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LIFE / Food & Drink / Longform
Oct 3, 2022

What Japan’s iconic beef can teach us about ‘soft power’

The upcoming u2018Wagyu Olympics' in Kagoshima Prefecture is expected to create much-needed buzz about the industry among consumers at home and abroad.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Feb 18, 2022

Beijing got all ready for Olympic curling. But about the ice …

The ice makers of Olympic curling are part physicist, part meteorologist, part engineer. They know that creating a stage for a world-class event is all about the process.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2021

What inflation in 2022 will teach us about capitalism

Since the 1980s, capitalism has evolved to keep inflation under control. The risk now is that capitalism has embarked on a regime change.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 18, 2021

Sapporo faces uphill battle convincing public about 2030 Winter Games bid

About half of all respondents to a 2014 survey said they were worried about how much the Games would cost. A lot has changed since then.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2021

What’s worst about omicron so far is the uncertainty

How should the world respond to omicron? We just have to wait as there is information that we don't yet have. And for many, the waiting itself is the problem.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (third from left) visits a navy base in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran. U.S. President Joe Biden is being urged to attack Iran directly, but that may not be the right solution.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2024

Biden’s air strikes won’t work, nor would hitting Iran

Deterrence, especially as it pertains to air strikes, isn’t only about what U.S. does, but also what Iran thinks.
The U.S and Japan are working together to secure a stable semiconductor supply chain and maintain their leading position in this critical technology amid concerns over China.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 5, 2024

Semiconductors are back to center stage in the Japan-U.S. alliance

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of semiconductors to the 21st century. They’re everywhere and in every digital item.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the Manhattan Supreme Court on the sixth day of the hush-money trial against him on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 24, 2024

Ex-tabloid CEO says he bought and killed stories about Trump affairs

The National Enquirer's ex-CEO said he deliberately didn't publish stories about Donald Trump's affairs to help the former president's 2016 election.
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Russian nationals, including Artyom Dultsev, Anna Dultseva, convicted of spying in Slovenia, and their children at 
an airport in Moscow on Thursday following a prisoner exchange with Western countries.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2024

Russia’s prisoner trade says all you need to know about Putin

Among those released to Russia were people convicted by independent courts of cybercrimes, insider trading and breaking sanctions.
U.S. voters are increasingly concerned about misinformation spreading the good-old-fashioned way — through politicians sowing falsehoods.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 4, 2024

More than AI misinformation, U.S. voters worry about lying politicians

Politicians face almost no legal consequences for distorting the truth, researchers say.
While tariffs and value-added taxes seem similar, a VAT would be a more effective, long-term solution for boosting the U.S. economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2025

Europe’s VAT hurts the U.S.? Retaliate with a VAT.

Maybe misconceptions about tariffs and trade can be turned to America’s advantage.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 5, 2025

Ishiba says he plans to speak to Trump about tariffs in coming days

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that these talks could see Japan offer a fresh investment package, though he ruled out a small, piecemeal deal.
Tariffs, and the risk they pose to both the economy and inflation, have been the focus of global attention.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 20, 2025

First shock waves of Trump’s tariffs are about to hit the world economy

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is set to lower its outlook for economic growth in new projections released on Tuesday.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (center) attends a news conference at the Capitol on May 22 after the House narrowly passed a sweeping budget bill that some worry could add trillions to the country's deficit over the next decade.
COMMENTARY
May 28, 2025

The U.S. is about to discover if deficits actually matter

It turns out that this pattern — the bigger the debt, the less likely politicians are to address it — is lurking in the data, and not just in the U.S.
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.
The rubble of a home in Lahaina, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, on Aug. 16
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 14, 2023

China sows disinformation about Hawaii fires using new techniques

False posts carrying images apparently made using artificial intelligence put China among the first to have used these tools in such a campaign.
Apart from the direct economic costs, governments that conspire to thwart the dollar system risk losing America’s security guarantees as well.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2023

The greenback’s full-spectrum dominance is here to stay

Debates about the future of the international monetary system often fail to appreciate the greenback’s full-spectrum dominance.
Demonstrators rally against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Buffalo, New York, in February 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2023

It’s past time scientists admitted their COVID-19 mistakes

In 2019, 13% of Americans were distrustful enough to say they weren’t confident in scientists to act in the public’s best interest. Now it is 27%.
Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 16, 2024

Anxious over funding delay, Pacific island nations warn about China

The additional amount currently needed is a relatively small $2.3 billion.
A woman pays her respects at a makeshift memorial in front of the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Friday, a week after a deadly attack by gunmen there killed at least 143 people.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2024

Putin's conspiracy theories make Russians less safe

The Kremlin hopes that blaming Kyiv and the West for the attack will turn a difficult domestic political situation to its advantage.
This proliferation of American alliances is not tangential, but central to the foreign policy of U.S. President Joe Biden.
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2024

America has many allies. Maybe too many.

This proliferation of American alliances is not tangential, but central to the foreign policy of President Joe Biden.
A construction worker during a heat wave in Folsom, California.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 25, 2024

What the temperature doesn’t tell you about extreme heat’s hazards

After its nationwide rollout in April, the HeatRisk forecasting tool is getting a real-world test as deadly temperatures stress much of the U.S.
China's strategic government support has enabled it to lead in the production and supply chains for renewable technologies, including wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2024

What happens when China becomes the green tech superpower?

What should be of more concern is the “soft power” that Beijing will acquire by mastering the green tech sector.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during a joint news conference in Helsinki on July 16, 2018
WORLD / Politics
Jan 30, 2025

Analysts are skeptical about U.S. and Russia's nuclear talks

Moscow, in particular, seems to have no interest in reducing its arsenal of nuclear warheads as its invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth year next month.
Taiwanese supporters celebrate at a victory parade marking Taiwan's win in the WBSC Premier 12 baseball championship in Taipei on Nov. 26. Taiwan calls itself a sovereign nation but has stopped short of formally declaring independence.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 17, 2025

Taiwan welcomes 'positive' wording on U.S. government website about island

The U.S. State Department has removed from its website a phrase saying Washington does "not support Taiwan independence."
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event in Miami Beach, Florida, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 20, 2025

Trump's approval rating slips as Americans worry about the economy

The share of Americans who think the economy is on the wrong track rose to 53% in the latest poll from 43% in the Jan. 24 to 26 poll.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addresses the audience during a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 5, 2025

U.S. will know within weeks if Russia is serious about peace, Rubio says

The statement comes as European allies accuse Moscow of stalling over the Trump administration's call for a ceasefire.
A woman looks at cranes and shipping containers from an observation platform at Pyeongtaek port in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on April 2.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 9, 2025

Trump optimistic after call about tariffs with South Korea

South Korea's trade minister is traveling to Washington to meet U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for tariff negotiations.
Police clash with protesters who had shut down Highway 101 in Los Angeles on June 8. Misleading photographs, videos and text have spread widely on social media as protests against immigrant raids have unfolded in Los Angeles, rehashing old conspiracy theories.
WORLD
Jun 14, 2025

U.S. adversaries fuel disinformation about LA protests

The findings from researchers illustrate how foreign adversaries of the United States are exploiting deep divisions in American society as a tactic of information warfare.
Silver Dania, a Norwegian-owned ship suspected of cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea, whose crew are Russian citizens, in the port of Tromso, Norway, where it has been brought for investigation, on Jan. 31.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 22, 2025

Lawmakers want U.S. tech CEOs to address concerns about submarine cables

Washington has been sounding the alarm about the network of more than 400 subsea cables that handle 99% of international internet traffic and about threats from China and Russia.

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.