今週の日本

Beak-to-Tail Chicken Yakitori

New York Times



Hiroshima & Nagasaki: VJ Day's ominous atomic echo

Guardian


España entrega al fugitivo más buscado en Japón por robar una joyería

El Pais

Japanese whiskeys get foothold in U.S.

Japan Times

Le Pen among Euro rightists in Japan WWII shrine visit

BBC

Le Japon commence à être pénalisé par la force du yen

Le Monde

The U.S.-Japan strategic alliance... manga style

CNN GO

Japan's gay community parades for first time in 3 years

Yahoo News

Japan apologizes to South Korea for decades of colonial rule

LA Times

Homelessness part of the puzzle of missing elderly people

Asahi Shimbun

Last week's Japan news


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ニュースくん 東京




Japan is the land of the vending machine. You are hard pressed to find a 100 meter stretch of any built-up part of Japan (500m, perhaps, in the countryside) lacking a machine offering you something to buy.

The vast majority of vending machines in Japan are for canned or, less commonly, bottled, drinks, hot and cold - soft drinks and alcohol. However, a significant proportion of them offer other goods, too, mainly food, but also cigarettes, and other much whackier stuff. Some of them even sing!

I came across a vending machine, however, that offered the written word: a newspaper vending machine. Something of a rarity, but perhaps in this age of electronic media it is an apt response to the threat of the LCD screen than newspapers are facing.

This machine, cutely named “News-kun” (“kun” being an affectionate suffix added to a boy’s name), sells, from the top, the Tokyo Shimbun (shimbun meaning “newspaper”, beginning in 1884 as the Konnnichi Shimbun) for 100 yen, the Tokyo Chunichi Sports (published by the same company as the Tokyo Shimbun) for 120 yen, the Tokyo Yukan (i.e. Tokyo evening newspaper) for 40 yen, the Tokyo Sports for 130 yen, the Nikkan Gendai (a tabloid known for its harsh criticism of among others, Koreans, the Soka Gakkai, and the Liberal Democratic Party) for 130 yen.

Helpfully, the machine shows the date at the top. For some reason, the 500 yen slot has been taped over, but it still takes 100, 50, and 10 yen coins. Like all vending machines in Japan, it gives change.



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東京ニューズ

I just happened to be in the Kojimachi area of Chiyoda ward in Tokyo yesterday when suddenly the air was full of helicopters after a huge, 104-ton construction crane collapsed across the main road, just yards from Kojimachi subway station on the Yurakucho Line.



Apparently the crane was trying to pull an 11-ton casing from out of the ground, when the maximum allowable load for it was 6.5 tons. That was enough to tip it over. The 28m-long arm of the crane struck a truck, trapping its occupants, and seriously injured a 62-year-old passerby.

The Shinjuku-bound lane of Shinjuku-dori (National Highway Route 20) running between Shinjuku and the Imperial Palace was blocked by the jib of the crane all day, and the whole area teemed with emergency services.

The area was quickly cordoned off by the police and emergency services as another crane was brought in to place to clear the toppled crane.



Today traffic flow has been restored to Shinjuku-dori, and the sun is out, but the construction site – festooned, as are all construction sites in Japan, with the slogan “Safety First” (see photo below) – is still chaos.


While taking the follow-up photos today, I also tried to check out of curiosity what the name of the construction company was - especially as mention of it was omitted in all the newspaper reports I'd read.

Interestingly, the information plaques, which are de rigueur on Japanese building sites, had been taken down. There was no information showing anywhere on the site whatsoever.





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北方領土問題解決など

Russia Returns Disputed Islands

In a stunning move, Russia announced today that it would be returning four islands it seized from Japan immediately shortly after the end of World War II in 1945.

The then Soviet Union occupied what was Japanese territory after Tokyo surrendered to US forces in what is still regarded in Japan as the height of treachery. Negotiations have not made any progress since 1956.

The Soviet Union and later Russia have administered the disputed southern Kuril Islands for more than six decades. The islands are one of the main reasons most Japanese to this day despise Russia.

In a terse statement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, however, said that "returning the islands was the right thing to do" as he signed over sovereignty to Japan.

With a flick of the pen, he thus ended more than a half century of acrimony.

Chinese Students Stone Japanese Embassy Again

Japan's Air Force has been accused of seeding clouds in the Beijing area that resulted in heavy rains in recent days. Chinese students have responded by gathering en masse at the Japanese embassy in the Chaoyang District.

Beijing normally sees little spring precipitation and its sewer and drainage system is notoriously wanting. In the past two days, however, 44 cm of rain have fallen in the capital - and officials are pointing a finger at Japan.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang said at a hastily called press conference that "there could be no other source [for the rain]. This is an insidious attempt at flooding our streets and dampening our economy."

Students gathered later that day in front of the Embassy, and pelted it with rocks and burned a Japanese flag as police watched passively.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Aso responded that if Chinese authorities fixed the windows - and all of the damage from the previous six stonings of the building - Japan would formally apologize for all of its World War II atrocities.

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