News - Page 4

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Housing starts in Japan fell 6.5 pct from the previous year to 740,667 units in 2025, down for the third straight year and hitting a 62-year low, the land ministry said Friday. The drop reflected deterioration in consumer

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Private rice stocks in Japan surged 34 pct from a year earlier to 3.38 million tons at the end of December, reflecting slow rice sales due to elevated prices, an agriculture ministry report showed Friday. This is the

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–A labor-management forum hosted by the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, was held in Tokyo on Friday, kicking off full-fledged “shunto” spring wage negotiations. The focal point of this year’s shunto is whether pay increases exceeding 5 pct

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Japan is facing the challenge of becoming less dependent on rare earth imports from China amid souring ties between Tokyo and Beijing. In its harsh response to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s “Taiwan contingency” remarks, the Chinese government

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Akira Iriye, a renowned scholar of international politics and professor emeritus at Harvard University, died in the United States on Tuesday at the age of 91, according to informed sources. An expert in U.S. diplomatic history, Iriye was

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Children and Families Agency has set up a working group to discuss possible regulation of social media services to prevent juveniles from being caught up in problems via the internet. The group will mull measures while taking

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–The politics of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party have deteriorated step by step over the past three decades, Kazuo Shii, chairman of the Japanese Communist Party’s Central Committee, said in a recent interview. Recalling his tenure of more

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–The number of foreigners entering Japan rose 15.4 pct from the previous year to 42.43 million in 2025, marking a record high for the second straight year, preliminary government data showed Friday. The annual tally exceeded 40 million

Tokyo, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Train services on East Japan Railway Co.’s Joban Line were partially suspended for about seven hours Friday after an overhead power line snapped at Tokyo’s Ueno Station. The power outage occurred around 7 a.m. near Ueno Station in

Osaka, Jan. 30 (Jiji Press)–Hirofumi Yoshimura, leader of the Japan Innovation Party, said that his party will take the role of the “accelerator” in propelling its coalition with Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party forward. Asked in a recent interview about his party