Singer Kumi Koda announced Tuesday on her official website that she will marry KENJI03, the vocalist of rock band Back-On.
"He accepts the whole of artist Kumi Koda and provides a space where I can feel relaxed and be myself," Koda, 29, said.
Her 27-year-old partner, meanwhile, said on the four-man band's official website: "It hasn't been long since we met, but we've decided to become lifelong partners. We will aim at becoming the most impressive couple in the universe." (Japan Times)
Singer Koda, rocker KENJI03 to wed
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Recovery boosted pollution by 3.9%
Greenhouse gases equivalent to 1.256 billion tons of carbon dioxide were emitted in Japan in fiscal 2010, up 3.9 percent from the year before and the first surge in three years amid an economic recovery, the Environment Ministry said Tuesday.
Compared with the 1990 level, the base year under the Kyodo Protocol, emissions were down 0.4 percent, but by including emissions rights bought from abroad, a 10.3 percent reduction was attained in the year through last March, the ministry said in a preliminary report.
Emissions could rise sharply in the current fiscal year, however, as reliance on nuclear power fell amid the Fukushima crisis. (Japan Times)
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Silent apps help creeps peep / Disabling camera shutter sound makes smartphones stealthy
Cases of secretly photographing unsuspecting targets using smartphones have been on the rise as users exploit apps that disable the camera shutter sound, but there is no legal impediment to creating and selling these software programs.
Firms in the industry say the blame lies with people who misuse these apps rather than the programs themselves.
On Nov. 12, a man was arrested at a train station in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, after he took photos up the skirt of a female vocational school student with his smartphone as she stood on an escalator.
The man reportedly told police he used an app that silenced the shutter sound to prevent his target from noticing what he was doing. (Yomiuri)
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Support for Noda Cabinet falls to 42%, disapproval rises to 44%
The approval rating for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has dropped to 42 percent, falling below the Cabinet's disapproval rating of 44 percent for the first time since the Cabinet was formed in September, the latest Yomiuri Shimbun survey has found.
Support for Noda's Cabinet fell seven percentage points from the last survey conducted on Nov. 12 and 13. Meanwhile, its disapproval rating has increased by six points, according to the survey conducted on Saturday and Sunday.
When asked the reasons for disapproving of the Cabinet, 35 percent of respondents said they did not have high expectations for its policies, while 23 percent cited a lack of leadership from Noda. Both ratings increased from 28 percent and 18 percent, respectively, in the last survey. (Yomiuri)
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Interim storage facilities planned for near N-plant
The Environment Ministry plans to build interim facilities to store soil and ash contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, in the prefecture's Futaba county, sources said Tuesday.
The ministry is expected to officially announce the plan by the end of the year. The ministry said it would select a location for the storage facilities by the end of fiscal 2012 at the latest. It now plans to choose municipalities to hold the material.
Futaba county has eight municipalities, including Futabamachi and Okumamachi, where the crippled nuclear power plant is located. (Yomiuri)
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Japan foreign minister to visit Myanmar
Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said on Tuesday he will visit Myanmar later this month, in the latest high-profile diplomatic trip to try to propel reforms in the isolated nation.
Gemba's visit is the first by a Japanese foreign minister since 2002, as Tokyo considers resuming official development aid as part of increasing international efforts to engage Myanmar's new military-backed civilian government.
"I wish to help solidify Myanmar's democratisation and national reconciliation," Gemba told reporters of his planned tour of Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia from December 25-29, according to local media in Tokyo.
Unlike major Western nations, Japan has maintained trade ties and dialogue with Myanmar and warned that a hardline approach could push Myanmar closer to neighbouring China, its main political supporter and commercial partner. (AFP)
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Japan minister questions radioactive water dump
Japan's industry minister Tuesday rejected a plan by the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to release low-level radioactive water into the sea without approval by local fishermen.
"It should not be allowed socially, if not legally, that they forcibly go ahead with the discharge of water without gaining an agreement from fishermen concerned," Yukio Edano, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, told a news briefing.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said last week that it must release some contaminated water as tanks designed to store it at the plant stricken by Japan's monster quake were expected to hit their limit by next March.
TEPCO added that the waste water -- used to cool Fukushima's nuclear reactors -- would be filtered before it was dumped to reduce the level of radioactivity. (AFP)
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Japan lifts beef trade restrictions
Australian beef exporters face competition after Japan agreed to allow more beef from "mad cow disease" affected nations.
There had been trade restrictions on beef from the US, Canada, France and the Netherlands after outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as BSE.
The US and Canada were only able to export beef to Japan that was killed from animals under 21 months.
Japan had banned exports from the Netherlands and France.
Media reports say Japan is expected to open up beef exports from US and Canada to allow animals up to 30 months to be killed for the Japanese market.
The decision was based on better safety procedures, as well as a decrease in the number of reported cases worldwide of BSE, which had slipped from 2215 in 2001 to 12 in the first nine months of the year.
(AFP)
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Google's Street View shows Japan before and after tsunami
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High radioactive cesium levels found at Tokyo school
Radioactive cesium more than 10 times the standard for waste disposal has been detected on lawn covers that had been placed in a schoolyard from mid-March until early April at Horinouchi Elementary School in Tokyo's Suginami Ward.
The measured value, 90,600 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, was more than triple the 26,400 becquerels contained in sludge at a sewage treatment facility in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, about 60 kilometers from the disabled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. According to the ward government, the school started covering the lawn area of its schoolyard with nine sheets of the polyethylene covers only during nighttime in January. The school, however, left the covers on the schoolyard for the entire period from March 18 to April 6, about the same length as the spring break. (Asahi)
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Baseball: Kiyotake files lawsuit against Giants, Yomiuri
Former Yomiuri Giants general manager Hidetoshi Kiyotake has filed a lawsuit against the baseball club, the club's chairman and The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, claiming he was dismissed from the post "without reasonable grounds" over a press conference he held last month.
Kiyotake, who concurrently served as the Giants' executive managing director, representative and general manager, filed the lawsuit Tuesday with the Tokyo District Court, demanding the club, its parent company and Giants Chairman Tsuneo Watanabe pay a total of 62.2 million yen in compensation and run apology advertisements.
Watanabe also serves as The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings' chairman of the board and editor in chief. (Yomiuri)
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Osaka pref. eyes ordinance against child sex offenders
Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui said Wednesday he plans to propose to the Osaka prefectural assembly next year an ordinance requiring people with records of sexual crimes against children to register their addresses with the prefectural government.
The envisioned ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation, is aimed at protecting children from sexual crimes by providing offenders with assistance such as counseling by psychotherapists and psychiatrists.
On Tuesday, a subcommittee of the prefectural government council on the promotion of children's healthy growth compiled a report calling for sex offenders to be required to report where they live. (Yomiuri)
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US, Japan, Australia? Mars probe will hit Earth in January
The ill-fated Phobos-Grunt probe that got stuck in the orbit after an unsuccessful launch will fall to Earth on January 11, probably affecting four continents, the US Strategic Command shared its latest forecast.
The current orbit of the vehicle suggests that it could collide with the surface on a vast part of the globe, from latitude 51.4°N to latitude 51.4°S. anywhere in Africa, Australia, Japan, North America or southern part of Western Europe, but definitely not on the larger part of the Russian territory.
A more-or-less exact prognosis on the coordinates of the crash can only be made several hours before the collision.
According to the previous forecast, the probe was due to enter atmosphere on January 9. (rt.com)
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Christmas in Japan
Christmas, with its sparkly, over-glitzed trees, a cherry-cheeked Santa Claus and the ritual of gift-giving is irresistible to the Japanese who have taken to celebrating Christmas on a superficial level. You can hardly blame them for wanting to participate in such an entertaining religion.
But the Japanese have adjusted Christmas to their own liking. Santa-san enters the house through the window and brings one gift to each child on Christmas Eve, which he leaves on the child's bed. Christmas also plays a romantic role, a type of Valentine's Day for couples. But there is plenty of Christmas spirit too -- decorations, Christmas carols piped into shopping malls, and of course Christmas sales. And there is one stellar biped who has stuck his neck out to represent Christmas in Japan: the chicken. Chicken is the official Christmas dinner and most families order KFC to spread the Christmas joy. (huffingtonpost.com)
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Japanese business confidence turns sour
Japanese business mood turned pessimistic in the three months to December, the central bank's tankan survey showed, a sign the stubbornly strong yen, Europe's debt crisis and slowing global growth were taking their toll on the export-reliant economy.
The sobering reading adds pressure on the Bank of Japan to offer further monetary stimulus, although the bank has signalled it would prefer to stand pat next week to save its limited ammunition in case the pain from Europe's crisis deepens.
The December tankan's sentiment index for big manufacturers worsened to minus-4 in December from plus-2 three months ago, indicating pessimists outnumber optimists.
(Sydney Morning Herald)
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Daio Paper to buy up stock held by founding family to reduce influence
Daio Paper Corp. plans to commit up to 10 billion yen ($129 million) by March to buy up stock held by the founding family as a means of reducing its influence over company matters.
Mototaka Ikawa, the former chairman, was arrested in November on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust for borrowing billions of yen from group companies to pay off gambling debts.
The Ikawa family owns stock in 35 Daio Paper group companies and its influence over those subsidiaries was considered a major reason the loans were made without proper approval.
Daio Paper established a special investigative committee to look into the massive loans. (Asahi)
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Disaster-hit children convey messages to the world
One child sent words of encouragement to his father overseas. A girl lamented about canceled school activities. And another child told his grandfather, who died in the March 11 tsunami, not to drink too much sake in heaven.
They are among 100 children in areas devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami who are uploading video footage of themselves on the Internet to "convey what they want the most now."
The project, called Children CoFesta, was organized by the Association of All Japan TV Program Production Companies (ATP) earlier this year.
Member companies proposed that children in disaster areas film themselves to show their thoughts, feelings and how they are coping in the Tohoku region.
(Asahi)
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Despite cover, Japan snaps up Jobs' biography
Amazon recently declared Walter Isaacson's biography of Apple Inc. co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs the best-selling book of the year. In Japan though, it didn't even make the top five.
But that ranking doesn't tell the full story, as fact is, Japan is bonkers for the official biography of the late Apple boss - except for the tweaked cover design of the Japanese-language version.
The publishing company said it has received complaints and read many more grumblings online about how the front of the Japanese-language version is different from the one decorating the English-language Simon & Schuster hardcover. The font is much bigger, the extra ink used to write English and Japanese names of the author and translator clutter around Mr. Jobs' head, and there is a drop of color. (Wall Street Journal)
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Hackers breach servers of Japan's Square Enix
Japanese game developer Square Enix said that servers containing data on 1.8 million customers had been hacked, but said the extent of the damage was not yet known.
The producer of hit titles such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest pulled down the Square Enix Members service shortly after discovering evidence of an intruder, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The intruder breached an unknown number of servers that could hold data for the service's one million members in Japan and 800,000 members in North America, but left untouched the servers with its 300,000 European members, she said.
Earlier this year entertainment giant Sony came under a series of attacks, affecting more than 100 million customer accounts in one of the largest data breaches ever. (AFP)
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Nikkei down 1.7 percent, breaks support at 25-day average
Japan's Nikkei share average fell to a two-week closing low on Thursday, breaking below its 25-day moving average as worries about European debt woes hit risk appetite, with investors looking to a Spanish debt auction later in the day.
Olympus Corp (7733.T) fell more than 20 percent after the scandal-hit company restated its earnings results on Wednesday, showing a $1.1 billion dent in its balance sheet after a 13-year accounting fraud that has engulfed the company.
The Bank of Japan likely purchased exchange-traded funds as part of its liquidity-boosting program, traders said, but it provided only limited support. (Reuters)
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