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SEOUL – South Korea’s parliament introduced a motion on Thursday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over a botched attempt to impose martial law, but his party vowed to oppose the move, throwing the process into doubt. Lawmakers could vote for the bill as early as Friday. Yoon’s ruling People Power Party said it would oppose it but the party has been divided over the crisis. The opposition Democratic Party, which has a majority in parliament, needs at least eight ruling party lawmakers to back the bill in order for it to pass. “The Yoon Suk Yeol regime’s declaration of emergency martial law caused great confusion and fear among our people,” Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won told a session of South Korea’s National Assembly held in the early hours of Thursday. Source link

PARIS – French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government on Wednesday, throwing the European Union’s second-biggest economic power deeper into a crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and tame a massive budget deficit. Far-right and left-leaning lawmakers joined forces to back a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Michel Barnier, with a majority 331 votes in support of the motion. Barnier now has to tender his resignation and that of his government to President Emmanuel Macron, making his minority government’s three-month tenure the shortest lived in France’s Fifth Republic, beginning in 1958. He is expected to do so on Thursday morning, French media reported. Source link

Ryo Takebayashi’s documentary profiles the residents of a group home, but shies away from making emphatic statements about the circumstances that brought them there. Source link

British Japanese director Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s documentaries are a process of trying to understand the culture in which she grew up. “Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams” (2019) used a high school baseball tournament as a window into Japanese society. “Monk by Blood” (2013) and “Temple Family” (2021) meditated on the age-old tussle between tradition and progress, via the story of a priest-to-be with a taste for DJing. For her latest feature, Yamazaki spent a year filming at an elementary school in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, with the aim of showing how the citizens of tomorrow are formed. Her thesis, echoed by various characters in the documentary, is that primary education in Japan is about more than just academic subjects: It’s teaching students how to live in society. Starting in spring 2021, “The Making of a Japanese” is an intimate chronicle of a turbulent year defined by the strictures of the coronavirus pandemic. Face masks are mandatory, even outdoors; hand sanitizer is omnipresent. Teachers get to grips with using Zoom during classes, to varying degrees of success. While posing for a photo with another student on the first day of school, a 6-year-old grumbles that he can’t socially distance. Source link

East Japan Railway (JR East) will raise its standard fares as early as March 2026 to secure funds for capital investment, at a time when riders are decreasing due to a shrinking population. Prices of commuter and student passes are also expected to go up in the first full-fledged fare hike by the railroad operator since its creation through the Japanese National Railways’ privatization in 1987, it was learned on Wednesday. According to people familiar with the matter, the Yamanote Line’s base fare will be raised from ¥150 to ¥160. JR East plans to file its fare hike application with the transport ministry in the near future. The company will be able to carry out the markup upon approval by the Transport Council. Among JR Group companies, Hokkaido Railway and Kyushu Railway are scheduled to increase their standard fares by 8% and 15% on average, respectively, in April next year. Source link

Japan’s Nippon Steel is committed to its $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel and is confident of completing it by year-end, a senior executive has said, despite strong U.S. opposition including from President-elect Donald Trump. “We will not give up on the deal. … There is no global strategy without the U.S.,” Nippon Steel Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori said this week, after returning from his eighth visit to the United States since the deal was announced a year ago. With U.S. Steel, Nippon Steel aims to raise its global steel production capacity to 85 million metric tons per year from 65 million tons now and the asset is core to its goal of lifting production capacity to more than 100 million tons in the long-term. Source link

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is planning to visit Japan next week to meet with Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, it was learned Wednesday. Through the visit, Japan and the U.S. aim to confirm their intention to further beef up their alliance before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, Japanese government sources said. Austin and Nakatani met in Italy in October and in Australia last month, so they will be meeting for the third consecutive month if Austin makes the visit. The defense chiefs are seen agreeing on the need to continue the strengthening of deterrence and response capabilities, promoted under the administration of current U.S. President Joe Biden, as North Korea continues its nuclear and missile development and as China ramps up coercive actions. They are also expected to agree on deepening defense cooperation in the domain of space, after the U.S. Space Force’s Japan unit, set up at the Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, officially began operations Wednesday. Source link

London – Panasonic has started a test run of facilities installed at a microwave oven plant in the United Kingdom to allow the plant to run solely on renewable energy. Panasonic installed a system to generate power using green hydrogen, produced without causing carbon dioxide emissions. It is the world’s first power generation system using pure hydrogen fuel cells that run on green hydrogen, according to the company. At the plant in Cardiff, Wales, operations powered solely by renewable energy will begin in March next year. Using hydrogen sourced in Wales, the power generation system combines 21 fuel cell generators, two lithium storage batteries and existing solar panels. The system is designed to provide the stable generation and distribution of 1 gigawatt-hours of power needed annually for assembling microwave ovens at the plant, through Panasonic’s own control system using artificial intelligence technology. Waste heat generated during power generation is to be used to provide heating at the plant. Panasonic plans to hold similar trials at other locations in Europe, aiming to establish a business centered around the power generation system as early as 2030. In March next year, Panasonic will install a similar power generation system at a plant in Germany. “We’ll collect and analyze energy management data from the trial runs to provide (energy) management methods suitable for each individual location,” Panasonic CEO Masahiro Shinada said. Source link

WASHINGTON – Less than a month after his victory, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has assembled a team ready to carry out two of his biggest priorities: retribution against his political adversaries and a wholesale reshaping of the U.S. government. Trump’s pick of former White House deputy Kash Patel to lead the crime-fighting FBI brought into sharper focus the president-elect’s seriousness about striking back at those he believes have wronged him. Patel is an outspoken critic of the bureau who has vowed to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. He is also the latest of a host of nominees who reflect Trump’s preference for outsiders with a wrecking-ball mentality over practiced Washington hands, people who could disrupt the system from the inside and transform government in a way that may be unprecedented in modern times. Source link

Junichi Inamoto announced his retirement at age 45 on Wednesday, ending a career that saw the midfielder become the first Japanese player to appear in the Premier League. Inamoto joined Arsenal in 2001 but had to wait until moving to Fulham a year later before he made his debut in England’s top flight, where he also played for West Bromwich Albion. He became a national hero when he scored twice at the 2002 World Cup on home soil, including the winner against Russia in Japan’s first-ever victory at the tournament. He also played in Turkey, Germany and France before returning to his home country in 2010. The final years of his career were spent playing for Nankatsu SC, the Japanese fifth-tier club owned by the creator of the popular anime “Captain Tsubasa.” “Of course the environment at Arsenal and Nankatsu SC is completely different, but you have one ball and soccer as a sport doesn’t change,” Inamoto, who played at three World Cups and won 82 caps for Japan, told reporters. Inamoto managed only a handful of cup games during his one season with Arsenal, amid doubts that he could adapt to the Premier League. But his sensational performances at the 2002 World Cup earned him another chance with Fulham, after leading Japan to the knockout round for the first time. “Those games were the launchpad for my name to be known around the world,” said Inamoto. “I was already at Arsenal by then but those goals had a tremendous impact.” Source link