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The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 3, 2025

BOJ discussed worries about price upward deviation in January

One member referred to "a growing possibility that underlying CPI (consumer price index) inflation will rise steadily toward achieving the price stability target of 2%."
The Hyatt Regency hotel in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 3, 2025

KKR and Gaw look to sell Tokyo Hyatt Regency for over ¥100 billion

The two investment firms bought the hotel in the Shinjuku area for an estimated ¥60 billion less than two years ago.
Masahiro Tanaka signed with the Giants in December.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / Sac Bunts
Feb 3, 2025

Star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka looking to revive glory days with Giants

Masahiro Tanaka is one of the most recognizable faces in Japanese baseball, but sightings of the new Giants pitcher were few and far between in 2024.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order during a ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Monday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 4, 2025

Trump's tariff reversal shows how he's wielding bombast on trade

The U.S. leader has pledged to remake the global economy with tariffs. So far, it’s been more Art of the Deal than a revolution.
The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, also called the Chinese Six Companies, formed in San Francisco in 1882, was a unifying umbrella organization for immigrant associations, becoming one of the first such influential community advocacy groups in America.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2025

America versus China, the troubling prequel

A forthcoming book details the horrific experience of Chinese immigrants in the U.S. in the 19th century. Is it an omen for the future?
U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2020
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2025

Modi’s Trump strategy sees quick concessions to avoid trade war

Trump has repeatedly singled out India and its high trade barriers, and has pledged reciprocal duties on the South Asian country.
Nippon Steel and United States Steel said in an opening brief Monday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States violated their due process rights last year by allowing "virtually no substantive engagement” with the companies.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 4, 2025

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel blast Biden's 'sham' merger block

While Biden is no longer in office, President Donald Trump has expressed his own opposition to the deal.
The current government under Prime Minister Keir Starmer has resisted calls for a national inquiry focused on the grooming gangs in Rotherham, and says it will conduct a series of local probes.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 4, 2025

'Life's ruined' in U.K. town broken by grooming gangs

Rotherham, once a producer of some of the world's finest steel, is now the epicenter of a major U.K. scandal that has left the town angry, ashamed and needing answers.
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters Tuesday about the idea of revising the companies law to fully allow businesses to hold online-only shareholders' meetings.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2025

Japan to allow firms to hold online-only shareholder meetings

Online-only shareholders' meetings are currently permitted only in exceptional cases under the industrial competitiveness enhancement law.
The United States was the biggest food export destination for Japan, with shipments totaling ¥242.9 billion, up 17.8%, helped by efforts to diversify scallop export markets following China's fishery import ban.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 5, 2025

Japan's food exports hit record high for 12th straight year

The United States was the biggest food export destination for Japan.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (left) speaks during an executive order signing ceremony with U.S. President Donald Trump and Howard Lutnick, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald and U.S. commerce secretary nominee, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Monday.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2025

Trump orders creation of U.S. sovereign wealth fund and says it could buy TikTok

The text of the executive order was sparse on details, and simply directed the Treasury and Commerce Departments to submit a plan for such a fund within 90 days.
Former Nissan executive Greg Kelly in his Tokyo apartment in February 2020. He returned to the United States after the first verdict nearly three years ago in which he was given a suspended prison sentence.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 4, 2025

Tokyo court upholds suspended jail term for former Nissan exec

Greg Kelly was found guilty in 2022 of helping the automaker's fugitive ex-CEO, Carlos Ghosn, underreport his income.
Nintendo announced in January that it will release the console's hotly anticipated successor — the Switch 2 — in 2025, but stopped short of revealing details such as pricing.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 4, 2025

Nintendo cuts net profit forecast as Switch sales slow

Nintendo said it will release the console's hotly anticipated successor — the Switch 2 — in 2025 but stopped short of revealing details such as pricing.
A passenger plane for Japan Airlines sits on the tarmac at Tokyo International Airport at Haneda in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 4, 2025

Two ex-Japan Airlines pilots grounded after lying about drinking

JAL said last month its two most senior executives would take a 30% pay cut for two months over the incident.
Talks by Honda and Nissan to create the world’s third-largest carmaker have gone haltingly since the plans were first announced in December.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 5, 2025

Nissan shares plunge, Honda's rise as end to merger talks reported

Shares in Nissan slid more than 4% before trade was suspended by the Tokyo Stock Exchange following the Nikkei report.
A surge in management buyouts has come amid increasing pressure from activist investors to improve corporate value, and the burden of maintaining a listing.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 5, 2025

Japan weighs tougher management buyout rules to protect minority shareholders

A surge in buyouts has come amid increasing pressure from activist investors to improve corporate value.
Based on his own assessment, Hideo Hayakawa, a former Bank of Japan executive director, says he sees the BOJ’s terminal rate in this cycle somewhere around 1.5%.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 5, 2025

BOJ’s rate likely to go higher than consensus, ex-official says

"My base view is that there is a lot more coming,” the former director said. "There is little logical reason to believe that rate hikes will stop early.”
A statue of the founder of the International Olympic Committee, Pierre de Coubertin, at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland
OLYMPICS
Feb 5, 2025

The closed-door battle to lead the Olympics

For such a consequential election, much of it is taking place in the dark, away from any form of public or private debate.
Protestors gather outside of the headquarters for United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Monday ahead of a news conference by Congressional Democrats.
WORLD
Feb 5, 2025

U.S. aid agency places global staff on leave as part of Trump's purge

The move is part of the Trump administration's radical drive to shrink the U.S. government, which has shocked Washington and caused angry protests.
Founded in Hangzhou only 20 months ago, DeepSeek’s technology made waves in January with a new mobile app featuring its reasoning AI chatbot.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 5, 2025

Australia bans DeepSeek from government tech, citing security

A threat assessment by the country’s intelligence agencies found the technology posed an unacceptable risk.
MUFG Bank President Junichi Hanzawa bows in apology in Tokyo on Jan. 17 following alleged massive thefts of customer assets by a former employee.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 5, 2025

Ex-MUFG bank worker paid interest to pawnshops to keep gold available to her

The bank worker is suspected of depositing in several pawnshops gold ingots worth several hundred million yen that she had stolen.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive to hold a news conference at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 5, 2025

Trump's Gaza stunner builds on his expansionist aims

Since Trump's return to the White House a little more than two weeks ago, his "America First" approach seems to have morphed into "America More."
Homes destroyed by wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles earlier this month. Insured losses caused by this and other fires raging in the area in recent weeks have been valued at over $30 billion.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2025

Fossil fuel insurance is still way too cheap

Despite mounting losses from climate-induced disasters, insurers continue underwriting fossil fuels. Raising the cost of such policies would help cut emissions and benefit many.
Households continue to be squeezed as inflation outpaces pay increases.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 5, 2025

Real wages in Japan rise in December, but fall for third straight year

Inflation continued to outpace pay increases, which have been generous on a nominal basis in recent years.
A Palestinian sits among the rubble of buildings destroyed during an Israeli offensive in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 6, 2025

Trump aides defend Gaza takeover proposal but walk back some elements

Trump shattered decades of U.S. policy with a vaguely worded announcement saying he envisioned transforming Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
SoftBank Group is in talks to acquire Ampere Computing, according to sources.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 6, 2025

SoftBank nears deal to acquire chip designer Ampere

SoftBank is discussing a deal that could value the Oracle-backed chip designer at about $6.5 billion, including debt.
United Steelworkers President David McCall
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 6, 2025

Union chief files motion to dismiss suit by U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel

United Steelworkers called the U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel lawsuit a "frivolous and unsubstantiated attack" on the union.
A cargo ship full of shipping containers at the port of Oakland in Oakland, California, as trade tensions escalate over U.S. tariffs on Monday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 6, 2025

Economists brace for Trump's new trade war to rekindle inflation worldwide

Stubborn growth in consumer prices was bothering much of the world even before U.S. President Donald Trump entered the White House.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 6, 2025

With Ishiba-Trump meet, Tokyo hopes to keep ties on even keel

Tokyo has been scrambling for ways to placate the U.S. leader, and head off any dust-up between the allies during Friday’s meeting.
Nissan needed this deal a lot more than Honda as billions of dollars of debt due in the next year closes in.
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2025

Scrapping Honda deal would leave Nissan stranded

Nissan needed this deal a lot more than Honda. As billions of dollars of debt due in the next year close in, the former may get pushed into an even less favorable deal.

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.