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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
Kazuhiro Ukiuchi loves his tuna sushi, and he tries to have it once a week — despite the common knowledge in Japan the popular fish can contain toxic mercury. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Ukiuchi said, strolling through Tokyo’s main fish market on Friday. ...
confers with Social Insurance Agency consultant Kiyoshi Kawaguchi at an agency branch office last month. AP PHOTO He’s glad he did: The 74-year-old discovered the government had shortchanged him by ¥460,000 in benefits he accrued while driving a truck for three years in the ...
listens to ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Yasuhide Nakayama during a taping of Ota’s weekly “news” show at NTV in Tokyo in May. AP PHOTO “It’s easy to spot them nodding off during Diet sessions,” he tells the studio audience while a large screen ...
The hanging death of the farm minister this week grimly underscored the country’s stubbornly high suicide rate — and the government’s struggle to discourage large numbers of Japanese from killing themselves. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, 62, hanged himself Monday just before he was to face questioning ...
The author of a book on Crown Princess Masako criticized a Japanese publishing house Saturday for its decision to cancel a translation of his biography following protests by the government, calling the step a “blatant attack on freedom of speech.” Kodansha Ltd. said late ...
When ruling party lawmaker Koichi Kato criticized Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, retribution from the rightwing was swift: An extremist set his house on fire and tried to commit ritual suicide. It was the most dramatic in a string of ...
The Toyama No. 5 apartment block is quiet at midday — laundry flapping from balconies, old people taking an after-lunch stroll. But the building and its nearby park may be sitting on a gruesome World War II secret. A wartime nurse has broken more ...
When she was finally allowed to visit her father, she found him in a wheelchair, wearing a diaper. A prison guard took notes throughout the 30-minute encounter, which took place in a small, barren room, through a plate of thick, transparent plastic. It was, ...
Walk into any noodle shop or restaurant and chances are high you’ll soon be eating with a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks from China. But not for long. In a move that has cheered environmentalists but worries restaurant owners, China has slapped a 5 ...
One would think Eishin Murakata has a pleasant, relaxing job. Every spring, he strolls each day to the same cherry tree in central Tokyo and gazes up at its boughs. When he spots a full bud on the verge of blossoming, he carefully snaps ...
There are still plenty of metal bars and handcuffs. But prisons these days have some new features — like wheelchair-friendly stair ramps, handrails in the bathrooms and nurses trained to spoon-feed inmates. The aim is adapting prison life to a new kind of convict ...
The themes found in a newly uncovered collection of traditional Japanese verse would be familiar to any reader here: the melancholy passing of the seasons, fleeting beauty, the inevitability of death. The poets, however, are an unlikely bunch — they were imprisoned as war ...