The lighting up of autumn leaves has begun at a village in central Jaan.
The municipality of Yahiko Village in Niigata Prefecture organizes the annual illumination in a park at this time of the year.
Many people enjoyed the night view of illuminated autumn colors at the park, although maple leaves have just begun to change color. Visitors were seen looking for tinted leaves and taking pictures.
One woman told NHK that the illuminated night view looked different from the park in the daylight, and was beautiful as autumn colors are beginning to appear.
The park's autumn colors will peak around November 10th, while the illumination will continue until late November.
A Japanese athlete has won an annual international wheelchair marathon held in Oita City, western Japan.
230 athletes from 15 countries took part in full and half marathons on Sunday.
Wheelchairs for racing can reach speeds of 30 kilometers per hour. The athletes received huge applause from spectators along the route.
In the 42.195-kilometer full marathon, Rio Paralympics gold medalist Marcel Hug of Switzerland was forced to retire after going off course at a curve about 2 kilometers from the start.
Hiroyuki Yamamoto from Fukuoka Prefecture came in first, with a time of 1 hour, 26 minutes and 2 seconds. He was just one second ahead of the athlete who came second.
The 50-year-old Yamamoto was taking part in the race for the 25th time. He is the first Japanese person to win the title in 10 years.
He said he is glad he could get the result after not being able to do his best in the Rio Paralympics.
The Spanish parliament has approved the reappointment of Mariano Rajoy as prime minister after 10 months of political deadlock.
Rajoy is leader of the Popular Party, which won both of the general elections in December and June but fell far short of a majority. The party failed to form a coalition, and Rajoy has served as acting prime minister for 10 months.
The Parliament faced a deadline of the end of this month to choose a prime minister. If it failed, it would have been dissolved.
On Saturday, Rajoy was re-elected by winning a majority of the votes. Many lawmakers of the largest opposition Socialist Party chose to abstain this time, saying a prolonged political vacuum should be avoided. Rajoy faces mounting problems in leading the country with a minority government.
The opposition is strongly against his austerity policies aimed at reducing fiscal deficit, as demanded by the EU.
Also, the regional government of Catalonia is planning to hold a referendum on independence.
En Corée du Sud de nombreux manifestants ont défilé pour appeler à la démission de la présidente Park Geun-hye. Les rumeurs selon lesquelles Mme Park aurait remis des documents internes à sa vieille amie Choi Soon-sil, qui n'a jamais occupé le moindre poste gouvernemental, suscitent une colère de plus en plus vive dans le pays.
La manifestation s'est tenue samedi soir dans le centre de Séoul et a réuni près de 20 000 personnes, selon les organisateurs. Des mouvements hostiles à Mme Park ont par ailleurs été suivis dans d'autres régions du pays.
Un parlementaire de l'opposition a pris la parole durant la manifestation. Il a exigé que la vérité soit entièrement révélée, estimant que les responsables devaient être sanctionnés et des mesures préventives envisagées. Il a ajouté que ces mesures ne pouvaient être prises sans que Mme Park renonce à ses fonctions.
Les protestataires ont ensuite défilé, demandant à la présidente d'abandonner le pouvoir.
Une manifestante a jugé impensable le fait qu'une personne n'étant pas officiellement en poste ait un droit de regard sur les affaires de l'État. Elle espère un retour à la normale de la vie politique du pays.
Auparavant, la justice avait fait perquisitionner les domiciles de secrétaires de la présidence et autres officiels de l'administration, dans le cadre de l'enquête déclenchée par le scandale.
Choi Soon-sil, a confidante of President Park Geun-hye, suspected of peddling influence and interfering in state affairs, returned home Sunday after nearly two months of hiding in Europe, prosecutors said.
"Choi Soon-sil voluntarily returned to South Korea at 7:30 a.m. through a British Airways flight from Heathrow Airport in Britain," a senior prosecutor said.
The government plans to provide financial assistance to lower the transportation costs on sea and air routes to and from inhabited remote islands close to Japan’s national borders, as part of new measures starting next fiscal year, it was learned recently.
A pillar of the new scheme is that the government will establish a grant system of about ¥5 billion a year so that the sea and air transportation expenses of residents of the remote islands will be lowered to levels close to the fares of Japan Railway group train services traveling across the same distances.
Along with falling populations on remote islands near national borders, concerns are rising over national security.
In fiscal 2017, the government aims to secure at least ¥10 billion in new funding sources on a project cost basis for assistance measures for inhabited national border remote islands.
It is unprecedented for the government to establish a grant system to lower transportation fares to and from the remote islands. The government judged that special measures were necessary to lower transportation costs to allow residents of the islands to continue to live there.
The new grant system will be defined as one for maintaining local communities. It will cover 15 areas of designated inhabited national border remote islands, which are designated by a law passed in April on special measures to preserve inhabited national border islands.
Under the scheme, concerned local governments will provide subsidies to companies operating sea and air transportation services that connect mainland areas and the remote islands.
The subsidies will lower the residents’ transportation costs to levels close to those of conventional train lines when they use ships, and close to fares of Shinkansen bullet train lines when they use planes.
The transportation costs of products, such as designated local specialty goods and goods for living on the islands, will also be lowered under the scheme.
Separately from the grants, the government will provide about ¥3 billion in subsidies for gas stations so that gas prices on the remote islands will be lowered. They are now ¥6.9 to ¥14.6 higher per liter than those in mainland areas.
Transportation costs on remote islands are higher than those in mainland regions. For example, airfare for a route from Fukuoka to Tsushima island in Nagasaki Prefecture, which is about 130 kilometers, is ¥15,900 per adult.
Using this fare amount for Nozomi series bullet trains on the Tokaido Shinkansen line, a simple calculation indicates a passenger could travel about 600 kilometers from Tokyo Station to Shin-Kobe Station.
The declining populations on remote islands are a serious problem. The total population on remote islands in 1955 was about 990,000, and fell to about 420,000 in 2010.
Many remote islands have become uninhabited. Because remote islands are the bases of Japan’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZs), there has been a negative impact on national security.
The Senkaku Islands in Okinawa Prefecture, where processing tuna meat was a prosperous industry in the years before World War II, became uninhabited as companies operating businesses withdrew.
Currently, Chinese government vessels have repeatedly intruded into territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands.
The law on special measures was passed as lawmaker-sponsored legislation because of a sense of crisis about the situation. The law will be enacted in April next year.
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is going on the offensive against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton with the reopening of a probe into her use of a private email server.
Clinton leads Trump in opinion polls with less than 10 days before Americans go to the polls on November 8th.
On Friday, the FBI said it would reopen the probe into Clinton's use of her private account for work while she was secretary of state, citing the discovery of new emails.
In a campaign speech on Saturday, Clinton said it is strange to put out something like that right before an election. She urged the FBI to give the public a full explanation.
Trump said the same day it is everybody's deepest hope that justice will be served at last.
US media reports say the FBI obtained the new emails, which apparently came from a Clinton aide's account, in the course of an investigation into a separate case.
Reports also say that the Justice Department opposed FBI Director James Comey's decision to announce the reopening of the probe due to its possible effect on the presidential election.
Nintei-Shiho-Shoshi Lawyers are permitted to represent clients in various summary court proceedings such as civil trial, compromise and conciliation and so on. The summary courts have the original jurisdiction over civil cases ,involving claims for amounts not exceeding 1,400,000 yen. There are 438 summary courts in Japan.