Japan News for February 27, 2007

  • Profiles of the Day
    • More at Japan Probe Friends...

    This morning’s Japan-related news links:

  • A Japanese whaling ship that drifted powerless for nine days near the world‘s biggest penguin breeding ground had posed a huge risk to the pristine Antarctic environment, New Zealand‘s prime minister said Monday. [Link]
  • Kenneth Pyle’s new book argues that a resurgence of Japan’s power and purpose has Tokyo poised to play a bigger role on the international stage. Pyle is right, and it is a good thing for Washington and Asian security, according to a new review in Foreign Affairs. [Link]
  • In a move aimed at further thwarting terrorist attacks, passengers on all international flights will be prohibited from bringing aboard liquids in containers larger than 100 milliliters starting Thursday, Japanese officials said. [Link]
  • Telecommunications giant KDDI said on Monday that the firm had mistakenly double charged users of its Internet services after they changed contracts to another service that included the use of fixed telephones. [Link]
  • The University of Tokyo is about to embark on a major drive to offer a more international outlook in the hope of raising its relatively low standing among the world’s universities. It plans to increase its foreign staff to 1,300, five times the current level. [Link]
  • McDonalds Japan/DoCoMo are forming a ¥300 million joint venture company to promote the use of DoCoMo’s IC-card based e-cash phones in McDonald’s outlets. [Link]
  • The Great Swifty interviews author and Japanophile Quentin S. Crisp. [Link]
  • What Japan Thinks has translated a survey that lets us know 30 reasons why your room turns off Japanese women (and men). [Link]

    • Afternoon Update:

    • Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday downplayed criticisms over his education minister’s remarks a day earlier and said there was nothing wrong with the minister calling Japan an “extremely homogenous” country. “I think he was referring to the fact that we have gotten along with each other fairly well so far,” Abe said when asked to comment on the remarks by education minister Bunmei Ibuki. “I don’t see any specific problem with that.” [Link]
    • In a related story, Shinzo Abe’s government has lost more public support, particularly among female voters after his health minister referred to women as “birth-giving machines”, a Mainichi Shinbun poll showed on Monday. [Link]
    • 82% of Americans have a favorable view of Japan, according to a new Gallup Organization poll. [Link]
    • If the minimum wage is raised to 1,000 yen per hour across Japan from the current level of 610 yen, consumer spending will expand, causing the value of domestic production to increase by 2.6 trillion yen a year, according to estimates released Monday by the Japan Research Institute of Labor Movement. [Link]
    • Theft cases targeting wires, stainless steel and other metal products have been on the rise in Japan amid sharply increasing market prices, police sources said Monday. [Link]
    • Prosecutors on Monday took over the criminal investigation into six maintenance officials suspected of professional negligence resulting in bodily injury and death for the deadly accident which occured at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant in 2004. [Link]
    • Richard Lloyd Parry has a new article in the Times about an old former member of the Imperial Navy who has owned up to carrying out the vivisection of live prisoners of war in the Philippines. [Link]
    • A Kochi city assembly member under fire for calling female opposition parliamentarians “rusted machines” said Monday he would retract and apologize for his remarks. [Link]
    • A Shukan Gendai article is claiming that American-born gravure idol Leah Dizon is intentionally being pushed to bring down her Japanese level when speaking at public appearances. [Link]
    • The manager of a Tokyo metropolitan concert venue has revoked its permission for a pro-Pyongyang organization to use the facility to hold a meeting on human rights abuses against Korean residents in Japan on the order of the metropolitan government. [Link]
    • American skiers have the Rockies, Europeans the Alps. But for increasingly affluent Asia, Japan’s powdery slopes are emerging as the top international draw from Shanghai to Sydney. [Link]
    • China is in talks with Japanese firms about potentially lucrative orders for advanced bullet train technology for a new high-speed link to its northern cites. The Chinese ministry envisions a 300 kilometre-per-hour train travelling the route, about as fast as a Japanese bullet train, that would be able to operate at temperatures of minus 50 Celsius (Japanese bullet trains can operate at minus 25 Celsius). [Link]
    • Family Mart is launching a service through which customers can order a prepared meal for home delivery to an elderly person and their staff will check on the recipient’s health and report back via the Internet. [Link]
    Related Posts with Thumbnails