News of the World

Brazil’s strong Japanese community — the biggest in the world outside Japan itself — will be at the fore of this year’s carnival, which kicks off on Friday. (AFP)

A lonely Japanese man has been arrested for allegedly calling directory assistance thousands of times because he liked to be scolded by female operators, police and reports said Wednesday. (AFP)

Japan Tobacco Inc., the nation’s biggest cigarette company, recalled some pork products imported from China after saying they were contaminated with pesticides and people who ate them became nauseous. (Bloomberg)

Japan’s four biggest banks face 500 billion yen ($4.7 billion) in losses associated with U.S. subprime mortgages in the current fiscal year through March 31, according to a published report. (MarketWatch)

Geographically, Japan is small. But there’s nothing small about its market for wireless services.
In probably the most competitive market for mobile services in the world, Japan’s leading carrier, NTT DoCoMo, showed in its latest earnings report that being the biggest isn’t necessarily the best. (Motley Fool)

The Yomiuri Shimbun and two of its rival newspapers, The Asahi Shimbun and The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, launch a joint Web site, Aratanisu, today. (Yomiuri)

Dozens more people in Japan on Thursday said they fell sick after eating Chinese-made food, a day after Japanese food companies recalled pesticide-contaminated dumplings from China that sickened 10 people. (Guardian Unlimited)

A 24-year-old female janitor of an elementary school in Hokkaido was found dead Thursday at the school, bleeding from her chest, prompting police to begin an investigation of a possible murder case. (Kyodo)

For the second year running, a clutch of small Japanese crafts firms, some with knowhow hundreds of years old, came to Paris this week in what Japan’s government describes as a “glocalisation” drive. (AFP)

Contact has been lost with a 58-year-old Japanese man who has embarked on a voyage to cross the Pacific solo in a hot-air balloon and his supporters have asked the Japan Coast Guard and North American aviation authorities to search for him, they said Friday. (Kyodo)

Japan has resumed whaling in the waters near Antarctica — only days after groups hoping to stop it left the area, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told CNN on Friday. (CNN)

If the Golden Gate Bridge had been built in Japan, there might be little discussion about erecting a barrier to keep people from jumping off.
Since 1998, an average of 30,000 Japanese people have committed suicide annually, according to the National Police Agency. (sfgate.com)

The Aomori District Court sentenced a former U.S. airman on Friday to 18 years in prison for murdering his divorced Japanese wife in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, in July 2006. (Kyodo)

Japanese and U.S. authorities are searching for a Japanese man who has gone missing while trying to cross the Pacific Ocean alone in a hot air balloon, his support group said on Saturday. (Reuters)

As the United States frets noisily about a recession, Japan is quietly enduring a far more fundamental economic slide, one that seems irreversible. This country, which got rich quick in a postwar miracle of manufacturing and alarmed Americans by buying up baubles such as Rockefeller Center, is steadily slipping backward as a major economic force. (Free Internet Press)

Mobile phones have become another form of identity.
Spending hours talking or texting on mobile phones, many Japanese people women are growing familiar with their mobile phones and are customising their “mini-mes” with sparkling plastic bits, colourful beads or anime-character stickers. (AAP)

Winter’s heaviest snowfalls in Japan have hit Tokyo, hampering traffic, forcing sports events and air travel to be cancelled and causing more than a dozen people to be hurt, officials said. (Herald Sun)

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama will bring up the issue of lowering the age of majority in the Civil Code–from the current age of 20 to 18–in the Legislative Council for deliberation on Feb. 13, it has been learned. (Yomiuri)

Dozens of flights and trains were cancelled Sunday as snow blanketed Tokyo and its vicinities, with more than 170 people injured in weather-related accidents, officials and news reports said. (AFP)

Think that red roses are predictable? In Japan, gift-givers soon will also have the option of blue roses.
The Japanese company that created the world’s first genetically modified blue roses said Monday it will start selling them next year. (AFP)

Japanese pop diva Kumi Koda has apologised after saying women over 35 had “rotten” fluid in their wombs, sparking a furore that led a cosmetics maker to suspend advertisements featuring her. (AFP)

The Iriomote wildcat is said to have roamed this small, subtropical island in the East China Sea for 200,000 years, but had proved so elusive that it was not discovered until 1967. To this day, some islanders, many of whom have never seen it properly, stubbornly deny its existence. (New York Times)

Six packages of Chinese-made gyoza contaminated with the pesticide methamidophos, which were found at Happiece Hirakata supermarket in Hirakata, Osaka Prefecture, smelled of ammonia, a store manager told reporters Monday. (Yomiuri)

Seen through the television, Rio’s carnival parades may look like a confusion of samba, imaginative floats and a lot of exposed flesh. (AFP)

Japan plans to extend long-term visa permits to five years from the current three when it changes the registration system for foreigners living in Japan, public broadcaster NHK reported. (Bloomberg)

Ryo Ishikawa got a first taste of what the future might hold for his career as the Japanese teenage golfing sensation failed to make an impact in his professional debut on Tuesday. (Kyodo)

The Kanagawa prefectural education board decided Monday to continue collecting the names of teachers who refuse to stand when the “Kimigayo” national anthem is sung in school ceremonies, board officials said.

A probe into poisoning caused by frozen Chinese-made dumplings has been narrowed down to two products that could cause further harm, but most of the packets have still not been recovered, investigators said.

Seen through the television, Rio’s carnival parades may look like a confusion of samba, imaginative floats and a lot of exposed flesh. (AFP)

With the battle over the higher gasoline tax rate threatening to flare again, 55 percent of voters want the ruling and opposition camps to compromise and find common ground, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed.