The heavy rain that pounded western Japan in the summer has been picked as the top domestic news story of 2018 by senior editors of Kyodo News and its member or subscriber newspapers and broadcasters. (1) Deadly rain disaster in western Japan, typhoons, heat An approaching typhoon triggered heavy rainfalls…
The heavy rain that pounded western Japan in the summer has been picked as the top domestic news story of 2018 by senior editors of Kyodo News and its member or subscriber newspapers and broadcasters.
(1) Deadly rain disaster in western Japan, typhoons, heat
An approaching typhoon triggered heavy rainfalls in early July, causing severe flooding and mudslides that killed more than 220 people and damaged about 17,000 houses. The prefectures of Hiroshima, Okayama and Ehime were hit the hardest. Meanwhile, lasting summer heat scorched Japan, with the city of Kumagaya in Saitama Prefecture near Tokyo hitting a national record high 41.1 C, also in July.
(2) Finance Ministry tampers with documents linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s favoritism scandal
The Finance Ministry admitted in March to have tampered with documents over a 2016 cut-price state land sale to a nationalist school operator with ties to Abe’s wife, Akie. References to Abe and his wife were removed from the documents. Abe has denied having played a role in the land sale discount of about 800 million yen ($7.2 million) and also of ordering the rewriting of documents.
(3) Nissan chairman Ghosn arrested over alleged financial misconduct
Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn was arrested in November along with Nissan Representative Director Greg Kelly over alleged understatement of Ghosn’s remuneration in security reports presented to Japanese regulators.
