Search - 2021

 
 
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.
The Marines' Roki Sasaki practices at Es Con Field in Kitahiroshima, Hokkaido, on Oct. 11.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 26, 2024

When Roki Sasaki signs his deal, Latin American amateurs will suffer

His chosen team will likely use its entire bonus pool on him, breaking preexisting verbal commitments with some other amateur players.
Angela Merkel waves after delivering her speech at a party congress of Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Union party in Hamburg, Germany, in December 2018, handing off leadership of her party after nearly two decades at the helm.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 26, 2024

In memoir, Merkel defends her record on the refugee crisis and Russia ties

Since stepping down, Germany's former chancellor has been accused of leaving the country reliant on cheap Russian gas and sparking the rise of the far right.
Vegetable intake by Japanese adults has sunk to the lowest level on record, a government survey shows.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 26, 2024

Average vegetable intake among adults in Japan sinks to record low

By age group, the average vegetable intake was lowest among respondents in their 20s. The older the respondents, the more vegetables they consumed.
Plastic waste that manicurist Naomi Arimoto collected from the sand at a beach, is pictured at her nail salon in Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Oct. 21.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2024

Japanese manicurist takes on plastic pollution, one nail at a time

Naomi Arimoto carefully sifts beach sand for tiny bits of plastic that she can mold into decorative tips to put on the false nails at her salon.
Sanae Takaichi (left) celebrates Shigeru Ishiba’s victory in becoming the head of the Liberal Democratic Party along with then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo in September. Takaichi appears to be the only woman in any party who is close to breaking the glass ceiling to become the nation’s first female leader. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 26, 2024

The derailing of potential female prime ministers

Sanae Takaichi stands as the closest woman to breaking the glass ceiling and becoming Japan's first female prime minister.
In developing Asia, where coal dominates and imported liquefied natural gas is expensive, natural gas remains limited in electricity grids.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2024

Gas got America off coal. Now, it's coming for Asia's oil.

It can work in concert with carbon-free energy to break the hold of the dirtiest sources of power.
A Facebook "military interest" page that misrepresented old photos and videos of army operations to falsely claim that Washington was helping its ally Manila prepare for war.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 26, 2024

Philippines-China tensions trigger money-making disinformation

Clashes between the two countries in the South China Sea are being manipulated online by disinformation networks for profit, an analysis has found.
Then-U.S. President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, in June 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 27, 2024

Trump team weighs direct talks with North Korea's Kim

Several in Trump's team now see a direct approach from him, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim Jong Un.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi comments on use of the death penalty at a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office on Nov. 14.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 27, 2024

Two years pass since Japan's last execution, amid calls for abolition

Between 2012 and 2021, the average period from the finalization of a death sentence to its execution was about seven years and nine months.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe speaks during an interview on Friday.
OLYMPICS
Nov 27, 2024

World Athletics chief 'very pleased' with India's Olympic interest but warns of hurdles

Coe, 68, a two-time Olympic champion in the 1,500 meters, is one of seven people bidding to be the next president of the International Olympic Committee.
DPP leader Yuichiro Tamaki in Tokyo on Tuesday
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 27, 2024

DPP’s Tamaki leverages new position with energy proposal

Yuichiro Tamaki has been a long-time advocate of nuclear power and the reactivation of Japan’s halted nuclear power plants.
Myanmar's junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing presides over an army parade in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, in March 2021.
WORLD
Nov 27, 2024

ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Myanmar military leader

Soldiers, police and Buddhist villagers are alleged by U.N. investigators to have razed hundreds of villages in the remote western Rakhine state.
Nobuo Hara, the head of a group seeking to halt the No. 2 reactor at Tohoku Electric Power's Onagawa nuclear power plant, speaks at a news conference on Wednesday in Sendai after the Sendai High Court ruled against them.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2024

Court rejects request to halt restarted Onagawa nuclear reactor

A judge said there was "no concrete proof" that an incident that could not be handled under an established evacuation plan would occur.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen celebrates with his team after clinching the Formula One world drivers' title on Saturday in Las Vegas.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Nov 28, 2024

Verstappen switches focus to reboot defense of F1 teams' title

Just days after clinching the title with a measured drive to fifth in Las Vegas, the 27-year-old will return to the track hoping he can repeat his triumph from last year.
High-rise buildings in Tokyo. Through faking documents and passports a criminal group conspired to pose as the owner of a real-estate plot and buildings in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward in 2017, defrauding Sekisui House of ¥5.5 billion.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 28, 2024

Real-life ‘Tokyo Swindlers’ ordered to pay ¥1 billion in damages

The Tokyo District Court ruled that the defendants knew they were engaging in a fraudulent scheme in their dealings with Sekisui House.
From late 2025, platforms including Meta's Instagram, Elon Musk's X, TikTok and Snapchat must show Australians they are taking reasonable steps to keep out users under 16 or face fines up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / ANALYSIS
Nov 29, 2024

Australia looks for ways to enforce its teen social media ban

From late 2025, social media platforms including Instagram, X, TikTok and Snapchat must show Australians they are taking reasonable steps to keep out users under 16.
The infrastructure ministry and environment ministry released a survey on levels of PFAS, potentially carcinogenic chemicals, found in drinking water supplied across Japan as of Sept. 30.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2024

No excessive levels of PFAS found in tap water across Japan

No drinking water suppliers nationwide had PFAS levels in excess of the limit of 50 nanograms per liter of tap water in fiscal 2024.
In an interview in Tokyo with the BBC that was published on Thursday, Fast Retailing CEO Tadashi Yanai said the company does not source cotton from China's Xinjiang region.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 29, 2024

Uniqlo criticized in China after CEO says retailer does not use Xinjiang cotton

Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing, said it does not source cotton from the region, which has faced allegations of forced labor.
An observation deck at a Starbucks store with views of North Korea in Gimpo, South Korea, on Friday
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 29, 2024

Starbucks serves South Koreans coffee and a glimpse into the North

Hundreds showed up on Friday for the opening of the U.S. coffeehouse chain's newest store in an observatory near the city of Gimpo.

Longform

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What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji