Man Detained Over Poisoned Dumplings

China has detained a man suspected of poisoning frozen dumplings that were exported to Japan two years ago, sickening 10 people and causing tension between China and Japan.

The suspect, Lu Yueting, 36, put a poisonous substance in the frozen dumplings when he worked at a food plant based in China’s Hebei province, state media reported quoting the Ministry of Public Security.

The poisoned dumplings, which sickened 10 people in Japan in 2008, caused a food safety scare and sparked tension between China and Japan with the latter saying someone had deliberately poisoning the potstickers with insecticide.

State media reported Lu acted out of revenge as he was dissatisfied with his pay and colleagues.

Lu has apparently confessed and police have found injectors he used to poison the dumplings and collected several witness accounts, the statement from the ministry said.

Japanese Town Baffled By Kangaroo Sightings

It may seem odd, but the locals swear it’s true. People in a Japanese mountain region have reported a number of kangaroo sightings, and journalists are now trying to stalk the marsupials.

The descriptions given by the apparent eyewitnesses seem close enough. For years they have spoken of a beige animal with large ears, one to 1.5 metres (three to five feet) tall, that stands by the roadside and then hops away.

The sightings were all reported in the Mayama mountain district of Osaki city in Miyagi prefecture, a community of 441 households, located about 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of Tokyo.

The city has received about 30 reports of “kangaroo-like animals,” including three cases since December, when the mountain area was often covered in snow, said local official Tetsuya Sasaki.

“People aged in their 40s to their 60s have said they have spotted what looked like kangaroos while travelling to and from work in the early mornings and evenings,” said Sasaki.

Chinese Youth Accused Of Not Being Fighting Fit

China must urgently address the physical fitness of the nation’s youth or run the risk of raising a generation incapable of fighting the Japanese in a future war, the head of the country’s top sports university said.

The government must immediately invest some of its new wealth in ensuring that children take regular exercise, Beijing Sports University president Yang Hua told the sports group of the largely ceremonial advisory body to China’s annual parliament.

“It is time for the Chinese nation to improve the physical fitness of our next generation,” said Yang. “If we miss the next three to five years a whole generation will be next to useless.

“If there was another war against Japan, would the younger Chinese be able to fight the Japanese one-on-one?

“The government has enough money for banquets and for luxurious office buildings, do they not have money for children’s physical education?” he added.

Japan invaded and occupied much of China between 1931 and 1945. Rancour over Japanese wartime atrocities has subsided as a diplomatic flashpoint, but it continues to shape Chinese public attitudes toward Japan and its people.

All Nippon Airways To Offer Women Only Restroom

Women flying Japan’s All Nippon Airways will have a toilet all to themselves from next month, with the airline designating one restroom on most international routes as female-only.

The airline said in a statement it was responding to “numerous requests for this service,” adding that the toilet would be located in the rear of the plane and be available to women passengers from all classes.

An airline official told Kyodo news agency that ANA decided to designate women-only lavatories based on a 2007 online survey in which 90 percent of the women polled said they found the idea attractive.

The official also said women do not like using shared toilets as men sometimes leave the seat up. She said demand for women-only toilets was especially high among passengers taking long flights.

Men would be allowed to use the lavatory only in emergencies or when there were very few female passengers on the flight, the ANA statement said.

South Korea’s Korean Air has been offering similar facilities and ANA rival Japan Airlines designates lavatories for priority use by women, the ANA official told Kyodo.

Toilet etiquette appears to be an important part of ANA’s policy — the airline had previously asked passengers to use the lavatories before they board flights so as to reduce the overall weight of the plane, which would ultimately be better for the environment as it would mean less fuel usage.

Canada Remains Americans’ Favorite Country

With all due respect to Washington’s special relationship and shared values with Israel, Americans much prefer their neighbor to the north.

According to a new Gallup poll released over the weekend, Israel ranks fifth among the countries viewed most favorably by Americans, behind Canada, Great Britain, Germany and Japan.

A paltry 10 percent of Americans said they had a favorable view of Iran, which came in last place among a list of 20 nations. The survey was conducted among a random sampling of 1,025 respondents.

Americans’ perception of the Palestinian Authority has vacillated over the course of the last decade. In 2005, 27 percent of Americans held a favorable view, but that number dropped to 11 percent following Hamas’ election victory in 2006.

In 2009, the PA’s favorable rating recovered to 15 percent, and this year it increased further, to 20 percent. However, 70 percent of Americans still said they held an unfavorable view of the PA.

With regard to the foreign countries most often mentioned in the news, American public opinion did not significantly change with the Obama administration’s assumption of power.

Pouring Cold Water On Fashionista Swimmers

Japan’s swimmers could face lifetime bans if they dye their hair, wear an earring or have brightly decorated fingernails.

Japanese officials have launched a strict policy to prevent athletes turning up for competitions looking more like rock stars than swimmers.

Male and female swimmers caught sneaking into each others rooms at Japanese training camp, where the sexes have separate sleeping quarters, will also find themselves in hot water.

“The United States and Australia are also setting these criteria,” the Japan Swimming Federation’s executive director Masafumi Izumi told local media.

“We have had many recent controversies (in Japan) with marijuana in sport and at universities, and this is about swimming taking a stand on its own initiative.”

The JSF’s stringent new plan has been written into its charter following an executive board meeting and swimmers will have to sign a letter of oath.

Rule-breakers face being booted out of the team and sent home in disgrace, a suspension of up to five years or even a lifetime ban.

“It is more an enhancement of the rules,” the JSF told Reuters. “It’s a policy top swimming countries like Australia and the Americans follow.”

For The Busy Executive – An Anti-H1N1 Suit

For the executive who doesn’t have time to come down with the flu, a Japanese company has invented a new form of protection — the anti-H1N1 suit.

Menswear company Haruyama Trading claims the suit can protect wearers from the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, as it is coated with titanium dioxide, a chemical commonly used in toothpaste and cosmetics and that breaks down when reacting with light, supposedly killing the virus upon contact.

Shinto Hirata, vice director of merchandising at Haruyama, says the suit is proven to kill 40 percent of the latest flu virus in about three hours and will retain its protective capability even after being washed several times.

“If a person with the flu virus coughs, it might get on someone else’s suit and from there, another person might get infected,” he told Reuters Television.

“Small children might catch the virus after touching their father’s suit. We came up with this idea to protect all businessmen and their families.”

The suit was developed after joint research by several companies including Haruyama and Gaea, which specialises in anti-bacterial and deodorising coatings.

Gaea has been using its own method for over 10 years to coat various fabrics, including anti-flu face masks, towels and physicians apparels, which are widely available.

Despite the new layer of protection, the suit seems fairly similar to others worn by Japanese white-collar workers. It comes in four colours and styles and costs around $590.

“I bought this suit to protect my new-born baby at home. My wife is worried about the swine flu as well,” said one buyer, 32-year-old Japanese businessman Eiji Hiratsuka.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 340,000 people have been infected with H1N1 worldwide and the disease is responsible for 4,100 deaths.

Japanese Police Fight Shoplifting Wave By Seniors

Tokyo police will try to rein in a wave of shoplifting by lonely elderly people by involving them in community service, a police spokesman.

One out of four elderly shoplifters in the capital blamed their crime on loneliness, Japanese media quoted a police survey as saying.  Another 8 percent said it was because they had “no reason to live.”

More than half the elderly shoplifters said they had no friends and 40 percent of them lived alone, media said.

“Making shoplifters do volunteer work in the community is effective,” the Tokyo Shimbun quoted J.F. Oberlin University professor Akihiro Sakai, head of a police research panel set up to tackle shoplifting, as saying.

“Instead of increased punishment, I hope we can rehabilitate shoplifters with special care.”

A police spokesman declined to confirm the details of the survey but said it would be released to the public soon.

Elderly shoplifting cases in Tokyo reached all-time highs last year, nearly catching up with the number of cases involving young offenders.

People 65 years or older accounted for 23 percent of the 17,800 known shoplifting cases in 2008, more than doubling in the past five years, media said.

An example cited in the Ministry of Justice’s annual report on crime describes a 76-year-old woman who turned to shoplifting several years ago as a way to battle loneliness after her parents died.

Over 20 percent of Japan’s population is aged 65 or over, with that figure set to double by 2050.

Sleeping And Eating – The French Top The Charts

True to their reputation as leisure-loving gourmets, the French spend more time sleeping and eating than anyone else among the world’s wealthy nations, according to a new study.

The average French person sleeps almost nine hours every night, more than an hour longer than the average Japanese and Korean, who sleep the least in a survey of 18 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Despite their siesta habit, Spaniards rank only third in the poll after Americans, who sleep more than 8.5 hours.

And while more and more French people grab a bite at fast-food chains these days or wolf down a sandwich at their desk, they still spend more than two hours a day eating.

That means their meals are twice as long as those of the average Mexican, who dedicates just over an hour a day to food, the OECD’s “Society at a Glance” report on work, health and leisure in Asia, Europe and North and South America found.

The Japanese, scrimping on sleep and burdened with long commutes and working hours, still manage to spend close to two hours a day eating and drinking, placing them third behind New Zealanders.

The Japanese like to spend what remains of their scarce free time watching television or listening to the radio. This takes up 47 percent of leisure time in Japan.

Turks, on the other hand, spend more than a third of their leisure time entertaining friends.

The survey showed that the split between work and leisure time within certain countries is striking.

“Italian men have nearly 80 minutes a day of leisure more than women. Much of the additional work of Italian women is apparently spent cleaning the house,” the OECD said in a statement.

The OECD has 30 members. The survey covers only the countries for which appropriate figures were available.

Sumo Champ Asashoryu Hints At Retirement

Controversial sumo grand champion  Asashoryu has triggered speculation he is close to quitting the ancient heavyweight sport with a series of cryptic comments to Japanese journalists.

The volatile Mongolian first raised eyebrows when he uttered a few words to the media scrum as he marched off to take a bath following a training session for this month’s Tokyo tournament.

“Do you fancy coming for a drink?” Asashoryu was quoted as saying in Nikkan Sports. “Because this could be my last appearance in Tokyo.”

The 28-year-old made some equally baffling comments later when he took part in a hot-air balloon trip.

“I will do my best to come back next year,” Asashoryu said after joining 60,000 enthusiasts at a balloon festival in Nagano.

Asashoryu’s short fuse has landed him in trouble with Japanese sumo authorities many times, most notably resulting in a ban two years ago for playing soccer while supposedly injured.