月: 2024年12月

1. Officials from the United States have joined the investigation into Sunday’s deadly crash of a passenger jet in South Korea. The Boeing 737 operated by South Korean low-cost carrier Jeju Air belly-landed and smashed into a barrier at Muan International Airport in the country’s southwest. The crash killed 179 of the 181 people aboard.
2. Russia and Ukraine have exchanged more than 300 prisoners of war in the latest such swap. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media on Monday that his team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians back home. Zelenskyy thanked the United Arab Emirates and other partners for mediating the swap.
3. A Ukrainian delegation including Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has visited Syria and expressed its desire to remove Russia’s influence from the Middle Eastern country. The Ukrainian officials said that as relief supply, 500 tons of wheat flour are scheduled to arrive in Syria on Tuesday. They also said they are ready to cooperate with Syria in probing war crimes.

1. Former US President Jimmy Carter, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has died at the age of 100. Carter was a peanut farmer in the southern state of Georgia before he turned into a politician and became the governor of the state. Carter, a Democrat, won the presidential election in 1976 and served as the 39th US president between 1977 and 1981.
2. Azerbaijani President IIham Aliyev wants to hold Russia accountable for the recent crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane. The incident in Kazakhstan last Wednesday left 38 people dead. Aliyev said the facts indicate that the Azerbaijani civilian plane was damaged from the outside over Russian territory and almost lost control. He added that the tail of the plane was also severely damaged, as a result of fire from the ground.
3. Major League Baseball star Ohtani Shohei of the Los Angeles Dodgers says he and his wife Mamiko are expecting a baby. The 30-year-old player wrote on his Instagram account that he “can’t wait for the little rookie to join our family soon!”

1. Overseas-bound travelers are crowding an international airport in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi, ahead of the year-end and New Year holidays. Airport officials say that on Friday more than 8,200 people had booked departures from the Chubu Centrair International Airport. Outbound travel is expected to peak on Saturday, with nearly 9,000 bookings.
2. Japan’s government has approved a draft budget for the next fiscal year starting in April, 2025. It is the largest-ever initial draft budget in yen terms and is worth about 115.5 trillion yen, or 732 billion dollars. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s Cabinet approved the bill on Friday. The draft budget has exceeded the 110 trillion yen-mark for the third consecutive year.
3. Multiple media outlets say an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was downed by a Russian air defense system. Reuters and other media outlets broke the news on Thursday. They quoted sources in Azerbaijan.

1. Japan Airlines says its systems have been restored following a glitch caused a cyberattack on Thursday morning. It adds that sales of tickets for Thursday flights have resumed. JAL says the systems were back and running by 2:20 p.m. on Thursday.
2. Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Japan will continue working with Ukraine to realize a just and lasting peace as soon as possible. The two leaders talked by phone for over half an hour on Wednesday. Ishiba expressed his respect for Zelenskyy, saying he is fighting for his country. Ishiba stressed that Japan will never waver in its position of standing with Ukraine. 3. Authorities in Kazakhstan say 38 people have died in the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet in the country’s west on Wednesday. Officials at the Azerbaijani foreign ministry and others said the aircraft went down and burst into flames near an airport in Aktau on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. They added that the plane was carrying 62 passengers and five crewmembers.

1. Japan is set to shoulder over 6.9 percent of the total financial contributions by member countries to support the United Nations from 2025 to 2027. It remains the third largest contributor following the United States and China, with the latter’s share rising to almost on par with the US.
2. The busiest person during this holiday season has set off on a reindeer-driven sleigh for a global tour to deliver Christmas presents. Santa Claus appeared before children at his home village on the Arctic Circle in Finland on Monday. He told them that “it might be impossible to be good and nice all the time,” but they should do their best.
3. The Japan External Trade Organization, or JETRO, says it is likely that global GDP will be pushed down by 0.3 percent, if US President-elect Donald Trump goes ahead with his plan to levy tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China.

1. Japan’s Nippon Steel says a US government panel has decided to let President Joe Biden decide whether it can buy US Steel. Biden has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the deal, but he is now expected to announce his decision within 15 days after receiving the committee’s report.
2. Japan’s Environment Ministry has decided to require regular testing of tap water and set a legal standard for the concentration of PFAS chemicals, a group of organic fluorine compounds. PFAS include PFOS and PFOA, which are considered potentially harmful.
3. Seeing a loved one with dementia can be painful. Confidence gives way to confusion. And dementia sufferers sometimes forget the impossible: basic tasks. Even the name of a child or spouse. But many sufferers become more than lost psychologically. Last year, over 19,000 people diagnosed or showing signs of dementia in Japan went missing. The figure is a record. About 500 were discovered dead. 250 still had not been found.

1. US President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he could demand the return of the Panama Canal after he takes office next month. He says Panama is charging US naval and commercial ships “exorbitant” rates to pass through the waterway. Trump spoke to supporters at a conservative conference in the western state of Arizona on Sunday. He said the US is “the number one user” of the waterway and that Panama is charging “ridiculous” and “highly unfair” fees, calling them a “complete rip-off.”
2. Honda Motor and Nissan Motor have decided to hold talks on management integration. Mitsubishi Motors is also expected to join the talks. Sources say the Japanese firms are aiming to finalize a deal in June. Honda and Nissan each held board meetings about the merger. The integrated auto group would be the world’s third-largest in terms of vehicle units sold.
3. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says 2025 will be a “decisive” year to bring peace to his country. Zelenskyy said, “We all understand that in January – after the change of administration in the United States – many changes will occur in international affairs.”

1. A South Korean joint investigation team including police has issued a summons to impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol to appear for questioning next week over the short-lived martial law he declared earlier this month. 2. Japan’s core consumer price index climbed 2.7 percent in November from a year earlier as prices for rice soared to a record. The internal affairs ministry also reported a 0.4 percentage point increase in CPI from October. That’s the first such gain since August. 3. Japanese government sources say the team of US President-elect Donald Trump has proposed a meeting with Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in the United States in mid-January before his return to the White House. Ishiba is expected to decide whether to attend after considering his planned visit to Southeast Asia from early January and the opening of an ordinary session of the Diet.

1. Police in western Japan have arrested a 43-year-old man in connection with the stabbings of two teenagers at a fast-food restaurant in Kitakyushu City on Saturday. A 15-year-old girl, Nakashima Saaya, died in the attack and a boy, also 15, was seriously injured. Police said on Thursday that they arrested local resident Hirabaru Masanori on suspicion of attempted murder of the boy. They said the suspect had admitted to the allegation. The two third-year junior high school students were stabbed at the restaurant around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday on their way home from a cram school.
2. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun says the newspaper group’s top executive, Watanabe Tsuneo, has died. Watanabe was an influential figure in the country’s political circles and professional sports for decades. The Yomiuri Shimbun says the group’s representative director and editor-in-chief died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital early on Thursday. He was 98. Born in 1926 in Tokyo, Watanabe joined The Yomiuri Shimbun, one of Japan’s most widely circulated newspapers, in 1950.
3. Trekkers will have to pay a toll of 4,000 yen, or about 26 dollars, to climb Mount Fuji from the Yamanashi Prefecture side starting next summer. The current fee is 2,000 yen, or about 13 dollars. Yamanashi officials also plan to close the toll gate two hours earlier at 2 p.m. to discourage people from climbing Japan’s highest peak overnight.

1. Sources say Honda Motor and Nissan Motor are expected to sign a basic merger agreement soon. Japan’s second-and third-largest automakers are considering forming a holding company to improve competitiveness by sharing technologies and costs.
2. A Japanese venture firm failed in its efforts to launch a small rocket on Wednesday. This was the Tokyo-based company’s second attempt. In March, the firm’s first rocket exploded soon after liftoff. 3. Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has called for more investment and business involvement by Japanese companies in Ukraine amid Russia’s continued invasion of her country.