TRAVEL

A 58-year-old woman is suspected of keeping her father's body inside a closet in their house in Izumi, Osaka Prefecture, after he died there five years ago, police said Wednesday. After the body of a man believed to be Asakichi Miyata -- who would be 91 years old if alive -- was found in the house, the woman told the police that her father was dead when she came home one day five years ago and that she put his body inside the closet shortly afterward, they said. Miyata, a former banker, is believed to have been receiving a pension, and the daughter may have been living off it, according to city and police officials. (AP)

A heat wave continued in Japan on Sunday, with the temperature rising to 35 C or higher at 114 observation points across the archipelago, particularly in western Japan, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The mercury soared to 37.4 C in Osaka, setting a new record for the longest streak of temperatures rising to 35 C or above at 14 days. The weather agency forecast the heat would continue this week and called on people to take precautions against heat stroke. (AP)

The Osaka municipal government said Wednesday it has found that residence registries have been retained for 5,125 people who would be 120 years or older if they were alive, including a man who was born in 1857. The revelation followed the city government's checks on the registries that went online over the last two years, after the problem of missing centenarians came into light nearly a month ago with sloppy bureaucratic paperwork having been partially blamed. An official in charge of the city's residence registries said it was impossible to delete all the data linked to the problem because the municipal government had to work on registries for about 2.9 million people for its online database system. (AP)

The Osaka District Court on Aug. 24 ordered a 63-year-old woman to pay 1 million yen in damages to her 72-year-old male next-door neighbor after years of bothering him with noise by hitting futons. The woman exceeded a court-ordered limit that had been agreed to in an earlier settlement, and the neighbor brought the woman to court, seeking 1.86 million yen in damages for infringing on his right to live peacefully. (Mainichi)

Fast Retailing Co., which runs the popular Uniqlo casual wear chain, will open its first domestic flagship Oct. 1 in Osaka's Shinsaibashi district. The four-story building with one basement floor will be its fifth flagship store, following those in New York, London, Paris and Shanghai. The Shinsaibashi outlet, with 2,650 sq. meters of floor space, will sell the full line of Uniqlo products, ranging from clothes for men, women and babies as well as shoes and other fashion items, the company said Monday. (Japan Times)

Over the past 10 years, 17.7 billion yen in tax money has been used to cover losses incurred by hotels run by the central government workers' mutual aid organization, it has been learned. The Federation of National Public Service Personal Mutual Aid Associations, which runs the KKR Hotels across the nation, spent between 1.5 billion yen and 2.1 billion yen a year in public funds from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2009 to cover the hotels' debts, according to documents from the Finance Ministry, which has jurisdiction over the federation. There are 43 KKR Hotels in 29 prefectures, including Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. In the 1960s, there were about 80. Since then, the government has closed hotels that run in the red for two consecutive years and have negative prospects for the following year. (Yomiuri)

According to traditional belief, Aug. 23 is "shosho," the day when summer's heat begins to wane, but conditions across the nation were still scorching on Monday. At about 2 p.m., the temperature was 36.7 C in Nerima Ward and 35.1 C in Otemachi, both in Tokyo. At the same time, it was 35.4 C in Nagoya and 36.8 C in Osaka. According to the Meteorological Agency, more "extremely hot" days--those that see temperatures of 35 C or more--are expected this week, especially in western Japan. (Yomiuri)

On June 29, about a month before police found the badly decomposed bodies of her two children in her Osaka apartment, Sanae Shimomura posted a photograph of herself on a social networking Internet site. The 23-year-old was wearing a Japan national soccer team shirt and carrying a vuvuzela horn, cheering on the team in its World Cup match against Paraguay. Shimomura's children, 3-year-old Sakurako and her brother Kaede, 1, were likely already dead at the time the photograph was taken and posted. On July 30, they were found lying naked on the floor of her apartment, their bodies partly decomposed. They had been dead for at least a month and a half, police said. (Asahi)

Nagoya Grampus moved five points clear of Cerezo Osaka in the J-League first division title race with a 3-1 victory over Gamba Osaka on Sunday night. A gorgeous drive by Naoshi Nakamura from 30 meters out pushed Grampus in front in the sixth minute at Mizuho Stadium. Hideo Hashimoto equalized 11 minutes later, the Gamba midfielder scoring in his sixth straight game. But Hashimoto's goal -- his seventh of the season -- went to waste as Danilson made it 2-1 for Grampus with a header from a penalty-box scramble. (AP)

A slew of luxury hotels are nearing completion in a number of Japanese cities, with operators delighted at the state of the inbound tourism industry despite the strength of the yen against other currencies. Figures released by the Japan National Tourism Organisation show that some 4.2 million foreign tourists visited Japan in the first six months of the calendar year, up a remarkable 35.8 percent from a year earlier and the second-highest figure ever recorded for the period. To meet the surging demand for top-notch accommodation in Japan's second city, the first St. Regis hotel in the country will open in the heart of Osaka's bustling commercial and entertainment district on October 1. (independent.co.uk)

Osaka Securities Exchange Co. plans to create a new Jasdaq Securities Exchange through alliances with the Korea Stock Exchange and China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange, sources said Friday. Under the alliances, the Chinese and South Korean bourses and Jasdaq will simplify their listing procedures to encourage their domestic companies to list on the other overseas markets. Jasdaq is to be established Oct. 12 by integrating the Osaka bourse's Hercules and Jasdaq markets for startup companies, the sources said. (Japan Times)

An 8-year-old girl has been found dead at her home here, apparently after committing suicide, police said. According to investigators, the girl was discovered hanging by a towel from the laundry pole on the balcony at her home at around 6:20 p.m. on Aug. 17 by her 27-year-old mother, who had returned from work. The girl's 29-year-old father, who received a call from his wife, immediately called police. The girl, a third-year student at a municipal elementary school in the Osaka Prefecture city of Takatsuki, is estimated to have died of suffocation at around 3 p.m. on Aug. 17, according to an autopsy conducted by police. (Mainichi)

A university student and four minors have been arrested on suspicion of possessing and using illegal drugs at a beach here, it has been learned. Police arrested the five -- a 20-year-old university student from Osaka and four 19-year-olds from the prefecture, including one girl -- on suspicion of violating the Narcotics and Psychotropics Control Law. Police accuse the university student and two youths of possessing the drugs LSD and Ketamine on the evening of Aug. 13, while another one of the youths and the girl are accused of using illegal drugs. (Mainichi)

Many Muslims in Japan, where space is at a premium, have expressed worry about graveyard shortages, because Islamic principles stipulate deceased Muslims should be buried without cremation. New graveyard sites are difficult to obtain, as local ordinances in many parts of the nation prohibit burial without cremation, as well as due to opposition from local residents. Though national laws do not prohibit burial without cremation, many local governments, including those of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, cite sanitary reasons in prohibiting the practice via ordinances and other forms of regulation. (Yomiuri)

Ramada Osaka offers an accommodation plan that encourages guests to see historic sites in Osaka and Kyoto and visit trendy, faddish "power spots." Going to so-called power spots - places believed to give visitors some special energy, healing or refreshing, spiritual feeling - has been a popular activity among some Japanese of late. The places are usually religious, historic or natural. The accommodation plan at the Ramada Osaka for guests wishing to join this fad comes with a one-day tourist ticket, which allows unlimited use of local subways, city buses and some trains, as well as free entrance to 26 tourist spots and facilities, such as Osaka Castle. (Japan Times)

The annual rush of travelers heading to their hometowns and resorts for the Japanese "Bon" summer holiday peaked Thursday, with people packing roads, railways and air transportation facilities. Expressways were congested across the country before dawn with a 23- kilometer traffic jam on an outbound section of the Tomei Expressway in Shizuoka Prefecture and a 10-km jam on an outbound section of the Chugoku Expressway in Osaka Prefecture, according to the Japan Road Traffic Information Center. Almost all reserved seats on shinkansen bullet trains from Tokyo were booked for the morning on the Tokaido, Tohoku, Joetsu and Nagano lines. (AP)

A 52-year-old teacher at an Osaka elementary school received a 10 percent pay cut for one month after he ignored repeated warnings about smoking on school grounds, the city's board of education announced on Aug. 9. Four times, the teacher reportedly said he would "not smoke again," in writing and submitted documents reflecting on his behavior, but each time he continued to smoke. After judging the teacher's bad behavior to be willful, the board of education decided to enact the punishment. (Mainichi)

Organs were taken Tuesday from a brain-dead man for the first time solely with the consent of his family and in the absence of any written declaration by him of his wishes under Japan's revised organ transplant law, and transported to patients waiting at a number of hospitals. An operation to provide the man's heart to a recipient began upon its arrival shortly past 6:30 a.m. at a national institute in Osaka, after doctors began at 3:14 a.m. to harvest the man's organs at a hospital in the Kanto region surrounding Tokyo where he was declared brain dead. (AP)

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley is back performing in Japan with the Canadian rock band after suffering a slipped disc in his back during a late-night bar fight ( HR, Aug. 6). The Sum 41 band website reported Whibley received treatment and performed "despite doctor's instructions" at the Summer Sonic festival in Osaka. The Canadian rockers late last week said Whibley had been involved in an apparent bar melee in Japan, and that Japanese police had been called in to investigate. (Hollywood Reporter)

A 23-year-old mother who was arrested eight days ago on a charge of abandoning her two toddlers in Osaka will face a new arrest warrant as early as next Tuesday on suspicion of murder, as her neglect is believed to have caused their deaths, police sources said Saturday. An 18-year-old senior high school girl, meanwhile, will also face a murder charge after being arrested last Sunday on suspicion of abandoning her baby boy in a roadside ditch on July 26 in Kobe, local police sources said. Sanae Shimomura has told police investigators since her July 30 arrest after the decomposing naked bodies of her 3-year-old daughter Sakurako and 1-year-old son Kaede were found at her apartment, "I knew they could not carry on living if I did not give them food or water," the sources at the Osaka prefectural police said. (AP)

There has been a series of cases lately in which local governments have been unable to confirm whether men and women registered as the oldest persons in their respective areas are actually alive. At least 10 incidents have been discovered involving eight local governments, including the case of a woman registered as being 119 years old in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture. If alive, this woman would be the oldest person in the nation, but her whereabouts are still unknown. All this indicates that the local governments have not taken appropriate measures to determine whether residents registered as centenarians are alive, despite having various opportunities to meet them, such as at ceremonies to present such elderly people with commemorative items. (Yomiuri)

The frontman for Canadian rock band Sum 41 was reportedly attacked last night in Japan and hospitalized with injuries. The band said Friday on their website Deryck Whibley was attacked late Friday night. They posted on their Twitter account that Whibley was attacked in a bar by three unknown people and Japanese police are investigating. The band had two remaining tour dates scheduled in Osaka, Japan, before closing out the summer with shows in the U.S. and Europe. (etaiwannews.com)

Two young children died after being abandoned by their mother in a garbage-filled Osaka apartment, despite repeated calls to child welfare officers from a neighbor reporting the children's cries. The officials visited the apartment on five occasions between March and May but made no attempt to enter or contact the police. The partly decomposed and skeletonized remains of 3-year-old Sakurako Hagi and her brother Kaede, 1, were discovered in the apartment in Nishi Ward on Friday morning. Police said they may have starved to death and had been dead for a month or two. They were not wearing any clothes. (Asahi)

A 23-year-old mother who was arrested Friday over the death of her two toddlers at their apartment in the city of Osaka after apparently neglecting them has told investigators that she wanted time for herself, police sources said Saturday. Sanae Shimomura was quoted as saying she had "got sick of feeding them and giving them a bath" since moving to the apartment in around January when she began working at a sex parlor after getting divorced in May last year. She was arrested on suspicion of abandoning the bodies of her 3-year- old daughter Sakurako and 1-year-old son Kaede in late June. (AP)

A 23-year-old woman was arrested Friday on suspicion of abandoning the bodies of her two children at her apartment in the city of Osaka, police said. Sanae Shimomura, who works at an adult entertainment shop, was quoted as telling investigators, "I got sick of feeding them and giving them a bath." She is suspected of leaving the bodies of her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son late June, although she was aware that they were dead, according to the police. While there were no wounds on their bodies, they were thin, indicating they may have died of starvation, the police said. (AP)