TOKYO – The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News.
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Foreign exchange students in Japan hit record high at over 400,000
TOKYO – The number of foreign exchange students in Japan as of May 2025 hit a record high of 408,069, ahead of a government goal to reach the level by 2033 and outpacing their Japanese counterparts, data from the Japan Student Services Organization showed Friday.
The number of Japanese students studying abroad in fiscal 2024, meanwhile, grew 2.1 percent from the previous year to 91,054, around 80 percent of its 2018 peak of 115,146, amid a depreciating yen and inflationary pressures abroad.
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U.S. Air Force to move Global Hawk drone unit to Tokyo from Guam
TOKYO – A U.S. Air Force unit operating Global Hawk surveillance drones will be relocated from Andersen base in Guam to Yokota Air Base in Tokyo beginning this summer, Japanese Defense Ministry officials said Friday.
Three RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and about 150 personnel are expected to move to the U.S. air base in western Tokyo in phases, with no new facilities planned for the deployment, they said.
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Japan mulls April 2027 start for consumption tax cut on food: sources
TOKYO – The Japanese government is considering cutting the consumption tax rate on food from April 1, 2027, likely to 1 percent rather than reducing it to zero, sources familiar with the matter said Friday.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is looking at a schedule under which related legislation would be enacted by this fall to allow enough time for retailers to update their cash register systems, a process expected to take about six months.
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Japan spends record 11.73 tril. yen in April-May to stem yen’s slide
TOKYO – Japan intervened in the currency market by spending a record 11.73 trillion yen ($74 billion) over the past month, the Finance Ministry said Friday, providing the first official confirmation of recent efforts to shore up the country’s currency amid the Middle East conflict.
The amount surpassed the previous monthly record of 9.79 trillion yen spent over two days in April and May 2024, the data covering the period from April 28 to Wednesday showed. No daily breakdown has been released for the latest intervention.
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Japan passes bill to raise visa fees, introduce online pre-entry screening
TOKYO – Japan’s parliament on Friday passed an immigration control law revision to raise the maximum fee for residence status applications by foreigners and introduce an online pre-entry travel authorization system for overseas arrivals.
Once the fee changes are implemented later this fiscal year, the upper limit will be set at 100,000 yen ($630) for visa renewals and 300,000 yen for permanent residency applications, marking a sharp increase from the existing threshold of 10,000 yen.
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Japan ethylene plants’ operating rate at record low amid Mideast disruption
TOKYO – The operating rate of plants in Japan producing ethylene, used widely to make detergents, pharmaceuticals and paints, hit a record low in April amid the disruption of supplies of its oil-derived feedstock naphtha due to the Middle East conflict, an industry group said.
The utilization rate sank to 67.3 percent, the lowest since comparable data became available in 1996 and below the previous low of 68.8 percent in March, the Japan Petrochemical Industry Association said earlier in May.
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Zoning for Japan lower house seats to be reviewed to narrow vote disparity
TOKYO – A government panel will begin reviewing the boundaries of House of Representatives constituencies in some of Japan’s 47 prefectures to reduce vote disparities based on the latest census, the top government spokesman said Friday.
Preliminary data from the 2025 census released earlier in the day showed the gap in the weight of a vote between the most and least populous single-seat constituencies stood at 2.274 to 1, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a press conference.
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Japan hails OpenAI decision to let banks use advanced AI model for security
TOKYO – Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Friday the government welcomes OpenAI providing some domestic financial institutions access to its artificial intelligence model with advanced cybersecurity capabilities.
Major Japanese banks such as MUFG Bank are likely able to use the advanced AI model, according to a source close to the matter.
Concerns grew over potential cyberattacks using AI after U.S. startup Anthropic recently released its Claude Mythos model, which experts say is highly capable of finding software flaws and could be exploited for attacks on financial institutions and other organizations.
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