A 21-year-old man jumped to his death Monday in an apparent suicide at a sailing school in Mihama, Aichi Prefecture, that is known for its strict education program for troubled young people, police said.
The man jumped from the roof of a three-story dormitory at Totsuka Yacht School around 7:30 a.m., leaving a note on the roof terrace that read: "It's painful for me to live. I want to die," police said.
The Hiroshima Prefecture native, who joined the school in December 2010, climbed onto the roof while taking out garbage with another student, the police said. (Japan Times)
Suicide leap at disciplinary school
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Mickey, Minnie greet new adults at Tokyo Disneyland
About 1.22 million people born in 1991 who had reached the age of 20 before January celebrated the Coming of Age holiday on Monday. Their ranks totaled 20,000 less than in 2010.
The figure reset the record low for people achieving formal adulthood for the fifth year in a row, according to statistics compiled by the internal affairs ministry.
The ministry started logging the statistic in 1968. It peaked in 1970 at about 2.46 million, when the baby boomer generation started hitting 20.
This year, about 620,000 men and 600,000 women celebrated the national holiday. The ratio of new adults to the population as a whole was 0.96 percent, marking eight consecutive years of decline. (Japan Times)
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International education a triple-A investment in your child's - and Japan's - future
Bicultural families are on the rise in Japan. In 1970, less than 6,000 "international marriages" - where one partner is non-Japanese - were registered, or 0.5 percent of the total. In 2000, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported that one in 22, or 4.5 percent, of all marriages that year were between a Japanese and a foreigner. In Tokyo, it's now one in 10.
Parents of bicultural children in Japan often find themselves in educational limbo when choosing where to send their progeny: the traditional state school or one of the numerous international schools. And although expensive, an international education should be considered a triple-A investment in their children's future, as well as Japan's. (Japan Times)
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Sumo: Kotoshogiku rebounds from opening-day defeat
Kotoshogiku rebounded from an opening day loss, ozeki debutant Kisenosato steamrolled another would-be opponent, and Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho ruled with an iron fist on the second day of the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament on Monday.
Kotoshogiku, who suffered a shock defeat to Takekaze on Sunday, got a firm grip on Wakakoyu's (0-2) mawashi and bumped his opponent over the straw bales with his trademark "gaburiyori" belly forceout at Ryogoku Kokugikan to give the Sadagotake ozeki his first win of 2012. (Japan Times)
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Olympus sues own execs over loss-hiding
Olympus Corp. has filed a lawsuit against former and incumbent executives of the company, including former Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa and President Shuichi Takayama, over their alleged involvement in a cover-up of massive investment losses.
According to sources, the major optical equipment maker filed the lawsuit Sunday with the Tokyo District Court against about 20 former and incumbent executives, demanding they pay several billion yen in compensation.
On Saturday, a committee of lawyers investigating the involvement of successive board members in the scandal concluded that about 20 people, including Takayama, bear responsibility in the cover-up of investment losses. The committee later submitted a report to the company saying Olympus has suffered damages of about 90 billion yen in activities related to the cover-up. (Yomiuri)
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Pension 'trump card' goes unplayed / System to forcibly collect unpaid premiums dormant since creation 2 years ago
The system touted as a "trump card" for halting the decline in contributions to the government-run pension scheme has not been used since its creation two years ago, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
Under the system launched in January 2010, the Japan Pension Service is allowed to delegate to the National Tax Agency its authority to forcibly collect pension premiums in serious cases of nonpayment.
Explaining why the system has not been utilized, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said people often agree to pay when informed that tax authorities may forcibly take the money.
However, the number of people in arrears on their national pension premiums is still growing. (Yomiuri)
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Police to question Aum founder / Former cultists: Hirata present at meetings about notary's abduction
Police plan to question Chizuo Matsumoto, founder of the Aum Supreme Truth cult, regarding former Aum member Makoto Hirata's statement that he was unaware of plans to abduct a Tokyo notary public, it has been learned.
It is not clear whether Matsumoto, 56, also known as Shoko Asahara, will respond to questioning as no one has been able to understand him in over a decade.
Hirata, 46, was arrested Jan. 1 by the Metropolitan Police Department after turning himself in to the police on Dec. 31. He had been on the run for nearly 17 years. (Yomiuri)
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Japan to release 3 activists who boarded whaler
An Australian customs ship was steaming toward a Japanese whaling vessel to collect three activists after Tokyo decided on Tuesday to release them without charges over their surprise boarding off southwest Australia.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the customs ship will likely take several days to rendezvous with the security ship the Shonan Maru No. 2 to collect the three Australian citizens: Geoffrey Owen Tuxworth, 47, Simon Peterffy, 44, and Glen Pendlebury, 27. All are from Western Australia state.
The three anti-whaling activists boarded the Shonan Maru No. 2 on Sunday as it tailed the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's flagship the Steve Irwin.
Gillard thanked Japan for its cooperation and criticized the boarding tactic as "unacceptable and will ultimately be costly to the Australian taxpayer." (AP)
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Saudi: 'Internal' matter if Japan buys Iran oil
A Saudi oil official said that whether Japan or other countries continue to buy Iranian oil was an "internal matter," reflecting the unease in many nations after the latest U.S. sanctions on Tehran and Iran's threats to choke off the Strait of Hormuz in response.
The comments by the Oil Ministry official were reported on Monday by the Saudi daily Al-Watan a day after Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba met with senior Saudi officials in the kingdom's capital, Riyadh.
The newspaper said that Japanese officials asked Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, to make up for the potential loss of Iranian oil for Japan. The Asian nation is now even more heavily dependent on oil and natural gas imports after last year's tsunami forced the shutdown of nuclear reactors. (AP)
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Twitter is huge in Japan - bigger than Facebook, actually
Twitter is getting to be kind of a big deal globally, at least among marketers and the digerati.
But in Japan, the microblogging service already trumps Facebook in traffic.
According to stats from comScore, Japan sends around 25 million monthly unique visitors to Twitter. Facebook, on the other hand, sees around 15 million monthly unique visitors from Japan.
Still, until recently, neither site has been as big in the region as Mixi, Japan's homegrown and highly popular social network. While we don't have data for monthly uniques, Mixi had around 27 million users as of April 2010. (venturebeat.com)
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N. Koreans sent home after 'drifting' to Japan
Three North Korean men, who reached Japan in a small wooden boat last week, were sent home Monday under an agreement between Pyongyang and Tokyo, the Japanese foreign ministry said.
The trio were found in the seven-metre (23-foot) boat with the body of another man, who had died from hypothermia, near the western Japanese island of Oki on Friday, the Japan Coast Guard said earlier.
They said they started drifting with engine trouble after setting off on a fishing trip in mid-December, according to Japanese coastguard officials.
Despite lacking diplomatic ties, the two governments agreed on the return of the trio in unofficial talks in Beijing, the Jiji and Kyodo news agencies reported. (AFP)
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Japan, China, S. Korea to kick off FTA talks
Japan, China and South Korea are expected to start negotiations for a trilateral free trade agreement in the first half of this year, possibly in May, a Chinese newspaper reported Monday.
"If there is no strong opposition from inside the Republic of Korea, talks on the China-Japan-ROK FTA will be officially launched during the first half of this year, in May at the earliest," China Daily, in a front-page article, quoted a source at the Commerce Ministry as saying.
The paper suggests leaders of the three countries are likely to reach agreement during a trilateral summit slated for this spring in China.
The unidentified source was quoted as saying negotiations for a bilateral FTA between China and South Korea "will probably start in the first half of this year." (Mainichi)
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Unruly air passenger from Japan arrested in Hawaii
A 65-year-old Japanese man has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a flight attendant aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Tokyo to Honolulu.
According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Sohei Yamanouchi hit the flight attendant once with an open hand and once with a closed fist after drinking multiple glasses of wine.
Officials say the flight attendant was not seriously injured.
FBI agents arrested Yamanouchi after the flight landed Monday morning at Honolulu International Airport. The Japanese citizen was charged with assault aboard an aircraft, which carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison and a $10,000 fine. (AP)
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Japanese shares close 0.38% higher
Japanese shares have closed 0.38 per cent higher but investors remained wary over eurozone risks ahead of bond auctions in Italy and Spain later in the week.
The Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Tuesday closed up 31.91 points at 8,422.26. The Topix index of all first section shares rose 0.32 per cent or 2.33 points to 731.93.
Bargain hunting lifted the market after a selloff on Friday, Toshiyuki Kanayama, senior market analyst at Monex, told Dow Jones Newswires. The stock exchange was closed on Monday for a national holiday. (ninemsn.com.au)
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In Japan, a rebuilt island serves as a cautionary tale
On the night of July 12, 1993, the remote island of Okushiri was ripped apart by a huge earthquake and tsunami that now seem an eerie harbinger of the much larger disaster that struck northeastern Japan last March. Islanders still recall with horror how a wall of frothing black water raced out of the darkness to consume entire communities, leaving almost 200 people dead.
In the half decade that followed, the Japanese government rebuilt the island, erecting 35-foot concrete walls on long stretches of its coast, making it look more like a fortress than a fishing outpost. The billion dollars' worth of construction projects included not just the hefty wave defenses but also entire neighborhoods built on higher ground and a few flourishes, like a futuristic $15 million tsunami memorial hall featuring a stained glass panel for each victim.
But today, as Japan begins a decade-long $300 billion reconstruction of the northeast coast, Okushiri has become something of a cautionary tale. Instead of restoring the island to its vibrant past, many residents now say, the $1 billion spending spree just may have helped kill its revival. (New York Times)
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Woman denies killing three men
A woman pleaded not guilty Tuesday to murdering three male acquaintances in the course of swindling them in 2009 in a series of killings that drew huge public attention.
Kanae Kijima, 37, entered the not-guilty plea at the opening of her Saitama District Court lay judge trial, telling the three professional and six citizen judges, "I did not kill them."
But she pleaded guilty to fraud charges for swindling money from two of the victims, whom she met via spouse-hunting websites and had, according to earlier reports, promised to marry them.
Police first arrested Kijima in September 2009 on suspicion of swindling money from a man in his 50s in Nagano Prefecture. Investigators eventually served her with another eight warrants. (Japan Times)
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Japan arrests woman who lived with cult fugitive
A woman claiming to have lived with a senior member of the doomsday cult behind the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways turned herself in and was arrested Tuesday for helping him evade police for nearly 17 years.
Akemi Saito, also a member of Aum Shinrikyo, gave herself up after Makoto Hirata surrendered to police on New Year's Eve, according to police and Saito's lawyer.
Hirata has refused to explain how he managed to keep underground for so long despite being one of Japan's most-wanted fugitives.
He is suspected of involvement in a cult-related kidnapping-murder in 1995. Later that year, Aum Shinrikyo released sarin nerve gas in Tokyo's subways, killing 13 and injuring more than 6,000. (AP)
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Japanese stores offering foreigner-only discounts
In the latest in a very long line of moves designed to encourage overseas tourists to return to Japan post-March 11, several major retailers have decided to offer discounts to shoppers based on the color of their passports.
According to today's Nikkei newspaper, department-store giant Isetan Mitsukoshi is knocking off 5 percent at the register for shoppers from 'China, Taiwan and other foreign markets.'
Elsewhere, popular gadget- and white-goods store Bic Camera has already kicked off a scheme to reward foreign folk snapping up waffle irons and whatnot from its shelves. (CNN)
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GSDF faces challenges in S. Sudan mission
The Ground Self-Defense Force's nation-building activity as part of a U.N. peacekeeping operation in South Sudan is likely to take a long time and face various challenges.
In mid-January, the first batch of a GSDF engineering unit will be sent to South Sudan, which became independent in July.
"People of South Sudan are paying close attention [to the GSDF on this operation] and the international community has high hopes," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said at a mission-launching ceremony in Tokyo on Saturday.
About 240 SDF members, wearing camouflage uniforms, attended the ceremony, where flags were distributed to the unit.
A senior Defense Ministry official described the PKO in South Sudan as a "completely new activity" as it is intended to support nation-building from scratch, unlike conventional activities that center on monitoring ceasefires and postwar reconstruction. (Yomiuri)
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Food exports plunged due to nuclear crisis
The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has affected the exports of farm and marine products from eastern Japan. According to the estimates of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, 44 countries and territories either ban the import of food items produced in Japan, or demand that they be inspected when imported, even though they are regarded safe and marketed domestically.
While the government had aimed to reach 1 trillion yen of agricultural and marine exports, this goal has been hampered by regulations that could be based on overblown fears.
On Thursday, high-grade apples in the first auction of the year at a fruit and vegetable market in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, sold at prices about 1.6 times higher than the previous year, partly due to short supply. Farmers and others were greatly relieved by the prices of almost all varieties, which were higher than those of last year. (Yomiuri)
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