Japan reacted angrily to a French television host who showed a composite picture of national team goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima with four arms and made a joke about the "Fukushima effect". Praising Kawashima's performance in Japan's 1-0 win over France in a soccer friendly last Friday, Laurent Ruquier's wisecrack prompted laughter and applause in the studio. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura yesterday called Ruquier's remark, a reference to last year's nuclear crisis in Fukushima, "inappropriate". He added that the Japanese embassy in France had sent a letter of protest to the television station France 2. Fujimura said the letter pointed out the remark "hurts the feelings of people affected by the disaster and hinders efforts for reconstruction". Reuters
 

The deaths of 96 soccer fans in the Hillsborough stadium tragedy should be reinvestigated after a damning report last month into the emergency services' role in Britain's worst sporting disaster, the government's chief legal officer said yesterday. Attorney General Dominic Grieve said he planned to apply to the High Court to quash the "accidental death" verdicts reached at the original inquest. The Liverpool supporters died after a crush in an overcrowded terrace at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield in 1989 during an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest. An independent inquiry concluded last month police tried to deflect the blame onto fans to cover up their own incompetence. Reuters