Tag - life

 
Menu
Search
 
April 18, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

LIFE

As the global trade war intensifies, the debt, the main investment for Japan’s life insurers, has seen wild swings along with its U.S. counterparts.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 18, 2025
Major Japan life insurer to pile into domestic super-long bonds
Investment decisions by Japan’s life insurers can move global markets, and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance will be the first among its major peers to report such plans.
A former Prudential Life Insurance employee was arrested in June last year on suspicion of fraud.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 11, 2025
Prudential Life ordered to report preventative measures after three arrests
Between June last year and February this year, three former employees were arrested over acts of misconduct that included defrauding customers.
The whereabouts of a bear that attacked three people in Nagano Prefecture on Wednesday were still unknown the following day.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2025
Authorities on alert after three injured in Nagano bear attack
Two men are believed to have sustained serious injuries, but all three victims remain conscious. The whereabouts of the bear remain unknown.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and others at a ceremony to encourage regional revitalization support officers on Wednesday at the prime minister's official residence
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 10, 2025
Ishiba names 180 regional revitalization officers
The officers will work in groups of three to help 60 municipalities.
The number of people who moved from urban to nonurban areas under a government program to help revitalize local communities increased by 710 in fiscal 2024 from the preceding year, according to the internal affairs ministry.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 4, 2025
Record 7,910 people served as 'community reactivators' in FY2024
About 70% of over 8,000 urban residents who moved to nonurban areas under the government program continued to live in areas where they served.
Kochi and Tottori prefectures, in collaboration with major airline ANA Holdings, will begin offering airfare discounts through the introduction of a flat-rate system as early as October for individuals based in multiple locations.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 23, 2025
Japan picks model projects to promote 'dual habitation'
The land ministry has selected 26 model projects to promote a lifestyle in which people divide their time between rural and urban areas.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (right) speaks to officials of Miyada in Nagano Prefecture on Saturday during his visit to the village.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 17, 2025
Japan to extend financial aid to more people moving out of Tokyo
The government plans to expand eligibility to include people taking up jobs in agriculture, medicine and welfare, as well as those becoming self-employed.
Kyoko Watanabe made a home for herself in Ishinomaki after moving there to participate in disaster relief efforts following 3/11, and now operates a business focused on the creative reuse of <i>akiya</i> (abandoned houses).
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 17, 2025
From abandoned houses to ‘creative communities’: An Ishinomaki entrepreneur's vision for rural Japan
Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a company and a vision for revitalizing rural Japan.
According to the ministry, Japan has about 4,500 companies with annual sales of ¥10 billion or more. But many of them are concentrated in metropolitan areas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 15, 2025
Japan to invite small businesses to declare ¥10 billion sales targets
The country has about 4,500 companies with annual sales of ¥10 billion or more, but many of them are concentrated in metropolitan areas.
In recent years, Japanese life insurers have increasingly entered contracts in which assets underwritten by reinsurance companies are invested to obtain higher returns.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2025
Japan’s FSA said to examine life insurers’ reinsurance risks
The Financial Services Agency is asking life insurers about the scale of the practice and the type of contracts they have in place.
Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 3, 2025
As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows
Women and young people are leading a migratory wave that the government is struggling to halt.
The government plans to make it easier for urban workers to get side jobs in regional areas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 2, 2025
Government to help regional firms hire urban workers for side jobs
The subsidies are part of a program that matches corporate workers with struggling small and midsize companies in regional areas.
Kusatsu Onsen resort, a popular tourist destination in Gunma Prefecture, on Dec. 26, 2022
JAPAN / Society
Feb 25, 2025
Gunma ranks top among city dwellers eyeing countryside, survey shows
Respondents picked the prefecture for its child-friendly environment, rich natural surroundings and proximity to the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba receives fruit from tangerine farmers of Shizuoka Prefecture in Tokyo on Jan. 22. The government's new regional revitalization plan focuses on convincing younger workers to choose a career and life somewhere other than a major urban center such as Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 18, 2025
Can Ishiba's 'joyful Japan' policy revitalize the nation's rural regions?
The prime minister may be taking cues from the mistakes of past efforts, but ultimately, even the best rural revitalization plan is tough to realize in practice.
Fukushima University student Itsuki Yamada (right) takes part in a workshop in December in the village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, together with local residents. Yamada leads a group of student volunteers that runs an internet community radio program featuring Iitate.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Feb 17, 2025
University students launch community radio show for Fukushima village
The program aims to spread word about the realities faced by Iitate's aging population, and support the village's revitalization.
A little-used section of the JR Geibi Line, which runs through the Chugoku Mountains in Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, faces a threat of closure.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Feb 10, 2025
Underutilized Hiroshima-Okayama rail route struggles to survive
While the number of passengers has continued to decline, the Geibi Line has served as a lifeline for some residents.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will acquire Banner Life Insurance in the United States as it seeks to expand its business overseas amid sluggish domestic market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 9, 2025
Meiji Yasuda to acquire U.S. peer Banner Life
Japanese life insurance companies are expanding overseas for growth as the domestic market shrinks.
The day care room for younger children at a multipurpose facility on Tonaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture, has never been used since its establishment in 2019.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Feb 3, 2025
The harsh reality of migration outflow on Okinawa’s least populated island
Since Tonaki Island established its only day care center in 2019, not a single child has set foot inside.
Nippon Life Insurance will establish a new headquarters division in late March to manage its foreign businesses, and its overseas insurance and asset management departments will be absorbed into that organization, people familiar with the matter have said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 27, 2025
Nippon Life to revamp overseas business operations after acquisitions
Japan’s biggest life insurer will establish a new headquarters division in late March to manage its foreign businesses, and absorb related departments into that organization.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers his policy speech at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 27, 2025
Japan's young government officials to help municipalities as side gig
The measure, part of regional revitalization efforts by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, aims to help municipalities struggling with a lack of personnel.
In a first, Japan issues cease-and-desist order against Google
The Google logo is seen at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. Japanese authorities on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order to Google over an alleged violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.
Japan and the U.S. begin tariff talks on good terms, but without breakthroughs
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, speaks to reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
Trump calls the U.S.-Japan alliance ‘one-sided.’ Tokyo says otherwise.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Thursday in Washington.
Tokyo hotel operators face possible warnings over suspected price cartel
Foreign tourists gather on a platform at Kyoto Station on Wednesday.
China executes man over Japanese school bus stop murder
The bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, where a Japanese mother, her child, and a Chinese woman were attacked in June 2024
Tokyo hotel operators face possible warnings over suspected price cartel
Foreign tourists gather on a platform at Kyoto Station on Wednesday.
Kyotographie 2025 opts for laughter and levity in the face of global strife
Palestinian American photographer Adam Rouhana’s exhibition at this year’s Kyotographie festival shows Palestinian life, not death and rubble.
Privacy and transparency clash in debate over bill on artificial insemination
Sachiko Ishizuka, who was born via artificial insemination by donor (AID), tells her story to lawmakers from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on April 9.
Why Ishiba became the first prime minister to hold talks with Rengo in 16 years
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Japanese Trade Union Confederation chief Tomoko Yoshino in a meeting Tuesday at the Prime Minister's Office
In a first, Japan issues cease-and-desist order against Google
The Google logo is seen at the company's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. Japanese authorities on Tuesday issued a cease-and-desist order to Google over an alleged violation of the country's anti-monopoly law.

Podcast

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

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER