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Semiconductors, bears and trains were just some of the major news topics in Hokkaido this past year, and are expected to continue to dominate local news coverage in 2025. Here’s a brief rundown of all three. Rapidus moved forward this year with what will be the world’s first foundry producing 2-nanometer semiconductor chips. Pilot production is expected to start in April 2025, and the latter half of 2024 saw preparations accelerate. In August, Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki visited IBM, which developed the technology, in New York along with a delegation of Hokkaido business officials and Rapidus executives. He also signed a memorandum of understanding with New York state to deepen links between Rapidus and NY Creates’ Albany NanoTech Complex, the largest nonprofit semiconductor research and development facility of its kind in the U.S. Source link

Frankfurt, Germany – Rising sick leave rates may be bad news for German companies at a time the economy is already ailing — but for private eye Marcus Lentz, it has been a boon for his business. He is seeing a record number of requests from firms for his agency to check up on employees suspected of calling in sick when they are actually fit to work. “There are just more and more companies that don’t want to put up with it anymore,” he said, adding his Lentz Group was receiving up to 1,200 such requests annually, around double the figure from a few years earlier. Source link

Three children have died after being found injured at home in Ebina, Kanagawa Prefecture. Emergency authorities said a father called an ambulance on Sunday night at around 10:55 p.m., saying he came home and found his three children with head injuries. Riko Hayashi, 15, her sister Mako, 13, and their brother Rei, 9, were found on the second floor of the house and were taken to hospital, but were later confirmed dead, police said. Their mother, who was living with them, reportedly attempted to kill herself and was taken to hospital, but was not in a life-threatening condition, police said. Believing that the mother was involved in the incident, police plan to conduct interviews with her. According to police, the father, the mother and the children were living on the second floor of a two-family house, with a relative living on the first floor. If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs help, resources are available. In case of an emergency, please call 119 in Japan for immediate assistance. The TELL Lifeline is available for those who need free and anonymous counseling at 03-5774-0992. You can also visit telljp.com. For those in other countries, visit www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html for a detailed list of resources and assistance. Translated by The Japan Times Source link

As I highlighted in a previous commentary on South Korea’s leadership drama, the turmoil continues with the frantic push by the opposition Democratic Party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung, to have President Yoon Suk Yeol formally removed from office. Why the urgency? Lee, facing six criminal cases and multiple charges, needs an election to occur before any of the convictions are finalized — potentially as early as next spring — as a conviction would disqualify him from running for the presidency. It appears anyone or anything in the way of that objective will need to be swept aside, no matter how unsightly it might appear. So on Friday, the National Assembly passed an impeachment motion against acting President Han Duk-soo with a 192-0 vote, in a session boycotted by People Power Party lawmakers, some of whom disputed the vote’s legitimacy. The move came after Han refused to appoint three judges recently approved by Democratic Party lawmakers to fill vacancies on the Constitutional Court. Source link

Wajima, Ishikawa Pref. – Before the earthquake changed everything, 83-year-old Sueko Naka from the remote Noto Peninsula wished to live out her life at home, watched over by an altar to her ancestors. But a year after a 7.5-magnitude quake and its aftershocks devastated the region, she lives in a small temporary unit with her husband and daughter, facing an uncertain future. “When I imagine I might die here, I can’t sleep well,” Naka said among her minimal belongings in the newly-built dwelling in the city of Wajima in Ishikawa Prefecture. Source link

The Children and Families Agency is working to have local government officials get more actively involved in efforts to eliminate school bullying. The agency has launched a pilot program to create a mechanism in which local governments will help resolve bullying cases through consultation involving experts. The effort comes as the number of school bullying cases recognized in the country stood at 732,568 in fiscal 2023, which ended last March, hitting a record high for the third consecutive year. Source link

TAIPEI – A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is set to be released in January 2025, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to democratically governed Taiwan in recent years, including massing naval forces around the island this month. The new game, titled 2045, tasks gamers with navigating the troubles of war by using colorful action cards, and role-playing characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Source link

Ibiden, the dominant supplier of chip package substrates used in Nvidia’s cutting-edge semiconductors, may need to dial up the pace of production capacity increases to keep up with demand, according to its chief executive officer. Sales of the 112-year-old company’s AI-use substrates are robust with customers buying up all that Ibiden can sell, CEO Koji Kawashima said in an interview, adding that that demand is likely to last at least through next year. Ibiden is building a new substrate factory in Gifu Prefecture, expected to go online at 25% production capacity around the last quarter of 2025 before reaching 50% by March 2026. But that may not be enough, Kawashima said. The company is in talks about when to get the remaining 50% capacity online. Source link

When it comes to coffee, Thaleon Tremain has always tried to ignore what the market is telling him. As the CEO and co-founder of Pachamama Coffee in California, Tremain sells his specialty beans for more than what the global commodity price might dictate. He wants his customers to think of coffee as a luxury product and pay for it accordingly, so that farmers who grow his beans in countries like Peru, Nicaragua and Ethiopia can cover their costs. But now, Tremain is worried that coffee is getting more expensive for the wrong reasons. In recent years, repeated droughts and flooding have strained the global supply of coffee, frequently causing prices to soar, as climate change has done for other staples, like cocoa, olive oil and orange juice. At the same time, global demand for coffee has kept rising, with few signs that java drinkers are cutting back. This month, prices in one market broke a nearly 50-year high. Source link

For many, the real meaning of Christmas lies in sharing meals with family and friends. These feasts are often extravagant in style or size (or both) and are designed without our gut microbiomes and arteries in mind: Such is their joy. They’re also often laden with tradition. My family’s festive table, however, has been through a series of evolutions. My pescetarian childhood Christmas was celebrated around an enormous bowl of pesto pasta. We had a few years of the traditional roast turkey, followed by beef when it was decided a big bird wasn’t worth the stress. Then the feast was vegan until last year, when my parents decided to welcome small amounts of dairy back into their lives. All the meals were suitably celebratory, but the transition back toward dairy was notable because it echoes a shift I’ve seen multiple times among my peers. Several vegetarian and vegan friends have reverted to eating meat or are considering it, while — at least in my limited experience — no one seems to be going the other way. There’s also been a spate of celebrities renouncing plant-based diets too, including Lizzo, Miley Cyrus and Bear Grylls. Full disclosure: I’ve been a vegetarian for the last seven years, but I sometimes eat fish, and on a few occasions, I have eaten meat. (Some might call me a flexitarian.) Source link