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Korean writer-director Kim Sung Hwan's "Iron Mask" took one of the two top awards at this year's Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) in South Korea.
CULTURE / Film / CULTURE SMASH
Aug 30, 2023

Does South Korea now have the edge over Japan when it comes to film?

While Korean cinema tackles universal topics, Japanese studios are content to navel-gaze.
Singer Jimmy Buffett performs during NBC's "Today" show Summer Concert Series in New York City in July 2016.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 2, 2023

Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett dies at 76

Jimmy Buffett, the American singer-songwriter who went from Key West beach bum to billionaire behind the always-on-vacation "Margaritaville" commercial empire, has died at the age of 76.
A self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle in San Francisco in 2017
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2023

With self-driving cars, it's the ethics we have to navigate

Do accidents involving self-driving cars today save lives tomorrow? When it comes to self-driving cars, the challenges aren't just technical, but ethical.
Nobody wishes for a medical emergency, but preparing for one while you're in a foreign country can only make things easier.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Sep 18, 2023

How to avoid medical purgatory when hospitalized in Japan

Much like a legal will, a visit to the hospital is the last thing for which you want to prepare — yet doing so will save you stress and worry.
Leaves of marijuana plants from which hemp fibers are extracted at Japan's largest legal marijuana farm in Kanuma, Tochigi Prefecture, on July 5, 2016
PODCAST / deep dive
Sep 21, 2023

Does a university cannabis scandal point to a larger trend?

A drugs scandal at Japan’s biggest university draws attention to a troubling statistic: Cannabis use among young people is on the rise.
The Jumeirah Beach district of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. San Francisco-based Vesta wants to dump ground-up olivine on beaches and into seawater in an attempt to speed up the ocean’s natural ability to remove carbon dioxide.
ENVIRONMENT / Oceans
Sep 29, 2023

How seeding the oceans with minerals could help slow climate change

Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars per ton.
Tupac Shakur
CULTURE / Music
Sep 30, 2023

Suspect in rapper Tupac Shakur's 1996 slaying charged with murder

The charges marked a breakthrough for a long-unsolved case that was a defining moment in the history of rap music.
A screengrab from a video posted on Telegram on Monday shows an armed Palestinian militant leading a man during the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in southern Israel.
WORLD
Oct 10, 2023

'Butchered in cold blood': Nightmare at music festival in Israel

Most of those gunned down at the event were young people in their party clothes who had danced through the night under the stars.
Ukrainian marines practice house-to-house combat during training exercises in the region of Vuhledar, Ukraine, on Aug. 25.
WORLD
Oct 11, 2023

‘Always under fire’: On the battlefield with Ukraine’s elite troops

In the forest belts of eastern Ukraine, the Russian forces continue to mount relentless assaults in a maze of scorched pines.
A gender-equality supporter protests against discrimination at an event held in Tokyo for International Women's Day in March 2021
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 13, 2023

Japan’s gender gap has never been wider. Can Kishida close it?

The government emphasizes the need to improve gender equality, but correcting Japan's dismal record requires a nuanced approach.
Kanata Kimoto had his womb and ovaries removed in Thailand when he was 24, so he could have his legal gender status changed. Now he questions whether such an invasive and costly procedure was necessary.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 22, 2023

Calls grow to abolish Japan's surgery requirement for gender change

Between 2004 and 2022, a total of 11,919 people had their gender changed through the law in Japan.
The site of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital after a blast ripped through the facility on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 22, 2023

In global conflict zones, hospitals and doctors are no longer spared

Over the last two decades, medical facilities and staff have become casualties of war more frequently, in violation of international law.
Voice actors record their parts for a radio drama at a radio station studio in Manila.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Oct 25, 2023

Filipino listeners cheered by last surviving radio dramas

A small team of voice actors and technicians produce shows that are broadcast in Tagalog by DZRH, one of the oldest radio stations in the country.
Munakata Shiko's "Oshira-sama: The Flying Silkworm Deities" (1968)
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2023

Major retrospective traces hero's journey of 'Japan's van Gogh'

An exhibition of Shiko Munakata's works shows evidence of a charismatic character and a career that reflects Japan's changing relationship with the West.
A former pop idol (Mai Fukagawa) finds herself in a slump with little money, no partner and precarious mental health as she nears her 30s in “Tsundol.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 2, 2023

‘Tsundol’: Pop idol on the brink gets mental health uplift

While it is a predictable drama about a former singer getting her life together, the film addresses her mental well-being in a refreshing manner.
"The Ones Left Behind" documents the successes and struggles of single mothers in Japan.
PODCAST / deep dive
Nov 2, 2023

Why single mothers in Japan have been left behind

Filmmaker Rionne McAvoy joins us to discuss the hidden poverty present in one of the world’s richest nations.
From left: Yusuke Nagai, Taiyo Someya and Kaori Sakakibara formed their band Lamp in 2000, developing a cult following over the years with their own blend of 1960s pop harmonies, ’70s folk craft and ’80s bossa nova brightness.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 3, 2023

The slow and steady rise of Lamp, a cult favorite

With new album 'Dusk to Dawn,' the folk rockers bring light to the new Japanese music canon.
Palestinians gather at the scene of a strike in a refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 5, 2023

Japanese aid worker tells of her harrowing last days in Gaza

Maiko Shirane, a 36-year-old Tokyo native, says the violence she witnessed in Gaza is something "nobody should experience."
Seoul-based American physician John Linton — Korean name Ihn Yohan — speaks during a meeting in Seoul on Nov. 3
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 7, 2023

'Blue-eyed Korean' tasked with shaking up Seoul politics

Born in rural Jeolla province, John Linton is nicknamed the "blue-eyed Korean" and speaks the language perfectly, albeit with a strong regional accent.
Steve Jobs, Apple's former chief executive, speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on June 6, 2011. Sam Altman, the most prominent promoter of artificial intelligence, learned that it’s hard to be a visionary founder like the Apple legend.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 21, 2023

The long shadow of Steve Jobs looms over the turmoil at OpenAI

The sudden firing and bid to reinstate OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has deepened the parallels to Jobs, who was marginalized by the board of Apple in 1985.
A website for a lawyers group supporting followers and next of kin over alleged Jehovah's Witnesses abuse
JAPAN / Society
Nov 21, 2023

Many children of Jehovah’s Witnesses experience abuse, Japan report says

Report sheds lights on abuses such as forcing the children to refuse blood transfusions regardless of their situation, and corporal punishment.
Afghan refugees sit with their belongings near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on Nov. 20.
WORLD
Nov 22, 2023

Afghans driven from Pakistan rebuilding lives from 'zero'

Many have lived decades, if not their whole lives, outside their country, with no one left in their homeland to return to.
Yoko Huijs-Watanuki poses in the city of Fukuoka during a visit to Japan in October.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Dec 4, 2023

Oita woman helps Japanese Dutch, born in WWII, trace their roots

During the Pacific War the Japanese military occupied the Dutch East Indies, after taking the land from Dutch forces in 1942.
Tokyo Healthcare University professor Takayuki Mifune explains how he is trying to re-create bonito broth from 1,300 years ago.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Dec 4, 2023

The quest to re-create what the Japanese ate 1,300 years ago

Professor Takayuki Mifune and his team are hoping to understand, in minute detail, the culinary habits of our Japanese ancestors.
U.S. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in her chambers at the Supreme Court in Washington in 2003.
WORLD
Dec 2, 2023

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice, dies at 93

The court said in a statement that O'Connor died in Phoenix of complications related to advanced dementia and a respiratory illness.
Rohingya refugee Abdur Rahaman at a temporary Indonesian immigration shelter in Lhokseumawe, in Aceh province.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 4, 2023

Young Rohingya leave Bangladesh camps for university dream

Refugees still face challenges in obtaining an education in Indonesia.
South Korean Lee Kyung-woo was sentenced to life in prison in October for the kidnapping and murder of a 48-year-old woman over a crypto dispute.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 13, 2023

Crypto and ketamine: The murder that shocked South Korea

Case resembling K-drama plot emerges in safe and almost drug-free country where violent killings are rare.
Matt Boyle of the Greater Manchester Police speaks to reporters after missing teen Alex Batty returned to the U.K. on Saturday.
WORLD
Dec 17, 2023

British teen Alex Batty arrives in U.K. six years after vanishing

The teen was found in the middle of the night by a delivery driver after he had walked along a road for four days.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he was against banning abortion, but that terminations were against state interests.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 18, 2023

'Give birth to more soldiers': hard-line Russia turns on abortions

Over the last few months a flurry of regions have rushed to restrict abortions in private clinics, yielding to demands from the Russian Orthodox church.
In Hayao Miyazaki's films, characters often experience life-changing revelations in midair, such as Haku and Chihiro in "Spirited Away."
CULTURE / Film
Dec 19, 2023

How Hayao Miyazaki’s films continue to take us to the skies

When characters take flight in the films of the master animator, there is always a deeper meaning.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers