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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2022

Sorry savers, banks no longer want your money

Banks have more money than they know what to do with and they don't need or want any more of yours.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 2, 2022

With Yoon Suk-yeol at helm, South Korea is set for a foreign policy reset

The incoming leader is expected to take a more confrontational approach toward North Korea and shift to a tougher line with China.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 2, 2022

Beer and chicken price hikes show Japanese inflation at tipping point

Shares of Asahi Group Holdings Ltd. jumped as much as 7% last Wednesday after the company said it would raise prices for its Super Dry beer.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2022

How often do we have to get COVID to stop getting COVID?

Natural immunity will be key to downshifting the pandemic to endemic status. That doesn't mean you should go out and try to catch the virus tomorrow.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 1, 2022

Elon Musk’s ties to China could create headaches for Twitter

Musk's investments in China could be at risk if Twitter upsets the Communist Party, which has banned the platform but used it extensively to push Beijing's foreign policy around the globe.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Apr 30, 2022

Russia's Ukrainian quagmire providing tough lessons for China

Chinese military experts are discussing the conflict in private chat groups, offering their takes on Western involvement in Ukraine and Russia's perceived failings, scholars say.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2022

Bringing facial recognition to war is a bad idea

New York-based Clearview AI revealed it had offered the government of Ukraine free access to its 'facial network” to help stave off the Russian invasion.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 28, 2022

A powerful dynasty bankrupted Sri Lanka in just 30 months

In recent weeks Sri Lanka has run out of cash to pay for essential goods like food and fuel, leading to long petrol lines and daily 13-hour power cuts.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2022

The next cybersecurity crisis: Poisoned AI

A lot of machine learning relies on massive data sets of unknown provenance. That's a problem when digital defenses are on the line.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2022

What’s the best way to deal with that bully? Join NATO.

Membership would make Sweden and Finland safer and the alliance stronger. But there's a time window of vulnerability.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2022

How Europe’s decisions shape the tech world

The EU plays a defining role in regulating big tech globally as many companies adopt European standards for their businesses, even if they don't operate in that market.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2022

Cyber nukes could be the world’s path to digital peace

Digital escalation will continue until mutually assured destruction warrants an armistice.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 25, 2022

Chinese naval base in Solomon Islands would be ‘red line,’ Australian PM says

Scott Morrison has been accused of not moving quickly enough to avoid a security agreement between Honiara and Beijing.
With brightly colored hair and equally colorful attire, the 48-year-old Maaya Orii certainly stands out in a crowd.
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 1, 2024

Paging Dr. Maaya, the neurosurgeon doubling as a fashion designer

Maaya Orii works as a neurosurgeon in Tokyo on weekdays and as a doctor in Kushiro, Hokkaido, on weekends. In her spare time, she’ll shift gears and focus on fashion.
As mind-numbingly big as the clean-energy price tag may be, it’s actually a bargain compared with the potential economic destruction of unabated climate change.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2024

$215 trillion to save the planet is a bargain

And as mind-numbingly big as $215 trillion may be, it’s actually a bargain compared with the potential economic destruction of unabated climate change.
Anti-Donald Trump protesters celebrate outside the Manhattan Criminal Court where the former U.S. president was convicted Thursday in a criminal trial.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2024

Trump fought the law and the law finally won

Trump, a presidential candidate who is now a convicted felon, still faces a sentencing hearing on July 11.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump departs after delivering remarks at Trump Tower in New York on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 2, 2024

Biden's big weakness vs Trump: Voters without college degrees

Such results help set the stage for what national opinion polls show is a tied race between Biden and Trump.
The ultimate challenge for the next government is to balance infrastructure investment with measures that improve household financial stability and income.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2024

India’s election winner has a repair job waiting

The ultimate challenge for the next Indian government is to balance infrastructure investment with measures that improve household financial stability and income.
Nippon Steel's proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel would give it greater access to the profitable U.S. market and further its long-term financial goals.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 3, 2024

Nippon Steel's Mori hints at selling some assets to aid U.S. Steel deal

The firm's vice chairman plans to return to the United States this week for more talks over the proposed acquisition.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures outside Trump Tower, the day after a guilty verdict in his criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in New York on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2024

Trump warns of 'breaking point' for Americans if he's jailed

Prison time is rare for people convicted in New York state of felony falsification of business records, the charge Trump faced at his trial.
The U.S. flag is magnified in Federal Reserve Bank Chair Jerome Powell's glasses during a news conference on May 1 in Washington. In his first term as U.S. president, Donald Trump broke with decades of precedent by openly attacking Powell, first for raising interest rates and then for not cutting them further.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2024

Traders and economists see Trump win as risk to Fed autonomy, survey shows

A push to roll back the central bank’s independence would likely rock financial markets, undermine investors’ faith and expose it to political pressure to cut interest rates.
Israeli soldiers ready a tank near the border with Gaza on Thursday. The Jewish state's victory in the Gaza conflict will depend on addressing Palestinian despair.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2024

Israel will always be held to a different standard

Arrest warrants, campus protests and genocide accusations were not inevitable. These were the direct results of Netanyahu’s choices.
President of the French far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National-RN) party Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, parliamentary party leader of the French far-right National Rally, attend a political rally to launch the party's campaign for the European elections, in Marseille, France, on March 3.
WORLD
Jun 4, 2024

A surging hard right stumbles over its own divisions

Immigration is an issue that has laid bare the contradictions for nationalist parties of trying to forge an international alliance.
Ukrainian soldiers patrol a heavily war-damaged area of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on May 20.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2024

Ukraine and its allies need a new strategy. Here’s a start.

With the war in Ukraine, stop talking about ‘liberal’ democracy and the ‘rules-based international order.’
Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki says the city is holding off on inviting Israeli representative to this year's peace ceremony.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2024

Nagasaki holds off inviting Israel to peace ceremony

Worries that protests could disrupt the memorial for atomic bomb victims are partly behind the decision, according to the mayor.
Demonstrators hold Fatah flags during a protest in support of the people of the Gaza Strip in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Oct. 27, 2023.
WORLD
Jun 5, 2024

Hamas signals post-war ambition in talks with Palestinian rival Fatah

The meetings highlight that the Islamist militant group is likely to retain influence in the Gaza Strip after its war with Israel.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin leaves a bilateral meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Dong Jun, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Friday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 4, 2024

China is winning the communications competition

It's a mistake for the U.S. to take for granted that the world sees it as “the good guy” in its competition with China.
Line, which has evolved into an all-encompassing app used for messaging, payments, job searches and more, is now at the center of a dispute over its ownership.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 5, 2024

Why Line, a superapp, sparked a diplomatic dispute

Line, which has evolved into an all-encompassing app used for messaging, payments, job searches and more, is now at the center of a dispute over its ownership.
Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda bows at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday, the day the automaker said it had suspended domestic shipments of three car models after falling foul of government certification rules.
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2024

Why Toyota's so-called safety scandal is a 'nothingburger'

Unlike the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal, there have been no recalls, and Japanese vehicles have passed retests without issues.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years