January 16, 2012

January 16, 2013

January 16, 2012

Breaking snooze

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2013

CRAPPY NEW YEAR

  • Six elderly bedridden patients died when an outbreak of norovirus swept through a hospital in Nichinan City in Miyazaki Prefecture.
  • A 35-year-veteran of the Toyama Prefectural police force was arrested for strangling an elderly couple and setting fire to their home in 2010.
  • According to the government’s newly revised “earthquake probability map,” the chances of a major quake striking Shizuoka City in the next 30 years is 89.7 percent, while for Chiba City it’s 75.7 percent, Yokohama 71 percent, and Tokyo 23.2 percent.
  • Officials at the NPA announced that, starting in April, they will enforce a total ban on smoking in detention cells at prefectural headquarters and police stations nationwide.

MEET THE NEW BOSS

  • Newly elected Tokyo Governor Naoki Inose says he wants to build public housing units that increase interactions between residents of different ages.
  • He says this will give opportunities “for elderly people to pass on their wisdom to the young and for the young to convey new information to the elderly.”
  • It’s expected that the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “will not discuss the possibility of establishing branches of the Imperial Family headed by females.”
  • In a bid to warm up to South Korea, officials with the LDP postponed an event to promote Japan’s rights to the disputed Takeshima islands.

NUCLEAR REACTIONS

  • It was reported that NHK received dozens of complaints for urging people to “remember the Great East Japan Earthquake” while issuing a tsunami-warning bulletin following a strong quake off the coast of Miyagi last month.
  • Officials at the Nuclear Regulation Authority say a pair of fuel rods were touching in a spent-fuel pool at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata, resulting in a level 1 incident on the 7-point international scale.
  • In what’s being described as a rare burst of candor for a Japanese diplomat, former ambassador to China Uichiro Niwa criticized the government’s purchase of three islands in the Sengaku chain.
  • Citing the “need for patrols in waters around the Senkaku Islands,” the commandant of the Japan Coast Guard said the JCG would cancel its annual parade for the first time since 1949.

RIDING THE RAILS

  • JR West announced plans to build Japan’s largest railway museum in Kyoto’s Umekoji Park. The 18,800m2 space, which will house as many as 50 exhibits, is expected to cost ¥7 billion.
  • JTB Corp. says that it expects 18.7 million Japanese to travel abroad in 2013—a record high.
  • A Kyoto University-led project that produced “eggs from artificially derived multipurpose stem cells” was selected by the prestigious US journal Science as one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs in 2012.
  • Headline of the Week: “115-yr-old Kimura Doesn’t Sweat the Small Stuff” (via The Yomiuri Shimbun)

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

  • A Cabinet Office survey found that 43 percent of residents in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima “didn’t fear a tsunami right after the earthquake hit on March 11, 2011.”
  • The main reason they gave for not evacuating was “there had never been a big tsunami following previous earthquakes.”
  • It turns out there was a good reason that the crew of a JAL passenger jet failed to get clearance to land at Takamatsu Airport last month: the air traffic controller on duty was asleep.The controller’s assistant wasn’t able to help, because at the time he was “making a haircut appointment online.”

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