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A woman casts her vote during parliamentary elections in Qom, Iran, in March 2012. Regime change in the Islamic country is harder than many think, but it has the institutions needed for democracy if it happens.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2025

Iran is more prepared for democracy than many realize

Some commentators, like the economist Nouriel Roubini and the Stanford political scientist Abbas Milani, see regime change as plausible or imminent.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to punish Brazil with tariffs to protect former President Jair Bolsonaro is just one sign that the far right is shifting from rhetoric to real cross-border solidarity that undermines democratic norms.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2025

Trump is trying to build a far-right international alliance

There has been a lack of concrete solidarity among populist leaders. But Trump is changing that in his second term.
A Japanese employee of Astellas Pharma, sentenced to three years and six months in prison for espionage in China, did not appeal the ruling by Monday's deadline, according to officials at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jul 29, 2025

Astellas employee makes no appeal against conviction in China

A Chinese court said he had been paid to provide information on China's politics and economy to intelligence agencies.
Mika Horii (left) and Jane Su record an episode of “Over the Sun” at TBS Broadcasting Center in Tokyo’s Akasaka area. The show draws 1.5 million monthly plays.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 31, 2025

'Over the Sun': A podcast for Japanese women who’ve lived a little

In their hit podcast “Over the Sun,” hosts Jane Su and Mika Horii turn everyday chats into a cultural phenomenon.
A pair of Japanese soldiers (Shinichi Tsutsumi, left, and Yuki Yamada, right) stay up a tree rather than standing down after the end of World War II in “Army on the Tree.”
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2025

'Army on the Tree': World War II film leans into absurdist theater

Among the films that commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II this year, Kazuhiro Taira’s film adapted from a play stands out for its lack of iffy politics.
Hun Sen speaks at a press conference at the National Assembly after a vote to confirm his son, Hun Manet, as Cambodia's prime minister in Phnom Penh on August 22, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 31, 2025

Cambodia's Hun Sen at the helm in border conflict with Thailand

The former leader played an outsized role in events leading up to the deadliest fighting between Thailand and Cambodia in over a decade.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has been weakened by domestic setbacks and uncertain U.S. support as he tries to balance pressure from Beijing and political opposition at home.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2025

Taiwan’s president is running out of options

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te is battling internal strife while navigating an unpredictable trade war with Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the White House in Washington on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 1, 2025

Trump embraces economic coercion with tariffs as his big stick

The U.S. president road-tested the hardball tactic in his first term. Now he’s taken it to new levels.
South Korea's former first lady Kim Keon Hee, wife of impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, arrives at the special prosecutor's office in Seoul on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 6, 2025

South Korea's former first lady questioned in probe over bribe allegations

Investigators are looking into issues ranging from allegations Kim Keon Hee received a luxury handbag to suspicions she was involved in a stock manipulation scheme.
The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, is on display at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in Virginia after restoration in August 2003.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 6, 2025

Were the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings necessary?

Was it necessary to drop the bombs on civilian population centers to demonstrate the power of the weapons?
A port in the western state of Gujarat, India
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 7, 2025

India-U.S. spat over trade and oil threatens wider fallout

The tension could derail other areas of cooperation as domestic political pressures drive both sides to harden their stances, analysts say.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during an interview at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 7, 2025

Lula sees no point in talking tariffs with Trump

"I won't humiliate myself," the Brazilian president says as 50% U.S. tariffs on goods from the Latin American country kicked in.
U.S. President Donald Trump (right) meets with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on April 14.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 7, 2025

U.S. to ease criticism of El Salvador, Israel and Russia, says report

The Trump administration has increasingly moved away from the traditional promotion of democracy and human rights.
Stephen Miran, in a paper he co-authored last year for the Manhattan Institute, laid out a case for increasing presidential control of the Fed board, including by shortening members' terms.
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2025

Trump picks Stephen Miran to fill open spot on Fed board

Miran, who has called for a complete overhaul of the Fed's governance, would take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week.
The U.S. State Department's 2024 Human Rights Report was delayed for months as appointees of President Donald Trump altered an earlier draft dramatically to bring it in line with "America First" values, according to government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 13, 2025

U.S. State Department softens criticism of some countries in human rights report

The 2024 Human Rights Report's section on Israel was much shorter than last year's edition and made no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis or death toll in the Gaza Strip.
Shinto priests holding traditional umbrellas walk to the main shrine for a ritual to cleanse themselves during the annual Spring Festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in April 2016.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 13, 2025

Dispelling the myth of Yasukuni Shrine

The shrine has been a lightning rod — especially as it has been used by some of Japan's neighbors as a convenient means to shift attention away from their domestic issues.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba at the White House in Washington on Feb. 7.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 14, 2025

After serving as bulwark for 80 years, Japan's U.S. ties continue to evolve

Under the U.S. security alliance, Japan has contained potential expansion of the Soviet communist bloc and China's hegemonic ambitions since the end of World War II.
David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, speaks during a summit in Sydney in March.
BUSINESS / Markets / ANALYSIS
Aug 15, 2025

Trump's attack on Goldman could prompt watering down of Wall Street's independent analysis

The reams of research that banks such as Goldman produce are used by institutional investors, such as hedge funds and asset managers, in deciding how to allocate capital.
Canada's Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre, speaks at a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in May.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 16, 2025

Canada conservative leader mounts comeback after Trump-linked defeat

Pierre Poilievre, who is running to reclaim a seat in Canada's parliament next week, was on track to be prime minister until Donald Trump upended Canadian politics.
Demonstrators burn a Rising Sun flag featuring a portrait of Hideki Tojo, former leader of Japan's Imperial Army and prime minister during World War II, outside the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong in September 2015.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025

Continued demands for an apology ignore Japan’s postwar progress

As the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end nears, demands for renewed Japanese apologies risk empowering authoritarian narratives, especially from China.
Brazil players pose for a team group photo before the World Cup qualifying match against Paraguay in Sao Paulo on June 10.
SOCCER
Aug 20, 2025

Brazil nixes red World Cup jersey amid political outcry

The controversy emerged back in April in a press leak that the national side would don red shirts made by Nike for its away jersey in the World Cup next year.
Students visit the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park in late April. Attitudes in Japan are shifting away from the traditional pacifist views that have held sway since the end of World War II.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 20, 2025

Trump shock spurs Japan to think about the unthinkable: nuclear arms

There is a growing willingness to loosen the country’s decades-old pledge not to produce, possess or host nuclear weapons in its territory.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the economy in the Oval Office on Aug. 7. From immigration to the Fed, Trump is making risky moves that could undo his wins while Democrats double down on policies that so far are not working.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2025

On economic policy, the White House is its own worst enemy

The White House needs to calm down and choose consolidation over controversy and chaos while the Democratic Party must dump, not just downplay, its plainly unpopular positions.
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.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 22, 2025

From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past

One man’s experience traces the capital's arc from wartime devastation to modern megacity in a story of resilience and reinvention.
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 22, 2025

Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?

With smaller, more ideologically unified parties gaining voter support, some critics say the LDP should split into different groups.
A measles alert sign is posted outside the entrance to the Cohen Children's Medical Center in New York in March.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2025

‘Alternative facts’ aren't a reason to skip vaccines

Donald Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 26, 2025

Trump suggests many Americans 'like a dictator'

Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump of pushing presidential power way past its constitutional limits.
Elon Musk (left) in Los Angeles in 2024 and Open AI CEO Sam Altman in Seoul in February. Elon Musk's companies xAI and X filed a sweeping U.S. antitrust lawsuit on Monday against Apple and OpenAI, alleging the tech giants formed an illegal partnership to stifle competition in artificial intelligence and smartphone markets.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2025

Musk sues Apple and OpenAI, saying they hurt AI competition

Musk is alleging the tech giants formed an illegal partnership to inhibit rivalry and innovation in artificial intelligence and smartphone markets.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks next to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Terry Cole, Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), during the signing of executive orders by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Monday.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 26, 2025

U.S. weighing sanctions on EU officials implementing Digital Services Act

The law aims to make the online environment safer, in part by compelling tech giants to tackle illegal content such as hate speech and child sexual abuse material.
Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi addresses the media in front of a screen showing India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center) and Home Minister Amit Shah at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Aug. 7, ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the Indian state of Bihar.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 26, 2025

India's election commission faces claim of vote-rigging ahead of state poll

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said his party lost dozens of seats in the 2024 parliamentary elections as voter rolls were manipulated to favor the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

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