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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2020

Give China a cheer for making polluters pay

China needs to be pressed to aim high when it comes to carbon trading and pricing. Others will be encouraged to follow. For now, it just needs to get started.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 21, 2020

Suga picks an unnecessary and counterproductive fight

Signs are that the LDP will try to bind the science council closer to government aims, ensuring a long public fight and a further domestic and international embarrassment.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2020

A miserable 21st century: Poor America

What the U.S. is suffering from now, in acute form and in almost all its limbs and organs, is what great world powers throughout history have at some stage endured.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2020

Capitalism caused climate change; it must also be the solution

The coronavirus pandemic has caused the the biggest drop in emissions in history and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 21, 2020

Why Narendra Modi is still so popular even as India fails to fight pandemic

India is battling one of the world’s highest coronavirus caseloads, its worst-ever economic slump, shuttered factories, farmer protests and the deadliest border fighting with China in decades.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 20, 2020

Suga in Vietnam: Talking about China without naming it

Vietnam is crucial to achieving Japan's vision for the Free and Open Indo-Pacific initiative.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2020

There’s a silver lining for returning office workers

The pace of workers coming back into offices is more of a trickle than a flood, leading to tenants choosing not to renew leases and skyrocketing vacancy rates.
JAPAN
Oct 20, 2020

Ad behemoth faces claims of conflict of interest in Tokyo Olympic campaign

“Adult understanding” investigated as a potential conflict of interest for the Japanese advertising giant.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 20, 2020

Trump objects to 'mute' button in next Biden matchup, but debate will go on

Thursday's debate between U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden will feature a mute button to allow each candidate to speak uninterrupted, organizers said on Monday, in a bid to avoid the disruptions that marred the first matchup.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2020

No, we shouldn’t report partying neighbors to the pandemic police

The pandemic has prompted European citizens to accept changes in social behavior that would have seemed impossible only a year ago. People have stopped shaking hands, started wearing masks and learned to talk at some distance. They have adhered to government rules keeping them at home and closing down...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2020

Russia’s post-Soviet hegemony is fading

Moscow's backyard is not what it was. A multi-polar world is emerging, but not the one Vladimir Putin has sought to promote.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 18, 2020

Pandemic biggest hurdle for New Zealand's Jacinda Ardern after 'tectonic' election

Jacinda Ardern's landslide election win gives her a mandate for the transformational change she has been promising New Zealand for three years, but the COVID-19 pandemic may limit what she can actually do.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2020

This Nobel-winning idea has failed India

India's telecom revolution only took off after the government moved away from auctions and started assigning spectrum to licensees in return for a share of their revenue.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 18, 2020

Michael Gove says U.K. 'well prepared' for no-deal Brexit, even as businesses sound alarm

Michael Gove, the minister handling Brexit divorce issues for Britain, said on Sunday that the U.K. is "increasingly well-prepared" for a no-deal Brexit, even as businesses urged Britain and the European Union to find a compromise over trade terms.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 17, 2020

Media join the debate over the economics of a universal basic income

Could the introduction of such a welfare model lead to economic inequality?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2020

Working from home is here to stay, so let’s get it right

The new normal has its benefits, but some of these won't be felt until after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.
Chatbots are pivoting to the ad model and optimizing for eyeballs, just like social media did. And AI knows more about us than Google or Facebook ever did.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025

Ads ruined social media. Now they’re coming to AI.

Imagine a person telling their AI they’re feeling depressed, and the system recommending some affordable holiday destinations or medication to address the problem.
Workers carry solar panels to install them at a solar farm in the desert in Lingwu, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, in April.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025

The world’s biggest polluter is cleaning up its act

Coal output is still climbing, but China’s clean power surge means much of it now sits in stockpiles rather than fueling growth.
A pop-up advertisement for the newly opened Chiikawa Park in Tokyo's Ikebukuro neighborhood demonstrates how the country is chockful of cute characters — to the detriment of trends like Labubu.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 23, 2025

Character-crazed Japan has little appetite for Labubu

The monster dolls may be driving fans wild elsewhere, but Japan has long had plenty of its own domestically produced characters that know exactly what consumers want.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, in May.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 22, 2025

In huge win for Trump, court throws out half-billion-dollar fraud penalty

The deeply divided decision by the Appellate Division in Manhattan is also a defeat for New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of Trump's biggest foes.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a speech at a dinner during the Tokyo International Conference on African Development on Thursday in Yokohama.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 22, 2025

LDP mulls pushing back deadline for review of Upper House election

The delay is mainly due to Prime Minister and LDP President Shigeru Ishiba's schedule of diplomatic events.
Members of the student club Neo at Shuri High School receive words of gratitude from Haebaru Junior High School students after their workshop on June 6. They are Mei Nakazato (far left), Nanoka Hirata (second left), Yuzuyu Oyakawa (center), Hinano Yagi (second right) and Honomi Taira.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Aug 25, 2025

Okinawa high school students bring new approach to peace education

A high school group that held a workshop for junior high school students aims to bring a new approach to peace education by turning “passive learning” into something more personal.
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a  Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 22, 2025

As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba

By naming the popular lawmaker to his Cabinet, the beleaguered prime minister turned a potential rival into a member of his team — at least, for now.
The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump temporarily cut off medical research grants that government officials say don’t align with his policies.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 22, 2025

U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump administration cut millions worth of medical grants

The court left open the possibility that grant recipients could sue in a different federal court to recoup wrongfully withheld funds.
People walk along a beach near the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant, ahead of a referendum on whether to restart the closed facility, in Pingtung, Taiwan, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 25, 2025

Failed nuclear power vote adds to Taiwan’s energy conundrum

Nuclear power’s future in Taiwan has been an ongoing struggle for President Lai Ching-te and his Democratic Progressive Party.
Takemasa Kinjo, who was a high school student when his mother was killed by a U.S. Marine in 1974, looks on at the construction site of the new Henoko military base for U.S. forces near his residence in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, in June.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Aug 25, 2025

Decades after WWII, Okinawa is a reluctant host for U.S. troops

A string of incidents over the years involving American troops and base personnel, including sexual assault cases, have angered residents.
Shigeru Ishiba, prime minister and president of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), attends the party's plenary meeting in Tokyo on Aug. 8. Ishiba took further criticism from his own party Friday, following a dismal result in an Upper House election last month that has weakened his mandate and triggered some internal momentum to replace him as leader.Bloomberg
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 25, 2025

No end in sight for LDP drama over Ishiba, whose fate is still up in the air

It remains to be seen whether those within the party seeking the prime minister’s removal can rally enough support to force a presidential election.
The number of foreign residents with business management residency status had reached a record 41,615 as of the end of 2024.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2025

Japan aims to tighten rules for business manager visas from October

The move comes amid concerns that foreign nationals are using the visa as an easy loophole to settle in the country.
As generative AI like ChatGPT becomes more popular, evidence is growing that it may harm mental health by encouraging dependency, weakening critical thinking and even contributing to delusional episodes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 25, 2025

ChatGPT’s mental health costs are adding up

From brain rot to induced psychosis, the psychological cost of generative AI is growing and flying under the radar.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch are both nonbelievers. That’s a rare shared trait in the country’s political history.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

How much does faith influence British politics?

For the first time in British political history, both the nation’s premier and the official leader of the opposition have shared such an attitude toward God.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years