G7 leaders divided on trade; Trump attacks EU, Canada amid backlash

Leaders of the Group of Seven rich nations headed for a summit in Canada on Thursday more divided than at any time in the group's 42-year history, as U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policies risk causing a global trade war and deep diplomatic schisms. In a bid to rebuild America's industry, Trump has imposed hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, including those from key G7 allies like Canada, Japan and the European Union. 

Trump has threatened to use national security laws to do the same for car imports and has walked back on environmental agreements and an international deal to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. French President Emmanuel Macron, who has invested in a warm personal relationship with Trump, said the other G7 nations - Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan, as well as France - should remain "polite" and productive but warned that "no leader is forever," a sign that Europe would not surrender meekly to the U.S. president.

Look forward to meeting Kim Jong-un; US talking to N Korea directly: Trump

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US was in direct talks with North Korea "at a very high level" ahead of his planned summit with Kim Jong-un.

The two countries were looking at five potential venues for the summit, "but it is not in the United States", Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago where he was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We've also started talking to North Korea directly.We have had direct talks at very high levels -- extremely high levels -- with North Korea," Trump said before a restricted bilateral meeting with Abe.

"I really believe there's a lot of goodwill. A lot of good things are happening.We'll see what happens.As I always say, we'll see what happens.Because ultimately, it's the end result that counts, not the fact that we're thinking about having a meeting or having a meeting," he said.

Japan approves $926 billion budget: Can Shinzo Abe push fiscal reform?

Japan's parliament approved a record $926 billion state budget on Wednesday for the next fiscal year, starting on April 1, with analysts wary about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ability to push fiscal reform as he faces a crisis over suspected cronyism.

With the passage of the budget bills, attention is shifting to debate on a mid-year fiscal reform plan to rein in what is already the heaviest public debt burden in the industrialised world.

Analysts doubt Abe would push painful reform, at a time when he faces his biggest political crisis since taking office in late 2012 as suspicions swirl about a sale of state-owned land at a huge discount to a nationalist school operator with ties to his wife.

The 97.7 trillion yen ($925.89 billion) spending plan - above 97.5 trillion yen initially planned for the current fiscal year - features a large welfare outlay to respond to a fast-ageing population and a record military outlay to cope with regional tension related to China and North Korea.

Tokyo Olympics' organisers unveil 'significant' cut in budget

Tokyo 2020 organisers today unveiled a "significant" cut in their budget for hosting the games, as the city comes under pressure to keep a lid on spiralling costs.

The overall game's budget now stands at a total of 1.35 trillion yen ($12.6 billion), organisers said in a statement.

This represented a cut of $1.4 billion compared to the previous version of the budget unveiled last December and $0.3 billion compared to an interim figure agreed in May.

"Going forward, Tokyo 2020 will continue to seek further cost reductions, particularly in the areas of event operations, transport, accommodation and security," organisers said in a statement.

They hailed a "significant reduction in costs" resulting from "sustained efforts ... to avoid recourse to public funds."

"This will not be the end of the cost reduction efforts," vowed Hidemasa Nakamura, the chief financial officer of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, at a press conference.

The IOC's Games coordination commission chairman John Coates said in October Tokyo should aim to cut overall costs by $1 billion from the interim figure.

"We hope to draft (budget) plans so that Coates will say 'good job' at the end," Nakamura said.

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Trump, Japanese PM Abe play golf, sign 'make alliance even greater' hats

Golfing buddies Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe teed off for a quick nine holes on Sunday, relaxing ahead of a high-stakes diplomatic summit over the North Korea crisis.

After a business lunch of hamburgers with US beef -- a possible cue to discuss trade issues -- the pair donned golfing kit for a round at the Kasumigaseki Country Club, which will host the event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

They are playing with Hideki Matsuyama, one of the world's top golfers, and Trump had warm words for his skills on the plane over.

"He is the greatest player in the history of Japan. Possibly their greatest celebrity... He's a truly great player, a great athlete," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

He described his partner as a "long ball hitter" but could not resist adding: "I hit the ball pretty long."

However, he graciously conceded that Matsuyama was likely to tee off further than him, warning the press of possible fake news.

"If I come back and say I was longer than him, don't believe it."

Inside, the two leaders signed white caps that read, "Donald and Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater."

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Harassment of women can't be tolerated, says Ivanka Trump in Japan

US President Donald Trump's daughter and senior advisor Ivanka Trump said here on Friday that sexual harassment of women should "never be tolerated".

Ivanka Trump's visit came just two days before the US President's scheduled arrival in Japan on the first stop of an Asia tour.

At a World Assembly for Women, she spoke about boosting equal participation in "traditionally male-dominated sectors of our economy" but there were many empty seats that officials blamed on tight security restrictions, the BBC reported.

Ivanka Trump's father had been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and assault, all of which his representatives denied.

Accusations of groping, forced kissing and walking unannounced into changing areas at beauty pageants were made against Trump when he was running for President.

Past weeks brought heightened focus on sexual harassment around the world, which was sparked by the accusations against Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, continued in the #metoo movement where victims shared stories online, and already claimed the job of a UK Cabinet Minister, Michael Fallon.

When asked last week about the claims against Trump, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said all the women who made the accusations were lying.

At the Tokyo conference, Ivanka Trump said: "All too often, our workplace culture fails to treat women with appropriate respect. This takes many forms, including harassment, which can never be tolerated."
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North Korea rouses neighbours to reconsider nuclear weapons

As North Korea races to build a weapon that for the first time could threaten American cities, its neighbours are debating whether they need their own nuclear arsenals.

The North’s rapidly advancing capabilities have scrambled military calculations across the region, and doubts are growing the United States will be able to keep the atomic genie in the bottle.

For the first time in recent memory, there is a daily argument raging in both South Korea and Japan — sometimes in public, more often in private — about the nuclear option, driven by worry that the United States might hesitate to defend the countries if doing so might provoke a missile launched from the North at Los Angeles or Washington.

In South Korea, polls show 60 per cent of the population favours building nuclear weapons. And nearly 70 per cent want the United States to reintroduce tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use. There is very little public support for nuclear arms in Japan, the only nation ever to suffer a nuclear attack, but many experts believe that could reverse quickly if North and South Korea both had arsenals.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has campaigned for a military build-up against the threat from the North, and Japan sits on a stockpile of nuclear material that could power an arsenal of 6,000 weapons.

This brutal calculus over how to respond to North Korea is taking place in a region where several nations have the material, the technology, the expertise and the money to produce nuclear weapons. Beyond South Korea and Japan, there is already talk in Australia, Myanmar, Taiwan and Vietnam about whether it makes sense to remain nuclear-free if others arm themselves — heightening fears that North Korea could set off a chain reaction in which one nation after another feels threatened and builds the bomb.
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Japan will 'never tolerate' North Korea's 'provocative' acts: Shinzo Abe

Prime minister Shinzo Abe said on Friday that Japan would "never tolerate" what he called North Korea's "dangerous provocative action that threatens world peace" following a missile launch over his country.

"We can never tolerate that North Korea trampled on the international community's strong, united resolve toward peace that has been shown in UN resolutions and went ahead again with this outrageous act," Abe told reporters.

"If North Korea continues to walk down this path, it has no bright future. We must make North Korea understand this," he added.

Japan was jolted awake in the early hours by an alert saying North Korea had fired a missile over its northern island of Hokkaido, the second such launch in less than a month.

Abe called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and stressed: "Now is the time for the international community to be united.

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North Korea fires 2nd missile over Japan in a month: Top 10 developments

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet at 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT) on Friday over the latest missile test by North Korea at the request of the United States and Japan.

North Korea on Friday launched a missile that flew over northern Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, the South Korean military said. The still-unidentified missile was launched around 6.30 am (local time) from east of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to South Korea's military Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The officials said that the rocket could have reached an altitude of 770 km and flew for a total of some 3,700 km. According to the Japanese government's missile alert system, the missile overflew the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and fell into the Pacific Ocean, Efe news reported.
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North Korea fires ballistic missile over Japan, sharply escalating tensions

North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japan and landed in waters off the northern region of Hokkaido early on Tuesday, South Korean and Japanese officials said, marking a sharp escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The test, which experts said appeared to have been a recently developed intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile, came as U.S. and South Korean forces conduct annual military drills on the peninsula, against which North Korea strenuously objects.

Earlier this month, North Korea threatened to fire missiles into the sea near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam after U.S. President Donald Trump warned Pyongyang would face “fire and fury” if it threatened the United States.

North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under young leader Kim Jong-Un, the most recent on Saturday, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.

“North Korea’s reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.
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Japan's Shinzo PM Abe reaffirms conviction that TPP benefits Asia-Pacific

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conviction that a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact will help bring prosperity to the Asia-Pacific region is unaltered, he said on Tuesday.

After US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 12-nation pact, Japan has been exploring options to revive the pact without the United States, hoping it can eventually convince Trump to reconsider.

Negotiators from the remaining 11 members have sought ways to resuscitate talks and deepen economic ties without a United States that appears increasingly suspicious of multilateral deals.

Abe urged global policymakers not to view trade as a "zero-sum" game, but instead seek to remove barriers that hamper innovation from crossing borders.

"I don't think TPP is losing momentum," Abe said at a seminar hosted by the Wall Street Journal newspaper in the Japanese capital.

"Japan wants to exert leadership so that we can steer the debate toward a clear direction at a ministerial meeting in Hanoi."

However, Abe said he did not rule out the chance of signing a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States, an option Washington favours.

"It's among the various options available for Japan," he added. "But we need to discuss more what's best for Japan."

In a sign of hope for Japan, new US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will attend a meeting of trade ministers from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries on Thursday and Friday in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

Many TPP signatories are expected to attend.

Japan's economic revival continues to be Abe's top policy priority, he added.

"We're unwavering in standing ready to continue deploying the three arrows of fiscal, monetary and structural measures" to end deflation, Abe said.
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