Tag: Random Japan

 Brave new (digital) world

      “Silent camera” apps are being blamed for a rise in complaints from women about perverts snapping illegal upskirt photos. The National Police Agency says the number of such incidents increased from 1,068 in 2006 to 1,702 in 2010.

   An LDP lawmaker got a surprise when he discovered that someone hacked into his YouTube account and uploaded a Russian-language porn video.

   Meanwhile, a hacker disabled the website of the government committee investigating the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

   Two Japanese companies were fined a total of ¥17 million by the Intellectual Property High Court for broadcasting copyrighted TV programs over the internet.

   An Osaka man became the first person in Japan arrested for breaking a six-month-old law against creating computer viruses.

Clever darlings

        The woman accused of harboring Aum Shinrikyo fugitive Makoto Hirata for 17 years says she made up her pseudonym-Kyoko Yamaguchi-by combining the names of popular actress-singers Kyoko Koizumi and Momoe Yamaguchi.

   A survey by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government found that 9 percent of expectant mothers failed to undergo pre-delivery health checks “because they didn’t realize they were pregnant.”

   As part of efforts to prepare Tokyo for a major earthquake, JR East has stockpiled water bottles and blankets for 30,000 commuters, while Tokyo Metro is storing relief supplies for 100,000 others.

   Two rare crested ibises injured on Sado Island recently are believed to have been attacked by falcons. The incidents are puzzling, as falcons normally only attack animals smaller than themselves.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

       Making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, large posters at an Osaka department store trumpeted a “Fuckin’ sale” with everything 20 percent off.

   Also from the good people in Osaka, a burger joint was advertising a “Fuckin’ yummy hamburger!!” We’ll take two … fuck yeah!

   Coming of Age Day in Japan saw a record-low 1.22 million people who will turn 20 this year, the fifth straight year the figure has decreased.

   The decline marks the first time the number has been less than half the record of 2.46 million set in 1970.

   “The roughly 620,000 men and 600,000 women comprise 0.96 percent of Japan’s population, down for the eighth consecutive year,” according to an estimate by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

   An ornery 65-year-old Japanese man was arrested by FBI agents in Hawaii for assaulting a flight attendant on a Delta flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. Apparently, the guy “hit the flight attendant once with an open hand and once with a closed fist after drinking multiple glasses of wine.” So he hit the bottle then hit the stew.

   A court in Kobe found a former president of West Japan Railway not guilty of professional negligence over the 2005 high-speed train wreck in Hyogo Prefecture that left 107 people dead when a train hopped the tracks and hit an apartment building.

   The US magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the so-called “Doomsday Clock” in 1947, said in a statement there are still “approximately 19,500 nuclear weapons [in the world today], enough power to destroy the Earth’s inhabitants several times over.”

   A researcher in Hokkaido has concluded that marimo balls-“a type of green algae that grows in a round shape”-have been spread around the world from Japan through migrating birds.

   ANA passengers who flew on the airline’s Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” on New Year’s Day got a nice greeting from staff wearing long-sleeved kimonos while bearing gifts and souvenirs.

   A marathon in tsunami-hit Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture was held once again this year, attracting some 1,500 runners, although the course did have to be altered due to the events of March 11.

   A very pissed-off Chinese dude threw four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul because, he says, “his great grandfather on his mother’s side died of torture while fighting against Japan’s colonial rule,” according to a report from the Yonhap News Agency.

   Three crew members from a disabled North Korean fishing boat found drifting off Shimane Prefecture were shipped back home via China. A fourth man, who had died, was also heading home in a body bag.

Official statements

   The commanding general of the Ground Self-Defense Force admitted that he thought Japan “was done for” in the early days of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

   The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office has requested that officials in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama allow social welfare experts to sit in on police interrogations of “possibly mentally disabled suspects.”

   Among the themes addressed by the Emperor in his traditional year-end waka poems were his wife’s 77th birthday and the evacuees of the March 11 disaster.

   During a visit to India, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan would contribute ¥4.5 billion toward a large-scale development called the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.

IF THE SHOES FIT …

Running shoes worn by competitors in a national ekiden relay race have been sent to underprivileged student-athletes at schools in Nagasaki, a move spearheaded by Nike Japan and a Nagasaki Prefecture track and field association.

Some frozen beef imported into Japan from the United States in July apparently contained spinal columns, “so-called risk materials feared to cause mad cow disease and barred from importation into Japan.”

Winter bonuses at major companies in Japan rose an average of 3.62 percent from the previous year, up to ¥802,701. It was the second consecutive rise and the first time the figure cracked the ¥800,000 barrier in three years, according to the Japan Business Federation.

A 77-year-old man, who was punched out and lost consciousness after telling two men not to cross the street on a red light outside Oimachi Station, has died from his injuries.

Two-time Olympic judo champion Masato Uchishiba was indicted for allegedly raping a member of a university judo team he was coaching after first plying the young woman with alcohol.

A 55-year-old air traffic controller who nodded off while on duty at Naha airport was docked 10 percent of his pay for a month by the transport ministry.

MONEY MONEY MONEY

The environment ministry says that ¥11.5 billion worth of “eco points” from the government’s recent energy-saving promotion are set to expire next March without being redeemed.

Authorities are investigating the president of a used-car company over suspicions that he bilked 2,500 investors out of ¥1.3 billion “on the pretext of helping victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and poverty-stricken African people.”

Police in Okayama and Yokohama busted three Chinese man and one woman for smuggling 3kg of stimulants into Japan aboard a cargo ship last month. The drugs have a street value of ¥230 million.

It was announced that Japan will provide $2.9 million of additional funding to support the UN-backed trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia. By the end of the year, the tribunal will have spent nearly $150 million.

Sentence of the Week: “A ‘veteran’ pickpocket has told police he’s lost his touch and he’s going straight after he was caught lifting a person’s wallet on a bus [in Fukuoka] by another passenger.” (via The Mainichi Daily News)

MILESTONES

Railway fans flocked to Tokyo station to witness the initial runs of the new 300kph E5 Series Hayabusa bullet train. Someone even bid ¥385,000 for a ticket.

A young woman received a kidney from her brain-dead mom, the first case of a family member being prioritized since Japan revised its organ transplant law last year.

Peace-loving no more: lawmakers say they are rethinking Japan’s long-standing ban on the export of “weapons and related technologies.”

Takuya Kagata has taken sumo wrestling to the beaches of Japan as executive director of the Nippon Beach Sumo Association.

Fagiano Okayama defender Ryujiro Ueda scored what is thought to be a world-record 58.6-meter goal with a header during a J. League second division soccer match against Yokohama FC.

It’s official-Guinness World Records has declared the 634m-tall Tokyo Sky Tree the world’s tallest tower, supplanting the 600m Guangzhou Tower in China.

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.

OK, IF YOU SAY SO

A Japanese aid worker who was rescued from the rubble following last month’s earthquake in Turkey said that the glow from her laptop “calmed me down and gave me hope to stay alive.”

The newly installed head of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet, which is based in Yokosuka, claims to spend “a lot of time thinking about North Korea.”

Officials at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries say that no national defense secrets were lost during a recent cyber-attack on its servers, although the company didn’t rule out the possibility that “important data, such as those related to nuclear power, have been leaked.”

An Air SDF pilot whose plane crashed into the East China Sea in July and whose body was never recovered is believed to have suffered from G-LOC, or g force-related loss of consciousness.

A poll conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Xinhua news agency found that 17 percent of Japanese have a positive view of relations with China, while 46 percent of Chinese have a positive view of Japan.

HIDE AND SEEK

Apparently, a South Korean magazine, Weekly Chosun, claims to have tracked down Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota, alive and well and living in Pyongyang. North Korea admitted snatching a 13-year-old Yokota in 1977, but they claim she killed herself in 1994.

The captain of a Chinese fishing boat was arrested in Japanese waters off Nagasaki after leading the Coast Guard on a chase. Sound familiar?

The body of a 35-year-old Iwate man missing since the March 11 tsunami was discovered by his wife in a crushed car being kept at a temporary junkyard.

A powered exoskeleton robot-like suit made by Tsukuba-based Cyberdyne, which would come in handy during nuclear accidents, “features computer-controlled, motorized limbs, which respond to a user’s movements.”

The Daidogei World Cup of street performers featured 87 acts from 21 countries doing their thing at a Shizuoka park.

In an event organized by Panasonic to promote its Lamdash shaver, a world record was set for the largest number of men using the same model of electric razor at the same time in Japan and abroad. According to Guinness World Records, 1,981 men participated at 18 locations.