YA DON’T SAY
Typhoon Roke didn’t slow down testing of a new maglev high-speed train in Yamanashi Prefecture, which apparently passed with flying colors during the storm.Two guys who run a company in Hokkaido called alibi.com-that makes up bogus background info for people applying for loans, jobs, etc-were in trouble with Johnny Law… for making up bogus info. “Since that’s our business, we provided a false explanation,” reasoned one of the accused.
Yakult Swallows outfielder Aaron Guiel hung up the cleats after a five-year spell in Japan that saw him belt 90 home runs. Back injuries forced the former MLB player to call it a career and head back to his native Canada.
A story in The Asahi Shimbun said a 132-meter long ferry called the Yotei Maru 2, docked at a maritime museum in Odaiba, can be yours for the taking, provided you have a place to moor the vessel.
Not surprisingly, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism reported that “land prices have tumbled in the three prefectures of northeastern Japan most affected by the March 11 disaster.” Some property in Miyagi Prefecture has plummeted more than 18 percent. Now that’s a toxic market.
On the other side of the coin, a spokeswoman for the Candle House chain said that sales of candles increased about 50 percent after March 11.
Yukio Akagariyama became the first Japanese billiards player to win the World 9-Ball Championship in 13 years when he beat Ronnie Alcano of the Philippines in the final in Doha.
au will start selling Apple’s iPhone in Japan, and local cellphone producers fear the worst.
In other news from the cellphone sector, NTT DoCoMo is coming out with a phone that has a cover, or jacket, capable of “measuring bad breath, body fat and even radiation.”A security guard working on a cash delivery truck in Saitama was shot in both knees by a man who snatched a bag from him before taking off on a motorbike. The bag reportedly contained only a few documents and no cash.
Stats
400-plusMcDonald’s restaurants in Japan that were shut down last year
50New Starbucks coffee shops to open in Japan in fiscal 2011, bringing the total here to 952 (they will also close 10)
39Percentage of people who quit smoking after cigarette price hikes a year ago who were still not smoking a year later, according to a survey by drugmaker Pfizer Japan
¥23 billionMoney in a fund set up by the Hyogo Prefectural Government to help rebuild houses destroyed by the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake that remains unused, a government audit has revealed
20Years since Japan has won a match at a Rugby World Cup
KIDS TODAY
Also from the files of the TR, a 56-year-old senior adviser with the Japan Pension Service was arrested for violating prostitution and pornography statutes regarding child welfare after hiring a 14-year-old junior high hooker for ¥20,000.A 16-year-old Sapporo girl who was arrested for using drugs told cops “she was forced into prostitution while still in elementary school to pay for her mother’s drug habit.”
A survey by the Japanese Society of Child Health showed that the number of kids aged 1 to 6 who go to bed at 10pm or later is down 40 percent from 10 years ago.
The wife of a Sendai high school teacher will spend 11 years in the slammer after her lover and a sushi shop owner killed her 56-year-old husband with a baseball bat. “She took part in the murder in order to obtain tranquility in her life with her second daughter and a pet dog,” said the judge who ordered the sentence.
Researchers at Kyushu University’s Space Environment Research Center have discovered that “the frequency of mega earthquakes increases during periods when the sun has fewer sunspots,” which was the case on March 11.
After scaling the Grand Canyon and taking part in the 24 Hours of LeMans, Panasonic’s Evolta robot will take a crack at a triathlon in Hawaii. Actually, this time there will be three robots-one that swims, another that rides a bike and one that runs-trying to cover a combined distance of 230km in a week.
A 13-year-old girl in Kumamoto Prefecture drowned after being tied to a chair by her father and a priest and doused with water multiple times as part of an exorcism procedure.
Bottom Story of the Week, courtesy of The Mainichi Daily News: “Princess Aiko goes to school without parents for first time in 1.5 years”
But I Still Get Paid
Really!
A Head
Ozawa aide grilling tape, done on sly, aired in trial
By SETSUKO KAMIYA
Staff writer Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011
The Tokyo District Court heard excerpts Friday of an interrogation secretly recorded by a former aide to Democratic Party of Japan power broker Ichiro Ozawa at his trial that seemed to show a prosecutor using loaded questions and scripting a grilling record that ran counter to what the ex-aide meant.Ozawa is on trial for his alleged involvement in conspiring with his aides to make false entries in the financial report of his political fund management body Rikuzankai in 2004, 2005 and 2007. He has denied any wrongdoing.
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