Tokyo, 30 December, /AJMEDIA/
U.S. plane has near miss with China fighter over South China Sea
WASHINGTON – The U.S. military said Thursday that its patrol aircraft had a close call with a Chinese fighter jet in international airspace over the South China Sea last week.
According to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, a J-11 fighter of the Chinese navy flew within some 6 meters of the nose of an RC-135 reconnaissance plane of the U.S. Air Force on Dec. 21.
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Brazilian football legend Pele dies at 82
SAO PAULO – Brazilian soccer legend Pele, the only three-time World Cup winner who in 2000 FIFA named joint Player of the Century with Argentina’s Diego Maradona, died Thursday, after a battle with cancer, according to his Instagram account and local reports. He was 82.
Pele, whose real name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, was widely considered the sport’s best player ever, with 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.
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FOCUS: Japan’s imperial family eying social media to stay in touch
TOKYO – Shunning social media, Japan’s imperial family has long been reluctant to open up about the daily lives of its members, but the year 2023 could be a turning point with the agency in charge of the family’s affairs set to explore the potential use of SNS platforms as part of a new approach to public relations.
With experts in agreement that an overhaul by the Imperial Household Agency of its communication style, including giving increased exposure to the family, is long overdue, the agency said in late December that it will set up a formal public relations office in April after its budget request to hire more staff was approved by the Cabinet.
Taiwan calls on Japan to promote security cooperation to tackle China
TOKYO – Taiwan has called on Japan to promote bilateral “security cooperation,” with fears growing about China’s increasing military assertiveness in nearby waters, saying Taipei and Tokyo share a “single fate.”
Taiwan and Japan have no diplomatic relations but should take security measures while “facing reality,” Hsieh Chang-ting, representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan, said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
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Yoon wishes for return to best period of South Korea-Japan relations
SEOUL – South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has wished for a return to the period when his nation’s relations with Tokyo were “at their best,” the leader of Japan’s junior ruling party Komeito said Thursday.
Following a meeting with Yoon in Seoul earlier in the day, Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi told reporters that the South Korean president expressed a strong desire to improve bilateral ties, which have been damaged significantly by wartime labor issues.
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Japan start-up seeks to expand abroad with exoskeleton business
TOKYO – A start-up founded by a researcher at Tokyo University of Science that developed a wearable exoskeleton to support heavy lifting is hoping to make further inroads overseas in nations that have aging populations like Japan.
Set up by Hiroshi Kobayashi, a professor at the university, in 2013, venture firm Innophys Co., hopes its products will be used in the care and farm fields in Europe as well as China and South Korea, which face similar age-related social issues to Japan.
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Speed skating: 19-yr-old Horikawa ends Takagi’s 3,000 home dominance
HACHINOHE, Japan – Nineteen-year-old Momoka Horikawa won the women’s 3,000 meters at the speed skating national championships Thursday, stopping Miho Takagi’s domestic winning run in the distance that started in December 2015.
Horikawa rewrote her personal best time by clocking 4 minutes, 4.66 seconds at the YS Arena Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture to edge multi-distance star Takagi by 0.41 seconds.
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Japan to allow 3 more airports to conditionally accept H.K. flights
TOKYO – Japan’s transport ministry said Thursday the country will conditionally accept direct flights from Hong Kong to airports in Fukuoka, Naha and one near Sapporo after it had initially planned to ban them.
The flights from Hong Kong can arrive at the three airports provided there are no passengers who have stayed in China’s mainland within seven days, it said.
