August 11, 2011

August 11, 2011

August 11, 2011

This week's required reading

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2011

On the road

  • A homeless man who racked up a ¥180,000 taxi fare from Tokyo to Osaka was arrested after revealing that he only had ¥6,000 to his name.
  • The National Police Agency sent a team of six judo instructors to teach martial arts to Afghan police officers at a training center in Turkey.
  • A 24-year-old Tochigi man was arrested for stealing 18 pairs of underwear from the home of a female high school student.
  • It was reported that mosquito nets made by Sumitomo Chemical Co. are partly responsible for the recent drastic decline in malaria deaths worldwide.

Show and tell

  • The environment ministry said it will ban pet shops from putting animals on display after 8pm due to the “stress” it places on the critters.
  • Archaeologists are “75 percent sure” that a skull recently dredged up from the bottom of Pearl Harbor is that of a Japanese pilot shot down on December 7, 1941.
  • It figures: a record 34.7 percent of Yokosuka residents now say they support the local US military base following the March 11 disaster.
  • Tokyo police busted 17 people for running an investment scam involving a bogus solar power company in which a 69-year-old woman in Bunkyo-ku was defrauded out of ¥18.6 million.

GOING NUCLEAR

  • The prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis objected to a ship carrying reprocessed nuclear fuel passing through local waters on its way to Japan, saying that the cargo poses a risk “to the very existence of the people of the Caribbean.”
  • Japan decided not to lodge a protest with the US over recent underground nuclear tests in Nevada.
  • But five groups of atomic bomb survivors from Nagasaki sent a letter scolding the US Embassy for the tests.
  • At the same time, the US Congress is considering a proposal to build three national parks commemorating the Manhattan Project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
  • Sentence of the Week: “The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public’s aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their ‘ignorance’ about nuclear power, declassified US papers showed Saturday.” (via Kyodo)

News that Bytes

  • An Osaka man who created a computer virus dubbed ika-tako—which replaced files in infected PCs with pictures of squid and octopuses—was sentenced to six months in prison, marking the first time a case involving a computer virus has been prosecuted for destruction of property in Japan.
  • Meanwhile, the MPD busted a Gifu man under a new law that makes it illegal to store a virus on a computer.
  • The president of a Saitama-based internet ad agency and one of his employees were arrested for selling “40 million email addresses per year to online dating site operators.”
  • It was reported that the National Police Agency thinks that the growing number of cybercrimes in Japan is “due possibly to a decline in ethics among internet users.” Gee, ya think?

The cold shoulder

  • The disaster management agency said that more than 16,300 people were “refused admission by hospitals three times or more during ambulance transport in 2010.”
  • One unlucky Tokyo man was shuttled between 41 hospitals before finally finding one that would admit him.
  • At last month’s ASEAN hoedown in Indonesia, North Korea claimed that the issue of the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North is “already settled.” Japan replied by saying, basically, “No way.”

And now for some good news

  • The foreign ministers of Japan and Canada decided to speed up work on a joint study for a bilateral free trade agreement.
  • JTB announced a predicted rise in the number of Japanese traveling overseas this summer, saying “the national mood of self-restraint is easing.”
  • In a bid to “restyle the image of short-haul travel,” JAL will begin serving gourmet coffee from specialty beverage purveyor Mi Cafeto.
  • A labor ministry panel suggested that the country’s minimum wage be raised from ¥730 to ¥736.

On the cutting edge

  • Sharp Corp. announced that it had developed a proximity sensor for smart phones that measures just 4mm long and 2mm wide—the world’s smallest such device.
  • KDDI said it had developed a cell phone for elderly people that “automatically emails data from a built-in pedometer to family members up to four times a day.”
  • Japan passed Germany for third place on the list of how many days its astronauts have spent in space (494). Russia is first (20,760) and the US second (14,786).
  • The semi-public Innovation Network Corporation of Japan will spend about ¥5 billion to set up a company to produce and promote Japanese movies and anime overseas. The goal is to create “ten box-office hits, each making several billion yen, in the initial five years,” which is nice work if you can manage it.

AND FINALLY…

  • Depato giant Isetan Mitsukoshi said it will open a series of “boutique outlets” in Tokyo train stations next year.
  • In its annual report, the UN Conference on Trade and Development said that Japan is likely to once again become the world’s leading nation in terms of foreign direct investment, despite the March 11 earthquake.
  • Vietnam said it will adopt the Nippon Automated Cargo and Port Consolidated System, a trade-processing method developed in Japan that is used to streamline customs clearance.
  • Bottom Story of the Week: “High School to Export Cube-Shaped Melons to Singapore” (via The Mainichi Daily News).