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Greek-flagged bulk cargo vessel Sea Champion is docked to the port of Aden, Yemen to which it arrived after being attacked in the Red Sea in what appears to have been a mistaken missile strike by Houthi militia, in February.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 1, 2024

How Red Sea disruptions are driving up carbon emissions

A surge of attacks on ships traveling the waters of the Red Sea is forcing shippers to reroute their vessels, driving up emissions.
In addition to the supply shortages, the yen's depreciation is also blamed for the recent surge in orange juice prices in Japan, which relies almost entirely on imported orange juice.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 2, 2024

Orange juice crisis hits consumers in Japan

Supply shortages have forced many Japanese makers to suspend sales of orange juice products.
A Starliner spacecraft sits atop an Atlas V rocket for a test flight in 2021.
WORLD
Jun 2, 2024

Boeing’s long-awaited crewed mission aborted just before liftoff

The next launch opportunities are June 5 and June 6, NASA said in a blog post.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks at Trump Tower in New York on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 2, 2024

Biden's big weakness vs Trump: Voters without college degrees

Such results help set the stage for what national opinion polls show is a tied race between Biden and Trump.
Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun speaks at the Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in Singapore on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 2, 2024

A tale of two narratives: China and U.S. defense chiefs agree to disagree

Dong Jun, China’s first naval officer to be named defense minister, also took aim at U.S. allies in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
Toshimitsu Motegi
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2024

LDP's Motegi calls for fully opening up ride-hailing market

Starting in April, ride-hailing services are allowed in some parts of the country, but operators of such services are limited to taxi companies now.
A supporter of former President Donald Trump protests in Palm Beach, Florida, after the guilty verdict over falsifying business records was announced on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2024

Why Republicans go crawling back to Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. But this is unlikely to make much difference to the Republican Party. Not only is he still the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee; Republicans have repeatedly proved perfectly willing to forgive his indiscretions,...
Defense Minister Minoru Kihara, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korean defense chief Shin Won-sik attend a trilateral meeting on sidelines of the Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in Singapore on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2024

Japan, South Korea and U.S. unveil new initiatives to cement defense ties

The three partner nations agreed to develop a framework to institutionalize trilateral cooperation within the year.
Japanese companies' capital expenditures on goods excluding software fell 0.5% in the three months through March from the previous quarter.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2024

Japan’s firms trim spending, reflecting headwinds to growth

Capital expenditures on goods excluding software fell 0.5% in the three months through March from the previous quarter.
Japan Post Insurance, one of the nation’s biggest life insurers, held about ¥60.9 trillion in assets as of the end of March, of which around ¥47.7 trillion were securities, mainly government bonds.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Japan Post goes slow in buying longest bonds after BOJ rate hike

Japan Post forecast in April that the 30-year government bond yield will be 2% at the end of March 2025
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures outside Trump Tower, the day after a guilty verdict in his criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in New York on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2024

Trump warns of 'breaking point' for Americans if he's jailed

Prison time is rare for people convicted in New York state of felony falsification of business records, the charge Trump faced at his trial.
Tourists on a beach in China’s Fujian province in May
BUSINESS
Jun 3, 2024

China’s tourists to spend nearly $1 trillion on holidays at home

Spending by domestic holidaymakers is expected to be 11% higher than 2019.
In a boon to Saudi Arabia's government, which is seeking to fund a massive economic transformation plan, Saudi Aramco’s $12 billion share sale sold out shortly after the deal opened on Sunday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Saudi Aramco’s $12 billion stock offer sells out in hours

The extent of foreign participation will be closely watched as an indicator of interest in Saudi Arabia's assets.
The U.S. flag is magnified in Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell's glasses during a news conference on May 1 in Washington. In his first term as U.S. president, Donald Trump broke with decades of precedent by openly attacking Powell, first for raising interest rates and then for not cutting them further.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2024

Traders and economists see Trump win as risk to Fed autonomy, survey shows

A push to roll back the central bank’s independence would likely rock financial markets, undermine investors’ faith and expose it to political pressure to cut interest rates.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2024

KKR weighs entering private credit in Japan to challenge banks

In Japan, most direct lending has been done overseas, and the domestic loan market is dominated by major banks.
The Taipei 101 building in Taipei in December 2023. Taiwan was the biggest recipient of foreign inflows in May among emerging Asian countries excluding China.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 3, 2024

AI fever lures $2.7 billion foreign funds back to Taiwanese stocks

Taiwan’s dominant position in the AI value chain will get another boost this week as tech giants gather on the island for its annual electronics showcase event.
Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda apologizes during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2024

Japan's auto-testing scandal deepens, resulting in some shipment halts

Toyota and four other Japanese automakers have admitted to falsifying testing data and performing tests under inappropriate conditions, among other infractions.
A woman cycles past the Beijing Stock Exchange building on Feb. 8.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2024

Red tape clogs China's offshore IPO pipeline even as markets recover

China company executives and their investors said they expect the offshore IPO drought to continue this year, weighing on firms' ability to raise capital in a slowing economy.
France's President Emmanuel Macron looks on as he delivers a speech at New Caledonia's High Commissioner residency in Noumea on May 22, during his trip to the Pacific archipelago.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2024

A Pacific island in flames cuts Macron’s global ambition down to size

The French president's decision of pushing through a contentious law before New Caledonia’s provincial elections has developed into a lasting problem for the Elysee.
The National Stadium was used as the main venue for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics held in 2021.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2024

NTT Docomo-led group may operate Japan's National Stadium

The consortium also includes the J. League, general contractor Maeda and SMFL Mirai Partners.
A hydrogen storage tank and loading system at a liquefied hydrogen receiving terminal in Kobe. Japan and the European Union have agreed to work together on policies related to clean hydrogen.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jun 4, 2024

Japan and EU agree to work on creating hydrogen demand and supply

Tokyo sees hydrogen as a new and cleaner source to gradually substitute liquefied natural gas, part of Japan's path to carbon neutrality by 2050.
A Boeing 777-300ER aircraft operated by Singapore Airlines at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok on May 22
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2024

Killer turbulence sees more airlines embrace data-driven mindset

Turbulence Aware was launched by IATA in 2018 to help airlines mitigate the impact of turbulence, the No. 1 cause of passenger and crew injuries in the air.
The draft of this year's long-term economic policy road map says consumption is stalling even though Japan's economy is continuing to recover moderately.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2024

Draft economic policy road map warns of weak yen's impact on households

The reference to the weak yen's impact will likely keep the Bank of Japan under pressure to raise interest rates or slow its huge bond buying.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki has officially acknowledged that the government had intervened in the market to prop up the yen.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 4, 2024

Japan's yen intervention was effective to an extent, finance minister says

Figures disclosed by the Finance Ministry on Friday indicated that it spent ¥9.8 trillion combined to prop up the yen on April 29 and May 1, a record amount.
Protesters and militia fighters carry the logo of the U.S. Embassy during a protest to condemn airstrikes on bases belonging to Hashd al-Shaabi (paramilitary forces), in Baghdad on Dec. 31, 2019.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

Iran's allies in Iraq are firing at Israel. What if they draw blood?

Though experts do not see the attacks as posing the same level of threat to Israel as Hamas and Hezbollah strikes, they have increased in number and sophistication.
President of the French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National-RN) party Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, parliamentary party leader of the French far-right National Rally, attend a political rally to launch the party's campaign for the European elections, in Marseille, France, on March 3.
WORLD
Jun 4, 2024

A surging hard right stumbles over its own divisions

Immigration is an issue that has laid bare the contradictions for nationalist parties of trying to forge an international alliance.
Transport ministry officials head to Toyota's headquarters in Aichi Prefecture on Tuesday for on-site inspections.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2024

Auto certification in spotlight as Toyota raided over data tampering

Questions have emerged over whether Japan's regulatory standards and their subjective interpretation might be hindering automakers.
Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, outside a U.S. federal court in Santa Ana, California, on Tuesday
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 5, 2024

Ohtani's ex-interpreter pleads guilty to stealing nearly $17 million

Ippei Mizuhara admitted to one count of bank fraud, which carries a maximum 30-year prison sentence, and one count of filing a false tax return.
A screen displaying news of markets update inside the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai in 2019
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 5, 2024

Mexico, South Africa and India deliver political punch to markets

Many countries have held important elections this year but Mexico, South Africa and India have triggered the most dramatic market reactions so far.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is the world's leading chip contract manufacturer.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 5, 2024

Chinese AI chip firms downgrading designs to secure TSMC production

They submitted the less-powerful designs to TSMC — the world's leading chip contract manufacturer — to comply with U.S. restrictions, sources say.

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