Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2013

HERE WE GO AGAIN

• Just five months after its inception, the Nuclear Regulation Authority has already fired a senior official for having an “inappropriate exchange” with the operator of a nuclear power plant.
• Meanwhile, a high-ranking official at the land ministry (the parliamentary secretary for reconstruction, if you must know) mysteriously resigned, allegedly over “a relationship with a woman.” Can’t have that!
• Researchers at the environment ministry believe there may be a connection between the March 11 megaquake and a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in Hokkaido last month that caused blackouts and highway closures.
• It was reported that officials at the National Police Agency are making an effort to develop better aging-prediction technology out of concerns that “the faces of people on police wanted posters end up looking markedly different from fugitives.”

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

• Officials in the town of Kozlu in western Turkey unveiled a statue to Atsushi Miyazaki, a Japanese relief worker who was killed while on a mission to aid earthquake survivors in the area in November 2011.
• Michiko Yamaoka, who was 800 meters away from ground zero during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and who years later underwent reconstructive facial surgery in the US along with two dozen other “Hiroshima maidens,” died of pneumonia at age 82.
• The literary magazine Shincho printed a previously unpublished short story by Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972) that was found in a secondhand bookstore in 1995.
• A collection of 788 books donated by noted Japanologist Donald Keene to Chuo Library in Kita-ku has been put on display for public viewing.

SOMETHING’S FISHY

• Officials in Kagoshima say local fishermen caught only 32kg of young eel in December and January—the skimpiest haul in more than 40 years.
• Scientists at the Hiroshima Prefectural Technology Research Institute have come up with a way to keep oysters fresh for about a month.
• A Siberian cat sent as a gift from Russian president Vladimir Putin to the governor of Akita was finally delivered after spending a year in quarantine at Narita Airport.
• A high-ranking foreign ministry official lodged a “strong protest” with Moscow after two Russian fighter jets violated Japanese airspace over Hokkaido.

THE CRIME FILES

• Officials at the Metropolitan Police Department say the number of people arrested for stalking dropped by one-quarter in 2012.
• At the same time, the number of stalking complaints hit a record high of 1,437.
• The NPA announced that 11 Japanese women were victims of human trafficking in 2012—the most ever.
• Agency officials also noted that the total number of human trafficking cases around the country rose last year.

READY, SET…

• Teachers at elementary schools in Chuo-ku will start using the board game Go to introduce their students to traditional culture and “manners that may help with their concentration.”
• The MPD is now the proud owner of two “mobile autopsy units” to be used in disasters. The vehicles cost a cool ¥14 million a piece.
• The transport ministry says it wants to allow armed foreign security officers to board Japanese ships in case of attacks by pirates.
• In announcing the results of the “first large-scale study of its kind in Japan,” the environment ministry says that 10 percent of expectant mothers under the age of 24 continue smoking during their pregnancy.

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