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Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako host a garden party at the Akasaka Imperial Gardens in Tokyo's Minato Ward on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2025

Imperial couple hosts spring garden party

The imperial couple and other members of the imperial family spoke with some 1,400 guests.
U.S. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent says a de-escalation between the U.S. and China will come in the very near future.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 23, 2025

Bessent expects tariff standoff with China to deescalate

The U.S. Treasury secretary is optimistic that tensions could cool in the coming months but cautioned that a larger deal could take longer.
Arunima Mazumdar, a New Delhi-based communications professional, began sharing her love of Japanese literature online in 2022. The platform has grown into a robust community known as Dokusha Book Club.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Apr 26, 2025

Arunima Mazumdar: ‘Japanese literature has a niche but deeply engaged readership in India’

The founder of Dokusha Book Club talks about why Indian readers love Japanese books and the community that she’s forged, online and offline.
Naomi Osaka reacts after point at the Miami Open last month. The Japanese star lost her first match at the Madrid Open on Tuesday.
TENNIS
Apr 23, 2025

Osaka out of Madrid Open after Bronzetti defeat

The Japanese former world No. 1, ranked 55th, battled back with a strong second set after losing the first, but eventually came up short.
Milled rice at a rice mill in Nakhon Pathom province, Thailand
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2025

Trump tariffs threaten to pile more pain on Thailand's rice sector

Thailand is among the Southeast Asian nations hardest hit by Trump's proposed measures, facing a 36% tariff on goods unless ongoing negotiations are successful.
MUFG Bank, a unit of the nation’s biggest banking group, is among firms that recently scrapped a clerical job category that consisted almost exclusively of women, a sign that the financial sector is finally getting more serious about reducing gender inequalities.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

Top Japanese firms scrap employment system that held women back

Abandoning the clerical job category may increase opportunities for women to advance to more senior positions.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a campaign rally in Laval, Quebec, Canada, on Tuesday. Carney was the subject of at least 16 books published in March and listed on Amazon, according to a review of the site on April 16.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

AI floods Amazon with strange political books before Canadian election

The development adds to concerns about how new technologies are affecting the information voters receive during the election campaign.
A protest against Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Hong Kong in 2019. Beijing's United Front Work Department is charged with managing relations with overseas Chinese, including in Hong Kong, with the aim of mobilizing society to achieve the government's goals.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 23, 2025

China’s catch-22: Rapid growth with tight social control

The Chinese government is locked in the contradictory goals of pursuing economic growth while maintaining strong social control through its United Front Work Department.
Stephen Ma, the head of Nissan’s operations in China, speaks during a news conference at the Shanghai auto show on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

Nissan commits another $1.4 billion to China with EVs in focus

"With China moving so fast, we want to stay and we want to compete,” said Stephen Ma, the head of Nissan’s operations in China.
U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is seeking a "fair deal with China."
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 24, 2025

Trump seeks 'fair deal' with China but pathway unclear

Trump told reporters his country would have a "fair deal with China," adding that "everything's active" when asked if Washington was talking to Beijing.
Henriette Jaeger crosses the finish line win a women's 400-meter heat at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on March 7.
MORE SPORTS / Athletics
Apr 24, 2025

Norwegian athletes advised to avoid meat in China over doping fears

The 2025 World Athletics Relays will take place in early May at the Guangdong Olympic Stadium in Guangzhou, while the Diamond League event in Shanghai is scheduled for May 3.
Last year was the hottest on record in Japan and globally. An enduring stretch of peak warm weather worldwide has prompted scientists to look for the causes as they try to understand whether we have entered a dangerous phase of accelerated heating.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2025

Creating the best possible climate models is existential

Scientists' work in building and interpreting climate models must be fine-tuned so that this data can inform the policies capable of living up to the challenge of global heating.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato is is expected to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 24, 2025

U.S. indicates no hard target for yen ahead of key trade talks

The United States has argued that the yen is too weak, making its value against the dollar a top agenda item in trade discussions.
The scallop carpaccio with strawberries is a harmonious blend of flavors and textures, and one of the standout recipes in "Umai: Recipes From a Japanese Home Kitchen."
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 26, 2025

A modern Japanese cookbook that is ‘a beautiful mess’

With an easygoing tone, Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares’ first cookbook is a vibrant Japanese culinary guide that speaks to a globalized generation.
Carlos Alcaraz withdrew from the Madrid Open on Thursday.
TENNIS
Apr 25, 2025

Carlos Alcaraz withdraws from Madrid Open with eye on French Open defense

Alcaraz sustained an injury during the Barcelona Open final.
Nomura is looking to deepen its foothold in its traditional Wall Street businesses by weighing a return to offering cash prime-brokerage services in the United States and Europe.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 25, 2025

Nomura weighs return to prime brokerage four years after Archegos

Prime brokerage, which involves banks lending cash and securities to hedge funds, has become an increasing money maker for Wall Street in recent years due to high equities prices.
Stephen Dacus, incoming chief executive officer of Seven & I Holdings, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Tokyo on Friday. Dacus plans to boost investments in its U.S. stores using cash from a planned listing of its American retail operations.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 25, 2025

Seven & I’s new CEO plans aggressive investments in U.S. stores

In addition to investing in its North America operations, Stephen Dacus is also looking to review the company’s supply chain globally.
Amid U.S.-China trade tensions, the U.S. may be looking at Japan as a potential country to make up for a drop in corn exports to China.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 25, 2025

Japan looks to increase U.S. corn imports ahead of more tariff talks

The idea appears to be aimed at appeasing U.S. President Donald Trump's criticisms about Japan's tariffs and could be used as leverage in next week's bilateral negotiations.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the U.S. presidency, his rhetoric, tariffs and threats toward allies have helped boost left-leaning or anti-Trump candidates in elections around the world.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 20, 2025

The 'Trump effect' on elections is just beginning, including in Japan

Since his inauguration, the new U.S. president seems to be creating a “Trump effect” on many, though not all, foreign elections.
Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa is leading Japan's negotiations to forge a trade deal with the U.S. Carefully contemplated and measured retaliatory levies are one of the tools at the tariff czar's disposal.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 25, 2025

Japan needs clarity as an antidote to contradictory tariffs

With incompatible goals and an erratic timeline, Trump's tariff strategy has more holes than Swiss cheese. In response, Japan should bring a strong, coherent strategy to the table.
An investigation by World Rugby found that JRFU Chairman Kensuke Iwabuchi did not breach Asia Rugby's code of conduct.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Apr 25, 2025

Furious Japan seeks apology after 'no basis' found for chairman's Asia Rugby ban

World Rugby was called in to investigate in February when Asia Rugby banned Iwabuchi from its executive committee for a potential code of conduct breach.
U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, stops to speak to reporters as he leaves the White House on Friday morning.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 26, 2025

Conflicting U.S.-China talks statements add to global trade confusion

U.S. President Donald Trump has asserted that tariff negotiations were underway with China, but Beijing has denied this is the case.
U.S President Donald Trump meets with Japan's Ryosei Akazawa, who is in charge of trade negotiations with Washington, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on April 16.
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Apr 26, 2025

Japan is a test case for Trump's tariff deals. But talks may be tortuous.

While some expect an agreement at the June G7 summit in Canada in June, others say it will be risky for Tokyo to cede ground before Upper House elections expected in July.
Trumpism is attacking America's core institutions to gain unchecked power, and only a united civic uprising that defends and reforms these institutions can stop it and build a better future.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2025

Time for a civic uprising

What’s happening is not normal. America needs an uprising that is not normal.
Terumi Tanaka, co-chair of Japanese atomic bomb survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo, speaks during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo on Dec. 10, 2024.
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2025

Nobel laureates urge Trump and Putin to meet on denuclearization

Three groups campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons, including Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, say the situation has become the most volatile in decades.
Shohei Ohtani and Mamiko Tanaka announced the birth of their first child on April 19.
BASEBALL
Apr 28, 2025

Shohei Ohtani's example could change Japan's views on paternity leave

The Dodgers star went on MLB’s paternity list for the birth of his daughter. MLB is the only major North American sports league that guarantees paternity leave to its players.
Sunset at Dudley Page Reserve, in Dover Heights, Sydney, on April 21
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 29, 2025

Australia’s economic ‘miracle’ is ending no matter who wins vote

Polls suggest the May 3 election will be tight, with many pundits predicting the winner will lead a minority government.
The Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion was issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce a week before the end of the Biden administration. The Trump administration is now trying to alter it.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 30, 2025

Trump officials eye changes to Biden's AI chip export rule

Removing the tier system could open the door to using U.S. chips as an even more powerful negotiating tool in trade talks.
A trader kicks a picture of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a protest in Karachi on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 30, 2025

Pakistan says India planning strike as tensions rise after Kashmir attack

On April 22, 26 men were killed in the tourist hub of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, in the deadliest attack on civilians in the contested region in years.
Germany's Alexander Zverev hits a return to Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo during their fourth round match at the Madrid Open on Tuesday.
TENNIS
Apr 30, 2025

Zverev crashes as Swiatek scrapes into Madrid Open quarterfinals

Argentina's Francisco Cerundolo, ranked 21st, beat the German — a two-time former winner in Madrid — to repeat his feat from last year.

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