TOKYO - The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Japan, India agree to advance cooperation in chips, critical minerals, AI
NEW DELHI - Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, agreed Thursday to boost ties in semiconductors, critical minerals and artificial intelligence, as Tokyo faces economic security challenges posed by China.
The two countries also affirmed they will deepen their strategic partnership in maritime security and concluded about 120 memorandums of cooperation involving private-sector investments totaling 2 trillion yen ($12.4 billion), Takaichi said after talks with Modi in New Delhi.
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Japan's top currency diplomat declines comment on yen's sharp rally
TOKYO - Japan's top currency diplomat, Atsushi Mimura, on Thursday declined to comment on the yen's sharp rally against the U.S. dollar earlier in the day as speculation persisted that Japanese authorities could intervene in the currency market.
"I have no intention of commenting," Mimura, vice finance minister for international affairs, told reporters, as the U.S. currency dropped close to the 161 yen line from the mid-162 yen range in afternoon Tokyo trading.
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Teacher had brought own heater to Tokyo elementary school before fire
TOKYO - The head of a Tokyo public elementary school that was severely damaged in a fire last month said Thursday that a teacher had placed her own electric heater and air circulator in the storage room where the fire is thought to have originated.
The teacher had routinely dried items there after using the washing machine in the home economics room, and was drying articles of her own clothing at the time of the fire, Principal Masahiro Takakusaki said.
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U.S. belatedly announces Rubio's call with China's top diplomat
WASHINGTON - U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi discussed earlier this week "the importance of building a constructive relationship" between Washington and Beijing during their phone call, the State Department said Thursday.
Unlike China's announcement on Wednesday about the call, the U.S. department's readout was very concise, without mentioning any sensitive issues, such as Taiwan.
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Hong Kong bookseller who was targeted by Beijing dies at 70 in Taiwan
TAIPEI - Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong bookseller who fled to Taiwan in 2019 to avoid potential extradition to China for selling banned titles, died of cancer at a Taipei hospital on Thursday, local media reported. He was 70.
While managing Causeway Bay Books in Hong Kong, Lam disappeared along with four other booksellers in 2015. He had in fact been detained during a visit to mainland China for selling books banned in the mainland over their subject matter related to the scandals of Chinese leaders.
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Heavy rain drenches Kyushu, weather agency warns of landslides, flooding
TOKYO - Heavy rain hit northern Kyushu on Thursday as a seasonal rain front and low-pressure system affected Japan's southwestern main island, with so-called rainbands forming across five of its prefectures -- Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto and Oita.
The Japan Meteorological Agency warned of landslides, flooding and rising rivers as unstable atmospheric conditions spread across western and eastern Japan.
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Pilot who flew light plane into Beijing skyscraper had suicidal thoughts
BEIJING - Local authorities in Beijing said Thursday a 66-year-old man who died after crashing his light aircraft into the city's tallest building last week had suicidal thoughts, repeatedly writing in his diary about "ending his life."
The Chaoyang district government in the capital said it had concluded that the incident was caused by "personal reasons," and also disclosed that the 13 people injured were not in life-threatening conditions.
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Japan court rejects appeal by indigenous Ainu over right to catch salmon
SAPPORO - A Japanese high court on Thursday upheld a lower court decision by rejecting an appeal by a group of Ainu in Hokkaido seeking recognition of their inherent right as indigenous people to catch salmon in a local river.
The Sapporo High Court dismissed arguments by the Raporo Ainu Nation that they had the inherent fishing right, saying in its ruling that it would be equivalent to an exclusive claim to commercial fishing at a certain area of a river.
