The number of foreign residents in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures dropped 10.5 percent to 30,092 between the end of December and the end of March, according to the Justice Ministry. The three prefectures were the hardest hit by the March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster. The number of foreigners declined 1.9 percent nationwide during the same period. (AFP)
Japan's industrial production rose 3.9 percent in June from the previous month, reflecting a continued recovery in earthquake-hit supply chains following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The data however missed market expectations of a 4.3 percent gain expected in a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires. "Industrial Production is on a recovery trend after the Great East Japan Earthquake," the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a statement. Leading the rise were gains in automobile production and electronics parts and devices, the ministry said, as Japanese companies continued to revive output levels after slashing them in the quake's aftermath. (AFP)
The recent findings that current and former power company executives have been making huge political donations to the Liberal Democratic Party since the 1970s show the industry and party have long had cozy ties. The revelations also indicate the difficulties the Democratic Party of Japan-led government faces in persuading the industry to back a new energy policy due to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. During its almost uninterrupted rule of more than 50 years, the LDP based the nation's energy policy on nuclear power. (Japan Times)
When Yuta Moriya was offered Apple Inc.'s 613-gram iPad by his employer last summer, he envisioned a future free of lugging his laptop around for client visits. He was wrong. "I used to have to carry my laptop, a charger and some brochures," said Moriya, 29, a used-car salesman at Tokyo-based Gulliver International Co. "After the iPad, I carried the iPad, a charger for the iPad, the laptop, the charger for the laptop and the brochures." Salarymen like Moriya are reluctant to embrace iPad tablets, the fastest-growing segment in the computer industry, because they aren't light enough or functional enough to replace laptops in Japan. (Japan Times)
As Japan plunged into crisis with a triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in March, organisers of the Fuji Rock Festival were faced with a choice over whether the show should go on. In the aftermath, "audiences didn?t want to go to concerts," said Johnnie Fingers, director of the Fuji Rock festival organising company SMASH. "Japan needed time for healing." However, Fingers -- aka John Moylett -- a pop pianist and founding member of new wave band The Boomtown Rats featuring Bob Geldof, said it was clear that staging the festival this year would give tens of thousands of fans a release from the steady drum beat of bad news. A number of Japanese music festivals will take place this summer as the nation strives to return to a semblance of normality following the disasters that ravaged its northeast coast and left more than 20,000 dead or missing. (AFP)
An annual festival that traces its roots to 10th-century feudal Japan opened Saturday in Fukushima Prefecture, featuring dozens of horsemen clad in full samurai armor and prayers for those who perished in the March 11 quake and tsunami disaster. The holding of the event was once threatened by the massive tragedy brought on by the disaster and by the ongoing crisis at a nearby nuclear plant, but the organizing committee of the Soma Nomaoi (Soma Wild Horse Chase), headed by Minamisoma Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai, decided to carry on the ancient tradition albeit on a smaller scale this year. It will run from Saturday through Monday as it has been held every year. (Kyodo)
A strong earthquake has jolted northeastern Japan, the same region devastated by March's massive quake and tsunami. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the Saturday afternoon quake, and no tsunami warning was issued. The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.4 quake was centered 22 miles (36 kilometers) below the sea bed in the Pacific Ocean, 257 miles (414 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo - in the same area where more than 22,000 people were killed or went missing after the March 11 quake and tsunami. (AP)
The bizarre saga of an elderly South Korean man counted mistakenly as Japanese war dead and enshrined at a controversial memorial reached the public on Thursday with news of a Tokyo court decision. "I am neither a war criminal, nor a dead man," Kim Hui-jong, 86, told Yonhap News Agency on Friday, referring to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, a monument that counted him among millions of fallen Japanese, including Class-A war criminals. Kim, who was forcibly conscripted into the Japanese colonial military during World War II, said he has been enshrined for the past six decades at Yasukuni due to an administrative mistake after the war's end. (Yonhap) 
Toyota is developing a safety technology that takes control of the steering so the vehicle can veer away when it isn't able to stop before impact. Toyota Motor Corp. showed some of its up and coming safety innovations in a demonstration to reporters Thursday at its facility in this town, west of Tokyo, near Mount Fuji. All the world's automakers are working on special safety technology in an effort to woo customers, as competition intensifies among manufacturers already neck-and-neck in delivering the regular features for their products. (AP)
Several Japan Air Self-Defense Force Mitsubishi F-15 Eagles joined other RED FLAG-Alaska participants July 12 after having its entire F-15 fighter fleet grounded in response to an incident on July 4 with one of the fighter jets during a routine training exercise back in Japan. The Mitsubishi F-15 Eagle forms part of JASDF fighter-interceptor aircraft inventory used to engage hostile aircraft. The F-15 was brought to RED-FLAG Alaska to help JASDF members improve their tactical flying skills and their ability to generate aircraft in a simulated combat environment. (pacaf.af.mil)
All Nippon Airways Co. and AirAsia Bhd. of Malaysia have agreed to establish a budget airline joint venture in Japan and begin domestic and international flights from Narita airport near Tokyo as early as next year, industry sources said Thursday. The Japanese airline known as ANA and AirAsia, one of Asia's largest budget carriers, will announce their agreement later Thursday, the sources said. (Kyodo)
US organisers on Tuesday hosted an ancient, ritualistic Japanese tea ceremony steeped in tradition at the watery grave of Pearl Harbor, an event symbolising how far the two countries have come. It was the first time the centuries-old art form emblematic of Japan was performed at the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits on top of the battleship that sank in the Japanese attack 70 years ago. Urasenke School of Tea grand tea master Genshitsu Sen, who served in the Japanese naval air force during World War II, prepared two bowls of green tea - one each for Pearl Harbor war dead and world peace. 
In the world of nuclear reactor science and safety, the ductile-brittle transition temperature, which is used to measure the strength of the inner wall of a reactor pressure vessel, is a critical factor. The steel walls of a reactor vessel wear out through years of direct exposure to neutron irradiation, and when they are weakened they can become brittle with sudden temperature drops. A high DBTT means the walls can shatter at a relatively high temperature when the vessel is going through the cooling process, similar to pouring ice-cold water into a hot glass, causing it to shatter. (Japan Times)
A Japanese rock musician who tried to hang himself after being arrested for unruly behaviour on a flight to the Mariana Islands has died in hospital, reports said Monday. Rocker Taiji Sawada, who was best known as the former bass player with heavy metal group "X", died on Sunday when medics at Saipan's Commonwealth Health Centre turned off his life support, the Saipan Tribune reported. The Marianas Variety newspaper reported that Sawada, 45, had been in intensive care since July 14 after he tried to hang himself with a bedsheet in a jail in the US-administered Pacific territory. (AFP)
The Nigerian Union in Japan is the central civic organization for immigrants from Africa's most populous nation. It has foundered twice in 21 years and its current incarnation is less than a year old. Its mixed history is a reflection of the social and economic turmoil Japan's Nigerian community has endured over the past two decades. Members have been factory laborers, globe-trotting entrepreneurs and nightlife industry pioneers. They've also been blamed for some of Tokyo's most publicized crime problems, notably a series of drink-spiking and bill-padding incidents that led the U.S. Embassy to issue a warning in 2009 against visiting Roppongi. With the exception of those incidents, their history has hardly been written about. (Japan Times)