Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12122 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 2:07 am Post subject:
Here we go again:
7.3 Earthquake strikes near Fukushima
An earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck Saturday morning off Japan's east coast, near the crippled Fukushima nuclear site, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Japan's emergency agencies declared a tsunami warning for the area.
The quake hit at 3:10 a.m. Saturday Tokyo time (1310 GMT), the USGS said.
The tremor was felt in Tokyo, some 300 miles (480 kilometers) away.
Japan's Meteorological Agency raised the tsunami warning for the area of Honshu. But the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not post warnings for the rest of the Pacific.
Japan weather agency initially reported 6.8 but later raised it to 7.1. Expected tsunami locally was 1 meter, but that warning was eventually called off.
Welcome to the Ring of Fire. _________________
"There is no such thing as a plea of innocence in my court. A plea of innocence is guilty of wasting my time. Guilty."
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:13 pm Post subject:
A 60-year-old Japanese man switched at birth says he would like to "roll back the clock", days after winning a lawsuit against the hospital which mistakenly cast him into a life of poverty.
The man, who has not been identified, told a packed Tokyo press conference late on Wednesday (local time) that he was shell-shocked when he learned the truth, saying his life would have been starkly different.
"I've wondered 'how on earth could this happen'? I couldn't believe it. To be honest, I didn't want to accept it," he said.
"I might have had a different life. I want [the hospital] to roll back the clock to the day I was born."
This week, a Tokyo district court ordered the hospital to pay 38 million yen ($408,000) in damages over its 1953 blunder which saw the man switched with another baby boy who was delivered just 13 minutes later.
It is not clear if the hospital, which has not commented on the bizarre case, will appeal.
The man, an unmarried truck driver, would have grown up as the eldest of four brothers in a wealthy family where siblings enjoyed a lavish lifestyle including private tutors.
Instead, he was raised on welfare by his non-biological mother who also supported older siblings after her husband passed away.
The family had few frills in their one-room apartment except for a radio, according to the man who studied at night school while working in a factory.
"It was like she was born to experience hardship," the man said of the woman he knew as his mother.
The man has been helping take care of his non-biological brothers, one of whom suffered a stroke.
The decades-old mistake was uncovered when the wealthy family's three younger brothers had DNA testing done on their oldest sibling - who looked nothing like them - after their parents died.
They checked hospital records and confirmed the identity of their biological eldest brother last year, whom the men have since met.
The four are now working on building a relationship to make up for lost time.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12122 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Thu Nov 28, 2013 9:35 pm Post subject:
^ Sounds like a good plot for a drama. Let's see, we'll have Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as the guy that should have been with the rich family but grows up poor. Shosuke Tanihara as the guy that grows up rich but should have been poor. Jun Fubuki as Kusanagi's mother, You as the air head nurse at the hospital that mixes them up, and Hiroshi Abe as Kusanagi's lawyer who sues the hospital.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12122 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:15 am Post subject:
Speaking of Japanese cuisine:
Over 350 ill from pesticide tainted food
Tokyo (AFP) - More than 350 people across Japan have fallen ill after eating pesticide-contaminated frozen food produced by the nation's largest seafood firm, national broadcaster NHK said Tuesday.
People have reported vomiting, diarrhoea and other symptoms of food poisoning after eating products including pizza and lasagne made by a subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings, according to surveys carried out by NHK and local media.
Police began investigating the company last month after it revealed that some of its frozen food had been tainted with malathion, an agricultural chemical often used to kill aphids in corn and rice fields.
NHK said that 359 people had become ill, while the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said it found the number of people who fell sick "exceeded 300".
Maruha Nichiro said that it had received about 460,000 phone calls from consumers in connection with the incident, including complaints from customers who ate the tainted products and some reporting an unusual odour, a company spokesman said.
According to local media, police suspect the pesticide was mixed into products at the plant in Gunma, north of Tokyo.
The food maker has recalled 6.4 million potentially tainted products, with 1.2 million packages recovered so far, it said.
Maruha Nichiro said that the products in question had not been shipped overseas.
The spokesman declined to comment on how the incident may affect the company's earnings, saying only: "We have to specify the cause first."
Separately, Japan's leading bread maker Pasco Shikishima Corp. was to recall about 445,000 packages of sweets after complaints that they had a strong chlorine smell, Jiji Press reported Tuesday.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:12 pm Post subject:
Ghost composer Takashi Niigaki claims 'Japan's Beethoven' Mamoru Samuragochi not even deaf
The musical brains behind a supposedly deaf composer dubbed "Japan's Beethoven" has claimed the mock maestro was a scheming manipulator who could hear normally but couldn't even write sheet music.
The startling allegations come a day after Mamoru Samuragochi confessed to hiring another man to write his best-known works, including a smash hit that had been adopted by classical music-lovers as an anthem to Japan's tsunami-hit communities.
In a press conference which lasted for more than an hour and was broadcast live on television, part-time music school teacher Takashi Niigaki said for the last 18 years he had been penning the tunes.
"I am an accomplice of Samuragochi because I continued composing just as he demanded, although I knew he was deceiving people," said Mr Niigaki.
Mr Niigaki told reporters he had been paid just 7 million yen ($77,000) over the nearly two decades of their collaboration, during which he had composed more than 20 pieces.
"I told him a few times that we should stop doing this, but he never gave in. Also he said he would commit suicide if I stop composing for him."
The 43-year-old said he had called time on the deception after learning that Winter Olympics medal hopeful, figure skater Daisuke Takahashi had chosen to dance to a piece that would be credited to Samuragochi.
"I was afraid that even Takahashi, who will perform in the Olympics for Japan, would be used to enforce the lies made by Samuragochi and me," he said.
Samuragochi, 50, came to public attention in the mid-1990s with classical compositions that provided the soundtrack to video games including Resident Evil, despite reputedly having a degenerative illness that left him profoundly deaf by the age of 35.
Niigaki 'never felt he was deaf'
Over the following two decades his fame grew, as did his reputation as a tormented artist held hostage by his ungovernable passion for music that he could no longer hear.
But Samuragochi, who once described his alleged deafness as a "gift from God", was far from being the tortured genius of his public persona, Niigaki said, and the hearing loss was little more than an act.
"I've never felt he was deaf ever since we met," he said.
"We carry on normal conversations. I don't think he is (handicapped).
"At first he acted to me also as if he had suffered hearing loss, but he stopped doing so eventually.
"He told me, after the music for the video games was unveiled, that he would continue to play the role (of a deaf person)."
Samuragochi has not responded publicly to the fresh allegations.
The scandal surfaced on Wednesday when Samuragochi came clean through his lawyer, just as the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine readied to print a tell-all interview with Niigaki in its Thursday edition.
The Tokyo-based music teacher claimed he thought initially he was being hired as a composer's assistant.
"But later I found out that he cannot even write musical scores," he said. "In the end, I was an accomplice."
The most famous work credited to Samuragochi is Symphony No.1, Hiroshima, which its supposed creator said had been written in tribute to those killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of the city.
The work became an extraordinary hit for a classical music CD, selling 180,000 copies in a genre where a hit often only logs 3,000 sales, according to its distributor.
The composer's reputation grew when broadcaster NHK aired a documentary in March last year entitled Melody of the Soul, in which it showed him touring the tsunami-battered Tohoku region to meet survivors and those who lost relatives in the 2011 catastrophe.
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12122 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 7:12 pm Post subject:
7 dead, 1,000 injured as heavy snow hits Japan
Tokyo (AFP) - The heaviest snow in decades in Tokyo and other areas of Japan has left at least seven dead and more than 1,000 injured across the country, reports said Sunday.
As much as 27 centimetres (10.6 inches) of snow was recorded in Tokyo by late Saturday, the heaviest fall in the capital for 45 years, according to meteorologists.
The storm hit Tokyo on the eve of its gubernatorial election. Observers say the heavy snowfall may affect voter turnout in the city of 13 million people.
As a depression moved along the Pacific coast Saturday, the northeastern city of Sendai saw 35 centimetres (13.8 inches) of snow, the heaviest in 78 years.
Local media said at least seven people have been killed in snow-linked accidents -- mostly crashes after their cars skidded on icy roads.
In central Aichi prefecture, a 50-year-old man died after his car slipped on the icy road and rammed into an advertisement steel pole, a local rescuer said.
Public broadcaster NHK reported at least 1,051 people were injured across the nation, many of whom had slipped on the ground or fallen while shovelling the snow off their roofs, NHK said.
More than 20,000 households were without electricity early Sunday while airlines cancelled nearly 300 domestic flights a day after more than 740 flights were grounded Saturday.
Nearly 5,000 people were stranded at Narita airport Saturday as traffic linking the airport to the capital was disrupted, NHK said.
Further snowfall is expected Sunday in the northern part of the country, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014 2:00 pm Post subject:
Norwegian men pitch in the most with housework and related chores while Japanese men do the least, according to a new survey.
...
Japanese men, who were the most unhelpful in this regard, spent 62 minutes a day on unpaid chores while their spouses devoted almost 300 minutes a day.
Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 2061 Location: Melbourne Country:
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:35 am Post subject:
Fukushima disaster: Plan to send residents home three years after nuclear accident labelled 'irresponsible'
A nuclear industry insider has told the ABC that the situation at the stricken Fukushima reactor is still not under control, three years after the disaster there.
Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has announced he wants 30,000 residents to return to their homes and the reactors to be switched back on within two years.
But a Fukushima insider and two former prime ministers have told the ABC's 7.30 program that such a move would be irresponsible.
At the risk of losing his job if his identity is revealed, a senior TEPCO staffer, who has worked at the Fukushima plant for more than 20 years, says the situation at the reactor is not under control and no-one knows how to fix the problem.
"There are too many systems and they all have problems," he said.
"For example, too many water tanks with too many lines - it's very difficult to operate. It's made worse because all the experienced workers have reached their radiation limits, so TEPCO has to rely on staff that don't know the site and who aren't trained."
The whistleblower says mistakes are made weekly, and contaminated water leaks into the Pacific Ocean every day.
"The other day when contaminated water overflowed from a tank, an alarm was ringing but they didn't go and check. I couldn't believe it. It was ringing for nine hours and they thought the alarm was out of order."
The insider says the damaged reactors can never be decontaminated and that people should not be moved back into the no-go zone, a 20-kilometre exclusion area around Fukushima.
"I feel it is impossible to fix before my death," he said.
"We just don't have the technology to fix it. It currently doesn't exist. We just can't deal with the melted fuel."
TEPCO declined 7.30's invitation to respond to these allegations.
Next month, the government will start moving 30,000 of Fukushima's evacuees back into the no-go zone.
It is all part of the Abe government's plan to turn back on the country's 48 nuclear reactors by the middle of this year. They have been sitting idle since the 2011 disaster.
A government spokesman said there was no such thing as zero risk with a nuclear plant, but the government believed the risks could be managed with new safety standards.
Turning reactors back on 'a risk not worth taking'
The Abe government has said it is in the best interest of the economy to once again make nuclear power the core source of Japan's energy.
It is worried that the reliance on imported coal and gas is threatening the country's fragile economic recovery.
But a former prime minister, Morihiro Hosokawa, says it is a risk not worth taking.
"The causes of the accident haven't been investigated properly. Contaminated water is still leaking, and compensation for victims hasn't been sorted out," he said.
Fukushima evacuees don't want to return home despite areas declared safe
PHOTO: Residents are reluctant to return to their homes. (ABC News)
"I think in these circumstances it is very irresponsible to turn the reactors back on."
He is backed by another former prime minister, Naoto Kan, who was in power at the time of the nuclear disaster in 2011.
Mr Kan says the current government does not understand the risk.
"They are trying to restart the nuclear reactors without learning the lessons of the March 11 accident," he said.
"If the accident had spread just a little further, then 50 million people around Tokyo would have been evacuated for a long time and that would have put Japan in chaos for 20 to 30 years."
Mr Kan says no national evacuation plan has been developed, and in the rush to turn the reactors back on the government is ignoring the safety of the general public.
"I submitted written questions to Prime Minister Abe and his response from the Nuclear Regulation Authority says it only decides on limited technical issues and won't judge local disaster prevention plans; that is, whether residents can escape safely or whether the residents can ever return.
"It's becoming clear they are trying to restart the reactors with no regard for people's safety."
Joined: 13 Apr 2007 Posts: 12122 Location: It was fun while it lasted. Country:
Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:16 pm Post subject:
Looks like there are nutcases everywhere:
AKB 48's Rina Kawaei and Anna Iriyama slashed at handshake event
During AKB48's handshake event held at Iwate Industrial Culture Center Apio on May 25, and members Kawaei Rina, Iriyama Anna, and a staff member were injured.
According to the source, all three individuals injured on their hands, and transported to a hospital. It is unknown how serious their injuries are, but they are all conscious, and it does not seem to be life-threatening.
The sponsor explained it was around 5:00 pm when they called police and stated that 'a man with an edged tool went on a rampage.'
Iwate Prefectural Police arrested the man on suspicion of attempted murder, and they said, "The man suddenly attacked them with a saw." According to NHK's report, it was a 24-year-old man from Towada, Iwate, and he accepted the charge.
The handshake event began at 1:00 pm, and many members were in attendance. However, they did not make a possession check of visitors during their entrance.
Source: Nikkan Sports
Edit: Here's a follow-up:
According to the theater manager, Kawaei fractured her thumb of the right hand, and got slashed on her right arm. Iriyama also fractured her pinky finger of the right hand, and got slashed on her head area and right arm. Both of them received surgeries to join the edges of the wounds.
The theater manager also revealed that those two are able to have clear conversation, and they looked calm right before the surgeries.
Along with the two members, there was a male staff member who also got injured, but none of them are life-threatening.
Nogizaka46 has announced on their website that their nationwide handshake event will be changed to a "talking event".
Everything will be kept the same as before and fans will be able to converse with the members. However, they will not be allowed to shake hands with the members anymore.
Nogizaka46 was set to go on a nationwide mini concert and handshake event with fans who purchase the first press limited edition of their new single "Natsu no Free & Easy" (to go on sale on July 9). However, due to the AKB48 attack incident, the handshake event has been changed to a talking event.
AKB48 groups have two types of handshake events - nationwide and individual. Since the attack incident had occurred on the nationwide leg, new policies will be in place for these events.
Nogizaka46 had their individual handshake event on June 21. On top of increased security, metal detectors and bag checks, the members are also now put behind a barrier over which they would reach out to shake hands with the fans.
The organizers commented on the event change, "We are sorry to disappoint those who were looking forward to shaking hands with the members. We hope you will understand. Furthermore, even though the tickets in the CD says "handshake", the "handshake" is now considered a "talking" event.
TOKYO �\
A Japanese politician in Aichi Prefecture has landed himself in hot water after suggesting that deliberately punctured condoms be distributed to married couples to counter the country�fs dwindling birth rate, local media reported on Friday.
Shinshiro city municipal assembly member Tomonaga Osada received a stern warning and was forced to apologize after making the bizarre proposal, which triggered a flurry of phone calls from enraged locals.
�gI cannot deny my comments were disgraceful,�h a contrite Osada told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. �gI�fm sorry.�h
Osada�fs controversial remarks were made at a regular assembly meeting last month, when he also reportedly suggested handing out locally grown Japanese yams�\said to boost sexual stamina.
�gI suggested the idea because I thought it would make people feel this city hall was a nice and friendly place,�h added Osada, talking to Japanese broadcaster NTV.
�gI had no intention to criticize or disrespect people who cannot have a baby.�h
The incident comes after sexist heckling by governing party members aimed at a Tokyo assemblywoman during a debate about raising children made headline news last month and provoked widespread condemnation.
Ayaka Shiomura was reduced to tears after being repeatedly taunted by city administration members, who jeered at her: �gAren�ft you able to have a baby?�h
Osada, 49, is currently serving his third term as a member of the assembly in Shinshiro, a city with a population of around 49,000.
Assembly chairman Shogo Natsume told reporters the comments �glacked dignity�h in issuing his reprimand, adding that the remarks would be deleted from the record of the June 18 meeting.
Japan has one of the world�fs lowest birth rates and Tokyo is struggling to contain the spiraling social welfare costs of a rapidly aging society.
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