Japan News for May 14, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Sixty-two percent of Japanese surveyed said they think the current government interpretation of the Constitution barring Japan from exercising the right to collective self-defense should remain intact, up 7.4 percentage points from the previous survey in April, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday. [Link]
• Mongolian-born ozeki Hakuho kick-started his campaign to reach sumo’s ultimate rank with a defeat of Kotoshogiku, while countryman and grand champion Asashoryu blew away Toyonoshima on the first day of action at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Sunday. [Link]
• Japan’s Defence Ministry will ask for funds for research and development of ground-based anti-missile laser weapons in the annual budget request for fiscal 2008. [Link]
• An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.5 hit areas encompassing Shimane Prefecture in western Japan on Sunday morning. [Link]
• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering visits to India and Russia in late August for talks to strengthen economic ties. [Link]
• Japan’s Defense Ministry has been providing U.S. forces with intelligence from the Air Self-Defense Force’s early warning radar network since late April, sources said Saturday. [Link]
• Japan’s biofuel drive, ignited by growing environmental and energy concerns, faces a bumpy road ahead. It remains to be seen whether the world’s second-largest economy will be able to reach the government-set goal of saving 500,000 kiloliters of crude oil per annum through the use of biofuel by 2010. [Link]
• An old-fashioned train hauled by a steam locomotive which passes through tea plantations in Shizuoka Prefecture once or twice a day has become a local attraction as the picking of the first tea of the season has got under way. [Link]
• A team of former New Zealand All Blacks rugby players overpowered Japan 36-6 on Saturday to end their two-game trip to the country in style. [Link]
• About 80 people relaxed on expensive beds to enjoy a classical music concert and ice cream promotion event organized by Haagen-Dazs Japan at Laforet Harajuku’s museum in downtown Tokyo. [Link]
• The Tokyo-based National Honey Fair Trade Conference, a public-interest corporation that promotes proper labeling for honey products, found from its regular checks that over the last seven years, 120, or about 20 percent, of honey products it inspected had used artificial sweeteners that are banned by the conference. [Link]
• North Korea fired its prime minister last week holding him responsible for making a suggestion that the reclusive communist country introduce an incentive-based capitalistic wage system, a Japanese newspaper said Sunday. [Link]
• Japanese construction companies in Singapore have been hit hard by skyrocketing concrete and granite prices due to supply disruptions caused by Indonesia’s ban on sand exports. [Link]
• The Japanese government wants to go open source, as a way to rely less on a single vendor IT software infrastructure. And plenty of vendors are lining up to help make this happen. [Link]
• After its unveiling at Switzerland’s Baselworld jewelry show last month, major toy manufacturer Bandai will be bringing its 30-million-yen platinum Gundam figurine back to Japan. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• In recent summit talks with the United States, Washington informed Japan that resolving the abduction issue would not be a precondition to drop North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism. [Link]
• [Link]
• A bill on procedures for a referendum on constitutional amendment was passed into law Today. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to make constitutional amendment a major issue in the July Upper House election. [Link]
• Most of the Japan’s thirtysomethings, dubbed the “suffering generation,” are anxious about their future job security and half of them do not consider marriage a necessity, according to the findings of a Yomiuri Shimbun Internet survey of people aged in their 30s. [Link]
• Full-time company employees in their 20s feel the most tired among the various age groups, a survey conducted by a research institute affiliated with the Japanese Trade Union Confederation has shown. [Link]
• A senior worker at the Kanagawa prefectural government has been arrested for filming up the skirt of a woman at a shopping center with a digital camera. [Link]
• Wada Akiko has called the recent announcements by Tsuji Nozomi (19) “irresponsible”. The former Morning Musume member revealed her wedding plans and her pregnancy just days apart. [Link]
• The drunk manager of a pub in Tokyo suffered burns to the upper part of his body when he set himself alight after pouring vodka over his body. [Link]
• Japan’s first prison mostly operated by the private sector opened Sunday in Mine, Yamaguchi Prefecture. [Link]
• Seven paintings by former death row inmate Sadamichi Hirasawa, who died 20 years ago at the age of 95 while being detained, have been found and will go on exhibition. [Link]
• Joji Obara may have got away without being convicted for the horrible death of Briton Lucie Blackman when his verdict was handed down this month, but a police officer involved in the case tells Shukan Asahi there’s no hope he’ll avoid responsibility following prosecutors’ appeal. [Link]
• Saitama Medical University says it has stopped conducting sex change operations for those who suffer from gender identity disorder since the start of this month after a professor in charge of them retired. [Link]