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August 21, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
A worker displays a handful of shredded hard drive pieces for e-waste processing at a facility in Festac, Nigeria, in 2020.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Urban mining eases the critical minerals crunch 
Governments are waking up to the potential of e-waste recycling, and Japan is leading the way.
COMMENTARY / Japan
All is not quiet on the Western front
The Trump-Putin Alaska summit is further evidence that the U.S. and its NATO partners are drifting further apart with each passing month.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Why Ishiba shouldn’t issue a WWII 80th anniversary statement
I’m not saying Japan shouldn’t have apologized, but rather that Japan has sincerely worked to resolve international issues, especially in the past 30 years.
A U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey aircraft flies over the island of Okinawa in March 2018.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025
Precautionary Osprey landings signal safety, not alarm
By Robert D. Eldridge
Two precautionary V-22 Osprey landings in northern Honshu demonstrated the aircraft’s safety and its role in enhancing Japan’s rapid-deployment and island-defense capabilities.
Demonstrators burn a Rising Sun flag featuring a portrait of Hideki Tojo, former leader of Japan's Imperial Army and prime minister during World War II, outside the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong in September 2015.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025
Continued demands for an apology ignore Japan’s postwar progress
By Stephen R. Nagy
As the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end nears, demands for renewed Japanese apologies risk empowering authoritarian narratives, especially from China.
Shinto priests holding traditional umbrellas walk to the main shrine for a ritual to cleanse themselves during the annual Spring Festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in April 2016.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 13, 2025
Dispelling the myth of Yasukuni Shrine
By Edo Naito
The shrine has been a lightning rod — especially as it has been used by some of Japan's neighbors as a convenient means to shift attention away from their domestic issues.
Japan faces a demographic crisis that threatens its research talent and must build a more inclusive and welcoming society to attract and keep world-class scientists amid rising nationalism and economic challenges.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 7, 2025
Japan gets serious about attracting world-class researchers
By Yuko Kakazu
The stakes are high: Without a cultural shift, even the best-funded policies may fail to secure Japan’s future.
People pay their respects for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday, the 80th anniversary of the attack.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 7, 2025
Why Hiroshima must keep being commemorated
By Max Hastings
The anniversary is generating a wave of commemorations and renewing the arguments for and against the mission.
The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, is on display at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Virginia after restoration in August 2003.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2025
Were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings necessary?
By Edo Naito
Was it necessary to drop the bombs on civilian population centers to demonstrate the power of the weapons?
This undated handout photo released by the Australian Defence Force on Tuesday shows the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force JS Mogami frigate sailing at an undisclosed location.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2025
The Japan-Australia frigate sale is a big deal. Here’s why.
By Michael MacArthur Bosack
For the Japanese government, this will make for the largest defense export to date.

JICA to designate four Japanese cities as 'hometowns' for African nations
The Japanese flag (left) with the flag of the African Union
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
Shoichi Takahashi holds a photo of himself when he was younger, in Otaru, Hokkaido, on May 17.
Schools get students involved in revision of unreasonable ‘black rules’
At Yawata Junior High School in Nagoya, there are no more rules on clothing and hairstyles. Students are free to wear either the school's uniform or clothes of their own choosing.
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.
Japanese man suspected of ordering double murder in Manila
Two suspects arrested over the killing of two Japanese last week are held in restraints in Manila on Tuesday.
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.
Candidates preparing to make final pitches for Sawamura Award
Hawks pitcher Livan Moinelo has a 1.13 ERA in 19 starts this season.
Winning warship bid gives Japan confidence boost as Tokyo eyes more exports
Australia’s decision to select Japan's upgraded Mogami-class warship, seen in this computer-generated image, has been “well received across Japanese industry," a Defense Ministry official said.
In Paris, chefs Chizuko Kimura and Kei Kobayashi make their mark
Chef Kei Kobayashi is France's only Japanese chef with three Michelin stars.
In preserving Japanese hospitality, ‘details are everything’
Beniya Mukayu, a traditional "ryokan" inn located in Ishikawa Prefecture, considers itself at "the heart of onsen towns, local residents, farmers, fishermen, sake brewers and artisans" — all of which need new, sustainable methods of serving visitors to survive into the future.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy
Ishii Iron Works remakes self for workers, new energy

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