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Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto arrives for his inauguration ceremony in Jakarta on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 21, 2024

What to expect in the first 100 days of Prabowo’s rule in Indonesia

The former general has set an ambitious 8% growth target for Indonesia in the next two to three years.
Mark Karpeles, the former CEO of Mt. Gox, speaks at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on Oct. 11.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 21, 2024

The unsinkable Mark Karpeles is willing to give Tokyo another shot

The former CEO of Mt. Gox, which once processed the majority of bitcoin transactions globally before it blew up in 2014, is looking to set up shop in Japan again.
Having learned from the experience of losing in the last election and from actions taken by similar movements elsewhere, another Trump administration would be far more effective at wielding — and maintaining — power.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2024

Why another Trump term would be worse than the first

A political movement with autocratic tendencies often becomes more ruthless and effective after experiencing electoral defeat.
Plaintiffs in a damages lawsuit over the 2014 eruption of Mount Ontake enter the Tokyo High Court in the capital's Kasumigaseki district on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 21, 2024

Tokyo High Court rejects damages claim over Ontake eruption deaths

The presiding judge overturned a lower court's finding that Meteorological Agency officials violated their duty of care in the 2014 disaster.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 22, 2024

China tension highlights risk of Taiwan’s nuclear phase-out plan

Public opinion had turned sharply in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, prompting the government to halt construction on all projects.
The addition of an area in Pacific waters east of Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands saw Japan's continental shelf expanded by 120,000 square kilometers in July.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2024

Japan expands its continental shelf by 120,000 square kilometers

The expansion has sparked optimism for potential resource development.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with the heads of leading media outlets from BRICS member countries in the Moscow region on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 22, 2024

Shadow of Ukraine war hangs over Putin's BRICS summit in Russia

Partners from Brazil, India, China, and the Arab world are urging the Russian president to find a way to end the war in Ukraine.
Russian army deserter and dissident Alexander on July 22
WORLD / Politics
Oct 22, 2024

In a first, France welcomes Russian army deserters

The Russian deserters said they hoped their actions would encourage other Russian men to defy Moscow authorities and flee the war.
Apple CEO Tim Cook
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 22, 2024

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s other job: Helping Nike turn things around

Cook has carved out a role as one of Nike’s closest outside advisers over the last 19 years and is the company’s lead independent director.
The Scottish city of Glasgow has been announced as the host of the 2026 Commonwealth Games.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 22, 2024

Glasgow confirmed as host of 10-sport 2026 Commonwealth Games

The future of the 2026 edition was thrown into doubt when the Australian state of Victoria, the original hosts, withdrew last year citing rising costs.
A sculpture representing Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, located on the grounds of a park in Budapest
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2024

Who was Bitcoin’s Satoshi? I need to know and so do you.

It’s only natural, and even healthy, to be curious about who could have created more than $1 trillion in market capitalization.
JR Central is believed to have been involved in a bid-rigging case as a coordinator.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 22, 2024

JFTC inspects JR Central and others for suspected bid-rigging

They are suspected of conspiring to decide in advance which company would win contracts for land bridge inspection work on 10 of JR Central's lines.
Abercrombie & Fitch chairman and CEO Mike Jeffries addresses stockholders during the company's annual meeting at the company's headquarters in New Albany, Ohio, on May 22, 2003.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 23, 2024

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries charged with sex trafficking

If convicted, Jeffries faces a possible life sentence and mandatory minimum 15-year prison terms for the sex trafficking charges.
Andrijana Cvetkovikj is the senior programmer for the Women’s Empowerment section at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival. The former ambassador also works to promote young filmmakers in Japan’s film industry.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Oct 24, 2024

Andrijana Cvetkovikj: ‘We have to create more opportunities for women to be playing on equal ground’

The former Macedonian ambassador to Japan is also playing a part in promoting younger film directors in the country's movie industry.
Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui hits a solo home run off Pedro Martinez of the Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series on Oct. 29, 2009.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 25, 2024

From Shinjo to 'Godzilla': The Japanese players who have made their mark on the Fall Classic

Tsuyoshi Shinjo got the ball rolling for Japanese stars in MLB’s Fall Classic in 2002, and stars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are set to join the growing club.
A demonstration calling for the return of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Lucerne, Switzerland, in June. Securing detainees' fair treatment and release isn't important only for resolving the Russia-Ukraine war, but to uphold human rights writ large.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Oct 25, 2024

Human rights are key to resolving the war in Ukraine

The war against Russia can't be won without clear political objectives. This also means not losing sight of the need to uphold human rights in Ukraine, and beyond.
Baku Olympic Stadium, the venue of the COP29 United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 26, 2024

Future of U.N. climate dialogue threatened by budget shortfall

An analysis found a budget hole of at least €57 million — or nearly half of the funding needed for the U.N. climate secretariat to run annual climate negotiations.
A Nvidia chip during the Taipei Computex expo in Taipei on May 29, 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 28, 2024

How a Mumbai drugmaker is helping Putin get Nvidia AI chips

An inconspicuous pharmaceutical company exported 1,111 units of Dell Technologies' most-advanced servers to Russia in April-August of this year.
The ruins of the Ukrainian town of Vovchansk, in the Kharkiv region, approximately 5 kilometers from the border with Russia, on Sept. 25
WORLD
Oct 28, 2024

'Wiped off the face of the Earth': How Russia erased a Ukrainian city

"It barely exists anymore," said the mayor of Vovchansk, an industrial town razed by a Russian onslaught shocking even for the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.
Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley leaves after attending a press conference hosted by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to release its first annual report, at the Vatican on Tuesday.
WORLD / Society
Oct 30, 2024

Church must act faster against abusive priests, papal commission says

The detailed global report from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was the first since the body was set up by Pope Francis in 2014.
Nguyen Thanh Bien gets a massage with medicated oil from his father to help with injuries from being beaten by the Chinese authorities while fishing in the South China Sea, in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, on Oct. 18.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 30, 2024

Bullied by China at sea, with the broken bones to prove it

China’s aggressive policing of disputed territory has produced the latest clash in a long, complex relationship.
Images of semiconductor wafers at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) Museum of Innovation in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on April 18, 2023. Taiwan's stock market emerged as the hottest major bourse in Asia over the past year, led by TSMC and Hon Hai Precision Industry.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 31, 2024

AI’s $1.3 trillion future increasingly hinges on Taiwan

Thousands of businesses, executives and entrepreneurs rely on the island's unparalleled combination of talent, cost and speed.
Rene Redzepi unveils his future for Noma as well as the MAD Symposium, an event 'to create a lasting generational foundation and structure that ensures that we stay creative and impactful for a lifetime.'
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 1, 2024

After Kyoto residency, Rene Redzepi says 'Noma will exist as a pop-up'

"You go there to feel something but then you can’t feel it again — it’s gone," Redzepi says. "I’m excited for the restaurant to operate like that.”
A North Korean prison policewoman stands guard at a jail on the banks of Yalu River near the Chongsong county of North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, in May 2011.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 31, 2024

Dozens of North Koreans held for defecting 'vanish', says rights group

Of 113 people whose cases were examined in a study, more than 81% disappeared after being detained by the North's secret police.
In recent years, anglophone publishers have perked up to the potential of “healing fiction,” driven by a healthy appetite for East Asian literature. Japan figures prominently in this literary landscape, and a fondness for felines in the "iyashikei" (healing type) genre has proven commercially viable abroad.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 2, 2024

Cat companions and the 'healing fiction' boom

Japan's "iyashikei" (healing type) cultural products are gaining audiences, and non-Japanese readers are craving cozy feline literature in translation.
Suzumi Suzuki’s “Gifted,” translated by Allison Markin Powell, centers on a hostess working in Kabukicho. Rather than focusing on the protagonist’s occupation, the story plunges the reader into her strained relationship with her dying mother.  
CULTURE / Books
Nov 3, 2024

A nuanced glimpse into the cloistered world of Kabukicho

Drawing on her own experience working in adult entertainment, Suzumi Suzuki crafts a fresh, visceral work for her debut novel, "Gifted"
The Indonesian Navy's KRI Karel Satsuitubun-356 frigate. Jakarta and Moscow have different maritime goals, with Indonesia facing threats of smuggling and piracy while Russia is looking for willing allies.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 3, 2024

Joint Russia sea drills signal start of Indonesian foreign policy shift

Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or U.S.-China rivalry
An exhibition of captured military hardware from NATO countries in Moscow in May.  Whatever the results of the U.S. presidential election, the prospect of improved U.S.-Russia relations seems even more distant.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 6, 2024

Whether Trump or Harris, pessimism reigns in Russia over U.S. election winner

The sentiment is prevalent in a Russia that feels scorned and underestimated by Democrat administrations and betrayed by Trump.
The National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. A study by researchers at the hospital aims to determine whether restoring a healthy intestinal environment can enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs used in cancer treatment.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 6, 2024

Japan explores intestinal flora transplants for cancer treatment

A study aims to determine whether restoring a healthy intestinal environment can make drugs used in the treatment of esophageal and stomach cancers more effective.
Sanwa Koutsu's Kuroko Taxi service has drivers dressed in traditional stagehand garb communicate with passengers only through gestures and written messages.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 9, 2024

The sound of silence: Japan's no-conversation services

“Constant social interaction can feel like torture for us introverts,” one customer says. "I think it’s a pretty smart business move."

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami