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Kumamoto Prefecture to Hold Water Strategy Council
Kumamoto Prefecture has an abundant supply of high quality underground water rich in minerals owing to the subsoil water flows in the Aso mountain range. To better employ this water for the benefit of the area, the prefecture will convene a Water Strategy Council in 2009 to gather advice from experts and devise policies for [...]
Read More Jan. 9, 2009, 0:00
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Saga Prefecture Putting Chips in Driver’s LicensesSaga Prefecture Putting Chips in Driver’s Licenses
Saga Prefecture began issuing driver’s licenses on the 4th with embedded memory chips, turning them into smart cards. The objective is to prevent counterfeiting and protect personal information. This adds 450 yen to the cost of renewing a license. Saga was one of 27 prefectures nationwide that began issuing the new licenses on that date, [...]
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Saga Prefecture to Establish Consumer Affairs Bureau
To respond to the recent rise in shady business practices and falsified food labeling, Saga Prefecture is moving ahead with plans to establish a new consumer affairs bureau in the prefectural government to deal solely with consumer-related issues. It will combine the functions of two other existing government bodies to handle problems involving both commercial [...]
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Fukuoka City NPO Authorized to Resolve Condo Disputes
The Ministry of Justice has authorized a non-profit organization for the management of Fukuoka condominiums, known as Fukukanren, to act as an alternative dispute resolution organization for legal disputes involving condominiums. Asking Fukukanren to mediate a dispute will result in savings of time and money for the parties involved. Fukukanren thus becomes the first organization [...]
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Remodeling Fukuoka City Commercial Complexes
Work is going full steam ahead on remodeling commercial properties in Fukuoka City’s Hakata and Tenjin districts to prepare for the opening of the Kyushu leg of the Shinkansen in 2011. Emblematic of this work is the full-scale remodeling and redecoration of Hakata Deitos, which will be a tenant of the new Hakata Station building. [...]
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Rare Metals Adsorbed with Fruit Rinds
A team of researchers at Saga University announced they have developed an adsorption agent made with materials from fruit rinds and old paper capable of the selective recovery of platinum, palladium, and other rare metals used in the manufacture of PCs and cell phones. The process costs less than half that of conventional recovery methods [...]
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New Produce Market/Restaurant Zone Planned for Island City
Fukuoka City revealed plans to establish what it called a “Nigiwai Zone” on Island City, an artificial island in the city’s Hakata Ward, with a new produce market, an area selling locally grown fruits and vegetables, and restaurants and shops offering meals using the produce as ingredients. The objective is to promote Fukuoka foods among [...]
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Hiwatashi Reelected as Takeo Mayor
Keisuke Hiwatashi was reelected as the mayor of Takeo, Saga Prefecture, in a special election held as a result of debate over privatizing the municipal hospital, which has aggregate debts of 630 million yen. The local doctors’ association and some city council members opposed Mayor Hiwatashi’s plan to sell the hospital to private interests in [...]
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Move to Resume Festival Bashing Starts in Imari
The highlight of the Imari Tontenton Festival, held every year in October, was the clash of groups trying to overturn each other’s 600-kilogram mikoshi, or portable floats. In 2006, one high school boy was killed and another received a spinal cord injury during the festival, which resulted in the cancellation of the festival in 2007. [...]
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Nagasaki Prefecture to Subsidize Islanders’ Travel for Long-Term Care
The government of Nagasaki Prefecture announced that starting next year, it will provide subsidies to both professional long-term care providers to travel by ship to the prefecture’s outlying islands when residents there require their services, and to the people who live on those islands who require the care and must travel to receive it. The [...]
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