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Kyodo News Digest: July 16, 2025

Kyodo News Digest: July 16, 2025

Kyodo News5 days ago
TOKYO - The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Toyota subsidiary mulls producing EV batteries in China
NAGOYA - A hybrid car battery subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp. is considering manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles at its factory in China amid the rapid spread of EVs in the country, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday.
Prime Planet Energy & Solutions, Inc. currently operates three buildings at its Dalian factory to produce batteries for hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrids. The local government is looking to build and lease out a fourth facility at the site for PPES, the sources said.
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Nagasaki A-bomb ceremony set to see record international attendance
NAGASAKI - The mayor of Nagasaki said Tuesday that a record 107 countries and regions, along with the European Union, have signaled plans to attend this year's ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city in August.
The previous record was set last year, when 100 nations and regions, plus the EU, took part. Mayor Shiro Suzuki said the city will announce the list of participants later, after sending invitations to all those with diplomatic missions in Japan.
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Trump says Indonesia to face 19% tariff under trade deal
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has struck a trade deal with Indonesia, under which goods from the Southeast Asian country will face a lowered tariff rate of 19 percent.
In exchange for sharply reducing the rate, Trump told reporters at the White House, the United States will have full market access to Indonesia.
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China's Xi, Australian PM seek trade expansion amid Trump tariffs
BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese indicated their willingness to boost bilateral trade on Tuesday, according to their governments, as the two countries face steep tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
During a meeting with Albanese at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Xi hailed the improvement in Sino-Australian ties, saying their relationship has risen from "setback and turned around, bringing tangible benefits" to both peoples.
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Typhoon Nari makes landfall on Japan's Hokkaido, 1st time since 2016
TOKYO - Typhoon Nari crossed the Hokkaido coast on Tuesday, making it the first landfall by a typhoon on Japan's northernmost main island since 2016, before weakening to a storm, the weather agency said.
The typhoon made landfall near Cape Erimo at the southern tip of Hokkaido around 2 a.m., according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
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Body of man found in Tokyo home in suspected suicide by hunting gun
TOKYO - The body of a man who died in a suspected suicide was found in his Tokyo home on Tuesday evening, after police hours earlier received a call from someone saying they intended to use a hunting gun to end their life.
The Metropolitan Police Department briefly restricted access to the vicinity of the residence in the Japanese capital's Adachi Ward and urged neighbors not to leave their homes.
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Hunter missing on Hokkaido mountain after brown bear sighting nearby
SAPPORO - A male hunter in his 50s has gone missing on Mt. Esan in Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, local authorities said Tuesday, raising concern over his safety as a brown bear was sighted in the area three days earlier.
Police and firefighters have launched a search operation, said authorities in Hakodate, where the 618-meter mountain is located close to a number of residential areas and schools.
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Football: Germain nets again, Japan beat S. Korea in East Asian final
YONGIN, South Korea - Ryo Germain built on his impressive form with an early strike as Japan held on to beat South Korea 1-0 to claim their second successive East Asian E-1 men's football championship on Tuesday.
Germain scored his fifth goal of the tournament just eight minutes into the winner-take-all finale, volleying in a cross from Yuki Soma at Yongin Mireu Stadium in a Seoul suburb.
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Video: Hakata Gion Festival in Fukuoka
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Trump says he will help Afghans stuck in the UAE
Trump says he will help Afghans stuck in the UAE

Japan Today

time3 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Trump says he will help Afghans stuck in the UAE

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a dinner with Republican Senators, in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon/File Photo By Doina Chiacu President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would help Afghans detained in the United Arab Emirates for years after fleeing their country when the United States pulled out and the Taliban took power. Trump, a Republican who promised a far-reaching immigration crackdown, suspended refugee resettlement after he took office in January. In April, the Trump administration terminated temporary deportation protections for thousands of Afghans in the U.S. "I will try to save them, starting right now," Trump said in a post on Truth Social that linked to an article on the Afghans held in limbo there. Trump cited news website "Just the News" as saying that UAE officials were preparing to hand over some Afghan refugees to the Taliban. Reuters has not confirmed the report. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The UAE, a close security partner of the United States, agreed in 2021 to temporarily house several thousand Afghans evacuated from Kabul as the Taliban ousted the U.S.-backed government during the final stages of the U.S.-led withdrawal. Nearly 200,000 Afghans were brought to the U.S. by former President Joe Biden's administration since the chaotic U.S. troop withdrawal from Kabul. Canada agreed in 2022 to resettle about 1,000 of the Afghans still held in the UAE after a U.S. request. It is unclear how many remain in the Gulf country. Some countries have forced Afghan refugees to return to Afghanistan. Nearly 2 million Afghans were returned from Iran and Pakistan in the past seven months, the United Nations said last week. Germany on Friday deported 81 Afghan men to Afghanistan amid a tightening of refugee admissions. Some other European countries are pushing to tighten asylum rules in the bloc. In the United States, Democrats have urged Trump to restore temporary protected status for Afghans, saying women and children could face particular harm under the Taliban-led government in place since 2021. Refugees include family members of Afghan-American U.S. military personnel, children cleared to reunite with their parents, relatives of Afghans already admitted and tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the 20-year war. Shawn VanDiver, president of the #AfghanEvac advocacy group, urged Trump to follow up on his post with action. "President Trump has the authority to do the right thing. He should instruct DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and the Department of State to expedite processing, push for third-country partnerships, and ensure that we never again leave our wartime allies behind," he said in a statement. © Thomson Reuters 2025.

Russia insists on achieving Ukraine goals despite Trump's ultimatum
Russia insists on achieving Ukraine goals despite Trump's ultimatum

Japan Today

time3 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Russia insists on achieving Ukraine goals despite Trump's ultimatum

FILE - In this photo taken from video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, July 17, 2025, a Russian self-propelled multiple rocket launcher fires towards a Ukrainian position in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, file) Russia is open to peace with Ukraine but achieving its goals remains a priority, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday, days after U.S. President Donald Trump gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to agree to a ceasefire or face tougher sanctions. Peskov and other Russian officials have repeatedly rejected accusations from Kyiv and its Western partners of stalling peace talks. Meanwhile, Moscow continues to intensify its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities, launching more drones in a single night than it did during some entire months in 2024, and analysts say the barrages are likely to escalate. 'President (Vladimir) Putin has repeatedly spoken of his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible. This is a long process, it requires effort, and it is not easy,' Peskov told state TV reporter Pavel Zarubin. 'The main thing for us is to achieve our goals. Our goals are clear,' he added. The Kremlin has insisted that any peace deal should see Ukraine withdraw from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022, but never fully captured. It also wants Ukraine to renounce its bid to join NATO and accept strict limits on its armed forces — demands Kyiv and its Western allies have rejected. In his nightly address Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his officials have proposed a new round of peace talks this week. Russian state media on Sunday reported that no date has yet been set for the negotiations, but said Istanbul would likely remain the host city. Trump threatened Russia on July 14 with steep tariffs and announced a rejuvenated pipeline for American weapons to reach Ukraine, hardening his stance toward Moscow after months of frustration following unsuccessful negotiations aimed at ending the war. The direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Istanbul resulted in several rounds of prisoner exchanges but little else. Trump said he would implement 'severe tariffs' unless a peace deal is reached within 50 days. He provided few details on how they would be implemented, but suggested they would target Russia's trading partners in an effort to isolate Moscow in the global economy. In addition, Trump said European allies would buy 'billions and billions' of dollars of U.S. military equipment to be transferred to Ukraine, replenishing the besieged country's supplies of weapons. Included in the plan are Patriot air defense systems, a top priority for Ukraine as it fends off Russian drones and missiles. Doubts were recently raised about Trump's commitment to supply Ukraine when the Pentagon paused shipments over concerns that U.S. stockpiles were running low. Elsewhere, Ukraine's air force said it shot down 18 of 57 Shahed-type and decoy drones launched by Russia overnight into Sunday, with 7 more disappearing from radar. Two women were injured in Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian region partly occupied by Russia, when a drone struck their house, according to the regional military administration. Two more civilians were injured in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv province, after a drone slammed into a residential building, local Ukrainian officials said. Later Sunday, drones struck a leafy square in the center of Sumy, wounding a woman and her 7-year-old son, officials said. The strike also damaged a power line, leaving some 100 households without electricity, according to Serhii Krivosheienko of the municipal military administration. Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces overnight shot down 93 Ukrainian drones targeting Russian territory, including at least 15 that appeared to head for Moscow. Ten more drones were downed on the approach to the capital Sunday, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. He said that one drone struck a residential building in Zelenograd, on the outskirts of Moscow, damaging an apartment but causing no casualties. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Trump tariffs spell trouble for Hawaii's few coffee farmers
Trump tariffs spell trouble for Hawaii's few coffee farmers

Japan Times

time16 hours ago

  • Japan Times

Trump tariffs spell trouble for Hawaii's few coffee farmers

Hawaiian coffee farmers have a message for President Donald Trump: Steep tariffs on major exporters such as Brazil will end up hurting them, too. Hawaii at first glance might seem the obvious beneficiary of tariffs on coffee. It is the only state in the country where the tropical goods grow, with the vast majority of java imbibed by Americans imported from South America and Vietnam. Higher-priced foreign imports should, in theory, make the island state's products comparatively more affordable. But growers say the opposite is true: rising prices across the board will hit consumers already struggling with inflation, curbing demand on everything from popular everyday roasts available at grocery stores to luxury Kona beans. While the discourse around trade and Trump's "Buy American' mantra could draw attention to Hawaiian goods, the upshot for the state's farmers is that "tariffs will probably hurt us as much as it would hurt the mainland roasters,' said Suzanne Shriner, the vice president of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association and the president of Lions Gate Farms. Brazil and Vietnam are the world's top coffee producers, and Trump has threatened a 50% and 20% levy on those countries, respectively, though Vietnamese officials have said negotiations are ongoing. Brazil, for its part, is weighing countermeasures and could ask for a reduction in the levies. But if tariffs hold, even at a lower rate, they would be a blow to U.S. consumers and companies that have already faced surging costs over the last year as poor weather impacted global coffee production. Americans' beloved morning cup of joe could get even more expensive as the cost of tariffs start getting passed down to consumers, and that could risk a ripple effect of decreased consumption. "Any time you drive up costs to the point where buyers reduce their demand, if people leave the coffee market in the sense that they'll switch to an energy drink versus a cup of coffee, that's going to harm us,' said Shriner. Starbucks Corp. could take about a 1.4% earnings hit if tariffs on Brazil increase from the current 10% to 50%, according to TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles, who estimates that more than 20% of the roaster's North American beans come from Brazil. Starbucks had boosted lobbying spending earlier this year to the second-highest quarterly amount on record, noting tariff-related issues. Trump has said his tariff campaign is aimed at rewriting trade practices he thinks are unfair to the U.S. and encouraging a reshoring of production, from cars to metals mining. Coffee, however, is not an imported commodity that can easily be replaced. The owner of Kona Star Farms rakes coffee beans that are laid out for drying at his farm in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in October 2007. | BLOOMBERG "Unlike other cases where tariffs may address unfair practices or incentivize domestic producers, coffee simply cannot be grown in most of the United States,' National Coffee Association president Bill Murray wrote in a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative requesting an exemption from tariffs back in March. Coffee is more popular in the U.S. than even bottled water, with two-thirds of Americans drinking it every day. Those drinkers average three cups daily, according to the National Coffee Association. The U.S. imported more than 450,000 tons of unroasted coffee from Brazil in 2024, valued at nearly $2 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hawaii is seen producing just 12,040 tons of coffee cherries in the 2024-2025 season, a figure that will shrink once the cherries are processed into beans, USDA data shows. Such production "is not anywhere near the scale required' to meet U.S. demand, Murray said in the letter. The association declined to comment on the latest Brazil tariffs. Hawaiian farmers don't see much room to expand production significantly, constrained by land, labor and climate. But demand has plenty of space to drop, especially if consumers decide that their "affordable luxury' isn't cost-effective anymore. "If they like drinking their Starbucks and then they come to Hawaii and they're like, 'Oh, I'll get the good stuff,' that's awesome. But if we price them out of a coffee at home, then we're going to price them out of exotic coffees too,' said Adam Potter, who owns or manages about 18,000 cocoa trees on the Big Island and farms another 3,000 coffee trees. Economists and consumers have been bracing for higher prices stemming from Trump's tariff campaign. So far, the impact has been relatively muted, though June's consumer price index, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, showed some companies are starting to pass on higher import costs. Hawaiian coffee farmers received about $21.90 per pound for green coffee in the 2024-2025 marketing year, according to the USDA. By the time that makes it to consumers, the best quality beans can cost even more. A pound of roasted coffee from Ka'awaloa Trail Farm in Big Island's famed Kona coffee-growing region retails for $60. Even at a current record high in data going back to 1980, a pound of ground roast coffee in the U.S. averaged just over $8 a pound, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If the price of, let's say, Maxwell House, doubles at the grocery store, I don't think people are going to be like, 'Oh, now I'm going to buy Kona coffee,'' said Tony Tate, who along with his partner runs Ka'awaloa, a 7-acre coffee and cacao farm. The chocolate industry has also been pushing for an exemption from tariffs. Hawaii's cocoa production is barely existent, not even topping 50 tons of dry beans in 2022. The U.S. imported nearly 200,000 tons of cocoa beans last year — and that's already after a significant drop due to lower global production, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hershey Co. said in May that it would seek an exemption, citing as much as $20 million in tariff costs during the second quarter. Unmitigated impacts could rise to $100 million later in the year after working through existing inventories, the company said. A tariff would have to be "so high, like hundreds of percent, to make it start to be competitive — and then there'd be no chocolate,' said Mānoa Chocolate founder Dylan Butterbaugh. The company uses both Hawaiian and imported beans to produce about 50 tons of chocolate each year. Lonohana Estate Chocolate's plans to expand are also being stymied. The Honolulu-based company already grows raw cacao and churns out cocoa liquor every day, and is trying to take on the next step of processing — extracting butter and powder from the liquid. But Trump's levies on China, the only country currently making new machines in the necessary size, have complicated the project, said founder Seneca Klassen. "Not only has the machinery come up in price, the instability of the marketplace has to be priced into financing,' he said. "Everything gets more expensive, everything gets less reliable. It's just bad news for business.'

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