On the 30th of last month, China's largest car-delivery service, "Drip-Drop", was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company, in which Japan's Softbank Group has a stake, has a market capitalization of over 7 trillion yen, making it the second largest initial public offering this year.

Osaka, Japan. A member of the Ugandan delegation from Africa, which came to Japan to hold a pre-Olympic training camp for the Tokyo Olympics in Izumisano City, arrived at a hotel in Izumisano City in the early morning of January 1, after meeting the criteria for lifting medical treatment set by the government.

Recent figures show an alarming increase in suicides among women in Japan. This May, 603 women took their own lives, up 21% from the same month last year. The year-on-year figure has now risen for 12 consecutive months, a troubling trend that reflects the economic despair wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has formally decided to appoint Yoshimitsu Kobayashi, former secretary general of Keizai Doyukai (Japan Association of Corporate Executives), to the vacant position of chairman.

Okinawa Prefecture has revealed that a cluster of infected people has occurred at a prefectural hospital, a priority medical institution for the new coronavirus, and 16 of the 50 infected people have died.

Japan's decades-long reputation for job security is on the wane. Although some graduates can still expect to join and remain with a company until retirement, a series of socioeconomic factors are making things far less certain across a wide range of demographics. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the shift, and led to a surge of freelance workers. Now, the government is rushing to provide a safety net.

Tokyo Stock Exchange on the 28th, the beginning of the week, stock prices moved modestly.

A group of lawyers has published an opinion piece calling for the abolition of the gender-based entrance examinations for metropolitan high schools, which are the only ones in Japan to have separate entrance examinations for boys and girls, claiming that the difference in passing scores between boys and girls, which tends to disadvantage girls, is constitutionally problematic.

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant plans to start removing fuel debris from inside one of the damaged reactors next year.

In the Tokyo foreign exchange market on the 24th, the yen was trading at around 111 yen to the dollar with small price movements.

Tokyo Olympic officials have announced they will allow up to 10,000 domestic spectators at events, provided venues do not exceed 50 percent capacity. But the Japanese government says it will not hesitate to ban crowds entirely if it implements another coronavirus state of emergency.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) closed at $33,945.58, up $68.61 from the previous day, as the much-anticipated testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was seen as within expectations.