Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2014

OH, SO NOW YOU TELL US

• Following the crash of the Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, Finance Minister Taro Aso said that “he had been thinking that the digital currency would collapse sooner or later.”
• On the occasion of his 54th birthday last month, Crown Prince Naruhito vowed to “to continue respecting the Constitution.”
• Researchers at Fukuoka National Hospital have determined what every hay fever sufferer already knows: that inflammation in the nose can worsen sleep quality.
• Headline of the Week: “Military Police Officer’s Confidential Journal on 1936 Failed Coup Discovered in Liquor Shop” (via Mainichi Japan)

PRIORITIES

• A former prison official testifying at a murder trial in Osaka said death-row prisoners are kept in solitary confinement “except when they are allowed to exercise or take a bath.”
• The tobacco-friendly LDP has proposed a change to the Industrial Safety and Health Act that would dump the requirement on businesses to “keep secondhand smoke out of smoke-free spaces.”
• In response to the vandalization of hundreds of copies of The Diaries of Anne Frank in Tokyo, officials at the Israeli Embassy announced that they will donate 300 copies of the book to local libraries.
• The Cabinet Office says fewer Japanese school kids used content filtering functions on their keitai last year—the first drop since officials began keeping records in 2009.

WHITE, POWDERY STUFF

• Customs officials at Narita Airport say they confiscated 270kg of stimulants last year. That’s a 60 percent rise from the amount seized in 2012 and the most since the airport opened in 1978.
• Officials in Yamanashi say 115 hectares of agricultural facilities were damaged or destroyed by the heavy snow last month.
• Meanwhile, the blizzards are being blamed for crushing a total of 406 carports in seven prefectures.
• Officials at JAXA announced the successful launch of a rocket carrying a weather observatory that’s intended “to prevent disasters caused by heavy rain and snow.”

FOREIGN RELATIONS

• A pair of maiko apprentice geisha from Kyoto gave dance performances in New Delhi and Chennai as part of a tour organized by the Japan Foundation.
• A museum in Shiga has put on display documents related to the so-called Otsu incident—the attempted assassination of the future Emperor Nicholas II of Russia in central Japan in 1891.
• About 270 GSDF troops traveled to California to take part in a drill with US Marines that simulated the “recapture of an uninhabited island occupied by enemy forces.”
• Officials in charge of the torch relay for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are mulling a plan to have the route pass through disaster-hit Fukushima.

AND FINALLY…

• Police in Osaka arrested a 32-year-old salaryman for “creating fake websites promoting luxury express train services.”
• The government says it will enlist volunteer spotters to alert local meteorological observation centers of abnormal weather conditions.
• It was reported that 46 out of Japan’s 47 prefectures are expected to post tax revenue growth in fiscal 2014, the only exception being the slackers in Yamanashi.
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Hula Dancers Seek to Cheer Evacuees of Disaster“ (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