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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 2021

Developing young minds for a better future

Many academics and policy pros travel in their own bubbles, seeing only counterparts or folks who pay for the privilege. Who they don't mix with are tomorrow's future leaders.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2021

Harvard’s conservatives shouldn't have to hide behind pseudonyms

Fearing the wrath of cancel culture, conservative writers at Harvard are reluctant put their names on student publications.
BUSINESS / Tech / Longform
Dec 20, 2021

How Twitter moderates content in Japan

Japan's top social media platform is drawing increased scrutiny about its operations, particularly in the wake of several high-profile cyberharassment incidents.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Dec 9, 2021

TSMC leads rush for renewables ahead of Taiwan energy vote

This month, Taiwan will hold a referendum that could have far-reaching effects on the world's supply of semiconductors.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 30, 2021

Taiwanese tycoon speaks out against independence after fines in China

Chinese officials and media made it clear that his companies were penalized because of donations to Taiwan's ruling party.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2021

Can vaccines get rid of long COVID?

The subject of long COVID has also been divisive, with social media full of both support groups and skeptics.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2021

Rupert Murdoch has the power if he wants Trump to move on

To get Trump and his cultists to change their stripes, Murdoch could stop allowing some of Fox's most influential anchors and broadcasters to spew poisonous talking points.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2021

A test for Kishida as South Korea’s presidential hopeful calls for new partnership

A traditional Korean conservative, Yoon Seok-youl is a skeptic of North Korea who supports business and wants to lighten the regulatory burden so that it can innovate and flourish.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 16, 2021

Avoiding battle with daughter over vice presidency, Rodrigo Duterte to seek Senate seat

Sara Duterte-Carpio is set to contest two of the most powerful posts in a country where the family has built considerable political clout.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2021

China’s very distressed developers are also very clever

Developers, attuned to Beijing's fast and furious credit cycles, are once again coming up with naughty if twisty ways to borrow and survive this harsh winter.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2021

When will China flinch and stop the Evergrande meltdown?

If China is at all serious about cutting down its debt, it will have to relent and do something dramatic. Maybe even bail out Evergrande.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 7, 2021

Will mixed expectations on Kishida affect economic security?

Kishida's approval ratings seem to reflect the current mood of the nation's pandemic-frustrated public.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2021

A post-Merkel postmortem

While Angela Merkel pushed the SPD to the left, she vacated so much space on the right that the far-right AfD emerged to take important votes away from the CDU.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 29, 2021

Most Americans want more diplomacy and many fewer troops abroad, survey shows

The poll also found that 42.2% of respondents believe the U.S. military should defend Taiwan if it were attacked by China.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 28, 2021

Taro Kono faces intractable opposition — from his own party

Vicious infighting from the far-right of the LDP could destabilize the next administration, rendering even a popular prime minister practically a lame duck upon election.
Alimentation Couche-Tard’s bid to acquire Japan’s Seven & I Holdings has sparked discussions about Japan’s approach to foreign investment and whether rejecting or accepting the bid reflects an openness to international business.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 4, 2024

7-Eleven deserves more than shareholder supremacy

While Japan should consider investor interests, it should not forsake the broader social and community benefits that its businesses provide.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris at a campaign event at the Throwback Brewery, in North Hampton, New Hampshire, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2024

Harris' debate plan: Call out Trump and create social media moments

Vice President Kamala Harris' team believes many will watch the debate as video clips on social media platforms like TikTok and X.
Ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader and prime minister, Fumio Kishida, attends a campaign event with then-LDP candidate Junko Mihara and lawmaker Shinjiro Koizumi (left) in Kawasaki in July 2022. Koizumi is viewed as a potential front-runner in the party's upcoming leadership contest.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 10, 2024

Japan’s public wants change. Can the ruling party deliver?

The LDP's upcoming leadership contest features a diverse field of candidates, including Shinjiro Koizumi, who is viewed as a potential front-runner.
Men use a stole to cover themselves from the sun as they wait in a line outside a polling station to cast their votes during the sixth phase of India's general election in Bhubaneswar, India, on May 25.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 16, 2024

Surviving a climate disaster isn’t likely to change how you vote

If people are in fact casting ballots based on their experiences of disasters, it appears to be a small number of them.
Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba reacts during a news conference ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election in Tokyo on Sept. 6.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Sep 24, 2024

Why is Shigeru Ishiba so unpopular among his LDP peers?

The former defense minister is highly regarded among the public and local chapters of the ruling party, but it's a different story when it comes to LDP lawmakers.
A gas station damaged by Hurricane Helene in Perry, Florida, on Sept. 27. Extreme weather and climate change are exposing the flaws in how we handle hazardous waste.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 3, 2024

Toxic waste is at the mercy of climate change

Among Hurricane Helene’s roster of disasters is a storm surge that deluged a retired nuclear power plant in Florida. While radioactive material there remains secure, according to operator Duke Energy, one of the plant’s industrial wastewater ponds overflowed amid the flood. With luck, any resulting...
Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister and founder of the Georgian Dream party, waves during a pro-government rally in support of a bill regarding "foreign agents" in Tbilisi, Georgia, on April 29.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 22, 2024

Georgia's shark-owning billionaire tells voters: Don't risk war with Russia

Memories are fresh of a 2008 war with Russia over the Moscow-backed breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which lasted five days and ended in Georgia's defeat.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party looks set for a bruising election night. The question for its leader, Shigeru Ishiba, is how bad the damage will be.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 23, 2024

Ishiba and the LDP race to stem the electoral bleeding

Weeks into Shigeru Ishiba's premiership and mere days out from a general election, red alert signals are sounding in Tokyo’s corridors of power.
Wang Huning, Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, attends a high-level meeting on industrialization and agricultural modernization with African leaders at the National Convention Center in Beijing on Sept. 5.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 26, 2024

The man who shaped China’s strongman rule has a new job: winning Taiwan

Xi Jinping’s top adviser, Wang Huning, is credited with shaping the authoritarianism that steered China’s rise. But can he influence Taiwan?
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba bows to Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers during a news conference at the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Monday, a day after the party recorded disappointing results in the Lower House election.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 29, 2024

A disastrous poll puts Japan politics on shaky path

The Japanese public was crying out for change, but Ishiba entirely failed to offer it, instead using warmed-over catchphrases from Kishida.
A handful of cases that have already reached the U.S. Supreme Court may herald the beginning of what legal experts expect would be a wave of litigation after the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, in particular if Donald Trump loses again in a race that opinion polls indicate is very tight.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Nov 2, 2024

U.S. Supreme Court girds for rush of election-related litigation

Following the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden, Donald Trump and his allies brought a storm of legal cases challenging the outcome.
As the European Commission prepares to make decisions on Google’s practices by the end of 2024, there is hope for a collaborative approach with U.S. regulators to create meaningful structural reforms.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2024

Google’s breakup needs an international tag team

There’s a growing consensus among regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to redefine antitrust harm beyond just pricing issues.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Aug. 20 and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Aug. 15
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2024

Harris makes last-minute appeals while Trump embraces violent rhetoric

Opinion polls show Donald Trump and Kamala Harris locked in a tight presidential race.
A post-election analysis by the polling company Blueprint discovered that the top reason why American swing voters eventually supported Donald Trump over Kamal Harris was culture (+28) followed by inflation (+23).
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2024

It’s too soon to say wokeism is dead

The Republicans ran the most unwoke man in America for the presidency, Donald Trump, and were amply rewarded for it.
Retired pro-boxer Mike Tyson and YouTuber/boxer Jake Paul fight during the heavyweight boxing bout in Arlington, Texas, on Nov. 15. The fight highlights the need for a national boxing commission to enforce uniform safety standards and prevent exploitative matchups.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2024

Mike Tyson and Jake Paul's fight should have been illegal

Among major American sports, boxing is unique for its decentralized structure. There’s no annual schedule, season, commissioner or mandatory rulemaking body.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’