A mission taken up by Japan's Self-Defense Forces in response to the Jan. 1 Noto Peninsula earthquake became the SDF's longest quake response program Sunday, excluding decontamination work related to the 2011 nuclear accident triggered by a massive earthquake.Door 時事通信社

Candidates in the July 7 Tokyo gubernatorial election travelled around the Japanese capital to appeal to voters about their policies on Saturday in the first weekend of the official campaign period.Door 時事通信社

Japan's Nissan Motor Co. has closed a passenger car plant in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, in an effort to cut its production capacity in the country to rebuild its operations there, according to informed sources.Door 時事通信社

Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako left Tokyo's Haneda Airport on a government plane Saturday for an official visit to Britain.Door 時事通信社

Two Chinese coast guard ships that had been repeatedly intruding into Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, since Thursday left the waters shortly after noon on Friday.Door 時事通信社

Japan has conveyed to Russia its concerns about Moscow-Pyongyang military cooperation in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin's first visit to North Korea in 24 years earlier this week, according to Japanese and Russian officials.Door 時事通信社

More than 200 million tons of manganese nodules rich in rare metals exist on the seabed near Minamitorishima, a remote Tokyo island, the Nippon Foundation and the University of Tokyo said Friday.Door 時事通信社

The assembly of Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward unanimously enacted an ordinance on Friday to ban street drinking at night in certain entertainment districts during the Halloween period.Door 時事通信社

U.S. scientist Robert Oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb," apologized to Japanese hibakusha atomic bomb survivors who visited the United States after the end of World War II, officials at a Japanese nonprofit organization said Friday.Door 時事通信社

The Japanese government will revive subsidies for electricity and gas bills for three months, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday.Door 時事通信社

The Japanese government on Friday adopted its economic and fiscal policy guidelines for 2024, which call for fully overcoming deflation and transitioning to a "new growth-oriented economic stage" through continued wage increases and improvements in small businesses' earning power.Door 時事通信社

The Kagoshima District Public Prosecutors Office in southwestern Japan on Friday indicted a former senior official of the Kagoshima prefectural police department for allegedly breaching confidentiality by leaking an internal document containing information about a police scandal.Door 時事通信社

Japan's Supreme Court on Friday recognized a transgender woman as a parent of a child she had with her female partner using sperm frozen prior to her transition.Door 時事通信社

The Japanese government imposed Friday asset freezes and export bans on 11 companies and groups in five countries including China and India, to prevent Russia from evading sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine through third countries.Door 時事通信社

Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. said Friday that it will withdraw from the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka, western Japan, due to a health scandal involving its "beni koji" dietary supplement products.Door 時事通信社

SoftBank Group Corp. will make full efforts to develop semiconductors, data centers and robots to realize artificial superintelligence, Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said Friday.Door 時事通信社

The proportion of people aged 65 or older in Japan who think they have many close friends has plunged due apparently to pandemic-related restrictions on socializing, a government survey showed Friday.Door 時事通信社

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. will resume in stages from Friday evening six lines at five group domestic vehicle plants that were suspended the previous day due to parts shortages, informed sources said.Door 時事通信社

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, suffered unauthorized access multiple times from last autumn toward this year, even after the space agency took countermeasures following a cyberattack last June, it was learned Friday.Door 時事通信社

People aged 65 or over accounted for 54.7pctof traffic accident deaths in Japan in 2023, an annual government report showed Friday.Door 時事通信社

This year's rainy season is believed to have begun in the Kanto-Koshin eastern Japan region including Tokyo, the Tokai central region and the Kinki western region, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Friday.Door 時事通信社

Japan's core consumer prices grew 2.5pctfrom a year before in May, up for the 33rd consecutive month and accelerating by 0.3 percentage point from April, the internal affairs ministry said Friday.Door 時事通信社

The estimated amount of food wasted in Japan in fiscal 2022 fell 9.8pctfrom the preceding year to 4.72 million tons, the lowest level since the statistics began in fiscal 2012, government data showed Friday.Door 時事通信社

The U.S. Treasury Department said in a report released Thursday that it has placed Japan, which runs a large trade surplus with the United States, back on its monitoring list over currency practices.Door 時事通信社

A group of Japanese researchers have announced that they developed a deep-learning model to predict the cancer onset risk from fatty liver images.Door 時事通信社

Japanese business leader Masahiko Uotani, an executive of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, on Thursday urged the country to introduce a selective dual surname system for married couples as soon as possible.Door 時事通信社

A recent Group of Seven agreement to use frozen Russian assets in providing 50 billion dollars in loans to Ukraine was a "great achievement," Masato Kanda, Japanese vice finance minister for international affairs, said in an interview with Jiji Press on Wednesday.Door 時事通信社

Japanese shogi sensation Sota Fujii was beaten by his challenger for his "Eio" title Thursday, losing one of the eight major titles for the first time since he dominated them in October last year.Door 時事通信社

Japan is seeing a spread of so-called welfare nail services, or nail stylists dispatched to welfare and other facilities giving manicures to elderly or disabled people.Door 時事通信社

Major League Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani topped the annual list of favorite athletes for the third time in a row, a survey of people in Japan by Central Research Services Inc., a Jiji Press affiliate, showed Thursday.Door 時事通信社

The Japanese Embassy in Pakistan has identified a body found on Spantik peak in the country's northern region as a Japanese man in his 50s.Door 時事通信社

Candidates for the July 7 gubernatorial election in Tokyo made their first campaign speeches on Thursday, the first day of the official campaign period, discussing issues such as disaster prevention and administrative reform.Door 時事通信社

Japan's House of Representatives voted on Thursday to reject a no-confidence motion against the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida submitted earlier in the day by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.Door 時事通信社

SoftBank Corp. is still in talks with South Korean search portal Naver Corp. to raise its stake in the LY Corp. joint venture, Junichi Miyakawa, president and CEO of the Japanese mobile service provider, said Thursday.Door 時事通信社

Japanese regional banking group Jimoto Holdings Inc., which has ailing regional lender Kirayaka Bank under its wing, has come under effective state control, with the Japanese government owning 63pctof the holding firm's voting rights.Door 時事通信社

Japanese textbook publisher Kyoiku-Shuppan Co. said Thursday that it has removed a section in its approved English textbook for junior high school third-year students that introduced Ippei Mizuhara, a former interpreter for Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani.Door 時事通信社

A Chinese coast guard ship entered Japanese territorial waters off the Senkaku Islands in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, on Thursday, the first such intrusion by an official Chinese ship since June 7 and the 18th this year.Door 時事通信社

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed grave concern Thursday over a new treaty signed by Russia and North Korea the previous day to strengthen their security ties.Door 時事通信社

The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan submitted a no-confidence motion against the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the House of Representatives on Thursday morning.Door 時事通信社

The official campaign period for the July 7 Tokyo gubernatorial election started Thursday, with incumbent Governor Yuriko Koike, 71, set to compete with challengers including Renho, 56, who served as administrative reform minister in the administration of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.Door 時事通信社

Tokyo police are ready to enhance security for the July 7 gubernatorial poll after a high-profile election obstruction incident in the Japanese capital in April.Door 時事通信社

Ajinomono Frozen Foods Co., Nichirei Corp. and three other major Japanese frozen food makers said they will work together to improve logistics efficiency.Door 時事通信社

Japan's amended political funds control law, enacted Wednesday in the wake of the revelation of the long-maintained practice of creating slush funds at the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is facing mounting criticisms including for loopholes.Door 時事通信社

Japanese Princess Kako said Wednesday that every encounter and event she experienced during a trip to Greece are precious and that she will remember all of them.Door 時事通信社

Japan's Emperor Naruhito said Wednesday that he hopes that his planned trip to Britain will help deepen friendly relations between the two countries.Door 時事通信社

Four people planning to run in the July 7 Tokyo gubernatorial election shared their views on key issues, such as the declining birthrate, at a joint press conference on Wednesday.Door 時事通信社

Japan is preparing to issue and use new bank notes ahead of their July 3 debut, which marks their first redesigns in 20 years.Door 時事通信社

Honda Motor Co. CEO Toshihiro Mibe apologized to shareholders on Wednesday for irregularities in engine testing involving the Japanese automaker.Door 時事通信社

Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court ruling on Wednesday that sentenced a 37-year-old former nurse to an indefinite prison term for murdering three patients at a hospital in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, in 2016.Door 時事通信社

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the country's main opposition party, decided Wednesday to submit a motion of no confidence against the cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday.Door 時事通信社