A 12-year-old Japanese girl was killed after she lay down on railway tracks and waited for a speeding train in an apparent suicide, Tokyo police said Wednesday.
The elementary school student died after she was hit by a freight train in the capital on Tuesday.
A letter from the girl that appeared to be a farewell note was found at her home.
"Given the circumstances, we suspect she committed suicide," a police spokesman said. (mysinchew.com)
Girl, 12, kills self on Japan railway track
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Creative use of land / Tokyo lags in attracting foreign companies
The downturn in foreigners visiting Tokyo after the Great East Japan Earthquake is well-documented. The number of foreign visitors staying overnight in Tokyo during summer to autumn last year was down 40 percent compared to the same period the previous year. Out of this concern, the metropolitan government responded to a proposal from the Cabinet Office and applied for status as an international strategy comprehensive special zone. The metropolitan government compiled a plan to make Tokyo the preferred regional base for U.S. and European multinational companies and emerging companies in Asia. Tokyo was awarded the special zone status in December. (Yomiuri)
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Japan phones built to survive showers, toilet-drops
Japanese women are so fond of their phones, they even use them in the shower, say manufacturers. This makes waterproofing a must -- also good against rainstorms and accidents while texting on the toilet.
Panasonic and Fujitsu are touting their waterproof and dust-proof phones as they seek to charm the overseas market at the world's biggest mobile phone show in Barcelona this week.
"In Japan, you can't sell a phone if it's not waterproof. About 90 to 95 percent of all phones sold now are already waterproof," Panasonic executive Taro Itakura told AFP at the Mobile World Congress.
"Why? This is very unique -- young Japanese women prefer to use their cellphones even when taking their showers," Itakura said. (Yomiuri)
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Keep females in Imperial clan: experts
Female members of the Imperial family must retain their status after marriage to maintain the Emperor system, experts told a government panel Wednesday.
Journalist Soichiro Tahara and Akira Imatani, a Teikyo University professor on medieval Japanese history, were invited to give their views at the panel's first hearing. Panel members include Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsuyoshi Saito and Itsuo Sonobe, a former Supreme Court justice who was appointed as special adviser to the Cabinet on the issue.
Both Tahara and Imatani recommended that females be allowed to stay within the Imperial family after marriage, though with limits on their lineage. (Japan Times)
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Google warned over handling customer data
Responding to widespread concerns, the government was expected to ask the Japanese unit of Google Inc. Wednesday in writing to handle personal data carefully, a day ahead of the introduction of the U.S. Internet giant's new privacy policy, sources said.
The new privacy policy will bring together personal data collected from Google's more than 60 search engines, emails and other services, giving Google unilateral control of all data about the company's service users, which critics fear could lead to a serious infringement of privacy.
The government's move follows a request the European Union made earlier for Google to postpone introducing the new policy. French regulators also concluded Tuesday that the new policy is not in compliance with EU regulations on data protection. (Japan Times)
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Japan shares close flat on profit-taking
Japanese shares have closed flat despite upbeat factory production data and optimism over eurozone banks after profit-taking zapped earlier impressive gains, brokers say.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Wednesday closed up 0.01 per cent or 0.72 points at 9,723.24, while the Topix index of all first-section issues fell 2.52 points, or 0.30 per cent, to 835.96.
The benchmark Nikkei at one point hit 9,866.41, its highest intraday level since August 2. (ninemsn.com.au)
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Fukushima 'punks' rage against evacuation
You wouldn't know the punk band was Japanese, a culture self-programmed for propriety.
I can't write the chorus (sung in English) of the band's favorite song here, as my editor would first delete the offensive word and then report me to my superiors.
Let's just say it's an obscenity that begins with the letter "F" and rhymes with what hockey players call the vulcanized rubber disk that's hit into the goal.
The four-piece band screams the word over and over again to a Ramones tune, "Rockaway Beach," directed at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), operator of the crippled Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant. If you haven't guessed it yet this band -- known as the Scrap -- is angry with TEPCO for a reason. Each member of the group was affected by the meltdown at the plant in northeastern Japan that followed last year's earthquake and tsunami. (CNN)
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Budget airline Peach launches in Japan
Peach Aviation Ltd., backed by All Nippon Airways Co. (9202), began flights in Japan today, becoming the first of three budget carriers to start operations in the country this year.
The debut Peach service took off from Osaka's Kansai International Airport at 7:17 a.m. today, headed for Sapporo, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The Osaka-based airline is selling tickets for less than a third of the price offered by full-service carriers ANA and Japan Airlines Co.
The carrier is offering one-way tickets to Sapporo for as little as 4,780 yen ($59) including tax on April 1. JAL and ANA tickets the same day for the almost two-hour trip cost from 16,000 yen. (BusinessWeek)
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Giant airbags could protect Japanese houses from earthquakes
As Japan continues to rebuild after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami, one company has developed an ingenious new method to protect homes from the shaking-let them ride it out on a cushion of air.
The method, developed by Air Danshin Systems Inc., the method is radically different than conventionally employed dampers and band isolation systems. When the quake strikes, it activates a sensor on the property. This sensor then activates a large air compressor that forces air into a bag situated in the home's foundation. (gizmodo.com)
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Japan demands concrete action from North Korea
Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program have moved a step closer to resumption after Pyongyang's deal with Washington but there needed to be "concrete" action, Japan said Thursday.
Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba welcomed an agreement announced Wednesday that will see North Korea suspend its nuclear tests and uranium enrichment program in return for U.S. food aid.
But he cautioned the hermit state needed to translate its words into deeds before the impasse on the Korean peninsula could be broken.
(Japan Today)
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S Korean president urges Japan to resolve sex slave issue
South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Thursday urged Japan to settle long-running grievances over wartime sex slavery, saying time was running out to resolve the issue.
In a speech commemorating Korea's 1919 nationwide uprising against Japan's colonial rule, Lee said victims who "have been living with deep scars in their mind" were now well over 80 years old.
If they pass away as their grievances are left unresolved, Japan would "lose the chance to settle this issue for good," Lee said. "In order for the two countries to work closely together as partners, genuine courage and wisdom to face the truth are required." (Japan Today)
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Japan government moves to legalise gambling
Casinos could appear in Japan within five years if the government's move to legalise gambling in the country proves successful.
A cross-party coalition of 150 lawmakers are in support of legalising gambling in Japan and have given their backing to legislation that could see the first casinos built on the island.
The move has been partly driven by gambling interests in America as well as the search for new industries which could help push the country out of its economic slump, the Wall Street Journal reported. (insidejapantours.com)
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Walk me through Japan
In the suburbs of Nakatsugawa, about 300 kilometers west of Tokyo, a wooden signboard carries notices of the kind common in travelers' haunts across Asia, such as the right prices to pay for porters and transport. But in famously orderly Japan, where crime against visitors is almost unknown, it's a surprise also to see warnings against muggers and drug dealers.
But these notices are merely reproductions of edicts from the Tokugawa shoguns once in control of traffic on Japan's ancient Nakasendo, a footpath-highway between Kyoto and Edo (now Tokyo). Their relevance expired 150 years ago along with the shogunate itself, but some sections of the old route have remained unchanged since its creation in the 17th century. (Wall Street Journal)
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Shinto priests prepare to mark Japan's quake anniversary
Shinto priests throughout Japan are preparing to hold commemoration ceremonies on March 11 to mark the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 20,000 people.
The Association of Shinto Shrines has issued a suggested prayer to be read during the ceremonies. That prayer, according to the Rev. Masafumi Nakanishi, a Shinto priest, describes the calamity, pleads that there be no more disasters and asks that people live peacefully.
Nakanishi performed just such a ceremony on Wednesday (Feb. 29) at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs during a program on the "Shinto response" to the disaster. (Washington Post)
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Central banks' joint efforts sustain global system
Never before have the world's central banks sent so much money sloshing through the global financial system.
From slashing interest rates and buying government debt to dangling cheap loans to banks and taking on their risky assets, central banks have taken extraordinary steps since the 2008 financial crisis to nurse the international banking system back to health.
Over the past 3½ years, the central banks of the United States, Britain, Japan and the 17 countries that use the euro have pumped out so much money that their balance sheets have reached a combined $8.76 trillion. That's a record, by far. (AP)
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Poverty in Japan: Shadowy figures
Poverty rarely stares you in the face in Japan. There is almost no begging, and the homeless hide in the shadows. In Osaka's Nishinari ward, where many destitute live, bottles and stones mark out sleeping spots on the pavement, but belongings are stacked away neatly during the day. Nearby hostels charge 1,000 yen ($12.50) a night for those one rung up the poverty ladder. Dozens of pairs of slippers in the porch are a stark indication of how many stay there.
In Saitama, a bedroom community north-west of Tokyo, the scourge of poverty is well concealed. But the discovery of a dead family of three-an elderly man crippled by a bad back, his wife, and their 39-year-old son-has again drawn attention to its existence. Their emaciated bodies had lain in their home for weeks. With only single-yen coins left, they had been unable to pay for heating, and may have died of hypothermia. (The Economist)
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Tokyo expats live in altered landscape
Jacinthe Martin says it took her a few days to reach "panic" status last March, as Japan's nuclear crisis deepened following its earthquake and tsunami. But the agitated news reports and frantic emails from friends finally pushed her - like many foreign residents of Tokyo - to abandon her adopted city for sanctuary overseas.
Ten days of "sound sleep" in her home town of Montreal were enough to convince Ms Martin, her Japanese husband and their two children that it was safe to return. But even a year later, she says, her normally cosmopolitan neighbourhood is missing some of its international flavour. (FT.com)
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Baseball: Japanese All-Star game to be played in Fukushima
Japan's professional baseball league will hold an All-Star game in quake-hit Fukushima in 2013 to help with the reconstruction of the area following last year's earthquake and tsunami.
Nippon Professional Baseball Commissioner Ryozo Kato said "it will be the first time for Fukushima to host an All-Star game."
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered a major nuclear crises at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan.
(Fox News)
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Can Japan break the yen-won curse?
THE strength of the yen, especially against the South Korean won, has helped spatter Japanese electronics companies with red ink in recent years. Now it has spilled blood. On February 27th Elpida, a Japanese maker of DRAM memory chips, filed the biggest bankruptcy claim of any Japanese manufacturer since the second world war. The main beneficiary of its demise was South Korea's Samsung.
No one would accuse Samsung of thrashing Elpida on currency advantages alone. The electronics giant is nimbler and bolder than many of its Japanese competitors. But the yen/won exchange rate has worked spectacularly in South Korean exporters' favour since the start of the global financial crisis in mid-2008. (The Economist)
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Yahoo Japan's leadership becomes younger
Yahoo Japan Corp. freshened up its management team, installing much younger executives as Chairman Masayoshi Son called for the company to stay competitive in the fast-moving Internet industry.
Yahoo Japan, which operates the country's most popular Internet portal site and is one-third-owned by U.S. Internet giant Yahoo Inc., said Thursday that 44-year-old Manabu Miyasaka will become chief executive April 1. Mr. Miyasaka currently heads the company's online shopping and auction services.
Incumbent CEO Masahiro Inoue, 55, will step down from the board in June after an annual shareholders meeting. (worldpropertychannel.com)
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