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A person uses a tong with a camera and GPS system attached to pick up litter, part of an initiative to boost participation in collecting trash.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jun 16, 2024

Japan’s gamified environment apps target a greener mindset

Government funding has helped drive a boom in environmental and social app development.
Blackstone will look to grow original content from Infocom’s network of manga artists, developing more works around themes enjoyed by its reader base of women.
BUSINESS
Jun 18, 2024

Blackstone taps steamy romance manga fans in $1.7 billion deal

The deal will allow the world’s largest alternative asset manager to tap into Japan’s digital manga market.
Kamekichi Fujiwara has been making 'New York-style' pizza in Tokyo's Kichijoji neighborhood since 1967.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 30, 2024

At Tony’s Pizza, ‘New York style’ is a state of mind

In 1967, Kamekichi Fujiwara made his first pizza layered with Dutch edam, mozzarella from Germany and Danish Maribo — and it’s what Tony’s Pizza still serves today.
Horror artist Junji Ito adds just a dash of comedy to his work, though he aims for it to be understated. “If it’s truly a horror story, the humor must be restrained and more veiled,” he says.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2024

Fear still matters to Junji Ito

Currently on view at Tokyo's Setagaya Literary Museum is an extensive collection of the horror master's work, the first large-scale exhibition of it's kind in Japan.
Li Genyuan stands by his wheat fields, which form part of an experiment to turn salty land into arable land, in Nanliuhe village, Shandong province, China, in May. Having returned to farming after working for a decade in construction and textiles, he now manages about 67 hectares of fields where corn and soybeans are also grown.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 12, 2024

Xi’s campaign to feed China is turning wasteland into farms

The Chinese president has placed increased emphasis on self-reliance as ties with the West fray and climate change disrupts harvests.
Musician Yuka Noda’s 1989 album “Karibu no Yume: Light Fusion Fantasy” has developed a cult following among jazz fusion fans, and the album is set to be reissued as a CD and record next week.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 19, 2024

Yuka Noda's sonic escape to a balmy yesteryear

The reissue of Noda's 1989 album “Karibu no Yume: Light Fusion Fantasy" underlines a growing interest in bubble-era nostalgia and Japan's jazz and fusion works.
Dai Nippon Printing's "Midokoro viewer" system displays 3D images of cultural assets on a touch screen.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2024

Japan firms working on digital cultural assets

Major printing company Toppan has produced more than 60 virtual reality images since launching its digital cultural assets project in 1997.
Starbucks mobile app shows an error message on Friday. A botched software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike crashed countless Microsoft Windows computer systems globally.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2024

CrowdStrike meltdown and the price of real security

Catastrophic system failure isn’t part of the equation — until it happens. Which will be occurring with increasing frequency in our deeply interconnected world.
Noriko Ohara, best known for providing the voice of Nobita Nobi in the popular anime series "Doraemon," died on July 12 at 88.
JAPAN
Jul 24, 2024

Doraemon's Nobita voice actress dies at 88

Noriko Ohara served as the voice actor for Nobita, the lazy but optimistic boy looked after by robotic earless cat Doraemon, for 26 years from 1979.
Participants of Shomeikai’s Type B employment support workshop take part in a training session at a rental meeting room in the city of Fukuoka in May.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Aug 26, 2024

Welfare workshop helps people with disabilities become IT engineers

Shomeikai leverages on a cutting-edge software development methodology that lets users work in a team and support one another.
Climbers converge in front of Mount Fuji's 5th Station, which leads to the popular Yoshida trail, in Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, on Aug. 11.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Aug 20, 2024

Mount Fuji’s new measures bear fruit in tackling dangerous 'bullet climbing'

Restrictions implemented on the popular Yoshida trail have significantly reduced the number of "bullet climbers" and reduced bad behavior associated with the practice.
Medical professionals and students participate in a silent march as they condemn the rape and murder of a doctor, in Kolkata on Aug. 15.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 21, 2024

'Abuse every day': Female medics in India speak out after brutal murder

The rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata cast a spotlight on the chronic issue of violence against women and the failure to provide safe working conditions for them.
Okayama and Tottori prefectures are some of the least-visited regions in Japan among foreign tourists — which is why they offer such a welcome break from crowd-clogged cities like Tokyo and Kyoto.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 23, 2024

In Japan’s flyover country, 72 hours of hidden gems

Some of Japan’s least-visited prefectures among foreign tourists host opportunities for peace, quiet and rural beauty.
Helmut Engwer and Gerhard Iffert pose for a photo during a Buendnis Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance election campaign rally in Eisenach, Germany, on Aug. 19.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 28, 2024

Eastern Germany's economic success leaves voters cold

Half of east Germans are convinced their region is economically stagnating, a study has shown.
A train carrying steel slabs leaves the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Works steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 29, 2024

Nippon Steel woos U.S. union with extra $1.3 billion investment

The United Steelworkers union has so far opposed a corporate tie-up with U.S. Steel.
Jonah Ndeuludila (right) is studying at Tochigi Prefecture's Asian Rural Institute in order to bring skills back to his job at Namibia's Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 2, 2024

Over half a century, seeds of change grow at a Tochigi farm

Founded by Toshihiro Takami in 1973, ARI promotes organic, subsistence farming methods and the practice of servant leadership.
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.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears at a joint news conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2024

Cabinet shake-up suggests Zelenskyy is planning for ‘new phase of the war,’ analysts say

Observers say the reshuffle, which comes at a dynamic moment in the war, had been in the works for months.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell injected uncertainty as to where future rates will ultimately land during his news conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2024

The Fed’s uncertain destination troubles the bond market

The upshot is that longer-term bond yields don’t have much room to fall in the near-term unless the economy weakens materially.
Gwangju Biennale’s artistic director Nicolas Bourriaud developed the theme “Pansori: A Soundscape of the 21st Century” to make the event “an opera you can walk into.”
CULTURE / Art
Sep 21, 2024

Japan’s art world seeks connection at Gwangju Biennale

At the longest-running contemporary art festival in East Asia, the Japan Pavilion's display nods to historical tensions between Japan and Korea.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 26, 2024

Meta pitches augmented reality glasses as eventual smartphone rival

The firm's Orion prototype glasses, introduced Wednesday, have lenses that can display text messages, video calls and even YouTube videos in the user’s field of vision.
“A Whisper in the Eye of the Storm,” by Canadian artists Caitlind R. C. Brown and Wayne Garrett is an outdoor installation of around 14,000 recycled lenses of varied prescriptions.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 27, 2024

Weather makes for an unpredictable artist at Nagano art festival

Fram Kitagawa’s Northern Alps Art Festival embraces its inconvenient location and the natural elements.
The Federal Reserve building in Washington. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said last week he felt that the pre-pandemic years during which the Fed's rate hovered near zero for years and Europe delved into the exotic world of negative rates are gone for good.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 27, 2024

A global hunt for neutral rates to shape world finance costs

Policymakers are exploring whether the rates required to keep inflation in check and economies growing are higher now than the ultra-low ones before the pandemic.
Zackree Kline works as a manager in a diner and also at a funeral home. "I work every single day of the week. I never have a day off," he said.
WORLD / Society
Oct 5, 2024

One job by day, another by night as U.S. voters make ends meet

Rising costs of living are weighing heavily on voters who want the next president — whoever it may be — to "do the right thing."
Japanese film director Kiyoshi Kurosawa gestures as he poses for photos during a press conference at the 29th Busan International Film Festival.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2024

Japan's 'master of horror' Kiyoshi Kurosawa highlights 'B-movie' appeal

The director, who received the Busan International Film Festival's Filmmaker of the Year Award on Wednesday, said he'd like to see more artists explore genre cinema.
Israeli Army soldiers ride in a humvee convoy in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on Thursday.
WORLD / FOCUS
Oct 13, 2024

'Very challenging': Israel faces Hezbollah in tricky terrain

After pounding Gaza for nearly a year, Israeli forces began "targeted" ground raids on September 30 intended to push back Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.
This year’s T3 Photo Festival features work by contemporary artists such as Fuyuhiko Takata, whose video piece “Cut Suits”shows white-collar workers becoming naked by cutting their business attire off of each other. 
CULTURE / Art
Oct 18, 2024

T3 Photo Festival reflects on past and present of the medium

The Tokyo event marks the 50th anniversary of a landmark New York show of Japanese photography by juxtaposing images from that era with works by contemporary artists.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Huntington Place in Detroit on Friday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 19, 2024

U.S. cities seek to 'Trump-proof' inequality action ahead of election

After the pandemic and protests following the death of George Floyd in 2020, racial and economic inequality moved to the center of federal policymaking.
Rescuers near the rubble of a building that was leveled by an Israeli airstrike in Abbassiyeh, Lebanon, on Friday.
WORLD
Oct 19, 2024

Foreign workers trapped and terrified amid conflict in Lebanon

The International Organization for Migration says Lebanon hosts more than 177,000 migrant workers, primarily from Africa and Asia.
Feminist Women's Health Center employees Sincere Porter, Naomi Desta-Bell, Habeebah Yasin and Kwajelyn Jackson following a vigil and rally for abortion rights and in response to the deaths of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, who died of complications during pregnancy, in Atlanta on Sept. 28.
WORLD / Society
Oct 20, 2024

Advocates hope U.S. election will mark turning point for Black maternal health

Such concerns go beyond abortion rights, an issue that has galvanized women since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022.

Longform

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