Road Kill and Japanese News

Monday September 24

Fukuda defeats Aso in LDP presidential race
Yasuo Fukuda scored a convincing win in the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election Sunday but will immediately face a host of problems as the nation’s new leader.
Fukuda received 330 votes in Sunday’s vote while Taro Aso, the party’s secretary-general, received 197 votes.

All LDP Diet members as well as representatives of the 47 party prefectural chapters took part in Sunday’s vote.

In a “Shocking” development to those men from Mars Yasuo Fukuda will be the next Prime Minister of Japan.

Animals become a growing menace on roads
Despite the efforts of highway operators, animals are still entering roads and causing an increasing number of traffic accidents, some with deadly consequences.

Fences have been set up and other measures taken to keep the animals off the streets, but those steps have had limited success.

“It is difficult to prevent all types of animals from entering the roads because their ways of living are different,” said an official at an expressway management office. “Monkeys, for example, can climb over fences.”

Ah! Road Kill Japanese style. They had better adapt West Virginia’s Road Kill Laws “QUICK”

Young people gather at LDP HQ to cheer for Aso
Kyodo News

About 300 people, including many youths, gathered Sunday in front of Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo to cheer for LDP Secretary General Taro Aso, a big fan of “manga” comic books, as he made an unsuccessful bid to become the next prime minister. Chanting his name and waving “Yes! Aso” placards, the youths, most of whom were dressed in jeans and carrying backpacks, showed up in response to calls posted on the Internet.

Author of ‘Princess Masako’ criticizes protests by Japan gov’t
The author of a controversial book on the life of Crown Princess Masako criticized the Japanese government Friday, saying its protest against the book’s contents infringes on freedom of speech.

“Bureaucrats are behaving as if the Constitution was never enacted and the government still has its prewar powers to censor everything you read,” said Ben Hills, an Australian journalist who wrote “Princess Masako, Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne.”

Yamato rapped over record fabrication
Yamato Transport Co., one of the nation’s major express delivery firms, had been instructed by an Osaka labor standards inspection office to improve its practices following an investigation that suggested it had fabricated records of delivery drivers’ work hours and to failed to make overtime payments in light of the firm’s violation of the Labor Standards Law, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Saturday.

Such practices have been conducted at some distribution centers in the Kansai area.

Tuesday September 24

Journalist to sue NHK over report on source
A journalist said she plans to sue Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) for falsely reporting that she gave prosecutors the name of a source who provided her access to police papers about a teenage arsonist.

Quotations from the confidential papers appeared in her book about the teen.

Wednesday September 26

Police charge dead man with killing wife, 3 sons in Aomori
Police sent papers to prosecutors Tuesday on a dead man who allegedly killed his wife and three sons in June in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture before later committing suicide. Although his motivation for the alleged murders is still unknown, the suspect, Hideto Sawada, has been found to have had several million yen in debts, including loans from a consumer credit firm, the police said.

U.S. House bill would require N. Korea to release abductees
  U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced a bill Tuesday that would require the United States to keep North Korea on its state sponsors of terrorism list until Pyongyang releases 15 abducted Japanese nationals Japan says remain in North Korea.
  The bill, referred to as the ”North Korean Counterterrorism and Nonproliferation Act,” also stipulates the U.S. president must certify that North Korea no longer engages in missile or nuclear proliferation, supports terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Japanese Red Army, or conducts terrorist activities.

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama proposed Tuesday scrapping the rule requiring the justice minister’s signature for executions because “no one wants to put his signature on an execution order.”

Under the Criminal Procedure Law, the justice minister is required to sign and issue an execution order within six months after a death sentence is finalized.
“The law should be abided by,” Hatoyama told a news conference after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet resigned. “But no one wants to put his signature on an execution order.

You “little whinnier” If you find it so repugnant then Cowboy-Up and repeal the Japan’s capital punishment law and change it to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Which could lead to Japans removal from Amnesty Internationale’s watch list for the mistreatment of prisoners.

Thursday September 27

Sumo stable likely faces charges in death
INUYAMA, Aichi Prefecture–Well-known sumo stablemaster Tokitsukaze will likely face charges in the death here in June of a novice wrestler who he savagely beat with a beer bottle for trying to quit the sport, police sources said. The boy, then 17, died on the day after the beating while he was practicing for a tournament.

Seven hospitals in Mie Prefecture refused to admit a foreigner last year who was in urgent need of medical help after delivering a baby unassisted at her home, officials revealed Thursday.

The incident, which was blamed on difficulties with communication and treatment, is the latest in a spate of emergency services rejections due to an apparent lack of hospital beds.

Ailing NOVA under pressure to pay teachers’ delayed wages

OSAKA — A labor union will ask a governmental labor inspection office to demand troubled English school NOVA pay its teachers their delayed wages.

NOVA started to delay paying wages to its Japanese staff members in late July, and has been late paying its foreign teachers since Sept. 14, General Union officials said.

The General Union in Osaka will formally ask the Osaka Chuo Labor Standard Inspection Office on Thursday to demand NOVA pay delayed salaries.

The union recently sent a letter to the president of NOVA and asked him to promptly pay staff wages. The letter demanded a reply by Sept. 26, but the company told the union to wait until Oct. 5 for an answer. (Mainichi)

Kitanippon Shimbun writer plagiarized textbook
The Kitanippon Shimbun newspaper admitted Tuesday that one of its editorial writers plagiarized from a geography book written by a middle school teacher in a front page column of the morning edition of the paper’s Sept. 8 issue.

The newspaper told reporters at a press conference that the “Tenchijin” (Heaven, Earth and Man) column written by Noboru Kusunoki bore a close resemblance to a section of the book written by Katsushi Udagawa, a middle school teacher in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture.

Friday September 28

Japanese journalist killed in Myanmar
A Japanese video journalist who was covering the protests in Myanmar was found dead Thursday after shots were fired in Yangon, Japanese government officials said.

The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo identified the man as Kenji Nagai, 50, a journalist on contract with APF News, a Tokyo-based video news agency.

Photo of Kenji Nagai

Finally here’s a story about Akihabara

While the Establishment packages Electric Town as a mecca for manga and anime obsessives, and a magnet for camera- toting tourists, the reality differs: ‘Akiba’ is alienating the geeks who once made it great
It’s a humid and gray day in Akihabara around high noon. The late summer is inviting lethargy and the Tokyo district’s neon colors will also be muted until nightfall.

The increasingly famous girls have yet to arrive on “Maid Row” to hand out fliers for their maid cafes,