Japan

TOKYO/SEOUL, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Flights were cancelled and trains halted on Wednesday as heavy rain from Typhoon Khanun pounded southern regions of Japan and South Korea, just as another storm approached from the east to threaten Tokyo ahead of Japan's peak summer holiday season.

Khanun could make landfall at the southeastern South Korean port city of Tongyeong on Thursday, before tracking up the Korean peninsula, authorities said.

TOKYO (AP) — Sony’s April-June profit slipped 17% from a year earlier, as worries grew about revenue damage from a strike in the movie sector, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said Wednesday.

Tokyo-based Sony Corp.’s fiscal first quarter profit totaled 217 billion yen ($1.5 billion), down from 261 billion yen a year ago.

Quarterly sales rose 33% to 2.96 trillion yen ($21 billion), as sales for the period grew in games and network services, the music business, financial services and imaging solutions.

TOKYO (AP) — Toshiba announced a 2 trillion yen ($14 billion) tender offer on Monday in a move that would take it private, as the scandal-tarnished Japanese electronics and energy giant seeks to turn itself around.

The tender offer led by a buyout fund of major Japanese banks and companies called Japan Industrial Partners starts Tuesday and is priced at 4,620 yen ($32) a share.

Chairperson Akihiro Watanabe asked shareholders to back the proposal, saying it is the only option for Toshiba Corp. to return to its former strength.

TOKYO, August 6. /TASS/: The shadow of nuclear war has re-emerged now that some countries are threatening to use nuclear weapons, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his message.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Friday he hopes to discuss further strengthening of three-way strategic cooperation with leaders of the United States and South Korea at a summit hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden at Camp David later this month.

The Aug. 18 summit with Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is the first stand-alone summit among leaders of the three countries, not in connection with international meetings.

TOKYO, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Japan's average retail gasoline price has climbed to its highest level in 15 years, official data showed Wednesday, as the government's subsidy to prevent price hikes has been progressively reduced.

As of Monday, The average price for regular gasoline stood at 176.70 yen (1.24 U.S. dollars) per liter, advancing 1.90 yen from July 24 and hitting its highest level since August 2008, according to the country's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

TOKYO, July 31 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese finance ministry on Monday reported a surplus of 3.48 trillion yen (about 24.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the country's special account for forex funds in the fiscal year of 2022.

Intended for specific purposes such as currency interventions, the amount registered during the fiscal period from April 2022 to March 2023 was about 641 billion yen more than the government's initial estimate.

Analysts here believe this would prompt calls for the government's plans to increase taxes to be delayed, local media reported.

TOKYO, July 27. /TASS/: On July 26 in Pyongyang North Korean leader Kim Jong-un received a Russian military delegation led by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The meeting will serve to further deepen ties between Russia and North Korea. According to the KCNA, the Russian Defense Minister handed a personal message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong-un. It is noted that the North Korean leader expressed gratitude for the message. Also, according to the agency, Shoigu and Kim Jong-un exchanged gifts.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s population declined in all of its 47 prefectures for the first time in a record drop, while its number of foreign residents hit a new high, reaching almost 3 million people, according to government data released Wednesday, highlighting the increasing role that non-Japanese people play in the shrinking and aging country.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police said they arrested a woman and her parents in a beheading case in a popular night entertainment district in Japan’s northern city of Sapporo, where a headless man was found in a hotel room three weeks ago.

Hokkaido police on Japan’s northern main island said Tuesday they arrested Runa Tamura, 29, and her father Osamu Tamura, a 59-year-old psychiatrist, the day before on suspicion of conspiring in beheading the victim at a hotel room and relocating his severed head in the middle of the night between July 1 and July 2.