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The yen's slide past ¥150 to the dollar has raised renewed speculation over possible government interventions in the currency market.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 26, 2023

Yen weakens close to three-decade low against U.S. dollar

The yen was trading well within the zone that saw authorities wade into the market last year.
U.S. President Joe Biden toasts with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during an official state dinner at the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 26, 2023

U.S. and Australia seek military drone cooperation with Japan

The moves comes as the nations aim to maintain an edge in the face of China's growing military might.
Climate activists demand that the World Bank stop fossil fuel financing on the first day of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Marrakech, Morocco, on Oct. 9.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2023

Telling countries not to be poor is bad climate advice

As developing nations bear the brunt of the costs of climate change; the world's richer states need to pay up.
Samuel Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX, testifies during a Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in February 2022.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 28, 2023

FTX founder admits 'mistakes' but testifies he didn't defraud anyone

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried insisted he did not steal billions of dollars from customers when the cryptocurrency exchange collapsed last year.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 29, 2023

After Game 1 loss, is this the end for Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Japan?

The big question after Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s loss in Game 1 of the Japan Series: Is this the end of his NPB career?
The Bank of Japan is holding a two-day policy meeting through Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 30, 2023

Ueda faces market fallout risk as BOJ mulls yields, prices and yen

In a sign of just how fraught the discussions on policy may be, BOJ officials are likely to monitor yield movements until the very last minute.
A protestor depicts Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as the fictional character Pinocchio during a protest in Madrid on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 30, 2023

Tens of thousands rally in Spain against amnesty for separatists

The country's right wing accuses the president of threatening Spanish unity and seeking amnesty only to cling to power.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 31, 2023

Netanyahu's ‘Mr. Security’ image fades as rivals want him out

Opponents say Netanyahu failed spectacularly by ignoring Hamas’ true intentions.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends an extraordinary session at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on Oct. 23.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 31, 2023

Prime Minister Kishida and a month of misery

The challenges Fumio Kishida faces are eroding confidence in his leadership and are likely to influence policy decision-making.
More and more children are producing content as online influencers and generating lots of money.
COMMENTARY
Oct 31, 2023

Kidfluencers are today’s version of chimney sweeps

Protecting children from labor exploitation is difficult in the age of social media.
Petr Aven in Moscow to attend Russia Business week in in 2018
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 1, 2023

Squeezed by sanctions, some oligarchs head home to Putin's Russia

The penalties have destroyed the standing of many wealthy Russians abroad who remained silent or avoided direct criticism of Putin over the war.
Smoke rises from destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip following Israeli airstrikes on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 2, 2023

U.S. and Israel weigh peacekeepers for Gaza after Hamas

The conversations have been impelled by a sense of urgency to come up with a plan for the future of Gaza now that a ground invasion has begun.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is saluted by Maritime Self-Defense Force members during the International Fleet Review to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the MSDF, at Sagami Bay, off Yokosuka, on Nov. 6, 2022.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Nov 3, 2023

Weak yen forces Japan to cut back on historic military spending

Officials and industry sources said Japan will begin cutting back on aircraft purchases in 2024, the second year of the buildup plan, due to the weak yen.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak listens to a question as he holds the closing news conference on the second day of the U.K. Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, England, on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 4, 2023

China quietly took part in leaders' AI meeting in the U.K.

China said it attended a top-level ministerial meeting at the U.K. AI Safety Summit on Thursday, despite not being listed by Britain.
A Grab food delivery cyclist makes a delivery in Singapore on Aug. 21.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 5, 2023

Consolidation looms for Southeast Asia’s food delivery giants

With growth in the sector slowing, companies are slimming down or bolstering their ties with other operators.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. As the European Union’s biggest economy wrestles with a persistent slump and a surge in immigration, the specter of German nationalism has returned, leaving citizens more conflicted over their country’s direction than at any point since World War II.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 6, 2023

The far right is on the rise in Germany and Scholz is at a loss

Amidst economic challenges and surging immigration, German nationalism has reemerged.
South Africa head coach Rassie Erasmus ahead of a game against Ireland in Dublin in November 2022
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Nov 6, 2023

Erasmus to coach South Africa at start of new World Cup cycle

After lifting the World Cup as coach four years ago, Erasmus took the reins as South Africa’s director of rugby.
Rapid improvements in image generation have spurred artists to push back on generative AI startups, which ingest vast troves of internet data in order to generate content like pictures or text.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 6, 2023

Dall-E 3 is so good it’s stoking a revolt against AI scraping

It hasn’t helped much that OpenAI’s new process for artists who want to exclude their data from the system is time-consuming and complex.
China's dominance in the electric vehicle market has prompted the European Union to take action regarding economic security.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Nov 7, 2023

How electric vehicles became subject to EU economic security

The bloc has felt the pressure from China in the EV market, leading it to take steps to better protect vehicles, batteries and materials.
Steam rises from the cooling towers of the coal power plant of RWE, one of Europe's biggest electricity and gas companies, in Niederaussem, Germany.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 6, 2023

Just 4% of top firms meet U.N. climate target guidelines, study says

The pace of change among governments and corporations is set to form a central part of the COP28 climate talks starting later this month.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Nov 6, 2023

Israel-Hamas conflict to dominate Tokyo summit of top G7 diplomats

Japan will be looking to further align the bloc’s responses to the war amid growing calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting.
Students stand during a flag-lowering ceremony on the first day of the new academic year in Shanghai in 2021.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 8, 2023

China's private schools struggle amid COVID and regulatory woes

The sector stumbled after Beijing imposed new rules in 2021 and cracked down on the private tutoring business.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog's claim all Gazans are responsible for Hamas' actions ignores the iron grip the group has over the strip and how isolated its people are.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2023

No, Gazans can’t rise up against Hamas

Claiming all Gazans are responsible for Hamas' actions ignores the iron grip the group has over the strip and how isolated its people are.
Abortion rights activists and counterprotesters demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in June on the first anniversary of the court ruling in the Dobbs vs. Women’s Health Organization case, overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision. 
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2023

U.S. abortions haven’t dropped since Dobbs ruling

The #WeCount project says the number of U.S. abortions increased by about 2,000 between June 2022 and June 2023 compared with the prior 12-month period.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin at the Thailand Economic Outlook conference in Bangkok in October
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 9, 2023

Thailand’s 'salesman' PM travels the world to court investments

Srettha Thavisin is acting as Thailand’s chief salesman, enticing tourists, investors and anything or anyone that can support the nation’s growth.
ICBC Financial Services said in a statement a ransomware attack resulted in disruption to certain systems and it was conducting an investigation and "progressing its recovery efforts."
BUSINESS
Nov 10, 2023

China's biggest lender ICBC hit by ransomware attack

The lender said it was investigating the attack that disrupted some of its systems, and making progress toward recovering from it.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks with entrepreneur Elon Musk during a chat session on the rewards and risks of artificial intelligence in London, earlier this month.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 2023

Can the world harness AI’s fire without getting burned?

Calls are increasing for governance of artificial intelligence, the world-changing tech that bears both major rewards and risks.
Cosmo Energy is calling another shareholder vote on Dec. 14 to seek approval to discourage an activist group, led by Yoshiaki Murakami, from increasing its stake to 24.56% from the current 20%.
BUSINESS
Nov 10, 2023

Japan's Cosmo braces for 'poison pill' anti-activist vote

The refiner is calling another shareholder vote on Dec. 14 to seek approval to discourage an activist group from increasing its stake.
If you spot a wild animal in the city, it's likely lost. Still, alert authorities immediately to prevent any unpleasantness.
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / Longform
Nov 13, 2023

The concrete forest: Bears, boars and more head to the cities

Warmer winters, less food and an aging society all play a part in why wild animals are increasingly venturing into human-populated areas.
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 leaders summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Nov. 14, 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Nov 14, 2023

Biden and Xi look to put floor under strained U.S.-China ties

The two leaders will have a laundry list of concerns to discuss, but the talks are unlikely to yield any dramatic breakthroughs.

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