Japan

TOKYO, July 23. /TASS/: Tokyo lodged a protest with Seoul and Moscow after South Korean fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept a Russian warplane over the Liancourt Rocks located in the Sea of Japan, the Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.

"Such activities over our territory are unacceptable," the Japanese government said. The protest was lodged through diplomatic channels.

TOKYO, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Japan's ruling bloc led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won more than half of the contested seats in Sunday's upper house election, maintaining a majority in the chamber.

However, the ruling parties and others who advocate constitutional reform did not win the needed 85 seats to get a two-thirds majority, a prerequisite for any amendment.

With 370 candidates vying for the 124 seats, 74 are chosen in specific districts and 50 through proportional representation.

TOKYO, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Voters across Japan began casting their ballots on Sunday in the upper house election, which is expected to be a barometer of public opinion on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's six and a half years in power.

In most parts of the country, polling stations will close at 8:00 p.m. local time and vote counting will start as soon as the voting ends.

Members of the upper house serve six-year terms, with about half the seats up for grabs every three years.

In Sunday's election, 124 seats are up for grabs, including three that are newly added.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s foreign minister said Tokyo will take “necessary measures” against South Korea if interests of Japanese companies are harmed in an escalating dispute over World War II forced labor.

The neighboring countries and U.S. allies are quarreling over South Korean court decisions ordering Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

TOKYO (AP) — The man suspected of setting ablaze a beloved Japanese animation studio, killing 34 people, was raging about theft and witnesses and media reported he had a grudge against the company, as questions arose why such mass killings keep happening in the country.

Police only have said the suspect Shinji Aoba, 41, who is hospitalized with severe burns and unable to talk, is from near Tokyo and did not work for the studio, Kyoto Animation.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s foreign minister on Friday summoned South Korea’s ambassador and accused Seoul of violating international law by refusing to join in an arbitration panel to settle a dispute over World War II forced labor.

South Korea had until midnight Thursday to respond to Japan’s request for a three-nation panel. The neighboring countries are quarreling over South Korean court decisions ordering Japanese companies to compensate victims of forced labor during Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

TOKYO (AP) — A man screaming “You die!” burst into an animation studio in Kyoto, doused it with a flammable liquid and set it on fire Thursday, killing 33 people in an attack that shocked the country and brought an outpouring of grief from anime fans.

Thirty-six others were injured, some of them critically, in a blaze that sent people scrambling up the stairs toward the roof in a desperate — and futile — attempt to escape what proved to be Japan’s deadliest fire in nearly two decades. Others emerged bleeding, blackened and barefoot.

TOKYO, July 18 (Xinhua) -- A fire at an animation studio in the city of Kyoto, western Japan, left multiple people dead and more than 30 others injured, some of them seriously, local media quoted investigators as saying Thursday.

According to local reports, 10 people who were found lying unconscious inside the three-storey studio of Kyoto Animation Co. were believed to have died in the blaze, police at the scene said.

The fire started at around 10:30 a.m. local time on Thursday morning at the studio known for producing popular TV animation series and artifacts.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s exports declined in June as shipments of goods were hit by trade disputes between China and the U.S., the Finance Ministry reported Thursday.

The data released by the Finance Ministry on Thursday show exports fell 6.8% in June from a year earlier, the seventh straight month of decline, while imports fell 5.2%.

The trade surplus for the month dropped 20% to 589.5 billion yen ($5.5 billion), the ministry said.

TOKYO, July 14. /TASS/: Moscow has refused to discuss the potential handover of two of four southern Kuril Islands to Japan as part of the talks on signing a peace treaty, Kyodo News said on Sunday.