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Rakuten Group has incurred a net loss for the fifth straight year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 15, 2024

Rakuten logs second-largest annual net loss

The firm will skip a dividend payment for the first time in 23 years to prioritize its financial stability.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 15, 2024

Tokyo couple accused of poisoning daughter with illegally bought prescription drugs

On Thursday, investigators said that Kenichi Hosoya and his wife, Shiho, purchased olanzapine and antifreeze online prior to their daughter’s death.
Shanghai's financial district under heavy rain. China's economy has slowed down, with some pointing to a possible balance sheet recession.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2024

Mr. Xi, only change will help China weather the storm

How does Xi Jinping plan to address China's growing economic woes? Only openness to change will allow the global power to survive these turbulent times.
OpenAI has announced that it will add a memory feature to its AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 15, 2024

The perils of giving ChatGPT more memory

ChatGPT developer OpenAI is rolling out a memory feature that, it says, will improve the bot. But not if it ends up replicating the biases of social media.
Under a proposed joint custody system, if parents cannot reach an agreement, a family court would make a decision based on the interests of the child and family relations.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2024

Government panel proposes allowing joint child custody

Based on the report from the Legislative Council, the government plans to submit a related bill during the ongoing ordinary session of parliament.
Established in December 2021 in the middle of the pandemic-fuelled gaming craze, Sega Sapporo Studio is remarkable for growing amid a recent slump in the industry.
LIFE / Digital
Feb 17, 2024

Sega developers say new Sapporo studios lead to better lives

Aside from quality-of-life benefits that come from living outside a major metropolis, Sapporo also has a history of game development.
In Hokkaido’s Niseko ski resort area, a bowl of ramen or soba from a food truck easily goes for more than three times what it costs at a sit-down joint in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2024

¥3,800 ski-slope ramen is a glimpse of Japan’s future

Foreign tourist spending has potential to stimulate growth but needs careful management to ensure equitable distribution of benefits for locals.
Demonstrators hold a rally to honor the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2024

The lonesome death of a Russian opposition leader

The prison where Navalny died, Nicknamed “Polar Wolf,” is a freezing cold gulag for violent criminals. But Navalny — an anti-corruption lawyer and blogger.
ASML engineers walk past a High NA EUV tool at ASML’s headquarters in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on Nov. 20, 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 20, 2024

Dutch say China seeks military advantage from ASML tools

Netherlands-based ASML, Europe's largest tech firm, dominates the world market for lithography systems, needed by computer chipmakers.
Mining magnate Dan Gertler in Congo in 2012
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 20, 2024

China's dominance of EV metals prompts U.S. to revisit stockpile 'panic button'

Budget cuts have shrunk U.S. strategic reserves to record lows, leaving it facing shortages of the raw materials needed to execute an energy transition.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2024

Japanese airlines say baggage car drivers cheated on written exam

ANA Holdings and Japan Airlines said their subsidiaries allowed workers at Haneda Airport to cheat on the test to obtain driving licenses.
Buildings in the business district in Singapore. The city state hosted regional headquarters for 4,200 multinational firms in 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 22, 2024

Even China’s giants are picking Singapore over Hong Kong

The city state hosted regional headquarters for 4,200 multinational firms in 2023.
As their popularity grow, Shein and Temu together send almost 600,000 packages to the U.S. every day.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 22, 2024

Rise of fast-fashion Shein and Temu roils global air cargo industry

Their pursuit of limited air-cargo space to woo consumers with rapid transit times make off-peak seasons almost disappear and cause capacity shortages.
Brooklyn-based startup HEVO is working with other firms to develop wireless EV charging systems.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 22, 2024

Wireless charging for electric cars is inching closer to reality

Major hurdles include slow charging speeds and the money and interest needed to build stations and get more carmakers on board.
A general election must take place in the U.K. by late January 2025, which means plenty of time for expats abroad to register and vote.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Feb 26, 2024

As more U.K. expats get the vote, Japan’s ballot box stays closed

As of Jan. 16, Brits abroad — including the more than 17,000 in Japan — are able to register to vote regardless of how long they have lived overseas.
Laws governing global e-commerce and the growing tidal wave of data that crosses borders may soon change.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 22, 2024

Streaming a movie abroad may soon come with taxes at the border

It's still unclear exactly how governments would implement digital tariffs.
The trove of leaked documents show that I-Soon, a private security company competing for Chinese government contracts, had successfully hacked into government offices in India, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea, among others.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 22, 2024

Leak shows China firm hacked foreign governments, activists

The leaked data posted anonymously last week on online software repository GitHub "reveals the maturing nature of China's cyber espionage ecosystem."
The LDP's Takuo Komori stepped down from his post as parliamentary vice minister for internal affairs after it was revealed he had underreported political funds.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 21, 2024

Will the LDP funding scandal change Japanese politics?

What can we learn from the LDP funding scandal? One thing is certain: The saga fits a pattern that is anything but unseen in Japanese politics.
China’s tech firms were caught off guard by breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence — Beijing’s regulations and a sagging economy aren’t helping.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 22, 2024

China’s rush to dominate AI has a twist: It depends on U.S. technology

Even as the United States has tried to slow China’s advancements, it has not held back the practice of openly releasing software to encourage its adoption.
Yurii, 53, and Tetiana, 51, attend a rally of families of Ukrainian prisoners of war  in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Jan. 21.
WORLD
Feb 22, 2024

How life in Ukraine has been shattered by two years of war

Even in remote villages, signs are everywhere of the two-year-old war that has irrevocably changed the face of Ukraine.
Passengers line up for security at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 22, 2024

The five most exciting innovations coming to an airport near you

Updating an existing airport terminal is time-consuming, expensive work that often costs hundreds of millions of dollars — and sometimes billions.
A relative of a missing passenger on MH370, in Beijing on the one year anniversary of the aircraft's disappearance.
WORLD
Feb 23, 2024

A decade after MH370, planes still at risk of vanishing off the map

An industrywide push to eliminate the chances of a similar case has been stymied by bureaucracy and financial pressure.
Ukrainian evacuees arrive at Tokyo's Haneda Airport in April 2022.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 24, 2024

90% of Ukrainian evacuees in Japan unwilling to return home

According to the survey of 153 Ukrainian evacuees last month, only 16, or 10.5%, said they would return home immediately if a cease-fire is reached.
When Fighters interpreter Shinju Sakuma set her mind on becoming a language liaison in sports, she picked a sport she enjoyed watching and an employer who thinks outside the box.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Feb 26, 2024

Rookie female interpreter provides voice for foreign baseball stars in Japan

Shinju Sakuma, who will graduate from Rikkyo University in Tokyo this spring, is believed to be the first female interpreter in NPB history.
Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential candidate, speaks at her election night watch party in Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 26, 2024

Trump campaign dismisses Haley after South Carolina win

The former president has easily swept all five Republican nominating contests thus far, winning states in the Midwest, Northeast, South and West.
Wim Wenders (left) co-wrote the script for “Perfect Days” with top advertising creative Takuma Takasaki. Japanese star Koji Yakusho (right) won best actor at Cannes last year for his performance as the film’s protagonist, a taciturn toilet cleaner in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2024

Oscar-nominated 'Perfect Days' is 'not about toilets,' Wenders says

The director's film about a taciturn cleaner who keeps Tokyo's public toilets spotless prompts reflections on urban solitude, community and growing older.
Sean Bailey, president of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, at his office in Burbank, California
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 27, 2024

Disney reshuffles leadership at troubled namesake movie division

New President David Greenbaum oversaw the release of Oscar nominated "Poor Things" and previous winners such as "The Shape of Water" and "Nomadland."
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft passes over the near side of the Moon following lunar orbit insertion on Feb. 21.
WORLD / Society
Feb 27, 2024

Sideways touchdown to cut mission short for moon lander Odysseus

New details have emerged about testing shortcuts and human error that led to an in-flight failure of the spacecraft's laser-guided range finders.
Hankyu's new PRiVACE carriages will feature spacious seats arranged in three rows, equipped with partitions, reading lights, and power sockets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 27, 2024

Hankyu railway to launch new premium seat service on Kyoto Line

The new PRiVACE carriages will feature spacious seats arranged in three rows, equipped with partitions, reading lights, and power sockets.
U.S. flags are inspected at Valley Forge Flag’s manufacturing facility in Lane, South Carolina on Feb. 22. Almost a third of independent respondents also picked extremism as their top concern in the poll.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 28, 2024

Extremism is U.S. voters' greatest worry, poll finds

The issue is by far the biggest one for Democrats while Republicans are most concerned about immigration.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear