Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meets theKing of JordanAbdullah II, and commits to 14.7 billion yen of assistance consisting of 12 billion in yen loans and 2.7 billion in contributions to international organizations providing medical assistance and supplies torefugee camps.[5]
January 20 –ISIL threatens to kill two Japanese citizens unless it receives a ransom of $200 million.[7]
January 24 – Japanese government states that it is seeking to verify a video that claims the killing of Japanese hostageHaruna Yukawa by ISIL militants.[8]
February 23 – Agricultural MinisterKoya Nishikawa resigns over a fundraising scandal and is succeeded byYoshimasa Hayashi, whom Nishikawa had replaced as agriculture minister in September 2014.[13]
February 26
The Supreme Court endorses punishment issued byKaiyukan, an aquarium inOsaka, including suspensions, against two male managers forsexual harassment, overturning the ruling by OsakaHigh Court that said the penalties were too heavy, making this the first decision over such issues by the Japanese Supreme Court.[14]
March 3 –Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft and a philanthropist, announces that he has discovered the Japanese battleshipMusashi, more than 70 years after it was sunk by theUnited States Navy, in theSibuyan Sea, of the Philippines.[17]
March 10
The Supreme Court rejects prosecutors' claims that a 41-year-old man fromOsaka Prefecture evaded 570 million yen in taxes by failing to declare income from betting onhorse races, confirming that money lost betting on horses can, for tax purposes, be considered expenses deductible from winnings.[18]
FamilyMart and UNY Group Holdings, the holding company ofCircle K Sunkus, reach an agreement to merge in September 2016, forming the second biggest convenience store operator by sales in Japan under a single brand name.[19]
March 12 – A 46-year-old man, arrested in Hawaii in 2014 for a murder case which occurred in 2007, admits after entering a guilty plea at a court inSan Diego that he killed his Japanese wife and left her body in theAnza-Borrego Desert in California.[21]
March 14–18 –Sendai hosts the thirdWorld Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, resulting in the Sendai Framework, an agreement aiming for "the substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries."[22]
March 14 –Hokuriku Shinkansen starts its service betweenNagano andKanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture, cutting travel time betweenTokyo and Kanazawa by about eighty minutes to as little as two hours and twenty-eight minutes.[23]
The South Korean government lifts the departure ban on a former chief of theSankei Shimbun'sSeoul bureau, who had been barred from leaving the country for eight months following his indictment in October 2014 for defamation of South Korean PresidentPark Geun-hye.[31] The charges were due to an article, posted on a Sankei website, that referred to a rumor in a South Korean publication that Park was seeing a man on the day of theSewol ferry disaster in April 2014.[32][33]
April 21At Yamanashi Test Track, a seven car maglev train set a new land speed record for rail vehicles at 603 km/h. It is the only rail vehicle ever surpassed 600 km/h speed mark
Adrone which has trace levels of radioactivecesium is discovered on the roof of thePrime Minister's Official Residence, while Prime Minister Abe has been in Jakarta to attend the 60th anniversary of theBandung Conference of 1955.[38] Two days later, a 40-year-old man turns himself in to Fukui prefectural police, claiming that he landed the drone in protest against the Japanese government's nuclear energy policy.[39]
May 17 – A dormitory apartment fire inKawasaki,Kanagawa Prefecture, according to Fire and Disaster Management Agency official confirmed report, 11 peoples lost to lives, with 17 are injures.[40]
May 30 – An abnormally intense magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurs in theBonin Islands, with shaking observed throughout the territory. Official reports confirm 13 injuries.[42]
June 30 – A passenger commits suicide by setting himself on fire while riding theTokaido Shinkansen toOdawara, Kanagawa, resulting in two fatalities.ja:東海道新幹線火災事件
September 11 – A heavy torrential rain along the entire length of theKinu River leads to a levee collapse andflash flooding inJōsō, Ibaraki. Official reports confirm 8 fatalities.[45]
Yokozuna Grand ChampionHakuhō Shō wins his 33rd career championship with two days to spare at the New YearGrand Sumo Tournament inRyogoku Kokugikan, surpassing the record of 32 titles he shared with sumo legendTaiho Koki, who made the long-lasting record in 1971.[46]
February 3 – TheJapan Football Association(JFA) firesJavier Aguirre as the manager of the Japan national football team, as Aguirre has been involved in an ongoing match-fixing investigation over theReal Zaragoza's 2–1 win againstLevante UD on the final day of the2010–11 La Liga, when Aguirre was the head coach of Zaragoza.[48]
March 28 –Yoshihide Kiryu runs the men's 100 meters in 9.87 seconds to win the men's invitational sprint at theTexas Relays, marking the fastest ever electronically recorded performance by an Asian sprinter under any conditions.[54]
April 4 –Mieko Nagaoka becomes the first 100-year-old in the world to complete a 1,500-meterfreestyle swim in a time of just over 1 hour and 15 minutes, using thebackstroke for the entire duration in a 25-meter pool.[55]
Satoru Iwata, a Japanese businessman, video game programmer and designer, and the 4th President ofNintendo, who died ofbile duct cancer at the age of 55.
April 1 –Misao Okawa, asupercentenarian, the verified oldest Japanese person ever, the oldest person ever born in Asia, and the fifth oldest verified person ever recorded (b. 1898)
April 15 –Kinya Aikawa, actor, TV presenter, and voice actor (b. 1934)
_(cropped_2).jpg)
