The health ministry said Thursday it has detected E. coli inside beef liver for the first time, raising the likelihood that raw liver may soon be banned from the dining table.
The findings, to be discussed by a ministry council next Tuesday, come as the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been considering whether to prohibit butchers and restaurants from selling raw beef liver, in the wake of food poisoning deaths from raw beef served at barbecue restaurants earlier this year.
Food poisoning from E. coli can be fatal and thorough heating for over one minute at 75 degrees is necessary to kill the enterohemorrhagic bacteria in the liver. (Japan Times)
O-157 discovery may spur ban on raw beef liver
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Japanese anime fans set new Twitter record
Last weekend, a Japanese television broadcast of classic Studio Ghibli anime Castle in the Sky prompted more than 11,349 tweets per second at a key moment in the movie. This perfect storm of tweets broke the previous record of 8,868 tweets per second after pop star Beyonce announced she was pregnant.
Over at Kotaku, there's an in-depth explanation of how an animated movie released in 1986 could create such a flurry of tweets, but it boils down to this: there's been a longstanding custom to write or say the word "balse" during a specific scene in the film. In recent years, the tradition has found its way to Twitter, and the popularity of the flashmob-like "Balse Festival" hit a peak during last weekend's showing of the film. (Reuters)
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Imperial law revisited as family shrinks, Emperor ages
It's not an easy job, being the emperor of Japan.
Besides hosting dozens of Imperial court ceremonies year-round, Emperor Akihito - alongside Empress Michiko - has to attend numerous meetings and luncheons with foreign dignitaries, and the Imperial Couple embark on numerous trips to visit schools and institutions, and attend festivals all across the nation.
Twice a year, the couple also grant an audience to more than 50 people honored and awarded medals in the government's spring and autumn decorations.
(Japan Times)
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Japan traders eye $200 billion power market post-Fukushima
Japan's trading companies own enough electricity capacity to supply more than 40 percent of the country's homes. Problem is, their generators aren't in Japan.
Mitsui & Co., the second-largest trading house, says that may change as the Fukushima nuclear disaster forces a review of electricity monopolies set up after World War II. It's an opportunity rivals Marubeni Corp. and Sumitomo Corp. are also looking at, along with Tokyo Gas Co.
Japan's 10 regional utilities dominate production, transmission and distribution of power throughout the country, generating combined annual revenue of 15.7 trillion yen ($200 billion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. (BusinessWeek)
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Flotsam from Japanese tsunami reaches NW coast
Some debris from the March tsunami in Japan is already reaching the Northwest coast.
A large black float about the size of a 55-gallon drum was found two weeks ago by a crew cleaning a beach a few miles east of Neah Bay at the northwest tip of Washington.
Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham displayed the float Tuesday night in Port Angeles at a presentation at Peninsula College.
Larger amounts of debris from Japan will likely begin washing ashore in about a year. The float traveled faster because it sits on top of the water and caught the wind.
(The Star)
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Futenma base relocation has little hope left
The political games being played in Washington and Tokyo regarding whether the U.S. will fund the transfer of Okinawa-based U.S. Marines to Guam are of no consequence, experts say, because the 2006 plan to relocate the Futenma airbase to Henoko in northern Okinawa Island, which the Guam transfer depends upon, is all but dead.
The U.S. Congress decided earlier this week to cut $150 million from the fiscal 2012 budget that was earmarked for the planned transfer of 8,000 marines and roughly an equal number of their dependents to Guam by 2014, following the construction of a replacement base for Futenma at Henoko. But Congress' decision is yet another nail in the coffin of the Futenma plan, experts say. (Japan Times)
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Japan's tourism industry looks forward to a bright, trouble-free 2012
The Japanese capital is all dressed up for the holidays and people are bundling up to head out and enjoy the sights. Many flock to the brick-lined Yebisu Garden Place to see its solar-powered Christmas tree, hear live music, and marvel at the Baccarat Eternal Lights chandelier. Five-metres tall, three-metres wide, and adorned more than 8,400 crystal parts and 250 lights, it's a mesmerizing display, symbolic perhaps of the hopes people here have for the future. After the pall that fell over this country following the March 11th disaster, most are looking forward to a brighter 2012.
That includes the folks who work in tourism. The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) says foreign visits dropped 73% in the days after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. But with time, and thanks to a Herculean effort to salvage a $19.4 billion (CAD) industry, travelers are returning. As of October, visits were only down about 15% overall. (The Star)
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Escaped ostriches wandering around no-go zone
The agriculture ministry is trying to round up more than 10 ostriches that ran off from a farm in the 20-km exclusion zone around the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
The wayward birds are wandering around evacuated residential areas in the no-go zone.
Officials plan to soon start reassessing the evacuation area and may allow some residents to return home on a permanent basis. To ease their concerns in advance, the ministry started trying to catch the large birds in October, managing to bag two of them so far. The farm where they came from, located in the town of Okuma, had about 30 ostriches before the March 11 quake-tsunami disaster crippled the nuclear plant. (Japan Times)
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Baby survives 10-story fall; dad held
A 1-year-old boy survived a 10-story fall from a Tokyo apartment building Thursday after his disturbed father allegedly tossed him out a window in the morning, police said.
The baby survived after landing on shrubbery and escaped with slight facial cuts. His father, Shingo Hashimoto, 37, was then arrested at the Koto Ward property after calling the police to confess.
"I tried to kill my son. I tried to strangle him with my hands and dropped him" out of my bedroom window at 9 a.m., the police quoted the company employee as saying.
(Japan Times)
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IAEA not told of enriched nuclear waste
The government failed to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency about unaccounted-for or unreported amounts of enriched plutonium and uranium it has found in nuclear waste produced by its own facilities over the past year, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura admitted Thursday.
After acknowledging the situation, which initially surfaced earlier in the day in media reports quoting unnamed government sources, Fujimura said the discoveries will be swiftly reported to the IAEA, in an apparent effort to ward off international criticism.
"The nuclear substances in question have been adequately managed as nuclear waste. There are no safety worries," Fujimura said. (Japan Times)
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Yakuza involved in Fukushima clean-up: reporter
A Japanese journalist who worked at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant this summer claimed Thursday that Japan's yakuza crime syndicates were involved in supplying clean-up crews.
"Roughly 10% of plant workers there were brought in through the mediation of the yakuza," said Tomohiko Suzuki, 45, who has written a book based on his experience at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
"The yakuza are very much involved in this industry but they are not involved as people working on site," Suzuki told reporters. "They are in charge of collecting people, finding people and dispatching workers to the site."
Suzuki says yakuza groups have long sent debtors to nuclear power plants as workers as a way of paying off loans made at sky-high rates, adding the practice "will continue to occur." (Japan Today)
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The hermit of Fukushima 'staying put' despite risks
Naoto Matsumura is tired of being accused of madness for refusing to leave his farm in the shadow of Japan's still-leaking Fukushima nuclear plant.
"I'm not crazy," insists the 52-year-old, who claims he is the only person living in the no-go zone around the crippled reactors on Japan's tsunami-ravaged northeast coast.
As far as he knows, everyone else heeded the government's calls to leave the 20-kilometre (12-mile) exclusion zone around the plant, where nine months on from the disaster, technicians are still working to bring things under control.
Since everyone else left he has been alone near the town of Tomioka, save for around a hundred cats, a dozen dogs and hundreds of cows, pigs and chickens abandoned by their owners.
Matsumura is aware that the doses of radiation he probably absorbs every day are dangerous. But he says he is less afraid of the radiation than he is of being deprived of his cigarettes. (AFP)
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Fukushima cold shutdown: An inside look
Japanese authorities are set to announce Friday that they have brought the Fukushima Daiichi complex's devastated reactors to a state called cold shutdown, a milestone in stabilizing the site of the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Even if cold shutdown is attained, it will take decades for isotopes to decay to safe levels, and to remove the last fuel and completely dismantle the plant. For now, the unknowns are so great that authorities aren't even sure how to start tackling some of the biggest problems, which include locating and stopping the flow of toxic water and removing the melted nuclear fuel. Fukushima Daiichi is hemorrhaging enough radiated water each month to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools. (Wall Street Journal)
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Osaka Prison food poisoning sickens 1,000 inmates
A bout of food poisoning sickened 1,074 inmates at Osaka Prison in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, from Tuesday to Wednesday, forcing it to serve preserved food stored for emergency use, prison and local health officials said.
The inmates began complaining of food poisoning symptoms starting Tuesday night, prompting the prison to report the matter to the health center Wednesday morning. The inmates were treated at the prison.
Osaka Prison holds around 2,500 male inmates. Their meals are cooked in the prison's kitchen by about 40 inmates who undergo sanitary inspections each month. (Japan Times)
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Japan says stricken nuclear power plant in cold shutdown
Japan declared its tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to be in cold shutdown on Friday in a major step toward resolving the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked on March 11 by a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns, radiation leaks and mass evacuations.
In making the much-anticipated announcement, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda drew a line under the crisis phase of the emergency at the plant and highlighted the next challenges: post-disaster clean-up and the safe dismantling of the plant, something experts say could take up to 40 years. (Reuters)
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Tokyo shares mixed to close amid eurozone fears
Japanese stocks ended mixed Friday as a smooth Spanish bond auction and better-than-expected jobs data in the United States were tempered by ongoing eurozone fears.
The Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed 0.29 per cent or 24.35 points higher to close at 8,401.72. The Topix index of all first section shares dipped 0.20 per cent or 1.46 points to 723.56.
"It's hard to trade," Yoshihiro Okumura, general manager at Chibagin Asset Management, told Dow Jones Newswires.
"Since concerns continue over European sovereign debt problems for the mid- to long-term, the market can't be risk-on even if the US economic indicators are strong."
Despite the swirling eurozone debt crisis, Spain enjoyed a bumper bond sale on Thursday, raising nearly twice the amount targeted as it snatched the chance to lock in competitive borrowing rates. (AsiaOne)
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Tis the season to tell stories
The warmth of the holiday season often cooks up a nice story - a helping of good will to be served with turkey and plum pudding, osechi and omochi or whatever other delicacies might grace your international table.
And that's what I've got this time - a small story.
First, some background . . .
There's this man I've known for years. He operated the video shop down the block in the neighborhood where we used to live, where my children grew up.
A video shop. That says a lot right there. It's not exactly the wave of the future.
Yet in this era of Tsutaya-like rental giants and easy Internet downloads, he refused to close up and walk away. He persevered, despite the odds and his ever-dwindling income. Despite the certainty that his shop days were numbered.
Because he loved his work. He loved the movies. (Japan Times)
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Citigroup sanctioned by FSA
Citigroup Inc. has been ordered to suspend some derivative transactions by the Financial Services Agency, the regulator said Friday.
Citigroup's Japan banking unit also had some of its retail operations suspended, while UBS AG's Japan unit was likewise hit with sanctions.
Part of the New York-based Citigroup's retail business will be suspended for 30 days, the FSA said in a statement. Citigroup's trading unit will be suspended from selling products tied to interest rates for 14 days and its head, Brian McCappin, may resign.
Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is trying to restore the bank's reputation in Japan. Regulators punished the company twice in seven years after finding fault with its private-banking operation and a lack of internal controls. (Japan Times)
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Herbivorous men, where's the beef?
My single Japanese girlfriends complain that there are no interesting guys out there. Could they be right? It seems that these days the average Japanese guy is, well, you know, kinda boring. Kinda quiet. Nothing wrong with being quiet of course, especially if you have nothing to say.
The Japanese media has coined these men "herbivores" or "grass-eaters" (soushoku danshi). They are non-competitive, concentrate on personal grooming (yay!), are frugal, and lack an interest in sex. Now, I am totally for the quiet contemplative, sensitive type. Frugal? Okay. But no sex? Sex is free. (Japan Times)
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Cabinet OKs tax-hiking budget plan
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda agreed Friday on a guideline for compiling the fiscal 2012 budget with a focus on "Japan revitalization" following the March quake-tsunami and amid the uncertain global economic outlook.
The guideline also calls for crafting a bill to raise the politically sensitive consumption tax.
Noda told his economic team he hopes the budget for the year starting April 1 will help "turn the crisis into an opportunity," and pledged to "fully make efforts to revive hopes and pride in Japan." (Japan Times)
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