Random Japan

RECORD HAUL

Mongolian yokozuna Hakuho won his seventh straight grand sumo tournament with a 13-2 record, equaling the record of former sumo bad-ass Asashoryu.

A pair of masked men made off with ¥604 million after strong-arming a dozing security guard at a Tachikawa depot that handles cash deposits from the Tokyo Central Post Office. It was the biggest cash heist ever in Japan.

Sony was hit by more bad news when it was revealed that an “online intruder” accessed one if its subsidiaries and pinched over $1,200 worth of redeemable gift points.

The breach pales, of course, to an earlier one on Sony’s PlayStation Network and Online Entertainment services that “compromised the personal information” of over 100 million accounts.

Then later, Sony revealed that “personal info on 8,500 customers of its online music service in Greece may have been leaked due to a cyber attack, while similar assaults by hackers occurred in Thailand and Indonesia as well.”

So it might not come as a surprise that Sony said it was expecting to be in the red again in fiscal 2010 for the third year in a row with a group net loss of ¥260 billion, its biggest hit since 1995. They’re blaming this one on the March 11 earthquake.

As expected, the March 11 earthquake and nuclear accident resulted in a huge drop off in the number of foreign visitors to Japan in April (295,800), down a record 62.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

BTW, April 2011 was the first month with less than 300,000 visitors since May 2003, when the SARS epidemic was all the rage in Asia.

Stats

30

Percent of fishermen polled in disaster-hit Miyagi Prefecture who plan to find a new line of work, according to a Miyagi Prefectural Fisheries Association survey

9

Straight wins to start the May basho by Brazilian sumo wrestler Kaisei, who was making his debut in the top makuuchi division

10-5

Kaisei’s record by the end of the 15-day tournament

23.29 million

Working women in Japan in 2010, up 0.8 percent from 2009 and the largest number ever, according to a labor ministry white paper

91.1

Percent of new university grads getting jobs at the April 1 start of fiscal 2011, down 0.7 of a percentage point from the year before and matching a record-low from 2000

469

People in Japan who developed AIDS in 2010, the highest since the government started collecting data in 1984, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

WELL IT’S ABOUT TIME

Japan will finally get in line and abide by international rules on the abduction of kids from failed international marriages by signing of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Japan has decided to give back to South Korea some ancient Korean royal archives, known as “Joseon Wangsil Uigwe” (Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty), that were moved here when Japan had control of the Korean Peninsula.

Four huge cranes used to build the 634-meter Tokyo Sky Tree, the world’s tallest tower that is currently under construction, were dismantled and taken down.

Two teachers in Akita Prefecture were in hot water for posting the names of students who didn’t donate money for victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

It was reported that more than 300 elementary and junior high school students from six Fukushima Prefecture cities left and enrolled in schools elsewhere “due to lingering fears about radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.” Can’t say we blame them.

Two brothers already accused of stealing cash from the home of a nuclear crisis evacuee were hit with more charges after targeting another empty house in Hirono. “We were after money to cover our living costs and just to have fun with,” the brothers told police.

Lies Lies  

And More Lies  

Who’s Honey  

Is It?

Moron’s  

Are Still Morons

Reconstruction remains distant as quake victims languish in shelters



SENDAI

Three months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster and with a nuclear power plant crisis still unfolding, over 90,000 evacuees are still living in shelters as construction of temporary housing for them has made slow progress and many have stopped short of moving into the units citing insufficient life support services.

Even though lifeline services are mostly back to normal, excluding the devastated coastal areas in northeastern Japan, only half of the needed 52,200 temporary homes have been completed and 60 percent of them have been vacant in the worst-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

As of Friday, a total of about 23,500 are dead or remain missing in 12 prefectures following the disaster, according to the National Police Agency.