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Declining birth rates in China are driven by a myriad of causes, such as a shrinking childbearing-age population, lifestyle changes, the one-child policy’s lasting effects, an oversupply of men and high youth unemployment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2025

Why China’s marriage crisis matters

According to China’s 2020 census, 61% of babies are born to women aged 20 to 30. But the number of women in this cohort dropped from 111 million in 2012 to 73 million in 2024.
A man identified by Jennifer Vasquez Sura as her husband, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, in custody at a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 5, 2025

Judge orders return of wrongly deported Maryland man to U.S. from El Salvador

The U.S. has already acknowledged Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S legally with a work permit — was deported in error.
Soybeans are harvested near Stuttgart, Arkansas in October 2023.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Apr 6, 2025

'Anxious' U.S. farmers see tariffs as threatening earnings

U.S. farmers hoping for a profit this year instead find themselves facing lower crop prices — and the prospect of ceding more ground in foreign markets.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a bag as he visits the Louis Vuitton Rochambeau Ranch leather workshop in Keene, Texas, in 2019.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 10, 2025

LVMH finds making Louis Vuitton bags messy in Texas

Former staff say Louis Vuitton’s Texas plant wastes up to 40% of leather and encouraged defect coverups to hit targets.
Mohamed Salah has signed a new deal to remain with Liverpool, the club announced on Friday.
SOCCER
Apr 11, 2025

Mohamed Salah signs new contract to stay at Liverpool

Salah, 32, has scored 243 goals in 394 appearances for the Reds since joining from Roma in 2017, making him the club's third highest goalscorer of all time.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, his partner Jodie Haydon and chairman and Board President of Tennis Australia, Jayne Hrdlicka, in the stands before the Australian Open final on Jan, 28, 2024
WORLD / Politics
Apr 16, 2025

Australian politicians gifted sports tickets while weighing betting ban

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had promised a crackdown on gambling advertising following a 2023 report by his government.
Lawyers for plaintiffs seeking compensation from the government over their deteriorated health due to working in an asbestos factory speak at a news conference in the city of Osaka on Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 18, 2025

High court overturns asbestos ruling, ordering government to pay ¥6 million

A Japanese court ruled in favor of an asbestos victim’s family, saying the government wrongly narrowed compensation criteria in 2019.
Takaaki Nezu, executive director of Maruto Group Holdings, says it is the company’s social responsibility to help tackle the falling birth rate.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
May 5, 2025

Fukushima firms seek ways to encourage marriages

One supermarket chain has said such moves reflect a corporate responsibility to tackle the nation’s chronically low birth rate.
Indian paramilitary personnel stand guard near Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, on Tuesday following a deadly attack.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 23, 2025

Gunmen kill dozens of civilians in Kashmir tourist hot spot

At least 26 people were killed in the Indian-administered region in the deadliest attack on civilians there since 2000.
Farmer Moises Schmidt shows a cocoa bean at the Schmidt Agricola plantation in Riachao das Neves, Bahia state, Brazil, on Nov. 19, 2024.
BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2025

Brazil's would-be cocoa king aims to revolutionize industry with giant farm

The farmer's $300 million plan is the largest and the most innovative in the Brazilian state of Bahia, but not the only one.
Indian tourists wearing traditional Kashmiri dress pose for a photograph in Pahalgam south of Srinagar on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 30, 2025

Kashmir's youth worry about future as recent attack hits tourism

More than half of the tourist destinations in the region have been closed from Tuesday as part of broader measures taken after the attack.
Indian paramilitary troopers stand guard in Srinagar, in India-administered Jammu and Kahsmir, on Wednesday following a terrorist attack near the Kashmiri mountain resort of Pahalgam. According to Pakistani officials, New Delhi is preparing a military response.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2025

India-Pakistan ties on the brink after Kashmir attack

New Delhi has downgraded ties with Pakistan in response to the Kashmir terror attack. But what could really bite is the suspension of a water treaty and possible military action.
Power lines connecting pylons of high-tension electricity are seen during sunset at an electricity substation on the outskirts of Ronda, Spain, during a blackout in the city on April 28.
WORLD
May 6, 2025

EU power grid needs trillion-dollar upgrade to avert Spain-style blackouts

Authorities in Spain and Portugal are investigating the cause of last week's blackout, but whatever the findings, analysts say infrastructure investment is essential.
Indian paramilitary personnel stand guard along a road in Srinagar on Wednesday after New Delhi launched missile strikes on archrival Pakistan in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 7, 2025

India strikes Pakistan over Kashmir tourist killings

Islamabad said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets in the worst fighting in more than two decades between the nuclear-armed enemies.
Urgent diplomacy and restraint are needed to prevent further escalation between India and Pakistan, as both sides risk being pulled into a dangerous conflict with potential global consequences.
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2025

Can India and Pakistan step back from the brink?

India and Pakistan on many occasions have been on the brink of major conflict, yet have successfully climbed down.
A J-10C fighter jet
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 9, 2025

Pakistan hails role of Chinese jets in repelling India strikes

Hostilities between India and Pakistan have escalated since an April 22 attack that killed 26 civilians in the Indian-controlled part of the territory.
Solar panels on display at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, China, on April 16
BUSINESS / Tech
May 15, 2025

Rogue communication equipment found in Chinese-made solar power inverters

The rogue components provide undocumented communication channels that could allow security measures to be circumvented remotely, sources said.
Carlos Ghosn, then president and CEO of Nissan Motor and Renault, delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of a Nissan car factory in St. Petersburg in June 2009.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 15, 2025

Nissan is dying and taking globalization with it

Nissan is a Japanese business in name only: Despite accounting for 45% of jobs and about 35% of manufacturing assets, just 16% of sales are at home.
Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku and kabuki actor Nakamura Shido II first performed together in 2016. This month, they’re reviving the show for the Osaka World Expo.
CULTURE / Stage
May 17, 2025

Traditional performing arts are plugging into modern audiences

Noh and kabuki are getting an image update by teaming up with pop culture figures such as Vocaloid idol Hatsune Miku and DJ Ken Ishii.
Supporters of far-right Portuguese party Chega celebrate general election results at its party headquarters in Lisbon on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
May 19, 2025

Ruling party tops Portugal polls marked by far-right surge

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro's Democratic Alliance remains short of a parliamentary majority.
Carlyle Japan is expanding hiring of investment professionals as it believes Japanese companies that are focused on domestic businesses are actually very appealing amid the global trade turmoil.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 19, 2025

Carlyle on Japan hiring spree after new $3 billion buyout fund

Private equity has found a sweet spot in Japan in recent years, where borrowing costs remain low and companies have become receptive to selling off operations.
Tomy's time-honored Kurohige Kiki Ippatsu, or Pop-Up Pirate, is set to go through its first rule change in 30 years in July.
JAPAN / Society
May 19, 2025

Nostalgic games and toys spark renewed interest in Japan

Products from bygone decades have evoked nostalgic memories for adults of a certain age while piquing fresh interest among the younger generation.
Boeing 737 MAX fuselages atop rail cars at a train yard in Seattle last December
BUSINESS / Companies
May 24, 2025

Boeing agrees to resolve U.S. criminal case over 737 crashes

The settlement was disclosed in a federal court filing Friday, just weeks before a trial was set to start June 23 in Fort Worth, Texas.
A worker sorts plastic waste for recycling at Minato Resource Recycle Center in Tokyo in 2019. Japan has been criticized by environmental groups for its strategy on plastics, which is heavily reliant on recycling instead of reduction.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 25, 2025

Are microplastics hurting our fertility?

While a lot remains unknown about how microplastics affect our health, scientists in Japan and around the world broadly agree there's an urgent need to reduce plastic production.
A vehicle exits Shek Pik Prison after former leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, Jimmy Sham, served a four-year, three-month sentence for conspiracy to commit subversion in a landmark national security case, in Hong Kong, on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
May 30, 2025

Second group of Hong Kong democrats freed after 4 years in jail

Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ+ activist Jimmy Sham, who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups.
Japan has enforced tougher rules on companies to protect workers from heat after 30 workplace deaths and roughly 1,200 injuries were reported last year that were associated with high temperatures.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2025

Protect workers from heat waves or face fines, Japan tells firms

The revised legislation is a rare global example of a national-level policy on heat safety for employees.
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 6, 2025

From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight

The lawmaker, sometimes said to be long on image and short on substance, has won praise for bringing down the price of rice.
University of Tokyo President Teruo Fujii (left) and Y.J. Mii, a TSMC executive vice president, at a news conference Thursday. The school and the company have been working together since 2019.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 12, 2025

TSMC and Tokyo University team up to establish a chip lab

The chip giant and university will work together on chip-related technologies and supporting educational and research and development opportunities.
Arsenal players and fans celebrate outside Emirates Stadium in London after winning the Women's Champions League  on May 26.
SOCCER
Jun 17, 2025

Nielsen projects women's soccer to become top-five most popular sport

Women's soccer is already one of the top 10 most followed sports globally, and momentum appears to be building.
A firefighter works during the Eaton Fire in Pasadena, California, on Jan. 8.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jun 19, 2025

Warning signs on climate flashing bright red: top scientists

Greenhouse gas emissions hit a new high in 2024 and averaged a record 53.6 billion metric tons per year of CO2, they reported in a peer-reviewed update.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan