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Fukushima to test milk from 10,000 mothers

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The breast milk of about 10,000 mothers residing in Fukushima Prefecture, home to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, will be tested for radioactive contamination, prefectural officials said Thursday. Many breast-feeding mothers have expressed concern that their milk is contaminated by radioactive materials released into the air and sea by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant since it was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. A month after the crisis started, a citizens' group said radioactive iodine in small amounts was found in the breast milk of four women living east or northeast of Tokyo, 220 km from the plant. (Japan Times)

Tokyo stocks close lower as Germany data fuel eurozone worries

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Tokyo stocks fell Thursday after two straight days of gains as weak Germany economic data left investors concerned about the outlook for the eurozone economy. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 62.29 points, or 0.74 percent, at 8,385.59. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange finished 6.32 points, or 0.86 percent, lower at 727.15. Almost all 33 sectors declined, led by the securities, iron and steel, and pharmaceutical sectors. The machinery sector and the sea transport sector were the sole gainers. (Mainichi)

Emperor recounts visit to tsunami-devastated shores in New Year's poem

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Emperor Akihito recounted his visit to areas devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in a poem recited at the annual New Year Poetry Reading Ceremony at the Imperial Palace on Thursday. This year's theme for "waka" (Japanese poems) at the reading was "kishi" (shore). The Emperor describes the view from a helicopter of areas devastated by the tsunami during his May visit to Iwate Prefecture to console those affected by the quake-triggered disaster.
His poem is translated by the Imperial Household Agency as:
What was it like then
When the tsunami came to shore
I look down and wonder
Below me spreads the blue sea
Quiet and perfectly still.
(Japan Times)

Sumo: Hakuho swats down Miyabiyama on fifth day

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Yokozuna Hakuho continued to dominate Miyabiyama on Thursday, improving to 5-0 at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament with an easy win over the hapless komusubi. Hakuho defeated Miyabiyama (0-5) for the 14th straight time, staying on course to win his 22nd Emperor's Cup as three ozeki - Harumafuji, Kotooshu and Baruto - kept up with the Mongolian, taking their records to 5-0. After throwing down Miyabiyama onto his rippling belly to the delight of the crowd at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan, Hakuho now owns a career 23-4 record against the Fujishima wrestler. (Japan Times)

Analysis: Ageing, indebted Japan holds lessons for others

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An asset price bubble pops, hitting bank balance sheets and tax revenues. As growth weakens and the economy flirts with deflation, the real burden of servicing debt increases. Companies race to pay off debt, further dragging down growth. Government spending takes up the slack. Monetary policy is akin to pushing on a piece of string, so even zero interest rates have scant impact. Population decline compounds the vicious circle. That is a rough summary of Japan's plight over the past 20 years. Worryingly, it may also turn out to be the template for other mature economies, especially in Europe. "In terms of nominal GDP growth, things are playing out in a very similar way to how they did in Japan," said Albert Edwards, global strategist at French bank Societe Generale. In a presentation for investors in London, Edwards said world markets, too, were following Japan's "ice age" lead. (Reuters)

Renault-Nissan likely placed third in sales in 2011: Ghosn

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The Renault-Nissan Alliance may have placed third in 2011 global new car sales with about 8.03 million vehicles, a figure including those sold by the Renault-financed AvtoVAZ of Russia, according to Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn. Ghosn unveiled the data in a speech at the annual North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Together with alliance partner Renault SA, Nissan appears to have passed Toyota Motor Corp., which sold an estimated 7.9 million vehicles last year. Volkswagen AG said Monday that new car sales for its group firms, excluding sales of some commercial vehicles, grew 14.3 percent in 2011 from the previous year to a record 8.16 million units. (Japan Times)

METI bigwig nabbed in insider trading via wife's name

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Prosecutors arrested a senior official at the trade ministry Thursday over insider trading in a 2009 state-led bailout for chip-maker Elpida Memory Inc. Masaaki Kimura, 53, is suspected of repeatedly buying shares in Elpida Memory under his wife's name from February to May 2009. If found guilty, he could face five years in prison or a fine of up to ¥5 million. The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office arrested him on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, which prohibits shady stock transactions. (Japan Times)

Record number of new convenience stores to open in FY12

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Three major convenience store chains will open a total of about 3,000 outlets in fiscal 2012--a record annual number--bringing the total number of convenience stores in the nation to over 45,000, according to the chains' operators. All three operators--Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Lawson, Inc. and FamilyMart Co.--recorded their highest-ever total operating revenues and operating profits for the March-to-November period last year, according to their respective consolidated settlement of accounts. The three companies saw a sharp rise in sales because of an increase in new customers--mainly homemakers and the elderly--following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. (Yomiuri)

Govt to start preliminary TPP talks with 3 nations

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The government will start preliminary consultations toward its participation in talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade agreement with three of the countries already involved in such negotiations--Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said at a press conference Thursday that the government will send a delegation to the three countries for the preliminary talks. This is the first time for the government to hold talks over Japan's possible participation in the TPP agreement with countries concerned. According to Fujimura, Katsuyuki Ishida, a senior vice minister of the Cabinet Office who chairs the executive committee of the government's negotiation team, visited the three countries from Sunday to Wednesday to discuss the dispatch of a Japanese delegation. (Yomiuri)

Surplus plunges 85% in Nov. / Year-on-year fall to 138 billion yen marks lowest level since Jan. 2009

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The nation's current account surplus declined 85.5 percent in November from the same month a year earlier to 138.5 billion yen, shrinking for the ninth straight month, according to a Finance Ministry preliminary report on the balance of international payments released Thursday. The surplus was at its lowest level since January 2009, when the balance fell to minus 132.7 billion yen due to the so-called Lehman Brothers shock. The current account is the broadest measure of Japan's global trade of goods and services. (Yomiuri)

Water, blankets ready for Tokyo subway commuters

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Tokyo Metro Co. has stocked enough water bottles and blankets for 100,000 people at all of its 170 stations as part of its efforts to prepare for a possible disaster such as a major earthquake. As many Tokyo Metro stations were jam-packed with stranded commuters on the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the company views the measure as a way to strengthen preparedness in the event that a much-feared near-field earthquake hits the metropolitan area. Station premises leading to ticket gates will be made available to stranded commuters during a disaster, the company said. (Yomiuri)

Japan's trade balance

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Imbalances are not for ever. In the 1980s and 1990s, Japan's huge trade surplus was a popular target for American and European protectionists. No longer. Provisional estimates suggest that Japan's merchandise trade moved into the red in 2011-its first annual deficit (excluding freight costs) since 1963. Japan remains the world's biggest net foreign creditor. Income from its assets more than offset the trade gap, keeping its current account in surplus, equivalent to about 2% of GDP (down from 5% in 2007, see chart). That surplus, however, could also disappear within a few years. Is that good news or bad? Last year's trade deficit partly reflected some temporary factors, notably the earthquake and tsunami which disrupted production and exports. Imports were inflated by higher oil prices and larger imports of energy following the shutdown of nuclear-power plants. (The Economist)

Niseko, Japan's own St. Moritz

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I am barefoot and naked padding along a stone path in the depths of Japanese winter, surrounded by snow-laden pine trees. I slip into a hot pool fed by natural underground springs. Huge, slow-moving snowflakes gently settle on my hair. In the dusk I can see just a few vague figures across the pond-size area - other women barely visible through the steam. Earlier that day I had been communing with the snow in a more conventional way, skiing my way through deep blankets of powder on Mount Annupuri in Niseko. The network of ski areas around the small resort village of Hirafu on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, see almost constant snowfall from December to April, a type of "Champagne powder," as aficionados call it, that is a result of low pressure systems over northeast Hokkaido meeting high pressure systems over northwest Siberia. The winds from Siberia pick up moisture from the Sea of Japan, and the resulting bands of clouds dump huge amounts of snow when they reach the mountains. (New York Times)

Escaped convict caught in Hiroshima

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Police recaptured a Chinese fugitive Friday, two days after he escaped from Hiroshima Prison dressed only in his underwear. Li Guolin, 40, fled Wednesday by scaling a 5-meter prison fence that was undergoing repair work. The National Police Agency had placed Li on a special wanted list. "We will review (the prison's management system) to make sure this doesn't happen again," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a news conference soon after Li was apprehended. He has served about 3.5 years in Hiroshima Prison after his conviction for attempted murder and theft. The police recaptured Li after an undercover officer spotted him crossing a street near an elementary school in Nishi Ward, Hiroshima, only 2 km from the prison. (Japan Times)

Cultist who harbored fugitive had Y8 million in cash

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The ex-Aum Shinrikyo follower who sheltered senior cult fugitive Makoto Hirata for nearly 17 years had ¥8 million in cash when she turned herself in Tuesday, investigative sources said. Police hope to learn how Akemi Saito, who once worked as a nurse, acquired the funds. Hirata, 46, surrendered on Dec. 31 and was arrested on suspicion of conspiring with Aum guru Shoko Asahara and his disciples to abduct Kiyoshi Kariya, a Tokyo notary, and inject him with a fatal dose of chemical in March 1995. (Japan Times)

Asia's new tripartite entente

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The launch of trilateral strategic consultations among the United States, India and Japan, and their decision to hold joint naval exercises this year, signals efforts to form an entente among the Asia-Pacific region's three leading democracies. These efforts - in the world's most economically dynamic region, where the specter of a power imbalance looms large - also have been underscored by the Obama administration's new strategic guidance for the Pentagon. The new strategy calls for "rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific" and support of India as a "regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region." At a time when Asia is in transition and troubled by growing security challenges, the U.S., India, and Japan are seeking to build a broader strategic understanding to advance their shared interests. Their effort calls to mind the pre-World War I Franco-British-Russian "Triple Entente" to meet the threat posed by the rapid rise of an increasingly assertive Germany. (Japan Times)

Tokyo foreigners get disaster drill

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A total of 150 non-Japanese took part Friday in an annual emergency drill for foreign residents in Tokyo looking to learn or reaffirm how to deal with a disaster like the one that hit March 11. With the help of 80 volunteer translators covering eight languages, the participants went through eight simulation "zones," including a smoke-filled house, an earthquake simulator and fire extinguisher practice, set up outside the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium in Shibuya Ward. For the first time, the event featured an exercise on how to react during a quake measuring lower 6 on the Japanese intensity scale to 7, in which participants gathered in a room and evacuated the building with a staff member's guidance. (Japan Times)

Sumo: Yokozuna Hakuho improves to 13-0 against Goeido

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Yokozuna Hakuho outclassed Goeido to stay perfect through six days, leading an unbeaten group of three at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament on Friday. Hakuho made it 13-for-13 against Goeido in the day's finale, never giving his opponent a chance as the Mongolian bulldozed the second-ranked maegashira to his fifth defeat at Ryogoku Kokugikan. Hakuho was joined at the top by ozeki Baruto and Kotooshu, who barely broke a sweat in improving to 6-0. Trailing the trio - all foreigners - at 5-1 were ozeki Harumafuji and Kisenosato, sekiwake Kakuryu and a pair of No. 13 maegashira, Chiyonokuni and Tenkaiho. (Japan Times)

Noda hoping latest reshuffle bucks trend of dismal failures

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Cabinet reshuffles are generally called a gamble prime ministers take to reverse dismal approval ratings, but in recent years most of them have failed miserably. Since Junichiro Koizumi left office in September 2006, the administrations of the Liberal Democratic Party and the now ruling Democratic Party of Japan have seen six prime ministers. Four of them decided to go for broke when their support ratings started to plunge, in a desperate attempt to cling to power. (Japan Times)

Noda skips Davos to tackle reforms

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Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda will not attend an annual meeting of the World Economic Forum that starts Jan. 25 in Davos, Switzerland, and instead will focus on domestic affairs ahead of the Diet session that convenes Jan. 24, government sources said. A Cabinet member is expected to attend the meeting on behalf of Noda, who will address challenges including reform of the tax and social security systems and take part in Diet debate over the fourth extra budget for the current fiscal year, the sources said. (Japan Times)
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