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Japan Times
JAPAN / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2023

A year after war broke out, Ukrainian evacuees take life in Japan one step at a time

Forced to abandon careers, education plans and other opportunities at home, those who made the 8,000 kilometer journey to East Asia have had their lives put on hold.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 22, 2021

As e-money gains ground in Japan, so do local digital currencies

Regional virtual currencies such as Setagaya Pay can be used in a specific city or ward and are intended to stimulate local economies that have been battered by the pandemic.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2017

Xi aims for a 'new era' of international influence and power

Many analysts have written about the arrival of Xi's 'New Era.' Few have explored the foreign policy implications.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2016

President Trump: Japanese-Americans, Japanese in U.S. weigh in

People of Japanese ancestry speak up about their impressions of President-elect Donald Trump.
Network School’s co-working space in Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 1, 2025

Techno-utopia rises in Malaysia's $100 billion Forest City flop

Entrepreneurs experiment with "startup societies” defined less by historical territory than shared beliefs in technology, cryptocurrency and light regulation.
A Tesla robotaxi drives on a street along South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on June 22. CEO Elon Musk has set an ambitious timeline of having "millions of Teslas operating autonomously” by the second half of next year.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 1, 2025

How Tesla and Waymo's radically different robotaxi approaches will shape the industry

The differing strategies have far-reaching implications for the early pecking order in the nascent autonomous-driving space.
U.S. military personnel stand guard in front of the New Grand Hotel where Gen. Douglas MacArthur stayed circa September 1945 in Yokohama.
JAPAN / History / Perspectives
Sep 1, 2025

How the Allied Occupation changed Japan: A love story

A wartime GI and a Japanese civilian fell in love during the Occupation, embodying the peace built after Japan’s surrender.
Jesse Kirkwood is part of a vibrant field of translators who have nurtured what might be called a “post-Murakami era of Japanese literature and translation,” one book at a time.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 29, 2025

Jesse Kirkwood: ‘Languages are entire cultural universes with all sorts of baggage’

The Japanese-English literary translator reflects on catching the recent wave of “post-Murakami” fiction and how he balances reading for work versus pleasure.
Israeli troops stand guard during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 1, 2025

Israel mulls West Bank annexation in response Palestine recognition moves

It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when.
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.
David Inoue, the executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, in Farragut Square, near the building that used to house the War Relocation Authority, in Washington. Inoue says his group has been more divided than it has been in decades on how it should respond to the Israel-Hamas war.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 20, 2024

War in the Gaza Strip causes surprising rift within Japanese American group

A new generation is pushing one of the largest Asian American civil rights groups to sever ties with prominent Jewish American organizations.
Yasuhiro Otomo and Miku Narisawa during one of Odyssey Nature Japan's educational fishing programs.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2024

A young 3/11 survivor and her vow to protect the ocean

At 12, Miku Narisawa experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed her home. Now she is working to protect it.
A bus belonging to the Think Outside Da Block gun violence prevention program is parked outside the organization’s office in Chicago, Illinois, on July 25.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 30, 2025

Trump administration slashed federal funding for gun violence prevention

The funding cuts threaten the sustainability of community violence intervention initiatives that have taken years to establish, advocates say.
A banner at the entrance to Shibuya’s Center Street makes it clear this is no place for a party.
PODCAST / deep dive
Oct 26, 2023

The specter of Itaewon has Shibuya spooked

One year on, Elizabeth Beattie joins us to discuss where Itaewon stands after its Halloween disaster, and what its legacy means for celebrations in Japan.
Cars drive past a damaged road, in the aftermath of an earthquake, in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture.
PODCAST / deep dive
Jan 18, 2024

Japan rings in 2024 with an unwelcome disaster

Join us for the first episode of 2024 as we recap the massive New Year’s Day earthquake and its impact on the people of Ishikawa Prefecture.
The Tomakomai carbon, capture and storage test site in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, in March 2018. The true benefits of carbon removal won’t be realized until we get close to net zero emissions.
COMMENTARY
Oct 10, 2024

Geoengineering can save the planet — if we demystify it

The percentage of Americans who say they trust scientists on the environment has declined to 67% this year from 75% in 2020.
Brine pools at the Atacama salt flat in Antofagasta region, Chile, in 2023. Local Chilean Indigenous communities are pushing for greater control over lithium extraction in the country just as the government plans to raise production.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Apr 8, 2025

As Chile revs up lithium plans, Indigenous people demand more control

Mining companies describe a potential system as "unprecedented" in Chile, adding that it would comply with international treaties on Indigenous rights.
At the Warhammer Store & Cafe in Tokyo's Akihabara neighborhood, fans of the tabletop franchise have room to paint, discuss lore and, of course, battle it out on spacious tables.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 11, 2023

At new Tokyo hub, Warhammer fans bond over dice rolls and paint

“A few months ago, me and a lot of the guys I’m now playing with didn’t even know what Warhammer really was," says one fan from a new Akihabara store.
Leaders of intelligence agencies testify before a congressional committee about worldwide threats in Washington on March 11.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 15, 2024

Campaign puts Trump and the spy agencies on a collision course

Some former officials fear that Trump, if elected again, would try to weaken intelligence agencies or undermine their independence.
Houseboats of the indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community anchor in the waters of Semporna, Malaysia, on Aug. 20.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Oct 14, 2024

Malaysia's eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

Many face impoverished, precarious lives and are denied access to health, education or financial services due to a lack of basic paperwork.
The U.S. has 8,000 km of carbon dioxide pipelines, but will need at least 50,000 to hit climate goals, according to a carbon transport engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 21, 2023

U.S. Midwest is ground zero in the fight over carbon capture

The U.S. wants to greatly expand carbon capture and storage infrastructure, including pipelines, but many projects face opposition in the Midwest.
Ryo and Kaho Nagata greet a regular customer from the second floor of their cafe in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Nov 6, 2023

Young migrants bring vitality to rural Hiroshima

Some new residents found a place where they could try something new, as well as having cheaper rents for stores and homes compared to Tokyo.
Toshiya Ikehata (center) helps prepare rice balls at a community kitchen in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Jan. 7. Ikehata runs a fine-dining restaurant in the city, which was among the hardest-hit areas in the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2024

Shattered lives, unbroken spirits: Chefs step up to serve Noto communities

Fine-dining chefs rise to the challenge of feeding disaster victims in the hardest-hit areas of Ishikawa Prefecture.
Naoko Motooka began hunting 10 years ago. Her hobby is one way Hokkaido hopes to curb a current boom in the deer population.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 15, 2024

Hunting in Hokkaido; Taylor Swift comes to Tokyo

You probably don’t think of guns when you think of Japan, but Hokkaido’s hunters do.
A Sustainable Smart City Partner Program forum in Kitajima
ESG CONSORTIUM
Feb 27, 2024

NTT tool Sugatami reflects cities’ extensive possibilities

With the use of digital technology to solve rural social problems now promoted as a national policy, some places have begun trying to use data to analyze their current situation, identify problems and find solutions.
A woman passes an "akichi" (vacant lot) in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo. The capital is littered with such small lots in part because of Japan's aging and shrinking population.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Sep 21, 2024

Dealing with rising land vacancies as Japan shrinks

"Akichi," or vacant plots of land, are nothing new to the urban landscape. As the population decreases, however, the challenge is how to handle their steady increase.
A man holds a Canadian flag ahead of Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal Party election campaign event at candidate Amarjeet Sohi’s campaign office, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 28, 2025

Candidates in Canada election make final pitches under shadow of Vancouver tragedy

Sunday was the final day of a five-week campaign for the candidates to make their case ahead of an election entered largely on Trump's tariffs and threats to annex Canada.
Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
May 5, 2025

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

How one artist is using history, culture and community spirit to revive a fading samurai legacy — and possibly reshape rural Japan’s future.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past