The Saga District Court ruled yesterday that the government’s 253-billion-yen Isahaya Bay drainage project had caused major environmental damage, ordering the government to open the drain gates that dried up a big area of the bay in 1997:
Presiding Judge Ryuichi Kamiyama recognized that the dike’s closure of the bay was substantially responsible for the [...]

The Guardian reports that eMobile has pulled its Obama-inspired commercial after facing criticism in the blogosphere:

The company, which stressed it had used the macaque mascot in several other adverts, said it had never intended to insult Obama but had decided to pull the “Change” ad in response to criticism in the blogosphere.

“We had no bad [...]

A man was arrested in Akihabara the other day for apparently slashing a police officer after attempting to flee from officers that had found a knife in his bag. The knife in question was a tool knife with a 3-inch blade – a weapon that wouldn’t be very useful if one wanted to go [...]

Master taiko drummer Daihachi Oguchi has died:
Oguchi was crossing the street when he was struck by the car Thursday. He was rushed to the hospital but died of excessive bleeding early Friday, said Yuken Yagasaki of Osuwa Daiko, the group in Nagano prefecture (state) in northern Japan that Oguchi had led.
Oguchi helped found top U.S. [...]

Used for a recent Boston Museum exhibition, a lecture about an Utagawa exhibition is embedded here. If you like old Ukyo-e style prints, you will probably enjoy this video. More at the museum’s web page (unfortunately this exhibition is already over).

If a Ron Mueck piece renders it’s head, press play again.

Remember that bowl of tempura soba you ate the other day? If you ate it in Japan, chances are that its ingredients were imported.
Here’s a neat segment from Sekai ichiban uketai jyugyo that demonstrates Japan’s reliance on food imports by showing what will happen to a bowl of soba if you rely on [...]

As previously blogged here on JP, the social networking site, Facebook has recently been translated from English into various languages including Japanese. Lisa Katayama reports at the Japan Times on the details of the by-users-for-users translation, and notes the obstacles the Japanese version faces against long-reigning Japan-based service, Mixi:
One of Facebook’s biggest challenges will [...]

This big scandal of the week:
The fisheries ministry Wednesday issued business improvement orders to two companies that mislabeled tons of eels imported from China and pretended they came from a Japanese region famed for its eel products.
Osaka-based trader Uohide and Kobe-based seafood wholesaler Shinko Gyorui Ltd. even used the name of a fictitious manufacturer [...]

If you get your internet from OCN, you’ll soon have to watch your internet usage. Ars Technica reports that they will be capping daily uploads for their customers:
Bandwidth caps are coming to Japan, but not in the way to which North Americans are accustomed. OCN, operated by NTT Communications, has decided to impose a [...]

A report from ITN about some white tiger cubs recently born at a Japanese zoo:

The United State is preparing to remove North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism, and the Fukuda government has gone along with its ally’s move and accepted promises from George W. Bush that America will not forget about the Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Charles Robert Jenkins, husband of Japanese [...]

I hope this guy has a good dental insurance plan:

[clip from Tunnels no minnasan no okage deshita]