Daily Japan Headlines: Friday, Sept 30, 2011
Photo Source: Flickr – Michael Foley.
Washington Post: DC’s Cherry Blossom Festival set to expand to mark 100th year of trees in 2012
Organizers of the National Cherry Blossom Festival are expanding the festivities next year to five weeks, and first lady Michelle Obama will serve as honorary chair of the event marking the 100th anniversary of the gift of trees from Japan.
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Bloomberg: World’s Biggest Pension Fund Plans to Start Investing in Emerging Markets
Japan’s public pension fund, the world’s largest, will start investing in emerging market stocks by the end of the year as it diversifies assets to maintain stable returns.
The Government Pension Investment Fund, which oversees 114 trillion yen ($1.5 trillion), is in the final stage of deciding the managers who will handle the investments
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UPI: Earthquake shakes northeastern Japan
A magnitude-5.4 earthquake Thursday evening shook the region of northeastern Japan that includes the Fukushima nuclear power plant, authorities said.
Kyodo news service reported the Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake occurred near the coast of Fukushima at 7:05 p.m.
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Bloomberg: BOJ Governor Shirakawa Says Japan Banking System Healthy
Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said the nation’s banking system is healthy.
He also said in a speech in Tokyo today that the yen is strengthening because it’s considered a relatively safe currency.
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Bloomberg: It’s 1987 Without the Bubble in Japan
Japan’s labor force shrank last month to its smallest size since October 1987, when the nation’s stock-market benchmark was 185 percent higher and land prices were 85 percent greater than today.
Employers cut payrolls by 160,000 and a further 200,000 workers retired or abandoned efforts to find a job, leaving the seasonally adjusted number of employed at 59.4 million
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Bloomberg: Sony Says It Expects ‘Huge Impact’ on Profit From Euro Slump
Sony Corp. (6758), Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, said it expects a “huge impact” on earnings from the weaker euro, underscoring the company’s vulnerability to the European debt crisis.
“There are no countermeasures that we can take for the moment,”
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Reuters: Australia, Japan sign open skies aviation agreement
Australia and Japan have signed an open skies aviation agreement that will allow Australian carriers fly into smaller Japanese airports, just as flag carrier Qantas looks to set up a low-cost airline partnership in Japan.
The deal allows unlimited flights between the two countries, including to Tokyo’s Haneda airport, and lifts capacity restrictions at Tokyo’s larger Narita Airport from 2013
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LA Times: Japanese firm to pay $200 million for price fixing
Furukawa Electric Co. agreed to plead guilty and pay a $200 million fine for a price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracy involving the sale of parts to carmakers.
Three executives, Junichi Funo, Hirotsugu Nagata and Tetsuya Ukai, also agreed to plead guilty and to serve prison time in the U.S. ranging from a year and a day to 18 months, the Justice Department said in a statement today.
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ABC Australia: Japan jails ‘Pink Panther’ jewel thief
A Japanese court has jailed a member of the notorious Pink Panther gang of international jewel thieves for his role in a multi-million-dollar gem heist.
Rifat Hadziahmetovic was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in a raid on a Tokyo boutique four years ago.
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Guardian: Rugby World Cup 2011: Romania and Japan leave tournament disappointed
“We thought Japanese rugby had improved over the last four years, but we have found out we are far from first class,” said Tatsuzo Yabe, the chairman of the Japan Rugby Football Union. “We have a huge goal of making the 2019 World Cup a success and to reach that goal Japan must join the top-tier nations at all costs. There are a number of areas we need to improve in and we have to correct them one by one.
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Chicago Tribune: Wasabi alarm, beetle sex win Ig Nobel spoof prizes
Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of Japan for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi — a pungent horseradish — to awaken sleeping people and for applying this knowledge to invent a wasabi fire alarm.
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