Search - 2018

 
 
Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin
WORLD / Politics
Dec 19, 2024

Lula’s rival-turned-vice president finds himself in unwanted limelight

Many business leaders consider VP Geraldo Alckmin better equipped than Lula to respond to the growing economic and political challenges that are besieging Brazil.
The Tokyo District Court sentenced former Cerespo executive Yoshiji Kamata to 22 months in prison, suspended for four years.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 19, 2024

Tokyo court fines event company for Olympics bid-rigging

A judge found that Cerespo conspired to decide in advance which companies would win contracts related to test events for the Tokyo Games.
Tsuyako Shimabukuro (front, second from left), head of the Eguchi community association in the town of Chatan, Okinawa Prefecture, and other community leaders discuss their efforts along with members of the prefectural association of families of missing persons with dementia.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Dec 30, 2024

Okinawa communities battle a rise in missing elderly with dementia

In the prefecture, 118 such cases were reported to the police last year.
While the prospect of Eneos Holdings offloading a majority stake in JX has been mooted for years, it is coming closer to reality amid a hot market for share sales in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 19, 2024

Eneos considers IPO of up to 70% of JX Advanced Metals

Japan has seen the highest volume of IPOs this year since 2018.
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks to members of the news media along with U.S. House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 20, 2024

Trump-backed spending deal fails in U.S. House as shutdown approaches

Government funding is due to expire at midnight on Friday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 5, 2025

'Guernica' is always with us

How do we account for the past year, almost nine decades after "Guernica," when all the boundaries of horror have been pulverized?
Chinese relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 take part in a prayer service at the Metro Park Hotel in Beijing on April 8, 2014. The plane, which departed from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, was to have flown to Beijing.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 20, 2024

A decade on, Malaysia renews search for vanished MH370

Marine exploration firm Ocean Infinity will conduct a search in a new area estimated at 15,000 square kilometers in the southern Indian Ocean.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, casts his vote during an impeachment vote against South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the National Assembly in Seoul  Dec.14.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 22, 2024

A race to the Blue House or the jail house

Since the end of martial law in 1987, there have been eight democratically elected presidents — and all but two of those have either been impeached or imprisoned.
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida (left), Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe (second from left) and Takao Kato, CEO of Mitsubishi Motors, hold a news conference on merger talks on Monday in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 23, 2024

Honda-Nissan megamerger in the works

Both carmakers are facing overcapacity and the need for huge investments related to electric-vehicle and self-driving technologies.
Hiroshi Shimizu (left), president of Nippon Life Insurance, and Satoshi Asahi, vice president and future president, shake hands after a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 23, 2024

Nippon Life’s $12 billion acquisition spree is just beginning

Having committed to pouring billions into a pair of global insurers, the firm is now turning to asset managers, as it seeks to diversify business at home and abroad.
Elbridge Colby (center) speaks at the Threat and the Strategy panel during the Air Force Association Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, in September 2019.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 23, 2024

Trump's Pentagon policy pick pushed for Japan to spend 3% of GDP on defense

Elbridge Colby said in an interview earlier this year that Japan is moving at a leisurely pace on defense despite being under threat from China and North Korea.
Film festivals around the world are giving space to AI-generated cinematic experiences, with Venice and Cannes among the heavy hitters with sections dedicated to "immersive" works, including those made using virtual and augmented reality.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 23, 2024

Asia’s film industry should balance AI with human creativity

AI is revolutionizing cinema. Japan and Asia as a whole are well-positioned to harness technology to empower storytelling while retaining film's essentially human nature.
The Nio logo on a steering wheel of an electric vehicle at the automaker's dealership in Shanghai
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 23, 2024

China’s Nio unveils $108,000 EV to take on Porsche and Mercedes

Once one of the brightest rising stars in China’s electric vehicle market, Nio has fallen short of sales targets, with U.S.-traded shares slumping about 50% this year.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 3, 2025

AI has not yet destroyed democracy

The worst predictions about AI disrupting the democratic process were not borne out in 2024.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in Washington on Dec. 10.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2024

Biden launches new Chinese chip trade probe, which will be handed off to Trump

The effort could offer Trump a ready avenue to begin imposing some of the hefty 60% tariffs he has threatened on Chinese imports.
Internally displaced Syrians from eastern Ghouta queue for food in a Damascus countryside in April 2018.
WORLD / Society
Dec 24, 2024

Global hunger crisis deepens as major nations skimp on aid

The United Nations says that, at best, it will be able to raise enough money to help about 60% of the 307 million people it predicts will need humanitarian aid next year.
Christians take selfies after a Christmas Eve Mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia, on Tuesday, ahead of the 20th anniversary of a magnitude 9.1 earthquake that struck the coast of Sumatra on Dec. 26, 2004, triggering a huge tsunami across the Indian Ocean.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 25, 2024

Blogs to Bluesky: Social media shifts responses after 2004 tsunami

In two decades, the online social media landscape has experienced a vast change, allowing information — as well as rumor and misinformation — to flow in real time.
The United Nations headquarters in New York
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2024

Japan to stay the third-largest U.N. contributor

The share of Japan's contribution to the United Nation's regular budget will drop by about 1 percentage point from the current level to 6.930%.
Katsumi Arase (left), head of the Central Council for Education, receives from State Minister of Education Arata Takebe a consultation document asking the panel to consider ways to give schools more discretion in setting their curriculum, at the education ministry on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 25, 2024

Japan eyes more discretion for schools in upcoming curriculum revision

A government panel has been tasked with considering ways to give schools more flexibility in determining class hours and content as part of the next curriculum revamp.
A rescuer of the State Emergency Service works to put out a fire in a private house after a drone strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Dec 26, 2024

Russia launches 'inhuman' Christmas Day attacks, Ukraine says

Half a million people in the Kharkiv region were left without heating, in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba shakes hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Nov. 15 during their meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 26, 2024

Japan and China to continue delicate diplomatic dance in 2025

While Tokyo and Beijing have touted the importance of thawing ties, experts say a number of issues are likely to mean continued hedging by both sides.
People use their smartphones as they sit on motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2024

Sweeping Vietnam internet law comes into force

Under a new law, all tech giants operating in Vietnam must verify users' accounts via their phone numbers or Vietnamese identification numbers.
Children play mahjong during a class held at Satsukigaoka community center in the city of Hiroshima.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Chugoku
Jan 14, 2025

Mahjong enjoys new wave of players that spans generations

Once associated with gambling, mahjong is becoming a popular pursuit for all ages, boosted by pro leagues, apps and "healthy mahjong" for cognitive and social benefits.
A Nissan dealership and a Honda dealership in Tokyo. As the two firms negotiation a potential merger, Nomura Holdings is advising Honda, while Nissan has retained Mizuho Financial Group and Bank of America.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 28, 2024

Honda-Nissan deal sets up next fight for bankers in Japan M&A boom

At roughly $200 billion, the volume of transactions including mergers and acquisitions in the country is up 48% this year.
Corbin Burnes is reportedly taking his talents to Arizona as a member of a deep Diamondbacks starting rotation.
BASEBALL
Dec 28, 2024

Diamondbacks and pitcher Corbin Burnes agree to six-year, $210-million deal

The contract reportedly is for six years and $210 million, but Burnes has the right to opt out after two seasons. It would be the largest contract in Diamondbacks history.
Rohingya refugees Shamshida (left), who had to flee one of the last refuges in Myanmar for the Rohingya Muslim minority, and her sister Manwara in their tent in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Nov. 5
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 29, 2024

For the Rohingya, tormentors change but not the torment

This violence was not at the hands of the military, though. Instead, it was from a pro-democracy rebel group that was raised to fight the army.
Mikheil Kavelashvili, elected by lawmakers as Georgia's new president, takes an oath during his swearing-in ceremony at the parliament in Tbilisi on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 30, 2024

New Georgian president sworn in; predecessor calls him illegitimate leader

The presidential standoff is seen as a watershed moment in Georgia, which had been regarded as among the most pro-Western of the former Soviet states.
National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik offers joss sticks at a memorial for the victims of the Jeju Air crash in Muan, South Korea, on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Dec 30, 2024

What caused South Korea's most deadly plane crash?

As South Korean investigators probe the causes of the country's worst-ever aviation disaster on home soil, experts offer a glimpse at what could have gone wrong.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (left) dribbles against Golden State Warriors forward Andrew Wiggins in San Francisco on Wednesday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Dec 31, 2024

LeBron, 40, says he wants to finish his career with the Lakers

The player said his exit would come before he felt he could no longer compete "at a high level."
Students perform a play they produced during a Liberal Arts Japanese class at Aichi Prefectural Kariyahigashi High School, as teacher Tomohiko Hyodo (left) watches.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Jan 13, 2025

Aichi school uses theater to foster communication skills

Liberal Arts Japanese, designed to supplement conventional Japanese language studies, emphasizes practical skills in listening and speaking, the school says.

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?