Welcome back to NHK Newsline. I'm Kanako Sachno.
US President Donald Trump says he's not in a hurry to sign trade deals with some of his closest allies. He made the comments during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the White House. And that came on the heels of talks with Japan's top tariff negotiator the day before.
Given talks with Japan and Italy this week, do you expect to announce an initial trade deal with any of these countries by?
At a certain point, yeah, we're in no rush. We're in no rush.
Trump touched on the discussions with the Japanese side, led by Economic Revitalization Minister Akazawa Ryose. He says his administration is holding many talks with other countries and that they're moving along on trade very well. He also boasted on Thursday morning about how he's in contact with various countries on the issue, saying every nation, including China, wants to meet today, Italy.
The White House press secretary suggested earlier that the US may be willing to negotiate on tariffs. Caroline Levitt said it has more than 15 deals on the table and that more than 75 countries have reached out. She added that some deals could be announced soon.
Meanwhile, Japan's top tariff negotiator is back in Tokyo after his trip to Washington. The government says it will closely examine the Trump administration's demands following the high level talks.
Akazawa spoke to reporters in Japan following his meetings with Trump and senior administration officials at the White House.
During the negotiations, I made clear to the US that we feel the tariff measures are extremely regrettable. I strongly urge them to reconsider these policies. He says he plans to continue arguing for Japan's national interest to his best ability in future talks. The next round is expected before the end of this month. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru was asked in the Diet on Friday about the government's response to the tariffs.
There remains a gap in positions between our country and the US. Our government will continue to make every effort to deal with the situation.
Ishiba says the government will fully analyze the possible impact of the tariffs and take the necessary measures. Now for more business stories, here's Ramin Malagarde.
Now, one sector where Japan cannot easily afford to make concessions in tariff negotiations is automobiles.
the US imposed an extra tariff of 25% two weeks ago. Now, the Trump administration also wants to see more American cars on Japanese roads.
Japan's trade minister now says the government will look into what can be done to make this happen.
It is a fact that Japan only imports around 10,000 US made automobiles, far less than what Japan exports to the US Japan needs to consider what it can do to address the issue.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative criticized Japan in a report published last month. It said the country is impeding access to its automotive market through a variety of non-tariff barriers. The report cited differences in vehicle safety regulations and the Japanese government's handling of charging standards for electric vehicles. The alleged non-tariff barriers could be on the agenda in subsequent rounds of the bilateral trade talks.
And Kobe Airport in western Japan has started operating international charter flights. This comes about 20 years after it is opened to serve domestic flights. A ceremony was held to mark the occasion on Friday. The first plane arrived from Taipei, Taiwan. Passengers were greeted at a new terminal building. They received mementos of their journey.
I'm glad I could come directly to Kobe from Taipei.
The newly launched flights link Kobe to five cities in South Korea, China and Taiwan, amounting to 40 round trips a week. Officials expect the local economy to benefit from an increased influx of tourists and business travelers from abroad.
And Japan's consumer price index rose 3.2% in March from a year earlier. As rice prices posted record increases, it was the fourth straight month for the CPI reading to be at or above 3%.
Data released by the Internal Affairs Ministry shows inflation, excluding prices for fresh food, was 2/10 of a percentage point higher than in February. The price of rice, Japan's staple food, soared 92%. From a year earlier, that's the biggest increase since 1971, when comparable data became available. It marks the sixth straight month of record setting rice price inflation. Now, prices of onigiri rice balls climbed 15% and restaurant sushi 4.7%. The ministry also announced that Japan's CPI for fiscal 2024 rose 2.7% from a year earlier. The figure exceeded the Bank of Japan's 2% inflation target for the third year in a row.
Now here's NHK World's Yanaka Marie with Bizpicks for a look at the latest business and economic stories.
Global financial markets have experienced whiplash in recent weeks. So to get a sense of what's ahead, we turn to the epicenter of the volatility.
The United States is set to release a series of key data in the coming week.
But when it comes to assessing the prospects for the economy, President Donald Trump's actions may speak louder than any statistic. Trump's announcement of so-called reciprocal tariffs caused a historic crash in the markets this month. US stocks tumbled, the dollar weakened, and treasuries were sold off. Though his decision to pause the levies for 90 days spurred a rebound, the trend is still for investors to sell America.
This kind of sell everything move makes sense given the risk of stagflation.
says Jeremy Schwartz, a senior US economist at Nomada Securities International. Stagflation is the combination of slower economic growth and rising prices at the same time.
We see tariffs as a stagflationary policy. With a 10, 20, 25% tariff, we think that this is going to lead to price pressure for end users and consumers. We think that that's going to happen relatively soon. We expect the monthly inflation readings will start to move higher as soon as Q2 of this year, so April, May, June. In terms of growth, we think that growth drops to well below trend. We're forecasting something like half a percent average real GDP growth this year.
Stagflation poses a dilemma for a central bank, since its two conditions call for opposing policy responses. Interest rates are usually cut to support growth, but raised to tackle inflation. Schwartz points out that Trump's tariff policy has sidelined the Federal Reserve, but he believes policymakers will ultimately continue to prioritize taming rising prices.
A lot of uncertainty over what the future inflation outlook looks like really raises the risk that this isn't just a step higher in inflation, that it's actuallya more persistent inflation shock and that it potentially kind of leaks into inflation expectations or wage setting or domestic service prices.
So we think that the Fed is going to have to keep inflation front and center in their dual mandate and that they're going to have to maintain a relatively restrictive policy, despite the weakness to growth and the risks of recession, as well as stress in financial markets.
For now, we'll just have to wait and see how resilient the world's biggest economy is. I'm Yanaka Marie, and that wraps it up for this week's BizPicks.
And that is it for Business News. I'm going to hand it back to you.
Now, what happens if the world's antibiotics stop working?
That's called antimicrobial resistance, or AMR.
And one study says it could kill more than 39 million people by 2050.
Now, a team of scientists in Japan and the UK are trying to tackle this threat to global health. NHK Ishizaka Sae Christine Hall tells us more.
Dr. Tamura Tsuyoshi sees plenty of patients with a common cold. Though it wouldn't help their symptoms, he says some just want one thing, antibiotics.
There are patients who feel secure when they take antibiotics. In fact, I can't refuse them unless I completely rule out a bacterial infection.
Instead, he runs tests to identify the cause and determine the best treatment.
He says he tries to avoid over-prescribing antibiotics because it contributes to a global problem. Pathogens are constantly evolving, becoming resistant to drugs. The overuse of antibiotics helps them learn, survive, and even grow.
Matsunaga Nobuaki is an expert on AMR. He says if antibiotics stop working, it will impact everyone.
People need to realize antibiotics are the infrastructure behind all modern medical care. If people can't use them, then cancer patients are at risk, not just from cancer but infectious diseases. Doctors need to consider the risk of resistant bacteria when they do surgery.
That's why it's so important to have new antibiotics. The World Health Organization says there's an urgent need. But Japan isn't the medical powerhouse it was back in the '80s.
But some hope it can become one again.
Research institutions in both Japan and the UK are teaming up to tackle AMR. Alicia Demirjian, an infectious diseases doctor from the UK, came to Japan in February.
I think we can rely on some of that science that had been done before, the fact that the public is aware that there has been some very strong Japanese scientists to build on this and bring back the notion that AMR is an important topic, infectious diseases are an important topic, and we know it is possible within Japan.
Together, Matsunaga and Demiujin visited Japanese stakeholders who could make a difference. One is Kitasato University in Tokyo. Labs there have been collecting soil from across Japan, isolating hundreds of microorganisms. The goal is to see if any can be used to make new drugs. It's now collaborating with the University of Warwick.
Konnichiwa. It's lovely to see you again.
They also spoke with private companies like this one. Shionogi is behind one of the latest antibiotics that works against drug resistant bacteria.
But the firm's vice chairperson says many companies around the world don't bother with the research because it's just not profitable.
So many venture companies. Experienced bankruptcy even after success of their development and launched their products to the market. If young researchers saw that situation, why can they choose infectious disease area for their research?
She says companies need more government support to make developing new antibiotics sustainable. At Matsunaga and Demirjian's final workshop in Japan, they discussed how to raise public awareness of AMR.
I think we all now have some homework. We have to go back within our respective organisations, continue the advocacy work that needs to be done and then continue to touch base every now and then so that we can keep progressing the work.
Matsunaga and Demirjian hope to tackle that problem together before it's too late.
For more, I spoke earlier with our reporter Ishizaka Sae Christine Hall.
So this antimicrobial resistance is a really serious problem.
Yes, actually, AMR used to be called the silent pandemic, but researchers dropped that name because it's not silent anymore. The problem is already here.
As we said in the report, if left unchecked, AMR will affect anyone who needs healthcare. Those who undergo surgery get antibiotics to prevent infection. That includes women giving birth by C-section, for example.
And cancer patients who are getting chemo are also at risk. since their immune systems are weak. There's already been deaths associated with AMR.
Estimates say nearly 5 million in 2019.
Last year, world leaders at the UN committed to reducing that number by 10% by 2030.
And how does it plan to do that?
Well, as of 2015, the WHO says every nation should have their own AMR action plan. The problem is it's hard for lower and middle income countries to fund those initiatives. They struggle to get testing kits and medicine. If you have improper sanitation on top of that, then it's a perfect storm to grow resistant bacteria.
Hence the need for new antibiotics.
Exactly. But that's not a fast process, and it costs a lot to produce new medicine. And remember, we need to save it for the right time. Overusing those antibiotics would just feed into the problem. There are some countries putting money into fighting AMR. For example, the UK pays pharmaceutical companies who develop drugs to fight AMR.
Japan is also trying out a similar system. That trial is in its third year now. They've invested about 1.3 billion yen or over 9 million dollars annually.
So that's a good thing. Governments are paying attention, right?
Yes, but it's not enough. Remember, we created this problem by overusing antibiotics.
As a society, we need to understand that they don't work against things like a common cold. We also need to do better at following our prescriptions. If we stop taking antibiotics early, just because we're feeling better, then you won't wipe out the problem. In fact, you may make it more resistant.
For the sake of our future and for future generations, we need to do our part to fight AMR.
♪
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has met with Myanmar's military leader in Bangkok. They discussed the supply of humanitarian aid to the quake-hit country. Anwar is believed to have also called for a ceasefire between Myanmar's military and pro-democracy forces. Fighting has been ongoing since a coup four years ago.
Anwar, the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, held a closed-door meeting Thursday with Senior General Min Aung Klein. Sources say they discussed ways to end the conflict. They also addressed relief operations for the deadly quake that struck central Myanmar on March 28.
After the quake, the junta and pro-democracy forces announced a temporary ceasefire to focus on recovery efforts. But Anwar said the fighting has not stopped. ASEAN has refused to allow Myanmar officials to attend key meetings, with the rare exception of the latest talks between Anwar and Min Aung Klein. Myanmar's pro-democracy forces say they oppose any ASEAN engagement with Min Aung Klein over humanitarian aid. They say such action could be legitimizing the illegal military coup.
Ukraine says it has signed a so-called memorandum of intent toward an agreement that would grant the US access to its natural resources. US President Donald Trump says he expects to ink the deal next week.
Well, we have a minerals deal, which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday, Scott, next Thursday soon. And I assume they're going to live up to the deal. So we'll see.
Earlier, Ukraine's economy minister announced the two sides had paved the way for an economic partnership agreement. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it's a positive step.
But honestly, I think this memorandum is an important first step. Why shouldn't both countries agree?
Talks on the deal had continued even after a heated exchange in February between Trump and Zelenskyy.
Bringing an end to the fighting in Ukraine was the topic of new high-level talks in Paris. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with European counterparts as well as a delegation from Kiev. Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff took part. French President Emmanuel Macron described the talks as an important occasion to have convergence. He says everyone who joined is committed to peace. He later posted on social media that discussions will continue in London next week.
NHK has learned that the remains of some 20 people believed to have died in World War II have been found in southern Japan.
It's the first discovery of its kind on Okinawa Prefecture's Iejima Island in about 20 years. The remains were found last August during the production of a movie. It's based on a true story to mark the anniversary of a fierce six-day ground battle. The fighting followed the landing of US forces on the island 80 years ago this month. About 2,000 troops from the now defunct Imperial Japanese military died.
Roughly 1,500 residents died in the fighting or in mass suicides.
Gardener Chinen Hiroki says he found the remains. Okinawa Prefecture and the village officials tell NHK that what appear to be the belongings of imperial soldiers such as helmets and canteens have also been found.
I want them to be unearthed and returned to their bereaved family as soon as possible so their loved ones can lay them to rest.
Okinawa saw one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Searches for war remains continue in the prefecture 8 decades after the end of the war.
NHK has learned that the Memorial Hall for atomic bomb victims in Nagasaki is organizing an exhibition in the United Kingdom. The UK possesses nuclear weapons, as do two other hosts of past exhibits, the United States and Russia.
The Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims started exhibits overseas in 2005, the 60th anniversary of the bombing. The organisers are hoping to open the exhibit in Scotland sometime late this year.
The organisers point out that Scotland was the home of Thomas Blake Glover, a merchant who was active in Nagasaki in the 19th century and contributed to Japan's modernisation. So far, the event has been held in 14 countries. Organizers say it's significant that a nuclear power will host the one that marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing. They hope the event will be an opportunity for citizens in a nuclear power to learn what happens if such weapons are actually used.
A scandal involving major hotels in Tokyo has come to light. It has emerged that 15 major hotels in the Japanese capital had formed an alleged cartel to illegally boost prices. Japan's anti-monopoly regulator is expected to issue a warning to the operators. A survey shows that room rates in Tokyo have been rising sharply since 2022, when the coronavirus pandemic started to ease. Rates for hotel rooms in Tokyo are now 1.4 times what they were in 2019.
It's unusual.
It's expensive. It feels like price is targeting inbound visitors.
It should be a price that anyone can afford.
Sources say the Japan Fair Trade Commission has found that hotels in Tokyo, including such prestigious names as The New Otani, Imperial Hotel Tokyo and the Okura Tokyo, have exchanged information in a way that could lead to illegal cartels. The sources say sales agents and other officials of these hotels had been meeting every month for decades. They reportedly shared information on occupancy rates, average daily prices and policies to set room rates. But these hotels have reportedly stopped the sharing of data.
The Imperial Hotel says such conduct was not intended to be a reasonable restraint on trade, but it will cooperate with the Commission's investigation. The Hyatt Regency Tokyo has apologised for any concerns this may have caused customers.
It added it recognises there was a lack of awareness of compliance. An expert explains the background of the allegations.
The hotel operators did not want to cut prices amid strong inbound travel and a shortage of hotels in Tokyo. There's a possibility the operators wanted to avoid a decline in the overall brand by reducing the prices of some hotels in the same rank.
He says such an alleged cartel may certainly affect those who want to stay at a luxury hotel. But he believes this behaviour will not have a major impact on Tokyo hotels as room rates fluctuate due to supply and demand.
♪
Now it's time to check the world weather. A storm that developed rapidly over the Mediterranean has been causing damage in Italy. Our meteorologist Yumi Hirano has the details.
Heavy rain hit a city near Turin, causing widespread flooding and landslides on Thursday. According to the Italian emergency services, over 1,300 people are helping, along with firefighters and rescue teams, and up to 400 millimeters of rainfall was reported in 24 hours. More rain is expected in the region from Friday night through early next week.
The storm system is moving northeastward on Friday, so severe weather is expected from northern Italy to the Balkans and Poland on Friday. Not only downpours, but also lightning and gusty winds are a concern. And the next storm is approaching the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula, bringing wet and windy conditions. So showers are likely in Lisbon and Madrid.
Sunny weather is expected in Paris with a high of 18 degrees. The temperature in Warsaw will be 28, which is over 10 degrees higher than the average.
Moving to Japan, summer-like conditions are continuing Friday. Here in Tokyo, we saw the temperature almost hitting 25 and the people in Shimane experienced over 30. The conditions are expected to persist into Saturday due to warm air flowing into a low-pressure system near the country.
So Fukuoka may see 27, Tokyo will experience 28, which is as hot as in July. And Kohu may see even 30. So please stay hydrated.
That's all for me. Have a nice weekend.
That wraps up this edition of NHK Newsline. I'm Kanako Sachno in Tokyo.
Thanks very much for joining us.
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