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Visitors will be banned from entering private alleys in Kyoto's famous geisha district, Gion, after the district council urged the city to tackle the issue, saying their neighborhood "is not a theme park."
JAPAN / Society
Mar 7, 2024

Tourists banned from private alleys in Kyoto's geisha district

Gion's main Hanamikoji Street, which is public, will remain open to tourists.
Masaya Shibasaki, 26, an employee of EXEO Group, reacts as he tries the Osaka Heart Cool-developed VR electrical device Perionoid, which simulates menstrual pain, on Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2024

Japanese male office workers experience simulated menstrual pain

Companies are required to offer menstrual leave, but the time off doesn't have to be paid and around half of female workers never take it.
A war survivor details vivid recollections of World War II in footage never before made public. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has released parts of a collection of interviews with over 300 war survivors for public viewing this month.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 8, 2024

Witness accounts recall 1945 firebombing of Tokyo

The Tokyo government is screening a collection of interviews of survivors for the first time to serve as a reminder of the destruction of war.
Actress Yumi Ishikawa speaks during an interview on Monday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 8, 2024

'KuToo' campaign leader wants to bring attention to sexual abuse

Ishikawa believes that behind the issue of sexual abuse is the unspoken assumption within Japanese society that there is no such thing as discrimination.
Kazuo Ueda, governor of the Bank of Japan, speaks at a fintech summit in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2024

Bank of Japan leaning toward exiting negative rates in March

Many BOJ policymakers are closely watching the outcome of big firms' annual wage negotiations with unions on March 13.
Homes destroyed in the New Year's Day earthquake line a road in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on March 3.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2024

Reservations open for subsidized trips to areas hit by Noto quake

Tours to Niigata, Toyama and Fukui prefectures sold out on a host of websites soon after the start Friday, displaying robust demand for the campaign.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori speaks during an interview on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 9, 2024

Fukushima governor urges state to clarify soil policy

Fukushima will host interim storage facilities for the soil on the premise that the soil is stored at final disposal sites outside the prefecture.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' Fukushima No. 1 plant. Tepco has a long way to go to achieve its profits target for financing compensation, reconstruction and the decommissioning of the plant, following the eruption of the March 2011 nuclear crisis.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2024

Tepco profit goal remains elusive, 13 years after triple meltdown

The total costs related to the nuclear crisis are estimated at ¥23.4 trillion, including ¥8 trillion for decommissioning the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
Keiichi Ishii, secretary-general of Komeito, has suggested that a snap election for the Lower House is possible this autumn.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 10, 2024

Japan Lower House breakup possible in autumn, Komeito exec says

Komeito's secretary-general said public support could be high for the LDP president chosen in the party's leadership election to be held in September.
Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida said he has no lingering physical complications after his hospital stay.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 11, 2024

SDF chief of staff returns to work

Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida was diagnosed as overworked in mid-February, when he sought medical attention over a fever and illness.
Zensho Holdings, the operator of Sukiya and other restaurant chains, will raise salaries of regular employees by 12.2% on average.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 12, 2024

Japan firms across sectors offer pay hikes of up to 12% in spring talks

Early wage deals with unions reflect a recovery in earnings from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a sense of crisis over labor shortages.
Mitsuya Kishida, incoming CEO of Nidec (left), and Shigenobu Nagamori, chairman and CEO, during a news conference at the company's headquarters in Kyoto on Feb. 14.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 12, 2024

Japan's Nidec, U.S. private equity firm KPS vie for Siemens’ motors unit

The Innomotics unit makes heavy-duty electric motors used in ships and mining equipment, and could fetch about ¥483.6 billion in a sale.
Shi Pong Hsu, 75, makes coffee in a Singapore coffee shop. The city-state's government projects that almost a quarter of its population will be 65 or over by 2030.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2024

Singapore is bracing for a super-aging society

Japan and South Korea may be the poster children for low birthrates, but Singapore is confronting its own decline. Its solution? Bonuses for nurses.
A court sketch shows Satoru Nomura, head of the Kudokai crime syndicate (center), and Fumio Tanoue, the group's second-in-command (right), during their sentencing at the Fukuoka High Court on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 12, 2024

Death sentence overturned for Kudokai gang boss

The criminal mastermind remained expressionless and stared directly at the judge as it was announced that the death sentence had been overturned.
Measles is highly contagious and is characterized by symptoms such as a mild to moderate fever and a cough, followed by high fever and rash. The virus spreads through airborne transmission.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 12, 2024

Health ministry urges caution after measles outbreak

Eight cases have been confirmed among passengers of a flight from the United Arab Emirates that landed at Kansai International Airport in late February.
Former Olympics minister Seiko Hashimoto has announced her intention to appear before an Upper House political ethics committee scheduled to convene on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 12, 2024

Three members of Abe faction to attend Upper House ethics hearing

But other lawmakers embroiled in the LDP slush fund scandal have largely indicated that they don't intend to testify.
Children play around the giant Squid King statue in the town of Noto, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Feb. 27.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 13, 2024

Noto symbol 'Squid King' stands resolute amid quake devastation

Once criticized as "wasteful," the statue's steadfast presence has become a source of solace for local residents as they strive toward recovery.
Aichi police assert that the duo also received approximately ¥5.9 million in kickbacks for the fraudulent practice from the company that it placed orders with.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 13, 2024

Two former Toyota employees arrested on fraud charges

The employees allegedly defrauded the company out of ¥11.5 million ($78,000) by inflating expenses and placing questionable orders.
An extended section of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line will open on Saturday to connect the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, and the city of Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2024

Hokuriku Shinkansen's Kanazawa-Tsuruga extension set to open Saturday

The opening of the new section is expected to contribute to reconstruction efforts in the Hokuriku region in central Japan.
NEC computers at an electronics store in Tokyo. Founded in 1899, NEC focuses on information technology and network communications, biometric recognition, the internet of things and artificial intelligence technologies, according to its website.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 14, 2024

Japan’s NEC weighing $500 million data center sale, sources say

The Tokyo-traded company is looking to hire financial advisers to help prepare a potential sale of the business.
YouTuber and former Upper House member GaaSyy after his release on bail in September
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2024

YouTuber GaaSyy given suspended prison term for defaming celebrities

GaaSyy's acts seriously threatened the victims, the presiding judge said, causing them “enormous financial damage” through online hate.
The number of elementary school children who became victims of crimes through social media totaled a record 139 last year in Japan, National Police Agency data showed Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2024

Child victims of social media-related crimes on the rise in Japan

The number of victims has grown fivefold in the past decade.
Hiroshige Seko, a former Upper House secretary-general of the LDP, told the Upper House ethics committee in Tokyo on Thursday that he was never directly involved in the handling of the Abe faction’s funds.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 14, 2024

Upper House Abe faction members deny involvement in slush fund scandal

Opposition lawmakers targeted the lack of clarity over the decision to continue a kickback scheme after Abe’s death in 2022.
A closed McDonald's in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, amid an outage that affected stores in Japan and abroad on Friday. The chain resumed operations on Saturday at almost all of its outlets in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 16, 2024

McDonald’s Japan resumes operations after outage

The recovery comes after McDonald’s was hit by a system outage that appears to have started in the Asia-Pacific region Friday.
Mamiko Tanaka (right), wife of Los Angeles Dodgers Shohei Ohtani, arrives at Incheon International Airport on Friday ahead of the 2024 MLB Seoul Series baseball games.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 18, 2024

A mystery no more: What we know about Ohtani’s wife

No one in the sports world is receiving as much attention right now as baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani — that is, besides his wife, Mamiko Tanaka.
A map from the Japan Meteorological Agency displays the shindo intensity of the quake that struck the Kanto region at 9:08 a.m. on Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2024

Magnitude 5.3 quake jolts Saitama and Tochigi

The quake, which triggered quake alarms in Tokyo and neighboring areas, measured a low 5 on the Japanese shindo scale of intensity.
Ryuichi Kihara and Riku Miura compete during the World Figure Skating Championships in Montreal on Wednesday.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 21, 2024

Canadian pair lead Japan's Miura and Kihara after short program at worlds

In the women's singles competition, Kaori Sakamoto's bid for a third straight title got off to an unsteady start in the short program.
Shizue Takahashi, a bereaved family member of the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system, offers a prayer at Kasumigaseki Station on Wednesday, the 29th anniversary of the attack.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 20, 2024

Japan marks 29th anniversary of Tokyo subway sarin attack

The Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult's sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system killed 14 people and injured more than 6,000.
Yoshifumi Murase, commissioner of the industry ministry's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, (left) meets Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi on Thursday in Niigata Prefecture in an effort to seek understanding for restarting Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings' Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 22, 2024

Local support sought for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant restart

A representative from an agency of the industry ministry highlighted the "severe" energy supply situation in eastern Japan.
Mobile phones seized from an apartment room in Phnom Penh in relation to a special fraud case are shown at a police station in Saitama Prefecture in November.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 22, 2024

Arrests of 'tokuryū' gang members estimated to have topped 10,000

More than 10,000 members of so-called tokuryū criminal groups are believed to have been arrested in Japan in the three years through 2023, a National Police Agency (NPA) survey showed Thursday.

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Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat