Yasutoshi Nishimura, the Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, objected to Japan being given the “Fossil of the Day” award during a lower house committee meeting on Wednesday. The satirical award is presented by the NGO Climate Action Network to countries slow to take action against climate change.   “It may be that those who do not understand Japan’s new technologies….Read more

MITSURU OBE, Nikkei Asia chief business news correspondent   TOKYO — Japanese space startup iQPS will accelerate its expansion drive after making its debut on the Tokyo stock market on Wednesday, hoping to mass produce compact and inexpensive radar satellites and create a satellite constellation.   The Fukuoka-based startup raised $27 million, or 4 billion yen, in its initial public offering,….Read more

Tokyo, Dec. 6 (Jiji Press)–An asteroid sample collected by NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft is under analysis in Japan including comparisons with an asteroid sample collected in Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, Jiji Press learned Wednesday.   A team of researchers including Hokkaido University professor Hisayoshi Yurimoto started studying sand grains from asteroid Bennu that were brought to Earth by the U.S. unmanned probe.….Read more

By Alan Yu and Glen S. Fukushima   WASHINGTON — Japan and the United States are each making big once-in-a-political-lifetime policy and fiscal bets in order to transform their fossil fuel economies to clean energy ones. Both countries are racing the clock on the climate crisis and on beating global competitors on the clean energy playing field. But are the two….Read more

The police suspect the man illegally acquired trade secrets from Alps Alpine Co. in Ota Ward, Tokyo, which is listed on the Prime section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while working in an auto-related department of the company.   The man then moved to a major automaker in Japan, and the police are investigating on suspicion that the man tried….Read more

Tokyo, Dec. 5 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s industry ministry Tuesday proposed the creation of a permission system for drilling and storage operations in carbon capture and storage, or CCS, projects to collect carbon dioxide and store it underground.   The ministry presented the proposal to require approval from the industry minister for such operations, at its meetings with subgroups of the Industrial….Read more

According to a survey conducted by The Yomiuri Shimbun, a total of 31 of 121 local governments (26%) are concerned about foreign companies providing Japan’s government cloud services that handle personal information and other data held by local governments. The reasons for concern include “the handling of information in the case that foreign providers withdraw from Japan” and “a surge….Read more

Nikkei highlighted a Defense Ministry announcement yesterday that it has secured membership in the Combined Space Operations Initiative io raise space domain awareness for the purpose of protecting the nation’s satellites. Japan will join the United States, the UK, and five other members of the group in discussing the establishment of rules to maintain security and prevent escalation in space.