A town in Japan's <keyword id="21536386" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yamagata-prefecture" source="keywords">Yamagata prefecture</keyword> is taking a unique approach to <keyword id="19913584" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="public-health" source="keywords">public health</keyword>. Local lawmakers have passed a law encouraging residents to laugh at least once a day!<br /><br />This unusual ordinance, enacted last week, is based on research conducted at <keyword id="22386082" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yamagata-University" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Yamagata University" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Yamagata University">Yamagata University</keyword>. The research suggests <keyword id="19907840" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="laughter" source="keywords">laughter</keyword> has significant health benefits, potentially reducing the risk of heart disease and even extending lifespans.<br /><br />The law doesn't force laughter, but rather aims to nudge residents towards a more cheerful outlook. It encourages daily "sniggers, chortles, or guffaws," along with urging businesses to create laughter-filled work environments.<br /><br />Remember that <em>Brooklyn Nine-Nine </em>episode where Captain Holt is disgruntled after nobody was having a good time despite him “specifically requesting it”?<br />  <div type="image" title="Brooklyn Nine-Nine" msid="111685548" hostid="261" sizebytes="1778319" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Scene from Brooklyn Nine-Nine&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>The eighth of every month is now designated as "Laughter Day," further promoting the lighthearted initiative.<br /><br />However, the law has sparked some debate. Critics, including members of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), argue it infringes on personal freedoms. "The right to laugh, or not to laugh, is guaranteed by the constitution," said JCP member Toru Seki. Others, like Satoru Ishiguro of the Constitutional Democratic Party, worry the law disregards those struggling to laugh due to illness or hardship.<br /><br />Defenders of the law, like Kaori Ito of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), emphasise it's an encouragement, not a mandate. "There's no penalty for not laughing," says Ito. Officials also clarified the law is focused on promoting <keyword id="19896695" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="well-being" source="keywords">well-being</keyword>, not forced merriment.<br /><br />Whether laughter truly becomes the best medicine in Yamagata remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure, this lighthearted approach to health is certainly getting a chuckle out of the world.<br />

Japan has ordered its residents to laugh at least once a day; the opposition thinks its human rights violation

<ul class="summary-list"><li>One Japanese company is looking for a team of reviewers to live in its properties for three months at a time.</li><li>The rent is only $200 for an entire seaside home in Chiba, just one hour from Tokyo's city center.</li><li>In exchange for the low rents, the reviewers must provide feedback and make social media posts on their stays.</li></ul><p>If <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rent-inflation-single-family-homes-housing-corelogic-real-estate-prices-2021-5">sky-high</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/22/rents-rich-are-plummeting-rents-poor-are-rising-why/">rents</a> in the US are getting you down, perhaps you'll love the idea of living in a six-bedroom coastal property in <keyword id="6355311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="japan">Japan</keyword> for just $200. </p><p>That isn't a pipe dream, because one Japanese home rental company is opening up spots for 20 lucky people to live in the seaside town of Chiba for three months.</p><p>Japanese pop culture site <a href="https://soranews24.com/2021/06/30/new-program-lets-you-rent-a-house-in-a-coastal-japanese-town-for-less-than-200-bucks-a-month/">Sora News 24</a> first reported on the program started by <a href="https://yoyaku.hobimo.life/">rental company Hobimo</a>, which started <a href="https://www.hobimo.life/contact/?utm_source=waval&amp;utm_medium=kijinai_contact&amp;utm_campaign=monitor=monitor">taking applications</a> this month. It is looking for 10 groups of two people each to reside in its seaside properties.</p><p>During the stint, the reviewers will have to live in one of the company's properties in Chiba, which is an hour out from Tokyo. And if relaxing in a huge beachfront home somehow isn't enough of a lure, the prefecture has loads to offer - including <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/news/yjj2021061900371/">two Disney parks</a>, a <a href="https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/1544/">40-mile coastline of sandy beaches</a>, and plenty of spots for hiking, including up the <a href="https://www.japan.travel/en/spot/2187/">scenic Mount Nokogiri</a>. </p><p>Throughout the review period, the teams are required to provide feedback to the company on the property and document their three-month stay on social media. In exchange for their work, rent will only cost a reviewer $181 per month.</p><p>It's a pretty sweet deal, considering that 300 square-foot two-bedroom apartments in the Chiba prefecture are <a href="https://realestate.co.jp/en/rent/chiba">going for around $450 to $600 a month</a>. </p><p>Hobimo advertises its properties on its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/hobimo.life/photos/?ref=page_internal">Facebook page</a> as repurposed akiya, or unoccupied houses. The company's website notes that it has properties in the Shizuoka, Yamagata, Hyogo, Kochi, and Miyazaki prefectures too. These houses are a little pricier, though, and go for around $360 a month, utilities included. </p><p>One property in Shizuoka, for instance, boasts gorgeous mountain views from its onsen-style bath. </p><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fhobimo.life%2Fposts%2F195052829165973&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500idth=500" width="500" height="640" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>The company is also offering these cheap rental rates while akiya located in the Japanese countryside are <a href="https://www.insider.com/japanese-government-selling-rural-homes-cheap-akiya-banks-2021-5">being sold off for a couple of hundred dollars each</a>. Cities like <a href="https://www.tochigi-akiya.jp/">Tochigi</a> and <a href="http://nagano-akiyabank.jp/">Nagano</a> have "akiya banks" run by the municipal governments, which lists vacant homes for as low as $455.</p><p>These attempts to get people into empty homes come while Japan faces a glut of some 8.4 million empty and abandoned homes, some of them crumbling and in derelict condition. <a href="https://www.insider.com/japan-ghost-towns-population-vacancy-rates-akiya-banks-2021-6">Insider</a> reported this June on the phenomenon in Wakayama, where the city's government is struggling with a fast-declining population and attempting to fill the staggering 18.8% of empty homes across the prefecture. </p>

Tired of sky-high rents? One Japanese company is offering up multi-story coastal homes an hour from Tokyo for less than $200 a month.

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2956ff3dbef4db018baa35-1500/japan%20ghost%20ship.jpg" border="0" alt="japan ghost ship" data-mce-source="Kyodo via Reuters" data-mce-caption="A wooden boat, which drifted ashore with eight partially skeletal bodies and was found by the Japan Coast Guard, is seen in Oga, Akita Prefecture, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo on November 27, 2017."><p class="source"><span>Kyodo via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">The Japan Coast Guard found this wooden boat carrying eight partially skeletal bodies in Oga, western Japan, in November 2017.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>An empty wooden vessel was found drifting off Japan's western coast earlier this week.</strong></li><li><strong>It was found floating in a rocky area around 164 feet off the island of Hokkaido.</strong></li><li><strong>Though it's not clear where the boat came from, town authorities think it may be from North Korea.</strong></li><li><strong>Dozens of "ghost ships" from North Korea have drifted on Japanese shores in the past.</strong></li></ul><hr><p><br>An empty, overturned wooden boat has been found drifting off Japan's western coast, and it could mark the start of another flood of "ghost ships" from North Korea to wash up on Japan's shores.</br></p><p>The vessel, measuring 8-meters (26-feet) long, was found floating in a rocky area off the island of Hokkaido on Wednesday afternoon, <a href="https://www.sankei.com/affairs/news/180712/afr1807120034-n1.html">Japan's&#xa0;Sankei Shimbun reported</a>.</p><p>An unidentified man spotted it while driving around the town of Matsumae-cho around 5:30 p.m. that day.</p><p>The Hokkaido Cultural Broadcasting TV station aired a photo of the boat on Thursday:</p><p>Although it's not clear where the boat came from, local media has reported town and maritime authorities as saying it could be from North Korea.</p><p>Local divers who examined the boat on Thursday morning, which by then had drifted about 50 meters (164 feet)&#xa0;off the Hokkaido coast, reported seeing neither crew members, nor writing, nor symbols indicating where it might come from.</p><p>But the shape and color of the boat found on Wednesday resembled other boats from North Korea that had drifted ashore in the past, <a href="https://www.sankei.com/affairs/news/180712/afr1807120034-n1.html">the Sankei Shimbun reported</a>, citing town authorities.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b48c064062a6b1a008b4a16-1200/hokkaido%20wooden%20ship%20sighting.jpg" border="0" alt="hokkaido wooden ship sighting" data-mce-source="Google Maps/Business Insider"><p class="source"><span>Google Maps/Business Insider</span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korean-ghost-ships-in-japan-show-kim-jong-un-is-losing-control-2018-1">One hundred and four "ghost ships"</a> - vessels discovered with no living crew - were found along Japan's shores last year,&#xa0;the highest since authorities started collecting data in 2013. Many were found with dead bodies in them, whlie others were empty.</p><p>While Japanese authorities haven't been able to definitively identify the origins of the boats found last year, multiple factors have suggested that they were from North Korea.</p><p>A boat found on the island of Sado last November <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ghost-ships-suspected-to-be-from-north-korea-showing-up-in-japan-2017-12">contained what appeared to be North Korean cigarette packets</a>, and jackets with Korean writing on them.</p><p>Two bodies recovered from another boat found in Yamagata prefecture in December also wore pins showing the face of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un.</p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/565e281584307663008b69d3-2400/japan%20mystery%20boats_mill.jpg" border="0" alt="Japan Mystery Boats ship ghost" data-mce-source="Kyodo News via AP" data-mce-caption="This Nov. 29, 2015 photo shows a ship of unknown nationality in Wajima, Ishikawa prefecture, central Japan, after it was found in mid-November off Noto peninsula and was towed to the shore. Japanese authorities are investigating nearly a dozen wooden boats carrying decomposing bodies found drifting off the northwestern coast over the past month."><p class="source"><span>Kyodo News via AP</span></p><p class="caption">This ship was found drifting off Japan's Noto peninsula in November 2015.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>It remains unclear exactly who&#xa0;those people were, or why they showed up in Japan. Experts have posited theories including <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ghost-ships-suspected-to-be-from-north-korea-showing-up-in-japan-2017-12">food insecurity in North Korea</a>, Kim Jong Un's <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korean-ghost-ships-in-japan-show-kim-jong-un-is-losing-control-2018-1">weakening security on his eastern coast</a>, and local fishermen being forced to travel beyond their limits due to annual quotas and a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korea-china-fishing-rights-deal-could-be-reason-for-ghost-ships-2017-12">fishing rights deal between North Korea and China</a>.</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/without-diplomatic-relations-japan-struggles-with-north-korean-ghost-ships-2017-12">Japan has been struggling to deal with the remains</a>. Some cities want to send the remains back to North Korea, but that could prove difficult by the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a33d4c94aa6b5b51a8b500a-1500/kim%20jong%20un%20fish%20farm.jpg" border="0" alt="kim jong un fish farm" data-mce-source="KCNA via Reuters" data-mce-caption="North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Samchon Catfish Farm, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on February 21, 2017. KCNA/Handout via Reuters"><p class="source"><span>KCNA via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Kim Jong Un at a catfish farm in February 2017.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p>Jeffrey Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University Japan, has urged caution on determining whether the ship found this week is from North Korea.</p><p>North Korea's fishing season typically runs from October to February, he previously told Business Insider, so seeing a vessel in Japanese waters in the summer appears to be an anomaly. The last report of a ghost ship sighting in Japan was <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korean-ghost-ships-in-japan-show-kim-jong-un-is-losing-control-2018-1">this January</a>.</p><p>"Much unknown about this case so hard to draw implications," Kingston told Business Insider on Friday.</p><div><iframe width="800" height="440" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qRLLamqayi8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/border-patrol-agents-us-mexico-border-video-2018-7">I spent a day with Border Patrol agents at the US-Mexico border</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/cix8xBqz-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div></hr>

An empty wooden ship washed up in Japan - and it looks like another mysterious North Korean 'ghost ship'

<p><div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/510bbeaeeab8ea0b3f000019-523/japan.jpeg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="japan" width="400" /></div><p class="source">TEPCO/AFP</p></div>Japanese police have arrested a high-ranking yakuza over claims he sent workers to the stricken <keyword id="281102" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Fukushima">Fukushima</keyword> nuclear plant for the clean-up without a licence.</p>
<p>Officers in northern Yamagata prefecture were quizzing Yoshinori Arai, a 40-year-old senior member of a local yakuza group affiliated to the Sumiyoshi-kai crime syndicate, a police spokesman said.</p>
<p>Arai allegedly dispatched three men to Fukushima to work on clean-up crews in November, he said.</p>
<p>Under Japanese law, a government licence is required by anyone who acts as an employment agent.</p>
<p>Arai is also suspected of sending people to work on the construction of temporary housing in the tsunami-hit northeast, the spokesman said.</p>
<p>Arai reportedly told police that he intended to profit from the scheme by taking a cut of the workers' wages. Those employed at Fukushima earn more than others in similar work because of the potentially hazardous nature of the job.</p>
<p>It was the first arrest of a mobster linked to Fukushima clean-up, the police spokesman said.</p>
<p>A <keyword id="6355311" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Japan">Japan</keyword>ese journalist who worked at the crippled nuclear plant months after the accident in March 2011 has claimed that Japan's yakuza are involved in supplying clean-up crews.</p>
<p>The journalist, Tomohiko Suzuki, told <keyword id="68053" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="AFP">AFP</keyword> the crime groups have long sent debtors to nuclear power plants as a way of paying off loans made at sky-high rates.</p>
<p>Like the Italian mafia or Chinese triads, the yakuza has engaged in activities from gambling, drugs and prostitution to loan sharking, protection rackets, white-collar crime and business conducted through front companies.</p>
<p>The gangs, which are not illegal, have historically been tolerated by the authorities, although there are periodic clampdowns on some of their less savoury activities.</p>
<p><strong>SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-radiation-cleanup-still-primitive-22-months-after-the-tsunami-2013-1#ixzz2JeWM77BI">Fukushima Cleanup Workers Have Been Dumping Contaminated Debris Into Rivers</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/fukushima-radiation-cleanup-still-primitive-22-months-after-the-tsunami-2013-1#ixzz2JeWM77BI"><img class="nc_pixel" src="http://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT0zZjhiMzg2YmQ2YjQwZGI5Y2YxMjJmYmNkNzgzZjBmYSZvd25lcj0xYjhjMzM1YzkwMmFjNGFiMTI4ZWU4ZWQ3NzNiZWUwNCZub25jZT0zZGUwZDRmZS0zYjY5LTRiNGQtYWM5ZC0wOWE3OWVkNjI5MGQmcHVibGlzaGVyPThjMDBmYmVlNjFkNWJjZjBjNjA5MmQ4YjkyZWJiY2Ex" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></a></p>

Japanese Police Arrest High-Ranking Mobster For Allegedly Sending Workers To Clean Up At Fukushima

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2956ff3dbef4db018baa35-1500/japan ghost ship.jpg" alt="japan ghost ship" data-mce-source="Kyodo via Reuters" data-mce-caption="A wooden boat, which drifted ashore with eight partially skeletal bodies and was found by the Japan Coast Guard, is seen in Oga, Akita Prefecture, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo on November 27, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>Kyodo via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">A wooden boat which drifted ashore with eight partially skeletal bodies at Oga, Japan in late November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Dozens of ships containing dead bodies have washed up in Japan recently.</strong></li><li><strong>All the evidence indicates that the "ghost ships" are coming from North Korea.</strong></li><li><strong>It isn't a new phenomenon, but is happening more and more often.</strong></li><li><strong>One expert told BI it could be because of food scarcity in North Korea.</strong></li></ul><hr /><p><br />Dozens of dead bodies have mysteriously washed up on Japan's shores over the past few weeks - and all the evidence points to North Korea.</p><p>At least 40 corpses from around 15 boats have washed up along Japan's west coast since November, according to figures from Japanese authorities and calculated by Business Insider.</p><p>The most recent discovery was made on Thursday, when authorities found two skeletons near an upturned boat near the western city of Oga, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-koreanghost-ships-are-washing-up-on-the-shores-of-japan-why/2017/12/06/261e60ea-da89-11e7-8e5f-ccc94e22b133_story.html">according to the Washington Post</a>.</p><p>While Japanese authorities haven't been able to definitively identify the origins of these "ghost ships" - vessels discovered with no living crew - multiple factors suggest that they are from North Korea.</p><p>One of the boats, found on the island of Sado around November 26 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-northkorea/eight-bodies-found-in-boat-washed-up-on-japan-beach-coast-guard-idUSKBN1DR1OP">contained</a> what appeared to be North Korean cigarette packets and jackets with Korean writing on them.</p><p>Two bodies recovered from another boat in Yamagata prefecture on Tuesday were also wearing pins showing the face of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/04/national/bodies-presumed-deceased-north-koreans-ghost-boats-wash-along-sea-japan-coastline/#.WipnzLSFii4">according to Japanese news agency Kyodo and the Associated Press</a>.</p><p>Most of the discoveries have been gruesome: Japanese authorities reportedly found skulls and decaying corpses in multiple cases.</p><h2><strong>Not a new phenomenon</strong></h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2a98bf8a4986fd3f8b4678-1421/japan ghost ship appearance skitch.jpg" alt="japan ghost ship appearance skitch" data-mce-source="Google Maps/Business Insider" data-mce-caption="Map showing the locations where vessels suspected to be North Korean have been found since the start of November." /><p class="source"><span>Google Maps/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A map showing the locations where vessels have been found since the start of November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p>North Korean vessels have been showing up in Japan for years.</p><p>Eighty such ships drifted ashore in Japan in 2013, 65 in 2014, 45 in 2015, and 66 in 2016, said Satoru Miyamoto, a political science and economics professor at Japan's Seigakuin University, citing Japan Coast Guard statistics.</p><p>But the trend appears to have worsened this year: at least 76 vessels have showed up on Japanese shores since the beginning of 2017, 28 of which in November alone, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/world/asia/japan-north-korea-ghost-ships.html?_r=0">The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>These appearances most frequently occur toward the end of the year, when bad weather proves most dangerous to seafarers using old boats and equipment, the Times said.</p><p>So why is this happening?</p><h2>Life in North Korea is "grim and desperate"</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2a9ccd8a4986772c8b4765-2400/webpnet-resizeimage 1.jpg" alt="North Korea" data-mce-source="Wong Maye-E (Associated Press)" data-mce-caption="In this Friday, July 21, 2017, photo, men and boys rest at a construction site on the outskirts of Hamhung, North Korea's second-largest city." /><p class="source"><span>Wong Maye-E (Associated Press)</span></p><p class="caption">Men and boys rest at a construction site on the outskirts of the eastern city of Hamhung, North Korea's second-largest city, in July 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The rising number of ghost ships in Japan indicates the dire food insecurity facing North Korea, some experts say.</p><p>Professor Jeffrey Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Japan, told Business Insider: "The ghost ships are a barometer for the state of living conditions in North Korea - grim and desperate.</p><p>"They signal both desperation and the limits of 'juche,'" he added, using the word for an <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/berkley-center/030101LeePoliticalPhilosophyJuche.pdf">ideology developed by Kim Il Sung</a>, which justifies state policies despite famine and economic difficulties within the country.</p><p>To make matters worse, North Korea suffered a severe drought earlier this year, which dramatically damaged the country's food production and will likely result in further food shortages, <a href="http://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country.jsp?code=PRK">the United Nations said in July</a>.</p><p>While the exact extent of crop damage remains unclear, the UN said the areas accounting for two-thirds of North Korea's main cereal production had been severely affected.</p><p>Earlier this year, a North Korean soldier who was shot while defecting to the south was found with a large number of parasites in his stomach - suggestive of a widespread health crisis gripping the country, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/19/what-the-parasites-in-a-defectors-stomach-tell-us-about-north-korea/">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p><p>Seo Yu Suk, a research manager at the North Korean Studies Institution in Seoul, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-northkorea/eight-bodies-found-in-boat-washed-up-on-japan-beach-coast-guard-idUKKBN1DR1QB">also told Reuters</a>: "North Korea pushes so hard for its people to gather more fish so that they can make up their food shortages."</p><p>Professor Kingston added: "These rickety vessels are unsuitable for the rough seas of the Sea of Japan in autumn, and one imagines that far more are capsizing that we will never know about."</p><h2>... Or are they a sign of a booming North Korean economy?</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2a9a1aa3b47485028b49b4-1500/kim jong un seafood.jpg" alt="kim jong un seafood" data-mce-source="KCNA via Reuters" data-mce-caption="North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the Samchon Catfish Farm, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on February 21, 2017. KCNA/Handout via Reuters" /><p class="source"><span>KCNA via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects seafood at the Samchon Catfish Farm in February.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Not all agree with the above assessment, however.</p><p>Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, an editor at North Korean Economy Watch, told BI: "It's unclear to what degree it's directly related to food shortages per se.</p><p>"If fishers are ordered out for longer periods of time, with bigger demands on the catch they bring back - and with less gasoline with them than they need, due to the sanctions and shortages - that is certainly a connection of sorts.</p><p>"It is also possible that to make the same level of revenue through selling seafood domestically - which seems to be the best option given that they cannot export their products to China through formal ways due to current sanctions on seafood imports from North Korea - they would simply need to make bigger catches."</p><p>The UN Security Council, of which China is a member, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-un-security-council-imposes-new-north-korea-sanctions-over-missile-tests-2017-8">unanimously imposed sanctions on North Korean seafood and other commodities this August</a> in response to two missile tests Pyongyang conducted the month before.</p><p>It's unclear this point how much sanctions have affected the North Korean food situation or economy, however.</p><p>Katzeff Silberstein said: "Though the economy overall is under pressure from sanctions, food prices have not gone up to the degree that some may have expected, which suggests that there isn't any acute scarcity as of now.</p><p>"On the other hand, there have been anecdotal reports of food scarcity increasing, particularly in the northeastern parts of the country, near the border to China, where agriculture is not at all as widely spread as in the southern regions."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a2a9ad28a4986b0008b4a4c-1200/rtx16knz.jpg" alt="kim jong un squid" data-mce-source="REUTERS/KCNA" data-mce-caption="North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance to the August 25 Fisheries Station under KPA 313 Unit, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang December 16, 2013. " /><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/KCNA</span></p><p class="caption">Kim inspects walls of squid at the August 25 Fisheries Station in Pyongyang in 2013.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Miyamoto, the Seigakuin University professor, even said the rise in North Korean fishing vessels in Japan is indicative of a booming North Korean economy - because seafood is a luxury item.</p><p>He told BI: "Many North Korean vessels are in the Sea of Japan because North Korea has promoted fishery policy since 2013.</p><p>"They are fishermen [trying] to earn money. Now North Korean economics, which adopted free market partly, have grown, and generated a wealthy class. A wealthy class demands not caloric food, but healthy food. So seafood, which are healthy, is popular in North Korea. [...]</p><p>"It is evidence not that the North Korean economy is deteriorating, but that the North Korean economy is growing... Hungry people demand not seafood which are low-calorie, but cereal and meat which are high-calorie."</p><p><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/28/asia/north-korea-japan-ship/index.html">He also told CNN</a> the "ghost ship" phenomenon increased "after Kim Jong Un decided to expand the fisheries industry as a way of increasing revenue for the military. They are using old boats manned by the military, by people who have no knowledge about fishing.</p><p>"It will continue."</p><h2><strong>Japan's response</strong></h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5a00f8d658a0c15d1f8b6da8-1848/japan trump abducted families.jpg" alt="Japan Trump Abducted Families" data-mce-source="Kimimasa Mayama/Pool Photo via AP" data-mce-caption="U.S. President Donald Trump, left, speaks to families of Japanese abducted by North Korea during their meeting in Tokyo Monday, Nov. 6, 2017." /><p class="source"><span>Kimimasa Mayama/Pool Photo via AP</span></p><p class="caption">US President Donald Trump speaks to the families of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea during his visit in November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The increased appearance of the vessels have reignited fears among some Japanese citizens who remain haunted by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/world/asia/north-korea-kidnap-japanese-trump.html">spate of kidnappings</a> that occurred along Japan's west coast in the 1970s and 1980s.</p><p>When eight (living) men, claiming to be North Korean fishermen, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korea-fisherman-adrift-japans-shores-2017-11">turned up at the coastal city of Yurihonjo</a> two weeks ago, local newspaper Akita Sakigake Shimpo <a href="http://www.sakigake.jp/news/article/20171124AK0033/">ran the headline</a>: "Are they North Korean spies?" (They are not, local police told The New York Times.)</p><p>Pyongyang's nuclear development programme and recent missile tests have also increased Japanese suspicion toward North Korea.</p><p>Kingston, of Temple University, said: "Given recent missile and hydrogen bomb tests, public anxieties and anger towards North Korea has increased, so sympathy for the ghost ship crews has been limited."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/life-camp-humphreys-closest-us-military-base-north-korea-2017-12">What life is like on the $11 billion US military base right next to the North Korean border</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/X2zPssTp-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

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