月: 2024年6月

1. US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump fiercely attacked each other in their first televised debate before the presidential election scheduled for November. The debates between the two presumptive nominees—Biden for the Democratic Party and Trump for the Republican Party—was held in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday. 2. Investigative sources say prosecutors in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture indicted a member of the US Marine Corps earlier this month for allegedly attempting to sexually assault a woman and injuring her.
3. A concert has been held in Ukraine with a piano that was found in a town occupied by Russian troops in the early days of the invasion.

1. The vice governor of Japan’s southern prefecture of Okinawa has expressed strong anger over the indictment of a US Air Force member for the alleged kidnap and sexual assault of a girl under 16. Brigadier General Nicholas Evans, commander of the 18th Wing at US Kadena Air Base, promised the US military will fully cooperate with the investigation by local authorities and the legal process.
2. Japan’s Emperor Naruhito has attended a welcome banquet in London’s financial district during his state visit to Britain. Emperor Naruhito said in his speech the citizens of Japan and the UK have made bold efforts to solve challenges, building on the achievements of their predecessors and flexibly embracing new technologies.
3. A group of researchers in Japan says it has found that the use of three anticancer drugs before surgery helps raise the survival rate for esophageal cancer patients. The researchers say the triplet chemotherapy has prompted a review of the treatment for esophageal cancer.

1. A public affairs officer of the US Air Force’s 18th Wing has issued a comment to NHK saying the unit understands and shares the concerns of the community about the alleged sexual assault by one of its Wing members. Brennon Washington was indicted for sexually assaulting an underage girl in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. 2. The flowers of a lotus grown from a seed excavated from a layer of earth dating back about 200 years are now in full bloom at an ancient Buddhist temple in Kyoto Prefecture, western Japan. Byodoin Temple in Uji City, dating back to the 11th Century in the late Heian Period, is listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. The temple places pots of lotus flowers around its precinct at this time of the year. One variety, called the Byodoin Temple Lotus, has successfully been grown from a seed obtained during excavation of a pond in the compound 25 years ago.
3. Japanese police have found three people without vital signs near the crater of Mount Fuji. Police found three people collapsed on the Shizuoka Prefecture side of the crater. They were reportedly found without vital signs.

1. Japan’s Emperor Natuhito and Empress Masako are on a state visit to the United Kingdom. On Monday, the Emperor visited a place he had developed a fondness for: the River Thames. He went to the Thames Barrier, the flood control gates that have protected London for more than four decades. He studied the history of the waterway during postgraduate research at the University of Oxford soon after the gates were built.
2. Japanese schools in China are tightening their security following an attack on a bus carrying Japanese schoolchildren in Suzhou, eastern China. Officials of the Japanese Consulate-General in Shanghai say a Japanese mother and her child were injured in the attack. A Chinese bus attendant was stabbed and is in critical condition.
3. At least 20 people were reportedly killed in the attacks by armed groups against multiple facilities in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan. Local health authorities said police officers were among those killed, and that 26 people were wounded.

1. Government figures show Japan has beat a fiscal 2030 deadline to slash food loss and waste by half. The drop reflects a decline in restaurant visits during the pandemic and changes to consumption dates on package food. After Japan’s food loss and waste reached 9.8 million tons in 2000, the government set a target to cut the figure by half. In estimates for 2022, the latest data available, the volume of discarded food fell to 4.7 million tons to meet the target. 2. A hole more than 10 centimeters wide has been found in a black screen that was set up at a popular photo spot in central Japan to block the view of Mount Fuji. Japan’s highest peak can be seen just above a convenience store in Fujikawaguchiko Town, Yamanashi Prefecture. Overseas tourists began flocking to the area around the store when photos of the view went viral on social media.
3. Wine growers in western Japan’s Tottori Prefecture have found an unusual storage place in a tunnel inside a dam. It offers ideal aging conditions for bottled wine through the year. The inspection tunnel inside Togo dam in Yurihama Town is shielded from sunlight and has a stable temperature of around 10 degrees Celsius. The cool and dark environment helps maintain the quality of red wine. Local growers plan to store bottles under the dam for up to five years.

1. Japanese weather officials say the rainy season appears to have begun in the Kinki, Tokai and Kanto-Koshin regions, including Tokyo. They forecast rainy and cloudy days for these areas in the week ahead.
2.A senior US official says he is not surprised that Russia and North Korea have signed a treaty that pledges mutual military assistance, but says it is a concern for any country that cares about maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific. 3. Japanese researchers say they have discovered an area with mineral concentrations called “manganese nodules” in waters off Japan’s eastern-most island in the Pacific.

1. NHK has learned of new video footage found in Hiroshima City of an interpreter testifying that J. Robert Oppenheimer shed tears as he said “I’m sorry” to atomic bomb survivors 60 years ago. Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who directed the US project to develop the atomic bomb during World War Two. He is said to have been pained by the devastation caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But he reportedly did not visit the cities when he made a trip to Japan in 1960.
2. A record 56 candidates have entered the official 17-day race to choose Tokyo’s next leader in July’s gubernatorial election. The figure is more than double the 22 candidates who ran in the previous vote in 2020.Some of the candidates have already made campaign statements. Incumbent Koike Yuriko says: “My primary goal is to make Tokyo the world’s best city. My slogan in this campaign is ‘protect the capital.’ That means protecting people’s lives, their livelihoods, and the economy. But it’s not only about protecting — it’s about helping those things improve. I will strive to make Tokyo better and better. I want to move such things forward for the people, with the people.”
3. Weather authorities are calling on people in the southern part of Kyushu, southwestern Japan, to be on high alert for landslides and flooding, as torrential rains are pounding the region. The Meteorological Agency says warm moist air is moving toward a seasonal rain front stretching near Kyushu, making atmospheric conditions extremely unstable.

1. The summit between Russia and North Korea is now officially underway. Images from Pyongyang show crowds welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin for his first visit in 24 years. 2. Japan’s Diet has enacted a bill to revise the political funds control law. The bill was approved at the Upper House plenary session on Wednesday with a majority in favor. The main ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its partner Komeito and others supported the bill. 3. Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi turned 79 on Wednesday. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been kept in detention by Myanmar’s military since troops seized power in a coup in 2021. Her son, Kim Aris currently lives in the United Kingdom. In an interview with NHK, he said he is unsure of his mother’s whereabouts.

1. Russian President Vladimir Putin, ahead of his first visit to North Korea in 24 years, said the two countries will boost their ties to a higher level. His remark appeared in an article printed by North Korea’s ruling party’s newspaper. Putin said in the article that Russia highly appreciates “that the DPRK is firmly supporting the special military operations of Russia being conducted in Ukraine.”
2. Japanese weather officials are warning of bands of heavy rain clouds that will likely form over the Shikoku region, western Japan. The Meteorological Agency says warm and damp air is flowing toward a front accompanied by a low pressure system that stretchers off the southern coast of Kyushu to Kanto, making atmospheric conditions very unstable. 3. Himeji City, in western Japan, has decided to review the admission fee for Himeji Castle, a UNESCO World Cultural heritage site, and is considering setting higher rates for non-local and foreign visitors. Himeji Mayor Kiyomoto Hideyasu told reporters on Monday that he intends to consider setting different rates for Japanese visitors, foreign tourists and local residents.

1. Delegates to an international conference on peace in Ukraine have adopted a joint communique pledging to take concrete measures to address issues, such as the safety of nuclear power plants. The two-day summit to discuss a peace plan put forward by Ukraine ended on Sunday in the Swiss resort of Burgenstock. Representatives from about 100 countries and organizations attended.
2. A Swedish think tank says the global total of nuclear warheads deployed with missiles and aircraft has grown by 60 from last year. China and Russia appear to be promoting their deployment. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released the finding on Monday in its annual report.
3. Japanese weather officials say the rainy season appears to have begun in the northern part of western Japan’s Kyushu region. They are also warning of landslides, flooding of low-lying land and swelling rivers in southern Kyushu and Shikoku.