North Korea launched two more ballistic missiles Thursday morning, one of which landed in the Sea of Japan, U.S. officials confirmed to CBS News. The second missile landed in North Korea, the officials said.
It’s unclear if Thursday’s launches were in direct response to the announcement Wednesday that the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan would return to waters east of South Korea. The carrier was part of drills last week with South Korea and Japan.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the two missiles were launched from Pyongyang about 22 minutes apart in the direction of the Sea of Japan.
“North Korea’s successive launch of ballistic missiles is a serious provocation that harms the peace and stability of not only the Korean Peninsula but also the international community, and it is a clear violation of the ‘UN Security Council resolution,’” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also confirmed the North Korean missile launches, saying the weapons firings are “absolutely intolerable.”
The launches were the North’s sixth round of weapons firings in less than two weeks, which has prompted condemnation from the U.S. and other countries. It also came just two days after North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile over Japan for the first time in five years. Foreign experts said the missile fired Tuesday involved a weapon capable of reaching the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.
The country has fired nearly 40 ballistic missiles over about 20 different launch events this year, exploiting Russia’s war on Ukraine and the resulting deep divide in the U.N. Security Council to accelerate its arms development without risking further sanctions.
Debate over how to handle Tuesday’s missile launch over Japanese territory split an already deeply fractured U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, with Russia and China insisting that U.S.-led military exercises in the region had provoked North Korea into acting.
Wednesday’s session ended with no agreement on next steps, despite warnings from the U.S. and its allies that the council’s inability to reach consensus on North Korea’s record number of missile launches this year was emboldening North Korea and undermining the authority of the United Nations’ most powerful body.
This picture shows a Japan Air Self-Defense Force ground-based missile interceptor Patriot system deployed next to the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo on Oct. 5, 2022.
KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images
The North’s flurry of weapons tests in recent days came after the U.S. staged military drills with South Korea and Japan in the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast.
The drills on Tuesday were conducted to show a joint ability to deter a North Korean attack on the South. The allies conducted training bombing runs by F-15 strike jets using precision munitions and launched two missiles each that are part of the Army Tactical Missile System.
However, one of South Korea’s ballistic missiles malfunctioned and fell on land during the drill, with sound of the blast and subsequent fire triggering panic among residents in the coastal city of Gangneung.
North Korea views such drills as an invasion rehearsal. The country launched its own missile hours before the drills in its most provocative demonstration since 2017. The nuclear-capable ballistic missile that was launched has a range capable of striking Guam, which is home to one of the largest military facilities maintained by the U.S. in Asia. North Korea in 2017 also tested missiles capable of hitting the continental United States.
After Tuesday’s launch, the United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a ballistic missile Thursday toward its eastern waters, South Korea’s military said.
The launch was the North’s sixth round of weapons firings in less than two weeks, which has prompted condemnation from the United States and other countries.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the launch was made Thursday morning but gave no further details like how far the weapon flew.
Thursday’s launch came two days after North Korea fired an intermediate-range missile over Japan for the first time in five years. Foreign experts said the missile fired Tuesday involved an intermediate-range weapon capable of reaching the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam and beyond.
The North’s flurry of weapons tests in recent days came after the United States staged military drills with South Korea and Japan in the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast. North Korea views such drills as an invasion rehearsal.
After Tuesday’s launch, the United States, Britain, France, Albania, Norway and Ireland called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that it strongly condemns “the Korean People’s Army on South Korea-U.S. joint drills escalating the military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
North Korea carried out a record number of missile tests this year amid long-stalled diplomacy with the United States. Observers say North Korea aims to expand its nuclear arsenal to boost its leverage in future negotiations with the United States.
North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan in its most provocative show of force in years as develops its nuclear weapons program. Elizabeth Palmer has more details.
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The United States and South Korea launched four missiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday morning local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The test was the allies’ second exercise in under 24 hours, following a provocative test-launch Tuesday morning by neighboring North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile without warning over Japan in a significant escalation of its weapons testing program.
The US and South Korea initially responded to the provocation with a precision bombing exercise on Tuesday, which involved a South Korean F-15K fighter jet firing two air-to-surface munitions at a virtual target in a firing range west of the Korean Peninsula, per the South Korean Joint Chiefs.
The allies typically respond to missile tests by North Korea with military exercises.
Wednesday’s launch included four ATACMS missiles, the statement by the South Korean Joint Chiefs said. Also known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, such weapons are surface-to-surface missiles that can fly around 200 miles (320 kilometers).
According to John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, the launch was designed to demonstrate that the US and its allies have “the military capabilities at the ready to respond to provocations by the North.”
“This is not the first time we’ve done this in response to provocations by the North to make sure that we can demonstrate our own capabilities,” Kirby told CNN’s Pamela Brown on the “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”
“We want to see the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) hasn’t shown an inclination to move in that direction, quite frankly he’s moving in the opposite direction by continuing to conduct these missile tests which are violations of security council resolutions,” he added.
On Tuesday, the US and Japan also conducted a joint response to the North Korean launch, with US Marine Corps and Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets flying over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.
Following a 25-minute phone call with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said North Korea’s latest launch posed “a grave challenge to peace and the stability of Japan, the region and the international community” and that Biden shared this view completely.
Analysts say there’s little the US and its allies can do to stop Kim’s relentless weapons buildup.
“The North Koreans are in no mood to talk. They’re in the mood of testing and blowing things off,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Failed US-North Korea summits during the Trump administration have led Kim to believe he can gain nothing from talks, Lewis said.
Since 2019 negotiations with former US President Donald Trump were cut short with no agreement, the North Korean leader has laid out a program to develop missiles with nuclear capability – and he’s following that timetable, Lewis added.
“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” Lewis said.
Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said North Korea is making progress.
Every time the Kim regime launches a weapon, “They learn, they get better, they get more capable,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
Ankit Panda, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said North Korea appeared set on a course to develop nuclear weapons.
“Denuclearization is now I think in the dustbin of history as a failed policy,” he said.
“There is simply no practical plan at this point, especially in the short term, to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and to pursue denuclearization.”
Seoul, South Korea — North Korea on Tuesday fired a ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years, forcing Japan to issue evacuation notices and suspend trains during the flight of the nuclear-capable weapon that could reach the U.S. territory of Guam, and possibly beyond. The launch was the most provocative weapons demonstration by North Korea this year.
CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reported from Tokyo that residents of coastal communities in northern Japan were woken up Tuesday by sirens and warnings to prepare to evacuate their homes.
A man watches a TV news report on North Korea firing a ballistic missile over Japan, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 4, 2022.
KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
North Korea fired the missile from near its border with China. It took took 22 minutes to fly 2,800 miles on a path directly over northern Japan before crashing into the sea. Analysts believe the missile was the Hwasong-12, which the Kim regime rolled out in a military parade in January.
The test of the apparent Hwasong-12 appeared to be North Korea’s longest-range missile launch to date, and would put major U.S. military bases in the region easily within range.
This picture taken on May 14, 2017 and released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspecting a ground-to-ground medium long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location.
STR/AFP/Getty
The U.S. and South Korea conducted a “combined attack squadron flight and precision bombing drill in response to North Korea’s intermediate-range ballistic missile provocation today,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Defense said in a statement later Tuesday.
The drill saw four South Korean F-15s and four U.S. F-16 fighter jets fire two shots at a set target, which the South Korean military said had demonstrated the will by both countries “to respond resolutely to any provocation from North Korea, the ability to precisely strike the origin of the provocation with the overwhelming power of the alliance, and a readiness posture for retaliation.”
A South Korean F-15K takes off to participate in a combined attack squadron flight and precision bombing training drill with U.S. forces on October 4, 2022, in response to a North Korean test firing of a suspected Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile earlier in the day.
Hanout/South Korean Ministry of Defense
As Palmer reported, Tuesday’s was the latest and most threatening test in what has already been a bumper year of 23 separate missile launches by North Korea. The last time the North fired a rocket over Japan, however, was 2017, when North-South relations hit a low point just before then-President Trump’s attempts to negotiate directly with Kim.
There was no immediate comment from the Kim regime about Tuesday’s test, but Palmer said the North Korean dictator’s message was clear: He’s angered and threatened by the growing military alliance in the Pacific between the U.S. and its key partners South Korea and Japan.
Palmer noted that there have been no recent signs that negotiations — even indirect talks — are under consideration to defuse the tension.
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the “reckless act” and quickly convened his country’s National Security Council. The United States also strongly condemned North Korea’s “dangerous and reckless decision” to launch what it described as a “long-range ballistic missile” over Japan.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held separate calls with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts and, the State Department said, all three “strongly condemned the launch and its blatant disregard of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and its deeply destabilizing implications for the region.”
“The United States will continue its efforts to limit (North Korea’s) ability to advance its prohibited ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs, including with allies and U.N. partners,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Japanese authorities alerted residents in northeastern regions to evacuate to shelters, in the first “J-alert” since 2017 when North Korea fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile twice over Japan in a span of weeks during its previous torrid run of weapons tests.
Trains were suspended in the Hokkaido and Aomori regions until the government issued a subsequent notice that the North Korean missile appeared to have landed in the Pacific. In Sapporo city, the prefectural capital of Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, subways were also temporarily suspended, with stations packed with morning commuters.
According to South Korean and Japanese estimates, the missile traveled about 2,800-2,860 miles at a maximum altitude of 600-620 miles. Hamada said it landed in the Pacific, about 1,990 miles off the northern Japanese coast and that there were no reports of damage to Japanese aircraft or ships.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the missile flew farther than any other weapon fired by North Korea. Before Tuesday’s launch, the 2,300 mile-long flight of Hwasong-12 in 2017 was North Korea’s longest. It has previously tested intercontinental ballistic missiles at steep angles so they flew shorter distances.
The missile’s flight distance shows it has enough range to hit the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, home to U.S. military bases that sent advanced warplanes to the Korean Peninsula in shows of force in past tensions with North Korea. In 2017, North Korea threatened to make “an enveloping fire” near Guam with Hwasong-12 missiles amid rising animosities with the then-Trump administration.
North Korea last test-fired a Hwasong-12 missile in January. At the time, the North said the launch was meant to verify the overall accuracy of the weapon, which it said was launched on a lofted angle to prevent it from flying over other countries.
CBS News’ Jen Kwon in Seoul contributed to this report.
Japan urged residents to take shelter early Tuesday morning after North Korea fired a ballistic missile without warning over the country for the first time in five years, in a major and potentially dangerous escalation of recent weapons tests by the Kim Jong Un regime.
The launch, which prompted immediate backlash from Tokyo and Seoul, comes amid a spate of missile tests, with five launches in the past 10 days, and follows renewed military drills between the United States and its regional allies.
The intermediate-range missile was launched from Mupyong-ri near North Korea’s central border with China at around 7:23 a.m. local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It flew about 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles) for 20 minutesat an estimated maximum altitude of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over Japan’s Tohoku region on the main island of Honshu before falling into the Pacific Ocean, some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) from the country’s shore, Japanese officials said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned the launch and called North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches “outrageous” in comments to reporters at his official residence.
Tuesday’s launch is the country’s 23rd such missile test this year, including both ballistic and cruise missiles.
There were no reports of damage to aircraft or vessels near the missile trajectory, according to Japanese authorities, but the unannounced missile triggeredarare J-alert, a system designed to inform the public of emergencies and threats in Japan.
In such emergencies, alerts are sent out via sirens, through community radio stations and to individual smartphone users. On Tuesday, alerts were sent out at around 7:30 a.m. local time to people in Aomori prefecture, Hokkaido and Tokyo’s Izu and Ogasawara islands, according to Japanese officials.
A tweet posted by Japan’s Prime Minister’s office urged residents to take shelter in buildings and to “not approach anything suspicious that is found and to immediately contact the police or fire department.”
Other governments were quick to decry the launch, with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeolbranding it a “reckless” provocation, adding that North Korea will face a decisive response from the South Korean military and its allies.
The White House also “strongly condemned” the test, with National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson calling it a “destabilizing” action that shows North Korea’s “blatant disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions and international safety norms.”
Kim Seung-kyum, chief of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and Paul LaCamera, the United States Forces Korea commander, held a meeting after the launch and reaffirmed the combined defense posture will be further strengthened against any threats and provocations from North Korea, the JCS said.
The US Indo-Pacific Command also released a statement saying American commitments to the defense of Japan and South Korea “remain ironclad.”
Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said regular missile testing was was part of North Korea’s plan to maintain its nuclear forces.
“It is quite possible that the United States, South Korea and Japan will take away a message from this missile test that North Korea is continuing to assert itself to show that it has the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets including the US territory of Guam,” he said, adding that “risk reduction” to stop a crisis from escalating should be the current priority.
“If such a crisis were to play out, it would play out under a significantly more advanced North Korean nuclear capability, which I think would significantly limit the options that the United States and South Korea would have, potentially to retaliate or manage escalation with North Korea,” he said.
Tuesday’s launch could herald an intensification of provocations by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, experts told CNN.
“Pyongyang is still in the middle of a provocation and testing cycle and is likely waiting until after China’s mid-October Communist Party Congress to conduct an even more significant test,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
“The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies.”
Four previous missile launches occurred in the space of a week in late September and early October, around the same time US Vice President Kamala Harris made an official visit to Japan and South Korea, and as US, Japanese and South Korean navies held joint exercises.
North Korea’s testsalso come as international attentionremains firmly focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine –and as both Moscow and Beijing appearreluctant to side with the West to further censure Pyongyang.
In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for its weapons testing, in a vote the US said was likely to fuel Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-capable missile systems.
Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have both warned this year that North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, drew a connection between the missile tests and a potential nuclear test.
“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” he told CNN.
North Korea on Tuesday fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan for the first time in five years, forcing Japan to issue evacuation notices and suspend trains, as the North escalates tests of weapons designed to strike regional U.S. allies.
It was the most significant missile test by North Korea since January, when it fired an Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missile capable of reaching the U.S. territory of Guam. Japan and South Korea both called security meetings to discuss the launch.
The Japanese prime minister’s office said at least one missile fired from North Korea flew over Japan and was believed to have landed into the Pacific Ocean.
Japanese authorities alerted residents in northeastern regions to evacuate to shelters, in the first “J-alert” alert since 2017 when North Korea fired a Hwasong-12 missile over Japan in its previous provocative run of weapons tests.
Trains were suspended in the Hokkaido and Aomori regions until the government issued a subsequent notice that the North Korean missile appeared to have landed into the Pacific.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that “the firing, which followed a recent series of launches by North Korea, is a reckless act and I strongly condemn it.” He said he would convene the National Security Council to discuss the situation.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said no damage was immediately reported from the missile that flew 22 minutes and landed in waters outside the country’s exclusive economic zone.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the missile being fired from the inland north in North Korea. It said the South Korean military raised its surveillance posture and maintained its readiness in close coordination with the United States.
South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol said the missile’s range is 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles), which places Guam within striking distance.
Yoon said he called a National Security Council meeting to discuss the launch and that the North’s “reckless nuclear provocations” would meet the stern response of the South and the broader international community.
The launch is the fifth round of weapons tests by North Korean in the past 10 days in what was seen as an apparent response to bilateral military drills between South Korea and the United States and other training among the allies including Japan last week.
The missiles fired during the past four rounds of launches were short-range and fell in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Those missiles are capable of hitting targets in South Korea.
North Korea has test-fired about 40 missiles over about 20 different launch events this year as its leader Kim Jong Un vows to expand his nuclear arsenal and refuses to return to nuclear diplomacy with the United States.
Some experts say Kim eventually would try to use his enlarged arsenal to pressure Washington to accept his country as a nuclear state, a recognition that he thinks is necessary to win the lifting of international sanctions and other concessions.
TOKYO — Business sentiment among large manufacturers worsened for the third straight quarter, a Bank of Japan survey showed Monday, as the nation grappled with rising costs, the dropping value of the yen and restrictions on economic activity over the coronavirus pandemic.
The headline measure for the “tankan,” measuring sentiment among large manufacturers, was plus 8, down from plus 9 the previous quarter.
The tankan measures corporate sentiment by subtracting the number of companies saying business conditions are negative from those responding they are positive.
Worries are growing about how the Bank of Japan hasn’t gone along with other central banks in tightening interest rates to curb growing inflation. Japan has been trying to fight deflation in recent years and has kept interest rates at near zero.
The nose-diving yen is also a concern, although a cheap yen has in the past been lauded as helping the nation’s big exporters like Toyota Motor Corp., by raising the value of overseas earnings.
The rising costs of imports, including energy as well as food, is hurting Japan, when the U.S. dollar is now trading at nearly 145 yen, when it used to be at 130-yen levels just a few months ago. A year ago, the dollar cost 111 yen.
Sentiment among large nonmanufacturers improved to 14 from 13, according to the latest tankan.
The world’s third-largest economy has struggled for decades to keep growth going. But the stagnation has worsened the last two years because of reduced travel and supply shortages caused by the pandemic.
The war in Ukraine has added to the problems for a resource-poor nation that imports almost all its oil.
The return of individual visa-free travel later this month is certain to work to boost incoming tourists.
The pandemic had squelched overseas tourism, which had sustained economic activity in recent years.
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Two NASA astronauts, a Japanese space veteran, and Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, flew to the Kennedy Space Center Saturday to prepare for launch Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Their Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the top of historic pad 39A before dawn Saturday and rotated vertical just after 12 p.m. Eastern. A few minutes later, Crew 5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina landed on the spaceport runway after a flight from Houston to begin final preparations.
The Crew 5 astronauts spoke with reporters at NASA’s one-time shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center moments after arriving from Houston. Left to right: commander Nicole Mann, an unidentified interpreter, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, Josh Cassada and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
NASA
“First of all, my prayers and thoughts go out to all the people in Florida who are affected by the devastating hurricane,” Wakata said. “I hope with this launch, we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone.”
The astronauts plan to don their pressure suits and strap into the Crew Dragon spacecraft Sunday morning for a dress-rehearsal countdown. Later in the day, SpaceX engineers plan to test fire the Falcon 9’s first stage engines to verify their readiness for flight.
If all goes well, Mann and her crewmates will strap in for real around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to brace for launch just after 12 p.m., the moment the Earth’s rotation carries the rocket into the plane of the space station’s orbit.
The Crew 5 Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the top of pad 39A and rotated vertical Saturday, setting the stage for a dress-rehearsal countdown and engine test firing Sunday followed by blastoff Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station.
CBS News
It will take the crew about 29 hours to catch up with the lab complex, moving in for an automated docking at the station’s forward port around 5 a.m. Thursday.
Standing by to welcome them on board will be Expedition 68 commander Samantha Cristoforetti and her Crew 4 crewmates — Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins — along with Soyuz MS-22/68S crew members Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who arrived at the station Sept. 21.
Wakata is making his fifth space flight, while Mann, Cassada and Kikina, the first Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a Crew Dragon, are space rookies.
Rubio’s addition to the Soyuz crew, and Kikina’s addition to Crew 5, were the result of a recent agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, that’s designed to ensure at least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut are aboard the station at all times.
Cosmonaut Anna Kikina, the first Russian assigned to a SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, tells her crewmates she’s thrilled to join them for a flight to the space station.
NASA
Without such an agreement, a medical emergency — or some other problem that might force a Crew Dragon or Soyuz to depart early — could leave the station with an all-Russian or all-NASA-sponsored crew without the expertise to operate the other nation’s systems.
Kikina said she was thrilled by the opportunity.
“I want to share with you my feelings,” she said in broken English. “I really want to say, from my side, and to everybody who made for me that unbelievable, incredible opportunity to be a part of our joint, big something, for all of us. And to be a part of that great, for me, maybe for you also, Crew 5. I really love my crewmates, I really feel comfortable.”
Kikina, who joined the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2012, said she was stunned when told she was being assigned to Crew 5.
“My leaders just appoint me and told me, do you want to be part of Crew 5? Yes. Why not? But I was so surprised.”
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea on Saturday fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters, South Korean and Japanese officials said, making it the North’s fourth round of weapons launches this week that are seen as a response to military drills among its rivals.
South Korea’s military said that it detected the two North Korean missile launches 18 minutes apart on Saturday morning coming from the North’s capital region. Japan’s Defense Ministry said it also spotted the launches.
“The repeated ballistic missile firings by North Korea are a grave provocation that undermines peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the international community,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
It said South Korea strongly condemns the launches and urges North Korea to stop testing ballistic missiles.
Toshiro Ino, Japan’s vice defense minister, called the launches “absolutely impermissible.” He said the four rounds of missile testing by North Korea in a week is “unprecedented.”
According to South Korean and Japanese estimates, the North Korean missiles flew about 350-400 kilometers (220-250 miles) at a maximum altitude of 30-50 kilometers (20-30 miles) before they landed in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Ino, the Japanese vice minister, said the missiles showed “irregular” trajectory. The five other ballistic missiles fired by North Korea on three occasions this week also show similar low trajectories.
Some experts say that the weapons are a nuclear-capable, highly maneuverable missiles modeled after Russia’s Iskander missile. That Iskander-like missile is capable of striking strategic targets in South Korea, including U.S. military bases there.
Saturday’s launches came a day after South Korea, Japan and the United States held their first trilateral anti-submarine drills in five years off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast. Earlier this week, South Korean and U.S. warships conducted bilateral exercises in the area for four days. Both military drills this week involved the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group.
North Korea views such military drills among its rivals as an invasion rehearsal and often responds with its own weapons tests.
The North Korean missile tests this week also came before and after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris visited South Korea on Thursday and reaffirmed the “ironclad” U.S. commitment to the security of its Asian allies.
This year, North Korea has carried out a record number of missile tests in what experts call an attempt to expand its weapons arsenal amid stalled nuclear diplomacy with the United States. The weapons tested this year included nuclear-capable missiles with the ability to reach the U.S. mainland, South Korea and Japan.
South Korean and U.S. officials say North Korea has also completed preparations to conduct a nuclear test, which would be its first in five years.
Experts say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un eventually wants to use the enlarged nuclear arsenal to pressure the United States and others accept his country as a legitimate nuclear state, a recognition he views as necessary to win the lifting of international sanctions and other concessions.
Multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from testing ballistic missiles and nuclear devices. The country’s missile launches this year are seen as exploiting a divide at the U.N. council over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and U.S.-China competitions.
In May, China and Russia vetoed a U.S.-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile launches.
“North Korea’s frequent short-range missile tests may strain the isolated state’s resources. But because of deadlock on the U.N. Security Council, they are a low-cost way for the Kim regime to signal its displeasure with Washington and Seoul’s defense exercises while playing the domestic politics of countering an external threat,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
Japanese official reported that the missiles travelled 400kms (250 miles) and at a maximum altitude of 50km (30 miles).
North Korea has fired two short-range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area towards the country’s east coast, according to South Korean and Japanese officials, marking Pyongyang’s fourth missile test launches in a week.
Japan’s NHK national television said multiple missiles were fired from North Korea on Saturday morning and were believed to have landed in the Sea of Japan though outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
“What appears to be a ballistic missile was launched from North Korea,” the Japanese coast guard said in a statement issued at 6:47 am (21:47 GMT) local time on Saturday.
In a second statement issued about 15 minutes later, the coast guard said another apparent ballistic missile was launched.
NHK said the projectiles seemed to have fallen outside Japan’s exclusive economic zones, citing government sources.
The office of Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted that the latest missile launch was being analysed and instructions issued for the safety of people, aircraft and vessels.
▼ Instructions by the Prime Minister in Response to the Missile Launch by North Korea (06:47)https://t.co/5mdyBVeuYz (October 1)
The latest launch also follows after the navies of South Korea, the United States and Japan staged trilateral anti-submarine exercises on Friday for the first time in five years.
Japan’s Vice Defence Minister Toshiro Ino said North Korea’s repeated missile firings are “persistently escalating provocations”.
“North Korea’s actions threaten the peace and safety not only for Japan but also the region and the international community, and are absolutely impermissible,” Ino said, calling the four launches in one week “unprecedented”.
The missiles rose to a maximum altitude of 50km (30 miles) and flew as far as 400km (250 miles) before landing in the Sea of Japan in areas outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, Ino said.
The missiles may have been on “irregular” trajectory, which makes tracking more difficult.
North Korea has conducted a record number of weapons tests this year and analysts see the increased pace of testing as an effort to build its ballistic weapons capacity, as well as to take advantage of a world distracted by the Ukraine conflict and other crises.
Nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by North Korea have long been banned by the United Nations Security Council.
“Despite North Korea’s internal weaknesses and international isolation, it is rapidly modernising weapons and taking advantage of a world divided by US-China rivalry and Russia’s annexation of more Ukrainian territory,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
A South Korean legislator said on Wednesday that the North has completed preparations for a nuclear test, and a window for such a test could open between China’s party congress in October and the US mid-term elections in November.
Nintendo carried out a 10-for-1 stock split which reduces the price of an individual share. The 133 year old Japanese gaming giant hopes the move will make it more affordable for a wider pool of investors to buy the company’s shares.
Zhang Peng | LightRocket | Getty Images
Nintendo carried out its previously announced 10-for-1 stock split on Thursday aimed at reducing the price of one individual share to attract new investors to the more than century old Japanese gaming giant.
Prices for Nintendo’s stock reflected the split on the Japanese Stock Exchange website. Nintendo shares closed at 6,043 Japanese yen ($41.76) on Thursday, after closing at 59,700 on Wednesday.
Each share of common Nintendo stock has been split into 10 shares, hence the reduction in price per share.
The move is designed to appeal to a wider pool of investors. In Japan, typically investors must buy a block of 100 shares in one company. At Nintendo’s old share price, that would cost a minimum of 5.97 million Japanese yen, or just over $41,200. With the split, 100 shares would cost 604,300 Japanese yen or just over $4,170 at Thursday’s closing price, potentially making it more affordable for individuals to invest in Nintendo.
“That minimum investment of around 6 million yen is enough to put a student through an entire four-year study program at a Japanese university,” Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo-based games consultancy Kantan Games, told CNBC.
“It was really about time for Nintendo as a consumer-facing company with such a strong brand recognition to reduce the share price.”
“Now, Nintendo is more affordable especially for younger people, a type of investor that has been growing in Japan in recent years,” he added.
The split comes at a testing time for Nintendo, a 133-year-old company, amid broader challenges in the video game industry. In the second quarter of the year, Nintendo’s operating profit fell 15% while sales of its flagship Switch games console also declined. The Japanese gaming giant is facing supply chain challenges which is hampering its ability to meet demand for the Switch.
However, Nintendo games are still appealing to a wide range of consumers. The company said this month that sales of Splatoon 3 in Japan surpassed 3.45 million units — a domestic record for any Nintendo Switch software within the first three days of sales. Splatoon 3 was launched on Sept. 9.
Nintendo is also gearing up to release popular titles in the coming months including a new game in the Pokemon franchise.
YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) — Standing on the deck of an American destroyer at a naval base here on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris directly challenged China by accusing it of “disturbing behavior” and “provocations” around Taiwan.
Harris said the United States would in response “deepen our unofficial ties” to the disputed island that China views as part of its territory.
The escalating tensions over Taiwan have raised the potential for conflict in an already volatile corner of the globe. But the core of U.S. plans for deterring — or, if necessary, confronting — China depends on alliances that are under strain. South Korea and Japan, which Harris described as the “linchpin” and “cornerstone” of American strategy in Asia, remain at odds with each other, divided by the legacy of World War II despite renewed efforts at reconciliation.
Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula years before the conflict began, sending many people into forced labor and women into sexual slavery. Decades later, tensions continue to spill out of the history books and into debates over trade, technology and intelligence sharing.
Although Japan and South Korea are taking steps to repair their relationship, progress remains uncertain. Leaders in both countries face political challenges at home that could make it harder for them to reach compromises abroad, and the disputes are deeply rooted in questions about national honor and responsibility for some of Asia’s worst atrocities.
South Korea believes it is entitled to additional compensation from Japan and a more fulsome acceptance of guilt. Japanese leaders have resisted, saying such issues have already been settled.
The United States is prodding both sides to compromise as it tries to refocus its alliances to counter China’s growing strength.
Harris, whose four-day trip to the region was anchored by the state funeral for former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, told reporters she views American foreign policy in the region “in the context of a trilateral relationship,” with the U.S., Japan and South Korea all working together.
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Harris encouraged the South Korean and Japanese leaders to advance their negotiations during her meetings with them.
The U.S. wants “to see two of our closest allies in the world working even better with each other,” and “we’re gratified to see that both countries seem determined to address those issues with a real vigor,” the official said.
However, the official said the U.S. had a limited role to play.
“It’s not for us to mediate or negotiate or broker what that relationship should look like,” the official said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida sat down with each other last week at the United Nations, the first meeting between leaders of the two countries in three years.
Then on Wednesday, South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo met with Kishida after Abe’s funeral and described their countries as “close neighbors and cooperative partners who share the values of democracy and the principles of the market economy.”
Kristi Govella, deputy director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said the U.S. will struggle to achieve its goals if South Korea and Japan don’t work together.
“Broadly, the three countries share the same concerns, but the willingness and capacity to act aren’t always aligned between the three,” she said.
There’s an increasing focus on the tensions because of concerns about Taiwan, where Chinese and American saber rattling has raised fears of conflict. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August outraged Beijing, which responded with military exercises.
President Joe Biden recently said the U.S. would send troops if China attacked. Although Taiwan is a self-governing democracy, Beijing views the island as part of its territory and has vowed to unite it with the mainland.
Harris accused China of “a pressure campaign against Taiwan” with “a series of destabilizing actions.”
“We anticipate continued aggressive behavior from Beijing as it attempts to unilaterally undermine the status quo,” she said Wednesday.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin responded to Harris by saying the U.S. had violated its pledge to respect China’s territorial integrity.
“When the U.S. cannot honor its own commitment, in what position can it talk about rules and order? It will only become a saboteur of international rules,” Wang said in a daily briefing.
Zack Cooper, a senior fellow focused on Asian defense strategy at the American Enterprise Institute, said “there’s a feeling that the likelihood of a serious crisis over Taiwan is growing pretty rapidly.”
Fractures among American allies could undermine any response to an invasion, said Fang-Yu Chen, a political science professor at Soochow University in Taipei, Taiwan.
“If they don’t have good relationships with each other, then there will be trouble,” he said.
Ties between South Korea and Japan worsened during the leadership of Abe and former South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
Abe’s government reacted furiously after South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 upheld lower court verdicts and ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate Korean forced laborers.
Those rulings led to further tensions in 2019 when Japan placed export controls on chemicals vital to South Korea’s semiconductor industry. Citing the deterioration of trust, Japan also removed South Korea from a list of countries with preferential trade status.
Moon’s government accused Abe of weaponizing trade and downgraded Japan’s trade status in a tit-for-tat move. Seoul even threatened to terminate a military intelligence-sharing agreement with Tokyo that was a major symbol of their three-way security cooperation with Washington.
South Korea eventually backed off and continued the deal under pressure from former President Donald Trump’s administration, which until then had seemed content to let the U.S. allies escalate their feud.
Experts say the Japanese export controls had limited impact on South Korea’s semiconductor industry, partially because of successful South Korean efforts to diversify their sources of chemicals and materials.
But there are concerns that Japan could respond with further economic retaliation if South Korean courts approve a process to liquidate local assets of Japanese companies that have been refusing court orders to offer reparations to South Korean forced labor victims.
That would undermine U.S. hopes for expanding computer chip manufacturing in allied countries, strengthening delicate supply chains and countering China’s own technology investments. Harris met with Japanese business executives on Wednesday and said “no one country can satisfy the globe’s demand” and “it is important that we and our allies partner and coordinate.”
Japan insists all wartime compensation issues were settled under a 1965 treaty normalizing relations between the two nations that included hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid and loans from Tokyo to Seoul.
Yoon, the South Korean president who took office in May, has expressed hope for finding a way to resolve the compensation issue without “causing a clash between the sovereignties.”
But it’s unclear what kind of compromise the countries could reach as South Korean plaintiffs have been rejecting the idea of receiving compensation from the South Korean government instead of Japanese companies.
Kishida also says both countries need to improve ties because of the worsening security environment in the region, although Japanese officials insist that Seoul should be the one to make the first step and propose plans acceptable to Japan.
Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Stanford University, wrote recently that Japan and South Korea are being nudged closer together by threats including North Korea.
However, he said both countries will need to make compromises for their cooperation — and their alliances with the U.S. — to reach their full potential.
“True trilateral cooperation, even with the strategic imperatives, depends on resolving the profound disputes over wartime history and justice,” he wrote.
___
Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo and Kim reported from Seoul.
Tokyo — With its azure ocean views and terraced rice paddies, the city of Hamada, population 50,000, is far from Japan’s major urban centers of Tokyo and Osaka. But Hamada is no digital slouch. Just like cities in other advanced nations, Hamada collects taxes, health insurance premiums and social security contributions from residents’ bank accounts by sending invoice orders online to local financial institutions.
But in some respects, Hamada’s transactions are a throwback to the 20th century. One of eight local banks the city administration does business with insists that payment instructions be handed over physically, on floppy disks. Here’s what a floppy disk looks like, for anyone under a certain age:
A file photo shows a woman holding a new Fujifilm 200MB capacity 3.5″ floppy disk and drive at the company’s office in Tokyo, January 28, 2000.
YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty
The mylar-coated magnetic disks invented by IBM in 1967 have largely been consigned to museums in the developed world. They fit a mere megabyte of data — enough for a few seconds of video.
“Floppy disk production ended 10 years ago, and we’ve urged that bank to go online,” a spokeswoman for the city’s accounting department told CBS News. “But they cling to their old system.”
Even some of the banks that have gone digital, she said, still expect all transactions to be confirmed by fax. (If you’re not familiar with floppy disks, fax machines are… well, they’re even older.)
File photo of a person using a fax machine.
iStock/Getty
But amid the pressure to move into the 21st century, Hamada is not alone. A survey earlier this year by the San-in Chuo Shimpo newspaper found that Hamada was among nine towns in Shimane Prefecture still using floppies. All told, more than half of the localities in Shimane and in neighboring Tottori, both west of Tokyo, still use floppy disks.
The towns’ adherence to a half-century-old data storage method reflects the unusual staying power of obsolete technology in Japan. And the Luddism is hardly limited to the far corners of the country.
The Nikkei financial newspaper reported that some of Tokyo’s 23 wards are midway through digital conversions, hastened by major banks charging stiff handling fees for hardware-based transactions.
A sales clerk at Seiwa Electric, an appliance shop in western Tokyo packed to the gills with the latest-model refrigerators, washing machines and air conditioners, showed CBS News one of their hottest-selling products: A Panasonic fax machine that retails for $189.
“Seniors love it,” she said. “They can order mikan oranges from the farm and use the device to make copies.”
The shop still gets plenty of mileage out of its own fax machine, too, because some of its suppliers simply dislike doing business online.
The reluctance to part with old hardware illustrates the obstacles for Japan’s Digital Agency, which was established exactly one year ago this month. Led by prime ministerial aspirant and outspoken Digital Minister Taro Kono, the agency is fighting to consign the floppy disk, along with other hardware like CD-ROMs, DVDs and USB drives, to the dustbin.
Kono said a review found close to 2,000 government procedures still require business-related applications to be submitted on floppy disks or other physical media. Among other things, Japan’s foot-dragging in the digital shift is hindering adoption of a national digital ID system, and degrading workplace efficiency.
Floppies and other storage hardware remain so pervasive in the world’s third-largest economy that they’ve even featured in some infamous cases, such as last year, when the Tokyo Metropolitan Police lost two floppy disks containing personal data on 38 men who were applying for public housing.
In June, a contractor for the city of Amagasaki, in western Japan, went on an after-work bender. When he came to, on the street, his bag — containing USB flash drives with data on close to half a million residents, including their bank account details — was gone. The USBs turned up later at an apartment complex.
If you’ve been studying Japanese for a while, you might have heard of the JLPT, or Japanese Language Proficiency Test. A lot of Japanese study materials are marketed toward people who plan to take this exam for school, work, or personal purposes, so the acronym might look pretty familiar.
I took the JLPT N2 once in 2021, and think it’s a fairly decent gauge of your on-paper Japanese skills. It’s also a handy little qualification to have if you want to live/work/study in Japan, or get a Japanese-related job regardless of where you live. But before you burn the midnight abura cramming for the JLPT, you should know whether it’s right for you or not. In this article, I’ll give you a general overview of what the JLPT is, why people take it, and what you can expect when you saunter confidently into that testing room.
What is the JLPT Anyway?
The JLPT stands for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It’s a timed, paper-based standardized test designed to gauge your reading comprehension and listening skills in Japanese with five difficulty levels.
Who do we have to thank/blame for this? Well, it was devised by the Japan Foundation and Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (what a mouthful!) in 1984. Hundreds of thousands of people take it around the world every year, so it’s currently the most common test of Japanese language proficiency.
The test was revised in 2010 to be more difficult — looking at you, N1 — and thus was born the current version of the JLPT we know and love today. And you don’t have to be in any special Japanese program or classes to take the JLPT; it’s open to anyone who signs up. While the JLPT is intended to test non-native speakers, native Japanese speakers can take it too. The exam’s five levels go from N5–N1 in order of increasing difficulty, with test-takers choosing which level to take.
Why Do People Take the JLPT?
Why would people voluntarily subject themselves to standardized test-taking, you ask? Believe it or not, there are actually all kinds of reasons why people sign up, depending on their Japanese language goals.
According to a survey by the Japan Foundation in 2018, overseas applicants take the JLPT for two major reasons. One reason is for work — to get a job, promotion, or salary increase, inside or outside of Japan (33.4%). The other is simply to measure their level of proficiency in Japanese (33.2%). Another big motive is to gain admittance to a Japanese university, for those want to enroll in a program taught in Japanese.
In Japan
In Japan, I’ve found that people often take the JLPT for practical reasons. Almost every listing for a full-time technical and/or office job that will require you to operate primarily in Japanese requires applicants to have N2 or N1 certification. However, it tends to be rare that you have to show proof, as often the most important thing is demonstrating in the interview that you’re capable of performing the job at the desired Japanese level.
Almost every listing for a full-time that will require you to operate primarily in Japanese requires applicants to have N2 or N1 certification.
That said, you obviously shouldn’t lie about having passed the JLPT, since occasionally employers do ask to see your certificate. Plus, if you say you have it on your resume, you may need to show a copy upon receiving a job offer. Also, for some professions, there’s a higher chance that it really will matter. For example, medical practitioners, dentists, veterinarians, speech therapists, assistant nurses, some caregivers, and many other medical workers licensed overseas must pass the N1 before taking Japan’s medical licensing exams. So if you’ve got white-collar dreams in Japan, or simply aren’t sure what level to call your Japanese skills, you might want to start boning up on verb conjugation.
Without a passing score on some level of the JLPT, it can be tough to get into a Japanese-taught university program as well. There are language schools dedicated solely to progressing students through each level of the JLPT, from N5 to N2/N1, hopefully culminating in their acceptance to a Japanese trade school or university. (I went to one of these language schools!) And hey, for all of you looking to prove you passed middle school? N1/N2 certification can also get you exempted from the Japanese-language test on the accreditation exam for completion of junior high education. All in all, there are quite a few doors you can open by waving an N1 or N2 certificate around.
Outside of Japan
On the other hand, more people outside of Japan sign up just to test their knowledge of Japanese, even if there are fewer concrete rewards for passing the exam. Students of Japanese are sometimes encouraged to use the JLPT as something to strive toward in their studies, or at least use as a general framework to gauge their abilities as they progress. For example, university professors sometimes design their courses around material for certain levels of the JLPT, and a lot of online study material is divided up by JLPT level. And for some self-learners, it can be a helpful goalpost as well. If you’ve been grinding it out at the WaniKani reviews mill for a long time, it can be extremely gratifying to pass the JLPT and prove to yourself how much you’ve learned.
If you want to live in Japan at some point, the JLPT is one tool that can help you do that.
But even if you are overseas, there can be some practical benefits and added bonuses to passing the JLPT, such as improving your resume for Japan-related programs like MEXT or getting a Highly Skilled Foreign Professional visa. Passing the N1 earns you 15 points toward preferential treatment for this visa, and the N2 gets you 10 points. You can find more information about this point system on the Immigration Bureau of Japan’s website. But basically, if you want to live in Japan at some point, the JLPT is one tool that can help you do that.
That said, not every student of Japanese has to take the JLPT. In fact, standardized tests are only one measure of language proficiency, and an imperfect one at that. So if you’re not trying to get a job or go to school in Japan, you can decide for yourself whether it’s worth it!
How Can I Take It?
Alright, now you know what the JLPT is. But how do you get your Japanese-learning posterior in one of those chairs to take it?
Be sure to take note of the dates you can sign up, because the registration period is notoriously short!
The JLPT is given twice a year in Japan, in July and December. Overseas, it’s given once or twice a year, depending on your location. And it’s not offered online, so you’ll have to hike out to a testing site and take it on paper. You can look up your testing site and sign up online on the official JLPT website and MyJLPT registration portal. Be sure to take note of the dates you can sign up, because the registration period is notoriously short! The window to submit your application is usually about two to three weeks long for each test date. I’ve managed to miss this window twice in my life, so be vigilant.
Each host city has its own designated testing site(s). In Japan, it could be anywhere that has the capacity to host crowds of nervous foreigners — for instance, I took it at a huge hotel in Nagoya. However, overseas, it may be your local Japanese embassy/consulate or university.
The application fee can vary based on your location and level, but it’s generally 5,000–6,500 yen in Japan and $50–60 in the US. Before you cough up this change, make sure you’re actually available on the test date. Unless the test is canceled due to circumstances like COVID, you don’t get a refund if you miss it. The Japan Foundation has certainly profited from my negligence in that department (read: skipping the test to go to a concert or take finals), so don’t be like me!
What’s the Test Like?
So what exactly are you and your number two pencils signing up for?
Well, the JLPT is an in-person test that lasts about three hours, with some slight variance depending on the level. You’ll be in the same room as other test-takers for the entire time. The proctors will read the instructions aloud to you, time each section, and watch to make sure you’re not cheating off any secret kanji scribbled on your bottle of Pocari Sweat.
You’ll need to bring your photo ID, test voucher, and handy dandy pencils and erasers. It’s worth mentioning that the anti-cheating rules can be pretty stringent, meaning no pencils with designs on them, erasers with wrappers, water bottles with labels, or clothes/bags with Japanese characters on them. How well these restrictions are enforced might vary depending on your proctors, but best not to take any chances. They’re also not supposed to lend you extra pencils, and there may not be a pencil sharpener available, so bring multiple!
Since the test is quite strictly timed, I recommend bringing or buying a cheap analog wristwatch for the occasion.
Additionally, since the test is quite strictly timed, I recommend bringing or buying a cheap analog wristwatch for the occasion. If your testing room doesn’t have a reliable or easily-visible clock, you’ll be glad you brought it. Digital watches are okay too, but make sure they don’t beep or make any sounds that might get you disqualified. Then they’d have to shred your test and feed it to the wolves. 🙁
Overall, the JLPT is a pretty straightforward experience — highly standardized and some amount of nerve-wracking, depending on how much you’ve got staked on it. Taking the test once was enough for me, but don’t let that stop you from sending the Japan Foundation fifty dollars twice a year if you want to!
Levels of the JLPT
So now you should have a pretty good idea of what taking the JLPT is like, but part of the experience will depend on your level. So, what level of the JLPT should you take?
The JLPT has five levels: N5-N1, with N5 being the easiest and N1 being the most difficult. As mentioned, N2-N1 are often regarded as qualifying a person to be able to work in a business-Japanese setting or get by in an all-Japanese academic program. About 90% of international students looking for jobs in Japan are reportedly N2–N1 level, according to Jump Japan Media. Conversely, N5–N3 are geared more toward basic, “everyday” Japanese.
Your mileage may vary, of course, but here’s a rough breakdown of what you might be able to do at each level:
N5
Read and understand short, common Japanese sentences using kana and basic kanji
Understand Japanese conversations that are about familiar everyday topics and spoken slowly
Work part-time doing jobs that don’t require much Japanese, such as manual labor, cleaning, delivering mail, etc.
N4
Read and understand Japanese materials about familiar everyday topics using basic kanji and vocabulary
Understand Japanese conversations that are spoken slowly
Work part-time doing jobs that require basic Japanese, such as kitchen work, catering, etc.
N3
Read and understand Japanese materials about everyday topics
Understand Japanese conversations spoken at nearly-natural speed
Qualify for some full-time jobs and internships (especially at international companies) involving Japanese, in fields such as IT, customer service, consulting, tech, etc.
Work part-time doing jobs that require smooth verbal communication with coworkers and customers in Japanese at a convenience store, cafe, restaurant, retail store, office, etc.
N2
Read and understand newspapers and other Japanese materials written in a straightforward manner
Understand native Japanese spoken in a variety of settings at nearly-natural speed
Qualify for some full-time jobs at Japanese companies doing web development, engineering, translation/interpretation, HR, etc. fully in Japanese
Get accepted to some undergraduate or graduate-level programs in Japan taught in Japanese
N1
Read and deeply understand complex, abstract Japanese materials
Comprehensively understand native Japanese spoken at natural speed
Qualify for full-time jobs at Japanese companies doing highly technical and/or academic translation and interpretation, medical services, etc. fully in Japanese
Get accepted to some undergraduate or graduate-level programs in Japan taught in Japanese
To determine which level you might want to take, I suggest looking up videos and resources of study materials for each level to help gauge your knowledge. You can also refer to this official “JLPT Can-do Self-Evaluation List” of comprehension tasks based on what examinees who passed each level of the exam reported they can do (e.g. read novels, understand TV dramas, etc.).
Choose the level that speaks to you, or that you have to take in order to meet any school or work requirements. Keep in mind that you can retake the same level whenever you want, as long as you pay to apply again. You can also start low and work up to a higher level over time. Just know that if you have N1, N2 won’t be of much use to you, so you can skip from N3 to N1 if you want to go for it without worrying about failing. Even if you don’t do well, you’ll gain the real-life experience of taking the test in person, which can give you a much better idea of what you might need to do to pass it next time. But it all depends on your priorities and situation. I took the N2 instead of the N1 because I valued passing the first time over gaining experience. So it’s up to you!
Sections of the Test
You know about the levels of the JLPT now, but which skills should you be brushing up on to prep for it? Well, pretty much everything except speaking and writing — vocabulary, grammar, reading, and listening comprehension — because there are no speaking or writing sections on the JLPT. So at least you’re safe in those regards!
In general, all levels of the JLPT test you on three main categories: Language Knowledge (Vocabulary and Grammar), Reading, and Listening.
In general, all levels of the JLPT test you on three main categories of Japanese language proficiency: Language Knowledge (Vocabulary and Grammar), Reading, and Listening. The Vocabulary section is pretty straightforward: you’ll choose kanji readings in multiple-choice questions, fill in the blanks in sentences with the correct words, and pick which sentences have roughly the same meaning. The Grammar section will have you choosing the correct particles to use in a sentence and puzzling out which sentence order is correct. As you might expect, the Reading section contains passages of varying length and style with accompanying comprehension and fill-in-the-blank questions. And the Listening section mostly consists of short, medium, and long conversations you have to remember the details of in order to answer the comprehension questions that come after.
The chart below shows you the section breakdown of each level of the JLPT.
Level
Section Breakdown
N5
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary)
20 mins
Language Knowledge (Grammar)・Reading
40 mins
Listening
30 mins
N4
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary)
25 mins
Language Knowledge (Grammar)・Reading
55 mins
Listening
35 mins
N3
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary)
30 mins
Language Knowledge (Grammar)・Reading
70 mins
Listening
40 mins
N2
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary/Grammar)・Reading
105 mins
Listening
50 mins
N1
Language Knowledge (Vocabulary/Grammar)・Reading
110 mins
Listening
60 mins
As you can see, unlike the N5–N3, the N2 and N1 group Vocabulary, Grammar, and Reading into one long test section. This means you can complete them in any order no matter which one comes first in the booklet. The time allotted for each section can vary depending on the year, so be sure to check the JLPT website’s time schedule for the most current information.
Time Limits
Aside from the content and difficulty, did you notice the other main difference between JLPT levels? That’s right, the length of each test varies quite a bit, with lower levels taking less time than higher levels.
The N2 and N1 last approximately three hours overall, while the N5–N3 only take between one to two hours. Basically, the higher the JLPT level, the longer you’ll be sitting there Christmas-treeing the answers. (Just kidding…maybe.)
It’s worth noting that the time limit on the Listening section tends to be a hard limit. The proctors generally are not supposed to replay any questions no matter how pitifully you beg. So make sure you use the paper they give you for note-taking while you listen, because it’ll likely save your life. Other than that, all you can do is listen up the first time around and hope no one around you coughs or squeaks in their seat.
The time limit of the JLPT makes it partially a test of endurance.
The time limit of the JLPT makes it partially a test of endurance. Granted, during my N2 exam, there was a short break in between the Language Knowledge and Listening sections during which you could go to the bathroom and have a snack to replenish your test-taking juices. But even so, I found it difficult to sustain my energy levels enough to stay 100% focused throughout the whole test. It’s easy to drop off after Vocabulary/Grammar/Reading and snooze through the Listening section – the worst section to take a nap, since there are no playbacks. So make sure to prepare for the time limits and get a good night’s sleep beforehand!
Scoring & Results
Okay, you’ve gone through the testing gauntlet and hopefully made it out the door with your dignity intact. Now, how will the almighty Japan Foundation decide your fate?
Well, there’s a certain benchmark of points required for every section in order to pass, meaning you can’t bomb any of them. On average, you have to get at least a ~32% on each section and a ~50% on the whole test to pass. However, each level of the JLPT is scored a little differently math-wise, so I recommend viewing the breakdown for yourself on the JLPT’s “Determination of pass/fail” page.
But how exactly do they decide how well you did on each section? That’s a complicated question. The way the JLPT is scored is actually kind of convoluted. They use “scaled scores,” meaning your score isn’t a direct one-to-one reflection of how many questions you got wrong. Instead, the Japan Foundation calculates results using Item Response Theory (IRT), which is based on your “answering patterns.” This means they take into account which questions you got right and throw out questions everyone tended to get right or wrong. You won’t be notified of your raw score, only this scaled score. And good news: there’s no penalty for getting questions wrong, so try to answer them all!
They use “scaled scores,” meaning your score isn’t a direct one-to-one reflection of how many questions you got wrong.
Presumably because of all this fancy arithmetic, the exams take about two to three months to score. So just sit back, watch people gossip about the test on Reddit, and wait for the results to roll in. You can see your results online on MyJLPT, and your Score Report will also be physically mailed to you via the institution where you took the exam. The Score Report tells you your score on each section, but doesn’t go into detail about which questions you got wrong. Overseas examinees get to see their percentile rank compared to other test-takers, too. And if you passed, you’ll also receive a nice little Certificate of Proficiency to obnoxiously whip out next time someone doubts your Nihongo prowess.
Happy Testing…!
Hopefully after reading this, you have a better understanding of what the JLPT is and whether you’re interested in taking it. If you do decide to sign up, best of luck!
Whether you’ve been diligently studying for months or slammed a bunch of grammar into your noodle the night before, I’m proud of you. Even if you gave up after twenty minutes and doodled a picture of Colonel Sanders on your answer sheet, at least you know more about where you’re at now. Remember, the real achievement is in showing up and doing the work to better your Japanese, no matter your score.
Following the horrific mass shootings in the United States, social media is rife with discussions on gun laws and regulations. Friday morning’s news of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by a gunman has brought the issue of strict laws on gun ownership to light. How could this happen in a country with only one firearm-related death in all of 2021? Since 2017, there have been 14 gun-related deaths in Japan, a remarkably low figure for a country of 125 million people. Compare that to the 45,222 people who died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. in just one year (2021).1
Republican Congressional candidate Lavern Spicer has chimed in on this shocking assassination by tweeting, “How did Shinzo Abe get assassinated when guns are banned in Japan? Liberals, care to explain?” Her tweet was shared by thousands. We find this claim to be misleading and inaccurate.
Firstly, guns are not banned in Japan but are regulated by very strict gun ownership laws.
This backgrounder by the Council on Foreign Relations explains how guns are regulated in Japan…
Gun control advocates regularly cite Japan’s highly restrictive firearm regulations in tandem with its extraordinarily low gun death rate. Most years, fewer than one hundred Japanese die from gun violence in a country of 125 million people. Most guns are illegal in the country and ownership rates, which are quite low, reflect this.
Under Japan’s firearm and sword law [PDF], the only guns permitted are shotguns, air guns, guns with specific research or industrial purposes, or those used for competitions. However, before access to these specialty weapons is granted, one must obtain formal instruction and pass a battery of written, mental, and drug tests and a rigorous background check. Furthermore, owners must inform the authorities of how their weapons and ammunition are stored and provide their firearms for annual inspection.
Some analysts link Japan’s aversion to firearms with its demilitarization in the aftermath of World War II. Others say that because the overall crime rate in the country is so low, most Japanese see no need for firearms.
Secondly, by asking “liberals” to explain, Spicer is suggesting that gun laws don’t prevent gun violence, since those who identify with “liberal” political beliefs tend to support stricter gun control measures. However, the simple fact that this act of violence is so rare in Japan supports the idea that gun control in Japan is working. Yes, culture is one reason for the low rate, but gun regulation is a major one, too. The result is a situation where citizens and police seldom use guns. The fact that the shooter of Shinzo Abe most likely used a “homemade gun”2 to get past laws restricting the sales of firearms and ammunition, proves that guns are harder to obtain in Japan.
According to a recently published article on Vox, gun regulations in other countries reflect a significant difference in recorded instances of gun violence.
No other high-income country has suffered such a high death toll from gun violence. Every day, more than 110 Americans die at the end of a gun, including suicides and homicides, an average of 40,620 per year. Since 2009, there has been an annual average of 19 mass shootings, when defined as shootings in which at least four people are killed. The US gun homicide rate is as much as 26 times that of other high-income countries; its gun suicide rate is nearly 12 times higher.
A 2022 report from the University of Washington revealed that, while the US had more than four firearm homicides per 100,000 people in 2019, Japan had almost zero. Comparing high-income countries in the World Bank with the rate of firearm homicide per 100,000 people, the US had 4.2, Australia had 0.18 and Japan 0.02, the report found.
In 2013, the country hit a record high for gun crime, with 40 criminal cases of guns being fired, but it has followed a downward trend since.
There are also strict laws about how many gun shops are allowed to open – in most of the countries’ 47 prefectures, a total of three gun shops can operate in each prefecture.
Japan will restrict the overseas sale of chip manufacturing equipment, joining the United States and the Netherlands in curbing the export of key technology to China.
The country announced Friday it would tighten exports of 23 types of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
The rules will take effect in July, according to Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, Yasutoshi Nishimura.
The ministry said it would require stricter procedures to export to about 160 destinations such as China, while 42 territories — including the United States, South Korea and Taiwan — are recognized by Japan as having adequate export controls in place.
All exports to countries not formally recognized will now require approval from the Japanese trade ministry, it added.
At a press conference, Nishimura said the new measures were aimed at preventing the equipment from being diverted for military use.
“We will fulfill our responsibilities in the international community as a technology-owning country and contribute to maintaining international peace and security,” he told reporters.
The restrictions are not aimed at a specific country, the trade ministry told CNN on Friday.
But they follow a series of curbs enacted in recent months to clamp down on sales of chipmaking equipment to China as part of acoordinated international effort led by Washington.
In October, the United States banned Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chipmaking equipment without a license. It also restricted the ability of American citizens to provide support for the development or production of chips at certain facilities in China.
Earlier this month, the Netherlands also unveiled new restrictions on overseas sales of semiconductor technology, citing the need to protect national security.
Japan has been involved in three-way discussions with both countries, a source familiar with the talks previously told CNN.
China has strongly criticized restrictions on tech exports, saying earlier this month that it “firmly opposes” such measures.
Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, also hit back at the latest move from Japan.
“Weaponizing economic, trade and technology issues to deliberately destabilize the global industry chain will only harm others and harm oneself,” she said at a Friday news briefing.
Japan is home to several chipmaking equipment producers, including Nikon
(NINOY) and Tokyo Electron. The companies’ shares in Tokyo were little changed on Friday.
Nikon and Tokyo Electron declined to comment.
In recent reports to clients, Jefferies analysts had assessed the potential consequences of Japanese export controls to China, noting that Nikon did “not anticipate a major impact.”
For Tokyo Electron, the tightening is also “unlikely to have much additional impact as long as they do not go further than the US sanctions,” they added.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said Sunday that the White House is working “extremely hard” on the case of a US Navy officer jailed in Japan but declined to say whether President Joe Biden had brought it up during his trip to the country.
“There are certain times when saying less in public and more in private is the best way to resolve these cases. This is one of those instances,” Sullivan said on “State of the Union” when asked if Biden had raised the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his trip to Hiroshima for the Group of Seven summit, which concluded Sunday.
On Friday, a pair of Democratic lawmakers from California had asked Biden to once again bring up the issue with Kishida.
In a letter addressed to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, US Sen. Alex Padilla and US Rep. Mike Levin said that “while we understand the sensitive nature of this case” around Lt. Ridge Alkonis, “it is important to resolve this situation promptly to prevent further irritants in the U.S.-Japan relationship.”
“Lieutenant Alkonis has served almost a year in Japanese prison after being involved in a tragic and unforeseeable car accident due to a medical emergency he suffered while driving. Despite your repeated interventions from your Administration, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Ambassador Rahm Emanuel. Lieutenant Alkonis’ case remains stalled in the Japanese system,” the pair wrote.
Alkonis, who was stationed in Japan, was sentenced to three years in Japanese prison in October 2021 for negligent driving resulting in the death of two people and injuries to a third person in May 2021. CNN previously reported that Alkonis said he suffered from acute mountain sickness as he was driving with his family from Mount Fuji, which caused him to lose consciousness. That argument was rejected by the court, and his appeal was denied in July 2022.
Biden raised the Alkonis case with Kishida during the prime minister’s visit to the White House in January, and the two countries agreed to establish a working group to solve the problem. But Alkonis has since expressed despair about his situation, according to a handwritten note to his wife.
“I’m not doing that good,” he wrote in a letter dated April 30, which was shared with CNN. “The walls and bars seem to be making my cell even smaller as of late.”
His family has requested that he be transferred back to the US under the Council of Europe’s Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, which would allow him to serve out his sentence there.
Alkonis’ wife, Brittany Alkonis, told CNN earlier this week that parts of the US government have been “incredibly proactive” on that request but claimed that the US Department of Defense as well as the Japanese government had not productively engaged. Ridge Alkonis has not been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.
“Prison has always been a hard place. You know, he talks about how just anything that would bring you happiness is not allowed. He says it’s just soul crushing,” Brittany Alkonis told CNN.
“Lieutenant Alkonis’ service records make clear that he is an extraordinary officer, and we believe he deserves better,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote to Biden and Harris. “We ask that you insist on a prompt prisoner transfer under the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, so that he, his wife, and their three young children can be reunited in California.”
Brittany Alkonis and her children have been able to visit Ridge Alkonis every few weeks in prison, with the current setup allowing for five half-hour visits per month, she said. Her children – all under the age of ten years old – are the ones who are “paying the price” for this challenging situation, she said.
“They’re hurting. They try to make sense of this. We talk about it all the time,” Brittany Alkonis said. “But my son asked me the other day, he said, ‘Mommy, you said the president is getting daddy home, then why isn’t he home yet.’”
This story and headline have been updated with additional details.
