June 24 — Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, at a regular briefing, was asked by Kyodo about reports that two Japanese employees were detained in Dalian in May while exporting rare-earth-related products. Guo said the two were lawfully detained by Chinese authorities for violating Chinese law, that Beijing has informed Tokyo of the case, and urged Japan to remind its citizens and companies in China to comply with Chinese laws and regulations.

A VLCC (~2.0 mln barrels) has been fixed to lift crude from the Persian Gulf to India at WS 897 — about 897% of the Worldscale benchmark — brokers said, reflecting a severe regional shortage of available ballast tonnage. The vessel was supplied by Korean owner Sinokor Group and the booking was priced on a Persian Gulf–Singapore route basis. Brokers said the fixture is the highest VLCC rate so far this year. Sinokor has been expanding in the tanker market since late last year and was among the most active Gulf participants during the war.

SoftBank Group chairman Masayoshi Son told shareholders on June 24 that the company has begun mass-producing robots at a factory and will formally launch them soon. He said SoftBank will aggregate top robotics firms across verticals to become an "overwhelming world leader" in robotics and plans to complete the acquisition of Swiss industrial giant ABB's robotics business in 2026.