Новости за 01.05.2024

U.S. foreign policy figures have not opposed the idea of Japan lifting its own sanctions against North Korea if the reclusive state returns all Japanese nationals it abducted decades ago, the head of the abductee family group said Tuesday.

Corporate Japan is starting to wonder if the weak yen has become too much of a good thing.

Cooperation on biomass and food security will top the agenda when Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with his Brazilian and Paraguayan counterparts later this week in his first visit to South America since he took office.

The South Korean and Australian defense chiefs said Wednesday that Seoul was in talks to participate in the defense technology pillar of the AUKUS security pact — just weeks after Japan also said it was in discussions to join.

Foreign tourists are flocking to Japan in record numbers and thanks to a sliding yen many are living like kings, splashing out on everything from kimonos to knives and slap-up meals.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is recommending cannabis be reclassified as less risky, people familiar with the matter have said — a move that could help the legal marijuana industry benefit from tax breaks.

Seventeen people, including three lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party, have landed on Sea of Japan islands also claimed by Tokyo.

Mitsui Fudosan, tasked with renovating the former site of Tokyo's world-famous Tsukiji fish market, hopes to build the vacant lot into a modern center of cultural, culinary and business exchanges.

Municipalities around Japan are rushing to secure "cooling shelters" that people can use when there is high risk of heatstroke.

Chugoku Electric Power said Tuesday that the planned restart of the No. 2 reactor at its Shimane Nuclear Power Plant in western Japan will be delayed from August by about four months.

Tokyo and Tochigi prefectural police arrested two more men Wednesday in connection with the disposal of bodies found on a riverbed in the town of Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, on April 16, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to four.

When Nepal suddenly announced a ban on TikTok last year, lawyer Sunil Rajan Singh was determined to fight what he said was a government effort to hide its wrongdoings.

Robert Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary who added American firepower to the successful defense of the yen in the late 1990s, had some rules for foreign-exchange intervention. Such moves needed to be very rare and ought to be startling. The more surprise, the better, because a market whose value has swollen to $7.5 trillion a day could easily swamp such action.

A new company called Wecars was formed Wednesday to take over operations at Bigmotor, a scandal-tainted Japanese used car dealer, trading house Itochu, one of the new firm's shareholders, said.

China’s Fujian aircraft carrier — the country’s third and most advanced — began its maiden sea trials on Wednesday, state-run media reported, amid a growing naval rivalry with the United States.

Tokyo's 23 wards are diversifying their offerings under the hometown tax donation program, with a shift toward "hands-on experience" gifts that showcase local attractions.

Australia's prime minister on Wednesday declared violence against women a "scourge" and a "national crisis," days after protests in several major cities.

An emerging debate about the definition of infrastructure suggests that Western democracies are starting to shift their priorities. The renewed focus on infrastructure and what it includes is to be welcomed — not least because it rebuts the claim the West has lost faith in the future.

After fleeing famine in North Korea, Kim Cheol Ok laid low in China for decades — until a doomed run for freedom got her sent back to her repressive homeland, her family says.

Diario Brasil Nippou, the last remaining Japanese-language newspaper in Brazil, is struggling to keep its presses rolling.

Taiwan is on alert for China to carry out military exercises after the inauguration of President-elect Lai Ching-te this month, the island's top security official said on Wednesday, noting that Beijing usually begins such drills in June.

Georgian police on Tuesday deployed tear gas and water cannons against thousands of protesters who rallied for a third week against a controversial "foreign influence" bill.

While Wednesday marks four months since a massive earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in central Japan on New Year's Day, local residents are facing a tough decision: whether to leave or remain in the quake-hit areas.

Britain has sent its first asylum seeker to Rwanda under a voluntary program, The Sun Newspaper reported on Tuesday, saying the unnamed migrant was flown out of the country on Monday.

Japan likely conducted its first currency intervention since 2022 to prop up the yen on Monday, according to a Bloomberg analysis of central bank accounts.