News - Page 61

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Japanese technology investor SoftBank Group Corp. said Friday that it has concluded a bridge loan contract of up to 40 billion dollars with five banks to finance its additional investment in U.S. artificial intelligence developer OpenAI. The unsecured

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Prominent Japanese manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge, best known for “Nejishiki,” which was published in 1968, died of aspiration pneumonia at a hospital in Tokyo on March 3. He was 88. Born in Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward, Tsuge worked at

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Shizuoka Financial Group Inc., the parent of Shizuoka Bank, and Bank of Nagoya said Friday that they have reached a basic agreement to merge operations in April 2028. Shizuoka Financial will take full control of Bank of Nagoya

Kobe, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Kobe District Public Prosecutors Office on Friday decided not to indict Hyogo Governor Motohiko Saito and two others in connection with the leaking of the private information of a whistleblower who died in July 2024. The other two

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–The Supreme Court on Friday backed a hunter seeking to cancel the revocation of his gun license that was decided after he shot a bear at the request of a municipality in Hokkaido, northernmost Japan. The Japanese top

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s industry ministry decided Friday to raise the operating rate of coal-fired thermal power plants for one year from April, amid uncertainty over liquefied natural gas procurement due to the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. At a

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–The number of foreign residents in Japan as of the end of 2025 rose 9.5 pct from a year earlier to a record 4,125,395, exceeding 4 million for the first time, the Immigration Services Agency said Friday. The

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–The dollar briefly rose to 159.98 yen in Tokyo foreign exchange trading Friday, hitting the highest level since mid-July 2024 reflecting investor worries over the Middle East situation. At 5 p.m., the U.S. currency stood at 159.94-95 yen,

Tokyo, March 27 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese government adopted Friday a new basic plan for science and technology policy, which for the first time calls for promoting research and development activities on technologies for military-civilian dual-use goods. The policy direction reflects the fact

Seoul, March 27 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koichi Mizushima said in a lecture in Seoul on Friday that the two countries maintain good relations “based on the strong trust between their leaders.” Mizushima stressed that the two countries’ “shuttle diplomacy,”