News On Japan

World's biggest nuclear plant in Japan may stay closed due to papers left on car roof

May 23, 2023 (livemint.com) - A week after Japanese regulators postponed the restart of the world’s biggest nuclear power plant due to safety lapses, a careless employee working from home added to the company’s woes.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan’s Niigata prefecture, said an employee placed a stack of documents on top of a car before driving off and losing them.

The mishap is the latest in a string of mistakes for the utility and is likely to further erode the regulator’s confidence in Tepco. Safety lapses and a strict regulatory process have stopped Japan from restarting most of its nuclear reactors shut in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

The nation’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, which oversees safety protocols of Japan’s remaining 33 nuclear reactors, decided just last week to keep a de facto ban on the power station from resuming operations, saying that the utility’s preventative measures are inadequate. ...continue reading

Source: ANNnewsCH

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Japan’s World Cup campaign ended in the cruelest possible fashion on June 29, as Gabriel Martinelli scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time to give Brazil a 2-1 victory over the Samurai Blue in their knockout match in Houston. Japan had led in the first half and were still level at 1-1 in the final moments, but Martinelli’s late strike sent Brazil into the Round of 16 and eliminated Japan from the tournament.

Strong earthquakes have continued to shake parts of Japan in recent weeks, with 11 temblors measuring lower 5 or above on the Japanese seismic intensity scale recorded across the country since April 2026.

A Kintetsu Railway train derailed inside Kyoto Station on the morning of June 29, forcing partial suspensions on the Kintetsu Kyoto Line for the rest of the day and causing long delays that hit commuters, students and tourists.

A section of stone wall at Hikone Castle, one of Japan’s few surviving original Edo-period castles and a National Treasure whose main keep remains intact more than 400 years after its construction, collapsed after heavy rain caused by Typhoons No. 7 and No. 8, Hikone city officials said.

Japan advanced to the knockout stage of the World Cup after a 1-1 draw with Sweden on June 25, finishing second in Group F and setting up a Round of 32 clash with Brazil in Houston.

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Japan is set to begin its first clinical trial of xenotransplantation involving the transplant of pig kidneys into human patients, in a step that could open a new option for people with kidney failure.

A new treatment that uses healthy tissue from the heart removed from a transplant patient and transplants it into another patient has been approved in Japan for the first time, with the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center preparing to carry out the procedure.

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The KAGRA gravitational-wave research facility in Kamioka, Hida, Gifu Prefecture, was opened to the public on June 20 for the first special viewing in nine years, giving 200 visitors a rare chance to tour the underground observatory with Nobel laureate Takaaki Kajita.

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New cases of hand, foot and mouth disease in Fukuoka Prefecture remained at alert level for the third consecutive week, prompting the prefectural government to urge residents to take preventive measures against the infection, which spreads through droplets and physical contact.

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You likely interact with Japanese innovation daily without realizing it. Walk through any modern facility, and you encounter systems where hardware and software fuse flawlessly.