Random Japan

HIDE AND SEEK

• Apparently, a South Korean magazine, Weekly Chosun, claims to have tracked down Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota, alive and well and living in Pyongyang. North Korea admitted snatching a 13-year-old Yokota in 1977, but they claim she killed herself in 1994.
• The captain of a Chinese fishing boat was arrested in Japanese waters off Nagasaki after leading the Coast Guard on a chase. Sound familiar?
• The body of a 35-year-old Iwate man missing since the March 11 tsunami was discovered by his wife in a crushed car being kept at a temporary junkyard.
• A powered exoskeleton robot-like suit made by Tsukuba-based Cyberdyne, which would come in handy during nuclear accidents, “features computer-controlled, motorized limbs, which respond to a user’s movements.”
• The Daidogei World Cup of street performers featured 87 acts from 21 countries doing their thingat a Shizuoka park.

stats

• ¥428.3 billionAmount uncovered by the Board of Audit in “wasteful or misused government spending in 2010, including grants to local governments that agree to host construction of nuclear power plants”
• ¥1.79 trillionThe record “wasteful or misused” high, set in 2009
• 2,050,495People on welfare here in July, an all-time record for a month in Japan, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry report
• 2,046,646The previous monthly high, set back in 1951 in the aftermath of World War II, when Japan started recording such data
• ¥576 billionAnnual loss the Tokyo Electric Power Company, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, expects for the year ending in March
• ¥1.8 trillionTEPCO’s total deficit from the nuclear disaster, with Y1.02 trillion to be paid out in compensation
• 86 percentDrop in TEPCO shares since March 11
  
  

  LIGHT-FINGERED GRANNY

  • A 79-year-old Tokyo pickpocket, known as the “Depachika (department store basement) Sato Granny,” was arrested for trying to steal money from a person’s bag so that she could bet on the boat races. It was her 23rd arrest.
  • Not to be outdone, a real estate company employee was in hot water forusing some ¥600 million in maintenance fees to bet on the ponies.
  • A taxi driver from Chiba Prefecture and a 15-year-old girl were arrested for running a ring of six high school hookers.
  • A 25-year-old man in Australia was found guilty of manslaughter forbeating to death 67-year-old Magno Alvarado in a drunken ragethat he claims he doesn’t remember. The killer was apparently yelling that the victim was Japanese and deserved what he was getting, part of an expletive-filled racist rant.
  • A group of enterprising young university students from Shiga Prefecture has come up with a way of making T-shirts from used cigarette butts.
  • The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Peter Webber will direct the historical epic Emperor, “set in the days immediately following the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II.”
  • In Jakarta, 28 girls were chosen to be part of JKT48, “the first official overseas sister group of (Japanese idols) AKB48.”
  • Reina Ikeda, 24, a model who finished second in the “Miss Tokyo Girls Collection” fashion event in 2008 and who went by the stage name Laina, was dinged for illegal drug use.
  Yes I'm BlondeNow Give Me The Damn Cake
  Snatch Grab Arrested
  Now That's One LongPiece Of Meat
  
  
  
  Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011
  
  
  ANALYSIS

  DPJ, LDP face national-level splits

  Osaka victors' next target: Lower House

  
  
  By ERIC JOHNSTON
  Staff writer
  OSAKA — Sunday's overwhelming victories by Toru Hashimoto and Ichiro Matsui in the Osaka mayoral and gubernatorial elections have put Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and the established parties on notice as speculation grows that Hashimoto's local Osaka Ishin no kai group will field candidates in the next Lower House election.In the closely watched mayoral election, Hashimoto, the former governor, won with 750,813 votes to incumbent Mayor Kunio Hiramatsu's 522,641.