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Ex-Nova boss handed prison sentence for embezzling from workers’ fund
The Osaka District Court on Wednesday sentenced the former president of collapsed English language school operator Nova, who went on trial facing charges of embezzling money from an employees’ fund, to three years, six months behind bars. Handed the sentence was former company president Nozomu Sahashi, 57. According to the ruling, Sahashi transferred 320 million…
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Ex-Nova Head Sahashi Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Asahi Says
The former president of Nova Corp., once Japan’s biggest English-language school operator, was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to prison by the Osaka district court, the Asahi newspaper said. The court found today Nozomu Sahashi redirected 320 million yen ($3.4 million) from his employees’ welfare program to the company before its bankruptcy in 2007,…
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NTT fails to pay pension premiums
The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. group [a company one third owned by the Japanese government] failed to pay to the state a portion of pension premiums of about 4,000 employees over more than six years to August 2003 despite deducting the money from the workers’ salaries. Sources attributed the failure to clerical errors. The…
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Japanese women ‘still not equal’
A United Nations panel has urged Japan to take stronger measures to eliminate gender inequality. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women said the country’s efforts were “insufficient”. It pointed to unequal laws on marriage, the treatment of women in the labour market and the low representation of women on elected bodies. But…
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U.N. panel raps Japan on gender gap
Japan has not made sufficient efforts to eliminate discrimination against women, the U.N. committee against gender discrimination here said Tuesday. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women urged the government to revise Civil Code stipulations obliging husbands and wives to use the same surname and allowing females to marry at younger ages than…
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Do more to ban gender bias, U.N. panel urges
A U.N. committee is recommending that the Japanese government immediately implement remedial measures to eradicate discrimination against women. Japan’s efforts to implement antidiscrimination measures as a party to the international convention against such discrimination are “insufficient,” the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said. It said Tokyo has failed to address problems affecting…
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Down in polls, Aso says only LDP can provide security
[Gaffe-prone Prime Minister Taro] Aso also expressed his disapproval of DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama’s willingness to give local-level suffrage to foreign nationals with permanent residency. “Hatoyama says that Japan is not a country just for Japanese, but if that is the case, then whose country is it for?” Aso asked. “Honestly speaking, this isn’t something…
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Japan’s baby-making stimulus package
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the country’s main opposition political party and front-runner to take over the Japanese government in the elections to be held on August 30th, has promised a financial stimulus package of a different kind. Designed to address Japan’s increasingly worrisome drop in fertility rate, the DPJ’s stimulus, if enacted, will…
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Japan’s ageing, shrinking population
Whichever party wins Japan’s August 30 general election must deal with a population forecast to shrink and age rapidly, because of the country’s low birth rate, high life expectancy and aversion to immigration. Following are some facts about Japan’s population trends. * Japan is currently the world’s 10th-largest country in terms of population, with more…
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Social Insurance Agency reprimands collection chief over altered records
The Social Insurance Agency has taken disciplinary action against a Tokyo social insurance office worker for altering records to understate people’s standard monthly earnings, which form the basis for calculating pension insurance premiums. It is the only case in which the agency has admitted alteration of records by a worker, and the first time for…