Japan News for February 12, 2007

Japan-related news links for today:

• The Cabinet on Friday approved a bill that will provide billions of yen a year in subsidies to local governments–depending on how far they have cooperated with realignment plans for the U.S. military. [Link]
• The arrival of 12 U.S. F-22 fighter planes at a U.S. air base on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa was delayed on Sunday without word on a new date for their first deployment outside the United States. [Link]
• No snow has fallen in downtown Tokyo since the beginning of winter — the first time the Japanese capital has gone this late in the season without snow in at least 130 years, the Japan Meteorological Agency said Sunday. [Link]
• Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Sunday that Japan is not currently planning to meet North Korea’s demands for oil in exchange for dismantling its nuclear programs. [Link]
• The Osaka municipal government has started discussions with Tongji University, a prestigious national university in Shanghai, on hosting a branch of the Chinese university in fiscal 2007, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. According to the city, the Chinese university has reacted positively to the offer. The two parties are currently discussing the size of the school, its location and curriculum. [Link]
• Earlier this week Nepia, one of Japan’s largest manufacturers and distributors of domestic paper products released a very limited number of what may be the most expensive tissue paper in the world. [Link]
• Liberal Democratic Party legislators plan to submit to the Diet in March a bill for a law that would ban the videotaping of movies at screenings for the production of pirated DVDs or for distribution on the Internet. Under the current law, videotaping a movie as it is screened does not constitute a crime. [Link]