Businesses leaders and government officials gathered in Tokyo on Tuesday to promote a labor initiative known as “Premium Friday.” The campaign is a government-led push for companies in Japan to let people finish work early at about 3pm on the last Friday of every month. Officials are hoping it will boost the country’s flagging consumption. […]
Fourteen passengers are dead in a horrific crash when a bus carrying them crashed Monday into an electric post on a hilly descent, disaster management officials said. The passengers, mostly college students on a field trip, were killed after the bus lost its brakes and crashed into the post at around 9 a.m., in Sitio […]
Crowds of men wearing nothing but loincloths joined a nighttime festival in western Japan, vying to catch wooden sticks said to bring good luck. The annual “Naked Festival” was held on Saturday on the grounds of Saidaiji Temple in the city of Okayama. The tradition dates back to the 16th century and is designated as […]
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has joined in a project to recycle used cell phones and other electronic devices to make Olympic and Paralympic medals out of metals extracted from the devices. Tokyo officials set up a recycling box inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on Thursday. To protect personal information stored on phones, equipment to […]
Japan has offered to send patrol ships to deal with a growing piracy threat in the southern Philippine waters bordering Indonesia and Malaysia, a senior Philippine defence official said on Tuesday. A surge in piracy off parts of the southern Philippines is forcing ship-owners to divert vessels through other waters, pushing up costs and shipping […]
A court sentenced a 43-year-old man to life imprisonment Tuesday for murdering two Japanese men for insurance money in the Philippines in 2014 and 2015, as prosecutors demanded. At his lay judge trial at the Kofu District Court in Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, Shoichi Kubota was convicted of killing Shinsuke Toba, 32, and Tatsuya […]
Police officers and psychiatrists from across Japan have gathered to discuss how to rehabilitate stalkers who refuse to undergo psychiatric treatment. Some 80 officials and experts met at the National Police Agency in Tokyo on Monday. Since April last year, police began urging habitual stalkers to visit psychiatrists and undergo treatment or counselling. But the […]
Indonesia and the Philippines are moving to adopt terrestrial digital broadcasting technology, and this move by Southeast Asia’s two most populous countries could open business opportunities for Japanese companies with related hardware. The Philippine government will announce a plan Tuesday for shifting to the new technology. The private-sector GMA Network will invest 416 million pesos […]
Super Tamade Co, an Osaka-based supermarket market chain, and its personnel division chief have been fined for the illegally long hours worked by foreign student employees. The Osaka Summary Court fined the discount supermarket chain 1 million yen and the personnel manager Mitsutoshi Maeda, 41, 700,000 yen as demanded by prosecutors for violating the Immigration […]
A strong cold air mass has brought snow and brisk wind to much of Japan. Some areas in western Japan have had snowstorms. Weather officials warn of heavy snow and blizzards, mainly on the Sea of Japan coast. The Meteorological Agency says developing low pressure systems brought the air mass. As of 6 AM on […]
