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The Hokuriku Shinkansen extension from Kanazawa, Ishikawa, to Tsuruga, Fukui, Japan, is completed.
2024-03-16

Japan suspends the usage of 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine due to concerns of contamination in some unused vials.
2021-08-26

The Japanese bulk carrier "Wakashio", which stranded on a reef in Mauritius last month, breaks in half. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of oil spilled into the ocean. Most of the oil had been pumped out before the ship broke in half in the afternoon. Around 166 tonnes of oil remained after the break, and authorities are working to remove it. Scientists call it the biggest environmental disaster ever in Mauritius. France says it will help with the cleanup. Japan's ministry of environment announced that it will send officials and other specialists to look at the damage.
2020-08-15

Takuma Sakuragi, a 76-year-old former Japanese assemblyman from Inazawa, Aichi, is sentenced to life in prison by the Guangzhou City First Intermediate Court in southern China for smuggling drugs hidden in his suitcase at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in October 2013. He had been detained by Chinese authorities since then.
2019-11-8

The names of 3,607 employees of Unit 731, a Japanese military medical experimentation unit associated with war crimes during World War II, are released. Prosecutors in the United States had kept their identities secret following the war in exchange for access to data gleaned from the project.
2018-04-17

North Korea launches a Short-Range Ballistic missile near Wŏnsan towards the Sea of Japan, according to South Korea. The missile reportedly lands in Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) after traveling 450 km.
2017-05-29

Japan's lower house of parliament passes a pair of bills changing the country's security laws, allowing Japanese soldiers to fight overseas for the first time since the end of World War II under certain conditions, over strong protests from opposition lawmakers, who walked out of the vote.
2015-07-16

Japan and the Philippines are on alert for the North Korean rocket launch over the next few days.
2012-04-12

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan warns that the nation's economy is on "brink of collapse".
2010-06-11

A 6.6 magnitude earthquake hits central Japan with no reports of damage or casualties.
2010-03-14