Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2014

THANKS BUT NO THANKS

• Justices on the Supreme Court have ruled that foreigners who hold permanent residency are not entitled to receive welfare benefits.
• A newspaper survey has found that more than 100,000 college students chose to repeat their senior year this spring instead of accepting job offers that they deemed inferior.
• A poll by a Japanese civic group and a South Korean think tank revealed that 71 percent of South Koreans have a “negative” view of Japan and 54 percent of Japanese think poorly of South Korea.
• At the same time, more than half of the respondents expressed concern about deteriorating relations between the two countries.

ON THE ROAD

• In response to a nationwide shortage of truck drivers, the National Police Agency has decided to make it easier for youngsters to earn their licenses.
• Tokyo governor Yoichi Masuzoe says he wants to boost the length of bicycle lanes in the city from 126km to 240km by the start of the 2020 Olympics.
• The announcement was met with derision by biking advocates, who noted that the plan would create two-way traffic on sidewalks instead of increasing space on roadways.
• Twenty-year-old Seiji Okamoto became the first Japanese violinist to win the top prize at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig, Germany.

YEAH, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT

• Officials at the communications ministry say they want to develop a system that automatically translates TV broadcasts into English, Chinese and other languages.
• Authorities at the environment ministry have come up with a novel way to clean the water in the moats surrounding the Imperial Palace: by using groundwater that wells up from nearby subway tunnels.
• Researchers at an NGO called the Nature Conservation Society of Japan have found that an endangered sea mammal called the dugong likes to munch on sea grass off the coast of Henoko in Okinawa.
• Which is inconvenient, in a way, because the US military is planning to reclaim coastal land there when it relocates a Marine Corps base from a different part of Okinawa.

COWARDS!

• Managers at the Lotte Hotel in Seoul declined to host a reception by the Japanese Embassy because they were worried the event would be targeted by demonstrators.
• Officials in Miyagi suspect that workplace bullying led a police officer in his 30s to commit suicide early last month.
• Chinese authorities executed a Japanese man who was arrested in 2010 for attempting smuggle drugs out of Dalian.
• Sentence of the Week: “The Tottori city board of education said Thursday it will ditch a character, meant to promote the city’s historical background and unveiled just three days earlier, after the board received protests saying the character is ‘eerie’ and makes people ‘think of hunger.’” (via Kyodo)

AND FINALLY…

• Among the “historic machines” chosen by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers for its 2014 heritage list are vehicles used by the first Japanese team to reach the South Pole.
• A research group at Kyoto University has figured out a way to extend the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries to 70 years.
• The Enoshima Aquarium debuted an attraction in which “real fish and holograms of fish appear to swim together.”
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Once Again, Baby Boomers are Asking: What am I?” (via The Japan News)

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