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Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba visits the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 14, 2024

Ishiba makes first visit as PM to crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant

The trip was apparently intended to demonstrate his administration's focus on revitalizing the disaster-hit Tohoku region.
Tour guides wait to collect tour groups from Hong Kong outside the Shenzhen Bay border crossing in Shenzhen, China
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2024

Educated young Chinese turn to tour guiding as job market wavers

Tour guiding is becoming an increasingly popular fallback option in a China rife with employment instability as the economy slows.
France's newly appointed Prime Minister Francois Bayrou at the Hotel Matignon in Paris on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 14, 2024

Macron hands new French PM the tough job of managing Le Pen

Bayrou, 73, replaces conservative heavyweight Michel Barnier, who was ousted last week after far-right leader Marine Le Pen joined the left in a censure motion.
Gifting secondhand used to have a bad rap, but it doesn’t carry the taboo it once did.
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2024

How to buy a secondhand gift someone might actually want

Gifting secondhand used to have a bad rap, but thanks to more environmentally conscious consumers, it doesn’t carry the taboo it once did.
U.K. Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom holds a news conference on Friday in Tokyo ahead of Britain's entry into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2024

Britain joins trans-Pacific pact in biggest post-Brexit trade deal

The accession means Britain will be able to apply CPTPP trade rules and lower tariffs with eight of the 11 existing members.
U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest integrated steel mill in the country, in Gary, Indiana
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 15, 2024

U.S. foreign investment panel split on Nippon-U.S. Steel deal, report says

The U.S. Treasury has informed Nippon Steel that the panel reviewing its proposed $14.9 billion purchase of U.S. Steel has not yet come to an agreement on how to address security concerns, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Lekh Juneja, chairman and CEO of Kameda Seika, at the company's headquarters in the city of Niigata in August
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 15, 2024

Indian-born CEO of Japanese company says nation needs immigration to thrive

Japan has very few foreign-born CEOs, and boardrooms are overwhelmingly male.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, speaks during a rally in Seoul on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 15, 2024

South Korean opposition urges swift removal of impeached President Yoon

Yoon Suk Yeol has been suspended while South Korea's Constitutional Court deliberates, with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo serving as interim leader.
A Hight Logistics electric BYD truck is loaded with a container at a seaport in Long Beach, California, in April 2023.
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2024

Chinese firms take on EV truck challenges

Fleets of electric heavy goods vehicles from China have been growing internationally, even as Western countries target the country's EV cars with heavy sanctions.
185 content moderators sued Meta last year, saying they had lost their jobs for trying to organize a union.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 16, 2024

Meta contractor dismissed threats to moderators by Ethiopia rebels: court documents

Court documents say that Meta allegedly ignored advice from experts it hired to tackle hate speech in Ethiopia.
National Rally leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech during a meeting in Etrepagny, central France, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 16, 2024

Le Pen takedown of Barnier holds lessons for next French PM

There is no placating the leader of the far-right National Rally, the largest party in the French National Assembly.
Policemen set up barricades in front of the South Korean Constitutional Court in Seoul on Monday as the court kicked off its first meeting of its justices to review the parliamentary impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 16, 2024

Top South Korean court begins Yoon impeachment trial

The Constitutional Court has around six months to determine whether to uphold the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Copies of a special edition of the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, featuring a front page report on South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment, on a street in Seoul on Saturday
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 16, 2024

South Korea's won and stocks take spotlight after impeachment vote

South Korea's won will be the main focus for traders, after its heavy losses during the country’s recent political chaos.
India has the most steelmaking capacity under development in the world, surpassing even China.
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2024

A booming and coal-heavy steel sector risks India’s green goals

India is the world’s third-largest emitter and the rate at which it can decarbonize will have a major impact on global climate efforts.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda. The central bank's policy board meets this week.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 16, 2024

Uncertainty reigns as BOJ rate bets almost evenly split

Slightly less than half of surveyed economists expect the central bank to raise rates this week while just over half believe it will wait until January.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture. A government cost estimate shows that nuclear power is likely to be the cheapest baseload electricity source in Japan in 2040.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 16, 2024

Japan sees nuclear as cheapest baseload power source in 2040

A previous study published in 2021 saw LNG-fired power plants as the cheapest power source in 2030.
MUFG Bank CEO Junichi Hanzawa (left) and other senior officials bow in apology at a news conference in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 16, 2024

MUFG Bank apologizes for theft of ¥1 billion in valuables from deposit boxes

The manager accused of the thefts allegedly used backup keys to access the boxes.
Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, a former detainee in a Damascus prison, poses for a picture with his mother at their home in Sarmada, in the northern Syrian Idlib province, on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 16, 2024

Bashar Assad's prisoner #3006 tells his story

When Syrian military intelligence officers detained Ghazi Mohammed al-Mohammed, they told him to forget his name and who he was.
Food loss happens at food-related businesses including-food makers, retailers and restaurants, as well as at households.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2024

Japan drafts more ambitious 60% goal for cutting business food loss by 2030

The government hopes to require food businesses to change practices such as rejecting foods and beverages that are close to their best-before date.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gestures as he addresses the lower house of parliament in Berlin on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 17, 2024

Germany's Scholz loses confidence vote, triggering early elections

Berlin's troubles come as Germany's main European Union partner France is also mired in a government crisis.
A worker walks along the partially snowless slope at the William F. Rogers Ski Area at Massachusetts' Blue Hills in January.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Dec 17, 2024

Companies challenged by fewer weeks of winter

Warmer winters also impact everything from sports to drinking water and even seasonal allergies.
Most market players expect shareholder activism to be as frenetic, if not more, next year.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 17, 2024

Activist investors set record with $6.6 billion spree in Japan

Activists have taken stakes in at least 146 companies, successfully demanding disposal of real estate, changes in strategy and stock buybacks.
Employees of Takahashi Shouten working on the trial production of sake in New Delhi on Nov. 14.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 17, 2024

Japanese sake brewery to make foray into Indian market

Takahashi Shouten, based in the city of Yame in Fukuoka Prefecture, launched a subsidiary in India in February.
Japan wants renewable energy to account for around 40% to 50% of its electricity mix by fiscal year 2040 with nuclear power taking up another 20%, according to a new energy plan released Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 17, 2024

Japan aims to expand nuclear power in break from Fukushima era

The nation set out a proposed new energy strategy which urges both nuclear and renewables to be utilized to maintain growth and help curb emissions.
The Energy Powerwall Home Battery charging station in Brussels in 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 17, 2024

New EU emissions rules drive petrol car price hikes and EV discounts

Analysts say major carmakers have adjusted their pricing strategy to curb demand for heavy emitters and make pricier electric models appealing.
An Apple logo is seen in Brussels, Belgium, in 2016.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 17, 2024

Congo files criminal complaints against Apple over conflict minerals

International lawyers representing Congo argue that Apple uses minerals pillaged from the country and laundered through international supply chains.
A Lower House committee on political reform deliberates on a revision of the political funds law on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 17, 2024

Bill to abolish funds for political activities clears Lower House

The bill will put a stop to the disbursement of such funds, criticized for their lack of transparency, by parties to their lawmakers.
A member of security inspecting a collapsed building in Vanuatu's capital Port Vila after a powerful earthquake hit the Pacific island on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 17, 2024

Major quake crushes buildings in Vanuatu capital, bodies seen

The 7.3 magnitude quake struck at a depth of 57 kilometers at 12:47 pm, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition