Each week, here at Osaka.com, we bring you a selection of some of the top stories about Osaka making the local and national news here in Japan. Sometimes it’s serious, sometimes it’s funny, but it’s always direct to you, from Osaka.
Settsu City Residents Begin Action Over PFAS Danger
One of Japan’s largest companies will enter litigation with residents of Settsu City, Osaka Prefecture, with legal documents filed this week.
Daikin Industries will have to respond to the claims filed by Settsu residents this week over PFAS concerns.
PFAS is a collective term for a series of chemicals released by many industrial plants and factories, that are notoriously difficult to break down or disperse. This earns them the nickname “forever chemicals”.
Depending on what happens next, this may set a precedent for Daikin and other similar firms going forward. Daikin Industries currently faces similar actions in Okayama, Shizuoka and Okinawa Prefectures. This indicates not just the widespread nature of the problem but also the relative inaction from companies who produce these pollutants across Japan.
Settsu Residents Cite Safety Standards in Request for Litigation
According to representatives of the Settsu residents, Daikin needs to do more to bring the concentrations of groundwater PFAS down to safe levels.
A study by Kyoto University on the issue suggests that anything above a concentration 20 nanograms per milliliter of blood in humans poses an increased health risk.
However, Daikin will probably cite the current Japanese government safety level as a baseline. Government regulations mandate a far more generous 50 nanograms per milliliter before PFAS pose a health risk.
The issue of PFAS has been a sore point for Daikin Industries for a number of years now. The company has been engaged in 3-way dialogue with city and prefectural government representatives of various municipalities on this issue since 2009. However, this action by Settsu residents marks the first issuance of a call for a full public discussion on the issue.
As with most industrial disputes of this nature, the legal issues here will, most likely, drag on for several months.
However, Settsu residents intend to continue to voice their concerns publicly and forcefully until Daikin enters into open and honest discussion on the issue.
Osaka High Court Upholds 10-year Sentence for Would-Be Assassin
The Osaka High Court this week upheld a lower court ruling over an attempted assassination of former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in 2023.
Ryuji Kimura hurled a home-made pipe-bomb at the then Prime Minister during a campaign event in April 2023 in Wakayama Prefecture.
The 26-year-old claimed in his lower court submission that there was no intent to kill in his actions. However, ballistic tests and other analyses showed that the device was capable of killing Kishida, had it landed close enough to him.
The Case draws obvious parallels with the 2022 assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in neighboring Nara Prefecture. However, the suspect in this case has aggressively denied any links to the suspect in that case, Tetsuya Yamagami, who goes on trial later this month.
Kimura has once again escalated his appeal, which will now proceed to Japan’s supreme court and be heard at a later date.
A bystander and a police officer suffered minor injuries during the incident. Prime Minister Kishida was unharmed.
Osaka Resident Raises Concern Over New Cycling Rules
New laws come into force soon, banning the wearing of earphones whilst riding a bicycle across Japan. However, one Osaka resident is worried that he may face unfair penalties due to his disability.
The man in question suffers from a rare condition known as Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). This makes it difficult to filter out background noise without the use of specially designed earbuds. However, under the new rules, such devices are banned whilst riding a bike. Doing so will become a finable offence. Currently, the new bylaw does not make any provisions for those who have to wear earbuds out of medical necessity. This is different from standard hearing aids, which are, of course exempted under the new law.
Currently, the only way the man is able to prove that his specialist earbuds, which look almost identical to those used with most common smart phones, is to present a medical certificate to police regarding his condition.
Still, he feels it is unfair that he has to do this whilst others do not. The National Police Agency (NPA) is currently assessing his case but has yet to make a statement on the issue.
And Finally…
The Osaka Expo reached a new milestone this week.
It’s now just 10 days to go until the Osaka Expo closes for the final time. Organizers confirmed that visitor numbers have now surpassed those of the Aichi International Expo, which took place in 2005. The Expo’s latest sales figures showed 22.21 million visitors so far. This takes it past Aichi’s number of 22.05 million achieved two decades ago.
However, the event still has a way to go to hit its visitor target of 23 million. Final results, which will not be confirmed until sometime after the final day on October 13th, are likely to come in at around 25 million visitors. A decent number, to be sure, but still quite far short of organizer estimates of 28 million or more visitors.
That’s all for now but be sure to check back again same time next week for another round of this week in Osaka!
