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Kazuo Ueda, a 71-year-old university professor who has kept a low profile despite strong credentials as a monetary policy expert, ticked some important boxes. While he was not even on the list of dark horse candidates floated by the media, Ueda was well known in global central bank circles. The bank's preferred choices were incumbent deputy governor Amamiya, as well as former deputies Hiroshi Nakaso and Hirohide Yamaguchi, given their deep knowledge on monetary policy. Matsuno said he hoped the BOJ works closely with the government and guides monetary policy flexibly, when asked whether Ueda's appointment could lead to a retreat from Abenomics. While he warned of the rising cost of the BOJ's yield control policy, Ueda has called for the need to keep monetary policy loose to ensure Japan stably achieves the bank's 2% inflation target.

☆ Bank of Japan’s new governor starts on back foot
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HONG KONG, Feb 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Academic Kazuo Ueda faces a rocky time as the new governor of the Bank of Japan (8301.T). He is stepping down just as his signature yield curve control (YCC) policy is becoming increasingly unsustainable as domestic inflation rises. The Nikkei news service reported that officials had approached Deputy Governor Masayoshi Amamiya and were rebuffed. It seems likely Ueda will have to modify or abandon YCC given how much damage it is doing to the bond market and the BOJ’s balance sheet. Follow @petesweeneypro on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSJapan's government on Feb. 14 named academic Kazuo Ueda as its pick to become the next governor of the country’s central bank.

[1/4] A Japanese flag flutters atop the Bank of Japan building under construction in Tokyo, Japan, September 21, 2017. "This is a problem that is not going to change easily," said Momoko Nojo, a prominent campaigner for gender equality in Japan. The BOJ ranked 142nd of 185 central banks on gender equality, according to a report last year by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. About 11% of central banks surveyed had a female governor, a record high, while 37% had female deputy governors. That target is far below the European Central Bank, where women hold 30% of management roles.

☆ Japan’s next central bank chief may rue promotion
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Pete Sweeney | Thomson Reuters | Asia Economics Editor Pete Sweeney Joined Reuters Breakingviews In Hong Kong In September Previously He Served As Reuters' Chief Correspondent For China Economy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

In fact, it has spent an average of 1.3 trillion yen per trading day since the band widened: nearly 50 trillion yen in total, per Refinitiv data, and still counting. The central bank already owns over half of Japan’s sovereign bonds and is sure to suffer large losses when their prices fall, which they eventually must. The central bank chief must also work to put the country’s vast stack of inert money back to work. Kuroda effectively put the central bank at the service of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” stimulus programme. Fumio Kishida, the current leader, is having popularity problems and will want the central bank to support his aggressive agenda, which includes hiking defence spending, promoting innovative startups and redistributing wealth.

☆ Factbox: Kazuo Ueda: Who is the new Bank of Japan governor and what can we expect from him?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

TOKYO, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Japan's government is likely to appoint Kazuo Ueda, an academic and a former member of the Bank of Japan's policy board, as the next central bank governor, two government officials told Reuters on Friday. The 71-year-old is widely seen as an expert on monetary policy, but is seen as a surprise appointment by analysts. The following are some key questions and answers about the next central bank governor in the world's third-largest economy and the challenges he faces. He is an external director at JGC Holdings Corp (1963.T), an engineering company and at the state-owned Development Bank of Japan. In a 2016 article, Ueda wrote that the BOJ's ultra-easy policy seemed to be "reaching its limits".

☆ Shinzo Abe Book Criticizes Trump as Weak on North Korea
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Peter Landers | Chieko Tsuneoka | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

President Donald Trump and Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe waving before playing a round of golf in Japan in 2019. TOKYO—In a posthumously published book, former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe said he pushed then-President Donald Trump to take a stronger stand on North Korea but found Mr. Trump weak and overly eager for a deal. Mr. Abe said in the Japanese-language book, published this week, that he grew worried North Korea would learn of Mr. Trump’s dovish tendencies. “We absolutely couldn’t let the outside world catch wind of it,” he said.

Click to unmute A global city needs a global soundtrack, and in New York, you can find nearly anything you want. Over the past several months, we followed several New York musical scenes that reflect the city’s creative soul, thriving in community centers, local bars and public parks. The sight of a new generation encouraged Mr. Joseph, who sees the band as preserving traditional culture in the modern city. It becomes part of you.” New York itself is as much a player as any musician, transforming traditional tunes into something new. The people who embraced Mateo and his mother when they moved from Boston to New York in 2016 now consoled her.

☆ How companies are trying to help victims of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Olesya Dmitracova | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

London CNN —Companies around the world are racing to provide help to the victims of the devastating earthquake straddling Turkey and Syria, by donating food, medicines, services and cash. Hamdi Ulukaya has donated $1 million to an earthquake relief fund set up by Turkish Philanthropy Funds, the US-based donor organization has said. please donate to @tphilanthropy earthquake relief and recovery efforts. The aid organization is working to help people in Turkey and Syria affected by the quake. Aid agencies are particularly worried about victims in northwestern Syria, where more than 4 million people were already relying on humanitarian assistance.

☆ Amazon to donate supplies to Turkey’s earthquake victims
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

London CNN —Amazon (AMZN) has announced that it will help victims of the Turkey earthquake by donating food, medicine and equipment from its Istanbul warehouse. Amazon, which has almost 2,000 employees in Turkey, said it was preparing to donate relief items, including blankets, tents, food, baby food and medicines. “This immediate delivery is just the beginning of Amazon’s response,” Abe Diaz, head of Amazon’s disaster relief program, said in the statement. Another company that could help Turkey is Elon Musk’s SpaceX. On Monday, Musk responded to a tweet about SpaceX’s Starlink internet service, which said: “Hey @elonmusk a massive earthquake hit Turkey and neighboring countries.

☆ George Santos' first House race took days to call in 2020. So he came to DC for new member orientation and had a blast before finding out he lost.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-05 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

In 2020, Santos ran his first campaign and lost — but still went to DC for new member orientation. 'He seemed nice'In cases where a congressional election takes more than a few days to fully determine, both candidates are sometimes invited to take part in new member orientation. Adam Frisch, a Democrat who almost unseated Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert this past year, attended the orientation sessions in November as the vote-counting in Colorado dragged on. In 2018, current Republican Rep. Young Kim of California attended as well, despite ultimately losing her race that year. Santos at 2020 new member orientation, seated near Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas and Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California.

The difference with TikTok is that the app has kept out of the crosshairs of commercial interests in Europe. "The user base of TikTok is a lot bigger than a lot of people in Europe think," he said. More than half of people aged 16 to 24 in France and Germany use TikTok, according to data.ai. He is worried the platform poses "several unacceptable risks for European users," including "data access by Chinese authorities, censorship, [and] tracking of journalists." Why Europe's tone is changingLast month, ByteDance admitted to using two journalists' TikTok data to locate their physical movements, according to a widely-reported internal memo.

☆ First raise for Japan day labourer in 20 years, but McDonald's out of reach
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Elaine Lies | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

TOKYO, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Masami Fujino got his first raise in 20 years recently, but it's still not enough to let the Tokyo day labourer treat himself to plain McDonald's hamburgers as much as he used to. "Last year, I finally got a bit of a raise at one place," said the 54-year-old, who works for a moving company and in construction. "It brought me up to minimum wage there at last," 1,072 yen ($8.31) an hour in Tokyo. But many of the small and midsize firms that employ the vast majority of Japanese workers cannot keep up. When they raise pay for their salaried workers, they need to cut back in other places.

☆ Toshiba buyout heralds a big step back for Japan
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Una Galani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

MUMBAI, Jan 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The end of a long battle to wring some value from Toshiba (6502.T) is finally within reach. Such an outcome won’t encourage private equity firms, and big policy shifts underway may stifle the industry just as it hits a new high. Instead, after an accounting scandal in 2015, Toshiba came to epitomise Japan Inc’s pervasive value destruction. Japan typically outperforms private equity deals in other developed markets, partly because existing incentive structures for company bosses are so poor. The country’s private equity industry is only just finding its feet.

☆ Trump boasts that Mar-a-Lago was a secure place to keep classified documents, despite evidence that it clearly wasn't
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

"Mar-a-Lago is a highly secured facility, with Security Cameras all over the place, and watched over by staff & our great Secret Service," wrote Trump. In the post, Trump compared Mar-a-Lago to President Joe Biden's "flimsy, unlocked, and unsecured" private residence in Wilmington, Delaware. This was recently spotlighted by the Justice Department investigation into the mishandling of classified documents and presidential records at Mar-a-Lago. The New York Times reported that of the more than 100 classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, most were located in a non-secure storage area. During its August 2022 raid, FBI agents found classified documents in Trump's "45 Office" — located above Mar-a-Lago's main ballroom.

☆ Economists say BOJ's Amamiya is top governor candidate, tightening this week unlikely
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Kantaro Komiya | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Of the 24 economists who replied to the Jan 5-12 poll, 16, or 67%, chose Amamiya as the most likely candidate to become the next BOJ governor. Four economists in the poll, or 17%, chose Nakaso, who is seen less dovish than Amamiya, as the most likely candidate. In a September poll that asked the same question, Amamiya and Nakaso received 61% and 33% of economists' votes, respectively. Five analysts expected the unwinding of easing to start in April, at the first BOJ meeting under the new governor. Elsewhere in the poll, 83% of economists said Japanese nominal wages were unlikely to outpace rising consumer prices in 2023.

☆ Japan's top economic panel debates potential shift away from 'Abenomics'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

TOKYO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - The Japanese government's top economic policy panel on Monday held its first round of special sessions that will discuss the medium-to-long term direction of fiscal and monetary policies, including the pros and cons of "Abenomics". Japan pursued a reflationary policy led by monetary stimulus under former premier Shinzo Abe which has helped pull the world's No. Financial markets are, however, now more focused on if and when the central bank will pull back on monetary stimulus given sharp rises in inflation. It was not clear how many special sessions the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) has planned. The sessions do not intend to discuss the Bank of Japan's exit strategy or draft new policy objectives to review a 2013 written mission statement between the government and the central bank, Cabinet Office officials said.

☆ Shinzo Abe Assassination Suspect Is Charged With Murder
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Miho Inada | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Tetsuya Yamagami, suspect in the killing of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. NARA, Japan—Prosecutors on Friday brought murder charges against Tetsuya Yamagami, the suspect in the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last July 8. Mr. Yamagami, now 42, shot and killed Mr. Abe at an election campaign rally in the western city of Nara using a homemade gun, according to prosecutors and videos of the event.

☆ Suspect in Shinzo Abe assassination to face murder charge, lawyer says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

TOKYO — Japanese prosecutors are expected to formally charge the suspect in the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with murder on Friday, his lawyer said. Later that month, Yamagami was sent to an Osaka detention center and given a five-month mental evaluation, which ended Tuesday. One of his lawyers, Masaaki Furukawa, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he expects prosecutors to charge Yamagami with murder and gun control law violations. Police say Yamagami told them that he killed Abe, one of Japan’s most influential and divisive politicians, because of Abe’s apparent links to a religious group that he hated. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s popularity has plunged over his handling of the church controversy and for insisting on holding a rare, controversial state funeral for Abe.

☆ Japan prosecutors indict Yamagami for murder of ex-Prime Minister Abe -Yomiuri
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TOKYO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Japanese prosecutors on Friday indicted the man suspected of killing former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Yomiuri newspaper reported. Nara District Public Prosecutors Office indicted Tetsuya Yamagami, 42, on murder charges as well as for violating gun laws after concluding a roughly six-month psychiatric evaluation, the newspaper reported. The Unification Church was founded in South Korea in 1954 and famous for its mass weddings, relying on its Japan followers as a key source of income. The approval rate for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government had fallen to record laws amid revelations about connections between the church and many LDP lawmakers. In November, Japan launched a probe into the church that could threaten its legal status following the assassination of Abe.

☆ Final farewell: From Sidney Poitier to Pope Emeritus Benedict a look back at the influential figures who died in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +55 min

Other world leaders who died in 2022 include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died in August. The final days of 2022 saw the loss of some exceptionally notable figures, including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Here is a roll call of some influential figures who died in 2022 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available):___JANUARY___Dan Reeves, 77. A Cuban-born artist whose radiant color palette and geometric paintings were overlooked for decades before the art world took notice. A prolific character actor best known for playing villains and tough guys in “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and other films.

☆ Ex-BOJ deputy Yamaguchi emerging as next c.bank head contender -Sankei
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TOKYO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Former Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Hirohide Yamaguchi, a vocal critic of Governor Haruhiko Kuroda's stimulus programme, is emerging as a strong candidate to become next head of the central bank, the Sankei newspaper reported on Thursday. Yamaguchi had been considered a less likely candidate compared with deputy governor Masayoshi Amamiya and former deputy Hiroshi Nakaso. But Yamaguchi is attracting more attention as a strong candidate as Kishida's administration distances itself from Abenomics, the Sankei said, adding that Kishida's choice of new BOJ governor will become clear as early as next month. A career central banker with deep experience in monetary policy drafting, Yamaguchi served as deputy governor for five years until 2013. Since retiring from the BOJ, Yamaguchi has warned of the rising cost of prolonged easing and criticised Kuroda's stimulus as relying too much on the view that central banks can influence public perception with monetary policy.

☆ Fourth Japan minister exits PM Kishida's four-month-old cabinet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Sakura Murakami | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Japan's Reconstruction Minister Kenya Akiba visits at Yasukuni Shrine on the 77th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two, in Tokyo, Japan August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Issei KatoTOKYO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Japanese reconstruction minister Kenya Akiba tendered his resignation to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday, becoming the fourth minister to leave the cabinet created by Kishida in August. Three other ministers have quit in close succession due to scandals, some involving funding and ties with the Unification Church. "It was a difficult decision to make, but I tendered my resignation to the prime minister as I felt I must not hamper the debates in parliament," he added. Akiba will be replaced by former reconstruction minister Hiromichi Watanabe, Kyodo News reported on Tuesday.

☆ Japan PM Kishida to replace reconstruction minister Akiba - NHK
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

TOKYO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will replace reconstruction minister Kenya Akiba with former financial services agency minister Tatsuya Ito, public broadcaster NHK reported on Monday. Akiba would be the fourth minister to be let go from the cabinet of Kishida, whose approval ratings have remained low after the killing of former premier Shinzo Abe revealed close connections between ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers and the church, which critics say is a cult. Reporting by Rocky Swift Editing by Shri NavaratnamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Japan PM Kishida to replace embattled reconstruction minister Akiba - NHK
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Sakura Murakami | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

TOKYO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is battling low approval ratings, will replace a government minister for the fourth time since he created his current cabinet in August, public broadcaster NHK reported on Monday. Discussions on a replacement for Kenya Akiba, minister responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of areas hit by Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, are still underway, the broadcaster said. NHK initially reported that Akiba will be replaced by former financial services agency minister Tatsuya Ito, but later corrected that report to say a successor has not been picked. That's all I can say," Kishida said on Monday when asked whether he planned to replace Akiba. Kishida also plans to replace Mio Sugita, his Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Internal Affairs, Kyodo reported on Monday citing multiple unidentified government sources.

☆ Arizona judge dismisses election denier Kari Lake's bid to overturn vote results
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Kanishka Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Dec 24 (Reuters) - An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's effort to overturn the results of her election loss in the state's governor race. Lake was one of the most high-profile Republican candidates in the midterm elections to embrace former Republican President Donald Trump's false claims of voter fraud in 2020. Her lawsuit targeted Lake's Democratic opponent, Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, currently Arizona's secretary of state, along with top officials in Maricopa County. The suit claimed "hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots infected the election" in Maricopa, the state's most populous county. Lake, a former television news anchor, was one of a string of Trump-aligned Republican candidates who lost battleground state races in the midterm elections.

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