Saturday 1is
Antonio Inoki, former professional wrestler and member of the House of Councilors, has died at 79. A true icon in Japan, he had made headlines in particular by fighting Muhammad Ali during a mixed martial arts match.
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Wrestler Antonio Inoki, national star who left behind many memorable clashes, July 7, 2014, Tokyo. (JijiPress)
Announcement of the death of Takemura Masayoshi, founder of the New Sakigake Party, who also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary and Minister of Finance. He passed away on September 28 at the age of 88.
Monday 3
In a special session of the Diet (the Japanese parliament), Prime Minister Kishida Fumio addressed both houses. He pledged to make the recovery of the economy “his top priority” by investing all his efforts in the fight against inflation, in particular the price of electricity, and in “the structural increase in wages “.
Yakult Swallows baseball player Murakami Munetaka broke the record for most annual home runs by a Japanese player with 56. That record hadn’t been broken since baseball legend Oh Sadaharu scored 55 hits 58 years ago.
Mardi 4
A ballistic missile launched by North Korea passed over Aomori prefecture, triggering Japan’s national early warning system. The missile fell outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), about 3,200 kilometers off the country’s eastern seaboard. The flight distance is estimated at around 4,600 kilometers, the longest ever observed for a North Korean missile. Prime Minister Kishida Fumio spoke by telephone with United States President Joe Biden, strongly condemning North Korea for an action which represents “an obvious and serious provocation to the peace and stability of the international community”. .
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The Japanese government has announced that Kishida Shotaro, the son of Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, has been assigned the post of executive secretary for political affairs.
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Wednesday 5
Baseball player Ohtani Shohei of the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball reached the 162 innings required to qualify for the top pitching rankings in his last game of the season. He had already earned the required number of official at-bats to qualify among the batting leaders, making him the first player in history to appear on both rosters in the same season.
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The Crew Dragon spacecraft, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, headed for the International Space Station, with Japan’s Wakata Koichi and three other astronauts on board. Wakata, 59, is Japan’s most experienced astronaut with five flights under his belt.
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Wakata Kôichi before leaving for the International Space Station on October 5, 2022 at the Kennedy Space Center. (AFP/Jiji)
Thursday 6
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio spoke on the phone with South Korean President Yoon Seok-youl. The Japanese leader strongly condemned North Korea’s actions, especially the repeated missile launches, and confirmed with his counterpart to carry out trilateral cooperation with the United States.
Myanmar has announced that Kubota Toru, a Japanese documentary filmmaker, will serve a seven-year prison term for sedition. The 26-year-old man was arrested on July 30 in Yangon while filming a demonstration against the ruling military junta. On October 12, he gets three more years for violating an immigration control law, so ten years in total
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Mardi 11
The government has greatly eased border restrictions put in place to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, removing the daily entry cap and allowing foreign visitors to travel individually. It has also launched a new national subsidy program with the aim of boosting domestic tourism (except for Tokyo).
Applications for same-sex civil partnerships in Tokyo have begun. They will be effective from 1is november. The capital is the 10e of the 47 prefectures in the country to introduce this system.
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In the city of Jalalabad in Afghanistan, a memorial stone has been erected in honor of Nakamura Tetsu, a Japanese doctor engaged in humanitarian missions, who was assassinated in an attack in December 2019.
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Thursday 13
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) failed to launch its Epsilon-6 rocket. A self-destruct order was sent to the rocket by the Agency, which determined that it will not be able to reach Earth orbit. This is the first failed launch of an Epsilon rocket.
The Minister of Digital Reform Kôno Tarô announced a plan to abolish health insurance cards around the fall of 2024. The health insurance system will be integrated into the My Number cards, which centralize tax and social security data from all people in Japan.
Sony and Honda have announced the creation of a joint venture for the production and sale of electric vehicles, called “Sony Honda Mobility”. Pre-orders will begin online in 2025, for delivery from spring 2026 in North America and then in Japan from the second half of the year.
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Friday 14
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that North Korea launched two projectiles, identified as short-range ballistic missiles, towards the Sea of Japan from the vicinity of the city. of Uiju in North Pyongan Province. At least one ballistic missile was launched from the northwest of the country and reportedly fell outside Japan’s EEZ near the east coast of North Korea.
The Coast Guard of Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, revealed the circumstances of the death of Takahashi Kazuki, the creator of the famous manga Yu-Gi-Oh!, who was found dead in local waters last July. The 60-year-old author allegedly lost his life trying to rescue a girl and her parents.
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Saturday 15
Nearly 2,000 people attended the prefectural funeral of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, held in the town of Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Matsuno Hirokazu and Speaker of the House of Representatives Hosoda Hiroyuki.
Request for an investigation into the Moon sect, historic fall of the yen and imperial visit to Okinawa
Monday 17
Prime Minister Kishida has commissioned an investigation into the Unification Church (also known as the Moon sect) under the Religious Corporations Act.
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A car crashed into the oldest toilet in Japan, which is located in the Tosu, one of the buildings of the Tofuku-ji temple in Kyoto.
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Thursday 20
Retired Empress Michiko, the mother of the current ruler, celebrated her 88th birthday
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The yen fell to its lowest level against the dollar in 32 years, with the dollar trading for 150.09 yen.
The yen at its lowest level in 32 years, October 21, 2022 (Jiji Press)
The Tokyo High Court ordered Sugita Mio, a deputy of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (PLD) to pay 550,000 yen (3,700 euros) in damages for having appreciated defamatory tweets against Itô Shiori, journalist who has fought for almost seven years to have the rape of which she was the victim by a former colleague recognized.
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Friday 21
The national consumer price index for September 2022 increased by 3.0% compared to the same period the previous year. Excluding the impact of the consumption tax hike, this is the largest increase in 31 years and 1 month.
Japanese Maeda Hina won the 16e edition of the Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, held in Poznan, Poland. This is a first for a Japanese person — men and women alike — in 41 years.
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The city of Nagasaki, in southwestern Japan, has announced the official discovery of a fossilized tooth of a large dinosaur belonging to the tyrannosaur family in an 80 million-year-old geological stratum, corresponding to the Cretaceous period. superior.
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Saturday 22
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako made their first visit to Okinawa Prefecture since their enthronement in 2019. On October 23, they attended the opening ceremony of the National Cultural Festival.
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Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako chatting with a family member of a Battle of Okinawa casualty during a visit to the Peace Memorial Park in Itoman, October 22, 2022. (Jiji Press)
Sunday 23
Semikawa Taiga, a 21-year-old fourth-year student at Tohoku Fukushi University, won the Japan Open golf tournament. It is the first time in 95 years that an amateur player has won the tournament.
Monday 24
The Minister in charge of Economic Revitalization Yamagiwa Daishirô, criticized for his links with the Moon sect, has resigned.
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Mardi 25
Former Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko of the Constitutional Democratic Party delivered a memorial speech honoring former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō during the plenary session of the House of Representatives.
The actor of kabuki Matsumoto Hakuō and five other people were awarded the Order of Culture. Twenty other people, including singer-songwriter Matsutôya Yumi, received the Person of Cultural Merit award.
Police arrested Tanaka Hidekazu, the composer of popular game and anime music like Idolmaster Cinderella Girls et Uma musume pretty derbyfor attempted sexual assault on a minor.
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Thursday 27
The Ministry of Education released a survey indicating that the number of elementary and junior high school students in Japan who refused to attend school in fiscal year 2021 increased by 24.9% compared to the previous year, reaching a record 244,940 children. The figure has been rising steadily for nine years.
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Friday 28
Kyoto police arrested Tanaka Yukio, a senior member of the criminal organization Kudō-kai, for the December 2013 shooting death of Ohigashi Takayuki, then president of Ōshō Food Service Corp., which operates the popular restaurant chain Gyōza no Ôshô.
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The South Korean military announced the firing of two North Korean short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan from the vicinity of Tongchon in the eastern province of Kangwon. This is the 28e North Korean ballistic missile launch since the beginning of the year.
Just 50 years ago, Japan welcomed the very first pandas on its soil, offered by China on the occasion of the normalization of bilateral relations.
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Saturday 29
In Seoul, South Korea, more than 150 people were killed and 133 injured in a stampede during Halloween celebrations in the Itaewon district. Two Japanese women aged 26 and 18 are among the victims.
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The world’s largest gathering of people with the same first and last name was held in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. A total of 178 Japanese people calling themselves “Tanaka Hirokazu” participated in an event to register this achievement in the Guinness World Records.
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(Caption photo: Murakami Munetaka [au centre] of the Yakult Swallows celebrating his 56e historic home run at Meiji Jingu Stadium on October 3, 2022. Jiji Press)
