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June 06, 2025
 

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CABINET

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (left) and agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi attend the first ministerial meeting on stable rice supply, held at the Prime Minister's Office on Thursday.
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2025
Ishiba seeks probe on high prices at first rice meeting
A key issue in future discussions at the ministerial council will be how to optimize rice distribution.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba answers questions during a budget committee session of the House of Councilors on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 4, 2025
Ishiba eyes dissolving Lower House in wake of possible no-confidence motion
The prime minister is apparently sending a warning to the main opposition at a time when battles between the ruling and opposition camps are intensifying.
Agriculture minister Taku Eto (left), who resigned on Wednesday, and former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi
JAPAN / Politics
May 21, 2025
Shinjiro Koizumi takes farm ministry reins after predecessor's rice gaffe
Taku Eto resigned from the post after coming under fire for bragging about how much rice his supporters give him.
Public opinion polls published over the weekend show that support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet is weakening.
JAPAN / Politics
May 19, 2025
Ishiba’s support falls, but likely no ouster before July election
Polls published over the weekend showed support for Ishiba’s Cabinet ranging from 22% to 31%.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters about Japan-U.S. tariff negotiations at his official residence on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
May 5, 2025
Tariff talks with U.S. seen influencing Japan's Upper House election
The outcome of the ongoing bilateral negotiations will have a major impact on this summer's election in the Upper House.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters at his official residence in Tokyo on Sunday before leaving for a diplomatic trip to Vietnam and the Philippines later in the day.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 27, 2025
Golden Week proves to be busy for traveling members of Ishiba's Cabinet
Some in the opposition camp are questioning the need for the trips amid economic turmoil.
Japan's cyberdefense legislation is designed for the government to acquire and analyze communication information in normal times.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025
Japan's active cyberdefense bills include normal-time monitoring
The bills also call for establishing an independent organization to supervise cyberdefense operations and file relevant reports to parliament.
Prime Minsiter Shigeru Ishiba
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 13, 2025
Ishiba Cabinet disapproval rises to 44%
It was the highest level since the launch of Ishiba's administration in October last year.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (center) at the Prime Minister's Office on Friday. The Cabinet has decided to spend an additional ¥106.8 billion ($710 million) from its fiscal 2024 budget reserve funds on disaster relief for areas hit by the Noto Peninsula earthquake last year.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 28, 2025
Japan to spend additional ¥106.8 billion on aid for quake-hit Noto
The latest relief, using reserve funds from the fiscal 2024 budget, takes the total of financial aid for the peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture to more than ¥820 billion.
The Ishiba Cabinet's approval rating has risen 0.3 percentage point in February, at 28.5%, while its disapproval rating was down 0.2 point at 40.1%, according to Jiji Press opinion poll.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 13, 2025
Public approval for Ishiba Cabinet steady at 28.5%, poll finds
The Cabinet approval rating was up 0.3 percentage point, while its disapproval rating was down 0.2 point at 40.1%.
Japan’s primary balance is once again set to miss its long-standing target of achieving a balanced budget by the year ending March 2026.
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2025
Japan now expects to miss its 2025 primary balance goal
The primary balance, which excludes interest payments on public debt, is projected to remain in the red with a deficit of around ¥4.5 trillion.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2025
Ishiba Cabinet approval inches up to 28.2%
The Democratic Party for the People led the opposition camp in public support for the first time in the January poll.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a meeting in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 28, 2024
Ishiba hints at possibility of double election next summer
An Upper House poll is scheduled for next July, and Ishiba hinted at the possibility that a Lower House election might coincide with that poll.
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2024
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The poll found that people worry most about their own health, plans for life after retirement, and the outlook for future income and assets.
A pedestrian crossing in Tokyo's Ginza district. In an economic report released Friday, the government cut its assessment on corporate profits for the first time since March 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 20, 2024
Japan says overall economy recovering, but cuts view on corporate profits
Among key economic areas, the government cut its assessment on corporate profits for the first time since March 2023 as the pace of its recovery was moderating.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters on Thursday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 12, 2024
Approval rate of Ishiba's Cabinet dips to 26.8%, poll shows
The Cabinet's approval rate has remained under 30% for months, including under Ishiba's predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba during a G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 18.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2024
Japan to lean heavily on extra tax revenue to cover costs of extra budget
The extra budget will partly be funded by ¥3.83 trillion in higher-than-expected tax receipts and unused funds from the previous year.
Public support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet in November remained low at 28.7%, a Jiji survey shows.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2024
Ishiba Cabinet approval inches up to 28.7%, poll shows
The result highlights the persisting lack of voters' support for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's administration.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (third from left in the front row) posing for a commemorative photo with vice ministers of the second Ishiba Cabinet at the Prime Minister's Office on Wednesday
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 14, 2024
No scandal-tainted LDP lawmakers appointed to senior government posts
The exclusion of lawmakers involved in the slush fund scandal is apparently aimed at avoiding criticism from the opposition camp and the public.
Shinto priests attend a ritual during the autumn festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2024
No Cabinet ministers visit Yasukuni Shrine during fall festival
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba only made a ritual tree offering to the controversial Shinto shrine.
Japan’s fertility rate hits record low despite government push
The total number of births dropped to about 686,000, marking the first time the figure has fallen below 700,000, according to a health ministry release on Wednesday.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
Is Japan ready to say goodbye to tax-free shopping?
Arrows lead to the tax-free counter at a branch of discount retailer Don Quijote in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)
The year so far is only proving that Mrs. Green Apple is the biggest band in Japan. Their success also seems to be hinting at a change in the musical landscape more broadly.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 console is finally here
The Switch 2 is Nintendo's first new gaming console in eight years.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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