Japan

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Lack of security for Japanese prime minister surprised many

WAKAYAMA, Japan (AP) — The fishermen who tackled the man suspected of the second attack on a Japanese political leader in less than a year were surprised by the lack of security for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-kishida-attack-e2da899d2cfa9af7201ffa2d89d0c40d?

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Japan selling Patriot missiles to US in break from self-defense policy

The Japanese government will sell Patriot air defense missiles to the U.S., marking Tokyo’s first foray into selling complete lethal weapons to allied nations since the post-World War II era.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4373611-japan-selling-patriot-missiles-to-us-break-from-self-defense-policy/

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Planes collide and catch fire at Japan’s busy Haneda airport, killing 5. Hundreds evacuated safely

TOKYO (AP) — A large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing five people aboard the coast guard plane, officials said.

https://apnews.com/article/plane-fire-japan-793607548e45a80b8ccc8721fb3c5016?

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🌐 Japan falls to 4th-largest economy

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Japan unexpectedly fell into a recession and lost its spot as the world's third-largest economy to Germany, according to data out today. The top economies are now 1. U.S. 2. China 3. Germany 4. Japan. Japan fell from the second-ranked economy behind the U.S. to the third-largest in 2010, as China grew. The U.S. remains the world's largest economy by far. Keep reading.

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🇯🇵 Japanese stocks party like 1989

Data: Yahoo Finance. Chart: Axios Visuals Japan's stock market today hit the high-water market set before its asset bubble burst more than three decades ago, Axios' Matt Phillips writes. Why it matters: Major Japanese corporations find themselves at the epicenter of two hop economic trends — the AI boom, and worsening relations between China and the West. Zoom in: The Nikkei 225, the country's leading stock index, closed at 39,098.68 today, overtaking the record set on the final day of trading in 1989. The collapse of the Nikkei in 1990 was a harbinger of what would become a large-scale crash for financial assets, real estate and the banking system. The crash sank the Japanese economy into a deflationary funk, the Lost Decade, that extended well beyond the '90s. Reality check: The Nikkei's run shouldn't be confused with an overall boom in the Japanese economy, which slipped into a recession at the end of last year.

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Images taken deep inside melted Fukushima reactor show damage, but leave many questions unanswered

TOKYO (AP) — Images taken by miniature drones from deep inside a badly damaged reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant show displaced control equipment and misshapen materials but leave many questions unanswered, underscoring the daunting task of decommissioning the plant.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-fukushima-damaged-reactor-drone-photos-f60016bb626c1eebb63e08065d3b133d?

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5 dead and over 100 hospitalized from recalled Japanese health supplements

TOKYO (AP) — Five people who took a Japanese health supplement have died and more than 100 have been hospitalized as of Friday, a week after a pharmaceutical company issued a recall of the products, officials said.

https://apnews.com/article/supplement-recall-deaths-japan-health-benikoji-1ce6a27d6495e500e991e36581b2dbde?

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Japan is giving Washington 250 new cherry trees to replace those to be lost in construction work

WASHINGTON (AP) — Japan is giving the United States 250 new cherry trees to help replace the hundreds that are being ripped out this summer as construction crews work to repair the crumbling seawall around the capital’s Tidal Basin.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-cherry-trees-blossoms-biden-483e8a004eb197acb5363d619f3e6529?

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Toyota shows ‘an engine reborn’ with green fuel despite global push for battery electric cars

That’s how Japanese automaker Toyota introduced plans to cast a futuristic spin on the traditional internal combustion engine.

https://apnews.com/article/toyota-engine-electric-emissions-subaru-mazda-japan-997d6311ead7f9e41c11a2e47be6ad0e?

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‘We have to be wacky.’ With suggestive poses and pets, election campaigning tests Tokyo’s patience

TOKYO (AP) — Tokyo elects a new governor this weekend, but residents say personal publicity stunts have overtaken serious campaigning to a degree never seen before, with nearly nude women in suggestive poses, pets, an AI character and a man practicing his golf swing.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-tokyo-election-odd-candidates-5d48f2322a84d0547e78d0f5e69a71cf?

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💾 End of an era

Discarded old floppy diskettes used for backup. Photo: Getty Images Japan — one of the most technologically advanced countries on Earth — is finally saying goodbye to the floppy disk, the N.Y Times reports. A slew of rules and regulations have long required various Japanese businesses to keep records on floppy disks. The country's digital minister began a campaign to erase those rules two years ago, long after the floppy disk had left the mainstream. The last rule was finally eliminated just last week. ⌨️ Reality check: Since floppy disks were mandatory for so long, some sectors — including at least one bank — are still using them.

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Japan’s Kishida announces he will not run in September, paving the way for a new prime minister

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in a surprise move Wednesday, announced he will not run in the upcoming party leadership vote in September, paving the way for Japan to have a new prime minister.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-kishida-prime-minister-leader-party-vote-a666ab460848ad5b7b2e9c47460be0b7?

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Photo op

A small town in Japan that caught plenty of flak for its controversial move to block views of Mount Fuji has quietly reversed its decision. Fujikawaguchiko had put up a large black net a few months ago because it was overwhelmed by tourists taking photographs of the majestic mountain.

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A Japanese woman who loves bananas is now the world’s oldest person

TOKYO (AP) — Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman, became the world’s oldest living person at age 116, following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas, according to the Guinness World Records.

https://apnews.com/article/oldest-person-japan-guinness-records-0ee529d0fe6490143cc878a85bdf05cc?

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Japan wants its hardworking citizens to try a 4-day workweek

TOKYO (AP) — Japan, a nation so hardworking its language has a term for literally working oneself to death, is trying to address a worrisome labor shortage by coaxing more people and companies to adopt four-day workweeks.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-4day-work-week-campaign-f78a95a89d99e7b323f7554721088d66?

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Prince Hisahito becomes the first royal male in Japan to reach adulthood in 4 decades.

TOKYO (AP) — In a big milestone for Japan’s royal family, Prince Hisahito turned 18 on Friday, becoming the first male royal family member to reach adulthood in almost four decades. It is a significant development for a family that has ruled for more than a millennium but faces the same existential problems as the rest of the nation — a fast-aging, shrinking population.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-emperor-prince-imperial-family-succession-9edde66e34287e7cba1139cb4b25b706?

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A robot begins removal of melted fuel from the Fukushima nuclear plant. It could take a century

TOKYO (AP) — A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-fukushima-reactor-melted-fuel-robot-9ffc309fb072580bee0161e8a24c8490?

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Japanese court acquits the longest-serving death row inmate of a 1966 quadruple murder

TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese court found an 88-year-old former boxer not guilty on Thursday after a retrial for a 1966 quadruple murder, reversing a decision that made him the world’s longest-serving death row inmate.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-retrial-boxer-hakamada-death-penalty-a99eb431ab14fbb8edeb5113e7043977?

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Japan election

 

Former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan's new prime minister after winning his party's leadership contest today, following a crowded race that ended in a runoff vote. The 67-year-old takes control of the scandal-plagued Liberal Democratic Party and will assume command of the world's fourth-largest economy in October. He was one of nine candidates and beat economic security minister Sanae Takaichi — who was vying to become Japan's first woman leader — in the runoff, with 215 votes to 194. It was Ishiba's fifth attempt to lead the party, a conservative political machine that has ruled Japan almost continuously since its founding in 1955.

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Rail pioneers

Japan’s sleek bullet trains zoomed onto the scene in the 1960s, shrinking travel times and inspiring a revolution in high-speed rail travel around the world. The next big thing could come courtesy of China: magnetically levitating trains capable of running at almost 400 mph.

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An American bomb from WWII explodes at a Japanese airport, leaving a crater on the taxiway

TOKYO (AP) — An unexploded U.S. bomb from World War II that had been buried at a Japanese airport exploded Wednesday, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights, Japanese officials said.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-airport-us-unexploded-bomb-blast-bf561e4c71f644267d86d8589b6999d4?

ps:I wonder how many more of these are laying around, not just in Japan, but throughout the world??

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A tiny grain of nuclear fuel is pulled from ruined Japanese nuclear plant, in a step toward cleanup

TOKYO (AP) — A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-nuclear-fukushima-sample-robot-decommissioning-b7dd956a86401b39f04ae839f768d29f?

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Japan’s famous sake joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list, a boost to brewers and enthusiasts

LUQUE, Paraguay (AP) — Sake is perhaps more Japanese than the world-famous sushi. It’s brewed in centuries-old mountaintop warehouses, savored in the country’s pub-like izakayas, poured during weddings and served slightly chilled for special toasts.

https://apnews.com/article/japan-sake-unesco-world-heritage-intangible-cultural-ffb84ba291342e62bf0e588729538351?

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4-day workweek

Tokyo is set to introduce a four-day workweek for government employees in its latest push to help working mothers and boost record-low fertility rates. Many sociologists attribute the plunging birth rates to Japan's unforgiving work culture and rising costs of living. "We will review work styles … with flexibility, ensuring no one has to give up their career due to life events such as childbirth or childcare," said Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. The shift to a four-day workweek has sparked growing interest in the West, where some companies are exploring compressed hours to attract talent seeking better work-life balance. A number of other experiments with the four-day workweek have been conducted around the world, including a successful trial in 2022 across 33 companies, with the majority based in the US and Ireland.

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🇯🇵 Ambassador Rahm Emanuel's curtain call

Today's N.Y. Times Quote of the Day is from Rahm Emanuel, the blunt outgoing U.S. ambassador to nicety-bound Japan, who made bold diplomatic moves that he says nudged the crucial ally forward:

"If you only want to do big things that nobody disagrees with, they're not going to be very big."

As Emanuel prepares to leave Japan, The Times' Motoko Rich writes that the 65-year-old former congressman, chief of staff to President Obama and Chicago mayor "was initially seen as an unorthodox appointment. But maybe, he suggests, he was just what Japan needed":

• "I think on a lot of things, Japan was ready to go," Emanuel says, referring to a recent cascade of bold revisions to the country's defense policy. "While I was here, they did more, went faster and farther and deeper than I think they themselves originally thought ... Did I contribute to that? Uh, yeah."

Baseball diplomacy: Emanuel presents Fumio Kishida, then prime minister of Japan, with jerseys signed by Japanese players for the Chicago Cubs and L.A. Dodgers, in Tokyo in September. Photo: Jiji Press via Getty Images

💡 Our thought bubble: Emanuel took a job that could be mostly ceremonial — and dove into it in the relentless Rahm style familiar to former colleagues, underlings and competitors in Washington and Chicago.

• Working on both Japan and U.S. time, Rahm was always plotting creative, aggressive ways to push U.S. messages to his hosts and around the globe.

🔮 What's next: Emanuel is already being mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

• Keep reading (gift link).