Via the Japan Subculture Research Center:
After decades of unspoken agreements between police and yakuza that have allowed organized crime to operate with relative impunity in everything from gambling on sport and illegal casinos to human trafficking and prostitution, the national police are cracking down on Japan’s top yakuza gang, energized not only by the embarrassment over the sumo debacle but also by the emergence of a dynamic new National Police Agency (NPA) chief last year who wants to curtail the broad influence of yakuza …

Wow! It seems that fuzzy logic, new math, a broken calculator or maybe even smoke and mirrors are used to push a different agenda, and it has nothing to do with crime!
According to the data compiled by the ministry and its Defense Facilities Administration Agency, obtained by a group linked to victims of such incidents, 1,059 crimes and accidents involving U.S. service personnel in Okinawa, or 54 percent of the nationwide total linked to members of the U.S. military, were recorded in fiscal 2002, 1,159 cases, or about 55 percent, …

One may ask is this a new trend? Or is it something that has been going on for years? Are these isolated incidents? Or is there a greater deep seeded problem in Japanese law enforcement and correctional institutions?

(Global Immigration Counsel)
With allegation of abuse and poor living conditions at immigration detention centers in Japan, several detainees have begun a hunger strike in protest. Roughly 60 detainees housed at the East Japan Immigration Control Center located in Ushiku have been on a hunger strike in protest of poor conditions at the facility. The Japan Times online has stated that a spokesman for the detention center says that about 30 detainees, not 60 have refused meals since Monday. Many of the detainees claim to be political refugees and can not …

Recent incidents such as the Japanese Coast Guard obtaining an arrest warrant for Captain Paul Watson, the cancellation of “The Cove” screening at a U.S. Military base in Japan and the dismissal of charges against a popular sushi restaurant will most likely spark the flame of controversy. Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, CA have set in place a motion to dismiss charges against a sushi restaurant in Santa Monica, CA that admitted to serving meat of an endangered whale.

Claims made by another man in January of this year raises some serious questions of conditions in immigration detention centers in Japan.

I have been tracking this story wondering how it would play out. The widow of Awudu Samad Abubakar spoke at The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan on April 20, 2010. I believe that this will shed light on the death of her husband and her subsequent lawsuit.
Here is a blurb from Ghana Web reporting the death of Awudu Samad Abubakar:
The family of a Ghanaian prince from a royal home up north, who died in the custody of Japanese Immigration, is calling for full investigations into how their son died, since …

An interesting post by FUSOU NOTE – 扶桑雑記 – on the Yakuza and the DPJ. The writer responds to a post by Jake Adelstein and his claim that the Yakuza is now supporting the DPJ.
[Fusou Note] “I just noticed that the December 2009 issue of the FCCJ’s Number 1 Shimbun had a report entitled “Jake Adelstein and Tokyo Vice” by Gavin Blair. The report mentions an Adelstein’s claim that the Japan’s largest yakuza group, Yamaguchi-gumi, is supporting the DPJ.
Something that definitely falls into the controversial category is Adelstein’s claim that …

Hello BT’ers! Another follow-up to the post on the four American teenagers at Yokota AFB arrested on charges of attempted murder.
“A U.S. teen accused of bodily injury after stringing a rope across a Tokyo road, causing severe injuries to a motorcyclist, will appear before the Tokyo Family Court’s Tachikawa branch, it was decided Friday. After prosecutors identified the 19-year-old as the ringleader, they decided to put him before a family court on the lighter charges of traffic obstruction and inflicting bodily injury, and drop charges against the other three.” Click here …

Hello BT’ers! Debito has posted a story that provides a great follow-up and answers my question to my previous story on the Chinese man arrested for parental kidnapping:
Japanese prosecutors are seeking a three-year prison term for a Chinese man accused of parental kidnapping and keeping his two daughters in China for about 10 years. Does this case reinforce that the Japanese parent wields the power in custody disputes?
Debito writes:
The first article is what happens when the shoe’s on the other foot, and the NJ parent goes on trial for allegedly …