A follow up from last week’s story about SMAP’s big donation. According to Softbank, Japan’s richest man, CEO Masayoshi Son has offered to donate 10 billion yen, or about USD$120 million, to the Japan Red Cross, and other organizations that are working to provide support for those devastated by the recent earthquake and tsunami.

Son [...]

It has been reported that the popular 5 man marketing machine SMAP have made individual personal donations totalling about 400 million yen, or close to USD$5 million, to the Japanese Red Cross Society to help with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that swept through North Eastern Japan. The donations were not made [...]

11 years ago, a 15 year old girl became a major pop star with a debut album that became what is still the best selling album ever in Japan. Utada Hikaru’s “First Love” has sold more than 9.9 million copies, and with it’s success Utada became a massive star. With an upbringing that was shared [...]

The UK’s Daily Mail has reported that Kim Yu-Na is in line for a US$1 million bonus from sponsors for smashing the world record in the ladies figure skating at Vancouver last week. Kim was already the world record holder for scores for both the free programme and overall scores, both of which were [...]

The Financial Times have released a list of the 50 faces that they consider shaped the last decade. The list includes former prime minister Koizumi Junichiro and animated film maker Miyazaki Hayao. According to FT, the list tries to ‘capture individuals who have had a powerful impact on the world or their region – [...]

In the DPJ manifesto which was released prior to the election, in a section entitled ‘Policies to end Wasteful Spending’ there was a curious sentence which said simply:

We will ban “hereditary” Diet seats.

Apparently this doesn’t apply to the highest governmental post in the land, because tomorrow Hatoyama Yukio will become the fourth consecutive [...]

A lot has already been said and written about Ichiro’s achievements of the last few days. To be honest, I don’t know a lot about baseball, having been brought up on a staple diet of cricket in Australia… But having a great love of all sports, and a strong competitive streak, even I can understand [...]