Toyota Woes Bad News For Nagoya

Stock Holders Lineup For Meetings At Toyota HQ

Nagoya has long been nicknamed "Toyota Town" for the fact over 50% of businesses in Nagoya are tied in some way to the auto giant Toyota Motor Company.

The auto industry is hurtling into a new era, and no one is immune to the changes. For Toyota Motor, the burning question is how to adapt to the emergence of connected cars, self-driving technology, electric vehicles and ride-sharing services.

Its shareholders want answers.

A record 5,227 investors attended the automaker's annual shareholders meeting on Tuesday. Nine spoke up, lobbing questions at management or demanding action.

"Formidable companies like Google and Apple have made inroads into the auto industry," one said. "I want Toyota to work harder."

Another asked: "You expect both sales and profit to drop for the second straight financial year. How are you going to turn this around?"

Indeed, Toyota has sold more than 10 million vehicles for four straight years, but it is bracing for sales and net profit declines again in the fiscal year through next March. President Akio Toyoda recognizes the gravity of the situation.

"We are now at a major turning point," he told the crowd, stressing Toyota would consider "all options," including mergers and acquisitions. In other words, shareholders need to understand that the company is going to have to spend to change with the times.

But that is exactly what investors did not wish to hear.  They wanted to hear Toyota already had a plan and is ready to implement it.  Instead it was more of the same "planning, meetings, and patience".  But after hearing about planning for the last 5 years, several meetings each year, the patience of stock holders is waning.  And justifiably so.

In 2012, Toyota executives told investors that they were developing a 10 year plan that would focus on the future of automobiles and what ownership would entail in the future.  Since then it has been statements and back tracking on statements.  Last year, Toyota management told about exciting plans for self automated cars.  This year, Toyota is no closer to realizing that reality.

As one stock holder said on leaving the meetings, "I feel confident I will be selling my stocks.  I see no competence in this leadership."  If Toyota is to stay the market leader then it will have to shore up the distrust of its investors.

With so much in Nagoya tied in with Toyota any problems facing Toyota will spell trouble for the whole city.

Toyota stock opened at a year low of 6124 on the Nikkei Index.

Asian Business Review

Legoland Nagoya Facing Difficulties

 

Legoland Nagoya Lego Factory

Just after opening before Golden Week in May, Legoland Nagoya hoped it could cash in on the amusement park success of Legoland Japan in Tokyo and Universal Studios in Osaka.

The hopes have yet to materialize.  The chief reason being the farflung location of the park from Nagoya City.  The park is located near the dock area of Amami Port  which is over 30 KM from central Nagoya.

On Saturdays for the entire month of June our correspondent Ryan Nesbit reported small crowds.  The park itself is rather small as it only takes 10 minutes to walk from the front gate to the very back of the park where the Knights Kingdom is located.  Few people were eating at the park's restaurants where food is expensive.  An example, an order of fried potatoes shaped as Lego bricks costs 750 Yen for 6 little bricks. A hotdog costs 1000 Yen.  Drinks come in small and regular (250ml and 500ml) and cost 700 Yen and 850 Yen respectively.

One mother with her husband and son commented, "We were so excited to come.  The high admission was expected, but inside we pay to get into the Lego Museum, the Lego Factory, and extras add up to more than the admission.  We are not very happy."

Last week the park announced it would offer a discount to families with more than 4 people.  The Family pass with more than 4 people costs 25,000 Yen and a pass for 4 costs 18,300 Yen, a pass for 3 costs 14,700 Yen and individual tickets cost 6200 Yen for adults, and children under 12 cost 4000 Yen.

Granted, Legoland does have some nice deals on annual passes, which work out to be several tens of thousands of yen less than Disneyland’s, and also offers discounts of 700 yen for advance-purchase tickets. Still, with such a specialized theme, it’s hard to imagine too many people will be planning to come multiple times a year, and with hardly any difference in price for a same-day pass, Legoland Japan is setting itself up as a hard sell to amusement park fans of just about any age, so if the park’s management really wants to get people coming through those gates, it might want to think about lowering its prices even further.

PM Shinzo Abe Faces Serious Challenges After Tokyo Election

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike

 A stinging rebuke by voters in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election Sunday is certain to set off postmortem finger-pointing and a strategic recalibration within Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party as he weighs a path forward for amending the constitution.

"We take the results seriously," a stunned Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai told reporters Sunday night. "We will reassess what needs to be reassessed and do our best to recover our lost ground." 

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike's new Tomin First no Kai party and groups aligned with her captured 79 seats in the 127-member metropolitan assembly, handily defeating the LDP, which was left with a meager 23 seats, down from 57 before the election.

Hakubun Shimomura, who heads the LDP's Tokyo chapter but faces allegations of receiving murky political donations, attributed the party's loss to trouble on the national level. "Heavy headwinds were blowing far above, in national politics," he said in a Fuji Television program. He later told reporters that he plans to step down to take responsibility for the loss.

Abe's party had enjoyed unrivaled strength since unseating the Democratic Party of Japan in December 2012, as victories in three national-level elections followed. But a favoritism scandal involving a veterinary school run by a friend of Abe's as well as a gaffe by his hawkish defense minister on the campaign trail appear to have weakened public support.

Complications for Abe

In a Nikkei opinion poll conducted June 16-18, right before the start of campaigning for the metropolitan assembly election, approval ratings for the Abe cabinet stood at 49%, a 7-point drop from a month earlier. Abe's power inside the party could erode if his plunging support is viewed as the cause of the devastating loss in the crucial Tokyo vote.

Growing criticism within the party could complicate Abe's plan for an easy victory in the LDP presidential election in September 2018.

Shigeru Ishiba, a former regional revitalization minister who is believed to harbor ambitions for Abe's job, gave a scathing assessment. "We should acknowledge the historic defeat," he told The Nikkei. "This was not a victory for Tomin First no Kai, but a defeat for the LDP."

"Damage control is crucial," Ishiba added. "The timing of a cabinet shake-up and the new lineup will determine the future of government management going forward."

Rinnai To Open US Plant

 Nagoya based water heater manufacturer Rinnai aims to open its first U.S. plant, as the company shifts toward local manufacturing in order to meet rising demand.

Rinnai exports many of the water heaters it sells in the U.S. from Japan and may be worried about the possibility of trade friction with the administration of President Donald Trump. The Nagoya-based company will decide on the U.S. plant's location and resolve other details this year, aiming to start production there in 2018 or 2019.

The plant initially would employ 50 to 60 people and assemble products using imported components. Within a few years the site would switch to in-house manufacturing, with 200 to 300 workers. Total investment in the factory could surpass 10 billion yen ($90.1 million).

Rinnai established a U.S. arm in the 1970s. Its standard water heaters carry price tags in the $1,000 range. The manufacturer sold around 239,000 units in the U.S. in 2016, up 13% from the year before.

While most heaters in the U.S. store hot water in tanks, demand has grown for Rinnai's instant heaters, which consume less energy. An incentive from the U.S. Department of Energy likely contributed to last year's sales growth, but the company still expects a 10% rise this year even though the tax credit has expired, President Hiroyasu Naito said.

NIKKEI

2017 Nagoya Womens Marathon Runner Rebecca Ilham On Nagoya

Eunice Kirwa Wins 2017 Nagoya Marathon For 3rd Time

Who in their right mind would travel to a city voted the most boring in the country?

Nagoya, a city in the Chubu (central) region of Japan’s main island, has never presented a strong enough temptation for me to warrant a visit. I have changed trains at its main station on my way to the hidden valley of Takayama once and am contented to leave my connection to the city at that.

Yet, when the application for the Nagoya Women’s Marathon opens, I have no hesitation in signing up.

As the home ground of the reliable automobile manufacturer Toyota and exquisite ceramic ware Noritake, Nagoya is essentially an industrial city.

It is commonly perceived to be not as lively as its western neighbour Osaka, or as modern as the eastern capital, Tokyo, despite its strategic, central location that is conveniently accessible via the shinkansen (bullet train).

Guiltily swayed, I do not plan for a long trip. Besides, isn’t a marathon, being on foot for 42 kilometres for several hours, the best way to acquaint myself with the city?

Arriving on Friday night, I find my preconceived notions about Nagoya are not entirely groundless.

The subway stations are deserted even though it isn’t yet 9. Save for the round-the-clock convenience stores, all the shops’ shutters are down and locked.

Walking through the quiet, scarcely lit residential alleys towards my place of stay in Osu is an uncomfortable affair. I could only hope that daylight would reveal the more charming sides of the city.

I am not disappointed. On my morning walk the day before the marathon, I stumble upon Shirakawa Park, a public space that housed two prominent museums: the Nagoya Science Museum and the Nagoya City Art Museum. 

The Science Museum is hard to miss due to the giant, largest-in-the-world spherical-shaped planetarium (measuring 35 metres in diameter), enticing curious visitors of all ages to wander in.

Powered by photovoltaic cells that converts solar rays into electricity, visitors to this green museum are also treated to exhibits of its earthquake-proof system and unique elevator system.

Meanwhile the Art Museum, a work of renowned architect Kisho Kurakawa, is not only an interesting building that serves both utilitarian and aesthetic purposes, but is also home to impressive artworks such as paintings Modigliani, Utrillo, Laurencin, Fujita and Chagall of the L’Ecole de Paris art movement.

The promise of an exciting trip is further enhanced when I get to Nagoya Dome for the runner’s check-in to collect my race bib.

The arena is the home ground of Chunichi Dragons, Nagoya’s baseball team. In yakkyu (baseball)-mad Japan, this means that the building is an important landmark. Its structure is built in a geometric design called geodesic, giving it a polish, futuristic look.

Apart from hosting baseball matches and Nagoya Women’s Marathon since opening its doors in 1997, the 40,500 capacity dome is also a popular concert venue.

I remember considering getting a ticket for an Arashi (a Japanese boy band) concert here a couple of years ago.

See, I chide myself, maybe Nagoya knows how to have fun after all.

The lively atmosphere at the runner’s check-in and Nagoya Women’s Marathon Expo on Saturday is a premonition of what is to come on race day.

It has been recognised as the largest female-only full marathon event in the world by the Guinness Book of Record since 2012, and this year — with 19,607 runners taking part — is no exception. 

Hence the logistic arrangements deserve a shower of praises. Despite the sea of runners, I manage to sneak into my corral (assigned based on expected finish time during registration) after depositing my baggage at the designated area and using the portable toilet after a 40-minute queue just before we are allowed to start running eight minutes after the first gun.

I have no expectation to do well. My main goal is to finish with a decent time (hopefully not more than five hours 30 minutes), and have a good time achieving it.

Thus I am set to enjoy my fellow runners, hardworking volunteers, cheery spectators and sights along the route.

The race course, which is certified by Japan Association of Athletics Federation (JAAF) and holds the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) Gold Label, weaves through Nagoya city streets, passing the city’s many landmarks.

One of them is the hard-to-miss Nagoya City Museum, at about the 5km mark. It commands attention due to its minimalist, rectangular external bare concrete exterior.

Built to commemorate the population of the city reaching the two million mark in 1977, the museum is primarily the source of information on the history of the Owari area, an old province that encompasses modern-day Aichi prefecture, including where Nagoya City is now located.

It also has an exquisite, beautiful Japanese-styled garden in its forecourt, clearly visible from the street.

It’s impossible to find a Japanese city without a skyscraper with an observation deck.

In Nagoya, that novelty is no other than the Nagoya TV Tower. It isn’t exactly right by the marathon route, but due to its 180-metre height, the tower provides a nice backdrop for runners to stop for a photo op at around the 18km mark.

Being the oldest of its kind in Japan (it was built in 1954), the Nagoya TV Tower has been “destroyed” twice — by Godzilla — in movies Monthra vs. Godzilla (1964) and its remake 28 years later. Interesting, isn’t it?

Just before reaching the halfway mark, the route splits into two parallel lanes. The right lane I am in passes a familiar spot from the day before, while the one on the left leads straight into the heart of Shirakawa Park.

There is a jolly commotion going on; spectators are screaming and volunteers are clapping wildly.

Glancing sideways, I notice that the lead runner of the men’s half marathon category is sprinting towards the finisher ribbon up ahead.

A few minutes later, I witness the champion for the past two years, Eunice Kirwa of Bahrain, sprinting in the opposite lane. She is closely tailed by Yuka Ando, a local athlete running her very first marathon. They eventually claim both the top and second spots - Kirwa renews the course record, while Ando emerges as the fourth-fastest female Japanese marathoner to-date.

Ando also clears the 2017 London World Championship qualification time sets by JAAF and makes it into the national marathon team.

As for myself, I am having a great day of running. The sun is out but the cool late winter breeze dampens the heat.

The spectators, young and old, are amazing, and I am greatly encouraged by their high-spirited cheers of “Ganbare!” and “Fighting!”.

Despite earlier apprehension, the first 10km is completed under an hour. I reach the 20km mark in slightly less than two hours. My time at halfway is two hours seven minutes, a personal best at that distance.

Suddenly, the prospect of finishing below five hours seems highly achievable. 

But as seasoned marathoners would always caution, the worst is yet to come.

I find myself stressed out during the next 10 kilometres. Thankfully, distractions are aplenty, such as Osu Kannon, an ancient Buddhist temple in the centre of the city.

Originally built in the Gifu Prefecture during the Kamakura Period, it was moved to its current location by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1612 due to recurring severe flooding.

The main building of this traditional complex, perfectly photogenic with vermillion beams and pillars, is home to the statue of the Goddess of Mercy (kannon) and a library with a collection of more than 15,000 classical Japanese and Chinese texts.

It may not be a grandiose landmark in term of scale, but offers a much-appreciated connection to the past, explaining its popularity among domestic and foreign visitors.

Nagoya Castle and the City Hall both come into view before the 30km mark. They are starkly different in architecture and construction, but both have prominent roles in the administration of the region and the city.

The castle was constructed by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1612 during the Edo era to serve as his stronghold in defending the Tokaido road, while the City Hall is the centre of modern administration.

Both tower above the city, as if protecting its citizens with their silent watchful eyes.

I make my last turn and head back to Nagoya Dome. The race becomes more bearable after the 32km mark. At this point, I am confident about finishing under five hours. To be honest, a new personal best is also not entirely wishful thinking. 

However, I do not want it to cloud my judgment. Instead, I allow myself to soak in the unwavering enthusiasms of the crowd and volunteers. Apart from urging runners to carry on, they are generously handing out drinks and snacks.

I rehydrate and refuel myself as needed and thank them as I go. After all, besides sacrificing their time, they have open-heartedly allowed us runners to “invade” their city for a day, halting weekend routines and regular businesses.

Thus as I approach the finish line inside the dome, I couldn’t help rebuking myself on my biased preconceived perception about the city.

How can it be boring, especially upon finishing, when there’s a handsome guy in black tuxedo waiting to hand me my Tiffany’s finisher pendant on a silver platter?

Nagoya does know how to have fun, and fun I have running the whole 42.195 kilometres throughout the city in a personal best time of 4:40:50!

Bahrain's Eunice Kirwa won the 2017 Nagoya Womens Marathon for athird time this year.

Rebecca Ilham from The Straights Times travel blog

Nagoya Castle Keep Rebuild To Be Wooden

 

While many Japanese cities have a castle as their most iconic symbol and biggest tourism draw, the irony is that these salutes to their samurai past are often built out of modern materials. See traditional Japanese architecture was almost entirely wooden, and castles, being military strongholds, were prime targets during warfare, so a popular tactic for attacking armies was to burn the fortresses to the ground.

That scenario continued into the 20th century, such as when the Imperial Japanese army installed a regional headquarters and administrative facility in Nagoya Castle during World War II. In May of 1945, a U.S. air raid destroyed a large portion of the castle, including its main keep. After the war, the keep was rebuilt from reinforced concrete, reopening in 1959 and continuing to attract visitors to this day.

However, after decades of wear and tear, plus a need for further earthquake-proofing, the Nagoya City Council has decided to rebuild the castle keep. Moreover, to emphasize its historical value, the rebuilt keep will be made of wood, just as the original was.

Nagoya mayor Takashi Kawamura initially proposed the idea last June. The required budget of 50 billion yen (approximately US$451 million) set off a lengthy debate, but on March 23, the city council approved the plan in a majority vote.

An exact timetable for the project has yet to be set, as the city is still in talks with contractors and construction firms. If everything progresses smoothly, though, the council hopes the new, wooden Nagoya Castle keep will be ready to start receiving visitors in 2022. Demolition of the current keep could begin as early as the fall of 2019, which would leave the city without a castle keep for two to three years, so if you can’t wait until 2022, you’ll want to make those Nagoya travel plans before the concrete keep comes down.

NHK

Maria Ouchi Sentenced To Life In Prison

Ouchi In Photo From Nagoya University

A court on Friday sentenced Maria Ouchi, a 21-year-old former Nagoya University student to life in prison over the 2014 murder of an elderly woman and attempts to kill a boy and girl while she was in senior high school.

In handing down the sentence as sought by prosecutors, the Nagoya District Court said Ouchi was mentally competent given that she is deemed to have acted on her own volition when she committed the crimes.

The defense had sought acquittal, claiming Ouchi's developmental and bipolar disorders made her incapable of judging right and wrong as well as controlling her behavior.

In seeking a life term, prosecutors claimed the symptoms of Ouchi having bipolar disorder were not severe enough at the time of her actions, while admitting she was suffering from mental and developmental disorders.

The ruling found that the former student, whose name is being withheld because she was a minor when she committed the crimes, murdered Tomoko Mori, 77, with a hatchet at Ouchi's apartment in Nagoya in December 2014.

The former student was also convicted of trying to kill a girl who was a classmate in junior high school and a boy who was a classmate in senior high school, sometime between May and July in 2015 in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, by poisoning them with thallium.

“She committed the crimes because of self-centered motives,” said Presiding Judge Koji Yamada. “The murder of the woman was cruel and a cold-blooded act based on the strong intention to kill.”

Regarding the poisoning, the court acknowledged her intention, albeit a weak one, to kill the boy and girl on the grounds she had recognized the possibility that poisoning could kill them.

She was also found guilty of attempting to kill a resident in Sendai by setting fire to the person’s house.

In the trial by three professional judges and six citizen judges, the defendant had said she wanted to watch a person die and to observe the symptoms of poisoning.

“Even now I still get the urge to kill someone,” she said during a court session.

According to her statements, she began developing an interest in people’s death when she was a fifth or sixth grader, drawing pictures of guillotines and gallows almost every day.

In her junior high school days, she heard a story from her mother about the serial murders committed by a 14-year-old boy in Kobe in 1997 and “realized that there is a means to kill someone,” she testified, adding it was then that she started studying about horrifying murders that had happened.

She said that people she had felt driven to kill ranged from her sister and her mother, to a friend, a prosecutor and her lawyer. Medication has calmed her desire to kill but she still feels the urge once or twice a week.

When asked if she felt sorry for the victims or regretted her conduct, she said, “I do have such feelings but I don’t know how” to express them.

Three doctors who were involved in her mental evaluation provided split opinions on whether she could be held responsible for her actions, though all three determined she had a developmental disorder which made it difficult for her to understand other people’s feelings, as well as bipolar disorder.

The defense also called for her indictment to be dismissed on the grounds the decision by a family court to send her case back to prosecutors for possible indictment violated the principle of a law protecting the rights of minors. 

Chunichi

Wild Mushrooms Blamed For Cesium Spread In Fukushima

Radioactive cesium released after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's triple meltdown in 2011 is continuing to contaminate the environment through wild mushrooms, scientists say.

It turns out that the fungi absorb cesium and then release it through their spores after concentrating it.

But the amount of cesium in the environment is miniscule and poses no threat to human health, say the researchers, who are primarily with the Meteorological Research Institute of the Japan Meteorological Agency, Ibaraki University and Kanazawa University.

The new findings indicate that cesium is released into the environment again by mushroom spores in mountains and forests in zones designated as difficult to return to because of high contamination levels after the nuclear accident triggered by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Radiation levels in the air are measured at monitoring posts and disclosed to the public. Those measurements are taken at a designated height to measure radiation from the ground and in the atmosphere.

In a separate effort, a team of scientists from the Meteorological Research Institute and other bodies measured the radioactivity concentration of cesium-137 by collecting airborne particles 1 meter above ground in Fukushima Prefecture.

The team’s survey showed that cesium levels in a mountainous area in the northwestern part of the town of Namie rise five times in summer compared with winter. The region is part of the difficult-to-return zone.

The increased cesium level during summer is equivalent to less than one ten-thousandth of the radiation dose of 2.1 millisieverts, which the average individual is naturally exposed to each year.

The latest findings were in marked contrast to studies covering the prefectural capital of Fukushima and elsewhere that showed cesium levels were higher in winter than summer.

Initially, the researchers considered the possibility of cesium on the ground's surface being kicked up by clouds of dust. But they found no clear association between the cesium level and dust.

Teruya Maki, an associate professor of microorganism ecology at Kanazawa University, analyzed genes of airborne particles gathered in forests and mountains in the northwestern part of Namie from August to September 2015.

The results showed that many of the particles were derived from mushrooms.

Between June and October last year, more than 10 kinds of wild mushrooms were gathered on 10 occasions in the region’s forests and mountains. The radioactivity concentration levels in the spores measured up to 143 becquerels per gram.

When multiplying the cesium concentration per spore by the number of collected spores per cubic meter, the result roughly matched the measured cesium concentration for the area.

“Spores in which cesium was concentrated were likely released into the atmosphere, raising the airborne concentration,” said Kazuyuki Kita, an air environment science professor at Ibaraki University, who was involved in the analysis of cesium levels.

The amount of cesium contained in a spore of sampled mushrooms was extremely small.

“Even if people inhale the air in areas where mushroom spores containing cesium are spreading, that could never affect human health,” said Kazuhiko Ninomiya, a researcher of radiochemistry at Osaka University, who is a member of the research team.

The researchers are also trying to ascertain the extent to which the mushroom spores spread. They are planning more studies to figure out if the distances involved could be several kilometers.

Last summer, airborne cesium concentration levels for mountains and forests in Namie that have yet to be decontaminated were almost the same as those for an area 1 kilometer away that has been decontaminated on a trial basis.

That indicates cesium is likely spreading in the air, according to the scientists.

Asahi

Chubu Centrair International To Get 2nd Runway

Currently Centrair Has 1 Runway

The transport ministry and the Aichi prefectural government are among those currently arranging to build a second runway at Chubu Airport so the facility can help meet the future growth in demand stemming from increases in the number of foreign visitors to Japan, according to sources.

With the completion of the second runway, arrivals and departures at the airport in Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, would increase to about 200,000 in a year, or 1.6 times the current figure.

The aim is to start using the two runways together by 2027 when the Linear Chuo Shinkansen line is expected to begin operations, connecting Nagoya with Shinagawa in Tokyo in 40 minutes.

The airport was built on an offshore artificial island reclaimed from the sea and started operations to coincide with the opening of the 2005 World Exposition Aichi. 

Land for the new runway will be secured by reclaiming the west side of the airport with sand dredged at Nagoya Port. 

The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry plans to release a preparatory document for environmental assessment as early as this autumn, on the assumption of building the new runway. Construction work will start as early as fiscal 2019 with an estimated total cost of about ¥300 billion.

The airport has routes connecting 57 cities in Japan and abroad. Among the international routes, the network has been expanded widely to connect with China, Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries.

For China alone, the airport connects to 23 cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xian, Tianjin and Harbin. 

Taking advantage of rapid increases in Chinese visitors to Japan, the number of incoming and outgoing passengers at the airport will likely exceed 11 million in fiscal 2016.

The number of arrivals and departures will match those at Kansai and Narita airports after the new runway is completed.

The government has set a goal of 40 million foreign visitors to Japan by 2020, or 1.6 times the level in 2016.

Woman Found Dead At Love Hotel

Police are searching for a man who left a love hotel after the death of the woman he entered with.

Miyabi Hanada, 21, was found dead in the room after a cleaning person entered the room.  Aichi Police say the woman had marks on her neck consistent with strangulation.  There were also injection marks found on her left arm.

Surveillance camera footage shows Hanada entering the elevator with a male around 10AM, March 8.  The male is seen exiting the elevator alone, paying at the desk, and leaving at 11:30AM.

After the two hour room rental, a cleaning person entered the room at 1PM, to prepare it for the next customers.  She found Hanada naked on the bed and unresponsive.  Mizuho Ward paramedics arrived and took Hanada to Nagoya City Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Police say the male is being sought for questioning and possibly could face charges of murder and leaving the scene of a crime.

Emperor Akihito 'to abdicate on New Year’s Day 2019

Crown Prince Naruhito and Emperor Akihito

 Japan’s emperor will abdicate and allow his eldest son to ascend the chrysanthemum throne on New Year’s Day 2019, media reports said, as the government prepares legal changes for the country’s first abdication for two centuries.

Emperor Akihito, who turned 83 last month, hinted in August that he wanted to retire after expressing concern that his age could hinder his ability to carry out ceremonial duties.

In a rare televised address, Akihito said he wanted an orderly imperial succession – cautious wording that many interpreted as a desire to abdicate.

“I am concerned it may become difficult for me to carry out my duties as the symbol of the state with my whole body and soul as I have done so far,” he said.

Abdication is not possible under current Japanese law, but last month a panel of experts said it would support special legislation to allow Akihito to step down without conditions.

Amid strong public sympathy for the emperor’s predicament, the government is drawing up measures that would see Crown Prince Naruhito to ascend the throne on 1 January 2019, Japanese newspapers said.

A panel of experts has been discussing the issue since late last year, with its official recommendations expected later this year. The government could submit a special law to parliament on abdication as early as this spring, the reports said.

Akihito said in August that 2018 would mark his 30th year on the throne, which was interpreted as his favoured moment to step down and allow the 56-year-old Naruhito to become the country’s 126th emperor.

The chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said on Tuesday he was not aware that discussions on a possible abdication had reached such an advanced stage. “The experts are prioritising lightening the emperor’s burden in their discussions and things are still at a stage where no direction has emerged,” he told a news conference.

Akihito had surgery for prostate cancer in 2003 and a heart bypass operation in 2012, and was in hospital with pneumonia in 2011.

He ascended the throne after the death in 1989 of his father, Hirohito, in whose name Japan fought the second world war Throughout his reign, Akihito and Empress Michiko, 82, have used their public roles to promote reconciliation between Japan and its former enemies.

They are planning to visit Vietnam and Thailand this spring in what would be their first overseas trip since January last year, when they travelled to the Philippines to remember soldiers and civilians who died during the war.

The last time a monarch abdicated in Japan was when Kōkaku gave up the throne in 1817.

Japan’s main opposition Democratic party opposes one-off legislation to facilitate Akihito’s abdication, arguing that the imperial household law should be revised to make living successions possible for all future monarchs.

In response, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said last week that “politicians must demonstrate the decency not to turn the issue into political fodder”.

From The Guardian