ABC: Pet dogs fighting crime on Japanese streets
Residents on the Japanese island of Hokkaido are leading the way with a unusual style of neighbourhood watch which is planned to play a role during next week's G8 leaders' summit. Citizens have been combining their nightly dog walks with a bit of crime fighting, earning the name The Wan Wan Patrol, 'wan wan' being the Japanese translation for 'woof woof'. With special coats for the dogs and their owners, donated by the police, they are keeping an eye out for anything or anyone suspicious in their local area. Local police say it is working - a 48 per cent drop in crime reported since the organised patrols began, not bad for a ragtag group of poodles, chihuahuas, and a husky. Deputy superintendent at Yoyogi police station Makota Hamura says a lot of the credit belongs to the dog owners for their initiative. "It is not us [the police] who started this program, but citizens who keep the dogs in this area came to the police station and they said they wanted to do something to prevent crimes. That's why we started." For local police there is an added benefit during the G8 Summit and superintendent Hamura says the dogs will be lending a helpful paw. "Actually one third of personnel of this police station will be mobilised to security squad. So we have to secure this area, remaining officers. So in that sense I think that the dog patrol is very useful"...more...
These Wan Wan Patrols are fairly common around the country rather than just an offbeat measure to beef up security for the G8 summit.
A Japanese firm is offering couples the chance to get hitched in space.
The firm will provide the happy couple with a rocket capable of taking them, a priest and two witnesses 100km up to get married in freefall.
Most of the service will be conducted on the ground and then the vows exchanged while the couple enjoy a few minutes of weightlessness. The capsule then returns to earth and they can get on with the honeymoon.
The wedding package costs $2.4 million and the Japanese firm First Advantage says it expects the package to be popular with wealthy couples from Asia and the Middle East.
The package is being organised with US space tourism company Rocket Plane, based in Oklahoma.
The offering is part of a boom in space tourism, which many firms believe is now viable. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is already taking deposits for its first flight, as too is a Spanish space hotel, and the US government has prepared regulations for space tourists.
I couldn't help but notice this bit from the piece on the USFAA's recommended regulations for space tourists:
Space tourists should be given pre-flight training to handle emergencies such as a fire or loss of cabin pressure, and how to use the emergency exits.
I doubt that opening an emergency exit in space will improve your situation much.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare recently unveiled a new logo with great fanfare. It has now been pointed out that the symbol they have chosen (above left) bears a similarity to another logo (above right) used by a human rights group in Takatsuki City, Osaka, which ended operations earlier this year. The Ministry says that the resemblance, such as it is, is accidental. Their symbol was chosen from over seven hundred public submissions by a committee which included outside appointees like media commentator Terry Ito.
Discount retailer Don Quijote announced this week that it will be beefing up services for foreign tourists. This will include simplified procedures for claiming consumption tax refunds and multilingual maps and information in the stores, starting with the Roppongi branch. They now also offer websites in Chinese and Korean with descriptions of popular products, reflecting a major increase in the number of customers from Asia. The store says it hope to become a key destination for tourists looking for Japan souvenirs.
The Yomiuri reports (Japanese) that police in Toyoda City have produced information sheets in English, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese advising foreigners to take precautions against car theft and burglary. They also carry reminders about cycling regulations and the new law which makes it illegal not to wear a seatbelts in the back of a car. Police say they have produced such information sheets for the first time because they have one of the largest population of foreigners in Japan. If that photograph is anything to go by, it's a bit of a shame they didn't ask some of them to do a quick stint of proofreading. However, it's a step forward if the police there are treating foreign residents as potential victims of crime rather than perpetrators.
Just after 10:00am on Thursday morning, staff at an airline check-in counter in Narita's Terminal One reported an unattended bag. Police evacuated the nearby area and brought in explosive-detecting dogs. The airport halted check-in and embarkation procedures causing crowds of confused travellers to build-up. Eventually, a sheepish-looking foreigner appeared and explained that the luggage was his. When opened, it was shown to contain nothing more than a heap of clothing. He was allowed to continue with his journey. Just over an hour later, police again went on high alert again when an empty bag was found in a room on the first floor of the same terminal. No-one has so far come forward to claim it.
Originally Posted by Associated Press' Jay Alabaster
. . . Japanese embassies have been told to cut out the fancy silverware.
The country's 186 embassies and ambassadorial residences have long used matching cutlery and dishes worldwide, all crafted by a single maker, but the practice was criticized in a government report this week.
“There is little need for a collection of tableware with exactly the same design” at all such locations, the Finance Ministry said.
The ministry said over $1 million had been spent on nearly 18,000 items over the last three fiscal years, each adorned with Japan's official government symbol based on the flower of the paulownia tree. It recommended a competitive bidding system to replace the current use of a single supplier.
The proposals were part of a broad annual survey of government spending.
The survey also recommended more efficient use of funds in a program to attract foreign tourists, and urged Japan's armed forces to team up to buy military clothing.
Japan is scrambling to cut spending as it struggles under massive national debt. Government revenues are falling as the country's population grows older and fewer people of working age pay into government tax coffers.
And if anyone's still wondering about the title, it's a corruption of the kotowaza: 猿も木から落ちる (saru mo ki kara ochiru - "even monkeys fall out of trees").
Mainichi: 'Dreams Come True' member marries rock vocalist
Masato Nakamura, the leader of a popular J-pop duo, "Dreams Come True," has tied the knot with a 20-year-old female vocalist of a rock band, their management offices announced on Wednesday. Nakamura, 49, married Maki Onaga, 20, vocalist for the six-member rock band, "High and Mighty Color" [above].Onaga will reportedly quit her band by the end of this year. Nakamura has been composing numerous tunes and playing bass guitar for Dreams Come True, which was formed in 1988 with vocalist Miwa Yoshida and Takahiro Nishikawa. Nishikawa later left the band.
Most headlines are focused on the couple's 29 year age difference but I'm also struck by the fact that Onaga plans to leave her band. I wonder whether that was her decision, his decision or her manager's decision.
(Reuters) - The Nikkei average fell 1.3 percent on Wednesday to hit its longest losing streak in more than 40 years, as worries about the global economy hit exporters such as Canon Inc
Sake-Drenched Postcards
Though a young boy at the time, Wallace Andre clearly recollects that moment six decades ago when a U.S. dive bomber began to encounter trouble while paying a visit to his coastal village on the eastern edge of Vanuatu's capital island of Efate. Life during Wartime: Vanuatu in World War I...
