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Kanako Takahara

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Kanako Takahara
Kanako Takahara is a staff writer who has covered national politics, diplomacy, business and the economy at The Japan Times. A graduate of Sophia University, she is currently a national news editor.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2004
Returnees may collect relatives in Pyongyang
Japan would be willing to allow the five Japanese who returned to their homeland after being abducted to North Korea decades ago to fly to Pyongyang airport to collect their relatives, as long as they do not get off the plane, a senior government official said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2004
Officials play down Pyongyang meeting
Wednesday's surprise visit by two senior Foreign Ministry officials to Pyongyang has fueled speculation -- or, to be more precise, expectation -- among the public that there will be developments on the abduction issue.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2004
Yasukuni remark annoys China
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced displeasure Wednesday over remarks made by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi about the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2004
Diet clears bill to hit North Korea with sanctions
The Diet cleared a bill Monday that will allow the government to impose unilateral economic sanctions on North Korea to "maintain Japan's peace and security."
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2004
Officials flee embassy amid terror fears
Officials at the Japanese Embassy in Baghdad have been evacuated from the compound to a separate site in the city amid fears of a terrorist attack, government sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2004
Japan, China will meet ahead of six-party talks
Japan and China will hold a vice-ministerial security dialogue in Tokyo ahead of the Feb. 25 six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear threat, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2004
Visiting Serb hopes western Balkan economic parley boosts investments
Japan will host a two-day ministerial meeting in April in Tokyo to promote stability and boost the economy of the western Balkans, according to Zlatan Milosevic, visiting director of the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2004
Japan to bring up abductions issue
Japan will take up the issue of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s during six-party talks later this month in Beijing, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2004
U.S. will assist SDF in Iraq, Armitage pledges to Ishiba
The United States will do its utmost to assist the Self-Defense Forces in Iraq, including providing information to Japan concerning possible terrorist attacks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba on Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2004
Japan turns up heat on North Korea as sanctions bill clears Lower House
The House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that will allow Japan to unilaterally impose economic sanctions on North Korea, paving the way for its endorsement by the full Diet by the end of next week.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2004
Experts say act now, stop Pyongyang
Japan, South Korea and the U.S. should swiftly map out a game plan aimed at freezing North Korea's nuclear activities, a senior researcher at a British military think tank said Tuesday in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2004
China relays Pyongyang overture
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has told a senior Chinese official that there are "positive movements" in the relationship between Pyongyang and Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2004
Pyongyang facing sanctions
Diet lawmakers who have adopted a hardline stance on North Korea agreed Tuesday to submit bills during this legislative session that would allow the government to slap economic and other sanctions on Pyongyang.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2004
Pyongyang trip yields no progress on abduction issue
Japan and North Korea remained at odds over the abductions issue when a group of Japanese diplomats visited Pyongyang last week for the first official contact between the two countries in several months, the Foreign Ministry says.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2004
Seoul issues controversial stamp, draws flak from irate Kawaguchi
Japan protested Friday over Seoul's issuance of postage stamps bearing the image of a disputed island in the Sea of Japan.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2004
Tokyo questions agenda behind Pyongyang overtures
Unofficial North Korean overtures that may pave the way for Pyongyang allowing the families of five repatriated Japanese abductees to reunite in Japan have fueled expectations and doubts in equal measure here.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2004
North Korea 'ready' to free returnees' kin by March 20
North Korea is reportedly offering to send family members of the five former Japanese abductees to Japan as early as March, it was learned Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004
North Korea escapees, NGO rep held in China
Two ethnic Koreans born in Japan who fled North Korea and an official of a Japanese nongovernmental organization were taken into custody by Chinese authorities in mid-December and are still being held, the NGO said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2004
Slump spells trouble for sister-city ties
In November, Ehime Prefecture and the state of Hawaii agreed to become sister "municipalities" -- a symbolic move aimed at overcoming the February 2001 Ehime Maru tragedy.
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2004
SDF Iraq role seen as barometer for future
Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Thursday that the Self-Defense Forces mission in Iraq will be a major test of Japan's efforts to play a larger role in helping to maintain global peace and stability.
Japan's elderly population grows to record 36.25 million
The proportion of people aged 65 and over has risen since the 1950s and is expected to hit 34.8% by 2040, when the second baby boomers (born 1971-1974) will join that group.
'Shogun' becomes first non-English-language winner of best drama Emmy
Japanese actress Anna Sawai, winner of the outstanding lead actress in a drama series award for "Shogun," and Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, winner of the outstanding lead actor in a drama series award for the show, pose in the press room during the 76th Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Japan jumps to No. 2, from sixth place, in Best Countries index
Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Japan has experienced a postpandemic travel boom, with tourists pouring back in after restrictions closed the country’s borders to travelers.
South Korea is facing deepfake porn crisis
Activists hold up symbolic eye masks during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on Aug. 30.
Second assassination attempt on Trump is latest jolt in chaotic campaign
U.S. Secret Service and Homeland Security agents check a former home of a Ryan Routh, a suspect in an alleged assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Sunday.
‘Shogun’ and the painstaking art of ‘getting it right’
Hiroyuki Sanada and the cast and crew of "Shogun" accept the award for best drama series at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
Japan’s schools battle to keep kids cool, with or without AC
Students sit under a misting system during recess at Hikarigaoka Haru no Kaze Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, on Sept. 6.
Chris Broad's new bar puts cocktails first, YouTube second
A self-proclaimed lover of great cocktails, YouTuber Chris Broad says his new Shibuya watering hole is more a place to get yourself a solid drink than it is anything related to his social media career.
In LDP presidential poll, three kingmakers hold all the cards
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the Liberal Democratic Party headquarters in Tokyo in January as former Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (left) looks on.
How China’s dominance of solar and batteries is impacting Japan’s energy transition
Solar panels and wind turbines at a power plant in Hami in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. and other countries have described China’s actions against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, a key cog in the cleantech supply chain, as a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing an entire culture.

Podcast

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

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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