Amid rhetoric, market uncertainty and tit-for-tat exchanges, the two sides are still trying to find a way out of the impasseGreat news! Donald Trump has said the US and Iran are on the verge of a peace agreement. Oil prices are down, and the stock market is up. This comes only hours after Trump warned Iran was about to be struck “VERY HARD”, a threat that had sent oil prices up and stocks down.It has been another ride on the Trump rollercoaster, keeping traders on edge, most of the world poorer,
Amid rhetoric, market uncertainty and tit-for-tat exchanges, the two sides are still trying to find a way out of the impasse
Great news! Donald Trump has said the US and Iran are on the verge of a peace agreement. Oil prices are down, and the stock market is up. This comes only hours after Trump warned Iran was about to be struck “VERY HARD”, a threat that had sent oil prices up and stocks down.
It has been another ride on the Trump rollercoaster, keeping traders on edge, most of the world poorer, and people of the Middle East constantly whiplashing between fear and hope. But whether the ride veers up or down, the management always makes money.
Analysts say IPO that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire has a ‘major disconnect’ on price Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch the biggest stock market float in history amid warnings that it may be overvalued.The space exploration, satellite broadband and AI company will join the US stock market on Friday at a valuation of $1.78tn, after offering at least $75bn of shares to investors through an initial public offering. Continue reading...
The space exploration, satellite broadband and AI company will join the US stock market on Friday at a valuation of $1.78tn, after offering at least $75bn of shares to investors through an initial public offering.
US inflation hits a three-year high in MayEuropean stock markets are taking a more decisive turn downwards now – the UK’s FTSE 100 has fallen 0.5%. The German Dax is down 0.6% and the French Cac 40 is down 0.3%.The Europe Stoxx 600 is down 0.4%. Continue reading...
European stock markets are taking a more decisive turn downwards now – the UK’s FTSE 100 has fallen 0.5%. The German Dax is down 0.6% and the French Cac 40 is down 0.3%.
Lawson opens its first “mini supermarket” in Tokyo.
Lawson is one of Japan’s big-three convenience stores (the others being 7-Eleven and Family Mart), but Lawson itself has multiple sub-brands. For example, there’s also the budget-minded Lawson Store 100, with most items priced at 100 yen, and on May 28, the Lawson family expanded once again with the opening of L Minimart in Tokyo’s Kodaira district.
L Minimart says its mission is to be a “mini supermarket,” which sounds like a bit of a contra
Lawson opens its first “mini supermarket” in Tokyo.
Lawson is one of Japan’s big-three convenience stores (the others being 7-Eleven and Family Mart), but Lawson itself has multiple sub-brands. For example, there’s also the budget-minded Lawson Store 100, with most items priced at 100 yen, and on May 28, the Lawson family expanded once again with the opening of L Minimart in Tokyo’s Kodaira district.
L Minimart says its mission is to be a “mini supermarket,” which sounds like a bit of a contradiction, doesn’t it? But Lawson believes there’s room for a new type of store in between convenience stores and supermarkets, with more fresh produce and ingredients than a standard Lawson would carry, but still offering more convenience and simplicity than a full-scale grocery store.
This first branch of the new L Minimart chain is about a 10-minute walk from the South Exit of Kodaira Station, and on opening day was scheduled to start welcoming shopper at noon. We rolled up at 11:15 to take a peek, and saw the staff busily taking care of their final preparations.
After killing some time wandering around the neighborhood, we came back at around 11:45, and were startled to see that in the 30 minutes we’d been gone, a line of some 70 people had formed!
We took a spot at the end, and as the time got closer and closer to noon, more and more people started showing up. By the time the doors opened, we estimate there were about 200 people waiting to get in.
But once they started letting people in, the line moved briskly, and it only took about 10 minutes for us to get to the front of it. Outside of the store were produce stands stocked with melons and kiwis…
…and there were more fruits and vegetables inside.
Looking around, we spotted lots of attention-grabbing yellow signs trumpeting especially low-priced items. Some of these were special discounts as part of the store’s opening sale (like 98-yen [US$0.65] bunches of bananas), and others were touted as everyday low prices, like tofu for as little as 49 yen a pack.
The meat section was far more expansive than anything you’d find at a regular convenience store, but L Minimart hasn’t forgotten its roots, as it has a very large selection of bento boxed lunches, sandwiches, salads, ready-to-eat-noodles, and onigiri (rice balls) as well.
The bento come in two price tiers, 499 or 399 yen, but with one exception. L Minimart has a Karaage Nori Ben (fried chicken and seaweed bento) that costs just 298 yen (US$1.95). At that price, it was too tempting to pass up, so we grabbed one for taste-testing, along with a few other items.
▼ The onigiri are also incredibly affordable, with seaweed-wrapped ones for 129 yen and non-seaweed ones for even less. It’s been years since major convenience store chains had prices this low.
▼ Five-kilogram (11-pound) bags of rice for 2,680 yen is also a glorious throwback to an era of more affordable groceries.
Don’t worry, L Minimart has sweets too. In addition to packaged cookies and cakes…
…they’ve also got a self-serve section of traditional Japanese desserts, like daifuku mochi dumplings, for just 100 yen each!
We also noticed that L Minimart sells packs of frozen meat. These aren’t always so easy to find in Japan, even at supermarkets, and look like they’d be very handy to keep on hand for meal prep.
As we mentioned above, we bought one of those ultra-affordable 298-yen karaage nori bento, and it turned out to also include a croquette, isobeage (tempura seaweed), and a bit of kimpira gobo (diced carrot and burdock root).
They all tasted good, but we have to admit that the portions were a little small. We didn’t feel ripped off, but in terms of how much food you get, this feels more like a fair price than a full-on bargain.
Of course, with the bento only costing 298 yen, there’s room to add something on the side, like an extra piece of the tasty karaage for 168-yen…
…or a 96-yen shio musubi (salted rice ball), made with delicious Koshiibuku rice from Niigata Prefecture, famed for having some of Japan’s best rice-growing farmland.
L Minimart takes another page from the supermarket playbook with rotating discounts for certain staples, and a calendar posted in the store showed the upcoming blocks of 10-percent-off days for eggs, natto, kimchi, and sandwich bread.
We came away happy from our shopping experience, and the huge crowd that L Minimart attracted on its first day shows there’s potential for a class of store between convenience stores and supermarkets (even L Minimart’s hours sort of split the difference between the two, as it’s open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. The Kodaira neighborhood is out in the suburbs of west Tokyo, but as major Japanese cities grow increasingly densely populated, we just might start seeing more stores like this that don’t need a large physical footprint in order to offer a full range of both groceries and ready-to-eat foods.
Shop information
L Minimart (Kodaira Nakamachi branch) / Lミニマート（小平仲町店）
Address: Tokyo-to, Kodaira-shi, Nakamichi 251 Excellence
東京都小平市仲町251エクセレンス
Open 7 a.m.-11 p.m.
You can haul back thousands of yen worth of ramen, rice, and snacks for a fraction of the price.
Expanding its reach with additional sub-brands, one of Japan’s big-three convenience stores, Lawson, opened the doors to L Minimart, its first “mini supermarket”, on May 28 in Kodaira, Tokyo. Excited to learn more about what this new brand will entail, our Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato joined the crowd of the roughly 200 people who wanted to be among the first to step through the store’s door
You can haul back thousands of yen worth of ramen, rice, and snacks for a fraction of the price.
Expanding its reach with additional sub-brands, one of Japan’s big-three convenience stores, Lawson, opened the doors to L Minimart, its first “mini supermarket”, on May 28 in Kodaira, Tokyo. Excited to learn more about what this new brand will entail, our Japanese-language reporter Mr. Sato joined the crowd of the roughly 200 people who wanted to be among the first to step through the store’s doors on the day of its opening.
Mr. Sato arrived early enough that he was able to line up, peruse the store, and complete his shopping without any significant wait time or issues, but by the time he was wrapping up his visit, other prospective customers were being told that they would likely have a one-hour wait to enter.
As Mr. Sato walked back from the store to the nearest train station (Kodaira Station), he couldn’t help but look down at some of his recent purchases. In commemoration of the opening, he discovered the store was selling two types of lucky bags, also known as fukubukuro: one full of food and the other stuffed with snacks, and both priced at 1,080 yen (US$6.76) per bag.
Longtime readers may be familiar with our annual report on the New Year’s fukubukuro that go on sale at all manner of stores in Japan, but they’re not an uncommon sight to see throughout the year too, particularly if the store is involved in some sort of celebration or campaign.
A lot of times when good deals like these crop up, the amount of bags that each customer can purchase is limited, so Mr. Sato was pleasantly surprised to find out that there were no official limits in place. However, he soon realized one of the unwritten limits: your arm strength.
▼ Mr. Sato only picked up one of each.
While the snack bag wasn’t so bad, the food one slowly began to feel like an iron block hanging at the end of his arm, leaving him to adjust his grip regularly, and making him pretty tired after the whole ordeal was over. He couldn’t help but wonder what it might be like for customers who are more advanced in age, and how they might struggle to haul their lucky bag back to their houses.
Arriving home, he quickly stepped on the scales for a base reading, before picking up the food lucky bag, filled with curiosity. How heavy was it exactly?
It turned out that the bag weighed an impressive 3.3 kilograms (7.3 pounds), so it was no wonder he was feeling a little drained.
Spreading out the contents of the bag, he discovered that there were a total of 15 items:
1. Ciscorn Frost Cereal – 421 yen 2. Hakubaku Fragrant Barley Tea (52 bags) – 270 yen
3. Acecook Super Cup Sauce Yakisoba – 259 yen 4. Acecook Seaweed Ramen – 254 yen 5. Kyusyu Sanpodo Kurumeshi Ramen – 254 yen 6. Myojo Hyobanya Salt Yakisoba – 159 yen 7. Kyusyu Sanpodo Nagasaki Champon – 254 yen
8. Hachi Shokuhin Tappuri Carbonara – 226 yen 9. Hachi Shokuhin Tappuri Meat Sauce – 226 yen 10. Ajinomoto Marudorigara Soup – 400 yen 11. Mama Hayayude FineFast Four Minutes – 320 yen 12. House Shokuhin Curry-ya Curry (Medium Spice) – 130 yen
13. Sato no Gohan New Standard Microwaveable Rice – 307 yen 14. Sato no Gohan Microwaveable Rice – 200 yen 15. Ajinomoto Pure Select Rich and Tasty 65 Percent Calorie Cut Mayonnaise – 280 yen
Just a single fukubukuro contained food worth an impressive 3,960 yen, making for a saving of 2,880 yen.
The snack bag also contained 15 items:
1. Kameda Seika Kotsubukko Bitter Caramel Rice Snack – 216 yen 2. Lotte Pie no Mi Share Pack – 300 yen 3. Ginbis Shimi Choco Corn Matcha – 328 yen
4. Yamazaki Biscuit Chip Star Lightly Salted – 100 yen 5. Morinaga Seika Pote-long Salt Flavor – 110 yen 6. Pringles Consomme and Onion – 160 yen
7. Iwatsuka Seika Black Soybean Rice Crackers – 260 yen 8. Hizatsuki Shrimp Rice Crackers – 200 yen 9. Yamayoshi Seika Wasabeef Potato Chips – 160 yen 10. Nissin Coconut Sable Cookies – 162 yen 11. Kasugai Xylicrystal Milk-Mint Candies – 200 yen 12. Fujiya Ginza Kamadashi Cheesecake – 300 yen
13. Tohato Poteko Tasty Salt Flavor Potato Ring Snack– 173 yen 14. Koikeya Sour Mucho Chips Refreshing Plum Flavor – 140 yen 15. Oyatsu Company Baby Star Giant Ramen Scorched Soy Sauce Scented Festival Stall’s Grilled Corn Flavor – 152 yen
Totaling 2,961 yen, the whopping grand total of the food’s worth is 6,921 yen, which meant a saving of 4,761 yen.
Having paid just 2,160 yen for the two bags, the results were well worth the money spent.
While many people have likely missed out on the opportunity to go and purchase one of these lucky bags, it appears that L Minimart has plans to open more stores in the future, with one coming to Itabashi, Tokyo, on June 12, and another to Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, on June 26, so when one happens to open up near you, be sure to grab these lucky bags.
Store Information
L Minimart Kodaira Nakamichi-ten / Lミニマート 小平仲町店
Address: Tokyo-to, Kodaira-shi, Nakamachi 251, Excellence
東京都小平市仲町251エクセレンス
Open: 7:00 a.m.–11:00 p.m.
Free government data lowers the cost of academic research, but it can also divert talented people from more productive work and fuel low-value academic publication cycles.
Free government data lowers the cost of academic research, but it can also divert talented people from more productive work and fuel low-value academic publication cycles.
IPOH, June 15 — Showing restraint when dealing with Rohingya refugees who violate local laws and regulations should not be mistaken for a sign of weakness, but rather as an expression of compassion and humanity, Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad said.Saarani said Rohingya refugees holding United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards are subject to international law and should be treated appropriately while residing in Malaysia.“I welco
IPOH, June 15 — Showing restraint when dealing with Rohingya refugees who violate local laws and regulations should not be mistaken for a sign of weakness, but rather as an expression of compassion and humanity, Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad said.
Saarani said Rohingya refugees holding United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards are subject to international law and should be treated appropriately while residing in Malaysia.
“I welcome the reminder from the federal government that while taking action on these matters, there must also be room for humanitarian considerations.
“Because of that, sometimes people see us as weak. Actually, we are not weak; we are being humane,” he told a press conference after attending the ‘Meet Consumer Day’ programme at the Indera Mulia Stadium here.
He said the state government hoped the Rohingya community would understand and appreciate the humanitarian approach extended to them and refrain from violating local laws and regulations.
Saarani said some Rohingya refugees had become increasingly bold as their community grew larger, with some allegedly engaging in business activities despite regulations prohibiting them from doing so.
He added that some of these businesses were operating from premises owned by local citizens who preferred to rent out their shops rather than run businesses themselves.
“Many of these cases actually fall under the jurisdiction of local councils. When a business licence is issued to a local citizen, it cannot be transferred to another person, whether a local or a foreigner.
“Doing so is an offence, and the local authority has the power to revoke the business licence,” he said.
Saarani cited markets in Selayang and several areas in Perak, particularly Manjung, where he said some members of the Rohingya community appeared to have exceeded the boundaries set by state regulations.
“We cannot allow that,” he said.
He reminded the Rohingya community that the people of Perak were prepared to continue extending compassion and humanitarian support, but warned that such kindness should not be repaid with actions that could lead to riots, fights or violations of established rules.
Saarani also stressed that expelling Rohingya refugees was not a straightforward solution, as many had fled conflict and persecution in their homeland.
“In reality, they cannot simply be expelled. The question is, where would they be sent?
“If their country were peaceful and their homes and villages were safe and comfortable, they would not have come here in the first place,” he said.
He added that many Rohingya refugees who returned to their homeland found their homes destroyed and family members subjected to abuse, which was why Malaysians should continue to show sympathy and compassion towards them.
Research suggests households that include a GLP-1 user collectively spent £780m less on grocery billsBusiness live – latest updatesWeight-loss drugs are saving users’ households more than £400 a year on grocery bills, according to a survey, which found use of GLP-1s has nearly tripled in the past two years to 1.9 million adults.More than 6.3% of households in Great Britain now include at least one GLP-1 user, according to the research by Worldpanel by Numerator. This marks a sharp rise from 4.1%
Weight-loss drugs are saving users’ households more than £400 a year on grocery bills, according to a survey, which found use of GLP-1s has nearly tripled in the past two years to 1.9 million adults.
More than 6.3% of households in Great Britain now include at least one GLP-1 user, according to the research by Worldpanel by Numerator. This marks a sharp rise from 4.1% of households in 2025 and 2.3% in 2024.
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