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Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--The proportion of unmarried people in Japan who said they intend to marry eventually has fallen below 80 pct for the first time among both men and women, a survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research showed Friday. The result highlighted a declining desire to marry as more people see few benefits to marriage. "More people beli...
Tokyo police arrested two American women for allegedly smuggling US$1 million worth of cannabis, with one suspect claiming she was motivated by a free trip to Japan, an official and media reports said on Friday. The pair, both 25, arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport from New York last Saturday with two suitcases in which “cannabis-like dried plants were secretly stored”, a police spokesman said. Japan has some of the world’s strictest drug laws and smuggling or possession of illegal narcotics can...
Kumamoto, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--Kumamoto Prefecture will launch a travel discount campaign on Tuesday to stimulate tourism demand following a powerful earthquake that struck the southwestern Japan prefecture in July, Governor Takashi Kimura said Friday. The discounts will apply to overnight stays in Kumamoto between Oct. 1 and Dec. 25. "We want many people to visit Kumamoto," Kimura sai...
Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--The father of a Japanese victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States reflects on his loss as 25 years have passed since the tragedy in which about 3,000 people were killed. "My sorrow and anger will persist until I die," said Kazusada Sumiyama, 89, whose first son, Yoichi Sugiyama, was killed in the attacks at age 34. "I don't know how to ...
Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--Yasuchika Hasegawa, former president of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. and former chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, or Keizai Doyukai, died at a Tokyo hospital July 3. He was 80. Born in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan, he joined the major drugmaker in 1970 after graduating from Waseda University. In 2003, Hasegawa took over t...
Japan’s hugely popular Sapporo Snow Festival is shifting its focus towards protecting the environment and sustainability, with a climate expert warning that global warming and reduced snowfall across Hokkaido will make it increasingly difficult to stage the event. In August, organisers unveiled a new logo, official mascot and revised concept for the 77th snow festival, an eight-day event running from February 4 next year. The updated branding expresses appreciation for the annual snowfall the...
Tokyo, Sept. 11 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Crown Princess Kiko, the wife of Crown Prince Akishino, turned 60 on Friday. "I am grateful to have reached this day, and I hope that I can take on new activities," Crown Princess Kiko said in written responses to questions from the press. She mourned the victims of recent natural disasters, including a major earthquake in Kumamoto Prefecture, southw...
Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government said Thursday that it has lowered its travel alerts for some areas in Israel, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The government judged that the Middle East situation has been relatively calm, despite ongoing exchanges of attacks between the United States and Iran. In Iraq and Lebanon, where the highest alert of Level 4, wh...
Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--The number of children who died from abuse in Japan in fiscal 2024 rose by 12 from the previous year to 77, an expert panel of the Children and Families Agency said Thursday. Excluding family suicide cases, the figure stood at 50, including 34 who died before reaching 1 year old. The number of children who died within 24 hours after birth came to 17. Among c...
Tsu, Mie Pref., Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--Public prosecutors sought a seven-year prison sentence for former truck driver Mitsuyo Mizutani on Thursday over an expressway accident that killed six people in Mie Prefecture, central Japan, in March. According to the indictment and other sources, Mizutani was looking at her smartphone when her truck crashed into the back of a parked vehicle on the S...
Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--Isao Harimoto, the first and only player in the history of Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, or NPB, to achieve more than 3,000 career hits, died on Wednesday afternoon, it was learned Thursday. He was 86. Harimoto collected a total of 3,085 hits during his 23-year career at the NPB. Born in the western Japan city of Hiroshima, he started hi...
Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--The number of people transported by ambulance due to self-harm and suicide attempts is on an upward trend in Japan, reaching 43,631 cases in 2025, a survey showed Thursday. The survey, released on World Suicide Prevention Day, was taken by the Japan Suicide Countermeasures Promotion Center, a general incorporated association designated by the health minister. I...
Tokyo, Sept. 10 (Jiji Press)--Japanese department stores have started offering "osechi" traditional New Year's dishes for 2027, pushing products that reflect current trends in an effort to attract young consumers. Department stores are rolling out products incorporating trends such as "Oshikatsu," or activities for enthusiastic support of "oshi," or favorite characters and celebrities, and ...
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--Heavy rain struck areas stretching from the Tokai central region to the Chugoku and Shikoku western regions of Japan on Wednesday due to a weather front and a low-pressure system along it. The Japan Meteorological Agency urged people in affected areas to remain on high alert for landslides, flooding of low-lying areas and swollen rivers as well as lightning stri...
Seoul, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--South Korea will not send officials to Saturday's memorial service at the Sado Island Gold Mines, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in Niigata Prefecture, central Japan, it was learned Wednesday. It will be the third consecutive year of South Korea's absence from the memorial service, which honors workers at the now-defunct mines. According to a South Kor...
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--Japanese manga artist Tetsuya Chiba, best known for his "Ashita no Joe" series, and others have started a crowdfunding campaign to deliver temporary housing to people displaced by a massive earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture, southwestern Japan, in July. "We need your help," the 87-year-old said on the website of the campaign that is scheduled to run unt...
London, Sept. 8 (Jiji Press)--Sake from Yamaguchi Prefecture, western Japan, won the top prize in the Japanese rice wine category at the annual International Wine Challenge, one of the world's largest wine competitions, on Tuesday. The 2026 Champion Sake award went to "Tenbi Junmai Ginjo Hotaten," brewed by Choshu Sake Brewery Corp. in the city of Shimonoseki. It is the first time a sake fr...
Nagoya in central Japan said on Wednesday that it has decided to provide emergency relief across the city where at least 41 people sustained minor injuries after a linear rain band formed, pounding the Tokai region with record rainfall the previous day. Many commuters and students were stranded for the night in Nagoya after transport was paralysed due to the rain. Around 1,600 people had taken shelter at evacuation centres as of 7pm on Tuesday and 200 vehicles had been damaged by the rain as of...
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--The Tachikawa branch of Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced swimmer Tomoru Honda, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, to one year in prison, suspended for three years, for dangerous driving resulting in injury. The prosecution had demanded a one-year sentence, arguing that Honda, 24, drove dangerously out of a selfish desire to catch up...
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--The bereaved family Wednesday remembered Junko Kobayashi, a female student at Tokyo's Sophia University killed in a high-profile unresolved case 30 years ago. In a flower-laying ceremony at the site of the murder in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, the victim's 80-year-old father, Kenji, and officers from the Metropolitan Police Department's Kameari police station praye...
Rainwater leaked into competition venues a day before some preopening ceremony competitions beginning on Thursday.
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--Heavy rain struck areas stretching from the Tohoku northeastern region to the Chugoku and Shikoku western regions of Japan on Wednesday morning due to the impact of a weather front and a tropical cyclone near Shikoku. The front is forecast to move south over the Pacific off eastern and western Japan on Thursday. The Japan Meteorological Agency urged people in...
Record-breaking rainfall swamped the Japanese city of Nagoya dumping an all-time high of 105 mm of rain in a single hour
Tokyo, Sept. 9 (Jiji Press)--East Japan Railway Co., or JR East, has unveiled images of three candidate characters for its Suica smart card system to succeed the current character based on a penguin. The three candidates--a brown squirrel, a purple rabbit and an orange creature carrying a bag with a mole in it--were announced Tuesday. The Suica card can be used to pay train fares and as elec...
Tokyo, Sept. 8 (Jiji Press)--The Japan Meteorological Agency and the land ministry issued the highest Level 5 emergency flood warning for the Shonai River, which flows through Aichi and Gifu prefectures in central Japan, at 6:20 p.m. Tuesday. Heavy rain hit parts of the Tokai central region in the afternoon due to a rain front extending along the Pacific coast. The water level at the Sek...
Tokyo, Sept. 8 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government will provide 3 million dollars in emergency grant aid to Nepal, which suffered severe damage from the recent devastating floods, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said Tuesday. The money will be used to provide humanitarian assistance in such sectors as food and health through international organizations including the U.N. World Food Pro...
Tokyo, Sept. 8 (Jiji Press)--Japanese students earned top scores among the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in all three major domains of the OECD Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, for the first time in 2025, according to the results released on Tuesday. Among all participating countries and regions, Japanese students ranke...
Nishinomiya, Hyogo Pref., Sept. 8 (Jiji Press)--Japanese ocean adventurer Kenichi Horie, 88, said Tuesday he will try to sail solo and nonstop across the Pacific Ocean by yacht next spring. If successful, he will break the world record for the oldest person to complete such a feat, a record he himself set at age 83. Horie, a resident of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, plans to d...