'Fake' takes cake as kanji of year

The kanji "(nise)", meaning "fake", has been chosen as the character that best represented Japanese news events of 2007. The Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation received more than 90,000 entries in its annual poll, of which about 20 per cent favoured "nise" as capturing the flavour of the past year. Food mislabelling scandals, problems surrounding political funds and missing pension records were among the events of 2007. The foundation has been conducting its poll for the kanji (Chinese character used in Japanese writing) of the year since 1995.