Daily Japan Headlines: Tuesday, Jan 17, 2012
CNN: Japan’s pop music impresario.
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ABC Australia: Japan delayed release of radiation details
A Japanese government official has admitted information about the spread of radiation from Fukushima was provided to the United States more than a week before it was given to the Japanese public.
The official from the Science and Technology Policy Bureau says the government passed the information to the US military first in a bid to get its support in helping with the crisis.
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Bloomberg Video: Japan’s `Whistle-Blower’ Protection Weak
Nicholas Smith, a Japan strategist at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets Ltd., talks about the accounting scandal at Olympus Corp. Olympus, the Japanese camera maker that hid $1.7 billion in losses, faulted five internal auditors for the fraud and filed a lawsuit against them, the company said yesterday.
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NPR: Olympus Probe Finds 5 Auditors Responsible
An internal investigation at Olympus Corp. found that five current and former auditors are responsible for a combined 8.38 billion yen ($109 million) in losses linked to the Japanese company’s accounting scandal, and plans to sue them.
The panel’s report released Tuesday said it found two accounting firms hired by Olympus as external auditors, KPMG Azsa LLC and Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC, had not violated their fiduciary duties.
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UPI: Japanese firm to pay $55M criminal penalty
A Japanese trading firm will pay a $54.6 million criminal penalty for its role in a scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Marubeni Corp. of Tokyo was accused under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of participating in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction contracts.
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Wall Street Journal: Ben Stein Sues Kyocera Over Ad Campaign
In the complaint, Mr. Stein alleges all that was left to sort out was the kind of tea and snacks to serve during the commercial shoot when in February 2011, two months after the company first approached him, printer making unit Kyocera Mita questioned “whether Ben Stein’s views on global warming and on the environment were sufficiently conventional and politically correct for Kyocera.”
The Kyoto-based company has prided itself on its eco-friendly measures to combat global warming – in December, it won the annual award from Japan’s environment ministry in December, lauded for its initiatives to “cope with global warming.” According to the complaint, Mr. Stein responded to a question from the company seeking to ascertain his views on global warming that while he was concerned about the environment, “he was by no means certain that global warming was man-made, a position held by many scientists and political conservatives.”
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It is the little-known battle that claimed the lives of thousands of Americans during World War II.
But now black-and-white photographs, captured by Life magazine photographer W. Eugene Smith, show the everyday horrors for the U.S. soldiers fighting against Japanese forces on the Mariana Island of Saipan between June 15 and July 9, 1944.
The photographs were taken during a battle that claimed the lives of 22,000 Japanese civilians – many by suicide – and nearly all 30,000 Japanese troops on the island. Of the 71,000 American troops who landed on Saipan, 3,426 perished, while more than 13,000 were wounded.
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ABC Australia Audio: Nuclear fallout brings bleak winter for Japan tourism
More than 10 months on from the meltdowns at Fukushima and Japan is now confronting more fallout from the nuclear crisis.
The country’s tourism sector is still struggling to convince foreigners that Japan is safe. One of the hardest hit areas are the ski fields 300 kilometres from Fukushima and some of the businesses suffering are run by Australians.
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LA Times: Tommy Lee Jones to ‘Emperor’: Actor to play Gen. MacArthur in political thriller
Tommy Lee Jones will portray Gen. Douglas MacArthur opposite Matthew Fox in Peter Webber’s Japan-set political thriller “Emperor,” a co-production of Fellers Film and Krasnoff/Foster Entertainment.
Inspired by true events, “Emperor” is a story of love and understanding set amid the uncertainties of the days following the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, when MacArthur, as supreme commander of the occupying forces, served as de facto ruler of Japan.
Fox will play Gen. Bonner Fellers, one of MacArthur’s Japan experts, who is charged with reaching a decision on an issue of historical importance: Should Emperor Hirohito be tried and hanged as a war criminal?
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Eatocracy: The secret taste of umami
What do tomatoes, cheese and mackerel have in common?
They are all responsible for umami, the slightly mysterious fifth basic taste now counted alongside sweetness, saltiness, sourness and bitterness. Umami is often likened to savoriness, but defining exactly what it tastes like can be tricky.
“Most people confuse the umami taste for the tastiness of the dish,” said Mikuni who has been promoting the umami taste for more than 20 years. “But they are two entirely different things. Umami is a basic taste, whereas the tastiness of the dish is an appreciation.”
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