Japan Touts Ships Expertise, LNG Investment as Tariff Talks Key
Japan may offer financial and technical contributions ranging from investment in an Alaskan LNG pipeline project to shipbuilding expertise as it seeks to smooth the path toward a tariff deal with the US by mid-June.
Japan will tout its prowess in building ice-breakers, a growing area of need as security concerns in the Arctic region mount, while also offering to help repair US battleships that patrol the Asia-Pacific, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Sunday, as his hand-picked trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa returned to Tokyo following a third-round of discussions with US counterparts in Washington.
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CNN
37 minutes ago
- CNN
Japan's annual births fall to record low as population emergency deepens
The number of newborns in Japan is decreasing faster than projected, with the number of annual births falling to another record low last year, according to government data released Wednesday. The health ministry said 686,061 babies were born in Japan in 2024, a drop of 5.7% on the previous year and the first time the number of newborns fell below 700,000 since records began in 1899. It's the 16th straight year of decline. It's about one-quarter of the peak of 2.7 million births in 1949 during the postwar baby boom. The data in a country of rapidly aging and shrinking population adds to concern about the sustainability of the economy and national security at a time it seeks to increase defense spending. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described the situation as 'a silent emergency' and has promised to promote more flexible working environment and other measures that would help married couples to balance work and parenting, especially in rural areas where family values tend to be more conservative and harder on women. Japan is one of a number of east Asian countries grappling with falling birth rates and an aging population. South Korea and China have fought for years to encourage families to have more children. Also on Wednesday, Vietnam scrapped decades-old laws limiting families to two children in an effort to stem falling birth rates. The health ministry's latest data showed that Japan's fertility rate – the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – also fell to a new low of 1.15 in 2024, from 1.2 a year earlier. The number of marriages was slightly up, to 485,063 couples, but the downtrend since the 1970s remains unchanged. Experts say the government's measures have not addressed a growing number of young people reluctant to marry, largely focusing on already married couples. The younger generation are increasingly reluctant to marry or have children due to bleak job prospects, a high cost of living and a gender-biased corporate culture that adds extra burdens for women and working mothers, experts say. A growing number of women also cite pressure to take their husband's surname as a reason for their reluctance to marry. Under Japanese law, couples must choose a single surname to marry. Japan's population of about 124 million people is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070, with 40% of the population over 65.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Japan's annual births fall to record low as population emergency deepens
The number of newborns in Japan is decreasing faster than projected, with the number of annual births falling to another record low last year, according to government data released Wednesday. The health ministry said 686,061 babies were born in Japan in 2024, a drop of 5.7% on the previous year and the first time the number of newborns fell below 700,000 since records began in 1899. It's the 16th straight year of decline. It's about one-quarter of the peak of 2.7 million births in 1949 during the postwar baby boom. The data in a country of rapidly aging and shrinking population adds to concern about the sustainability of the economy and national security at a time it seeks to increase defense spending. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has described the situation as 'a silent emergency' and has promised to promote more flexible working environment and other measures that would help married couples to balance work and parenting, especially in rural areas where family values tend to be more conservative and harder on women. Japan is one of a number of east Asian countries grappling with falling birth rates and an aging population. South Korea and China have fought for years to encourage families to have more children. Also on Wednesday, Vietnam scrapped decades-old laws limiting families to two children in an effort to stem falling birth rates. The health ministry's latest data showed that Japan's fertility rate – the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – also fell to a new low of 1.15 in 2024, from 1.2 a year earlier. The number of marriages was slightly up, to 485,063 couples, but the downtrend since the 1970s remains unchanged. Experts say the government's measures have not addressed a growing number of young people reluctant to marry, largely focusing on already married couples. The younger generation are increasingly reluctant to marry or have children due to bleak job prospects, a high cost of living and a gender-biased corporate culture that adds extra burdens for women and working mothers, experts say. A growing number of women also cite pressure to take their husband's surname as a reason for their reluctance to marry. Under Japanese law, couples must choose a single surname to marry. Japan's population of about 124 million people is projected to fall to 87 million by 2070, with 40% of the population over 65.
CBS News
an hour ago
- CBS News
Private Japanese lunar lander closing in on unexplored top of the moon
A private lunar lander from Japan is closing in on the moon, aiming for a touchdown in the unexplored far north with a mini rover. The moon landing attempt by Tokyo-based company ispace on Friday Japan time is the latest entry in the rapidly expanding commercial lunar rush. This image provided by ispace, inc. shows the Resilience lander circling the moon on June 4, 2025. ispace, inc. via AP The encore comes two years after the company's first moonshot ended in a crash landing, giving rise to the name Resilience for its successor lander. Resilience holds a rover with a shovel to gather lunar dirt as well as a Swedish artist's toy-size red house that will be lowered onto the moon's dusty surface. Long the province of governments, the moon became a target of private outfits in 2019, with more flops than wins along the way. Launched in January from Florida on a long, roundabout journey, Resilience entered lunar orbit last month. It shared a SpaceX ride with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which reached the moon faster and became the first private entity to successfully land there in March. Another U.S. company, Intuitive Machines, arrived at the moon a few days after Firefly. But the tall, spindly lander face-planted in a crater near the moon's south pole and was declared dead within hours. Resilience is targeting the top of the moon, a less forbidding place than the shadowy bottom. The ispace team chose a flat area with few boulders in Mare Frigoris or Sea of Cold, a long and narrow region full of craters and ancient lava flows that stretches across the near side's northern tier. Once settled with power and communication flowing, the 7.5-foot Resilience will lower the piggybacking rover onto the lunar surface. Made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with four wheels, ispace's European-built rover - named Tenacious - sports a high-definition camera to scout out the area and a shovel to scoop up some lunar dirt for NASA. The rover, weighing just 11 pounds, will stick close to the lander, going in circles at a speed of less than one inch per second. Besides science and tech experiments, there's an artistic touch. The rover holds a tiny, Swedish-style red cottage with white trim and a green door, dubbed the Moonhouse by creator Mikael Genberg for placement on the lunar surface. Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of ispace, considers the latest moonshot "merely a steppingstone," with its next, much bigger lander launching by 2027 with NASA involvement, and even more to follow. "We're not trying to corner the market. We're trying to build the market," Jeremy Fix, chief engineer for ispace's U.S. subsidiary, said at a conference last month. "It's a huge market, a huge potential." Fix noted that ispace, like other businesses, does not have "infinite funds" and cannot afford repeated failures. While not divulging the cost of the current mission, company officials said it's less than the first one, which exceeded $100 million. Two other U.S. companies are aiming for moon landings by year's end: Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Astrobotic Technology. Astrobotic's first lunar lander missed the moon altogether in 2024 and came crashing back through Earth's atmosphere. For decades, governments competed to get to the moon. Only five countries have pulled off successful robotic lunar landings: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. Of those, only the U.S. has landed people on the moon: 12 NASA astronauts from 1969 through 1972. NASA expects to send four astronauts around the moon next year. That would be followed a year or more later by the first lunar landing by a crew in more than a half-century, with SpaceX's Starship providing the lift from lunar orbit all the way down to the surface. China also has moon landing plans for its own astronauts by 2030.
