A senior investigator for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. A growing number of intoxicated people are having their pockets picked after falling asleep on the street or in a train, with over 3,000 such cases reported nationwide last year, up 30% from the previous year. Read
Hiroyuki Chubachi, who heads Beans Fukushima, a nonprofit organization that provides learning support to children. Children in Fukushima Prefecture have developed more psychological problems than their counterparts in the two other prefectures devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami 13 years ago. Read
Yamaha Music Manufacturing Japan Corp President Takuya Nakata. Citing the weak yen and dwindling sales, the musical instrument maker is scaling back its investment in China to focus on domestic production. Read
Chuo University Professor Makoto Ida, who chairs a group of lawmakers, former top investigators and family members of crime victims, that has been formed to discuss Japan’s death penalty system. Read
Aya Abe, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University who researches poverty issues. A recent survey by the health ministry showed that 44.1% of single Japanese women aged 65 and older are living in poverty, much higher than the rate for single elderly men. Read
A spokesperson for confectionary maker Meiji Co, announcing that sales of its popular Chelsea candy, which debuted in 1971, will cease at the end of March. Read
Sei Sueharal, Executive Vice President of ANA Cargo. ANA, will next month start carrying e-commerce packages from Tokyo's Haneda Airport to Okayama Airport. Japan faces a growing shortage of truck drivers, so aircraft and bullet train operators are offering new services to handle parcel deliveries. Read
Masashi Goto, a former Toshiba Corp engineer who was involved in designing nuclear reactors. Japan appears eager to restart more nuclear reactors that were shut down after the Fukushima disaster, but many plant workers at the power companies have no experience operating such equipment. Read
A senior Foreign Ministry official. There is a shortage of "official residence chefs" who are hired by the government to live in diplomatic residences, preparing food for receptions, luncheons and other events at embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions abroad at which Japanese culinary culture is shared. They also arrange… Read