Police turned over to prosecutors Wednesday their case against a 21-year-old man who walked naked on a street in Yokohama last month and a 22-year-old woman who ordered him to do so, alleging they committed acts of public indecency. The woman and the man had been living together since January. She was angry with him for not paying rent and was quoted as telling him to, “Take off your clothes” and “follow my bicycle.” (Japan Times)

The government said Tuesday it will help foreign residents master the Japanese language to improve their quality of life.
“Foreign residents in Japan have difficulties in finding jobs due to their insufficient language capabilities, and more people have faced hardships in their lives,” a guideline compiled by a Cabinet Office panel says.
As solutions, the panel proposed improving the quality of Japanese-language teachers and providing vocational training in line with residents’ language capabilities. (Japan Times)

Japan is known as the biggest consumer of tuna. Be it raw for sushi or sashimi or fried, broiled or canned, tuna is an important element of the food culture.
But concerns are growing because tuna is disappearing, and this is putting Japan in a difficult diplomatic position.
How much tuna does Japan consume annually, and how does the rest of the world feel? Japan also accounted for some 70 to 80 percent of all bluefin tuna traded internationally. (Japan Times)

If you’re a noncitizen and have entered or re-entered Japan in the last couple of years, you’ve undoubtedly been invited to participate in the wonderful, fun-filled world of biometrics. It’s safe to say that many of you felt as though you were being treated like criminals - not to mention the humiliation of being discriminated against, knowing that your Japanese companions could quickly walk through immigration without having to endure the same indignities. Worse still is the fact that the foreign community of Japan worked so long and hard to finally get fingerprinting abolished - only to see it reinstated just a few years later due to pressure from the U.S. government. (Japan Times)

Japan may be in the midst of a silent epidemic of kinketsu-byo (”lack of money disease”). The source of the infection is a new statute that bans many borrowers from obtaining unsecured loans.
While the full repercussions of the revised Money Lending Business Law (MLBL), which was passed in 2006 but went into force on June 18, are still unclear, the law’s impact appears likely to affect discretionary spending by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who are no longer eligible to borrow. It is feared that many, desperate for a short-term infusion of cash, will turn to illegal loan sharks. (Japan Times)

Foreigners who visit restaurants and bars in Tokyo’s Roppongi entertainment district are increasingly becoming the targets of credit card fraud in which they are charged for payments they did not make.
According to Azabu Police Station, which oversees the district, it has received more than 100 consultation requests from foreigners over such scams since last year, mostly involving people from Europe and the United States.
The number of Chinese tourists visiting the area has been sharply on the rise recently and they could also become targets of such fraud, the police said. (Japan Times)

Pickles of all kinds were recently gathered from different parts of Japan and brought to Aichi Prefecture, where the “god of pickles” is enshrined.
Kayatsu Shrine in the city of Ama is known as the “birthplace of pickles”. According to priest Tomoharu Aoki, 43, pickles were born by accident when vegetables offered to the shrine fermented with salt that was also being offered.
Facing the ocean, Aichi has always harvested salt and was a stopping point where merchants from both east and west brought goods for sale. (Japan Times)

Seiko Noda, a Liberal Democratic Party member of the Lower House, has become pregnant through artificial insemination using an egg from someone in the United States after years of fertility treatment, sources said Wednesday. The former minister in charge of posts and telecommunications, as well as consumers affairs, is currently 15 weeks pregnant and is scheduled to give birth around February, by which time she will be 50. Noda is not married but has a de facto marital relationship with her partner, they said. (Japan Times)

Police on Wednesday sent to prosecutors their case against three Kawasaki junior high school students accused of assaulting a classmate who took his own life in June.
The boy left a suicide note listing the other students’ names and describing them as bullies.
Besides the three facing possible prosecution, a 13-year-old student was reported to a child consultation center.
The 14-year-old victim killed himself at his home using hydrogen sulfide gas. (Japan Times)

Yasuhiko Kobayashi’s 15-year-old son had skipped judo practice. According to Kobayashi, the boy’s teacher was furious and stood waiting for him at the gates of his junior high school in Yokohama. The teacher forced the boy into the gym and made him grapple one on one. The former All Japan judo champion choked the boy until he lost consciousness.
When the boy came to, the teacher choked him again until he went limp, and threw him to the floor with such force that he suffered severe internal bleeding in his brain, an injury known as an acute subdural hematoma. (Japan Times)