Glen Wood has come to symbolise a growing fight against "paternity harassment" in Japan. In of the of the country's very first cases of its kind, Wood alleged on-the-job harassment and unlawful dismissal from his position at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley after taking parental leave when his son was born prematurely in 2015. Last month, the Tokyo High Court rejected the Canadian native's appeal. In a 21-page ruling, the court defended the company's actions as "inevitable".

Japan's ageing society is forcing it to innovate in some unusual ways. Fifteen years ago, the western town of Hōki, where almost half the residents are aged over 65, started using recycled adult diapers to heat public baths and reduce energy bills. The project was highly successful and now the idea of turning diapers into fuel pellets has spread to other parts of Japan. Our correspondents report.

After Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the US forcibly displaced 120,000 people of Japanese origin into 10 internment camps in the western United States. Eight decades on, our correspondents went to meet survivors, who reflected on their ordeal.

A boat crew casts a net into the seemingly clean waters off Japan's Izu peninsula, but not to catch fish -- they are scooping up microplastics to learn more about the pollution's impact on marine life.

North Korea escapee Hiroko Saito says she and 97,000 others were deceived into relocating to the North in the 1960s with promises of "paradise on Earth." Instead, she suffered starvation, repression and loss.

 

Ryusei Ouchi looks like your average skateboarder -- the baggy T-shirt, the jeans, the baseball hat. But he also skates with something else: a cane. The 21-year-old, who goes by Jido, has lost 95 percent of his eyesight because of a condition called retinitis pigmentosa.

Gotta catch 'em all! In a bid to attract customers, a Japanese airliner is inviting travellers to find hidden Pikachu monsters on board a newly decorated, Pokemon-themed Boeing 737-800. But first, ahead of a much-awaited congressional hearing, US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell says the US economy is continuing to show "sustained improvement" from the pandemic but that the recovery remains uneven, with unemployment still hitting low-paid workers.

He's 93 years old, but he's as fast as he ever was. After retiring from taxi driving, Ryuji Urabe gave up his driver's license, sit in the cockpit and became a YouTube sensation after his grandson started sharing online videos of grandpa racing in fancy sports cars.

Japanese shipping companies are looking to reduce their reliance on the Suez Canal. They are stepping up their search for an alternative route connecting East Asia to key markets in Europe.

With Japan marking the unwelcome milestone of 10,000 coronavirus deaths on Monday, there are growing indications that the public is becoming impatient at the government's slow rollout of the vaccine.

The Japanese government has approved a controversial plan to release radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean. South Korea expressed 'strong regret' over the decision.