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The U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington in 2022
BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2025

U.S. expands export blacklist in crackdown on Chinese subsidiaries

The action greatly increases the number of companies that require licenses to receive American goods and services.
Ukrainian soldiers walk past a damaged apartment building, amid Russia's war against Ukraine, in the front-line city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on Sept. 10.
WORLD
Oct 1, 2025

Ukraine's front-line cities filled with dread and defiance

Thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles hover above more than 1,000 kilometers of front lines in Ukraine's east and south at any one time.
Smartphones help passengers pass the time on a train near Toyoake, an industrial suburb of Nagoya.
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2025

Can this city make residents put down their smartphones?

The ordinance, which was approved in a 12-7 vote by the city assembly last week, is largely symbolic, but there is heavy social pressure in Japan to follow official guidelines.
Search and rescue operations continue for victims trapped under the rubble of a collapsed school, in Sidoarjo, East Java province, Indonesia, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 2, 2025

Five survivors pulled from collapsed school in Indonesia as rescuers race against time

Part of the multistory boarding school, in the town of Sidoarjo on the island of Java, gave way suddenly as students gathered for afternoon prayers.
A woman collects flour from the ground as Palestinians receive aid supplies from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip in August.
WORLD
Oct 3, 2025

Aid after Gaza: What is the future of the humanitarian system?

"What's happening in Gaza sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for humanitarian crises globally," said Save the Children's global policy lead.
An aerial view shows the contrast between the green zone and the desert landscape of the Kubuqi Desert, in Ordos, in China's northern Inner Mongolia region.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 3, 2025

China's 'Great Green Wall' brings hope but also hardship

While the project has been credited with "greening" over 90 million hectares, it risks erasing the traditional nomadic practices of ethnic Mongolians.
Asahi's troubles carry outsized weight given Super Dry’s dominant market share and the cutthroat competition among Japan’s major brewers.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 3, 2025

Asahi blames ransomware for crippling Japanese beer plants

The maker of Japan’s most popular beer warned that the perpetrators may have made off with data, though it’s investigating the extent of the infiltration.
Costumed revelers stand next to police officers controlling crowds at the scramble crossing in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on Oct. 31, 2022.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 3, 2025

Tokyo's Shibuya calls on foreign visitors not to have a ‘disruptive Halloween’

The ward, a hot spot for Halloween revelers, is taking a step back from its “don’t come” messaging of the recent past.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth greet each other during a meeting of senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia on Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2025

Trump and Hegseth advance militaristic noise over nuance

For countries that study U.S. actions closely, this week’s spectacle was anything but reassuring.
A Swedish snowboard instructor works at the Niseko ski resort area on Hokkaido, in Kutchan, in December 2022
JAPAN / Society
Oct 4, 2025

A Japanese ski resort town is roiled by a debate over immigration

Residents are protesting a planned housing facility for foreign workers, exposing the conflict between labor needs and worries over immigration.
George Russell celebrates after earning pole position for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Oct 5, 2025

George Russell celebrates after claiming pole position in Singapore

Championship leader Oscar Piastri will start on the second row after coming in third.
Siya Kolisi holds the Rugby Championship trophy after South Africa's victory over Argentina in London on Saturday.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Oct 5, 2025

Springboks captain Siya Kolisi hopes Rugby Championship title can inspire nation

One of the closest-fought editions of the tournament ended in dramatic style with the Springboks winning successive Rugby Championship titles for the first time.
An armored vehicle carrying members of a Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Response Team pulls up by a crowd of protesters outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 7, 2025

Illinois sues to halt Trump’s deployment of national guard, but troops on the way

The case is the latest flashpoint in a growing number of court battles over Trump's authority to deploy military forces domestically.
OpenAI has rolled out a social app powered by Sora 2, its artificial intelligence video generator, which was quickly flooded with videos featuring iconic Japanese intellectual property.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 7, 2025

OpenAI’s Sora 2 is drowning in Japanese 'AI slop'

Iconic Japanese characters are prevalent across Sora 2, but legally, this places the company on shaky ground.
The World Bank has highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies in a regional economic update released Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 8, 2025

Asia’s youth struggle to find good jobs, World Bank warns

The bank highlighted a persistent gap between younger and more experienced workers across several Asian economies.
Kipp Deveer, CEO of alternative asset management giant Ares Capital, has stressed the importance of being selective and measured when choosing data center investments.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 8, 2025

Data center boom at risk of overbuilding, says asset management giant Ares

Investments have poured into data center projects as a way to cash in on booming demand for processing power unleashed by the advent of artificial intelligence.
Despite concerns over U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs and global trade disruptions, the dollar remains dominant in global finance, with the Chinese yuan gaining ground but still far from challenging its supremacy.
COMMENTARY
Oct 8, 2025

Best evidence yet that the U.S. dollar isn’t close to being dead

The dollar was on one side of 89.2% of all trades, up a touch from the 2022 result.
This year’s World's 50 Best Bars list features bars from 29 cities worldwide, including debuts from Eastern Europe.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 10, 2025

Tokyo earns three spots on World’s 50 Best Bars list

Bar Benfiddich climbs ranks, but Hong Kong steals the show with Bar Leone making history as the first bar in Asia to be named No. 1 in the listing.
Members of the U.N. Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus take part in a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of their presence on the island in March 2024.
WORLD
Oct 10, 2025

U.N. peacekeeping forces to be cut 25% due to budget strains: official

The 25% reduction in troops will be spread across nine of the 11 peacekeeping missions, which had already developed contingency plans for potential budget cuts.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba holds a news conference in Tokyo on Friday to deliver his statement on World War II
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 10, 2025

Ishiba statement explores Japan's failure to avoid World War II

Ishiba’s message was released in a personal capacity, without the formal approval of his entire Cabinet.
Natsuki Kai, a high school student who attended last year's Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony as a student peace messenger, is interviewed in Hiroshima in September.
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2025

One year after Hidankyo's Nobel Prize, student remains true to the cause

Natsuki Kai's great-grandparents were among those exposed to the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
A screen outside a Tokyo securities firm shows the Nikkei 225 Stock Average on Oct. 6. As Japan's financial markets reacted to Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party presidential win, much of the media's focus was on the falling yen, downplaying the surge in equities to record highs.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 12, 2025

Sanae Takaichi gets 'the Abe treatment'

Given that she is frequently labeled a "Shinzo Abe protege," the media coverage of her so far reminds me of how they reported on Abe himself throughout his second term.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks to supporters while holding up electoral records during a rally in Caracas in August 2024. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday she was the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2025

Machado receives the Nobel Peace Prize as Trump’s attempts to secure award fall short

Machado, as the committee put it, is known for her tireless work promoting democracy for Venezuelans and her struggle against dictatorship.
Android robots shown at the Osaka Expo in a pavilion produced by University of Osaka professor Hiroshi Ishiguro will be relocated to Kyoto Prefecture.
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2025

Osaka Expo androids to be moved to Kyoto

The robots will be shown to the public at a research facility in the Keihanna Science City research district.
Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Oct 13, 2025

Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building

A surge of new arenas from Chiba to Yokohama reveals how Japan’s cities are betting big on live entertainment.
The tanker Boracay, part of Russia's "shadow fleet" suspected of involvement in drone flights over Denmark, is escorted by a French naval vessel on Oct. 1 off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, France.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2025

Putin is taking his hybrid warfare to the sea

Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to contest the Baltic, make no mistake.
Supporters celebrate Cape Verde's victory against Eswatini in a 2026 World Cup qualifying match, at a fan zone in Sao Vicente, Cape Verde, on Monday.
SOCCER
Oct 14, 2025

Cape Verde erupts in celebration after first World Cup qualification

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the achievement was likely to "power a new generation of football lovers" across the nation.
Pace Japan Vice President Kyoko Hattori, the de facto head of the nation’s business, believes a larger, more lucrative art market will allow Japan to be more attractive for collectors.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 14, 2025

Pace eyes great strides for Japan’s art market

One of the largest art galleries in the world wants to turn the country into the center of Asia’s art scene.
People flee, cough, and cover their faces as the neighborhood fills with tear gas deployed by federal agents on the southeast side of Chicago on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 15, 2025

Military tactics by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Chicago fuel backlash

Agents trained to spot illegal border crossings, who normally police the frontier, are being sent into densely populated neighborhoods deep inside the country.
A hitman (Ryuhei Matsuda, left) and a spiritual ascetic (Yosuke Kubozuka, right) go to infinity and beyond in “Transcending Dimensions.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2025

‘Transcending Dimensions’: A wild trip to enlightenment

Toshiaki Toyoda’s latest feature is a spiritual odyssey with punk energy and cosmic chaos.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes