Tokyo, 3 May, /AJMEDIA/
Japan plans to send foreign minister to S. Korean pres. inauguration
TOKYO – Japan plans to send Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi to South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol’s inauguration ceremony next week, deciding not to consent to Seoul’s wish for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to attend, government sources said Monday.
Seoul had hoped for Kishida’s presence at the May 10 event to help improve bilateral relations that have soured over historical disputes which stem from Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
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Japan, Thailand ink agreement on defense transfer amid China’s rise
BANGKOK – Japan and Thailand signed an agreement Monday enabling the mutual transfer of defense equipment and technology, deepening their bilateral security cooperation amid the growing clout of an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific region.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha also agreed during their summit to work closely in extending humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and its neighbors as Russia’s invasion since February has sent over 5.5 million people fleeing the war-torn country.
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Coast guard searches sunken Hokkaido boat operator’s office
SHARI, Japan – The coast guard searched Monday the office of the operator of a tour boat that sank off Hokkaido with 26 people aboard over a week ago as well as the house of its president, suspecting the tragedy was caused by gross professional negligence.
The 1st Regional Coast Guard Headquarters will look into the documents it collected from Shiretoko Yuransen in Shari, Hokkaido, and the company’s president, Seiichi Katsurada, in an attempt to speed up the process of understanding the incident to build a case against the operator.
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Yen’s rapid fall not seen as positive for Japan economy: polled firms
TOKYO – None of Japan’s major companies see the yen’s recent rapid fall as positive for the domestic economy, even as the currency’s weakening typically benefits its export-oriented economic structure, a survey showed Monday.
In a Kyodo News survey covering 125 companies, of which 109 such as Toyota Motor Corp. and Softbank Group Corp. gave valid answers, 31 percent said the yen’s recent slide was negative and 36 percent said it was neither positive nor negative.
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Japan energy giant Eneos to exit natural gas project in Myanmar
TOKYO – Japanese energy giant Eneos Holdings Inc. said Monday it will exit from a natural gas project in Myanmar due to political turmoil in the Southeast Asian country.
Eneos’ subsidiary, JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp., has a 40 percent stake in a Tokyo-based joint company taking part in the project.
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S. Korea court orders sale of M’bishi Heavy patent for wartime labor
SEOUL – A district court in South Korea has ordered the sale of a patent held by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. for forced wartime labor compensation to a Korean woman, a lawyer for the plaintiff said Monday.
The order, dated April 29, comes on top of a similar ruling by the same court in Daejeon in the central part of the country to two other plaintiffs in September concerning a patent and trademark held by the Japanese manufacturer but seized by the court.
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Football: Former Japan, Yugoslavia manager Osim dies at 80
TOKYO – Former Japan and Yugoslavia national soccer team manager Ivica Osim has died, Austrian club Sturm Graz, one of the clubs he piloted, said Sunday without specifying the cause. He was 80.
Born in Sarajevo, Osim leaves behind a large legacy due to the unifying role he had in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the wider Balkans region after the breakup of Yugoslavia.
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51% of Japan kids get 1st smartphone at elementary school age: poll
TOKYO – Children in Japan are receiving their first smartphones at an increasingly early age, with 51.6 percent of parents reporting giving them to their kids in elementary school, according to a recent survey.
The rate was up 11.5 percentage points from the previous poll in 2019, said Mobile Marketing Data Labo, an information technology market research firm in Tokyo.