Holiday celebrates people reaching 20, the official age of adulthood in Japan
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Carlos Ghosn issued travel ban in Lebanon after Interpol warrant
Japan hits back at former Nissan boss after fugitive attacks its controversial justice system
Japan has hit back at Carlos Ghosn after the former Nissan boss’s criticisms of the country’s justice system after his dramatic escape to Lebanon, as Beirut prosecutors issued a travel ban for the fugitive.
Masako Mori, Japan’s justice minister, on Thursday accused Ghosn of making “abstract, unclear or baseless assertions” about the Japanese criminal justice system, and said his flight was unjustified.
Continue reading...Man accused of killing 19 in Japanese care home pleads not guilty
Satoshi Uematsu’s lawyers claim he had a psychiatric disorder at time of 2016 attack
A man accused of killing 19 residents at a care home in Japan for people with disabilities has pleaded not guilty, with his lawyers claiming that he was suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time of the attack.
Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility in Sagamihara, south-west of Tokyo, did not deny carrying out the attack in 2016, in which residents were targeted as they slept. Twenty-four other people were injured, most of them seriously.
Continue reading...Japan issues arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn’s wife
Carole Ghosn accused of perjury, as Nissan says it will pursue former chairman who fled to Lebanon
Prosecutors in Japan have issued an arrest warrant for the wife of Carlos Ghosn for alleged perjury, as Nissan vowed to pursue its former chairman over his “serious misconduct” while head of the carmaker.
Tokyo prosecutors’ special investigation squad said Carole Ghosn – a vocal supporter of her husband during his long detention in Japan – was suspected of making a false statement during testimony to the Tokyo district court last April, according to Kyodo news agency. Details of the allegation were not immediately available.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn ‘caught bullet train’ during escape from Japan
Border controls tightened as Japan investigates how ex-Nissan boss skipped bail
Reports have emerged about how the fugitive former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn managed to jump bail in Japan, as the country’s justice minister said border controls would be bolstered after the audacious escape.
The 65-year-old executive skipped bail nearly a week ago, fleeing Japan where he had been awaiting trial on multiple counts of financial misconduct, which he denies.
Continue reading...Fukushima unveils plans to become renewable energy hub
Japan aims to power region, scene of 2011 meltdown, with 100% renewable energy by 2040
Fukushima is planning to transform itself into a renewable energy hub, almost nine years after it became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident for a quarter of a century.
The prefecture in north-east Japan will forever be associated with the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011, but in an ambitious project the local government has vowed to power the region with 100% renewable energy by 2040, compared with 40% today.
Continue reading...My father, the quiet hero: how Japan’s Schindler saved 6,000 Jews
Chiune Sugihara’s son tells how he learned of his father’s rescue mission in Lithuania, which commemorates his achievements this year
As a child in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, Nobuki Sugihara never knew his father had saved thousands of lives. Few did. His father, Chiune Sugihara, was a trader who lived in a small coastal town about 34 miles south of Tokyo. When not on business trips to Moscow, he coached his young son in mathematics and English. He made breakfast, spreading butter on the toast so thinly “nobody could compete”.
His son had no idea his father saved 6,000 Jews during the second world war. Over six weeks in the summer of 1940, while serving as a diplomat in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara defied orders from his bosses in Tokyo, and issued several thousand visas for Jewish refugees to travel to Japan.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn: an arrest, an escape, and questions about justice in Japan
The feted car executive had railed against the motives behind his detention since the day he was arrested
Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic escape from Japan to Lebanon last week has raised many questions over how he pulled off such an audacious act, but his motives are not in doubt. With four months to go before his financial misconduct trial was due to begin, the net was closing in on the former auto executive, and he knew it.
Nissan’s one-time saviour had not been permitted to speak to his wife over Christmas, and was disturbed by news that Japanese prosecutors had questioned his son and daughter in the US in early December. For Ghosn, according to sources close to him, it amounted to an attempt to force him to confess.
Continue reading...Japan’s warship deployment could push a pacifist country into conflict | Jeff Kingston
Prime minister Shinzo Abe is trying to keep Donald Trump on side, but the Japanese people are watching with worry
Since the end of the second world war and the enactment of its pacifist constitution, Japan has deployed its forces overseas mostly on peacekeeping operations under UN auspices – and almost never to places where its troops are in harm’s way. But next month, the country will send a naval destroyer to the Middle East. On what is being described as an intelligence-gathering mission, the warship will patrol the Gulf of Oman, the northern part of the Arabian sea and a portion of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, following a series of attacks on oil tankers in the region – including one that was Japanese-operated.
In 2015, Abe passed unpopular legislation allowing Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defence
Continue reading...Japan issues Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn
Move follows tycoon’s dramatic flight to Beirut to escape corruption charges
Japanese authorities have issued an Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn, as the former Nissan and Renault chairman released a statement denying his wife or family were involved in his dramatic flight from corruption charges in Japan.
The international policing organisation’s “red notice” alerts forces around the world that a person is wanted, in this case by Japanese police.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn prepares to speak as Japan comes to terms with saviour who fled
Wife dismisses reports husband escaped inside an instrument case as world awaits full explanation from fugitive
The world will have to wait until next week for what could be the only definitive account of how Carlos Ghosn managed to leave Japan months before he was due to stand trial for alleged financial misconduct.
The former Nissan chairman who fled the country to Lebanon while out on bail, will speak to the media in Beirut next Wednesday, media reports said, in a public appearance that could provide answers to myriad questions swirling around his daring escape.
Continue reading...Japan’s media accuse Carlos Ghosn of ‘cowardly act’ after flight to Lebanon
Papers question granting of bail, while reports suggest Ghosn met Lebanese president
The usually staid Japanese media have criticised Carlos Ghosn after the tycoon jumped bail and fled to Lebanon – reportedly inside a musical instrument case – to avoid what he called “political persecution” in Japan.
“Running away is a cowardly act that mocks Japan’s justice system,” said the Yomiuri Shimbun. By leaving the country, Ghosn had “lost the opportunity to prove his innocence and vindicate his honour”, the paper added, noting that the courts, his defence lawyers and immigration control officials also bore some responsibility in the affair.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn escaped Japan ‘hiding in a musical instrument case’
His ‘big adventure’ reportedly involved his wife, a Gregorian band and ex-special services
Carlos Ghosn reportedly fled house arrest in Japan in a musical instrument case, in an audacious Hollywood movie-style escape masterminded by his wife, Carole, with the assistance of a Gregorian music band and a team of ex-special forces officers.
The escape began when the band arrived at his home in Tokyo, where Ghosn has been held under house arrest and strict police surveillance, according to Lebanese TV news channel MTV. At the end of the performance, as the musicians packed up their instruments, Ghosn – whose height is stated at 1.7m, or just under 5ft 6in, in his Wikipedia entry – apparently slipped into one of the larger cases and was taken to a small local airport.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn, ousted Nissan boss, says he has fled ‘Japanese injustice’
Ghosn, who had been banned from leaving Japan, flies to Lebanon and says he will no longer be held in a rigged system
Carlos Ghosn, who is awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct, has left Japan and arrived in Lebanon to “escape injustice”.
The former Nissan chairman issued a statement on Tuesday morning in which he said he would “no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed”.
Continue reading...Seven bodies found on suspected North Korean fishing boat in Japan
Experts say vessel was possibly travelling far out to sea for bigger catches
Seven badly decomposed bodies were found in a suspected North Korean fishing boat that washed up on a Japanese island, a coast guard official.
The remains were found on Saturday in a broken vessel on the shore of Sado Island, which lies around 900km from North Korea across the Sea of Japan.
Continue reading...How Japan has fared in 30 years since the stock market bubble burst
Nostalgia for the good times has been a coping mechanism for the world’s third largest economy
On 29 December 1989, Japan’s Nikkei stock market index hit a high of 38,916, a milestone that proved to be the last hurrah of the country’s asset-inflated bubble economy – a period of ostentatious consumption and overconfidence in the infallibility of Japan, Inc.
What followed was a spectacular fall from the heights of the mid- to late 1980s. The stock market plummeted, losing more than $2tn (£1.5tn) in value by December 1990. In the years that followed, the Japanese surveyed an alien landscape of “restructuring” – code for cost-cutting – deflation and stagnation. When the bubble party ended, its hosts appeared to have no idea how to clean up the mess left by absurdly high share and property prices.
Continue reading...Fight to become Japan’s gyoza capital gently simmers
Utsunomiya’s culinary obsession with dumplings dates back to the end of the war, but the city has a new rival
Pan-fried, deep-fried or simmered in boiling water, the humble gyoza is venerated in Japan, but nowhere more so than in Utsunomiya, whose residents have the tiny parcels of pork and cabbage to thank for rescuing their city from obscurity.
The city of just over half a million, 60 miles (100km) north of Tokyo, has built an entire tourist industry around its association with the dumplings, drawing 9 million visitors a year with the sole purpose of eating Utsunomiya’s contribution to Japanese cuisine.
Continue reading...Little Miss Period: the manga character challenging Japan’s menstruation taboos
Film praised by women in Japan where talking about periods in public is considered dirty or embarrassing
A manga character shaped like a pink blob with bright red lips and leggings is challenging taboos surrounding menstruation in Japan, but not everyone is convinced that Seiri-chan – Little Miss Period – is a force for good.
The anthropomorphised period, now the star of an anime movie of the same name, has received a largely positive response from women in Japan where talking in public about menstruation is often seen as dirty or embarrassing.
Continue reading...Japanese officials helped procure wartime sex slaves, report claims
News agency says diplomatic dispatches contradict claims that so-called ‘comfort women’ worked willingly
The Japanese imperial army asked the government to provide one wartime sex slave for every 70 soldiers serving in China in the late 1930s, according to dispatches that offer evidence of official involvement in the recruitment of women to work in military brothels.
The dispatches from Japanese diplomatic missions in China include requests to the foreign ministry in Tokyo to provide “comfort women”, Kyodo news agency reported. The term was a euphemism used to describe tens of thousands of women from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and other countries who were forced into sexual servitude before and during the second world war.
Continue reading...Japanese aid chief among six dead in Afghanistan attack
Japanese prime minister among those to pay tribute after Tetsu Nakamura is killed in deadly ambush on car
The head of a Japanese aid agency and five other people have been killed in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan
Among the victims was Tetsu Nakamura, 73, the respected physician and head of Peace Japan Medical Services, who had recently been granted honorary Afghan citizenship for his decades of humanitarian work in the country.
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