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April 07, 2025
 

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Eric Johnston

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Eric Johnston
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2017
Ways to curb gambling's social ills top talks at second casino hearing in Osaka
The second of eight public hearings on the structure, risks, and local rewards of building integrated casino resorts took place in Osaka on Friday, with concerns raised about problem gamblers, floor layouts and where the resorts would likely be most profitable.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2017
Typhoon Noru deluge prompts evacuation orders in central regions
Typhoon Noru prompted evacuation notices in at least half a dozen prefectures over fears of landslides and rising rivers as it brought heavy rains and flooding to the Hokuriku and Kansai regions on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2017
Kyoto city government set to pass lodging tax for some visitors
Kyoto hotel bills look likely to rise as a special panel studying a proposed lodging tax hands in its final report to the Kyoto Municipal Government.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 7, 2017
Japan's shrinking rural population poses a dilemma for democracy
Deep in the Shikoku wilderness, along a steep winding road above a dark green river, sits the tiny village of Okawa. It's located in a region sometimes dubbed by enthusiastic travel writers as the "Tibet of Japan" for its comparative isolation within the mountains.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2017
Public hearings on Japan's casino resort policies to be held in nine cities
With its basic recommendations for operating integrated resort casinos now complete, the central government will hold public hearings across the country this month to explain the requirements and the policies to address problem gambling and concerns about money laundering.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2017
Osaka lays the groundwork in ambitious plan to host both expo and casino resort
As the government finalizes the basic guidelines for casino operations, Osaka is pushing forward with a separate but related plan to host the 2025 World Expo — if Japan's bid beats out the competition — at the new integrated gambling resort envisioned in Osaka Bay.
JAPAN
Jul 24, 2017
As part of experiment, Consumer Affairs Agency transfers office from Tokyo to Tokushima
As part of the government's drive to relocate some of its Tokyo-centric functions to other cities to promote regional revitalization, the Consumer Affairs Agency inaugurated a new office in Tokushima Prefecture on Monday.
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Jul 23, 2017
Toyama embarks on compact redesign to foil natural disasters, depopulation at same time
Since early July, floods and landslides caused by heavy rain have forced tens of thousands of people from Kyushu to Tohoku to evacuate, with nearly three dozen deaths confirmed in western Japan. The financial damage to Oita Prefecture alone now stands at over ¥20 billion, prefectural officials announced...
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Jul 23, 2017
Osaka's bid to outshine Paris for 2025 Expo still on shaky ground
With only four months to go until it must unveil detailed plans for its 2025 World Expo bid, Osaka's leaders plan to use the rest of the summer and early autumn to ramp up domestic and international efforts to raise the region's profile and tout its advantages over arch-rival Paris .
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 20, 2017
Fukui governor and mayors ask Inada for added protection for reactors against North Korea attacks
Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa and the mayors of six towns and villages in the prefecture hosting nuclear power plants have called on Defense Minister Tomomi Inada to dispatch Self-Defense Forces personnel to the prefecture to guard Fukui's 15 reactors (including those being decommissioned) against a possible...
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Jul 15, 2017
Doubt cast over Tomin First's national appeal
"Politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favor of his image, because the image will be much more powerful than he could ever be."
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2017
Okinawa moves to block U.S. base construction at Henoko
Three months after the Okinawa Defense Bureau started seawall construction off the coast of Nago in Okinawa's Henoko district, work to build a replacement facility for a U.S. military base in Ginowan is moving forward — and along with it, renewed legal and political resistance to the controversial...
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 10, 2017
Nara Mayor Gen Nakagawa snares third term in close race; LDP-backed candidate crushed
Nara Mayor Gen Nakagawa, 41, was declared the winner of Sunday's mayoral election by just 2,000 votes Monday morning, a narrow difference that election officials say was caused by voter confusion.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 7, 2017
Depopulation, tourism on voters' minds as Nara gears up for mayoral election
Nara voters head to the polls Sunday for a mayoral election that has been dominated by concerns over a shrinking population and an expanding tourist industry.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 4, 2017
Success of Koike's Tomin First echoes Ishin no Kai movement
A popular, media-savvy figure originally from the Kansai region wins the governorship by running as a reformer, then forming a political party to take on the Liberal Democratic Party in the local assembly election. Upon winning a plurality of votes, the party teams up with Komeito to form a majority,...
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 2, 2017
Hyogo Gov. Toshizo Ido returned for fifth term as voters take experience over change
While Tokyo voters took a new direction with Gov. Yuriko Koike's Tomin First no Kai (Tokyoites First) on Sunday, Hyogo voters opted for more of the same by giving 71-year-old Gov. Toshizo Ido a fifth term on his promises to deal with the prefecture's ailing finances and falling population.
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 1, 2017
'Comfort women' statue in Georgia latest to irk Japan
A new “comfort women” statue pops up in a suburb just northeast of Atlanta as the movement to commemorate the victims continues to frustrate Japanese diplomats.
JAPAN
Jun 28, 2017
Hokkaido salmon catch seen dropping due to colder waters: research institute
A Hokkaido research institute predicts about a 4 percent drop in the catch of salmon in prefectural waters this autumn due to colder waters that make it harder for fry to survive.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2017
Canceled flight leaves former residents of Russian-held isles stranded
With the cancellation last week of the first chartered flight between Hokkaido and the Russian-held islands off Japan's northeast coast, former residents want politicians to pay less attention to the political weather in Tokyo and Moscow and put more focus on the real weather when planning the next trip....
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 26, 2017
Osaka sets sights on 2025 World Expo, but formidable challenges remain
Earlier this month, Osaka Gov. Ichiro Matsui led a delegation of local politicians and business leaders to Paris, where they formally announced at a general assembly of the Bureau International des Expositions that the prefecture was bidding to host the 2025 World Expo.
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Nikkei plunges in third-biggest daily loss ever amid Trump tariff concerns
Pedestrians stand in front of an electronic board showing the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the Japanese capital on Monday.
Ride-hailing services spreading in Japan
Vehicles used for ride-hailing services in the city of Kiryu, in Gunma Prefecture
Japan digs deep to address 'national crisis' caused by Trump tariffs
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office on April 1. He has said that Japan is facing a "national crisis" following the introduction of new tariffs by the United States.
'Hang tough, it won't be easy': Trump defiant on tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he walks to deliver remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event in the Rose Garden entitled "Make America Wealthy Again" at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

Podcast

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

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
By Alex K.T. Martin

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