Random Japan

NICE STEAL

        Curtis Terry, an American guard with the Akita Northern Happinets of basketball’s BJ league, was cut by the club after he got caught stealing a few cans of chuhai from a local conbini.

   Keiichiro Kawahara, a 27-year-old volunteer from Japan who is touring the world by bicycle, was touched after a huge groundswell of support on the Chinese version of Twitter helped locate his stolen bike in Wuhan.

   A 14-year-old kid in Aichi Prefecture stabbed his mom after she took away his new video game. He was arrested for attempted murder.

   A man with gang ties, who had recently shot another man to death at a Denny’s restaurant in Chiba, was himself found dead in his car of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

   Rubbed bare as a stripper’s love patch, the grass at Tokyo’s Chichibunomiya Rugby Ground has pretty much disappeared in large chunks due to overuse of the field.

stats

   2,700 Locations in Fukushima Prefecture, give or take, where the government is releasing real-time airborne radiation readings

   5 Percent of debris generated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that has been incinerated or otherwise disposed of, according to Environment Minister Goshi Hosono

   22.53 million Tons of waste estimated to have been generated in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures on March 11, 2011

   1,455 Cases of child pornography uncovered by cops in Japan last year, the highest number since stats were first compiled in 2000, according to the National Police Agency

   384 Cases of child abuse the police dealt with in Japan last year, the largest number since records were kept in 1999, according to the National Police Agency

   39 Number of child abuse victims who died last year

GUESS THE WEDDING’S OFF  

      Already on trial for embezzlement, a former post-office worker was arrested for stealing firefighting gear from Setagaya Fire Station. He said he “needed to show a photo of himself dressed in firefighting clothing to a woman he met because he had lied to her that he was a firefighter.”

   Divers located the body of a third victim after an accident in an undersea tunnel at an oil refinery in Okayama Prefecture. Two people were still missing at press time.

   Commemorative ¥1,000 and ¥10,000 coins will be issued in fiscal 2015 for “investors holding bonds being sold next month to support efforts to rebuild areas hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami,” the government said. The coins will feature the lone “miracle” pine tree on one side with “Gambaro Nippon” on the other side.

2 Channel

Drug Channel?  

Penguin Flies The Coup  

Ok walks Away  

Crisis HQ on day one saw meltdown threat

Compiled meeting records show Kan team feared worst, kept mum

Kyodo

The government was aware of the possibility of a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant the same day the complex was hit by the earthquake and tsunami last March, according to a summary released Friday of The possibility was pointed out by an unidentified attendee at the first meeting, which started at 7:03 p.m. March 11 and lasted about 20 minutes. The earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m.meetings at the emergency headquarters.