Daily Japan Headlines: Thursday, Aug 4, 2011
Photo Source: CNet.
CNet: Giant teddy bear robot can pick you off the floor
Developed by the Riken research center and Tokai Rubber Industries, the new Robot for Interactive Body Assistance can now lift patients weighing up to 176 pounds, better than its previous load limit of 134 pounds.
It can also bend down and deposit or pick up patients on the floor. This is useful in Japan, where people often sleep on futon floor bedding or relax on floor tatami mats.
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NY Times: Japan Buys Dollars to Weaken the Surging Yen
Japan said Thursday that it had intervened in the foreign exchange market, selling yen and buying dollars in a bid to reverse a punishing spike in the value of the Japanese currency.
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Reuters: Fukushima disaster not “unforeseen”-NRC commissioner
Emerging evidence shows that a tsunami like the one that overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March could happen once every 1,000 years or less, said George Apostolakis, one of three Democrats on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
That kind of frequency would be unacceptable for U.S. plants not to be prepared for and it showed the plant was not adequately designed to protect against events that were within the realm of probability, Apostolakis said.
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Reuters: Japan to sack top officials over nuclear disaster
Japan may replace three senior bureaucrats in charge of nuclear power policy, the minister overseeing energy policy said on Thursday, five months after the world’s worst atomic crisis in 25 years erupted at Fukushima.
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Reuters: Analysis: Energy policy chaos threatens Japan’s economy
Political disarray over Japan’s energy policy will make it tough for Tokyo to avert a total nuclear shutdown next summer and presents a long-term threat to the world’s third-largest economy.
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Reuters: Japan to end key social programme, may pave way for passage of bills
The ruling Democratic Party reached an agreement with the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the New Komeito Party to scrap a child allowance programme, one of the key campaign pledges that helped it take power in 2009, media reports said.
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BBC Video: Thousands still homeless months after tsunami
Five months on many people are still living in shelters and temporary accommodation.
Affected residents admit that they ‘must endure’ the hard times ahead.
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AFP: Japan police raid cult behind 1995 subway attack
Japanese authorities on Monday raided buildings used by the doomsday cult behind the 1995 deadly sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway, news reports said.
Some 300 officers of the Public Security Intelligence Agency were mobilised for the inspection of 27 offices and practice halls of the Aum Supreme Truth cult across the nation
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Fox News: China Says Japan Defense Comments Irresponsible
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu says in the statement that China’s defense and military modernization drive does not target any country and is solely for safeguarding its own sovereignty, security and territorial integrity.
Japan’s report said Tokyo continues to be concerned by exercises held in the Pacific and in waters surrounding Japan.
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Wall Street Journal: Seoul, Tokyo in Land Dispute
Seoul announced Wednesday new steps to assert its control over two tiny islands also claimed by Japan, including plans for a $1.5 million weather station and offering promotions to South Korean police stationed on the one habitable island.
Heated rhetoric this week over Japanese claims to the islands—known as Dokdo in South Korea and Takeshima in Japan—was met mostly with shrugs in Japan, where worries over the strong yen, contaminated food and rebuilding dominated conversation.
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Sydney Morning Herald: Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy start merger talks
Hitachi, Japan’s biggest industrial electronics firm and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the nation’s leading heavy machinery maker, may merge to create one of the world’s largest infrastructure firms with more than $US150 billion ($140 billion) in combined sales, two sources said.
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Washington Post: Harvesting Energy From Radio Signals: Two New Devices From Japan
Gleaning electricity from radio signals isn’t super-efficient (or a new concept), but it’s possible technically. Two companies from Japan have recently come up with new devices that can do just that: one is harvesting energy from cell phone signals, the other uses a rectifying antenna (Rectenna) to produce energy.
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ESPN: Rabid Reaction: Yu know what time it is
A month ago, I had never even heard of him. Now I’m convinced that the Rangers have to have him. I’m talking about spectacular 24-year old Japanese MLB-ace-in-waiting Yu Darvish.
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UPI: Japan to honor women’s soccer champions
Japan’s women’s soccer team will receive one of the nation’s highest awards for winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the government has announced.
The People’s Honor Award will be bestowed on the Nadeshiko Japan team by Prime Minister Naoto Kan Aug. 18, the first time it has been given to a group, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Tuesday.
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LA Times: Former Japan defender Matsuda dies
Former Japan defender Naoki Matsuda died in hospital on Thursday, two days after collapsing during training from a suspected heart attack. He was 34.
Matsuda, who won 40 caps for Japan and represented his country at the 2002 World Cup, had been put on an artificial respirator after arriving at hospital unconscious on Tuesday.
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