Japan News for December 12, 2006
Some Japan-related news for this morning:
-Trans-Pacific Radio reports on the anniversary of Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
-A committee investigating the suicide of a middle school student in Chikuzenmachi, Fukuoka Prefecture, has found that bullying may have driven the student to kill himself. It took two months to figure this out…
-The Japanese government has appealed a court ruling which ordered it to pay a total of 468.6 million yen (about 4 million U.S. dollars) in state compensation to 61 war-displaced.
-Two high school students and a 17-year-old unemployed youth of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, have been arrested Sunday on suspicion of assaulting four middle school students with steel bars and other weapons.
-The Japanese government has announced that it will lend Iraq $705 million to upgrade its oil- and electricity-related sectors.
-South Korean flat screen maker LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. is being investigated by fair trade watchdogs from Korea and Japan and had received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice.
-Hennes & Mauritz AB has signed a contract to open its first H&M store in Japan in the Autumn of 2008. The first store will be located in Tokyo’s Harajuku district and will have a sales floor of around 1,500 square meters when complete. [via FG]
-According to Business Week, a new breed of self-pampering, appearance-conscious guys is driving a rapidly expanding male beauty business in Japan.
-The director of a Burakumin rights group in Osaka Prefecture, who was indicted for intimidating city officials, has also been found to have ordered subordinates to assault two teenage boys. The boys were suspected of vandalizing a local school.
-A recently translated poll over at What Japan Thinks has shown that Japanese women love Pooh.
-A cool new site for Japanese readers: Haiku Planet. [Via Jean Snow]
Afternoon update:
-According to the Korean media, Japan and South Korea are locked in a race to determine who will finish second in the medal count at the 2006 Asian Games.
-Is English losing its luster as the second language of choice for Japanese?
-Some 160 teachers in Tokyo will file a lawsuit as early as January to demand the Tokyo education board rescind its decision to punish them for their refusal to stand and sing the Kimigayo national anthem at school events in 2004.
-Reaganomics in Japan? Some Japanese business leaders are calling for tax cuts to speed economic growth.
-The Tokyo District Court has sentenced a South Korean man to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a group kidnapping of the daughter of a well-known cosmetic surgeon for ransom.
-The heroic story of a Japanese man who survived an ordeal in which he was stranded for 24 days on a mountain by sipping barbecue sauce and water from a bottle.
-The Nagoya High Court has dismissed residents’ demands to delete their personal data from the Basic Residents’ Registration Network, known as Juki Net, reversing a lower court ruling that their involuntary registration was unconstitutional.
-Mainichi’s WaiWai profiles Japan’s oldest porn actor.
-Criticism of Akie Abe’s desire to increase the number of foreign students in Japan, which ignores the current system’s failure to provide opportunities for them to find employment.
-The support rate for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet now stands at 46 percent according to Mainichi Shinbun poll, dipping below 50 percent for the first time since he took office.
-Students at Tokyo high schools that failed to provide required classes will be able to graduate without making them up, in contrast to other prefectures which are forcing their students to take extra class hours.
-Three opposition parties have agreed to jointly submit a no-confidence motion against Foreign Minister Taro Aso to the Diet for remarking that Japan should discuss the pros and cons of going nuclear. Stupid.
-The LDP might un-endorse some candidates it has already endorsed for next summer’s election, favoring stronger candidates instead.
-Articles about how China may soon economically surpass Japan.
-The “It’s me” scam, which has been popular in Japan for years now, is finally catching on in America.
-About 60 percent of teachers at public schools in Hokkaido who took leave for more than 90 days due to illness in 2005 did so because of mental ailments. It’s a stressful job, having to teach classes and not having the power to actually punish unruly students.
-Softbank mobile has once been warned by the Fair Trade Comission over it’s use of deceptive advertising.
-A police officer who decided to take an abandoned bike, which was scheduled for destruction because no theft report for it had been filed, might be charged with theft. Great to see that the legal system is going after real criminals.
-Say hello to the .asia domain!
