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BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2024

Japanese firms and unions kick off wage talks as markets bet on bigger pay hikes

Japan's big firms are expected to offer their unions wage hikes of 3.85% on average this year, the highest wage increase in 31 years.
Nippon Steel's plant in Kamisu, Ibaraki Prefecture. The firm submitted a cash offer to acquire U.S. Steel for $55 a share on Dec. 16.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 25, 2024

Sweetened offer in final hours clinched U.S. steel deal for Nippon

Nippon Steel executives submitted a sweetened cash offer to acquire the Pittsburgh-based company for $55 (¥8,120) a share on Dec. 16.
Ellie Harrell launched her dog seitai practice in late 2023 after seeing first hand how the therapy helped her own injured dog.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jan 27, 2024

‘My job is to provide dogs with relief from even the smallest amount of pain’

Does your dog need a back adjustment? Ellie Harrell’s salon is waiting to provide treatment.
Gross domestic product data released on Thursday showed the U.S. economy ended the year with a bang, while China is struggling under the weight of a yearslong real estate bust and its worst streak of deflation in some 25 years.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 26, 2024

U.S. extends lead over China in race for world’s biggest economy

China was expected to experience a fast recovery as it reopened its economy fully after strict COVID-19 lockdowns, but that hasn't happened.
Toyota's main Tokyo office on Wednesday
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 26, 2024

Toyota union to demand record 2024 bonuses: report

With Toyota saying it expects to post record consolidated operating profits this financial year, the union is also likely to demand high pay hikes.
Workers assemble electric vehicles at the Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, in September 2021.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 28, 2024

Riyadh's multi-billion EV dream risks crashing into reality

Riyadh has spent billions to try to turn itself into a hub for electric vehicles and overcome obstacles including a lack of infrastructure and talent.
Bajaku Yoshiwara, a former pupil of "rakugo" storyteller Sanyutei Enka IV, speaks to reporters on Friday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 28, 2024

Rakugo storyteller ordered to pay damages over power harassment

Bajaku Yoshiwara, who was studying the art of traditional Japanese storytelling under Sanyutei Enka IV at the time, sought ¥3 million in compensation.
Pedestrians walk near collapsed buildings in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, on Jan. 18. More than 850,000 buildings crumbled in the initial quake and the thousands of aftershocks that followed.
WORLD / Society
Jan 29, 2024

Fear, uncertainty and grief year after Turkey's quake

A year later, hundreds of thousands remain displaced while the quake-prone country waits in fear for the next big shake.
Mitsui & Co. employees hold a meeting at its headquarters in Tokyo. The company introduced a stock-based compensation system in 2020.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 29, 2024

Growing number of Japan firms adopt stock-based worker compensation

The practice underscores the belief that fostering growth can be achieved through effective human capital management.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives for a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Jan. 5.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 29, 2024

Threats from Trump and China stoke a very European leadership fight

As a new term as European Commission president hangs in the balance, Ursula von der Leyen's future is intertwined with wider dilemmas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 29, 2024

Pay hikes at small firms in focus at Japan’s spring wage negotiations

The decisions of such companies will play a big role in determining whether Japan can achieve a healthy wage-price cycle.
A Japan Post delivery truck. Certain parcels will take longer to arrive under changes set to begin in April.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 31, 2024

Japan Post announces delayed timeframes for express deliveries

The changes come as part of an effort to cope with stricter regulations on truck drivers’ working hours.
Mitsuko Tottori (right), incoming president of Japan Airlines, and Yuji Akasaka, outgoing president, during a news conference in Tokyo on Jan. 17
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 31, 2024

Japan opens door to more women directors, but managers still rare

Women account for only 13.4% of directors and executive officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE's Prime market, and of these 13% are internal hires.
The rural economy has been hurt by a drop in the output of some key crops, such as wheat, in the past three years due to a rise in temperatures, patchy monsoon rains and falling reservoir levels.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 1, 2024

World-beating growth? Not for India's rural majority

For many in rural India, which is home to 60% of its 1.4 billion people, the country's so-called spectacular economic growth is nowhere in sight.
Akihiko Matsuura, head of UA Zensen, has called for a standard 6% increase in total wages.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 2, 2024

Major union UA Zensen calls for 6% pay raise to support BOJ policy shift

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is also pushing for wage gains after hikes last year failed to keep up with inflation, putting a burden on household budgets.
Aeon is aiming to encourage male workers to take child care leave. While almost all of its female employees currently take child care leave when they have a child, the rate for male employees is only 15%.
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2024

Aeon employees to receive 100% of income during child care leave

The retailer aims to gradually roll out the program from March to some 150 group companies.
Toyota plans to shorten plant operating hours and review its product development plans, with tight schedules being partly blamed for the scandals involving group companies Daihatsu and Toyota Industries.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 2, 2024

Toyota to shorten plants' maximum operating hours

The 30-minute reduction is aimed at giving workers a more flexible schedule following a series of certification irregularities at its group companies.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was quick to play down the tensions, saying that the coalition was still intact.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 2, 2024

'Open warfare': Philippines' Marcos-Duterte alliance crumbles

The alliance between the two was always expected to collapse, but analysts are surprised by how soon the gloves have come off.
There are currently over 35 million digital nomads around the world, with a collective economic value of $787 billion.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 2, 2024

Japan's digital nomad visas to require ¥10 million in income

People from 49 countries and territories will be able to stay in Japan under the “specified activities” visa category.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testifies during a hearing in Washington on Nov. 8. The chances of Mayorkas being convicted in the Senate seem to be almost zero.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 3, 2024

Inside impeachment’s rise as a weapon of partisan warfare in the U.S.

Impeachment has essentially become just another weapon in today’s bitter, tit-for-tat partisan wars.
Police in riot gear stand guard next to a barricade near a fire outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Feb. 1 during a protest by farmers from Belgium and other EU countries over price pressures, taxes and green regulation.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 6, 2024

Green backlash looms over EU elections

Polls show that while a large majority of Europeans support action to fight climate change, a many are also worried about the cost of doing this.
Nominal cash earnings among workers in Japan rose 1.0% in December from the previous year, government data shows.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 6, 2024

Japan’s wage data likely solid enough to keep BOJ policy shift on track

Nominal cash earnings rose 1.0% in December from the previous year with the help of a 0.5% gain in winter bonuses.
A Palestinian woman walks with a child at Mar Elias refugee camp in Beirut on Jan. 29.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 6, 2024

UNRWA funding cuts put Lebanon's Palestinian refugees on alert

"It's difficult to imagine that Gazans will survive this crisis without UNRWA"
Taylor Swift (right) cheers on her boyfriend Travis Kelce's team, the Kansas City Chiefs, in the AFC divisional round playoff game against the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, New York, on Jan. 21. The Chiefs will play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 6, 2024

Taylor Swift rocks the world and drives the far right crazy

The “Swift effect” has become a force in both U.S. domestic politics and international relations.
Vietnam is sitting on around 17% of the world’s known rare-earth reserves, second only to China. 
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2024

Vietnam should seize a 'rare' opportunity to take on China

Vietnamese officials have approved plans to supercharge rare-earths production, aiming to process as much as 62,500 tons of the minerals by 2030.
Shipments from China to the U.S. are increasingly making a pit stop in third countries such as Vietnam and Mexico.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2024

Biden wins U.S.-China trade war by Trump’s pet metric, but does it count?

Figures due Wednesday are set to show the U.S. deficit in goods trade with China in 2023 at its lowest annual level since 2010.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2024

Japan to allow bureaucrats to work remotely in principle

The government will release guidelines on remote work as part of an effort to encourage more diverse ways of working among its employees.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s new factory in the town of Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture, in May. The firm plans to build a second chip fabrication plant in the prefecture.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 7, 2024

TSMC to build second chipmaking plant in Japan with partners

The facility will be close to the first TSMC plant in the Kumamoto Prefecture town of Kikuyo.
A Japan Airlines jet is on fire at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Jan. 2.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 7, 2024

Japan air traffic controllers call for 'significant' staff increase

Last year, the number of air traffic control staff in Japan dropped to its lowest level in at least 19 years, according to transport ministry data.
The Japanese government forecast that number of digital workers in 2026 will fall short of projected needs by 2.3 million.
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2024

Japan struggles with digital transformation

Japan's general tendency toward risk aversion reduces the readiness to adopt new policies, procedures and technologies.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building