British Prime Minister David Cameron has expressed his strong desire to bring "greater exports from Britain into the Japanese economy" in the defense field, ahead of a Japan visit during which the two countries are expected to agree on the joint development of defense equipment.
(Yomiuri)
U.K. hopes to increase defense exports to Japan
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Unprofitable Mazda may be forced to sell assets, sever community ties
Should Mazda Motor Corp. dump the Hiroshima Carp?
Two weeks after selling $1.8 billion in new stock to replenish its depleted capital, the nation's only unprofitable automaker said last month that it will sponsor the All-Star baseball game in July.
Mazda is the only Japanese carmaker to own control of a team in the league and also has a professional soccer club, a hospital and more than $5 billion in land holdings.
(Japan Times)
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Surge in fuel imports may come with dire side effect
To make up for its dwindling supply of nuclear power, Japan is on a frenzied but costly hunt for fossil fuels.
As part of that hunt, tankers from as many as 12 countries are pulling up weekly to Japanese port cities, hauling liquefied natural gas supercooled to 162 degrees below zero. Officials from Tokyo are making trips to the Middle East, requesting increased shipments of oil. In the Timor Sea, off the coast of Australia, a Japanese firm has invested in a subsea natural gas pipeline that will eventually speed deliveries northward.
(Japan Times)
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Radioactive particles from Japan detected in California kelp
Radioactive particles released in the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami were detected in giant kelp along the California coast, according to a recently published study.
Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz about a month after the explosion, according to the study by two marine biologists at Cal State Long Beach.
(Los Angeles Times)
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Calls for nuclear compensation grow in Japan
The discovery of radioactive contamination in "shiitake" mushrooms grown in Manazuru town, Kanagawa prefecture, some 300 km away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, has raised public clamour for compensation.
Soon after the discovery, on April 5, Kanagawa authorities directed farmers and organisations dealing with agricultural produce not to ship shiitake mushrooms, a delicacy prized for its nutritive and medicinal properties in East Asian countries.
(aljazeera.net)
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Hospitals admit scores of 'hanami' revelers
While thousands of Tokyoites safely enjoyed "hanami" (cherry blossom viewing) parties last weekend, 74 people in the metropolis ended up in the hospital over the weekend after abusing alcohol, the Tokyo Fire Department said Monday.
In all, 110 people in Tokyo were taken by ambulance to hospitals for alcohol poisoning between March 31 - the officially start of the hanami season in Tokyo - and Monday morning, the fire department said.
(Japan Times)
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Sony to lay off 10,000 worldwide
Sony Corp., the once high-flying electronics giant, plans to lay off 10,000 employees worldwide, or 6 percent of its workforce, by the end of the year in a bid to regain global competitiveness, it was learned Monday.
The news comes at a time when the Tokyo-based maker is grappling with harsh global competition from Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. and is expecting to log more red ink in the year that ended March 31.
(Japan Times)
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Emperor might return to work on Tuesday
Emperor Akihito is expected to resume his official duties as early as Tuesday after making steady progress recovering from heart bypass surgery, the Imperial Household Agency said.
The Emperor's duties were delegated to Crown Prince Naruhito just before the operation in February, agency officials said Monday.
(Japan Times)
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The suicide forest of Japan
The Aokigahara Forest is a lonely place to die.
So dense is the vegetation at the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji, it is all too easy to disappear among the evergreens and never be seen again.
Each year the authorities remove as many as 100 bodies found hanging at the country's suicide hotspot - but others can lie undiscovered for years. (Daily Mail)
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Tohoku disaster motivates new teacher
The new school year started Monday at many primary and middle schools in disaster-hit Miyagi Prefecture.
The month of April is also the start of a teaching career for some teachers in the prefecture.
One of them is Namiko Akahira, 27, who was assigned to teach at Matsugahama Primary School in Shichigahama, Miyagi Prefecture.
(AsiaOne)
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China calls on Japan not to host Uighur assembly in May
China on Tuesday asked Japan not to host an annual meeting organized by an exile group championing the rights of ethnic Uighurs.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) represents the mostly Muslim ethnic group that inhabits China's restive western Xinjiang region and is holding its general assembly in Tokyo next month.
(Japan Today)
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Japan's foreign policy and avoiding the unthinkable
Building a stable international order in Asia and the Pacific, in which a major international conflict remains unthinkable, requires a number of elements.
Understandably much of the focus on thinking about avoiding the unthinkable, to date, has been on the how to manage the rise of China's power and its impact on America.
That is the focus of Hugh White's idea of an Asian 'concert of powers' and how it might be built around an understanding that accommodates China's rise and rightful expectation of treatment as an equal.
(East Asia Forum)
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Bank of Japan keeps key rate on hold
Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan, said Tuesday in its statement on monetary policy that it will encourage the uncollateralized call rate to remain at around 0.0% to 0.1% and didn't announce new easing measures. The central bank said that overseas economies were still decelerating but Europe has stopped deteriorating and financial markets were generally stable. (MarketWatch)
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Horse racing: Fukushima horse track opens for first time since 3/11 earthquake
The Japan Racing Association (JRA) welcomed a large turnout over the weekend as it reopened its horse track in Fukushima Prefecture for the first time since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, reports Yukan Fuji (April 9). The Fukushima Race Course, located in Fukushima City, hosted over 30,000 race fans on both Saturday and Sunday - the first race days for the track in approximately 18 months. (Tokyo Reporter)
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Stocks down for 6th day after BOJ decides no further monetary easing
Tokyo stocks came off their morning highs to end slightly lower Tuesday, extending their losing streak to six trading days, after the Bank of Japan's decision not to take additional monetary easing steps disappointed some investors.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 8.24 points, or 0.09 percent, from Monday at 9,538.02, its lowest closing mark since Feb. 21, when it finished at 9,463.02. (Mainichi)
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Japan, Britain agree on joint arms development
Japan and Britain agreed Tuesday to develop defense weapons together in Tokyo's first such arrangement outside of its security alliance with the United States.
Japan has cooperated exclusively with the U.S. on missile shield development and other equipment under their long-standing alliance. Easing its decades-long weapons export ban in December allowed Japan to extend the exception to other defense partners, including European nations and Australia.
(USA Today)
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Sony sees record $6.4 billion loss on tax hit
Japan's Sony Corp flagged a record $6.4 billion annual net loss, double an earlier forecast and a fourth straight year of red ink, as it writes off deferred tax credits, heaping more pressure on its new CEO to turn around the electronics giant.
Sony, which plans to axe 10,000 jobs - around 6 percent of its global workforce - according to media reports this week, has been hammered by weak demand for its televisions and overtaken by more innovative gadget rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.
(Reuters)
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Man on Honolulu-bound flight from Japan dies
Delta Air Lines Inc. says a passenger on one of its Honolulu-bound flights from Japan has died.
Delta spokeswoman Gina Laughlin says Flight 612 from Nagoya was about two hours from Honolulu when the man began experiencing some kind of medical emergency. She says flight attendants and nurses performed CPR but the passenger was unresponsive.
(BusinessWeek)
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Two pulled from boat in no-go zone
Two men were rescued from a vessel Tuesday in off-limits waters less than 20 km from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Japan Coast Guard said.
The coast guard said it rescued the men, aged 40 and 34, after it received a mayday saying the 19-ton boat had been swamped by big waves. The crew had steered the boat, which was used as a floating restaurant, into the no-go zone after it was hit by the waves, according to the coast guard. There were no guests aboard. (Japan Times)
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Salvagers return with ghost ship souvenirs
The B.C. crew that sailed to the Gulf of Alaska to try and salvage the Japanese "ghost ship" cast adrift by last year's devastating earthquake tsunami in Japan returned to Steveston in Richmond on Monday with only a few souvenirs, but the adventure of a lifetime.
The Ryou-Un Maru was sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard last Thursday-but not before Carey Collinge and his mates were given permission to go on board and explore the fishing boat.
(ctv.ca)
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