April 28, 2011

April 28, 2011

This week's required reading

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2011

EASY COME, EASY GO

  • After taking heat for accepting a ¥1.04 million donation from a South Korean expat, Prime Minister Naoto Kan agreed to return the money. Political contributions from foreigners are a no-no in Japan.
  • The Osaka and Bombay stock exchanges agreed on a tie-up, paving the way for them to “develop financial products linked to their stock indexes and list them at each other’s markets.”
  • Toyota and Microsoft announced a joint venture to develop automotive software that will be “important for achieving the next-generation low-carbon, energy-saving society.”
  • The justice ministry ordered Japan’s Prosecutor General to record all interrogations of criminal suspects in an effort to “establish a new criminal justice system.”
  • The coast guard announced that 170 crewmembers serving on five ships were unable to vote in local elections earlier in the month because they were engaged in relief operations in quake-hit areas.
  • Nepal’s Ministry of Culture said it will honor the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with its inaugural Gautama Buddha International Peace Award. The prize is worth $50,000.
  • Japan, the US and India have announced they will begin scheduling regular minster-level talks. The rise of China is “expected to be a major topic.”
  • A trio of taxis in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka have been festooned with drawings of characters from hit manga and animated TV series Strawberry Marshmallow. Punters who catch these cabs will get a commemorative card designed by the series’ author.

YEAH, THAT’LL WORK

  • One of the eight “countermeasures” proposed by the Japan Sumo Association to restore confidence in the sport is to distribute a survey so that spectators can assess the wrestlers’ “fighting spirit.”
  • “I’m leaving the details in the hands of my lawyer,” said former ozeki Kotomitsuki, who is suing the JSA for wrongful dismissal after being given the boot from sumo for illegal gambling.
  • A group of activists canceled plans to stage a protest at the disputed Senkaku Islands “out of sympathy” for Japan following the March 11 quake. The demonstrators were also concerned that the protest would “trigger adverse international publicity.”
  • The National Police Agency told cops in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures that they can go ahead and crack open safes recovered from the rubble in quake-hit areas. Police in Iwate alone have reportedly found 1,000 safes.
  • A geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey said that aftershocks related to the March 11 earthquake may continue for 10 years.
  • Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kan was quoted as saying that the evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant might be “uninhabitable” for as long as 20 years. He quickly retracted the claim.
  • The government has confirmed that 23 foreigners were killed in the March 11 quake. That’s 127 fewer than the number who died in the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
  • Russia has awarded medals to 63 foreign astronauts commemorating their “services to developing space.” Among the three Japanese awarded was Toyohiro Akiyama, a former TBS correspondent who in 1990 became the first journalist to travel into space.
  • The residence of Japan’s ambassador to the Ivory Coast was hit by a rocket during the fighting that preceded the ousting of President Laurent Gbagbo earlier this month.

THE FLYJIN HAVE LEFT THE STADIUM

  • Vegalta Sendai forward Marquinhos fled back to his native Brazil, citing post-quake “psychological shock.”
  • Two days later, Rakuten Eagles pitcher Juan Morillo, a native of the Dominican Republic, walked out on his Sendai-based club because of “psychological stress.”
  • After losing the final of the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships to an unseeded opponent, Japanese tennis player Kei Nishikori said “he felt guilty being away from his home country while victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were still suffering.”

WELL, THAT EXPLAINS IT

  • Philippine authorities believe that a 55-year-old Osaka man whose decomposing body was found in a Manila hotel room suffered either a drug overdose or a heart attack.
  • An assistant prosecutor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office was busted for groping a woman on the Keihin-Tohoku Line. The man first told cops that he was drunk, then claimed he didn’t remember the incident.

THE IGNORANT WALK (AND SWIM AND BIKE) AMONG US

Shane Busato

  • A pair of prominent triathletes blasted the sport’s governing body for not canceling next month’s race in Yokohama. The duo said they are afraid of swimming in “radioactive water” and scolded organizers for forcing them “to choose between risking their health and earning valuable Olympic qualification points.”
  • Police suspect that a pair of gangsters in Fukuoka were on their way to confront a rival when hand grenades they were carrying exploded prematurely, killing them both.
  • The coast guard seized a 180-ton Chinese fishing trawler that was operating in Japan’s territorial waters off Kagoshima.
  • After a coast guard survey revealed that the seabed off the coast of Miyagi moved 24 meters during the quake, an official said that such a thing was “unprecedented in recorded history.”
  • The world’s largest pump trucks were at the Fukushima nuclear plant to help in cooling operations. The vehicles boast 70-meter-long arms and are manufactured by the delightfully-named German heavy machinery company Putzmeister.
  • Suntory has announced it will start using recycled plastic bottles to make new bottles. The move will allow the company to cut its consumption of petrochemicals by 90 percent.
  • Sony has said it would adopt daylight savings time at its HQ and other offices in Japan as part of an effort to reduce power consumption this summer.
  • Uber-popular moguls skier Aiko Uemura announced that she is returning to competition in the hopes of earning a spot on Japan’s national team at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The four-time Olympian won the 2007-08 moguls World Cup.
  • The number of corporate bankruptcies in Japan declined in fiscal year 2010 compared to 2009 by 11 percent.

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, The Asahi Shimbun, Jiji, The Daily Yomiuri, The Japan Times, Mainichi Daily News, The Tokyo Reporter, AP, AFP, Reuters and Kyodo.