Daily Japan Headlines: Tuesday, Sept 13, 2011
ABC News: Number of Centenarians in Japan Tops 47,000
Quickly graying Japan said it has a record 47,756 people aged 100 or older — most of them women.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Tuesday that was an increase of 3,307 from last year and four times more than a dozen years ago.
Some 87.1 percent are women. The oldest is 114-year-old Chiyono Hasegawa, who was born on Nov. 20, 1896. The oldest man is 114-year-old Jirouemon Kimura, whose birthday is April 19, 1897.
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BBC: Inside Japan’s nuclear ghost zone
Nothing stirs in the empty heart of Tomioka, a community of 16,000 now reduced to the eerie status of a ghost town after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
The shops of the main street are deserted, motorbikes and cars are abandoned, weeds push through gaps in the concrete.
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BBC: Nine North Korean refugees sail to Japan
Japanese Coast Guards say they have found a boat carrying nine people, who say they are North Koreans, off the country’s west coast.
Sailors found the wooden boat, carrying three men, three women and three boys, off the Noto Peninsula near Kanazawa.
The group told officials they wanted to go to South Korea. One man reportedly said he was a member of the military.
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Time: Japan Questions 9 North Korean Defectors
Japanese authorities questioned nine suspected North Korea defectors Wednesday, considering their request to be sent to South Korea after they were found in a small wooden boat off Japan’s western coast.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura hinted that it was leaning toward honoring the group’s desire to be sent to South Korea.
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Washington Post: Japan’s search for good leadership goes on
Japan has had 15 prime ministers in 20 years. Few have managed to sell the public on a vision about how post-bubble Japan should adapt as its population shrinks and workforce declines. The five prime ministers since 2006 who preceded Noda lasted, on average, 360 days. Four were either the sons or grandsons of former prime ministers.
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BBC: New Japan PM Noda in nuclear restart call
New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has called for nuclear plants halted after the Fukushima crisis to be restarted.
But in his first policy speech since taking office, he told parliament that Japan should aim to reduce its reliance on nuclear power in the long term.
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UPI: Noda promises new energy policy soon
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda promised a new energy policy to reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear energy.
In his first speech to Parliament as prime minister, Noda said the basic energy policy would be ready by next summer
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UPI: Tax hikes likely for Japan reconstruction
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is likely to propose temporary tax increases to finance earthquake reconstruction, government sources told Kyodo News.
The tax commission’s proposals, which could come by the end of this week, would offer a set of options to raise corporate and individual income taxes for as long as 10 years for the rebuilding effort in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
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Telegraph: Japan creates online ‘chat robots’ to converse with language students
The chatbots, created by the language education company SpeakGlobal, can be accessed online and students are also able to participate in the “virtual world” in which the robots inhabit.
“SpeakGlobal has developed online robots that look and move like a human, speak aloud and its dialogue lines appear on the user’s computer screen,” said the company in a statement.
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