the resulting economic problems Japan would have to face.
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Primary, secondary schools and universities were introduced into Japan in 1872 as a result of the Meiji Restoration. Since 1947, compulsory education in Japan consists of elementary school and middle school, which lasts for nine years (from age 6 to age 15). Almost all children continue their education at a three-year senior high school, and, according to the MEXT, about 75.9% of high school graduates attend a university, junior college, trade school, or other post-secondary institution in 2005. Japan's education is very competitive, especially for entrance to institutions of higher education. The two top-ranking universities in Japan are the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Japanese knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds as the 6th best in the world.
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