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A car is buried under snow in a residential parking lot in the city of Toyama on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2025

Heavy snow blankets Japan with one dead and four severely injured

More snowfall is expected through Saturday as another wave of frigid air moves in.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks during a news conference at the Justice Ministry in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 7, 2025

Japan's retrial system to be reviewed after landmark acquittal

The system — so time-consuming that campaigners call it the "door that never opens" — has not been changed since 1949.
The Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (center) attends a Cabinet meeting in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 7, 2025

Japan's Cabinet approves legislation on 'active' cybersecurity

The new measures aim to enable the government to infiltrate the sources of cyberattacks in order to neutralize them.
Tomoko Akane, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in Tokyo in June 2024.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2025

ICC president condemns U.S. order enabling sanctions on staff

The order allows the U.S. government to impose sanctions such as an asset freeze and a travel ban on ICC staff and their families.
Domino's Pizza will close 172 unprofitable outlets out of about 1,000 stores in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 9, 2025

Domino's pizza to close 172 outlets in Japan

The global delivery pizza chain will prioritize investments in areas that will help it improve earnings.
Saburo Kita (a pseudonym, left) submits a claim for forced sterilization compensation on Jan. 17 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 10, 2025

Japan enforces compensation law for forced sterilization victims

Under the new law, victims of forced sterilization will receive ¥15 million in compensation, while their spouses will be entitled to ¥5 million.
Giving out courtesy chocolates to coworkers on Valentine's Day is becoming obsolete.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 10, 2025

How giving chocolates on Valentine’s Day is evolving in Japan

One change is fewer people are handing out chocolates to others at work, which had been a widespread practice over the past few decades.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba talks with executives of his Liberal Democratic Party in the parliament building in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 11, 2025

Japan's ruling-opposition talks reach a critical point

For its enactment by the end of March, the fiscal 2025 budget bill needs to clear the Lower House on March 2, at the latest.
A new scam causing concern in Japan starts out simple, but when victims request to continue, they are instructed to set up an account on a certain app or website where they are to enter their personal information.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 12, 2025

Japan's consumer watchdog raises alarm over new social media scam

The deceptively innocent scheme requires users to do one simple thing to earn some extra cash: take screenshots of videos.
The proportion of children with tooth cavities in Japan in fiscal 2024 hit the lowest level since the survey began in fiscal 1948.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2025

Children with tooth cavities at record low in Japan

The cavity rate stood at 20.74% at kindergartens, 32.89% at elementary schools, 26.50% at junior high schools and 34.70% at high schools.
By cancer type, the 10-year survival rate was 57.9% for stomach cancer, the most common cancer among the patients surveyed.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 13, 2025

Japan's 10-year cancer survival rate stands at 54% in latest survey

The rate was 57.9% for stomach cancer, the most common cancer among patients surveyed.
Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada says the company believes joint lunar missions between United States and Japan will remain on course after the leaders of the two countries met last week.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2025

Ispace upbeat as Trump keeps Artemis lunar missions with Japan

Launched last month, Ispace's Resilience lander will approach the moon in about three months for the company's second lunar touchdown.
Kansai Electric Power's Takahama nuclear power station in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2025

Kansai Electric proposes doubling Fukui-France nuclear waste shipments

It remains to be seen whether the prefectural government will support the revised plans. Fukui has long called for spent nuclear fuel to be taken out of the prefecture.
Police believe there is a bigger party involved in making and selling counterfeit products behind the latest arrest of three suspects.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 13, 2025

Osaka police arrest three for online sales of counterfeit eyelash serum

As the products were shipped from China, police believe there is a bigger party involved in making and selling counterfeit products.
A general view of Myanmar from Thailand's side of the border, in Mae Sot district, on Feb. 5.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 15, 2025

Teen says several more Japanese nationals involved in frauds in Myanmar

Thai authorities took the 16-year-old teenager into custody in Mae Sot, in northwestern Thailand, this month, and are looking into the details of the situation.
The N Seoul Tower was lit up on Saturday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2025

Tokyo and Seoul towers light up to mark anniversary of ties

Ambassadors from Japan and South Korea respectively attended the lighting ceremonies in the two countries.
Ichiro Aisawa (second from left), head of the Liberal Democratic Party's Research Commission on the Election System, addresses a meeting of major political parties on election-related issues held at the parliament building on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 16, 2025

Japan parties to tackle issue of collaborating candidates

A provision to unify the size and other aspects of posters, which currently vary by election type, was also included in the bill.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya meets with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and counterparts from other countries at the State Department in Washington on Jan. 21.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2025

Japan's Iwaya vows to push ahead with sanctions against Russia

Iwaya made the Russia sanctions remark after U.S. President Donald Trump expressed his eagerness to achieve an early ceasefire in Ukraine through direct negotiations with Moscow.
Russian warships, including the Admiral Nevelskoy landing ship, are seen during the annual Navy Day parade in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok, Russia, on July 28, 2024.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2025

Russian Navy holds artillery firing drills in Sea of ​​Japan: report

The exercises were carried out as part of the planned combat training activities of the Russian Pacific Fleet.
Naturalized Japanese citizens from Taiwan will be able to list Taiwan as their place of origin in their family register instead of China from May.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 17, 2025

Naturalized Japanese can soon list Taiwan as original nationality

Since Japan does not officially recognize Taiwan as a country, those from the self-ruled island had been required to list China as their original nationality.
An All Nippon Airways passenger plane at Noto Airport in Ishikawa Prefecture on Jan. 27, 2024, after its arrival from Haneda Airport in Tokyo following the reopening of earthquake-affected Noto Airport to commercial flights.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2025

Japan eyes system for faster repairs of disaster-hit airports

The system, expected to cover about 60 airports, is based on lessons from the delayed resumption of an airport on the Noto Peninsula.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba receives fruit from tangerine farmers of Shizuoka Prefecture in Tokyo on Jan. 22. The government's new regional revitalization plan focuses on convincing younger workers to choose a career and life somewhere other than a major urban center such as Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 18, 2025

Can Ishiba's 'joyful Japan' policy revitalize the nation's rural regions?

The prime minister may be taking cues from the mistakes of past efforts, but ultimately, even the best rural revitalization plan is tough to realize in practice.
The Thai Royal Police held a meeting on Monday in Bangkok with representatives from 18 countries, including Japan, as well as international organizations like the United Nations regarding the transnational scam operation.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 18, 2025

Japanese nationals thought to be held captive at Myanmar-Thailand border

Foreign nationals from several countries have been held at the border and forced to participate in a variety of scams.
Rafael Grossi (left), director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya at a joint news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2025

Japan and IAEA to boost cooperation on Fukushima No. 1 decommissioning

Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi discussed the nuclear plant and the release of treated water from the facility into the ocean.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters at the parliamentary building on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 19, 2025

Japan's justice minister admits to giving mooncakes to staff

The minister could be accused of violating the public office election law if the ministry staff who received the cakes include residents of the southern Kanto region.
The eastern Myanmar state of Kayin seen from Mae Sot in northwestern Thailand in May
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 19, 2025

Japanese boy says he was forced to work at scam center in Myanmar

The boy said that he was given electric shocks when he refused to take part in the fraud.
Behind a record-breaking rise in Japan's rice prices are intensifying competition among buyers since the serious shortage of the country's staple food in stores in summer 2024 and hoarding by those bullish about rice prices.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2025

Price of rice sold to wholesalers surges to another high in Japan

The January average rose 69% from a year earlier to ¥25,927 per 60 kilograms of brown rice amid intensifying demand.
The city government of Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, used corporate donations to create a volunteer tour, during which participants help farmers harvest apples and enjoy sightseeing in the city.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Feb 20, 2025

Corporate hometown donations gain traction in Japan

Some local governments have been found to provide de facto rewards to donor companies, violating the system's rules and raising concerns about improper practices.
A bill to revise the public offices election law was submitted to the House of Representatives by Ichiro Aisawa (third from right), chairperson of the Liberal Democratic Party's Research Commission on the Election System, and other bipartisan lawmakers, on Thursday in the Diet.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 20, 2025

Bill calling for campaign poster decency submitted in Japan

Some campaign posters drew controversy in last summer's Tokyo gubernatorial election for depicting an almost fully naked woman and an advertisement for a sex services shop.
An example of utilizing waterfront spaces, such as developing public waterfront embarkments and privately owned roads into a unified plaza, and operating moored ships as hotels. The land ministry views this as a reference case for a public-private partnerships system. The photo was taken in December, in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Feb 20, 2025

Private funds tapped for revitalization of Japan's port green areas

Many local governments across the nation are inviting businesses to boost the appeal of port areas by developing commercial facilities and cafes.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell