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Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has hinted at plans to introduce same-day admission tickets for the 2025 World Exposition, set to be held in the city of Osaka. During a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo on Wednesday, Osaka Gov. Hirofumi Yoshimura, asked Ishiba to improve the ways tickets for entry are being sold, citing currently sluggish advance ticket sales. “We want to make arrangements so that people can buy same-day tickets,” Ishiba said. To avoid congestion at the venue for the event, set to start in April, the Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition calls on people to purchase advance tickets and to reserve admission times. “We will consider everything to avoid a situation where it is difficult to buy tickets due to chaos and long lines of people,” the prime minister said. As of Jan. 29, the number of advance tickets sold stood at some 7.66 million — about the half of the target number. Source link

MANILA – The Philippine lower house of Congress on Wednesday endorsed an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of the country’s firebrand former president, paving the way for a rare trial in the Senate. A bill of impeachment will be sent to the upper house, where the 23 senators would serve as jurors in proceedings that could result in the removal of Duterte and her lifetime disqualification from holding office. Duterte would be the Philippines’ second most senior official to face removal from office. Source link

The former MUFG Bank employee suspected of stealing customer assets regularly paid interest to pawnshops for the gold ingots she had stolen and pledged, it was learned Wednesday. The 46-year-old suspect, Yukari Imamura, allegedly stole the assets of at least 60 customers worth ¥1.7 billion ($11 million) from the safe-deposit boxes they used at the bank. Of the total, gold ingots are believed to account for about ¥700 million. Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department suspects she paid interest to prevent the pawned gold ingots from being lost so that she could collect and return them to safe-deposit boxes when necessary. The pawnbroker business law stipulates that the ownership of pawned goods be transferred to the pawnshop if interest and other necessary payments are not made within at least three months from the time of pawning. According to investigative sources, Imamura deposited in several pawnshops gold ingots worth several hundred million yen that she had stolen. The bank recovered all of the pawned gold ingots after learning of her massive thefts. According to the police, Imamura used the cash she obtained through the thefts for foreign exchange margin trading and horse racing. She incurred losses of at least ¥1 billion from the currency trading. Imamura told investigators that she thought that gold ingots would allow her to obtain a lot of cash. The police believe she chose to steal gold ingots, which can be quickly converted into cash, so that she could refill the safe-deposit boxes from which she stole cash on the day a customer was scheduled to check their box, thereby evading detection. Imamura was arrested on Jan. 14 for allegedly stealing about 20 kilograms of gold ingots, worth about ¥260 million, from two customers’ safe-deposit boxes at the Nerima branch in late September last year. Source link

Nissan shares plunged 4.8% on Wednesday after the Nikkei business daily said the carmaker had decided to withdraw from merger talks with rival Honda. The newspaper and other Japanese media had reported that Honda had proposed making Nissan a subsidiary, instead of the previous plan to integrate under a new holding company. The Japanese automakers have been in discussions for weeks on a combination that would effectively have resulted in an acquisition of Nissan, as Honda’s ¥7.3 trillion ($47 billion) valuation is nearly five times higher. Representatives for Nissan and Honda had said they have not made any announcements about the state of the negotiations other than that they are ongoing ahead of the planned timing of mid-February for a deal framework. The talks to create the world’s third-largest carmaker have gone haltingly since the plans were first announced in December. Honda and Nissan had pledged to put forward a framework for the transaction in late January, but recently pushed that back by several weeks. Nissan is 36% owned by French carmaker Renault, which in late January sent representatives to Japan to express concern over the transaction and seek a premium for its stake, people familiar with the matter said. Mitsubishi Motors, which has reportedly decided against joining the alliance, said earlier this week it would make a final decision once Honda and Nissan reach an agreement later this month. Source link

Donald Trump said the U.S. should take control of the devastated Gaza Strip, shunt the area’s residents to other countries and rebuild it into a new “Riviera,” a proposal at odds with Mideast reality and America’s fraught history in the region that quickly drew sharp opposition from Saudi Arabia. “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip,” Trump said Tuesday during a White House news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.” Trump — who has long railed against America’s “forever wars” — even suggested he would be open to deploying U.S. troops to secure the area, saying he would “do what is necessary.” He said he saw the U.S. presence in the contested territory as a “long-term ownership position.” Source link

Former world No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam winner Simona Halep announced her retirement from professional tennis on Tuesday after losing in the first round at her home event in Cluj. Halep, whose career stalled due to a doping ban that was reduced on appeal last year, lost 6-1, 6-1 to Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti in her first match this year before announcing her decision. The 33-year-old Romanian had delayed the start of her season due to pain in her knee and shoulder. Source link

Santorini, Greece – For a third day, thousands of people fled the Greek island of Santorini by sea and air on Tuesday, as more earthquakes shook the top travel destination. Some 7,000 people have left the island, known for its spectacular cliffside views and dormant volcano, which has been hit by hundreds of tremors since last week, officials said. One quake with a magnitude of 4.9 hit early Tuesday, and hours later, was followed by a 5.0-magnitude tremor. Source link

Greenland’s prime minister, Mute B. Egede, has called a general election for next month, with global attention drawn to the island after U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to wrest control of the territory from Denmark. The vote will be held on March 11, about four weeks before an April 6 election deadline. Egede proposed the date earlier on Tuesday, and the territory’s parliament approved it later during a parliamentary session. “We’re in the midst of a serious time, a time we’ve never seen in our country,” Egede said in a Facebook post, calling for unity among Greenlanders. Source link

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Ahead of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump signed the presidential memorandum reimposing Washington’s tough policy on Iran that was practiced throughout his first term. As he signed the memo, Trump described it as very tough and said he was torn on whether to make the move. He said he was open to a deal with Iran and expressed a willingness to talk to the Iranian leader. Source link

The first volleys in the latest U.S.-China trade war made clear that Xi Jinping is taking a more cautious approach than during Donald Trump’s first term. After the U.S. leader gave a last-minute reprieve to both Canada and Mexico, his 10% tariffs on China took effect after midnight Washington time on Tuesday. Within seconds, Beijing announced additional tariffs on roughly 80 products to take effect on Feb. 10, launched an antitrust investigation into Google, tightened export controls on critical minerals, and added two U.S. companies to its blacklist of unreliable entities. The swift but calculated retaliation signaled that Beijing had learned a lesson from its first trade fight with Trump, when China retaliated with tariffs on par or close to what the U.S. imposed. This time Xi only put tariffs on $14 billion worth of American products, a sliver of what Trump targeted, while taking other measures that showed off China’s ability to inflict further pain on U.S. companies if needed. Source link