Search - 2021

 
 
“Light Court” (2024) is based on the “Lightcourt” space at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by metabolist architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007).
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2025

Yuki Harada's contemplative artworks ponder vanishing

The artist spent time researching Japanese migrants who left Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures for Hawaii, and the U.S. island state often features in his art.
An Afghan woman sits with her children along the roadside in Kandahar on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 10, 2025

Pakistan to force tens of thousands of Afghan refugees out of the capital

Pakistan has ordered Afghan refugees in Islamabad to leave by March 31, as Trump’s refugee ban leaves thousands in limbo.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a joint news conference with the President of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Kyiv on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 12, 2025

Zelenskyy offers land swaps as Russia heartens Trump with prisoner release

The Ukrainian president said he was ready to trade land in Russia's Kursk region which Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive last year.
The International Criminal Court is pursuing arrest warrants for Taliban leaders accused of human rights abuses against Afghan women and girls, but legal and political obstacles complicate the process.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2025

The long road to justice for Afghan women

Afghan women and girls need every bit of global support they can get to push back against the Taliban’s unhinged misogyny.
Xuan, a Vietnamese migrant, speaks during an interview in London.
WORLD
Feb 13, 2025

'Trapped': Vietnamese slavery victim's ordeal on U.K. dope farm

Vietnamese migrants are among the most exposed to modern slavery, with more than 1,000 presumed victims reported to British authorities in 2023.
Leaders of patients' groups submit signatures opposing the move by the government to raise the medical copayment ceiling on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2025

Japan to rethink medical copayment hike amid patient outcry

Many patients, especially those undergoing costly but effective cancer therapy, say a hike might force them to abandon their treatments.
Ravens kicker Justin Tucker has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple massage therapists in Baltimore.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Feb 17, 2025

Seven more women accuse Ravens kicker Justin Tucker of sexual misconduct

Tucker has strongly denied wrongdoing both in a post on X and in a formal statement via his attorneys.
Former digital minister Taro Kono has long counted reform of social security and pensions among his pet policies.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 17, 2025

It’s time to get serious on the pension system, ex-digital minister says

The pension study group offers Taro Kono an opportunity to tentatively step back into the limelight after an unusually quiet period.
The Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia on July 1, 2016
WORLD
Feb 20, 2025

In Russia, dozens of dissenters are held as psychiatric patients

The practice carries echoes of a method of control used widely in the Soviet Union and known as "punitive psychiatry."
U.S. President Donald Trump is seen on a TV screen in Kabul. Trump’s first term resulted in talks that eventually led to the Taliban’s return to power, but this time around, Afghans hope that the president will take a tough stance against the brutal regime.  
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2025

What Trump’s return could mean for Afghanistan

Despite Afghan refugees being denied admission to the U.S., at least for now, there is hope that the new Trump administration will undermine the brutal Taliban regime in Kabul.
The People's Liberation Army Navy's Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, part of a flotilla sailing inside Australia's exclusive economic zone on Wednesday, is seen at an undisclosed location in this image taken on Feb. 11.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 26, 2025

'Provocative' Chinese warship near Australia puts Japan on notice

Canberra surmised that China's military moves were intended to “shape the responses of those in the region and observe and learn from our reactions.”
Xiaobaodang Coal Mine, in Shaanxi province, China, in 2023. China, which mines and burns half the world’s coal, is facing swelling inventories of the fuel.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 3, 2025

Coal’s four-year lows hide a coming global supply squeeze

Demand for the fuel continues to rise in India and China, outpacing breakneck rates of expansion in solar and wind.
To achieve a stable supply chain and propel semiconductor innovation, Japan's government and chipmakers are increasingly building bridges with foreign firms.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Mar 3, 2025

Japan is no island when it comes to semiconductors. Rightly so.

To achieve a stable supply chain and propel semiconductor innovation, Japan's government and chipmakers are increasingly building bridges with foreign firms.
Lithuania will become the first country in the EU to leave a multilateral arms regulation agreement when it withdraws on March 6.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 4, 2025

Lithuania to walk out on global disarmament treaty

Lithuania's controversial move comes at a time of heightened tensions in international relations over its neighbor Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Jewish settlers pray in the Evyatar settler outpost in the northern West Bank last July
WORLD / Politics
Mar 10, 2025

Christians press Trump to clear path for Israel to annex West Bank

Some 80% of white, evangelical Christians voted for President Trump. Now, some want a policy change that could undermine a future Palestinian state.
Naoya Inoue celebrates after winning a fight in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2019. Inoue has fought eight times in Japan since his last overseas bout, a KO against Michael Dasmarinas in Las Vegas in June 2021.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 13, 2025

Naoya Inoue to end four-year Las Vegas absence against Ramon Cardenas

The 31-year-old, known as "Monster," will defend his undisputed super bantamweight world titles in his first fight outside of Japan since 2021.
Thames Water's Beddington Sewage Treatment Works near Croydon, south London, on Friday. Thames Water, and other British water companies privatized since 1989, are under fire for allowing the discharge of large quantities of sewage into rivers and the sea.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 15, 2025

A stain on Britain: Sewage contaminates its waterways and seas

Failings with the most basic services in British society, such as water and sewage, have been harming the broader U.K. economy.
Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 17, 2025

The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo

Thirty years after Aum Shinrikyo attacked Tokyo’s subways, the nation continues to prepare for the unthinkable.
An aerial view of Thames Water's Beddington Sewage Treatment Works near Croydon, south London on Friday. Thames Water — and other British water companies privatized since 1989 — are under fire for allowing the discharge of large quantities of sewage into rivers and the sea.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 17, 2025

A stain on Britain: Sewage contaminates its waterways and seas

The pollution affects the seafood and tourism industries, while delaying construction projects and hampering the economy.
Bengals wide receivers Tee Higgins (left) and Ja'Marr Chase celebrate a Higgins touchdown in the third quarter against the Los Angeles Chargers on Nov. 17, 2024.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Mar 17, 2025

Bengals signing receivers Chase and Higgins to four-year deals

Chase's annual average salary of $40.25 million sets the league record for most lucrative for a non-quarterback.
Okayama goalkeeper Svend Brodersen reaches for the ball against Urawa's Thiago Santana (front) at Saitama Stadium on March 8.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 18, 2025

Manga-loving German goalkeeper finds peace, and himself, in Japan

Svend Brodersen moved to Japan in 2021 and now plays for top-tier J. League side Fagiano Okayama, but he admits that initially he felt like he was "on another planet."
Naomi Osaka serves against Hailey Baptiste at the Miami Open on Saturday.
TENNIS
Mar 23, 2025

Zverev, Sabalenka and Osaka all advance at Miami Open

Osaka prevailed 7-6 (6), 3-6, 6-4 against American wildcard Hailey Baptiste and will play Italian sixth seed Jasmine Paolini.
William Lu, president and partner of Xiaomi, presents the new Xiaomi 15 series ahead of the 2025 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on March 2.
BUSINESS
Mar 25, 2025

Xiaomi raises $5.5 billion in upsized Hong Kong share sale

Xiaomi has been investing aggressively in its nascent EV business to drive growth and recently increased its 2025 delivery target.
Now-U.S. President Donald Trump during a interview at his private club Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, on March, 4, 2024. Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with falsehoods, and now he and those around him are using false claims to justify their policy changes.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 25, 2025

In his second term, Trump fuels a ‘machinery’ of misinformation

The president and his advisers have ushered the United States into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.
Rengo President Tomoko Yoshino speaks at a Democratic Party for the People convention in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, on Feb. 11.
BUSINESS / WOMEN AT WORK
Apr 6, 2025

Breaking with tradition: From the shop floor to fighting for millions

Tomoko Yoshino has rubbed shoulders with political heavyweights and business leaders as the first female leader of Rengo.
Myanmar's junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 28, 2025

Myanmar junta chief to make rare trip abroad to Bangkok

Since seizing power in a February 2021 coup, Min Aung Hlaing has mostly only traveled to close allies Russia and China.
Rescue personnel work at the site of a building that collapsed following a strong earthquake, in Bangkok on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 30, 2025

In Bangkok, grim vigils as people seek word of relatives at collapsed building

Eight bodies were recovered from the scene Friday but only one Saturday.
A woman cries while offering morning prayers to start the Eid al-Fitr festival in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Monday, three days after a powerful quake hit the Southeast Asian nation.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 31, 2025

Rescue hopes fading three days after deadly Myanmar quake

Intense heat, with temperatures reaching as high as 40 C, has exhausted rescue workers and accelerated body decomposition, which could complicate identification.
People inspect the debris of a collapsed building in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Friday after an earthquake.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 1, 2025

Signs of life detected in quake-hit Bangkok skyscraper as overall death toll tops 2,000

Civil war in Myanmar is complicating efforts to reach those injured by the country's biggest quake in a century.
Myanmar's military chief, Min Aung Hlaing (center), arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered on the compound of a hospital in Naypyitaw on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 1, 2025

Deadly quake gives junta a chance to tighten hold over Myanmar

Even as the damage of Friday’s quake was still being assessed, pro-democracy rebel groups reported fresh airstrikes in areas close to the epicenter.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji