News On Japan

Eight deer belonging to the Kumamoto City Zoological and Botanical Gardens escaped from their enclosure on Monday afternoon. Police and officials said four were discovered within the garden perimeter, and one near the garden while the remaining the are still missing and likely to be outside the facility. (Japan Today)

The Sendai District Court rejected a claim Tuesday that Sendai-based 77 Bank should take responsibility for the deaths of 12 of its workers in the March 2011 tsunami. (The Japan News)

Astronaut Koichi Wakata will serve as the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station from March 9, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said Tuesday. (Jiji Press)

A giant squid has been captured alive by a fisherman in western Japan. (NHK)

Japan, the United States and 10 other countries participating in Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade negotiations failed to reach a broad agreement in their four-day ministerial talks in Singapore that ended on Tuesday. (Jiji Press)

Japan plans to issue specially designed license plates for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, starting as early as in 2015, transport minister Akihiro Ota said Tuesday. (Jiji Press)

Police have arrested a 57-year-old man for dumping a woman's body in a lake after hitting her with his car. Police said the woman's body was found floating in the lake in Handa, Aichi Prefecture. (Japan Today)

A former official of NHK's television technology research center was arrested Tuesday for allegedly making a fake purchase order to an audio equipment company. (The Japan News)

Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) Chairman Kenichiro Hamada on Tuesday scolded Katsuto Momii, president of the public broadcaster, again over an additional gaffe. (Jiji Press)

Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, abruptly stopped trading on Tuesday and its chief executive said the business was at "a turning point" but gave no details. (Jiji Press)

Israel's Tokyo embassy says it will donate new copies of Anne Frank's "The Dairy of a Young Girl" to the public libraries in the Japanese capital whose books were vandalized. (NHK)

With the annual meeting of China's parliament about to begin in smoggy Beijing, the Chinese government is in desperate need of a distraction. So what better time for the Chinese government to ramp up its campaign against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, an enemy even more despised than smog? (BusinessWeek)

Tokyo stocks fell 0.54 percent Wednesday, following Wall Street lower after disappointing data on US housing and consumer confidence. (Global Post)

Police in Tokushima have arrested an unemployed 26-year-old man for abusing his 3-year-old son after it was discovered that he had been keeping the boy restrained on a 1.2-meter-long dog leash which was tied to a window frame inside his apartment. (Japan Today)

The world's biggest gambling company has vowed to spend "whatever it takes" (up to $10 billion) to set up a casino in Japan. Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson's pledge comes at an auspicious time, with the Japanese government considering legalizing casinos and in desperate need of an economic boost. (Quartz)

Remember the part at the end of the Bible where Jesus sneakily avoided crucifixion and headed to Japan to become a rice farmer? And who could forget how his younger brother ended up being crucified instead, in a case of the old switch-a-roo? (slate.com)

Ten prefectures across Japan have issued alerts for tiny airborne particles known as PM 2.5, which are causing serious pollution in China. (NHK)

Engineers are to start testing a plan to build frozen walls at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. (NHK)

Land prices as of Jan. 1 rose from three months before at most locations, the land ministry said in a quarterly report. (The Japan News)

Tokyo Electric Power Co. showed the central control room of the Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to the media on Wednesday, ahead of the third anniversary of the start of the nuclear crisis on March 11. (Kyodo)

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