Nipponica

The new yen-denominated stablecoin will be named JPYC. To peg its value to the yen, it will be backed by such highly liquid assets as deposits and government bonds. Sales are expected to begin in the weeks after registration as a money transfer business is established.

Individuals, corporations and institutional investors wanting to use the new JPYC stablecoin will be able to apply to purchase it and transfer the payment, after which it will be transferred into their electronic wallets. Uses will include such international remittances as sending money to students abroad, as well as corporate payments and the blockchain-based asset management services known as decentralized finance.

For reasons still unknown, we are being dragged into this world against our will.

Among the teachers surveyed, 3,522, or 65.6% of the total, said that they take almost no breaks in the course of a day. The percentage shoots up to 85% when teachers who break for less than 15 minutes are included. The survey results show that a mere 1.5% of the teachers are taking breaks amounting to at least 45 minutes, as stipulated under Japan’s Labor Standards Act.

Many of the survey respondents said that they are not able to go to the bathroom at school because of the lack of breaks, and as a result some teachers have suffered recurrent bladder inflammation.

And I wonder why they are having just a hard time hiring new teachers.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) said Thursday that, together with a U.S. startup, it hopes to have electric "air taxis" whizzing over Japan from as early as 2027.

ANA and California-based Joby Aviation said they will establish a joint venture with a view to deploy more than 100 of the five-seater aircraft.

An ANA spokesman said on Thursday that the aircraft, designed to carry a pilot and up to four passengers at speeds of up to 320 kph, could be in service from as early as 2027.

ANA bringing traffic jams to the skies of Tokyo Bay.

In order to replace the aged wooden building of Hatsushima Station on the Kisei Line, the building parts for the new station were produced at a plant using a 3D printer and assembled at the site in March. After assembly work, which took about six hours, ticket machines and gates were installed.

Very cool project and a good & efficient way to replace aging rail infrastructure at smaller stations.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday vowed to seek forward-looking, mutually beneficial cooperation with Japan while calling on the neighboring country to "squarely face up to" the "long and fraught" history the two countries share.

Speaking at a ceremony in Seoul to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of Japan's colonial rule, Lee said Japan is "an indispensable partner," though "unresolved" historical issues still leave some South Koreans suffering, without detailing such issues as forced labor during the colonial period.

In his first such Liberation Day speech since taking office in June, Lee pledged to hold frequent meetings and "frank dialogues" with Japan through "shuttle diplomacy" involving reciprocal visits by the two leaders, ahead of his two-day visit to Tokyo starting Saturday to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The usual issues still being pushed by the new RoK government but hopefully their pledge to continue diplomacy will move relations forward as the world reshapes itself.

Japan's immigration authority is intensifying efforts to crack down on suspected abuse of the business manager visa program, which is intended to help foreign entrepreneurs start businesses in the country.

The heightened scrutiny follows the recent arrest of a Sri Lankan national accused of assisting compatriots in illegally obtaining business manager visas through the use of fictitious companies and falsified documents.

Many experts argue that Japan's business manager visa is prone to abuse because it is subject to less oversight than other residency categories, enabling individuals to set up shell companies to help others obtain or extend visas.

Yes, people abusing the system should be found and removed from the country. But the infographic in this article shows that people on this visa are a mere fraction of the total of foreigners in the country. Good to stop the misuse of the system but I hope that these people aren't the designated scapegoats for the anti-immigrant wave.

The Japanese government plans to promote the use of generative artificial intelligence and other digital technologies to support the teaching of the Japanese language to children with foreign roots, sources close to the matter said Thursday.

Guidelines are expected to be drawn up to utilize generative AI for effective teaching methods for other subjects in addition to Japanese, amid a shortage of staff who can accommodate the native tongues of varying languages such as Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish.

This is bad. Everyone has been shitting on Duolingo for years for its gamification but it was a decent language learning app. But the quality plummeted when they went AI-first recently. Expand that enshittification to an entire cohort in Japanese schools and the results are catastrophic. I understand the issue with staffing shortages but this isn't the way.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will announce the initiative at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan, that runs from Wednesday to Aug. 22.

Japan will support efforts to link India, the Middle East and Africa. The aim is to capture demand in African emerging markets and pursue economic security aims, such as ensuring a stable supply of resources.

To increase maritime shipping in the western Indian Ocean, Tokyo will use official development assistance to help build ports and roads in East Africa.

More belts. More roads.

The number of foreign-born workers has more than quadrupled in seven Japanese prefectures compared with a decade ago, underscoring how prominent immigrants have become in supporting understaffed small-town economies.

Foreign workers are now essential participants at every link in the supply chain, from harvesting crops to processing and shipping goods to customer service and retail.

Foreigners are holding the country together and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Parties that are anti-immigrant are anti-Japan, plain and simple.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, the governor of Osaka and leader of Nippon Ishin no Kai, has suggested the possibility of making another bid for a so-called Osaka metropolis plan, an idea rejected twice in local referendums.

The long-discussed plan would scrap the city of Osaka and reorganize it into special administrative districts under Osaka Prefecture.

I’m curious to know the public’s thoughts on why the previous referendums were rejected. A reorganization might fall in the “ain’t broke, don’t fix it” bucket but perhaps increased autonomy in the wards would be better in the long run. Interested to see how this plays out again.