Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent reports, Japan’s powerful yakuza organised crime syndicates are mounting a widespread assault on the country’s financial markets that may have left hundreds of listed companies riddled with mob connections.

In a surprisingly stark admission, the National Police Agency (NPA) says that it is locked in a battle for the economic soul and international reputation of Japan.

Police investigations suggest that the yakuza have become voracious traders and manipulators of listed Japanese shares, and, via a network of about a thousand apparently legitimate front companies, occupy big positions on the shareholder registers of many companies that may not even be aware of the connection.

According to one veteran expert on the yakuza, the new activities of the nation’s largest crime syndicates have effectively turned the mob into the biggest private equity firm in Japan.

In a White Paper on the subject, the NPA gives warning that the yakuza’s switch from old-fashioned crime rackets such as drugs and prostitution to mainstream financial markets is “a disease that will shake the foundations of the economy”. Read the rest of this entry »

Rackii (that’s Lucky, for you non Japanese speakers) me, Chicago has an pretty great public transportation system that just so happens to be color coded. When I need to get home, I take the Red Line southbound train to, let’s say, the Harrison stop and bam! I’m at my dorm. It’s sort of the same idea in Tokyo, but entirely more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated, I mean confusing (if you’ve never had to use a metro system before). My wonderful host mother drew out a totally kawaii map for me with perfect directions on how to get to Azubu (where Temple University Japan is located) from Koshigaya and back.

My host mother drove me to Kita-Koshigaya station to meet another home stay student, Hayley, who I’d spoken to for sometime thanks to the genius of Facebook networking. At any rate, we were very surprised at how easily we got from point A to point B. I hear it’s super easy to get lost on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, but we actually had the pleasure of ending up in the City so my train riding confidence has gone up through the roof. However, I’m still not used to the idea of being so packed in a train I can barely breath. The second train we hopped onto was just that packed. Riding the trains here takes a certain amount of mental fortitude I had absolutely no idea I even had.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former makuuchi division Russian wrestler, 20-year-old Toshinori Wakanoho (whose real name is Soslan Gagloev), under arrest for possessing marijuana, has told police that he first turned to drugs in his early teens, and that after he entered the sumo world he smoked dope every time he went home to Russia.

According to a statement Wakanoho made to police, he went to a nightclub in Tokyo’s Roppongi entertainment district by himself on June 20, where he was offered marijuana by a Russian man and a black man. He smoked the drug in the club’s restroom using a bong, or water pipe. Wakanoho then bought marijuana, two pipes and rolling papers from the black man for 20,000 yen. Read the rest of this entry »

TOKYO (AFP) - - Japan for the first time has a chance of a female prime minister in Yuriko Koike, but feminists are sceptical on whether she would do the country’s women any good.

Koike has hinted she may run in the September 22 race within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to replace unpopular Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who abruptly resigned on Monday.

The former TV anchorwoman would be the first woman to seek the premier’s post in male-dominated Japan, which has some of the world’s lowest rates of female representation in politics and business.

“I welcome a female candidate running in the election — generally speaking,” said Mitsuko Shimomura, a journalist and one of the founders of Win Win, a lobby for female politicians similar to the US Emily’s List.

“But her bid to become the first woman prime minister would do nothing to increase the social standing of Japanese women,” she said. “Many women around me feel sick to their back teeth.” Read the rest of this entry »

There has been much debate on the terms “gaijin” (foreign/outside person) and “nigger” lately in Japan among the foreign community. In a series of articles published in the Japan Times, professor, activist, and coauthor of the “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants, and Immigrants, Arudou Debito comes out swinging. Here is his latest article: THE CASE FOR “GAIJIN” AS A RACIST WORD: THE SEQUEL - LET’S COME CLEAN ON “GAIJIN” [Published September 2, 2008 as “The ‘gaijin’ debate: Arudou responds”]

Last month’s column (JBC August 5) was on the word “gaijin”. I made the case that it is a racist word, one that reinforces an “us-and-them” rubric towards foreigners and their children in Japan. It generated a lot of debate. Good. Thanks for your time. Now let’s devote 700 more words to some issues raised.

Regarding the arguments about intent, i.e. “People use the word gaijin, but don’t mean it in a derogatory way”. The root issue here is, “Who decides whether a word is bad?” Is it the speaker using the word, or the person being addressed by it?

Ditto for the word gaijin. People like me who have lived here for many years, even assimilated to the point of taking citizenship, don’t want to be called “gaijin” anymore. We can be forgiven for taking umbrage, for not wanting to be pushed back into the pigeonhole. Don’t tell us who we are–we’ll decide for ourselves who we are, especially in our own country, thanks. So stoppit.

Now for the more controversial claim: my linking “gaijin” with “n*gg*r”. Although I was not equating their histories, I was drawing attention to their common effect–stripping societies of diversity.

You can read the rest of the article and numerous comments here.

Here is the response that I (Zurui) sent: Read the rest of this entry »

I have heard of running, marching, walking, biking, swimming and other events to raise funds for AIDS and HIV research but letting men (or women) cop a feel for 1000 yen wins for the most outrageous campaign yet, unless your in Japan that is!

Via Danny Choo:  “Japan - the place where you can pay 1,000 yen and get to research the eyes of an AV girl… Personally not for me but who here is game?” 

Read the rest of this entry »

The blogger at Victory Manual writes: “Lately I’ve been noticing that newly erected homes in Japan are taking on international flavors - More bricks on the external walls, stucco, yellows and creams, things like that. But there is one dominant feature that, regardless of the external style, remains nearly constant: Tiny windows.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most of you all know that Fukuda resigned as Prime Minister (PM) of Japan. In response to why I didn’t blog about his resignation, the short answer is: “I’m waiting for the rest of the story!” In the meantime, I am following the buzz about Taro Aso.

The following article was forwarded by Tenrou Kibagami. Kibagami has been following the otaku culture’s news regarding Aso’s candidacy for PM.  For those unfamiliar with the term, “otaku” are basically fanboys.  While there can be different types of otaku, the term is commonly associated with the anime and manga (cartoons/comics) crowd.  Aso is an admitted manga fan, having said to read about 10 to 20 manga magazines a week. His hobby may pay off for collectors! Read the rest of this entry »

The fast-growing site is the king of social networking among Japanese users, and it really rakes in the online ads

Asuka Kosaka joined Facebook this year to connect with her English-speaking friends. But when the 29-year-old wants to share her thoughts and photos with 70 friends and family members in Japan, she heads straight for another site: Mixi.

Mixi (2121.T) may not have the global reach of social networking giants Facebook and MySpace, but in Japan it’s king. The Tokyo company had 15 million users as of June, a 40% gain from 10.7 million a year earlier. No other social networking site even comes close, analysts say. Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace disclose only worldwide numbers. “Most of my friends don’t know that Facebook and MySpace have Japanese-language sites,” says Kosaka. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an interesting post from Japan Subculture:

I was knocking back drinks with a former bodyguard in the Yamaguchigumi, and it was raining outside.

He is about fifty years old, six feet five, and has arms that are bigger than my legs.

I was sitting on the tatami listening to the rain outside, and while he lit up his twentieth cigarette of the day I said,

“I love rainy days.”

He didn’t agree.

“I hate them. Most yakuza do. People get taken out when it rains –  the rain washes away the blood, the trace evidence, the footprints, everything. You can’t hear a gunshot in the rain, you can’t hear the whoosh of a sword, you can’t even hear people walking behind you. Rain makes it dark, makes it hard for eyewitnesses to see anything. Makes it hard for you to see anything. And… if you’re holding an umbrella, you can’t react. You’re handicapped. We get killed on rainy days. And, of course, that’s also the day that, if you’re going to take someone out, you’d choose to do it. Maybe just snatch them off the empty streets. Take them somewhere else and kill them. If there’s a turf war going on, a downpour tells me someone is going to die.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I really miss my old job. Here is a hit and a miss for the South Korean intelligence community. The DPRK once again shows the world how to get the most bang for their buck when employing kidnapped South Koreans, Japanese and others used to train DPRK spy. This gives the job title “foreign language teacher” a whole new meaning doesn’t it?!

Seoul, South Korea: A North Korean woman accused of using ‘sex as a tool for her spy activity’ and plotting to assassinate South Korean intelligence agents with poisoned needles has been arrested, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

The suspect, identified as Won Jeong-hwa (pictured), 34, confessed after her July 15 arrest that she was a spy trained and commissioned by North Korea’s intelligence agency, prosecutors said in a statement.

She is the first alleged North Korean spy arrested in South Korea since 2006, and the second in a decade, the statement added.

Read the rest of this entry »

Japan, U.S., Europe secretly agreed to defend falling dollar during March financial crisis: Prepared concerted intervention

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has discovered that with the dollar plunging due to the financial crisis in the U.S. triggered by the subprime mortgage debacle, monetary authorities of the U.S. Europe and Japan secretly agreed to defend the dollar through concerted currency intervention to buy dollars.

Their aim was to prevent the plunging value of the dollar from creating havoc in the global economy. They also prepared an emergency joint statement aimed at stabilizing the exchange market. U.S. President Bush was cautious about currency intervention, but he apparently felt he had no choice but to change his policy in the face of a serious trend of investors moving away from the dollar. It is almost unprecedented for the U.S. to take the lead in a move to defend the dollar. The dollar crisis is still lingering due to financial troubles for housing companies in the U.S. Chances are that currency officials of those countries might search for cooperation again.

Read the rest of this entry »

The blogger over at Gaijin Smash (list in the Black Tokyo Japan Blog Roll) had me rolling in laugher with his The Devil is Prada posts. Here is an excerpt:

That’s another thing I forgot to mention last time…quick cultural lesson, often times when you enter a store, the Japanese clerks will say “irrashaimase!” Kind of hard to translate, but roughly it means “Welcome!” That’s all well and good, but the problem is that in these fashion stores, it can be hard to keep track of who is weaving in and out of the store. To solve this problem, the clerks will just shout out “irrashaimase!” at 3-second intervals. This becomes particularly annoying when you’re standing right next to them and they just keep saying it! Goddamnit, you already welcomed me to this hell stop, stop doing it!

You can read the rest of the story at Gaijin Smash by clicking here.

I need to further research the article below (considering the source of information, the Akahata Shimbun) and provide my analysis. Please feel free to comment!

[Akata Shimbun] It has been revealed that Japan and the U.S. concluded a secret treaty that specifies Japan’s waiver of primary jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. soldiers off duty in cases deemed of “no special importance.” A paper issued in 2001 by persons including a USFJ legal advisor notes that Japan continues to faithfully observe the pact.

It has become known through U.S. government declassified documents and other means that the two countries concluded the secret accord when the administrative agreement governing the legal status of U.S. troops in Japan was revised (in 1953). But it has been found for the first time that the agreement is still effective.

The paper, titled “An agreement on the status of foreign troops in Japan,” was written jointly by Lieutenant Colonel Dale Sonnenberg, chief of international law at the office of the judge advocate at U.S. Forces Japan, and Donald A. Timm, special advisor to the Judge Advocate Headquarters. The paper is in The Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces, published by Oxford University in Britain in 2001.

The paper specifies the existence of the secret pact, noting: “Japan has concluded an unofficial agreement under which it abandons its primary right to exercise jurisdiction, excluding cases of ’special importance.’ The paper emphasizes that the pact is still effective, saying: “Japan has been faithful in upholding this agreement.”

The paper also points out that the U.S. policy goal is to exercise its jurisdiction over crimes by U.S. service members overseas to the maximum extent. To that end, the paper says that various measures have been
taken in Japan, such as:

1. having Japan drop cases;
2. giving Japan no time for it to notify (the U.S.) of its intent to bring an accusation; and
3. having Japan abandon jurisdiction over cases under indictment.

The paper reveals that the U.S. military is trying to insulate U.S. service members who commit crimes from trials in Japan by every possible means.

It has also been learned that the Justice Ministry issued a notice that included the same provisions as those in the Japan-U.S. secret pact in 1953. Asked by Akahata about the validity of the notice at the present point of time, the Justice Ministry did not rule it out, just saying: ”We have no comment.”

Softbank Mobile Corp. said Tuesday it will reduce the minimum monthly basic fee for Apple Inc.’s iPhone from the current ¥2,990 to ¥2,324 in a stated bid to counter the latest move by larger rival NTT DoCoMo Inc. to launch new low-charge services.

It will be the second time Softbank Mobile has lowered the minimum monthly basic fee for iPhone 3G users since the company started selling the model in July.

The new basic fee, effective Wednesday, is nearly ¥5,000 lower than the initial charge of ¥7,280.