Japan

[ad_1] Oita – A municipal government in Japan has been criticized on social media for having displayed youth baseball gloves donated by Shohei Ohtani at its office instead of delivering them to elementary school children as he had wished. Yasuhiro Nagano, mayor of Beppu in southwestern Japan, told a news conference on Wednesday that he "wanted to make citizens and children happy" by displaying the gifts from the major league […]

[ad_1] Russia’s war in Ukraine is intensifying an acute deficit of workers that’s hitting businesses from metal refineries to posh Moscow restaurants and igniting a race to increase salaries that threatens the Kremlin’s ability to replenish the armed forces.The competition for employees has pushed wages up at a double-digit pace and made once-relatively lucrative military service less appealing, even after a 10.5% increase in monthly pay to fight in the […]

[ad_1] A 45-year-old man was handed the death penalty on Thursday for setting a Kyoto Animation studio on fire in 2019 and killing 36 people in one of Japan’s deadliest mass murders.The Kyoto District Court found Shinji Aoba guilty of setting the three-story building on fire because of a grudge he had against Kyoto Animation. He claimed the studio had stolen his ideas after it rejected his novels in an […]

[ad_1] In Japan's National Defense Strategy released in December 2022, the government listed unmanned defense capabilities as one of the key factors for fundamental reinforcement of defense.The document stated that unmanned assets are often relatively affordable compared to manned equipment, with the great advantage of being able to minimize human loss while operating continuously for a long period of time.It stated that in approximately 10 years, which corresponds to the […]

[ad_1] BAGHDAD – The United States and Iraq are set to initiate talks on the end of a U.S.-led international military coalition in Iraq and how to replace it with bilateral relations, four sources have said, a step forward in a process that was stalled by the Gaza war.The U.S. conveyed the message in a letter handed over by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski to Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad […]

[ad_1] KYIV – A large Russian military transport plane crashed Wednesday near the border with Ukraine killing everyone onboard, the Russian Defense Ministry said, accusing Ukraine of shooting down the plane with missiles.The ministry said in a statement that the plane had been carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were being transferred to the Belgorod region to be exchanged for Russian service personnel. It accused Ukrainian forces of launching […]

[ad_1] Star-crossed romance has long been a staple in Japanese cinema, though medical catastrophe, more than a disapproving society or opposing parents, has become a common force tearing lovers apart in contemporary films. This does not always mean a tragic finale: In Takahisa Zeze’s 2017 hit “The 8-Year Engagement,” the heroine recovers from a long coma to wed her devoted fiancee.Eiji Uchida’s “Silent Love” adds a twist to this staple […]

[ad_1] You probably know what to expect from a film with a title like “The Beast Hand.” One of the posters for Taichiro Natsume’s low-budget pic features a lurid, blood-flecked montage straight out of the 1970s, with ad copy promising a “pure love splatter horror masterpiece.” But the movie itself is a curious creature, closer in tone to downbeat dramas like Hiroshi Shoji’s “Ken and Kazu” (2016) than to gonzo […]

[ad_1] The number of cases involving a rare but serious type of bacterial infection hit a record 941 in Japan last year, with health authorities urging people to take basic preventative measures such as hand-washing and caring for wounds.Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS), most often caused by the bacteria called group A streptococcus, was first reported in Japan in 1992. Since then, an average of 100 to 200 confirmed cases […]