Death penalty sought for man over murder of 2 women in Shizuoka
February 14, 2006Public prosecutors demanded a death sentence Tuesday for a 25-year-old man accused of killing two women in Shizuoka in January last year. Yoshimasa Takahashi, who was stripped of his status as a Shizuoka University student last summer, has pleaded guilty to the killings in his trial at the Shizuoka District Court.
Japan held 115 women from abroad as human-trafficking victims
February 14, 2006Japan's immigration authorities took into protective custody a total of 115 non-Japanese women from six countries as human trafficking victims last year, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday. More than 60 percent of the total, or 74 women, entered Japan as singers or dancers with entertainer visas, supporting a theory that the entertainment industry is a hotbed of human trafficking.
3 arrested for alleged unauthorized Net distribution of manga
February 14, 2006An Internet cafe owner in Tokyo and two other people were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of posting popular manga comics on an Internet site without the consent of the authors and publishers, the police said. The arrests, the first in Japan related to Net distribution of manga, came after the ''cyberpatrol'' unit of the Fukuoka prefectural police found suspected violations on a website dubbed 464.jp in October last year, according to the police.