TOKYO: An SUV drove off the fifth floor of a parking garage in Japan Saturday (Dec 31), killing three of its five passengers, local media reported.
The vehicle fell around 1pm (0400 GMT) from the parking garage in Yokosuka city, south of Tokyo, according to media witnesses’ accounts.
Television footage showed a metal fence guarding the fifth floor of the garage was cut, apparently falling to the ground with the silver vehicle.
« The noise was like thunder. The fence came down and the vehicle came down, » a witness told national broadcaster NHK.
The accident killed a man in his 50s, a woman in her 40s and another woman in her 70s, while a man in his 20s and an 11-year-old boy suffered serious injuries, according to private Nippon Television.
They were passengers of the vehicle, Japanese media said.
Local police and rescue officials could not immediately comment on the case.

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Over the last few years, emojis have become a ubiquitous form of communication. The tiny digital icons, ION: needed? aren’t they on all smartphones? found on your smartphone keyboard and elsewhere , connect users and have become their own language. The original emojis, designed by Japanese mobile provider NTT DoCoMo and released in 1999, were even recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Clearly, we’re obsessed.
Not surprisingly, Hollywood has taken note. Exclusive emojis now accompany film releases and TV show premieres as part of studio and network marketing campaigns, and an emoji movie is scheduled for release by Sony Pictures Animation in the summer.
“As storytellers, we’re always trying to tell stories that really connect with people,” said Tony Leondis, director and co-writer of “The Emoji Movie.”
“We have this immediate connection to these little yellow guys that we send out as versions of ourselves. Billions of emojis are sent every day to share their love, their frustrations, their happiness, their lives with each other. It seemed like such a perfect landscape to tell a story.”
Casey Affleck talks about the way Kenneth Lonergan uses everyday language to convey deep emotion in « Manchester by the Sea.  »
For her role as Jackie Kennedy, Natalie Portman says, « It’s not a fashion story, » but the clothes do tell a story.
Joel Edgerton talks about staying truthful to the real-life story of « Loving.  »
Director Nicolas Winding Refn and composer Cliff Martinez discuss their « Neon Demon » collaboration.
« Manchester By the Sea » director Kenneth Lonergan discusses writing a quiet character and working with actor Casey Affleck to bring him to life. 
It also helps that no one owns the rights to them. Because emojis are considered a font or a language, that means that anyone, including movie studios, can use them for any purpose at any time (MoMA acquired DoCoMo’s emojis through a licensing agreement). “You don’t have to get the rights to emojis,” Leondis said. “You just have to create your own version of emojis.”
For Leondis, who called it the “easiest sell I’ve ever made,” the movie is an opportunity to capitalize on our interest in these icons. He enlisted James Corden to voice the central character, Hi-5, and noted that Corden said yes right away. That’s possibly because Corden’s talk show, “The Late Late Show,” has a recurring segment called “Emoji News,” which recaps headlines using emojis for comedic effect.
While most people are familiar with the emojis included in Apple’s keyboard , which was recently updated to include an avocado due to overwhelming demand, other tech companies also have their own. Twitter, in particular, continually partners with movie studios and TV networks on exclusive emojis that are activated with specific hashtags. For “Rogue One,” the new “Star Wars” film released by Lucasfilm and Disney on Dec. 16, a “Star Wars” Twitter emoji will automatically appear when you tweet any of the following: #RogueOne, #DeathStar, #StarWars and #StarWarsRogueOne.
“We know there’s a massive, engaged audience of movie fans on Twitter who are tweeting about upcoming films,” said Jennifer Prince, who deals with media and entertainment at Twitter. “Studios who recognize that opportunity leverage Twitter during the film promotion process —  it has become a core part of studios’ playbooks, whether it is with a custom emoji, exclusive trailer or cast Q&A. Emojis are a new way for people to connect and express their excitement and passion for films with a community of fans.”
Twitter has worked on more than 50 exclusive emojis for films since its first campaign in April 2015 for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” A “Bad Moms” emoji was mentioned more than 103,000 times, leading to 63 million organic impressions and 169 million total impressions, according to Prince, and “Suicide Squad” earned   1 million tweets between March 1 and May 26 thanks to a Joker Twitter emoji with the hashtag #JokerWasHere.”
Skype debuted its own set of icons, dubbed Emoticons, around the November release of Marvel’s “Doctor Strange.” The digital communication app had created similar partnerships for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“Our fans are extremely engaged, so we try to provide them with as much content as possible for them to express their fandom,” said Mindy Hamilton, senior vice president of global partnerships for Marvel Entertainment. “Skype’s ‘Doctor Strange’ emoticons provided users with exclusive content to add personality and their love for pop culture and Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange’ to their Skype chats. Anything that can bring people closer to our characters and our universe is key, especially if it’s something as fun and creative as what Skype did here.”
Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim released its own emoji keyboard over the summer; it includes 150 custom emojis themed around characters from popular shows like “Rick and Morty” and “Robot Chicken.” The free keyboard has since seen 320,000 app installs and 2.6 million sticker uses, said Jim Babcock, vice president  of consumer marketing at Adult Swim. The Cartoon Network offshoot  will soon roll out more animated stickers for iOS 10.
“We want to give our fans a way to drop an Adult Swim GIF, sound clip or sticker into a conversation with a friend that will make them laugh or question the course their life has taken,” Babcock said. “It’s less about a transaction and more about engaging and sharing a joke. We’re thinking about emoji for every show and for any sentiment where we think we can add something funny or weird.”
The emojis, although generally for entertainment and fun communication, can also make a statement. Around the theatrical release of “Loving,”  the real-life story of a couple’s historic legal fight to have their interracial marriage recognized by the state of Virginia,  Focus Features unveiled its own set of icons via the Love-Moji app.
“It came about through social insight,” said Josh Kornblit, senior vice president of digital marketing and media at Focus. “In August 2016, Apple announced they were planning to add more gender-diverse emoji in iOS 10, something that was done in response to negative social feedback they had received. But we noticed that interracial couples were still absent from the update. The [app] helped fill a void for something that wasn’t previously available, and people got behind it in a big way. 
“It was great to see how excited people were to see themselves represented that way. It’s meaningful —  which is why it took off so quickly.”

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TAIPEI – Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said Saturday the public should rationally discuss the issue of whether to ease restrictions on food imports from five Japanese prefectures imposed in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Speaking at a question-and-answer session at a year-end news conference at the Presidential Office, Tsai emphasized, however, that there is no set timetable nor any urgency for easing the ban.
Following the March 2011 disaster triggered by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, Taiwan banned food imports from Fukushima Prefecture and nearby Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, and Chiba prefectures, and in addition has been conducting random radiation checks on nine categories of imported foods.
The Tsai administration recently formulated a plan to relax the ban in two stages. Under the proposal, Taiwan plans to keep in place its ban on the import of all food products from Fukushima but conditionally allow imports of certain products from the four other prefectures.
The implementation of the first stage of the plan would serve as a reference for the further relaxation of the restrictions in the second stage, possibly about six months later.
However, the plan has received strong opposition from the Nationalist Party (KMT), the largest opposition party.
KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin has initiated a signature drive to endorse a referendum on whether to relax the ban.
In addition to holding demonstrations, the KMT has urged the public to recall elected officials supporting the government plan. It also mobilized supporters to boycott three more public hearings organized to explain the government’s plan and debunk some misleading rumors.
The first public hearing in New Taipei City was cancelled and became a panel. The remaining two have been postponed.
The three public hearings were scheduled after 10 were held across the island last month. The KMT criticized the Tsai government for holding the 10 hearings in three days, questioning whether it has made a secret deal with Japan in exchange for something.
Expressing regret over the disturbances at the public hearing, Tsai emphasized that the fundamental principles by which her administration handles the issue is that public health must be ensured, discussions must be rational and communications with the Taiwan public must continue.
However, Tsai indicated that public hearings are not the only way to communicate with the public, without elaborating.

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(Newser)
–
« It’s 4am. My body’s trembling. I’m going to die.  » That was reportedly one of Matsuri Takahashi’s tweets not long before she killed herself last year by leaping from a dorm at Dentsu, the ad company where the 24-year-old worked, per the New York Times. This week, Dentsu’s head quit, taking responsibility for Takahashi’s suicide and his firm’s culture of overwork. That culture is prevalent throughout Japan, and even has its own term, « karoshi, » or « death from overwork.  » Tadashi Ishii offered his « heartfelt apology » Wednesday and said he’d offer his resignation to Dentsu’s board in January; he apologized to Takahashi’s family in person on Sunday, per the Japan Times. A labor department probe found Takahashi had been putting in more than 100 hours of overtime a month leading up to her death, and she’d noted on Twitter and to family that her bosses had harassed her and made sexist remarks.
Per the AP , an October survey in the country’s first white paper on karoshi found 93 suicides or attempted suicides in 2015 tied to overwork (the Guardian says that number is more like 2,000 suicides a year), with 96 deaths from heart attacks, strokes, and other maladies linked to karoshi. Business Insider reports Japan « has been trying desperately » to tamp down this deeply ingrained work ethic, including a « work style reform » panel led by PM Shinzo Abe. Some firms have started encouraging more work-life balance, including Dentsu, which has a reputation as being particularly hard-core (a slogan dating to the ’50s implored workers to do their job « even if it kills you »). Now Dentsu flicks the lights off at 10pm and makes workers take a minimum of five days off every six months. « [I want to] change the consciousness of every working person in Japan, » Takahashi’s mom says, per the Guardian. (A deeper look at karoshi.)

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WASHINGTON —
Sprint said Friday that the 5,000 U. S. jobs the telecom firm recently pledged to create over the next 15 months are not part of an April 2015 announcement for a different 5,000 jobs.
The confusion—which prompted the company’s chief Marcelo Claure to take to Twitter in defense of the plan—arose after Donald Trump announced Sprint’s jobs commitment this week.
The president-elect claimed credit for the deal as well as an announcement earlier this month by the satellite broadband firm OneWeb of 3,000 new jobs over the next four years.
However, both new job commitments are part of a broader plan announced in October by SoftBank—which owns 80% of Sprint—to invest tens of billions of dollars in technology globally. The OneWeb project is the result of a $1.2 billion investment from the group.
SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son met Trump earlier this month, pledging to invest $50 billion in the U. S. economy and create 50,000 jobs over an unspecified time.
That prompted Trump to take credit for job creation even before he assumes office in January, praising what he called “the spirit and the hope” his election generated.
A Sprint spokesperson said on Friday that the 5,000 new jobs announced this week “are not related to our previous announcement about jobs and our Direct 2 You program reported on in April 2015. The announcements are unrelated.”
Unlike last year’s plan, the newer one is “part of Masa’s 50,000 jobs commitment and it was intended to show that we are now working to help fulfill the commitment.”
Claure followed Trump’s example, taking to Twitter Thursday following reports that the latest Sprint job pledge is not new.
“Stop speculating,” he said. “This has NOTHING to do with previously announced @sprint initiatives.”
“The 5,000 jobs are NEW jobs that @sprint is creating or bringing back to the U. S. Great news for the country.”
Sprint, which announced 2,500 layoffs in January, said the 5,000 positions will be created or brought back from overseas by the end of its 2017 fiscal year, which ends in March 2018. It has not yet decided where the jobs will be created, saying only that they will be spread across the organization.
Claure—who held a fundraiser for Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in September, calling Trump “too risky”—said in the announcement this week that “we are excited to work with President-elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U. S.”
© 2016 AFP

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TOKYO —
Millions of people will visit temples and shrines in Japan on Saturday night and Sunday morning, return to their home towns to be with their families and watch the New Year variety show “Kohaku Uta Gassen” (Red and White Song Contest) on NHK as part of the annual New Year celebration.
Shrines are expected to be crowded on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Meiji Shrine in Tokyo, in particular, welcomes a huge wave of worshippers each year on Dec 31 and Jan 1. The gigantic shrine expects three million visitors in the first three days of the new year. Smaller neighborhood shrines throughout the country also receive a steady stream of visitors.
For those staying at home on New Year’s Eve, NHK’s popular variety program “Kohaku Uta Gassen” will air from 7:15 p.m. Though it has lost some of its luster in the past 10-15 years, “Kohaku” is still considered the most prestigious TV music program to be invited to appear on. Up to 35% of Japan’s TV audience is expected to watch the four-hour program, which features established 51 acts and J-pop stars. This year, the program will not feature SMAP, one of Japan’s longest-lived pop groups, who announced in late August that they would disband in December. Although NHK tried desperately to get them to bow out on “Kohaku,” the group opted instead to make their farewell on the Dec 26 final episode of their long-running variety program, “SMAP X SMAP.”
Although parties and countdown events aren’t as popular in Japan as in Western countries (think of New Year’s Eve in Japan as akin to Christmas Eve in the West), there are big events planned at some of the 5-star hotels, clubs, pubs and restaurants in the major cities. 
In Tokyo’s Shibuya district, traffic will be prohibited from entering the famous scramble crossing from 10 p.m. until 2 a.m. so that the thousands of revelers can gather in relative safety. For the past three years, police restricted pedestrian access to the intersection but the crowds have been increasing each year, causing massive traffic jams and pedestrian congestion.
If you’re out and about, you’ll hear lots of bells. At midnight, temple bells will strike 108 times—a ritual known as “Joya no Kane.” According to Buddhist beliefs, the number 108 corresponds to the number of evil desires that we suffer from. It is believed that by listening to or ringing the bell 108 times, you can get rid yourself of those evil desires. 
Getting home won’t be a problem in Tokyo. Subways and trains in the nation’s capital run throughout the night—the only night each year they do so.
Meanwhile, markets and malls across the nation were packed with shoppers on Saturday, looking for last-minute bargains. If you missed out, don’t worry. Many department stores and other retailers will open on New Year’s Day, offering huge discounts, to take advantage of families and their children who wish to spend their “otoshidama” (monetary gifts from parents and grandparents). Shibuya’s famous 109 store is a magnet for young women, many of whom line up hours before the stores in the building open. They can often be seen outside the store afterwards, offering to swap the contents of their “fukubukuro” (lucky sealed bags containing items generally worth double the value of the purchase price).
If you’re in Tokyo on Jan 2, the imperial palace will be open to the public. The emperor, empress and other members of the imperial family will greet well-wishers from the balcony three times during the day. Tens of thousands of people usually attend these greetings each year.
Many other cultural events continue at least until Jan 6 in most prefectures. One of the most elaborate is the annual New Year’s Fire Review, called “Dezomeshiki,” which will take place at Tokyo Big Sight on Friday Jan 6 from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. This event is a spectacular demonstration of fire and disaster prevention performed by the Metropolitan Fire Department. It features firefighting drills, rescue, first aid, a parade of firefighting equipment and other various performances.
Performers demonstrate acrobatic stunts on top of bamboo ladders, while about 2,700 professional firefighters and members of community-based fire companies in Tokyo and more than 130 fire vehicles, helicopters and ships will be mobilized.
See related story on traditional New Year customs here .
Japan Today

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