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TOKYO, Feb 19, 2024 (AFP) – A Japanese firm said Monday it had successfully launched a spacecraft tasked with inspecting potentially dangerous man-made junk floating around the Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that around one million pieces of debris from satellites and rockets larger than a centimetre — big enough to “disable a spacecraft” — are in orbit. The Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) is meant to rendezvous with and examine the […]
By Mathias Cena with Cecilia Sanchez in New York TOKYO, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Wrapped in seaweed and stuffed with delicious fillings, “onigiri” rice balls are shaking off their reputation as a cheap and uninspiring snack in Japan — and enticing hungry converts abroad. Mouth-watering pictures on social media, rising demand for affordable lunches, and a surge in tourism to Japan are all drawing people to the humble onigiri. Just ask any of the […]
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Feb 17, 2024 (AFP) – Japan’s space agency announced the successful launch of its new flagship rocket on Saturday, making it third time lucky for the H3 after years of delays and two previous failed attempts. The H3 rocket, billed as flexible and cost-effective by space agency JAXA, “was put into orbit,” a JAXA official told AFP. Developed jointly by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H3 is the successor to […]
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Feb 15, 2024 (AFP) – Once forecast to become the world’s biggest economy, Japan slipped below Germany last year to fourth place, official data showed Thursday, although India is projected to leapfrog both later this decade. Despite growing 1.9 percent, Japan’s nominal 2023 gross domestic product in dollar terms was $4.2 trillion, government data showed, compared with $4.5 trillion for Germany, according to figures released there last month. The change in […]
TOKYO, Feb 8, 2024 (AFP) – An estimated 5,500 litres of radioactive water leaked from Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant but no sign of contamination has been detected outside the facility, its operator said Thursday. A spokeswoman from Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) told AFP that the leak was detected at part of the plant that processes contaminated water. “We estimate that roughly 5.5 tonnes (5,500 litres) of water leaked” on Wednesday morning, but “there […]
TAIPEI, Feb 6, 2024 (AFP) – TSMC will build a second foundry in Japan, the semiconductor giant and its local partners announced Tuesday, weeks before its first in the country officially opens. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company — which counts Apple and Nvidia as clients — controls more than half the world’s output of silicon wafers, used in everything from smartphones to cars and missiles. In recent years, it has had to navigate geopolitical tussles between […]
TOKYO, Feb 2, 2024 (AFP) – Shares in Japan’s Aozora Bank plunged for a second straight day Friday — wiping hundreds of millions of dollars off its market value — after the lender forecast a full-year net loss because of bad property loans in the United States. Prices in the US commercial real estate market have fallen sharply on the back of rising borrowing costs and lower demand as more people work from home following […]
ON BOARD THE USS CARL VINSON, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – The US and Japanese navies held joint exercises in the Philippine Sea this week, in a show of force as tensions with China and North Korea rise. Washington and Beijing are at loggerheads over a raft of issues, from chips to tariffs, but both have been alarmed by the growing assertiveness of China’s military in the Pacific. China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own […]
TOKYO, Feb 1, 2024 (AFP) – The wing tips of two passenger jets “scratched” each other at a Japanese airport Thursday, an airport operator said, the latest in a string of aviation mishaps in the country. Reports said no one was injured in the incident involving the two All Nippon Airways aircraft at Osaka’s Itami airport for domestic flights. “We’ve been told wing tips of two ANA planes scratched each other” shortly after 10:00 am […]
By Kyoko HASEGAWA TOKYO, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – Japan’s “Moon Sniper” craft made a pin-point lunar landing despite last-minute engine problems, the space agency said Thursday as it released the first images from the mission. A photo taken by a mini-rover showed the boxy yellow lander sitting intact at a slight angle on the rocky grey surface, lunar slopes rising in the distance. Saturday’s touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a […]
By Hiroshi HIYAMA KYOTO, Japan, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – A Japanese court on Thursday sentenced to death the perpetrator of a 2019 arson attack on an animation studio that killed 36 people, local media reported. The blaze that ripped through the studios of Kyoto Animation four-and-a-half years ago was Japan’s deadliest crime in decades, stunning the anime industry and its fans around the world. Shinji Aoba, now 45, broke into the building, spread […]
By Hiroshi HIYAMA KYOTO, Japan, Jan 25, 2024 (AFP) – A Japanese court found guilty on Thursday the perpetrator of a 2019 arson attack on an animation studio that killed 36 people, with a death sentence widely expected later in the day, local media reported. The arson attack four-and-a-half years ago at the studios of Kyoto Animation was Japan’s deadliest crime in decades, stunning the anime industry and its fans around the world. Shinji Aoba, […]
