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Ishanagira Youth Association has an outdoor Angama to honor the dead while observing coronavirus precautions in Ishigaki

Ishanagira Youth Association has an outdoor Angama to honor the dead while observing coronavirus precautions in Ishigaki

September 2, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Ishigaki – The Ishigaki Ishanagira Youth Association performed the Yaeyama traditional ceremony angama in Fukuyamada, Azaishigaki, which was an evacuation site for Azaishigaki residents during the way, on September 1, the middle of Bon on the lunar calendar. Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the event was scaled down and went without the well-known humorous Sumamuni (Yaeyama language) question-and-answer exchange. They honored ancestors who died...

 

Hiroshi Miyata calculates 324 billion yen and 23,000 jobs worth of missed economic benefit from Okinawa Defense Bureau placing construction orders outside of the prefecture

Hiroshi Miyata calculates 324 billion yen and 23,000 jobs worth of missed economic benefit from Okinawa Defense Bureau placing construction orders outside of the prefecture

August 25, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Hiroshi Miyata, research fellow at Okinawa University and Okinawa International University, has been analyzing the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s (ODB) construction costs, noting that around half of their construction orders were placed with companies outside of Okinawa,...

Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival to be postponed until October 2022

September 1, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Due to the impacts of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Okinawan government has proposed before August 31 to delay the 7th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival by a full year. The festival was originally scheduled for October 2021. The prefecture contacted the approximately...

Naha District Court dismisses lawsuit for referendum about GSDF deployment to Ishigaki City

Naha District Court dismisses lawsuit for referendum about GSDF deployment to Ishigaki City

August 27, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo online edition

On August 27 in the Naha District Court (Judge Kaoru Hirayama presiding), a decision was handed down in the public trial of the lawsuit requesting that the city shoulder the responsibility of conducting a local referendum concerning the plan to deploy...

Koza’s Air in a Can: Okinawa City Tourism & Products Association launches Gate Street Edition

Koza’s Air in a Can:  Okinawa City Tourism & Products Association launches Gate Street Edition

August 27, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo
By Hikaru Masaki

Okinawa – The air of Koza in a can! Following the example of canned air from certain regions or eras sold throughout Japan, the Okinawa City Tourism & Products Association (OCTPA) began selling Koza’s Air: Gate Street Edition on...

Okisho students devise recycling campaign: ‘high schoolers can contribute to SDGs too’

Okisho students devise recycling campaign: ‘high schoolers can contribute to SDGs too’

August 28, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Sora Koki, 16, and Riara Kishimae, 16, are second-year students at Okinawa Shogaku High School and are the masterminds behind the Eco Cap Campaign, a school-wide project to collect and recycle plastic bottle caps. The campaign was tied to the United Nations Sustainable...

Agreement on north-side plan for Naha Military Port relocation raises concerns of intensification of military functions; design and functions to be discussed going forward

Agreement on north-side plan for Naha Military Port relocation raises concerns of intensification of military functions; design and functions to be discussed going forward

August 24, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

The Okinawa Prefectural Government and Naha and Urasoe municipal governments came to a de facto agreement on the relocation to Urasoe of the U.S. military’s Naha Port Facility (Naha Military Port), agreeing that the replacement facility will be built on the north...

Uniting the world and Okinawa: Andres Higa, founder of Uchinanchu Day

Uniting the world and Okinawa: Andres Higa, founder of Uchinanchu Day

August 24, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

October 30 was designated World Uchinanchu Day in 2016 during the 6th Worldwide Uchinanchu Festival (Uchinanchu Taikai), falling on the final day of the multi-day event. One of the masterminds behind the celebratory day is Andres Higa, 46, a member of the Nago...

Tokyo Bus to launch two new routes in Okinawa, connecting central areas such as the Airport and Naha to the southern regions, claim they are taking a “long-term view” with regards to COVID-19

Tokyo Bus to launch two new routes in Okinawa, connecting central areas such as the Airport and Naha to the southern regions, claim they are taking a “long-term view” with regards to COVID-19

August 25, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Tokyo Bus (headquarters: Tokyo; Harunari Nishimura, CEO) which operates tour buses and regular routes all over Japan, is opening up two transit bus routes in Okinawa. Starting September 14, they will be taking over a line from Chubu Kanko Service (based in Tomigusku)...

Diary of mayor who lost wife and four children in Tsushima Maru sinking is published

Diary of mayor who lost wife and four children in Tsushima Maru sinking is published

August 21, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

By Reiko Akamine

Aug 22, 2020 marks 76 years to the day since Tsushima Maru, a passenger/cargo ship carrying children and civilian evacuees out of Okinawa, was sunk by an American submarine during WWII. While the number of living survivors and bereaved...

Eleven rushed to hospital after box jellyfish stings, possibly related to coronavirus beach closures

Eleven rushed to hospital after box jellyfish stings, possibly related to coronavirus beach closures

August 21, 2020 Ryukyu Shimpo

Uruma – Between August 1 and 19, 11 people were rushed to the hospital after being stung by box jellyfish or Portuguese man o’ wars, leading the Uruma Fire Department (led by Fire Chief Asahiro Morimizato) to call for increased caution. “We are asking people...