July 31, Monday, 2023

1. Japan has triumphed at the Fencing World Championships, clinching its first ever men’s team foil title with victory over China in the final. The win cam on the final day of the event, which took place in Milan from July 22 through 30, with qualifying points for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on offer. 2. The Bank of Japan has released records from over a decade ago showing policymakers at the time hoped for early achievement of the BOJ’s 2-percent inflation target. The central bank’s ultra-loose policy has yet to meet the goal in a sustained way. 3. A record of more than 17 percent of male workers in Japan took child-care leave in the last fiscal year. More than 3,300 businesses and entities responded to the labor ministry’s annual survey in October. The results show 17.13 percent of eligible male workers took paternity leave in the year that ended in March, up 3.16 percentage points from a year earlier. But the figure is still far below the government’s target of 50 percent by 2025.