Tsuneyasu Miyamoto, Japan's captain at the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, announced his retirement Monday to take up a course to become a sports executive, in a bid to lift the status of Japanese football.
The 34-year-old defender, who played for Austria's Salzburg in 2007 and 2008, said he would retire by turning down offers from several sides including his current J-League club Kobe Vissel and a team in Thailand for next season.
Miyamoto was nicknamed "Batman" after grabbing world media attention for wearing a black mask to cover his broken nose during the 2002 World Cup at home when the Blue Samurai reached the last 16. (AFP)
Soccer: Japan's former 'Batman' captain retires
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Woman held for feeding baby daughter jelly laced with sleeping pills
Police said Tuesday they have arrested a 42-year-old woman for the attempted murder of her one-year-old daughter at their home in Nagoya.
Police were called by the woman's father on Monday at around 3 p.m. after she reportedly told him she had crushed 18 sleeping pills into a bowl of jelly, which she then fed to her daughter, NTV reported. The 22-month-old baby was rushed to hospital where doctors say her condition is not life-threatening. Police say the woman's husband was at work at the time of the incident. (Japan Today)
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Japan prosecutors raid Olympus
Japanese prosecutors raided the headquarters of Olympus Corp. on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the cover-up of massive losses at the camera and medical equipment maker.
Japanese prosecutors confirmed the raid, which was also broadcast on national television. A trail of dark-suited officials were shown marching solemnly into the downtown Tokyo office building.
Olympus said it would fully cooperate with the investigation by prosecutors, police and financial authorities.
"We apologize deeply again for the great troubles and worries we have caused our shareholders, investors, customers and others," it said in a statement.
NHK TV said the suburban home of former President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, suspected of helping to orchestrate the cover-up, was also raided. (AP)
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Japan to take over two thirds stake in Tepco: report
The Japanese government plans to take a stake of more than two-thirds in Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T) in a de facto nationalization of the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Wednesday.
Sources said this month that the government may inject about $13 billion into Asia's biggest utility as early as next summer in a de facto nationalization.
The Yomiuri also reported that the government is looking at injecting 1 trillion yen ($12.7 billion), and added that banks will be asked to provide 1 trillion yen in loans, citing sources familiar with the matter. (Reuters)
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Japan's exports fall for second straight month
Japan's exports fell for the second straight month in November, hit by faltering demand from Asia and Europe.
Exports shrank 4.5 percent from a year earlier to 5.198 trillion yen ($66.7 billion), according to a finance ministry report released Wednesday. The result is steeper than October's 3.8 percent decline.
The data underscore the growing pressures facing the world's third-largest economy, which relies heavily on exports to drive growth. A persistently strong yen, Europe's debt problems and the recent flooding in Thailand are eroding gains made since the March earthquake in Japan disrupted manufacturing.
Economists predict economic growth will slow this quarter after the economy expanded at an annualized rate of 5.6 percent in the July-September period. (AP)
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Award-winning Japanese director Morita dies at 61
Director Yoshimitsu Morita, whose films including the award-winning "Family Game," depicted the absurdity and vulnerability of conformist Japan's everyday life, has died. He was 61.
Morita, who won international acclaim over a prolific 30-year career, died Tuesday of acute liver failure at a Tokyo hospital, said Yoko Ota, spokeswoman at Toei Co., which is behind his latest work set for release next year.
Funeral arrangements were still undecided. He is survived by his wife Misao. (AP)
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Japan releases 40-year nuke plant cleanup plan
Japan's government said Wednesday that it could take 40 years to clean up and fully decommission a nuclear plant that went into meltdown after it was struck by a huge tsunami.
Nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono suggested that the timetable was ambitious, acknowledging that decommissioning three reactors with severely melted fuel plus spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was an "unprecedented project," and that the process was not "totally foreseeable."
"But we must do it even though we may face difficulties along the way," Hosono told a news conference.
Under a detailed roadmap approved earlier Wednesday following consultation with experts and nuclear regulators, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start removing spent fuel rods within two to three years from their pools located on the top floor of each of their reactor buildings. (AP)
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Nikkei climbs 1.5 percent but fails to break 25-day average
The Nikkei stock average climbed on Wednesday in a market encouraged by smooth debt sales in Spain and positive housing data in the United States, but gains were capped by resistance at its 25-day moving average.
The Nikkei's rise was less than half of the huge gains in Wall Street shares on Tuesday, and was driven mainly by buybacks in battered shares such as shipmakers and steelmakers.
A lack of a major trading theme led short-term traders to turn their eyes to volatile shares of troubled firms, such as Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T) and Olympus Corp (7733.T), the two most active shares on Wednesday. (Reuters)
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DoCoMo cable cut leaves 100,000 smartphone users in email limbo
NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday that a problem with an Internet service called sp mode for smartphones may have hampered email delivery for as many as 100,000 customers since Tuesday.
The company partially suspended the service after customers, mostly in western Japan, complained Tuesday that replying to email messages caused the return addresses to be changed.
The service will resume gradually starting Thursday, the company said.
DoCoMo said the trouble occurred when a worker accidentally severed a cable that was part of a relay system in western Japan. (Japan Times)
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First of 500 tsunami monuments erected on coast
A stone monument in remembrance of the March 11 tsunami has been unveiled on a beach in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, the first of 500 such monuments planned for coastal areas in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
The project was organized by a national stone dealers association after its members volunteered to repair tombstones damaged by the disaster in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, and elsewhere.
The granite monument, designed by art director Katsumi Asaba, was unveiled on Nebama beach on Friday. Engraved on the front are 2011 in kanji and the numerals 3.11. (Japan Times)
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Best of 2011: AKB48 'Koko ni Ita Koto'
AKB48 is not a band, or even a pop group: AKB48 is a hate crime. With "Koko ni Ita Koto," pop music has reached its lowest ebb. And that is precisely why this album is not my favorite of the year, but the one I think is the most important.
You could almost forgive AKB48's relentlessly manipulative marketing (faux-breastfeeding in an Web service provider ad, anyone?) if the music wasn't so hollow, but "Koko ni Ita Koto" exists to generate money, not fun.
"Ponytail to Chocho" throws syrupy and uninspired vocal melodies over cheesy keyboards and a flat, lifeless "rhythm," and exists only as an excuse to fill a seven-minute pop video with young girls stripping in a locker room and prancing around in bikinis. (Japan Times)
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Health ministry seeking stricter food-cesium rules
The health ministry is proposing much stricter regulations on radioactive cesium in food that would lower the current limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram to 100.
Changes would also be made to the cesium limits for milk and water. For example, limit for milk would be lowered from 200 becquerels per kilogram to 50, while the limit for water would drop from 200 becquerels to just 10, finally bringing Japan's standards in line with those used by the World Health Organization.
The proposal will be submitted to the ministry's Pharmaceutical Affairs and Food Sanitation Council on Thursday, and then to the science ministry's Radiation Council. (Japan Times)
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F-35 fighter deal brings Japan multiple benefits
With its Dec. 20 decision to purchase Lockheed-Martin's Joint Strike Fighter F-35 Lightning II as Japan's next generation fighter aircraft, the Japanese government gets to have its cake and eat it too. What Japan wants is simple: the most advanced military technology available (or at least better than what China has); activity in the domestic weapons industry; and good relations with the United States. They get all this and then some with the F-35.
Japan is well-known for favoring licensed production of foreign military technology to keep the heavy industrial companies happy. But Lockheed has said it will allow only final assembly, maintenance, upgrade and repair capabilities by Japanese companies - not a level of industrial activity that would justify the high cost of the F-35. (Japan Times)
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TEPCO switches on Japan's largest solar power plant
The Ohgishima solar power plant began operations on Dec. 19 in the coastal area of Kawasaki City, according to Kawasaki City Mayor Takao Abe and Tokyo Electric Company.
The mega plant will provide electricity to approximately 3,800 households, said TEPCO President Toshio Nishizawa. However, combined with the Ukishima power plant on Tokyo Bay, which went into operation in Aug. 2011, the combined output will be enough for 5,900 households.
It was built by Kawasaki City and TEPCO. The plant, which consists of approximately 64,000 solar panels made by Kyocera, was built on a 23-hectare site and generates 13,000 kW. Kyocera has been one of the world's leading manufacturers of solar power for 35 years. (majirox news)
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Japan's top 10 buzzwords of 2011
The year is coming to an end with a sigh and hopefully not with a bang. Well, hopefully not a bang in the bad kind of things exploding, terrible tragedy bang sort of way.We already had enough bangs this year 3/11 and 3/15. Earthquakes and nuclear meltdowns. My oh my. But amidst the disaster, Japanese culture survived and thrived. This year's buzzwords include the suggestive "love injection." For those of us who have spent too much time in seedy places, the word conjures to mind the word: "love juices" aka 愛液 (aieki) the viscous liquid women secrete during pleasurable sexual intercourse which increases lubrication and sexual enjoyment. (There is apparently some debate as to whether 愛液 really exists or not, but those who know don't really need to argue over it. It's like the Tao in that sense.) (japansubculture.com)
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Toyota aims to sell 8.48 million vehicles in 2012
Toyota is aiming for a comeback, targeting record global sales of 8.48 million vehicles in 2012 and an even bigger number in 2013, after being battered this year by the March disaster in Japan and flooding in Thailand.
Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's top automaker, relinquished its title as the world's biggest in global vehicle sales for the first half of this year, sinking to No. 3 trailing U.S. rival General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG of Germany.
Toyota's global vehicle sales for this year total 7.9 million vehicles, including group companies, down 6 percent from the previous year, it said in a statement Thursday.
General Motors Co. has not yet released its global sales numbers for this year. The Detroit-based automaker had been at the top for more than seven decades until Toyota took the crown in 2008. (AP)
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Nikkei ends 2-day winning run, machine tools weak
Japan's blue-chip index
snapped a two-day winning run on Thursday and met strong
resistance near its 25-day moving average, with the machine
tools sector weighed down by a brokerage downgrade.
The Nikkei average ended 0.8 percent lower at
8,395.16 in thin trade before a three-day weekend, and was flat
for the week.
The broader Topix was down 0.4 percent at 723.12. (Reuters)
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Japan halts beef imports from one U.S. meat plant
Japan halted beef imports from a U.S. packing plant after finding material prohibited under rules to control the risk of mad cow disease, the government said on Wednesday.
The 15th confirmed violation by U.S. beef suppliers since Tokyo last resumed imports in July 2006 came as Japan's Food Safety Commission, upon request from the health ministry, is scheduled to start reviewing the existing import rules on U.S. and Canadian beef on Thursday.
Japan, which has tightened regulations on beef imports following the outbreak of mad cow disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, currently allows imports of beef only from cattle aged 20 months or younger and excludes parts considered as risky. (Reuters)
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Lack of exercise a concern for Fukushima children
A 34-year-old woman watched her son running around an indoor play center in Fukushima city.
"It's the first time in a long while I have seen him breaking a sweat as he plays," she said.
The boy, a second-year elementary school student, has, like many of his contemporaries, spent much of his time cooped up indoors since the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
His mother won't let him play outside because of the threat of radiation, so he has been watching television and DVDs after coming home from school instead of playing in the parks or vacant lots that were his old stomping ground. (Asahi)
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Wrestling: New Japan Pro-Wrestling hits 40
High-impact slams, chokeholds and daredevil feats of athleticism aren't the usual way to celebrate a 40th birthday, but that's how New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) will be spending its big day.
The promotion company was founded by square-jawed wrestling legend Antonio Inoki in June 1972. Its signature event has been held annually on Jan. 4 at Tokyo Dome since 1992, but in 2007 they dubbed it "Wrestle Kingdom" after a video game.
For fans of the popular U.S.-based World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) promotion and its dramatic soap-opera shenanigans, Japanese puroresu (pro-wrestling) might take a little getting used to. The basics are still the same: count-outs, muscleheads, bodyslams and matches that appear somewhat predetermined. The difference comes in the presentation - puroresu takes itself way more seriously. (Japan Times)
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