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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.
Donald Trump holds a rally in the South Bronx on May 23.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

'Enemy within': Trump rhetoric rings alarm bells

During his first term Trump regularly railed at the media as the "enemy of the people," but his sweep now seems wider and more indiscriminate.
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.
Visitors take pictures in a booth showing photographs before a rally to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Beijing's Tiananmen Square crackdowns, at the Library Square in Taipei on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

35 years on, Tiananmen memory eroded by Chinese censorship and Sino-U.S. rivalry

While commemorations of the crackdown are effectively banned in mainland China and in Hong Kong, events were being held in Taiwan and other locations.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (left) listens as Cambodia's former Prime Minister Hun Sen speaks during a meeting in Phnom Penh on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

U.S. defense chief visits Cambodia to boost ties with China ally

Washington is concerned that a Cambodian naval base that is being upgraded by Beijing might be used to boost the Asian giant's influence in the Gulf of Thailand.
Machida Zelvia's Yu Hirakawa (center) is challenged by Albirex Niigata's Yuto Horigome during the two teams' J. League clash at Machida Gion Stadium in Machida, Tokyo, on Saturday.
SOCCER / J. League
Jun 4, 2024

From nonleague to top of the league for upstarts Machida

The team from Tokyo's suburbs tops the table approaching the halfway point of the season.
Sebastien Delogu, deputy for La France Insoumise (LFI) party speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest in central Paris on May 29.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

Gaza war rattles European politics from the left

The rise of radical positions on both the left and right will have widespread affects on the political landscape, observers say.
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.
In a meeting with Nippon Ishin no Kai head Nobuyuki Baba (left) in Tokyo last Friday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had secured a formal endorsement of the Liberal Democratic Party's proposed revisions for the political funding law.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 4, 2024

Fumble with Nippon Ishin over funding vote adds to Kishida's predicament

The calling off of Tuesday's vote on the Liberal Democratic Party's proposed revisions for the political funding law might shake his precarious standing in the party.
A child holds a sign during a rally demanding the release of Israeli hostages outside the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv on Monday.
WORLD
Jun 4, 2024

Back to class — or shelters? Next school year snags Israel's Lebanon strategy

Of 60,000 civilians relocated from northern Israel at the outset of the war, 14,600 are children, scattered in temporary kindergartens and schools.
In a bureaucratic blunder, a foreign resident was assigned the identity of a completely different person — who had the same name, same nationality and even the same birthday.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 4, 2024

It wasn't me: Similar strangers given same ID in Japan

The two individuals had the same name, same nationality and even the same birthday.
The European Union has repeatedly warned while heading into the June 6 to June 9 vote that Russia would ramp up disinformation campaigns in the 27-country bloc.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 5, 2024

France, Germany, Poland facing 'permanent' Russian disinformation attacks: EU

The European Union has repeatedly warned while heading into the June 6 to June 9 vote that Russia would ramp up disinformation campaigns in the 27-country bloc.
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.
Red Bull's Sergio Perez arrives at the track ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix on May 26.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 5, 2024

Sergio Perez staying with Red Bull for two more years

Perez, 34, finished second overall to triple world champion teammate Max Verstappen last season.
Geely Automobile Holdings' Zeekr electric vehicles bound for shipment to Europe at the Port of Taicang in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China, on Aug. 24, 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 5, 2024

China risks trade war on two fronts as low-tech exports soar, too

The European Union is poised to slap tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles this week, the latest example of rising barriers to global trade.
Officials from the transport ministry arrive for an inspection at Toyota headquarters in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2024

Toyota car certification probe prompts calls for rules review

Despite revisions since the standards were enacted in 1951, regulations haven’t kept up with the times, an analyst wrote in a report.
Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation, in Gaza City on April 2
WORLD
Jun 5, 2024

Gaza's doctors were building a health care system. Then came war.

Before the war, specialist doctors were part of a strategic effort by Hamas to build a self-sufficient health care system for Gaza.
Japan's base pay in April rose 2.3% from a year earlier to drive up nominal wages by 2.1%, but real wages marked a 25th consecutive month of decline as pay growth lagged inflation.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 5, 2024

Japan’s biggest base pay jump since 1994 still leaves doubts

Pay continues to lag inflation, with analysts appearing to latch on to weaker-than-expected growth in cash wages in data that avoids sampling issues.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is launching its own dating app to support people who want to get married.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 5, 2024

Tokyo government to launch dating app in bid to boost birth rate

Users will be required to submit documentation proving they are legally single and sign a letter stating they are willing to get married.
After a teenage girl loses her parents, she grapples with her new reality under an aunt’s guardianship in “Worlds Apart.”
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2024

‘Worlds Apart’ explores family, loss and unconventional ideas of love

A 15-year-old girl is orphaned when her parents die right before her eyes.
The Bank of Japan's headquarters in Tokyo. Some investors are expecting the central bank to cut bond purchases this month and then raise rates in July.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2024

BOJ weighs reducing bond buys as early as June meeting

The bank will conclude its two-day policy meeting on June 14.
Osaka's Umeda district. The city of Osaka and Osaka Prefecture together are among four newly designated special zones for asset management businesses where companies can complete administrative procedures solely in English.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2024

Japan designates four areas as asset management special zones

The four areas are Hokkaido and Sapporo, Tokyo, the prefecture and city of Osaka, and the prefecture and city of Fukuoka.
The children of some of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies are also listed as participants at the four-day St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), including Roman Rotenberg, whose father was among the Russian president’s childhood judo partners.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 5, 2024

Children of Russia's elite take center stage at Putin’s flagship forum

Once touted as a "window” into Russia, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is increasingly becoming a generational showcase.
Tucupita Marcano, then with the Pirates, throws to first base during a game against the Giants in Pittsburgh in July last year.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 5, 2024

San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano banned for life for gambling

Michael Kelly, a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, and three minor league players were also suspended for a year for gambling on baseball games, MLB said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi flashes victory signs as he arrives at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi late Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 5, 2024

India’s Modi gets Pyrrhic poll victory as challenges loom for BJP

A better-than-expected performance by the opposition denied the ruling party a majority, forcing it to rely on its coalition partners to stay in power.
U.S. President Joe Biden has said he has “made clear” to Chinese leader Xi Jinping long-standing U.S. policy that refrains from endorsing Taiwanese independence, but has said the U.S. will defend the island “if China unilaterally tries to change" the status quo.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 5, 2024

Biden says he won't rule out use of U.S. military to defend Taiwan

The U.S. president, in an interview with Time magazine, delivered another broadside to Beijing on its most sensitive issue.
Suntory Holdings, seeking to expand abroad, is tapping the dollar debt market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2024

Whiskey maker Suntory sells $500 million bond in rare deal

Proceeds from the Jim Beam owner’s five-year note will be used for general corporate purposes.
Supporters of the second retrial request for the so-called Iizuka incident hold up signs in the city of Fukuoka on Wednesday criticizing the Fukuoka District Court's decision to reject it.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 5, 2024

Japan court rejects retrial for 1992 murder of two girls

The defense is set to appeal against the latest decision. So far, no decision has been made in Japan to grant a retrial of a convict already executed.
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Tuesday, en route to Paris for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion in France.
WORLD
Jun 5, 2024

Traveling to Europe, Biden will find both solidarity and isolation

Critics of Biden said he has no one to blame for his diplomatic challenges in Europe but himself for an inconsistent approach to international crises.

Longform

"Shake hands with Lima-chan," a statue that shares the name of the Peruvian capital looks in the direction of Peru, where a sister statue, "Sakura-chan," is located. Erected in Yokohama's Rinko Park in 1999, it commemorates Peruvian-Japanese friendship.
The journey of Peru’s Nikkei: Finding identity in Japan