Latest news with #Kanagawa
South China Morning Post
2 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
As Japan's rice prices soar, scammers cash in on hunger for cheap deals
Japan 's consumer affairs centre has called on people grappling with soaring rice prices to beware of websites claiming to sell the staple at heavily discounted prices. The National Consumer Affairs Centre of Japan said complaints related to such websites have spiked since March, with some claiming the rice was never delivered though payment had been made. Some cases reported last month include a man in his twenties who bought 20kg (44lbs) of rice on a website with a credit card but did not receive an email confirming completion of the order. He called a phone number on the website only to find it not in service, the centre said. Japanese Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Shinjiro Koizumi visits a warehouse stockpiling the government's reserve rice in Kanagawa prefecture on Thursday. Photo: Kyodo A woman in her fifties said she ordered 5kg (11lbs) of rice at 3,899 yen (US$27) via an advertisement on a video-sharing app but only received an email with a receipt for a pair of sunglasses priced at the same amount.
Japan Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Stockpiled rice shipped within three days, set to hit shelves next week
The first batch of the government's stockpiled rice sold through no-bid contracts was delivered to buyers Thursday, just three days after the agriculture ministry started accepting purchases from major retailers through the program, with the grain expected to hit shelves as soon as Monday. The rapid shipment is in sharp contrast with previous arrangements using auctions, under which it took months to sell and ship 310,000 metric tons of rice in phases. It is not yet clear whether the latest move will help lower the overall price of rice or will be limited to a one-off windfall for shoppers until the stockpiled rice sells out. Twelve metric tons of rice arrived Thursday morning at a rice-polishing factory in Miyagi Prefecture operated by a subsidiary of Iris Ohyama, which purchased 10,000 tons in total. The company will polish the rice, repackage it and start selling it at some of its stores in Miyagi, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures from Monday at ¥2,160 for a 5-kilogram bag of rice. Iris Ohyama also started selling the rice on its website later Thursday, but shoppers had a hard time accessing the website due to a large volume of traffic. Online retailer Rakuten also started selling rice on its website Thursday at ¥2,138 per 5-kg bag, with stock selling out in a few hours. Delivery of that rice would be about two weeks from now, the company said. Rakuten had prepared a special website for the sale, limiting purchases to one bag per day and up to two bags in total per purchaser. To prevent resale of the rice, the company said it may cancel orders from customers who place more orders than are permitted. On Wednesday, farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi met with transport minister Hiromasa Nakano to ask for the ministry's cooperation in getting help from the truck industry to ensure there are enough trucks and drivers to ship the stockpiled rice to retailers. Under the no-bid method, the government will release 200,000 tons of rice produced in 2022 and another 100,000 tons from the 2021 harvest. Tokyo has also released 310,000 tons of stockpile rice to distributors through auctions since March. The National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations (Zen-Noh), which bought 296,000 tons in the government auction, had shipped about a third of that volume as of May 22. The ministry aims to sell smaller retailers the remaining 100,000 tons of rice harvested in 2021, which is expected to be sold on at a retail price of about ¥1,800 per 5-kg bag of rice. The initial 200,000 tons sold out with 61 major retailers placing purchasing orders. Information from Jiji added
Japan Times
23-05-2025
- Japan Times
Ex-boyfriend of dead woman charged over Kawasaki stalking
The Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office on Friday indicted a former boyfriend of Asahi Okazaki, 20, whose body was found at his house in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. The office in the Kanagawa capital charged 27-year-old Hideyuki Shirai, of no fixed occupation, with damaging and abandoning a corpse, without specifying whether he acknowledged responsibility. Kanagawa police will continue investigating the case. According to the indictment and other sources, Shirai burned her body between around Dec. 20 last year and April 2 this year, put it in a bag and hid it under the kitchen at his house. Okazaki went missing last December. Her body was discovered when police searched his house last month on suspicion that he had violated the law against stalking. The body in the bag was partly skeletonized and seems to have been burned intensively. This indicates that at least a month had passed since her death, although the cause was not clear. According to Okazaki's relatives, she repeatedly consulted police, saying she was harassed and stalked by Shirai. The prefectural police have set up a team to examine their handling of her case before and after she went missing.
Japan Times
21-05-2025
- Japan Times
Family of woman found dead at ex-boyfriend's home complained about lack of police probe
The family of Asahi Okazaki, whose body was found at her ex-boyfriend's home in Kawasaki, had lodged a complaint with a police headquarters not involved in the case about the lack of action by local police against alleged stalking by the man, it was learned Wednesday. According to investigative sources, in mid-January, a member of the 20-year-old part-time worker's family told a police officer at the police headquarters — the family member's acquaintance — that the Kanagawa Prefectural Police had "made no moves" since Okazaki went missing in December last year, despite the family's "repeated requests" for launching an investigation into the 27-year-old former boyfriend, Hideyuki Shirai. Receiving the officer's report, a division of the headquarters conveyed the complaint to the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and its Kawasaki Rinko police station, and sought explanations about their response to the case, the sources said. In reply, the local police said they were "doing what we have to do." The headquarters later told the family about the action it had taken, the sources added. Okazaki's body was discovered under the floor of Shirai's home in Kawasaki during a police raid linked to stalking laws on April 30. He was arrested for allegedly abandoning the body. According to the family, Okazaki had frequently told her friends and relatives, as well as the police, about harassment and stalking by the former boyfriend. The family filed a missing-person report with the prefectural police on Dec. 22, two days after she became unaccounted for. Given the fact that the brutal crime happened despite her and her family's consultations with the prefectural police and the family's demand for a stalking probe, the police have set up a verification team to probe whether there were problems with their moves around the time Okazaki disappeared. The police department said it cannot comment until the team concludes its work.
NHK
21-05-2025
- Politics
- NHK
Japan's PM Ishiba decides to appoint Koizumi Shinjiro as new farm minister
Japan's Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru has decided to appoint Koizumi Shinjiro, the former chairperson of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Election Strategy Committee, to succeed Eto Taku as agriculture minister. The move came after Eto submitted his resignation to Ishiba on Wednesday morning, and it was accepted. Koizumi, 44, has been elected to the Lower House six times from Kanagawa's 11th district. He was first elected in 2009 at the age of 28, succeeding his father, former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro. He became a Cabinet member for the first time in 2019, serving as environment minister under former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. He was 38 at the time. He retained the same post in the administration of former Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide. Koizumi was one of the nine contenders in the LDP leadership election in September. He placed third in the first round of voting and did not advance to the runoff. But he garnered 75 votes -- the largest number -- from Diet members. Following the launch of the Ishiba administration, Koizumi was appointed chairperson of the party's Election Strategy Committee, but stepped down to take responsibility for the party's major setback in the Lower House election in October. The prime minister appears intent on restoring public confidence in his administration and continuing efforts to stabilize rice prices with the appointment of Koizumi, who has previous Cabinet experience and strong knowledge of agricultural policy.
