Japan's sole doll museum unveils collection of more than 5,000 items
A museum devoted to dolls and other items from around the world, including Japanese dolls from the 17th to the 19th centuries, unveiled its extensive collection for the first time in the city of Saitama on Tuesday. The media were shown the collection a month ...
Blind tours at Saitama temple teach about lifestyles of visually impaired
Every month, a unique event is held at a temple in Saitama Prefecture to help people get a better understanding of visual impairment by having them walk through the temple wearing eye masks and depend more on their senses of hearing and smell. The event ...
Hatsuhinode: Where to see the first sunrise of the decade
There's never a better time to catch sunrise in Japan than at new year. From Tokyo Tower to the coast of Chiba Prefecture, here are 10 of the best places to see the first sunrise of the year near Tokyo.
Saitama Shinto festival highlights flexibility of spirituality in Japan
As fireworks light up the winter night, scores of men, women and teenagers crying "washoi, washoi" haul the last of six towering, lantern-covered floats up a small hill and into the town center, the culminating moment of a Shinto festival that has evolved from ...
Tokyo High Court changes Peruvian man's death sentence to life in prison
The Tokyo High Court overturned a lower court's death sentence and gave a Peruvian man life in prison Thursday over the 2015 murder of six people in Kumagaya, Saitama Prefecture. The court ruled that Vayron Jonathan Nakada Ludena, 34, who was found guilty of robbery ...
Police re-arrest Saitama man over kidnapping of junior high school girl
Police re-arrested a 37-year-old man on Wednesday for allegedly kidnapping and keeping a Hyogo Prefecture junior high school student at his home in the city of Honjo, Saitama Prefecture, for about two months. The news of the re-arrest comes just several days after a similar ...
Controversial anti-NHK candidate Takashi Tachibana kicks off by-election campaign in Saitama
Official campaigning began Thursday for the Upper House by-election in Saitama Prefecture, where a former governor is pitted against the head of a minor opposition party critical of public broadcaster NHK. Independent Kiyoshi Ueda, 71, is an established figure after serving as Saitama governor for ...
Japan disqualifies groups supervising foreign trainees in Chiba and Saitama
The Immigration Services Agency and labor ministry have revoked the permits of two organizations that supervise foreign technical trainees, after finding that they had concluded improper deals with agencies seeking to send trainees to Japan. Arrangements entered into by supervisory bodies in the prefectures of ...
Olympic Village subcontractor had ties to yakuza gang, Tokyo police say
A construction company with suspected ties to a yakuza gang participated as a subcontractor in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic athletes village project.
Ex-security worker suspected of mailing ¥360 million in stolen cash to Tokyo post office
A former worker at a security firm suspected of stealing ¥360 million from his employer's office in Saitama Prefecture was arrested Friday after he allegedly mailed the cash in four cardboard boxes to a post office box in Tokyo, prefectural police said. Hiroki Ito, 28, ...
In bid to contain swine fever outbreak, Japan's farm ministry announces plan to vaccinate pigs
The ministry saw the move as inevitable after the first outbreak in the country in 26 years was confirmed in September last year.
Stepfather allegedly killed Saitama boy after child told him he was not his real father
According to the police, the suspect has admitted to murdering the boy and said he hid the body after killing him, sources said.
