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Police officers search for the missing in areas around the flooded Tsukada River in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Monday. Search operations continued on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2024

Rescue operations continue in flood-hit Ishikawa

The unprecedented rainfall — claiming seven lives so far — came as the region was recovering from a devastating earthquake earlier this year.
Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba reacts during a news conference ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election in Tokyo on Sept. 6.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Sep 24, 2024

Why is Shigeru Ishiba so unpopular among his LDP peers?

The former defense minister is highly regarded among the public and local chapters of the ruling party, but it's a different story when it comes to LDP lawmakers.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (left) and Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, during the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards in Manhattan on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 24, 2024

Musk calls Italy’s Meloni ‘authentic, honest’ at awards gala

Musk bestowed an award on Meloni during the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards in Manhattan on Monday.
The Justice Ministry said there are now over 250,000 specified skilled foreign workers.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2024

Number of specified skilled visa holders in Japan surpasses 250,000

The government is aiming to attract 820,000 foreign workers under the specified skilled worker program over a five-year period through April 2029.
Catherine O’Connell has achieved a number of notable firsts in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 24, 2024

Pioneering foreign female attorney stresses pragmatism within Japan Inc.

Catherine O’Connell was the first foreign woman to establish a law practice in Tokyo and to sit on the audit and supervisory boards at Toyota Motor and Fujitsu.
Japan's flag flies at half mast at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Thursday after a Japanese schoolboy was stabbed to death in the southern city of Shenzhen.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 24, 2024

The death of a Japanese school student: Is this just a tip of an iceberg?

Despite the fact that an innocent 10-year-old boy was brutally murdered, the reaction of the Japanese government and media was predictably restrained.
Mecobalamin is a form of vitamin B12 sold as a remedy for peripheral neuropathy and other conditions. It was initially proposed for pharmaceutical approval as a treatment for ALS in 2015 by drugmaker Eisai Co. after its clinical trial found a certain level of efficacy.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 24, 2024

Japan approves sale of new ALS drug, raising hopes among patients

The drug, mecobalamin, extended the survival period of patients within a year of the onset of ALS by over 500 days, surpassing existing drugs.
Debris and destruction at the site of an overnight Israeli strike on a neighborhood in the Lebanese city of Baalbeck in the Bekaa valley on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 24, 2024

Is all-out war inevitable? The view from Israel and Lebanon

Officials and analysts told reporters what the opposing sides hope to achieve by ramping up their attacks and whether there is any way out.
Haitham Al-Ghais, general secretary of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), attends the Rio Oil & Gas & Energy 2024 meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 25, 2024

No peak oil demand 'on the horizon' and phaseout a 'fantasy,' OPEC says

The oil cartel's prediction runs counter to the assessment of the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
An unearthed Nazca Lines geoglyph in southern Peru
JAPAN / Science & Health
Sep 25, 2024

AI research uncovers 300 ancient etchings in Peru's Nazca desert

Researchers found the geoglyphs through field surveys conducted at sites selected with artificial intelligence technology from aerial photographs.
A woman walks in front of the Kremlin's Spasskaya tower (left) and St. Basil's cathedral in downtown Moscow on Monday.
WORLD / Society
Sep 25, 2024

Russia takes aim at those without children — while sending young men to war

Proposals to ban "the ideology of childlessness" resemble legislation passed more than a decade ago that banned "propaganda" about LGBTQ relationships.
Chinese military vehicles carrying DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles travel past Beijing's Tiananmen Square during a military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, on Oct. 1, 2019.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 25, 2024

China fires long-range missile into Pacific Ocean in rare test

Tokyo said it had not received advance notification from the Chinese side of the launch, which Beijing said was part of annual military training.
Choi Min-kyong (right), a North Korean defector who said she was deported by China four times before making it to South Korea in 2012, and Shin Ju-ye (left), who fled North Korea in the 1990s and settled in China before defecting to South Korea last year, speak during an interview in Seoul on July 19.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 25, 2024

China cracks down on North Korean defectors with biometric surveillance

Facial-recognition cameras now monitor China's border with North Korea, documents show, while police have collected biometric data of North Koreans in the country.
Residential buildings in the Toyosu area in Tokyo, Japan, on Feb. 11, 2023. If rising rates on real estate investment loans are seen as a burden, people may become more cautious about acquiring properties for leasing, experts warn.
BUSINESS
Sep 25, 2024

Tokyo home prices are seen to largely withstand BOJ rate hikes

The days of making large profits from property in Tokyo may be over
The Nintendo Museum opens to the public on Oct. 2, but unlike the company's all-ages games, the new attraction may be geared more toward older rather than younger gamers.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 25, 2024

A first look inside the new Nintendo Museum

Set to open on Oct. 2, the gaming giant's newest foray into real-world experiences shows flashes of the same creativity that made the company what it is today.
Italian former prime minister and economist Mario Draghi (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen take part in a joint news conference about the future of European competitiveness at the EU headquarters in Brussels on Sept. 9.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 25, 2024

Draghi warns Europe — and Japan — about the failure to innovate

The warning could not be clearer. Europe faces “an existential crisis.” “Over time, we will inexorably become less prosperous, less equal, less secure and, as a result, less free to choose our destiny.” Moreover, “without action, we will have to either compromise our welfare, our environment...
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks during a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Aug. 28. The visit was part of efforts aimed at resetting British relations with the European Union, especially on defense and trade.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2024

Yes, let’s reverse Brexit (a bit) for Gen Z

Youth mobility isn’t just for privileged graduates seeking experience, CV points or language skills; it can also help fill labor shortages in the U.K.
Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), speaks during an interview in New York on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 25, 2024

UNRWA fears new 'tragedy' as Lebanon violence adds strain

Faced with mounting Israeli strikes, the UNRWA has paused some operations in Lebanon as it converts its schools into shelters for hundreds of displaced people.
Digital minister Taro Kono, who is contesting the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, shows a board saying "accomplishment of reformation" during a debate in Tokyo on Sept. 14.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 25, 2024

How Taro Kono lost his mojo

Recent polls have shown the digital minister trailing behind his eight other rivals in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential race.
The Japanese word for cooked rice, "gohan," is the same word used for meals in general.
LIFE / Language / Vocabulary Boost
Sep 25, 2024

Some idioms and terms pertaining to Japan's favorite grain

When one kind of food is so essential to the diet of an entire culture, it's bound to affect the language.
A husband and wife living in domestic bliss — in space — are not quite as perfect as they seem in “Previously Saved Version.”
CULTURE / Film
Sep 26, 2024

‘Previously Saved Version’: An intriguing premise gets lost in space

Kei Ishikawa’s psychodrama about an affluent couple that has left a supposedly uninhabitable Earth is attractive to look at but never more than mildly engaging.
A cloud of smoke erupts during Israeli airstrikes on a village south of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
WORLD
Sep 26, 2024

Hezbollah's tunnels and flexible command weather Israel's deadly blows

Hezbollah is the most powerful faction in Tehran's "Axis of Resistance" of allied irregular forces across the Middle East.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams listens to a reporter during an event at City Hall in New York on Sept. 16.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Sep 26, 2024

New York City mayor indicted following corruption probe

The largest U.S. city has been in a state of political upheaval for the past month.
Yonaguni Mayor Kenichi Itokazu speaks to a Ground Self-Defense Force soldier at the town hall on Yonaguni, Japan's westernmost inhabited island in Okinawa Prefecture last  November.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 26, 2024

Deterring Taiwan conflict is top priority for Japan's ‘front-line’ mayor

The mayor believes the U.S. and Japan must do away with "strategic ambiguity" over Taiwan if they intend to keep China in check.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 26, 2024

Meta pitches augmented reality glasses as eventual smartphone rival

The firm's Orion prototype glasses, introduced Wednesday, have lenses that can display text messages, video calls and even YouTube videos in the user’s field of vision.
Travis Kelce has eight catches in the Chiefs' first three games this season.
SPORTS / Football
Sep 26, 2024

Chiefs star Travis Kelce more worried about wins than catches

Kelce has just eight catches for 69 yards in three games this season.
Funafuti, Tuvalu’s most populous island, on Sept. 6
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 26, 2024

Tuvalu fights to retain its maritime rights amid climate change inundation

Tuvalu's economic zone is rich in tuna, but few foreign jurisdictions that fish in the Pacific have supported efforts to safeguard its maritime boundaries.
Hideko Hakamata (center) and lawyers representing her younger brother, Iwao Hakamata, pose with a banner that reads "Iwao Hakamata verdict not guilty" as they leave the Shizuoka District Court on Thursday after the ruling was delivered.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 26, 2024

In rare retrial, Shizuoka court rules ex-boxer not guilty of 1966 murders

Iwao Hakamata, the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner, has maintained his innocence for decades.
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan President Yoshihiko Noda (right) and Nippon Ishin no Kai leader Nobuyuki Baba in Tokyo on Tuesday
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 26, 2024

CDP's Noda wants to court Nippon Ishin and DPP, but will he succeed?

The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan's new leader faces an uphill task of bridging the differences of its peers in the opposition ahead of a general election.
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike amid the ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2024

In Lebanon, Israel set a trap for Iran and itself

Unable to rescue hostages or eliminate Hamas after nearly a year of war, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu expanded the fight to target Hezbollah and Iran.

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