First glaciers in Japan recognized

Apr 6, 2012

First glaciers in Japan recognized

Scientists have found three glaciers in Toyama Prefecture, the first recognized in Japan and the southernmost in East Asia. Researchers from the Tateyama Caldera Sabo Museum discovered the three slow-moving chunks of ice in the Hida Mountain Range, otherwise known as the Northern Alps. ...

Apr 5, 2012

Foreign law firms aim for equal treatment

While major foreign law firms often have wide networks of offices that span the globe, those firms are allowed only one office in Japan because of a law that they say has blocked them from expanding in the world’s third-largest economy. Moves to change ...

Three hanged; executions are first since '10

Mar 30, 2012

Three hanged; executions are first since '10

Three inmates were hanged Thursday, in Tokyo, Hiroshima and Fukuoka, in the country’s first executions since July 2010. Justice Minister Toshio Ogawa, the first of the past six justice ministers to tacitly support capital punishment, signed off on the three executions Thursday morning. “I ...

Mar 29, 2012

Reactor 2 radiation too high for access

Radiation inside the reactor 2 containment vessel at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has reached a lethal 73 sieverts per hour and any attempt to send robots in to accurately gauge the situation will require them to have greater resistance than currently available, ...

Axed Goldman workers fight back

Mar 23, 2012

Axed Goldman workers fight back

Three former employees of Goldman Sachs Japan are willing to take legal action if they don’t get their jobs back or the company doesn’t negotiate in good faith, a spokesman for the three said. “They terminated our employment without cause and justification. They acted ...

Mar 16, 2012

Ichihashi fights life sentence in appeal

Seeking a reduction of his life sentence for the murder of Lindsay Ann Hawker, Tatsuya Ichihashi told the Tokyo High Court Thursday he did not intend to kill the 22-year-old British English teacher. Lawyers for Ichihashi, who was given a life sentence by the ...

Chiba student defeats 35 to clinch Japan Times Spelling Bee crown

Mar 11, 2012

Chiba student defeats 35 to clinch Japan Times Spelling Bee crown

Haruka Masuda of Makuhari International School in Chiba Prefecture was crowned the winner Saturday of The Japan Times Spelling Bee after correctly spelling the word “ignominious,” landing her a spot in the annual National Spelling Bee in Washington. Masuda, 12, outlasted 35 contestants aged ...

Mar 10, 2012

Cabinet-OK'd bill sets stage to ink Hague

The Cabinet approved a bill Friday that would create a domestic law in preparation for signing the Hague treaty on settling cross-boarder child custody disputes. If the Diet enacts the bill, Japan will sign the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspect of International ...

Fukushima soil plutonium traces not seen as threat

Mar 10, 2012

Fukushima soil plutonium traces not seen as threat

Researchers detected a type of radioactive plutonium in soil from three different locations in Fukushima Prefecture, although the amount is too tiny to affect human health, the team said in a report published in a science magazine. According to the report in the March ...

Mar 8, 2012

Big One 'likely to be shallower'

The focus of any major earthquake that strikes beneath the Tokyo metropolitan area is likely to be shallower than previously thought, a government project team said Wednesday. The edge between the ground plate and the Philippine Sea plate underneath Tokyo is 5 or 10 ...

Fugitive's harborer faces two years

Mar 7, 2012

Fugitive's harborer faces two years

Former Aum Shinrikyo member Akemi Saito pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to harboring fugitive cultist Makoto Hirata for 14 years, while prosecutors demanded a two-year jail term. “Because of (Saito’s) actions, the police were unable to arrest Hirata for many years. The defendant harbored ...