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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law in Seoul on Dec. 3. Yoon is currently facing charges related to his actions over that two-day period.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2025

Was there an insurrection in Seoul on Dec. 3, or is that happening now?

Yoon can now be held for up to six months in prison simply at the behest of the prosecutors.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, following his announcement of the formation of the new government at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, on Saturday.
WORLD
Feb 9, 2025

Newly appointed Lebanon PM names ministers and vows to regain trust

Lebanon's new government, led by Nawaf Salam, faces the challenge of enacting reforms and managing a fragile ceasefire with Israel.
Trucks cross the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, in Canada in the early morning hours of Feb. 1.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 10, 2025

Betrayed: How Trump’s tariff threats tore the U.S.-Canada bond

Donald Trump’s menacing rhetoric seems to have fractured the fraternal trust that has been the core of the relationship between the U.S. and Canada.
U.S. President Donald Trump receives a status report on Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office in September 2019.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2025

Trump keeps up his ‘Sharpiegate’ attack on science

The nomination of Neil Jacobs to run NOAA highlights U.S. President Trump’s loyalty-over-expertise approach to leadership.
North Koreans on a bus hold the hands of their South Korean relatives as they bid farewell at the end of a three-day family reunion event at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort in August 2018.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 13, 2025

North Korea demolishing family reunion center, Seoul says

The meetings had been subject to the vagaries of inter-Korea politics and often used as a negotiating tool by Pyongyang.
While Nariaki Obukuro’s previous releases often included lyrics with specific references pulled from his own experiences, on “Zatto,” he’s stepping back to explore the joy and pain of the wider world.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2025

Nariaki Obukuro found his groove — just not on the dance floor

A J-pop insider’s shift to soul, reggae and flamenco reflects his personal growth, time spent in London and current events.
U.S. President Donald Trump with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in November 2017. For Xi, the concerns about Trump provide an opportunity to thwart a broader convergence between America and its allies.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2025

Trump gives Xi chance to court U.S. allies and repair global image

For Xi, the concerns about the U.S. president provide an opportunity to thwart a broader convergence between America and its allies.
Emergency responders work at the scene where a car drove into a crowd in Munich on Thursday, leaving several people injured.
WORLD
Feb 14, 2025

Dozens injured as driver crashes car into Munich protest

A suspected attack in Munich renews debates over immigration and public safety ahead of an upcoming election.
China frequently shifts between warming and freezing relations with Japan, driven by its domestic issues, often using softer rhetoric while masking aggressive actions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 14, 2025

Are China-Japan relations truly 'warming,' or is this just fool’s gold again?

As the trade war between the U.S. and China heats up, Beijing is turning to its familiar playbook, using softer language to court American allies and partners while offering things like greater cooperation and more dialogue — part of its ongoing divide-and-conquer strategy.
U.S. Steel workers rally outside the company's headquarters in Pittsburgh in support of the takeover by Japan's Nippon Steel back in September.
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2025

The Nippon Steel deal’s lessons for the world

Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s stiff opposition to the deal may have created space, if not impetus, for President Donald Trump to resurrect the acquisition.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during family photo session with other leaders and attendees at the Group of 20 summit in the city of Osaka in June 2019.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 15, 2025

Saudis spearhead Arab scramble for alternative to Trump's Gaza plan

Draft ideas will be discussed at a meeting in Riyadh this month of countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
People pay tribute to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at his grave at the Borisovo cemetery, marking the first anniversary of his death while incarcerated in a remote Arctic penal colony, in Moscow on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 17, 2025

Russians risk reprisals to visit Navalny grave on death anniversary

Russia has still not fully explained the circumstances of his death.
Canada faces a tough decision on how to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump's economic threats, particularly regarding energy exports, with options ranging from strategic energy cuts to export taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2025

Weaponizing Canadian oil would rattle Trump

Reducing crude output has the potential to inflict real pain on U.S. refiners and consumers.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that the situation surrounding Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel has improved under U.S. President Donald Trump.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 18, 2025

Ishiba questions the politics of Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel deal rejection

The "unjust political interference” was difficult to understand, the prime minister said, but he indicated that the situation has improved under Trump.
A statue of of a bull in Pudong's Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2025

Xi's new corporate champions showcase his priorities and control

The tech champions present at a meeting with the Chinese president suggest that he is rallying troops from the business sector to fight a geopolitical battle.
Ryuji Kimura in the city of Wakayama in April 2023
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 19, 2025

Kishida attacker sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted murder

Kimura maintained through the trial that he did not intend to harm anyone, adding that he threw the explosive to draw attention to his 2022 lawsuit.
South Korean Constitutional Court acting head Moon Hyung-bae attends the first formal hearing of the impeachment trial of suspended South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul on Jan. 14.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 19, 2025

Top South Korean judge faces disinformation deluge as Yoon impeachment looms

The attacks by the suspended president's party and allies come amid expectations that the Constitutional Court will finalize his impeachment in March.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged troops for a Ukraine peacekeeping force, but Britain and its military lack the resources to deliver.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2025

Starmer offers Ukraine a defense check it can't cash

Under Starmer’s leadership, there has been no sign that the U.K. is ready to expand its armed forces to the numbers that could sustain such a campaign.
Taiwan worries that Donald Trump’s dealmaking with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine signals uncertainty for its own security, and the island democracy is boosting  efforts to strengthen U.S. ties and defense spending.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2025

Trump’s phone call with Putin is causing a stir in Taiwan

Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te’s government should consider what it can offer Trump to avoid becoming a pawn in the U.S.-China rivalry.
Australia's spy chief, Mike Burgess, called for a greater effort to tackle the threat from extremism, especially among young people.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Feb 20, 2025

Australian spy chief warns of rising role of minors in terror

Almost all foiled terrorist attacks in Australia over the past year involved the radicalization of children, according to the spy chief's annual assessment.
Donald Trump, the then-Republican presidential nominee and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet at Trump Tower in New York City in September. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2025

What is Trump’s foreign policy strategy, if there is one?

The rapid succession of policy changes and the speed at which implementation has taken place in the second Donald Trump administration has left many pundits in Tokyo dumbfounded.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (front right), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (second left) and other officials and advisers attend talks in Riyadh on Tuesday where they met to discuss ways on ending the Ukraine war.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2025

America's allies get a rude awakening

U.S. allies are understandably confused and dismayed by the Trump administration’s statements and behavior.
U.S. President Donald Trump during the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Saturday
WORLD / Politics
Feb 23, 2025

Trump tells CPAC his goal is a ‘lasting’ Republican majority

GOP allies, foreign leaders and Elon Musk joined Trump at CPAC on Saturday, rallying around his vision for tax cuts and government spending.
People demonstrate in support of Ukraine ahead of the third anniversary of the war with Russia, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2025

Trump shakes transatlantic alliance with Russia pivot

Fears are growing in European capitals that the bond forged from the ruins of World War II is on the verge of collapse.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba replies to a question from Nippon Ishin no Kai co-leader Seiji Maehara at a Lower House Budget Committee session in Tokyo on Feb. 17.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2025

Party heads' love of trains could keep budget talks from derailing

The leaders of Nippon Ishin no Kai and Komeito both share Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's passion for locomotives.
Mourners walk during the funeral procession with the vehicle carrying the coffins of Hezbollah's slain leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine toward their burial place on the outskirts of Beirut on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 24, 2025

Hezbollah chief vows 'resistance' as masses mourn Nasrallah

Naim Qassem, the successor of the slain Hezbollah chief, promised to keep following his "path," and rejected any control by the "tyrant America" over Lebanon.
Co-leader of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party Alice Weidel reacts during the electoral evening in Berlin on Sunday after the first exit polls in the German general elections.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 24, 2025

Alice Weidel, the unlikely queen of German's far-right AfD

Alice Weidel led the Moscow-friendly AfD to a record result of around 20% in Germany.
U.S. government scientists participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were issued a stop-work order from the Trump administration, according to media reports.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 24, 2025

Trump creates uncertainty for world’s most cited climate report

The U.S. absence comes amid broader cuts to research funding and a retreat from climate diplomacy under the Trump administration.
A rally in support of South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Jan. 18. Young men have emerged as a key demographic that has come out in support of Yoon, in contrast to the many young women participating in protests opposing him.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2025

Men, media and MAGA deepen South Korea’s split

Political polarization in South Korea is evermore extreme, with many young men rallying around impeached President Yoon, fueled by online media and a MAGA-inspired movement.
Elon Musk's Starlink is facing challenges from a Chinese state-backed rival and another service financed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 24, 2025

Musk's Starlink races with Chinese rivals to dominate satellite internet

China's rush to occupy more of lower-Earth orbit makes Western policymakers worry it could extend the reach of Beijing's internet censorship regime.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo