Q&A: How to survive this year's scorching summer in Japan
This year's heat wave is again lethal, having already killed over 30 people and sent more than 10,000 to hospitals since July 9 due to heat exhaustion and heatstroke. The extreme weather continued to scorch Japan this week, with many cities seeing their highest-ever recorded ...
Japan's driving schools, squeezed by demographic change, target foreign residents to stay afloat
According to the National Police Agency's latest statistics, as many as 82.26 million people held driver's licenses in Japan in 2017. Of those drivers, 18.18 million — or 22.1 percent — were 65 or older. With well-developed public transport networks in urban areas and a ...
Japan's criminal justice reforms aim to enhance transparency of interrogations — are they working?
The National Police Agency said in early June that interrogations of crime suspects were fully recorded in 81.9 percent of all the 3,197 cases tried by lay judges in fiscal 2017, up from 72.8 percent the year before. The data were released ahead of June ...
U.S. trade deficit with Japan not necessarily the bugbear painted by Trump
The protectionist tune on trade that U.S. President Donald Trump often sings is hardly a unique problem for Japanese policymakers who have long faced pressure over Japan's strength in exporting everything from vehicles to video games all over the globe. But often lost in these ...
Japan's refugee-screening system sets high bar
Last year, Japan granted refugee status to just 20 out of a record-high 19,629 applicants. After the figure was released in February, global and domestic coverage was noticeably polarized. Some slammed Japan's strict asylum policy, saying that the world's third-largest economy has failed to meet ...
Caution urged as Okinawa measles outbreak spreads
Measles cases are spreading in Okinawa, with the reported number of patients exceeding 90 in just over a month, prompting the prefecture last month to warn that visiting the resort islands may be not advisable for infants and pregnant women. The measles outbreak is believed ...
Tourists, take note: As drones multiply in Japan, so do rules governing where they can be flown
Make a trip to any major electronics store today and you're bound to find a section selling drones. Once little more than toys for enthusiasts, today's commercially available drones come in all shapes and sizes and are used for all sorts of purposes, with ...
Internet piracy taking major bite out of Japan's famed manga culture
Japan's renowned manga culture is facing a crisis. The spread of smartphones and tablet computers allows people to read e-comics anywhere at any time. According to the Research Institute for Publications, annual sales of digital comics last year grew 17.2 percent from the previous year ...
Abe's route to revising Article 9 crosses minefield of legalese
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now entering a critical phase of debate on what has been one of the most contentious political issues throughout the postwar years: whether and how the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution should be revised. Masahiko Komura, vice president ...
In Japan's Diet, is there such a thing as too much time for questions?
It may be hard to find a workplace more rife with inefficiency and inertia than the national Diet. After all, it's where the prime minister and other Cabinet ministers sacrifice their time to an extent almost unthinkable in other developed nations, even though constructive policy ...
Japan's staff-heavy banks downsize and turn to technology for survival
These are tough times for banks. As the Bank of Japan's prolonged ultra-easy money policy weighs on earnings, the emergence of technology like artificial intelligence is transforming the mechanics of financing and threatening to replace thousands of roles with automated systems. The nation's major banks have ...
Japan's dramatic surge in syphilis cases, with particularly high incidence in Tokyo, puzzles experts
Syphilis, a classic sexually transmitted disease nearly eradicated decades ago, is seeing a resurgence in Japan, with the reported number of patients in 2017 topping 5,000 for the first time in 44 years. According to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, the number of people ...
