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Tomohiro OSAKI AFP

Japan allows joint child custody after divorce

Japan allows joint child custody after divorce

Divorcing parents in Japan can opt to share custody starting Wednesday, ending a system both criticised for encouraging parental child "abductions" and defended as a safeguard for domestic abuse survivors. For decades in Japan, only one side -- almost always the mother -- was granted parental authority post-divorce, making

Baby monkey Punch acclimatising, making new friends at Japan zoo

Baby monkey Punch acclimatising, making new friends at Japan zoo

Clutching a monkey plushie, Eliete Ikeda screamed "Punch!" as she caught sight of the underdog baby macaque still drawing crowds of photo-hungry visitors to a Japanese zoo weeks after he shot to stardom. Seven-month-old Punch was abandoned by his mother and became an internet sensation

'We're not wombs': Japan women seek rights to sterilisation

'We're not wombs': Japan women seek rights to sterilisation

When Kazane Kajiya voluntarily sterilised herself in the United States aged 27, she essentially "flipped the middle finger" at Japan's patriarchal society that had long pushed her towards motherhood. In the rapidly ageing country desperate to boost its falling birth rates, women seeking to make themselves

Shabby beauty: Inside Japan's oldest, defiant student dorm

Shabby beauty: Inside Japan's oldest, defiant student dorm

Graffiti defaces tattered clay walls and trash piles up in Japan's oldest student dormitory, but Masako Ueda is savouring every last moment in the mice-infested building slated for temporary closure. The elite Kyoto University's "Yoshida Dorm" is self-governed by students, who treasure