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Nashville, Tennessee, June 22 (Jiji Press)--A message from a 14-year-old Japanese boy has given Japan's national soccer team an emotional lift at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, reminding the players that their determination on the pitch is resonating with fans at home and abroad. "When we face obstacles while studying and living away from our home country, the way you compete gives us the courage......

Kobe, June 22 (Jiji Press)--A severed body believed to have passed nearly 15 years since death has been found in a freezer in an apartment in Kobe, the capital of Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan. The Hyogo police department said Monday that the body, discovered on Saturday, has been identified as Yutaka Nishiguchi, who lived in the apartment. An autopsy revealed that Nishiguchi died arou......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi met with Hirofumi Yoshimura, leader of the Japan Innovation Party, the junior coalition partner of her Liberal Democratic Party, on Monday and called for accepting a revision to a secondary capital bill drafted by the ruling parties, in order to enact the bill during the current Diet session. As Yoshimura showed a flexible ......

Berlin, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Major German defense company Rheinmetall AG told Jiji Press on Monday that it aims to cooperate with Japanese firms, with an eye toward setting up its first defense-related production base in Japan. The company said that discussions would begin soon, expressing its desire to contribute to security in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan and the European Union are b......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--The head of the Japan unit of major Canadian asset management firm Brookfield Corp. has voiced plans to promote investments in artificial intelligence data centers that can process large amounts of data. During a recent interview, Luke Edwards said, "Building out data centers requires detailed knowledge of the sector and the power system, and we have knowledge of......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--The leaders of the Diet on Monday broadly approved a government draft of revisions to the Imperial House Law and other legislation aimed at ensuring an adequate number of Imperial Family members. The draft will be presented to a panel of 13 ruling and opposition parties on Thursday. If the panel approves it, the government plans to submit related bills to the Di......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Kozo Saiki, Japan's cabinet secretary for public affairs, has been actively sharing Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's daily updates on an X account launched earlier this month. Saiki is believed to be supporting the Takaichi administration by explaining policies and sharing photos of her smiling and interacting with other leaders. But the move, unusual for a cabin......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department has arrested six people for allegedly trying to smuggle 49 kilograms of gold bars worth about 1,075 million yen from China by concealing them inside life-size dolls. A 46-year-old Chinese company executive living in Kamagaya, Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, Ryuji Hamazaki, a 38-year-old corporate employee living in Tokyo, ......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday expressed her intention to submit a document summarizing her aide's explanations over the campaign video and crypto asset scandals. At a meeting of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Yuichi Goto of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance asked about the secretary's alleged involvement in creating defam......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--A ceremony was held in Tokyo on Monday to restore the honor of leprosy patients in Japan, who had suffered severe discrimination based on the government's past forced isolation policy. Attending the event at the health ministry, which marked the 30 years since the 1996 abolition of the law that supported the policy, former patients and others laid flowers at a m......

Asahikawa, Hokkaido, June 22 (Jiji Press)--A district court in Hokkaido, northern Japan, sentenced a 23-year-old woman on Monday to 27 years in prison over a high-profile murder case in which a female high school student ultimately fell from a bridge to her death in Asahikawa in 2024. At Asahikawa District Court, Presiding Judge Yuka Tanaka handed down the sentence to Riko Uchida as sought ......

Matsuyama, Ehime Pref., June 22 (Jiji Press)--Iyo Bank, a regional lender in the western Japan prefecture of Ehime, hopes to help revive Japan's shipbuilding industry, its incoming president, Takashi Sagayama, has said. The Japanese government has designated the shipbuilding industry as one of 17 priority investment areas, in a bid to encourage private-sector investment through tax incentive......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--People in Japan's most walkable municipalities log nearly twice as many daily steps as those in the least walkable ones, a study by a team of researchers at the University of Tokyo found. The study, published Saturday in an international medical journal, found average step counts tended to be higher in municipalities--especially in urban areas--with built enviro......

Kobe, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Shortages of local government-designated garbage bags persist in some areas of Japan due to concerns over supplies of petroleum products linked to turmoil in the Middle East, despite a U.S.-Iran agreement to end their fighting. Amid the shortages, many local governments that require residents to dispose of trash in designated bags have introduced temporary measur......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday that any cut in the consumption tax on food products and beverages would last only two years. "I want to make this clear. Two years after implementation, it will be restored," Takaichi told the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament. Asked whe......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo police have arrested three people, including a man believed to be an executive of Cambodia-based Prince Group, one of the largest international fraud organizations in Asia, for allegedly submitting a false move-in notification, investigative sources said Monday. Among the three held by the Metropolitan Police Department were Cypriot national Hu Xiaowei, a 4......

Brussels, June 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, on an official visit to Belgium, had dinner with Belgian King Philippe and his family at the Royal Castle of Ciergnon, a retreat of the family, on Sunday. The other participants in the dinner, which began around 7:30 p.m., were Queen Mathilde and the Belgian royal couple's four children--Princess Elisabeth, who is......

Tokyo, June 22 (Jiji Press)--Japan would take "appropriate measures whenever necessary" in the foreign exchange market, Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Monday, in a warning over the yen's further depreciation against the dollar. Making the comment at a press conference after a cabinet meeting, she indicated again that the government and the Bank of Japan would not hesitate to interve......

Tokyo, June 21 (Jiji Press)--While geopolitical risks surrounding the Middle East have eased for now following the U.S.-Iran agreement on a memorandum to end their hostilities, the impact on prices in Japan from crude oil and naphtha the country procured at elevated costs is expected to continue for some time. Also, normalization of logistics networks is expected to take time, leaving lasti......

Sapporo, June 21 (Jiji Press)--Shunichi Suzuki, secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Sunday expressed a negative view on extending the current session of the Diet, the country's parliament, now set to end on July 17. Speaking at a convention of the party's Hokkaido prefectural chapter in Sapporo, northern Japan, he stressed, "We want to move forward on various is......