Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

The new Kobe Airport, where 4 flights were cancelled on the first day because of foggy weather, is predicting a rosy forecast of 10 years of increasing profits. The airport will extort high landing fees from airlines such as JAL or ANA, whose airplanes have trouble flying every day; JAL is currently paralyzed, as a majority of the company's employees are demanding that the new CEO resign, while the CEO has refused. The airport is located within 70km of three other major airports that offer plenty of competition to Kobe's airport. Even the Japanese media is skeptical of the airport's claim, citing rising fuel costs.

flash24.kyodo.co.jp/?MID=RANDOM&PG=STORY&NGID=econ&NWID=2006022301001167

The Japanese government will launch a massive new propaganda campaign to discourage the use of plastic bags at supermarkets. The media will show ads of celebrities and athletes discouraging plastic bags, while the Environmental Ministry will assign commisars to monitor supermarkets and impose fines of up to $2,000 to stores that give out too many bags.

(In land-starved Japan, efficient trash processing is considered an absolute necessity. There are 4 or 5 different kinds of trash bins, and normally shy Japanese will get violent if you put trash in the wrong bin.)

www.asahi.com/life/update/0223/005.html

An Italian toy maker has caused controversy by unveiling models of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Brumm unveiled its £6 Little Boy and Fat Man 1:43 scale model bombs at the Nuremberg toy fair.

www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1734176.html

The EU has announced a plan to imitate America's MIT by creating an "EIT" (European Institute of Technology), in the hopes of stemming the flow of Europe's best minds to American universities.

The plan appears to be little more than a formality, since it will just consist of a network of existing European universities that will call themselves "part of EIT". A "headquarters" will be built at an unspecified location (so bureaucrats can boss around schools and bog down the system over "egalitarianism").

American companies such as Microsoft have "expressed an interest" in the venture (meaning: they are looking for graduate students to translate English manuals into European languages for $10/hr).


www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/kokusai/news/200 ... 1000c.html

The Dosanko Kai, a shadowy overseas network where only Japanese from Hokkaido are welcome, is sponsoring a propaganda festival in Washington DC. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival will distribute tourist literature about Hokkaido. The organization is seeking funding to help print its pamphlets in English.

(Washington DC received a gift of cherry trees from Japan in the 1920s. Although Japanese consider this a propaganda victory, the cherry trees are known in Washington as the gift that brought Japanese Beetles to America, which turned into a major pest.)

(Hokkaido was not settled by large numbers of Japanese until the 20th century. It still has separatist tendencies today, such as the "autonomy declaration" mentioned earlier in this thread.)

The Eternal Hokkaidoan?

www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/Php/kiji.php3?&d= ... 0602247004

Map of Dosanko Kai's overseas network, too big for this page, at dosankokaidc.org/

Arakawa, the skater that is so ugly that Japanese swore she must be a "North Korean", has won a gold medal in women's figure skating. Japanese are celebrating riotously, for they had feared that Torino would be the first medal-free Olympics in 30 years for Japan.

Possibly, she was so ugly that Japanese media ignored her, and that took the pressure off of her. Or so says an editorial written by a Japanese.

www.sankei.co.jp/news/060224/bun040.htm

japanese.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2006/02/24/20060224000014.html

Fukushima Prefecture, which has one of the highest abortion rates in Japan, has introduced a new Foster Parent policy. On average, 15.8 abortions occur per 1000 women, well above the national average of 10.6. Among women ages 15-19, the rate is even higher, at 17.7. The prefecture's population has declined from 2.13 million in 1997 to 2.09 million today.

Under the new policy, teenage girls will be pressured by a team of four social workers to persuade her to have a baby. The governor says that he wants Fukushima women to breed as many babies as possible.

www.asahi.com/national/update/0224/TKY200602230419.html

Yeah, she saved Japan's face. Before she won, there was no medal for Japan..

Btw, if the Japanese media ignored her because she is not pretty, that's really shameful conduct. I don't know why they thought she is ugly, and ugly girl must be a N.Korean... I think she is above the everage in Japan. No? I don't think Japanese girls are that pretty enough to ignore the talented skater......

Keep in mind that Japan is not a Christian country. In Japan, people will openly call others "short", "ugly", "dummy", etc. A typical greeting in Japan among acquaintances will go something like "oi chibi!" (hey shortie!).

Bad hair day. Nothing more.

She not THAT bad is she? Ofcourse, I prefer the other two personally...

A man who lost both his legs and an arm in a tree shredder is in a serious but stable condition in Taranaki Hospital.

The 48-year-old was working at the New Plymouth Refuse Station when he became caught in the machine.

Taranaki Regional Ambulance manager Ian May says it took firefighters and an emergency medical team more than an hour to free the man.

Ray Lambert, the general manager of Manawatu Waste Limited which runs the refuse station, is full of praise for those who helped free the man from the machine.

Lambert, says the man had worked at the refuse station for two years and was experienced in using the tree shredder.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated by Occupational Safety and Health

A jury in Syndey has found a South African grandmother guilty of importing cocaine.

The woman was caught with more than three kilos of the class A drug in her suitcase two years ago.

Linda Martin's defence claimed she had no idea the drug was in her suitcase and that she had been sucked in by a Nigerian drug gang.

But the prosecution said the 52-year-old was deliberately closing her eyes and that she knew four small statues in her suitcase contained cocaine.

She will be sentenced in March.

If this is true, I feel so sorry for her. She must've worked hard for the gold medal, but yet she's been rejected just for her looks... Wonder how crushed she or her family would be if they found this out. I hope this is just some cruel joke or something....[&o][:'(]

I watched her performance, it was fantastic. What is this world coming to when a talented woman isnt recognized for saving japanese pride in the olympics? She did a great job, and she deserves that medal.

yes she was great!!

but I think she goes over board with the make up

[&o][&o][&o]

Agreed.

Brilliant performance. And she looks great in the pics.

Has anybody else noticed Google Japan has put a pic of a female iceskater on their logo


Tell me they have`nt been planning that one for a while[:D]

What a mess - if you go to a store here and buy something like a takeaway salad, it comes in a plastic container, wrapped in plastic wrap. At the checkout they will then put it in a small plastic bag, then put that bag in a normal sized plastic shopping bag. They really need to get a grip.

By the way, is there some place where I can watch a video clip of this skater? I don't own a TV, and the Japanese are going so crazy about it, that I might as well see what the fuss is about.

Wait a minute. These NHK pictures posted by veroah of "Arakawa" are not her....they are actually another Japanese figure skater named Miki Ando.

The funny thing is that veroah posted these same pictures on page 3 of this thread and labelled them correctly as Miki Ando there. He was saying there that it was Ando who was criticized by some for her looks. Perhaps he should review his own posts?

Another pic of Ando:

http://sportsmachiuke.nsf.jp/Miki%20Ando/Ando%20MIki4.jpg

Congrats to Arakawa--she did skate the best that night and deserved her gold medal. If anyone is interested, video of her performance can be found here:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/figureskating/index.html

Whatever, they all look the same to me. But then, I can't tell apart Hollywood actresses either -- bunch of blonde bimbos who call themselves Madonna, Britney, Courtney, or whatever they call themselves this week.




Looks like a human propellor, lol.

A 7 year old girl marries a dog because her top teeth came in before her bottom teeth.
Yep, 1 billion people and spreading.

news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20060222/ca_pr_on_od/oddity_girl_weds_dog

NEW DELHI (AP) - A seven-year-old girl wed a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off the "evil eye" on her and her family in eastern India, a news agency reported Wednesday.

Shivam Munda's upper teeth appeared before her lower teeth - considered a bad omen by members of the Santhal ethnic group to which she belongs, the Press Trust of India said in a report from Dhanbad, a coal mining town in the eastern state of Bihar.

Kundan Munda, a coal mine worker, said his daughter married the dog only to "remove the evil eye," a superstitious belief that some misfortune could befall her and the family, and that she would be free to marry a man later.

Friends and family participated in three days of traditional ceremonies and festivities that are part of a Santhal tribal marriage, Munda said, according to the report.

Heh, sounds like something they'd do in Japan. Is there some part of Japan where dogs are supposed to eat a samurai's intestines after he commits seppuku?

In Kyoto, a 17-y.o. high school student with dyed hair got refused to have her picture taken for the school ID, and a schoolteacher forcibly sprayed black paint on her hair. The girl has since suffered psychiatric problems, and her lawyer has sent a letter to the school demanding that school rules be changed.

Or maybe she should marry a black dog.

flash24.kyodo.co.jp/?MID=RANDOM&PG=STORY&NGID=soci&NWID=2006022401002928

In Akita, a part of Japan famous for its fighting dogs (秋田犬), 460 tourists at an onsen have been cut off due to an avalanche. The Tamagawa Onsen attracts tourists from around the nation for its supposedly cancer-curing properties.

It is not known if the 460 tourists have resorted to cannibalism, yet.

www.asahi.com/national/update/0224/TKY200602240405.html

The U.S. State Department has announced this year's rankings for the world's top exporters of orphan babies to America. Japan used to be in the top 20 until 1995, but didn't qualify this year.

travel.state.gov/family/adoption/stats/stats_451.html

1. China
2. Russia
3. Guatemala
4. South Korea
5. Ukraine

1995: Japan #18
1994: Japan #20
1993: Japan #21
1992: Japan #20
1991: Japan #16
1990: Japan #21

The green-and-orange trains of the Tokaido Line in Tokyo, which I always thought looked incredibly ugly, will be replaced by stainless steel cars starting next month.

headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20060225-00000028-kyodo-soci

As Japan readies laws requiring stores to limit the number of plastic bags they give out, citizen brigades are spreading propaganda to make use of traditional "furoshiki" cloths. The all-purpose cloths, a kind of giant bandanna, was long associated with Asian refugees in the 20th century, who would carry their belongings in a big cloth bag on their heads.

flash24.kyodo.co.jp/?MID=RANDOM&PG=STORY&NGID=home&NWID=2006022501002705

Propaganda


Reality

A high school student wrote into the infamous forum "2ch", saying that "I will kill kids at a kindergarten in Yokohama.... or, so I heard people say at a coffee shop."

The kindergarten didn't think it was funny, so an arrest warrant got issued for the student. The kindergarten went spastic, having people take turns guarding the school entrance. The high school student says he was bored, and picked a kindergarten at random off of a search engine.

www.asahi.com/national/update/0224/TKY200602240378.html