🇯🇵Week of November 2

Japan's House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday to cut the consumption tax on food to 1 percent for two years, sending it to the upper chamber. The bill cleared a lower house committee before the full chamber vote. The measure is expected to pass during the current Diet session, with a majority expected to be secured in the House of Councillors as well.123

Every opposition party voted against the bill, including the Democratic Party for the People and Komeito, according to the vote count reported after the chamber vote. Conservatives were set to vote in favour of the cut.12

Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba left the chamber before the vote, telling people around him he could not support it, Mainichi Shimbun reported. Ishiba had earlier voiced discomfort with the cut, asking which items would be reviewed and how the money would be raised.42

Funding for the cut remains unresolved. Okinawa Times reported that Finance Minister Katayama's side has not dispelled concerns about how the reduction will be paid for, and the outlet quoted a lawmaker saying the funding worries had not been cleared.5

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said she aims for early passage of the food tax cut bill, and has said she does not expect the cut to push prices down.2

The Japanese government has decided on an emergency package of measures against cyberattacks, including forced blocking of malicious traffic and the dispatch of public-private rescue teams to companies that suffer damage. The package covers active cyber defence, including steps to neutralise an attack, and the government will make its own judgement on whether to act regardless of whether a request has been made.12

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi instructed that financial measures be considered to carry out the emergency response, according to a flash bulletin issued as the package was finalised. The cabinet-level meeting on cybersecurity was convened to set the response in motion.31

The government will also consider revising the laws tied to active cyber defence in order to strengthen its ability to gather information on cyberattacks. The focus will be whether to make it possible to obtain communications data that is completed within Japan, which current law does not permit.4

The government analysed domestic information-leak cases and presented countermeasures in the wake of the incident referred to as Black October.5

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reported to be considering leaving the Trump administration after the Republican Party's heavy defeat in the midterm elections. Bloomberg reported that Rubio was weighing a departure from the administration, while the New York Times reported that Rubio himself denied resigning.1

The White House pushed back on the reports. A deputy press secretary denied that Rubio was considering resignation, and the denial was carried in Japanese coverage of the story.234

Japanese outlets framed the reports around the scale of the Republican loss. TV Asahi reported that Rubio was considering leaving the administration and that Vice President Vance had also "broken away," citing US media coverage of the Republican rout.5

Attributed claim: The accounts differ on what Rubio himself has said. NHK reported that the New York Times said Rubio denied resigning, while the White House denial was carried separately; the reports of a possible departure and the denials circulated at the same time.12

The Liberal Democratic Party, Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Democratic Party for the People have begun working-level talks on reforming the House of Representatives election system, with the size of proportional bloc seats among the items under discussion. The three parties are negotiating the framework for drafting legislation.12

Sankei Shimbun reported that tightening the rules for proportional revival would hit the Democratic Party for the People, and based its estimate on the February lower house election. The same account put the three parties' working talks at the centre of the reform push.13

Drafting the clauses leaves a heavy workload, and the Okinawa Times reported that whether the seat reduction continues is still undecided, describing the system as not yet settled.4

Shimbun Akahata reported that joint efforts to block the proportional seat reduction are spreading, framed as politics that protects people's livelihoods. The Japanese Communist Party opposes the reduction.5

A man whose wife and eldest daughter died when a building collapsed in the Noto Peninsula earthquake has filed a lawsuit against the Japanese state and the company that owns the building, seeking damages over their deaths. He said the two died because the building fell, not because of the earthquake itself.12

The suit centers on the building's piles, which failed and left the structure toppled. Coverage describes the case as the first in Japan involving a building that overturned after its piles were damaged.3

The man, identified as Kusunoki, said he had no option but to sue. He also said he cannot accept what happened.42

Mainichi Shimbun reported the collapse as a man-made disaster rather than a purely natural one, framing the lawsuit as a claim that the deaths were caused by the building's failure.5

Democrat Bottoms has won the Georgia governor's race, making her the first Black woman elected governor in United States history. The result was reported as certain by outlets including CNN and Nikkei.12

The Georgia contest was one of several state governor races decided in the same round of voting. Democrats also won governor races in Texas and Ohio, according to Reuters reporting carried by Yahoo! News.3

The Wall Street Journal's Japanese edition reported Bottoms's victory in Georgia and described her as the first Black woman governor. Mainichi Shimbun carried that account.4

47NEWS issued a flash bulletin on the outcome, reporting that the first Black woman governor in US history was set to take office.5

A cyberattack on supermarket refrigeration equipment in Europe pushed freezer temperatures as high as 50C, and stores discarded all frozen food. The disruption hit supermarkets in Germany, Sweden and Belgium, among other European countries.123

In Germany, the attack raised the temperature of refrigeration equipment, and at least one affected store had its setting changed to 50C. The spoiled stock was thawed and thrown out.34

The attack targeted internet-connected devices, with the weakness lying in IoT equipment rather than in the food retailers' own systems.4

The same wave of attacks on connected electronics has extended beyond refrigeration, with reports describing a nuclear alert sounding in the middle of the night.5

Voting opened in the United States midterm elections. Democrats are seen as likely to win a majority in the House of Representatives, while the Senate contests are close, with the balance of momentum between the parties roughly even.123

Seven tight Senate races will decide the outcome, according to Yomiuri Shimbun's account. A US analysis firm's latest assessment counted six Senate battleground states and put the Democrats' chances of taking the House majority higher, TBS NEWS DIG reported.21

Steve Bannon, a former aide to Donald Trump, warned that the Republican Party will face "civil war" after the midterms, Nikkei reported.4

Emergency warning apps in both Russia and Ukraine were hit by what Russia's emergencies ministry called a large-scale cyberattack, and fake alerts went out to users. The false messages included warnings of a nuclear attack and of radiation danger, according to reports on the breach. Ukrainian Air Force statements confirmed a cyberattack on the country's air-raid alert app.1234

The affected services are the apps residents rely on for air-raid and emergency warnings, and the fake notifications reached users in both countries. Outlets described the episode as a hacking incident rather than a malfunction. Russia's emergencies ministry characterised the attack as large-scale and said Ukraine was also affected.153

Coverage of the incident continued into the week, with the Yomiuri Shimbun account of fake nuclear-attack warnings recirculated by Yahoo! News, d Menu News and Infoseek. Those items repeated the core facts: false alerts in both countries and suspected hacking.678

Japan's education minister said the University of Tokyo's explanatory document on its presidential selection was insufficient, and that the reasons for the choice were unclear. The minister asked the university to review the process, a request described as unusual.123

The University of Tokyo selected as president a candidate who did not place first in the vote count and did not hold a majority. Faculty have raised concerns that the selection process is becoming a formality without substance.4

The selection committee published material explaining how the process unfolded. In a ballot of 16 committee members, Professor Yuko Fujigaki placed first in both rounds, taking 12 votes in the second vote.5

Attributed claim: Nikkei, a centre-right outlet, framed the dispute as a misunderstanding of governance and argued that the university owes an account of why the other candidates were not chosen. The university's own publication of the selection records and the committee's account of the voting stand as the institution's response.45