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Commercial buildings in the Shibuya area of Tokyo
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 29, 2024

Consumer inflation speeds up amid BOJ rate hike speculation

Overall inflation sped up to 2.6%, as food prices also pushed up the gauge, also outpacing economist expectations.
Mick Schumacher plans to leave Mercedes at the end of the season.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Nov 29, 2024

Mercedes reserve driver Mick Schumacher to leave team after F1 season

Schumacher, a reserve driver, said it had been tough watching others race.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping speaks during a news conference in Brasilia on Nov. 20.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / ANALYSIS
Nov 30, 2024

China’s lone-wolf attacks pose challenge for Xi’s security state

A new wave of deadly attacks is putting pressure on officials to expand the country's sprawling security system.
Rakuten Group is considering the sale of hybrid perpetual notes that can be called after five years.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 2, 2024

Rakuten plans return to dollar bond market with hybrid notes

Rakuten’s liquidity has improved but an increased reliance on the dollar bond market may indicate weakened domestic funding access.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda reiterated in an interview published Saturday that authorities will raise rates if the economy performs in line with projections.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 3, 2024

BOJ weighs case for first triple hike since Japan’s bubble burst

The last time the BOJ conducted three hikes in a single year was in 1989, with the third increase that year coming on Christmas Day.
The challenge for African governments and communities is how to harness this wave of youthful talent — with all their innovation, resilience and determination — rather than lose them to developed economies.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2024

Africa must act to stem its youth brain drain

African governments must harness youthful talent or risk losing it to developed economies.
Kim Seongmin, president of Free North Korea Radio, edits content for the station at his home on Ganghwa Island, west of Seoul, on Nov. 21. Kim has cancer and was recently told that he has months to live.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 3, 2024

A North Korean voice that Kim Jong Un would like to silence

North Korean defectors have been infiltrating the North with outside media for two decades, through balloons floated across the border or radio broadcasts.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 5, 2024

Amnesty says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza

The human rights group said the legal threshold for the crime had been met, in its first such determination during an active armed conflict.
PayPay Bank is competing for funds as rates rise.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 5, 2024

PayPay Bank paying big to attract deposits, with offer of 2% on dollars and yen

The offer is many times the rates advertised by competing banks and applies to yen deposits of up to ¥5 million, with no limit for dollar deposits.
Lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo sits alone as the only People Power Party lawmaker to remain in the chamber for a vote on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 7, 2024

Move to impeach South Korea's Yoon in limbo after ruling party walkout

While lawmakers debated the motion, introduced by the main opposition Democratic Party, only a single member of Yoon's People Power Party remained in his seat.
Elon Musk, a co-leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, carries his son X Æ A-Xii Musk following a meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2024

DOGE's best idea yet is permanent daylight saving time

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s support for adopting a year-round clock would give the U.S. more sunshine and less confusion.
Insurance tycoon Douw Steyn’s 250 million rand home overlooks the luxury residential estate bearing his name near Johannesburg, South Africa.
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2024

Luxury estates for the rich are a booming business in South Africa

Despite a 20% decline in South Africa’s millionaire population over the past decade, it remains a hub for the continent’s high-net-worth individuals.
A person holds a sign while standing on the roadside near the McDonald's restaurant where a suspect in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, identified as Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 10, 2024

Killing of UnitedHealthcare exec ignites patient anger over insurance

The attack called fresh attention to deepening frustrations faced by Americans in their struggle to receive and pay for medical care.
The Northvolt Drei EV battery plant in Heide, Germany, one of several European-led battery facilities to have been delayed or canceled.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 10, 2024

Europe’s big battery ambitions are failing, and China is benefiting

Fallout is spreading across the region as EV demand wanes and local manufacturers struggle to master the technology.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a signing ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Nov. 28.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2024

Lula faces Biden parallels as surgery raises questions over age

The operation raises difficult questions about whether the 79-year-old leftist leader is fit to meet the challenges that are piling up in front of him.
Attendees view a concept model of the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) fighter plane at the BAE Systems pavilion at the Farnborough International Airshow, in Farnborough, England, in July.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2024

Trilateral fighter project takes big step with joint venture deal

The U.K.-headquartered entity, to be set up by mid-2025, will be responsible for the industrial side of Japan, Britain and Italy's Global Combat Air Program.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump (left) and his wife, Melania (right), pose for a photo with Akie Abe, the widow of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday in this image posted on Melania Trump's X social media account.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 16, 2024

Akie Abe, widow of slain prime minister, meets with Trump

Her meeting has raised some eyebrows for coming before that of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was unable to meet Trump last month despite numerous requests.
Ko Sung-kook, a conservative commentator who hosts Kosungkook TV on YouTube, meets his fans during a rally to support President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 16, 2024

Inside South Korea's right-wing YouTube world openly embraced by Yoon

The impeached president's claims of "anti-state" pro-North Korean sympathizers as justification for martial law is a familiar theme on right-wing channels.
Latin America has seen a rise of sophisticated, transnational organized crime driving violence, human trafficking and corruption.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2024

Cartels are conglomerating. Governments must too.

Latin America has seen a rise of sophisticated, transnational organized crime driving violence, human trafficking and corruption.
Inter Milan "ultras" merchandise is displayed outside San Siro Stadium in Milan before a Champions League match on Nov. 26.
SOCCER
Dec 19, 2024

Italy combats spread of mafia among soccer fan groups across country

Ultra groups at Inter and AC Milan, two of the biggest names in Italian soccer, have allegedly been infiltrated by the mafia.
Residential buildings under construction at China Evergrande Group's Riverside Palace development in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, in November 2023
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 20, 2024

China’s economic rebound hangs on the fate of its richest cities

Preserving earning power in China was given fresh urgency as U.S. Presidential-elect Donald Trump says he will choke off critical Chinese exports.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo (right) and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo on Dec. 10 prior to talks on political, trade and economic relations
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2024

Finnish PM seeks boosted military tech ties with Japan

“Finland is keen to deepen bilateral relations, and Japan is an important strategic partner for Finland,” Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told The Japan Times.
Greenpeace activists protest next to a fake whale's tail in front of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin in 2010. The real motivation behind Japan's whaling may lie in asserting its maritime sovereignty, as the country defends its exclusive economic zone amid territorial disputes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2024

For Japan, whaling is intertwined with maritime sovereignty

While Japan has an undeniable culture surrounding seafood, the current generation of people do not show much interest in whale meat.
Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the murder of UnitedHealth Group executive Brian Thompson, arrives at a helicopter pad after being extradited from Pennsylvania to New York on Thursday.
WORLD
Dec 21, 2024

Luigi Mangione’s 15-day path from New York to Altoona McDonald’s

Details from charging documents, court proceedings and news conferences show a troubled young man.
North Korean special forces soldiers march and shout slogans during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang in April 2017.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 22, 2024

North Korea aiding Russia where it needs it most, Canadian general says

Pyongyang's provision of troops as well as weapons and munitions that Moscow can't produce fast enough carries a symbolic element.
Steam rises from a geothermal plan in Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture. Despite its long history and potential, geothermal provided just 0.3% of Japan's overall energy mix in the fiscal year from April 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Dec 22, 2024

Is Japan finally ready to tap its abundant geothermal energy potential?

Japan boasts the world’s third-largest potential supply of geothermal energy, but this renewable energy resource has mostly been untapped.
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.
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.
A Wall Street sign in front of a U.S. Flag outside the New York Stock Exchange before the Federal Reserve announcement in New York on Sept. 18.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 24, 2024

Risks stack up for the global economy in 2025

New spending priorities beckon for national budgets already stretched after the pandemic, from tackling climate change to boosting armies to caring for aging populations.
Furaha Elisabeth applies medication on the skin of her child Sagesse Hakizimana, who is under treatment for Mpox, an infectious disease caused by the Mpox virus that causes a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever, at a health center in the Congo on Aug 19.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2024

Global disease resurgence in 2024 shows rising health threat

The findings seek to renew the focus on the rise of preventable and climate-sensitive diseases, as well as a coordinated global response.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight