An increase in the sales tax past year boosted revenue, and Abe plans to raise it again in April 2017 while reducing taxes for companies in a bid to aid their competitiveness.
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UK Astronaut Dials Wrong Number From Space
From southern England, it was due to appear in the west at about 4.24pm and remain visible for around six minutes. He is sharing the space station with five other astronauts from Russian Federation and the United States.
The draft budget – the fourth since Abe returned to power in late 2012 – features record welfare spending to cope with a fast-ageing population and a military outlay that tops 5 trillion yen for the first time. “We expect the central bank to ease next year”. Japan’s jobless rate fell to a 20-year low in October, but consumer spending and incomes also edged lower as the tight labor market failed to spur significant increases in wages.
Slow progress in IS-held Ramadi due to bombs, snipers
The drive to recapture Ramadi – involving Iraqi troops, police, militias, and USA air support – seems to be going well so far. Iraq’s army hopes to soon take full control of the key city of Ramadi from self-described Islamic State militants.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei urged Japan to “draw lessons from history, adhere to the path of peaceful development, and play a constructive role in safeguarding regional peace and stability”.
US Blocks UK Muslim Family from Boarding Plane to Disneyland
Embassy “to clear up the visa mess they created”. “So the only explanation I can think of is that my name is Mohammed”. Imam Mansoor wrote on Facebook on Monday that he had been invited to a meeting that day at the U.S.
Forty two billion US dollars allocated for a plethora of next-generation hardware for Abe’s military is not, as the prime minister has intimated, a means to purchase and ensure peace and stability in the region and the world at large, this sum, indeed, is a superfluous amount for a nation merely defending itself, as per its Supreme Law.
This is the first defense budget since Japan enacted new security legislation in September.
Abe is pushing to tweak Japan’s pacifist constitution, a move that has proved deeply unpopular at home and sparked protests by tens of thousands outside parliament this year. His defence strategy has also provoked unease in China and South Korea, which were victims of Japan’s aggressive colonial and military campaigns through the end of World War II.
Items on Tokyo’s shopping list for the coming fiscal year include six F-35 stealth fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp and 11 units of AAV7 amphibious assault vehicles made by BAE Systems, as Japan fortifies island defence.
Japan and China have routinely butted heads over the ownership of the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku Islands, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus. It would be the fourth annual increase under Abe, who ended a decade of defense budget cuts.
China’s Hong called his country’s military policy “defensive in nature” and added its spending is “within a reasonable range”.
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As the old adage goes, and one that Abe will do well to remember as he starts an unnecessary arms race, and re-stokes the embers of Japan’s imperial war machine: “Once bitten, twice shy”.
