| Mar 18 | Police to crack down on Web site administrators who fail to delete illegal info (Mainichi) |
| Police have decided to crack down on Web site administrators who fail to comply with requests to delete illegal information online, and hold them criminally responsible for aiding crimes, it has been learned. It has emerged that roughly 60 percent of the information targeted by the National Police Agency (NPA) is being carried on bulletin board pages operated by a single administrator. The NPA plans to step up its fight against the illegal material, such as information on the illicit sale of mobile phones, and work to eliminate such information from the Web. |
| Mar 18 | Impecunious 'Pinas tie knot to make naughty in Nippon (Tokyo Reporter) |
| In January the media was abuzz with reports over the arrest by Saitama prefectural police of a citizen of the Philippines, who had entered Japan by means of a fraudulent marriage with a Japanese man, after it was learned the individual in question - charged with violation of the alien registration law - had undergone a sex change operation. Writing in Shukan Kinyobi (Mar. 12), Takehide Mizutani notes that cases of fraudulent marriage have soared since March 2005, when Japan's Ministry of Justice, in response to criticisms of Japan's abetting human trafficking by the U.S. State Department, cracked down on admission of women from the Philippines. |
| Mar 18 | Domestic violence cases hit record 28,000 in 2009 (AP) |
| The number of domestic violence cases police recognized in 2009 soared 11.7 percent from the previous year to 28,158, the highest since an annual survey began in 2002, the National Police Agency said Thursday. An NPA official ascribed the rise to increased reports to police and consultations with them by citizens amid growing awareness of domestic violence in Japan. The NPA handled 2,429 serious cases where courts issued restraining orders to forestall violence by spouses or other family members under the domestic violence prevention law. |
| Mar 18 | Famed fortuneteller allegedly swindles Osaka City for welfare benefits (AP) |
| A popular fortuneteller in Osaka was indicted Wednesday on fraud charges after he was found to have lied about his estimated 3 million yen in monthly income and swindled Osaka City for welfare benefits, which he allegedly received over a decade. Tokihiro Inoue, 63, who has often appeared on TV programs and in magazines as fortuneteller Shinkyo Inoue, has admitted to the allegations, telling investigators that he wanted to save money to prepare for life when he gets older, said local police who arrested him late last month. |
| Mar 17 | Court rules man's online slandering of restaurant operator qualifies as defamation (Mainichi) |
| A man has been found guilty of defamation for insulting a restaurant chain operator on the Internet after the judge ruled that online slandering is as influential as any other means of expression, it has been learned. The Supreme Court's First Petty Bench on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that convicted Kengo Hashizume, 38, of slandering a ramen noodle shop chain operator online and ordered him to pay 300,000 yen in fines, after dismissing his appeal. Hashizume was charged with making a libelous statement about the restaurant operator on his Web site in 2002 by saying that the company was affiliated to a cult. |
| Mar 17 | Tokyo rediscovers long-forgotten waterways (Asahi) |
 The custodians of the grand canals in Venice and the colorful floating markets in Bangkok need not worry about their status just yet, but in Tokyo a group of concerned citizens is convinced it can transform the city's sludge-clogged waterways into a magnet for tourism.
The hubbub on the capital's rivers and canals was once one of its most celebrated sights.
During the Edo Period (1603-1867), boats carried people and goods on an intricate water system that was the equal of any in the world.
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| Mar 17 | Con artists ripping off elderly / Scams increasingly targeting society's fastest-growing demographic (Yomiuri) |
| There seems to be no end to the number of fraudulent sales tactics targeting elderly people, especially those living alone or suffering from dementia. According to the National Police Agency, the police detected 152 cases of violations of the Special Commercial Transactions Law in 2009. They included the improper selling of expensive health appliances to elderly people and the signing of unlawful house renovation contracts with this vulnerable demographic. The number hit a record high since the NPA began taking the survey in 2005, and of the 461 victims, 318, or 69 percent, were aged 65 or older. |
| Mar 16 | Actress Sawajiri makes tumultuous comeback (AP) |
 Erika Sawajiri, a popular actress who had been away from entertainment circles due to problem behavior in 2007, made a comeback Tuesday causing excitement and rift during a promotional event in Tokyo for an esthetic clinic.
"I would be happy if you see what I will be doing warmly," Sawajiri, 23, said after making a deep bow for 10 seconds before she revealed an upcoming TV commercial featuring her in scantily dressed imagery.
But Sawajiri failed to settle a fresh argument with the press which started after her agency refused reporters access to information on her website unless they promise in writing, for example, not to make public any information or comments involving her privacy.
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| Mar 16 | Actresses gear up for '200 mil. yen' kimono play (AP) |
 Popular actresses in Japan recently promoted the upcoming replay of the popular drama "Oh-oku" depicting elite women in the 19th century, wearing some of the kimono outfits to be used on the stage worth 200 million yen in total.
"As the revival has been decided, I, as an actor, feel the happiest ever," said Yuko Asano, who plays the boss of the women-only backroom in Edo Castle filled with mysterious lives of female aides to the shogun.
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| Mar 16 | Part of woman's torso washes up on island in Fukuoka (Mainichi) |
The lower half of a woman's torso was found on a beach on an island in Fukuoka on Monday, sparking a police investigation.
Police said a local resident digging for clams found the unclothed lower body part on a beach on Nokonoshima Island at about 3:15 p.m. on Monday. The body appeared to have been severed with a sharp blade and police suspect the corpse may have been chopped up into pieces. They are trying to identify the victim.
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| Mar 16 | Prince Mikasa hospitalized for cataract surgery (AP) |
| Prince Mikasa, uncle of Emperor Akihito, entered St. Luke's International Hospital in Tokyo on Tuesday to receive cataract surgery, the Imperial Household Agency said. The 94-year-old prince is scheduled to undergo the surgery on his left eye on Wednesday and leave hospital the following day. The youngest brother of the late Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, was hospitalized in 2008 and 2009 for heart problems. |
| Mar 16 | 3 Filipinos arrested for illegal entry (AP) |
| Three Filipino men have been arrested in the city of Fukuoka for entering Japan on passports with women's names after undergoing sex change operations, police said. Although it is not legally possible in the Philippines to change one's registered gender, the three, aged 30, 43 and 44, have formally married Japanese men, according to local immigration authorities. After falling in love with the Japanese men while working at night clubs, they reentered Japan on different persons' passports to submit marriage registrations and have obtained residential status as spouses of Japanese nationals, the police said. |
| Mar 16 | Geisha prepares to bloom in Tokyo (Tokyo Reporter) |
 Not far from the banks of Tokyo's Sumida River, below a towering expressway, is Sumida Ward's sleepy district of Mukojima, the largest of Tokyo's six remaining geisha quarters, or hanamachi (literally, "flower towns").
The area is home to roughly 120 of Japan's iconic traditional entertainers, who, in the evenings, regale well-heeled guests with performances of classical dance and music, lighthearted games and conversation as they dine at the 16 traditional ryotei restaurants scattered within the packed district's hodgepodge of aging wooden buildings.
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| Mar 16 | For Japanese women, a competition to be thin (twincities.com) |
 As women in the United States and across the industrialized world get fatter, most Japanese women are getting skinnier.
Still, many view themselves as overweight. Social pressure - women looking critically at other women - is the most important reason female skinniness is ascendant in Japan, according to Hisako Watanabe, a child psychiatrist at the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo.
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| Mar 15 | Man bound with tape found dead on road in Tokyo (Mainichi) |
| A man was found dead on a road in the Tokyo city of Kokubunji early Monday with his hands bound with tape, police said. A passerby made an emergency call at about 5:50 a.m. on Monday, saying there appeared to be a dead man on a road in the city. Metropolitan Police Department officials said that the man's hands were bound with adhesive tape. They said his shirt had been lifted up to the area around his chest. |
| Mar 15 | Cartoonists oppose new regulation on sexual expressions in comics (AP) |
 A group of cartoonists including Tetsuya Chiba, illustrator of popular manga series "Ashita no Joe" (Tomorrow's Joe), voiced their opposition Monday in Tokyo to a proposed ordinance revision aimed at regulating sexual imagery in comics and animations.
Arriving at the Tokyo metropolitan government, the cartoonists voiced concerns over the proposal, to be put before a vote Friday, which calls for restricting comics and animations that contain sexualized depictions of "nonexistent minors" -- a controversial concept described in the draft regulation, referring to characters that people would assume to be minors.
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| Mar 15 | 2.76 mil. Japanese estimated to have used illegal drugs (Yomiuri) |
| An estimated 2.76 million people in Japan, or about 2.9 percent of the population, have used illegal drugs, according to a survey by a research team of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The percentage is the highest since similar surveys started in 1995 and suggests the use of drugs is growing in this country. The previous highest percentage was 2.7 percent in 2001. |
| Mar 14 | 2 U.S. Marines in Okinawa arrested over drunken driving, obstruction (AP) |
| Two U.S. Marines were arrested Sunday in Okinawa, one on suspicion of drunken driving and another for allegedly obstructing official police duties, police officials said. Both lance corporals at the U.S. Marines' Makiminato Service Area in Urasoe denied the allegations, they said. Jamel Gary, 23, is suspected of drunken driving in Naha shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday, while Christopher Brooks, 24, in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, allegedly obstructed a police officer's attempt to conduct an alcohol test on Gary by throwing himself at the officer, according to them. |
| Mar 14 | Deer in Nara struck by arrow, police launch probe (AP) |
 One of the wild deer in Nara Park, which are designated national natural treasures, was found Saturday with a bow-gun arrow stuck in its abdomen, prompting local police to launch an investigation on suspicion of a person having violated the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, they said.
A local group protecting the deer removed the 52-centimeter iron arrow from the female deer after anesthetizing it, but the animal is not well due to the serious injuries, group members said.
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| Mar 14 | Even as population shrinks, Japan remains wary of immigration (Washington Post) |
| Much of what you need to know about Japan's long-standing attitude toward immigrants is summed up in the logo of the nation's official immigration agency: It depicts a plane departing, rather than arriving. But today the country faces a demographic crisis, one that some here believe will finally compel a traditionally homogeneous Japan to turn that plane around and let foreign workers come. The population is aging and shrinking -- a formula for economic calamity and social stagnation. Over time, there will be too few workers to care for the millions of elderly citizens, grow food on farms or fill the manufacturing jobs that drive this export-led economy. Given the forces of history and culture, the notion of a multiethnic Japan may seem impossible, a tautology in a country where nationality and ethnicity are fused to the point of being nearly indistinguishable. Yet a multiethnic Japan is what the country needs to become if it is to survive among the top tier of the world's powers. |
| Mar 14 | Scouts' dishonor: dirty Tokyo dozen nabbed for pimping (Tokyo Reporter) |
| Although the practice has been banned by local ordinances, aggressive "scouts" can still be found on the streets of Tokyo and other big cities, energetically recruiting young women to work in bars and sex shops. To get around the laws, some have moved their activity indoors, only to find that illegal as well. Last week Yasuhiro Fuseishi, a 36-year-old former actor, was arrested for arranging parties at which young women were encouraged to take up the world's oldest profession. |
| Mar 13 | Chiba man accused of burning 5-year-old stepson with lighter (Mainichi) |
| A man was arrested here Friday for allegedly abusing his 5-year-old stepson, including burning the child's foot with a lighter. Police arrested Daiki Ishibashi, 22, on suspicion of assault. The suspect has reportedly admitted to the allegations, and the boy has been put under protective custody at a child consultation center. Ishibashi stands accused of burning the sole of his stepson's right foot sometime between late January and Feb. 16, in addition to punching the boy in the face and tumbling him onto the floor. |
| Mar 13 | 7 die in nursing home fire in Hokkaido (AP) |
| Seven people died in a fire at a nursing home for the elderly in Hokkaido Prefecture early Saturday morning, police said. The seven are believed to be residents of the facility in Kita Ward, Sapporo in the northernmost Japan prefecture. One other resident and an employee of the home were injured in the 2:25 a.m. fire, which completely burned down the two-story building in a residential area about 7 kilometers north of JR Sapporo Station, the police said. |
| Mar 13 | Tokyo's Kabukicho teeters on the brink (Tokyo Reporter) |
 Once known as Asia's top entertainment quarter, Shinjuku Ward's red-light district of Kabukicho has seen a hallowing out at its core. Monthly magazine Takarajima (April) takes a look at the devastation wrought by police crackdowns and the ongoing recession.
At the end of 2008, the multi-use Koma Stadium, notably known as a home to enka theater performances for a half-century and situated at the heart of Kabukicho, shut its doors. Over a year later, a construction plan for the site has not been set in place. Meanwhile, near JR Shinjuku Station, a large 10-screen cinema complex has since opened at the edge of the Kabukicho boundary.
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| Mar 13 | 30 Japanese tourists hurt during making of animated Yon-sama drama (AP) |
 Thirty Japanese women were injured in an accident Friday while watching the making of an animated drama starring South Korean heartthrob Bae Yong Joon, according to the Japanese Embassy and South Korean police and firefighters.
While most of the 30 women had only light injuries, one sustained a serious injury to her face, the Japanese Embassy said. The women were in their 30s to 70s.
Three South Korean men were also hurt in the accident.
According to Yonhap News Agency, high winds during the event at an outdoor set in a resort area of Gangwon Province in northeastern South Korea caused part of the set to fall down.
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| Mar 12 | Japanese Coast Guard arrests anti-whaling skipper (New York Times) |
 The Japanese Coast Guard on Friday arrested an anti-whaling activist from New Zealand who had boarded a whaling ship in the southern Antarctic last month.
Peter Bethune, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was brought back to Tokyo by the whaling ship, the Shonan Maru 2, after he boarded it without permission on Feb. 15. Coast Guard officials were waiting for him at the docks in Tokyo, along with a throng of Japanese reporters and television crews.
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| Mar 12 | Bullying flap shakes Japan's royals (New York Times) |
 When an official at the Imperial Household Agency suddenly announced last week that 8-year-old Princess Aiko was refusing to go to school because of bullying, he did more than just disclose a mundane problem facing a member of Japan's ancient and secretive monarchy.
He also added a new twist to one of the most riveting but mysterious dramas in Japan, the seven-year depression and seclusion of Aiko's mother, Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-trained former diplomat. Aiko is the only child of Princess Masako and her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, and is widely known to be one of the few sources of joy for the troubled crown princess.
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| Mar 12 | Luck of the Irish to parade across country (Japan Times) |
 Celebrations for Ireland's most famous holiday are gaining in popularity worldwide, and Japan is no exception. St. Patrick, who helped spread Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, is the country's patron saint. Legend has it that he died on March 17, so the Irish celebrate the day by wearing green, symbolizing the shamrock. In Japan, people have enjoyed the St. Patrick's Day parade since 1992. As an international cultural exchange event, it has become more popular, with recent years seeing around 1,000 participants and 50,000 spectators taking part in Omotesando, Tokyo. This year's parade is on March 14 and starts from Omotesando Hills; it runs from 2 p.m. till 4 p.m.
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| Mar 12 | 70 immigration detainees on hunger strike (Japan Times) |
| At least 70 detainees at the West Japan Immigration Control Center, which has long been criticized by human rights groups and Diet members, have been on a hunger strike since Monday, center officials and volunteers helping them confirmed Thursday. "Around 70 foreigners began a hunger strike Monday night because they want to be released on a temporary basis," Norifumi Kishida, an official at the center, said Thursday morning. |
| Mar 12 | Three teens busted for lifting items from set of pop group AKB48 TV drama (Mainichi) |
 Three teenagers have been arrested for stealing a signboard and other equipments from the set of a TV drama featuring popular all-girl J-pop group AKB48, police said on Thursday.
"We're big fans of them and wanted to obtain whatever they used," one of the boys were quoted as telling police. The stolen items, worth 180,000 yen in total, included a 90 by 25 centimeter signboard and cushions prepared for the shooting as well as coats designed for AKB48 members.
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| Mar 11 | Tuna brokers at Japan's largest fish market rally against proposed Atlantic bluefin ban (canadianbusiness.com) |
 Tuna brokers at Japan's largest fish market protested a proposed international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna Thursday, saying it would unfairly hit Japan and its massive tuna market.
Raw tuna is a key ingredient in traditional dishes such as sushi and sashimi, and the bluefin variety - called "hon-maguro" here - is particularly prized.
"This is like telling the U.S. to stop eating beef," said Kimio Amano, a 36-year-old broker who has worked at the market for 20 years.
But global stocks of bluefin are dwindling, especially in the Atlantic, and governments around the world are increasingly supporting a complete trade ban to let the fish recover. About 80 percent of the species ends up in Japan.
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| Mar 11 | The Cove will segue into a new TV series (chron.com) |
 Fans of The Cove, the environmentally themed film that won the feature documentary Oscar Sunday night, will be happy to know there's more where that came from.
A new television series about the controversial dolphin trade in Japan, tentatively titled Dolphin Warriors, has been green-lighted by Animal Planet.
The series picks up where the movie leaves off and, like the film, stars animal activist Ric O'Barry. Two episodes of the series - being executive- produced by O'Barry's son, Lincoln O'Barry - have been completed, although a premiere date has yet to be announced, Ric O'Barry said.
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| Mar 11 | Strong winds, snow wreak havoc; 140 hurt (Yomiuri) |
| Strong winds and snow battered the Pacific side of the nation Tuesday and Wednesday, wreaking havoc with road, rail and air routes and leaving thousands of homes without power. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, 26 people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo with fall injuries between Tuesday evening, when it began snowing, and 6 a.m. Wednesday. Ten people in Yokohama suffered fall and other injuries, and 46 people in Saitama Prefecture either fell or were involved in skidding accidents. The hazardous weather also brought chaos to the nation's transport network. |
| Mar 10 | Cherry blossoms come out in Kochi, earliest on Japan's main islands (AP) |
| Signs of the full-blown spring season were observed in Japan when cherry blossoms bloomed Wednesday in the western city of Kochi, coming out the earliest in any location other than Okinawa and nearby southern islands, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The "someiyoshino" cherry blossoms in Kochi came out six days earlier than the previous year and tied the record for the earliest blooming on Japan's main islands, which was registered three times in the past -- in Kagoshima Prefecture in 1955 and 1973 and in Wakayama Prefecture in 1959. |
| Mar 10 | Man hired by divorce-seeking husband to seduce wife gets 15 years for her murder (Mainichi) |
| A private detective hired by a divorce-seeking husband to seduce his wife has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for strangling the woman. Prosecutors demanded 17 years' imprisonment for Takeshi Kuwahara, 31, an employee of a private detective agency at the time of the crime, accusing him of murdering Rie Isohata, 32, on April 12, 2009, after the victim found out that her husband and Kuwahara had worked together to plot her divorce. |
| Mar 10 | 6.5% went to tsunami shelters (Yomiuri) |
| Only 32,000 people, or 6.5 percent of residents in Tokyo and eight prefectures who were issued evacuation directives for a tsunami caused by last week's earthquake in Chile, took shelter at designated evacuation centers, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said. Evacuation instructions were issued to 493,000 people, and evacuation recommendations to a further 1.193 million people. |
| Mar 10 | 'Cove' Oscar won't end Taiji dolphin kill (Japan Times) |
| The gala crowd in Los Angeles cheered as "The Cove" won the best documentary Oscar with its grisly portrayal of dolphin slaughter. But residents of this small port shown in the film abhorred the attention and said it will not end their centuries-old tradition. Residents of Taiji gathered in whale eateries with names like Tail and rolled their eyes Monday when told of Oscar laurels for the film, which they see as yet another biased foreign take on their culture. |
| Mar 10 | Trucker busted with 260 stolen undies (Japan Times) |
 Kenichi Ikeda of the city of Nagasaki has carried around three bags and a secret he could not tell his family at home - inside the bags were hundreds of women's undergarments that he had stolen over 10 years, police said. Police arrested the 36-year-old truck driver, who allegedly had stolen about 260 pairs of women's underwear and kept them in bags behind the driver's seat of his truck. "I couldn't leave them home because I have a wife and children," Ikeda was quoted as saying by police.
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| Mar 10 | Japanese game show takes the world by storm (Japan Times) |
 A Japanese game show is taking the world by storm by becoming one of the top TV formats of recent times. "Hole in the Wall" originally started off on Fuji Television Network in Japan, but has been sold now in more than 40 countries across. Executives lay the program's success to its being "fun, fast and zany," adding that the "unique" nature of many Japanese shows often makes them stand out from their European and American counterparts.
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| Mar 10 | Wait long enough and daikon legs get fashionable (Japan Times) |
| Bridget Jones said a woman starts to feel her age when the fashion of the times comes full circle and she witnesses the ghostly resurrection of all the stuff she wore in her youth. I'd like to take that a step further and add that a woman feels her age when she absolutely pines for a time machine just so she can travel back and tell her young self to hold onto that collection of high-waist skirts; they will definitely be back in 15 years. While I'm at it, I might as well advise my younger self to scrap the diet, quit the gym and tuck into that L-saizu box of Maccha Pocky, because one day thick legs will be quite the thing. |
| Mar 10 | Movie director Kitano awarded France's top cultural honor (AP) |
 Japanese film director Takeshi Kitano has been named by France for the title of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters in recognition of his achievements, France's ministry of culture said Tuesday.
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand will bestow France's highest honor for artists on Kitano later in the day, the ministry said.
To commemorate the honor, the films of the 63-year-old will be screened at the Centre Pompidou, a contemporary art museum in Paris, for three months from Thursday and artwork by Kitano will be displayed at another museum in the city from the same day.
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| Mar 10 | Monk arrested for setting fire to temple for insurance (Mainichi) |
| A Buddhist monk has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to his temple and property after insuring them for about 300 million yen, police said. Police accuse Kodo Nishihara, 53, the former chief priest of Seigan-ji temple in the Saitama Prefecture village of Higashi-Chichibu, of pouring kerosene in the temple's main hall and his adjoining home, and setting them alight at around 9:40 p.m. on Nov. 5 last year, burning down four buildings and a car. Nishihara was arrested on suspicion of arson of uninhabited buildings, but has reportedly denied the allegations. |
| Mar 10 | Pet shop manager caught stealing penguin from Japanese zoo (telegraph.co.uk) |
 A security guard at the Nagasaki Bio Park noticed Akira Honda, 24, ushering the Humboldt Penguin into his suitcase in January. According to the zoo, the penguin is worth about Y400,000.
Mr Honda told police that he had run up debts which he intended to pay off by selling the creature to a collector. Humboldt Penguins are native to South America and grow to around 27 inches tall and up to 13lb in weight. They are currently listed as vulnerable, due largely to the destruction of their habitats, and an estimated 12,000 survive in the wild.
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| Mar 09 | The Gardens of Japan: earthly paradise (telegraph.co.uk) |
Kyoto was once the imperial capital of Japan, and it is here that many of the country's finest gardens are to be found. 'Throw nothing away' must always have been the motto of Japanese garden designers, for old and new co-exist in the country's gardens, which have much to tell us about the history of Japan. The oldest surviving gardens belong to the Heian era (794-1185), and they are known in Japanese as chisen shuyu teien, or 'pond-spring-boating-gardens'. The pond was at the heart both of the garden and of the wonderfully leisured, light-hearted and sensuous lifestyle of the aristocracy. The chisen shuyu teien garden was designed to be seen from the water, and the boating parties that took place in it were highly theatrical affairs. Guests drifted about in beautifully carved and painted boats to the accompaniment of music played by an orchestra that floated in the pond on a boat of its own.
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| Mar 09 | Band frontman busted for drug possession (Mainichi) |
 Koichi Nakamura, vocalist for the band Jaywalk, was arrested in Tokyo in the early hours of Tuesday morning on suspicion of drug possession.
The 59-year-old singer is accused of possessing a small amount of stimulants. Nakamura has apparently admitted to the allegation.
According to a source close to the investigation, Nakamura was questioned by police when they saw him parked at the side of a road in the Azabu neighborhood of Tokyo's Minato Ward. The officers discovered about 0.9 grams of illicit drugs in a plastic bag inside an accessory case on the floor of the passenger side of the car.
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| Mar 09 | No. of foreigners overstaying visas in Japan lowest in 21 years (AP) |
| The number of foreign nationals staying in Japan after their visas expired was down 18.8 percent from a year before to 91,778 as of Jan. 1, 2010, slipping below 100,000 for the first time in 21 years, a Justice Ministry survey showed Tuesday. The number of people overstaying their visas has been falling after peaking at around 300,000 in 1993. An official at the ministry's Immigration Bureau said the introduction two years ago of a biometric system using fingerprints to verify identity contributed to the downtrend. |
| Mar 09 | TV gets fickle fans flocking to fads to shed fat (Japan Times) |
 Many people in Japan, especially young women, are keen to diet. Every time the mass media introduce a new way of losing weight, they quickly embrace it as a craze, but also quickly lose interest. Recent diet fads have focused on eating bananas and apples and "kanten" (agar). But are people already slender enough? According to a 2008 report compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 28.6 percent of men in Japan are considered obese.
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| Mar 09 | Taijicho locals slam 'The Cove' Oscar win (Yomiuri) |
| Local people in Taijicho, Wakayama Prefecture, voiced their disappointment over "The Cove" winning the Oscar for best documentary at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, saying the film about the town's dolphin hunting is inaccurate and intolerant of cultural differences. Yoji Kita, head of the Taijicho Municipal Board of Education, said: "The award shows that Westerners lack tolerance--I doubt they have good sense. I think [their lack of understanding] stems from the differences in our religious cultures." |
| Mar 08 | 'The Cove' wins best documentary feature Oscar (AP) |
 "The Cove," a U.S. film about a controversial dolphin hunt at a Japanese town, won the best documentary feature at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony Sunday in Los Angeles.
Directed by Louie Psihoyos, one of the world's most prominent still photographers, the film depicts, partly through the use of hidden cameras and microphones, the capture of dolphins by local fishermen in the whaling town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture.
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| Mar 08 | Police send 2 more to prosecutors over theft of Peko-chan (Yomiuri) |
 Police have sent two more men to prosecutors over the theft of 17 statues of Peko-chan--a mascot of Fujiya confectionery shops--that were later sold to recycling shops.
Wakayama-Higashi Police Station sent the two, including Hiroshi Inaba, 43, a former gang member on trial on another theft charge, to prosecutors in connection with the theft of the statues, which were worth a combined 1 million yen.
Six people were involved in stealing the iconic statues, which stand outside Fujiya shops, in six prefectures, including Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, between May 26, 2008, and Feb. 12, 2009.
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