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In September, world leaders will meet in New York for the United Nation's Summit of the Future to strengthen international cooperation on digital technology and innovation, as well as development financing, security, employment and gender equality.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2024

The U.N. is charting a new course for our technology future

By closing digital and data divides through international cooperation, we can foster a technology culture that addresses global challenges.
A glittering cast of Tokyoites comes together in a collection of dreamlike vignettes in Atsuhiro Yoshida’s novella “Goodnight Tokyo.”
CULTURE / Books
Aug 21, 2024

'Goodnight Tokyo': Late-night search for meaning become magical in the big city

Atsuhiro Yoshida's novella, composed of intersecting vignettes, is a fitting introduction to an atmospheric, visually adept writer known for his quirky worldbuilding.
A recruiter holding a placard advertising jobs talks to young men at an unofficial job market in the suburbs of Beijing.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Aug 21, 2024

China's rising youth unemployment breeds new working class

Millions of graduates are being pushed into a tough bargain, with some forced to accept low-paying work or even subsist on their parents' pensions.
British hard rock outfit Bring Me the Horizon delivered a dramatic set that featured a surprise appearance from local metal-meets-idol group Babymetal.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 23, 2024

Summer Sonic: The heat doesn’t matter when the lineup works

Where would you see a bill with Maneskin, Gen Hoshino, Christina Aguilera and Bring Me the Horizon in the prime slots? At a sold-out music festival, that’s where.
The 2024 Kentaro Kaneko Award ceremony will be held Oct. 15 at the International House of Japan in Tokyo’s Minato Ward.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 24, 2024

America-Japan Society announces recipients of 2024 Kentaro Kaneko Award

This year's Kentaro Kaneko Award celebrating achievements in furthering U.S.-Japan relations goes to a volunteer, an educator and a legendary musician.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at a news conference in Warsaw on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 23, 2024

Indian PM Modi set to visit Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy

The visit, which follows a trip by Modi to Moscow in July, is important for Western-backed Kyiv.
Traditionally seen as a cautionary tale of collapse due to overpopulation, recent research suggests that Easter Island's population was likely small and that they adapted to environmental challenges through innovative agricultural practices.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2024

Easter Island collapse gets the fresh look it deserves

Once viewed as a cautionary tale of overpopulation, recent research suggests Easter Island's population was small and adapted through innovative agriculture practices.
Apple TV+ series “Pachinko” follows four generations of a Korean immigrant family as they move through the 20th century.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Aug 26, 2024

Masterful and stirring, ‘Pachinko’ returns with more depth

The immersive historical drama is collaborative art at its very best — instead of offering tidy answers, it asks the most profound questions of our times.
The new V Point program offers a feature allowing members to earn double reward points when making payments with credit cards.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Aug 26, 2024

New V Point spurs corporate economic bloc race in Japan

Competition among corporate groups in Japan is intensifying further as they strive to expand their economic influence through shared reward points.
An ISIS flag hangs in the bombed-out remains of a palace that militants used as a headquarters in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 26, 2024

Islamic State supporters turn to AI to bolster online support

Digital experts say groups like IS and far-right movements are increasingly using AI online and testing the limits of safety controls on social media platforms.
Despite changing attitudes toward office attire, with younger generations pushing for more casual dress codes, traditional views on professional attire persist.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2024

Shorts at the office? Go for it.

Despite changing attitudes toward office attire, with younger generations pushing for more casual dress codes, traditional views on professional attire persist.
Yoko Tawada's novella “Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel” is something of an intellectual love letter to a poet who greatly influenced the author.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 28, 2024

'Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel': Yoko Tawada's work defies comparison

The author's latest book to be translated into English is simply Tawadaesque: peerless, unique and incomparable.
Naomi Osaka serves during her match against Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of the U.S. Open on Tuesday in New York.
TENNIS
Aug 28, 2024

Tearful Osaka triumphs in U.S. Open return

Osaka cruised in her first round match while wearing a Harajuku-inspired outfit that quickly attracted attention on social media.
Political polarization in the U.S. is fueling domestic social divisions, eroding democratic norms and leading to a more self-centered U.S. foreign policy that threatens the global liberal order.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Aug 28, 2024

The transformation of American liberalism

Liberalism in the U.S. is the product of overextending the idea of individual autonomy, resulting in selfishness, and, at the same time, a return to traditional morality.
Full-time homemaker Momoko (Noriko Eguchi, left, with Kotaro Koizumi) finds her world falling apart in Yukihiro Morigaki’s “Rude to Love.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2024

‘Rude to Love’ gives Noriko Eguchi her tour de force moment

The perennially underused actress gives a bravura performance as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Yukihiro Morigaki's drama.
A grandmother fights back when the angry ghost of a social recluse starts killing off family members in “House of Sayuri.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 29, 2024

'House of Sayuri': J-horror fights ghosts with pitch-black humor

Koji Shiraishi’s horror comedy matches the darkness of the deeds on display with a fiery grandma who takes on a wicked spirit with her tai chi skills.
Gen. Waker-uz-Zaman, Bangladesh's army chief, arrives at Dhaka International Airport to receive Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on Aug. 8 to lead the country's interim government.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 29, 2024

Will Bangladesh go the way of Pakistan?

The Islamist resurgence poses a serious law-and-order challenge in Bangladesh, as it has long done in Pakistan.
At Sushi Kadowaki, a full list of New World wines offers a new way to enjoy a classic Japanese meal.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Kanpai Culture
Sep 1, 2024

To accompany your counter sushi, why not try a New World wine?

Chef Takatoshi Kadowaki isn't afraid to recommend a California wine to accompany your premium sushi dinner.
The protagonist of “The Colors Within” is Totsuko (voiced by Sayu Suzukawa), a cheerful young woman who views the world in a unique way: Everyone she sees gives off their own distinct color that represents their personality.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 30, 2024

'The Colors Within' tunes into everyday moments of love

Director Naoko Yamada's new anime film, which explores themes of acceptance and communication without words, was born from a creative relationship of complete trust.
Hiroshi Sunairi’s documentary “From Okinawa with Love” follows the unwavering Okinawan photographer Mao Ishikawa, who made her name documenting the relationships between Japanese bar girls and African American servicemen.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 30, 2024

‘From Okinawa with Love’: A revealing documentary about a true original

Hiroshi Sunairi takes a fly-on-the-wall approach to explore the life of Mao Ishikawa, who photographed Okinawans and the effects of the U.S. military.
Yoko Ogawa’s latest novel to be translated into English, “Mina’s Matchbox,” is like a playground for the author’s interest in particular details: the subtleties of striking matches, playing volleyball and searching for typos, to name a few.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 1, 2024

Yoko Ogawa's 'Mina’s Matchbox' sparkles with quiet intimacy

The latest novel in translation from one of Japan's most eclectic writers leans toward magical realism while reveling in the minutiae of an affluent family's life.
Hayao Miyazaki at an award ceremony in Los Angeles in November 2014
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2024

Hayao Miyazaki wins prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award

The award, often called Asia's Nobel Prize, is given to people and groups who have made major contributions to the region.
The challenge for Australia’s Indigenous communities that dot a harsh, sprawling landmass is how to mesh their thousands of years of cultural traditions that guide everyday life with today’s economic realities.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2024

60,000 years of history is facing economic reality

Both big business and governments have a role to play to improve the lives of Australia’s First Nations citizens.
A food delivery worker rides through Shenzhen's Futian district in May 2022.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 3, 2024

China's economic malaise seen accelerating obesity rates

Job stress, long work hours and poor diets are growing high-risk factors in cities, while in rural areas, agriculture work is becoming less physically demanding.
Hiromi Kawakami’s “Under the Eye of the Big Bird” takes place in a future where humans have developed genetic mutations that allow them to read minds and have powers of prescience.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 3, 2024

'Under the Eye of the Big Bird': Hiromi Kawakami's speculative future sets civilization adrift

The author reimagines sexual reproduction, family ties and societal roles in a passionless world that is neither a dystopia nor an improvement on reality.
Lee Ha-yeon, a recognized kimchi grand master and her apprentices prepare kimchi at the Kimchi Culture Institute in Namyangju, South Korea, on Aug 21.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 4, 2024

Kimchi no more? Climate change puts South Korea's beloved cabbage dish at risk

Data from the government statistics agency shows the area of highland cabbage farmed last year was less than half of what it was 20 years ago.
Mylene de Joya Garcia-Albano
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / The Big Questions
Sep 4, 2024

Philippine envoy highlights climate and smart farms

A native of the Philippine city of Davao, Mylene de Joya Garcia-Albano arrived in Tokyo in December 2022 as ambassador of the Philippines to Japan.
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.
Weighting the total number of medals won by each country by value — three points for gold, two for silver and one for bronze — reveals that the 12 countries with the highest medal count in Paris are all advanced economies.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2024

The geopolitics of Olympic medals

A larger population offers a broader talent pool, and economic development supports better sports infrastructure and policies.
A young woman visiting a rural backwater from Tokyo (An Ogawa) finds an unlikely playmate in Tatsunari Ota’s “There Is a Stone.”
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2024

‘There Is a Stone’ finds beauty in the inconsequential

While very little happens, Tatsunari Ota’s slow-moving debut feature offers stirring moments of simplicity.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person