Category Archives: Japan

‘It is bullying, pure and simple’: being a woman in Japanese politics

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Harassment is common for women who run for office and female MPs comprise just 9.9% of lower house

Mari Yasuda has come to dread checking her social media accounts. While a TV programme has tipped the candidate as “one to watch” in Japan’s general election this month, her anonymous correspondents make no secret of their belief that, as a woman, she should not be standing for parliament at all.

“They accuse me of sleeping with powerful men to get ahead or make abusive comments in calls to our office,” says Yasuda, who is contesting a seat in Hyogo prefecture for the opposition Constitutional Democratic party of Japan. “I receive emails from men remarking on my appearance or asking me for a date.”

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Japan’s Princess Mako marries and loses royal status

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Emperor Naruhito’s niece and her college sweetheart make announcement at press conference

Japan’s Princess Mako has lost her royal status after marrying her “commoner” college sweetheart, Kei Komuro – a man she described as “irreplaceable” – while the couple voiced sadness over a scandal that has plagued their engagement.

After years of criticism of their relationship that has left Mako struggling with her mental health, the couple announced at a press conference at a hotel in Tokyo on Tuesday that they had wed. They declined to take questions from reporters.

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Japan’s Princess Mako leaves royal family to marry college sweetheart – video

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The now former Princess Mako of Japan has married Kei Komura, losing her royal status. The couple struggled with a financial scandal that plagued their engagement but said in a press conference to announce their marriage that they were ready to move forward with their lives together. The couple did not have a formal wedding ceremony or hold a reception banquet or any of the traditional rites associated with imperial weddings

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Japan royal wedding: subdued ritual looms as Princess Mako marries amid controversy

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Princess’s union to Kei Komuro has attracted public and media attention for all the wrong reasons

It is perhaps fitting that the weather forecast is for cloud and drizzle in Tokyo on Tuesday, when Princess Mako – the eldest niece of Japan’s emperor – will marry her college sweetheart in a subdued ritual marred by years of criticism of their relationship.

Despite the imperial backdrop – and a public craving for distraction after 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic – their nuptials will involve lots of paperwork and rather less festivity.

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Volcano spews ash two miles into the sky in Japan – video

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A volcano blasted ash two miles into the sky after erupting on Japan's southern island of Kyushu on Wednesday.

Officials warned of a risk of large falling rocks and lava flows within a radius of about half a mile around the mountain's crater, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. 

Mount Aso erupted at about 11.43am local time (0343 BST), and the ash falls have been showering nearby towns in the prefecture of Kumamoto


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Defectors tell court they were promised ‘paradise on Earth’ in North Korea

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Five people seeking compensation say they were lured to country and then denied basic human rights

Five people who say they were lured to North Korea decades ago as part of a resettlement programme have told a court in Japan they were promised a “paradise on Earth” but were instead denied basic human rights.

The plaintiffs – four ethnic Korean residents of Japan and a Japanese woman who went to the North with her Korean husband and their daughter – are seeking 100m yen (£644,000) in damages from the regime of Kim Jong-un.

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Back from the brink: how Japan became a surprise Covid success story

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Covid infections fall to lowest levels in more than a year, but experts warn winter could spark a fresh wave

Just days after the Tokyo Olympics drew to a close, Japan appeared to be hurtling towards a coronavirus disaster. On 13 August, the host city reported a record 5,773 new Covid-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant. Nationwide the total exceeded 25,000.

Soaring infections added to resentment felt by a public that had opposed the Olympics, only to be told they could not watch events in person due to the pandemic. Hospitals were under unprecedented strain, the shortage of beds forcing thousands who had tested positive to recuperate – and in some cases die – at home.

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Japan’s island-shaped curry inflames tensions with Korean neighbours

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Restaurant plants Japanese flag in seafood dish moulded in shape of islands that are also claimed by South Korea

A simple bowl of curry is at the centre of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan and the Koreas.

Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble the Takeshima islands, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo.

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‘People arrived for work and got vaporised’: how Kikuji Kawada captured the trauma of Hiroshima

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The holy grail of Japanese photobooks, Kawada’s Chizu was five years in the making and changes hands for £25,000 a copy. Now a new edition revisits his personal archeology of a nation’s pain

Kikuji Kawada was 25 when he visited Hiroshima for the first time. It was July 1958 and he had been assigned by a Japanese news magazine to assist Ken Domon, a renowned photographer 14 years his senior. As Domon worked in and around the Hiroshima Peace Park, Kawada found himself drawn to the ruined shell of a once ornate, steel-framed building that had been badly damaged, but somehow remained standing, when America dropped the first atomic bomb on the city at 8.15 am on 6 August 1945, obliterating everything else within a mile radius.

“That’s when I found them,” he would later recall, “the stains on the walls of the rooms beneath the dome.” The bomb had been dropped from almost directly above the building, which was then called the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Alone in the dank ruins, Kawada realised that the stained walls held the only traces of some of the dead. “When the place was destroyed,” he told Aperture magazine in 2015, “there were about 30 people (who) had arrived for work and ended up vaporised. The place had a horrible atmosphere. Just looking at it was overwhelming.”

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Coronavirus treatments: the potential ‘game-changers’ in development

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After positive clinical trials for antiviral drug Molnupiravir, it joins other medicines that have shown promise

The first clinical trial results showing a positive effect for a pill that can be taken at home has been hailed as a potential gamechanger that could provide a new way to protect the most vulnerable people from the worst effects of Covid-19. Molnupiravir joins a growing list of medicines that have shown promise. Here are some of the main developments in treatments so far.

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Princess Mako wedding announcement stirs up media frenzy in Japan

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Marriage with non-royal Kei Komuro to take place against backdrop of scandal, tabloid intrusion and public disapproval

When they announced their unofficial engagement four years ago, they were cast as a perfect match: the young princess and the clean-cut trainee lawyer, for whom she was prepared to sacrifice her imperial status.

Now the sound of wedding bells is within earshot, after the Imperial Household Agency announced on Friday that Princess Mako, the niece of Japan’s emperor, would marry her non-royal fiance, Kei Komuro, on 26 October.

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‘Roar, roar, roar!’ Japan rolls out rock music against bear attacks

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Authorities hope rock’n’roll song will help people of Iwate prefecture stay safe as number of bear sightings rises

Can rock’n’roll keep people safe from bear attacks? One Japanese region is hoping so, and has commissioned a cautionary anthem warning residents about the threat of its ursine inhabitants.

Bears are common across Japan and regularly spark frantic hunts when they venture into towns, where they have attacked and even killed residents.

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Fumio Kishida: a ‘safe pair of hands’ for Japan’s ruling party

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Analysis: Election result marks return of pragmatic and centrist policies, spearheaded by a decent, if unexciting, leader

Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic party [LDP] has chosen stability and moderation in electing Fumio Kishida as its new leader – a post that all but guarantees that he will become the country’s prime minister on Monday.

Kishida, like Taro Kono – the man he defeated in a second round of voting on Wednesday – is a hereditary politician in a party packed with MPs who were practically destined at birth to occupy a seat in parliament.

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Fumio Kishida set to be new Japanese PM after winning party election

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Former foreign minister to become PM following face off against vaccination minister Taro Kono

Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister with a reputation as a consensus builder, is set to become Japan’s prime minister after winning the ruling Liberal Democratic party’s presidential election in a runoff against the vaccination minister, Taro Kono.

The LDP-led coalition holds a majority in both chambers of parliament, meaning Kishida is practically assured of the prime ministership at an extraordinary parliamentary session on Monday.

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‘Free and open’: Quad leaders call for ‘stable’ Indo-Pacific in veiled China dig

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Joe Biden meets leaders of Australia, India and Japan in latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia

US president Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan highlighted their Quad group’s role in safeguarding a stable, democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at rival China.

The first in-person summit of the Quad held on Friday marked Biden’s latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia in the face of a rising China.

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Japan urges Europe to speak out against China’s military expansion

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Exclusive: in the first piece in a new Guardian series on China and tensions in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s defence minister says the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s military

Japan has urged European countries to speak out against China’s aggression, warning that the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s military and territorial expansion amid a growing risk of a hot conflict.

In an interview with the Guardian, Japan’s defence minister, Nobuo Kishi, said China had become increasingly powerful politically, economically and militarily and was “attempting to use its power to unilaterally change the status quo in the East and South China Seas”, which are crucial to global shipping and include waters and islands claimed by several other nations.

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Message in a bottle from Japan washes up on Hawaii beach after 37 years

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Discovery made by a local girl comes decades after the bottle was put into the sea by schoolchildren as part of an experiment to monitor ocean currents

A glass bottle that was released into the sea 37 years ago by high school students in Japan has been found on the island of Hawaii, about 6,000km away.

Students of the natural science club at Choshi High School in the eastern prefecture of Chiba released the bottle in 1984 as part of a project to investigate ocean currents, Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported.

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Replacing Suga as prime minister will do little to resolve Japan’s political crisis | Paul O’Shea and Sebastian Maslow

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Despite its unpopularity, the ruling LDP party looks unassailable. The country is stagnating because of it

Japan will soon have a new prime minister. Not because there is a general election coming up – although there is – but because the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the deeply unpopular Yoshihide Suga, abruptly resigned last week. Following a series of local election defeats, an Olympics staged against the public will, and a related fifth Covid wave that has pushed Japan’s medical system into “disaster mode”, Suga’s approval rating had plummeted to its lowest since the LDP’s return to power in 2012. Resignation was surely a wise decision, one that put the party first.

Given how disastrous the last few months have been, one might imagine that Suga’s replacement – almost certainly a man – would have his work cut out to avoid catastrophe in the general election. But that’s not how Japanese democracy works.

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Radioactive snakes help scientists monitor fallout from Fukushima nuclear disaster

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Glue and duct tape used to fit rat snakes with dosimeters and GPS movement trackers to help researchers understand long-term effects of radiation

Researchers have used snakes fitted with tracking devices and dosimeters to measure radiation levels in the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered triple meltdowns in March 2011.

The meltdowns in Japan caused by a giant tsunami released more radiation into the atmosphere than any nuclear disaster except Chernobyl in 1986.

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