A sumo wrestling coach has been fired for the first time in the centuries-long history of the sport after a teenage novice was apparently beaten to death during training.

A FRESH scandal broke out in Japan’s time-honoured sport of sumo as a teenage novice died after being beaten with a beer bottle by his stable master.

A 71-year-old Japanese yachtsman became the oldest person to successfully finish a solo, non-stop, around-the-world voyage when he arrived at a port in central Japan.

The apparent kidnapping of a Japanese man by a militant group in Iraq will not affect Tokyo’s troop deployment there, Japan’s defence chief said today as officials vowed to make every effort to win his release.

Iraqi militants claimed today they took a Japanese security contractor hostage after ambushing a convoy of foreigners and Iraqi troops in western Iraq.

The Japanese company that launched popular computer data storage units shaped like rubber ducks and sushi started selling a new product today – a ghost detector.

Japan 26 USA 39

A photographer at a leading Japanese newspaper was fired today after a cluster bomb he was carrying as a souvenir of the Iraq war exploded at Amman airport, killing a security guard and wounding three others.

A Japanese newspaper president is taking a pay cut after Jordanian prosecutors charged one of his photographers with manslaughter.