Japan's Expo 2025: Osaka triumph or billion-dollar folly?

OSAKA -- Japan's World Expo: A chance to showcase the technological and manufacturing prowess of a powerhouse economy for the whole planet to see, opening a window on to how to do business in, and with, Asia.

But that was in 1970. Fast-forward more than half a century, and the iteration of the fair that's set to open in Osaka in just over a year is beset by major construction delays, reflecting structural problems like growing labor shortages and overtime restrictions that will plague the world's fourth-biggest economy for years to come.