Japan

Sensō-ji is an ancient Buddhist temple located in Asakusa, Taitō, Tokyo. It is Tokyo's oldest temple, and one of its most significant.... Formerly associated with the Tendai sect, it became independent after World War II. Adjacent to the temple is a Shinto shrine, the Asakusa Shrine. The temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon, also known as Guan Yin or the Goddess of Mercy. According to legend, a statue of the Kannon was found in the Sumida River in 628 by two fishermen, the brothers Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari. The chief of their village, Hajino Nakamoto, recognized the sanctity of the statue and enshrined it by remodeling his own house into a small temple in Asakusa, so that the villagers could worship the Kannon. The first temple was built on the site in 645, which makes it the oldest temple in Tokyo. In the early years of the Tokugawa shogunate, Tokugawa Ieyasu designated Sensō-ji as tutelary temple of the Tokugawa clan. The Nishinomiya Inari Shrine is located within the precincts of Sensō-ji; and a torii identifies the entry into the hallowed ground of a Shinto shrine.
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Tokyo Tower is a communications and observation tower located in Shiba Park, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At 332.5 metres , it is the second tallest... artificial structure in Japan. The structure is an Eiffel Tower-inspired lattice tower that is painted white and international orange to comply with air safety regulations. Built in 1958, the tower's main sources of revenue are tourism and antenna leasing. Over 150 million people have visited the tower since its opening. FootTown, a 4-storey building located directly under the tower, houses museums, restaurants and shops. Departing from here, guests can visit two observation decks. The 2-storey Main Observatory is located at 150 metres , while the smaller Special Observatory reaches a height of 250 metres . The tower acts as a support structure for an antenna. Originally intended for television broadcasting, radio antennas were installed in 1961 and the tower is now used to broadcast signals for Japanese media outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. Japan's planned digital television transition by July 2011 is problematic, however.
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The Battle of Amami-Ōshima or the Spy Ship Incident in the Southwest Sea of Kyūshū was a six-hour confrontation between the Japan... Coast Guard and an armed North Korean vessel, taking place near the island of Amami-Ōshima, in the East China Sea. The encounter ended in the sinking of the North Korean Navy vessel, which the Japanese authorities later announced was determined to have been a spy craft. The as-yet unidentified ship was first seen in Japanese waters on Friday 21 December 2001. The armed trawler was detected by a communications station in Kikaijima, Kagoshima, which was under control of the Defense Intelligence Headquarters. A North Korean vessel encountered by the Japanese Coast Guard in 1999 was claimed by Japan to have been a spy craft, though North Korea denied it; other incidents have occurred involving illegal fishing and drug trafficking. With the North Korean vessel's intentions unclear, the Japanese Coast Guard decided to intercept it.
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The Solomon Islands campaign was a major campaign of the Pacific War of World War II. The campaign began with Japanese landings and occupation of... several areas in the British Solomon Islands and Bougainville, in the Territory of New Guinea, during the first six months of 1942. The Japanese occupied these locations and began the construction of several naval and air bases with the goals of protecting the flank of the Japanese offensive in New Guinea, establishing a security barrier for the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain, and providing bases for interdicting supply lines between the Allied powers of the United States and Australia and New Zealand. The Allies, in order to defend their communication and supply lines in the South Pacific, supported a counteroffensive in New Guinea, isolated the Japanese base at Rabaul, and counterattacked the Japanese in the Solomons with landings on Guadalcanal and small neighboring islands on 7 August 1942.
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The Battle of Mindanao was fought by United States forces and allied Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese from 10 March - 15 August 1945 at... Mindanao island in the Philippine Archipelago, in a series of actions officially designated as Operation VICTOR V, and part of the campaign for the liberation of the Philippines during World War II. The battle was waged to complete the recapture of the southernmost portions of the archipelago and secure them from remaining Japanese forces. The campaign for Mindanao posed the greatest challenge for the liberating American forces, primarily for three reasons: the island's inhospitable geography; the extended Japanese defenses; and the strength and condition of the Japanese forces, which contained the significantly remaining concentration of combat troops in the Philippines. Like most of the Philippine Islands and other similar places the U.S. Army operated elsewhere in the Pacific, the geographical conditions of Mindanao, the second largest island in the Philippines, offered very little inspiration for soldiers who would have to fight there.
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In 1945, China from April to August 2, 3 front in Guangxi province, launched a counter offensive to retake the last major Japanese stronghold in... South China and the Second Guangxi Campaign started. The campaign was highly successful, and plans were being made to mop up the remaining scattered Japanese troops in the vicinity of Shanghai and the east coast. However, after Manchuria was liberated during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese had surrendered and the 8 year long War of Resistance against Japan finally came to an end.
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The African Development Bank Group is a development bank established in 1964 with the intention of promoting economic and social development in... Africa. The Group comprises the African Development Bank , the African Development Fund , and the Nigeria Trust Fund . AfDB provides loans and grants to African governments and private companies investing in the regional member countries in Africa. It is owned and funded by member governments, and has a public-interest mandate to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development. Following the end of colonial period in Africa, growing desire for more unity within the continent led to the establishment of two draft charters, one for the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity , and for a regional development bank. A draft accord was submitted to top African officials, then to African Ministers, before being cosigned by twenty-three African governments on August 4, 1963, in the form of an agreement establishing the African Development Bank.
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The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia. The... bank admits the members of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and non-regional developed countries. From 31 members at its establishment, ADB now has 67 members - of which 48 are from within Asia and the Pacific and 19 outside. ADB was modeled closely on the World Bank, and has a similar weighted voting system where votes are distributed in proportion with member's capital subscriptions. At present, both the United States and Japan hold 552,210 shares, the largest proportion of shares at 12.756% each. China holds 228,000 shares , India holds 224,010 shares , the 2nd and 3rd largest proportion of shares respectively. The highest policy-making body of the bank is the Board of Governors composed of one representative from each member state. The Board of Governors, in turn, elect among themselves the 12 members of the Board of Directors and their deputy.
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The Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee, sprang from Article III.2 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear... Weapons which entered into force on March 5, 1970. Under the terms of Article III.2 International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards must be applied to nuclear exports. Between 1971 and 1974, a group of 15 nuclear supplier states held a series of informal meetings in Vienna chaired by Professor Claude Zangger of Switzerland. The group's objective was to reach a common understanding on: the definition of "equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material;" and the conditions and procedures that would govern exports of such equipment or material in order to meet the obligations of Article III.2 on the basis of fair commercial competition. The group, which became known as the Zangger Committee, decided that it would be informal and that its decisions would not be legally binding upon its members.
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The Paris Club is an informal group of financial officials from 19 of some of the world's biggest economies, which provides financial services such... as war funding, debt restructuring, debt relief, and debt cancellation to indebted countries and their creditors. Debtors are often recommended by the International Monetary Fund after alternative solutions have failed. It meets every six weeks at the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance, and Industry in Paris. It is chaired by a senior official of the French Treasury, currently the Director General of the Treasury [Ramon Fernandez]. The club grew out of crisis talks held in Paris in 1956 between the nation of Argentina and its various creditors. Its principles and procedures were codified at the end of the 1970s in the context of the North-South Dialogue. In the 1990s, the club began to treat the HIPC and non-HIPCs differently. The club began to grant increasingly larger debt reductions for the HIPCs.
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Nihon University is the largest university in Japan. Akiyoshi Yamada, the minister of justice, founded Nihon Law School in October 1889. Most of... the university's campuses are in the Kantō region, the vast majority in Tokyo or surrounding areas, though two campuses are as far away from Tokyo as Shizuoka Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture. Unlike the separate campus systems of many American universities , these campuses do not represent separate universities, but normally accommodate a single college or school . The university comprises a federation of colleges and institutes known for having produced numerous CEOs of Japanese companies. The College of Art is well known as it produces many artists who represent Japan in photography, theater, and cinema. See Nihon University faculty. * Did not graduate.
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Waseda University , abbreviated as Sōdai , is a private university located in the northern part of Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the most... prestigious universities in Japan and Asia. Founded in 1882 as Tokyo Senmon Gakko, the institution was renamed Waseda University in 1902. Its alumni include seven post-war prime ministers and prominent corporate leaders. Currently, seven of the Fortune Global 2007's CEOs are Waseda graduates. In particular, the School of Political Science and Economics has a significant influence on Japanese society. The university was founded by samurai scholar and Meiji-era politician and former prime minister Ōkuma Shigenobu in 1882, and was designated as a full university in 1902. It started as a college with three departments under the old Japanese system of higher education. In 1882, the university had the department of political science and economics, law, and physical science. Along with these departments, an English language course was established, where the students of all the departments could learn English. Three years later, the department of physical science was closed because it had too few applicants.
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Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha ,... established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō . This was from 1883 headed by Dr. Gustave Emile Boissonade, and was heavily influenced by the French legal tradition. It merged in 1889 with a school of French studies, Tōkyō Futsugakkō , that had been founded three years earlier. It adopted the name Hosei University in 1903 and was recognized as a private university in 1920. Other notable figures involved in its foundation include Dr. Masaaki Tomii, and Dr. Ume Kenjirō, "Father of the Japanese Civil Code". Hosei has three main campuses, which it calls Ichigaya, Koganei, and Tama. The Ichigaya campus is halfway between Ichigaya and Iidabashi stations in central Tokyo; its 26-story Boissonade Tower, completed in 2000, can be seen from either station.
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Gota Yashiki is both an independent acid jazz artist and drum player, as a member of the band Simply Red. He was born in Kyoto, Japan, on 26 February... 1962, where at a young age he learned how to play traditional Japanese drums. This interest in drumming propelled him into the music scene, and he moved to Tokyo in 1982 to join a reggae/dub band that became known as Mute Beat. Together with Mute Beat band member Kazufumi Kodama he worked on various projects and formed the duo Kodama & Gota. From 1986 on, Gota entered the European music scene. After spending some time back in Tokyo, he returned to London in 1988 and began collaborating with numerous well-known artists, including Soul II Soul, Sinéad O'Connor and Seal, while also working on film soundtracks and re-mixes. Gota joined Simply Red in 1991 for the recording of the album Stars and the following world tour. In late 1993, he released an album entitled Something to Talk About under the name Gota & The Heart of Gold, and helped fellow Simply Red band member Heitor T.P. release a solo album in 1994.
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Harumi Miyako is a Japanese singer of enka. Born Harumi Kitamura in Kyoto, she made her debut in 1964. Her popularity has lasted: She makes... frequent appearances in the annual television spectacular Kōhaku Uta Gassen and has acted in a number of films.
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Ittoku Kishibe is a Japanese actor. The veteran of over 115 films, he won the Best Actor Japanese Academy Award for Shi no toge in 1991, and was... nominated for the Best Supporting Actor award in 1994. He is currently playing Yotsuya for the live-action drama of Maison Ikkoku.
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Amii Ozaki , real name Misuzu Ohara , is a Japanese singer songwriter born on 19 March 1957 in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. She has... written music such as Oribia o Kikinagara by Anri and Tenshi no Uingu by Seiko Matsuda, as well as many other songs. Ozaki makes irregular appearances on her friend Akira Kamiya's internet radio show Kamiya Akira Hot Beat Party. Her husband is musician Rei Ohara. Her mother is Akemi Ozaki, a maker of popular handbags and purses made from vintage obi. Ozaki began studying classical piano in 1965 at the age of eight. By the time she was sixteen, after graduating from Kyoto Municipal Kinugasa Junior High School, she had begun writing her own works and participating in an amateur composers club. Her first work, Hitorikko ka Bakko, tells the story of the loneliness of searching for one's mother. She attended Kyoto Prefectural Yamashiro High School. In 1974, Ozaki participated in her first contest, winning ¥5000 and making a favorable impression on one of the judges who indicated that he thought she was going to become a professional in the near future.
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