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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)

Pop idol and actress Noriko Sakai, who was convicted of stimulant drug use and possession last year, has got divorced, her former management company, Sun Music Production, said Friday. Sakai, 39, and Yuichi Takaso, 42, who was also convicted of the same charges last year, had been in divorce talks for months, according to people close to her. In November, Sakai was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, by the Tokyo District Court for smoking a stimulant drug during a family trip to Amamioshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, and possessing the drug at her Tokyo home, both last summer. (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)

Two people died while another went missing Saturday due to heavy rain that hit southwestern Japan, local police said. In Kagoshima Prefecture, a private house was hit by a mudslide in the city of Kirishima, killing Ayako Yamamoto, 54, while Atsuko Uchikura, 76, was found dead in a roadside ditch in the town of Yusui, they said. Uchikura apparently fell into the ditch when she went out to check rice paddies. (AP)

Record-level rainfall in southern parts of southwestern Kyushu caused five municipal governments in Kagoshima Prefecture to issue an evacuation advisory Monday and disrupted train services, affecting thousands of people. The Kagoshima prefectural government and local weather observatory warned of possible disasters from landslides. The Kagoshima city government said that in the five days since Thursday the city had been inundated by the same amount of rain that usually falls in the whole of the annual rainy season. (AP)

A pair of explosive eruptions Sunday on Mount Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture brought the total to 550 this year, setting a new annual record, the local meteorological observatory said. Given that the volcano has been erupting roughly twice as frequently since last year, the number of eruptions could reach 1,000, the observatory said. The previous record of 548 was set last year. (Japan Times)

The foot-and-mouth animal infectious disease has spread within Miyazaki Prefecture to a city serving as Japan's largest livestock industry center as three cows in Miyakonojo tested positive for the highly contagious disease in genetic tests, local officials said Thursday. Located about 50 kilometers away from the town of Kawaminami and its vicinity in the southwestern Japanese prefecture and bordering Kagoshima Prefecture, the latest finding shows a failed effort by the central and local governments to contain the epidemic devastating local livestock. (AP)

The launch of a new Japanese space probe called Akatsuki, which was scheduled travel to Venus on a 2- year mission to study its climate and surface from Tuesday, has been postponed due to unfavorable weather conditions, local media sources reported. The launch is now scheduled for May 21 or later, provided the weather is clear, Jiji press said. The probe was moved to the launch pad in a space center in Kagoshima Prefecture on Monday. (Xinhua)

The Sakurajima volcano in southwestern Japan erupted Tuesday for the 500th time this year, raising the possibility that the mountain will have its most active year on record, beating the current mark of 548 eruptions set in 2009. The Kagoshima Observatory confirmed that the volcano in the middle of Kagoshima Prefecture had the 500th eruption at 2:02 a.m. Tuesday. If the current level of activity continues, the volcano will soon mark the largest number of eruptions since comparable records become available in 1956, it said. (AP)

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is giving much less time to impromptu questions from news reporters than he did immediately after he took office. Some political observers believe this is partly because the prime minister has been criticized for his inconsistent remarks over the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture and other issues. On Friday, Hatoyama answered questions from reporters after discussing the Futenma issue with three mayors from Tokunoshima island, Kagoshima Prefecture, at the Prime Minister's Office. (Yomiuri)

A crowd of about 5,000 gathered in Kagoshima to protest Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's proposal to relocate some functions of the U.S. Futenma base in Okinawa to Tokunoshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture. Three mayors from the island participated in the gathering held at a park in central Kagoshima a day after the local leaders rejected the relocation proposal in a meeting with the prime minister in Tokyo. (Japan Times)

A group rallying against the idea of relocating some of the U.S. Marines stationed in Okinawa to Tokunoshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, said Wednesday it has collected the signatures of about 20,000 residents of the island, about 80 percent of its population, who oppose such a transfer. The group collected about 24,400 signatures in total, of which 20,000 were those of island residents, the group said. (Japan Times)

The United States has rejected the idea of relocating the U.S. Futenma base to Tokunoshima Island, a contentious site favored by the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, because it is too far from Okinawa-based marine units, a government source said Thursday. Hatoyama has suggested his government will pursue the relocation of the air station to the Kagoshima Prefecture island about 200 km to the northeast, but Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Thursday it appears resolving the issue by the end of May as promised is "extremely difficult." (Japan Times)

Astute readers will notice this story is datelined "Kagoshima Prefecture." But given that this island lies just southwest of Amami-Oshima and roughly 100 km from the northern tip of Okinawa, it's no surprise that Tokunoshima feels more like a part of the Ryukyu Islands than Kyushu. Famed for its bullfighting, pristine beaches - one of which, Prince Beach, was named after the Emperor, who visited the area when he was the Crown Prince - and an annual triathlon that draws athletes from all over Japan and abroad, including Olympic champion Naoko Takahashi, who got a local road named after her, Tokunoshima is about as far away from Kyushu as you can get and still be in "Kagoshima." (Japan Times)

Iceland, which is busy cleaning up volcanic ash, may want to take a leaf from Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture. The area in southern Japan is half covered by volcanic ash, better known to the locals as shirasu. In fact, there's so much of it, it can found in everything - from foundations of buildings, to tiled roofs and insulators. More recently, its use has even extended to cosmetics. (Channel NewsAsia)

Long-term residents of Japan might remember the name Rainer Kaminski. In 1985 he made headlines as the first Westerner to become a taxi driver in Tokyo. What happened to him after that? Well, after six months as a cabby based in Setagaya Ward, Kaminski decided he had had a large enough dose of city-living to last him till the grave. He quit in 1986 to move to Yakushima, the island off the southern coast of Kagoshima Prefecture that in 1993 was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO for its ancient cedar forests. (Japan Times)

Some 4,200 local residents held a protest rally here on Sunday against the proposed relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the area. The rally was held in the Kagoshima Prefecture island of Tokunoshima with about one sixth of some 25,000 islanders taking part. Led by the mayors of the three local towns of Tokunoshima, Amagi and Isen, the protesters opposed the central government's plan to relocate Futenma base in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, to the island. (Mainichi)

About 4,200 residents of Tokunoshima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture held a protest rally Sunday following reports that the island is one of the candidate sites being considered by the central government for the relocation of a U.S. Marine base. "There has been no approach from the government and we cannot allow the government to ignore locals and proceed with negotiations on the relocation" of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture, a mayor of one of the three towns on the island said. (Kyodo)

The hopes of engineers in rural Japan are riding on a tiny metal cube due to be launched into space by a Japanese H-2A rocket. If the mission is successful, its makers believe it will show that provincial Japan can compete in the space race and that urban centers do not have a monopoly on highly advanced technologies. The satellite, weighing only 1.4 kilograms, will be fired into orbit from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture in May or later. (Asahi)

Local politicians and residents in Okinawa and Kagoshima prefectures expressed strong dissatisfaction Friday after media reports that the central government is considering relocating a U.S. Marine base within Okinawa or to a Kagoshima island. With Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama having pledged to settle the issue of the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in Okinawa by the end of May, strong local protests will make it difficult for him to meet the deadline. (Kyodo)

Japanese teen-ager Ryo Ishikawa's 13-year-old sister Yoko will make her Japan LPGA Tour debut at this week's T-Point Ladies golf tournament. Just a year out of elementary school, Ishikawa had accepted an invitation to play at the 70 million yen ($775,600) event in Kagoshima, southern Japan, organizers said Wednesday. Ishikawa quickly declared she wanted to follow in her multi-millionaire brother's footsteps and turn professional after some initial butterflies over entering the field. (Reuters)

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. (AP)

A teenager diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) has been allowed to attend her school as a boy from April. The 13-year-old girl, who has felt uncomfortable with her gender since around 2 years old, will attend her public junior high school in Kagoshima as a boy from the new school year. The case comes on the heels of a recent recognition of an 8-year-old boy in Saitama Prefecture to attend the school as a girl after he was diagnosed with GID. (Mainichi)

A cold winter spell is still blanketing many countries in the northern hemisphere. In Japan, many are looking for unique ways to keep warm, while reaping health benefits. The warm sand by the sea in Kagoshima is among the hottest around the globe. The closer one gets to the shore, the hotter it gets. At some places, it is regarded to be around 85 degrees Celsius, while the maximum temperature most people can withstand is around 50 degrees Celsius. Although the mechanism is said to be unknown, it is said to be the only such place in the world. (Channel NewsAsia)

Influential musician and producer Tetsuya Komuro made a comeback Thursday when he gave a concert in western Japan, marking his first solo gig since being given a suspended jail term over a copyright fraud case. Komuro performed songs including his signature work "My Revolution." He plans to give similar concerts in Fukuoka on March 18 and Kagoshima the following day, according to the promoter. (AP)