Japan News

A new $935 million project called the Japan Aerospace Defense Ground Environment has been initiated to improve the country's automatic air warning and defense control system. JADGE has replaced the Base Air Defense Ground Environment, said Japan's air arm, the Air Self-Defense Force. (UPI)

Starting in July, Japan will issue tourist visas to Chinese individual tourists who meet specified conditions. Chinese tourists can enjoy "freely touring Japan" as early as July 8. The policy will initially be implemented in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, then following a one-year pilot implementation period it will expand throughout Chinese mainland. (People's Daily)

A high school student was arrested Saturday over the death of his classmate in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, after admitting to stabbing him, police said. The 17-year-old senior was apprehended at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder as he admitted to stabbing Tomoya Hamada, 18, on his abdomen and back at a train station shortly after 8 a.m., they said. Hamada was brought to a nearby hospital, at which he was pronounced dead around 90 minutes later. (AP)

The Japanese government lodged a protest against North Korea through diplomatic channels in Beijing over its launching of multiple ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Saturday, Japanese officials said. Japan is set to coordinate with countries such as the United States and South Korea in urging other members of the United Nations to steadily implement the measures in the U.N. Security Council's sanctions resolutions against Pyongyang as the country's actions are in violation of them, according to the officials. (AP)

A girl with cerebral palsy attended a public middle school in Nara Prefecture for the first time Friday following a court order that temporarily approved her enrollment at the school. Dressed in a brand new sailor-style school uniform, Meika Taniguchi of Shimoichicho in the prefecture, was welcomed by teachers as her mother dropped her off at Shimoichi Middle School in the town shortly after 8 a.m. (Yomiuri)

A 55-year-old man was arrested Friday on suspicion of murdering a man in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, police said. According to the police, Yoichi Umino, a construction worker residing in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, allegedly killed 60-year-old Norio Inage in mid-January by stabbing him in multiple places, including his back and chest. Umino reportedly denied the allegation. (Yomiuri)

All seven Boeing 747-300 jumbo jets flown by Japan Airlines will be retired from service at the end of this month, the airline said. Currently, JAL is the country's only airline still using the earliest-generation Boeing 747, whose model numbers range from 100 to 300. (Yomiuri)

KDDI Corp, Japan's No.2 wireless operator, could invest more in a new WiMax venture as it hunts for market share in data services, its president said on Friday. The company, which competes with sector leader NTT DoCoMo Inc and No.3 Softbank Corp in a saturated market, hopes demand for high-speed Internet downloads and uploads on the run will help expand its revenue streams over the long term. (Reuters)

An Osaka health official found a genetic mutation of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu on June 18 - nearly two weeks before the "first" finding was reported in Denmark - but failed to disclose it, the health ministry said Thursday. The mutation, found in a woman in her 40s in Toyonaka who caught the H1N1 influenza A virus in May, is the first reported case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu in Japan. (Japan Times)

Japanese is comprised of three syllable alphabets: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Yeah, you've heard this before. But do you know the history behind the three? Kanji originated in China and came to Japan during the Han Dynasty (Japan's Asuka Period 530-710). (Japan Times)

Japanese public schools are accommodating an unprecedented number of foreign students struggling to solve the language problem and nearly 30,000 of them have been found to require constant help in learning Japanese, an education ministry survey showed Friday. Publicly run elementary, junior high and high schools across Japan reported a record 28,575 students who they thought need to learn Japanese to keep up with classes or live everyday life as of last September, up 13 percent from a year earlier, according to the survey results. (AP)

Pieces of an Islamic ceramic vase dating back to the late eighth century have been discovered in Nara Prefecture, making it possibly the oldest Islamic porcelain found in Japan, Nara city government researchers said Friday. Nineteen pieces with a blue-green exterior and dark green interior surface were unearthed at Saidaiji Temple in the ancient Japanese capital, they said without giving the specific date of the discovery. (AP)

Japan asked the United States on Friday to provide information on the U.S. F-22 fighter jet once more as it still hopes to acquire the advanced fighter jet despite a U.S. ban its export, the Air Self-Defense Force said. The Defense Ministry also initiated the process of acquiring additional information on the F-35 alternative fighter so it can consider acquiring the F-35 in case the F-22 remains unavailable, it said. (AP)

The global economic landscape may see a milestone change this year, for China is widely regarded to replace Japan as the second largest economy in the next few months. But for that to happen China's economy has to grow by 6 to 8 percent, while Japan's has to contract further. Last year, China's GDP was $4.22 trillion against Japan's $4.84 trillion. And even though China's GDP may overtake Japan's, the two economies have major quantitative and qualitative differences. (China Daily)

Japan's 40 real estate investment trusts (Reits) are slowly and painfully recovering from their worst experience since they were introduced in 2001. However, some analysts still see major structural problems in the industry. (FinanceAsia)

Japan's near-silent hybrid cars have been called dangerous by the vision-impaired and some users, prompting a government review on whether to add a noise-making device, according to an official. The petrol-electric vehicles, which in recent months have become the country's top-selling autos, hum along almost soundlessly when they are switched from fuel to battery mode. (AFP)

Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic bombings, has welcomed the appointment of one of their own to head the top nuclear watchdog and expressed hopes for a world without nuclear weapons. Tadatoshi Akiba, mayor of Hiroshima, the south-western city that suffered nuclear attacks in 1945, was among those offering congratulatory messages. (ukpress)

Japanese Cabinet endorsed a revision to a bill Friday to extend the refueling mission in the Indian Ocean by another half year to help U.S.-led antiterrorism operations near Afghanistan. (Xinhua)

Have you seen the latest fad for teens in Japan? They are called bagelheads. Teens in Japan are injecting themselves with saline, which causes bumps in their heads. (nj.com)

The first Android-powered phone will launch in Japan on July 10th. New Japanese customers will have immediate access to free applications in the Android Market, with paid apps following sometime later. That's according to a notice sent from Google's Eric Chu to Android app developers late Wednesday. Bulgaria and Romania are on the target list after Japan, first with phones and free apps and then with paid apps. (ZDNet)