News On Japan

Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Thursday announced the arrest of a popular composer of music for idol groups AKB48 and Arashi on drug charges, reports the Sankei Shimbun. (Tokyo Reporter)

Three men have been arrested in Ikeda, Gifu Prefecture, for stealing fire hose nozzles. (Japan Today)

Two nuclear reactors in southwestern Japan won local consent for their restarts Friday, making it certain that the two will become the first of the country's 48 offline commercial reactors to resume operation despite lingering concerns over evacuation planning and other safety issues. (Kyodo)

Tokyo stocks rose 0.52 percent on Friday after fresh record highs on Wall Street and as the weak yen boosted exporters. (brecorder.com)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Friday announced the raid of a baccarat parlor featuring a robot dealer in Shinjuku Ward for illegal gambling, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Nov. 7). (Tokyo Reporter)

Ayana Yoshida, a 26-year-old woman from Atsugi City, disappeared on October 27. On Thursday, Kanagawa Prefectural Police announced that her body had been retrieved from the Sagami River in Hiratsuka City the day before. (Tokyo Reporter)

Japan will provide up to $100 million in additional humanitarian assistance to Ebola-hit West Africa, the government said Friday. (Kyodo)

The clear image of the planet-forming disk around a young star has been captured by the ALMA radio telescope in Chile. (The Japan News)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Friday that he expects to be able to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the fringe of a two-day summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Beijing from Monday. (Jiji Press)

Yahoo Japan is poised to set new rules to allow people to delete online information that would appear in Internet search results. (NHK)

Blood tests conducted in various countries reveal that Japanese people tend to exhibit such healthy characteristics as a high level of "good" high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, according to a joint international study. (The Japan News)

Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents decades ago as a schoolgirl, died from an overdose of medication in 1994 and was buried in a pit with other corpses, a South Korean newspaper said on Nov. 7. (Asahi)

Two people who complained of fever after arriving in Japan from West Africa have taken tests for the Ebola virus, health officials said Friday. (Jiji Press)

Three workers were injured Friday, one seriously, when a steel railing fell from the top of a tank being constructed to store contaminated water at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said. (Japan Today)

Once a year, lingerie manufacturer Triumph designs a special bra that highlights social trends in Japan. The company shows off each year's version at a press event, which always has two models, despite the fact that the bras they're wearing have always been identical. (rocketnews24.com)

Ministers from the 12 countries involved in Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations for free trade discussed Saturday the timetable for reaching an agreement. (Jiji Press)

Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu was involved in a scary crash with another skater during warm-ups at the Cup of China on Saturday, but recovered to perform his free skate program and nearly won the title, despite falling five times. (The Japan News)

We're only a few minutes into our climb up one of Yamagata Prefecture's holy mountains, Mount Hojusan, and already our pace has slowed considerably. Our destination is Risshakuji Temple, more colloquially known as Yamadera (literally: "mountain temple"), a far-north outpost of Tendai Buddhism since 860. (Japan Times)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and several railway companies have kicked off a "chikan" (train groper) eradication campaign. (Japan Today)

In an extremely rare diplomatic move, the Japanese and Chinese governments released a statement of agreement Friday, prior to a summit meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping that will be held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit opening here on Monday. (The Japan News)

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