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Investors will be heaping ever more scrutiny on Japanese assets, with negative rates potentially relegated to history.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 15, 2024

BlackRock and Man Group reveal big Japan bets before BOJ decision

Snap up more Japanese stocks and keep buying the yen — these are some of the most popular calls from big-name money managers.
A vehicle developed by Toyota, inspired by the Pokemon character Miraidon, on display in Tokyo on Thursday
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 15, 2024

Toyota engineers develop vehicle inspired by 'Pokemon' character

The vehicle will be on display at the Tokyo Midtown Hibiya complex for three days from March 15.
A student at Hanoi University of Science and Technology looking at a printed circuit board in the school's lab in Hanoi.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 15, 2024

The Gen-Z students at the heart of Vietnam's chip plans

Long viewed as a low-cost destination to make clothes, shoes and furniture, the country is now eyeing a rapid climb up the global supply chain.
Pickleball courts in New York's famed Central Park
MORE SPORTS
Mar 15, 2024

Amid boom overseas, when will pickleball land in Japan?

Over the past few years, pickleball has emerged as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., but it has yet to take off in Japan.
The results of wage negotiations between companies and labor unions are written on a whiteboard at the office of the Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 15, 2024

Japan’s labor unions win big pay raises for members

The preliminary figure for the average hike stands at a 33-year high of 5.28%, according to Japan’s largest labor organization.
People stand in front of a temporarily closed McDonald's in Tokyo's Shimbashi district on Friday as the chain experienced widespread tech issues.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 15, 2024

McDonald's suffers widespread tech outage in Japan and abroad

Many McDonald's stores in Japan stopped taking in-person and mobile customer orders because of the system disruption.
A U.S. flag flies near the United States Steel Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton, Pennsylvania, on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 16, 2024

U.S. Steel says Nippon Steel deal expected to close later this year

The filing with exchanges comes at a time when the Japanese firm's $14.9 billion deal to buy the 122-year-old U.S. steelmaker faces heightened scrutiny.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak to the press at Manhattan Criminal Court after a hearing in his case of paying hush money to cover up extramarital affairs, in New York City on Feb. 15.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 16, 2024

Trump hush-money trial in New York delayed until at least April

Pushing back the start date in New York is good news for Trump, who is campaigning for a return to the White House.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Friday that he had OK'd a plan to attack the Gaza city of Rafah on the southern edge of the shattered Palestinian enclave.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2024

Israel approves plan to attack Rafah but keeps truce hopes alive

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he had OK'd a plan to attack the city on the southern edge of the shattered Palestinian enclave.
Gold beans for sale inside a Luk Fook Holdings International jewelry store in Shanghai on Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2024

Gold beans all the rage with China’s Gen Z as deflation bites

Weighing as little as 1 gram, the beans — and other forms of gold jewelry — are increasingly viewed as the safest investment bet for young Chinese.
A closed McDonald's in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, amid an outage that affected stores in Japan and abroad on Friday. The chain resumed operations on Saturday at almost all of its outlets in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 16, 2024

McDonald’s Japan resumes operations after outage

The recovery comes after McDonald’s was hit by a system outage that appears to have started in the Asia-Pacific region Friday.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on Friday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 16, 2024

Top Biden official says stance on U.S. Steel deal doesn't hurt U.S.-Japan ties

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden's opposition to the U.S. Steel deal "doesn't take away one thing" from the relationship.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani says he is focused on baseball despite all the hype surrounding his Dodgers debut in Seoul next week.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 16, 2024

Ohtani focused ahead of MLB season opener in Seoul

The Dodgers will play the San Diego Padres in a two-game series in Seoul to open the MLB season next week.
Call loan brokers at Tokyo Tanshi in Tokyo in November. After decades of setting its benchmark rate near zero, the Bank of Japan is poised to tighten, spurring new opportunities for veteran traders after decades of setting its benchmark rate near zero.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 17, 2024

Japan’s $4 trillion offshore funds will ignore first BOJ hike

Only 40% of 273 respondents said the BOJ's first interest-rate hike since 2007 will prompt investors to sell foreign assets and repatriate the proceeds.
Reims' Junya Ito (left) celebrates with teammate Keito Nakamura after scoring during a Ligue 1 match against FC Metz in Reims, France, on Sunday.
SOCCER
Mar 18, 2024

Ito hailed by coach for 'mental strength' amid sexual assault claim

"He is a key player, undoubtedly one of the best Japanese players at the moment," said Reims coach Will Still.
Fans cheer during a friendly match between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Kiwoon Heroes ahead of the Major League Baseball Seoul Series in Seoul on Sunday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 18, 2024

MLB brings Shohei Ohtani, season openers and big dreams to Seoul

With a set of stars from the region, 2024 is turning out to be baseball’s moment in Asia.
Shun Otokita is the rarest of Nippon Ishin lawmakers: He was born and bred in Tokyo, where he got his start as a local politician.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 18, 2024

Can Nippon Ishin no Kai make inroads in Tokyo?

The Kansai-based party is aiming to broaden its support across Japan — starting with Tokyo's No. 15 district election next month.
Women attend a singing class at Mama Sunset, a learning center for middle-aged and senior people, in Beijing in January.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 18, 2024

Silver lining: Tutoring the elderly is growing fast in China

The growth potential of the industry contrasts sharply with the decline of the after-school private tutoring sector following a crackdown in 2021.
U.S. lawmakers last week overwhelmingly backed a bill to ban TikTok unless Chinese parent company ByteDance divested itself within six months.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 18, 2024

Monsters, asteroids, vampires: AI conspiracies flood TikTok

YouTube tutorials show users how to create "viral conspiracy theory videos" and profit off TikTok's Creativity Program.
The Bank of Japan will decide whether to end its negative interest rate policy at its policy board meeting, which ends on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 18, 2024

BOJ’s Ueda faces decision time on rate hike

With the end of Japan's negative rate being a near certainty, the only question that remains is whether it comes on Tuesday or at the end of April.
Japan's core machinery orders fell 1.7% in January from the previous month.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 18, 2024

Japan core machinery orders fall more than expected

Core orders, a highly volatile data series regarded as a leading indicator of capital spending in the six to nine months ahead, fell 1.7% in January.
Chinese President Xi Jinping during an event at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 11
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 18, 2024

Decoding Xi’s new catchphrase aimed at reviving China’s economy

Slogans matter in China, and the adoption of new catchphrases can herald profound shifts in policy.
Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party President Fumio Kishida delivers a speech during the LDP's 91st party convention in Tokyo on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 18, 2024

What is being missed about the funding scandal

In discussions about the LDP funding scandal, certain considerations are missing. Beyond lambasting the party, these must be addressed for a clear vision.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s (TSMC) new plant in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 18, 2024

TSMC eyes advanced chip packaging capacity in Japan, sources say

Bringing its chip-on-wafer-on-substrate packaging technology — currently all in Taiwan — to Japan is one of the options the chipmaker is considering.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda attends a news conference after a policy meeting at the bank's headquarters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 19, 2024

BOJ introduces first rate hike in 17 years following pay gains

The negative rates policy, the last one in the world, had been a symbol of the Bank of Japan's ultraloose monetary stimulus lasting over a decade.
Giovanna Gonzalez of Chicago demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol following a press conference by TikTok creators to voice their opposition to the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act," pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 12.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 19, 2024

TikTok and its 'secret sauce' caught in U.S.-China tussle

China's ByteDance's algorithm has helped drive TikTok's stratospheric success since the app was launched for the international market in 2017.
Takahiro Mori, Nippon Steel's executive vice president, said the company will move its U.S. headquarters to Pittsburgh if it succeeds in acquiring U.S. Steel.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 19, 2024

Nippon Steel pledges to move U.S. HQ to U.S. Steel's Pittsburgh

The Japanese steelmaker will move its existing headquarters in the U.S., which is in Houston, in addition to keeping U.S. Steel's headquarters.
A man walks through the financial and business district of La Defense, near Paris, on March 13.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 19, 2024

EU's new gig-worker rules could tame 'management by algorithm'

The opaque nature of algorithmic management tools can result in random job assignments and performance ratings, and even termination.
Japan welcomed 2.79 million visitors in February, a record for the month and the most for any month since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2024

Japan sees record 2.79 million visitors in February due to Lunar New Year boost

The travel industry is getting a major boost from a weak yen that has made Japan a bargain destination for foreign travelers.
People walk under flags of China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on Queen's Road in Hong Kong.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 20, 2024

What's in Hong Kong's new national security law?

The law's broadly defined provisions have drawn condemnation from Western countries, which had urged Hong Kong to reconsider it.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?