World News by Wild Rose

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Wednesday night warned of critical vulnerabilities identified in the PHP programming language widely used on websites around the world. After PHP developers said that a patch to fix the issue would be released late Wednesday night Japan time, Takaichi, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, urged users to prepare to apply the...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--A river in Akita Prefecture, northeastern Japan, overflowed in some areas Wednesday, prompting a local municipality to issue emergency safety measures urging some 1,200 people from 450 households to take immediate action to protect their lives. The Japan Meteorological Agency and the land ministry issued the highest Level 5 emergency flood warning for the Koyosh...

Nagoya, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japan's medal tally at the ongoing Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games increased further Wednesday, with swimmers and track-and-field athletes taking the center of the podium. In men's swimming, Naohide Yamaguchi, 25, and Taiyo Kawabuchi, 18, clinched golds in the SB14 class 100-meter breaststroke and the S9 class 400-meter freestyle, respectively. Keiichi Kimura, 36...

Saitama, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The family of a 74-year-old driver who died after his truck fell into a sinkhole in the city of Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, last year has filed a lawsuit seeking about 125 million yen in damages from the prefectural government, it was learned Wednesday. The suit was filed with Saitama District Court in the prefecture, which is located north of Tokyo, on July 2...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japan's health ministry said Wednesday that there may be problems with the reliability of documents submitted by Kissei Pharmaceutical Co. for the approval of vasculitis drug Tavneos. In its response to a series of deaths among Tavneos users, the ministry reiterated its request that medical institutions refrain from starting new patients on the drug, which is ma...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Three major Japanese winemakers said Wednesday that they will start a joint project to attract new fans of Japanese wines, including by holding events and fostering a culture of celebrating "nouveau" wines made from grapes harvested in the year. Suntory Spirits Ltd., affiliated with Suntory Holdings Ltd., Manns Wine Co., a member of the Kikkoman Corp. group, and ...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, marking her first year in office Wednesday, emphasized that "challenges of the Takaichi cabinet's second year begin today." Speaking to reporters at the prime minister's office the same day, she highlighted the need to "further strengthen measures to tackle global inflation" as an immediate challenge, citing the significan...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The Japan Coast Guard did not participate in the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum, held in Russia from September until earlier this month, JCG Commandant Koichi Miyazawa said Wednesday. This was the first time that Japan had skipped the international conference. The JCG chief declined to comment in detail on the reason for Japan's nonparticipation in the forum...

Tokushima, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Tokushima prefectural police arrested on Wednesday four Japanese men who have been detained by Vietnamese authorities for their alleged involvement in a special fraud scheme operating from a base in the Southeast Asian country. The fraud suspects, aged between 27 and 61, were sent to Japan by air. They include Masami Maegawa, a 61-year-old self-proclaimed co...

Osaka, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--A woman in her 50s who received the first transplant of heart muscle cell sheets made from induced pluripotent stem, or iPS, cells is set to be discharged from a hospital in Osaka, a city in western Japan, on Thursday. "A week after the surgery, I can now breathe very deeply," she told a press conference at the hospital on Wednesday. "I feel alive and comfortabl...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's administration has steadily delivered on its promises to the public over the past year, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said Wednesday, the first anniversary of her taking office. "We have worked boldly to build a strong economy and establish strong diplomacy and national security, steadily delivering on what we pro...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan in September dropped 5.0 pct from a year earlier to 3,103,700, the Japan National Tourism Organization said Wednesday. The decline reflected rising airfares due to a deterioration in the situation in the Middle East and typhoon-caused flight cancellations. The cumulative number of such visitors in the January-...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The Japan Congress of Journalists on Wednesday urged Russia to ensure the safety and immediate release of a Japanese journalist detained in the country. On Oct. 13, Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, announced the detention of a reporter for the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper in Sakhalin in the country's Far East on suspicion of espionage. He has been held i...

Tottori, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Tottori Governor Shinji Hirai said Wednesday that he will not run for re-election after his current fifth term expires in April 2027. The gubernatorial election of the western Japan prefecture is scheduled for April 11 next year as part of the country's unified local elections. No one has yet announced a bid for the governorship. Hirai served as chairman of...

Nagoya, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The wrong national anthems were played three times during the ongoing Asian Para Games on Monday, Nagoya Mayor Ichiro Hirosawa, acting head of the sporting festival's organizing committee, said Wednesday. In para taekwondo, athletes from Mongolia and Taiwan won gold medals in women's and men's events, respectively, but the Iranian national anthem was played dur...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Personal information on some 125,000 police officers and staff members in Japan may have been compromised following unauthorized access to cloud service operator Arcadia Inc., National Police Agency officials said Wednesday. Over 18,000 email addresses of citizens and companies registered for a security notification service may have been exposed as well. Twen...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japanese new agriculture minister Arata Takebe on Wednesday apologized over a weekly magazine report about his alleged receipt of a political donation from a public works contractor. "I instructed relevant officials to promptly investigate the facts and take action to return the money or correct the political funds disclosure report accordingly," Takebe told rep...

Chiba, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--While flooding has finally cleared one month after residential areas in Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, were hit by heavy rain from Typhoon Dujuan, many people are still concerned about their future. In the Mabashi district in the town of Shisui, where 15 houses were flooded after a collapsed embankment blocked a river, floodwaters receded on Oct. 13. "I'm h...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Kimitake Nakamura, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's European Affairs Bureau, urged Russia to allow early consular access to a Japanese journalist detained there and his immediate release during a meeting with a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official in Moscow on Tuesday. Nakamura met with Lyudmila Vorobyova, director of the Russian Foreign M...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Major Japanese banks are increasingly shifting their identity verification methods for applicants to open accounts online to scanning of integrated circuit chip-embedded cards, following a series of data breaches. Japan will enforce in April 2027 new regulations under the revised law to prevent the transfer of criminal proceeds, requiring financial institutions a...

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government has announced a plan to provide Malaysia's navy with a counterdrone system under its official security assistance framework to provide defense equipment free of charge to like-minded countries. Under the plan, announced Tuesday, the government will spend 1,650 million yen on the system, marking its third provision of OSA to Malaysia. F...

With her government entering its second year on Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi may face growing questions over whether her leadership style, oft-described as assertive, could fuel discontent within her Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Bolstered by high public approval ratings and an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, Takaichi has pushed through divisive legislation and made personnel appointments heavily tinged with her will. Political analysts warn that...

Citi's Japan, Asia North and Australia Cluster and Banking Head Marc Luet expects AI infrastructure investment to remain a dominant theme, despite growing scrutiny. He speaks after data center firm Nextdc shares plunged following a public backlash. (Source: Bloomberg)

Tokyo, Oct. 21 (Jiji Press)--Japan's IwaiCosmo Securities Co. said that unauthorized trading orders not intended by customers were placed through seven accounts following a cyberattack on Trade Works Co., which operates its online trading system. Trades were executed in five of the seven accounts, the securities firm said Tuesday. Trade Works' system was subjected to unauthorized access o...

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's support fell to 49.1% in a Kyodo poll. The alliance holds, but a weaker leader may slow Japan's defence plans. The post Takaichi Slide Tests Japan’s US Alliance appeared first on The Rio Times.

Tokyo, Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)--Japanese scientist Kenso Soai delivered a lecture in Tokyo on Tuesday, discussing asymmetric autocatalytic reaction, the theme that led to him winning the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Hosted by the Chemical Society of Japan, the lecture by the 76-year-old professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science was attended by about 2,000 people, including online par...

Toyota, Aichi Pref., Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Koyo Iwabuchi, 31, and Mahiro Funayama, 22, won table tennis golds in the men's class 9 and class 10 singles events, respectively, at the Asian Para Games on Tuesday. Funayama said that the gold medal is "really big and heavy," and feels different from other medals. In swimming, Japan's Takayuki Suzuki, 39, bagged gold in the men's class...

Tokyo, Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Leading-edge Semiconductor Technology Center, or LSTC, whose members include chipmaker Rapidus Corp., and other entities said Tuesday that they will jointly develop an artificial intelligence-based medical image-processing system. The project members, also including Hokkaido University and Fujifilm Corp., aim to realize real-time image processing required...

Kyoto, Oct. 20 (Jiji Press)--A committee investigating Nidec Corp.'s accounting fraud released on Tuesday a report recognizing that nine individuals breached their duties as company executives and subsequently caused damage totaling about 27.6 billion yen to the Japanese motor maker. The committee determined that the nine are liable for the damage. Among them are Shigenobu Nagamori, founder ...

Jehan Dorab Madan and Sahana Ravi both won bronze medals in table tennis at the event being held in Japan