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A panel of experts under Japan’s Cultural Affairs Agency on Tuesday selected Japanese calligraphy again as a candidate for UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The government is expected to submit the fresh proposal to UNESCO by the end of the month. The U.N. agency’s intergovernmental committee will decide whether to add shodō to the heritage list at a meeting around winter 2026. The government had proposed adding shodō to the list in March last year, but UNESCO postponed a review of the proposal. According to the Cultural Affairs Agency, shodō is defined as the act of writing kanji and kana characters using traditional brushstrokes and techniques. | Jiji According to the Cultural Affairs Agency, shodō is defined as the act of writing kanji and kana characters using traditional brushstrokes and techniques. It is a social custom in Japan, including being performed for signatures on occasions such as weddings and funerals. The Council for Cultural Affairs judged that shodō is suitable for informing the world about the diversity and depth of Japanese culture. On the UNESCO list, there are currently 23 items from Japan, including kabuki traditional plays and washoku Japanese cuisine. Most recently, traditional sake brewing was added last December. Source link

Renowned Japanese writer Ayako Sono, known for many best-selling novels and essays, died of natural causes at a Tokyo hospital on Friday. She was 93. A graduate of the University of the Sacred Heart, Sono married fellow author Shumon Miura in 1953 after they met through self-published literary magazine Shinshicho (New Trend of Thoughts). She was among the group of writers collectively called “the third generation,” along with Shusaku Endo and Hiroyuki Agawa. Her novel “Enrai no Kyakutachi” (“Visitors from Afar”) was shortlisted for Japan’s prestigious Akutagawa literary award in 1954. Sono, a Tokyo native whose real name was Chizuko Miura, then wrote novels including “Tenjo no Ao” (“No Reason for Murder”). Also known for her self-help books, Sono penned best-sellers such as “Dare no Tame ni Aisuruka” (“For Whom Do You Love?”). Ayako Sono | jiji Other works of Sono include “Kami no Yogoreta Te” (“Tainted Hands of God”), a novel, and “Oi no Saikaku” (“Wisdom to Grow Old”), an essay. Sono, known as a conservative, also published several works including “Ikenie no Shima” (“Island of Sacrifice”), which depicts female student corps in the Battle of Okinawa in the final phase of World War II. She headed an organization now called the Japan Overseas Missionary Activity Sponsorship for 40 years from 1972. She received an honor from the Vatican in 1979. Sono also served as head of the Nippon Foundation for some 10 years from 1995. She hosted the late former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori in her home when he fled to Japan from the South American country in 2000. In 2003, Sono was named a Person of Cultural Merit. Source link

On a Sunday morning in January, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) in Kiba Park was flooded with bright winter light and a throng of people. Visitors waited in densely packed lines to see “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time,” billed as the largest solo exhibition dedicated to the composer and musician who died in March 2023. The sign propped by the start of the line read “Wait time: 60 minutes.” The show has been a smash hit, far exceeding the expectations of the curatorial team. At the time of writing, tickets are sold out for the following weekend. For the remaining month of the show, visitors under 18 can enter for free, which may only boost crowds further. A month into the show’s opening, long lines and wait times prompted the museum to introduce additional crowd control measures. On Jan. 29, MOT established date-specific ticketing, and two weeks later began restricting which works could be photographed or video recorded. The museum also rerouted the entry point for “Life-Well Tokyo, Fog Sculpture #47662” a collaboration with fog artist Fujiko Nakaya and Dumb Type’s Shiro Takatan, presumably to decrease congestion while people wait for the installation to start. This is arguably the most Instagrammable work of the video— and sound-heavy exhibit, so it’s bound to draw people needing something good for the grid. Source link

LONDON – Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a review of travel records and employment data indicates. The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and Sept. 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight. The booking records include the men’s passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix “20.” That denotes a passport used for official state business, issued to government officials on foreign work trips and military personnel stationed abroad, according to an edict published by the Russian government and a document on the Russian foreign ministry’s website. Source link

WELLINGTON – Corey Ngaru and his partner Elian Lellimo left recession-hit New Zealand for the sunshine of Australia’s Gold Coast just a week ago, bidding a teary farewell to family and friends as they seek better jobs and pay elsewhere. “There’s a bunch more options, more opportunities,” said Ngaru, who estimates he will be able to earn three times more working as a builder on the Gold Coast as he would in New Zealand. Ngaru and Lellimo, who is originally from Argentina, follow 128,700 people, who permanently left the Pacific nation of 5.3 million in 2024, provisionally the largest exodus on record. Source link

WASHINGTON – Mounting trade wars between the United States and its largest economic partners deepened on Tuesday as U.S. tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China kicked in, sparking swift retaliation from Beijing and Ottawa. Steep U.S. tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods came into effect as a deadline to avert President Donald Trump’s levies passed without the nations striking a deal, in a move set to snarl supply chains. Trump had unveiled — and then paused — blanket tariffs on imports from major trading partners Canada and Mexico in February, accusing them of failing to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Source link

On a recent Thursday morning in Hanoi, Chinese electric vehicle giant BYD began the day with a showroom devoid of customers. Just a few kilometers away, a dealership for upstart Vietnamese EV maker VinFast Auto was buzzing, with would-be buyers pouring over new models. “We see an average of 20 customers every day during weekdays,” said Tran Trung Hieu, a VinFast salesman in a black suit and tie. “That can double or triple on a weekend.” BYD’s entrance in July into Vietnam, whose youthful population is keen to buy electric and hybrid cars, underscores both the opportunities and challenges Chinese companies face as they seek to push into Southeast Asia. Source link

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld lower court rulings against FC2, finding that the U.S. video-sharing platform operator infringed on a patent held by Japanese peer Dwango, which operates the Niconico platform. The top court’s Second Petty Bench, presided by Justice Koichi Kusano, rejected FC2’s appeals against two separate rulings by the Intellectual Property High Court in July 2022 and May 2023, both of which ordered the Las Vegas-based firm to stop violating Dwango’s patent on a video comment-posting system and pay damages of ¥100 million ($671,200) and ¥11 million, respectively, to the Kadokawa unit. FC2, which distributes videos with a similar comment-posting function in Japan via servers abroad, demanded that the rulings be overturned on the grounds that a patent is protected only in a country where it was granted. The justice, however, flexibly interpreted the “territoriality doctrine,” saying, “If the patent has to lose its effectiveness only because the videos are distributed from abroad, the patent law cannot serve its purpose of contributing to the development of industry through the protection and promotion of inventions.” Now that the internet has made cross-border distribution of information easier than ever, there is “no special meaning” for the Supreme Court to take into account the FC2 server location, Kusano noted. Source link

Japan Airlines and Bandai Namco Holdings unveiled a passenger jet with a special livery based on the popular robot anime series Gundam at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Monday, ahead of the April opening of the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka. The robot will appear on a screen at Bandai Namco’s pavilion at the Osaka Expo. The Boeing 737-800 jet, which also features the expo’s official mascot, Myaku-Myaku, made its first flight in the afternoon and will be used for domestic flights until around November. “It’s a very cool and impressive finish,” Kumiko Miyasaka, head of JAL’s western Japan branch, said at the unveiling ceremony. “We would like to bring dreams, hope and excitement, especially to children who are shouldering the future,” Bandai Namco director Nobuhiko Momoi said. The two companies also plan to release limited edition items to commemorate the expo. Source link

Washington – U.S. President Donald Trump alleged Monday that Japan and China are guiding their currencies lower, hinting that he could impose fresh tariffs on Tokyo if this is not halted. “The way you solve it very easily is with tariffs,” he told a news conference at the White House, hinting at new tariffs on imports from Japan. “I’ve called (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping), I’ve called the leaders of Japan to say: ‘You can’t continue to reduce and break down your currency. You can’t do it, because it’s unfair to us,’” Trump said. “It doesn’t have to be tariffs. But tariffs are easy, they’re fast, they’re efficient, and they bring fairness.” Source link