Nipponica

Potential new hires will receive training required to work in the Mos Burger chain, such as how to speak to customers and handle ingredients, at an educational institution it has tied up with in Vietnam.

The company expects to begin recruiting workers next spring in accordance with the needs of franchisees, with the chain already having applied for approval with related agencies.

More private business are realizing that an increasing immigrant workforce is necessary to survive in the near future.

The result means the support rate of Kishida's Cabinet has remained below 30 percent nine consecutive times since November last year, amid continued public dissatisfaction with his leadership.

The disapproval rate for Kishida's Cabinet fell to 60.7 percent, 1.7 percentage points down from a previous 62.4 percent in June, according to the nationwide telephone poll conducted over two days from Saturday.

とても人気ね。

Japanese airlines, restaurants, railway and theme park companies, among others, reported system disruptions on Friday in a global technology outage linked to Microsoft services that has affected a wide range of industries.

Nipponica is proudly running on open source software without trash like what took down worldwide tech infrastructure yesterday.

They said that the explosion occurred in a building on the premises where biomass fuel is brought in. It is said the employee taken to the hospital suffered burns on his hands but was conscious when being transported.

Japan's All Nippon Airways Co. said Friday it will expand its flights between Tokyo and Europe, launching new routes connecting to Milan, Stockholm and Istanbul starting later this year to stoke demand for travel to and from Japan.

The government will introduce a new preclearance system from next January, starting with tourists from Taiwan, NHK reported. Visitors will be able to complete most of their immigration screening before departure to help shorten the time taken for entry procedures on arrival, according to the report.

There are not much details on how this will function, but I doubt it will mean that Japanese immigration officers will be deployed to foreign airports like the US version of this program. I assume it will just be a more rigorous check of paperwork and perhaps receiving your passport visa sticker before boarding. Perhaps using automated immigration gates in foreign airports?

On the morning of April 10 this year, when a chill remained in the air, Muslims gathered in a residential district of the Osaka Prefecture city of Ibaraki. They were there to celebrate Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Altogether, about 300 people from the Middle East, Southeast Asia and other regions visited the two-story Osaka Ibaraki Mosque, which is adorned with golden decorations. During prayer, the mosque was so full that some prayed on the rooftop.

A good story of local residents accepting and befriending members of a minority community. More of this needs to happen throughout the country.

It can pull up to six containers at a time, trundling between aircraft and airport buildings over a distance of around 2 kilometers with no driver in the cab.

The Level 4 vehicle, meaning that it does not require human interaction in certain settings — although a human driver can still request control — has been in operation since July 1.

A memorial marking 79 years since the Nemuro air raid by U.S. military planes near the end of World War II, which claimed the lives of approximately 400 people, was held in this north Japan city on July 15

About 30 people, including bereaved families and others concerned, gathered at Narumi Park in the center of Nemuro, where the largest number of people were killed by the bombardment, to pray for the souls of the victims and to think about the importance of peace.

You rarely hear about how the Second World War affected Hokkaido but citizen did suffer from similar raids than those in the rest of the country.

The rainy season appears to have ended in the Kanto-Koshin and Tokai regions, the Japan Meteorological Agency announced Thursday.

And now the Sun rules over us all...

Okinawa prefecture has been the hardest hit by the new strain of the virus, with hospitals reporting an average of nearly 30 infections per days. The KP. 3 variant has accounted for more than 90 per cent of Covid-19 cases nationwide, the Fuji News Network reported, leading to renewed concerns about bed shortages at medical facilities.

This thing is far from over and, to dust off a phrase from 2020, turning into the new normal. Mask up.

The Japanese game arcade industry, which took a significant hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen nearly 8,000 stores disappear over the past decade, with a 30 percent reduction in the last five years alone, a recent survey from credit research firm Teikoku Databank Ltd showed.

But claw machines have bucked the digital and console trend, with demand for prize games remaining high even during the pandemic. The Japan Amusement Industry Association says revenue from the games hit 306.2 billion yen ($1.9 billion) in fiscal 2021 and the genre now makes up nearly 70 percent of an amusement facility's overall sales.

UFO Catcher is my arch nemesis...

Two cases of sexual crimes allegedly by people linked to the U.S. military have occurred since 2021 in Kanagawa Prefecture but were not publicly disclosed, prefectural police officials said Thursday.

The police reported both cases to the U.S. military, but the prefectural government was not aware of the incidents.

Turn out that the lack of notification of these crimes expands beyond Okinawa.

The survey was conducted from April to May. It was initially anonymous, but was later switched to a named format. Valid responses in the latter format totaled 64,829, with 24,343 from junior high students, 7,286 from high school students and 33,200 from parents and guardians.

Asked whether the 12 single-gender prefectural high schools should become coed, 56% of junior high children said, "either is fine," while opposing views were neck and neck, with 18% saying the schools should be coed and 19% responding they shouldn't.

In contrast, 57% of high schoolers opposed coeducation across the board, with only 7% in favor and 33% indifferent. The most common answer for opposing coed school was that "both coeducational and single-gender schools should be options," cited by 35%.

This seems like a strange result and am curious about more detailed reasons that students and guardians resist coed schools and if those opinions are skewed towards one gender over another.

The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association, in a statement, called for companies operating such services to obtain consent from news organizations as search responses often resemble articles that are sourced without permission.

The association analyzed that AI search engines sometimes return inaccurate responses as they inappropriately reuse or modify articles and stressed that the companies should ensure the accuracy and reliability of their services before launch.

This is kind of like a nouveau version of the fight in Australia over Google News from a few years ago with an AI twist. If pursued, this could be the start of a new series of international regulations similar to the App Store waves that are spreading around the world from Europe.

“The government’s responsibility is extremely serious,” Kishida told the victims in a meeting at the prime minister’s office. “I am sincerely sorry.”

“The old law was an inexcusable violation of human rights which tramples on individual dignity,” he said.

Better late than never.

Palau is appealing to Japan for help monitoring Chinese maritime activity within its exclusive economic zone. Analysts say Tokyo has assisted other nations with similar challenges in the past and may be willing to do so again to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the region.

The Pacific island nation’s national security coordinator, Jennifer Anson, described the “challenges” it has faced in recent years in an interview with Japanese national broadcaster NHK on Monday. Chinese research vessels have repeatedly been spotted operating not only within Palau’s EEZ, but also “hovering” dangerously close to the crucial underwater fibre optic cables that connect the remote territory to the rest of the world, she said.

Pesek said that the Japanese government had been “pretty certain that Biden had this well in hand.” However, following the recent turmoil in Biden’s party, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is now reappraising the odds of a “Trump 2.0 presidency.”

“I think the issue with Trump, he’s very transactional, he’s not very predictable. He’s not very loyal in terms of relationships anywhere. Never mind Asia. If you’re Japan, they’re looking at the future and wondering, ‘this could be a fascinating few years for for us.’” Pesek said.

Carrying on from yesterday, a contrasting view on a second Trump reign from the Japanese perspective. The variable of his unpredictability alone makes this a more realistic scenario for Japan.

Craftspeople have now started laying tiles, which are made from mudstone and red clay sourced from the prefecture.

Carpenters plan to cover the roof with about 60,000 tiles by the end of this year. The reconstruction of the main hall is scheduled to be completed by autumn of 2026.

Great that the castle restoration is progressing. I was lucky to visit it before the fire and I hope that the restoration is just as majestic.

It aims to build a system that distributes information via the Michibiki satellites about natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami that is issued by the countries’ governments to local residents.

The Japanese government expects that people in the island nations will utilize the information for evacuation from tsunami and other prevention measures, as local people can get accurate information even if ground-based telecommunications systems are cut off.