Photo by JelleS

Fall in Japan’s unemployment rate

According to the BBC, “Japan’s jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 5.5% in August from July’s record high of 5.7%, official figures showed.”

Although this looks like Japan’s economic condition is started to improve, the situation is still pretty bleak and unemployment levels are still very high and among the worst since World War II.  Analysts expect the unemployment rate in Japan could still increase again shortly.

US “mad cow beef” banned in Japan

The New York Post is covering a story on the mad cow row between Japan and the US.  It says that “Japan suspended beef shipments from an American meatpacker today over its failure to remove cattle parts banned under a bilateral agreement, as officials here (Japan) raised concerns about U.S. safeguards against mad cow disease.”

The hope is that any wrong doing is quickly apologised for and improved on to avoid any repeat mass blanket ban that happened back in 2003. This is something the new ruling Democratic Party in Japan would be prepared to do, so it may come down to necessary reassurance from the US Government and Department of Agriculture (to Japan) that fair punishment has been assigned and that this *won’t* happen again.

UNIQLO are having the time of their lives

BBC state that “shares in Japanese clothing group Fast Retailing have jumped 16% after its Uniqlo store chain posted a big increase in same-store sales.”

This increase in same-store sales has been put down to the success of the Autumn collection so far. Something we at Japanfo love!

Airline WIFI thanks to Panasonic

Lufthansa announced this week that it would be introducing a WIFI enabled service to allow users of iPhone, Blackberry and WIFI enabled laptops to connect to the internet “even when flying over the ocean, thanks to a satellite-based technology provided by Panasonic of Japan”, according to the NY Times.

So, wherever you go (even 10,000FT in the air) you’ll still be on FaceBook and Twitter : )