Typhoon Hagibis death toll in Japan rises to 55

The death toll from Typhoon Hagibis rose to 55 on Monday as search-and-rescue teams continued to operate in areas hit by flooding and landslides in central and eastern Japan.

Self-Defense Forces personnel, police and firefighters were carrying out operations, with 16 people missing and at least 100 injured, according to the latest Kyodo News tally.

At a disaster task force meeting, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government will do the utmost to support those affected by the typhoon and its aftereffects, adding an interagency team will be set up to improve shelters and help evacuees to find places to live.

About 38,000 people in 17 prefectures had evacuated from their homes by midday Monday, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, adding 3,700 homes had been flooded across the country.

"There is concern that the impact on lives and economic activities may persist," Abe said. "We will respond as best we can as we continue to think about those who are suffering."

He instructed Cabinet ministers to ensure infrastructure such as electricity and water supplies are quickly restored, with numerous areas suffering outages, and to supply food, water and other materials without awaiting requests from local authorities.

In a separate meeting, Defense Minister Taro Kono told senior officials to ensure the SDF make their best efforts in responding to the disaster.

The season's 19th typhoon dumped record rainfall that led to rivers bursting their banks, flooding residential districts and triggering landslides in 11 prefectures. Evacuees who could not return home continued to shelter in sites such as local schools.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said 37 rivers in Nagano, Fukushima, Ibaraki and three other prefectures had flooded.

In the central Japan city of Nagano, workers used more than 20 pumping vehicles to help assess damage to the drainage system caused when the Chikuma River's embankment collapsed.

In New York on Sunday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres extended his deep condolences to the families of victims, as well as the government and people of Japan, while wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

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Women are solution to Japan's labor shortage: head of int'l body

GENEVA - Women are the solution to Japan's expected labor shortage and economic difficulties stemming from a decline in its population, the head of a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations recently told Kyodo News.

"There is a big potential in Japan to grow the economy with the participation of women in this growth, by putting women in the economy," Arancha Gonzalez, executive director of the International Trade Center said.

The institution is dedicated to supporting the internationalization of small and medium-sized companies, paying special attention to the role of women entrepreneurs.

"I think the position by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to direct one of his 'arrows' towards more participation of women in society and economy is the right one," Gonzalez said, referring to the government's "Abenomics" economic and fiscal policy mix.

In addition to fiscal stimulus and monetary easing -- the first two arrows -- "Abenomics" implies structural reforms. Female empowerment is one component of this third arrow, Abe having announced in September 2013 at the U.N. General Assembly his intention to create "a society in which women shine."

The Abe administration has for example set a goal of raising the proportion of women in leading corporate positions to 30 percent by 2020.

"Since 2003, Japan has lost eight million people in the age bracket between 18 and 65. But it has increased the participation of employees in this age bracket, and this is because women have participated more into the job market," Gonzalez said.

Japan's fertility rate is one of the lowest among industrialized countries, standing at 1.42 in 2014, compared with 1.86 for the United States, 1.98 for France and 1.37 for Italy, according to the Japanese government's Declining Birthrate White Paper.

Japan still faces many challenges in terms of female empowerment, however.

"We have not done enough in ensuring that women are a greater part of our economy. And this is very clearly the case in Japan, where the participation of women in the workforce is well below that of men and where the pay gap between men and women is huge," Gonzalez said.

Japan is constantly ranked low by international reports on female empowerment.

The 2016 edition of the Global Gender Gap Report, compiled by the World Economic Forum, ranked Japan 111th out of a total of 144 countries because of the huge disparity between men and women in terms of political empowerment and economic participation.

"The issue of women empowerment is to a large extent, especially for a country like Japan, about changing mentalities. And in order to change mentalities, the best way is to first have a dialogue," Gonzalez said.

A Cabinet Office survey released in late October found that 54.2 percent of the respondents approved of the idea that women should continue to work after having a baby, up 9.4 percentage points from the previous poll in 2014.

Still, some 8.4 percent said women should leave the job market after having their first child, while 4.7 percent said they should do so after they get married and 3.3 percent responded that women should never work.

Gonzalez will participate in the World Assembly of Women on Dec. 13 and 14 in Tokyo, a conference organized by the Abe administration to promote female empowerment.

"I think this kind of conference is very effective because it is about discussing, conveying, in order to prepare a change in mentalities," Gonzalez said.

==Kyodo

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Powerful quake hits Japan, Fukushima residents urged to flee

TOKYO - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3 hit northern Japan on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, generating a tsunami that hit the nation's northern Pacific coast.

The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, was centred off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles) and struck at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT) the agency said.

A 60 cm (2 foot) tsunami had been observed at Fukushima's Onahama Port and a 90 cm (3 foot) tsunami at Soma soon after, public broadcaster NHK said. The region is the same that was devastated by a tsunami following a massive earthquake in 2011.

A tsunami warning of up to 3 metres (10 feet) has been issued.

One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo news agency reported, citing fire department officials.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, known as Tepco, said on its website that no damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas. Tepco's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant caused Japan's worst nuclear disaster when it was knocked out by the 2011 tsunami.

Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there was no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki Prefecture.

Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from Fukushima harbours as tsunami warning signals wailed.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered caused world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.

An Iwaki city fire dept official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha's research centre in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6:17 a.m., but it was extinguished at 6:40 a.m. Other details were not clear, he said, adding that no other major damage in the city has been reported at the moment.

One hotel in Ofunato, badly hit by the 2011 quake, told guests to stay in the facility, which is on high ground.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially put Tuesday's quake at a magnitude of 7.3 but down graded it to 6.9.

All nuclear plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shutdown in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest of the country. Even when in shutdown nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.

(Writing by William Mallard; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi, Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz and Aaron Sheldrick; Editing Richard Balmforth and Lincoln Feast)

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Attacker in Japan stabs, kills 19 in their sleep at disabled center

SAGAMIHARA, Japan - A knife-wielding man stabbed and killed 19 people as they slept at a facility for the disabled in a town near Tokyo early on Tuesday, a senior government official said, Japan's worst mass killing in decades.

At least 25 other residents of the facility were wounded in the attack.

"This is a very heart-wrenching and shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a scheduled news conference in Tokyo.

Police have arrested Satoshi Uematsu, 26, a former employee at the facility in Sagamihara town in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, a Kanagawa official said. At least one media report said Uematsu had called for euthanasia of the severely disabled.

Uematsu had turned himself in, the Kanagawa prefecture official, identified only by his surname of Sakuma, told an earlier news conference carried on public broadcaster NHK.

Another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously, Sakuma said.

Kyodo news agency said the dead ranged in age from 19 to 70 and included nine males and 10 females. Earlier media reports had said as many as 45 people had been wounded.

Staff called police at 2.30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds of the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility, media reported. The man wore a black T-shirt and trousers, reports said.

The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility, established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities, NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.

Residents of the small town of Sagamihara said the last murder in the area was 10 years ago.

A woman who said she used to work at the facility said many patients were profoundly disabled.

"They are truly innocent people. What did they do? This is shocking," she told Japanese television station TBS.

BAG OF KNIVES

Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, the Kanagawa prefecture official said.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives.

Asahi Shimbun reported that the suspect was quoted by police as saying: "I want to get rid of the disabled from this world." Other reports said he had held a grudge after being fired from his job at the facility.

Broadcaster NTV reported that the arrested man presented a letter to the speaker of the lower house of Japan's parliament in February calling for euthanasia of disabled people.

"My goal is a world in which, in cases where it is difficult for the severely disabled to live at home and be socially active, they can be euthanised with the consent of their guardians," it quoted the letter as saying.

At least 29 emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.

NHK reported that the facility is usually locked at night but the suspect broke into the building by smashing a window.

The facility's website said the centre had a maximum capacity of 160 people, including staff.

Such mass killings are extremely rare in Japan and typically involve stabbings. Japan has strict gun laws and possession of firearms by the public is rare.

Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001. Seven people died in 2008 when a man drove a truck into a crowd and began stabbing people in Tokyo's popular electronics and "anime" district of Akihabara.

A revision to Japan's Swords and Firearms Control Law was introduced in 2009 in the wake of that attack, banning the possession of double-edged knives and further tightening gun-ownership rules.

Members of a doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.

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Japan police arrest MtGox CEO over loss of bitcoins: media

TOKYO, Japan - Japanese police on Saturday arrested Mark Karpeles, CEO of the collapsed MtGox bitcoin exchange, over the loss of nearly $390 million worth of the virtual currency, local media said.

Karpeles is suspected of having accessed the computer system of the exchange and of falsifying data on its outstanding balance, Kyodo News and public broadcaster NHK said.

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Japanese designer behind iconic soy sauce bottle dies at 85

TOKYO - Industrial designer Kenji Ekuan, who crafted a soy sauce dispenser now ubiquitous in Japan and around the world, died of a heart rhythm disorder at a Tokyo hospital early Sunday morning, his office said Monday. He was 85.

Ekuan in 1957 founded GK Industrial Design Associates, which later became GK Design Group, and in 1961 designed a soy sauce dispenser for Kikkoman Corp. that found enduring success worldwide.

The Tokyo native was also behind the distinctive shape of the "Komachi" high-speed trains running on the Akita Shinkansen Line, and the Narita Express connecting Narita airport with Tokyo. He also designed motorcycles for Yamaha Motor Co.

Ekuan worked on several expositions, serving as co-general producer for the World Design Exposition 1989 held in Nagoya.

In 1979 Ekuan was awarded the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design's Colin King Grand Prix. The Japanese government honored him with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette, in 2000.

==Kyodo

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World's oldest man turns 112

SAITAMA - A resident of Saitama city near Tokyo who was recognized as the world's oldest man last August by Guinness World Records turned 112 Thursday.

Sakari Momoi responded with a smile as his family helped him celebrate, according to his third son Hiroo, 66.

Momoi, who lives at a healthcare institution in Tokyo, mostly finishes his meals and participates in activities such as throwing a ball and practicing calligraphy, according to the family.

The native of Minamisoma in Fukushima Prefecture used to be an agricultural chemistry teacher and principal of prefectural government-run high schools in Fukushima and Saitama.

The world's oldest woman recognized by Guinness is Misao Okawa, a 116-year-old Japanese in Osaka.
==Kyodo


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Takata airbag victim's husband held dying baby for 10 mins

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN - The widower of a pregnant Malaysian woman who died in a freak car accident in Borneo last year after her neck was pierced by a metal shard from a faulty Takata airbag held their dying daughter in his arms for 10 minutes as the prematurely delivered infant's life sapped away.

According to 41-year-old Welhelmo Rodriguez Caido, doctors performed an emergency operation to save their unborn baby girl after the Honda City car driven by his wife crashed head-on with another car in Malaysia last July, fatally injuring her, but the infant was in critical condition and died two days later.

"Imagine, two lives died in my arms. My wife died in my arms, and then my baby also," Caido said in an interview with Kyodo News in Kuala Belait, a quiet oil town in the sultanate of Brunei where he works as an electrician on offshore oil rigs.

The deaths of 43-year old Law Suk Leh and the baby set off a global alarm on the danger of defective airbags.

Caido said his daughter did not open her eyes or cry like other newborns and had to depend on a ventilator to breathe, as her heart became weaker and weaker.

Recalling the agonizing moment when the doctor decided to take his baby off the ventilator and let her die naturally, he said, "The doctor checked her heart, and it was still OK. Then I talked with her for about 10 minutes, and then the doctor again checked her heart. The third time, the doctor said, 'She's passed away already.'"

"At least I still had time to talk to her. I said to her, 'You have to take care of your mummy. Mummy will take care of you there. You are in good hands in heaven,' and then, 'Maybe one day we will meet again in the second life,'" he recalled in the interview, sometimes stopping as he was overwhelmed by sadness.

The accident happened just about two weeks before his wife was due to give birth to their second child in mid-August. The couple had driven from their home in Brunei to visit her parents in Sibu in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. They planned to then travel to Sarawak's capital Kuching so that his wife could give birth there.

The couple had arrived in Sibu on Friday after a six-hour drive from Brunei. He recalled dyeing his wife's hair on Sunday morning. "I bought a very nice hair dye for her, because I told her, 'Mummy, since our age is like this already, we need to cover it up.' She was very, very happy."

They decided to leave behind their 7-year-old son with her parents to attend a church service that afternoon. After attending the service, they went to the mall to shop for their baby.

"We had ice cream at the mall. Actually, it was like a date since it was just the two of us, as we did not bring our son. It was very normal. We just talked about our baby."

As they were heading back to the house of his parents-in-law with his wife at the wheel, their car collided with another car at an intersection.

"As far as I remember, we had a green light, and our speed was just normal. There was a car coming from our right. It made a right turn," he recalled, prompting him to shout "Mummy! Car!"

He fainted for a moment and when he became conscious, he found her unconscious with a lot of blood flowing from her neck.

Not wanting to wait for an ambulance, he sought help from bystanders. A stranger offered his car and they drove toward a hospital. "At that time, I didn't know whether my wife was still alive or not," he said.

While on the way to hospital, they were met an ambulance and his wife was transferred to it.

"When we brought her from the car, I could see that her mouth was still moving...But the hospital was very far -- too far -- away from the site of our accident."

At the hospital, a doctor told him they had to remove the baby in an effort to save her, and a few minutes later he was told his wife had passed away.

He only came to know later that she died from injuries caused to her neck by the metal shard from the airbag. "The postmortem confirmed that it was from the airbag...I said I don't want to see the thing that killed her."

"The airbag is supposed to save life in the case of emergency, but why is it the opposite? It killed two lives. If you see the picture of the car, it (the collision) was not so serious."

In November, Takata Corp. said in a statement that Honda Motor Co. had filed recall notifications in several countries, including Japan.

"This recall is being conducted because an investigation into an accident that occurred in Malaysia in July 2014 found that the moisture absorption control of the gas generating agent in some driver seat airbags had not been correctly implemented at the time of the manufacture," the statement said.

"As a result...an inflator canister may rupture when the airbag deploys," it said in the statement, which also "offered our deepest condolences to the victim who lost her life in the accident."

Four deaths in four separate accidents in the United States have also reportedly been linked to Takata air bags installed in Honda vehicles.

"Because of what happened to us also...this is a wakeup call for the car companies," Caido said.

"The main thing here is the safety of people. This is about life. Life is fragile. A single thing happened, accident, gone...so you need to be aware of this faulty airbag."

Caido and his wife met in 2004 when he was a 31-year-old dance and aerobics teacher, and she was a 33-year-old music and piano teacher. They married in 2009.

She had bought the secondhand Honda car around 2005. It was in very good condition and never gave them any problem before the accident happened, he said.

"Deep inside my heart I am still aching. It's very painful, it still haunts me, the accident," he said.

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