National
Ida Torres on Jun 12 2013
A teacher from an elementary
school in the Kusatsushi area in Shiga Prefecture has admitted to installing a camera in the girls' bathroom after the device was discovered by one of the students. He admitted to being the one to put it there, but only because he was just "testing out" the new camera he bought.
The suicide of a junior high school student in Yugawara, Kanagawa Prefecture in April is believed to have been caused by
bullying. Three junior-high schoolmates confessed that they held down and hit the boy, who was of the same grade. When asked for their reason, the three boys claimed that they bullied the victim for fun. All three were sent to a child consultation center
after the incident.
During the juvenile trial at the
Saitama Family Court on February 4, Monday, a 19-year-old former university student was
sentenced to time in a juvenile reform center for a period of not less than 24 months. The penalty was meted for the boy’s unremorseful and violent attack on the superintendent of the
Otsu Municipal Board of Education, Kenji Sawamura, on August 15 last year by driving a hammer into Sawamura’s face.
On Tuesday, the city of
Otsu, Shiga Prefecture made its first admission that the
suicide of a 13 year old boy in October of 2011 was caused by severe, ongoing bullying from his classmates. The acknowledgment came as a result of a 77 million yen (approx. $820,000) lawsuit from the boy's family against the local government, as well as the three students whose abuse went so far as daily torture and
forcing the victim to "practice" his own suicide.
Shiga Governor
Yukiko Kada has announced her resignation as the leader of
Nippon Mirai no To (
Tomorrow Party of Japan), the anti-nuclear party that formed only a month ago but suffered an embarrassing loss at the December 16th general elections. Since the disappointing outcome, Shiga's prefectural assembly has been pressuring Kada to resign, arguing that she has been neglecting her duties as governor while trying to lead a national political party.
The case against two teenagers in
Shiga Prefecture who bullied a classmate so badly that he committed suicide has moved on to public prosecutors. In the case that made headlines across Japan, where three boys abused a 13 year old so far as
making him "practice" his own death, two of the 15 year olds will be tried as adults, while the third has been sent to a child consultation center.
Shiga Governor Yukiko Kada revealed her new party's political
goals during a media briefing last Sunday. Aside from the stated anti-nuclear thrust, Kada will also be pushing for better child-rearing support and joining
the Hague Convention against parental abductions to Japan.
Shiga Prefecture governor Yukiko Kada announced Tuesday that she will form a new party, the
Nippon Mirai no To or "Japan Future Party," to focus on
eradicating nuclear power in Japan and eliminating wasteful government spending. Within hours, at least two parties have announced their intention to join forces to create a political force that will face the two majors, the Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Democratic Party, in the December 16 elections.
Calbee Inc., one of Japan's largest snack and potato chip makers, stated on Tuesday it was issuing a nationwide
recall of one of its main brands of chips. The reason is because of serious concern that small pieces of broken glass could have wound up in as many as 5.34 million bags,
dating as far back as the end of July.
With a sharp rise in the
number of incidents being reported with regards to molestation, the Shiga prefecture government has decided to issue a Serial Molestation Warning. The citizens were put on high alert last month, when reports of women being molested started pouring in.
