Japan News for December 15, 2006
Some news this morning:
-Japan’s top automaker Toyota Motor Corp and its affiliate Toyota T&S Construction Co are suspected of discharging unprocessed strong-alkaline sewage into Yokohama port from Toyota’s car complex in Yokohama.
-Police started an animal-abuse investigation into the now-bankrupt operator of a HIroshima dog park, where hundreds of the malnourished canines were found along with dozens of corpses.
-The president of an adult movie production company in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, and four others were arrested on suspicion of introducing two girls aged 14 and 17 to adult movie production companies. The girls pretended to be their older sisters, aged 19 and 20, and used their family health insurance cards to obtain basic resident register cards that said they were over 18. They earned a combined total of about 750,000 yen by appearing in nine pornographic movies. So, how exactly was the president supposed to know they were minors, when they had official ID cards that proved otherwise?
-Japan and China will establish a joint organization next month to recover and treat chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Imperial Japanese Army.
-Comedian Sonomanma Higashi will run in the upcoming Miyazaki gubernatorial race in a bid to replace former Gov. Tadahiro Ando who has resigned and is under arrest over bid-rigging.
-A Japanese forestry businessman was killed by a bear kept in captivity while cleaning its cage.
-Several top lieutenants to Japan’s prime minister will join him in forfeiting months of salary after the embarrassing revelation that government officials posed as regular citizens to ask softball questions at a series of public “town hall” meetings.
