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Lee Hsien Loong might not stray far from politics, having said previously that he will remain at the "new PM’s disposal” after the handover.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 16, 2024

Singapore charts new path after half-century of Lee family rule

Lee Hsien Loong announced that he will step aside next month after 20 years as prime minister and hand the reins over to Lawrence Wong.
A nationwide survey by Japan Press Research Institute released in October found that 74.6% of respondents see or hear news a few times a week on the internet. Meanwhile, 87.6% receive news through private broadcasters.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 21, 2024

How to deal with influence operations in the era of generative AI

A significant number of people in Japan don't care about where online news is sourced from, one poll found.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses a joint session of Congress in Washington on Thursday. Kishida’s recent summit with U.S. President Joe Biden is being lauded as a success.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 16, 2024

Give credit where credit’s due after prime minister's outstanding U.S. summit

The Japan-U.S. summit has been rightly called historic and a big deal for Tokyo and the alliance — if its long list of deliverables is realized.
Solomon Islanders queue up to vote outside a polling station in Honiara on Wednesday. The election could reshape regional security, with citizens effectively choosing if their Pacific nation will deepen ties with China.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 17, 2024

China and Taiwan ties hang in the balance in Solomon Islands vote

While domestic issues will be key to voters’ choices, the result will have repercussions for the islands’ ties with China.
The Indian national flag at the historic Red Fort in Delhi on Monday ahead of the country's general election, which begins Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 17, 2024

India's opposition battles on against bleak odds in general election

The main opposition alliance hope to confound expectations of an easy win for Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in the vote starting Friday.
In the new Disney+ series “House of the Owl,” Min Tanaka (left) plays a powerful political fixer, or “kuromaku,” who has a troubled relationship with his adult children, particularly his idealistic son, played by Mackenyu.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Apr 18, 2024

'House of the Owl' brings Hollywood values to Japanese TV

Min Tanaka plays a powerful political fixer in the 10-episode show, which centers on the behind-the-scenes machinations of "kuromaku."
An Iron Dome missile battery site in southern Israel on April 17
WORLD / Politics
Apr 18, 2024

For Israel, Iran crisis tests limits of allies' aid and domestic unity

Rather than offering to fight for Israel as they have in the past, Western allies are suggesting that no one challenge Iran militarily just now.
Animator Hayao Miyazaki is among Time's 100 most influential people of 2024.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2024

Hayao Miyazaki among Time's 100 most influential people

Miyazaki, who won his second Oscar last month, was described as a "one-of-a-kind creator" in the magazine.
CDP head Kenta Izumi speaks to reporters in Tokyo on April 13.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 19, 2024

Kishida and Izumi to campaign in must-win Shimane as by-election looms

For Kishida and the LDP, the Shimane race is a must-win contest, while the opposition is looking to gain ground in a ruling party stronghold.
People attend a protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and to call for the release of hostages kidnapped in the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 21, 2024

Fears over Iran buoy Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu at home. For now.

The PM's political future seemed bleak following October's deadly attack by Hamas militants, with critics blaming him for the security failure.
U.S. President Joe Biden Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 Summit in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, in November 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 22, 2024

China braces for worst as it becomes punching bag in U.S. election

Chinese policymakers already battling a protracted property crisis and weak demand at home have scant incentive to escalate tensions.
Many U.S. lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties and the Biden administration say TikTok poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its 170 million U.S. users.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 22, 2024

TikTok braces for U.S. divest-or-ban law — and a fresh legal fight

The legislation has been fast-tracked and tied to a crucial aid package for Ukraine and Israel, which the Senate is set to vote on in the coming days.
A young supporter of presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on April 2
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 22, 2024

In chance for Trump, youth at rally see him as answer to economic woes

If Trump, 77, stays close to Biden, 81, in this demographic all the way to Election Day on Nov. 5 it would be a major gain compared with 2020.
A rally in support of Ukraine outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Saturday, the same day the House of Representatives approved a $61 billion aid package supporting Kyiv's war effort.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2024

Ukraine aid shows MAGA hasn’t cowed Johnson

The U.S. House speaker rejected the isolationism that has come to dominate his party, extending a lifeline to Kyiv by approving a long-debated aid package.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi says the government is  closely monitoring reports about a missing Chinese professor from a Japanese university.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2024

Japan monitoring reports of professor 'missing' in China

Media reports have said the professor may have been questioned by Chinese authorities before he disappeared.
Sudanese refugees fleeing the conflict in the country's Darfur region cross the border into Chad in August.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2024

Humanitarian catastrophes and the world's forgotten conflicts

Tragically, there are global catastrophes that, by virtue of their longevity and their distance from us, have fallen out of sight.
Sicily and organized crime have been synonymous since at least the 19th century. The island's mafia infiltration is extending beyond violence, manifesting in subtle economic coercion and sophisticated tax evasion schemes.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2024

Sicily's mafia is expanding its white collar crime

Economic inequality fuels mafia exploitation, with wealthy enclaves thriving while impoverished areas provide fertile ground for criminal activity.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has repeatedly expressed his commitment to bring about a revision of the Political Funds Control Act during the current session of parliament, which is slated to end on June 23.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 23, 2024

LDP pledges tougher action on errant lawmakers in reform blueprint

The ruling party will seek to review legislation on the handling of political funds in the wake of a slush funds scandal involving its members.
Rory McIlroy was one of the PGA Tour's staunchest defenders when the turmoil that has gripped the sport began with the emergence of LIV Golf.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 25, 2024

Rory McIlroy open to returning to PGA Tour board

McIlroy stepped down from the board in a surprise move last November, saying he wanted to concentrate on his own game.
A truck rolls off a cargo vessel docked at Esbjerg Port in Ebjerg, Denmark. European Union food imports to the U.K. are about to get more expensive and complicated as the British government implements the Brexit deal.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 27, 2024

Britons finally taste full Brexit as costly border checks begin

From April 30, the U.K. will impose checks on European Union food imports — a stark reversal from the pre-Brexit era of frictionless trade.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a news conference, at the Downing Street Briefing Room in central London on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 27, 2024

‘Operation Save Rishi’ aims to get U.K. leader through key vote

Rishi Sunak has said that he’s putting U.K. defense spending on a "war footing.” He might as well have been talking about his own position.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during the White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Washington Hilton, in Washington, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 28, 2024

Biden jabs Trump in election-year roast at correspondents' dinner

The U.S. president used the annual black-tie event to chide his Republican rival Donald Trump for immaturity and poke fun at his own advanced age.
At the State Department, an eight-person group informally known as "the firm” is taking steps to help embattled nations when China responds to political disputes with what the U.S. and its allies call "economic coercion."
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 29, 2024

U.S. ‘firm’ steps in when China is seen as a bully, not a partner

At the U.S. State Department, an eight-person group is taking steps to help nations when China responds to political disputes with "economic coercion."
Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in March
WORLD / Politics
Apr 30, 2024

U.S. implicates five Israeli units in rights violations before Gaza war

The incidents in question took place in October outside of Gaza before conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas.
An aerial view of Prince Heinrich XIII’s Waidmannsheil hunting lodge, where German police searched for evidence while arresting dozens across the country in December 2022 in connection to an alleged insurrectionist plot, in Bad Lobenstein, Germany, on Dec. 8, 2022.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 30, 2024

The first court trial over alleged coup plot in Germany begins

A random assortment of people comprised a group that attempted a coup in Germany in 2022, but investigators say they were well-organized and dangerous.
The United Nations Security Council votes on a Gaza resolution that demands an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and unconditional release of all hostages, at the U.N.'s headquarters in New York on March 25. So far, such resolutions have proven ineffective.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2024

Can ‘minilaterals’ save the world?

Minilateral partnerships offer a new approach to addressing regional challenges effectively and ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
Diane Severin Nguyen’s film, “In Her Time (Iris’s Version),” 2023-24, about a young actress struggling with her role in a (fictional) movie about the Nanjing Massacre, is on display at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Artificial intelligence and the "rhetoric around gender and authenticity” were themes in this year's show.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 2, 2024

The winner-take-all economy is ruining art, too

The value of art is not just a matter of taste. To appeal to collectors, artists require the approval of the establishment.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the United Steelworkers Union headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 17. Biden made clear that he does not want the proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel to happen.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 4, 2024

Political furor over Nippon Steel's U.S. Steel bid puts investment panel in spotlight

Backlash over the deal has echoes of the 1980s when Nippon Steel tried and failed to buy another American metal company.
British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Labour's Claire Ward embrace after Ward was elected as East Midlands Mayor in Mansfield, England, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
May 5, 2024

Labour mayoral wins cap triumphant election run for U.K.'s Keir Starmer

The results dashed any hopes Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had of reassuring Tories anxious about the possibility of a general election wipe out.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida holds a news conference in Sao Paulo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
May 5, 2024

Kishida talks up bolstered Latin American ties as China cements position

While the visit may improve ties, observers doubt countries like Brazil will jeopardize relations with Beijing, their most important trading partner.

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