Search - people

 
 
JAXA’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft is expected to land on the lunar surface in early 2024.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 21, 2023

One small step for a JAXA spacecraft, one giant leap for exploration

In 2024, we can look forward to the arrival on the moon of JAXA's SLIM spacecraft. Its groundbreaking accuracy could further propel space exploration.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2023

U.S. Supreme Court unlikely to uphold Colorado ruling disqualifying Trump

The U.S. Supreme Court could overturn the Colorado courts decision, including challenging the state court's authority to keep Trump off the ballot.
A U.S. Steel coke works in Clairton, Pennsylvania
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 2023

A steel deal that’s good for Japan and the U.S.

Nippon Steel’s announcement that it plans to purchase U.S. Steel has triggered an uproar in the United States.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group CEO Hironori Kamezawa
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 22, 2023

Japan banks scramble to beef up asset management businesses

Asset management has emerged as an area of focus for the banks this year amid signs decades of deflation is ending.
Members of the Ground Self-Defense Force take part in a joint military drill in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, in January.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2023

Japanese major general demoted over power harassment

The punishment was the second heaviest available after dismissal and the first two-rank demotion at the GSDF.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington
WORLD / Politics
Dec 23, 2023

Push to disqualify Trump pits democracy against the rule of law

Trump’s status as the Republican front-runner for the presidential nomination has created severe tensions.
The Rev. Munther Isaac lights a candle next to an improvised crèche in Bethlehem on Dec. 13. The baby Jesus is lying not in a makeshift cradle of hay and wood, but among the rubble of broken bricks, stones and tiles that represent Gaza’s destruction.
WORLD / Society
Dec 24, 2023

‘God is under the rubble in Gaza’: Bethlehem’s subdued Christmas

The Israel-Hamas war has cast a pall over the birthplace of Jesus.
Russian conscripts watch a tank demonstration in Moscow in August 2022. Despite its bravado in public, the Kremlin has indicated its interest in striking a deal to halt the war so long as it could still declare victory.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Putin quietly signals he is open to a ceasefire in Ukraine

The repeated interest in cutting a deal exemplifies how opportunism and improvisation have defined his approach to the war behind closed doors.
Ukraine passed a law in July to move the celebration of Christmas to Dec. 25 — the day when most of the Christian world marks the birth of Jesus.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Ukrainians defy Moscow with first Dec. 25 Christmas

The move to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the day most Christians do deviates from the Orthodox Church observance of Jan. 7, seen as Russian heritage.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Embattled LDP's Nikai faction also suspected of logging kickbacks

The faction is suspected of not reporting excess fundraiser revenues as income but reporting the kickbacks as expenditures.
Unlike his immediate predecessor, new Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi has chosen to speak in words of his own for some matters.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 24, 2023

Hayashi maneuvers through his new Cabinet position carefully

Hayashi has served in many Cabinet posts in the past, including defense minister, agriculture minister and education minister.
Desi Permatasari, 32, comforts her daughter, Sheena Almaera Maryam, 5, who was prescribed contaminated cough syrup last year in their home in Bogor, Indonesia.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2023

When children take toxic cough syrup — and live

In Indonesia, one of the places most impacted by the contamination, families struggle to care for survivors while taking action against those responsible.
The U.S. head office of TikTok in Culver City, California
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2023

Whoever designed TikTok Shop should get coal for Christmas

With TikTok Shop's debut holiday season, is sees a mixed bag of success and struggles.
The yuan's stealthy climb in global payments could see it pose a challenge to the U.S. dollar's dominance.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2023

The yuan is finally showing some muscle in international trade

The yuan's stealthy climb in global payments could see it pose a challenge to the U.S. dollar's dominance.
Palestinians watch as an Israeli strike hits near houses in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2023

War and chaos are what Hamas and Iran really want

Israel must be stopped from expelling the Palestinians from Gaza as that would radicalize and destabilize the entire region.
Palestinians wait to collect food at a donation point in a refugee camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 25, 2023

U.S. sees new isolation from Israel support

Gaza suffering raises ire against Washington, which is juggling backing for ally with behind-the-scenes pressure to better protect civilians.
A Rohingya refugee woman holds her child at a temporary camp, at a port on Sabang island in Indonesia's Aceh province.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 25, 2023

Rohingya refugees in Indonesia face hostile welcome

Jakarta has called on neighboring countries to offer the Rohingya a permanent home.
A Tokyo Public Prosecutor's Office vehicle exits the building housing the office of a political faction once led by the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Dec. 19.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2023

LDP's top faction withdrew decision to abolish kickbacks

A special squad suspects that senior faction officials knew of the apparent mechanism of the kickbacks and attempted to correct the situation.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 25, 2023

Japan to open nursery places to all children by fiscal 2025

At the moment, typically only children from families where both the parents are working are admitted to day care.
Nancy Mills in a photo that appears to have been taken on Amami Oshima
JAPAN / History
Dec 26, 2023

New Yorker recalls life on Amami island 70 years after reversion

Tracing her early childhood through photographs and letters, 74-year-old Nancy Mills wishes for Amami residents' happiness.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks at a campaign town hall in Atkinson, New Hampshire, on Dec. 14.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 26, 2023

Nikki Haley works to broaden reach as bid to beat Trump gains pace

Support for the Republican presidential contender has risen in opinion polls, but falls short among rural voters and those without college degrees.
Jargal Lhagvasuren practicing an aerial routine at the Mongolian Circus School in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on May 18. Contortionists and acrobats with celestial skills train in squalid conditions as the promise of a former sumo wrestler to restore the national circus to its past glory has gone mostly unfulfilled.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 26, 2023

Mongolians are circus stars all over the world, except at home

The promise to return state circus in Ulaanbaatar to its former glory remains unfulfilled, forcing trained performers abroad.
A Philippine supply boat sails near a Chinese Coast Guard ship during a resupply mission for Filipino troops stationed at a grounded warship in the South China Sea on Oct. 4.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 26, 2023

Philippines not stirring conflict in South China Sea: spokesperson

Instead Manila accused Beijing of performing dangerous maneuvers that sometimes result in collisions at sea.
A group of 19 host club owners in Kabukicho who own most of the host clubs in the area have pledged to ban the pay-later system by April and prohibit entry to those under 20 years old from January.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 26, 2023

How Japan's host clubs trap young women under mountains of debt

False promises of love — and even marriage — lead to huge bills for some as young as 18, who are often then coaxed into sex work to make repayments.
Naoya Inoue fights Marlon Tapales  during their four-belt super bantamweight title unification match at Ariake Arena in Tokyo on Tuesday.
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Dec 27, 2023

Naoya Inoue still hungry after becoming undisputed super bantamweight champ

Naoya Inoue has said that he intends to retire at 35 but he hinted earlier this year that he might prolong his career for two extra years.
Iraqi security forces' stationed in Baghdad's Tahrir Square following U.S. air strikes on Tuesday
WORLD
Dec 27, 2023

Houthi attacks and U.S. strikes raise risk of wider Middle East war

The number of nonstate groups and the unpredictability of actions by Israel and Iran makes it difficult to forecast when incidents might escalate.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 27, 2023

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi vows to tackle distrust

Hayashi, who took office after his predecessor quit over a funding scandal, says revising the relevant law is related to freedom of political activity.
A female member of the Mandalay People's Defense Forces repairs and cleans a weapon at their base camp in the forest near Namhsan Township in Myanmar's northern Shan State. In the hills of northern Myanmar young women fly combat drones, treat wounded comrades and patrol the front lines — new roles in the battle to overthrow the military junta.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 27, 2023

'Mandalay girls' upending gender norms on Myanmar's front lines

Hundreds of women in pro-democracy fighting units, some still teenagers, are operating drones, joining patrols and working as medics.
JAPAN
Dec 27, 2023

Local governments in Japan eye independent ride-hailing services

Some local governments are exploring the introduction of their own systems tailored to fit local circumstances, separate from the central government.
Next year, U.S. President Joe Biden will seek a mandate to govern into his mid-80s. His likely opponent, former President Donald Trump, is only three years younger.
COMMENTARY / The Year Ahead
Dec 27, 2023

Making or breaking democracy

As 2024 approaches, one milestone looms menacingly on the horizon: The U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’