Search - tokyo-2020

 
 
Shigekix, whose real name is Shigeyuki Nakarai, in action during the world championships in Leuven, Belgium, in September
OLYMPICS / Breaking
Aug 7, 2024

From the Bronx to Paris: Breaking set for its Olympic close-up

B-boys and B-girls from across the globe will soon compete in Olympic dance battles that feature intricate steps, acrobatic moves and plenty of flair.
Flaring at the Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. Flaring, a common sight at LNG plants, is a controlled burning of gas for reasons ranging from depressurizing equipment to disposing of gas that can’t be used. The practice is a "waste of money" and negatively impacts climate change and human health, says the International Energy Agency.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET
Aug 11, 2024

Japan fuels U.S. LNG boom even as climate targets and impacts loom

For over half a century, Japan has been a sizable buyer of LNG, and its government, banks and energy companies have played a key role in continued investment.
Takuya Yokota, who leads the Association of Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, speaks during an event to spread awareness of the abduction issue among junior high school students on Aug. 9 in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 12, 2024

Government ramps up efforts to raise awareness on North Korean abductions

There are concerns that the issue, which has dragged on for decades, is slipping from the public’s awareness, particularly among younger generations.
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 13, 2024

Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert

Concerns over a potential disaster have prompted many visitors to cancel their plans and city's to cancel events.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s decision to step down as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader has thrown the race for his successor into uncertainty.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 15, 2024

Kishida’s resignation opens the door to a chaotic era

With Fumio Kishida's resignation, the LDP faces a crucial election next month with no clear front-runner to become its next leader.
A supermarket worker puts up a sign asking purchasers to buy only one bag per person, in Tokyo on July 25.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2024

Why it's hard to find rice at Japan's supermarkets right now

In recent weeks, store shelves have often been barren, with many shops displaying signs asking purchasers to stick to one bag per person.
Yukio Edano announces his bid to run in the leadership race of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 23, 2024

Yukio Edano pushes centrist image in CDP leadership bid

The ex-leader is attempting to shed a leftist identity by avoiding the expression "zero nuclear power" and pledging to review ties with the Japanese Communist Party.
Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to Liberal Democratic Party members during a leadership election at its headquarters in Tokyo in September 2020.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 24, 2024

Ex-defense chief Shigeru Ishiba announces fifth bid for LDP presidency

The party heavyweight underscored a commitment to clean politics, pledging to work to restore trust in the LDP after a wide-ranging slush fund scandal.
A Tepco official shows emptied water tanks at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as he explains about a plan to dismantle the tanks.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2024

Tepco aims to dismantle Fukushima water tanks from 2025

Tepco plans to dismantle 12 empty treated water tanks out of about 1,000 existing tanks.
Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a news conference in Tokyo on Friday, ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 7, 2024

U.S. opposition to Nippon Steel deal 'very unsettling,' PM hopeful Ishiba says

Some experts say blocking the deal could undermine U.S.-Japan cooperation on national security, and put the lie to the notion of "ally shoring."
New Zealand's Laurel Hubbard competes at the Tokyo Olympics in August 2021. A group of more than 50 New Zealand Olympians, doctors and sport administrators has called on the government to review guidelines on transgender athletes in community sports, saying they ignore female athletes' rights and undermine fairness and safety.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 11, 2024

New Zealand Olympians call for review of transgender guidelines

The group says the guidelines ignore female athletes' rights and undermine fairness and safety.
The Osaka Expo site under construction. One of the key items to be showcased at the expo will be a rock from Mars collected by a Japanese Antarctic research expedition.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2024

Mars rock to go on display at 2025 Osaka Expo

The rock, the largest Martian meteorite ever found, is significant because it suggests water once existed on Mars.
Comedian Yuriyan Retriever takes on the role of Japan’s most hated heel, Kaoru “Dump” Matsumoto, in “The Queen of Villains.”
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Sep 20, 2024

Yuriyan Retriever is Japan's biggest heel — and proud of it

The comedian takes on the role of Kaoru “Dump” Matsumoto, a real-life rule-breaking brawler in women’s professional wrestling, in Netflix's “The Queen of Villains.”
Kioxia has scrapped its plan for an initial public offering in October, sources have said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 24, 2024

Chipmaker Kioxia scraps IPO planned for October after market sell-off

Shares in peers Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron Technology are currently around a third lower than recent highs.
Catherine O’Connell has achieved a number of notable firsts in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 24, 2024

Pioneering foreign female attorney stresses pragmatism within Japan Inc.

Catherine O’Connell was the first foreign woman to establish a law practice in Tokyo and to sit on the audit and supervisory boards at Toyota Motor and Fujitsu.
A 13-year-old junior high school student receives a vaccine for the human papillomavirus at a hospital in Tokyo in 2022.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 27, 2024

Deadline approaches for free HPV vaccine 'catch-up' campaign

The government's free vaccination program requires the first dose to be administered by the end of September to complete the three-dose series before the campaign ends.
Incoming child care policy minister Junko Mihara (center) arrives at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Tuesday. Mihara is one of only two female ministers in Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 1, 2024

A very LDP Cabinet — more of the same, despite hints of a power shift

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba retained veterans in key posts and rewarded those who supported him in the LDP presidential race.
Yuri Kondo (center), who filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Japan's ban on dual nationality, speaks at a news conference in the city of Fukuoka in December 2023.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 10, 2024

Ban on dual nationality is constitutional, Fukuoka High Court rules

The court dismissed a claim filed by a woman who lost her Japanese citizenship after she became a naturalized American citizen.
South Korean author Han Kang, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, attends a press conference, in Seoul in November.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 11, 2024

Han Kang’s Nobel win underscores essential role of translators as literary tastemakers

The trailblazing South Korean author was virtually unknown in the West just 10 years ago — then came Deborah Smith’s translation of "The Vegetarian."
A metal container holding spent nuclear fuel is loaded onto a trailer for transportation to an interim storage facility in Mutsu, Aomori Prefecture, on Sept. 26.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2024

Japan struggles to find nuclear waste disposal site

Nuclear plants in Japan without designated waste sites are often criticized for being like "a condominium building without a toilet."
The Hobart-class destroyer HMAS Sydney fires an SM-6 missile during Exercise Pacific Dragon 2024 in August.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 22, 2024

Australia to buy advanced U.S. long-range missiles to boost deterrence

The SM-2 IIIC and SM-6 missiles, similar to those being procured by Japan, will be progressively rolled out across the Royal Australian Navy’s warships.
Ramen shop Menya Taisei's owner Taisei Hikage cooks ramen at his shop in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 24, 2024

Japan's rising ramen prices give election voters food for thought

The problems facing ramen shop owners reflect a cost-of-living crunch that has become a top issue for voters in the general election on Sunday.
Onosato pushes out Hoshoryu during the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament in Tokyo last month.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Oct 30, 2024

Onosato hogs spotlight, but there are big changes in latest sumo ranks

With his name writ large as ozeki on the latest banzuke, sumo’s hottest ticket took another step toward what looks like a procession to yokozuna.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda attends a commemorative ceremony at the BOJ's headquarters in Tokyo on July 3, the day new yen notes went into circulation.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2024

Japan needs tighter monetary policy to restore balance

Japan’s economy undoubtedly suffers when the yen is too strong; that is why some advocate for a more expansionary monetary policy.
The streets of Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, in October show that the city is still struggling from the aftermath of the Jan. 1 earthquake and heavy rain in September.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Nov 15, 2024

Japan faces urgent need to boost state finances for emergencies

If a major earthquake were to strike directly beneath Tokyo, the projected damage would total around ¥107.5 trillion.
There is a broad shift in Japan’s business environment, where long-standing relationships are being challenged by foreign and activist investors looking for merger and acquisition deals.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 15, 2024

Japan's newfound love of M&A makes for strange bedfellows

There is a broad shift in Japan’s business environment, where long-standing relationships are being challenged by foreign and activist investors.
Akira Yamaguchi (right), president of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan, hands the results of a survey, the first step to select a final disposal site for high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, to Haruo Kataoka, mayor of Suttsu in Hokkaido, on Friday in the town.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2024

Nuclear waste body backs further Hokkaido disposal site surveys

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Japan has concluded it can move on to a preliminary survey that involves drilling work in Suttsu and Kamoenai.
Keiichi Kaburagi (Ryusei Yokohama) goes on the run after being sentenced to death for a triple murder he insists he didn’t commit in Michihito Fujii’s “Faceless.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2024

‘Faceless’: Fugitive thriller turns a blind eye to hard truths

Michihiro Fujii’s latest offers stylistic flourishes while treading the familiar terrain of the fugitive film.
Nobuo Hara, the head of a group seeking to halt the No. 2 reactor at Tohoku Electric Power's Onagawa nuclear power plant, speaks at a news conference on Wednesday in Sendai after the Sendai High Court ruled against them.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2024

Court rejects request to halt restarted Onagawa nuclear reactor

A judge said there was "no concrete proof" that an incident that could not be handled under an established evacuation plan would occur.
Check-in counters at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The tourism industry expects the demand for China travel to increase as Beijing resumes its visa exemption for Japanese citizens.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2024

Travel firms optimistic China's resumption of visa waivers will boost demand

China decided to resume the exemption for Japanese citizens after requests by Tokyo and business leaders, and will extend the period for visa-free stays to 30 days.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan