Japan News for April 02, 2007

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    This morning’s Japan-related news links:

    • The Japan Coast Guard served a new arrest warrant Saturday on the skipper of a Chinese cargo ship on suspicion of importing clams from North Korea, officials said. [Link]
    • Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who helped engineer the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, said on Japanese TV Sunday that the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible. [Link]
    • Harvard University student Thomas Snyder become the world sudoku champion in Prague on Saturday when he beat Japan’s Yuhei Kusui in the head-to-head final round. [Link]
    • A Greenpeace anti-whaling ship anchored in Japan on Sunday, ending a nearly week-long standoff after the country’s sailors’ union blocked the vessel’s arrival. [Link]
    • Cyber University, Japan’s first university that provides courses via the Internet, opened Sunday with an entrance ceremony in Fukuoka, transmitted in real time to students’ computers. The four-year university has two departments — information technology and world heritage — each taking about 600 students. [Link]
    • A lethal amphibian fungus has been detected in pet-shop frogs in Okinawa after it was confirmed for the first time in Japan in December in frogs in Tokyo, an expert said Saturday. [Link]
    • Sharp Corp. and a former researcher at the major electronics maker has reached a settlement at the Osaka District Court that will pay settlement money to the researcher, who had demanded patent compensation for inventing various liquid crystal display technologies. [Link]
    • Japan Railway companies on Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of their establishment in the wake of the breakup and privatization of the state-run Japanese National Railways. [Link]

      • Afternoon Update:

      • Some 80 percent of supporters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are expected to vote for incumbent Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara in the gubernatorial election slated for April 8, a poll has found. [Link]
      • 40 percent of Tokyoites against hosting the 2016 Olympic games, according to a newly released poll numbers. [Link]
      • An estimated 850,000 or more recruits marked their first day of work across Japan on Monday in an improving job market amid economic growth and the massive retirement of baby boomers. [Link]
      • Adam Richards at Mutantfrog Travelogue reports that online advertising numbers in Japan are not looking as great as some have been claiming. [Link]
      • Major movie studio Toho Co. has filed a lawsuit against a company selling DVD versions of eight films directed by the late Akira Kurosawa, accusing the company of violating copyright laws. [Link]
      • A former Japanese Red Army member has appealed a Tokyo District Court ruling that found him guilty over the 1977 hijacking of a Japan Airlines plane and the 1974 seizure of the French Embassy in The Hague. [Link]
      • A Japanese infant died of pneumonia after being infected with a bacteria resistant to medicines, the first death from the deadly superbug outside of hospitals where it usually occurs, Kyodo said on Monday. [Link]
      • Saitama Gov Kiyoshi Ueda said Monday that Self-Defense Forces personnel are “training to kill” in order to maintain peace. “We need to admire them as they do so in order to protect our lives and property,” he said, referring to the SDF operations as an example of public servants trying to fulfill their mission. [Link]
      • The Lindsay Ann Hawker news post has been updated with some of the latest developments in the murder case. [Link]
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