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China Evergrande Group Chairman Hui Ka Yan
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 27, 2023

Evergrande’s billionaire chairman Hui under police surveillance

Hui was taken away by Chinese police earlier this month and is being monitored at a designated location. It’s not clear why he is under surveillance.
MUFG Bank is aiming to foray into space by investing in startups.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 27, 2023

MUFG Bank among firms to lead $290 million Sierra Space fundraising

Sierra Space is among a handful of space industry players attempting to build a private space station.
The famous Nike swoosh and Air Jordan logo on an Air Jordan 1, called "Notorious" and released from 1984-85, during a preview for "The Rise of the Sneaker Culture" exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2015.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 28, 2023

Air Jordan resale prices tumble, casting shadow over Nike

Sneaker styles that once sold on StockX for $100 or more above Nike's list price are now selling for a premium of less than $10.
TikTok can advertise to more than 100 million users in Indonesia, but they now need to go on a different app or site to buy.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 28, 2023

TikTok’s e-commerce ambitions stall as global backlash grows

Complaints about how TikTok is squeezing local players has stalled the Chinese-owned social media platform's e-commerce ambitions
The U.S. Capitol in Washington. Congress is struggling to pass a short-term spending bill needed to keep the government open past the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 29, 2023

Missing economic data will test alternatives in U.S. shutdown

Nongovernment measures are seen as less reliable than Bureau of Labor Statistics, Census Bureau and Bureau of Economic Analysis releases.
Self-driving vehicles featuring level-4 capabilities in Eiheiji, Fukui Prefecture. The limited availability of autonomous driving in Japan stands in stark contrast to the U.S. and China.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 2, 2023

Autonomous driving remains a distant reality in Japan

The limited availability of autonomous driving stands in stark contrast to the U.S. and China, where robotaxis already roam the streets in some cities.
Zoom controlled only about 7% of the market for communication and collaboration software as of the first quarter of the year, while Microsoft topped 42%, according to industry analyst IDC.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 4, 2023

Zoom expands tools and features in bid to compete with Microsoft

The company is adding word processing to its suite of tools and experimenting with novel features for meetings as it faces steep competition from Teams.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 5, 2023

NTT Docomo to make online brokerage Monex a subsidiary

With the move, the firm aims to strengthen its revenue base by entering in the field of asset formation services.
The PayPay app now seeks to keep its pace of double-digit growth with help from other SoftBank portfolio companies.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 5, 2023

SoftBank’s PayPay app showcases Masayoshi Son’s clout in Japan

Seen to be next in SoftBank’s initial public offering pipeline, the startup now holds two-thirds’ share in QR-code payments in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 6, 2023

Uniqlo owner scouts for more Indian partners after 60% sales jump

The Japanese apparel giant is currently working with over 20 sewing factories and mills in India.
Visitors walk along the Marina Barrage water catchment area in Singapore in 2009.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 10, 2023

Singapore fighting rising seas to save $50 billion in real estate

During a half-century of independence, Singapore has fought to expand its territory, inch by hard-won inch. On the tip of the Malaysian peninsula, the island city-state piled up sand to expand its coastline and reclaim land from the sea.
Chey Tae-won in Paris on Monday
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 11, 2023

SK Group boss blames U.S.-China tensions for EV battery prices

SK Group’s operations range from batteries and chips to chemicals and telecoms.
Signage for Japan's top banks, MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 12, 2023

Japan’s top banks pay women about half of what men earn

The country has a relatively high labor participation rate for women, but many of the positions they occupy have little prospect of better pay.
Toyota Motor and Idemitsu Kosan are teaming up to develop and mass-produce all-solid-state batteries for electric vehicles, the companies said on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 12, 2023

Toyota and Idemitsu to mass-produce all-solid-state batteries

Idemitsu and Toyota said in a statement they would aim to commercialize the next-generation batteries in 2027-28, followed by full-scale mass production.
A Uniqlo store in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 12, 2023

Fast Retailing's annual profit rises 28% to fresh record

Profit was ¥381.1 billion ($2.56 billion) in the 12 months through August compared with ¥297.3 billion, the previous all-time high, a year earlier.
Honda Motor CEO Toshihiro Mibe
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 12, 2023

Honda and Mitsubishi Corp. sign pact to optimize EV battery use

The deal will eventually pay off in lower electricity bills for customers and better use of battery material, the companies said.
Thanks to a rally in Japanese stocks, even some "bad governance” companies have been unfairly benefiting from the wave, a fund manager has said.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 16, 2023

Time to short Japan’s ‘bad governance’ stocks, hedge fund says

A rally in Japanese stocks has unfairly benefited companies that are flouting the bourse’s campaign to boost valuations, according to a fund manager.
People walk into Jerusalem's Old City via Jaffa Gate, as the conflict wreaks havoc across the tourism sector.
BUSINESS
Oct 17, 2023

Israeli-Palestinian tourism sector hit hard by conflict

"Business is at a standstill since the war started," said a tour guide in the Palestinian city. "The roads were cut off, no one is coming."
An attendee tries out the XR Catch game at the Sony Group booth at CEATEC in Chiba on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 17, 2023

Major Japan tech show opens with focus on sustainability

The major trade show kicked off on Tuesday, with firms keen to showcase how their latest technologies could contribute to creating a sustainable society.
Small-cap shares listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange are undervalued because many don’t have enough information in English, according to a top-performing Japanese small-cap fund.
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2023

Top Japan fund bets on English disclosure to lift small-cap shares

An improvement in transparency may help revive foreign demand that drove Japan’s stock market to multi-decade highs earlier this year.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is pushing for nations to label artificial intelligence as capable of "catastrophic harm.”
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 19, 2023

U.K. pushes nations to label AI as capable of ‘catastrophic harm’

Britain wants countries to sign up to a joint position that outlines particular concerns for AI’s impact on cybersecurity and biotechnology.
BUSINESS / Tech / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Oct 23, 2023

Hokkaido waits to gauge impact from upcoming Rapidus chip plant

The nationally backed effort to revive Japan’s semiconductor industry has been called the region’s largest-ever development project.
Daiichi Sankyo is aiming for at least ¥900 billion of revenue from its oncology business in the fiscal year ending in March 2026.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2023

Merck signs $5.5 billion deal with Daiichi for cancer therapy development

Daiichi Sankyo is aiming for at least ¥900 billion of revenue from its oncology business in the fiscal year ending in March 2026.
An assembly engineer works on a TWINSCAN DUV lithography system at ASML in Veldhoven, Netherlands, in June.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 21, 2023

The multimillion-dollar machines at the center of the U.S.-China rivalry

Complex lithography machines that print intricate circuitry on computer chips are at the heart of Washington's tough new measures on Beijing.
The Fair Trade Commission has begun a probe on allegations of potential antitrust violations by Google.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 23, 2023

Japan begins probe into Google for alleged antitrust violations

Japan’s antitrust watchdog has begun an investigation into whether Alphabet’s Google abuses its market position to block rival services.
Speech-generating AI works by sifting through reams of data, categorizing how people speak then using an algorithm, to replicate human vocal patterns and speech characteristics.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Oct 23, 2023

Whose voice is it anyway? Actors take on AI copycats

Artists around the world are joining forces to protect their jobs, and their souls, from the ramifications of AI that sounds just like them.
A used KIA electric car is seen for sale outside the showroom of a used car dealer in Manchester, Britain
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 23, 2023

The battery test race to work out what used EVs are really worth

There used to be no way to measure battery health. But that is changing as firms rush to scale up EV battery tests — some of which take just minutes.
Gamers compete during the Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in 2017.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 24, 2023

Twitch and YouTube curb big-money deals for gaming superstars

For years, the leading livestreaming sites have competed for top gaming talent to bolster their services.
Kokusai Electric's technology and manufacturing center in the city of Toyama
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 25, 2023

Kokusai Electric shares jump 28% in Tokyo debut

The stock closed at ¥2,350, valuing the company at ¥541.5 billion as investors grabbed shares following the IPO.
A Cruise driverless car operating in San Francisco. On Tuesday, California regulators ordered Cruise, a General Motors subsidiary, to stop its driverless taxi service in San Francisco after a series of traffic incidents.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 25, 2023

California sidelines Cruise's driverless cars, citing safety risk

The U.S. state suspended Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment, saying the company had "misrepresented" the safety of the technology.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years