Asia Japan The number of foreign nationals residing in Japan counted over 3,4 million in 2023, +10,9% on 2022, marking a record high for the second consecutive year, with employment-related visas seeing growth amid the country's acute labor shortage
Asia Japan A traditional rice-planting dance was performed on 18 February at Kusano shrine in the Ukedo area in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture; the shrine was rebuilt after being swept away by tsunami triggered by the March 2011 earthquake
Asia Japan Recent survey by Taisho University shows Japanese people in smaller towns and villages with at least 5% foreign population do not regularly interact with the foreigners who live in their communities, underscoring the need to work on integrating society
Asia Japan 40 female participants have formally applied and will for the first time take part in the 'naked man festival', thus changing a 1650-year-old tradition; the event will take place at the Konomiya temple, Inazawa, on 22 February
Asia Japan A Japanese court has sentenced to death Shinji Aoba, the man behind the 2019 attack on Kyoto Animation, one of Japan's most important animation studios; Aoba, now 45, set fire to the studio's headquarters, causing 36 deaths and several injuries
Asia Japan Celebrated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki won the first Golden Globe for 'The Boy and the Heron', a film based partly on Miyazaki's childhood and the first in a language other than English to win the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film
Asia Japan Japan Airlines is preparing to launch its first direct flight from Tokyo's Haneda Airport to Doha, Qatar, from 31 March 2024, becoming the first Japanese airline to provide a non-stop service to the Middle East
Asia Japan Japan's proposed frequencies for airborne telecommunication base stations have been adopted as the global standard, paving the way to the technology becoming commercially feasible as early as fiscal year 2025
Asia Japan PM Kishida would be set to remove all Cabinet members of the largest faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, previously led by former MP Shinzo Abe: they allegedly received tens of millions unreported funds from fundraising parties
Asia Japan Tokyo Disneyland has apologised after clips of Minnie Mouse having her skirt lifted by another character during a recent Christmas parade went viral on social media, with some sharply criticising the gesture as sexual harassment
Asia Japan The country plans to join a multinational mine-clearing project in Ukraine; the Japanese Self-Defence Forces are expected to supply demining equipment to Ukraine and collaborate in the training of personnel
Asia Japan Citizens of the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Nepal and Myanmar will have to be tested for tuberculosis before entering Japan for stays longer than three months, the government plans to require for FY2024
Asia Japan The country is set to issue nearly 9 trillion yen ($59.8 billion) in bonds in its second supplementary budget to finance an economic package to ease rising living costs