Japan FY 2013 budget requests hit record 102 tril. yen
News On Japan via Mainichi -- Sep 07
Budget requests by Japanese government offices for fiscal 2013 total more than 102 trillion yen ($1.3 trillion), the most ever, officials said Friday, highlighting swelling welfare costs and increasing sovereign debt, already the highest in proportion to the economy in the industrialized world.
The requests from ministries and agencies, covering both general-account spending and expenditures for reconstruction work following the earthquake and tsunami last year, topped the previous record of 98.47 trillion yen for the current fiscal 2012.
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 )