Kyodo News Digest: June 20, 2025
KYODO NEWS - 15 hours ago - 23:00 | All, Japan, World
The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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87 Japanese nationals, family members evacuated from Iran, Israel
TOKYO - A total of 87 Japanese nationals and their family members have evacuated from Iran and Israel amid conflict in the Middle East, the Japanese government said Friday.
The evacuees arrived in Azerbaijan's capital Baku and Jordan's capital Amman by bus as local airports remained closed and none of them had health issues, Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said.
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Japan to cut super-long-term bond issuances amid rising yields
TOKYO - The Japanese government said Friday it plans to reduce issuances of super-long-term bonds from July in a rare review of its original program in the middle of a fiscal year amid concern over a recent surge in yields.
But the total amount of bonds scheduled for issuance in the current fiscal year through March 2026 is projected to remain unchanged from the initial plan at 176.9 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion), as the Finance Ministry seeks to increase sales of short-term bonds.
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Ex-leader of Japan's junior ruling coalition partner to exit politics
TOKYO - The longtime former head of junior coalition partner Komeito, Natsuo Yamaguchi, will retire from politics after deciding not to run in the upcoming House of Councillors election, current leader Tetsuo Saito said Friday.
Yamaguchi, 72, led the party -- backed by Japan's largest lay Buddhist organization, Soka Gakkai -- for 15 years from 2009, becoming its longest-serving chief since Komeito joined hands with the Liberal Democratic Party in 1999.
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New Zealand PM Luxon talks trade, security with Chinese President Xi
SYDNEY - New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday for talks spanning trade, people-to-people ties, and peace and security in the Indo-Pacific, the New Zealand government said in a statement.
On his first visit to China since taking office in November 2023, Luxon discussed "the necessity of a stable region and reduced tensions in the Indo-Pacific" with Xi, emphasizing the importance of open, direct dialogue at the leader level to navigate challenging regional and global developments, according to the statement.
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Police, prosecutors apologize to 2 men over illicit probe
TOKYO - Tokyo police and prosecutors on Friday apologized in person to two men over their wrongful arrest and indictment in 2020 in a case involving the suspected unauthorized export of sensitive equipment.
The apology comes after the finalization last week of a Tokyo High Court ruling that ordered the metropolitan government and state to compensate Masaaki Okawara, president of Ohkawara Kakohki Co., and Junji Shimada, one of the company's former directors.
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Tokio pop group member removed from TV show over past misconduct
TOKYO - A member of Japanese all-male pop group Tokio has been removed from a popular TV program due to past conduct that breached compliance rules on multiple occasions, a TV network said Friday.
Taichi Kokubun, 50, was removed from "The Tetsuwan Dash," a variety program aired by Nippon Television Network Corp. and fronted by the members of Tokio. Neither Kokubun, his company nor the TV network has elaborated on what the breaches entailed.
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Figure skating: 3-time world champ Kaori Sakamoto to retire after Olympics
TOKYO - Japanese figure skater Kaori Sakamoto, winner of three consecutive world championships through 2024, said Friday she will retire from competition after next year's Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.
The 25-year-old, who claimed women's singles bronze at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, finished second at the world championships in Boston in March.
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Japan imperial couple to embark on historic visit to Mongolia in July
TOKYO - Japan's Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako are scheduled to make a state visit to Mongolia from July 6 to 13 in what will be the first such trip by a Japanese emperor, according to a plan approved by the government on Friday.
During the trip, the emperor and empress will lay flowers at a memorial on July 8 to commemorate Japanese nationals who died while in internment camps there after World War II.
Video: "Phantom bridge" begins to sink beneath the waters of Lake Nukabira in Hokkaido
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Kyodo News
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U.S. asked Japan to raise defense spending to 3.5% of GDP
KYODO NEWS - 8 minutes ago - 20:15 | All, Japan, World U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has asked Japan to raise its defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, a request that will likely prompt Tokyo to call off a planned high-level meeting with Washington, a Japan-U.S. diplomatic source said Saturday. The request was made recently by Elbridge Colby, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, the Financial Times has reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Colby, a seasoned strategist, had previously pressed Japan to increase its defense spending to 3 percent of its GDP. The increased demand will likely lead Japan to cancel a planned meeting of the countries' foreign and defense chiefs, which was scheduled in Washington before Japan's House of Councillors election, expected on July 20. The meeting would have been the first since Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Trump took office in October and January, respectively. Kyodo News reported in late May that Japan and the United States were considering holding the so-called two-plus-two security talks in Washington this summer. Japan and the United States had not formally said such talks, as held in July last year in Tokyo, would take place. In 2022, after Trump's first term, Japan decided to double its annual defense budget to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, a dramatic move in postwar security policy under the country's war-renouncing Constitution. But Trump continues to complain that the U.S.-Japan security treaty is one-sided, with his administration apparently planning to ask Tokyo to pay more for American troops based in the Japanese archipelago once bilateral negotiations over his tariffs proceed.
Kyodo News
2 hours ago
- Kyodo News
India PM Modi eyes visit to Japan in August for bullet train deal
KYODO NEWS - 2 minutes ago - 19:11 | All, World, Japan The Japanese and Indian governments are arranging for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Japan in late August for talks with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, diplomatic sources said Saturday. The two leaders are expected to agree on India's adoption of a next-generation shinkansen bullet train being developed by East Japan Railway Co. for a high-speed rail project underway in western India, the sources said. They may also agree to revise the 2008 Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation to expand their security partnership amid China's increasing maritime prowess, they said. The visit would be Modi's first since May 2023, when he attended the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, western Japan. Modi and Ishiba also aim to strengthen communication ahead of a four-way summit with the United States and Australia under the Quad framework, which New Delhi is set to host in the fall. The high-speed rail line will connect the western Indian cities of Ahmedabad and Mumbai, covering about 500 kilometers in roughly two hours. The project is considered a symbol of Japan-India cooperation, as it will use Japan's renowned shinkansen technology. JR East aims to complete the E10 series carriages in the fall of 2027 at the earliest, with commercial operation starting in fiscal 2030. In their meeting, Modi and Ishiba are expected to confirm plans to introduce the E10 series in the early 2030s, according to the sources. Through the revised security declaration, the two sides are expected to agree on strengthening comprehensive cooperation in broader areas, including space and cybersecurity, the sources said.
The Mainichi
3 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Opinion: 80 years on, could Okinawa again become a battlefield?
It has been over three years since our daily routine has come to include being shown the ominous flashes of light from missiles and their violent flames on the morning and evening TV news. The abnormal reality of civilians in urban areas suddenly being killed by the latest weapons has extended from Ukraine and Palestine to Iran and Israel. Television and newspapers often avoid showing viewers and readers what they don't want to see, but under the light and flames lie crushed faces, torn limbs and bodies with exposed organs. On May 3, during a meeting hosted by the Shinto Seiji Renmei (Shinto Association of Spiritual Leadership) and the right-wing group Nippon Kaigi in the Okinawa Prefecture capital of Naha, ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) House of Councillors legislator Shoji Nishida made a misguided statement about the Himeyuri Cenotaph, built in memory of female student corps members who were mobilized and died in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. The comment caused a stir when it became widely known, but there was a serious omission in the media's coverage of the issue: Nishida's motivation. Nishida prefaced his remarks with the following words: "Before an extraordinary emergency situation actually arises in the future, we must establish laws that are able to protect the people. To do so, LDP lawmakers must tackle the incorrect postwar education and nonsense that has been perpetuated." In essence, he was suggesting that the day when Japanese citizens could die in war was not far off, and the first battleground would likely be Okinawa. In the July issue of the opinion magazine Gekkan Nippon, former LDP Vice President Taku Yamasaki, a heavyweight among the party's lawmakers with influence over defense policies and budgets, harshly criticized hawkish statements by Japanese and U.S. politicians who claimed that a Taiwan contingency would be a Japan contingency. "If that were the case, although everyone hesitates to say it, there is even a possibility that the whole of Okinawa could be destroyed," he said. It was a warning that such a situation must never be allowed to happen, and that the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) could not legally be deployed in the first place. Despite the concerns of senior figures, however, former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida repeatedly stated, "Ukraine could be East Asia tomorrow," and increased Japan's defense budget by more than 1.5 times, explicitly including the capability to strike enemy bases in the country's National Defense Strategy. I have previously written about issues relating to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines Japan's war dead. The SDF is steadily "preparing for death." According to the May 16 digital edition of the Japanese Communist Party's Shimbun Akahata newspaper, the Ground Self-Defense Force has concluded an agreement, details of which are unknown, with the largest domestic funeral service business group to "prepare for any eventuality." This is no different from the prewar period. Military personnel are only concerned about their own prestige and their compensation, with no time to think about the fate of civilians. Yasukuni Shrine represents a state-sponsored scheme to divide the war dead between the public and private sectors, between the famous and the obscure, between honorable and futile deaths. It appears dormant now, but it wouldn't be surprising for it to start up again at any moment. We have become numb to missile footage, and some of us have started to passively accept the idea that we might die that way, too, sooner or later. June 23 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa.
