August 1, 2012

August 1, 2012

August 1, 2012

This week’s required reading

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2012

THE NUMBERS DON’T LIE

  • A survey by the education ministry found that 34.4 percent of college presidents think classes at their own schools are “boring.”
  • A professor at Kansai University determined that if the March 11 earthquake had occurred at midnight instead of in the afternoon, it would have killed three times as many people as it actually did.
  • Officials at the National Police Agency report that stalking cases have shot up 70 percent during the past year. This has led them to acknowledge—reasonably, it must be said—that current “anti-stalking legislation… no longer match[es] reality.”
  • Officials at Hokkaido Electric Power Co. are worried that demand for electricity this winter will exceed the capacity of its power plants by about 100,000 kilowatts.

ODD COUPLES

  • You think you’ve got money problems. An unemployed Kitakyushu man who was found living in an apartment with his mother’s corpse told police he “didn’t have the money to arrange a funeral.”
  • Former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his brother Kunio are refusing to discuss the “¥4.2 billion in cash, stocks, real estate and other gifts” they received from their 89-year-old mother.
  • Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore sent military specialists to Hokkaido for a drill “based on the scenario that a private cargo plane carrying radioactive materials enters Japanese air space.”
  • Docomo has teamed up with a company called Omron Healthcare to launch a service that allows users to gather and upload information on their “body composition, blood pressure and sleep.”

BREAKTHROUGHS

  • A team of researchers in Japan and the US has found a way to boost “the immune system by exposing the body to light.” The discovery, it is hoped, will lead to improved post-operative treatments for patients susceptible to bacterial infection.
  • An international research group that includes members from Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has developed software allowing speakers of different languages to communicate via their iPhones. The service is offered in 17 languages.
  • South Korean officials are asking the UN to extend the border of the country’s continental shelf “beyond an area in the East China Sea jointly developed with Japan.” That would allow Seoul to make a grab for natural resources in the seabed.
  • For the first time in three years, the amount of tax revenue collected by the government in fiscal 2011 was higher than government-issued debt.

POLICE BLOTTER

  • An orthopedist in Chiba was arrested for failing to disclose on his driver’s license exam that he had epilepsy. Authorities are becoming sensitive to this kind of thing after a string of fatal accidents that have involved drivers losing consciousness.
  • In related news, a Shiga man in his forties claimed that low blood sugar caused him to pass out and crash his car into an empty office building. No one was hurt in the accident.
  • A 13-year-old Kyoto boy became the youngest hacker ever busted in Japan. He’s accused of creating a virus that forced users to shut down their PCs but caused no damage to the machines.
  • Meanwhile, a tech company that maintains government websites was hit by a cyber attack that authorities believe originated overseas. Among the sites brought down was the one run by a government panel investigating the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

AND NOW, THE GOOD NEWS

  • The Bank of Japan says all nine regions of the country are reporting that their economic outlook has “generally improved.”
  • Auto industry officials announced that sales of new cars in the first half of the year reached their highest level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
  • The National Police Agency says the number of suicides from January to June was the lowest it’s been in five years.
  • The NPA also announced that road fatalities this year are the lowest they’ve been since recordkeeping began in 1970.

TURBULENCE

  • New budget airline Jetstar Japan got off to a bummer of a start when, on its first day of service, officials were forced to cancel a flight from Hokkaido to Narita because it would have arrived too late for the airport’s 11pm curfew.
  • Eight Japanese tourists were slightly hurt when an airport shuttle bus overturned in rainy weather in Seoul.
  • The NPA has vowed to begin “full-fledged research on aging-related appearance changes.” The move was prompted by the case of AUM Shinrikyo fugitive Katsuya Takahashi, who was able to live in plain sight for 17 years because of a lame police sketch.
  • Now, this is just low: a 62-year-old Osaka man and an accomplice were arrested for running a loan shark operation that targeted about 300 welfare recipients.

INTO THE WILD

  • A 78-year-old farmer from Akita who went missing while picking bamboo shoots survived 20 days in the wilderness by eating rice balls and chocolate. What’s wrong with bamboo?
  • A businessman from Hiroshima who was busted for driving his Lamborghini Gallardo through an expressway tunnel at 156kph told the cops he “wanted to enjoy the sound of the engine.”
  • The International Whaling Commission nixed a request from Japanese fishermen for permission to hunt minke whales in coastal waters. The fishermen claimed the hunts are “like indigenous whaling allowed in Alaska that is rooted in traditions and customs.”
  • Bottom Story of the Week: “Mt Fuji Gets Improved Toilets” (Via The Daily Yomiuri)

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Daily Yomiuri, The Japan Times, The Mainichi Daily News, The Associated Press, AFP, CNN, Reuters and Kyodo.