Japan - Page 15

More than 70 percent of people in Japan said in a poll they are opposed to holding the rescheduled Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The negative response comes just three months before the event, originally set down for last year but pushed back because of the global coronavirus pandemic, is due to begin.

Japan announced this weekend it would provide India with $2 billion in loans and grants to fund infrastructure projects, including the improvement of a power supply system in the strategic Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal.

TOKYO (AP) — The government minister tasked with overseeing Japan’s coronavirus vaccination campaign on Monday urged the European Union to ensure stable exports of European-made vaccines, warning that any attempt to suspend shipments amid a shortage in Europe would harm relations.

North Korea claimed on Friday that its provocative missile launches the previous day included a new class of short-range tactical ballistic missile, developed with its ostensibly advancing missile technology.

A 7.0 preliminary magnitude earthquake struck Japan off the coast of Ishinomaki, 65 miles from the 9.0 earthquake that struck Fukushima ten years ago.

A little over a month after the head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee resigned over sexist remarks, the creative director for the event announced he would resign after suggesting a plus-sized female comedian should perform at the Games as a character he dubbed the “Olympig.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned China Tuesday against using “coercion and aggression” to get what it wants in Asia.

The Indian government is expected to approve a purchase of 30 MQ-9B Predator drones manufactured by San Diego-based company General Atomics in April.

The government of Japan on Monday asked China to stop using anal swab coronavirus tests on Japanese citizens, a practice to which the U.S. has also objected.

A non-governmental organization called South China Sea Chronicle Initiative (SCSCI) published satellite photos on Wednesday that show China building a surface-to-air missile base near the Vietnamese border.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the ruling conservative party, announced on Thursday that it would consider allowing women to attend top-level party meetings, but not allow them to talk.

The Japanese embassy in Paris has warned its nationals to be on alert after a Japanese citizen was attacked with acid earlier this month.

The yearly suicide rate for Japanese schoolchildren surged to 479 in 2020, the highest figure recorded since Japan began keeping records of the statistic in 1980, Japan’s education ministry revealed Monday.

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games chief Yoshiro Mori is expected to resign Thursday after he sparked equal measures of outrage and blushes in Japan by claiming women talk too much in meetings.

Hungary’s minister for families believes that “the demographic crisis of the Western world” is one of its greatest challenges, and that without serious action to support parents “Europe will be lost.”

Speculation that tech giant Apple may be seeking to work with multiple carmakers to develop its own electric vehicle and reports of recent discussions with Hyundai-Kia have caused shares of major carmakers in both South Korea and Japan to rise.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games chief was drawn into a sexism row Wednesday after it was reported he said women made meetings drag on for too long because they “have difficulty” speaking concisely.

Tokyo’s hosting of the next Olympic Games this summer is “up to the U.S.,” a Tokyo Olympics Organizing Committee member said on Wednesday.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide apologized on Wednesday after lawmakers from his ruling party admitted to visiting Tokyo bars late at night during the capital’s coronavirus state of emergency, which discourages unnecessary outings and urges bars and restaurants to close by 8:00 p.m.

Academics at the University of York removed a depiction of the three wise monkeys from their website after they determined it could be seen as an insult to ethnic minorities.

Nissan’s chief operating officer has said that Brexit “is a positive” for the carmaker, and that it will be moving battery production from Japan to Britain. 

Monthly suicide rates in Japan increased by 16 percent from July to October 2020 compared to the same period the previous year, Japanese researchers have found. The three-month interval coincided with Japan’s second wave of Chinese coronavirus outbreaks, Reuters reported Sunday.

A 2018 strategy document from the National Security Council (NSC), declassified many years ahead of schedule Tuesday, outlined the Trump administration’s strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, including the U.S. strategic framework for containing Chinese ambitions in the region.

Support for the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games, set down for this summer, has collapsed in Japan as the country battles a fresh outbreak of the coronavirus.

A Japanese cheerleading squad danced and cheered to raise commuters’ spirits outside a major Tokyo metro station on Thursday as the national capital headed into a one-month coronavirus lockdown.

A South Korean court ordered Japan to pay compensation to the nation’s “comfort women,” sex slaves abducted during World War II, or their families, in an unprecedented ruling formally protested by Tokyo on Friday.

Japan’s federal government declared a limited state of emergency in its national capital, Tokyo, and three neighboring prefectures on Thursday in an effort to curb transmission of the Chinese coronavirus.

Nuclear regulators in Japan recently revealed the radiation levels found inside the damaged reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are “exceedingly high” and worse than previously thought, the Asahi Shimbun reported Wednesday.

Japan’s digital transformation minister, Hirai Takuya, announced in an interview Sunday that Tokyo is developing a “monitoring system” to keep close surveillance on foreigners visiting the country, allegedly to contain the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

President-elect Joe Biden has made clear in his staffing plans and public remarks that he intends to return America to many of the foreign policy positions championed by his former boss, President Barack Obama.

Pizza Hut Japan has seen reservations for Christmas meals skyrocket in part due to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, which has kept many from traditional dinners at restaurants, Japan’s Kyodo News noted Thursday.

Japan’s government on Monday approved a record defense budget of 5.34 trillion yen ($51.6 billion) for 2021 as part of an effort to counter “security challenges posed by China,” Japanese newspaper the Mainichi reported on December 21.

A recent increase in the number of Chinese and South Korean companies purchasing plots of land near Japanese military bases has led Tokyo to consider limiting such sales, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide is planning to invest $19 million in the next fiscal year into “programs to help [Japan’s] residents find love,” an unnamed Cabinet official told the Japan Times this week, in an attempt to slow the nation’s rapidly declining birth rate.

Japanese scientists have journeyed to the vast expanses of the Australian outback to retrieve a capsule containing the first sub-surface samples from an asteroid, ending a six-year journey of more than three billion miles.

Japan will join France, and the United States in a series of land and sea drills for the first time in May next year, offering a counterweight to increased Chinese military activity in the Indo-Pacific region, the Sankei newspaper said on Sunday.