| Mar 15 | 2.76 mil. Japanese estimated to have used illegal drugs (Yomiuri) |
| An estimated 2.76 million people in Japan, or about 2.9 percent of the population, have used illegal drugs, according to a survey by a research team of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The percentage is the highest since similar surveys started in 1995 and suggests the use of drugs is growing in this country. The previous highest percentage was 2.7 percent in 2001. |
| Mar 14 | 2 U.S. Marines in Okinawa arrested over drunken driving, obstruction (AP) |
| Two U.S. Marines were arrested Sunday in Okinawa, one on suspicion of drunken driving and another for allegedly obstructing official police duties, police officials said. Both lance corporals at the U.S. Marines' Makiminato Service Area in Urasoe denied the allegations, they said. Jamel Gary, 23, is suspected of drunken driving in Naha shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday, while Christopher Brooks, 24, in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, allegedly obstructed a police officer's attempt to conduct an alcohol test on Gary by throwing himself at the officer, according to them. |
| Mar 14 | Deer in Nara struck by arrow, police launch probe (AP) |
 One of the wild deer in Nara Park, which are designated national natural treasures, was found Saturday with a bow-gun arrow stuck in its abdomen, prompting local police to launch an investigation on suspicion of a person having violated the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties, they said.
A local group protecting the deer removed the 52-centimeter iron arrow from the female deer after anesthetizing it, but the animal is not well due to the serious injuries, group members said.
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| Mar 14 | Scouts' dishonor: dirty Tokyo dozen nabbed for pimping (Tokyo Reporter) |
| Although the practice has been banned by local ordinances, aggressive "scouts" can still be found on the streets of Tokyo and other big cities, energetically recruiting young women to work in bars and sex shops. To get around the laws, some have moved their activity indoors, only to find that illegal as well. Last week Yasuhiro Fuseishi, a 36-year-old former actor, was arrested for arranging parties at which young women were encouraged to take up the world's oldest profession. |
| Mar 13 | Chiba man accused of burning 5-year-old stepson with lighter (Mainichi) |
| A man was arrested here Friday for allegedly abusing his 5-year-old stepson, including burning the child's foot with a lighter. Police arrested Daiki Ishibashi, 22, on suspicion of assault. The suspect has reportedly admitted to the allegations, and the boy has been put under protective custody at a child consultation center. Ishibashi stands accused of burning the sole of his stepson's right foot sometime between late January and Feb. 16, in addition to punching the boy in the face and tumbling him onto the floor. |
| Mar 13 | 7 die in nursing home fire in Hokkaido (AP) |
| Seven people died in a fire at a nursing home for the elderly in Hokkaido Prefecture early Saturday morning, police said. The seven are believed to be residents of the facility in Kita Ward, Sapporo in the northernmost Japan prefecture. One other resident and an employee of the home were injured in the 2:25 a.m. fire, which completely burned down the two-story building in a residential area about 7 kilometers north of JR Sapporo Station, the police said. |
| Mar 13 | Tokyo's Kabukicho teeters on the brink (Tokyo Reporter) |
 Once known as Asia's top entertainment quarter, Shinjuku Ward's red-light district of Kabukicho has seen a hallowing out at its core. Monthly magazine Takarajima (April) takes a look at the devastation wrought by police crackdowns and the ongoing recession.
At the end of 2008, the multi-use Koma Stadium, notably known as a home to enka theater performances for a half-century and situated at the heart of Kabukicho, shut its doors. Over a year later, a construction plan for the site has not been set in place. Meanwhile, near JR Shinjuku Station, a large 10-screen cinema complex has since opened at the edge of the Kabukicho boundary.
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| Mar 13 | 30 Japanese tourists hurt during making of animated Yon-sama drama (AP) |
 Thirty Japanese women were injured in an accident Friday while watching the making of an animated drama starring South Korean heartthrob Bae Yong Joon, according to the Japanese Embassy and South Korean police and firefighters.
While most of the 30 women had only light injuries, one sustained a serious injury to her face, the Japanese Embassy said. The women were in their 30s to 70s.
Three South Korean men were also hurt in the accident.
According to Yonhap News Agency, high winds during the event at an outdoor set in a resort area of Gangwon Province in northeastern South Korea caused part of the set to fall down.
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| Mar 12 | Bullying flap shakes Japan's royals (New York Times) |
 When an official at the Imperial Household Agency suddenly announced last week that 8-year-old Princess Aiko was refusing to go to school because of bullying, he did more than just disclose a mundane problem facing a member of Japan's ancient and secretive monarchy.
He also added a new twist to one of the most riveting but mysterious dramas in Japan, the seven-year depression and seclusion of Aiko's mother, Crown Princess Masako, the Harvard-trained former diplomat. Aiko is the only child of Princess Masako and her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, and is widely known to be one of the few sources of joy for the troubled crown princess.
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| Mar 12 | Luck of the Irish to parade across country (Japan Times) |
 Celebrations for Ireland's most famous holiday are gaining in popularity worldwide, and Japan is no exception. St. Patrick, who helped spread Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, is the country's patron saint. Legend has it that he died on March 17, so the Irish celebrate the day by wearing green, symbolizing the shamrock. In Japan, people have enjoyed the St. Patrick's Day parade since 1992. As an international cultural exchange event, it has become more popular, with recent years seeing around 1,000 participants and 50,000 spectators taking part in Omotesando, Tokyo. This year's parade is on March 14 and starts from Omotesando Hills; it runs from 2 p.m. till 4 p.m.
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| Mar 12 | 70 immigration detainees on hunger strike (Japan Times) |
| At least 70 detainees at the West Japan Immigration Control Center, which has long been criticized by human rights groups and Diet members, have been on a hunger strike since Monday, center officials and volunteers helping them confirmed Thursday. "Around 70 foreigners began a hunger strike Monday night because they want to be released on a temporary basis," Norifumi Kishida, an official at the center, said Thursday morning. |
| Mar 12 | Three teens busted for lifting items from set of pop group AKB48 TV drama (Mainichi) |
 Three teenagers have been arrested for stealing a signboard and other equipments from the set of a TV drama featuring popular all-girl J-pop group AKB48, police said on Thursday.
"We're big fans of them and wanted to obtain whatever they used," one of the boys were quoted as telling police. The stolen items, worth 180,000 yen in total, included a 90 by 25 centimeter signboard and cushions prepared for the shooting as well as coats designed for AKB48 members.
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| Mar 11 | Tuna brokers at Japan's largest fish market rally against proposed Atlantic bluefin ban (canadianbusiness.com) |
 Tuna brokers at Japan's largest fish market protested a proposed international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna Thursday, saying it would unfairly hit Japan and its massive tuna market.
Raw tuna is a key ingredient in traditional dishes such as sushi and sashimi, and the bluefin variety - called "hon-maguro" here - is particularly prized.
"This is like telling the U.S. to stop eating beef," said Kimio Amano, a 36-year-old broker who has worked at the market for 20 years.
But global stocks of bluefin are dwindling, especially in the Atlantic, and governments around the world are increasingly supporting a complete trade ban to let the fish recover. About 80 percent of the species ends up in Japan.
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| Mar 11 | The Cove will segue into a new TV series (chron.com) |
 Fans of The Cove, the environmentally themed film that won the feature documentary Oscar Sunday night, will be happy to know there's more where that came from.
A new television series about the controversial dolphin trade in Japan, tentatively titled Dolphin Warriors, has been green-lighted by Animal Planet.
The series picks up where the movie leaves off and, like the film, stars animal activist Ric O'Barry. Two episodes of the series - being executive- produced by O'Barry's son, Lincoln O'Barry - have been completed, although a premiere date has yet to be announced, Ric O'Barry said.
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| Mar 11 | Strong winds, snow wreak havoc; 140 hurt (Yomiuri) |
| Strong winds and snow battered the Pacific side of the nation Tuesday and Wednesday, wreaking havoc with road, rail and air routes and leaving thousands of homes without power. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, 26 people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo with fall injuries between Tuesday evening, when it began snowing, and 6 a.m. Wednesday. Ten people in Yokohama suffered fall and other injuries, and 46 people in Saitama Prefecture either fell or were involved in skidding accidents. The hazardous weather also brought chaos to the nation's transport network. |
| Mar 10 | Cherry blossoms come out in Kochi, earliest on Japan's main islands (AP) |
| Signs of the full-blown spring season were observed in Japan when cherry blossoms bloomed Wednesday in the western city of Kochi, coming out the earliest in any location other than Okinawa and nearby southern islands, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The "someiyoshino" cherry blossoms in Kochi came out six days earlier than the previous year and tied the record for the earliest blooming on Japan's main islands, which was registered three times in the past -- in Kagoshima Prefecture in 1955 and 1973 and in Wakayama Prefecture in 1959. |
| Mar 10 | Man hired by divorce-seeking husband to seduce wife gets 15 years for her murder (Mainichi) |
| A private detective hired by a divorce-seeking husband to seduce his wife has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for strangling the woman. Prosecutors demanded 17 years' imprisonment for Takeshi Kuwahara, 31, an employee of a private detective agency at the time of the crime, accusing him of murdering Rie Isohata, 32, on April 12, 2009, after the victim found out that her husband and Kuwahara had worked together to plot her divorce. |
| Mar 10 | 6.5% went to tsunami shelters (Yomiuri) |
| Only 32,000 people, or 6.5 percent of residents in Tokyo and eight prefectures who were issued evacuation directives for a tsunami caused by last week's earthquake in Chile, took shelter at designated evacuation centers, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said. Evacuation instructions were issued to 493,000 people, and evacuation recommendations to a further 1.193 million people. |
| Mar 10 | 'Cove' Oscar won't end Taiji dolphin kill (Japan Times) |
| The gala crowd in Los Angeles cheered as "The Cove" won the best documentary Oscar with its grisly portrayal of dolphin slaughter. But residents of this small port shown in the film abhorred the attention and said it will not end their centuries-old tradition. Residents of Taiji gathered in whale eateries with names like Tail and rolled their eyes Monday when told of Oscar laurels for the film, which they see as yet another biased foreign take on their culture. |
| Mar 10 | Trucker busted with 260 stolen undies (Japan Times) |
 Kenichi Ikeda of the city of Nagasaki has carried around three bags and a secret he could not tell his family at home - inside the bags were hundreds of women's undergarments that he had stolen over 10 years, police said. Police arrested the 36-year-old truck driver, who allegedly had stolen about 260 pairs of women's underwear and kept them in bags behind the driver's seat of his truck. "I couldn't leave them home because I have a wife and children," Ikeda was quoted as saying by police.
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| Mar 10 | Japanese game show takes the world by storm (Japan Times) |
 A Japanese game show is taking the world by storm by becoming one of the top TV formats of recent times. "Hole in the Wall" originally started off on Fuji Television Network in Japan, but has been sold now in more than 40 countries across. Executives lay the program's success to its being "fun, fast and zany," adding that the "unique" nature of many Japanese shows often makes them stand out from their European and American counterparts.
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| Mar 10 | Wait long enough and daikon legs get fashionable (Japan Times) |
| Bridget Jones said a woman starts to feel her age when the fashion of the times comes full circle and she witnesses the ghostly resurrection of all the stuff she wore in her youth. I'd like to take that a step further and add that a woman feels her age when she absolutely pines for a time machine just so she can travel back and tell her young self to hold onto that collection of high-waist skirts; they will definitely be back in 15 years. While I'm at it, I might as well advise my younger self to scrap the diet, quit the gym and tuck into that L-saizu box of Maccha Pocky, because one day thick legs will be quite the thing. |
| Mar 10 | Movie director Kitano awarded France's top cultural honor (AP) |
 Japanese film director Takeshi Kitano has been named by France for the title of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters in recognition of his achievements, France's ministry of culture said Tuesday.
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand will bestow France's highest honor for artists on Kitano later in the day, the ministry said.
To commemorate the honor, the films of the 63-year-old will be screened at the Centre Pompidou, a contemporary art museum in Paris, for three months from Thursday and artwork by Kitano will be displayed at another museum in the city from the same day.
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| Mar 10 | Monk arrested for setting fire to temple for insurance (Mainichi) |
| A Buddhist monk has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to his temple and property after insuring them for about 300 million yen, police said. Police accuse Kodo Nishihara, 53, the former chief priest of Seigan-ji temple in the Saitama Prefecture village of Higashi-Chichibu, of pouring kerosene in the temple's main hall and his adjoining home, and setting them alight at around 9:40 p.m. on Nov. 5 last year, burning down four buildings and a car. Nishihara was arrested on suspicion of arson of uninhabited buildings, but has reportedly denied the allegations. |
| Mar 10 | Pet shop manager caught stealing penguin from Japanese zoo (telegraph.co.uk) |
 A security guard at the Nagasaki Bio Park noticed Akira Honda, 24, ushering the Humboldt Penguin into his suitcase in January. According to the zoo, the penguin is worth about Y400,000.
Mr Honda told police that he had run up debts which he intended to pay off by selling the creature to a collector. Humboldt Penguins are native to South America and grow to around 27 inches tall and up to 13lb in weight. They are currently listed as vulnerable, due largely to the destruction of their habitats, and an estimated 12,000 survive in the wild.
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| Mar 09 | The Gardens of Japan: earthly paradise (telegraph.co.uk) |
Kyoto was once the imperial capital of Japan, and it is here that many of the country's finest gardens are to be found. 'Throw nothing away' must always have been the motto of Japanese garden designers, for old and new co-exist in the country's gardens, which have much to tell us about the history of Japan. The oldest surviving gardens belong to the Heian era (794-1185), and they are known in Japanese as chisen shuyu teien, or 'pond-spring-boating-gardens'. The pond was at the heart both of the garden and of the wonderfully leisured, light-hearted and sensuous lifestyle of the aristocracy. The chisen shuyu teien garden was designed to be seen from the water, and the boating parties that took place in it were highly theatrical affairs. Guests drifted about in beautifully carved and painted boats to the accompaniment of music played by an orchestra that floated in the pond on a boat of its own.
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| Mar 09 | Band frontman busted for drug possession (Mainichi) |
 Koichi Nakamura, vocalist for the band Jaywalk, was arrested in Tokyo in the early hours of Tuesday morning on suspicion of drug possession.
The 59-year-old singer is accused of possessing a small amount of stimulants. Nakamura has apparently admitted to the allegation.
According to a source close to the investigation, Nakamura was questioned by police when they saw him parked at the side of a road in the Azabu neighborhood of Tokyo's Minato Ward. The officers discovered about 0.9 grams of illicit drugs in a plastic bag inside an accessory case on the floor of the passenger side of the car.
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| Mar 09 | No. of foreigners overstaying visas in Japan lowest in 21 years (AP) |
| The number of foreign nationals staying in Japan after their visas expired was down 18.8 percent from a year before to 91,778 as of Jan. 1, 2010, slipping below 100,000 for the first time in 21 years, a Justice Ministry survey showed Tuesday. The number of people overstaying their visas has been falling after peaking at around 300,000 in 1993. An official at the ministry's Immigration Bureau said the introduction two years ago of a biometric system using fingerprints to verify identity contributed to the downtrend. |
| Mar 09 | TV gets fickle fans flocking to fads to shed fat (Japan Times) |
 Many people in Japan, especially young women, are keen to diet. Every time the mass media introduce a new way of losing weight, they quickly embrace it as a craze, but also quickly lose interest. Recent diet fads have focused on eating bananas and apples and "kanten" (agar). But are people already slender enough? According to a 2008 report compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 28.6 percent of men in Japan are considered obese.
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| Mar 09 | Taijicho locals slam 'The Cove' Oscar win (Yomiuri) |
| Local people in Taijicho, Wakayama Prefecture, voiced their disappointment over "The Cove" winning the Oscar for best documentary at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, saying the film about the town's dolphin hunting is inaccurate and intolerant of cultural differences. Yoji Kita, head of the Taijicho Municipal Board of Education, said: "The award shows that Westerners lack tolerance--I doubt they have good sense. I think [their lack of understanding] stems from the differences in our religious cultures." |
| Mar 08 | 'The Cove' wins best documentary feature Oscar (AP) |
 "The Cove," a U.S. film about a controversial dolphin hunt at a Japanese town, won the best documentary feature at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards ceremony Sunday in Los Angeles.
Directed by Louie Psihoyos, one of the world's most prominent still photographers, the film depicts, partly through the use of hidden cameras and microphones, the capture of dolphins by local fishermen in the whaling town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture.
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| Mar 08 | Police send 2 more to prosecutors over theft of Peko-chan (Yomiuri) |
 Police have sent two more men to prosecutors over the theft of 17 statues of Peko-chan--a mascot of Fujiya confectionery shops--that were later sold to recycling shops.
Wakayama-Higashi Police Station sent the two, including Hiroshi Inaba, 43, a former gang member on trial on another theft charge, to prosecutors in connection with the theft of the statues, which were worth a combined 1 million yen.
Six people were involved in stealing the iconic statues, which stand outside Fujiya shops, in six prefectures, including Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo, between May 26, 2008, and Feb. 12, 2009.
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| Mar 08 | Museum slammed over WWII exhibition (Yomiuri) |
| Preparations for the opening of the National Museum of Japanese History's permanent exhibition on contemporary Japanese history have stalled after the museum received numerous complaints, particularly regarding its presentation of the Pacific War. The permanent exhibition is scheduled to open March 16. However, a press conference regarding the contents of the new exhibition, initially scheduled for last Tuesday, was put off until Monday. |
| Mar 08 | Foreigners rally over job security (Japan Times) |
 Hundreds of foreign and Japanese people staged a rally Sunday in Tokyo demanding better working conditions and employment benefits for foreign residents. At the annual "March in March" event at Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, said foreign workers have a great need for job security and health care. The event also featured a live music by musicians from various countries, including Senegalese drum sessions and Ainu dancing from Hokkaido.
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| Mar 08 | Crown Prince of Japan visits Ghana (AFP) |
 Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan on Sunday began a three-day official visit to Ghana at the head of a 30-strong delegation.
He was welcomed at Kotoka international airport by Vice President John Dramani Mahama to traditional Ashanti drumming and dance, an AFP reporter saw.
The visit is at the invitation of Ghana and is aimed at boosting ties between the two countries, officials said.
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| Mar 07 | Tokyo ward's buzzing plan fails to repel vandals (Yomiuri) |
| A novel attempt to discourage rowdy youths from loitering in a Tokyo park created quite a buzz--literally--but will be stopped because it proved less effective than having security guards patrol the park. Last May, the Adachi Ward Office installed a device that emits a high-frequency sound audible only to young people in a park that had been regularly vandalized. The noise, similar to the hum made by mosquitoes, was expected to irritate troublemakers hanging out at Kitashikahama Park late at night and force them to go elsewhere. |
| Mar 07 | Japan defends honor in Mito's annual 'natto' speed-eating contest (Japan Times) |
 The annual "natto" fermented soybean speed-eating contest was held Saturday in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, drawing 72 contestants including competitive eating regulars from various parts of Japan and eight people from overseas countries such as Australia.
Participants in the preliminaries had to eat about 100 grams of sticky natto beans mixed with a bowl of about 310 grams of rice. The 10 who advanced to the final stage had to then eat 350 grams of natto. The winner was Masaki Nakamura, a 44-year-old company employee from the city, who set a record time of 30.97 seconds.
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| Mar 07 | Shoplifting teens and sensei secrets; CM of the week (Japan Times) |
| In the special two-hour drama "Garasu no Kiba" (The Glass Fang; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.), an FM radio disk jockey named Akiko (Atsuko Takahata) is asked by the authorities to monitor and supervise a troubled teen named Yuka (Moe Arai). Yuka was caught shoplifting by the police and then released without being arrested. It is hoped that Akiko can somehow counsel her in such a way that she won't get into any more trouble. Akiko talks to the girl over and over and eventually comes to learn of her dysfunctional family background. |
| Mar 06 | Roos have Japanese hopping (The Australian) |
| A community in Japan is seeking help from Australia after sightings of an intruder with an Antipodean gait. Residents in the Mayama district of Osaki City, 400km north of Tokyo, claim to have seen kangaroos. Nurse Natsue Ishikawa, 30, says a roo pulled up alongside her in the fast lane while she drove home. "I looked out of the right window and came face to face with a kangaroo," she said. "It startled me. By the time I had checked the road and looked again, it was gone." |
| Mar 06 | Tokyo Sky Tree: Room with a view (Tokyo Reporter) |
 Tall, steel-framed television transmission towers are not generally thought of as being attractive neighbors.
Yet real estate firm Sky Court is hoping that Tokyo Sky Tree, now under construction in the capital's eastern Sumida Ward, will convey a different image.
The company has taken out newspaper advertising space to promote the units within its Sky Court Oshiage Ichibankan complex as investment properties due to their proximity to the future 634-meter-tall structure, which will make it the world's tallest free-standing tower when it is completed next year.
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| Mar 06 | In Japan, schussing among the spirits (Globe & Mail) |
 Tokachidake (dake means volcanic peak), an active volcano that last spewed in 1989, is 40 kilometres from the small farming town of Furano and offers the purest easily accessed backcountry terrain in the park. We are the first to forge through the forest to break trail for an ascent of Furanodake. We slog higher on the steep slope, cut a path amid wild arms of frozen dancers - the snow-covered silver birch.
Ryounkaku has an excellent onsen, its water coloured rust by iron. But nearby there is a particularly wonderful onsen, the unadorned Fukiage, a short amble down a snowy path from the road. Spirits surely swirl in the steam as water percolates out of the earth amid a forest and falling snow.
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| Mar 06 | Train kills Japanese in Taiwan on biz (Japan Times) |
| A Japanese man died Friday after being struck by a train as it entered a railway station in northern Taiwan, police and media reports said. A railway police spokesman identified the man as Kunimitsu Ando, 35, from Aichi Prefecture. Ando arrived in the southern city Kaohsiung on Tuesday and was traveling on a business visa, the spokesman said. |
| Mar 06 | Parents of starved boy in Nara had been at feud over debts (AP) |
| Relations between the arrested parents of a 5-year-old boy in Nara Prefecture, who they allegedly starved to death, had turned sour over the father's debts, which appeared to have triggered the mother's abuse of the boy, investigative sources said Friday. Mami Yoshida, the 26-year-old mother of the boy, Tomoki, told investigators that she had violently taken out her frustration with her husband on their son because he looked like her husband Hiroshi, 35, whom she began to dislike as the family started to receive debt reminder notices. |
| Mar 06 | Exploding police box men's room leaves one of Chiba's finest with minor injuries (Mainichi) |
| A police officer here got a little more flame than he was expecting when he flicked on his lighter in a police box men's room early Friday and an explosion opened a seven square meter hole in the ceiling. The 51-year-old officer was sent to hospital with minor burns on his face and hands. According to police, there were no explosive materials in the washroom, and when another officer came running after hearing the blast he found a 1.5 meter pillar of flame spewing from the drain in the floor. |
| Mar 06 | Teens charged with murder for knifing two young women (Mainichi) |
| Police here have served new arrest warrants on two young men on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in the deaths of a local woman and her sister's friend, police said. The two youths, 18 and 17, stand accused of entering the home of Misa Nanbu, 20, and stabbing her and her younger sister's friend Mikako Omori, 18, to death with a kitchen knife on the morning of Feb. 10, and also of stabbing a 20-year-old man in the arm. The 18-year-old suspect was the ex-boyfriend of Misa's younger sister, and both youths were already being held on suspicion of abducting Misa's sister. |
| Mar 05 | 4 found dead after house fire in Gunma Pref., two shot in chests (AP) |
| Four people were found dead following a house fire in Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture, Friday morning, two of whom sustained gun shot wounds to their chests, police said. One of the four was identified as Saori Fujiu, 24, while the other three are believed to be her parents, both 53, and her 26-year-old brother, according to the police. Saori Fujiu and a man, who was found dead on the second floor, had gunshot wounds, the police said. |
| Mar 05 | Japanese biker arrested for speeding based on Youtube video (examiner.com) |
 A forty-two year old man in Japan was arrested by local police on March 4th for speeding and other traffic violations based on evidence from a Youtube video showing him going more than 130km/h over the limit on his motorcycle last year.
Police in Wakayama Prefecture, near Osaka, arrested Hiroaki Iwahashi in connection with a Youtube video showing him going at least 188km/h in a 50km/h zone on his 1300cc motorcycle, according to Wakayama Broadcast System.
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| Mar 05 | Crackdown on Tokyo fraud ring closes 'encounter' Internet sites (Tokyo Reporter) |
| Law enforcement authorities from Tokyo and Miyagi Prefecture have shut down a major fraud ring involving online-dating sites designed to generate massive profits out of membership fees, reports Shukan Asahi Geino (Mar. 11). On January 16, Noriyuki Hoshi, the leader of the operation, and ten others were taken into custody by police for defrauding members of deai-kei (encounter) matchmaking sites by hiring male actors to take on online personas of ladies seeking dates. A reporter responsible for covering social media explains to the weekly that the victims were registered with such social networking sites as Mixi and Mobagetown. |
| Mar 05 | Parents held over abuse death (Yomiuri) |
| Police on Thursday arrested the parents of a 4-year-old boy suspected to have died from malnutrition and physical abuse at their hands, the police said. Officers from Warabi Police Station arrested Masami Shindo, 47, unemployed, and his wife, Sanae, 37, both of Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, on suspicion of aggravated abandonment of their second son, Rikito. Rikito died in February 2008 from causes including acute encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain. |
| Mar 05 | Man tied to 6 attacks on women (Yomiuri) |
| A series of sexual assault cases, including a rape in February, have occurred since November within about 500 meters of Ichinoe Station on the Toei Shinjuku Line in Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. According to an investigation source, in all six cases, young women were attacked late at night from behind by a person who covered their mouths and choked them. The Metropolitan Police Department suspects that all the attacks were committed by a young man wearing a knit hat who was sighted around the crime scenes. |