NEWSWORTHY
Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival offers a world of fascination
Held annually from 1990, save for 2007 when its host town was facing financial difficulties, the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival has become a little corner of Hokkaido where for four days in March the cinematically weird and wonderful can flourish. I had long wanted ...
Yubari melons fetch record ¥3.2 million at season's first auction
A pair of melons grown in Yubari, Hokkaido, fetched a record ¥3.2 million in the first auction of the season Saturday at a wholesale market in Sapporo. The bid was more than twice as much as the ¥1.5 million paid in the first auction of ...
Deserted Yubari tries creating new population nucleus in test case for Japan
A former coal-mining town in Hokkaido is taking unprecedented measures to combat its biggest challenge: a devastating shrinking of its population. Its success could decide the future for hundreds of other local governments waging the same battle for survival. Since its peak in the post-war ...
Hokkaido melons fetch record ¥3 million at season's first auction
A pair of melons produced in the Hokkaido city of Yubari on Thursday fetched a record ¥3 million ($27,240) in the first auction of the harvest season at a Sapporo wholesale market. The previous highest winning bid price for a pair of Yubari melons, which ...
Health care system needs a new diagnosis
In March 2007, the city of Yubari in Hokkaido became the first Japanese municipality to declare bankruptcy, letting loose a flood of media coverage characterized by expressions of sympathy for residents. Yubari's debt had reached ¥63 billion, the result, according to national press reports, ...
Maruha cuts food output in Hokkaido as demand drops over pesticide scare
Maruha Nichiro's frozen foods unit cuts output in Hokkaido as consumers shun its brands after pesticide was found in products made at its Gunma plant on Honshu.
Yubari posts 'debt clock' ticking off rehab
The city of Yubari, Hokkaido, which declared bankruptcy in March 2007 with debts of ¥35.3 billion, has posted a clock on its website to show the real-time liability balance and amount it has repaid. The "debt clock" is the brainchild of Mayor Naomichi Suzuki in ...
