Japan News for January 28, 2007

A few Japan-related links for today:

• Health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa compared women to “birth-giving machines” in a speech delivered Saturday explaining the declining birthrate, one of the major policy challenges for the government. In his 30-minute address, while making the allusions, Yanagisawa added such remarks as “I’m sorry to call them machines” and “I hope they’ll forgive me for saying machines.” [Link]
• A living moth larva was found in a chocolate product of confectioner Fujiya Co. that was sold in Koka, Gifu Prefecture, in November, it was learned Saturday. The company said the incident likely occurred because a moth laid eggs in the canned assorted chocolates during production, and an egg hatched after it had been shipped out. But Tokyo-based company did not recall other products, saying the incident was “accidental.” [Link]
• Global Warming? This winter’s extremely mild weather could result in the latest first snow in central Tokyo since 1876, when the Meteorological Agency started keeping records. [Link]
• Yokozuna Asashoryu angrily denied Saturday a recent weekly magazine report that he is fixing matches. “It’s very disturbing the report was about something that could never ever happen,” said Asashoryu, who won his 20th career title at the recently concluded New Year Grand Sumo tournament in Tokyo. “I’ll sue them if they write nonsense like that.” [Link]
• Government officials are increasingly concerned that repeated criticism against the U.S.-led Iraq war by Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma could hurt Japan’s relations with its close ally. [Link]
• - A Kyushu University professor has been accused of plagiarism over an acoustics book he co-wrote, with some saying it bears too close a resemblance to a British physics book. The professor has denied the charges, but the fact that during a three-year period from 1999, the professor had also instructed about 120 students to buy photocopies of parts of the English book, charging them 1,000 yen for each copy, hasn’t helped his case. [Link]
• The Daily Yomiuri reports on the Myspace / Mixi social networking war. [Link]