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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 22, 2024

Putin, ascendant in Ukraine, eyes contours of a Trump peace deal

The Russian president could broadly agree to freeze the conflict along the front lines, five current and former Russian officials say.
Oitomi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of the company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
LIFE / Style & Design
Nov 23, 2024

After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future

Thanks to the Dodgers superstar, the waitlist for Oitomi’s Miyabi Tetsubin kettle now stretches to more than a year.
Best known as the home of Kuon Temple, Minobu, Yamanashi Prefecture, is a charming day trip from Tokyo with the potential for cultural verisimilitude.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 23, 2024

In rugged Yamanashi, a wild-goose chase for ‘real Japan’

Japan’s countryside certainly offers a different experience than its cities, but whether that makes it categorically superior is up for debate.
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...
U.S. pitcher Spencer Patton throws during the sixth inning of Team USA's loss to Samurai Japan on Thursday at Tokyo Dome.
BASEBALL
Nov 22, 2024

U.S. pitcher Spencer Patton gets warm reception as he returns to Japan for Premier12

Patton pitched pitched for the Yokohama BayStars from 2017 to 2020, making 219 appearances for the club overall. Now he's back in Japan and competing for Team USA.
The private equity landscape is rapidly changing in Japan, where more than $12 billion in such transactions have been announced this year, after reaching a record in 2023.
BUSINESS / Markets
Nov 22, 2024

KKR-Bain brawl worth $4 billion highlights Japan private equity boom

The saga shows how fast the private equity landscape is changing in Japan, where more than $12 billion in such transactions have been announced this year.
Beijing Daxing International Airport
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2024

China reinstates visa-free travel for Japanese nationals

The exemption will cover travel for up to 30 days and will continue through the end of 2025. 
Migrants gather at the CATE (temporary assistance center for foreigners) in San Andres on the island of El Hierro, Spain, on Oct. 28
WORLD / Society
Nov 22, 2024

In Spain's Canaries, rescuers exhausted as new migrant routes open

Nearly twice as many migrants as residents have landed this year on the southernmost part of Spain's Canary Islands.
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.
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 22, 2024

Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan

Combined with expected spending from the private sector, this year’s package is estimated to add a total of ¥39 trillion to the economy.
After almost a decade of traveling around the world, a working holiday during the 2019 ski season in Nozawa Onsen was to be Rowie Geraerts’ last hurrah before she settled down in Australia.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 25, 2024

How a solo yoga teacher built a wellness community in the Japanese Alps

A budding entrepreneur from Australia, Rowie Geraerts has created Shizen Collective in Nozawa Onsen — a new home for herself, locals and visitors.
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Friday.
WORLD
Nov 23, 2024

Little hope in Gaza that arrest warrants will cool Israeli onslaught

Medics in Gaza said at least 24 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.
An oil pump jack and drilling rigs in an oilfield on the shore of the Caspian Sea, near the Aquatic Palace stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan, on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 23, 2024

At a climate conference in oil country, progress remains elusive

More than a third of Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product comes from fossil fuels, and about 90% of its exports are linked to oil and gas.
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.
Civil defense members and rescuers work at the site of an Israeli strike in Beirut's Basta neighborhood on Saturday.
WORLD
Nov 23, 2024

Powerful Israeli airstrike in central Beirut kills 11, Lebanese health ministry says

An eight-story building was struck with four missiles, including bunker-penetrating types designed to hit underground targets, said a Lebanese security source.
The time and location for Amapinight parties are never certain, but two things you can be assured of when attending are that there will be dancing and a lot of amapiano.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 24, 2024

There's no room for wallflowers at Amapinight

From amapiano to dancehall, Japanese dancers and DJs are moving the masses with African beats at Tokyo's most energetic party.
A man walks past a gasoline station in Tokyo on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Nov 24, 2024

How Japan can exit the fossil fuel subsidies it can’t seem to quit

While offering relief to low-income households, such measures encourage the continued use of the fossil fuels driving climate change.
Health minister Takamaro Fukuoka in an interview last week
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2024

Government aims to ease care worker shortages through wage hikes

Staff shortages at care facilities are "very serious," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takamaro Fukuoka said.
People offer a moment of silence during a ceremony held for the first time on Sunday to remember those who worked at the now-defunct gold mines on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, including those from the Korean Peninsula.
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2024

Japan calls it 'regrettable' South Korea skipped Sado mine memorial

The event came after the Sado Island Gold Mines were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site earlier this year.
The Clintons and Barack Obama engineered the disastrous situation in the 2024 election and have long dominated the Democratic Party, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris serving as their appointees. 
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2024

How the Democrats sunk their own ship this year

The Democratic leadership would far rather lose an election or two — or even become a permanent minority party – than open the party to people it cannot control.
Yisrael Medad, an activist and writer on Israel's political right, looks at a book in his home in the Israeli settlement Shilo, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Nov. 13.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 24, 2024

Israeli settlers set sights on Trump support for full control of West Bank

Settlers have celebrated Trump's nomination of a clutch of officials known for pro-Israel views.
Boys approach a spot where a projectile fell in Petah Tikva, Israel, on Sunday.
WORLD
Nov 25, 2024

Hezbollah rockets land near Tel Aviv after Israeli strike on Beirut

Intensified bombardment over the last two weeks in Beirut's Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led cease-fire talks.
The National Consumer Affairs Center reports a growing number of consultations regarding "digital legacies" — data and online services left behind when people die.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 25, 2024

Are you leaving your loved ones digital legacies or headaches?

The National Consumer Affairs Center is getting an increasing number of consultations regarding data and online services left behind by deceased persons.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington. Since former President Donald Trump’s election victory, investors have dumped stocks associated with high-profile environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes such as wind and solar.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 25, 2024

Trump victory forces ESG investors to regroup

Investment managers targeting climate change say it’s time to start speaking in terms that don’t alienate the millions of Americans who voted for the president-elect.
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.
An employee of Trex stands with bales of used plastic, which the company recycles into decking material.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Nov 25, 2024

Can the world unite to end the plastic pollution crisis?

The rising toll of plastic in the environment is impossible to ignore.
A pig that is pregnant with piglets suited for cross-species transplants
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 25, 2024

Startup transplants pig kidney into monkey for first time in Japan

It is hoped that the operation will provide insights into the future use of animal kidneys in humans.
Reiwa Shinsengumi leader Taro Yamamoto speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Oct. 27. The party tripled their Lower House seats to nine in last month's general election.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 25, 2024

How Reiwa Shinsengumi managed to overtake JCP in the Lower House

The younger party's focus on pocketbook issues attracted younger, independent left-leaning swing voters who might have voted for the older party in the past.
Hiromi Yamamoto
ESG CONSORTIUM
Nov 25, 2024

Oji seeks optimal approaches to nurturing and utilizing forests

Oji Holdings, Japan’s leading paper maker, owns and manages 635,000 hectares of forests across the globe. Forest resources — for wood, paper and wood-derived materials or for biomass power generation — are attracting increased attention as sustainable resources. However, their sustainability hinges...
Itochu has tapped Daiwa Securities Group and the founding Ito family has hired SMBC Nikko Securities as financial advisers for their ¥9 trillion ($58.4 billion) proposal to take Seven & I Holdings private, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 25, 2024

Nomura, Daiwa and other advisers win coveted Seven & I buyout roles

The multitude of financial advisers reflects the complexity of any potential buyout, as well as the lucrative fees if consummated.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?