Japan News for June 07, 2007

This morning’s Japan-related news links:

• At the prodding of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is set on ending the scourge of “amakudari” and the bid-rigging that inevitably results with a bill to rein in greedy bureaucrats during the current Diet session. [Link]
• Japan’s fertility rate rose in 2006 for the first time in six years, reaching 1.32, up 0.06 point from a record low of 1.26 in 2005 and recovering to the 1.3 level for the first time in four years. [Link]
• Japan’s military illegally gathered information on the activities of ordinary citizens in 2003 and 2004, including those who opposed the dispatch of Japanese troops to Iraq, Japan’s Communist Party said on Wednesday. [Link]
• A large bloodstain was found on the passageway in front of a missing man’s apartment in a housing complex in Tokyo early Wednesday, police said. [Link]
• An 18-year-old high school girl has given birth to a baby boy at her school, but he soon died, police said. Local police are questioning the girl over the details of her delivery and when her baby died, suspecting that she may be accused of murder. [Link]
• Two men who distributed comics from a magazine through the file-sharing software Winny before the magazine officially went on sale have been charged with copyright law violations. [Link]
• Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday he does not intend to extend the current Diet session. [Link]
• Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) officials have apologized for the broadcaster’s “thoughtless” request to place a microphone on a participant in the Kanto amateur golf championship to pick up comments from rising teen golfer Ryo Ishikawa. [Link]
• Four Toyo University students were arrested Tuesday for trying to set fire to a cardboard enclosure in which a homeless man was sleeping, in Asaka, Saitama Prefecture. [Link]
• Japan’s Fair Trade Commission on Wednesday inspected the offices of four resin film manufacturers on suspicion they formed a cartel to regulate the price of shrink-wrap. [Link]
• A woman arrested after living with her mother’s corpse for eight months covered up her death because she wanted to continue to receive her pension benefits, investigators said. [Link]
• Dark Diamond Network has celebrated it’s first birthday: Congratulations! [Link]

Afternoon Update:

• The Japanese government plans to launch a radio channel for North Korea focusing on Japanese citizens abducted by Pyongyang. [Link]
• A former president of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui, visited a Tokyo war shrine today to pray for his brother enshrined there, a move that could upset China which vilifies the building as a symbol of Japan’s militaristic past. [Link]
• More than 30,000 people killed themselves in Japan in 2006 for the ninth consecutive year with suicides among students marking a record high. [Link]
• Former Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie has filed a defamation suit over a weekly magazine article hinting he was engaged in gambling. [Link]
• Naomi Kawase, who won the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her film “Mogari no Mori” (The Mourning Forest), visited the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Wednesday and urged METI chief Akira Amari to promote the country’s film industry. [Link]
• Niigata Police have announced that a baby boy born in a high school toilet yesterday died from suffocation soon after his teenage mother gave birth to him. [Link]
• Two young children and their 43-year-old father died, apparently after a bolt of lightning struck their home in Yamagata, starting a fire that razed half of the two-story structure. [Link]
• Asahi Shinbun reports that foreign nationals account for more than 90 percent of crews of ocean-going vessels operated by Japanese companies, so the transport ministry plans to offer tax breaks to shipping companies which drastically increase the percentage of Japanese crew on their ships. [Link]
• The number of record-keeping errors in pension management greatly exceeds the currently known 50 million discrepancies, Japan’s Health, Labor and Welfare Minister has revealed. [Link]
• Sony Corp. said Wednesday its semiconductor arm will expand production of parts for digital cameras and mobile phones equipped with cameras amid growing global demand. [Link]
• Japan’s House of Councilors enacted a law Wednesday to privatize the Development Bank of Japan. [Link]
• The Tokyo District Court sentenced a man Wednesday to two years in prison for hitting and killing the 10-year-old daughter of TV personality Shingo Kazami with his truck in Tokyo in January. [Link]
• Three independent teams of scientists, including one Japanese team, have succeeded in creating “chimaeric” mice using body cells that were reprogrammed to an embryonic state without using eggs or destroying embryos. [Link]
• A sculptor based in Okinawa has completed a 100-meter relief depicting the 1945 Battle of Okinawa, installing the work at a former U.S. military facility in the village of Yomitan. [Link]
• A system comes into force today in Japan that allows consumer groups to file lawsuits on behalf of individuals to stop fraudulent sales and other illegal practices. [Link]
• 18-year-old Japanese gravure idol Maya痴 Koizumi has taken her former high school to court after being expelled for modeling swimwear. [Link]