POLITICS UNUSUAL
Officials in a small town in northern New Jersey were visited-twice-by delegations of Japanese diplomats urging them to remove a public monument commemorating “women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II.”
Private railways and bus companies in Japan are beginning to grumble about the decades-long tradition of providing free rides to members of the Diet. They say it’s getting increasingly difficult “to secure understanding from [ordinary] users.”
US President Barack Obama is said to have presented a birthday cake to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at last month’s G8 summit in Maryland. Noda turned 55 during the weekend of the meeting.
Back in Japan, the PM held talks with the leaders of three Pacific island states. Micronesia’s president offered Noda “two palm ropes as a token of friendship.”
stats
¥16.4 billion Estimated economic activity generated by last month’s solar eclipse, according to a professor of “theoretical economics” at Kansai University
3 Duration, in minutes, of the eclipse
5,685 Number of accidents involving bicycles in Tokyo between January and April, according to the Metropolitan Police Department
12 Percent decrease this figure represents from January to April 2011
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS S**T UP
A group of hobbyists in Yokohama is reviving the once-popular Japanese pastime of honchi asobi, in which a pair of spiders are forced to fight each other.
A junior high school teacher in Nagano apologized for taking a photo of one of his students, projecting it on a classroom TV, and declaring “I’ll execute you!”
Kanagawa police say the owners of a bar in Yokohama called Sexy Izakaya Fujiko-chan ordered a 16-year-old waitress to work “in underwear and bikinis.”
A team of Japanese researchers claim that stress from the March 11 disaster is causing survivors’ brains to “shrink.”
His Wife Is A Better Person
And Bail
Or, Should It Go?
Japan to get new nuclear regulatory body within 3 months
National Jun. 16, 2012 – 06:30AM JST
By Linda SiegJapan will set up a new nuclear regulator around September under a law approved by the Diet’s lower house on Friday after months of delay as part of a drive to improve safety and restore public trust after last year’s nuclear disaster.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster cast a harsh spotlight on the cozy ties between regulators, politicians and utilities – known as Japan’s “nuclear village” – that experts say were a major factor in the failure to avert the crisis triggered when a huge earthquake and tsunami devastated the plant, causing meltdowns.
The legislation, however, swiftly came under fire for appearing to weaken the government’s commitment to decommissioning reactors after 40 years in operation, even as it drafts an energy program to reduce nuclear power’s role.
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