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The government made it mandatory for companies to disclose their gender pay gap in 2022, but disclosure alone isn’t enough to improve the situation, data suggests.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 29, 2024

Disclosure rules fail to narrow Japan’s yawning gender pay gap

There has been little progress toward equality, with the highest-paying firms showing some of the biggest disparities.
Kenta Izumi, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, is struggling to get enough supporters to run in the upcoming party leadership election.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 29, 2024

CDP chief Izumi scrambles to find backers for reelection bid

Izumi's support base has weakened, with party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa withdrawing his support.
Some fans lined up for over seven hours for a chance to get a Shohei Ohtani bobblehead at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 29, 2024

Fans line up hours before Dodgers game to get Shohei Ohtani bobblehead

Fans began arriving around noon for the night game against the Baltimore Orioles.
Wang Yi, the director of the Communist Party's Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office (right), speaks before talks with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at Yanqi Lake in Beijing on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 29, 2024

U.S. and China agree to leaders’ call but keep talking past each other

Although the two sides agreed to a "leader-level call" in the coming weeks, disagreements on the most contentious issues suggest ties will remain rocky.
Pope Francis arrives at the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 29, 2024

Pope Francis takes climate message to Southeast Asia on 12-day trip

It will be the longest trip yet by Pope Francis, who now regularly uses a wheelchair due to knee and back pain.
Zakia Khudadadi celebrates after earning a bronze medal in taekwondo in the K44 47-kg category at the Paris Paralympics on Thursday.
PARALYMPICS
Aug 30, 2024

Zakia Khudadadi becomes first member of refugee team to claim Paralympic medal

Khudadadi, who fled Afghanistan, earned bronze in taekwondo.
A remote-controlled BurnBot RX1 prototype produces a containment line during a prescribed burn operation in Paicines, California, on Aug. 12.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 30, 2024

Robots are starting (good) fires in California

BurnBot's robot keeps combustion within its burning chamber, where propane torches and air blowers bring flame temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves during a campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2024

In CNN interview excerpts, Harris defends ideological shift to center

In her interview, Kamala Harris sought to stake out political ground that would appeal to swing voters even as she assured progressive supporters she was still with them.
Core consumer prices in Japan's capital rose 2.4% in August from a year earlier, accelerating for the fourth straight month and keeping alive market expectations of further interest rate hikes in coming months.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 30, 2024

Inflation accelerates beyond forecasts in Tokyo, boosting case for rate hike

Analysts say the data shows that the real economy and its fundamentals are continuing to recover but at a slow pace.
Manabu Horii in December, when he was a Lower House member
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 30, 2024

Ex-LDP lawmaker Manabu Horii indicted over two money cases

Horii allegedly distributed a total of ¥380,000 in condolence money and other funeral offerings worth ¥230,000 to 52 voters.
Former Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Megumi Hirose in the Upper House in April. She stepped down as lawmaker on Aug. 15.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 30, 2024

Ex-LDP lawmaker Hirose indicted over alleged pay fraud

She allegedly reported the wife of her public secretary as her second secretary although the wife did not perform any work in that capacity.
A sketch of Shinichi Mitate, a key suspect in a 2012 murder case, created by police investigators imagining his current appearance
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 30, 2024

Tokyo police release new sketches of 2012 nightclub murder suspect

The police are calling for information on the suspect, saying the 2012 murder should not be forgotten.
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally at Enmarket Arena during a two-day campaign bus tour in Savannah, Georgia, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2024

Seven takeaways from Harris’ first major interview

The vice president answered questions in the CNN interview without causing herself political harm or providing herself a significant boost.
Despite the challenges, including sluggish consumption and market volatility, the Bank of Japan's recent policy adjustments reflect a strategy aimed at ensuring a stable path toward its inflation goals.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 30, 2024

BOJ’s recent policy changes highlight a shift toward global monetary practices

The BOJ's approach is influenced by global financial regulations and aims to balance market stability with effective monetary policy.
U.S. Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she arrives to speak on the fourth and last day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Aug. 22.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 31, 2024

Harris isn’t looking to pick new fights with China, unlike Trump

The U.S. vice president is betting that Americans don’t want an all-out confrontation when they tell pollsters they’d like their leaders to get even tougher on China.
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani rounds the bases after hitting his 43rd home run of the season on Friday in Phoenix.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 31, 2024

Shohei Ohtani hits 43rd HR as Dodgers edge Diamondbacks

Ohtani also stole his 43rd base as he bids to become the first member of the 50-50 club.
A construction worker in Tokyo's Akasaka district on Aug. 21. With 886 cases, 54 of them fatal, during the period from 2019 to 2023, the construction industry leads Japan’s tally for occupational heatstroke.
BUSINESS / Boiling Point
Sep 1, 2024

Clocking off: Japan’s hotter summers put limit on outdoor work

Climate change is forcing businesses to sacrifice productivity in the name of safety in industries ranging from construction to transportation.
Local miners collect small rocks as they mine for gold in Benguet province in the northern Philippines.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 1, 2024

Toxic, deadly, cheap: Life for women gold miners in the Philippines

One in three of the illegal mining workforce is female — and women are 90 times more at risk of dying on the job than men.
The Nafoora oil field in Jakharrah, Libya, on Tuesday
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2024

Libya’s political feud threatens return of oil supply chaos

The North African nation’s crude output was slashed in half last week amid a fight for control of the central bank.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Hersh Goldberg Polin, speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21.
WORLD
Sep 1, 2024

Israel recovers bodies of six hostages in Gaza, including an American captive

U.S. President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages seized on Oct. 7, said the six included Israeli American Goldberg-Polin.
NPB Commissioner Sadayuki Sakakibara (left) Samurai Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata (second from left) and WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari pose for photos during a news conference on Friday.
BASEBALL
Sep 1, 2024

Hirokazu Ibata looking to keep Japan on top of baseball world by winning Premier12

Japan will enter the Premier12 as the defending champion.
Israelis demand hostages be released and protest against the government during a demonstration in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
WORLD
Sep 2, 2024

Protests grip Israel after six hostages are killed in Gaza

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces growing calls to end nearly 11 months of war with a deal for a cease-fire and the release of the remaining hostages.
An elevator at the Stade de France commuter train station in Saint-Denis, near Paris, France. Paris built highly accessible accommodation for competitors in the 2024 Paralympic Games, but overall, the city remains difficult to navigate for people with disabilities.
PARALYMPICS
Sep 2, 2024

Paris is utopia for Paralympians until they leave the athletes village

It will be decades before the city's streets, sidewalks and parks achieve even a semblance of the Paralympic Village’s accessibility.
Tongan dancers performing a traditional dance at the closing ceremony of the 53rd Pacific Island Forum leaders' meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on Friday.  Taiwan said it signed a pact with the forum's secretariat on Friday that will see it continue its support for the strategically important region until 2027.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 2, 2024

Taiwan staves off exclusion with Pacific island cooperation pact

The signing of the pact will see the self-ruled island continue its support for the Pacific islands until 2027.
Cars are assembled at a Maruti Suzuki manufacturing plant in Manesar, India, in September 2023. Suzuki is one of the success stories for Japanese manufacturers trying to establish joint ventures in India, having become a household name in the country.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 29, 2024

For Japanese companies in India, local staff are an invaluable resource

The roots of Japanese investment in India go far back, to 1958, when the latter became the first country to receive official development assistance from Japan.
Japan's new prime minister may want to consider setting a budget surplus-to-gross domestic product target to ensure that the nation stays in the black, government adviser Takero Doi has said.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 3, 2024

Japan’s new prime minister must set fresh fiscal target, adviser says

Setting such a target would help bring down Japan’s public debt-to-GDP ratio, government adviser Takero Doi has said in an interview.
The logo of German carmaker Volkswagen at the main plant of the group in Wolfsburg, northern Germany, in March 2022. German automotive giant Volkswagen said Monday that it could close production sites in Germany as the auto industry struggles to manage rising costs.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 3, 2024

Volkswagen weighs first-ever German plant closures amid EV transition woes

Profit margins at the carmaker's underperforming passenger car brand are getting squeezed amid the shift to EVs and a consumer spending slowdown.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa attends a new conference for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo on Aug. 25.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 3, 2024

Africa's rising importance for Japan’s Indo-Pacific goals

Africa is becoming an increasingly important element of Japanese FOIP strategy. It is a work in progress, but it is proceeding.
Maestro Seiji Ozawa (center) lays flowers at the cenotaph for atomic bomb victims at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in October 2005.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Sep 9, 2024

Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s prayer for peace lives on in Hiroshima

His musical roots — and passion — can be traced back to the city where the first atomic bomb was detonated.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi announces his candidacy in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 3, 2024

Yoshimasa Hayashi announces candidacy in LDP leadership race

The chief cabinet secretary has proposed a new independent agency to regulate the financing of electoral campaigns.

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