Anticipating a growing threat from North Korea, Japan plans to hold its first-ever evacuation drills for an incoming ballistic missile attack this year.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review , specific Japanese municipalities “will be selected in January for participation in the drills, which are to take place as early as March.”
Japan plans to use its nationwide J-Alert warning system to implement procedures for evacuation in the event of an incoming ballistic missile.
North Korea conducted an unprecedented 24 ballistic missile tests in 2016, in addition to two nuclear tests it claimed involved a thermonuclear bomb.
For the first time ever, a North Korean Nodong launch last year resulted in a splashdown inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone in the Sea of Japan , drawing sharp criticism from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Abe described that launch as a “grave threat” and “an outrageous act that cannot be tolerated.” Shortly thereafter , Japan instituted an open-ended standing intercept order for its missile defense batteries. (Despite the order, Japan’s land- and sea-based interceptors may not be capable of stopping North Korean missiles.)
On Thursday , the U. S. Navy additionally announced that it would deploy Northrop Grumman Corp E-2D Advanced Hawkeye advanced early warning aircraft to Japan to bolster the country’s air defenses and deter missile attacks.
“The Advanced Hawkeye’s suite of systems allow it to act as the ‘digital quarterback’ of the fleet, collecting and distributing the tactical picture to command centers and other assets,” the U. S. Navy said.
With a new administration set to take office in the United States on January 21, Abe will be looking to promptly carry on bilateral cooperation through the alliance.
Given the intensifying North Korean threat, which U. S. President-elect Donald Trump has also recently commented on , Abe will be eager to continue cooperation with the United States on missile defense.
According to Japanese media reports , advisers to Abe and Trump alike have confirmed an early bilateral summit between the United States and Japan following the U. S. inauguration.
Following Trump’s election victory on November 8, 2016, Abe became the first foreign leader to travel to New York City and meet the incoming U. S. president.

© Source: http://thediplomat.com/2017/01/facing-north-korean-threat-japan-plans-ballistic-missile-evacuation-drills/
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BESANCON, France: Police in eastern France searched a forest on Thursday (Jan 5) for the body of a missing Japanese student as a chilling video emerged in which a man thought to be her fugitive Chilean ex-boyfriend threatens her.
Narumi Kurosaki went missing in the city of Besancon, where she had been studying French, on the night of Dec 4.
French authorities believe the 21-year-old was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who is believed to have fled to Chile, and have issued an international warrant for his arrest.
Chile’s justice ministry said on Wednesday it was assisting the French «in the identification of certain suspects as of their latest movements», without giving further details.
In a video published by French and Japanese media, the suspect, identified as Nicolas Zepeda Contreras, threatens Kurosaki with unnamed consequences if she did not fulfil unspecified conditions.
Speaking in English in a video dating from September, he says he loves Kurosaki, whom he identifies by first name, but accuses her of doing «bad things».
Holding up two fingers he gave her a two-week deadline until Sep 21 to meet his conditions, which he said applied «some for her whole stay in France and some, actually, forever. «
«She needs to build trust and she needs to pay a little cost of what she did and assume (sic) that she cannot go around making those kinds of mistakes with a person who loves her,» he added.
The case has caused shock in Japan as well as in France.
Kurosaki’s fellow students in Besancon described Kurosaki as a «lovely person» who was «always smiling».
On Thursday, police with sniffer dogs searched a vast forest on the outskirts of Besancon for the body of the petite student.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that signals from the suspect’s phone had been traced to Chaux forest.
The prosecutor’s office and police refused to confirm the report.
On Tuesday, Besancon prosecutor Edwige Roux-Morizot said the investigation had shown the student’s Chilean ex «was in France, in Besancon, at the time of her disappearance».
«The evidence tells us it is extremely likely that the young woman is dead,» she said.
The prosecutor ruled out suicide, describing Kurosaki as a «young girl full of life» who was happy in a new relationship.
«There is sufficient evidence to launch a murder investigation,» she said, describing the suspect as having an «intrusive, disturbing personality».
Kurosaki, who had been studying in Besancon since September, met the Chilean teaching assistant in Japan but the pair later split.
Several students living on the same floor of her university residence said they heard a loud cry on the night of Dec 4.
Anne-Laure Saillet, 20, told AFP she heard «bangs on the doors and furniture and afterwards I heard a very shrill cry, very sharp and loud. It was a woman’s cry. At first I thought it was a horror film but when it continued I became worried. «
Roux-Morizot said on Tuesday that tests were being carried out on reddish traces found on the steps of the building to determine whether they were bloodstains.

© Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/french-police-search-forest-for-body-of-japanese-student/3417190.html
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TOKYO —
Japan’s self-styled “Tuna King” has done it again—paying more than 74 million yen for a single fish.
Sushi entrepreneur Kiyoshi Kimura paid top price at the first auction of the new year at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market on Thursday, bagging a prized bluefin tuna for an eye-watering 74.2 million yen ($636,000).
The head of the Sushizanmai chain is now the proud—if temporary—owner of a 212-kilogram fish.
At that price a single piece of fatty tuna sushi would cost roughly 25 times what Kimura charges for the product at his 51 stores across Japan.
“I feel it was a bit expensive, but I am happy that I was able to successfully win at auction a tuna of good shape and size,” Kimura said.
Kimura has built his successful chain into a national brand by paying big money at Tsukiji’s first auction every year—he has now won for six straight years—essentially using the event for publicity.
He paid a record $1.8 million for a bluefin—a threatened species—at the New Year auction in 2013, outbidding a rival bidder from Hong Kong.
Last year, he faced no formidable rival and paid a bargain $117,000 for a 200-kilogram tuna.
The prices may seem enormous, but Kimura makes sure to get the most out of his money.
Every year, the boisterous auction, which takes place in the small hours, makes national headlines.
On Thursday, Kimura made the rounds of Japan’s major networks, telling viewers the tuna will be cut and distributed among his restaurants.
The 2017 auction could be the last at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market.
It was originally supposed to move to a new location in November, but the plan was put on hold until at least late this year over concerns about toxic contamination at the new site.
Tokyo Gov Yuriko Koike said in November that the move could even be delayed until the “spring of 2018” depending on results of health and environmental tests.
But she also held out the possibility of scrapping the relocation altogether.
© 2017 AFP

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A Japanese sushi chain boss has bid a winning 74.2 million yen ($632,000) for a 212 kilogram (466 pound) bluefin tuna in what may be the last auction at the current site of Tokyo’s Tsukiji market.
The winning bid Thursday for the prized but imperiled species was the second highest ever after a record 155.4 million yen bid in 2013.
Kiyomura Corp. owner Kiyoshi Kimura posed after the predawn New Year auction with the gleaming, man-sized fish, which was caught off the coast of northern Japan’s Aomori prefecture. He often wins the annual auction.
Last year’s New Year auction was supposed to be the last at Tsukiji’s current location. The shift to a new facility on Tokyo Bay was delayed due to soil contamination at the former gas plant site.
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Toshiba Corp’s chairman said its creditor banks are ready to provide financial support to the Japanese conglomerate, with conditions attached, following disclosures that it faces a multi-billion-dollar writedown of a U. S. nuclear business.
«At this moment, I have been told that (banks) will continue to provide support,» Shigenori Shiga told reporters on Thursday on the sidelines of an industry gathering.
Shiga said banks’ support would be conditional upon Toshiba giving them «solid explanations» about the potential writedown and how to improve its financial health.
The company is seeking creditors’ support to weather yet another financial blow, even as it still tries to recover from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal in 2015.
Last week, it revealed it may have to book several billion dollars in charges related to a U. S. nuclear power plant construction company acquisition.
Toshiba has said it would finalise the losses by mid-February.
Toshiba Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa visited banks, including its main creditors Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (SMFG) and Mizuho Financial Group , last week, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
At the meetings, Toshiba’s explanation did not go beyond what it disclosed at the news conference, the sources said.
Toshiba is expected to inform its main creditors the finalised writedown figures by the end of this month, said the sources, who were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly.
Some bankers expressed frustration as Toshiba was supposed to have gone through a complete checkup of its financial health after the 2015 accounting scandal that tarnished its image.
«Before we give them any financial help, it should come completely clean and have no surprises any more,» said a senior executive at one of the banking groups.
Toshiba was not immediately available to comment. A Mizuho spokesman declined to comment. SMFG officials were not immediately available for comment.
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Trump wrote that Toyota plans to build a new plant in Baja. However, the company plans to expand production at an existing Baja plant and announced the construction of a new car plant in Guanajuato in April.
The President-elect’s tweet lashing out at the Japanese company follows a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal noting that the company’s president would like to work with Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda said that his company is «aligned with the incoming administration in that it wants to be a good corporate citizen and grow employment in countries where it operates plants. » Toyoda said he will keep track of Trump’s policies on trade, according to the report.

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US president-elect Donald Trump plans to pick businessman William Hagerty as the next US ambassador to Japan, an adviser to Trump’s transition team said on Wednesday. Japan’s Nikkei news service reported that Trump would soon announce the choice of Hagerty, the director of presidential appointments in his transition team. An adviser confirmed the Nikkei report on condition of anonymity. Hagerty is a Tennessee native who founded a private equity firm, Hagerty Peterson. He spent several years in Japan with the Boston Consulting Group management consultancy and later served in the White House of former President George H. W. Bush. He will replace Caroline Kennedy, who has held the position since 2013. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, declined to comment on the report since the choice has yet to be formally announced, saying only that he hoped the new ambassador would be able to develop a friendly US-Japan relationship. But others said the choice suggests Trump is prioritising economics in bilateral ties, a potential relief for officials concerned by his protectionist stance on trade during the presidential campaign. Japanese companies play a key role in the US economy, employing more than 800,000 American workers. They contributed US$78 billion to US exports in 2014, according to the US Embassy in Tokyo. A long-time US resident of Tokyo with knowledge of business and politics who knows Hagerty by reputation, but not personally, said he had a reputation as a “typical management consultant – logical, thoughtful, and has no patience for trade rhetoric”. The news was likely reassure officials at the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI) as well as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), he added. “The boys at the US Defence Department and the Defence Agency may be disappointed because of his lack of experience in the geopolitical aspects of the US-Japan relationship, but METI, MOF and everyone else here in Tokyo should be breathing a sign of relief,” he added. Japan’s Defence Ministry was formerly called the Defence Agency.

© Source: http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/2059622/trump-choose-businessman-william-hagerty-next-us-ambassador
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In Donald Trump’s latest Twitter rebuke of an automaker, the president-elect threatened Toyota Motor on Thursday with a large border tax if it builds a new plant outside the U. S.
The company’s shares on the Nasdaq were slightly lower in afternoon trading following the message.
The threat about the Japanese automaker’s planned new plant in Mexico is just the latest from Trump, who already has gone after two other automakers.
Earlier this week, Trump issued a separate ultimatum to General Motors : make its Chevy Cruze cars in the U. S. or expect to pay a big border tax.
He has also been pressuring Ford about its own plans for Mexico. Two days ago, Ford announced it was canceling its plans to build Mexican plant, but insisted Trump was not the main factor for the decision.
Toyota announced on Tuesday that it is beginning to move hundreds of jobs out of its northern Kentucky headquarters as part of a nationwide consolidation.

© Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/05/donald-trump-goes-after-toyota-third-automaker-in-a-week-over-mexico-manufacturing.html
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