INSIDE JAPAN

Ama female divers from the Toba-Shima area have formed a group to preserve their traditions, as part of a bid by the Mie prefectural government to have the divers declared a national cultural property and UNESCO intangible cultural heritage asset. (Yomiuri)

The nightclubs in the city's Amemura area, known as "little America" on account of its trendy vintage shops that stock large amounts of US clothing, started being targeted by the authorities recently. (guardian.co.uk)

The yen's drop is transforming Japan's reputation as a prohibitively expensive place to visit, turbocharging a tourism industry long identified as a growth engine for the maturing economy. (Wall Street Journal)

While street food is enjoying a revival in the West thanks to the rise of gourmet food trucks, it's fighting to stay alive in Fukuoka, a city on Japan's Kyushu island. (Wall Street Journal)

A Japanese hair salon is rewriting the meaning of cutting edge after taking fashion inspiration from the humble tomato. (Daily Mail)

Koji Kitahara is one of the few remaining residents who has not surrendered his property or his fight in a more than 40 year conflict between the residents of Narita, Chiba Prefecture and the government of Japan which has tried to forced them off their land. (japansubculture.com)

The Environment Ministry has started to improve the water quality of Chidorigafuchi moat of the Imperial Palace and its surrounding natural environment, including the cherry trees for which the moat is popularly known. (Yomiuri)

With margins shrinking for Japan's criminals, they're becoming more creative in their scams to separate people from their cash. The gullibility of many Japanese is rooted in the nation's traditionally low crime rate. (Deutsche Welle)

A dark suit jacket hangs by a shaded window, beneath a portrait of a smiling, well-dressed executive. The man is Akira Teranishi, a Japanese salaryman who killed himself 17 years ago, leaping from a building in Kyoto. It was Valentine's Day. (New York Times)

In the 1910s, U.S. economists such as Edwin Kemmerer preached the virtues of a stable currency to Mexico and Guatemala; more recently, Greece has received plenty of advice from the International Monetary Fund. But there have been other, less well-known instances of money doctoring that have served an overtly nationalist agenda. This was the case with Japan from 1895 to 1937, when the emerging power used money doctoring to check U.S. influence in the Pacific. (Bloomberg)

In April 2011 the Japanese camera-maker Olympus appointed its first foreign president, Michael Woodford, a Briton and 30-year company veteran. Six months later he was sacked after questioning $1.7 billion in suspicious transactions. His rapid ascent and downfall for doing the right thing is nicely told in this first-person whodunnit. (The Economist)

Restorations of once-worthless homes across Japan are delivering investment returns as high as 80 percent and luring developers and entrepreneurs eager to turn a profit on resale or rental. The homes also are providing a source of tourism revenue to Japan's shrinking villages as they seek new ways to draw visitors and create jobs. (BusinessWeek)

What matters at Christmas time is the spirit, right? For those yet to be convinced, a tiny Japanese pavilion in Paris offers to initiate Westerners to a 700-year-old gift-giving ritual known as Origata. (AFP)

Yumi Shida, a 15-year-old model for a popular teen magazine, never feels lonely, even when she has to work away from her family - if she has some Hello Kitty goods with her. (Japan Times)

A humanoid robot that can mimic facial expressions is entertaining shoppers at a department store in Osaka, western Japan. (NHKReloaded)

if you're a skateboarder, and you happen to be lucky enough to be traveling to Japan, the escalating skateboarding opportunities there deserve your attention. (blogcritics.org)

The number of violent incidents has indeed increased in Kita-Kyushu this year. A former police officer who once handled Kudo-kai matters was shot and seriously injured, and a rocket launcher was found in a warehouse in a residential district. (Asahi)

With the arrival of autumn in Japan, tourist spots see a sudden influx of visitors, eager to do spot of sightseeing and wander around outdoors without melting into a big, sweaty mess like in summer. (rocketnews24.com)

One in three Japanese people visits a karaoke parlor each year, supporting a sing-along economy that has hit gold with a wide range of products to pull punters in. Parlors have diversified to appeal to individual tastes, offering everything from solo booths to studios aimed at dog owners, and fancy food establishments where cordon bleu accompanies the blues. (Asahi)

When Japanese artist Jun Kitagawa heard the main attraction of Shonandai Fantasia is a parade featuring the Brazilian samba dancers of Asakusa Samba, he knew exactly what he had to do: T&A. (rocketnews24.com)

In 2004, Kameyama, a town of 50,000 people in central Japan, boomed when Sharp started making liquid-crystal-display panels there. Sharp dominated the industry with a 22 percent market share in LCD TVs and poured $6.6 billion into Kameyama, creating two state-of-the-art factories and 3,000 jobs. Farmland was turned into housing as workers in their 20s moved in from as far away as Brazil. Taxes from Sharp paid for the renovation of the train station and a new school with features like a castle. (delawareonline.com)

Take one of those toy Christmas snow domes, shake it vigorously non-stop for six months and you get some idea why 70,000 Australians ski and board in Japan each year. The snow flakes just keep on falling. (AAP)

She was found roaming the streets of Fukushima's exclusion zone, the sprawling ghost town that now surrounds Japan's quake-crippled nuclear reactor. One of an unknown number of dogs that were left chained or abandoned amid the disaster, the haggard-looking mutt bore a scar over one ear and unmistakable signs of chronic stress. (Los Angeles Times)

Noh -- derived from the Sino-Japanese word for "skill" or "talent" -- is a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century. Many characters are masked, with men playing male and female roles. (NHKReloaded)

People often speak with awe about the deep powder of Hokkaido, particularly the much hyped Niseko area. But what is not widely acknowledged is that exactly the same kind of fluffy powder also falls on Nagano, which happens to have steeper mountains than Hokkaido. One of these mountains is Mt. Kenashi, home to the superb Nozawa Onsen Ski Resort. As its name suggests, this is a place with onsen - thermal springs. But more about that after some ravings concerning snow. (japantourist.jp)