A ceremony of remembrance has been held in Tokyo for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on March 11th, 2011.About 1,200 people attended the government-sponsored event on Friday, the 5th anniversary of the disaster that also triggered the nuclear plant accident in Fukushima.Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, and Prime Minister Shinzo […]
According to the board, some cities in Chiba Prefecture, including Kashiwa, Nagareyama, Noda and Abiko, are considering entirely abolishing kumitaiso. Injuries from kumitaiso, a form of physical education in which people use their bodies to express shapes, including human pyramids, numbered 432 cases in the last fiscal year at elementary and junior high schools in […]
Hyogo Prefectural Police on Wednesday arrested a 48-year-old housewife in Nishinomiya City for attempting to kill her husband by poisoning his alcohol, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Mar. 10). Earlier this month, Fusako Okawa is alleged to have added methanol to sake consumed by her husband Hiroaki, a 59-year-old company employee. Okawa, who has been charged with attempted murder, admits to […]
After the boy’s suicide, the school officially recognized its mistake. The principal of a junior high school in Hiroshima Prefecture apologized Wednesday after his school last year refused to support a graduating student’s high school entrance application due to an error in its records, leading to the boy committing suicide. The 15-year-old killed himself on […]
A Japanese court has issued an injunction to suspend operations of 2 nuclear reactors at the Takahama plant in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan. It’s the first such injunction for reactors currently in operation.Twenty-nine residents of neighboring Shiga Prefecture sought an injunction last November demanding that the plant’s operator, Kansai Electric Power Company, keep the No.3 […]
Executives at a major Japanese food manufacturer have offered staff a cut in working hours for the same basic pay.Managers and union officials at Ajinomoto are likely to shake hands on the proposal, which aims to improve the work-life balance of employees. Union leaders told NHK that management offered to shorten the working day by […]
Japan’s cabinet has approved a bill to revise a century-old civil code provision that prohibited women from remarrying for 6 months after a divorce.The legislation, approved on Tuesday, shortens women’s waiting period for remarriage to 100 days in principle.This is in line with a Supreme Court ruling last December that a period of more than […]
The National Police Agency on Monday announced the establishment of a special unit to combat brewing hostilities between two Hyogo Prefecture-based organized crime groups, reports NHK (Mar. 7). Since February 23, police have responded to 19 incidents, including shootings and assaults, involving members of the Yamaguchi-gumi and its rival, the Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, in 14 administrative districts across the nation. The NPA now acknowledges a “state of […]
Shizuoka Prefectural Police on Monday arrested an American male for exposing himself to women in two incidents in Kikugawa City, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Mar. 7). On February 15 and 25, Mathew Wood, a 33-year-old teacher at a private high school in the Tomoda area, revealed the lower half of his body to female pedestrians from inside a parked […]
The suspect in the 2014 murder of a 6-year-old Kobe girl said Monday that he had no intention to molest the girl. The defendant, Yasuhiro Kimino, 49, was testifying on the opening day of his trial at the Kobe District Court, Fuji TV reported. He is charged with the murder of Mirei Ikuta, 6, sometime […]
