Chinese troops racing to drain an ”earthquake lake” ahead of more forecast rain made substantial progress digging a diversion channel and have created emergency escape paths in case a mud and rock dam gives way. The landslide-blocked river in China’s Sichuan province is now the most pressing danger after an earthquake devastated the region on May 12.
Anti-whaling campaigners said on Thursday that they had uncovered an embezzlement ring at the heart of the Japanese whaling fleet, accusing crew members of stealing choice cuts of whale meat worth millions of yen for sale on the black market.
Japan has more than 38 000 unofficial middle- and high-school websites that are not overseen by the schools, and harassment, sexual content and violent slang are prevalent among them, an Education Ministry survey showed. ”We didn’t really know what exactly was going on out there,” said a ministry official.
Militant environmentalists hurled stinging acid for more than an hour onto a Japanese whaling ship off Antarctica on Monday, hurting three crew members, officials said. Both Japan and Australia, the leading opponent of whaling, condemned the latest attack by the Sea Shepherd group.
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/ 5 February 2008
Japan’s health minister raised the possibility on Tuesday that someone had deliberately contaminated Chinese-made dumplings imported into Japan with pesticide in an incident that made 10 Japanese sick and sparked a food scare. Japanese police have set up a joint task force to investigate the case on suspicion of attempted murder.
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/ 21 December 2007
Japan’s whaling fleet in the Antarctic will avoid killing humpback whales for now, but will press on with plans to slay 1 000 other whales by early in the New Year, a government official said on Friday. Plans by Japan to include 50 endangered humpbacks in its annual hunt had sparked an outcry from activists.
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/ 20 December 2007
As Japan takes a more active role in military affairs, the defence minister has more on his mind than just threats here on Earth. Shigeru Ishiba became the second member of the Cabinet to profess a belief in UFOs and said he was looking at how Japan’s military could respond to aliens under the pacifist Constitution.
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/ 25 September 2007
Yasuo Fukuda, a seasoned moderate lawmaker, was chosen as Japan’s Prime Minister on Tuesday, then tapped veteran ministers from his predecessor’s Cabinet to confront a resurgent opposition keen to force an election. The Liberal Democratic Party chose Fukuda as its leader to revive party fortunes after a disastrous year of scandals.