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French President Emmanuel Macron (left), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (center) and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk join hands at a news conference at the Chancellery in Berlin on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2024

France and Germany to build arms plant in Ukraine as stakes rise

The announcement will do little to address Ukraine’s most pressing need: getting Kyiv enough ammunition in the short term.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani says he is focused on baseball despite all the hype surrounding his Dodgers debut in Seoul next week.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 16, 2024

Ohtani focused ahead of MLB season opener in Seoul

The Dodgers will play the San Diego Padres in a two-game series in Seoul to open the MLB season next week.
Hezbollah members take part in the funeral of four members of one family killed by in an Israeli air raid in southern Lebanon, on March 11 in Blida, near the border with Israel.
WORLD / FOCUS
Mar 16, 2024

Hezbollah tells Iran it would fight alone in any war with Israel

Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, has shown support for Hamas in the form of limited volleys of rockets fired across Israel's northern border.
Supporters await the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a campaign event in Hyderabad on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 16, 2024

Data dump exposes the fuzzy lines between money and politics in India

Reading between the lines of the spreadsheets full of names poses questions about the intersection of government and business in India.
Supporters of South Korean plaintiffs in wartime labor lawsuits hold a rally in Seoul on March 6.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2024

Wartime labor issue still overshadowing Japan-South Korea ties

Last month, a South Korean plaintiff received compensation deposited by Hitachi Zosen with a South Korean court handling the wartime labor suit.
The de facto border of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia in Khurvaleti, Georgia
WORLD
Mar 17, 2024

Breakaway Georgian region is discussing becoming part of Russia, says local official

Russia recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states in 2008 after Russia repelled a Georgian military attempt to retake South Ossetia.
A Palestinian girl sits holding a toddler on a sand dune overlooking a camp for displaced people in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 18, 2024

Oxfam says Israel 'deliberately' blocking aid to Gaza

NGO accuses Israel of "systematically and deliberately" blocking and undermining meaningful humanitarian response" in the Palestinian territory.
Shun Otokita is the rarest of Nippon Ishin lawmakers: He was born and bred in Tokyo, where he got his start as a local politician.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 18, 2024

Can Nippon Ishin no Kai make inroads in Tokyo?

The Kansai-based party is aiming to broaden its support across Japan — starting with Tokyo's No. 15 district election next month.
Women attend a singing class at Mama Sunset, a learning center for middle-aged and senior people, in Beijing in January.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 18, 2024

Silver lining: Tutoring the elderly is growing fast in China

The growth potential of the industry contrasts sharply with the decline of the after-school private tutoring sector following a crackdown in 2021.
A worker in the factory of Optimax Systems, in Ontario, New York on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 18, 2024

Markets frustrated as Fed drops no hints on post-pandemic economy

With investors having to guess how they will respond, households and businesses are finding it harder to plan.
A Palestinian child waits to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The United Nation's children's agency said on Sunday that many children in Gaza are suffering from severe malnutrition.
WORLD
Mar 18, 2024

UNICEF says over 13,000 children killed in Gaza in Israel offensive

Israel's military assault on Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million-person population, caused a starvation crisis, and killed over 31,000 people.
The Bank of Japan will decide whether to end its negative interest rate policy at its policy board meeting, which ends on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 18, 2024

BOJ’s Ueda faces decision time on rate hike

With the end of Japan's negative rate being a near certainty, the only question that remains is whether it comes on Tuesday or at the end of April.
Awang Suang trims weeds from palm trees on his small plantation in Membakut, Malaysia on Feb. 12. He has been cultivating oil palms for more than 50 years after switching from rubber trees. Palms require less labor and produce more frequent harvests — roughly every two weeks, year round — providing a steadier income, he explained.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 18, 2024

Can Europe save forests without killing jobs in Malaysia?

A new regulation aims to rid the palm oil supply chain of imports that come from former forestland.
People make their way through the rubble in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in January.
WORLD
Mar 18, 2024

Haiti’s hospitals survived cholera and COVID. Gangs are closing them.

Many hospitals in Haiti’s capital have been looted by gangs or abandoned by their staffs amid the violence.
Fans watch spring training game between the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Angels at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, on Saturday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 18, 2024

The Angels adjust to life after Shohei Ohtani

Losing a player like Ohtani does not make any team better. But it has allowed players to breathe a little more easily.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his daughter visit the Gangdong Comprehensive Greenhouse in Pyongyang.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 18, 2024

Daughter of North Korea's Kim might be heir apparent, Seoul says

Seoul's Unification Ministry said it has not "ruled out" that his daughter could be next in line to lead North Korea.
Customers make a toast at an eatery in Tokyo. Many view Japan’s economy as being on the rise, and that of regional powerhouse China as declining. But how accurate is this narrative?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 18, 2024

Japan is back, China is over. The trouble with narratives.

The idea that Japan and China's roles have flipped, with the former on the rise and the latter in decline, obfuscates important facts and trends.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Mar 19, 2024

Japan's 'hostage justice system' faces renewed scrutiny

The long-criticized system has come under the spotlight as executives wrongly accused of a crime continue their legal battle.
A screen at the headquarters of the Central Election Commission in Moscow shows the preliminary results of Russia's presidential election on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 19, 2024

West decries Putin's reelection while China and India vow closer ties

The contrasting reactions underscore the geopolitical fault lines that have gaped wider since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
Giovanna Gonzalez of Chicago demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol following a press conference by TikTok creators to voice their opposition to the "Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act," pending crackdown legislation on TikTok in the House of Representatives, on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 12.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 19, 2024

TikTok and its 'secret sauce' caught in U.S.-China tussle

China's ByteDance's algorithm has helped drive TikTok's stratospheric success since the app was launched for the international market in 2017.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2024

Emperor and Empress to visit quake-hit Noto Peninsula

The visit will mark the imperial couple's second visit to a disaster-hit area since the Emperor's enthronement in 2019.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo attend a working luncheon at the Sofitel Hotel in Manila on Tuesday. Blinken’s trip, which also touched upon economic cooperation, followed a trade mission visit by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo a week earlier.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 19, 2024

Blinken pledges closer U.S.-Philippine security ties ahead of trilateral summit with Japan

The top U.S. diplomat and his Philippine counterpart also signaled the allies were eyeing ways to "operationalize" security cooperation with Tokyo.
Humility, recognition of cultural blind spots and a renewed effort are needed to find common ground between China and the United States.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2024

Addressing the 'blind spots' in U.S.-China relations

The dwindling opportunities for unofficial dialogue between scholars and experts from the U.S. and China are also driving by mutual suspicion and fear.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Philippines' president, speaks during an interview in Manila on Tuesday. Marcos said the threat to his nation from China's sweeping claims in the South China Sea is growing but argued that his government's efforts to assert sovereignty over disputed areas aren't meant to start a conflict by "poking the bear." 
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 20, 2024

Marcos warns on China threat, says he’s not ‘poking the bear’

But since the threat has grown, Manila "must do more" to defend its territory, the Philippine president says.
People walk under flags of China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, on Queen's Road in Hong Kong.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 20, 2024

What's in Hong Kong's new national security law?

The law's broadly defined provisions have drawn condemnation from Western countries, which had urged Hong Kong to reconsider it.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda (center) and Deputy Govs. Ryozo Himino (left) and Shinichi Uchida (right) attend a news conference at the bank headquarters in Tokyo in April 2023
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Mar 20, 2024

How the Bank of Japan's plan for a smooth stimulus exit unfolded

The decision was complicated by differences between BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda's two deputies, as well as the governor's wavering on the exit timing.
Japan fans during the women's team's Olympic qualifier against North Korea in Tokyo last month.
SOCCER
Mar 20, 2024

Japan warns football fans not to go to North Korea for World Cup qualifier

Japan and North Korea play in Tokyo on Thursday as part of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup, before the return fixture next week.
A South Korean presidential official has resigned following criticism of his comments regarding a 1988 knife incident, where a journalist who had written columns critical of the government was attacked.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 20, 2024

South Korean official resigns amid controversy over knife attack comment

South Korea has a history of media censorship, which was particularly harsh during administrations from the 1960s to the 1990s.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 20, 2024

Princess Aiko set to work with Red Cross following Gakushuin graduation

The princess studied for four years in the Department of Japanese Language and Literature, writing her thesis on a noted 12th-century poet.
As two friends deal with normal problems teenagers face, their lives are complicated by the looming specter of an alien takeover in “Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction Part 1.”
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2024

‘Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction: Part 1’: A prophetic vision of pandemic life

Tomoyuki Kurokawa’s adaptation of Inio Asano’s manga of the same name pokes fun at modern society and politics amid a crisis.

Longform

"Shake hands with Lima-chan," a statue that shares the name of the Peruvian capital looks in the direction of Peru, where a sister statue, "Sakura-chan," is located. Erected in Yokohama's Rinko Park in 1999, it commemorates Peruvian-Japanese friendship.
The journey of Peru’s Nikkei: Finding identity in Japan