News On Japan

Japan's first private-sector effort to build rocket-launching facilities is underway as new aerospace legislation paves the way for meeting growth in demand for small observation satellites. (Nikkei)

Japan Post Co. said Tuesday that it will raise its Yu-Pack parcel delivery basic fees for individual customers by 12 pct on average, effective from March 1, 2018. (Jiji)

Russia-bound Japan were condemned to a 1-0 defeat away to Saudi Arabia in their final World Cup qualifier on Tuesday night, a result that saw the Gulf state pip Australia for an automatic place at next year's finals. (Kyodo)

Tokyo Metropolitan Police believe a botched burglary resulted in a safe weighing about 100 kilograms being dumped outside a jewelry store in Shibuya Ward early Tuesday, reports TV Asahi (tokyoreporter.com)

Stab wounds have been found on the burned bodies of an elderly Japanese couple found dead Monday at their rental house in southern Bali, an Indonesian doctor said Tuesday. (Japan Times)

Japan's tourism ministry plans to urge local governments to set ordinances to exempt historic buildings, such as "kominka" traditional folk houses, from the building standards law, to better promote the use of such structures for tourism. (Jiji)

The price-adjusted real wage index in Japan in July fell 0.8 pct from a year earlier, posting the steepest drop since June 2015, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said in a preliminary report on Wednesday. (Jiji)

McDonald's Japan is turning to stay-at-home wives as the restaurant industry struggles with a severe labor crunch. (NHK)

The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers, or JASRAC, defended on Wednesday its plan to collect copyright fees from music schools, during the first court hearing on a lawsuit filed by 251 music school operators. (Jiji)

With North Korea making progress in its nuclear and ballistic missile development, the government is considering developing a new system for ballistic missile defense, it has been learned. (the-japan-news.com)

Engineers at Nissan Motor have redesigned their electric car. It's the first update of the Leaf in 7 years. The revamp comes as markets around the world move increasingly toward electric vehicles. (NHK)

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Wednesday announced an agreement to use more lottery sales revenues to cover 34-billion-yen costs for 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic events that will be held outside the capital. (Jiji)

Democratic Party lawmaker Shiori Yamao, a prominent adversary of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Diet debates, tendered her resignation from the party Thursday evening amid allegations of an extramarital affair, dealing a heavy blow to the nascent leadership of the struggling opposition. (Japan Times)

A survey by a French institute shows that up to 70 percent of coral reefs in Japan's southwestern prefecture of Okinawa are dead due to warm temperatures. (NHK)

On the night of June 26, 2016, a 23-year-old Japanese woman was sitting on a train travelling from Aichi Prefecture's Chitahanda Station to Kanayama Station, in the prefectural capital of Nagoya. At some point, the 44-year-old man sitting next to her, a Brazilian national living in Nagoya, introduced himself. (rocketnews24.com)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed that North Korea's nuclear tests pose a grave threat to peace and stability in the region. (NHK)

Police have arrested a 31-year-old man for allegedly posting images of One Piece on his blog before the official release of an edition of a weekly magazine containing the popular Japanese manga series. (Jiji)

Aomori Prefectural Police have arrested a 23-year-old man in the stabbing death of his mother at a unit of a municipally managed housing block they shared in Goshogawara City on Wednesday, reports the Asahi Shimbun (Sept. 6). (tokyoreporter.com)

North Korea has issued a fresh statement threatening Japan and the United States for seeking a new UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Pyongyang for its latest nuclear test. (NHK)

Scientists are warning that a blast of charged particles from the sun may disrupt GPS and wireless communications from Friday afternoon to midnight, Japan Time. (NHK)

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