Daily Japan Headlines: Wednesday, Aug 31, 2011
Photo Source: Daily Mail.
Taiwan News: One man and his dog have only each other company in Japanese town abandoned after earthquake
In this nuclear no-man’s land poisoned by radiation from a disaster-battered power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura refuses to leave despite government orders.
He says he has thought about the possibility of getting cancer but prefers to stay – with a skinny dog named Aki his constant companion.
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Business Week: Japan’s lower house elects Noda new prime minister
Japan’s lower house has elected former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as the country’s new prime minister.
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ABC Australia Audio: Noda ‘man of the moment’ for Japan
In a final campaign pitch to his party, he likened himself to an eel-like fish, saying “I can’t be a goldfish”.
It was an attempt to differentiate himself from some of his more charismatic rivals, whom he narrowly defeated in a run-off vote in five-way contest for the top job.
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Wall Street Journal: With Noda as PM, Loach Hot Pot, Anyone?
Shadow shoguns, backroom deals, veiled threats — Japanese politics has often been held up to be a fishy business.
Now, thanks to the loach, it’s official.
Japan’s prime minister-elect Yoshihiko Noda this week made an unusual pitch to members of his party for the top job, comparing his appearance to the humble loach – a hardy, bottom-feeding fish that lives, among other places, in ditches. Ever since, the loach has become the “it” fish – but mostly because puzzled observers have been trying to figure out not just exactly what a loach is, but also why it might best describe Mr. Noda.
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Telegraph: Japan earthquake ‘increases likelihood of Tokyo disaster’
Scientists at the Tokyo Earthquake Research Institute said there was evidence that pressures on the tectonic plates that meet below the city have changed, raising the possibility of two or more focal points on the plate boundaries shifting simultaneously. That would result in an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.3, they estimate.
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BBC Video: Japanese take volunteer trips to clean up after tsunami
Hundreds of people in Japan pay to sleep on a bus just to wake up the next day to work for free helping clear up after March’s earthquake.
The journey takes 12 hours each way, but there’s still a lot to be done in Ishinomaki and other cities in the North-East of Japan destroyed by the tsunami.
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Wall Street Journal: Japan Finds Radiation Spread Over a Wide Area
The first comprehensive soil survey from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant showed extensive ground contamination and another report warned of the continued threat to Japan’s food chain, underscoring the major challenges the country still faces in its radioactive cleanup efforts.
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Bloomberg: Japan Carmakers Boost Production ‘Like We Never Have Before’ After Quake
Automakers are trying to compensate for production lost between March and May, and plan to manage the supply chain better in the future so they can maintain the “just-in-time delivery method” that is Japan’s strength, Toshiyuki Shiga said in Tokyo today.
“All the automakers are boosting production like we never have before, and suppliers are preparing for expanding production in the second half as well,”
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BBC: Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony to form LCD display company
Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba are planning a joint venture to make small and medium-sized LCD displays for tablet PCs and smartphones.
They will use money from the Japanese government to help them compete with rivals from Taiwan and South Korea.
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Daily Mail: Sony unveils world’s first 3D head-mounted display that is as immersive as ‘sitting in a cinema’
The HMZ – which stands for head-mounted display – displays footage that is crystal clear.
It is equipped with two 0.7in high definition organic light emitting diode (OLED) panels and 5.1 channel dynamic audio headphone.
The gadget enables the wearer to experience cinema-like viewing, equivalent to watching a 750-inch screen from 20 metres away
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San Francisco Chronicle: Tesco Plans to Sell 129-Store Japanese Unit on Lack of Scale
Tesco Plc, Britain’s largest retailer, plans to sell its 129-store Japanese unit because it cannot build a “sufficiently scalable business” there eight years after entering the market.
The stores will remain open during the sale process, the Cheshunt, England-based grocer said in a statement today. Same- store sales in Japan fell 6.4 percent in the first quarter, making it Tesco’s worst-performing business in the period.
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UPI: South Korea pushed on sex slave issue
South Korea ‘s Constitutional Court says the government must work harder to reach a settlement with Japan over the compensation of World War II sex slaves.
The court ruled this week that the government’s failure to settle disputes over the compensation of as many as 200,000 women forced to work as “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers is unconstitutional, Yonhap reported Wednesday.
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Wall Street Journal: Slavery, Dignity and Japan, 66 Years Later
My slavery in Japan officially ended on Sept. 2, 1945, when Japanese and American representatives signed the formal surrender documents for the Pacific War. For nearly three years I was an American prisoner of war slave laborer for Mitsui Mining. I had survived the Bataan Death March on the Philippines and a “hell ship” to Japan only to be sold by Japan’s military to the Mitsui conglomerate. Since liberation I have struggled to regain the dignity that both Imperial Japan and Mitsui stripped from me. – Mr. Tenney
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BBC Audio: Inside the Yakuza
Japan’s police are cracking down on the Yakuza, the mafia-like crime syndicates, which control large swathes of the country’s economic activity.
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