Random Japan

CAN’T SAY WE BLAME THEM
Barbecued beef restaurants in Japan found sales were down after reports surfaced that caesium-laced beef had been distributed across the country.

Bombastic Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara said a new power plant will be built in Tokyo “with the electricity generation capacity of at least 1 million kilowatts,” but he refused to provide any details.

PM Naoto Kan came under fire from members of his own Cabinet for “advocating a society free of nuclear power in the aftermath of the crisis in Fukushima.” That’s news to us, claimed members of his cabinet.

South Korea voiced “strong regret and disappointment” over Japan’s month-long ban on its diplomats flying Korean Air. The ban was put in effect to protest a special flight by the airline above some disputed islets.

Yukari Miyamae, a 61-year-old Japanese-American female, has achieved a cult-like following after being arrested for grabbing the boob of an airport security agent in Phoenix and, according to the police report, “squeezing and twisting it with both hands without the victim’s permission.”

Meanwhile, a Facebook page dedicated to acquitting Miyamae of the sexual abuse charges apparently drew over 1,000 supporters, “with some calling her a hero.”

Stats

27.7
Percent of viewers watching the women’s World Cup final in Tokyo at one point during the live TV broadcast that started at 3:35 a.m. local time, according to Video Research Ltd.
74
People who were treated for heatstroke at an event in Miyagi Prefecture as temperatures soared past 38ºC
¥420 million
Stolen from ATMs near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant between mid-March and the end of June, according to the National Police Agency
20
Percent of smokers in middle and high schools in Japan who quit after a cigarette price hike last October, a government survey revealed
711,837
Criminal cases “reported to or detected by” police in Japan in the January-June period, down 7.1 percent from a year earlier and the ninth straight year of decline for the first half of the year, the National Police Agency said

SNAP OUT OF IT, BOYS!
For the first time in 11 years in the major leagues, the batting average of Seattle Mariners star outfielder Ichiro Suzuki was below .300 at the All-Star break (.270).

Meanwhile, another once-mighty ballplayer from these shores, Hideki Matsui of the Oakland A’s, was mired in the worst slump of his nine-year MLB career with an anemic .209 batting average at the break.

The only representative of Japan at this year’s Midsummer Classic in Arizona was a batting practice pitcher—San Francisco Giants trainer Taira Uematsu, who threw BP for the National League.

The Sauber Formula One team was fined €20,000 for an incident in the pits involving driver Kamui Kobayashi at the British Grand Prix, when he banged into Pastor Maldonado’s Williams.

A blind man in Iwate Prefecture has been scarred psychologically after experiencing the deadly March 11 tsunami, saying the smell of seawater now brings him back to that horrible day.

Due to a poor harvest for the second straight year, the price of eel—a traditional summer dish—was up in Japan.

Sentence of the Week: “But for an increasing number of adventurers seeking a laid-back, low-cost lifestyle, the dream can turn to disillusionment, loss of vital organs or even death.”—From an Asahi Shimbun story on Japanese men hooking up with younger Philippine women and moving to the Philippines.

Headline of the Week: “14 children pronounced brain dead in past year did not donate organs despite legal changes”—Courtesy of The Mainichi Daily News

Hear No Evil Speak No Evil

See No Evil

When Is A Pen

A Camera?

Cranes For

Survivors

Tepco redress: from tourism to tea
Education ministry panel wants damages awarded across a wide spectrum of industries
By TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writer
Tokyo Electric Power Co. must compensate travel agencies, inns and hotels nationwide for cancellations made by foreign travelers fearing radiation from Tepco's stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, a government panel said Friday.

The panel under the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry also said, in an interim report on the scope of Tepco's compensation, that the utility must expand its compensation to the tea, flower, beef and manufacturing industries.

The amount of damages was not specified, nor was how a utility that has suffered a massive net-worth devaluation and vast other redress demands would be able to cough up the compensatory funds.