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Gigi Chao, vice chair of Cheuk Nang Holdings, in Hong Kong on July 19
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 31, 2023

More LGBTQ rights could help Asian financial hubs draw global talent

In Japan, the only Group of Seven nation without legal protection for same-sex unions, corporations are seen as a key driver for change.
Mizuki Yoneyama is the Kodo taiko troupe's first female odaiko (large-scale drum) player, an indication that things are changing in the traditional community.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 2, 2023

For these women, taiko drumming is no longer a man's art

Ensemble taiko shows were developed in the 1950s, primarily by male leaders. Women taking part in Kodo’s early recitals only performed dance routines.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's nonattendance to the Group of 20 summit would be a further blow for the host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 1, 2023

Xi plans to skip G20 summit as China-India tensions mount

Xi Jinping's absence would mark the first time he has skipped a G20 summit since taking power.
A farmer examines rice in a paddy near a farm house in Dhaka.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 1, 2023

First crops, now animals: Climate change hurts Bangladesh farmers

The country's coastal regions, which make up a third of all arable land, have been hit by worsening drought, heat and water scarcity.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 1, 2023

China banned seafood from Japan. Some tourists are eating it in Tokyo.

Travelers from China seem largely unfazed despite the ban, with many local seafood restaurants seeing little impact so far.
Russian Communist Party supporters attend a ceremony in Red Square on March 5, 2021, marking the 68th anniversary of Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s death.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2023

In Russia and Israel, national derangement runs wild

How can a priest bless a statue of Stalin and rabbis praise Nazism? In societies that are coming undone, absurd claims take root.
A show of support from some of the tech industry’s biggest names will help bolster Arm's IPO, which is expected to raise $5 billion to $7 billion.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 2, 2023

SoftBank lines up Apple and Nvidia as strategic Arm IPO backers

The show of support from some of the tech industry’s biggest names will help bolster an IPO that is expected to raise $5 billion to $7 billion.
Chinese tech giant Baidu's ERNIE Bot is seen on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Sep 2, 2023

'Talk about something else': Chinese AI chatbot toes party line

Chinese tech giant Baidu's ERNIE Bot is highly censored, offering state-approved answers to taboo questions.
People walk past a damaged wall at the West Kowloon Regional Police Headquarters following Typhoon Saola in Hong Kong on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 2, 2023

Typhoon Saola weakens but still a threat in southern China

Saola had triggered Hong Kong's highest threat level on Friday evening — issued only 16 times since World War II.
Sen. Mitch McConnell appears to freeze up for more than 30 seconds during a public appearance before he was escorted away, the second such incident in a little more than a month, after an event with the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 2, 2023

Mitch McConnell may be experiencing small seizures, doctors say

Two episodes, where the Republican senator froze and did not respond to some questions, may be symptoms of a serious illness.
Survivors of the fire that ripped through the five-story building in the early hours on Thursday, killing 74 people, wait in line to receive donated food at a provisional shelter in Johannesburg on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Sep 3, 2023

Inside the Johannesburg building where scores burned alive

Dozens of abandoned buildings have been "hijacked" or taken over by criminal syndicates who charge fees for staying there.
Twitter owner Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference in Paris in June.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 3, 2023

X community notes: Weapon against fake news or free speech?

Despite being touted by Elon Musk as the way to police Twitter, experts remain unimpressed, citing opportunities for abuse.
Huge waves pummel the city of Yilan as Typhoon Haikui makes landfall in eastern Taiwan on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Sep 3, 2023

Typhoon Haikui makes landfall in Taiwan

Authorities said they had evacuated more than 2,800 people across seven cities — the majority of them from the mountainous county of Hualien.
Emperor penguin chicks perished at multiple breeding grounds in Antarctica last year, drowning or freezing to death when sea ice was eroded by global warming.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2023

Our addiction to fossil fuels is killing baby penguins

Global warming is decimating sea ice and, with it, baby penguins. But why should we care about this and other species dying off?
Pope Francis attends the Holy Mass in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 3, 2023

Be 'good citizens', Pope tells Chinese Catholics during Mongolia visit

The unscripted comments were Francis's latest attempt to offer a hand to Beijing, which is wary of the Church's presence in its country.
A painting in the Museum of the War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in Beijing
JAPAN
Sep 3, 2023

China marks WWII victory day on high alert

China marked the 78th anniversary of its World War II victory over Japan on Sunday.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is mired in four criminal cases that could take him off the campaign trail starting in late January or February.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 4, 2023

The surrogates: Trump’s strategy for campaigning from court

While the candidate himself was a no-show at prominent events, including the first Republican primary debate, he left loyalists to fill the void.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 4, 2023

Trial to start over 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack

The focus is on what Shinji Aoba, accused of murder and attempted murder, will have to say about his motive for the arson incident.
A schoolgirl wears a padded hood for protection from falling debris during an earthquake simulation exercise at an elementary school in Tokyo. The government estimates a 70% chance of a magnitude 7 event striking directly underneath the capital in the next 30 years.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 4, 2023

Tokyo has lived on the brink of the ‘Big One’ — for a century

The Great Kanto Earthquake demolished the nascent Japanese capital, killing more than 100,000 people — some 3% of the city’s population at the time.
Barbed wire fences are seen outside a shuttered Great Wall Park compound where Cambodian authorities said they had recovered evidence of human trafficking, kidnapping and torture during raids on suspected cybercrime compounds in the coastal city of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, last September.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Sep 4, 2023

Hit Chinese movie raises fears of travel in Southeast Asia

Offering a look at the workings of cybercrime in Southeast Asia, “No More Bets” has dampened Chinese travelers' desire to go there.
A municipality worker collects garbage, most of which is plastic and domestic waste, along the shore of Jakarta.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Sep 4, 2023

Trash to treasure: Indonesian firm turns plastic into bricks

The company mixes volcanic ash, mountain stones, plastic waste and cement to make its bricks, which do not contain sand like regular ones.
Nihon Coffin showcases its products at Endex Japan 2023, an annual funeral and cemetery exhibition that was held at Tokyo Big Sight from Aug. 29 to 31.
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2023

End-of-life companies look to innovate as Japan's deaths keep rising

A record 1.57 million people died in 2022, up from 1.25 million in 2012, and facilities to store dead bodies are becoming increasingly scarce.
Tourists walk in front of Crown and Anchor pub on Neal Street in London in 2018. Pubs are big part of British culture.
WORLD / Society
Sep 4, 2023

What’s really killing Britain’s historic pubs

With each time-honored spot that’s shuttered, another little piece of British history is lost.
Epitheses of various body parts at Ikeyama Medical Japan in Nagoya
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional voices: Chubu
Sep 11, 2023

Epithesis — offering appearance care to cancer patients

The use of epithesis — artificial reconstructions of body parts — is beginning to attract attention.
A rainbow at the site of this year’s Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada
WORLD / Society
Sep 4, 2023

What is Burning Man, and why have Paris Hilton and Elon Musk shown up?

The festival has been described as a site of countercultural revelry that draws both hippies and Silicon Valley types.
A Burning Man participant walks their bike through mud near the exit, after a severe rainstorm left tens of thousands of revelers attending the annual festival stranded in mud in Black Rock City in the Nevada desert.
WORLD / Society
Sep 4, 2023

Amid rain and mud, climactic ‘burn’ is delayed at Burning Man festival

Events have tested the resolve of participants, who were told to conserve food and water, at the more than three-decade-old festival.
Nestled behind a seawall on the Pacific coast are the Minamisoma Mano-Migita-Ebi solar power plant and the Manyo no Sato wind farm. The 2011 tsunami struck this portion of the coast with a wave that is reported to have been around 18 meters high.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Sep 5, 2023

How a nuclear disaster turned Fukushima into a renewables leader

Following 3/11 — and the cratering of support for nuclear energy — Fukushima positioned itself at the forefront of Japan’s low-carbon transition.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 5, 2023

Suspect in 2019 Kyoto Animation arson attack admits setting blaze

The focus of the trial will now shift to the defendant’s motive and whether he can be held criminally responsible for the attack.
A woman shops for medicine at a drugstore in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 5, 2023

More young women overdosing on over-the-counter drugs

In a country where illicit drugs are hard to obtain, many have begun to abuse cough and cold medications, which are legal and easily accessible.
Personnel from the Self-Defense Forces take part in a nuclear, biological and chemical weapons exercise at New Chitose airport in Hokkaido in July 2012.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Sep 7, 2023

Japan has plenty to offer in the field of detecting threats

With the spread of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, the time is right to put domestic tech to good use.

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A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami