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Some attractions at Tokyo Disney Resort theme parks automatically stopped Sunday after a brief power outage, with the operator reporting there were no injuries. Guests were led from the attractions after they stopped at around 3:30 p.m., according to operator Oriental Land Co., which runs resort facilities such as Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Services resumed after safety checks were completed. An investigation into the cause of the power outage is under way. A power company reported that a momentary voltage drop occurred at about 3:30 p.m. across a wide area of Chiba Prefecture, incl...
Kyodo News
Japanese consumers faced price hikes in June on 614 food items, including confectionery and dairy products, with the prolonged depreciation of the yen and bad weather driving up import costs of raw materials, a credit research company said. Poor harvests triggered by extreme heat and drought abroad have led to price hikes in Japan for imported cocoa beans, coffee beans, olives, and orange and other fruit juices, a survey by Teikoku Databank Ltd. showed. Prices of 68 products from Japan's leading potato chip maker Calbee Inc., including traditionally popular snack food Kappa Ebisen, increased b...
Kyodo News
In Japan, the customer has long been regarded as akin to royalty, but the tradition appears to have found its limits, with both authorities and service-sector firms recognizing the need to start protecting staff from overbearing or abusive behavior from members of the public. "Kasu-hara" has become Japanese slang for "customer harassment," with some victims ending up leaving their jobs or suffering from mental illness as a result of behavior ranging from verbal abuse to being forced to apologize by kneeling and prostrating themselves. In response, the labor ministry is considering legislation ...
Kyodo News
Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa has decided to cancel his planned private space trip to orbit the Moon, as the mission's feasibility became unclear, according to a website on Saturday. While he had initially tried to realize the circumlunar flight with other crew members, including American DJ Steve Aoki, by the end of last year as part of the "dearMoon" project, the plan "became unfeasible," a statement on the website showed. "Without clear schedule certainty in the near-term, it is with a heavy heart that Maezawa made the unavoidable decision to cancel the project," the stat...
Kyodo News
A spoon that enhances the taste of saltiness through electric stimulation was launched by Kirin Holdings Co. in Japan in May, aimed at people struggling to cut their salt intake. The "Electric Salt Spoon" works by passing a weak electric current through the tip of the device. Users can select their preferred intensity out of four levels, the Japanese beverage group said. Priced at 19,800 yen ($126), the spoon was commercialized after the company said in 2022 that it had developed a chopsticks-like device to alter taste perceptions using an electric current. The chopsticks were developed jointl...
Kyodo News
The second-ranking diplomats from Japan, the United States and South Korea agreed Friday to continue close coordination on North Korea and other challenges to regional and global stability, with a plan to set up a new coordinating body to further align their policies. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said the envisioned body will likely be "a secretariat of some kind" at the outset of a meeting he hosted for his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at his farmhouse in a tiny Virginia village near Washington. Campbell, in the presence of the press, also said the three countries ar...
Kyodo News
A 40,000-yen ($255)-per-person tax cut program began on Saturday in Japan to ease the pain of inflation felt by households as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, hit by low approval ratings, seeks to make the benefits of government support more visible to disgruntled voters. Of the total reduced under the new temporary scheme, 30,000 yen is from income tax, and 10,000 yen is from resident tax. High-income earners who receive 20 million yen or more annually will be excluded, with cash handouts given to those earning low incomes, such as those exempt from paying both taxes. A household of three -- an ...
Kyodo News
DMM Bitcoin Co., the operator of a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, said Friday that digital assets worth at least 48.2 billion yen ($300 million) have disappeared for an unknown reason. The Tokyo-based company under major IT firm DMM.com LLC said it detected the abnormality at around 1:26 p.m. the same day and suspended operations such as withdrawals of virtual currencies and the reviewing of applications for new accounts. The amount of lost cryptocurrency is believed to be the second-largest ever in Japan, exceeded only by the 58 billion yen stolen from the Coincheck exchange in Tokyo in a ...
Kyodo News
Japan's industry ministry said Friday it is considering offering loan guarantees to Rapidus Corp. in its latest effort to help the state-backed chipmaker launch a domestic production line. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is hoping such state guarantees will help the chip venture raise funds from private-sector banks, as the company estimates it needs about 5 trillion yen ($32 billion) to complete a plant in Hokkaido, northern Japan, to begin mass production of next-generation chips in 2027. The ministry has already decided to offer 920 billion yen in subsidies to the company as a s...
Kyodo News
Japan spent 9.79 trillion yen ($62 billion) over the past month to slow the yen's rapid fall against the U.S. dollar, government data showed Friday, confirming market views that Japanese authorities intervened in the currency market. The amount compares with nearly 9.2 trillion yen Japan spent on multiple yen-buying, dollar-selling operations in 2022. Japanese authorities kept traders guessing whether they had stepped in when the yen suddenly spiked versus the dollar in late April and early May.
Kyodo News
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