The race to replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the helm of Japan’s hitherto dominant right-wing party is underway. The spotlight is on Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, a relatively young member of the party’s liberal wing, and Sanae Takaichi, a nationalist close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who could become the country’s first female prime minister. While inflation and the cost of living dominate the campaign, the candidates discuss how to rebuild the party’s base eroded by new far-right movements.

According to Japan’s National Police Agency, more than 40,000 lonely deaths at home were reported in the first half of this year. More than one case in four is discovered after more than a week. The causes include an aging population, weakening relationships, and a reluctance to seek help. “A person told me that [. . .] he has only one friend left, whom he talks to twice a year,” says Father Marco Villa, head of a counselling centre in Koshigaya. Loneliness is the country’s greatest tragedy.

Japan's prime minister announced his resignation yesterday after weeks of tensions with members of his Liberal Democratic Party, struggling with a loss of support among conservative voters. Several candidates have already come forward, showing their desire to succeed Ishiba as party leader, but the issue of leading a government without a parliamentary majority remains.

Next Saturday Taiwanese voters are set to approve or reject the reactivation of the Maanshan plant in a referendum called by the opposition after the country's last plant shut down in May after 40 years of operation. After Fukushima, environmentalists have achieved a gradual phase-out, but fears that China might stop natural gas supplies are now reviving the issue. For its part, China has 33 plants under construction.

The depreciation of the local currency is making the costs of traditional universities in the West, from the United States to Europe, increasingly unsustainable. Hence the choice of alternative destinations such as Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea. After Covid-19, the number of young people abroad is growing again. Tokyo has set a target of increasing the number to 500,000 by 2033.

In the coming days, Japan will hold official ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the dropping of US bombs at the end of World War II. The Japanese Church, reiterating its opposition to nuclear rearmament, is promoting the film ‘Nagasaki: in the shadow of the flash’, which tells the story of a group of nurses who helped the victims.