Japan News for May 31, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• Hakuho officially became the 69th yokozuna Wednesday after the directors of the Japan Sumo Association voted unanimously to promote the winner of the last two Emperor’s Cups. [Link]
• Nineteen out of Japan’s 47 prefectures will likely experience at least a 20 percent drop in population in 2035 as the birthrate plunges and the proportion of elderly grows, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said in a report released Tuesday. [Link]
• Japan’s Farm Minister wrote a suicide note wishing “banzai,” or long life, to his country and Shinzo Abe’s government before hanging himself earlier this week. [Link]
• Legislator Muneo Suzuki has said on his homepage that Cabinet member Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who hanged himself on Monday, had revealed he had been instructed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Diet Affairs Committee to keep silent about his money scandal. [Link]
• The national peace hall in Nagasaki said Tuesday it will hold this year’s antinuclear exhibition at the Gernika Peace Museum Foundation in Guernica, Spain, from June 27 to Sept. 9. [Link]
• A 50-billion-yen ($411-million) project started Wednesday to give the red-brick building of JR Tokyo Station the appearance it had before the devastation of World War II. [Link]
• The mass-circulation Asahi Shimbun national daily failed to declare approximately 833 million yen as taxable income over a three-year period up to March 2005, company officials said Wednesday. [Link]
• The Osaka District Court has ordered a hospital to pay some 76 million yen in compensation to the parents of a doctor who committed suicide in 2004, ruling it had neglected to allow her sufficient time off. [Link]
• In a move that could finally bring relief to sufferers of respiratory diseases brought on by air pollution in Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday said the central government would contribute 6 billion yen to a compensation fund. [Link]
• A police officer on an anti-corruption unit was among six people arrested Tuesday in a bid-rigging investigation over a garbage incineration plant project ordered by Hirakata city. [Link]
• The president and two executives of a Yokohama-based clothing company were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of importing and storing about 50,000 fake Burberry brand items with the intent to sell them. [Link]
• Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. will exchange parts of up to 3 million microwave ovens, refrigerators and tumble dryers for free as they may emit smoke and catch fire, the Panasonic maker said on Wednesday. [Link]
• Three employees of a Japan Airlines Corp subsidiary are suspected of stealing digital cameras and other items left aboard planes by passengers, aviation industry sources said Wednesday. [Link]
• A golden bathtub worth about 120 million yen has been stolen from a hotel in Chiba Prefecture. [Link]
• A 37-year-old Japanese man who created a “final episode” manga for the robot cat comic character Doraemon because its creator had died has apologized and handed over some of the earnings to the copyright owners. [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• Japan has been ranked as the world’s fifth most peaceful nation in a report launched Wednesday by international businessman Steve Killelea in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit. [Link]
• A special adviser to Japan’s prime minister is visiting Washington to meet with U.S. officials about the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea. [Link]
• Sixteen people were hurt, two of them seriously, when a KLM passenger jet was hit by turbulence soon after taking off from Japan on Thursday, forcing it to turn around. [Link]
• Japan said Wednesday that the International Whaling Commission should allow four of its coastal communities to hunt minke whales because the tradition is so old that it qualifies as subsistence hunting. [Link]
• Japan’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko enjoyed dinner with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth Tuesday night to mark the end of their three-day visit to the U.K. [Link]
• A Japanese government panel recommended curtailing an agency at the center of a scandal that has roiled Prime Minster Shinzo Abe’s administration and led to two suicides this week. [Link]
• Premium revenues for the nation’s major life insurers dropped in business 2006, reflecting fallout from revelations of an industrywide failure to properly pay out benefits, according to their earnings reports released Wednesday. [Link]
• Japan Sumo Association lawyer Keiji Isaji on Wednesday questioned stable elder Miyagino for the second time over an article in a weekly tabloid magazine that claimed he had played the role of mediator in fixing matches. [Link]
• Supermarket chain Seiyu Ltd said Wednesday it would resume selling U.S. beef at 158 outlets Friday, up from 52 at present, to meet strong demand from consumers. [Link]
• Japanese gamers will soon be getting two new DS Lite color variations to choose from. “Metallic Rose” and “Gloss Silver” will be the order of the day come June 23rd when they hit retail. [Link]
• Tokyo citizens will begin to experience service robots in public starting this December with JR East (the rail company) and their service robot called “Ai”. [Link]