Category Archives: Japan

James Cleverly in Japan for G7 as UK tilts towards Pacific post-Brexit

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Foreign secretary says ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ is ‘critical to UK’ and releases manga-style cartoons to mark his visit

James Cleverly has arrived in Japan for a G7 foreign ministers’ summit to promote a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, as the UK government steps up its focus on the region after Brexit.

The foreign secretary and his counterparts from countries including the US and France will hold high-level talks on closer security and defence ties in the face of China’s growing assertiveness in the Pacific.

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Japan’s PM escapes explosion unharmed after suspected attack

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Man detained after what looked like a smoke bomb was thrown at Fumio Kishida just before speech

The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has escaped unhurt after he was apparently targeted by an explosive device on Saturday morning. It comes less than a year after the country’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was shot dead while making a campaign speech.

Kishida was safely evacuated after the incident, while a suspect – named by Japanese media as Ryuji Kimura, 24, a resident of Hyogo prefecture – was arrested at the scene, reports said.

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Japan approves building of first casino

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Casino complex to be built in Osaka after ban was lifted despite fears about gambling addiction

Japan has approved a controversial plan to build the country’s first casino, after decades of debate fuelled by fears that an increase in tourist spending could be blighted by a rise in gambling addiction.

The casino complex, which will include restaurants, shops and entertainment facilities as part of an “integrated resort”, will be built in the western port city of Osaka, where senior politicians have pushed for its construction and rejected demands for a local referendum.

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North Korea missile launch was new kind of ICBM, regime says, as first images emerge

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Kim Jong-un hails development of new solid-fuel rocket that can be deployed more quickly

North Korea claims it has successfully tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time – a breakthrough that the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, warned would make its enemies “suffer in endless fear”.

South Korea’s military said it had detected the launch on Thursday morning of one “medium-range or longer” ballistic missile on an elevated trajectory from near the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

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Ministry of Defence awards £650m to firms working on Tempest fighter jet

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BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce among those funded, with aim of producing new aircraft by 2035

The Ministry of Defence has awarded £650m to manufacturers working on its Tempest fighter jet, in the latest sign that the UK is pushing forward with the aim of producing the aircraft by 2035.

The companies who will receive the money are led by manufacturer BAE Systems, jet engine maker Rolls-Royce, and the UK arms of Italy’s Leonardo and European missile-maker MBDA.

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Former J-pop idol alleges sexual abuse by late music mogul Johnny Kitagawa

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Kauan Okamoto says Kitagawa evaded justice because victims knew speaking out would end their careers

Johnny Kitagawa, one of the most powerful figures in Japanese entertainment, sexually abused multiple boys but evaded justice because his victims knew speaking out would end their pop careers, according to a former protege who has decided to go public with his allegations.

Kauan Okamoto, a Japanese-Brazilian singer-songwriter, said Kitagawa had sexually abused him at least 15 times over a four-year period from 2012, when the pop hopeful was aged 15.

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Japan ruling party triumphs in local elections despite criticism over links to Moonies

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Support for the Liberal Democratic party had plunged last year as media uncovered its links to the Unification church after the killing of Shinzo Abe

Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) has won key local elections in the first big electoral test for the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, since damaging revelations emerged about his party’s ties to the Unification church.

LDP candidates triumphed in governor elections in prefectures from Hokkaido in the country’s north to Oita in the south-west on Sunday, raising speculation that Kishida could call a snap general election.

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Diners in Japan arrested for dipping own chopsticks in communal bowl of ginger

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Arrests over prank at beef bowl restaurant in Osaka come in wake of ‘sushi terrorism’ revelations that have gripped Japan’s food industry

Japan’s crackdown on errant diners in the wake of “sushi terrorism” has intensified after two men were arrested for using their chopsticks to remove a condiment from a communal container at a restaurant in Osaka.

The arrests of Toshihide Oka and Ryu Shimazu came as the country’s budget food service sector attempts to contain a wave of bad behaviour among clientele that began early this year at popular chain restaurants.

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Japan says 1.5m people are living as recluses after Covid

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Fifth of hikikomori cases among working-age people attributed to pressures unleashed by pandemic

Almost 1.5 million people of working age in Japan are living as social recluses, according to a government survey, with about a fifth of cases attributed to the pressures unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Large numbers of hikikomori said they had begun retreating from mainstream society due to relationship issues and after losing or leaving their jobs, the cabinet office said. A significant proportion – 20.6% – said their predicament had been triggered by changes in lifestyle imposed during the pandemic.

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Japan’s bear meat vending machine proves a surprising success

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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.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto, Japanese pop pioneer and Oscar-winning composer, dies aged 71

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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.

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‘It’s like we don’t exist’: Japan faces pressure to allow same-sex marriage

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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.

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Japan school stirs debate over hairstyle rules after boy with cornrows separated from class

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‘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.

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Xi invites Putin to China in show of support as Moscow talks continue

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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.

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North Korea continues run of weapons tests with ballistic missile launch

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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.

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Tokyo citizens hand in record ¥3.99bn of lost cash

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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.

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Yoon arrives in Japan for historic talks with Kishida – and beloved omurice

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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.

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Japanese man granted retrial after 45 years on death row

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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”.

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Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel prize-winning Japanese writer, dies aged 88

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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”.

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Biden hails ‘groundbreaking’ South Korean plan to compensate victims of Japan’s forced labour

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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.

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