Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2011

Dumb & Dumber

• After a public outcry, officials in Maebashi scrapped a plan that would have rewarded government whistle-blowers with “cash payments of ¥10,000-¥20,000 and bookstore gift certificates.”
• Researchers at Azabu University in Kanagawa have determined that “dogs can tell if someone is smiling or not.”
• A 23-year-old landscape gardener won a “rice-cake lifting competition” at Daigo-ji temple in Kyoto. The man held aloft the 150kg cake for five and a half minutes.
• In a case of sweet vindication, a writer who was sued by the Japan Sumo Association in 2007 for alleging that wrestlers were involved in fixing bouts has turned around and filed a lawsuit against the JSA in the wake of recent match-fixing revelations.
• Meanwhile, the JSA released a “no-frills” version of its banzuke rankings due to the spring tournament being cancelled.

Police Business

Illustration by Shane Busato

• The National Police Agency has set itself a goal of boosting the number of female officers to 10 percent of the total workforce by 2020. Currently, female cops comprise 5.8 percent of the force, compared with 3.7 percent in 2000.
• Prosecutors in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya announced that they would begin recording interviews with criminal suspects. Exceptions would be made in cases where “the suspect does not want to be recorded, or when the content of the questioning threatens to violate the privacy of another person involved in the case.”
• A 47-year-old instructor at a school for the deaf in Aichi was fired for taping shut the mouths of talkative students.
• Police suspect that three men were involved in an after-hours robbery at the office of a ticket vendor in Nagoya. Among the items stolen was a safe that measures “1.4 meters high, 40 centimeters wide and 70 centimeters deep, and weighs about 100kg.”

By the Numbers

• The internal affairs ministry announced the results of Japan’s first national census since 2005. The country’s population stands at 128,056,026.
• That’s a rise of .2 percent—the slowest rate of growth since the census began in 1920.
• Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa and Chiba were among the nine prefectures around the country whose population grew.
• The ministry added that the average number of members per household was 2.46—an all-time low.
• Japan is now the world’s tenth most populous nation and accounts for 1.9 percent of people on the planet.

End of Life Care

• A survey by the National Center for Child Health and Development found that 60 percent of pediatricians around the country believe it’s OK to terminate treatment for patients who are brain dead.
• And 89 percent of doctors reported that they feel “various levels of hesitation” when deciding whether to use feeding tubes for elderly patients suffering dementia.
• Three-hundred animals belonging to some 100 species were killed when a fire destroyed a traveling zoo in Shiga Prefecture. Among the dead were “endangered Bengal tigers, baboons, kangaroos, and monkeys.”
• The Imperial Household Agency has announced that it will allow researchers to enter the tomb of Emperor Ojin in Osaka. Previously, the terraced, 425m-long burial mound was completely off-limits to historians.

Foreign Correspondence

• The Justice Ministry announced that the number of refugees seeking asylum in Japan dropped from 1,388 in 2009 to 1,202 last year.
• The number of people granted asylum, however, rose from 30 to 39.
• Japanese authorities arrested the captain of a South Korean crab fishing boat and eight of his crewmembers for operating inside waters claimed by Japan near the disputed Oki Islands.
• Sentence of the Week: “In response to a secret US request, the government has decided to sell propellers from Maritime Self-Defense Force rescue planes to the US forces so they can be used in transport planes to be given to the Afghan air force, sources said.” (via Daily Yomiuri Online)

On the Road

• For the third year in a row, Honda, Subaru and Toyota took the top three spots in Consumer Reports’ annual roundup of best automakers.
• A district court in Kobe awarded ¥63 million in damages to the family of a Mazda employee who committed suicide in 2007 due to overwork.
• In what police describe as an unsuccessful suicide attempt, a 22-year-old junior at Kagoshima University seized control of a bus and ran it off the road. The student suffered slight injuries, as did the driver and ten other passengers.
• Officials in Fujimino, Saitama, have come up with a plan to reclaim abandoned bicycles and give them to government workers for use when traveling between municipal facilities. The city will keep track of the bikes’ mileage and post the figures online.

A Slow News Week

• A professor at Tokyo University of the Arts has patented a method of replicating the texture of murals found at ancient Japanese burial mounds.
• An NHK survey revealed that Japanese men in their 30s spend an average of 11 hours, 58 minutes at home on weekdays, which is 35 minutes longer than in 2005.
• The Japan Book Publishers Association is encouraging its members to print a notice on their books’ copyright page warning that “it is illegal to ask outside agencies to digitize books on buyers’ behalf.”
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Beloved Giant Eel Dies at Estimated Age of 30” (via The Mainichi Daily News

Compiled from reports by Bloomberg, Jiji, Japan Today, The Japan Times, The International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Daily News, Daily Yomiuri, AP and Kyodo)