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.
Two remote villages in Japan’s northwest have agreed to start the first stage of a survey process that would allow the federal government to dispose of thousands of tons of nuclear waste in the ground beneath the communities, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.
Japan has initiated attempts to improve its relationship with China, accepting a visit from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday.
Chinese officials are wooing Japan in hope of joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the diminished trade deal established in 2018 as a successor to the defunct Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
The navies of the U.S., Australia, India, and Japan began exercises on Tuesday in the Northern Arabian Sea, launching the second phase of a joint “Malabar 2020” naval drill viewed by observers as a regional deterrent to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
The new defense pact between Australia and Japan signed Tuesday in Tokyo has been dismissed as “dangerous” by Chinese state-owned media, which warns any resistance to Beijing is futile and will come at a heavy cost.
Japan’s Nikkei Asian Reviews highlighted the emergency of “virus vigilantes” in the country on Tuesday: enforcers that use peer pressure to keep people from violating lockdown restrictions without actually having any legitimate authority.
Chinese state media spent the weekend celebrating the announcement of a massive trade deal with 14 other Asia-Pacific nations — including key U.S. allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia, but not the United States itself — as the “end of U.S. hegemony in the West Pacific.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-in held a 14-minute telephone conversation with presumptive incoming U.S. president Joe Biden on Thursday to discuss U.S. policy for the Indo-Pacific region, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and the coronavirus pandemic.
Sports fans have been left with nothing to shout about after organizers of next year’s postponed Tokyo Olympic Games said they may seek an order banning spectators from cheering as well shouting or talking loudly, to minimise the risk of coronavirus infections.
Hagerty said the coronavirus has awakened Americans to the threat of China and called for bringing manufacturing back to the United States.
The number of suicides in Japan rose in October to the highest level recorded in over five years, Japanese police data revealed on Tuesday.
A Japanese mayor has became an Internet sensation after observers noted that the characters of his name may be read as “Jo Baiden.”
On Tuesday, Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of former Vice President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, emphasized the need for a nationwide lockdown to mitigate the spread of the disease.
Australia will join Japan in a regional defense pact designed to bolster their standing against Beijing’s growing military power and assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
Japanese Prime Minster Suga Yoshihide said on Thursday that the Summer Olympics in 2021 may be a “good opportunity” to discuss important matters, including a peace deal, with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. He did not confirm Kim would receive an invite, nor did he rule it out.
Japan announced on Wednesday that it has shut down all but one of its nine nuclear reactors for at least the next six weeks to comply with safety regulations requiring anti-terror protections for all of its nuclear facilities.
Japanese Trump superfan and conservative political activist Yoko Ishii spoke with Breitbart News on Tuesday night U.S. time to discuss the unfolding presidential election.
Republican Bill Hagerty easily won the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee on Tuesday.
The annual Malabar naval exercise began on Tuesday, launching from the Indian port of Visakhapatnam on the Bay of Bengal. The Malabar wargame began in 1992 as a joint exercise between the U.S. and Indian navies. Japan joined in 2015, and this year marks the return of Australia after 13 years of absence, putting all four members of the “Quad” alliance against Chinese expansionism on the roster.
The Japanese government is considering changes that would effectively cut China out of the supply chain for its unmanned aerial vehicles, reports indicated on Friday.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday lectured U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about “sowing discord” between China and its neighbors.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency has advised Japanese fishing boats to avoid certain areas within Japan’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and operate elsewhere after thousands of Chinese fishing boats ignored Tokyo’s previous warnings in recent weeks to exit the country’s waters.
