Welcome to the first post of TPR News. We’ve been offering discussions on politics as part of our Seijigiri podcasts and political news updates with our Seijigiri supplements, but we’ve decided to broaden the horizons a bit and offer a ‘channel’ with a look at more general news from Japan and other parts of East Asia.

As often as possible, we will be recording these news summaries so that you can listen to them as streaming audio from your home computer, or grab the mp3 file and listen as you ride the train or walk about town.

That said, let’s get into the recent news:

Crazy Politician Words of the Day

This one comes to us via the Japan Times: On Friday, Shoichi Nakagawa, the Liberal Democratic Party policy chief, said that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il may well launch a nuclear attack on Japan because he suffers from diabetes. Nakagawa, who is not a medical doctor, offered the following diagnosis:

One would not normally [launch a nuclear attack], but because that country’s leader has overeaten rich food and suffers from diabetes, he could think about it.

It seems there are some nervous politicians out there working hard to keep their constituencies nervous as well. As far as the possibility of Japan joining North Korea in the nuclear club, prime minister Abe Shinzo said on Wednesday that “the debate is finished,” refusing even to discuss the idea.

Business News

As of Tuesday, Japan’s cell phone users will be able to take their numbers with them when they switch providers. The Daily Yomiuri tells us that Japan’s three large cellular service providers, NTT DoCoMo, Softbank and KDDI’s AU, are all gearing up for a busy week. What’s their strategy to gain more subscribers? Each company is releasing a slew of new handsets in October, with the focus being on portable music playing functionality. Softbank is also offering Sharp’s Aquous model, which receives One-Seg television broadcasts that can be watched on its high-definition liquid crystal sceen.

Could lower corporate taxes be on the horizon? On Friday, Osaka University professor Masaaki Honma, who will take over as chairman of the government’s tax panel next month, hinted that he might propose such tax cuts. On the subject of raising the consumption tax from its current 5%, Honma was silent. It seems that few LDP members will offer an opinion on that topic until after the upper house Diet election next summer.

And 1,000 tons of US beef remains frozen at customs in Narita, as it arrived before Tokyo reinstated its ban on US beef in January. The ban was lifted in July, but the beef has yet to move. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said, “We intend to carefully consider this in order to make a final decision.”

Society

The issue of bullying in Japan’s schools has been in the news again, with a junior high school student and a high school teacher having committed suicide last week. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology says that zero student suicides from 1999 to 2005 were linked to bullying, but the Daily Yomiuri begs to differ. The National Police Agency has also said that incidents of bullying at junior high schools have now risen for three years in a row.

Finally, the Japan Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers has persuaded YouTube to remove nearly 30,000 videos from its popular website that it claimed were posted without permission. By the way, footage of English FA Premiership goals is also not allowed to be uploaded to YouTube.

That’s all for tonight. Hope you enjoyed!