Japan

Takaichi's ruling coalition secures supermajority in lower house; Japan's first female leader gambled on rare winter snap election

Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, known as Ishin, could capture around 300 seats in the 465-seat lower house of parliament, polls showed

The election pits the PM Takaichi-led Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) coalition against the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, with inflation and affordability shaping voter sentiment nationwide

Polls opened Sunday in parliamentary elections that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hopes will give her struggling party a big enough win to push through an ambitious conservative political agenda. Takaichi is hugely popular, but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for most of the last seven decades, is not. She called Sunday's snap elections hoping to turn that around. She wants to make progress on a right-wing agenda that aims to boost Japan's economy and military capabilities as tensions grow with China. She also nurtures ties with her crucial US ally, and a sometimes unpredictable President Donald Trump. The ultraconservative Takaichi, who took office as Japan's first female leader in October, pledged to "work, work, work," and her style, which is seen as both playful and tough, has resonated with younger fans. The latest surveys indicated a landslide win in the lower house for the LDP. The opposition, despite the formation of a new centrist ...

Japan's first female PM, whose coalition is widely expected to win, according to opinion polls, is seeking a public mandate

Skill ministry arm explores partnerships with six states to expand Japanese language training and prepare youth from smaller towns for overseas employment

Japan will trial India's UPI in 2026, allowing Indian tourists to make QR code payments directly from their Indian bank accounts while travelling

A weak yen has become a source of headaches for Japanese policymakers as it pushes up import costs and broader inflation, hurting households' purchasing power

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved the lower house of parliament on Friday, paving the way for an early election on February 8. The move is an attempt to capitalise on her popularity to help the governing party regain ground after major losses in recent years, but it will delay parliamentary approval for a budget that aims at boosting a struggling economy and addressing soaring prices. Takaichi, elected in October as Japan's first female leader, has been in office only three months, but she has seen strong approval ratings of about 70 per cent. Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party could still face some challenges as it reels from a series of scandals about corruption and the party's past ties to the Unification Church. But it's not clear if the new opposition Centrist Reform Alliance can attract moderate voters, while opposition parties are still too splintered to pose a serious threat to the LDP. Takaichi is also seeing rising animosity with China since making remarks

A reactor at the world's largest nuclear power plant that restarted for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is now being shut down again on Thursday due to a glitch that occurred hours after the unit's resumption, its operator said. The No. 6 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in north-central Japan was reactivated Wednesday night for the first time in 14 years, as plant workers started removing neutron-absorbing control rods from the core to start stable nuclear fission. But the process had to be suspended hours later due to a malfunction related to control rods, which are essential to safely starting up and shutting down reactors, the Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said. TEPCO, which also manages the wrecked Fukushima plant, said there was no safety issue from the glitch. Kashiwazak-Kariwa plant chief Takeyuki Inagaki told a news conference that he has decided to shut down the reactor to ensure safety. The operation had to stop when an alarm went

The world's largest nuclear power plant is set to restart Wednesday in north-central Japan for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown, as resource-poor Japan accelerates atomic power use to meet soaring electricity needs. The first steps in energy production at the No. 6 reactor of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant are important because the operator is Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the same utility that runs the ruined Fukushima Daiichi plant. TEPCO's past safety issues at Fukushima have led to public worries about operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, which also sits in an isolated, quake-prone region. All seven reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa have been dormant since a year after the Fukushima Daiichi plant on Japan's northeastern coast was hit by a massive quake and tsunami in March 2011 and suffered meltdowns that contaminated the surrounding land with radioactive fallout so severe that some areas are still unlivable. TEPCO is still trying

Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, will face judgment at the Nara District Court, in the area where Abe was killed at close range with a home-made gun while giving a roadside campaign speech ahead of an upper hous

Investors are on guard for moves in Japan spilling over into global markets amid the prospect of continued volatility in Tokyo trading ahead of the snap poll Takaichi is scheduled for February 8

The slide comes as tensions simmer between Japan and China following Takaichi's November assertion that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could form a legal justification for Japan to deploy troops

The February 8 vote will decide all 465 seats in the lower house of parliament and will mark Takaichi's first nationwide electoral test since she assumed office in October

Rare earths have emerged as a flash point in trade relations in recent years, with the US and other nations seeking to challenge China's dominance of their mining and processing

The statement highlighted that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has extended financial support to the Delhi Metro project since Phase 1

Under the India-Japan economic security initiative, both sides will convene a private sector dialogue to enhance public-private cooperation in the field of economic security

Japan and the Philippines signed a defense pact on Thursday that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China's growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remark that potential Chinese action against Taiwan could spark Japanese intervention. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East China Sea and South China Sea that have continued to flare and threaten to draw in the United States, a treaty ally of the two Asian nations. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi signed the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement with Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro in Manila. During the ceremony, Japan also announced new security and economic ...

The in-principle approval allowed the bank to set up the wholly owned subsidiary through the conversion of its existing branches in the country