The death of a former newsreader who won acclaim for blogging about her breast cancer fight hit the headlines Saturday in Japan, with the media and officials praising her courage. Mao Kobayashi died Thursday aged 34, her husband and popular kabuki actor, Ebizo Ichikawa, said Friday at a nationally televised news conference attended by about … Read more
The Japanese government on Friday approved a one-off bill allowing ageing Emperor Akihito to step down from the Chrysanthemum Throne, in the first such abdication in two centuries. The bill will now be sent to parliament for debate and likely receive swift final approval, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s … Read more
Tech giant Apple is considering backing Hon Hai’s multi-billion dollar bid for Toshiba’s lucrative memory chip business, a report said Saturday. The US firm plans to financially support Taiwan’s Hon Hai, which has reportedly bid some 3 trillion yen ($27.6 billion) in the initial tendering round for the memory chip business, the Mainichi Shimbun said. … Read more
Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author perennially pegged as a contender for the Nobel literature prize, has called for a fight against historical revisionism in a rare interview with Japanese media published on Sunday. His comments came after a successful Japanese hotel chain operator triggered an angry backlash from China earlier this year for his book … Read more