Japan

September 27, 2024 11:09 AM

LDP leadership election candidates: Who’s vying to be Japan’s next PM?

Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party votes on Friday in leadership election to replace Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Here are the leading contenders based on public opinion polls. SHIGERU ISHIBA, 67 The former defence minister is making his fifth and, he says, final bid to lead a party that has governed Japan for most of the past seven decades. He is alone among the candidates in calling for a shift from nuclear power to renewable energy such as geothermal and supports legislation that wo...

September 26, 2024 9:40 AM

G4 nations ‘Brazil, Germany, India & Japan’ stress comprehensive UNSC reform as essential

The G4 Ministers representing Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan stressed that a comprehensive reform of the Security Council is an "essential part" of any endeavor to make the United Nations better reflect contemporary geopolitical realities and thus fit for the present and future. Foreign Ministers from the "Group of Four" countries - Brazil's Mauro Vieira, Germany's Annalena Baerbock, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and Japan's Yoko Kamikawa met on the margins of the 79th Sess...

September 24, 2024 8:42 AM

US has long endorsed permanent UNSC seats for India, Germany, Japan: Antony Blinken

Affirming support for the reformation of United Nations Security Council to better represent the developing world, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said that the United States has long endorsed permanent seats in the council for India, Japan and Germany. Speaking at the 'Summit of the Future' at the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday (local time), Blinken put forward the US' idea of two permanent seats for Africa, one rotating seat for Small Island Developing States...

August 31, 2024 12:53 PM

At least 6 dead in Japan as Typhoon Shanshan grinds on

At least six people were dead as Typhoon Shanshan crept eastward through Japan on Saturday, drenching large areas with torrential rain, triggering landslide and flood warnings hundreds of kilometres from the storm's centre. Footage on national broadcaster NHK showed homes with roofs partly sheered off while cars drove wheels-deep on flooded roads in the country's southwest. The storm made landfall in Kyushu on Thursday, bringing record levels of rainfall. One person was missing and more than 1...

August 29, 2024 4:46 PM

Millions told to evacuate as typhoon pummels Japan

Millions of people were ordered to evacuate their homes as Typhoon Shanshan lashed southwest Japan with strong winds and torrential rain on Thursday, knocking out power, snarling air traffic and forcing major factories to close. At least three people have been killed so far and scores injured in what authorities have warned could be one of the strongest ever storms to hit the region. Toyota suspended operations in all of its domestic plants due to the storm, while other automakers Nissan and H...

August 28, 2024 11:51 AM

Heat stroke risk won’t stop Japan’s ageing farmers as temperatures soar

The record high temperatures and sweltering weather that suffocated Japan this summer did not stop 77-year-old farmer Yasuyuki Kurosawa from tending his crops. Kurosawa, who grows rice, cabbage, wheat and corn in Meiwa, a town in the eastern Gunma prefecture, is one of nearly a million predominantly elderly Japanese who still farm for a living, and who are at a greater risk that most people of falling ill, or even dying, from the heat. "This is something that we cannot avoid, so we must do wha...

September 16, 2024 3:57 PM

Japan accuses China of airspace violation for the first time ever

In an unprecedented move, Japan has formally accused China of violating its airspace for the first time, escalating tensions between the two Asian powers. The incident, involving a Chinese military aircraft, occurred on Monday and has prompted a strong diplomatic response from Tokyo. Japan's defence ministry said an Y-9 surveillance aircraft at 11.29am on Monday "violated the territorial airspace off the Danjo islands in Nagasaki prefecture" in the East China Sea. It prompted Japan to deploy "f...

August 16, 2024 2:39 PM

Japan’s eastern region orders evacuations as Typhoon Ampil approaches

Japan grounded hundreds of flights and urged tens of thousands of people to evacuate in the eastern parts of the country on Friday, as a strong typhoon caused power blackouts in the middle of a major summer holiday week. Typhoon Ampil, categorised as "very strong" by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), was situated off the Pacific coast of Japan's main island. The agency has two higher categories - "very strong" and "violent". The typhoon is expected to get close to the eastern region of Ka...

August 2, 2024 9:29 AM

PM Modi meets Japanese Speaker Fukushiro, discusses opportunities & strategic partnership

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the speaker of the House of Representatives of Japan- Nukaga Fukushiro and his delegation of Japanese Parliament and business leaders last evening. The Prime Minister highlighted the conducive business environment and reforms undertaken in India for more investment and technology from Japan. He assured the government’s full support to the visiting delegation for these endeavours. The meeting underscored the robust India-Japan Special Strategic and Global Part...

June 19, 2024 3:58 PM

US pushing Netherlands, Japan to restrict more chipmaking equipment to China, source says

A U.S. official was headed to Japan after meeting with the Dutch government in an effort to push allies to further crack down on China's ability to produce cutting-edge semiconductors, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. Alan Estevez, the U.S. export policy chief, was again trying to build on a 2023 agreement between the three countries to keep chipmaking equipment from China that could modernize its military. The U.S. first imposed sweeping restrictions in 2022 on shipm...