Japan News for June 03, 2007

Today’s Japan-related news links:

• Policein Japan yesterday seized a small boat carrying four suspected North Korean defectors after it sailed into a northern port, defying Tokyo’s ban on all vessels from the communist state. [Link]
• Taiwan’s security in its standoff with China is crucial to Japan, former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui warned Friday, during a trip to Tokyo that Beijing has slammed as a bid to bolster his island’s independence. [Link]
• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday abandoned attempts to steamroll a civil-service reform bill through the Diet, following heated exchanges, no-confidence motions and a delayed vote on pension reform legislation. [Link]
• An industry group formed by contractors that won jobs from the scandal-ridden Japan Green Resources Agency (JGRA) also purchased tickets for fund-raising parties organized by a finance body of newly appointed Farm Minister Norihiko Akagi, it has come to light. [Link]
• An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.6 shook eastern Japan, including Tokyo, on Saturday. [Link]
• Crown Princess Masako appeared Saturday on her first official duty outside Tokyo in seven months as she attended a national greenery ceremony held in Nagano Prefecture together with her husband Crown Prince Naruhito. [Link]
• A top Chinese general strongly criticized on Saturday Japan-U.S. ballistic missile cooperation. [Link]
• Pope Benedict has approved martyrdom for 188 Japanese who were decapitated, burned at the stake or scalded to death in volcanic hot springs in the early 1700s. [Link]
• A Japanese fishing boat with a crew of 17 was seized by a Russian patrol boat in waters east of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Japanese consulate general in Vladivostok was quoted as saying by Kyodo news agency on Saturday. [Link]
• Japan’s domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses fell 8.3% on year in May for the 23rd consecutive month of falls, an industry body said Friday. [Link]
• Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, took Japan’s latest eco-friendly cars out for a spin on Friday to show off his environmental awareness ahead of next week’s G-8 summit meeting. [Link]
• A prodemocracy Myanmar activist in the Japanese arm of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy has been detained since March and his supporters are calling for his release. [Link]
• A police officer who claimed he had been stabbed by an unknown assailant at his home has admitted that he did it himself because he didn’t want to go to work, Ishikawa police said on Saturday. [Link]
• A group of 41 students and teachers from a Japanese girls high school remain in Vancouver after being barred from boarding a plane back to Japan due to possible measles symptoms, Japanese consulate officials said Friday. [Link]
• A man in his 80s who caused a traffic accident that injured seven people will probably have his driver’s license revoked after doctors determined he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. [Link]
• Prosecutors have arrested a guard and an inmate at Osaka Prison on suspicion the inmate tried to improve his treatment in the prison. [Link]
• Archaeologists digging in western Japan haveexcavated what they believe to be the oldest remains of a melon ever found. [Link]
• A 42-year-old loan shark under arrest for demanding excessive interest from debtors had used part of his illegally earned proceeds to travel across the country to go to concerts of all-girl J-pop unit Morning Musume, it has been revealed. [Link]