TRAVEL

Coca-Cola Co. drinks made from kale -- a nutritious but not very tasty leafy green vegetable -- could soon turn up on store shelves. Coca-Cola West, the Atlanta-based beverage giant's largest bottler in Japan, said this week it will spend $425.6 million to buy Q'Sai Co., a major Japanese health-food producer whose main product is a green juice called "aojiru" made of kale. Q'sai, a Fukuoka-based company that also produces supplements, soap and cream made of collagen, was put up for sale earlier this year by owners Daiwa Corporate Investment. (adage.com)

Kyushu Railway Co. is making final arrangements to start operations on the Kyushu Shinkansen Line between the cities of Fukuoka and Kagoshima next March 12, sources said Tuesday. JR Kyushu will make a formal decision by the end of September, pending consultations with local governments and West Japan Railway Co., the sources said. The launch date could be moved up or back by about a week because it plans to start the service on the day other JR group firms revise their spring timetables. (Japan Times)

A male teacher in Saga Prefecture was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of stealing a woman's underwear from a self-service laundry in Fukuoka last month while dressed as a "hot blonde in a miniskirt," police said. Tsuyoshi Hirano, 43, a teacher at a prefectural public school for the blind, has admitted to the theft charge, according to the police. He allegedly took two pieces of female underwear from a laundromat in the city of Fukuoka at around 3 a.m. July 18. The underwear belonged to a 22-year-old woman. The police said video from a security camera in the facility showed a man wearing a blonde wig, a camisole and a miniskirt taking underwear away. (Japan Times)

The first group of 50 Ground Self-Defense Force members arrived Sunday in Multan, Pakistan, to help people devastated by the recent major flooding. The first team, primarily from the 4th Division of the Western Army based in Kasuga, Fukuoka Prefecture, will prepare for the arrival of a helicopter unit later this week. Punjab, where Multan is located, is in central Pakistan and is the most populous province. Around 8.2 million people there have been affected and around 500,000 homes damaged. (Japan Times)

Police have arrested a thief here suspected in 87 thefts who spent every evening building up his leg strength to make quicker getaways. Sotaro Ezaki, 26, was arrested specifically for sneaking into a 64-year-old man's house and making off with 1,500 yen in cash on April 12. According to police, he is also suspected in 86 other robberies in Fukuoka, Munakata and four other municipalities from May 2009 through June 2010. Documents have been sent to prosecutors on one of these thefts, committed June 7 this year, when Ezaki allegedly snuck into a 60-year-old man's home in the town of Umi, Fukuoka Prefecture, and stole 65,000 yen. (Mainichi)

Hidetomo Goto of the Democratic Party of Japan moved one step closer to being ousted from the Lower House when a guilty verdict against one of his key campaign staffers was finalized at midnight Monday. Unless Goto files suit with the Fukuoka High Court within 30 days of being mailed court documents notifying him of the finalized verdict - and then wins - his victory in last summer's election will be voided. (Japan Times)

Nepalese police have arrested a 27-year-old Japanese national at Kathmandu's international airport on suspicion of possessing 1.2 kilograms of hashish, an official said Wednesday. Hirokazu Tamura, from Fukuoka Prefecture, was arrested on July 11 while trying to catch a flight to Bangkok, said Deputy Superintendent of Police Dibash Raj Udash of the government's Narcotic Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit. (AP)

A Japanese woman arrested for allegedly strangling her five-year-old daughter to death has told police she also used to trap the child inside a running washing machine, reports said Wednesday. Junko Egashira, 34, was arrested last month after she allegedly killed her daughter Mone, a police spokesman said in western Fukuoka prefecture. The woman admitted that she had several times covered Mone's mouth with adhesive tape, tied up her hands and legs and made her sit in a water-filled washing machine, sometimes turning the machine to spin, the Asahi daily said. (AFP)

Nissan Motor Co. will suspend production for three days starting Wednesday at four domestic plants due to delayed delivery of engine-related parts from Hitachi Ltd., company officials said. The delayed delivery of engine control units will affect production of about 15,000 vehicles at Nissan's plants in Tochigi, Kanagawa and Fukuoka prefectures as well as a plant in Fukuoka Prefecture operated by Nissan Shatai Kyushu Co., the officials said. (Japan Times)

Two Japanese students have won gold medals at an annual international mathematics competition for high school students, which was held earlier this month in Kazakhstan with 517 participants from 96 nations and areas, the education ministry said Monday. Shutaro Inoue, 17, senior at Nada Senior High School in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, and Akio Kishikawa, 18, senior at Kurume University High School in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, were awarded the medals as they finished in the top 9 percent of the contestants in the 51st International Mathematical Olympiad, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (AP)

About 57 percent of homeless people expressed a desire to vote in an election, according to results of a survey conducted by supporters released Wednesday. A group promoting exchanges among supporters of the homeless in Kagoshima Prefecture took the initiative in conducting the survey at parks, Internet cafes and other places in Tokyo and Kanagawa, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Kagoshima and Okinawa prefectures between late June and earlier this month, ahead of Sunday's House of Councilors poll. (Japan Times)

The Fukuoka District Court on Tuesday gave a suspended sentence to a 23-year-old man who caused severe injuries to his 9- month-old daughter by throwing her against a wall. In sentencing Yuki Okada to two years in prison, suspended for four years, Judge Yoshiya Yoshizaki said that Okada had "committed the act after getting upset because his daughter stopped crying when his wife consoled her but started crying when he did the same." (AP)

Police arrested a 24-year-old man on suspicion of attempted murder Thursday after he allegedly threw a 3-year-old nephew out of a window of his condominium to the pavement about 11 meters below in Fukuoka, the prefectural police said. The child survived the fall, although he landed on his chest and was taken to a hospital, the police said. The man suddenly lifted the child from a chair from behind and tossed him out the window shortly past 5 p.m. after he spilled juice on the table, while they, the boy's 25-year-old mother and another family member were having a birthday meal together. (AP)

Every Thursday evening, Mitsuko Koga welcomes foreign residents, including Chinese, South Koreans and Egyptians, to her Japanese-language class at Kashiihama Elementary School in Fukuoka. The class, operated by Yorutomo Kai (Night Friend Society), was created in 2003 by Koga, 41, and other guardians of students attending the city-run school. More than 1,000 foreigners from some 20 countries have attended the class taught by volunteer teachers. (Japan Times)

Seven more officially recognized victims of a 1968 food poisoning outbreak in western Japan filed a suit Friday seeking ¥77 million in damages from Kanemi Soko K.K., the maker of the contaminated cooking oil at the center of the incident. The seven plaintiffs - from Aichi, Osaka, Fukuoka and Nagasaki prefectures - claim they developed skin disorders, deformities and other abnormalities after consuming Kanemi rice bran cooking oil contaminated with toxic polychlorinated biphenyl and other substances. (Japan Times)

A 19-year-old plumber was arrested Tuesday for allegedly assaulting a high school boy who later died at his home here. The plumber stands accused of injuring a 16-year-old high school boy at the parking lot of a convenience store in Fukuoka's Jonan Ward at around 10 p.m. on Sunday, by repeatedly punching the boy in the face, knocking him to the ground and kicking him in the face. The boy later died, and police are investigating the incident as a possible case of inflicting bodily injury resulting in death. (Mainichi)

Hilton Worldwide on Tuesday opened Hilton Fukuoka Sea Hawk in the city of Fukuoka, taking over a Japan Airline Corp. group inn. The JAL group is undergoing bankruptcy procedures. Hilton has removed the JAL logo from the 35-story hotel, which has 1,052 rooms, and plans to invest ¥2 billion to renew the lounge, leisure facilities and other shared space. (Japan Times)

The operator of major eye clinic chain Kanagawa Clinic Ophthalmology Department has filed for bankruptcy proceedings after dozens of infections following laser surgery at a clinic and a warning from the government over misleading pricing. The operator, the Hakubikai foundation based in Tokyo, said Friday that the Tokyo District Court had approved bankruptcy proceedings on Thursday. The foundation said Kanagawa Clinic branches in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka will be passed on to another healthcare group. (AP)

Recent incidents of violence in Fukuoka Prefecture, located on the island of Kyushu, have caused law enforcement authorities to take action against yakuza organized crime groups operating in the region, reports weekly Friday (May 14). On April 13, the commissioner general of the National Police Agency, Takaharu Ando, announced inside an eighth-floor meeting room of Fukuoka's Kokura Kita Police Station that society must rid itself of gangster activities. "Success or failure will be vital to the Kita-Kyushu area," said the 60-year-old. "The elimination will be a war of mountain-sized proportions." (Tokyo Reporter)

A man in his 30s was arrested Wednesday after he pawned a wristwatch of a woman whose mutilated body parts were found in Hakata Bay after disappearing in March, police said. The police are investigating how the man, whose name is withheld because the charge in his arrest warrant is theft unrelated to the murder case, obtained the Greek-brand watch and whether he knows how the woman -- Reiko Moroga, 32, from Fukuoka City -- went missing. (AP)

A 31-year-old man in Fukuoka City was arrested Saturday on suspicion of confining a three-year-old girl he lives with to the bathtub of their home for six hours, local police said. The arrest of Eiji Yamasaki, a company employee, follows the arrest Monday of his wife, Shiho Yamasaki, 28, on suspicion of critically injuring the girl, Miyu Yamamoto, Shiho's daughter by another man. Miyu remained unconscious Saturday. According to the police, Eiji put Miyu in the bathtub and tied her to the faucet by her wrist using adhesive tape, shut the door of the bathroom and left her there between 2 a.m. and 8:20 a.m. last Sunday. (AP)

A human head suspected to be that of a dismembered woman was found floating Thursday near a pier in Hakata Bay in the city of Fukuoka, police said. Also Thursday, a human torso found in almost the same spot the day before was identified through DNA analysis as that of Fukuoka office worker Reiko Moroga, 32, who went missing after leaving work March 5, according to the police. The police suspect the head may also be that of the woman. (Japan Times)

A woman's upper torso was discovered Wednesday morning floating in the waters off a pier in this city's Hakata Port, according to police. Investigators believe the remains, discovered by a dock worker at about 8:45 a.m., may belong to 32-year-old Reiko Moroga, a resident of Fukuoka's Hakata Ward. Moroga's lower torso was found on a beach on Nishi Ward's Nokonoshima Island on March 15, and her severed arms in the waters of a motorboat racecourse in Chuo Ward on April 9. (Mainichi)

Police are intensifying their efforts to smash crime syndicates in Fukuoka Prefecture, as the gangsters stepped up their attacks shortly before the prefectural government enforced a pioneering ordinance penalizing companies that provide money to the syndicates. In March and April, shots were fired into the home of a man who is leading a campaign to eliminate crime syndicates, and into buildings connected with a local gas company that is planning to construct a liquefied natural gas platform in Kitakyushu. (Yomiuri)

Best Denki Co., a Japanese electronics retailer, said its loss widened more than expected in the last fiscal year due to asset-related charges and expenses for loan-loss reserves. Net loss totaled 39.8 billion yen ($427 million) for the 12 months ended Feb. 28, compared with an earlier projection of 30.2 billion yen, the company, based in Fukuoka, southern Japan, said in a preliminary earnings statement. (BusinessWeek)