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August 30, 2025
 

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with European leaders in Washington on Monday amid signs of U.S. and its NATO partners drifting further apart. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 19, 2025

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.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the economy in the Oval Office on Aug. 7. From immigration to the Fed, Trump is making risky moves that could undo his wins while Democrats double down on policies that so far are not working.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025

On economic policy, the White House is its own worst enemy

The White House needs to calm down and choose consolidation over controversy and chaos while the Democratic Party must dump, not just downplay, its plainly unpopular positions.
A worker displays a handful of shredded hard drive pieces for e-waste processing at a facility in Festac, Nigeria, in 2020.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 21, 2025

Urban mining eases the critical minerals crunch 

Governments are waking up to the potential of e-waste recycling, and Japan is leading the way.
The U.S. dollar's dominance is threatened as digital currencies' security and data integrity become key factors in the global monetary system, challenging America's economic privilege.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025

Currency dominance in the digital age

As digital technologies power money via stablecoins and CBDCs, currency networks depend on both macroeconomics and infrastructure security.
Jimmy Lai at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong in 2020. The national security trial of the Hong Kong media mogul, which began in late 2023, entered its final stages on Aug. 14, as lawyers present closing arguments.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025

Why Jimmy Lai’s persecution should worry Japan

The trial of 77-year-old publisher is showing how Beijing uses Hong Kong as a laboratory for silencing critics worldwide, from students to exiles.
Chatbots are pivoting to the ad model and optimizing for eyeballs, just like social media did. And AI knows more about us than Google or Facebook ever did.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025

Ads ruined social media. Now they’re coming to AI.

Imagine a person telling their AI they’re feeling depressed, and the system recommending some affordable holiday destinations or medication to address the problem.
Workers carry solar panels to install them at a solar farm in the desert in Lingwu, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, in April.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025

The world’s biggest polluter is cleaning up its act

Coal output is still climbing, but China’s clean power surge means much of it now sits in stockpiles rather than fueling growth.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hand with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as they meet to negotiate for an end to the war in Ukraine, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, last week.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2025

Was Trump’s Russia-Ukraine summit doomed from the beginning?

Negotiations are doomed to fail if you neglect both reality and standard practices that must never be ignored.
Artist Nikita Kadan and dancer Min Tanaka modeled their art and choreography respectively on prosthetic limbs as commentary on the island’s history of being a center for isolating people with Hansen’s disease.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 23, 2025

Healing Oshima Island's history of disease with a touch of art

Min Tanaka opened the Setouchi Triennale’s summer session on Oshima, Kagawa Prefecture, with a site-specific dance at Nikita Kadan’s sculpture, an allegory for support.
Chinese military personnel take part in a rehearsal ahead of the parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, which will be held on Sept. 3, in Beijing on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Aug 24, 2025

History, triumph and trauma to take center stage at China's WWII military parade

The event will be a projection of China's growing military might amid deep-seated mistrust in the West and territorial rows with neighboring countries.
People hold Taiwanese flags during the event to commemorate the end of World War II at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Aug. 16.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 25, 2025

Taiwan and China battle it out in competing World War II narratives

Both sides are claiming credit for the victory over Japan.
A July 24 U.N. report warns that the Islamic State group's ISKP affiliate, al-Qaida and related groups remain active in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, posing serious threats to regional and international security.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

Is the Taliban's Afghanistan a safe haven for terrorist organizations?

“The de facto authorities in Afghanistan continued to maintain a permissive environment for a range of terrorist groups," a U.N. report says
As generative AI like ChatGPT becomes more popular, evidence is growing that it may harm mental health by encouraging dependency, weakening critical thinking and even contributing to delusional episodes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 25, 2025

ChatGPT’s mental health costs are adding up

From brain rot to induced psychosis, the psychological cost of generative AI is growing and flying under the radar.
A measles alert sign is posted outside the entrance to the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York in March.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

‘Alternative facts’ aren't a reason to skip vaccines

Donald Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch are both nonbelievers. That’s a rare shared trait in the country’s political history.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

How much does faith influence British politics?

For the first time in British political history, both the nation’s premier and the official leader of the opposition have shared such an attitude toward God.
Nuclear weapons may have prevented global war through deterrence, but today’s shifting threats require adaptable strategies and strong leadership to avoid catastrophe.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2025

How humanity can avoid starting World War III

As a new nuclear age dawns, the U.S. must once again adjust its policies with foresight and flexibility, resisting both technological determinism and political destabilization.
A critical flaw in Microsoft’s on-premises SharePoint, initially patched but soon bypassed by hackers linked to China, has exposed hundreds of organizations — including the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Safety Agency.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2025

Microsoft hack victims need to be on alert for sleeper cells

One critical detail of the attack is that it affects only those that use on-premises SharePoint installations.
Jet fighters from the North American Aerospace Defense Command intercept a Chinese long-range H-6 bomber operating in the Alaska air defense identification zone in July 2024.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 27, 2025

Joint Sino-Russian patrols push Japan to rethink defense posture

Over the past two years, joint China-Russia overflights have become increasingly sophisticated and extended.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang addresses the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 26, where he emphasized “the deep integration of AI with the real economy” and its relevance to daily applications.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2025

Al and our brave new world of ‘weaponized interdependence’

In the U.S.-China race for AI dominance, failure is not an option.
A correctional services van holding media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrives at the West Kowloon court for his national security trial in Hong Kong on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 28, 2025

Hong Kong wraps up pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai's security trial

The 156-day trial has become the most high-profile example of China's crackdown on rights and freedoms in the Asian financial hub.
Japan faces a strategic dilemma between an unreliable U.S. security alliance and an assertive China, requiring it to pursue flexible, resilient and multilayered partnerships while avoiding dependence on either power.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 28, 2025

Japan must prepare for a post-American Indo-Pacific

Tokyo must confront an uncomfortable truth: The U.S.-led order that enabled Japan’s postwar success is dead and no one knows what comes next.
A man reads The Times of India newspaper in Delhi on Wednesday. Donald Trump’s tariffs on India expose New Delhi’s overreliance on U.S. exports but also create an opening for India to pivot toward Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2025

Trump’s tariffs should spur Indo-Japan convergence

Historically, India has never been a treaty ally of the U.S., but it has maintained a strong relationship with America.
The Lhasa River, a major tributary of the Yarlung Zangbo River, flows near the southern part of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. China’s new megadam project could become a geopolitical and ecological time bomb. Getty Images
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2025

The global perils of China’s new ‘superdam’ project

One might have expected the revelation of China's huge dam project to set off alarm bells worldwide. Instead, the reaction has been muted.
China’s demographic spiral is now resembling that of ancient Rome, where changing social norms and drastic population-control measures led to falling birth rates and irreversible decline.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2025

What ancient Rome can teach China about demographic collapse

China’s situation, however, is particularly perilous. Unless it is reversed, a demographic decline of this magnitude could recall the collapse of the Roman Empire.
A McDonald’s Japan Pokemon card promotion triggered scalper frenzy, upset children and forced the company to rethink its Happy Set campaigns.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 28, 2025

McDonald’s 'Pokemon' frenzy shows the collecting boom’s dark side

After a "Pokemon" trading card promotion went disastrously wrong, it’s been rebuked by the Consumer Affairs Agency and is rethinking future campaigns.
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
Akazawa's trip to Washington for tariff talks abruptly canceled
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, had been set to fly to Washington on Thursday.
Mitsubishi’s wind-power retreat a blow to Japan's alternative-energy goals
Wind turbines in the town of Happo in Akita prefecture. Wind power is a key part of Japan's alternative energy drive.
Virtual singer Kaf's music becomes magic in 'Kamitsubaki City Under Construction'
Virtual singer Kaf got her start in 2018 by posting songs and covers to YouTube. Now, after having performed live shows at major venues including Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan, she is turning to voice acting and starring in the new anime series “Kamitsubaki City Under Construction.”
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.
In pictures: Koenji Awa Odori 2025
Japan Times
Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.

Podcast

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

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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