Japan News for February 08, 2007

Japan news links for this morning:

• A Japanese couple is demanding compensation from their Government over the death of their daughter, who killed herself after being bullied in school, in what media said was the first case of its kind. [Link]
• The number of people reported infected with HIV in a year in Japan reached a record high of 914 in 2006, while that of people reported to have developed AIDS also grew to a record high of 390, bringing the total to 1,304, preliminary data released Wednesday by the government’s AIDS Surveillance Committee showed. [Link]
• An Asahi Shimbun photographer who was found to have plagiarized from a Yomiuri Shimbun article has also plagiarized from another article in the Yomiuri and yet another from a local newspaper in Niigata. The Asahi said it would fire the photographer, Toshimichi Niwa, 46, who belonged to its photograph center. [Link]
• In a move that many wage-earners will undoubtedly welcome, the government and ruling coalition decided Tuesday to introduce a bill to raise overtime pay to the current Diet session. [Link]
• A 58-year-old man died apparently by setting himself ablaze in front of the Shizuoka prefectural government building early Tuesday morning in protest against the construction of Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport. [Link]
• A police officer and a woman were hit and badly injured by an oncoming train near Tokiwadai Station on the Tobu Tojo Line in Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward at around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday after he apparently tried to rescue her from the tracks. [Link]
• A government panel tasked with studying ways to raise Japan’s international profile as a financial center suggested Tuesday that the country should lower the language barrier by promoting more use of English in transactions and paperwork, officials said. [Link]
• A U.S. Marine Corps flare bomb was found on a beach on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa Prefecture on Tuesday evening, though there is no Marine training area on the island, the Japan Coast Guard said Wednesday. The bomb — 47 centimeters long and 8 cm in diameter — could explode and the local coast guard office and the police are considering how to dispose of it. [Link]
• Two men who used online “phishing” tactics to steal the user IDs of Internet users and defraud people on Yahoo Japan’s auction site have been arrested, police said. [Link]
• An elementary school teacher being investigated after posting images of children who died in traffic accidents on a Web site was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of supplying child pornography to an acquaintance. [Link]
• The Japan Boxing Commission said Tuesday a job seminar will be held in Tokyo on Feb 15 to help retired and active boxers become police officers. The first such seminar will take place at Korakuen Hall, with the Metropolitan Police Department seeking physically-fit and mentally-tough personnel while the JBC is hoping to help boxers get jobs when they hang up their gloves. [Link]
• What Japan Thinks has posted a wealth of poll results on organ transplants in Japan. [Link 1] [Link 2]
• Ampontan reports that tasty whale eki bentos are now being sold at Nagasaki station! [Link]

Afternoon update:

• The support rate for Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, once one of the most popular politicians in Japan, dropped to a record low 53 percent, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed. [Link]
• A US State Department spokesman would not discuss on Wednesday whether the United States has complained about seemingly critical comments by Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso about the Iraq war. [Link]
• Senior members of the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi and the Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai met Wednesday in Tokyo in a possible attempt to seek out peace over the recent spate of shootings, but they failed to agree on conditions. [Link]
• The number of part-timers in Japan’s crime syndicates last year topped that of full-timers for the first time since the police began compiling such data in 1958, the National Police Agency said Thursday. At the end of December, the gangster population in Japan was estimated at 84,700, down about 1,600 from a year earlier. [Link]
• The total number of mobile telephone subscriptions in Japan topped 100 million for the first time in January. [Link]
• Prosecutors have demanded a one-year prison term for a woman under indictment for hurling a stolen dog to its death from her sixth-floor apartment in Hokkaido. [Link]
• About 20 pigeons and sparrows, a cat and two dogs were found dead Wednesday morning of suspected poisoning in and around a park in Settsu, Osaka Prefecture. [Link]
• Kirin Brewery Co said Wednesday its group operating profit in 2006 grew 4.2% from the previous year to 116.36 billion yen, a record high for the fourth straight year, backed by strong sales of its beer-like and non-alcoholic beverages. [Link]
• An Oh My News article has ridiculously suggested that a recent textbook controversy between the Chinese and Koreans was incited by Japanese netizens who posted scans from Korean textbooks on Chinese websites. [Link]
• Japanese directors Takeshi Kitano and Anno Hideaki will both be releasing new films this year! [Link]