January 7, 2022
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday the government plans to apply emergency-level COVID-19 measures for Okinawa, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures amid a surge of coronavirus cases in those areas. The so-called priority measures will allow the prefectures to take steps almost as strict...
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday asked that the U.S. military in Japan stay inside its bases to prevent the further spread of COVID-19. Hayashi said he spoke on the phone with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and was promised utmost efforts to ensure pe...
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — New cases of novel coronavirus infection in Japan exceeded 4,000 on Thursday for the first time since Sept. 18, 2021. The southernmost prefecture of Okinawa logged 981 new cases, a record daily high and up sharply from Wednesday’s 623 cases. The previous record-high daily...
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Tokyo stocks tumbled Thursday after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s hawkish policy meeting minutes sent their peers on Wall Street tumbling. The Nikkei average of 225 selected i...
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The number of passengers on domestic flights offered by Japanese airlines during the year-end and New Year’s holiday period jumped 91.4% from a year before to 3,159,000. Du...
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The missile launched by North Korea on Wednesday was a new-type ballistic one, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters on Thursday. The North Korean missile appe...
Tokyo confirmed 641 new coronavirus cases Thursday, up 577 from a week earlier and exceeding 600 for the first time since Sept. 18, when the capital logged 865 cases. According to the Tokyo metropo...
TOKYO (Reuters) — The second-largest investor in Japan’s Toshiba Corp on Thursday called for an extraordinary general meeting, seeking to force the company to win two-thirds support for a three-w...
Aiming to lead the global decarbonization movement and helping Japan decarbonize, the government plans to expand greenhouse gas emissions trading by increasing the nations covered by a so-called joint...
TOKYO (AP) — The U.S. military on Thursday ordered personnel stationed in Japan to wear masks when going off base to curb the spread of COVID-19 infections. American forces have come under fire a...
SYDNEY (AP) — The leaders of Japan and Australia signed a “landmark” defense agreement Thursday that allows closer cooperation between their militaries and stands as a rebuke to China’s growi...
Five to seven days are needed to confirm infection with the omicron variant of the coronavirus, due to a three-step process based on a notice from the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The three s...
Chiba Prefectural Police have arrested a former employee of a security firm on suspicion of stealing about ¥100 million from ATMs in the prefecture. Keita Kakugawa, 33, a former employee of the Chi...
Japan’s sake industry is looking for ways to get the drink flowing again. Domestic shipments of the traditional beverage are diminishing in an era when more people are drinking less, with the novel ...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A deeply divided Congress is about to show the world a very unsettled view from the U.S. Capitol: Rather than a national crisis that pulls the country together, the deadly riot on...
Participants write characters for a kakizome calligraphy event at the Nippon Budokan stadium in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Kakizome means calligraphy written at the start of the year. It was t...
The Okinawa prefectural government said it expects the Thursday tally of new coronavirus infections to be about 980, which would be a record high for a single day. At a task force meeting on Thursday...
High crude oil prices continue to be a reason for inflation worldwide. Oil-producing countries need to make efforts to create a stable supply of crude oil to contribute to sustainable growth in the gl...
What does North Korea think it can gain by promoting nuclear and missile development that threatens regional stability? The international community must put more sanctions pressure on Pyongyang to sto...
Mirrorless single-lens cameras, first released as entry-level cameras for beginners, have been evolving so quickly that even professional photographers are now finding their latest high-tech features...
A team of scientists are sailing to “the place in the world that’s the hardest to get to” so they can better figure out how much and how fast seas will rise because of global warming eating awa...
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Novak Djokovic was denied entry into Australia and had his visa canceled after arriving in Melbourne late Wednesday to defend his title at the season-opening tennis major...
Despite a gradual improvement in economic conditions, a labor shortage is slowly starting to bite in industries such as restaurants and manufacturing in which many people decided to switch jobs while ...
Need a break from the headlines? Here’s your daily dose of humor, curated by The Japan News. New comics are available every day, so ’toon in to both our print and web editions for a satirical l...
A Nagoya-based precision machinery maker is working on technology for brewing out-of-this-world beer. Eyeing a future when people will stay in outer space for longer periods than now, the company sai...
A North Korean agent based in China is suspected of using a Japanese trading company to obtain foreign currency, according to investigative sources. Japanese police suspect that North Korea has tur...
New coronavirus cases exceeded 2,000 nationwide on Wednesday, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun tally. The Tokyo metropolitan government confirmed 390 cases on the day, up by 314 from a week ago. It was...
Japan lost sight a long while ago of a virtuous economic cycle. In 2022, the country must ensure the recovery of the economy, which has been weighed down by the novel coronavirus pandemic. The Japan...
A new drone jointly developed by the government and the private sector has been released, as part of efforts to strengthen Japan’s data protection. With China currently dominating the drone marke...
HANOI — In Southeast Asia, where marine plastic pollution has become a serious problem, incineration facilities for plastic garbage are being constructed with Japan’s assistance. By establishin...
BEIJING — The Chinese military has been establishing a key capability for securing control of the sea and air in the event of an armed invasion of Taiwan, acquiring abilities to simultaneously condu...
To contain the spread of the novel coronavirus and revive the economy, it is essential to make proper policy decisions and have the capability to implement necessary measures. Prime Minister Fumio Kis...
In this series, we mark the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s return to Japan by looking at its past and present through photographs. At the stroke of midnight, as the hands overlapped on the illu...
The Japan News has partnered with media startup inkl, a news service that curates articles from the world’s leading publishers for users to read on mobile devices. A selection of articles from The Japan News and The Yomiuri Shimbun is now available to read on inkl, which hosts titles from about 20 countries. 
Dear Troubleshooter: I’m a company employee in my 30s. I married my wife more than 10 years ago. We live with my wife’s parents at her childhood home, which was rebuilt to make space for us. To ...
Daniel Mulcahy shares his experiences as participant of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which is administered through the collaboration of Japan’s local and national government auth...
Ana Maricic shares her experiences as participant of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, which is administered through the collaboration of Japan’s local and national government authori...
With a baton in her hand and wins in major classical music competitions under her belt, Nodoka Okisawa is a flourishing up-and-coming conductor living in Berlin. The path was not easy. Okisawa str...
The holiday season has ended and the Western media’s gift-list frenzy along with it. This time I was particularly struck by how “curated” the categories were. Of course, there were the usual per...
ROME (AP) — The Catholic Church and the northern Italian city of Ferrara made their peace Thursday with Antonio Vivaldi nearly 300 years after the city’s archbishop effectively canceled the stag...
