****** BREAKING NEWS ******
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has announced his resignation in a brief news conference this evening.
He claimed his government had implemented ground-breaking reforms, but the refusal of the Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) to negotiate meant legislative stalemate. He said that “new policies should be pursued under new leadership”.
Looks like Taro Aso’s time has finally come.
We’ve just received word that famed JAPUNDIT contributor Marie Mockett has accepted an offer from Graywolf Press to publish her first novel, Picking Bones from Ash, which is scheduled to start hitting bookstores in 2009.
Marie tells us:
I’m so excited to have a home with Graywolf. They are considered a “small big press” and a “large small press” which is the kind of imprecise categorization with which I’m comfortable. This past year, they published Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, which the New York Times named one of the top ten novels of 2007. Other authors you may have heard of are Charles Baxter, Percival Everett, Benjamin Percy. It’s a great time for me to be part of this particular house, when they are so visible and receiving so much attention. Also, because of the size of the house, I will have (and already feel) tremendous enthusiasm and support for my book, which is enormously important for a first novel. I don’t feel that I am competing with other novelists, or that marketing will suddenly drop my project in favor of someone younger and hotter . . . Graywolf distributes through FSG (Farrar Straus and Giroux) which means that my book will be in all the big stores–chains and all–and that you should be able to find it wherever you are. It’s an interesting partnership–Graywolf and FSG–two little elite companies working together.
What else. Graywolf will seek a UK publisher for me, which means you in the UK might also be able to find the book. We’ll see what else materializes.
I know from what Marie has told me that she has been working extremely hard on this book, first to get it written and then to get it published, and I am sure that she is very pleased to have the “business” part of the writing business behind her.
Please join me in congratulating Marie and wishing her the best of success with her new publisher.
The Hikone, Shiga town mascot ひこにゃん received 43 chocolate gifts from female fans nationwide.
On Valentine’s Day in Japan, only women are supposed to give chocolate to men. But how do the ladies know “Hikonyan” is male? And where does all that chocolate go? Does the mascot keep it?
A quick Japundit check on the web finds the mascots from other cities, including Hamamatsu, Saitama and Sendai did not receive chocolate.
“Why is Hikonyan so popular?” asked one mascot who declined to be identified speaking on official matters.
“I’ll do my best to receive chocolate next Valentine’s Day”, said another mascot.
ABOVE: Sendai’s and Saitama’s city mascots in happier times.(File photos)
Speaking of Marie. . . I just heard from her that she is getting married this weekend.
I trust that I speak for everyone when I say congratulations to the happy couple, and wish them a lifetime of happiness and love.
Politics watchers all over Japan have been shocked by the first week of the new Fukuda administration, which has been completely unmarked by any form of controversy whatsoever.
Even the revolving door at the Ministry of Agriculture appears to have stopped spinning. When asked how the new Agriculture Minister had managed to hold on to the particularly slippery job for over a week, a ministry insider was quoted as saying “He must be lost somewhere in the building.”
“We’ve been watching the exits,” said an anonymous senior journalist, “but the silence is eerie.” After the fireworks of the Abe government, observers are growing suspicious after this week’s lack of resignations. “We can only hope that things settle back in their usual pattern next week, and that the ministerial exodus starts up again,” he added.
With no daily cabinet dismissals to report, the morning news programmes and daily newspapers have been caught on the hop and have had to content themselves with the last resort of reporting international affairs.
There are many theories out there concerning the origins of mankind, some more plausible than others. And I don’t know which one you were taught, but I bet it wasn’t this one.
“The Black Mountain Grape Homonids”
Just before 8 o’clock this evening, it is reported, the Mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito was shot twice in the back by a man who was subdued and arrested at the scene. Mr Ito suffered heart failure and is in a critical condition in hospital.
Kyodo is reporting
The alleged shooter, Tetsuya Shiroo, 59, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder, the police said, adding he is believed to be a member of a gang affiliated with Japan’s largest organized crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. The motive is unknown.
The Mainichi also has details of the story, which they will no doubt update as and when.
This is just surreal, particularly bearing in mind today’s news from the U.S. It’s not, however, the first time a Nagasaki mayor has been shot. In 1990, Motoshima Hitoshi was shot by a right-wing extremist for saying in a speech that Emperor Hirohito was partially to blame for World War II.
Update: It has been reported and confirmed that Ito Iccho has died of his wounds. Ito died early in the morning. He was on life support after undergoing an emergency operation. But public broadcaster NHK reported early Wednesday morning local time that Ito died of his injuries.
ANA’s North American HQ in Los Angeles reportedly raided by the FBI. No reason yet given, but BBC ponders a link to price fixing probe.
That’s according to this story in the Asahi.
The tabled deal was that Yoshihide Suga, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, wanted NHK to accept a 20% reduction in its fees “in exchange for legislation requiring viewers to pay”. NHK President Genichi Hashimoto, however, rejected the proposal. The article states -
…the main reason the plan did not go through was that NHK could not determine if its revenue would actually increase with the 20-percent cut in viewing fees.
(”Could not determine”? Why ever not? Have they no accountants?)
If reports that I have glanced at are to be believed, up to 30% of households were refusing to pay. I’m unclear though as to whether this was 30% nationwide, or simply 30% of households who had an existing contract with NHK. Either way, I would have thought that NHK has thrown away a perfectly reasonable opportunity to secure the fees.
The article also states that the Minister and his colleagues feared “a public backlash over the mandatory payments”. If that’s really the case, it seems odd that they ever pushed the idea in the first place. So I guess that’s just spin.
Here is the article from The Japan Times:
Scoop. In that single, unattractive syllable is encapsulated all the romance and glamour remaining in the tattered, down-at-heels trade known as journalism. Most journalism is glorified stenography. You spend your time transcribing other people’s words, chronicling other people’s deeds, more or less as dictated by these other people or, more often, by their “spokespersons” — and then suddenly, through ingenuity or blind luck or a little of both, along comes a SCOOP, the journalistic equivalent of redemption.
What is a scoop? It’s information dug up by you, or entrusted specifically to you — information that some people or many people want hidden, but which will reach the public through you. A vast number of news stories make up a news year, but when the year is done, it’s the scoops we remember. Dacapo celebrates the scoops of 2006.
Scoop of the year, winner of the Japan Association of Newspaper Publishers and Editors Editorial Division Award was the Nihon Keizai Shimbun’s report in July of a private memo purportedly recording the late Emperor Showa’s displeasure over Yasukuni Shrine’s 1978 decision to enshrine 14 Cass A war criminals.
The memo, written by former Imperial Household Agency chief Tomohiko Tomita, quotes the Emperor as remarking in April 1988: “That’s why I haven’t paid a visit to the shrine since then.”
“Over a long period of time,” Dacapo quotes an admiring journalist as commenting, “Nihon Keizai Shimbun reporter Ryo Inoue built up a relationship of trust with the Tomita family. The result of his untiring effort was the unearthing of material of historic significance.”
That is scarcely an exaggeration, the issue of prime ministerial visits to the shrine having bulked so large in Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbors over the past five years. Still, the revelation of a split between Emperor and shrine did not stop former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi from paying the last of five consecutive annual visits last year — and on Aug. 15, the anniversary of Japan’s surrender, to boot. It could, though, give Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a pretext, if he wants one, for quietly turning his back on Yasukuni.
Scoops by their very nature tend to be bad news. They remind us of dark currents beneath the placid surface, and if we have any optimism left at all, it’s only because scoops are in relatively short supply. One of the more devastating scoops on Dacapo’s list is credited to the Mainichi Shimbun and concerns the alleged murder in April of a 9-year-old Akita girl by her mother.
Initial news reports had it that the girl had accidentally drowned. Mainichi’s coverage team, sensing something missing in the police briefings, talked to neighbors and family acquaintances and confronted police with what they had learned. Only then did investigators divulge statements allegedly made by the mother suggesting the drowning was not accidental. The scoop appeared in the Mainichi’s July 14 evening edition.
Given a choice between an ordinary story and a “scoop,” what reader wouldn’t choose the scoop? The weekly magazines, Tokyo Confidential’s prime sources, credit themselves with scoop after exclamatory scoop. One of the weekly Shukan Gendai’s concerned a “terrorist hijacking” of East Japan Railways. What if the hijacking is purely metaphorical, a colorful description of an administrative clash? “East Japan Railways has a staff of 65,000 and is used by 16 million passengers a day,” says editor Haruyuki Kato, explaining the story’s importance.
Sometimes a kiss is a scoop, as when TBS-TV newscaster Mona Yamamoto and Democratic Party of Japan Diet member Goshi Hosono incautiously indulged in a by-no-means casual one last fall within view of a camera wielded by the entertainment weekly Friday. Why should we care? “Nowadays,” observes Friday editor Kazuchika Dasuze, “newscasters have more influence than entertainers.” Of politicians, interestingly enough, he says nothing.
Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko received New Year’s greetings Monday from other imperial family members and state dignitaries.
“I am very pleased to celebrate New Year together,” the emperor said at the ceremony at the Imperial Palace. “At the beginning of the year, I pray for the nation’s development and the happiness of the people.”
The emperor and empress received New Year’s greetings from Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, Prince Akishino and his wife Princess Kiko, and other imperial family members.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, ministers of his cabinet and other state dignitaries also greeted the emperor and empress. On Tuesday, the emperor will receive New Year’s greetings from the general public at the Imperial Palace.
Emperor Akihito also offered his annual New Year’s greetings to thousands of well-wishers who gathered at the Imperial Place on Tuesday.
I am truly pleased to celebrate the new year with you. I wish for the happiness of people in our country and peace in the world.
The Emperor spoke from the balcony, as I suppose all emperors seem to do, of the Chowa-Den wing of the Palace overlooking the crowd. Empress Michiko and other imperial family members including Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako as well as Prince Akishino and his wife Princess Kiko, were present and waved their hands.
A total of 44,600 people were estimated to have visited the palace during the Emperor’s speech on Tuesday.
As we have already heard here, Krispy Kreme has opened in Tokyo.
Now thanks to alert Japundit reader Mr. Pink(who says he was just walking past and would not admit he was there for a doughnut), here is a look at the people lined up waiting to get into Krispy Kreme’s brand new Tokyo shop.
Let’s wait to see how many people will be lined up there in another month or two. . .
