Captain Obvious comments

How does a 24 year old become a director? Could it be his parents' business and he had something against them? Why doesn't the report say whose urine he used? I can't understand why it seems the focus of the charge is that the bottle was 'rendered unusable'. Who cares about the bottle!!

and some 570 million yen was given back to those who found the money

I do understand that legally the 'finder' can get a certain cut of the money they find when the original owner shows up, but I'd like to know what percentage of this sum was actually cash that had no connections to any kind of criminal organization. I can't believe the average Joe would lose a considerable amount of cash and not report it.

You never read those kind of news on the rest of the world

Maybe that's because the rest of the world has more news to report on, like school shootings.

I kind of agree that people are jumping to conclusions here. Just because it's a family in Japan, we are already jumping to conclusions that the culture automatically is the reason for this. Most of the families I know in Japan are loving families, but a lot of them don't show that affection in public. That's the big difference between Japan and my country.

Quite common that people from English speaking countries use only English in Japan.

I find that hard to believe.

This guy is supposedly a translator (I assume Japanese - English), so I can't believe he would speak to a man in his 70's in English, knowing quite likely the he's not going to understand him. Kind of think the judge 'threw the book at him' and sentenced him to two years jail based on his complacency with his trial and bringing this "Go to a door" rubbish defence into it. I would also think his defence attorney has slightly dented his own career by actually proceeding with this 'school-boy like' attitude.

I get it, there are all kinds of fetishes and most of them probably know no borders.... but how the hell are there so many men in Japan in particular with this fetish for stealing women's undies/aprons/nurse uniforms and other articles of clothing?

It's part of the culture that the adult entertainment industry controls. Have a look at what's available (most notably - school girls) and you can see why these fetishes are considered to be normal and in some views, acceptable.

If this goes through, which I highly doubt, I'd like to know if other big companies can be liable as well. Amazon, for instance, can they be responsible for what shops sell on their platform?

So sad that even when the evidence was there, and the family services, the police, and nursery school all noticed that something was not right, that this poor little girl couldn't have been saved. How could this have happened???

I would have thought that only having the arrow already tells you that all other traffic heading in your path (including pedestrians) has a red light? I know of many traffic lights in the Kansai area that DON'T have the right hand green arrow signal, and you can't physically see whether the traffic coming from the opposite direction have a red light or not while you're waiting to turn right. This is quite confusing. A simple green arrow would make traffic light turning safer.

@Roten

Been stopped once in 17 years in Japan. It was for being on a girly bike that was unusual for a white male to ride in Japan. And I had picked it up out of a garbage/recycling pile back when we had neighbourhood soudai gomi piles.

I don't recommend taking a bicycle out of these garbage piles. Who's to know the bicycle wasn't stolen and then thrown out?

Both my children have been stopped on multiple occasions and they have even been told they should carry their passport to "prove" they are Japanese!

Wow! How ridiculous if it has to come down to this! Doesn't sound like we're living in a free country if we're expected to carry any form of ID when going for a stroll down to the local konbini. I've been asked once (from memory) by a police officer to show ID in all the years I've lived here. And that one time, I felt he was just an overzealous undercover rookie cop, or with the way he showed his badge to me and me being caught off guard, I've always wondered if it was someone who was pretending to be a police officer. In any case, why do some non native-Japanese looking people get called upon multiple times to prove their identity and visa status, while others (caucasian, like me) don't? You would definitely have to agree that racial profiling is a big part of it but also (whether it is considered fair or not) the police must believe that they can find the majority of illegal immigrants this way?

USNinJapan2

If you're interested I found this for you.

https://www.bengo4.com/c_2/n_13887/

It states that in Article 72 Paragraph 1 of the Road Traffic Act that you are to report to the police and take precautionary measures which can be interpreted as removing the animal.

In Japan, it is against the law to hit and run an animal. I saw the aftermath of a deer that had been hit by a car but the driver took off. The deer was still alive but out of shock, it didn't want to move. So I called the police and it took them so long to come and assist the poor thing. I think the police were more interested in catching the driver of the vehicle that hit the animal than trying to help it.

Holy smokes. That is a big problem. Rescue services need to be improved.

At no point in this article did it say that the rescue services were at fault. The big problem is that hikers need to understand the conditions and be better prepared. I'd like to know how many people actually take out insurance before their hikes. If you're a day's hike away from any civilization and you sprain your ankle, what can you do?

The Japanese fishermen - as well as the usual Korean protesters- need to look to the science rather than being hysterical.

It doesn't matter whether the fishing industry understand the science of this as being safe for consumption or not. It's the people that consume the product that need to be influenced. This decision is going to hurt the industry no matter what the science suggests.

Can people please read the article before shouting at racism?

Thank you, Elfinou.

Seriously, do people come across these articles looking for an excuse to scream 'Racism against all foreigners' all the time??? Seems like it!

I wonder if the US, Japan and Soth Korea would have the capabilities to jam communications with the rocket as it ascends, or even cause it's failure . . . .

They probably do. Hence the early notification from NK.

For those of you who disagree with the belief that Japan is one of the safest countries in the world, out of the near 200 or so countries that do exist, can you name 10 countries that you feel are much safer?

The System and the Police FAILED this mother, what a shame.

That's easy to say, but really what can they do? 20,000 police officers escorting potential victims 24 hours a day?

Unfortunately, I can only think of some people (especially women) staying in a relationship they don't want to be in in order to avoid stalking situations like these.

High time to put a tracker or auto alarm on stalkers as soon as he nears the victims alarm goes off blowing stalkers presence

... made the stalker wear a body camera at his own expense. Or a shock collar or something.

How would you expect the police to legally do this? It's not like he was on parole or anything.

I always feel that celebrities/sports stars should hold some kind of responsibility for whatever product they're endorsing. (Damage to their reputation, maybe?) I would like to think that if they are endorsing a certain product, that they are actually using it. I can't understand how consumers would accept pop group, SMAP's Katori Shingo and Kusanagi Tsuyoshi wearing obvious 'hair receding' wigs and endorsing a product called 'SCALP D' that supposedly slows down hair loss, even though they are more than likely not using the product. I suppose it just shows the power of a celebrity's status. Quite sad, really.

Boxing and BMX racing had the highest rates, with 27 percent of competitors getting injured,

Not surprised that boxing is one of the highest, as the main objective is to actually injure your opponent.

I'm pretty sure that Naoto Oguchi will be reprimanded (in-house) for bringing this unnecessary attention to the Sumiyoshi-kai.

Just think, if the one perpetrator had not fessed up, the J-police would have been totally happy to close the case as a suicide. I swear, Japan must be one of the easiest countries to get away with murder; the police certainly won't stand in your way!

Quite possibly. And that is also why the conviction rate in Japan is so high!

No excuse for this whatsoever.

Punish this animal to the full extent of the law.

No, I disagree with your comment. Please read Vivi's post and maybe you'll change your opinion slightly. Nobody's perfect, especially when we don't expect the unthinkable to happen, such as what happened in this case. I do feel for the father and whether he'll be fully forgiven by the rest of his family. I certainly hope so.

This is what firearms are made for, but now you can’t own one in AuzzieLand.

Your statement is totally wrong. You can get a license for a firearm in Australia and most of these ARE used for the purpose of killing wildlife, unlike some other countries.

We in Australia start our killer animals at the "irakunji " size "jelly fish the size of a coin ", move onto spider size {funnel web }, then snakes {eastern brown, death adder etc } ,angry wombats, cassowaries in North Queensland , white sharks and bull sharks , crocodiles , and yes, now skippy.

Guru Mick, You'll never get a job with Tourism Australia.

I feel so good whenever I am able to pick up some tomatoes unwrapped at my local grocery store, up until I get to the cashier who places them in a plastic bag when I go through to pay for them!

In other countries this would be the end of the company, in Japan a few not so important people will lose their jobs and the problem will be declared solved.

Seems to be a lot of anti Japan posts here. This is happening all over the world. Look at what VW and Boeing did! (They are still around as well.) I think it's quite common with a lot of vehicle manufacturers. What gets me is why can't there be an independent emissions tester on these vehicles? Wouldn't that solve the problem?

blue:

Another thing: compared to Europe I always felt that ambulances with sirens wailing in Japan are like, reaaaaaaally slow in the traffic. Am I the only one?

I guess the ambulance travels to a speed that is suitable for the situation. I was just stopped at a red light the other day, and noticed an ambulance blaring its sirens coming up behind. It was physically impossible for cars to move to the side of the road as the road was only about 3-4 metres wide. So what does the ambulance do? It waits at the traffic lights 4 cars back and turns off its sirens until the traffic starts moving again. I doubt it was in much of an emergency.

Cases of people getting unwanted crabs skyrocketing in Japan

What do expect from SoraNews24? Every time I read an article here, I generally know if it's a Reuters or SoraNews24 article when I'm a quarter of the way through.