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Nagasaki – Police arrested Tsuyoshi Furusho, mayor of Saza, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Saturday in a bid-rigging case over a public works project in the town. As part of the case, police also arrested Joji Yamaguchi, a 62-year-old company worker, and Eizo Kida, 53, a company executive and acquaintance of Yamaguchi. The Nagasaki Prefectural Police department has not disclosed whether the three have admitted to the allegations. Furusho, 77, was first elected mayor of the town in 2009. He is currently in his fourth term. He is suspected of informing Yamaguchi of a price near the lowest acceptable bid and allowing Kida’s construction firm to win the contract with a bid of ¥16.59 million. Source link

Nagoya – Toyota will suspend three lines at two plants in Aichi Prefecture on Monday, company officials have said. The suspension is believed to be due to the effects of an explosion and fire accident at a plant of Chuo Spring, a Toyota affiliate, on Thursday. The automaker will decide around noon on Monday when to resume the lines. Subject to the suspension are a line in the Takaoka plant in the city of Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, which produces the RAV4 and the Harrier SUVs, and two lines in Toyota Industries’s Nagakusa plant in Obu, Achi, which produces the RAV4. Thursday’s explosion prompted Chuo Spring to halt two of the seven lines at its Fujioka plant in Toyota, which produces springs for vehicle suspensions. It has not been decided when the lines will be restarted. The same plant also suffered an explosion and fire accident in October 2023, prompting Toyota to suspend 13 lines at eight plants. Source link

Morioka, Iwate Pref. – The massive wildfire that broke out in Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, on Feb. 26 has been contained, the city declared Sunday. On that day, the city also lifted the evacuation order for 882 people from 361 households in four districts. The order is still in effect for a total of 2,424 people from 979 households, and the city is considering lifting it for more while monitoring the progress of infrastructure restoration work. The wildfire engulfed about 2,900 hectares — around half the size of Manhattan — making it Japan’s largest in more than 50 years. It surpassed the 2,700 hectares consumed by a 1975 fire in Hokkaido. Japan endured its hottest summer on record last year as climate change pushed up temperatures worldwide. Then in February, Ofunato received just 2.5 millimeters of rainfall — breaking the previous record low of 4.4 mm for the month that was logged in 1967, and far below the average of 41 mm. At least 78 buildings are believed to have been damaged, although details are still being assessed, according to the fire agency. Source link

London – The British government and Fujitsu have agreed to begin talks on compensation for the Post Office scandal involving the Horizon accounting software developed by the Japanese company. British Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds held talks on the matter with Fujitsu CEO Takahito Tokita and others in Tokyo on Friday, according to a joint statement from the two sides. According to the statement, Reynolds said after the meeting: “We must never forget the lives ruined by the Horizon scandal and no amount of redress can take away that pain. But justice can and must be done.” The minister also expressed the government’s determination to “continue to make rapid progress on compensation and redress.” The Fujitsu side reiterated its commitment to its “moral obligation” to contribute to the government’s compensation for the victims of the scandal, the statement said. In the scandal, accounting errors occurred at post offices across Britain that had introduced the accounting software. More than 700 people including post office chiefs were indicted on embezzlement and other charges by 2015. The problem was later found to have been caused by flaws in the software. Last year, a compensation law was enacted in Britain. Source link

BERLIN – German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz on Sunday said he would like talks with France and Britain about sharing their nuclear weapons, but not as a substitute for U.S. nuclear protection of Europe. “Sharing nuclear weapons is an issue that we need to talk about … we have to become stronger together in nuclear deterrence,” he said in an interview on Deutschlandfunk radio, a day after agreeing cornerstones of a coalition deal between his conservative party and the Social Democratic SPD party. “We should talk with both countries (France and Britain), always also from the perspective of supplementing the American nuclear shield, which we of course want to see maintained.” Source link

CAIRO/AMMAN – Syrian leader Ahmed Sharaa called for peace on Sunday after hundreds were killed in coastal areas in the worst communal violence since the fall of Bashar Assad. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said on Saturday more than 1,000 people had been killed in the two days of fighting in the Mediterranean coastal region in some of the worst violence for years in a 13-year-old civil conflict. “We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together,” Sharaa, the interim president, said as clashes continued between forces linked to the new Islamist rulers and fighters from Assad’s Alawite sect. Source link

Beijing – Trade tensions between the world’s two leading economies are set to escalate on Monday, as Beijing begins levying tariffs on certain U.S. agricultural goods in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s latest hike on Chinese imports. Since retaking office in January, Trump has unleashed a barrage of tariffs on major U.S. trading partners, including China, Canada and Mexico, citing their failure to stop illegal immigration and flows of deadly fentanyl. After imposing a blanket 10% tariff on all Chinese goods in early February, Trump hiked the rate to 20% last week. Source link

Asahikawa, Hokkaido – Asahikawa District Court in Hokkaido has sentenced a 20-year-old woman to 23 years in prison in a high-profile murder case in which a female high school student died after being pushed off a bridge and into a river in Asahikawa in April last year. According to Friday’s ruling, the woman, Yuka Konishi, conspired with Riko Uchida, 22, and others to drive the then 17-year-old victim from Rumoi to Asahikawa and assault her between April 18 and the following day. They forced her to fall into a river and die. “The way the crime was committed was cruel and extremely malicious,” Judge Yoshihiro Ogasawara said in handing down the ruling, adding that the defendant “showed no attitude of respecting the victim’s life and integrity.” Konishi’s 23-year sentence came against the prosecution’s request for 25 years. During her lay-judge trial, the defense said that the incident was orchestrated by Uchida after the victim posted a photo on social media without Uchida’s permission, adding that Konishi played only a subordinate role. However, the court found that Konishi was actively involved, noting that she beat the victim in anger after the victim called for help. Following the ruling, the victim’s family released a statement through a lawyer, saying that they cannot forgive the defendant but want her to seriously reflect on what she did. Source link

Sydney – Wild weather has blacked out more than 300,000 homes and businesses on Australia’s east coast, officials said Sunday, with one driver confirmed dead and a dozen troops injured. After days hovering off the coast as a category 2 tropical cyclone generating heavy weather across the region, Alfred weakened into a tropical depression before making landfall on Saturday evening. Strong gusts and heavy rain have brought down power lines and sparked flood warnings on swollen rivers along a 400-kilometer (250-mile) stretch of the coast straddling southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales. Source link

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to go all out for this summer’s House of Councilors election at an annual convention of his Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo on Sunday. “I will devote myself and make my utmost efforts to win (the upcoming Upper House election) without fail,” Ishiba, also president of the LDP, said in a speech where he asked fellow party members to “unite and act for the nation, the people and the next era.” The triennial Upper House election comes after the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition lost its majority in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the parliament, in last year’s general election. Following the LDP’s high-profile political funds scandal, Ishiba said: “We should be humble before sovereign voices. We will restore the attitude that we had when we were out of power.” Regarding the government’s decision to cancel a plan to raise the ceiling on out-of-pocket medical expenses in August, the prime minister said, “The only way to regain trust is to listen to the voices of people in weak positions and facing hardships.” The LDP convention had guests including Komeito head Tetsuo Saito, Masakazu Tokura, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, or Keidanren, and Tomoko Yoshino, president of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation, or Rengo. It is the first time in 20 years that Rengo’s president has attended the LDP’s convention. Before the LDP marks the 70th anniversary of its founding on Nov. 15 this year, LDP Secretary-General Hiroshi Moriyama announced a plan to map out a new vision for the nation in the coming years. Also at the convention, the party adopted its 2025 activity program, which calls for drawing up a political reform plan to restore trust damaged by the funds scandal. Source link