Tokyo stocks rose almost one percent to close Wednesday at their highest level in six-and-a-half months as exporters were boosted by a sliding yen. The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange rose 0.96 percent or 90.98 points to 9,554.00, its strongest finish since August 4, while the Topix index of all first-section issues was up 1.12 percent, or 9.11 points, at 825.40. Exporters were the main beneficiaries of the yen's slide. The dollar strengthened to 80.04 yen from 79.69 yen in New York late Tuesday, breaking through the psychological 80.00 yen level against the Japanese unit. (Economic Times)

Japan has repeatedly warned the United States against price rises in Lockheed Martin Corp's new F-35 fighter jet, its top government spokesman said on Wednesday, after U.S. and Lockheed officials noted delays in orders will increase its total cost. The comments from Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura come after Japan's Sankei newspaper cited unidentified U.S. government officials as saying that Japan had threatened that it may even cancel its orders if prices climbed. Japan picked the F-35 as its next mainstay fighter in December, choosing it over combat-proven but less stealthy rivals. (Reuters)

It might the stuff of science fiction dreams, but a Japanese construction company has announced that it will have built a working space elevator by 2050. According to the The Daily Yomiuri, construction company Obayashi Corp has announced it will have built a space elevator capable of shuttling passengers 36,000 kilometers above the Earth by 2050. The company plans to use carbon nanontubes, which are 20 times stronger than steel, to produce the cables required for the elevator. Those cables will be stretched to a counterweight 96,000 kilometers above our planet, about one-fourth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. The terminal station, 36,000 kilometers above Earth, will be reached by cars that can carry 30 people and travel at 200 kilometers per hour. (gizmodo.com)

Kazuo Okada, the Japanese billionaire embroiled in a legal dispute with Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn, has been dealt a tough hand by his ex-partner and best friend. Okada, an engineer by training who helped bankroll his friend's Wynn Resorts Inc empire, now worth $14 billion, stood accused on Sunday of improper payments to foreign gambling regulators and lost his nearly 20 percent slice of that company when it was forcibly redeemed by Wynn at a steep discount. The falling-out between the two self-made tycoons has longer-term implications for their multibillion-dollar businesses. Each is claiming the other made improper payments to win favor in their respective Macau and Philippines markets, two of the world's fastest-growing casino arenas. (abs-cbnnews.com)

A Sea Shepherd dolphin activist, held for two months in jail in the town of Taiji over an alleged minor assault, has been cleared of the charge in a very rare finding by a Japanese court. Erwin Vermeulen, a volunteer with the Cove Guardians group of Sea Shepherd protesting against the Taiji dolphin hunt, was arrested after he was said to have shoved an employee of the Dolphin Resort Hotel. At the time, Mr Vermeulen was trying to take photographs of Risso's dolphins as they were being transferred between holding pens at the resort, Sea Shepherd said. (Sydney Morning Herald)

"What Japan needs most now is a dictator." Toru Hashimoto, a lawyer and TV celebrity-turned politician, was quick to add when he made that widely publicised remark last year that a Hitler-style dictatorship was neither desirable nor possible given Japan's democratic checks and balances. But the call for strong leadership from the charismatic mayor, whom some believe has ambitions to be Japan's next premier, is resonating with voters frustrated by years of political deadlock that has kept the country from tackling the deep-rooted problems of a fast-ageing society. But the call for strong leadership from the charismatic mayor, whom some believe has ambitions to be Japan's next premier, is resonating with voters frustrated by years of political deadlock that has kept the country from tackling the deep-rooted problems of a fast-ageing society. (Reuters)

A 14-year-old boy who stabbed his mother after she confiscated a new video game from him was arrested Feb. 19 on suspicion of attempted murder, law enforcers said. Police received an emergency call from a 50-year-old woman in Ichinomiya at about 5:40 p.m. on Feb. 19, saying, "I've been stabbed by my son." When police arrived at the woman's home, her 14-year-old son, a second-year junior high school student, admitted having stabbed her, prompting them to arrest him on suspicion of attempted murder. (Mainichi)

Apple has continued the international expansion of its iTunes in the Cloud service, allowing iOS users in Japan to automatically download iTunes song purchases on their devices. iTunes users can now access the "Purchased" tab within the iTunes Store application on iOS devices, Japanese-language site Macotakara reported on Tuesday. Users can also turn on automatic downloading of Music on their iOS device, along with automatic downloads of applications and books. iTunes in the Cloud offers users the ability to re-download their content on a number of devices without the need to purchase it again. (appleinsider.com)

Japanese stocks have long tempted value-oriented investors who hope to capitalize on the sclerotic Japanese market's eventual turnaround. Unfortunately, those gains have proved largely elusive due to the global economy as well as reasons endemic to Japan. Last year, Japan suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March that led to power shortages that further impaired economic activity. At the same time, the yen's appreciation and the EU's sovereign-debt crisis weakened demand for Japanese exports, while flooding in Thailand disrupted the supply chain for global technology companies, including those in Japan. Beyond that, Japan's economy remains mired in deflation. With all these headwinds, I believe Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) will grow just 2 percent during 2012. (marketoracle.co.uk)

Online retailing giant Amazon is under pressure to halt whale meat sales on its Japanese language website. The Seattle-based business, which wholly owns its Japanese subsidiary, has a stated policy of prohibiting the sale of unlicensed or illegal wildlife products including endangered species, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency. But EIA found 147 different whale products for sale on amazon.co.jp, including some from listed endangered species, in a December survey. Others came from its legally disputed research whaling program. (Brisbane Times)

It's quitting time in Japan and I am facing a great wave of humanity determinedly descending the train station steps at Kyoto. So many people come at me over the next few minutes, it proves impossible to turn against the crowd to get just metres away to my own platform. What a welcome. The crowds should not have been too surprising, though. Bustling and historic Kyoto is Japan's seventh largest city, on the central island of Honshu, and offers many fascinating places to visit. Twenty per cent of the nation's treasures are found here. Navigating my way around the streets the next day by hired bike, it occurs to me that a great deal of these treasures must be the well-looked-after temples I am passing. The ultra-efficient trains offer a speedy means of getting to and fro for commuters (the commercial centre of Osaka is just half an hour away) but biking is a great way for tourists to cover a lot of ground at leisure. Given that Kyoto appears to be dead flat, the terrain accommodates even the laziest or unfit of riders. (New Zealand Herald)

Prosecutors have indicted Makoto Hirata, a former senior member of Aum Shinrikyo, on fresh charges of involvement in a blast at a Tokyo condominium and the firebombing of the cult's Tokyo headquarters in 1995, where were allegedly carried out to confuse police investigations of Aum. Hirata, 46, who was indicted last month on kidnapping and unlawful confinement charges following nearly 17 years on the run, will be the first Aum member to face a lay judge trial. (Japan Times)

A future earthquake in the northern part of Tokyo Bay could register the maximum of 7 on the Japanese intensity scale in the capital, stronger than the previously assumed upper 6, according to a study by a government project team released Tuesday. The larger intensity estimate for the envisaged quake of magnitude-7.3 comes from a finding that its epicenter could be shallower than previously thought, according to the study. When a quake with an intensity of an upper 6 or 7 strikes, people have difficulty standing, most unsecured furniture moves, and wall tiles and windows are likely to break and fall out. For an intensity level of 7, furniture can actually become airborne while reinforced concrete block walls can collapse, according to the Meteorological Agency. (Japan Times)

Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday. But those results for the substance cesium-137 are far below the levels that are generally considered harmful, either to marine animals or people who eat seafood, said Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He spoke Tuesday in Salt Lake City at the annual Ocean Sciences Meeting, attended by more than 4,000 researchers this week. The results are for water samples taken in June, about three months after the power plant disaster, Buesseler said. (boston.com)

While the Finance Ministry reported Monday that Japan suffered a record trade deficit of 1.475 trillion yen in January, views are growing the nation will also post a current account deficit in January. It is feared the trade deficit will continue if exports remain sluggish, as imports are expected to continue to hover at high levels. The increase in the January trade deficit was due to an ongoing increase in imports of liquefied natural gas--a fuel used for thermal generation of electrical power--to make up for reduced nuclear power generation following the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1. nuclear power plant. (Yomiuri)

Japan has cleared up just five percent of the rubble left by last year's earthquake and tsunami, the government said Tuesday, amid fears it has been contaminated following the Fukushima nuclear accident. The twin disasters, which devastated the northeastern coastal communities last year, left almost 23 million tonnes of rubble in the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima alone. Getting rid of the giant piles of debris is essential for communities in the disaster zone to be rebuilt. But despite calls for national solidarity contamination fears have led local authorities around the country to refuse to allow the debris to be disposed of near them. (AFP)

In a large, bright room not far from the ocean that raged through this coastal Japanese city nearly a year ago, a handful of people with magnifying glasses pore over boxes of photographs of friends or loved ones. The massive March 11 tsunami that leveled buildings and flattened towns along a wide swathe of northern Japan, including Ofunato, also took a more subtle toll, with hundreds of thousands of photographs lost to the churning waters. But now these memories are slowly making their way back to their owners, thanks to the painstaking efforts of a team that cleans them of mud, dirt and oil. (MSNBC)

Tepco has long been a scandal-ridden company, caught time and time again covering up data on safety lapses at their power plants, or doctoring film footage which showed fissures in pipes. How was the company able to get away with such long-standing behaviour? According to an explosive book recently published in Japan, they owe it to what the author, Tomohiko Suzuki, calls "Japan's nuclear mafia... A conglomeration of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, the shady nuclear industry, their lobbyists..." And at the centre of it all stands Japan's actual mafia: the yakuza. It might surprise the Western reader that gangsters are involved in Japan's nuclear industry and even more that they would risk their lives in a nuclear crisis. But the yakuza roots in Japanese society are very deep. In fact, they were some of the first responders after the earthquake, providing food and supplies to the devastated area and patrolling the streets to make sure no looting occurred. (telegraph.co.uk)

The name Okinawa means "rope in the open sea," and the island archipelago in southern Japan offers tropical beauty that lassos in more than 5 million tourists annually. Over the past year, the Japanese prefecture has offered a new lure for visitors: Nissan LEAF electric cars. Setting its island-style pace aside, Okinawa touts one of the country's most aggressive EV infrastructures, with 220 Nissan LEAF rental cars and 27 quick-chargers at 18 locations. Starting this month, Nissan and JTB Travel are jointly offering a tablet application called "Camploo - Okinawa! Campaign 2012". The app highlights spring training activities for some of Japan's most popular baseball teams. (theautochannel.com)

Natalie Nakase knows there's more to her job than winning games. The American is the first female coach in Japan's professional men's basketball league. Nakase was hired by the Saitama Broncos last November after the previous American coach, Dean Murray, was fired for a violation of his contract. Nakase's appointment was considered something of a breakthrough in Japan. The 31-year-old Los Angeles native says she's happy to give women encouragement to take on new roles. "I get a lot of attention for being the first woman in coaching," Nakase said at a news conference. "I'm starting to realize the responsibility I have of giving women a chance, not only in basketball, but in the corporate world as well." (boston.com)