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ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode is able to seamlessly go back-and-forth between languages with live, human-sounding responses and minimal errors.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2024

ChatGPT is now a creepy cultural chameleon

This uncanny tool that can speak 50 languages with human-like candor has the potential to forever change how people around the world interact with AI.
Members of the workers' union UA Zensen watch a video, during a kick-off rally for the annual "shunto" wage negotiations, in Tokyo in March 2023.
BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2024

UA Zensen unveils plan to demand 6% pay hike in 2025 Shunto

UA Zensen plans to seek a 7% wage increase for part-time workers, who make up about 60% of the roughly 1.9 million workers in its member unions.
Japan's base salaries grew at a 32-year-high pace in October, offering statistical support for the prospects of a central bank rate hike this month.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 6, 2024

Record base pay gains keep door open for BOJ hike

Base pay for full-time workers increased by 2.8% in October from a year ago, the biggest gain for comparable data back to 1994.
A Metropolitan Police Department flyer on high-paying illegal work advertised on social media, known as yami baito
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 6, 2024

Police may be able to use fake IDs to investigate yami baito

The new measures would allow investigators to sign up for shady jobs with disguised identities and make contact with individuals behind the recruitment.
Yuta Takahashi (back center) with Sunao Tsuboi, former co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo (front, center), in December 2017
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2024

Japanese youth carries on message of prominent atomic bomb survivor

In giving Nihon Hidankyo the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee noted that "new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses."
Shoppers wait at the checkout lines at an Ito-Yokado shopping centre after a sales tax hike in Tokyo April 1, 2014. Big firms expect to increase capital spending only modestly, the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) tankan quarterly survey showed on Tuesday, reflecting uncertainty over how much a sales tax hike that kicked off on Tuesday could hurt a fragile economic recovery.   REUTERS/Toru Hanai (JAPAN - Tags: BUSINESS)
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 6, 2024

Ito-Yokado to reduce headcount of permanent employees by 1,000

The Seven & I Holdings unit will implement the reduction through personnel relocations and natural reductions, mainly through mandatory retirement.
A low pressure storm system known as a "bomb cyclone" moves off the coast of the U.S. Pacific Northwest and western Canada in a composite satellite image on Nov. 20.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 7, 2024

Google introduces AI agent that aces 15-day weather forecasts

They report that their new model can, among other things, outperform the world’s best forecasts meant to track deadly storms and save lives.
Employees at large Tokyo companies who travel to the office daily to work fell to 47.4% in 2024 from 53.1% in the previous year, a survey shows.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 8, 2024

Hybrid work on the rise for Tokyo’s office employees: NRI Survey

For the July 2024 Nomura Research Institute survey, the firm polled 3,091 people from ages 20-69 who work for large companies in Tokyo.
Makoto Uchida, President and CEO of Nissan, holds a press briefing at the Japan Mobility Show 2023 in Tokyo on Oct. 25, 2023. Uchida is under presser to deliver a turnaround and to keep his job at the troubled carmaker.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 8, 2024

Nissan boss Uchida races to save the automaker — and his job

Makoto Uchida is under pressure to reverse Nissan’s fortunes after years of turmoil following the 2018 arrest of former chairman Carlos Ghosn.
South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun attends a joint news conference during a "two-plus-two" meeting at the State Department in Washington on Oct. 31.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 8, 2024

South Korea’s ex-defense chief is detained over martial law episode

Kim Yong-hyun is the first person to be detained as prosecutors begin their investigation into allegations made by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s political opponents​.
The government's pension reform plan under consideration will make it easier for part-timers to join the kosei nenkin employee pension program.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 8, 2024

Japan to scrap ¥1.06 million employee pension threshold in 2026

The government also plans to abolish a requirement that companies must have at least 51 employees for employees to join the kosei nenkin program.
The United Nations once projected the world’s population would peak at 10.3 billion in the 2080s, but now expects 700 million fewer inhabitants by 2100.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2024

Why falling fertility is not a crisis

The current population decline mirrors past transitions like the industrial revolution, where smaller families fueled economic growth and innovation.
Police officers reinvestigate a Tobu Tojo Line railroad crossing in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward on Dec. 27, 2023, after a man was fatally hit by a train weeks earlier.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

Tokyo police arrest four men on suspicion of staging colleague’s suicide

They allegedly coerced the 56-year-old victim into standing on railway tracks where he went on to be fatally struck by a train.
A defaced mural of Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, in Dhaka on Nov. 5. The new governor of Bangladesh’s central bank, Ahsan Mansur, calculates that about $17 billion was siphoned from the country’s financial system in the 15 years before Hasina's government collapsed in August.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

How the Bangladesh economy was siphoned dry

Some economists guess that the true value looted during Sheikh Hasina’s rule before she fled the country could exceed $30 billion, but no one can say for sure.
A poster advertising a reward for information is posted near the site where Brian Thompson, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally gunned down in New York on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 10, 2024

CEO killing and rage over insurance plunges UnitedHealth into crisis

Instead of eliciting sympathy from the public, the death of UnitedHealth’s CEO has spawned a hate machine against the insurance industry.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp speaks on a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 10, 2024

Trump's Musk-led efficiency drive may spur defense-tech partnerships

Smaller tech firms to play a bigger role given that Musk, one of their own, is entering a position of enormous influence.
The bill to revise the law on remunerations for government workers calls for setting annual bonuses at an equivalent of 4.6 months' salary.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2024

Government workers' winter bonuses fall with hike bill pending

Prime Minister Ishiba's total winter bonuses were lower than usual due to his recent appointment and a voluntary return on his part of 30% to fiscal reforms.
People hold a banner featuring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as members of the Syrian community and supporters gather to celebrate the fall of Syrian president Bashar Assad in the face of an offensive by Islamist-led rebels, in Istanbul on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 10, 2024

With Assad’s fall, Erdogan oversees Turkey’s growing regional clout

Erdogan’s clout over his southern neighbor has increased dramatically with the fall of his onetime friend Bashar Assad.
A sign warns of a nearby bear sighting in Takikawa, Hokkaido, on Oct. 17.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Dec 30, 2024

Hokkaido 2024: Looking back on Rapidus, bears and shinkansen

The key topics are expected to continue making headlines in 2025.
U.S. President Joe Biden — born in U.S. Steel’s home state of Pennsylvania — has long signaled opposition to the company's sale to Nippon Steel.
BUSINESS
Dec 11, 2024

U.S. says review of Nippon Steel bid ongoing as U.S. Steel shares tumble

The companies are poised to pursue litigation over the process if U.S. President Joe Biden decides to block the merger, sources added.
Akihiro Kaneko, president of the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Dec. 3.
BUSINESS
Dec 11, 2024

Japan union head calls for government to work more on raising pay

The call comes as Japan prepares for annual wage negotiations that culminate in the spring.
A man carries merchandise at a market near the border with Argentina, in Nanawa, Paraguay, in May.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 12, 2024

Argentina inflation hits four-year low as locals hope worst is over

Argentina, emerging from a period of major economic crisis and still grappling with rock-bottom foreign currency reserves and 50% poverty, has seen inflation come down.
The head priest of Kiyomizu Temple writes the kanji "kin," which was chosen by the public as the character that best represents 2024, on Thursday in Kyoto.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2024

'Kin' selected as the kanji of 2024 after strong year for Japanese athletes

The choice also reflected the Liberal Democratic Party’s slush-fund scandal and the spate of robberies involving shady part-time jobs.
Nvidia will end the year with about 4,000 people in China, up from just about 3,000 at the start of 2024, people familiar with its operations said.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 12, 2024

Nvidia steps up hiring in China to focus on AI-driven cars

The tech giant will end 2024 with about 4,000 employees in China, after starting the year with around 3,000.
A Toyota production line in New Jersey. The U.S. is a key market for Japanese automakers, who are closely monitoring policy changes in Washington as the incoming Trump administration is likely to change the course set by President Joe Biden.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Dec 12, 2024

Japan’s auto industry looks down the road to Trump presidency

Of the cars sold in the U.S., 40% are from Japanese makers, who are determined to hold onto this market share despite Washington's policy vagaries in the auto field.
Akihisa Nagashima, national security adviser to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 13, 2024

Japan must brace and prepare for Trump tariffs, top adviser says

"Japan must be prepared for Trump following through on his plans,” says Prime Minister Ishiba's national security adviser Akihisa Nagashima.
President-elect Donald Trump plans to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change and increase domestic fossil fuel production, putting international efforts to cut global carbon emissions in peril.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2024

Trump's election sets stage for new climate leaders to emerge

As Trump plans to put "America first," including before the planet, other countries must seize the opportunity to keep alive efforts to limit global temperature rise.
New North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick holds up the sweatshirt his father wore as an assistant coach at the school.
SPORTS / Football
Dec 13, 2024

Why Is Bill Belichick heading to North Carolina? It's all about control.

NFL teams seemed hesitant to give Belichick the omnipotent football power that he sought.
Commuters in Tokyo in March 2023.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 13, 2024

Ruling bloc proposes ¥1.23 million minimum threshold for taxable income

Tax chiefs from the LDP, Komeito and DPP plan to meet again as early as Tuesday after the DPP, which seeks to raise the threshold to ¥1.78 million, opposed the proposal.
Lekh Juneja, chairman and CEO of Kameda Seika, at the company's headquarters in the city of Niigata in August
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 15, 2024

Indian-born CEO of Japanese company says nation needs immigration to thrive

Japan has very few foreign-born CEOs, and boardrooms are overwhelmingly male.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear