Random Japan

HEY, YOU WANTED EQUAL RIGHTS…

A global survey commissioned by a company called Regus reveals that women in Japan’s workforce put in just as much overtime as their male counterparts.

The Regus poll also found that Brazil has now passed Japan in terms of the average length of working day. Didn’t see that one coming…

A 65-year-old man who hijacked a bus in Chiba and held two hostages at knifepoint said he did it to draw attention to complaints he had over his treatment in prison after a previous brush with the law.

The Elvis-like king of Bhutan and his super-hot new queen were in Japan for a visit, where the royal couple handed over some rare butterflies to their hosts.

On the subject of butterflies, Japanese researchers have solved the “eternal mystery” of why the colorful insects choose to lay their eggs where they do. Apparently, it’s all in their forelegs, where sensors identify chemicals in leaves that allow them to determine locations offering the best shot at survival. You’ll probably sleep better knowing that.

Stats

¥10 billion

In company assets that former Daio Paper chairman Mototaka Ikawa admitted to gambling away at casinos

78

Out of 150 “observation points” in commercial and residential areas in major cities that saw land prices drop as of Oct. 1, a decrease from 86 in the previous July 1 survey, said the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism

74

Foreigners from 15 countries who were found to have registered as employees of a fictitious interpreting company set up by a 42-year-old Italian to illegally obtain work visas

13

Former key members of the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult who have had their death sentences confirmed, including leader Shoko Asahara

1,100

Followers claimed by Aum Shinrikyo splinter group Aleph at the end of October, according to the Public Security Intelligence Agency

200

Followers claimed by Hikari no Wa, another Aum offshoot organization

 SEE YA!

Yomiuri Giants GM/representative Hidetoshi Kiyotake held a press conference to rip his boss, 85-year-old Yomiuri group chairman Tsuneo Watanabe. Kiyotake was then fired. Well, duh!

Rubirin, an Amur tiger who arrived at the Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya in 1995 after being born in Denmark, has died of old age at 19, which is about 100 in “human terms.”

A nurse who was fired from a hospital in Kitakyushu in 2007 for removing the nails of patients, drawing a six-month prison sentence, has patched things up with the hospital she formerly worked at and is back in the nursing game.

In an international child-custody case in Wisconsin that would have had an entirely different outcome not long ago, a Japanese woman pleaded no contest to a charge of concealing her nine-year-old daughter from the girl’s father and agreed to return the kid to the US. The woman took the girl to Japan in 2008, shortly after the couple filed for divorce and just before the dad was granted custody by a US court.

At New York’s Lincoln Arts Performing Center, Japanese traditional singers Saori Yuki and Sachiko Yasuda performed the final overseas concert in their 25 years of touring.

Told They Are Morons  

They Didn’t Believe It

I Was Robbed  

By Myself  

Let’s Go Whaling  

With Disaster Funds

Tepco mulls 10% rate hike tied to ’13 Niigata reactor restart



Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which has allegedly been overcharging consumers for possibly a decade, may “temporarily” raise rates 10 percent starting next fall and push for restarting reactors under inspection in Niigata Prefecture in spring 2013, sources said.

The plans are intended to restore the utility’s finances, which will be dicey even if augmented by taxpayer funds as the fuel costs for boosting thermal power generation due to the Fukushima crisis continue to climb.

But it is uncertain if permission will be given for either goal, given public hostility toward Tepco on both the nuclear safety and information disclosure fronts.