Japan News for February 24, 2007
Today’s Japan-related news links:
- Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles, will symbolically blast off into space next week at his funeral at a baseball stadium officiated by three dozen monks, his company said Friday. The ceremony will take place on Tuesday at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, and will include eulogies by top business leaders and former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. [Link]
- Neil Waters, professor of Japanese history at Middlebury College, has successfully convinced the college’s history department to notify its students that Wikipedia could not be cited in papers or exams, and that students could not “point to Wikipedia or any similar source that may appear in the future to escape the consequences of errors.” [Link]
- Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma now says his controversial remark on the U.S. invasion of Iraq was “inconsiderate,” adding that he will watch his step from now on. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney wound up a three-day visit to Tokyo on Thursday without meeting Kyuma. [Link]
- The Washington Post reports on non-traditionalist sushi restaurants in America that are employing non-Japanese sushi chefs to put “new accents” on sushi. [Link]
- Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka has encouraged soon-to-be free agent Ichiro Suzuki to come play for the Red Sox. [Link]
- Two professional basketball players overpowered a 58-year-old man who tried to escape after failing to steal the contents of a car in Niigata and handed him over to police on Thursday night. [Link]
- Major publisher Shueisha Inc. has said that it will discontinue its popular monthly cartoon magazine, Gekkan Shonen Jump, after its July edition. A Shueisha spokesperson said that the magazine will be discontinued not because of poor sales but because it plans to issue a new monthly cartoon magazine in autumn. [Link]
