Overview
- The Bank of Japan raised its policy interest rate to about 1.0% at its June 16 meeting, a return to levels last seen in the mid-1990s and a clear response to stronger inflationary pressure from rising oil prices.
- The rate decision was taken while Governor Kazuo Ueda was in hospital, a governance anomaly that has prompted scrutiny of how the Bank reached the outcome without its presiding official.
- Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force investigators on June 17 forwarded documents to prosecutors and sent two helicopter crew members to the Nagasaki prosecutors' office for criminal investigation over the April 2024 mid-air collision that killed eight.
- A court and police actions this week held corporate and individual actors to account: the Okayama District Court ordered former Nishiyama Farm executives and sales agents to pay about ¥115 million to investors, and Tokyo police arrested a man accused of using a PayPay refund ruse to steal about ¥210,000.
- Local politics and civic debate continued to evolve with two former Diet members endorsing Denny Tamaki in Okinawa's governor race, Osaka's mayor sharply criticizing Osaka Metro's slow verification of problematic EV buses, and the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations restating opposition to nuclear possession or sharing.