World News

SYDNEY – Australia will raise the minimum wage by 5.75% from July 1 as families grapple with soaring living costs, a decision that businesses and some economists say risks further stoking inflation and interest rates.

The independent Fair Work Commission (FWC) on Friday decided on a 5.75% pay rise for workers on awards with wages linked to movement in the minimum wage. It also made a technical reclassification for the national minimum wage, which the union says will take the increase to 8.6% for the lowest-paid employees, about 0.7% of the workforce.

In total, the determination from the FWC would affect wages for more than 2 million workers.

Su-Lin Ong, chief economist at RBC Capital Markets, said the hike could push wage growth above the 4% peak forecast by the Reserve Bank of Australia and require higher interest rates to combat inflation.

“Following several recent developments, including the outcome of today’s minimum wage decision, we are adding a 25bp hike to our RBA profile in June and another 25bp in July.”

Aggregate wage growth – which accelerated to a decade-high of 3.7% last quarter – has so far lagged forecasts, with RBA Governor Philip Lowe warning of upside risks to wages from weak productivity growth.

Taylor Nugent, an economist at National Australia Bank, also said the decision skews the risks further in the direction of a higher peak for Australian interest rates.

Futures have already moved to wager the current cash rate of 3.85% is certain to reach 4.1% by August, with the risk of another hike. They also see a 33% chance the RBA could surprise with a quarter-point hike as soon as next week, after a hot inflation report for April.

COST OF LIVING CRISIS

FWC President Adam Hatcher said the commission was confident that the decision would not cause or contribute to any price-wage spiral.

“We are confident that the increase we have determined will make only a modest contribution to total wages growth in 2023-24,” said Hatcher, adding that the move would benefit part-time and predominately female workers.

Andrew McKellar, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, wasn’t so sanguine, saying it would add an estimated A$12.6 billion in costs for businesses already grappling with supply chain issues and high energy prices.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions welcomed the decision.

“People are skipping meals, avoiding the doctor and dreading their next bill. Rents have skyrocketed along with prices of essentials such as bread, milk, petrol and electricity,” said Secretary Sally McManus.

“Today’s increase means these workers can keep their heads above water and not have to cut back even further.” – Reuters

WASHINGTON – US job growth likely slowed in May, with wages coming off the boil, potentially allowing the Federal Reserve to skip an interest rate hike this month for the first time since embarking on its aggressive policy tightening campaign more than a year ago.

Nevertheless, the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday is expected to still show the labor market remaining tight. The unemployment rate is forecast climbing to 3.5% from 3.4% in April but the report will confirm that the economy remained far away from a dreaded recession, though more pockets of weakness are emerging.

“The jobs report is likely to show another step down in the pace of growth, but still a very strong labor market,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Dallas. “The Fed is under less pressure to raise interest rates at its meeting this month, than at any time over the last year and a half.”

The survey of establishments is likely to show nonfarm payrolls increased by 190,000 jobs last month after rising 253,000 in April, according to a Reuters survey of economists.

It would mark a slowdown from the monthly average of 285,000 in the first four months of this year, but stay well above the 70,000-100,000 needed per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population.

Data for March and April would be closely watched for revisions. The government lowered employment gains in February and March by a combined 149,000 last month.

Despite massive layoffs in the technology sector after companies over-hired during the COVID-19 pandemic and the drag from higher borrowing costs on housing and manufacturing, the services sector, including leisure and hospitality, is still catching up after businesses struggled to find workers over the last two years. Industries like healthcare and education also experienced accelerated retirements.

The backfilling of these retirements and increased demand for services are some of the factors driving job growth. Pent up demand for workers was underscored by Labor Department data this week showing there were 10.1 million job openings at the end of April, with 1.8 vacancies for every unemployed person.

But cracks are emerging. A Conference Board survey on Tuesday showed the share of people viewing jobs as “plentiful” dropped in May to the lowest level since April 2021.

While the Fed’s “Beige Book” report on Wednesday described the labor market as having “continued to be strong” in May, it noted that “many contacts” were “fully staffed,” and some “were pausing hiring or reducing headcounts.”

Temporary help employment, a harbinger for future hiring, is down by 174,000 since its peak in March 2022.

PROGRESS ON INFLATION

But the overall labor market remains upbeat, with first time applications for state unemployment benefits hovering at very low levels. Most economists expect payrolls growth to continue at least through the end of the year.

Average hourly earnings are expected to have risen by 0.3% after jumping 0.5% in April, which was attributed to a calendar quirk. That would keep the year-on-year increase in wages unchanged at 4.4% in May. Annual wage growth averaged about 2.8% prior to the pandemic.

Slowing wage inflation is corroborated by other measures like the Atlanta Fed’s wage tracker, which has come off its peaks. Government data on Thursday showed sharp downward revisions to unit labor costs in the first and fourth quarters.

“We’re making progress on inflation, you can’t expect the inflation problem to go away in a year,” said Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College. “It doesn’t make sense to push the economy into some kind of artificial recession, because you’re going to do more harm than good.”

Financial markets see a nearly 70% chance of the Fed keeping its policy rate unchanged at its June 13-14 meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch Tool. The Fed has raised its benchmark overnight interest rate by 500 basis points since March 2022.

The average workweek is forecast unchanged at 34.4 hours. Some companies are probably reducing hours rather that cut jobs.

The household survey from which the unemployment rate is calculated is likely to show solid employment gains, though an ongoing strike by 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America poses a downward risk. The Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the employment report, did not record the work stoppage in its May strike report.

“Those striking workers could show up as unemployed in the household survey, however,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York.

The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, was likely unchanged at 62.6% after a recent surge in participation in the prime age group. – Reuters

WASHINGTON — A divided US House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the $31.4-trillion debt ceiling on Wednesday, with majority support from both Democrats and Republicans to overcome opposition led by hardline conservatives and avoid a catastrophic default.

The Republican-controlled House voted 314-117 to send the legislation to the Senate, which must enact the measure and get it to President Joseph R. Biden’s desk before a Monday deadline, when the federal government is expected to run out of money to pay its bills.

“This agreement is good news for the American people and the American economy,” Mr. Biden said after the vote. “I urge the Senate to pass it as quickly as possible so that I can sign it into law.”

The measure, a compromise between Mr. Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, drew opposition from 71 hardline Republicans. That would normally be enough to block partisan legislation, but 165 Democrats — more than the 149 Republicans who voted for it — backed the measure and pushed it through.

Republicans control the House by a narrow 222-213 majority.

The legislation suspends — in essence, temporarily removes — the federal government’s borrowing limit through Jan. 1, 2025. The timeline allows Mr. Biden and Congress to set aside the politically risky issue until after the November 2024 presidential election.

It would also cap some government spending over the next two years, speed up the permitting process for certain energy projects, claw back unused COVID-19 funds and expand work requirements for food aid programs to additional recipients.

Hardline Republicans had wanted deeper spending cuts and more stringent reforms.

“At best, we have a two-year spending freeze that’s full of loopholes and gimmicks,” said Representative Chip Roy, a prominent member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus.

Progressive Democrats — who along with Mr. Biden had resisted negotiating over the debt ceiling — oppose the bill for a few reasons, including new work requirements from some federal anti-poverty programs.

“Republicans are forcing us to decide which vulnerable Americans get to eat or they’ll throw us into default. It’s just plain wrong,” said Democratic Representative Jim McGovern on Wednesday.

Late on Tuesday, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would result in $1.5 trillion in savings over a decade. That is below the $4.8 trillion in savings that Republicans aimed for in a bill they passed through the House in April, and also below the $3 trillion in deficit that Mr. Biden’s proposed budget would have reduced over that time through new taxes.

SENATE UP NEXT
In the Senate, leaders of both parties said they hoped to move to enact the legislation before the weekend. But a potential delay over amendment votes could complicate matters.

Republicans said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell could need to allow votes on Republican amendments to ensure quick action.

But Mr. Schumer appeared to rule out amendments on Wednesday, telling reporters: “We cannot send anything back to the House, plain and simple. We must avoid default.”

Senate debate and voting could stretch into the weekend, especially if any one of the 100 senators tries to slow passage.

Hardline Republican Senator Rand Paul, long known for delaying important Senate votes, has said he would not hold up passage if allowed to offer an amendment for a floor vote.

Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he would oppose the bill due to inclusion of an energy pipeline and extra work requirements. “I cannot, in good conscience, vote for the debt ceiling deal,” Mr. Sanders said on Twitter.

In a win for Republicans, the bill would shift some funding away from the Internal Revenue Service, although the White House says that should not undercut tax enforcement.

Mr. Biden can point to gains as well.

The deal leaves his signature infrastructure and green-energy laws largely intact, and the spending cuts and work requirements are far less than Republicans had sought.

Republicans have argued that steep spending cuts are necessary to curb the growth of the national debt, which at $31.4 trillion is roughly equal to the annual output of the economy.

Interest payments on that debt are projected to eat up a growing share of the budget as an aging population pushes up health and retirement costs, according to government forecasts. The deal would not do anything to rein in those fast-growing programs.

Most of the savings would come by capping spending on domestic programs like housing, education, scientific research and other forms of “discretionary” spending. Military spending would be allowed to increase over the next two years.

The debt-ceiling standoff prompted ratings agencies to warn that they might downgrade US debt, which underpins the global financial system.

Credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar put the United States on review for a possible downgrade last week, echoing similar warnings by Fitch, Moody’s and Scope Ratings.

Another agency, S&P Global, downgraded US debt following a similar debt-ceiling standoff in 2011 during a similar partisan divide with a Democratic president and Senate majority and a Republican-majority House. — Reuters

BEIJING — Applied maths graduate Liang Huaxiao tried to land a job with one of China’s tech giants for two years. Then she tried customer service and sales. Then she applied for assistant roles in a bakery and in a beauty parlor.

Like a rising number of her highly educated peers, Ms. Liang keeps trading down to try and find a source of income in China’s worst youth job market on record.

“Finding a job has been really difficult,” said the 25-year-old, who lives with her parents in the northern industrial city of Taiyuan. “I told my family that I’m willing to take up manual labor and my mum straight-up cried. She felt so sorry for me.”

Economists expect such examples to become increasingly common in coming years, as a glut of university graduates and a shortage of factory labor due to an ageing workforce deepen China’s job market imbalances.

Youth unemployment hit a record 20.4% in April, and a new high of 11.58 million university students are due to graduate this summer.

All are competing for jobs in what remains one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies, but whose manufacturing-heavy structure is increasingly out of step with the aspirations of its younger generations.

The industries most popular among fresh Chinese graduates, such as tech, education, real estate and finance, have all faced regulatory crackdowns in recent years. Some of the measures have been rolled back, but business sentiment has been slow to recover: private investment rose only 0.4% in January-April, while state investment rose 9.4%.

“China’s education raced ahead of the economy, which means that more diplomas were handed out than were needed by a manufacturing-based economy,” said Keyu Jin, author of The New China Playbook, which documents the country’s economic ascent.

“There’s a big mismatch between expectations and the reality of the economic circumstances.”

‘ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES’
It is unclear exactly how many graduates are taking jobs below their skill level, but state media has acknowledged the trend. State media editorials have encouraged young graduates to “roll up their sleeves” and by profiling a woman in her 20s who became a refuse collector after a brief stint as an accountant.

President Xi Jinping repeatedly exhorted young people to “seek hardships” in a recent state media article emphasizing his suffering during the Cultural Revolution. But the message hardly resonates with today’s youth who take prosperity for granted.

China’s education and human resources ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Beijing has urged state-owned enterprises to recruit more graduates and began to expand vocational training schools to fill shortages in advanced manufacturing. Some local governments, including Shanghai, are offering employment subsidies for firms hiring 2023 graduates. Others have gone on a hiring spree themselves.

The service industries at the forefront of China’s post-pandemic recovery offer few high-skilled roles.

“Many white-collar service positions have vanished,” said Chim Lee, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

“Jobs being created are predominantly in areas not requiring higher education, such as catering and tourism.”

‘TIRED OF IT’
On platforms like Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, some graduates tout the joys of “taking off the scholars long gown” and avoiding China Inc’s notorious “996” schedule of working from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm, six days a week.

“Young people no longer believe that someone’s value comes from studying hard or career success,” said Han Zhaoxue, a 26-year-old public administration master’s graduate who now co-runs a rural homestay after rejecting low-paid offers.

Programming graduate Wang, 23, earns less than 3,000 yuan ($420) per month delivering food part-time in the eastern city of Jining.

“The threshold for entering the programming industry continues to rise. I couldn’t find jobs at major tech firms and hated working unpaid overtime during my internship at a small firm,” said Mr. Wang, giving only his surname for privacy reasons.

“I was really tired of it so moved back to my hometown,” he said, adding he is now studying for the civil servant exam.

Ms. Liang, the applied math graduate, is still unemployed and “seriously considering” hawking.

“I can’t think of any more industries that I haven’t applied for,” she said. — Reuters

SEOUL — North Korea’s latest space launcher appears to be a new design and most likely uses engines developed for the nuclear-armed country’s intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), analysts said on Thursday.

The rocket, dubbed the Chollima-1, failed during its first launch attempt on Wednesday. It lifted off successfully, but its second stage failed to start as expected, state media reported, and it crashed into the Yellow Sea.

In a rare move, state media also released photos of the rocket’s lift-off, despite the failure, offering international analysts their first glimpse of the new launcher.

“This launch vehicle that we saw is of a completely different design origin than the older Unha series of space launch vehicles,” said Ankit Panda of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It appears to make use of an engine that appeared in an earlier North Korean intercontinental-range ballistic missile.”

Joseph Dempsey, a defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, also concluded that the rocket may be powered by a dual-nozzle liquid-fuel engine like that fitted to North Korea’s Hwasong-15 ICBM.

That engine is seen by some experts as derived from the Soviet RD-250 family of engines, while the earlier Unha space launcher used clusters of engines derived from Scud missiles.

“Although the Chollima-1 exhaust plume appeared transparent, indicative of being liquid fueled, it did deposit light grey residue around the launch pad and through the exit to the flame bucket, and across nearby mudflats,” US-based 38 North, which monitors North Korea, said in a report. “The reason for this residue is unclear.”

The United States, among other countries, said the use of ballistic missile technology for space launches violates United Nations Security Council resolutions banning North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Unlike the last time North Korea attempted to launch a satellite in 2016, it has a robust ICBM program and doesn’t need to disguise its weapons tests as space launches, Ankit Panda said.

The Chollima-1 appears to be a medium-lift space launch vehicle intended for delivering small satellites to low earth orbit.

“In this case we do have a fairly large payload fairing compared to the earlier North Korean space launch vehicles,” Mr. Panda said. “My estimate is that this is likely carrying a satellite payload on the order of around 200 to 300 kilograms in mass.”

North Korea’s stated goal of eventually being able to launch multiple satellites on one rocket suggests they may roll out a larger launch vehicle in the future, he added.

South Korea said it was working to recover parts of the North Korean rocket, releasing photos that showed what analysts said appeared to be a section designed to join two stages, and a liquid propellant tank inside.

Recovery operations continued Thursday, with additional specialized ships dispatched, South Korea’s military said.

If South Korea manages to pull major parts of the rocket from the water, it could provide useful intelligence into the North’s rocket and missile production, and particularly any foreign materials it may be using, Mr. Panda said.

“We believe increasingly that North Korea has largely managed to become self-sufficient with manufacturing airframes, manufacturing largely many of the structural components of its engines, but there are still likely some components that North Korea is importing from overseas,” he said. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — A former employee of Amazon.com’s Ring doorbell camera unit spied for months on female customers in 2017 with cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a court filing on Wednesday when it announced a $5.8 million settlement with the company over privacy violations.

Amazon also agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations it violated children’s privacy rights when it failed to delete Alexa recordings at the request of parents and kept them longer than necessary, according to a court filing in federal court in Seattle that outlined a separate settlement.

The FTC settlements are the agency’s latest effort to hold Big Tech accountable for policies critics say place profits from data collection ahead of privacy.

The FTC is also probing Amazon.com’s $1.7- billion deal to buy iRobot Corp., which was announced in August 2022 in Amazon’s latest push into smart home devices and has a separate antitrust probe underway into Amazon.

Amazon, which purchased Ring in April 2018, pledged to make some changes in its practices.

“While we disagree with the FTC’s claims regarding both Alexa and Ring, and deny violating the law, these settlements put these matters behind us,” Amazon.com said in a statement.

The FTC said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers’ sensitive video data: “As a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers’ sensitive video data.”

In one instance in 2017, an employee of Ring viewed videos made by at least 81 female customers and Ring employees using Ring products. “Undetected by Ring, the employee continued spying for months,” the FTC said.

A colleague noticed the misconduct and the employee was eventually terminated, the FTC complaint said.

In May 2018, an employee gave information about a customer’s recordings to the person’s ex-husband without consent, the complaint said. In another instance, an employee was found to have given Ring devices to people and then watched their videos without their knowledge, the FTC said.

As part of the FTC agreement with Ring, which expires after 20 years, Ring is required to disclose to customers how much access to their data the company and its contractors have.

In February 2019, Ring changed its policies so that most Ring employees or contractors could only access a customer’s private video with that person’s consent.

FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya told Reuters the settlements should send a message to tech companies that their need to collect data was not an excuse to break the law. “This is a very clear signal to them,” he said.

The fines, totaling $30.8 million, represent a fraction of Amazon’s $3.2-billion first-quarter profit.

In its complaint against Amazon.com filed in Washington state, the FTC said that it violated rules protecting children’s privacy and rules against deceiving consumers who used Alexa. For example, the FTC complaint says that Amazon told users it would delete voice transcripts and location information upon request, but then failed to do so.

“The unlawfully retained voice recordings provided Amazon with a valuable database for training the Alexa algorithm to understand children, benefiting its bottom line at the expense of children’s privacy,” the FTC said. — Reuters

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump said on Tuesday that if elected president again in 2024 he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States to immigrants in the country illegally, a plan that contradicts how a 19^th century amendment to the US Constitution long has been interpreted.

Mr. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in an increasingly crowded field of candidates, said in a campaign video posted to Twitter that he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to stop what is known as birthright citizenship. Any such action by Trump would be certain to draw a legal challenge.

Birthright citizenship arises from the Constitution’s 14^th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, three years after the conclusion of the American Civil War that ended the practice of enslaving Black people in Southern states and overturned a Supreme Court ruling that had held that slaves and free African Americans were not entitled to US citizenship.

The amendment granted citizenship to all persons “born or naturalized in the United States,” including formerly enslaved people, and has been interpreted to apply whether or not parents were in the country legally.

The proposed executive order, planned for the first day of a second Trump term in office, would require that at least one parent be an American citizen or lawful permanent resident for their children to become automatic US citizens, his campaign said in a press release.

While president in 2018, Mr. Trump said he planned to issue an executive order to limit birthright citizenship, but never followed through. Many legal scholars at the time were skeptical that Mr. Trump could use executive authority to roll back the right.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday also criticized President Joseph R. Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020 and is seeking re-election in 2024, for record numbers of migrants caught crossing the border illegally in recent years, calling the citizenship right for children born on US soil a “magnet.” Mr. Trump noted that many countries restrict birthright citizenship for non-citizens.

Mr. Trump has sought to appeal to Republican voters on his party’s right flank who support a crackdown on immigration. As president, Mr. Trump pursued hardline policies toward immigration and took steps toward building a wall along the US-Mexico border that he had promised as a candidate in 2016. — Reuters

CHINESE scientists have begun drilling a 10,000-meter (32,808 feet) hole into the Earth’s crust, as the world’s second largest economy explores new frontiers above and below the planet’s surface.

Drilling for what is set to be China’s deepest ever borehole began in the country’s oil-rich Xinjiang region on Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Earlier that morning, China sent its first civilian astronaut into space from the Gobi Desert.

The narrow shaft into the ground will penetrate more than 10 continental strata, or layers of rock, according to the report, and reach the cretaceous system in the Earth’s crust, which features rock dating back some 145 million years.

“The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, a scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told Xinhua.

President Xi Jinping called for greater progress in deep Earth exploration in a speech addressing some of the nation’s leading scientists in 2021. Such work can identify mineral and energy resources and help assess the risks of environmental disasters, such as earthquakes and volcano eruptions.

The deepest man-made hole on Earth is still the Russian Kola Superdeep Borehole, which reached a depth of 12,262 meters (40,230 feet) in 1989, after 20 years of drilling. — Bloomberg

SEOUL — Jeong Se-ah feels happy to see Tanaka, a Japanese bar host character from the early 2000s created by a South Korean comedian, because he revives her teenage memories of watching animations from the neighboring nation.

The 24-year-old office worker is one of a growing number of young South Koreans drawn to the products and culture of Japan, coming to see it as more of a friend than a foe that colonized the country 70 years ago, unlike previous generations.

Dressed in a Japan-inspired retro costume and manga accessories among a crowd waiting for Tanaka to begin a concert near Seoul, the capital, Jeong sang a ditty by a Japanese rock group the entertainer idolizes, X Japan.

“I like Tanaka more than his real self,” Ms. Jeong said. “There is something really charming and touching about him, and I’ve never seen an artist who tries so hard to make eye contact and communicate with every single fan.”

The character’s easy talk about Japan and its culture built on that allure, she added. “There was a social environment that sort of encourages boycotting Japanese culture, but people seem to be accepting it naturally,” Ms. Jeong said.

For his part, Kim Kyung-wook, a once forgotten comedian who has transformed the character into one of South Korea’s hottest YouTube stars and entertainers, said his appeal to the young mattered more than the reason for it.

“I think, for young people, it’s not about why, but just the fact they like something,” said Mr. Kim, who became fascinated by Japanese culture as a teenager, leading him to give the character a style and background missing from the Korean scene.

And his persona’s catchy manner of speaking, wolf-cut hairstyle, retro outfits and mastery of old Japanese and K-pop songs have contributed to that success.

Now Kim exemplifies the changing attitudes of young Koreans as ties with Japan thaw. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose May visit to Seoul was the first by a Japanese leader in 12 years, offered unprecedented personal condolences to wartime victims.

Today’s fervor for Tanaka, with nearly 800,000 Youtube followers, after gigs with famed K-pop stars, such as Taeyang of Bigbang, and a national tour that saw concerts sell out in minutes, is very different from the response to his 2018 debut.

Then, with spats over their shared wartime history flaring between Seoul and Tokyo, Tanaka was hardly popular.

Relations had plunged to their lowest in decades after rows over the neighbours’ history spilled over into trade disputes in 2019, casting a cloud over US-led efforts to counter North Korea’s growing military threat.

DEMAND REBOUND
The quarrels are being left behind as the enthusiasm of young Koreans fuels a sharp rebound in demand for Japanese consumer products.

Last month’s launch of a canned beer by beverage giant Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. 2502.T that is said to better replicate the experience of drinking the draft variety had many enthusiasts camping outside Costco stores in Seoul, ready to sprint to the doors when they opened.

“I’m not a huge fan of Japanese beer, but I saw it on social media, and it’s true that people’s perceptions of Japan have improved a lot,” said Son In-seok, 39, who waited for days to get his hands on the new beer in a convenience store.

South Korean imports of Japanese beer and whisky surged nearly 250% and 300% respectively in the first quarter from the figures of 2020, while inbound garment shipments jumped almost 47%.

That compared with a 90% drop in imports of Japanese beer in 2019, when the intensifying feuds made it an early target of a sweeping boycott.

Some Korean victims of Japanese military brothels and forced labor during its colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 demand an apology and compensation from Tokyo.

But officials say changing attitudes emboldened President Yoon Suk Yeol to risk political backlash with a March offer of compensation for such victims with funds from Korean corporates, rather than Japanese firms, as Seoul’s courts had ordered.

A January poll by Hankook Research showed Japan’s likeability score among Koreans was the highest since 2018, with those aged 29 or younger the most favorable.

China, which had scored nearly twice the levels of Japan in 2019, rated among the lowest, alongside Russia and North Korea.

A March survey by the same pollster showed 40% of Koreans backed Yoon’s compensation plan, with 53% opposed. But more than 51% of respondents aged 29 or less backed it, while 36% viewed it negatively.

Political dynamics are spurring the young to take a less antagonistic view of Japan, said James Kim, a regional specialist at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

“China is clearly less preferred than countries like the United States and Japan,” Mr. Kim said, citing Beijing’s curbs on freedom in Hong Kong and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even if younger people are not completely satisfied by South Korea’s efforts to resolve thorny historical issues, Mr. Kim added, “They see a more immediate threat and recognize the benefit of aligning with other like-minded democracies in the region.” — Reuters

WASHINGTON — The US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said on Tuesday its budget deficit projections would be reduced by about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years if the debt ceiling bill now up for a vote in Congress were enacted in its present form.

The projection comes following the debt ceiling deal struck last weekend between Democratic President Joseph R. Biden and Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. A vote on the deal is expected on Wednesday.

The agreement would suspend the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025, cap spending in the 2024 and 2025 budgets, claw back unused COVID funds, speed up the permitting process for some energy projects, and include extra work requirements for Americans who receive food aid.

“Reductions in projected discretionary outlays would amount to $1.3 trillion over the 2024–2033 period,” the CBO said on Tuesday, adding the bill would reduce mandatory spending by $10 billion and revenues would fall by $2 billion over the decade.

Interest on public debt would fall by $188 billion, it added.

The bill, if approved by Congress, will prevent the US government from defaulting on its debt and comes after weeks of heated negotiations between Biden and House Republicans. It has drawn fire from both hardline Republicans and progressive Democrats, but Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy are banking on getting enough votes from both sides.

Mr. McCarthy has predicted he would have the support of a majority of his fellow Republicans for the deal to lift the $31.4-trillion US debt ceiling, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said he expected Democratic support.

The 99-page bill would authorize more than $886 billion for security spending in fiscal year 2024 and over $703 billion in non-security spending for the same year, not including some adjustments. It would also authorize a 1% increase for security spending in fiscal year 2025. — Reuters