News On Japan

The government plans to upgrade the Justice Ministry’s Immigration Bureau to an affiliated agency in April next year in preparation for accepting more foreign workers, sources said Wednesday. (Japan Times)

In what appears to be an unusual mix, tech giant Sony Corp. opened a “park” in the middle of the Tokyo’s ritzy Ginza district on Thursday with four subterranean levels. (Japan Times)

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear reactors said Thursday it had stopped selling a souvenir at the plant after facing a storm of online criticism saying it was inconsiderate. (Japan Today)

Hokkaido Prefectural Police on Tuesday arrested an officer for exposing himself to women in Sapporo earlier this year, reports Jiji Press (tokyoreporter.com)

The parents of Princess Mako of Japan have informed the mother of her commoner fiancé that they will not permit the wedding to go ahead until a financial dispute within his family is solved. (smh.com.au)

A Gunma Prefectural Government rescue helicopter crashed in the mountains Friday and the bodies of eight of the nine passengers have been found, the prefectural police said. (Japan Times)

Izakaya Japanese-style pubs are bringing in a new kind of customer, foreign tourists. (Nikkei)

Japan's SoftBank Group has agreed to invest an additional $1 billion in shared-office company WeWork, where SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son sees the potential for a repeat of his lucrative bet on Alibaba Group Holding. (Nikkei)

Tokyo topped a list of the world's most innovative cities on Friday, leapfrogging London and New York after embracing the"globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3D manufacturing". (Japan Today)

The life and times of Japan's first golfer: Amsterdam 1605 (thesamuraigolfer.com)

Japanese police carried out a climbing safety campaign on Mount Fuji on Mountain Day on Saturday. (NHK)

A Japanese man has recently been taken into custody in North Korea, government officials said Saturday as Tokyo tried to obtain information on the case. (Japan Times)

Japanese discount retailer Don Quijote Holdings Co Ltd said it would be interested in buying Seiyu if Walmart Inc puts the Japanese supermarket chain up for sale, as it expands its presence in the domestic market. (Japan Today)

About 150 police and firefighters in Yamaguchi Prefecture resumed their search on Oshima island Monday for a two-year-old boy who went missing after his grandfather sent him home alone from a beach excursion on Sunday. (Japan Today)

A 30-year-old man suspected of theft, forcible intercourse and other charges escaped from a detention house of a police station in Tondabayashi in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, on Sunday. (Jiji)

In a bid to save teachers from heavy workloads, the education ministry will compile by the end of next March guidelines on how to reduce their burden of collecting and managing school lunch fees, informed sources have said. (Jiji)

Typhoon Leepi traveled across the southwestern Japan main island of Kyushu on Wednesday, bringing heavy rains, after making landfall in the region in the early hours. (Jiji)

The Japan Amateur Boxing Federation says its former chief Akira Yamane has quit the other amateur boxing bodies he belonged to and resigned from senior posts. (NHK)

China is expected to surpass Japan as the second-largest contributor to the general United Nations budget starting in 2019, according to the latest U.N. report on contributions. (Japan Today)

A group of researchers conducted a test to develop technology for a space elevator that would link the Earth and outer space using cables. (NHK)

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