Baruto!

Our friend Baruto has won the Honbasho in Tokyo!

That makes Baruto enter the club of very few the non-japanese Sumo champions.

He became the ninth foreign-born wrestler and second from Europe after Bulgarian Kotooshu to win a championship.

“I don’t have that much to say but I am excited,” said Baruto, who made his debut at sumo’s No. 2 rank at the 2010 summer meet. “The championship had been a dream of mine until now. I have made a strong effort at this meet and there was a lot of pressure in the title race. I tried not to focus on the title and just give my all.”

Read the whole news piece on The Japan Times.

The Italian Consul General in Osaka is a fascist beater

This is almost unbelievable. Or maybe not, if you stop and think for minute about the never-ending sequel of embarrassing s**t the italian government has supported and/or promoted lately.

Mario Vattani is a well known extreme right-winger who has performed with his rock band at events supporting fascist causes. He’s now representing Italy in Osaka, under the role of Consul General. Without any doubt he got there thanks to his family connections (his father’s been the foreign office minister twice I think), but that isn’t really big news in Italy.

The total shame derives from his extreme right militance, and the fact that in the past he’s been involved also in ‘squadrist’ violence episodes such as beatings of political opponents and so on… totally disgusting. Recently there are calls for an investigation into how Vattani could have passed vetting procedures given that he appeared in public advertising his beliefs.

If you meet him in the streets of Osaka, well, remember who he is..

Free tickets to Japan from the Japanese government

Announced today – the Japanese ministry of tourism is planning to invite 10,000 foreigners to Japan – and pay for your travel.

Applications will be done through the internets and folks will be invited during 2012. Applicants need to submit their travel plans for when they are in Japan and if the government thinks that you truly intend to visit (and not overstay as an illegal immigrant) then they will pay for your return ticket.

The Japanese governments strategy for this plan is that they expect travelers to blog and use social media to spread the word about their experience in Japan which should hopefully lead to more folks visiting Japan.

The amount of foreigners visiting Japan since the earthquake and nuclear accident has decreased a ton – some prefectures like Yamagata have experienced up to 80% drop in overseas visitors.

The Japanese government is spending 1.1 billion yen on this project.

I got the news from here.