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New York – A senior official of Nihon Hidankyo, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, urged the international community to redouble efforts for the abolition of nuclear weapons at the third meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on Monday. “Atomic bombs are the ‘devil’s weapons’ that rob people of their future,” Jiro Hamasumi, assistant secretary-general of Nihon Hidankyo, formally called the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, said in an address at the meeting, which started the same day at the U.N. headquarters in New York for a five-day run. Hamasumi, 79, was exposed to radiation from the U.S. atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima City on Aug. 6, 1945, when he was in his mother’s womb. Source link

Firefighters on Tuesday were battling Japan’s worst wildfire in half a century, which has left one dead and forced the evacuation of nearly 4,000 local residents. White smoke billowed from a forested area around the city of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, aerial TV footage showed, six days after the blaze began amid record low rainfall. The fire also follows Japan’s hottest summer on record last year, as climate change pushes up temperatures worldwide. Source link

Osaka – The centerpiece of the 2025 Osaka Expo, the Grand Ring, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest wooden structure on Tuesday. An award ceremony was held at the venue, Yumeshima, an artificial island, before the expo begins on April 13. The 60,000-square-meter ring-shaped roof has the largest building area on record for a wooden structure, according to Guinness World Records. “I hope that (the Grand Ring) will give a powerful message at the expo that these diverse worlds can be connected,” said Sosuke Fujimoto, the architect who designed the venue. The roof has a circumference of about 2 kilometers, a height of up to 20 meters and an outer diameter of 675 meters. It encloses pavilions of countries participating in the event, which centers on the philosophy of “unity in diversity.” Meanwhile, the expo’s construction costs have reached ¥34.4 billion. The wooden structure was completed in February and delivered to the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, which runs the upcoming event. Source link

The government of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba overcame its first major hurdle of the year Tuesday, as the Lower House approved a ¥115.2 trillion ($772 billion) revised budget proposal for fiscal 2025 — a milestone widely seen as essential for the survival of his administration. The budget proposal was backed by 258 lawmakers, enough to form a majority with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito coalition, which only holds 220 out of 465 seats. It reflects significant compromises the coalition made to Nippon Ishin no Kai on areas such as education and social security. It’s the first time in 29 years that the Lower House has approved a revised version of a budget proposal from the government for an upcoming fiscal year. Source link

Yuichiro Tamaki, who was reinstated as leader of the opposition Democratic Party for the People on Tuesday, hit the ground running on his first day back, saying his party will aim to nearly double its Upper House seats in this summer’s election. With his return after a three-month suspension from party posts due to an extramarital affair, the DPP hopes to move beyond unsuccessful talks with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party-Komeito coalition, and focus on the Upper House election, in which the DPP aims to increase its seat count from 12 to 21. Tamaki’s reinstatement comes after senior DPP leaders failed last week to convince the coalition to raise the tax-free income threshold from ¥1.03 million ($6,900) annually to ¥1.78 million. The LDP and Komeito agreed to raise the threshold to only ¥1.6 million. Source link

Japanese startup Ispace on Tuesday set a June 6 target touchdown date for its moon lander, following the success of its rocket “rideshare” buddy, a spacecraft from a U.S. firm. Ispace’s unmanned Resilience lander was launched in January on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket together with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost — which aced its lunar landing on Sunday. Blue Ghost is only the second private mission to achieve the milestone, and the first to do so upright after a separate U.S. company’s lander toppled over on arrival. Source link

The government will start disclosing documents related to a controversial state land sale to school operator Moritomo Gakuen in a month’s time at the earliest, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Tuesday. Subject to the disclosure are paper documents of 17 pages or more, as well as electronic data, Kato told a parliamentary meeting. Parts of the documents whose exposure might breach the rights of individuals will be redacted, according to Kato. Kato also said that the government will release documents believed to have been compiled by Toshio Akagi, a former official of the Finance Ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau, around early June. Akagi killed himself at the age of 54 after being ordered to tamper with documents regarding the state land sale to Moritomo Gakuen. “We’ll make efforts to disclose major documents as soon as possible within the next year,” Kato said. The widow of Akagi filed a lawsuit against the government over the issue, demanding the disclosure of related documents. In January, Osaka High Court revoked the ministry’s decision not to release the documents it voluntarily submitted to prosecutors. The ruling became final after the government decided not to appeal it. Source link

The European Union will propose extending €150 billion ($158 billion) in loans to boost defense spending as the bloc tries to adjust to U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt pullback of American security on the continent. After decades of underinvestment, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU also plans to activate a mechanism that would allow countries to use their national budgets to spend an additional €650 billion on defense over four years without triggering budgetary penalties. Combined with the new defense spending loans, von der Leyen said the package could mobilize nearly €800 billion — if governments take full advantage of the new leeway. Source link

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group will leave the banking industry’s main climate-finance alliance, the first major Japanese lender to join an exodus led by institutions from Wall Street and Canada. Japan’s second-largest bank has decided to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Nikkei had earlier reported the lender’s plan to quit the alliance. Banks have exited the United Nations-convened group amid intensifying pressure on lenders operating in the U.S. over what have been characterized as “woke” policies, and in order to win more flexibility from the organization’s climate targets. The NZBA is now reviewing its policies after the departures of members including Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Several major European and Asian banks have recently expressed support for the alliance, while the NZBA’s website currently lists more than 130 members from 44 countries. Nomura Holdings is considering exiting the group, Nikkei reported. “We continue to monitor developments around the net zero initiatives,” a Nomura spokesperson said, without specifying if the bank intends to withdraw. Source link

KYIV – Washington’s suspension of military assistance will not lead to a sudden collapse of Ukraine’s defensive lines, but it could have a real impact on the war within months, undermining air defenses and precision strike capabilities in particular. U.S. deliveries of military aid via Ukraine’s western border halted at 3:30 a.m., a source with knowledge of the matter said, after U.S. President Donald Trump paused assistance late on Monday following an extraordinary clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week. The move suspends any further drawdown from $3.85 billion of military aid approved by Congress that Trump inherited from his predecessor, Joe Biden. It also appears to halt deliveries of military equipment already approved by Biden. Source link