Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba faces a reckoning from voters on Sunday with upper house elections that could end his premiership and see a right-wing populist party make inroads. With many Japanese hurt by rising prices,

Japanese voters headed to the polls Sunday to elect members to the country's upper house of parliament, in a high-stakes election that could deal a blow to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ruling coalition,

Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba faces a critical test in Sunday’s upper house election. A loss could deepen political instability as his government struggles with rising prices, U.S. tariffs and voter dissatisfaction.

Ishiba, 68, a self-confessed defense “geek,” is the son of a regional governor and is from Japan’s small Christian minority. He won the party leadership in September last year, on his fifth try, to become the LDP’s 10th separate prime minister since 2000, all of them men.

Shigeru Ishiba likes the nitty-gritty of policy, cigarettes and making models, but his dream job as Japanese prime minister could go up in smoke this weekend. Opinion polls suggest that Ishiba’s coalition could lose its majority in upper house elections on Sunday,

With few willing to take the contaminated earth, the government took it upon itself to reuse some of the soil to show it is not dangerous.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Tokyo on Friday ahead of the scheduled imposition of 25% duty on Japan. (Source: Bloomberg)