Twitter Inc. will “aggressively” add sales staff in Japan to attract more advertisers as local user growth exceeds the company’s global expansion, Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo said.
The microblogging service will continue to invest and hire in Japan and will also add engineers, Costolo told reporters in Tokyo today, without specifying investment amounts or the number of people being added.
The San Francisco-based company, which lets users post 140-character messages, is expanding abroad to decrease its reliance on the U.S. market. The percentage of revenue Twitter earns from the U.S. will …

China’s move to make trading of its currency more flexible was a positive step that would help buoy the country’s domestic demand, a senior Japanese government official said on Monday.
Japanese officials also said Japan has yet to pledge its contribution to the International Monetary Fund, but was still considering an increase in funding to help it deal with Europe’s debt crisis while watching the stance of other countries.
China took a key step in turning the yuan into a global currency on Saturday by doubling the size of its trading band …

Hoping to avert potentially devastating summer power shortages, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Friday that his government would seek to restart two nuclear reactors, in what would be a first step toward ending an almost complete shutdown of the nation’s nuclear power industry.
Mr. Noda declared units No. 3 and No. 4 at the Ohi Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan to be safe based on the results of computer simulations designed to check the reactors’ tolerance of a large earthquake and tsunami like those last year that knocked out cooling …

Japan’s Sony Corp flagged a record $6.4 billion annual net loss, double an earlier forecast and a fourth straight year of red ink, as it writes off deferred tax credits, heaping more pressure on its new CEO to turn around the electronics giant.
Sony, which plans to axe 10,000 jobs – around 6 percent of its global workforce – according to media reports this week, has been hammered by weak demand for its televisions and overtaken by more innovative gadget rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics.
Yet, in a bid …

The toxic puffer fish which contains tetrodotoxin, a potent neurotoxin, has killed more than 20 Japanese diners in the past 10 years.
It is currently only served at licensed restaurants, but local governments are now easing laws to make provision for unlicensed outlets who say they are losing business.
Read the rest of the story: Japan to deregulate sale of lethal blowfish.

If you’ve ever been to Tokyo or any other large Japanese city, you’ll have noticed the huge variety of billboards plastering the urban landscape, often featuring the month’s most popular idol. Now researchers at Keio University are working on a system that will allow passers-by to interact with said posters via an ultrasound sensor setup. The sensor will detect the motion of people in front of it, and display appropriate pictures in response — “appropriate” may not be the right word for everyone, though, as the main use case demonstrated …

If the job is dirty or dangerous or carries a social stigma, hire the Burakumin. They will take the job. They have few options and, like everyone else in Japanese society, need money to live–even in their ghettos. Besides, that’s what a permanent “untouchable” class is for.
It was that way centuries ago when the Samurai class created the Burakumin to take care of society’s dirty work. And it is that way now, when the wreckage of four nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi needs to be cleaned up, and the utility …

Bulldozers clearing mountains of wreckage and rubble have been a common sight in Japans Tohoku region.But one restoration project in Miyagi prefecture is taking a more sensitive approach to the tsunami-devastated landscapes, going as far as clearing debris by hand, planting organic rice and choosing native flowers to beautify the area.
“We even pulled a car out of a paddy field just by human power,” says Tsubasa Iwabuchi, of Tohoku University, who is leading the Tohoku “Green Renaissance Project” on Sadasawa Jima, part of the Urato Islands in Shiogama Bay.
Read the …

A health ministry panel on Friday proposed banning all raw beef liver served at restaurants, after it was discovered that it contains the O-157 strain of E. coli bacteria.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry will swiftly refer the matter to the Food Safety Commission under the Cabinet Office.
Read the rest of the story: Restaurants face ban on serving raw beef liver following E. coli discovery.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his ruling Democratic Party of Japan-led government managed to submit the contentious bill to the Diet on Friday to double the consumption tax to 10 percent by 2015, while junior coalition partner Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party) was on the verge of collapsing over internal conflict on the legislation.
Given the green light by the Cabinet in the morning and submitted to the Diet later in the day, the bill is now ready to be deliberated on in the Lower House and the government is hoping …