Asia Japan The decision to hold a state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving in Japan’s history who was assassinated on 8 July, has been met with mixed reactions, with critics questioning the use of state money to fund the ceremony
Asia Japan Nearly 40 million Japan residents spent the weekend as if in the era before smartphones, after local phone company KDDI Corp. suffered its largest outage to date, affecting both voice calls and data communications
Asia Japan Osaka District Court ruled that Japan's ban on same-sex marriage does not violate the Constitution; it is the only country in the G7 developed nations that does not allow people of the same sex to marry
Asia Japan The defence minister expressed hope that military intelligence could again be shared smoothly with South Korea, after the foreign minister said an agreement, on the verge of ending under a previous administration, should be normalised
Asia Japan The Anti IUU Forum Japan - a group of NGOs promoting sustainable fishing - issued a statement to government officials suggesting measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing
Asia Japan From this week, borders will reopen to 50 foreign tourists who will visit the country on organised tours in small groups of up to four people, an experiment to see how and when to fully reopen to international tourists not yet admitted
Asia Japan Japanese household spending fell in March for the first time in three months, although the drop was smaller than expected -2,3% - as consumers remained wary of rising living costs
Asia Japan Nearly 80% of Japanese think Okinawa's burden of hosting most U.S. forces in the country is unfair compared to other prefectures, according to a nationwide poll conducted ahead of the 50th anniversary of Okinawa's return to Japanese administration on 15/5
Asia Japan Japan and Russia have reached an agreement on Tokyo's fishing quota to catch salmon and trout born in Russian rivers, Japan's fisheries agency said, despite worsening ties over the crisis in Ukraine
Asia Japan A symbol of Japanese architecture, the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo will be demolished this month; the 1972 work by Kisho Kurokawa, counts 140 blocks thought as city-homes for workers and is the first example of metabolism architecture movement
Asia Japan More than 4.000 people have applied to become astronauts for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which for the first time has dropped the requirement that applicants have a university education
Asia Japan Nearly 200 Tokyo public schools are dropping controversial dress code on hair colour and underwear, after decades that the dress code was in place in the public school system
Asia Japan For the first time a court has awarded compensation to people forcibly sterilised under a eugenics law abolished in 1996