The Hokkaido Prefectural Government has designated 13 companies, including PayPay, Rakuten Group and Amazon Japan, as official payment agents under the Local Autonomy Act, with several address updates also noted.
Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is inviting public comments on a draft ministerial order that would revise rules on interconnection fees for Type I designated telecommunications facilities.
Japan's land ministry is collecting public comments on a draft digital transformation strategy for managing buildings across their lifecycle, with submissions open until November 18, 2026.
Hokkaido's prefectural government has updated its rice supply-and-demand page, reporting falling prices, record private stockpiles, and warning shoppers about fake discount rice websites.
Hokkaido's prefectural government is recruiting one meat processing facility for a free advisory programme aimed at helping it earn official Ezo deer meat processing certification, with applications open through November 30, 2026.
Japan's land ministry is seeking public comments on proposed revisions to registration rules for groups of existing-home information providers, with submissions accepted through December 3, 2026.
Japan's health ministry is seeking public comments through December 1 on a draft ordinance amending Employment Insurance Act enforcement rules, overseen by its labor mobility support office.
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, with the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency and Fair Trade Commission, is running a month-long campaign to stop large firms from shifting workload burdens onto subcontractors.
MHLW has ordered mandatory lot-by-lot testing of Chinese okra and simply processed okra products after detecting the pesticide mepiquat chloride above Japan's standard in multiple shipments.
Japan's education and health ministries have launched four separate public comment calls on rules implementing a new law regulating human genome-edited embryos, with deadlines in late November 2026.
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 struck northeastern Chiba Prefecture early on October 29, 2026, with the Japan Meteorological Agency recording a maximum seismic intensity of 5 lower in Yokoshibahikari.
The Digital Agency released survey results on its Gen'nai government AI tool and launched a prototype app to help officials draft Diet answers, citing time savings but mixed feedback.
The Japan Pension Service says ongoing system upgrades at local governments nationwide may slow the verification of residence and income data needed to process pension claims, adding roughly one to two weeks to normal processing times.