John Boyd

Ya­m­aguchi-gumi’s num­bers dropped from about 20,000 at its peak with re­cent de­fec­tions fur­ther re­duc­ing its mafia clout.

Mys­tery sur­rounds re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ‘in­ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count­ing’ af­ter months of in­ves­ti­ga­tion into $1.9bn loss cov­er-up.

While oth­er US al­lies re­act­ed an­gri­ly, Japan’s re­sponse to Wik­iLeaks’ NSA es­pi­onage al­le­ga­tions was mut­ed.

The 70th an­niver­sary of the A-bomb at­tacks trou­bled by ris­ing mil­i­tary ten­sions for Japan and its re­gion­al neigh­bours.

Free speech de­bate rages with some say­ing out­law­ing hate-filled protests will only hide the haters.

Re­search in­di­cates chew­ing food prop­er­ly plays a role in brain stim­u­la­tion, blood cir­cu­la­tion and men­tal health.

Amid a de­cline in pow­er com­pa­ny prof­its and ris­ing con­sumer en­er­gy bills, Tokyo eyes a nu­clear plant re­vival.

With polls pre­dict­ing an easy win for PM Abe and his par­ty, some view Sun­day’s vote as a move to so­lid­i­fy pow­er.

Japan­ese gov­ern­ment says nu­clear en­er­gy is still need­ed, but en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists are wary of an­oth­er Fukushi­ma.

Japan­ese en­gi­neers face mam­moth task of deal­ing with con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter from the nu­clear plant dis­as­ter.