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With the number of high school students reported as truant hitting a record high, a nonprofit organization has opened a new facility in Mimata, Miyazaki Prefecture, to offer a place for them to spend their time and feel at home. While children in the compulsory education system — from elementary to junior high school — continue to be enrolled in their school even if they stop attending, high school students are more likely to drop out entirely and may become socially isolated. Himitsukichi, a nonprofit organization based in the city of Miyazaki and which runs a program for children’s outdoor activities, has renovated an old, vacant house to turn it into a facility for older teens, and opened it on Nov. 9. Source link

In a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches. Source link

A former Nagano assemblyman was sentenced to 19 years in prison Monday for strangling his wife to death at their home in Nagano Prefecture. The Nagano District Court found Daisuke Maruyama guilty of killing his 47-year old wife, Nozomi, who was a company executive, in September 2021 at their home in the city of Shiojiri. The prosecution had sought a 20-year prison sentence. Prosecutors argued that Maruyama, 50, was motivated to kill his wife because she would not agree to a divorce, calling him “irrational and selfish” for killing her to resume affairs with another woman. Source link

A memorial ceremony was held Monday for the five Japan Coast Guard members killed in a collision between a JCG plane and a Japan Airlines passenger aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 2. The ceremony took place at a facility of the JCG’s third regional headquarters on the premises of the airport, bringing together about 70 people that included officials from the regional headquarters and bereaved relatives. After the attendees offered silent prayers for the five victims, who belonged to the regional headquarters, Shinji Miyamoto, head the branch, said in a speech: “It was an unprecedentedly tragic accident. Without refusing to face the reality, we’ve worked with the determination that we will never repeat such a sad accident.” “You will always be on our minds,” he added, paying tribute to the deceased JCG members. “We sincerely hope that the loss of the precious lives of our loved ones will never be wasted” and that the tragedy will serve as a lesson for the future, the bereaved relatives said in a statement released through their representatives. In the Jan. 2 accident, the JCG aircraft, which was about to take off from Haneda to transport relief goods following a major earthquake in the Noto Peninsula the preceding day, collided with an incoming JAL plane on a runway at the airport. Five of the JCG aircraft’s six crew members, excluding its captain, died. According to the communication records released by the transport ministry after the accident, the JCG aircraft entered the runway contrary to the air traffic controller’s instruction. The Japan Transport Safety Board, affiliated with the ministry, is investigating the details of the accident. Source link

BEIJING – China’s gross domestic product growth slowed during the first three quarters of 2024, from 5.3% to 4.7% to 4.6%, raising fears that the country would not achieve its annual growth target of around 5%. But the latest data suggest that China’s economy is finally turning the corner. Economic activity in China has been relatively weak since the COVID-19 crisis. This was not unexpected, at least not at first: three years of pandemic lockdowns strained household, corporate and local-government balance sheets. Declining business confidence — partly a response to a regulatory crackdown on finance, the property sector and the platform economy — did not help matters. In early 2021, when the United States emerged from the worst of its pandemic lockdowns, American households quickly began spending the money they had accumulated. Chinese households, by contrast, continued to accumulate savings even after the lockdowns were over: between January 2020 and August 2024, household bank deposits in China swelled by 65.4 trillion Chinese yuan ($9 trillion), with the wealthy accounting for a significant share. Source link

Osaka – The Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau has concluded that Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ expenses to entertain Self-Defense Force members were not tax-deductible, informed sources said Monday. SDF submarine crew members have been wined, dined and given gift certificates and daily goods by Kawasaki Heavy’s Kobe Works, which has created slush funds for entertainment purposes through fictitious transactions with submarine repair subcontractors, according to the heavy machinery maker and other sources. Those expenses were reported as costs subject to income tax deductions. But the tax bureau has determined that they are nondeductible hospitality spending and will notify the company of its failure to declare more than ¥1 billion in taxable income over the six years through March 2023, people familiar with the matter said. Kawasaki Heavy is also expected to face income concealment allegations, according to the sources. The company declined to comment. Source link

Public prosecutors on Monday sought a 10-month prison term for Stefan Kaufmann, former president and CEO of major Japanese optical equipment maker Olympus, on suspicion of obtaining banned drugs. According to the indictment, Kaufmann, 56, allegedly bought illegal drugs believed to be cocaine and MDMA from Takaaki Kaneko, a 44-year-old self-proclaimed photographer, three times in Tokyo between June and November 2023 in violation of the special narcotics law. In the first hearing of his lay-judge trial at the Tokyo District Court, Kaufmann said that the allegations against him are all true. The defense said that a fine would be an appropriate punishment for him. With the case concluded, the ruling will be handed down Friday. Prosecutors argued that Kaufmann started using illegal drugs under the influence of a friend, adding that he then began to buy them from the dealer and that he was dependent on the drugs. Kaufmann stated that he had worked for 16 to 18 hours a day and used the drugs to hide his fatigue. Kaufmann also said he was unable to come up with a solution because the dealer threatened him, saying he would expose his use of illegal drugs to the police and the media. The defense said that Kaufmann has not been using banned drugs since February of this year and is not dependent on them. In his final statement, the defendant said that he regrets what he has done very much. Kaufmann, who is from Germany, became Olympus president and CEO in April 2023. He resigned from the posts in October this year. Source link

Both carmakers are facing overcapacity and the need for huge investments related to electric-vehicle and self-driving technologies. Source link

The Japan Fair Trade Commission plans to issue a cease-and-desist order against Google over what it says is a violation of the antimonopoly law by forcing smartphone manufacturers to include the company’s search app on their smartphones. Such an order would be the first to be issued in the country against any of a group of U.S. global technology companies collectively referred to as GAFA — Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon — before Facebook changed its name to Meta. The commission is accusing Google of forcing smartphone manufacturers in Japan to sign a contract in which they must preinstall its Google search app and have it located in a specific position on the devices’ screens in order for them to be able to access the Google Play app store. Source link

The infrastructure ministry plans to promote regional development centering around Japan’s “michi no eki” roadside rest stations by creating a framework to support such efforts through cooperation among various government ministries and agencies. Next month, the ministry will start inviting municipal governments to apply for a support program. It plans to provide them with intensive support, including financial aid, over three years from fiscal 2025, which starts next April. With “michi no eki” facilities taking on wide-ranging roles, from tourism and agriculture to disaster prevention, the government hopes to further strengthen their functions to revitalize local communities. Source link