The 23-year-old driver was believed to have struck the elderly woman in the early hours of Sunday north of Tokyo before driving seven kilometres (four miles) home with the victim’s body wedged in the shattered windscreen.

Michiko Sato, a catering school student, was arrested after her boyfriend called police to report the accident, a police spokesman said.

Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner confirmed Monday a Group of Seven agreement to ensure stability in the foreign exchange market, Japanese officials said.

Kan explained to his U.S. counterpart the growth strategy the Japanese government worked out at the end of 2009 to achieve sustainable growth, said the officials.

Anyone who’s had their laptop or cellphone run out of juice at a crucial moment can attest to the limitations that present power storage methods have on technology, but a product from Aqua Power Systems Japan may indicate an amazing new advancement: the water-powered battery.

At their present capability, NoPoPo (No Pollution Power) Eco batteries have enough power to save lives during a disaster since they can run on the smallest amount of fluid (drinkable or bodily), which means that someone lost in the woods or trapped under rubble could recharge …

Japan Airlines Corp.’s largest banks are set to agree to a bankruptcy of Asia’s largest carrier, said four people familiar with the matter.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. are prepared to go along with a proposed court-led reconstruction, said three people who declined to be identified because the matter is private. The state-owned Development Bank of Japan already agreed to the bankruptcy, according to the other person.

Antiwhaling group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society confirmed Friday that their stealth powerboat, the Ady Gil, sank in waters off Antarctica after it was severely damaged in a skirmish with Japanese whalers. Locky Maclean, first mate on board the group’s flagship vessel, the Steve Irwin, told Kyodo News the Ady Gil was being towed by their other boat, the Bob Barker, when it sank around 4:20 a.m. Melbourne time. (AP)

How does a symbol become a universal symbol?

Like the peace sign and the smiley face. How would one read a peace sign before having the knowledge that it is a peace sign.

If you don’t know Japanese what would this sign mean to you?

2010 is here! Happy New Year to all the readers here at BionicBong! Hope to have a great year this year. Submit your own articles using our new submit an article feature.

A Japanese led team of researchers has found a large, dark pit on the near side of the Moon that is “as big as a city block and deep as a modest skyscraper.” Probably created billions of years ago, it is considered by the scientists to be a collapsed lava tube. Lava tubes are natural passageways through which lava travels beneath the surface of a lava flow. They are expelled by a volcano during an eruption.
The research was lead by Dr. Junichi Haruyama, the senior researcher for the Terrain …

The Japanese government agreed Sunday to double a state-funded credit line for troubled Japan Airlines to 200 billion yen (2.2 billion dollars), local news agencies reported. The extra funding was agreed at a meeting of cabinet ministers including Transport Minister Seiji Maehara and Vice Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Jiji Press said. JAL, battered by the global recession and swine flu pandemic, is scrambling to slash costs and is seeking its fourth government bailout since 2001 to keep flying in the face of mounting losses.

Japan’s population is expected to have declined further in with the number of Japanese babies born in the country in the year estimated to have decreased 22,000 from 2008 to 1,069,000, according to health ministry estimates released Thursday. The number of Japanese people who died in the country in the year is estimated to have increased for the ninth consecutive year to 1,144,000, up 2,000 from 2008 and the highest number since comparable data became available in 1947.