Japan News for February 05, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Japan’s ruling bloc lost a key local election on Sunday, a possible bellwether of public support after a Cabinet minister caused an uproar by calling women “birth-giving machines.” The setback compounds the problems for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration, which has also lost a minister and a top adviser in separate scandals. [Link]
• A patrol boat of the Japan Coast Guard detected a Chinese research ship within Japan’s exclusive economic zone Sunday morning, its officials said. The 3,235-ton Dongfangfong No. 2 is reported to have conducted surveillance activities some 30 kilometers west-northwest of Uotsuri, the main island of the Senkaku Islands, known as Diaoyu in China. [Link]
• Japan, Australia’s biggest trading partner is about to become a military partner as Canberra and Tokyo negotiate a defence and security agreement. [Link]
• A former elementary school principal, who is believed to have been involved in leaking questions for a teacher recruitment exam in the city of Fukuoka, was found hanged in the mountains Sunday morning. [Link]
• Karl Bengs is passionate about polishing “gems” in Japan. He is a German architect who has attracted increasing amounts of attention for his work to restore old Japanese houses. [Link]

Evening Update:

• Prosecutors and police raided a famous mutton barbeque restaurant in Sapporo and the Hokkaido head office of a Pyongyang-affiliated group of Korean residents Monday on suspicion the restaurant’s operator, who was the office’s senior official, evaded tens of millions of yen in income tax. The prosecutors suspect the money saved in the alleged tax evasion could have been sent to North Korea through the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon. [Link]
• Cherry trees have started to blossom in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, nearly a month earlier than usual, park officials said Monday. The officials said five trees had already blossomed and that four more trees were expected to blossom by next weekend. [Link]
• The Japan Sumo Association has decided to file a defamation suit against the publisher of a weekly magazine that recently reported Asashoryu has been fixing matches, sumo officials said Sunday. [Link]
• Public approval of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet slipped to a new low of 40.3 percent — almost 25 percentage points lower than when he took office in September — and has been surpassed for the first time by the disapproval rate, according to a new survey. [Link]
• A man was found shot dead in a car parked near the Venezuelan and Ecuador embassies in Tokyo this morning. Local police are treating the case as a murder and trying to identify the victim. [Link]
• Police have decided to arrest several employees of Yamaha Motor Co by the end of this month on suspicion of trying to export an unmanned helicopter, which could be diverted to military use, to China without permission in violation of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law. [Link]
• One-third of major firms in Japan employ workers who are putting in 100 hours or more of overtime work a month, a survey by the Central Labor Relations Commission has found. [Link]
• Three Guineans have been detained by immigration authorities and police for misusing visas for foreign government workers to work illegally in Japan, sources close to law enforcers said Monday. Three other Guinean men had earlier been rounded up for illegally working in Japan by posing as Guinean government officials or relatives of employees at the Guinean Embassy in Tokyo. [Link]
• The Aomori prefectural government last year twice rejected requests from U.S. forces to allow U.S. military aircraft to use Aomori Airport, going against the the October 2005 interim report on U.S. military realignment in Japan, in which Tokyo and Washington agreed that military use of airports in Japan is among the activities to be promoted for bilateral security and defense. [Link]