Easter Island statue to give hope to Japan tsunami town
Global Post -- Mar 20
A giant statue from Chile's Easter Island was unveiled in Tokyo Wednesday before it is erected in a small tsunami-devastated northeastern Japanese town as a symbol of recovery.
The three-metre (9.8-foot) Moai statue is a gift from Chile, which pledged to supply a new statue to the fishing community of Minami Sanriku after the town's original was destroyed in the March 2011 quake and tsunami.
"It has been two years since the disaster and reconstruction has just begun," the town's mayor Jin Sato said at an unveiling ceremony.
"I want people to see this new statue and feel hope for the future."
The town's link to Chile, some 17,000 kilometres (11,000 miles) away, dates back to 1960, when a 9.5 magnitude earthquake struck the South American country and killed more than 1,600 people.
A strong 6.1 earthquake has struck off the northern coast of Japan's main Honshu island, seismologists say, but no tsunami warning was issued and there are no immediate reports of damage. (news.com.au )
Yahoo Japan Corp said on Friday night it suspected that up to 22 million of its user IDs may have been "leaked" and it detected an unauthorized attempt to access the administrative system of its web portal Yahoo Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported. (Reuters )
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has unveiled more details of his economic growth strategies using "winning the global market" as the key phrase. (NHK )
A government space panel has determined that Japan should begin developing its next-generation mainstay rocket for satellite launches in fiscal 2014. (NHK )
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )
Police on Friday said that a real estate company employee was stabbed by an unknown assailant in the lobby of an office building near JR Akihabara station. The man is currently in a serious condition in hospital. (Japan Today )