Some 417 foreigners from Indonesia and the Philippines were among 54,270 applicants who sat for the Japan nursing examination held nationwide on Sunday.
The number of foreigners taking the test has increased year by year to reach this year's record number, labor ministry officials said, according to Fuji TV.
The number of foreign recipients of the examination who pass has historically been low, but a labor ministry official said that this was often the result of difficult Japanese kanji characters being used, rather than any kind of knowledge gap between foreigners and Japanese. (Japan Today)
417 foreigners sit for Japan nursing exam
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Foreign investors fear Japan banks may hijack Olympus board
Western investors in Japan's disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid media reports that the firm's major creditors are set to install their own appointees in the top jobs.
Foreign investors in the maker of cameras and medical equipment, engulfed last year by a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, have been arguing for a complete renewal of the board, which would include outside talent unconnected to Olympus, its creditors or major owners.
But they say they have been thwarted by Olympus's main banks which, in their powerful roles as both major creditors and shareholders, appear to be lining up a company veteran and a senior banker to take over the reins. (abs-cbnnews.com)
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Mazda dives on report of new share issue
Shares in Japan's Mazda Motor tumbled more than 14 percent on Tuesday after reports that the troubled car maker plans to raise 100 billion yen ($1.25 billion) in a new share issue.
Mazda Motor is to raise the cash as it comes under pressure from the strong yen and slow global demand, according to a report by national television network NHK, which did not cite its sources.
The car company will also take out subordinated loans totalling 70 billion yen from various banks. The loans come with higher interest rates but are payable only after satisfying other debts. (AFP)
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Soccer: Japan look for goals galore in Olympic qualifier vs Malaysia
Japan hope to open the floodgates against Malaysia as Takashi Sekizuka's side desperately seek to win big in a crunch Olympic qualifier on Wednesday.
"We need to score early so we can put ourselves in a position to dictate how the game flows," Japan striker Kensuke Nagai said. "We need to be aggressive, and we need to be fearless. We've got to be dynamic."
The 2-1 defeat to Syria on Feb. 5 saw Japan drop to second in Group C of the Asian final qualifiers for the under-23 competition in London. The two teams are level on points and goal difference, but Syria are ahead on total goals scored. (Mainichi)
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A window into Japan's train fanatics
It shouldn't come as any great surprise that a country known for obscure hobbies and an impressive railway system has given birth to a new pastime: Capturing video footage from the window of a moving train.
The trains geeks in question are a subset of a subset of railways fanatics, or "tetsudo" fans. Broadly speaking, the enthusiasts can be divided into "noritetsu" (riding trains) or "toritetsu" (capturing images of trains) groups. Within the toritetsu group, the shooting of rail video has exploded in recent years with the increasing popularity of smartphones.
Shooting video of the passing landscape is one thing, but what is the best way for a train buff to replay their work? (Wall Street Journal)
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Tokyo stocks fall on profit-taking
Tokyo stocks slipped on Tuesday despite a short-lived rally on news that eurozone finance chiefs had finally agreed a massive bailout deal for debt-ridden Greece.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange lost 0.23 per cent, or 22.07 points, at 9,463.02, as investors locked in profits after recent strong gains.
The Topix index of all first section shares dropped 0.33 per cent or 2.74 points to 816.29.
The blue chip Nikkei spent most of the morning session in positive territory but fell into the red within 10 minutes of returning from the break, when the Greek rescue was announced. (skynews.com.au)
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Tokyo Small Stocks' Longest Run Since '75
Small Tokyo-listed companies have capped the longest streak of daily advances in almost 37 years.
Japan's TSE Second Section Price Index (TSE2), a capitalization- weighted index of smaller companies listed at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, added 0.2 percent to 2,308.56 at the 3 p.m. close today, rising for a 26th consecutive day. That's the longest streak since May 13, 1975, said Takamichi Sugawara, an assistant manager in the information service division of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Even after rising for 26 days, shares on the index trade at an average of 0.68 times book value, compared with 1 times for the Topix Index, Japan's broadest gauge, and 1.24 times for the Nikkei 225 Stock Average. A number less than one means that companies can be bought for less than value of their assets. (Bloomberg)
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Why Japanese Yen ETFs are Getting Crushed
Exchange traded funds tracking the Japanese yen/U.S. dollar exchange rate have been hammered lately on currency interventions by Japan's central bank and easing tensions over Europe's crisis, which is lowering demand for safe havens.
The Japanese yen was one of the worst performing currencies last week after the Bank of Japan decided to buy more bonds to help push the currency down. Yen-focused exchange traded funds such as the CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (NYSEArca: FXY) are under pressure.
"Most (including us) acknowledge that these latest BOJ announcements were radical and a first step towards debt monetization. In the near term this is an important negative development for the currency," wrote analysts at JP Morgan, WSJ.com reports. (etftrends.com)
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Basketball: American 1st female coach in men's league in Japan
Natalie Nakase knows there's more to her job than winning games. The American is the first female coach in Japan's professional men's basketball league.
Nakase was hired by the Saitama Broncos last November after the previous American coach, Dean Murray, was fired for a violation of his contract.
Nakase's appointment was considered something of a breakthrough in Japan. The 31-year-old Los Angeles native says she's happy to give women encouragement to take on new roles.
"I get a lot of attention for being the first woman in coaching," Nakase said at a news conference. "I'm starting to realize the responsibility I have of giving women a chance, not only in basketball, but in the corporate world as well." (boston.com)
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Japan falls in love with oxford English apps
On February 14, English language learning apps featuring Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes took the top slots on Japan's App Store in the education segment. Since then, they have also taken the #1 spot overall for both iPad and iPhone categories.
These apps, based on 30 stories from the Oxford Bookworms graded reader series, help learners improve their English. Classics Phantom of the Opera, The Wizard of Oz, The Jungle Book, Pride and Prejudice and Gulliver's Travels are among the selected titles. Using the apps, learners can read and listen to the story, view full-color illustrations and test vocabulary using interactive quizzes. Narrated by native-speaking actors, the apps allow learners to bookmark their progress, check meaning of highlighted words and scroll the glossary to check for words. (publishersweekly.com)
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Japan suggests no quick G-20 deal on IMF funding
Japan's finance minister signaled Tuesday that Group of 20 finance officials won't forge any deal at a meeting this weekend on how much additional money member nations should provide for the International Monetary Fund to help it fight Europe's debt crisis.
Talks over the IMF funding aren't expected to make much progress until after a euro-zone summit March 1-2, at which leaders of the 17-nation euro bloc are due to discuss an increase in the size of their $662 billion European Stability Mechanism, people familiar with the matter said.
Their remarks add to signs that non-European members of the IMF may not commit extra cash to the fund's euro-zone rescue until Europe clearly pledges to reinforce its firewall. (Wall Street Journal)
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Japan's island paradise Okinawa expands EV role in eco-tourism
The name Okinawa means "rope in the open sea," and the island archipelago in southern Japan offers tropical beauty that lassos in more than 5 million tourists annually.
Over the past year, the Japanese prefecture has offered a new lure for visitors: Nissan LEAF electric cars.
Setting its island-style pace aside, Okinawa touts one of the country's most aggressive EV infrastructures, with 220 Nissan LEAF rental cars and 27 quick-chargers at 18 locations.
Starting this month, Nissan and JTB Travel are jointly offering a tablet application called "Camploo - Okinawa! Campaign 2012". The app highlights spring training activities for some of Japan's most popular baseball teams. (theautochannel.com)
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Japan clears up only 5% of tsunami rubble
Japan has cleared up just five percent of the rubble left by last year's earthquake and tsunami, the government said Tuesday, amid fears it has been contaminated following the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The twin disasters, which devastated the northeastern coastal communities last year, left almost 23 million tonnes of rubble in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima alone.
Getting rid of the giant piles of debris is essential for communities in the disaster zone to be rebuilt.
But despite calls for national solidarity contamination fears have led local authorities around the country to refuse to allow the debris to be disposed of near them. (AFP)
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Current account deficit feared / Jan. trade figures portend account blowout, analysts say
While the Finance Ministry reported Monday that Japan suffered a record trade deficit of 1.475 trillion yen in January, views are growing the nation will also post a current account deficit in January.
It is feared the trade deficit will continue if exports remain sluggish, as imports are expected to continue to hover at high levels.
The increase in the January trade deficit was due to an ongoing increase in imports of liquefied natural gas--a fuel used for thermal generation of electrical power--to make up for reduced nuclear power generation following the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1. nuclear power plant. (Yomiuri)
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Family photos lost in Japan tsunami debris are slowly reunited with survivors
In a large, bright room not far from the ocean that raged through this coastal Japanese city nearly a year ago, a handful of people with magnifying glasses pore over boxes of photographs of friends or loved ones.
The massive March 11 tsunami that leveled buildings and flattened towns along a wide swathe of northern Japan, including Ofunato, also took a more subtle toll, with hundreds of thousands of photographs lost to the churning waters.
But now these memories are slowly making their way back to their owners, thanks to the painstaking efforts of a team that cleans them of mud, dirt and oil. (MSNBC)
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How the Yakuza went nuclear
Tepco has long been a scandal-ridden company, caught time and time again covering up data on safety lapses at their power plants, or doctoring film footage which showed fissures in pipes. How was the company able to get away with such long-standing behaviour? According to an explosive book recently published in Japan, they owe it to what the author, Tomohiko Suzuki, calls "Japan's nuclear mafia... A conglomeration of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, the shady nuclear industry, their lobbyists..." And at the centre of it all stands Japan's actual mafia: the yakuza.
It might surprise the Western reader that gangsters are involved in Japan's nuclear industry and even more that they would risk their lives in a nuclear crisis. But the yakuza roots in Japanese society are very deep. In fact, they were some of the first responders after the earthquake, providing food and supplies to the devastated area and patrolling the streets to make sure no looting occurred. (telegraph.co.uk)
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Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast
Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.
But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week.
The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. (boston.com)
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North Tokyo Bay Big One could top the scale: study
A future earthquake in the northern part of Tokyo Bay could register the maximum of 7 on the Japanese intensity scale in the capital, stronger than the previously assumed upper 6, according to a study by a government project team released Tuesday.
The larger intensity estimate for the envisaged quake of magnitude-7.3 comes from a finding that its epicenter could be shallower than previously thought, according to the study.
When a quake with an intensity of an upper 6 or 7 strikes, people have difficulty standing, most unsecured furniture moves, and wall tiles and windows are likely to break and fall out.
For an intensity level of 7, furniture can actually become airborne while reinforced concrete block walls can collapse, according to the Meteorological Agency. (Japan Times)
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Aum figure Hirata gets new charge
Prosecutors have indicted Makoto Hirata, a former senior member of Aum Shinrikyo, on fresh charges of involvement in a blast at a Tokyo condominium and the firebombing of the cult's Tokyo headquarters in 1995, where were allegedly carried out to confuse police investigations of Aum.
Hirata, 46, who was indicted last month on kidnapping and unlawful confinement charges following nearly 17 years on the run, will be the first Aum member to face a lay judge trial. (Japan Times)
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Japanese official denies Nanjing Massacre
Chinese Internet users are in an uproar after the mayor of Nagoya told a delegation from Nanjing that he doubted Japanese soldiers had committed atrocities during their World War II occupation of the city.
The southern Chinese city of Nanjing suspended contact with Japanese sister city Nagoya on Tuesday night.
The historical scars left by Japan's wartime occupation remain a flashpoint in relations between the two East Asian powers. Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's annual visits to the Yasukuni shrine-where Class-A war criminals are enshrined along with the war dead-and revisionist text books in Japan that gloss over the country's military adventurism in Asia have led to large, and sometimes violent, protests outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing. (Wall Street Journal)
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