Kyodo News Digest: May 13, 2025
KYODO NEWS - 1 hour ago - 20:30 | All, World, Japan
The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Nissan logs 670.9 bil. yen loss in FY 2024, lifts job cuts to 20,000
TOKYO - Nissan Motor Co. logged a net loss of 670.90 billion yen ($4.5 billion) Tuesday for fiscal 2024 as it continues to grapple with poor sales in the United States and China, and increased the number of planned job cuts to 20,000 globally as part of its restructuring.
The reduction in the workforce, representing around 15 percent of the company's total, comes as Nissan is set to reduce the number of its vehicle production plants from 17 to 10, including some possibly in Japan, by fiscal 2027. It also plans to reduce global output capacity excluding China by 30 percent to 2.5 million units also by that target year.
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SoftBank Group returns to black for 1st time in 4 yrs on stock rally
TOKYO - SoftBank Group Corp. said Tuesday it swung back to profitability in fiscal 2024 for the first time in four years with a net profit of 1.15 trillion yen ($7.8 billion) due to a rise in the value of its investment portfolio.
The turnaround by the Japanese tech investment firm, on the back of a global stock rally, comes after it had marked a loss of 227.65 billion yen the previous year.
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Japanese novelist Yuzuki's "Butter" wins British book award
TOKYO - Japanese novel "Butter" by Asako Yuzuki has won the debut fiction section at the 2025 British Book Awards, its Japanese publisher said Tuesday, as translations of the work enjoy a boom in critical and commercial recognition abroad.
Yuzuki's novel, her first to be published in Britain, received the award on Monday local time, Shinchosha said.
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Honda expects 70% drop in FY 2025 profit amid U.S. tariff woes
TOKYO - Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday it expects its net profit for the current fiscal year starting April to plunge 70.1 percent from a year earlier to 250 billion yen ($1.7 billion), amid economic uncertainty caused by U.S. President Donald Trump's higher tariffs.
Japan's second-largest carmaker by volume also said its sales are projected at 20.3 trillion yen, down 6.4 percent from the previous year, with concern mounting that the tariffs could weigh on corporate performance and deal a heavy blow to the global economy.
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Japan ground force to train with S. Korea marines for 1st time
TOKYO - The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force said Tuesday it will conduct training with South Korean marines for the first time in early June on the occasion of a multinational defense exercise in the Philippines.
The move comes as the two countries are enhancing their defense cooperation bilaterally as well as trilaterally with the United States amid North Korea's nuclear and missile development and China's maritime assertiveness. Last year, Japanese and South Korea defense ministers agreed to boost exchanges, including between their troops.
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Replica of Nobel Prize medal on display at museum in Hiroshima
HIROSHIMA - Replicas of the Nobel Peace Prize medal and certificate awarded last year to Japan's leading group of atomic bomb survivors went on display at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on Tuesday.
Toshiyuki Mimaki, a representative of Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, visited the museum, viewing the display while recalling the moment the group was honored with the award. The showing runs until Aug. 31.
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Albanese of Australia's Labor Party sworn in for 2nd term as PM
SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Cabinet were sworn in Tuesday following his ruling Labor Party's landslide victory in the country's May 3 election.
Albanese took office for his second term as the country's election commission continues the vote counting. The commission said the center-left Labor Party is so far on track to win 94 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, up from 78 in the last parliament, and the opposition Liberal-National coalition 43.
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Suspected unexploded wartime bomb found on Hiroshima Univ. campus
HIROSHIMA - An object believed to be an unexploded wartime bomb was discovered Tuesday on a Hiroshima University campus in western Japan, police said.
The object around 90 centimeters long and 25 cm in diameter was found at about 10:20 a.m. at a construction site on the university's Kasumi campus in Hiroshima's Minami Ward.
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Trump to attend NATO summit in the Netherlands later this month
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Donald Trump will participate in this year's NATO summit to be held June 24-25 in The Hague, the Netherlands, the White House said Tuesday. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt made the announcement during a press briefing at a time when there has been little progress on Trump's goal of achieving a cease-fire in Russia's war on Ukraine. Ukraine, which is desperate for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has been invited to the two-day summit of the military alliance of countries from Europe and North America. Last year, former U.S. President Joe Biden hosted a NATO summit in Washington commemorating the 75th anniversary of the transatlantic alliance. Unlike Biden, Trump is known as a skeptic of NATO and has a long track record of insisting that other members of the alliance increase their defense spending. In recent years, NATO has been deepening ties with its four Indo-Pacific partners -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea -- in the face of mutual security challenges stemming from nondemocratic countries such as China, North Korea and Russia. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is considering attending the forthcoming NATO summit. If Ishiba takes part, it will be the fourth straight year the sitting Japanese leader has done so.
