Japan News for February 17, 2007

Today’s Japan-related news links:

• A statement claiming responsibility for Monday’s two explosions near a U.S. military base in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, was sent by mail to some news organizations in Tokyo on Saturday, the police said. Police believe the statement was issued by a faction of a Japanese ultra-leftist extremist group. [Link]
• South Korea’s presidential Investigative Commission on Pro-Japanese Collaborators’ Property has begun efforts to seize about 8.91 million sq.m of land worth around W70 billion(US$1=W934) from the descendants of 41 pro-Japanese collaborators. The collaborators include the Five Eulsa Traitors, a group of senior Korean officials including Lee Wan-yong who helped Japan wrest control of Korea in 1905. [Link]
• Two Japanese tourists died while riding on top of an excursion train in the Andes in central Ecuador after the train snagged a cable, causing a supporting post to hit them, tour officials said. [Link]
• Nagano Gov. Jin Murai has come under fire over a comment on HIV patients, in which he said there was an “extremely high” infection rate among people of “particular professions” but that the general populace was safe, prompting HIV support organizations to accuse him of fudging the issue. [Link]
• A Chiba prefecture tax office worker was arrested Saturday for attempting to snatch a bag from a woman late Friday night. [Link]
• A 14-year-old girl who died Friday after apparently falling from a condominium in Aichi Prefecture may have taken the anti-flu drug Tamiflu before her death, police said Saturday. Saiha Kokubo was found bleeding, lying on the ground in the compound of the condominium where she lived in Gamagori, and died later, police said. [Link]
• This week’s Metropolis has a feature article about Japan’s sex trafficking industry and the women caught up in it. [Link via Jean Snow]
• Boston Red Sox right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka will get his initiation to the mound in a spring season outing against a college team next month, pitching coach John Farrell said Friday. Matsuzaka is scheduled to take the hill against Boston College in a night game on March 2 and will face his first major league opponent four days later when he pitches a preseason game against the Florida Marlins. [Link]
• The Imperial Household Agency has posted an open letter to Ben Hills/Random House Australia regarding the innaccuracies of his new book “Princess Masako–Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne,” which recently had its publication canceled by a Japanese publishing company. [Link]
• Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times has written an informative piece on the controversy surrounding “Princess Masako–Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne.” [Link]
• Ampotan has blasted the BBC for its unprofessional reporting regarding the fire that recently occurred on a Japanese whaling vessel. [Link]
• Terrette has posted an article called “Blog-Power Strikes in Japan,” in which she summarizes the events surrounding the “Foreigner-Crime File” magazine and the blog-based opposition movement to it. [Link]
• The Japan Times has a new editorial criticizing to Tokyo Gov. Ishihara’s statements about African foreigners being behind crime in the city: “Africans — and I don’t mean African-Americans — who don’t speak English are there doing who knows what”. [Link]