Japan News for June 11, 2007

Today’s Japan-related news links:

• Nearly half of Japanese voters want the ruling coalition to lose its upper house majority in July elections, a Kyodo news agency poll showed on Sunday. [Link]
• As the number of photochemical smog warnings has been increasing, the Meteorological Agency on Monday will start offering forecasts for weather that is likely to produce the photochemical smog in Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures. [Link]
• Some 1,000 people staged a rally in Okinawa on Saturday demanding the education ministry retract its contentious instruction to history textbook publishers to play down the Japanese military’s role in mass suicides by civilians during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. [Link]
• The decomposing body of a woman was found Sunday morning inside a refrigerator that had been left, possibly for a considerable length of time, on the rooftop of a condominium building in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture. [Link]
• People concerned their pension account data may have been lost crowded consultation booths Saturday in Tokyo on the first weekend they were set up by the Social Insurance Agency. [Link]
• More than 100 social insurance offices across Japan experienced problems Sunday with a computer system containing public pension records, making it impossible for staff to respond to inquiries from people seeking advice for about 90 minutes in the morning. [Link]
• An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.0 jolted Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, early this morning. [Link]
• The conductor of a train involved in a fatal derailment in Hyogo Prefecture two years ago has angered families of victims by not including an apology in his written recollections of the incident. [Link]
• The Grand Sumo Tournament held in Hawaii over the weekend may have been the last Japan Sumo Association tournament ever held in America. [Link]
• Political cartoonist Taizo Yokoyama died Sunday of pneumonia at his home in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, his family said. He was 90. [Link]
• Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Sunday that he sees no problem with former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui’s visit Thursday to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, dismissing criticism from China about Lee’s recent trip to Japan. [Link]
• Lightning caused a series of fires, blackouts and train cancellations and delays on Saturday in several parts of Japan. [Link]
• In a related story lightning struck within a close vicinity of a group of students Sunday while on a school mountain climbing trip in Sano, Tochigi Prefecture, slightly injuring six of them. [Link]
• The Cabinet Office is to begin studying a high-tech multilingual tourist guidance system to increase the number of foreign visitors to Okinawa Prefecture. [Link]
• Newly crowned world champion Miki Ando will look for her second consecutive Skate America title in October and will also appear at the N-H-K Trophy later this year. [Link]
• A parade of horses brought Iwate Prefecture alive over the weekend as the Chagu Chagu Umako Horse Festival got underway. [Link]
• Fujitsu Ltd plans to increase the number of its group employees in India to 8,500 by 2009, up from about 3,000 at the moment. [Link]
• A slow-growing agave plant that flowers only once after growing for 30 or 40 years has put on a show in Hokkaido after coming out in full bloom at a museum there, where it was recently received as a donation. [Link]