Japan News for May 18, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• The ratio of Japanese men who smoke continues to decline, falling below 40% for the first time in 2005 since the first survey was taken in 1986. [Link]
• The prime minister’s office has refused the transport ministry’s proposal to reappoint a former administrative vice transport minister as president of Narita Airport’s operating company, and is demanding the ministry pick someone from the private sector instead. [Link]
• Mongolian ozeki Hakuho continued his ascent towards sumo’s summit by posting a convincing win over popular maegashira Homasho on the fifth day of action at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Thursday. [Link]
• A man fell from a platform at JR Kawasaki Station on Thursday and was fatally hit by an oncoming train. [Link]
• An ex-gangster took a woman believed to be his own wife hostage at his home here after shooting a police officer and two other people on Thursday afternoon in Aichi Prefecture. [Link]
• Modern-day restoration techniques used to rescue 1,300-year-old tomb murals in Nara Prefecture may be to blame for some of the deterioration in the once-colorful paintings. [Link]
• The organizers of the Sanjamatsuri festival in Asakusa, Tokyo, will ban people from jumping onto mikoshi portable shrines and riding on them when bearers carry them around in the area–a longstanding practice when the festival reaches its peak–saying doing so is an insult to the gods. [Link]
• Sony’s Vaio PCs hit their tenth birthday this year and to celebrate the company is releasing anniversary special editions in Japan, with the flagship model being the Vaio VGN-TZ50B. [Link]
• A Chinese man charged with immigration law violations was hit Thursday with a new warrant for robbery after he showed up at an immigration bureau mistakenly thinking that the statute of limitations for the theft had expired. [Link]
• Far from going away, Japan’s perennial school bullying problem has refined itself, shifting from the classrooms and schoolyards to more subtle attacks through the Internet, according to Weekly Playboy. [Link]
• A total of 234 workers at 11 facilities of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd in Japan are suspected of assuming supervisory positions to handle major engineering projects although they lacked sufficient work experience to do so. [Link]
• A town assembly member in Mie Prefecture, who was just re-elected to a sixth term in an election in April, has been arrested for molesting a junior high school girl while she was asleep at her home. [Link]
• In response to an escalation of dangerous motorists injuring and killing people on the streets, the Japanese government is amending two laws to introduce tougher penalties for reckless and drunken driving. [Link]
• The parents of eight junior high school girls face charges for allowing the children to drink alcohol at a pub with them last year. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• Japan has announced it will freeze some Iranian assets and halt grants to the Middle Eastern country over its nuclear development program. [Link]
• 316 public companies in Japan have adopted takeover defenses as of May 15, according to a Nomura Securities survey. This is an 80% increase over last May, when only 178 public companies had such mechanisms in place. [Link]
• Some Asian women working at brothels for occupying Japanese forces during World War II were employed and paid by owners under contract, the Sankei newspaper reported, citing a U.S. military report declassified three decades ago. [Link]
• Wireless hacker attacks on the rise in Japan, reports the Asahi Shinbun. [Link]
• An 8-year-old girl was injured after being hit by a 23-kilogram signpost that was blown over by a gust of wind in Osaka. [Link]
• Japan’s long-suffering workers are swapping their PCs for smartphones and abandoning packed trains in favor of telecommuting, reports the Guardian. [Link]
• Japanese tuna fishing vessels have set sail in Papua New Guinea waters fishing for tuna, sushi痴 main ingredient, since last year after an embargo lodged in 1987 was lifted. [Link]
• The literary community here is abuzz with the discovery of a Japanese version of what may be the world’s earliest translation of Beatrix Potter’s beloved “Peter Rabbit” stories, first published in England more than a century ago. [Link]
• Due to reduced air service, Japanese tourist arrivals to Saipan plunged by 28 percent last month, the lowest it has ever been since April 1989. [Link]
• Japan’s Anti-Prostitution Law outlaws payment for intercourse, yet soapland brothels openly offer the practice and no-one ever says anything about it, according to Spa!, which pledges to uncover one of the Japanese media’s great taboo topics. [Link]