Sunday Morning News:

-Good luck to everyone taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test today!

-Debito reports that the Japanese government wants to remove the right of dispatch workers (haken roudousha) to claim regular full-time job status (seishainka gimu) after a certain number of renewals. This development will undermine people on perpetually-renewed contracts (such as foreign academics) and their legal right to claim permanent employment.

-The municipal assembly of Nakatsugawa has voted down a request by a 67-year-old member, who lost his vocal cords in a cancer operation and has trouble speaking, to use a proxy speaker during plenary sessions. What the hell?

-Akihabara Department Store in Tokyo, Japan’s oldest department store housed in a railway station compound, will be closed at the end of this year. The 56-year-old building has become less attractive to younger customers, and the company has decided to tear down the department store and build a new shopping facility.

-Hoga News has translated hit predictions for Japanese movie theaters over the holiday season. My pick: “Love and Honor,” go see it today!

-A three-run home run by Hisayoshi Chono in the bottom of the ninth inning gave Japan a 10-7 win over defending champion South Korea in Asian Games baseball Saturday.

-The wife of a Nara municipal government employee, who was dismissed for receiving almost full wages even though he worked for only eight days over a five-year period, faces arrest over bid-rigging a prefectural government contract.

-Watch where you spill your detergent: your phone lines could catch fire.

-A former American television star was found dead off the coast of Japan earlier this week, the apparent victim of drowning.

-More coverage of the Japan launch of the Wii: Jean Snow, Dark Diamond, and Joystiq.

-The Japanese rightist is fed up with multiculturalism in Japan.

-Never say die: corrupy Miyazaki Gov. Tadahiro Ando, who is to lose his post after the prefectural assembly adopted a no-confidence motion against him, will probably run again for his office. What a hero!

-TransPacific Radio discusses the education/politics-related news for this week. [They also speculate that Princess Aiko is "into" foreign sumo Kotooshu.]

Evening update:

-A string of light domestic violence cases in which Japanese were arrested in California and nearby locations prompted the Japanese Consulate General in San Francisco to issue a warning Friday to Japanese nationals: “You have to become fully aware that domestic violence is a crime, both in Japan and the United States.”

-Nepotism and waste in Japanese politics? Who would have thought?!

-China’s State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying that a downturn in relations, corresponding with former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s time in office, had ended. How long until the next downturn?

-The Japan Times reports on Nikkei Marketing Journal’s greatest of 2006 list. Nintendo, Nintendo, Nintendo!

-In case you didn’t already know: pachinko funds Kim Jong-il’s regime.

-Hello Kitty has gone platinum.