Japan’s Kazuki Takahashi became emotional after winning bronze in the men’s individual BC3 boccia event at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games on Wednesday, as the medal came at the venue where he suffered a life-changing injury about 30 years ago. Takahashi, a Paralympic silver medalist, beat South Korea’s Jeong Ho Wong 5-1 in the bronze medal match at Nagoya City General Gymnasium.
Wheelchair racer Tomoki Sato led a Japanese podium sweep in the men’s 100-meter T51/T52 final Wednesday at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games before paying tribute to former teammate Hirokazu Ueyonabaru, who died last month after being injured in a road accident.
There have been calls for the organizers of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games to improve accessibility for disabled volunteers, following criticism that insufficient consideration was given to those volunteering at the Asian Games.
Nearly half of workers with developmental disabilities in Japan do not disclose their diagnosis to supervisors or human resources departments, with fear of discrimination and prejudice cited as the leading reason, a survey has found. Among respondents who received a diagnosis while employed, 37.6% said they had not told anyone, while 8.7% had informed colleagues but not their supervisors, bringing the total who withheld the information from management to 46.3%.
Local judoka Atsumi Nishimura expressed regret after settling for silver in the women’s J1 70-kilogram event at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Paris Paralympic champion Junko Hirose secured bronze in the women’s J2 60-kg category despite being injured. In Para judo, J1 is the category for athletes who are blind or almost blind, while J2 is for those with visual impairment. During bouts, J1 judokas are escorted by the referee to the center of the mat at the start of the contest and whenever necessary.
Japan’s Koyo Iwabuchi, 31, and Mahiro Funayama, 22, won table tennis golds in the men’s class 9 and class 10 singles events, respectively, at the Asian Para Games on Tuesday.
Princess Kako on Sunday called for greater understanding of hearing loss at a national welfare convention in Kyoto, expressing hope for a society where everyone can communicate with confidence. At the ceremony, the second daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito, also known as Crown Prince Akishino, said, “I hope everyone can access a wide range of information, communicate their thoughts to one another with peace of mind and live together.”
Six-time Paralympian swimmer Takayuki Suzuki was relieved after winning gold in the men’s 50-meter freestyle S4 final at the home Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games on Monday. Meanwhile, 14-year-old debutant Ryuga Yamada was satisfied after setting a personal best despite finishing seventh in the men’s 200m individual medley SM6 final.
Japan’s Shizuka Hangai, 38, and Shota Kawamoto, 30, on Monday clinched Asian Para Games gold in the women’s J1 class 52-kilogram judo event and in the men’s C1-2 class 3,000-meter individual cycling pursuit, respectively. A day after the opening ceremony was held for the quadrennial sporting festival mainly in the central Japan prefecture of Aichi, Hangai added the Asian Para gold to her medal haul after winning silver for the women’s 48 kg judo event at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, which was her fourth Paralympics.
The opening ceremony of the first Japan-hosted Asian Para Games took place at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya, the capital of Aichi Prefecture, central Japan, on Sunday, officially marking the start of the 2026 Games. About 3,000 athletes from 45 countries and regions are scheduled to participate. The Japanese delegation has entered about 280 athletes. At the opening ceremony, Japanese Emperor Naruhito declared the opening of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games. The ceremony was also attended by Crown Prince Akishino, the honorary president of the Games, and Crown Princess Kiko.
Princess Kako on Sunday called for greater understanding of hearing loss at a national welfare convention in Kyoto, expressing hope for a society where everyone can communicate with confidence. At the ceremony, the second daughter of Crown Prince Fumihito, also known as Crown Prince Akishino, said, “I hope everyone can access a wide range of information, communicate their thoughts to one another with peace of mind and live together.”
Eligible small and medium-sized corporations operating nursing care or disability welfare service facilities can receive up to 2.3 million yen per employee for replacement staff costs during childcare or family care leave, depending on the employment period. Additional subsidies are also available for recruitment advertising and workplace improvements.
Sporting action began at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games on Friday, two days before the opening ceremony, as Japan hosts the event for the first time. Japan were beaten 1-0 by China in blind football, while in men’s wheelchair basketball, the host nation defeated China 76-38. Table tennis and badminton also got underway in Aichi Prefecture in central Japan.
The number of foreign residents in Japan as of the end of June rose 3.8 pct from the end of 2025 to a record 4,281,026, Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita said Friday. Foreign residents accounted for 3.5 pct of the country’s total population. In the first half of 2026, however, the number of foreigners entering Japan edged down 0.1 pct from a year earlier to 19,706,953.
Hyogo Prefecture announced on October 15 that the spread of influenza in the prefecture had reached the advisory level for the first time this season. The average number of patients per designated medical institution during the week of October 5–11 was 10.15, an increase of 2.61 from the previous week (September 28–October 4). The number exceeded the advisory threshold of 10 patients per designated institution approximately three weeks earlier than last season.
Former Hakone Ekiden stage winner Yudai Shimazu will run for gold at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games after an eye disease prompted his move to para athletics. The 26-year-old, a two-time stage winner in Japan’s prestigious university relay race, holds the men’s T13 5,000-meter world record for athletes with visual impairments.
The 5th Asian Para Games will take place in Aichi Prefecture and Nagoya, Japan, from October 18 to October 24, 2026. This marks the first time Japan has hosted the event.
A cross-party parliamentary group in Japan began hearing from experts on Oct. 13 as it steps up efforts to revise the Developmental Disabilities Support Act for the first time since 2016, with the aim of submitting an amendment bill during the 2027 ordinary Diet session. The proposed revision is expected to address a range of issues, including the definition of developmental disabilities, the participation of people with disabilities in decisions affecting them, the promotion of reasonable accommodation, and improvements to the functions of support centers and the training of specialist personnel.
Japan’s Hiromi Endo arrives at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games sitting second in the women’s boccia world rankings and looking to go one better than her runner-up finish at the recent world championships. Playing in the BC1 category for athletes with significant impairment of all four limbs and trunk, the 40-year-old emerged as Japan’s leading figure in boccia after the individual men’s and women’s events were adopted for the Tokyo Games in 2021.
ABC reported on October 13 that the city of Kaizuka, Osaka Prefecture, has announced that it will impose administrative sanctions on a group home for people with disabilities following reports of abuse against residents. The facility, Megumi Home, is operated by the nonprofit organization Yume ga Megumi. The administrative sanction involves the suspension of all designated service-provider status for three months.
Japan captain Ryo Kawamura has vowed to win men’s blind football gold at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games and avenge a loss to China in April’s Asian Championship final that denied his team an automatic berth at the Los Angeles Paralympics.
The workers had been told by an employment support provider, which arranges workplaces for disabled people through a scheme known as the “disability employment business”, that they would be participating in an 18-month programme. Some were so shocked by the news that they became unable to continue working.
The report focused greatly on expected labour shortages which are thought will become even more severe by 2040, the role that technology will play in the care sector in the future with a strong emphasis on boosting productivity through the adoption of technology, such as artificial intelligence. The report also notes that survey results showed that more than 70% of the public are concerned about future staff shortages in healthcare.
A Japanese public-interest association has established a system to certify “juku” cram schools taking sufficient measures to prevent sexual violence against children, with requirements including the installation of security cameras in classrooms. The move comes ahead of the Dec. 25 launch of a Japanese version of Britain’s Disclosure and Barring Service, which obliges facilities including schools and licensed nurseries to check the sexual offense records of teachers and others whose work involves contact with children.
The workers had been told by an employment support provider, which arranges workplaces for disabled people through a scheme known as the “disability employment business”, that they would be participating in an 18-month programme. Some were so shocked by the news that they became unable to continue working.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will hold the 25th Tokyo Skills Competition for Persons with Disabilities, known as the Tokyo Abilympics, on Feb. 20, 2027, and will accept applications from Oct. 19 to Nov. 13. Applications must be submitted through an online form to be published on the website of the organisation’s Tokyo branch. Applicants’ eligibility will be reviewed, and participants will be selected and notified individually. Selection may be necessary if applications exceed the available places.
The Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games torch relay started Saturday, ahead of the opening ceremony on Oct. 18, with around 3,000 athletes from more than 40 countries and regions expected to compete. Yoshimi Kaji, who represented Japan in canoeing at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, became the first runner in her hometown of Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture.
Kazuaki was a second-year junior high school student when he sat across an acrylic partition from Satoshi Uematsu, the man accused of killing 19 people with intellectual disabilities at a care home outside Tokyo. What struck him was how Uematsu seemed.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will hold the 25th Tokyo Skills Competition for Persons with Disabilities, known as the Tokyo Abilympics, on Feb. 20, 2027, and will accept applications from Oct. 19 to Nov. 13. Applications must be submitted through an online form to be published on the website of the organisation’s Tokyo branch. Applicants’ eligibility will be reviewed, and participants will be selected and notified individually. Selection may be necessary if applications exceed the available places.
The average number of new influenza cases per regularly monitored medical institution in Japan stood at 11.35 in the week through Sunday, exceeding the alert level of 10, the health ministry said Friday. The figure, based on reports from about 3,000 such medical institutions nationwide, surpassed the level indicating the possibility of an outbreak within four weeks, reaching the threshold about a month earlier than last year.
Japan has seen a surge in approved compensation claims by medical workers for work-related mental disorders, a government white paper showed Friday. The data from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2023 show an annual average of 59.3 cases, up 3.6-fold from the 16.3 cases for fiscal 2012 to fiscal 2014. The most common factor over the entire survey period was “experiences or sightings of tragic accidents or disasters.”
The survey was conducted from December last year to March this year through 20 member organisations and other channels, receiving responses from 400 people. The results have recently been compiled. Surveys of this scale targeting people with disabilities themselves are said to be rare. Of the 311 respondents who answered whether they had ever been refused rental housing, 33 said they had.
A total of 11.4% of disability pension applicants in Japan were denied benefits in fiscal 2025 because their disabilities did not meet eligibility criteria or because of incomplete documentation, according to Japan Pension Service statistics. Although the rate fell from a record 13.8% in fiscal 2024, concerns remain that applicants can struggle to obtain the medical records and other documentation needed to prove their eligibility, particularly when treatment dates back decades. Medical institutions are generally required to retain medical records for only five years, meaning applicants may have difficulty proving the date of their first consultation or diagnosis when older records have been disposed of. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has criticized aspects of the certification process and called for fairer disability pension assessments.
A total of 11.4% of disability pension applicants in Japan were denied benefits in fiscal 2025 because their disabilities did not meet eligibility criteria or because of incomplete documentation, according to Japan Pension Service statistics. Although the rate fell from a record 13.8% in fiscal 2024, concerns remain that applicants can struggle to obtain the medical records and other documentation needed to prove their eligibility, particularly when treatment dates back decades. Medical institutions are generally required to retain medical records for only five years, meaning applicants may have difficulty proving the date of their first consultation or diagnosis when older records have been disposed of. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has criticized aspects of the certification process and called for fairer disability pension assessments.
According to FY2025 disability pension statistics published by the Japan Pension Service by the 6th, the proportion of applicants denied benefits, either because the severity of their disability did not meet the criteria or due to incomplete documentation was 11.4%.
It has been discovered through research that Omi Gakuen, a facility for children with intellectual disabilities in Shiga Prefecture founded by Kazuo Itoga, who was praised as the “father of disability welfare,” gave a 16-year-old girl with an intellectual disability the false explanation that “your bed-wetting will stop” when applying for her forced sterilization in 1952, during the period when the Eugenic Protection Law was in effect (1948–1996). The law permitted sterilization to be carried out through deception. This is the first time that the specific means of deception used in such a case have been identified in Shiga Prefecture.
The suspect is accused of striking a 52-year-old male resident near the face with a sandal around 4:30 p.m. on September 23 at “Sodegaura Hikari no Gakuen”, the facility in Shimoshinden, Sodegaura City where he works as a care worker, and grabbing his upper body and tripping him so he fell backward around 7:50 p.m.
Typhoon No. 28, Nolo, also classified as very strong, had a central pressure of 950 hectopascals and maximum sustained winds of 50 m/s and was moving west-northwest near the Midway Islands; it is forecast to turn northward and approach waters east of Japan later in the week. Typhoon No. 29, Koguma, was considerably weaker, with a central pressure of 1,000 hectopascals and maximum sustained winds of 18 m/s, and was moving north-northwest near the Marshall Islands.
It has been discovered through research that Omi Gakuen, a facility for children with intellectual disabilities in Shiga Prefecture founded by Kazuo Itoga, who was praised as the “father of disability welfare,” gave a 16-year-old girl with an intellectual disability the false explanation that “your bed-wetting will stop” when applying for her forced sterilization in 1952, during the period when the Eugenic Protection Law was in effect (1948–1996). The law permitted sterilization to be carried out through deception. This is the first time that the specific means of deception used in such a case have been identified in Shiga Prefecture.
The average number of influenza patients per monitored medical institution has exceeded 1.0 in all 47 Japanese prefectures, signaling a nationwide flu outbreak, a health ministry announcement showed Friday. The ministry said that the number of flu patients at some 3,000 regularly monitored institutions across the country came to 7.17 on average in the week through Sunday. While the figure was slightly lower than 8.48 the previous week, a ministry official said, “The decline may be temporary, given trends in previous years.” A large and powerful typhoon, now over the sea far south of Japan, is expected to move north while developing and come closest to the Pacific islands of Ogasawara early next week.
As Japan saw the second-earliest start of a nationwide influenza outbreak, the flu is also spreading in Kumamoto Prefecture, which was hit by a powerful earthquake in July. With more than 1,300 people still staying at evacuation centers two months after the July 28 temblor that registered the maximum 7 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, an expert has stressed the importance of getting vaccinated early.
According to the ruling and other sources, the man reported to Taiki Town where a resident at the facility lives; in February 2024 that he had witnessed fellow care workers verbally abusing residents and striking them on the back. When a town official contacted the facility, they disclosed that the man was the whistleblower.
A large and powerful typhoon, now over the sea far south of Japan, is expected to move north while developing and come closest to the Pacific islands of Ogasawara early next week. People are advised to be on the alert for high waves from Sunday onward. The Japan Meteorological Agency says that as of 6 a.m. on Saturday, Typhoon Choi-wan was moving north-northeast near the Mariana Islands at a speed of 15 kilometres per hour.
The typhoon had a central atmospheric pressure of 970 hectopascals. It was packing winds of up to 126 kilometres per hour near its centre, with gusts peaking at 180 kilometres per hour.
A disability support facility in Toon, Ehime Prefecture, has been ordered to stop accepting new users for one year after a former manager repeatedly abused a service user, including shaking and knocking the person down and subjecting them to prolonged reprimands.
The average number of influenza patients per monitored medical institution has exceeded 1.0 in all 47 Japanese prefectures, signaling a nationwide flu outbreak, a health ministry announcement showed Friday. The ministry said that the number of flu patients at some 3,000 regularly monitored institutions across the country came to 7.17 on average in the week through Sunday.
While the figure was slightly lower than 8.48 the previous week, a ministry official said, “The decline may be temporary, given trends in previous years.”
Uematsu had also sought a retrial in 2022, but the petition was rejected, with the rejection becoming final at the Supreme Court in October 2025. Regarding his second petition, the Tokyo High Court ruled in August 2026 that the grounds for the petition were “substantially the same” as those of his first petition, and upheld a Yokohama District Court decision rejecting it.
The Supreme Court’s Third Petty Bench, presided over by Justice Kimihiro Ishikane, has ruled against a second retrial petition filed by former employee Satoshi Uematsu, 36, who was sentenced to death for the 2016 killings and wounding of 45 people at the Tsukui Yamayuri-en facility for people with intellectual disabilities in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture. The decision, dated Sept. 29, dismissed the death-row inmate’s special appeal.
A survey by the Fukuoka City-based group Association to Eliminate Discrimination against People with Disabilities in Fukuoka City found that one in 10 respondents with disabilities or their family members had been refused when looking for private rental housing.
Some respondents said they had been turned away because of their disability. Experts say such cases could constitute “unjust discriminatory treatment,” which is prohibited under Japan’s Act for Eliminating Discrimination against People with Disabilities. The survey was conducted from December last year through March this year through the group’s 20 member organizations and other channels.
Japan’s delegation to the upcoming Asian Para Games held a team-forming ceremony at a hotel in Tokyo on Tuesday. The Asian Para Games will run from Oct. 18 to 24 following the closing of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday. Tuesday’s ceremony was attended by about 120 people, mainly athletes.
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