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 Jun Hongo

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Jun Hongo
Jun Hongo graduated from Boston University and joined The Japan Times in 2006. He covers a wide range of domestic news, including politics and business. He is an avid Red Sox fan.
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2008
Report urges closer watch on foreigners
Foreigners living in Japan should be allowed five-year visas but kept under the eye of a new unified Justice Ministry-run nationwide identification system, a government panel on immigration control said in its report released Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2008
Last tried over Aneha fraud avoids prison
The Tokyo District Court handed a suspended three-year prison term to a bankrupt condominium developer Tuesday for knowingly selling defective condos designed by disgraced architect Hidetsugu Aneha and defrauding his clients out of about ¥415 million.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Mar 26, 2008
'70s fish snack tune 'Taiyaki-kun' leaps again up the sales chart
There are plenty of fish in the sea, but not one quite like Taiyaki-kun.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2008
Hawker's kin in Japan to prod manhunt
Visiting Japan a year after her slaying, the parents and sisters of Briton Lindsay Ann Hawker voiced disappointment Monday that the fugitive sought in her killing remains at large.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2008
Aum's bankruptcy proceedings to end 13 years on
The bankruptcy proceedings for Aum Shinrikyo will conclude on March 26 even though the doomsday cult will pay only 40 percent of the ¥3.8 billion owed to victims of the crimes it committed more than a decade ago.
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2008
Top court throws out Yokohama Incident suit
The Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Friday filed by relatives of five deceased journalists who were convicted of promoting communism in the 1940s and charged with violating the now-defunct Peace Preservation Law.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2008
G8 offers forum for territory dispute
NEMURO, Hokkaido — Hirotoshi Kawata hopes the Group of Eight summit in July will be an opportunity to tell the world about his 62 years as a displaced person, banished from a Soviet-seized island when he was a preteen.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2008
Nemuro faces fisheries-conservation dilemma
NEMURO, Hokkaido — Despite requests by a committee of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, fishery associations in Nemuro remain baffled by the idea of safeguarding their traditional foe.
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2008
Death of American in bar fight likely to draw leniency
The death of an American resident in Tokyo in a fatal bar fight late last month is not likely to result in any severe punishment being meted out due to the circumstances of the case, legal experts say.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2008
Diminishing ice floes raise climate alarm
ABASHIRI, Hokkaido — Plowing his icebreaker, the Aurora, into drift ice 10 km off Abashiri, Hokkaido, Capt. Keiichi Hori smiles bitterly as tourists onboard cheer the crunching sound of the boat's progress.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2008
Tokyo air raid survivors sue for redress
Survivors of the numerous U.S. air raids on Tokyo in 1945 sued the central government for compensation Monday, demanding an apology and a combined ¥220 million in reparations for its failure to assist the wounded.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Mar 7, 2008
Survivor still haunted by night's fiery terror
Sixteenth in a series
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2008
Myanmar woman to be deported despite marriage
The Tokyo District Court on Thursday backed a government decision to deport a 36-year-old woman from Myanmar, rebuffing her argument that her marriage to a 76-year-old Japanese man was genuine and allows her to legally stay in Japan.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2008
Accept fault, free 42-year death-row inmate, counsel tells Supreme Court
Lawyers seeking a retrial for a former professional boxer on death row for 42 years filed their final statement Tuesday with the Supreme Court, demanding that the court "have the courage to acknowledge its misjudgment" and free their client.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2008
Top court sides with Korean hibakusha
Sweeping aside a high court ruling backing the city of Nagasaki's refusal to pay medical benefits to a South Korean A-bomb survivor, the Supreme Court on Monday granted the relatives of the deceased hibakusha ¥827,900.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 19, 2008
CO2 trading mirrors, but still smoke?
Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, the world has been spewing out greenhouse gases that now threaten the global ecosystem. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 379.1 parts per million in 2005, or 35 percent higher than the estimated level before...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008
Sarin killer's death penalty is finalized
Rejecting his appeal, the Supreme Court on Friday finalized the death sentence of senior Aum Shinrikyo cultist Yasuo Hayashi, a key figure in the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2008
Hospital, doctor cleared in chopstick suit
The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday turned down a damages suit brought by a couple whose 4-year-old son died in 1999 after a doctor overlooked a 7.6-cm broken chopstick section lodged in his brain following a fall.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Feb 9, 2008
Fitting like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
R ikiya Yokohori met his destiny while delving into applied mathematics at the University of Central Oklahoma in 2002.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2008
Ex-banker pleads not guilty to defrauding Chongryon
An ex-bank official associated with former public security agency chief Shigetake Ogata pleaded not guilty Friday to fraud, denying that he took part in an investment scam to swindle the pro-Pyongyang group Chongryon out of the ownership of its Tokyo headquarters building.

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?