Japan is launching its first study into so-called “Net cafe refugees,” young people who live in all-night lounges and are feared to become a new class of working poor, an official said Wednesday.

Japan’s omnipresent net cafes — equipped with sofas, drinks, computers and comic books — are designed for businessmen who want to slack off for a few hours or for commuters who missed their last trains home.

But Japan has been alarmed by growing reports of young day labourers who are staying in round-the-clock cafes rather than renting and living in apartments.

In the first nationwide study, the government is questioning operators and customers at 3,000 Internet cafes nationwide, said a labour ministry official in charge of employment security.

“Inquiries are being made in cooperation with non-profit organisations to find out their rough number and what their lives are like,” said the official, who declined to be named.

A five-hour stay at an Internet cafe in Tokyo costs about 3,000 yen (25 dollars) with a meal served. Showers are available at 200 yen for 30 minutes and underwear is on sale.

The emergence of such “refugees” has set off alarm bells in a society which used to boast of equality but is now feared to be experiencing a wider rich-poor gap.

Sleeping in net cafes can be problematic “in terms of employment security, hygiene and development of job ability,” said the labour ministry official.

Findings of the investigation are expected to be publicised later this year and used to hammer out assistance measures.

Japan’s opposition, which won a landmark election victory last month, has accused the government of encouraging the rich-poor gap through free-market reforms meant to revive the economy after recession in the 1990s.

FUKUOKA, Aug. 13 (AP) – (Kyodo)—Yone Minagawa, who had been certified by Britain’s Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest person at age 114 earlier this year, died of old age Monday evening, informed sources said.

Minagawa, from Fukuchi town in Fukuoka Prefecture, became the world’s oldest person on Jan. 28 this year after American women Emma Faust Tillman died that day at the age of 114. In May, Fukuchi town asked Guinness World Records through the Internet to award Minagawa a certificate.

REPOSTED, now with picture!

Errant Thai police had better beware. Offenders who refuse to heed superiors’ warnings to mend their ways will find themselves shamed into doing so – forced to wear a hot pink armband adorned with the Japanese cartoon character Hello Kitty, beloved of little girls.

Frustrated senior officers searching for ways to force their underlings to toe the line believe the cutesy armband will be sufficiently humiliating to deter policemen from further misdemeanours.

It would prove a stark contrast to the figure-hugging grey uniforms, highly polished black knee boots, white helmets and mirror shades that mean most Thai police could pass as US motorcycle cops.

Police who are late for duty, get into fights with colleagues and park in restricted zones will be the prime targets for this most novel of disciplinary procedures.

But wearing the armband – Hello Kitty portrayed lounging on two hearts – for a day is for first-time offenders only. Persistent offenders will find themselves subject to much stiffer sanctions.

“Simple warnings no longer work,” said police general Pongpat Chayaphan, acting chief of Bangkok’s crime suppression division. “This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offence, no matter how minor.

“[Hello] Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It is not something macho police officers want covering their biceps.”

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) – A strong earthquake shook Japan’s northwest coast Monday, setting off a fire at the world’s most powerful nuclear power plant and causing a reactor to spill radioactive water into the sea—an accident not reported to the public for hours.

The 6.8-magnitude temblor killed at least 8 people and injured more than 900 as it toppled hundreds of wooden homes and tore 3-foot-wide fissures in the ground. Highways and bridges buckled, leaving officials struggling to get emergency supplies into the region.

Some 10,000 people fled to evacuation centers as aftershocks rattled the area. Tens of thousands of homes were left without water or power.

The quake triggered a fire in an electrical transformer and also caused a leak of radioactive water at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, the world’s largest in terms of electricity output.

The leak was not announced until the evening, many hours after the quake. That fed fresh concerns about the safety of Japan’s 55 nuclear reactors, which supply 30 percent of the quake-prone country’s electricity and have suffered a long string of accidents and cover- ups.

About 315 gallons of water apparently spilled from a tank at one of the plant’s seven reactors and entered a pipe that flushed it into the sea, said Jun Oshima, an executive at Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Officials said there was no “significant change” in the seawater near the plant, which is about 160 miles northwest of Tokyo. “The radioactivity is one-billionth of the legal limit,” Oshima said of the leaked water.

Eliot Brenner, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington, said the agency told Japan’s government it was ready to provide assistance if needed but had not received any request for help.

Brenner said he didn’t have details about the incident. But a U.S. nuclear industry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was a Japanese affair, said the transformer fire and water leak occurred in systems linked to different reactors.

In Kashiwazaki city, the quake reduced older buildings to piles of lumber. Eight people in their 70s and 80s—five women and three men—died, most of them crushed by collapsing buildings, the National Police Agency said.

Kyodo News agency reported more than 900 people were hurt, with injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises. It said 780 buildings sustained damage, and more than 300 of them were destroyed.

“I got so dizzy that I could barely stand up,” said Kazuaki Kitagami, a worker at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Kashiwazaki, the hardest- hit city. “The jolt came violently from just below the ground.”

The area was plagued by aftershocks, but there were no immediate reports of additional damage or casualties. Near midnight, a 6.6- magnitude quake hit off the west coast, shaking wide areas of Japan, but it was unrelated to the Niigata quake to the north and there were no immediate reports of damage.

Oh lawd, is that some secret stash?

Yes, one of the most controversial things about pixiesticks.org is back to attack boys and girls. It’s the downright legendary, the computer screen melting, the mind boggling… SECRET STASH!

First things first. This month’s secret stash features… well, there’s no other way to say it. It’s porn. Not anime porn, but the actual thing. And, no, it’s not real life shota porn either. That was an April Fools joke from a while back. So if you don’t like porn, don’t want to see porn, or ARE NOT OLD ENOUGH then just go on about your way.

But if you do want to take a crack at the secret stash, here are your clues.
Remember, I’ll add more clues if I feel enough people are having a problem.
And also remember, I’ll ban anybody giving out the password or hints on the tag-board.

1. It’s onomatopoeia.
2. It only has 3 letters. (All lowercase.)
3. It describes something a boy can do. (It’s something different for girls.)
4. It’s totally slang.
5. I’m going to start a group called Fans Against Pixelization! (Buttons and stickers coming soon to the Pixie Products shop.)

TOKYO – Japan’s agriculture minister died Monday after hanging himself just hours before he was to face questioning in a political scandal, officials said, dealing a powerful blow to the increasingly beleaguered government ahead of July elections.

Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, was found in his apartment Monday unconscious and declared dead hours later.

An autopsy showed that he died after hanging himself, according to a Tokyo Metropolitan Police official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity. The minister was found hanging from a door in his apartment earlier Monday, and he left a suicide note, according to local media reports.

Matsuoka’s death comes just ahead of upper house elections, and as support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet is plunging.

Abe, looking shaken after visiting the hospital where Matsuoka died, said although the minister had been “under intense questioning” in parliament, he had continued to be a useful member of the Cabinet.

“I am very disappointed,” he said. “When I saw his face, he seemed to be at peace.”

Matsuoka had faced heavy criticism over a scandal involving suspicious bookkeeping practices in his offices, and was scheduled to appear before a parliamentary committee Monday afternoon for further questioning.

He was under fire for allegedly claiming more than $236,600 in utility fees even though he rented a parliamentary office where utility costs are free. Opposition lawmakers had demanded his resignation, but Matsuoka denied any wrongdoing.

Abe had defended Matsuoka, saying that the agriculture minister reported to him all the alleged issues were properly handled and that his dismissal was not needed.

Matsuoka had been dogged by scandal. Along with the utilities questions, he apologized publicly just three days after taking office for not declaring $8,500 in political donations.

He acknowledged the undeclared funds, which came in the form of purchased tickets to a fundraising party, saying he was unaware that the contributions had not been reported. Matsuoka had since corrected his political funds report for 2005.

Japan’s political funds law requires politicians to declare such donations when they exceed $1,700, Kyodo News said. The contributions came from the World Business Expert Forum, a group associated with scandal-hit business consultant FAC Co., which was raided by authorities in June on suspicion of illegally collecting funds from investors, Kyodo said.

Japan’s suicide rate is among the highest in the industrialized world. More than 32,000 Japanese took their own lives in 2004, the bulk of them older Japanese suffering financial woes as the country struggled through a decade of economic stagnation.

TOKYO (Reuters) – The fifth “Harry Potter” film, based on the best-selling books about the young boy wizard, will premiere in Japan on June 28, just months after “Spider-Man 3″ marked a rare international movie debut in Tokyo.

A Warner Bros. spokeswoman in Tokyo said British actor
Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the broomstick-flying Harry, would come to Tokyo for the event, which is scheduled ahead of the movie’s London showing on July 3.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is the latest installment in a series that began in 2001 with “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

The four previous “Harry Potter” movies, based on
J.K. Rowling’s books, have grossed more than $3.5 billion worldwide.

There is “no special reason” why the film is making its premiere in Japan, the spokeswoman said.

But the Tokyo premiere last month of another highly anticipated sequel, “Spider-Man 3,” was seen as a shrewd push into the faster-growing international market that could help boost box-office revenues.

The seventh and final book in the “Harry Potter” series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” will go on sale on July 21, but it is not clear when the film version will be made.