141. An advisory panel to the ministry in charge of education has compiled a report recommending that compulsory English education be started in the 5th grade at all elementary schools in Japan to get pupils familiar with international communication in English.
142. According ti the ministry in charge of education, more than 90 percent of public elementary schools in japan had what they termed English activities classes in fiscal 2005, utilizing school hours allocated for comprehensive studies.
143. The ministry in charge of eduction helps to offer chances for all teachers of English working for publicly-run junior and senior high schools to receive on-the-job training to further their communication skills trough the language.
144. Commenting on the proposed compulsory English education at elementary schools, outspoken Tokyo Governor Shintro Ishihara denounced the government policy as nonsenese, stressing the importance of the national language through which he said people should cultivate their sensibilities and sentiments.
145. At the English listening comprehension test introduced for the first time by the national center for university entrance examinations, more than 450 among half a million examinees were announced by malfunctions of handled IC recorders.
146. A Japanese Nobel Laureate for literature, Kenzaburo Oe, has inaugurated the Oe Kenzo Prize for which he himself selects a literary work for a year to be transalted into English for publication overseas.
147. A Japanese comic book "Barefoot Gen" has been translated into various languages including Russian and English. It depicts the life of boy who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
148. One of the most prominent Japanese film directors, Shohei Imamura, passed away at the age of 79. His film, "The Ballad of Nakayama" and "The Eel", won the biggest award of the Cannes Film Festival for his realistic representation of the toughness of ordinary people.
149. The Venice Film Festival presented the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement Prize to Japanese animated movie director Hayao Miyazaki for a number of his praiseworthy works including "Sprinted Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle".
150. A 14-year-old junior high school student in Tokyo, Yuya Yagira, became the first Japanese and youngest winner of the w\actor award in Cannes Film Festival 2004 for his role in a movie entitled "Nobody Knows".
151. Made by late Japanese painter, Taro Okamoto, in Mexico some 40 years ago, a huge mural measuring 5.5 meters by 33 meters has been unveiled in Tokyo, depicting fleeing people and animals during an atomic explosion with the title of "Myth of Tommorow".
152. Takeshi Kitano, a 57-year-old actor and movie director, has been appointed as a professor at a graduate school of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he is intended to foster world-class specialists in film-making.
153. Van Gogh's painting of peasant woman, which he had been valued at ten to twenty thousand yen, was sold for 66 million yen at an auction in Tokyo as it was determined as genuine by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
154. Upon designation of Kabuki as a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage, Kabuki actors said they will make further efforts hand in hand with Noh and Bunraku, which had already been designated as such heritages.
155. The late Pope, John Paul II, earnestly repeated an appeal for world peace n none languages including English and Japanese when he visited the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima in 1981.
156. The newly-elected Pope of Roman Catholic Church, Benedict XVI, has pledgaed that he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, John Paul II, who pursued pacifism, human right protection and dialogue with other religions.
157. Pope Benedict, XVI, a German, visited the remains of the Nazi Concentration Camp in Auschwitz to pray for the victims of the Holocaust with Holocaust survivors during his tour of Poland, the home land of his predecessor, John Paul II.
158. A joint team of researchers from Japan and Mongolia says it has found what is considered t be the site of the mausoleum of Genghis Khan, which is said to be located near the tomb of the great conqueror of the 13th Century.
159.Caricatures of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad first carried by a Danish newspaper and later by other European dailies triggered a huge blazing row between the Muslim world and the western media over the dignity of religion and freedom of expression.
