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A girl walks past a tent sprayed with a message of gratitude to pro-Palestinian university students in the U.S. amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
May 3, 2024

Why Palestinians can count on U.S. students but not Arab allies to protest

Reasons range from a fear of angering autocratic governments to political differences with Hamas or doubts that it could impact state policy.
Optica headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday
BUSINESS / Companies
May 3, 2024

Huawei secretly backs U.S. research, awarding millions in prizes

Huawei Technologies is the sole funder of a research competition that has awarded millions of dollars since its inception in 2022.
Nomura Holdings and Mizuho Bank are hit by more than $100 million of potential losses related to All Blue Capital, raising questions about their monitoring of high-risk investment funds.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 3, 2024

Nomura and Mizuho face losses after fund’s failed trades

The size of the potential losses raises questions about the risk-management practices at two of Japan’s largest banks.
Lin Ruei, 17, co-founder of Exptech and Disaster Prevention Information Platform app (DPIP), poses for a photo in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on April 29.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
May 3, 2024

Quake warning app demand surges in earthquake-rattled Taiwan

Official earthquake apps' patchiness and the demand for better alerts have boosted the popularity of privately-developed quake warning apps.
Yukio Tsunezuka holds a back issue of the Noto magazine in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, on April 22.
JAPAN / Society
May 3, 2024

Local info magazine in quake-hit Noto region set for revival

The New Year's Day quake struck just as the latest edition was about to be printed.
Jiro Suzuki, head of Kosaka Railroad Railpark in Kosaka, Akita Prefecture, stands next to a retired Akebono sleeper train that is now being used as a lodging facility, on April 22.
JAPAN / Society
May 3, 2024

Lodging in 'blue train' to resume in Japan after five-year hiatus

Services using the retired sleeper train are set to restart Saturday after five years of suspension due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An <i>awamori</i> distillery in Okinawa Prefecture. Shipments of the rice spirit in 2023 dropped more than 50% from their peak in 2004.
JAPAN
May 3, 2024

Okinawa's rice spirit industry seeks rebrand amid falling shipments

Producers are seeking to devise new marketing strategies to make awamori appealing to both young consumers and international markets.
South Korea's spy agency reported Friday that North Korea is planning "terrorist" attacks against South Korean officials and citizens abroad, prompting heightened security at diplomatic missions in China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 3, 2024

Seoul spy agency warns North Korea plotting attacks on embassies

South Korea's foreign ministry announced that it has raised the anti-terrorism alert level for embassies and consulates in five countries.
A Kayah woman and children carrying containers from a delivery of drinking water in Myanmar's eastern Kayah state.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 3, 2024

'Fuel for water?' Heat wave piles misery on Myanmar displaced

A heat wave that has sent the mercury in Myanmar to 48 degrees Celsius in some places has added to uncertainties of life in the camps.
Diane Severin Nguyen’s film, “In Her Time (Iris’s Version),” 2023-24, about a young actress struggling with her role in a (fictional) movie about the Nanjing Massacre, is on display at the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Artificial intelligence and the "rhetoric around gender and authenticity” were themes in this year's show.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 2, 2024

The winner-take-all economy is ruining art, too

The value of art is not just a matter of taste. To appeal to collectors, artists require the approval of the establishment.
With less than two months left before the conclusion of the current session of parliament, any possibility that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida can deliver constitutional reform before the end of his term as Liberal Democratic Party president in late September, as he has promised, appears remote.
JAPAN / Politics
May 4, 2024

Debate on constitutional revision at a standstill despite Kishida's pledges

Lawmakers are instead focusing their attention on reviewing the political funds control law in the wake of the LDP's slush funds scandal.
Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
LIFE / Style & Design / Longform
May 4, 2024

The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces

Once an exotic curiosity, Japanese gardens have gone on to inspire green thumbs around the world.
A salmon farm in Giske, Norway. The country produces more than half of the world’s farmed salmon.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
May 4, 2024

The world’s hunger for salmon is linked to an ecological disaster

High demand for salmon is driving another species to the verge of extinction.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
WORLD / Politics
May 5, 2024

Russia puts Ukraine's Zelenskyy on wanted list

Russia's Tass news agency reported that the Russian Interior Ministry database showed the Ukrainian leader was on a wanted list but gave no other details.
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks through a helicopter window during his flight to the Novatek-Murmansk's Offshore Superfacility Construction Center in the village of Belokamenka, in Russia's Murmansk region, last July.
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
May 5, 2024

How Western sanctions are strangling Putin’s Arctic gas ambitions

The Novatek PJSC-led Arctic LNG 2 facility is a key part of Moscow’s plans to boost exports and replenish coffers. But it has remained virtually idled.
A Palestinian girl holding a child is silhouetted against the lights of an oncoming car in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Hamas militant group.
WORLD / Politics
May 5, 2024

Hamas official says group will not accept truce that does not end Gaza war

Qatari, Egyptian and U.S. mediators met a Hamas delegation in Cairo on Saturday in the latest bid to halt the fighting.
An attendee holds a cardboard cutout of Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, inside the CHI Health Center during the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on Saturday.
BUSINESS
May 5, 2024

Buffett says Berkshire in good hands, lauds Apple despite lowering stake

The legendary investor paid tribute to his late business partner and said he expected the conglomerate’s $189 billion cash pile to keep growing.
Much like other hot spots across Okinawa, Onna has diligently strived to captivate both domestic and international tourists, while at the same time grappling with the environmental strain induced by the influx of visitors.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
May 5, 2024

As visitors surge, Japan seeks ways to make tourism eco-friendly

A record tourism boom has raised concerns over the enormous stress visitors put on the environment.
Volunteers help carry out furniture in the town of Anamizu, Ishikawa Prefecture on April 26.
JAPAN / Society
May 5, 2024

Volunteer activities in full swing in Noto during Golden Week

Local governments prepare for an influx of traffic during the holiday period as some volunteers begin entering the area in their own vehicles.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida delivers a speech during a welcoming ceremony hosted by an organization of Nikkei immigrants from Japan and descendants in Sao Paulo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
May 5, 2024

Kishida meets with Brazilians of Japanese descent

At 2.7 million, Brazil has the world's largest community of Nikkei — immigrants from Japan and their descendants.
Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (right) speaks at a news conference with then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe after their trilateral summit at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul in November 2015.
JAPAN
May 5, 2024

Japan, China and South Korea arranging summit for May 26-27

The meeting is expected to bring together Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
Presidential candidate Jose Raul Mulino (left) poses with ex-President Ricardo Martinelli during the general election, in Panama City in this photo released Sunday. Mulino was named the winner of Sunday's presidential election.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2024

Ex-minister Jose Raul Mulino wins Panama presidential race

Jose Raul Mulino, the protege of a graft-convicted former head of state, was declared Panama's president-elect after elections Sunday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath attend an election campaign rally in Kanpur, India, on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 6, 2024

Fake videos of Modi aides trigger political showdown in India election

India's election will be the world's largest democratic event. With nearly a billion voters, tackling the spread of misinformation is a high stakes job.
National flags of the Alliance's members flutter at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2024

Far right gains expected in EU election may test policy ideals for all

To what extent will mainstream parties, used to working together to pass laws, be willing to cooperate with the extreme right?
Jordan Bardella, President of the French far-right National Rally party, gestures he attends a political rally during the party's campaign for the European elections in Perpignan, France, on May 1.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2024

Just how dangerous is Europe’s rising far right?

Anti-immigration parties with fascist roots — and an uncertain commitment to democracy — are now mainstream.
Exiled Russian historian Tamara Eidelman delivers a lecture titled “The Judgment of History” at the Bender JCC of Greater Washington community center in Rockville, Maryland, on April 25.
WORLD / Politics
May 6, 2024

Exiled Russian historian rallies fellow emigrants in dark times

Tamara Eidelman, who was declared a "foreign agent" by the government in Moscow, is one of many who are rebuilding their careers abroad.
Quantas will pay out AU$20 million between more than 86,000 customers who booked tickets on the so-called "ghost flights" and pay an AU$100 million fine instead of defending the lawsuit that it had previously vowed to fight.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 6, 2024

Australia's Qantas to pay $79 million to settle flight cancellation case

The fine is the biggest ever for an Australian airline and among the largest globally in the sector.
A Cambridge research fellow's dismissal is sparking outcry amid a freedom of speech debate about the university's diversity, equality and inclusion policies.
COMMENTARY
May 7, 2024

Will Cambridge support free speech?

Cambridge research fellow's dismissal sparks outcry amid a freedom of speech debate at the university and its diversity, equality and inclusion policies.
A child receives cotton candy at a free cafeteria opened in the city of Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, on March 31.
JAPAN / Society
May 6, 2024

'Children's cafes' persevere in Noto despite quake damage

Some kodomo shokudō operating in the Okunoto region are struggling and need support.
A screencap of a performance of Hiroto Nagai's “String Quartet No. 1 ‘Polar Energy Budget’” by the PRT Quartet
CULTURE / Music / OUR PLANET
May 7, 2024

How a Japanese scientist is turning the climate crisis into music

Hiroto Nagai has sonified polar climate data, resulting in a string quartet piece that he thinks can get people to care more about what the data expresses.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years