Strong winds and snow battered the Pacific side of the nation Tuesday and Wednesday, wreaking havoc with road, rail and air routes and leaving thousands of homes without power. According to the Tokyo Fire Department, 26 people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo with fall injuries between Tuesday evening, when it began snowing, and 6 a.m. Wednesday.
Ten people in Yokohama suffered fall and other injuries, and 46 people in Saitama Prefecture either fell or were involved in skidding accidents. The hazardous weather also brought chaos to the nation’s transport network. (Yomiuri)
Check out more details here

A seven-car shinkansen line inspection train runs about once every 10 days between Tokyo and Hakata in Fukuoka Prefecture, and rail buffs who spot it claim it brings good luck.
The train has been nicknamed “Dr. Yellow” because of its color but it is officially called a comprehensive shinkansen test train. The test train that travels the 1,174-km distance between Tokyo and Hakata is popular with rail fans. An urban legend has it happiness comes to those who spot it.
Its timetable is not published. Nevertheless, a Web site details the places and times it passes so those interested may figure out when they can see it. A cheering crowd with cameras was on hand when Dr. Yellow pulled into Shin-Osaka Station en route to Hakata in December.
All of the coaches’ windows are blocked out. Carriages six and seven house large equipment to gauge signals and electricity. A dome in coach five lets inspectors view pantograph connections. (Japan Times)
Check out more details here

Kenichi Ikeda of the city of Nagasaki has carried around three bags and a secret he could not tell his family at home - inside the bags were hundreds of women’s undergarments that he had stolen over 10 years, police said. Police arrested the 36-year-old truck driver, who allegedly had stolen about 260 pairs of women’s underwear and kept them in bags behind the driver’s seat of his truck. “I couldn’t leave them home because I have a wife and children,” Ikeda was quoted as saying by police. (Japan Times)
Check out more details here

In a thoughtful essay in today’s Financial Times, Gideon Rachman asks whether Japan may now be tilting towards China after 60 years of aligning itself with the United States. This question is interesting on multiple dimensions — including with regard to the future of U.S. primacy in Asia, the impact of China’s rise on its neighbors, the nature of Japanese politics and identity, and our understanding of the deep structure of international relations at a time of systemic power shifts. Indeed, Japan is a critical case study for assessing how the developed world will respond to the rise of dynamic new power centers in Asia — and what the implications will be for American leadership in the international system. (foreignpolicy.com)
Check out more details here

A security guard at the Nagasaki Bio Park noticed Akira Honda, 24, ushering the Humboldt Penguin into his suitcase in January. According to the zoo, the penguin is worth about Y400,000.
Mr Honda told police that he had run up debts which he intended to pay off by selling the creature to a collector. Humboldt Penguins are native to South America and grow to around 27 inches tall and up to 13lb in weight. They are currently listed as vulnerable, due largely to the destruction of their habitats, and an estimated 12,000 survive in the wild. (telegraph.co.uk)
Check out more details here

Japanese film director Takeshi Kitano has been named by France for the title of Commander of the Order of the Arts and Letters in recognition of his achievements, France’s ministry of culture said Tuesday.
Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand will bestow France’s highest honor for artists on Kitano later in the day, the ministry said.
To commemorate the honor, the films of the 63-year-old will be screened at the Centre Pompidou, a contemporary art museum in Paris, for three months from Thursday and artwork by Kitano will be displayed at another museum in the city from the same day. (AP)
Check out more details here

The number of foreign nationals staying in Japan after their visas expired was down 18.8 percent from a year before to 91,778 as of Jan. 1, 2010, slipping below 100,000 for the first time in 21 years, a Justice Ministry survey showed Tuesday.
The number of people overstaying their visas has been falling after peaking at around 300,000 in 1993.
An official at the ministry’s Immigration Bureau said the introduction two years ago of a biometric system using fingerprints to verify identity contributed to the downtrend.
(AP)
Check out more details here

Hundreds of foreign and Japanese people staged a rally Sunday in Tokyo demanding better working conditions and employment benefits for foreign residents. At the annual “March in March” event at Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Louis Carlet, deputy general secretary of the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu, said foreign workers have a great need for job security and health care. The event also featured a live music by musicians from various countries, including Senegalese drum sessions and Ainu dancing from Hokkaido.
(Japan Times)
Check out more details here

Japan’s biggest Internet forum, where anonymous netizens trade anything from cooking tips to death threats, has long been an anarchic zone of uninhibited free speech and a magnet for controversy.
This week the raw commentary on 2channel - which with 10 million visits a month is one of the world’s largest online bulletin boards - saw tempers flare anew.
A massive hacker attack from South Korea crippled the site in retaliation for users’ online slights against Olympic skater Kim Yu-Na, after she beat Japanese rival Mao Asada to take gold at the Vancouver Winter Games.
The site was attacked on Monday, the anniversary of a 1919 uprising in Korea against Japanese colonial rule, and shut down for two days. (independent.co.uk)
Check out more details here

Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan on Sunday began a three-day official visit to Ghana at the head of a 30-strong delegation.
He was welcomed at Kotoka international airport by Vice President John Dramani Mahama to traditional Ashanti drumming and dance, an AFP reporter saw.
The visit is at the invitation of Ghana and is aimed at boosting ties between the two countries, officials said. (AFP)
Check out more details here