News On Japan

Japan's three biggest automakers - Toyota, Nissan and Honda - say their vehicle sales in China fell last year amid a territorial dispute that prompted Chinese consumers to boycott Japanese products. (Washington Post)

Social game site operator Gree Inc. said Monday that minors who use its site were inadvertently overcharged because of a flaw in its filtering settings. (Japan Times)

The International Olympic Committee was offered a choice between a 2020 Games in Asia, Europe or a combination of the two when delegations from Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul submitted their official candidature files at the IOC's headquarters in Lausanne on Monday. (telegraph.co.uk)

Japan's government is finalizing an emergency economic stimulus package of up to Y10 trillion ($113 billion) that includes public works spending of more than Y5 trillion, the Yomiuri Shimbun said Monday in its morning edition. (nasdaq.com)

Hawkish Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling party kicked off their first full working day of 2013 by singing the national anthem, seen by critics as a symbol of past imperialism and militarism. (nbcnews.com)

Police said Monday that a woman and her two children were found dead in their Saitama home in an apparent case of murder-suicide. (Japan Today)

Firefighters responded to a report of a fire at Logan Airport in Boston Monday morning. (necn.com)

Three people were injured Monday by an explosive hidden inside a plain paper bag in a residential district of Urasoe, Okinawa Prefecture, after a man picked it up and took it into his house, local police said. (Japan Times)

To strengthen support for small and midsize enterprises, the government plans to reorganize the current Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corporation of Japan (ETIC) in April, an organization backed by both public and private investment. (Yomiuri)

Japan's main opposition party urged Tuesday against Tokyo revising an apology for Japan's use of sex slaves during World War II. (wsls.com)

China's presence in East Asian regional cooperation has been conspicuous. As one of the founding members of the two key regional institutions - the Asean +3 and the East Asia Summit - Beijing seems to be an indispensable partner of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in the process of regional cooperation in East Asia, which encompasses Northeast and Southeast Asia. (The Nation)

Sharp Corp. said Monday it will release a mass-market, ultrahigh-definition 4K TV in North America in its fiscal second half starting in October. (Yomiuri)

An extremely rare copy of a work by fourth century Chinese calligraphy legend Wang Xizhi has been unearthed in Japan, the first such discovery in four decades, Tokyo National Museum said Tuesday. (huffingtonpost.com)

The Osaka City Board of Education said Tuesday that a 17-year-old high school boy committed suicide last month after receiving physical punishment from his basketball coach. (Yomiuri)

The Japanese Foreign Ministry summoned China's ambassador on Tuesday after Chinese ships entered Japanese-controlled waters for 13 hours, a prolonged incursion that seemed to escalate a standoff over a group of disputed islands. (New York Times)

Japan's sumo stars ushered in the New Year on Tuesday with a foot-stomping performance at a Tokyo shrine. (9news.com)

A man in his 60s died after a rescue team took more than 30 minutes to arrive at his Yokohama home because it initially went to the wrong house, it has been learned. (Yomiuri)

Two men were found dead Tuesday in a sauna at a business hotel in Wakayama City. (Japan Today)

Japan's Nikkei average rose on Wednesday, as a halt in the yen's gains prompted investors to buy shares of exporters such as Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co who would gain from a more competitive currency. (Business Standard)

Japan has been the land of the rising stock. The Nikkei 225 stock average rose by almost 23% in 2012 - most of that gain coming after the election late in the year. Foreigners boosted holdings of Japanese equities by a net $21 billion in the six weeks before Christmas alone. (MarketWatch)

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