Politics
Right-wing Sanae Takaichi set to become Japan’s first female PM
Japan’s ruling party picked hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi as its head on Saturday, putting her on course to become the country’s first female prime minister in a move set to jolt investors and neighbours.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled Japan for almost all of the postwar era, elected Takaichi, 64, to regain trust from a public angered by rising prices and drawn to opposition groups promising stimulus and clampdowns on migrants.
A vote in parliament to choose a replacement for outgoing Shigeru Ishiba is expected on October 15. Takaichi is favoured as the ruling coalition has the largest number of seats.
Inherits party in crisis
Takaichi, the only woman among the five LDP candidates, beat a challenge from the more moderate Shinjiro Koizumi, 44, who was bidding to become the youngest modern leader.
A former economic security and internal affairs minister with an expansionary fiscal agenda for the world’s fourth-largest economy, Takaichi takes over a party in crisis.
Various other parties, including the expansionist Democratic Party for the People and the anti-immigration Sanseito, have been steadily luring voters, especially younger ones, away from the LDP.
The LDP and its coalition partner lost their majorities in both houses under Ishiba over the past year, triggering his resignation.
“Recently, I have heard harsh voices from across the country saying we don’t know what the LDP stands for anymore,” Takaichi said in a speech before the second-round vote.
“That sense of urgency drove me. I wanted to turn people’s anxieties about their daily lives and the future into hope.”
Takaichi says her hero is Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, who offers a starker vision for change than Koizumi and is potentially more disruptive.
An advocate of late premier Shinzo Abe’s “Abenomics” strategy to boost the economy with aggressive spending and easy monetary policy, she has previously criticised the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) interest rate increases.
Such a spending shift could confuse investors about one of the world’s biggest debt loads.
Naoya Hasegawa, chief bond strategist at Okasan Securities in Tokyo, said Takaichi’s election had weakened the chances of the BOJ raising rates this month, which markets had priced at around a 60 per cent chance before the vote.
Discussed redoing Trump trade deal
Takaichi has also raised the possibility of redoing an investment deal with US President Donald Trump that lowered his punishing tariffs in return for Japanese taxpayer-backed investment.
The US ambassador to Japan, George Glass, congratulated Takaichi, posting on X that he looked forward to strengthening the Japan-US partnership “on every front”.
But her nationalistic positions — such as her regular visits to the Yasukuni shrine to Japan’s war dead, viewed by some Asian countries as a symbol of its past militarism — may rile neighbours like South Korea and China.
South Korea will seek to “cooperate to maintain the positive momentum in South Korea-Japan relations”, President Lee Jae Myung’s office said in a statement.
Takaichi also favours revising Japan’s pacifist postwar constitution and suggested this year that Japan could form a “quasi-security alliance” with Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by China.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te welcomed her election, saying she was a “steadfast friend of Taiwan”.
“It is hoped that under the leadership of the new [LDP] President Takaichi, Taiwan and Japan can deepen their partnership in areas such as economic trade, security, and technological cooperation,” he said in a statement.
If elected prime minister, Takaichi said she would travel overseas more regularly than her predecessor to spread the word that “Japan is Back!”.
“I have thrown away my own work-life balance, and I will work, work, work,” Takaichi said in her victory speech.
Warnings for foreigners
Some of her supporters viewed her selection as a watershed in Japan’s male-dominated politics, though opinion polls suggest her socially conservative positions are favoured more by men than women.
“The fact that a woman was chosen might be seen positively. I think it shows that Japan is truly starting to change and that message is getting across,” 30-year-old company worker Misato Kikuchi said outside Tokyo’s Shimbashi station.
Takaichi must also seek to blunt the rise of Sanseito, which broke into the political mainstream in a July election, appealing to conservative voters disillusioned with the LDP.
Echoing Sanseito’s warnings about foreigners, she kicked off her first official campaign speech with an anecdote about tourists reportedly kicking sacred deer in her hometown of Nara.
Takaichi, whose mother was a police officer, promised to clamp down on rule-breaking visitors and immigrants, who have come to Japan in record numbers in recent years.
“We hope she will … steer Japanese politics in an ‘anti-globalism’ direction to protect national interests and help the people regain prosperity and hope,” Sanseito said in a statement.
- Trump shares commentary on birthright citizenship on his social media.
- Conservative talk show host called China, India ‘hellhole’ places.
- India says inappropriate comments do not reflect reality of India-US ties.
India has dismissed as “uninformed” comments shared by US President Donald Trump that described the country as a “hellhole”, saying they were inappropriate and inconsistent with the strong relationship between the two countries.
The comments were made by conservative commentator Michael Savage in an episode of The Savage Nation talk radio show. Trump posted a transcript of the show on his Truth Social account on Thursday without any comments.
“A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet,” Savage said, according to the transcript.
“That there’s almost no loyalty to this country amongst the immigrant class coming in today, which was not always the case. No, they’re not like the European Americans of today and their ancestors.”
Reuters could not immediately contact Savage.
Trump has issued a directive seeking to restrict birthright citizenship in the United States, a move that has been challenged in the US Supreme Court. Earlier this month, he attended a hearing on the issue in a historic visit to the court.
India’s foreign ministry late on Thursday reacted strongly to the comments.
“The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said in a statement.
“They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests.”
The US embassy in New Delhi said: “The president has said ‘India is a great country with a very good friend of mine at the top’.”
China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
India’s main opposition Congress party called the “hellhole” remark “extremely insulting and anti-India. It hurts every Indian”.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi should take up this matter with the US President and register a strong objection,” the party said on X.
Indian government data shows nearly 5.5 million people of Indian origin live in the United States. Indian Americans and Chinese Americans are the two biggest groups of Asian origin in the US.
Trump and Modi enjoyed warm ties during Trump’s first term, but relations cooled after India was hit last year with some of the highest US tariffs, many of which were rolled back this year. India and the US are now working on a trade deal aimed at preventing any renewed increase in tariffs and boosting sales to each other.
A US soldier faces charges for using classified information to bet on online prediction markets related to the US operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
US Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, allegedly made over $400,000 by using the online platform Polymarket to bet on outcomes related to US forces arriving in Venezuela’s capital Caracas and deposing Maduro — an operation he helped plan and execute, according to justice officials.
The US military launched strikes on Caracas on January 3, arresting Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and whisking them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission…and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
The online platform said in a statement that it had flagged the user who made the bets to the Department of Justice and cooperated with their investigation.
“Insider trading has no place on the [platform],” the statement said. “Today’s arrest is proof the system works.”
Van Dyke faces one count of wire fraud, one count of an unlawful monetary transaction and three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, according to the indictment.
The indictment marks the latest instance of insider information being used to bet on the actions of the second Trump administration.
Earlier in the year, six accounts on the online platform made $1.2 million after betting that the United States would attack Iran on February 28, the day the war in the Middle East began.
No arrests have been made in connection with those bets, and so far, there is no evidence that US President Donald Trump or White House officials are linked to the transactions.
“The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino…in Europe and every place, they’re doing these betting things,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, adding: “I was never much in favour of it.”
Conflicts of interest
Democratic lawmakers and other critics have accused Trump and his family of having conflicts of interest since the beginning of his second term.
“The Trump family has made $4 billion off the presidency,” leftist senator Bernie Sanders wrote on Thursday in a post on X with a list of alleged income sources, calling it “unprecedented kleptocracy.”
In March, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform about “very productive” talks with Iran, sending oil prices downward and stocks surging — and people who placed the flurry of futures trades beforehand likely pocketed tens of millions of dollars, according to calculations by a market operator for AFP.
Members of the Trump family have also made hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from cryptocurrencies, a market he has sought to deregulate.
If Van Dyke, who used the online platform to wager, is convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.
DUBAI: Dubai Police have impounded around 10 motorcycles and initiated legal action against a group of young riders caught performing dangerous stunts on public roads, authorities said.
Police said the riders were seen driving on one wheel and weaving between vehicles, posing a serious threat to public safety and risking lives.
Videos released by Dubai Police showed the reckless behaviour of the motorcyclists, many of whom are believed to be young riders engaging in stunt riding on busy roads.
Authorities confirmed that cases have been registered against the offenders and stressed that strict action will continue against anyone violating traffic laws.
Dubai Police also urged parents to closely monitor their children’s activities and raise awareness about road safety, warning that such behaviour could lead to serious accidents or fatalities.
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