NIPPON
 
The Japanese government will raise basic public pension benefits by 1.9 pct in fiscal 2026 from the previous year, the welfare ministry said Friday.
Benefits under the "kosei nenkin" public pension program for corporate employees, paid on top of basic benefits, will be increased by 2 pct...

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JAPAN TODAY
 
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of the Diet on Friday, paving the way for a Feb 8 snap election.
The move is an attempt to capitalize on her popularity to help governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but will delay parliamentary appr...

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NHK
 
The Japan Meteorological Agency says a powerful winter pressure pattern has brought heavy snow, mainly along the Sea of Japan side.
Authorities are warning of possible impacts on transportation in areas including Niigata Prefecture and the Hokuriku region, as snow accumulates rapidly.
The a...

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BBC
 
Japan has restarted operations at the world's largest nuclear power plant for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima disaster forced the country to shut all of its reactors.
The decision to restart reactor number 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa north-west of Tokyo was taken despite local residents...

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JAPAN TODAY
 
Since the dawn of humanity, whenever we have been blessed with lightly frozen flakes of precipitation, we have been filled with the urge to gather up this natural wonder into our hands, and then throw it at friends and family, laughing extra hard if we had hit them in the butt.
It’s...

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NIPPON
 
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara on Wednesday declined to clarify whether Japan will participate in the Board of Peace proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump for the Gaza Strip.
"We are examining the details" of the board, the top government spokesman said at a news confer...

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BBC
 
The man who killed Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe has been sentenced to life in prison, three and a half years after he shot him dead at a rally in the city of Nara in 2022.
Tetsuya Yamagami had pleaded guilty to murder charges at the trial's opening last year, but how he should b...

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JAPAN TODAY
 
The visual design/naming of Japanese
confectioner Ariake’s flagship Harbour baked goods is pretty abstract. With Ariake being based in the port town of Yokohama, they wanted some sort of nautical theme, and what they came up with were oblong chestnut cakes that are supposed to be re...

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NIPPON
 
The annual number of foreign visitors to Japan came to some 42.7 million in 2025, up from 36,870,148 in the previous year, exceeding 40 million for the first time, tourism minister Yasushi Kaneko said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Spending by foreign visitors also hit a record high, ...

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KYODO NEWS
 
The artificial intelligence ChatGPT earned perfect scores in nine subjects in this year's unified university entrance examinations, marking its first full score, an AI venture said Tuesday.
When LifePrompt Inc. tested the generative AI chatbot for the weekend's university exams, the ...

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