分类： society

Japan’s iconic Mount Fuji has long drawn thousands of hiking enthusiasts from across the globe each year, but a growing trend of dangerous off-season ascents is pushing local authorities to roll out strict new regulations to protect unprepared climbers and cut down on risky rescue operations.

Starting next year, officials managing the northern flank of Mount Fuji have announced that any climber attempting an off-season ascent who requires emergency helicopter rescue will be forced to pay full cost for the service. This new charge is one of several policy changes Yamanashi Prefecture is implementing to deter ill-prepared and reckless hikers from putting themselves and rescue teams in danger.

Regional officials are using an existing rescue fee model from nearby Saitama Prefecture as a reference for their new pricing structure. Saitama already charges 8,000 Japanese yen, equal to roughly $51 or £38, for every five minutes of helicopter rescue service in the prefecture’s mountainous regions. Yamanashi has not yet released its final exact fee schedule, but confirmed the structure will align closely with Saitama’s established framework.

Beyond the new rescue fee, Yamanashi is also adding a mandatory requirement for all off-season climbers: anyone hoping to scale Mount Fuji between early September and July of the following year, the recognized off-peak window, must submit a detailed, step-by-step climbing plan for approval before setting out. The prefecture’s governor, Kotaro Nagasaki, framed the new rules as a urgent public safety measure in comments made Monday.

“We ask the general public to refrain from climbing during the off-season,” Nagasaki said. “We hope that these measures will cause people to rethink what climbing Mount Fuji during the winter is like.”

The push for tighter regulation comes as both Yamanashi and neighboring Shizuoka Prefecture, which manages the southern portion of the mountain, have recorded a steady increase in unplanned and off-season climbs in recent years. A growing number of these ascents have ended in emergency situations, with climbers becoming stranded in harsh conditions requiring large-scale rescue responses.

Shizuoka has also announced its own set of stricter rules to address the trend: the prefecture will impose formal penalties on off-season climbers who fail to register their planned ascent, and will increase patrols and enforcement to keep hikers out of off-limits areas that pose extreme safety risks. Unlike Yamanashi, however, Shizuoka has not yet announced plans to introduce a fee for helicopter rescues.

Mount Fuji’s official climbing season runs only from July to early September, a window when weather conditions are most stable and visitor infrastructure is fully operational. Roughly 200,000 hikers attempt to reach the summit during this official window each year. Climbing outside the official season is strongly discouraged by authorities, though it remains legally permitted up to the fifth of the mountain’s ten ascending stations.

Despite the legal allowance, off-season climbing carries significant avoidable risks. Most mountain huts and public toilet facilities along climbing routes are closed during the off-peak months, leaving no place for climbers to rest, refuel, or access basic amenities. Weather conditions on the mountain also turn far more severe outside the official season, with sudden blizzards, high winds, and icy trail conditions that create major hazards even for experienced mountaineers.

Japan’s population landscape is hitting two historic, contradictory milestones this year: the number of Japanese residents aged 100 or older has crossed the 100,000 threshold for the first time in the nation’s history, even as accelerating population decline and rapid aging have been labeled an existential threat to the country.

New official data released by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare puts the current national centenarian count at 107,677 — a staggering increase from just 153 recorded centenarians when the government first began systematic tracking in 1963. Of this group, 88% are women. The nation’s oldest person is 114-year-old Fuyo Kishimoto of Kyoto City, while the oldest man is 112-year-old Hikaru Kato from Kumamoto Prefecture.

Health Minister Kenichiro Ueno highlighted the milestone as a public health win ahead of Japan’s annual Respect for the Aged Day, a national holiday that honors centenarians with a personalized letter from the government and a traditional ceremonial sake cup. “I am delighted that so many people in Japan are living long, healthy and active lives,” Ueno said, crediting advances in medical care and public health technology for the extended lifespans. Even so, he acknowledged the severe challenge the aging demographic poses to keeping Japan’s social security system financially and structurally sustainable.

Experts have long pointed to multiple cultural and dietary factors that contribute to Japanese residents’ above-average longevity. Traditional Japanese cuisine is centered on fresh fish, whole vegetables and rice, with far lower levels of saturated fat than most standard Western diets. Additionally, many older Japanese adults maintain active daily routines, regularly walking, cycling, using public transit, and doing gentle stretching exercises rather than leading sedentary lifestyles. The growing centenarian population has also spurred innovation across Japan’s private sector: companies have developed a range of new products tailored to older users, from powered body-supporting exoskeletons to auto-focusing eyewear for people with age-related vision changes. For more than a decade, sales of adult diapers have outpaced sales of baby diapers in Japan, a quiet marker of the nation’s shifting age demographic.

But the record number of centenarians comes alongside a far more troubling demographic trend: Japan’s total population is shrinking rapidly, driven by years of plummeting birth rates that have outpaced any government efforts to reverse the decline. To sustain a stable population, a country needs an average total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman. Last year, Japan’s fertility rate fell to a new all-time low of just 1.14. Projections from Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimate the total national population will drop to just 87 million by 2070 — a 30% decline from the 2008 peak of 128 million.

Already, adults aged 65 and older make up roughly 30% of Japan’s total population, and that share is projected to climb to nearly 40% by 2070. In 2025, Japan’s population shrank in 45 of its 47 prefectures, and the pace of decline is accelerating. Prime Minister Sanae Takichi has described the ongoing population drop as a “quiet emergency,” and Japanese authorities have repeatedly called the trend an existential crisis for the nation.

For years, the Japanese government has rolled out dozens of programs and subsidies to encourage young couples to have more children, but these policies have yet to move the needle on birth rates. Experts say the causes of low fertility are multifaceted: declining marriage rates, more women pursuing higher education and full-time careers, and the soaring cost of raising and educating children in Japan have all combined to discourage larger families. While immigration levels have risen slightly in recent years, foreign-born residents still make up only 3% of the total population, and public opposition to increasing immigration has grown in recent years, blocking a potential solution to population decline.

It is worth noting that global centenarian data has long faced questions about accuracy, with issues like incomplete birth records, data entry errors and unreported deaths inflating counts in many countries. Japan itself faced a major counting scandal in 2010, when a government audit of national family registries found more than 230,000 people listed as centenarians could not be accounted for — some had died decades earlier. Officials attributed the inaccurate counts to spotty historical record-keeping, and in some cases, deliberate concealment of deaths by family members looking to continue collecting elderly relatives’ pension benefits.

Growing regulatory and public pressure over the spread of monetized child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Meta’s platforms has forced the tech giant to announce a policy shift: it will now begin reporting child safety incidents directly to Indian law enforcement, after months of scrutiny from New Delhi and child rights advocates.

The controversy first erupted in July, when a BBC Eye investigation uncovered paid Instagram advertisements actively promoting CSAM to users across India. The findings immediately triggered a formal order from the Indian government, demanding Meta purge all CSAM-linked content and advertising from its platforms. The issue reemerged in the public eye this month, when the U.S.-based nonprofit Tech Transparency Project (TTP) published a new report documenting hundreds of AI-generated CSAM advertisements still active on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms. Of the 332 problematic ads TTP identified, 84 were targeted at Indian audiences—and 78 of those had been placed after the government’s original removal order in July.

In response to mounting pressure, a Meta spokesperson confirmed the company’s new policy commitment, framing child protection as a core organizational priority. “Protecting children on our platforms is a priority for us, and we’re committed to working with the government to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are held responsible,” the spokesperson said. “To collectively strengthen our efforts to combat this harm, Meta will now report child safety matters directly to the Cybercrime portal managed by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre.”

The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which operates under India’s Union Home Ministry, manages the country’s central hub for tracking and investigating digital cybercrime. Until this policy shift, Meta only fulfilled its child safety reporting obligations by sending all CSAM and exploitation alerts to the U.S.-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which then forwarded relevant cases to local law enforcement in other countries. Direct reporting to India’s national portal is expected to cut down processing time and give local investigators faster access to critical information about bad actors operating on the platforms.

The policy change comes after multiple layers of official and civil society action against Meta over the scandal. India’s National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) launched a formal inquiry following the BBC investigation, summoning Meta India’s managing director and country head to answer questions about the company’s content moderation failures. India’s National Human Rights Commission also issued formal notices to two Union ministries, launching an inquiry into whether Meta’s algorithmic content systems contributed to the selection, amplification, and monetization of CSAM content. A civil society network, Just Rights for Children—made up of more than 250 child rights organizations—even filed a petition before India’s Supreme Court, asking the court to order all social media firms to report CSAM promoters directly to Indian law enforcement. The group’s founder, Bhuwan Ribhu, had long argued that routing all reports exclusively through the U.S.-based NCMEC system created unacceptable delays that let bad actors operate with impunity.

Meta has yet to release key details about the new policy rollout: the company has not announced an official start date for direct reporting, clarified exactly which types of child safety cases will fall under the new arrangement, or explained how the process will work in practice alongside existing reporting through NCMEC. In an earlier statement to the BBC following TTP’s new findings, Meta defended its existing efforts, noting that it does not tolerate CSAM or exploitative content—whether generated via AI or featuring real children—“Criminals continually change their tactics to evade detection and that it was strengthening its systems,” the company said. Meta also added that most of the advertisements identified by TTP had already been taken down, most received fewer than 200 impressions, and the total ad spend behind the problematic content was less than $5,000.

The ongoing scrutiny of Meta in India reflects a broader global push to force major social media platforms to take more aggressive action against CSAM, particularly the fast-growing category of AI-generated exploitative imagery that has evaded many older content detection systems.

A violent road incident in the northern Indian city of Gurugram, just outside the national capital New Delhi, has triggered widespread public anger across the country after graphic dashcam footage of the crash circulated widely on social media. The event has also reignited long-simmering conversations about routine harassment and gender-based hostility that female motorcyclists report facing on Indian public roads.

The confrontation unfolded on Sunday, when 28-year-old Shivani Chauhan was out riding with a group of fellow motorcycle enthusiasts. Footage captured by a camera mounted to Chauhan’s own bike clearly shows a white sedan drifting close to her two-wheeler before making contact. The impact throws Chauhan off her motorcycle onto the asphalt, leaving her bike skidding across the road, while the sedan does not stop and continues driving away from the scene.

Chauhan, who only suffered minor injuries thanks to her full protective riding gear, later shared the clip to her Instagram account. The video quickly went viral, racking up millions of views and drawing thousands of angry comments from social media users, which pressured local law enforcement to launch a formal investigation into the incident.

By Tuesday, Gurugram police confirmed they had taken the identified driver, 34-year-old Kalyan Bainsla, a gym owner from the nearby Haryana district of Palwal, into custody. Police records show Bainsla was operating a borrowed vehicle at the time of the crash. Investigators initially filed charges against Bainsla for reckless driving and endangering public safety, but later upgraded the charges to include attempted murder in response to public outcry and evidence from the viral footage.

Bainsla has publicly denied any intentional wrongdoing, laying out an alternate account of the incident during an interview with Indian news outlet Aaj Tak. He claims that members of Chauhan’s biking group repeatedly overtook his car and then slowed down abruptly in front of him, forcing him into a dangerous maneuver. When approaching a U-turn, he says he lost control of the vehicle while trying to avoid colliding with Chauhan’s bike. He also claims he did not initially know the rider was a woman, and that he had already asked the group to slow down earlier in the encounter. Bainsla says he fled the scene because the group of motorcyclists were shouting threats and abuse at him, and he feared he and his traveling relatives would be violently attacked if he stopped.

“Had I stopped right then, those people would have beaten us up,” Bainsla told the news channel.

Chauhan has forcefully refuted every part of Bainsla’s narrative. In a follow-up Instagram video posted shortly after Bainsla’s interview, she claimed the white car began following her group almost immediately after they started their ride. When she told the driver to maintain a safe distance, she says the car’s occupants became hostile and demanded she pull over. Chauhan says she kept riding because she feared the car would block her path, and that a fellow rider behind her tried to position their bike between hers and the car to shield her. She also alleged that the men inside the car showed clear signs of intoxication. Police have not yet confirmed whether they conducted alcohol tests on Bainsla following his detention.

Bainsla’s legal representative, Naveen Bainsla, has denied the intoxication allegation, telling Indian news agency ANI that his client had not been drinking and was traveling with family members. The lawyer also rejected framing the incident as a deliberate hit-and-run, arguing it should be classified as a case of negligent driving rather than intentional harm.

Chauhan doubled down on her challenge to Bainsla’s account in a second follow-up video posted Monday night. She pointed to the original dashcam footage as clear proof that the car moved toward her motorcycle, rather than the other way around. She also rejected Bainsla’s claim that he did not know she was a woman, and publicly questioned why he failed to stop and check on her condition after the crash.

“I could have been gravely hurt or broken my bones. I could’ve died on the spot,” Chauhan said in the video.

The viral incident has opened up a national conversation about the routine threats and harassment female motorcyclists face across India. Dozens of women riders have since shared their own experiences online, recounting being followed by other motorists, filmed without consent, or targeted with aggressive driving simply because they are women riding high-powered motorcycles. Many reported facing constant microaggressions and stereotypes about women’s ability to operate large vehicles.

Divya Sandhu, a professional riding coach who was involved in a similar harmful collision 10 years ago, told Indian broadcaster NDTV that widespread negative attitudes toward women riders have not improved in the decade since her own incident. “It’s very common for people to joke about women’s driving skills,” she said.

Another female motorcyclist, Pallavi Singh, added that many women riders intentionally hide their hair and wear full-coverage protective gear partially to avoid being identified as women and targeted for harassment while on the road.

One week after a devastating cargo hold fire tore through the passenger ferry MV June Aster off the Philippine coast, local authorities are facing the grim, labor-intensive task of identifying the remains of 76 confirmed fatalities, a process that forensic officials warn could stretch from weeks to months. The disaster, which unfolded as the vessel sailed from Manila to the popular tourist hub of Coron in Palawan province, has left 13 people still missing and 43 survivors, many of whom have shared harrowing accounts of panic and escape from the rapidly spreading blaze.\n\nSpeaking to reporters on Sunday, Richard Allan Mangalip, a forensic specialist with the Philippine National Police, explained the primary challenge slowing the identification work: most recovered remains are heavily charred from the intense, prolonged fire that burned through the vessel for more than 40 hours. “We are pushing our full efforts to collect any potential identifying markers from the remains,” Mangalip said, noting that the large number of specimens has made it impossible to set a firm, fast deadline for the process. To assist forensic teams, authorities have requested that family members of missing passengers provide DNA samples and information about personal belongings that may help confirm identities.\n\nThe MV June Aster departed Manila last Tuesday on a routine voyage to Coron, a top tourism draw famous for its white-sand beaches and World War II-era shipwreck diving sites. The passenger manifest included a mix of international and domestic tourists, workers commuting to the island, and people traveling to visit family members. Survivor accounts collected in the days after the fire paint a picture of sudden chaos: many reported hearing a loud explosion seconds before smoke began billowing from the cargo hold, and the fire spread so quickly that passengers had only minutes to react before the entire vessel was engulfed. One survivor told the BBC that he was knocked to the deck and trampled in the panicked rush to escape, before managing to jump overboard into the ocean, where he waited hours for rescue.\n\nRescue and recovery operations were severely hampered by the conditions on board: the fire burned for more than 24 hours, generating extreme heat and toxic fumes that kept first responders from accessing the vessel for more than 40 hours. When teams finally were able to board, they found many remains clustered together in sections of the ferry, a grim reminder of how quickly the disaster overtook trapped passengers.\n\nIn an official statement released Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard, which is leading the ongoing recovery and investigation, expressed its solidarity with those affected by the tragedy. “Our thoughts continue to be with the survivors and the families who are still waiting for word of their loved ones,” the statement read. “We understand the overwhelming pain and uncertainty they are living with every day as we work through recovery and identification, and we are committed to completing this process as thoroughly and expediently as possible.” A senior coast guard official confirmed Saturday that two parallel priorities are guiding the response: identifying all victims, and launching a full investigation to determine the root cause of the blaze.