Asian shares were mostly lower on Monday, although Japan’s benchmark rallied, welcoming a landslide parliamentary election victory by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Concerns about global inflation and interruptions to economic activity brought on by the coronavirus pandemic are adversely affecting investor sentiment. The tide may be shifting as more and more market players focus on the economic outlook, Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. “A recession is not the market’s base outlook, but until proven otherwise, investors will debate the depth of the growth hit, not the likelihood of recession; thus, good economic data is good news for stocks,” he said. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei jumped 1.1% in morning trading to 26,803.30. Japan’s governing party and its coalition partner scored a major victory in balloting Sunday, which came two days after the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe was shot by a man emerging from the crowd listening to his campaign speech, took out a homemade gun and fired. The attack shocked a nation that rarely sees gun violence. The Liberal Democratic Party was bound for victory even before the assassination, but some analysts said the shock of Abe’s death was likely to strengthen that trend. With its partner Komeito party, the ruling coalition raised its combined share in the 248-seat upper house to 146. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida almost certainly stands to rule without interruption until a scheduled election in 2025, ensuring that the pro-U.S. defense and diplomatic policies of the late Abe and the Liberal Democrats will continue unchanged. Read: Asia shares rise on optimism about easing COVID restrictions Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.6% to 6,638.20. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.3% to 2,342.82. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 2.7% to 21,144.53, while the Shanghai Composite fell 1.5% to 3,307.23. Technology shares fell after market regulators in China fined companies for not reporting past transactions as required. Wall Street had a sputtering finish last week, as global markets turned their attention to Chinese economic indicators and moves by central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, to contain stubbornly growing inflation. The hotter the U.S. economy remains, the more likely the Federal Reserve is to continue raising interest rates. A strong hiring report for June assuaged fears that the U.S. economy might be on the cusp of a recession — and highlighted the resilience of the nation’s job market. Yet the figures the government released Friday also spotlighted the sharp divide between the healthy labor market and the rest of the economy: Inflation has soared to 40-year highs, consumers are increasingly gloomy, home sales and manufacturing are weakening and the economy might actually have shrunk for the past six months. The Fed has already hiked its key overnight interest rate three times this year, and the increases have become increasingly aggressive. Last month it raised rates by the sharpest degree since 1994, by three-quarters of a percentage point to a range of 1.50% to 1.75%. It was at virtually zero as recently as March. Other central banks around the world are also raising interest rates and removing emergency plans put in place early in the pandemic to prop up financial markets. On Friday, the S&P 500 dropped 0.1% to 3,899.38, snapping a four-day winning streak. The Dow fell 0.1% to 31,388.15, while the Nasdaq rose 0.1% to 11,635.31. The Russell 2000 index of small company stocks slipped less than 0.1%, to 1,769.36. In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude lost 79 cents to $104.00 a barrel. It gained $2.06 to $104.79 a barrel on Friday. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 74 cents to $106.28 a barrel. In currency trading, the U.S. dollar gained to 137.03 Japanese yen from 136.10 yen. The euro cost $1.0148, down from $1.0182.

Japanese voters are casting ballots in national elections Sunday, a first big test for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to determine if he has a large enough mandate to tackle a coronavirus-battered economy, a fast-aging and dwindling population and security challenges from China and North Korea. Up for grabs are 465 seats in the lower house, the more powerful of the two-chamber Japanese Diet, or parliament. Kishida's governing Liberal Democratic Party is expected to lose some seats from pre-election levels, but maintain a comfortable majority together with its junior coalition partner Komeito. Kishida, 64, was elected prime minister on Oct. 4 after winning the leadership race in his ruling party, as its conservative leaders saw him as a safe status-quo successor to Yoshihide Suga and his influential predecessor Shinzo Abe. Kishida’s immediate task has been to rally support for a party weakened by Suga’s perceived high-handed approach to pandemic measures and his insistence on holding the Tokyo Summer Olympics despite widespread opposition. Kishida dissolved the lower house only 10 days after taking office, calling for this election and declaring that he wanted a mandate from voters for his new government before getting to work. The short, 17-day interval between the lower house dissolution and the vote that followed the LDP leadership race, which had dominated media coverage, unfairly gave Kishida's party an advantage over the opposition, some experts say. Read: Japan's ruling party loses 1 of 2 by-elections in blow to PM Kishida Kishida’s long-term grip on power will depend on how well he does in the election. Kishida repeatedly stressed his determination to listen to the people and to address criticism that the nine-year Abe-Suga leadership had caused corruption, tamed bureaucrats and muzzled opposing opinions. The campaign has largely centered on COVID-19 response measures and revitalizing the economy. While Kishida’s ruling party stressed the importance of having a stronger military amid worries over China’s growing influence and North Korea’s missile and nuclear threat, opposition parties focused on diversity issues and pushing for gender equality. Opposition leaders complain that recent LDP governments have widened the gap between rich and poor, did not support the economy during the pandemic and stalled gender equality and diversity initiatives. Japan this year ranked 120th in the World Economic Forum's 156-nation gender-gap ranking. Kishida has set a modest goal for the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito. He wants to jointly keep their majority, which would be 233 seats in the 465-member lower house. That's a low bar, considering that the LDP alone had 276 seats before the election. A big drop, even if the party keeps its majority, would be a bad start for Kishida’s weeks-old administration. Media polls suggest the LDP is likely to lose seats, in part because five opposition parties formed a united front to unify candidates in many small electoral constituencies and are expected to gain positions there. If, as many predict, the ruling coalition secures 261 seats, they could control all parliamentary committees and easily push through any divisive legislation. Most results are expected by early Monday. The opposition has long struggled to win enough votes to form a government after a brief rule of the now-defunct center-left Democratic Party of Japan in 2009-2012, as they have not been able to show a grand vision for Japan. On the economy, Kishida has emphasized growth by raising incomes, while opposition groups focus more on redistribution of wealth and call for cash payouts to pandemic-hit low-income households. Read: Japan's Kishida sends offering to controversial Tokyo shrine Kishida, in his final speech Saturday in Tokyo, promised to spur growth and “distribute its fruit” to the people as income. “It’s for you to decide who can responsibly do so.” The LDP opposes legislation guaranteeing equality for sexual minorities and allowing separate surnames for married couples. Of the 1,051 candidates, only 17% are women, despite a 2018 law promoting gender equality in elections, which is toothless because there is no penalty. Women account for about 10% of parliament, a situation gender rights experts call “democracy without women.” Voters, including young couples with small children, started arriving at polling stations in downtown Tokyo early in the morning. Shinji Asada, 44, said he compared COVID-19 measures to pick a candidate, hoping for a change of leadership, as he thought the ruling party lacked explanation and transparency over its pandemic measures. He said that despite Kishida's promise to be more mindful of the people's voices, “I thought nothing would change (under him) after seeing his Cabinet," whose posts largely went to party factions that voted for him. A 50-year-old part-time worker, Kana Kasai, said she voted for someone who she thought would “work fingers to the bone” for a better future.

Japan’s former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida has won the governing party leadership election and is set to become the next prime minister. Kishida replaces outgoing party leader Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who is stepping down after serving only one year since taking office last September. As new leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Kishida is certain to be elected the next prime minister on Monday in parliament, where his party and coalition partner control the house. Read:Japan passes 50% vaccination rate, may ease limits in Nov. Kishida beat Taro Kono, the vaccinations minister, in a runoff after moving ahead of two female candidates Sanae Takaichi and Seiko Noda in the first round. Japan's governing party vote to pick a new leader entered a second round Wednesday, with the presumed next prime minister facing imminent, crucial tasks such as addressing a pandemic-hit economy and ensuring a strong alliance with Washington amid growing regional security risks. In the first round, former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida came in first with 256, only one vote ahead of Taro Kono, the vaccinations minister, but failed to win a majority and moved to a runoff between the two. Among the two female candidates, unusual for male-dominated Japanese politics, ultra-conservative Sanae Takaichi and liberal-leaning Seiko Noda won 188 votes and 63 votes respectively, dropping out of the race. Kishida, who has more support from party heavyweights’ support, is believed to be in a better position than Kono in a runoff, which largely reflects a party power struggle. Read: Japan's PM Suga steps down The new leader also needs to change the party's high-handed reputation, worsened by the outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga who angered the public over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and insistence on holding the Olympics in Tokyo this past summer. The long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party desperately needs to quickly turn around plunging public support ahead of lower house elections coming within two months, observers say. Wednesday afternoon’s vote includes only LDP parliamentarians and grassroots members, and results will be known within hours. Whoever wins the LDP election will become prime minister because the party has control of parliament. The vote there is expected next Monday and the new prime minister would form a new Cabinet later that day. At a Tokyo hotel, lawmakers cast their votes one by one in a ballot box on stage when their names were called. Kono, known as something of a maverick and a reformist, supports eventually phasing out nuclear energy, while Kishida calls for growth and distribution under his “new capitalism,” saying Abe’s economic policy only benefited big companies. Takaichi, by far the most hawkish who wants greater military capability and spending, promised to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Noda pushed for women's rights and diversity. Read: Japan suspends 1.63M doses of Moderna over contamination Overall, little change is expected in key diplomatic and security policies under the new leader, said Yu Uchiyama, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo. All of the candidates support close Japan-U.S. security ties and partnerships with other like-minded democracies in Asia and Europe, in part to counter China’s growing influence. Analysts think Suga lost support because of party complacency and an increasingly high-handed approach forged during Abe’s long leadership. Wednesday’s vote is seen as a test of whether the party can move out of Abe’s shadow. His influence in government and party affairs has largely muzzled diverse views and shifted the party to the right, experts say.

Oli Ahmed, president of the BNP-led 20-party alliance partner Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), on Wednesday demanded the release of Jamaat leaders arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act. In a statement, he said every political party in Bangladesh has a constitutional right to run its political activities. “The government has unjustifiably arrested Jamaat-e-Islami senior leaders, including its secretary general Mia Golam Parwar, out of the spirit of revenge. It’s an unlawful act,” the LDP leader said. He said the Jamaat leaders were discussing their party’s activities peacefully sitting at a residence. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” READ: 10 including Jamaat GS held in the city Oli said it is regrettable that the current government has established a ‘one-party autocratic’ rule in the country.  “The consequences of all kinds of injustice can never be good. I hope the government will realise the fact and immediately release all the arrested Jamaat leaders, including its secretary general,” he stated. On Monday, police arrested Golam Parwar and eight other Jamaat leaders from a house in Bashundhara residential area in the capital. Later, they were shown arrested in a case filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act for orchestrating anti-state activities and plotting. Though Jamaat is one of the key partners of it, neither the 20-party nor BNP issued any statement directly demeaning the release of the Islamist party leaders. On Tuesday, BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir issued a statement voicing concern over the arrest of opposition party leaders and demanding their release. He, however, did not mention the name of Jamaat or the names of its arrested leaders in the statement. READ: Former Jamaat MP Shahjahan Chowdhury put on 3-day remand In that statement, Fakhrul said the government has gone crazy to arrest the leaders and activists of opposition parties, including BNP.  He also demanded the release of the arrested leaders of BNP and other opposition parties and withdrawal of ‘fabricated’ cases filed against them.