An Osaka Prefectural Police inspector forged evidence last year in an unsolved rape-robbery case, replacing a missing cigarette butt that had been kept as evidence from the crime scene with one that was totally unrelated, sources said Thursday.
The recent misconduct is the latest in a series of scandals involving tampering with evidence and other investigation materials by Osaka police and prosecutors.
(Japan Times)
Cigarette butt evidence in rape-robbery lost; cop ad-libs
↧
↧
Recordable Blu-ray demand to soar
Domestic demand for recordable Blu-ray discs in fiscal 2014 is expected to increase to 328 million, almost 1.8 times the figure for fiscal 2011, an industry body said Wednesday.
The brisk demand reflects the growing popularity of Blu-ray recorders and TVs with built-in recorders, along with the switch to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting from analog transmissions, according to the Japan Recording-Media Industries Association. (Japan Times)
↧
The Japanese hunger games
Before there was The Hunger Games there was Battle Royale, a 1999 Japanese novel about a dystopia where teenagers are forced by adults to battle to the death. And just ahead of the film version of The Hunger Games - shaping up as the omigawd event of the month - comes the Battle Royale movie.
Shot in 2000 by late Kenji Fukasaku but rarely seen in North America - indeed, it was almost banned in Japan - Battle Royale is a twisted and violent survivalist adventure layered with the chirpy pop ethos of Japan's youth culture. It can be viewed as critique of the devolution of society, or an indictment of that country's competitive education system: Students from a wide range of high-school stereotypes (the nerds, the sweethearts, the computer geeks, the transfer students, the hoodlums) must kill one another until there is only one left. (ottawacitizen.com)
↧
Keene becomes Japanese citizen
Donald Keene, a prominent scholar of Japanese literature and culture, has been granted Japanese citizenship, the Justice Ministry announced in a government gazette issued Thursday.
Keene, 89, decided to permanently live in Japan following the Great East Japan Earthquake.
A professor emeritus at Columbia University, Keene studied Japanese literature and culture after serving as an interpreter for U.S. forces during the Pacific War.
Regarded as an authority in the field, he received the Order of Culture in 2008.
(Yomiuri)
↧
Japanese town haunted by loss year after tsunami
The squat 71-year-old fisherman turns his ruddy, weathered face toward the top of the hillside cemetery. With a heavy heart, he climbs steadily past row after row of tall tombstones, a bucket of water in each hand.
Takayuki Sato is here to clean the family grave. He lost his wife and mother in the tsunami that obliterated most of this once-picturesque fishing town famous for its salmon, seaweed and octopus. The women's bodies were never found.
He also lost his best friend, an aunt and uncle, his house and three boats. Nearly everything from his old life is gone. The valley beneath the cemetery, where houses and shops were once clustered, is now a wide expanse of flat emptiness dusted with snow. The vacant, cracked remains of a hospital and a few other concrete buildings jut up here and there. (cbsnews.com)
↧
↧
Miyagi city to build huge solar plant
The Iwanuma city government plans to build a mega solar power plant on farmland rendered useless by salt damage and subsidence as a result of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The plant, which would be one of the largest of its kind in Japan, would generate 15,000 kilowatts of electricity.
A contractor will be selected later this month and work on the plant is expected to begin in July. Construction is expected to cost more than 5 billion yen and the city hopes to start operating the plant next year. (Yomiuri)
↧
Japan's nuclear energy industry nears shutdown, at least for now
All but two of Japan's 54 commercial reactors have gone off line since the nuclear disaster a year ago, following the earthquake and tsunami, and it is not clear when they can be restarted. With the last operating reactor scheduled to be idled as soon as next month, Japan - once one of the world's leaders in atomic energy - will have at least temporarily shut down an industry that once generated a third of its electricity.
With few alternatives, the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, has called for restarting the plants as soon as possible, saying he supports a gradual phase-out of nuclear power over several decades. Yet, fearing public opposition, he has said he will not restart the reactors without the approval of local community leaders. (New York Times)
↧
Negative: Nothing - Step by Step for Japan
March 11th marks a turning point in the life of Swiss travel agent Thomas Kohler. After the Tsunami and the nuclear disaster in Japan he loses all his customers, and eventually his job. Nevertheless, giving up is not an option. He decides to walk through Japan, 2900 kilometers from north to south, in order to show that not all of Japan is Fukushima. A trip of a lifetime starts through a country trying to cope with its biggest crisis since the end of World War II, but never losing hope for better days. The documentary film 'negative: nothing' is a journey that changes the life of a travel agent forever and gives hope and strength to a nation. Even the longest journey starts with a single step. (YouTube)
↧
Analysis: Weak yen no growth tonic as Japan's fuel bill swells
Long preoccupied with the strength of the yen and its drag on the anemic economy, policymakers in Tokyo are now being served a warning about the risks posed by the currency's retreat.
The yen's decline from record highs in recent months coincides with a major shift in the country's energy balance, a change that threatens to hasten its path to a perennial trade deficit.
A record current account deficit in January reported on Thursday was probably a blip, a result of seasonal and one-off factors. But it serves as a reminder that the former export powerhouse may end up in the red and will need to import capital to fund its snowballing debt much sooner than earlier thought. (Reuters)
↧
↧
U.S. delays will raise F-35 fighter price, Japan deal unchanged
The Pentagon on Thursday acknowledged that a delay in U.S. orders for 179 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets would raise the cost of each new warplane in the short term, but said Lockheed still needed to keep driving down its production costs.
Navy Vice Admiral David Venlet, who heads the Pentagon's F-35 program office, said he had briefed the eight international partners about the effect of the production slowdown, and they affirmed their commitment to the program at a meeting last week. (Reuters)
↧
Japan government keeps up pressure, BOJ seen on hold
Japan's government on Friday kept up pressure on the central bank to further support an economic recovery, but the Bank of Japan appears set to hold monetary policy steady at its regular policy meeting next week.
With market jitters over Greek debt swap talks easing, the yen weakening and share prices rising, the central bank is unlikely to move again after last month's surprise easing, sources familiar with its thinking say. (Reuters)
↧
Japan ends whale hunt with less than a third of its target catch
Japan's Fisheries Agency said the fleet was on its way home from the Antarctic "on schedule", but admitted the catch was way down on expectations.
Whalers killed 266 minke whales and one fin whale, the agency said, well below the approximately 900 they had been aiming for when they left Japan in December.
"The catch was smaller than planned due to factors including weather conditions and sabotage acts by activists," an agency official said. "There were definitely sabotage campaigns behind the figure."
Militant environmentalist group Sea Shepherd had pursued the Japanese fleet for much of the season. (telegraph.co.uk)
↧
Toyota provides shot in arm for Japan's quake-hit Tohoku
At this 19-year-old Toyota factory in Kanegasaki, 500 km (300 miles) north of Tokyo, one shiny Aqua hybrid car rolls off the assembly line every 75 seconds, 17 hours a day.
With 120,000 orders to fill from just the first month of sales since late December -- equivalent to 10 months' worth of targeted sales in Japan -- the frantic pace will only quicken in the coming months.
Toyota Motor Corp's long-held plan of setting up a manufacturing base in Japan's northeast coincides with the region's efforts to rebuild itself up after being ravaged by the magnitude-9.0 earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis last March. (Reuters)
↧
↧
Japan leads Asia; Nikkei briefly tops 10,000
Japanese stocks drove a rally in Asian markets for a second straight day Friday, with exporters leading the charge against the backdrop of the yen's recent losses, a decline in Chinese inflation and optimism over Greece's debt restructuring.
The Nikkei Stock Average /quotes/zigman/5986735 JP:NIK +1.65% , which jumped 2% on the previous day, rose another 1.7% to finish the day at 9,929.74, its highest close since Aug. 1. Earlier in the day, the benchmark had briefly topped 10,000, also for the first time since Aug. 1. (MarketWatch)
↧
Soccer: Homare Sawa inspires a nation
If there is anyone who embodies the fighting spirit of Japan's disaster-laden year, it is Homare Sawa.
The 33-year-old is the captain of Japan's women's soccer team who lifted the FIFA Women's World Cup in Germany last June. Despite being huge underdogs her team made it through to the final of the tournament where they beat the highly fancied United States.
Before the competition began the team had little financial backing and was practically ignored by the Japanese public still reeling from the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima. (CNN)
↧
Japan widens hunt for escaped penguin
Keepers looking for a runaway Japanese penguin widened their search Friday, asking birdwatchers on Tokyo's rivers for help in tracking down the escapee, five days after it broke out of an aquarium.
Staff at Tokyo Sea Life Park said they believed the penguin was alive and well and somewhere in the Japanese capital after receiving reports it had successfully fed itself.
"We haven't given up hope," Satoshi Toda of the park told AFP. (timeslive.co.za)
↧
Japan moves closer to child custody pact
Japan's government on Friday approved a bill to join a pact on settling cross-border child custody rows, opening the way for its adoption after years of foreign pressure.
The cabinet approved the bill that would mean Japan signing the 1980 Hague Convention. It would extend custody rights to non-Japanese parents whose children are moved to Japan by their former spouse.
The bill is now set to be debated in parliament. (AFP)
↧
↧
Three years in jail sought for Ozawa
Court-appointed lawyers acting as prosecutors demanded Friday that Ichiro Ozawa be sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly violating the Political Funds Control Law.
During the 15th session of the former Democratic Party of Japan president's trial at the Tokyo District Court, the prosecutors charged that Ozawa should be held criminally responsible for conspiring with three of his former secretaries, including independent lawmaker Tomohiro Ishikawa, to falsify his political fund management body's reports in 2004 and 2005 over a ¥400 million land deal in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.
In seeking the three-year prison term, the prosecutors described Ozawa's actions as "vicious" and said he was likely to be a repeat offender. (Japan Times)
↧
Thousands of animals still without homes
One year ago, on March 11, 2011, the world watched in horror as one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded hit off the coast of Japan, causing devastating tsunamis and triggering a meltdown at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The result of the disaster was catastrophic with more than 15,000 deaths, billions of dollars in damage, and hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes. In addition to the human tragedy, uncounted numbers of animals were swept away, killed or lost their homes. Thousands more were abandoned or tied up in backyards - left by owners who thought they would be returning soon. (Reuters)
↧
Baruto starts promotion bid in style
Estonia-born Baruto launched his bid for promotion to sumo's ultimate rank on full octane on the opening day of the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament Sunday, the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan.
A full crowd was in attendance at Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium for the first spring basho to be held in two years after last year's tourney was cancelled due to a match-fixing scandal, and Baruto was ever the showman in a ransacking of Georgian komusubi Gagamaru. (Japan Times)
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
