By Juan Varga

In a rare moment of diplomatic groveling, Japanese undersecretary for foreign affairs, Yukio Yamashita, has apologized on behalf of the Japanese people for not having apologized enough.

At a joint press conference held to announce a new round of bilateral talks between Japan and China, Yamashita addressed the Chinese delegation and stated, “Japan deeply regrets not having expressed its deepest regrets sufficiently to the Chinese people for regretful things done in the past.”

Chen Ming, China’s acting ambassador to Japan said that this may help in healing some of the wounded feelings of the Chinese people.

“This will not heal all the wounded feelings of the Chinese people but it will go a long way in healing some of the weeping, open sores that have grown on top of the original wounded feelings of the Chinese people”, said Chen.

Japan’s apology comes just days after Tokyo agreed to pay China interest on reparations it has not yet paid to China.

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Translation: Warning, perverts lurking

TOKYO – Following complaints about invasion of privacy. Internet search engine Google said it would reshoot all Japanese pictures for its online photo map service, Street View, using lower camera angles.

Google’s Street View offers 360-degree views of streets around the world using photos taken by cruising Google vehicles. The company has run into privacy complaints in other countries, including the U.K., and activists have attempted to halt the service in Japan.

Google said in a statement that it would lower the cameras on its cars by 40 cm (16 inches) after complaints they were capturing images over fences in private homes. The images included the exposure of such national pastimes as chasing schoolgirl ass, bondage, tentacle sex, and taking a crap on each other while others, not Google, take pictures.

Despite the complaints, Google said it would continue filming in Japan, where it has to date covered twelve cities.

“It is certainly a fact that there have been concerns,” said Google’s Tokyo office spokesman Yoshito Funabashi. “We thought of what we can do as a company and tried to be responsible. You have to admit though, those images were hot.”

Google said it has also blurred the faces of all perverts captured in the pictures, as it has done in Europe, but the new steps did not convince Japanese campaigners.

“They are just trying to get through at the technological level … the question is, can we allow for them to shoot unselectively?” said Tokyo-based Yasuhiko Tajima, a Sophia University professor of constitutional law.

Britain’s privacy watchdog has rejected calls to shut Street View down there, where concerns have ranged from images such as someone throwing up outside a pub to media reports that a woman filed for divorce after her husband’s car was pictured outside another woman’s house.

Both Google Maps and a related mapping service, Google Earth, have also been criticized by some countries for providing images of sensitive locations, such as military bases.

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