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Koror, Palau – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said Friday he was “confident” of deeper cooperation with the next Donald Trump administration, a day after his call with U.S. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson that angered China. Like other world governments, Taiwan has publicly congratulated Trump on his victory in November’s presidential election as it seeks to get onside with the next U.S. leader. The United States does not have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but Washington has long been Taipei’s biggest backer and provider of arms. Source link

East Japan Railway (JR East) said Friday that it has applied for government approval to raise its fares by 7.1% on average in March 2026 as it struggles with higher costs and seeks to increase investment in railway safety measures. The company plans to raise standard fares by 7.8%, commuter passes by 12% and student commuter passes by 4.9%. The base fare for the Yamanote Line in central Tokyo will rise from ¥150 to ¥160. The plan would see JR East’s first full-fledged fare hike, other than when the consumption tax rate was raised, since its founding in 1987 through the breakup and privatization of Japanese National Railways. JR East expects the higher fares to push up revenues by ¥88.1 billion per year. The company said that price rises are necessary to replace aging train cars and equipment amid soaring materials costs. It also said that it needs to raise wages to secure personnel amid chronic labor shortages due to the country’s aging population. “We have to spend effort and money on safe railway operations,” JR East Executive Vice President Chiharu Watari told a news conference, asking for customers’ understanding over the higher fares. Some other JR companies are also planning to increase their fares. Hokkaido Railway, also known as JR Hokkaido, and Kyushu Railway, commonly known as JR Kyushu, will raise their fares by an average of 7.6% and 15%, respectively, in April 2025. The number of passengers has been recovering from a slump during the COVID-19 pandemic. But JR companies are still grappling with slow growth in users of commuter passes due to changing lifestyles. The companies are also burdened by loss-making regional train routes. Source link

Alexandre Pantoja will defend his UFC flyweight title in the final pay-per-view card of the year when he takes on the debuting Kai Asakura in the main event of UFC 310 on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Pantoja, a 34-year-old Brazilian, will attempt to extend a six-match winning streak that dates to February 2021. This is his third title defense since earning a split-decision victory against then-champion Brandon Moreno at UFC 290 in July 2023. In his latest outing, Pantoja prevailed at home in Brazil at UFC 301 in May, defeating Steve Erceg by unanimous decision in the night’s main event. Source link

For many South Koreans, this week’s dramatic events were their first real-life brush with the nation’s history of military dictatorship. That’s why millions turned to a year-old movie on Netflix and a literary classic to try and make sense of the turmoil. The film “12.12: The Day,” which debuted in 2023 to 13 million moviegoers, has been the No. 1 Korean film on the streaming platform since Dec. 3, when President Yoon Suk Yeol stunned the nation by imposing martial law. The 141-minute blockbuster, which has been on Netflix since May, depicts the events surrounding a Dec. 12 coup in 1979. The Asian country is still dealing with the aftermath of Yoon’s Tuesday evening decision, which reignited memories of the movement led by Gen. Chun Doo-hwan that created a dictatorship and culminated in the bloody Gwangju Uprising of 1980. Source link

The Bank of Japan must raise interest rates and continue to phase out its controversial stimulus program, Yoshihiko Noda, the leader of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), said Friday. He also said Japan needs to focus more on getting its fiscal house in order by ending big, crisis-mode spending and finding ways to boost tax revenues, such as raising the capital gains tax rate. The CDP, Japan’s largest opposition party, is expected to wield significant clout in parliament following big gains in a general election on Oct. 27 — though it remained short of a majority. Source link

The Liberal Democratic Party will hold a meeting on Dec. 20 to discuss the use of social media in election campaigns for lawmakers and local assembly members. Ahead of major polls next year, including the House of Councillors election during the summer, and that for the Tokyo metropolitan assembly, the LDP aims to win new supporters online and take measures to counter disinformation. The party will invite the heads of companies operating election-related portals and experts to serve as instructors. Lectures will cover communications via social media and their influence on voters during this summer’s Tokyo gubernatorial election, the Oct. 27 general election and the Nov. 17 Hyogo gubernatorial election. Takuya Hirai, chairman of the LDP’s public relations bureau, and Karen Makishima, director of the party’s internet media division, will attend the meeting. Both ruling and opposition parties are calling for tighter regulations on disinformation and defamation while they seek ways to actively use social media. Source link

Starbucks Coffee Japan announced Friday that it will replace paper straws with plant-based biomass plastic straws from January with the aim of reducing environmental impact and enhancing customer experience. The new straws, trademarked as Green Planet and developed by chemical manufacturing company Kaneka, are made from 99% plant-based materials such as vegetable oil. Compared to paper alternatives, they significantly cut CO2 emissions and up to 50% of waste while maintaining functionality. Colored green in line with Starbucks’ branding, the company also stated that the material is fully biodegradable in seawater and soil, addressing concerns over microplastic pollution. Source link

CHICAGO – Yoon Suk Yeol’s latest political gambit undoubtedly did not unfold as he expected. After abruptly declaring martial law on Dec. 3, South Korea’s scandal-plagued president was forced to lift the order within hours in the face of public protests and legislative opposition. He now faces an impeachment motion filed by the opposition Democratic Party, which has condemned his “insurrectionary behavior.” As of this writing, the opposition is eight votes shy of what it needs to oust Yoon. But given the artful design of South Korea’s 1987 Constitution and the country’s recent experience with impeachment, the opposition has an advantage and it stands on firm legal ground. Yoon’s removal would serve as a global example — in stark contrast to the United States — of how democracies can and should deal with those who abuse the privileges of incumbency. Source link

The Supreme Court has finalized a lower court ruling ordering a publisher to delete its lists of areas where people discriminated against as descendants of the country’s feudal outcasts live or had lived. In the lawsuit filed by people from such areas and the antidiscrimination group Buraku Liberation League, the Tokyo High Court in June 2023 ordered the publisher in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, to delete from a related website the areas where most of the individual plaintiffs are from. The plaintiffs said in the suit that the publication of the lists violated their personal rights. The high court ruling was finalized by the Supreme Court’s Third Petty Bench on Wednesday, with all five justices supporting it. According to the rulings of the high court and Tokyo District Court, the company announced in 2016 that it would publish a reprinted version of a pre-World War II survey listing areas where descendants of feudal outcasts lived. It published the lists of the areas on the website. In its September 2021 ruling, the district court determined that publishing the lists did not serve the public’s interest and violated people’s privacy. It prohibited the publication and ordered the lists of areas in 25 of 47 prefectures be deleted. After the ruling was appealed, the Tokyo High Court in the 2023 verdict said that the publisher violated the plaintiffs’ personal rights and expanded the scope of the prohibition of publication and the deletion to areas in 31 prefectures. Source link

It’s a familiar scene for Tokyoites. On a Friday night in a Shibuya convenience store, with the line several people deep and the bathrooms “out of order,” the person ahead of you clutches just two items: one shiny can of alcohol and one small brass-colored bottle. You yourself may be stepping up to the register with the very same items in a moment, a long night of drinking ahead of you. This is perhaps Japan’s most well known pre-socializing ritual: The hangover drink konbini run. Over the past several years a nascent market for pills and patches have cropped up in the U.S. promising relief from the thick dragon’s breath of the hangover. Wrapped in wellness marketing, these products promise to help the body metabolize alcohol faster and spare you from the worst in the morning. But in Japan, hangover remedies aren’t a new fad. They don’t need to rely on sleek minimalist branding or claim to be backed by science. Shijimi clams, miso soup and umeboshi (pickled plums) are old home remedies, but they don’t have their own shelves in every convenience store, drug store and supermarket. Hangover cures are everywhere in Japan, generating an estimated $397.7 million (¥52.1 billion) in revenue in 2022 and making up about 20% of the world’s hangover remedy market. Source link