Japan Financial News

NASA astronauts stranded in space launched to the International Space Station on Friday evening, setting the stage for their colleagues' return after nine months. SpaceX must deliver this replacement team before Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams can depart. The new crew is expected to arrive late Saturday night. To ensure proper handover of space station operations, NASA requires an overlap period between the crews. This arrangement would enable Wilmore and Williams to depart next week and land off Florida's coast, subject to weather conditions. Astronauts who arrived on a SpaceX rescue mission in September will accompany the pair back to Earth, using two seats previously allocated for their return journey. The fresh crew, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, comprises NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers (both military pilots), alongside Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (both former airline pilots). They will undertake a standard six-month mission after facilitating Wilmore and Williams' departure.

Japan's largest labor union group said its workers secured the highest pay deal in more than three decades, supporting the case for further gradual interest rate hikes from the Bank of Japan. Labor unions under the federation known as Rengo have so far secured a pay gain of 5.46% on average in ongoing annual wage negotiations, according to its initial tally released on Friday. That's the highest level since 1991 when compared with past final tally figures, and exceeded last year's initial reading of 5.28%.

A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored a February Japan-U.S. statement in condemning «coercion» toward Taiwan, language that heartened Taipei in its increasingly tense standoffs with Beijing. Compared to a G7 foreign ministers' statement in November, the statement added members' concerns over China's nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing's human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for «constructive and stable relations with China» and recognizing the «importance of direct and candid engagement to express concerns and manage differences.» The statement dropped past reassurances, recently stated in November, that there is «no change in the basic position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including stated One-China policies,» as well as that the G7 is «not decoupling or turning inwards» and recognizing the importance of China in global trade.

A Japanese rock band opened for a German post-punk trio followed by an alternative group from New Zealand. And that was just day one at the New Colossus Festival, held last week. The six-day event takes its name from the poem cast on the Statue of Liberty, viewed as a welcome message for new immigrants: «Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses....»

Diplomats from three countries said they believed they were 99 per cent of the way toward completing a joint statement that would reflect the group's positions. «There is a great deal of unity within the G7,» Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Friday. «We talked about many different things.… We support the US proposal for a ceasefire, which is supported by the Ukrainians, and we are waiting for the Russian response.» British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the group arrived at common positions on Ukraine, the Middle East, wars in Africa and Chinese activity in the South China Sea.

Meeting at a rustic hotel in rural Quebec, G7 foreign ministers also backed Ukraine's fight for its «territorial integrity» and spoke of Russia's «aggression,» terminology earlier eschewed by Trump as he reached out to Moscow. The consensus on Ukraine came despite mounting tension within the G7 — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States as Trump slaps punishing tariffs on allies and questions the very sovereignty of host Canada. A G7 statement backed a US-led call for a 30-day truce embraced by Ukraine and «called for Russia to reciprocate by agreeing to a ceasefire on equal terms and implementing it fully.» «They discussed imposing further costs on Russia in case such a ceasefire is not agreed, including through further sanctions, caps on oil prices, as well as additional support for Ukraine, and other means,» such as using frozen Russian assets.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Alcohol has landed on the front lines of a global trade war, throwing French wines, Irish whiskeys, Kentucky bourbon, Japanese beer and Mexican tequila into the crossfire between the U.S. and its biggest trading partners.

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compressor shortage seems to have been well managed. The industry faced a shortage of high-value intermediaries, i.e., compressors and copper during 3QFY25 which came as a surprise to the manufacturers as BIS certifications for certain players were not extended and imports got impacted.

US equity-index futures climbed Friday as signs the US will avoid a government shutdown injected a boost to sentiment. Shares in Japan retraced early losses while those in Australia also climbed higher along with indexes in Hong Kong. Futures contracts for US equities advanced early Friday as a stopgap funding bill looked set to pass and avoid a US government shutdown. The S&P 500 dropped 1.4% on Thursday to a six-month low, bringing its three-week rout past 10% — a correction in trader parlance. The Nasdaq 100, also in a correction, fell 1.9%.

G7 nations were set to negotiate late into the night over a joint statement to show a united front in Canada on Thursday after weeks of tension between U.S. allies and President Donald Trump over his upending of Western trade and security policy. The Group of Seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, along with the European Union, convened in the remote tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled in the Quebec hills, for meetings on Thursday and Friday that in the past have been broadly consensual. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed his colleagues on talks on Tuesday with Ukraine in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Kyiv said it was ready to support a 30-day ceasefire deal. But officials said ambiguous comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin left delegates unclear where things stood. In the run-up to the first G7 meeting of Canada's presidency, the crafting of an agreed all-encompassing final statement had been tough, but diplomats said the atmosphere since had been positive and candid.

retaliatory tariffs until Washington shows respect.

Eight of the top ten IT stocks have entered bear market territory, including Infosys, HCLTech, and Tech Mahindra. LTIMindtree experienced the most significant drop from peak levels, falling 33%, while Wipro, though performing relatively better, still saw a 16% decline.

Elon Musk has once again drawn attention to South Korea’s falling birth rates, calling the situation a “catastrophic population collapse.” The billionaire entrepreneur made the statement in response to a post on X (formerly Twitter) that included a stark visualisation of the country’s demographic crisis. The highlighted portion of the post read: “In South Korea, where the total fertility rate is the lowest in the world at 0.68, every 200 fertile-age adults can expect to give life to 68 children; those children will produce 23 grandchildren, who will result in only eight great-grandchildren. That’s a 96 percent population decline over the course of three generations, and that’s if fertility stops decreasing and finally holds steady.” A user reacted to the alarming statistics by stating, “This is such an insane thing to visualise.” Musk replied with a brief but pointed response: “Catastrophic population collapse.”

Bank of Japan chief bolstered rate hike expectations. The Nikkei closed 0.08% lower at 36,790.03, after rising as much as 1.4% earlier in the session to track Wall Street's overnight higher.

The CPI inflation report overshadowed the latest 'tit for tat' twist in the global trade war — U.S. President Donald Trump said he would slap further tariffs on European Union goods after the EU and other U.S. trading partners said they would retaliate for trade barriers already erected by the U.S. president.

dollar rebounded slightly on Thursday thanks to a rise in U.S. Treasury yields, though currencies traded in tight ranges as investors struggled to determine the impact of an escalating global trade war on U.S. inflation and growth. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened further tariffs on European Union goods, as major U.S. trading partners said they would retaliate for trade barriers already erected by him.

Asian equities rose Thursday after cooler-than-forecast US inflation helped Wall Street rebound from two days of heavy losses. Australian and Japanese shares rose and equity-index futures for US stocks climbed in early Asian trading, bolstering advances in the prior session. Even after Wednesday’s gains for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, the first since Friday for the US benchmarks, they both remained over 3% lower this week. Hong Kong equity futures fell, tracking declines in an index of US-listed Chinese companies on Wednesday.

How long has Sunita Williams been in space?Sunita Williams, who flew to space with Butch Wilmore for a eight days, has been onboard the ISS for over eight months. Why was Sunita Williams stuck in space?Williams and her crew encountered unexpected technical issues with the Boeing Starliner, delaying their return.