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The number of visitors to Mount Fuji has exploded in recent years and authorities have struggled to reduce the environmental impact.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2024

Yamanashi officially scraps Fuji railway plan as it looks to Chinese tram

Authorities are eyeing a transport system developed by China's state-owned railway company CRRC, as well as alternatives from Japanese firms.
The Fugaku supercomputer at Riken Center for Computational Science in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 19, 2024

Japan's Fugaku supercomputer takes top spot in two rankings for 10th time

Fugaku marked better performance than in the previous rankings, in May, following an improvement to its software.
Armed police stand guard as a prison van arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts building, ahead of the sentencing of 45 convicted pro-democracy activists charged under the national security law, in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 19, 2024

Hong Kong jails 45 democracy activists in landmark trial

The ruling, which critics have said tarnishes Hong Kong's role as a global financial hub, comes as the city is hosting an international financial summit.
A rubber-tired tram system, tentatively called the “Fuji Tram,” would run along magnetic markers, reducing environmental damage, according to the Yamanashi Prefectural Government.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 19, 2024

Why Yamanashi gave up building a light-rail system on Mount Fuji

As an alternative, the governor proposed a new plan to use a rubber-tired tram system.
From left: Pakistani education activist and producer Malala Yousafzai, U.S. actress Jennifer Lawrence, producer Justine Ciarrocchi and director Sahra Mani attend the Los Angeles premiere of "Bread and Roses" on Nov. 14.
WORLD / Society
Nov 19, 2024

Phone documentary details Afghan women's struggle under Taliban rule

Exiled Afghan filmmaker Sahra Mani reached out to a dozen women after the fall of Kabul in 2021, tutoring them on how to film themselves for the purpose of the film.
Farmer Hla Han, 52, who lost his leg after stepping on a mine, peels garlic outside his house in Demoso township, eastern Kayah state, Myanmar.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Nov 20, 2024

Myanmar led world in landmine victims in 2023, monitor says

Decades of sporadic conflict between the military and ethnic rebel groups have left Myanmar littered with deadly landmines and munitions.
Sony Group headquarters in Tokyo, on Jan. 31, 2023
BUSINESS
Nov 20, 2024

Japanese publisher Kadokawa shares roar on Sony buyout report

Early afternoon Kadokawa shares were up 15.91% to ¥4,341 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal celebrates after closing out an inning during Detroit's playoff series with Cleveland last month.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 21, 2024

Braves' Chris Sale and Tigers' Tarik Skubal collect Cy Young honors

Both left-handers won the pitching Triple Crown and were the clear favorites in Cy Young Award voting.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen (left) speaks with McLaren's Lando Norris after the sprint race during the weekend of the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo on Nov. 2.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Nov 21, 2024

Verstappen in sight of exclusive club of four-time F1 champions

Red Bull's three-time champion needs only to stay ahead of Lando Norris to secure the title.
Nylon is wrapped around fiber-optic cables at a SubCom factory in Newington, New Hampshire, in December 2018.
WORLD
Nov 21, 2024

Strategic subsea cables: the vulnerable links that enable our digital lives

Sweden and Finland have opened investigations into potential "sabotage" against cables damaged on Sunday and Monday in the Baltic Sea.
Nissan Motor slashed its earnings outlook earlier this month and said it would cut 9,000 jobs and a fifth of its manufacturing capacity.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 21, 2024

Hedge fund Effissimo stirs speculation with its stake in Nissan Motor

News of the investment sent Nissan’s shares soaring 13% on Nov. 12.
A car carrying suspect Ryotaro Masuda, who was indicted for allegedly beating his 25-year-old girlfriend to death, leaves the Shibuya Police Station in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 21, 2024

Man charged with murder allegedly made victim date other men for money

Investigators suspect Ryotaro Masuda beat his girlfriend repeatedly and invested money she received from coerced involvement with other men.
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’

Junichi Yasuda’s film about a time-traveling warrior is a loving tribute to the “jidaigeki” (period drama) genre and its practitioners.
A rocket is launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to put an experimental space plane into orbit for the U.S. military. Washington is adopting a multipronged strategy to address security threats in space.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Nov 21, 2024

Biden’s track record in boosting U.S. space security

Japan needs to keep working with the U.S. to ensure growing threats from China and Russia in the space domain are met with the necessary security measures.
Brazilian police on Thursday called for the indictment of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro over a 2022 coup plot to prevent current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 22, 2024

Brazil police accuse Bolsonaro and ex-ministers of 2022 coup plot

The final police report caps a nearly two-year investigation into Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's role in the election-denying movement.
Blast Onepiece (center) wins the 63rd Arima Kinen on Dec. 23, 2018, at Nakayama Racecourse in Chiba Prefecture.
MORE SPORTS / Horse Racing
Nov 22, 2024

Making new lives for veteran racehorses

The future is expanding for retired racehorses. Generally speaking, there are not many racehorses who can transition to life as stallions or brood mares, passing on their blood to future generations. Some go on to second careers as riding horses, for example. But, in the end, thoroughbreds are basically...
Fans display extra editions of a newspaper featuring Shohei Ohtani on Friday after the Dodgers slugger was named National League.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 22, 2024

Japanese fans rejoice after Ohtani's MVP win

Japanese baseball fans rushed to grab the latest newspaper editions on Friday after Ohtani was named the National League's Most Valuable Player.
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.
Police officers remove a protest banner outside the West Kowloon Court following a sentencing hearing for 45 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2024

Paranoia and Beijing trump democracy in Hong Kong

Concerned nations must step up as China discards the promises it made when it regained control of Hong Kong. Anything less is a betrayal.
A waterway along a portion of the Mekong River where a groundbreaking ceremony took place to begin construction on the Funan Techo Canal, in Prek Takeo, Cambodia, in October.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 23, 2024

Cambodia's flagship canal in hot water as China funding dries up

Months after a groundbreaking ceremony for a major canal project in Cambodia, touted investments from China are in doubt.
Titan Cement's factory in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 23, 2024

How big fossil-fuel-producing countries export emissions abroad

A loophole in the 2015 Paris accord has allowed countries to say they are making climate progress while also exporting fossil fuels at breakneck pace.
Brazil’s Rayssa Leal celebrates after winning the women's Street League Skateboarding competition on Saturday in Tokyo.
MORE SPORTS / Skateboarding
Nov 24, 2024

Rayssa Leal and Chloe Covell on Japan’s teen skaters: We are friends, not rivals

On Saturday, there were plenty of high-fives, fist bumps and hugs between “rivals” as Leal won Street League Skateboarding's Tokyo stop.
Tehran's illuminated city skyline on Sept. 20. 2019
WORLD / Politics
Nov 24, 2024

Iran braces for Trump reset with economy buckling from sanctions

With Iranians struggling with economic hardship after years of sanctions, its leaders are signaling they’re keen to establish a different relationship this time around.
Eagles pitcher Masahiro Tanaka announced on Sunday that he is leaving the team.
BASEBALL
Nov 24, 2024

Star pitcher Masahiro Tanaka to part ways with Eagles

Tanaka is one of the most famous players in Eagles history.
Gautam Adani, whose role as chairman and founder of India's Adani Group has made him one of the world's richest people, in Boston on Oct. 28, 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 25, 2024

Adani charges to test Trump’s desire to keep India in U.S. orbit

The case against Gautam Adani is yet another reminder of the long reach of U.S. law — one that can affect both friends and foes around the world.
Afghan women sew clothes at a handicraft workshop in Kabul on Nov. 10. Many women have launched small businesses in the past three years to meet their own needs and support other Afghan women, whose employment sharply declined after the Taliban authorities took power in 2021, imposing rules that squeezed women from many areas of work and public life.
WORLD / Society
Nov 25, 2024

Afghan women turn to entrepreneurship under Taliban

Though some businesses are a lifeline, salaries cannot cover all costs and many women are still stalked by economic hardship.
A farmer cleans solar panels in a field in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Nov 25, 2024

Surprise solar boom in Pakistan helps millions, but harms grid

The rise of solar in Pakistan has many benefits, but a rapid and unregulated boom also threatens to weaken the country’s utilities and destabilize the fragile economy.
A Rohingya child walks across a bamboo bridge at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 30.
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 25, 2024

In world's largest refugee camps, Rohingya mobilize to fight in Myanmar

The emergence of Rohingya fighters and weapons in camps is regarded as a ticking time bomb by Bangladesh, one source said
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19. Trump on Monday threatened to slap China, Mexico and Canada with hefty tariffs upon his return to the White House.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 26, 2024

Trump pledges 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and more levies on China

The president-elect says he will sign executive orders to enforce the measures when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20.
Tiger Woods in action during the 152nd Open Championship at the Royal Troon Golf Club in Troon, Scotland, on July 19
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Nov 26, 2024

Tiger Woods to skip Hero World Challenge after back surgery

Woods hosts the annual event but has played just once in the last three years due to health concerns.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.