Monday, February 16, 2009

--Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa @ G7 meeting--

Nakagawa has said he did not drink alcohol before the meeting. Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters that Nakagawa was in a drunken state because of cold medicine, not liquor:

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“Finance Minister Nakagawa’s appearance at the press conference was not caused by alcohol,” Kawamura told reporters in Tokyo. “I asked him to take better care of himself.”

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~http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=8832

--Friends and Mahjong--


Mahjong (also called mah-jongg by the American association, Traditional Chinese: 麻將; Simplified Chinese: 麻将; Pinyin: májiàng) is a game for four players that originated in China. Mahjong involves skill, strategy, and calculation, as well as a certain degree of chance. Depending on the variation which is played, luck can be anything from a minor to a dominant factor in success. In Asia, mahjong is also popularly played as a gambling game.
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In the game, each player is dealt either thirteen or sixteen tiles in a hand (depending on the variation being played). On their turn, players draw a tile and discard one, with the goal of making four or five melds (also depending on the variation) and one pair, or "head". Winning comes "on the draw", by drawing a new or discarded tile that completes the hand. Thus a winning hand actually contains fourteen (or seventeen) tiles.
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