Japan News for March 07, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Empress Michiko has fallen ill, showing symptoms of bleeding from the walls of the intestines several times. The 72-year-old empress has also suffered oral inflammation and nasal bleeding, which the Household Agency attributed to psychological stress, adding she will have a chance to recuperate on two occasions between late March and early April. [Link]
• Japan must confront its past of coercing women into prostitution with Japanese troops in World War Two, China’s foreign minister said on Tuesday, nonetheless stressing hopes of improved ties between the two Asian powers. [Link]
• Police arrested three teenage girls and reported two girls to public prosecutors, after they beat up another girl for exposing their misdeeds on a blog. [Link]
• A Philippine woman who served an eight-year prison term in Japan for the murder of her Japanese partner in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, in 1997 plans to seek a retrial. [Link]
• A female prison guard in Nagoya who found an intruder in her apartment in the predawn hours of Tuesday chased the intruder outside while still dressed in her pajamas and apprehended him as he tried to flee by bicycle. [Link]
• Softbank Corp said it will take legal action to demand corrective action and compensation for damages over last week’s brokerage and press reports alleging that it had engaged in improper accounting, thereby misleading readers. [Link]
• Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa suggested Tuesday that the ministry would not respond to the Kumamoto Prefectural Government’s request for a written opinion on the establishment of baby drop-off points for parents who had trouble raising children. [Link]
• The bankrupt city of Yubari in central Hokkaido, once a booming coal mine area, launched an 18-year financial reconstruction scheme on Tuesday aiming to eliminate about 35.3 billion yen of its cumulative debts by the end of fiscal 2024, under central government supervision. [Link]
• The Japanese government on Tuesday decided to spend 6.8 billion yen to increase its stocks of the controversial anti-influenza drug Tamiflu. [Link]
• PCs running Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system got a cool response from consumers in Japan during their first month on sale, according to data published Tuesday. [Link]
• A dyslexic British girl who learned to read and write upside down and back to front before overcoming her problems with special orange filter paper has seen her life story turned into a Japanese TV show. [Link]
• Hong Kong customs intercepted 131 tons of electronic waste and returned them to Japan last Saturday. The waste, mainly used computer monitors and television sets, were returned to Japan on the basis of understanding with the Ministry of Environment of Japan that the waste import in question was in violation of the Waste Disposal Ordinance in Hong Kong. [Link]
• Shinichiro Sawai’s much-hyped historical spectacle “Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea” appears to be a box office flop. [Link]
• Daisuke Matsuzaka faced Major League hitters for the first time Tuesday, pitching three scoreless innings against the Marlins at Roger Dean Stadium. [Link]
• Occidentalism is challenging the claims of a former comfort woman by exposing 4 different and conflicting accounts she gave at different times about how she became a comfort woman. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• North Korea and Japan resumed talks Wednesday on normalizing relations as part of a recent nuclear disarmament deal with the agenda expected to include the North’s abduction of Japanese citizens and Japan’s colonization of Korea. [Link]
• Don’t misinterpret comfort women issue, says the Yomiuri Shinbun in an editorial accusing the international press of doing just that. [Link via Occidentalism]
• Most high-ranking officials who will resign from the bankrupt municipal government of Hokkaido’s Yubari City at the end of this month feel no sense of responsibility, according to a Mainichi survey. [Link]
• A total of 954 foreigners applied for refugee status in Japan in 2006, up by around 150% from the previous year to mark the highest figure since 1982 when Japan began granting refugee recognition, but the number of people given the status was a mere 34, some 12 fewer than in 2005, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday. [Link]
• Eyeing the threat of a potentially nuclear-armed North Korea, Japanese leaders are navigating delicate domestic politics and a complicated relationship with Japan’s closest ally, the United States, as they embark on selective military improvements. [Link]
• Hiroyuki Nishimura, the operator of the nation’s largest Internet message board, 2channel, has lost at least 43 of more than 50 civil lawsuits filed against him in Tokyo and elsewhere over defamation and other charges, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey. [Link]
• he New York Times, commenting on the ongoing dispute over the so-called “comfort women,” editorially said Tuesday it is time for Japan’s politicians — starting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — to recognize that the first step toward overcoming a “shameful” past is acknowledge it. [Link]
• Vice foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan will hold talks in Tokyo next week to discuss a recent landmark deal over North Korea’s nuclear disarmament and other issues, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. [Link]
• Australian beef exports to Japan will fall by 5% over the next two years due to increased competition from U.S. beef, the government’s chief rural economic forecaster said Tuesday. [Link]
• An environment business project promotion chief from the Sakai Municipal Government faces punishment for using the city’s garbage trucks to collect 820 kilograms of garbage and old furniture from his home when he moved house. [Link]
• About 50 million analogue television sets will likely be discarded over the next several years as ground-wave analogue broadcasting is scheduled to be terminated in 2011, an industry organization has told government panels. [Link]