More than half of big Japanese companies are planning to raise wages this year, according to a Reuters monthly poll, meeting a key request from Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to help workers cope with surging consumer prices.

Kishida’s administration has repeatedly urged companies to make maximum efforts to lift employee pay, which has failed to keep up with the fastest inflation in 40 years. That push was boosted last week when Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing Co (9983.T) said it would raise wages by as much as 40%.

Ahead of spring “shunto” labour negotiations, managers at 24% of the companies polled said they planned on across-the-board bumps in base salary along with regularly scheduled wage increases. Another 29% said they would carry out regular pay increases only, while 38% were undecided.

“Prime Minister Kishida has been saying raise wages, raise wages, but the decision to hike pay isn’t done on the words of a prime minister or president,” said Masayuki Kubota, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities. “Rather it’s because a company needs better human resources to achieve its growth potential.”

“If the company isn’t competitive, raising wages translates just to higher costs that will only worsen its situation,” he added.

A total of 34% of firms said they planned wage increases of at least 3%, a jump from 10% in a Reuters survey in October.

While the survey focused on large corporations, the outlook remains less rosy for small and medium-sized firms that provide most jobs in the world’s third-largest economy.

Smaller firms generally cannot increase pay, business owners, economists and officials say, because they often struggle to pass on higher costs out of fear of losing customers.

The survey also showed that big companies are less eager to bear the brunt of another Kishida plan: unprecedented military spending to counter growing threats from China and North Korea. To help pay for it, the plan calls for corporate tax surcharges of 4% to 4.5% that would take effect from fiscal 2024 or later.

Among 495 firms polled, 54% supported the defence spending plan, but just 29% backed the increase in corporate tax rates.

“Without any explanation of how the increase in defence spending will be used, the policy to assign most of the burden on corporate taxes is totally unacceptable,” said a manager at an industrial ceramics company, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This could put a damper on wage increases and capital investment.”

Asked what expenses would be curtailed if corporate levies go up, the top answer was capital spending, at 42%, followed by dividends and wages.

In the Reuters October survey, 81% of companies said they approved of a substantial increase in defence spending, but just 20% said corporate taxes should be lifted to pay for it.

On the overall business environment, corporate managers turned slightly more pessimistic, with 81% saying conditions would be “not so good” to “bad” in the next three months, compared with 77% in the December survey.

“The weak yen along with higher raw material prices continue to squeeze profit margins,” said a manager at a manufacturing company. “Although our company raised prices last spring and autumn, it wasn’t enough to absorb the materials costs, so we plan to raise prices again this spring.”

The Reuters Corporate Survey, conducted for Reuters by Nikkei Research between Dec. 23 and Jan. 13, canvassed 495 big non-financial Japanese firms on condition of anonymity, allowing them to speak more freely.

Germany will send German-made tanks to Ukraine so long as the United States agrees to do likewise, a government source in Berlin told Reuters, as NATO partners remained out of step over how best to arm Ukraine in its war against Russia.

* The Pentagon is still not prepared to meet Kyiv’s request for M1 Abrams tanks, said Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy adviser after returning from a trip to Ukraine.

* Zelenskiy said in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos that Western supplies of tanks and air defence units should come more quickly and before Russia mounted fresh missile and armoured assaults.

* Canada summoned Russia’s ambassador to Ottawa over attacks against civilians in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro that killed at least 45 people, including several children.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew a sharp rebuke from the White House for saying the United States had assembled a coalition of European countries to solve “the Russian question” in the same way that Adolf Hitler had sought a “final solution” to eradicate Europe’s Jews. read more

* The United States will provide $125 million to Ukraine to support its energy and electric grids following targeted attacks on those utilities by Russian forces, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

* “The situation on the frontline remains tough, with Donbas being the epicentre of the most fierce and principled battles,” Zelenskiy said.

* Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a YouTube video that Ukrainian army units remained in Soledar, with heavy fighting in western districts despite Russian claims for more than a week that it now controlled the town.

Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

* Russian President Putin, visiting an air defence factory in St Petersburg, said Russia’s military industrial might meant “victory is assured, I have no doubt about it.”

* Ukraine’s interior minister and a child were among at least 14 people killed when a helicopter crashed into a nursery and set it ablaze in a suburb of the capital Kyiv.

* It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to crash. Zelenskiy has asked for an investigation.

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Jacinda Ardern has put tiny New Zealand on the map in her five years as prime minister, becoming a global icon for left-leaning politics and women in leadership, even as she struggled at home with the economy and COVID-19 restrictions.

The 41-year-old – who gained attention for bringing her baby to a United Nations meeting and wearing a hijab after a massacre targeting Muslims – announced in similarly dramatic fashion on Thursday that she will step down in less than three weeks, saying she had “no more in the tank”.

“Be strong, be kind,” New Zealand’s youngest prime minister in more than a century repeated through her eventful tenure, but her empathetic leadership and crisis management skills often masked her government’s shortcomings.

Considered personable and engaging, Ardern turned speaking from the heart and smiling through adversity into a winning formula for surging to power in 2017 and returning with a blowout win in 2020 that ushered in New Zealand’s first purely left-leaning government in decades.

Her leadership was marked by unprecedented events for the island nation of 5 million: the 2019 massacre of 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch by a white supremacist and the eruption of the White Island volcano, and, the next year, the pandemic.

“I hope I leave New Zealanders with a belief that you can be kind but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focussed,” Ardern said in an emotional resignation announcement. “And that you can be your own kind of leader – one who knows when it’s time to go.”

Ardern received worldwide praise for her response to the Christchurch attacks, which she labelled terrorism. Wearing a headscarf, she met the Muslim community, telling them New Zealand was “united in grief”.

She delivered a ban on semiautomatic firearms and other gun curbs within weeks of the massacre, a stark contrast to the United States, where lawmakers and activists have struggled to address gun violence despite regular mass shootings.

Launching a global campaign to end online hate, she has often herself been a target of right-wing extremists online.

Ardern made global headlines in 2020, presiding over New Zealand’s most diverse parliament, with more than half the members women and the highest number of indigenous Maori lawmakers.

When COVID arrived, she was among the first leaders to close borders and pursue a zero-tolerance strategy that kept New Zealanders safe from the virus, holding death rates far below those of other advanced nations.

But not everyone was happy with her “go hard, go early” approach, which included a nationwide lockdown over a single infection.

While Ardern’s popularity rose internationally, at home she has faced growing political headwinds, struggling to prove that her leadership extended beyond crisis management and kindness.

Her ratings have dropped in recent months on a worsening housing crisis, rising living costs and mortgage rates, and growing concerns about crime. She remains, however, more popular that her rivals.

Despite her promises of transformational leadership, Ardern’s affordable housing programmes have been set back by blunders. Even on climate change, which Ardern called “my generation’s nuclear-free moment”, progress has been incremental.

Ardern burst onto the global scene in 2017 when she became the world’s youngest female head of government at the age of 37.

Riding a wave of “Jacinda-mania,” she campaigned passionately for women’s rights and an end to child poverty and economic inequality in the country.

Raised a Mormon by her mother and police officer father, Ardern left the church over its stance on LGBTQ people in the early 2000s and has since described herself as agnostic.

Hours after being appointed Labour Party leader, she was asked whether she planned to have children. Ardern said it was “totally unacceptable in 2017 to say that women should have to answer that question in the workplace”.

Eight months after becoming premier, she had a baby daughter, becoming only the second elected leader to give birth while in office, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Less than three months later, Ardern brought the baby, Neve Te Aroha, to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Many took her pregnancy and prime minister’s maternity leave as symbolising progress for women leaders, part of a wave of progressive female leaders including Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Meeting with Marin in Wellington in November, Ardern shot back at a question whether the two were meeting only because of they were young and female.

“I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key if they met because they were of similar age,” Ardern said, in reference to the former U.S. president and New Zealand prime minister. “Because two women meet, it’s not simply because of their gender.”

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Thursday made a shock announcement she had “no more in the tank” to continue leading the country and would step down no later than early February and not seek re-election.

Ardern, holding back tears, said that it had been a tough five and a half years as prime minister and that she was only human and needed to step aside.

“This summer, I had hoped to find a way to prepare for not just another year, but another term – because that is what this year requires. I have not been able to do that,” Ardern, 42, told a news conference.

“I know there will be much discussion in the aftermath of this decision as to what the so called ‘real’ reason was… The only interesting angle you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, that I am human,” she continued.

“Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time. And for me, it’s time.”

A ruling New Zealand Labour Party vote for a new leader will take place on Sunday; the party leader will be prime minister until the next general election. Ardern’s term as leader will conclude no later than Feb. 7 and a general election will be held on Oct. 14.

Ardern said she believed Labour would win the upcoming election.

New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, who also serves as finance minister, said in a statement he would not seek to stand as the next Labour leader.

Political commentator Ben Thomas said Ardern’s announcement was a huge surprise as polls still ranked her as the country’s preferred prime minister even though support for her party had fallen from the stratospheric heights seen during the 2020 election.

Thomas said that there was not a clear successor.

Ardern said she was not stepping down because the job was hard, but because she believed others could do a better job.

She made a point of telling her daughter Neve that she was looking forward to being there when she started school this year and told her longtime partner Clarke Gayford that it was time they married.

Ardern burst onto the global scene in 2017 when she became the world’s youngest female head of government at age 37. read more

Riding a wave of “Jacinda-mania,” she campaigned passionately for women’s rights, and an end to child poverty and economic inequality in the country.

Eight months after becoming premier she became the second elected leader to give birth while in office, after Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto. Many saw Ardern as part of wave of progressive female leaders, including Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Her empathetic leadership style was cemented by her response to the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 that killed 51 people injured 40.

Ardern swiftly labelled the attacks “terrorism” and wore a hijab as she met with the Muslim community a day after the attack, telling them the whole country was “united in grief”. She promised and delivered major gun law reform within a month.

“Jacinda Ardern has shown the world how to lead with intellect and strength. She has demonstrated that empathy and insight are powerful leadership qualities,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.

Ardern won plaudits across the political spectrum for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the country face some of the strictest measures globally but also resulted in one of the lowest death tolls.

But her popularity has waned over the past year as inflation has risen to nearly three-decade highs, the central bank has aggressively increased the cash rate and crime has risen.

The country has become increasingly politically divided over issues such as a government overhaul of water infrastructure, and the introduction of an agricultural emissions programme. Ardern and Labour have seen their opinion poll support suffer.

“There has been more and more criticism,” said Bryce Edwards, a political commentator and a research associate at the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

Edwards said the appeal Ardern had won from swing voters and non-traditional Labour voters at the last election due to her handling of the COVID pandemic had started to wane as the country deals with social issues.

Chinese drugmakers rushed to make anti-fever medicines and other treatments for COVID-19 on Thursday, after President Xi Jinping said he was worried about an influx of holiday travellers to rural areas ill-equipped to deal with sudden outbreaks.

Xi’s comments come just over a month after his government abruptly axed his strict “zero-COVID” controls that had largely shielded China’s 1.4 billion people from the disease for three years but sparked widespread protests in late November.

As travel ramps up during the busy Lunar New Year holiday season, as many as 36,000 people could die each day from the disease, according to the latest figures from independent British-based forecasting firm Airfinity.

China said last Saturday that nearly 60,000 people with COVID died in hospitals between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12 – a roughly ten-fold increase from previous disclosures.

However, that number excludes those who die at home, and some doctors in China have said they are discouraged from putting COVID on death certificates. Health experts say China’s official figures likely do not reflect the true toll of the virus.

“Based on the reports of hospitals being overwhelmed and long queues outside funeral homes, we might estimate that a larger number of COVID deaths have occurred so far, maybe more than 600,000 rather than just 60,000,” said Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at Hong Kong University.

China’s chaotic exit from a regime of mass lockdowns, travel restrictions and frequent COVID testing, has also prompted a run on drugs as people fend for themselves against the disease.

To meet soaring demand, drugmakers in China are ramping up operations to triple their capacity to make key fever and cough medicines, the state-run China Daily reported on Thursday.

China has relied on domestic vaccines to combat the pandemic, eschewing foreign-made ones which some studies have suggested are more effective, while other foreign treatments for COVID-19 have been hard to come by in China.

Pfizer’s (PFE.N) COVID-19 anti-viral drug Paxlovid is available in China but has been very difficult to obtain through official channels, according to media reports and personal accounts. Merck & Co’s (MRK.N) antiviral treatment molnupiravir has also been approved for use but is not yet widely available.

Those particularly vulnerable to the virus are the elderly, many of whom are not fully vaccinated and now face exposure as millions of urban workers travel to home towns to reunite with families for Lunar New Year holidays that officially start on Jan. 21.

Before COVID first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the holiday was known as the greatest annual migration of people anywhere on the planet.

“China’s COVID prevention and control is still in a time of stress, but the light is ahead, persistence is victory,” Xi said on Wednesday in a holiday greetings message carried by state broadcaster CCTV.

“I am most worried about the rural areas and farmers. Medical facilities are relatively weak in rural areas, thus prevention is difficult and the task is arduous,” Xi said, adding that the elderly were a top priority.

Several Chinese cities are set to celebrate the New Year with massive displays of fireworks after local governments reversed bans on their sale in recent years.

Hangzhou, Kunming, Zhengzhou, and Changsha – which all have populations above 10 million – will allow the sale of fireworks, according to the Yicai business magazine.

Airfinity on Wednesday estimated 62 million people could be infected with the virus between Jan. 13-27 and that COVID-related deaths could peak at 36,000 a day on Jan. 26, up sharply from previous forecasts.

“Our forecast estimates a significant burden on China’s healthcare system for the next fortnight and it is likely that many treatable patients could die due to overcrowded hospitals and lack of care,” Airfinity’s analytics director Matt Linley said.

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U.S. Representative George Santos competed as a drag queen in Brazilian beauty pageants 15 years ago, two acquaintances told Reuters on Wednesday, adding to contrasts that have drawn criticism of the openly gay Republican congressman’s staunchly conservative views.

The embattled freshman congressman has also faced calls from fellow New York Republicans to step down over fabrications about his career and history.

A 58-year-old Brazilian performer, who uses the drag name Eula Rochard, said she befriended the now-congressman when he was cross-dressing in 2005 at the first gay pride parade in Niteroi, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Three years later, Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant in Rio, Rochard said.

Another person from Niteroi who knew the congressman but asked not to be named said he participated in drag queen beauty pageants and aspired to be Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro.

Emails to the congressman’s press office and a newly hired communications director on Wednesday evening were not returned.

Santos is the first openly gay Republican to win a House seat in Congress as a non-incumbent, but has positioned himself as a staunch conservative on many social issues.

He has backed Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill, which prohibits classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Republicans are increasingly denouncing drag shows and performers, claiming they are harmful to children.

Santos, responding in October to criticism of his support for the “don’t say gay” bill, told USA Today: “I am openly gay, have never had an issue with my sexual identity in the past decade, and I can tell you and assure you, I will always be an advocate for LGBTQ folks.”

Rochard said the congressman was a “poor” drag queen in 2005, with a simple black dress, but in 2008 “he came back to Niteroi with a lot of money,” and a flamboyant pink dress to show for it. Santos competed in a drag beauty pageant that year but lost, Rochard said.

“He’s changed a lot, but he was always a liar. He was always such a dreamer,” Rochard said.

Hong Kong said it will no longer require people infected with COVID-19 to quarantine from Jan. 30, removing one of the last major coronavirus restrictions in place in the Asian financial hub.

The scrapping of the isolation requirements is part of a decision to downgrade COVID-19’s status to an endemic disease from a severe respiratory disease and follows a similar move by China on Jan.8.

“I have decided to scrap the quarantine order for COVID-infected patients. This is one of the important steps towards normalcy,” city leader John Lee told a legislative meeting on Thursday.

People in Hong Kong are, however, still required to wear masks unless exercising.

Last week, high-speed rail services between Hong Kong and mainland China resumed for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

The re-opening comes amidst a massive wave of infections on the mainland following China’s abrupt U-turn on its “zero-COVID” policy.

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Canada summoned Russia’s ambassador on Wednesday over an attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro that killed at least 45 people, including several children, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said.

Officials summoned ambassador Oleg Stepanov to “make clear we do not accept the sheer brutality of Russia’s recent attacks against civilians in Dnipro,” Joly told reporters in Toronto.

Stepanov later said his discussions at the meeting focused on a “predictable line of overall Western propaganda” and that Moscow’s differences with Canada left little room for diplomacy.

The attack on an apartment building in Dnipro on Saturday was the deadliest for civilians since the start of a three-month Russian missile bombardment campaign.

Ukraine says the building was struck by a Russian Kh-22 missile. The Kremlin has said its wave of missile strikes on Saturday did not target residential buildings.

Canada, like other Western nations, has slapped broad sanctions on Russia over its invasion in Ukraine, and Joly said Ottawa would continue to hold Moscow accountable.

Earlier on Wednesday, Canada announced the supply of 200 Senator armoured personnel carriers as part of its military assistance to Ukraine.

“We will continue to suffocate the Russian regime with coordinated sanctions and we will continue to counter Russian lies with facts,” Joly said, speaking alongside British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

Cleverly echoed his Canadian counterpart’s comments about continued support for Ukraine. He was in Toronto after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday in Washington.

The Canadian and British militaries are also training new Ukrainian recruits in Britain, and Joly said more Canadian experts would soon be joining the British government’s information cell to fight against what she described as Russian disinformation.

Stepanov, speaking to Russian reporters by telephone, said Russia and Canada had “very deep differences concerning Ukraine. In essence we again parted with no agreement in our assessments.

“By basing everything not only on a pro-Ukrainian but also a strident anti-Russian line, they are amplifying the extent of the current confrontation and leaving no opportunity for further diplomatic work,” Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

The 8-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt has a mysterious $12.7 million hole in an investment account with Stocks & Securities Limited.

REUTERS/Dylan Martinez

• Usain Bolt is missing $12.7 million from an investment account.
• The money was held with Stocks & Securities Limited, an investment firm in Kingston, Jamaica.
• Bolt only has $12,000 remaining in the account right now.

The last time most people saw Usain Bolt, he was likely sprinting across race tracks in London, Rio De Janeiro, or Beijing.

And while the 8-time Olympic gold medalist has since retired from the sport, he’s now resurfaced for an entirely different reason. 

Bolt is missing $12.7 million from an investment account he had with Stocks & Securities Limited, or SSL, an investment firm based in Kingston, Jamaica, the Associated Press reported Wednesday, citing a copy of a letter that Bolt’s attorneys sent the firm requesting the return of the money. 

The attorneys also wrote, “If this is correct, and we are hoping it is not, then a serious act of fraud larceny or a combination of both have been committed against our client.”

Bolt first discovered that the funds were missing on January 11, according to a report from Jamaica’s English newspaper, The Gleaner.

The AP reported Wednesday that the attorneys are threatening SSL with civil or criminal action if the money isn’t returned to Bolt within the coming 10 days. A separate Bloomberg report on Wednesday, however, said that Bolt plans to take the case to Kingston’s Supreme Court if the money isn’t returned in eight days. 

The funds in the account— which totaled $12.8 million— were part of Bolt’s retirement and lifetime savings, Bloomberg reported. Now Bolt only $12,000 left, his attorney, Linton P. Gordon told the AP. 

This isn’t the first time that SSL has faced allegations of fraud. The Jamaica Financial Services Commission, which oversees the regulation of Jamaica’s insurance, pension and securities industries, told Bloomberg on Tuesday that it had installed a temporary manager at SSL, based on earlier reports of fraud allegation. 

SSL did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for a comment. Insider also contacted Linton P. Gordon on behalf of Usain Bolt who did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Carnival Sunshine cruise ship docked in South Carolina in March 2020.

AP Photo/Mic Smith, File

• Windy weather forced a Carnival cruise ship to cancel its only planned port stop earlier this month.
• Passengers onboard received partial refunds and compensation for the unexpected cancellation.
• Passenger Kat O’Donnell told Insider the decision was disappointing. 

Passengers aboard the Carnival Sunshine were met with gray skies and disappointment after inclement weather turned their Bahamas-bound cruise into a bonafide cruise to nowhere.

The 3,000-passenger vessel departed Charleston, South Carolina, on Thursday, January 12 on a four-day voyage to Nassau and back, but gusty winds and dangerous swells left the ship unable to dock in the Bahamian capital — nixing the ship’s only planned port stop.

“We feel like we missed out,” said Kat O’Donnell, 33, who was onboard the Carnival Sunshine with her husband and two young kids. “We didn’t get what we went for.” 

O’Donnell, 33, and her husband had planned the vacation as a joint Christmas-birthday present. It was the family’s first-ever cruise and was supposed to be their first international trip, as well.

“It was the first time either one of us have ever gone out of the country,” she told Insider.

After two days of sailing through windy, chilly weather, the ship was set to dock in Nassau on the morning of January 14, where O’Donnell and her family had prepaid for a dolphin excursion, she said.

The kids were all dressed in their bathing suits and prepping their snorkel gear about 20 minutes before the boat was supposed to dock when O’Donnell noticed the island still seemed far off.

Moments later, the captain came over the ship’s intercom, informing passengers that it was too windy to safely dock, O’Donnell said, nixing the family’s tropical dreams. Steady winds between 20 to 30 miles per hour were recorded on the island on January 14. 

“It was really, very disappointing,” O’Donnell said of the unexpected port cancellation. “But I understand the safety concerns. I’m glad they were keeping us safe.”

Cruise Hive was first to report the Carnival Sunshine’s modification into a cruise to nowhere. The terminology refers to voyages in which a vessel departs from one port, sails in international waters for a few days without ever docking, and then returns to the original port to de-board. 

Once a popular vacation option, some international cruise lines still offer purposeful cruises to nowhere, giving passengers a chance to immerse themselves in the onboard experience during a quick getaway. Cruise lines used these tiny on-board vacations to win over new customers and turn a profit during scheduling gaps.

But a 2016 ruling from the US Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection effectively prohibited most cruises to nowhere, citing immigration concerns for foreign staff onboard the ships.

The Carnival Sunshine cruise ship docked in South Carolina in March 2020.

AP Photo/Mic Smith

The Carnival Sunshine’s failed itinerary, however, was a last-minute safety decision made by the crew.

O’Donnell said she and her family wallowed for a couple hours before picking themselves up and finding activities to do around the ship. 

“We spent a lot of time at the arcade with the kids,” she said. “We spent more time at the candy shop than I’d like to admit.”

Less than an hour after making the initial announcement, the captain came back over the intercom and told passengers they would be issued partial refunds and credits as compensation for the missed port stop.

A spokesperson for Carnival confirmed to Insider that passengers were refunded their port fees, as well as taxes and shore excursion expenditures. O’Donnell said each stateroom also received a $100 onboard credit, as well as a voucher for money off a future cruise. 

Despite her disappointment, O’Donnell said she was appreciative of Carnival’s quick response and efforts to remedy the situation.

“I’m thankful they offered us something,” she told Insider. “They could have just said ‘you know what you signed up for.'”

O’Donnell said her family will take another stab at cruising in the future, but next time they’ll plan a voyage with multiple stops, just in case.