The machine in the northern prefecture of Akita sells locally killed wild bear captured by hunters
Japan has added to its large and eclectic pool of vending machines with a new model that sells fresh bear meat – and which has proved an unlikely hit.
The machine, in the northern prefecture of Akita, has attracted a steady stream of customers since it was installed at the end of last year, according to media reports.
Continue reading...Sakamoto was one of Japan’s most successful musicians, acclaimed for work in Yellow Magic Orchestra as well as solo albums and film scores
Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Japanese musician whose remarkably eclectic career straddled pop, experimentalism and Oscar-winning film composition, has died aged 71.
Sakamoto’s management company said he died on Tuesday. He had been undergoing treatment for cancer.
Continue reading...Diplomats add their voices to Japanese campaigners in demanding LGBTQ+ rights as Hiroshima prepares to host the G7 summit
Akane Kousaka and her partner live in fear of the day when one of them falls ill or is injured in an accident. The LGBTQ+ couple have a “partnership certificate” issued by their ward office in Tokyo, but it comes with none of the legal guarantees afforded married heterosexual couples – including the right to visit a spouse in hospital.
“We might be able to get special permission, but we shouldn’t have to rely on other people’s goodwill … it’s not right,” Kousaka told the Observer. Other countries were leaving Japan behind, she added.
Continue reading...‘I felt like I was being told, “This is not your special day”,’ says 18-year-old of graduation ceremony
Strict rules on hairstyles at schools in Japan have attracted criticism after a mixed-race teenager was separated from other students at their graduation ceremony because he had plaited his hair into cornrows to pay tribute to his Black heritage.
The student, who has not been named, was made to sit alone at the back of the hall during a graduation ceremony at his school in Himeji, western Japan, and told not to stand and respond when his name was called out.
Continue reading...Chinese and Russian leaders to discuss Ukraine in formal talks after friendly dinner, while Fumio Kishida meets Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv
Xi Jinping has invited Vladimir Putin to visit China this year in a symbolic show of support after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for Russia’s president over accusations of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
The Chinese leader extended the invitation during a meeting on Tuesday morning with the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, as part of his state visit to Moscow.
Continue reading...Firing of short-range weapon comes as the US and South Korea stage major military drills
North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile, Seoul’s military has said, in the fourth such weapons test in a week, which comes as South Korea and the United States stage major military drills.
“Our military detected one short-range ballistic missile fired from around the Tongchang-ri area in North Pyongan province at 11.05 am towards the East Sea,” South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said on Sunday, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
Continue reading...Police department says it has returned almost ¥3bn to owners, while ¥480m has gone to finders
The honest citizens of Tokyo handed in a record ¥3.99bn (£24.5m) in lost cash to police last year – an average of more than £67,000 a day.
Japan’s national police agency said the amount was up ¥600m from the previous year, and beat the previous high of ¥3.84bn declared at police stations across the capital in 2019.
Continue reading...Leaders expected to use first summit since 2011 to address Japan’s use of Korean forced labour, as well as threats posed by North Korea and China
Yoon Suk Yeol will be treated to his favourite dish – omelette rice – when he becomes the first South Korean president to visit Japan in more than a decade on Thursday, as hopes rise for an end to years of animosity between the north-east Asian neighbours.
Given that the menu for official dinners has been a diplomatic flashpoint between the two countries, efforts by Yoon’s hosts to accommodate his palate are evidence of the recent thaw in relations, as regional tensions rise over North Korean missiles and Chinese military activity.
Continue reading...Iwao Hakamada, 87, was convicted of four murders in 1968 but granted ‘temporary release’ in 2014 after new evidence emerged
A court in Japan has granted a retrial to a man – thought to be the world’s longest-serving death row inmate – who was sentenced to hang for the murders of a family of four almost six decades ago.
The Tokyo high court ruled on Monday that Iwao Hakamada, 87, should be tried again for the crimes in a decision campaigners said was a “step towards justice”.
Continue reading...Fiction and essays tackled subjects including militarism and nuclear disarmament, innocence and trauma
Kenzaburo Oe, a giant of Japanese writing and winner of the Nobel prize in literature, has died aged 88.
Spanning fiction and essays, Oe’s work tackled a wide range of subjects from militarism and nuclear disarmament to innocence and trauma, and he became an outspoken champion for the voiceless in the face of what he regarded as his country’s failures. Regarded by some in Japan as distinctly western, Oe’s style was often likened to William Faulkner; in his own words, in his writing he would “start from my personal matters and then link it up with society, the state and the world”.
Continue reading...Victims groups criticise compensation deal which aims to resolve a disagreement that has long frustrated ties between Seoul and Tokyo
South Korea said that its companies would compensate people forced to work under Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of Korea, in a bid to improve poor relations that have impeded trade and cooperation between the two countries for generations.
The disagreements over labour and women forced into Japanese military brothels have bedevilled ties between the two pivotal US allies for years, but South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol has made a push to repair the relationship.
Continue reading...Dentsu Group charged after arrest of Tokyo 2020 committee official accused of rigging Games-related tenders
Japan’s biggest advertising agency and five other companies have been indicted for allegedly violating an anti-monopoly law, in a corruption scandal over allegations of bid-rigging during the Tokyo Olympics.
The indictment followed the arrest this month of a senior Tokyo 2020 organising committee official and three others who were accused of rigging a string of Olympic Games-related tenders.
Continue reading...Officials meet in Tokyo to discuss concerns at China’s cooperation with Russia and Japan’s military buildup
Chinese and Japanese officials met in Tokyo on Wednesday for formal security talks for the first time in four years, in a meeting aimed at stabilising increasingly strained relations.
In Japan’s national security strategy, released in December, China was described as “the greatest strategic challenge” to Japan’s peace and security.
Continue reading...About 1.5 metres in diameter, the mysterious metal sphere has been the source of intense speculation online
Police and residents in a Japanese coastal town have been left baffled by a large iron ball that has washed up on a local beach, with authorities admitting they have no idea what it is – only that it isn’t about to explode.
The sphere, measuring about 1.5 metres in diameter, has been at the centre of fevered speculation since it washed up on Enshu beach in the city of Hamamatsu on the country’s Pacific coast, local media reports said.
Continue reading...In Tokyo speech to conservative lawmakers, former British PM issues warning about Chinese aggression
Liz Truss has used her first overseas speech since resigning as British prime minister to call on the west to safeguard Taiwan’s security and economy in the face of Chinese aggression “before it is too late”.
Speaking in Tokyo at a meeting of mainly conservative lawmakers that included the former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, Truss said Britain had been naive to court the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in 2015, adding that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should serve as a warning of what happens when democracies fail to stand up to authoritarian regimes.
Continue reading...Company says vessel’s construction will help ‘pass on our whaling culture to the next generation’
A Japanese company is building a new whaling ship designed to travel as far as Antarctica, sparking fears commercial operations could resume in the Southern Ocean.
Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Plibsersek, reaffirmed the Albanese government’s commitment to a global moratorium on commercial whaling, while Greenpeace condemned the practice as “brutal and unnecessary”.
Continue reading...Digital mapping leads to around 7,000 new islands being discovered though it’s unlikely to expand Japan’s territory, media reports say
It can’t be easy keeping count of the number of islands scattered around an area of more than 370,000 square kilometres, in a country that is regularly subjected to volcanic activity and extreme weather.
While Japan has seen the formation of new islands, and the quiet disappearance of another, geographers have said official statistics showing it is made up of around 6,000 islands are way off the mark.
Continue reading...Defence ministry demands China’s government ‘confirm the facts’ after analysis of incidents since 2019 find objects were likely used for surveillance
A new analysis of unidentified aerial objects that flew over Japan’s airspace in recent years “strongly” suggests they were Chinese spy balloons, according to Tokyo’s defence ministry.
“After further analysis of specific balloon-shaped flying objects previously identified in Japanese airspace, including those in November 2019, June 2020 and September 2021, we have concluded that the balloons are strongly presumed to be unmanned reconnaissance balloons flown by China,” the defence ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Neighbouring countries and local fishers express concern as 12th anniversary of nuclear disaster looms
Almost 12 years have passed since the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history resulted in a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people along its north-east coast.
As the country prepares to mark the 11 March anniversary, one of the disaster’s most troubling legacies is about to come into full view with the release of more than 1m tonnes of “treated” water from the destroyed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Continue reading...Sturdy leather bag known as randoseru can weigh 4-10kg when full, leaving students in pain and wanting something lighter
It’s a familiar sight every weekday morning and afternoon all over Japan: children as young as six creaking under the strain of a leather backpack crammed with textbooks.
The randoseru – a Japanese derivation of ransel, the obsolete Dutch word for backpack – is a fixture of primary school education, a repository for everything a child needs to get through a day at school.
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