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July 20, 2025
 

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LDP

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at an Upper House session in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 9, 2025
No-confidence motion against Ishiba Cabinet could lead to double election
A double election could result in more political stability if either bloc manages to capture both chambers, or continued instability if neither holds a majority.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a Lower House Budget Committee meeting on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 7, 2025
Japan to hold WWII panel discussions after summer Upper House election
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's administration was considering setting up the panel as early as April.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 6, 2025
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
The lawmaker, sometimes said to be long on image and short on substance, has won praise for bringing down the price of rice.
A survivor of the Tokyo air raids in 1945 points to a map showing burned areas of central Tokyo in red after the bombing, during an interview in the city in March 2015.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 6, 2025
LDP to put off WWII air raid relief bill
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is believed to be concerned that it could lead to other compensation-related issues.
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.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 5, 2025
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
Ideas range from stricter driver's license tests for foreign nationals to increasing taxes on foreign visitors.
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and other imperial family members attend the New Year's appearance at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Jan. 2, 2020.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2025
Japan lawmakers likely to put off decision on imperial family plan
Leaders of the House of Representatives have found it difficult to reach a conclusion before the current parliamentary session is set to end on June 22.
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.
Arrows lead to the tax-free counter at a branch of discount retailer Don Quijote in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 4, 2025
Is Japan ready to say goodbye to tax-free shopping?
Amid widespread abuse of Japan’s tax-free shopping system, a group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers are mulling over its possible abolition.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba offers a flower during a ceremony to pay respects to unidentified war dead from World War II at the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo on May 26.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 3, 2025
Ishiba faces political and diplomatic quandary ahead of WWII anniversary
There is fierce opposition among conservatives to any form of official reflection on the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks during an Upper House agriculture committee meeting on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 30, 2025
Some LDP lawmakers wary of Koizumi's aggressive price policy
There are fears that the approach may cause farmers, a key support bloc, to distance themselves from the party.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito coalition and Nippon Ishin no Kai have agreed to remove up to 110,000 redundant hospital beds across the country.
JAPAN / Politics
May 30, 2025
LDP, Komeito and Nippon Ishin agree to phase out redundant hospital beds
The removal of 110,000 unnecessary hospital beds is estimated to save around ¥1 trillion in medical costs.
Itsunori Onodera, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Wednesday visited the city of Kawaguchi in Saitama Prefecture to address issues between Kurdish residents and locals, including illegal waste dumping.
JAPAN
May 29, 2025
LDP policy chief visits Kawaguchi over reported problems with Kurdish residents
The problems reported include illegal waste dumping and foreigners illegally working.
Hakubun Shimomura speaks as a witness at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 28, 2025
LDP's Shimomura denies he ordered kickbacks to resume in 2022
In a hearing in February, a former chief accountant of a now-defunct faction said "a faction executive" asked for the kickback system to restart in July 2022.
The leaders of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito bloc hold up a document on their agreement to reform the pension system in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 27, 2025
Coalition clears last hurdle of parliamentary session with pension bill
The agreement largely revolves around a plan to boost funding for the basic pension program, which provides coverage to all residents in Japan age 20 to 60.
Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito lawmakers meet to discuss a pension reform bill at the Diet in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 24, 2025
Bill that would raise Japanese pension benefits on track to pass parliament
The ruling bloc will back the CDP's amendment, which includes a plan to raise basic pension benefits.
LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama speaks during an event in Nakatane, Kagoshima Prefecture, earlier this month.
JAPAN / Politics
May 24, 2025
LDP holds meeting to let proponents of tax cut blow off steam
The LDP leadership has decided not to include a consumption tax reduction in its campaign pledges for the upcoming Upper House election.
Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan's newly appointed agriculture minister, arrives at the ministry building in Tokyo on Wednesday. He replaced Taku Eto, who quit after saying he’s never needed to buy rice, a comment that angered many people.
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2025
Rice price uproar intensifies ruling party's election fears
When the remarks triggered a predictable and understandable backlash, Eto explained that he was trying to make a joke.
New farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks during a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 22, 2025
‘Rice minister’ Koizumi faces urgent task to bring prices down quickly
Lawmakers have been questioning whether auctioning stockpiled rice is really effective in bringing down prices.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Cabinet saw its approval rate rewriting the lowest level in May since he took office last October last year.
JAPAN / Politics
May 22, 2025
Ishiba Cabinet approval falls to 20.9% in new poll
The Cabinet's disapproval rating rose 1.7 points to 52.9%.
Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Itsunori Onodera (fourth from left) visits a driver's license center in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, on Wednesday to see how foreign driver's licenses are converted into Japanese ones.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 22, 2025
Japan considers toughening rules on driver's license conversions
The National Police Agency revealed the plan amid concerns that the system for converting a foreign license is too easy.
Japanese markets brace for triple whammy if opposition wins big
A Sanseito campaign van in Shinjuku. The populist party is gaining ground and challenging the more centrist parties.
Sunken WWII Japanese warship Teruzuki found off Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands. A team from the U.S. nonprofit Ocean Exploration Trust has discovered the Imperial Japanese Navy destroyer Teruzuki on the deep seabed off the Solomon Islands as the 80th anniversary of the war's end approaches.
Living conditions index hits lowest level in 15 years in Japan
The share of respondents to a Bank of Japan quarterly survey in June who said they have become worse off came to 61.0%, up 5.1 percentage points from the previous survey.
In Upper House race, younger voters in Tokyo turn to DPP for new direction
The Tokyo district has the highest number of candidates in the 2025 Upper House election with 32 people in the running for seven seats.
Concerns grow in Japan over possible Russian interference in Sunday’s election
A think tank researcher said anti-government propaganda by Russian bot accounts was what has made the small far-right party Sanseito so popular leading up to the Upper House election.
Japan's rice farmers are confounded by Shinjiro Koizumi’s policies
Kiyoshi Shibata stands in front of one of the rice paddies in Murayama, Yamagata Prefecture, where he produces the prefecture's signature rice brand Tsuyahime.
From stalking to death threats, female candidates still face harassment
Mayu Ushida, a former NHK newscaster running for election in the Tokyo electoral district on the Democratic Party for the People ticket, signs an autograph for a voter after a public rally at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Kawaii Lab redefines idol pop for the TikTok generation
Misa Kimura is the main producer for Kawaii Lab, a project by entertainment agency Asobisystem whose groups have found success by pairing a social media-first strategy with a fresh perspective on traditional idol-pop tropes.
Craig Mod's life in motion in a disappearing Japan
Mod's memoir “Things Become Other Things” chronicles his walking trips across the Kii Peninsula, surveying “a graceful end to a certain life cycle.”
With China and Trump, Japan defense report says world entering ‘new era of crisis’
A senior member of a Self-Defense Forces honor guard inspects a formation before the arrival of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba for a visit to the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on June 30.

Podcast

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

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan
By Megha Wadhwa

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