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September 03, 2025
 

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CHILDREN

The annual number of babies in Japan has been on a downward trend since around 1975, falling below 1 million in 2016, 900,000 in 2019 and 800,000 in 2022.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 29, 2025
Japan births hit fresh low in first half of 2025
The January-June figure, including babies born to foreign nationals living in Japan and Japanese nationals living overseas, stood below 400,000 for the fourth consecutive year.
The number of children on nursery waiting lists decreased to a record low as of April 1, reflecting a decrease in births.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 29, 2025
Kids on nursery waiting lists down for eighth year amid falling births
As of April this year, there were 2,254 children on waiting lists, down from a high of 26,081 in 2017.
The Justice Ministry has drafted an ordinance proposing a legally mandated post-divorce child support amount of ¥20,000 per child per month, sources said.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2025
Statutory post-divorce child support to be set at ¥20,000 a month
According to a 2021 welfare ministry survey, only 28.1% of single-mother households and 8.7% of single-father households had actually received child support from the other parents.
Mourners visit a memorial near the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis on Thursday, where a shooting took place the day before.
WORLD
Aug 29, 2025
Minneapolis children revealed courage, absorbed fear during church shooting
The shooter killed two children and wounded 18 teachers and children, including a child taken to hospital in critical condition.
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 28, 2025
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
In a recent survey, 93.1% of respondents said they felt they “wanted to disappear from the world.”
A malnourished Palestinian child gets a checkup at a medical point run by a local nongovernmental organization affiliated with the primary health care of the Palestinian health ministry in al-Mawasi, in the southern Gaza Strip district of Khan Younis, on Aug. 13.
WORLD
Aug 28, 2025
Starving Gaza children too weak to cry, Save the Children head says
The United Nations officially declared famine in the Gaza Strip on Friday, blaming what it called Israel's systematic obstruction of aid during more than 22 months of war.
The Financial Services Agency plans to expand Japan's Nippon Individual Savings Account tax exemption program for small investments, with a focus on supporting families with children.
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2025
Financial Services Agency eyeing NISA expansion to support child-rearing
The FSA will call for a revision of the age limit for installment-type investments under the NISA program.
Begum, a 35-year-old mother of seven children, in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Aug. 18. Begum will marry off one of her daughters after a funding shortage shuttered thousands of schools in the refugee camps.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Aug 25, 2025
School closures push Rohingya refugee children into marriage and work
A funding crisis has led to the suspension of many Rohingya learning centers, leaving children to play in the mud or rain.
Music instructor Ahmed Abu Amsha, 43, of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, conducts a lesson for Palestinian girls in Gaza City.
WORLD / Society
Aug 15, 2025
Gaza's young musicians sing and play in the ruins of war
Students in Gaza have continued music classes from displacement camps and shattered buildings even after Israel's bombardments forced them to abandon schools in the city.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in September last year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 15, 2025
Meta AI rules let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with kids and offer false info
Meta's standards don’t necessarily reflect "ideal or even preferable” generative AI outputs, an internal document states. But they have permitted provocative behavior by the bots.
People with children walk in the sun as the Japanese government issued a heatstroke alert due to a heat wave, in Tokyo, on Aug. 5
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 12, 2025
Heat waves pose serious health risks for pregnant women, study shows
The Tokyo team found that the risk of serious complications for pregnant women increases the day after a heat wave.
China’s demographic spiral is now resembling that of ancient Rome, where changing social norms and drastic population-control measures led to falling birth rates and irreversible decline.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2025
What ancient Rome can teach China about demographic collapse
China’s situation, however, is particularly perilous. Unless it is reversed, a demographic decline of this magnitude could recall the collapse of the Roman Empire.
In a report released on Wednesday, Australia's eSafety Commissioner said YouTube, along with Apple, failed to track the number of user reports it received of child sex abuse appearing on their platforms.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 6, 2025
Australian watchdog says YouTube and others 'turning a blind eye' to abuse material
The regulator said some providers had not made improvements to address safety gaps on their services despite it putting them on notice in previous years.
The Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima on July 24. Each year, some 10 million paper cranes are donated for display at the monument in memory of Sadako Sasaki, a girl who died of leukemia following the U.S. atomic bombing of the city 80 years ago.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 6, 2025
Passing on Hiroshima's message of peace, one paper crane at a time
Through recycling, the millions of paper cranes offered at a memorial each year in the city where an atomic bomb was dropped 80 years ago live on.
A displaced Sudanese mother and one of her children sit inside a camp shelter in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, on July 30.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 6, 2025
Funding cuts reducing Sudanese children to 'skin, bones': UNICEF
Children were being cut off from life-saving services due to funding cuts, while the scale of need is staggering, UNICEF said.
Shintaro Matsue (right), head of the International Furikake Association, holds an enlarged package of <i>furikake</i> in Jakarta on July 9.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2025
'Furikake' app to help manage children's health in Indonesian
After downloading an app featured on furikake product packaging, children input data like their height and weight, then do academic drills, with the reward being manga.
Kid carts and strollers were a common sight at the Fuji Rock Festival this year.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 4, 2025
The families that rock together at Fuji
Taking children to Fuji Rock is a rite of passage that should be supported.
Despite topping physical health rankings, Japan’s children face a worsening mental health crisis due to limited early education, inconsistent counseling support and poor awareness of their rights.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 3, 2025
It’s time to take children’s mental health seriously
Given these disparities, it is clear the government needs to build a consistent school system with appropriate emotional support mechanisms
The average correct answer rate for description-type questions in the Japanese-language section of the fiscal 2025 national achievement test for third-year junior high school students was as low as 25.6%, according to the education ministry.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2025
Japanese students struggle with description-type tests
Students seemed to struggle especially with questions asking them to write their thoughts in a way others can understand.
Nemah Hamouda holds a baby bottle while cradling her 3-month-old granddaughter, Muntaha, as she prepares to feed her amid a severe shortage of infant formula and rising malnutrition, in Gaza City, on Tuesday.
WORLD
Aug 1, 2025
'If the baby could speak, she would scream': the risky measures to feed small babies in Gaza
Infant formula is scarce after a plummet in aid access to Gaza and many women cannot breastfeed due to malnourishment.
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
Woman dies after possible knife attack in Setagaya
Police investigate the scene where a woman was found bleeding on a street in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward on Monday.
Suntory CEO Takeshi Niinami resigns over alleged possession of illegal drugs
Takeshi Niinami, then-chief executive officer of Suntory Holdings, in May 2024
Why Stalin didn’t invade Hokkaido still largely unknown, 80 years after WWII
During a survey to collect the remains of victims from the Taito Maru, one of the vessels involved in the Three Ships Incident, a metal helmet was found near the stern of the vessel on Aug. 5, 1984, at Rumoi Port. No human remains were discovered.
More sweltering days forecast for September after hottest summer on record
By the end of August, 8,341 people had been transported by ambulance for heatstroke in Tokyo alone.
Surrounded by Chinese bases, a tiny Philippine island stands firm
A Philippine Navy sailor looks at a China Coast Guard vessel just off the coast of Pag-asa Island in the disputed South China Sea last month.
‘Mount Fuji Lawson’ becomes a symbol of Japan’s overtourism problem
A couple poses for a wedding photo in front of a Lawson in the town of Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 25.
‘Cool’ Patagonia wants to take used items into the mainstream
"It's not just about sales. It's about system change," said Marty Pomphrey, general manager of Patagonia Japan, on Aug. 6.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

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