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Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 16, 2022

Japan's Recruit sees more female executives as key to growth

The push for more women at the upper levels of Japan's largest staffing agency is part of a diversity drive to ensure a flow of bright business ideas, the firm says.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
May 16, 2022

China's economy skids as lockdowns hit factories and retailers

Analysts warn China's current downturn may be harder to shake off than the one seen during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Kyushu
May 16, 2022

Keeping history alive, Okinawa group tells of wartime student nurses

In the pitch darkness of Nunumachi Gama, 16- and 17-year-old girls were forced to work as student nurses during the Battle of Okinawa, 77 years ago.
JAPAN
May 16, 2022

Japanese media's suicide coverage criticized after comedian's death

The health ministry has issued a “call for attention” reminding news outlets to observe World Health Organization guidelines when reporting on suicide.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
May 16, 2022

South Korean president to support Biden’s new economic grouping

New leader Yoon Suk-yeol told parliament Monday he wanted to discuss how his government can contribute to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 16, 2022

NATO prepares to add Finland and Sweden to its northern defenses

Most NATO foreign ministers have embraced the bloc's northern enlargement, a process that requires unanimity among the 30 allies.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 16, 2022

Front-runner to be next BOJ chief calls for faster green growth strategy

An increase in Japan's potential growth would encourage firms to raise wages on prospects of stronger profits, and give households more purchasing power, Hiroshi Nakaso said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 16, 2022

Japan's wholesale prices jump by record 10% as energy costs soar

The gain followed a revised 9.7% increase in March, and was higher than a median market forecast for a 9.4% increase.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 16, 2022

Wheat soars in risk to food inflation as India restricts exports

The move drew criticism from the agriculture ministers of the Group of Seven nations, who said that such measures make the world's food crisis worse.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 16, 2022

Weaker yen and supply chain chaos prompt Japanese manufacturers to head home

Among those moving manufacturing to Japan are makers of everything from auto parts to cosmetics and consumer electronics, a Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co. executive has said.
People who have experienced becoming lay judges take part in a meeting to exchange views at the Tokyo District Court on March 6. Japan's lay judge system marks its 15th year on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 20, 2024

Number of lay judges falls as Japan marks system's 15th year

While there were more than 10,000 lay judges in the system's first few years, their numbers have fallen to around 6,000 in recent years.
Some 2,181 morning-after pills were sold at 145 pharmacies across the nation, with Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture recording over 200 sales each.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 20, 2024

Morning-after pill buyers back prescription-free sales following trial

Some 27% of purchases were made on Saturdays and Sundays, when many clinics are closed.
Kuniko Takahashi, whose 24-year-old son Kotaro has cerebral palsy, had not worked for about 30 years before she joined Cafe de Chill Mill in Sendai. She now happily tells her husband that she is going to work whenever he asks her about her plans.
JAPAN / Society
May 20, 2024

Sendai cafe offers work to families of children with medical needs

Staffers at the cafe work when their children are receiving care or attending schools for special educational needs.
Ebrahim Raisi visiting the site of a road and rail bridge project in Azerbaijan on May 19
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2024

Who will be Iran’s next president following Raisi’s death?

One of the big questions raised by Ebrahim Raisi’s death is how his absence is likely to affect the battle over who succeeds Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader.
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te delivers his inaugural speech after being sworn into office during the inauguration ceremony at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 20, 2024

Lai Ching-te: From coal miner's son to Taiwan president

The Harvard graduate worked in a hospital in southern Taiwan before turning to politics in 1996 during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.
At the factory of 4R Energy Corp. in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, a lithium-ion electric vehicle battery is disassembled to be reused. Batteries and EVs are among the strategic industries governments around the world aim to support through their industrial policies.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
May 20, 2024

Grasping industrial policy in the age of economic security

A new era of industrial policies is structured around three P's: promoting strategic industries, protecting emerging technologies and partnering with like-minded countries.
BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda has talked about the potential need for a monetary policy response given foreign exchange rates’ impact on the economy. Last month, the yen touched its weakest level in 34 years, ¥160 per dollar, before rebounding.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 20, 2024

BOJ Gov. Ueda finally toughens message on the weak yen

Though most of the factors behind the flailing currency lie outside of Japan, the central bank and Finance Ministry have some agency in determining events. They should use it.
A scene following an Israeli strike on Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on April 22. Israel has carpet-bombed Gaza, obliterating neighborhoods and targeting hospitals, mosques, schools and camps for displaced people, according to a U.N. report.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 20, 2024

Impunity in Gaza is a threat to the international order

Israel's disregard for human rights and international law in Gaza, and the lack of consequences for such actions, are eroding the liberal international order that Japan relies on.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (left) and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the Kremlin on May 7. While President Vladimir Putin has no real challengers, powerful actors within his government are vying against each other.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2024

The battle of ministries in Putin’s Russia

Historical parallels suggest that Putin’s top-down approach, like Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and Gorbachev’s perestroika, risks sparking opposition by causing intra-elite infighting.
Tesla is offering discounts and service improvements to appease European leasing companies upset by price cuts and repair issues.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 20, 2024

Tesla giving discounts to European fleet buyers in damage-control drive

After years of sharp growth, Tesla's global sales and profits are declining, with an 8.5% drop in deliveries during the first quarter, marking its first decrease in four years.
Language support groups in Fukushima Prefecture are calling for the creation of a better environment for foreign children to learn Japanese.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
May 27, 2024

With more foreign children, Fukushima struggles with language support

A number of children attending schools in the prefecture in fiscal 2023 were unable to fully understand Japanese.
A Bank of Japan survey on firms nationwide showed that many of them do not expect to be able to hire enough workers if they keep wage growth low, and see an economy where wages and inflation rise in tandem as more favorable.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 20, 2024

Japan's manufacturers want BOJ to keep yen stable, survey shows

The survey on roughly 2,500 firms underscores the importance they place on yen moves in assessing the impact of monetary policy.
Goro Miyazaki, film director and creative development director of the Ghibli Park and Hayao Miyazaki's son, poses after receiving an Honorary Palme d'Or on behalf of Studio Ghibli during a ceremony dedicated to the animation powerhouse at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on Monday.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
May 21, 2024

Studio Ghibli receives honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival

The legendary Japanese powerhouse Studio Ghibli became the first collective to receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Rui Machida in action for Japan against France at the Tokyo Games in Saitama in August 2021
BASKETBALL
May 21, 2024

Japanese basketball star Rui Machida fights for Olympic spot

With many rivals jockeying for a spot on the 12-member roster, her selection is far from certain.
Kazuma Kaya reacts after his routine on the parallel bars during the men's apparatus finals at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp on Oct. 8.
OLYMPICS / Gymnastics
May 21, 2024

Team Japan in Paris will be strongest, says gymnastics medalist Kaya

To date, Japan has a haul of seven Olympic gold medals in the team discipline, the most of any country.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past