to balance out the rather numerous mid east threads here
1. Japan politics recieved a bombshell yesterday when Ichiro Ozawa left the ruling Democratic Party with around 30-40 parlimenary members, which would be close to 1/3 of the entire Ruling party's seats and around 1/6 of the total seats. Ozawa has been a highly controversial figuer his entire political career often known as "the destroyer of parties" and it seems like he's up to the same act again... the big controversial debate was Japan wanting to raise it's sales tax from 5 to 10% in an effort to reduce their insane public debt level.
2. Speaking of Japan, it had shut down almost all it's nuclear reactor over the last few months as a result of the Tsuanami Crisis last year, however as summer rolls in it's becomming impossible to go without what's about 30% of their entire power production so now several are being turned back on again.
3. It's odd that no one's meantioned it here that last week China's latest manned flight into space sets several records, including the first Chinese female Astronaught, and the first time they were able to dock on their own space station, a huge step foward for them, and certainly puts them much closer to the US in terms of aero tech.
Another major event was that the Chinese submarine set a new wolrd record for the deepest manned dive in the same week.
4. In more local news in Taiwan, a cabinet member of the ruling party was arrested and has admitted to corruption charges. obviously a pretty big blow to the ruling party in many ways , since the man arrested was their most capable younger generation politician in Southern Taiwan, where they have historically struggled in, the charge which he confessed to is accepting bribes of around 2 million USD to help a private contractor get a deal with a (mostly public) company for a rather lucrative deal. after said contract expired he asked the contractor for almost 3 million USD to extend the contract which the contractor refused... and then revealed the tapped message of their conversation to the press... obviously the press and opposition are having a field day here.
On the other hand, it's good to see that a established politician from the ruling party can be taken down so quickly . the news was only revealed last week and he's already in jail and custody and looking at at least 10 years behind bar and a massive fine. so there's at least the merits of this being a pretty good boost to the credibiltiy of the judiciary branch.
In somewhat related to US news, the US ambassador to Taiwan (not actually called ambassodor due to Taiwan's tricky international situation, but called the director of the American Institue in Taiawn ) William A. Stanton is about to end his term, he says he plans to simply retire and remain in Taiwan as a professor or something like that.