TOKYO (majirox news) Among the economic gloom, there’s some good news for this beautiful and fascinating country. The tourists are coming back. The number of foreign visitors to Japan in May reached 669,000 — a jump of 87 percent from a year ago. The March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident had dissuaded tourists...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — All of Japan’s nuclear electricity generation capability is now shut down for safety checks, and an immediate restart looks unlikely. Faced with the prospect of continued shutdown and a hot summer, a government panel says that areas served by three utility companies may suffer power shortages. Demand for electricity may...
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Japan seeks better ties with Russia TOKYO (majirox news) — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda congratulated Vladimir Putin, Russian President-elect, on his election victory on Monday. In their five-minute conversation, Noda also said that he wants to improve his country’s ties with Russia. However, yesterday Noda said he would only sign a peace treaty...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Former House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki filed a 33 million yen ($415,000) claim against his accuser only six days after being released on parole, vowing to clear his name and prove his innocence. “I only want the truth to come out,” he said. He accused the former director of...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — A few years ago, a Russian photographer made the difficult journey to the Kurils, or the Northern Territories as the Japanese refer to them, to see what the uproar was about, traveling by cargo ship and fishing boat to get there. The four islands lay to the north of Hokkaido....
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SAPPORO (majirox news) — Swift action by a passenger averted an accident when their charter bus driver suffered an apparent heart attack on a Sapporo highway in Hokkaido prefecture on the afternoon of Oct. 12, according to police. The passenger who was not unidentified pulled the bus over to safety when the driver suddenly...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia has abruptly withdrawn its show Glass of the Tsars from its scheduled start in December at the Gunma Museum of Modern Art. The Hermitage gave the reason that, “Gunma Art Museum (in Takasaki, Gunma prefecture) is too close to the reactors in Fukushima.”...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — Typhoon No. 15, which left 19 casualties, crippled transport in Tokyo and left thousands of homes without electricity on Wednesday, weakened overnight and moved across Hokkaido on Sept. 22. At least 19 are dead or missing across Japan’s southern and central regions. About 5,000 people were forced to stay overnight...
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TOKYO (majirox news) — The Hokkaido town of Oshamanbe was swamped with outraged comments Aug. 15 after a tweet in the name of its official mascot Manbe-kun to mark the anniversary of World War II did so by saying “Japan’s war of aggression started everything.” Town officials were quick to distance themselves in the...
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TOKYO (majirox news) Worker dies at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant A contract worker died on his second day working at Daiichi plant today, but there were not any harmful levels of radiation detected in his body, said the Tokyo Electric Company, TEPCO. The man, who was in his 60s, was the first person...
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