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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a press briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 16, 2025

Zelenskyy accuses Russia of trying to trap Ukraine’s forces amid ceasefire talks

Fighting is raging in and around the part of the Kursk region that Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive into Russian territory last summer.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is under fire for giving gift certificates worth ¥100,000 each to lawmakers newly elected to the House of Representatives last year.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 16, 2025

Past prime ministers customarily gave gift certificates, lawmaker says

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is under fire for giving gift certificates worth ¥100,000 each to lawmakers newly elected to the House of Representatives.
Emergency responders gather outside the site of a deadly night-club fire in the town of Kocani, North Macedonia, on Sunday.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2025

Toll in Northern Macedonia hip-hop gig blaze rises to 59: interior minister

Thirty-one of the dead were residents of Kocani, the eastern town where the concert took place.
Salvadoran police officers escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, at the El Salvador International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, in this image released on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 17, 2025

U.S. flies alleged gang members to El Salvador despite court block

Legal experts called the move the most radical test of America's system of checks and balances since the Civil War.
Chiba Gov. Toshihito Kumagai
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 17, 2025

Chiba Gov. Toshihito Kumagai wins reelection bid as turnout dips

Voter turnout was 31.93%, down from 38.99% in the previous election four years ago.
Takashi Tachibana, leader of the Party to Protect the People from NHK, delivers his first campaign speech for the Chiba gubernatorial election on Feb. 27 in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 17, 2025

Controversial candidate draws criticism in Chiba election

Takashi Tachibana mainly campaigned in Hyogo Prefecture, hundreds of kilometers away.
One year on from the Bank of Japan's historic rate hike, the biggest winners are the banks.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 17, 2025

Banks boom and shoppers scrimp a year after Japan’s rate pivot

Higher borrowing costs are also fueling a political battle over how the government can rein in its outlays.
The Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto during training at Tokyo Dome on Monday
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 17, 2025

How Yoshinobu Yamamoto rebounded after his disastrous MLB debut

Yamamoto is a different pitcher than he was a year ago when he was still adjusting to the transition from NPB to MLB.
Johan Leutwiler checks a sword he made at his workshop studio in the Kui district of Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Mar 24, 2025

Japan's first foreign swordsmith opens workshop in Hiroshima Prefecture

Johan Leutwiler hopes to promote the charm of Japanese swords following the completion of his five-year apprenticeship.
By promoting healthier aging through measures to extend workforce participation, increase social engagement and improve health care systems, Asia’s policymakers could create a “silver demographic dividend” that helps to sustain the region’s economic dynamism.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2025

Reaping Asia’s silver demographic dividend

Concerns that older workers are not as productive as their younger counterparts are overblown.
Japan, despite facing multiple territorial disputes, lacks a dedicated university program on the issue, unlike Western countries, and would benefit from an interdisciplinary academic initiative to foster expertise.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2025

Japan needs academic programs focused on territorial issues

While many countries have territorial disputes with their neighbors — in fact, there are at least 150 active disputes worldwide — Japan faces issues with nearly all its neighbors.
A migrant worker from Myanmar walks through a local market in Mae Sot, Thailand, on Feb. 21.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 17, 2025

War of words: Myanmar migrants face disinformation in Thailand

Analysts say some Thai authorities deliberately reinforce the nationalistic ideologies that drive xenophobia in the country — which was invaded by Burma in the 18th century.
Alimentation Couche-Tard founder Alain Bouchard (center), CEO Alex Miller (left) and CFO Filipe Da Silva attend a photo session after a news conference on their bid for Seven & I Holdings in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies / EXPLAINER
Mar 17, 2025

Why Couche-Tard's deal with Seven & I isn't going anywhere

The buyout bid has seen a mixed response in Japan, with some expressing concerns over the convenience store chain being taken over by a foreign company.
Tourists gather at the Fuji Subaru Line 5th station, which leads to the popular Yoshida Trail for hikers climbing Mount Fuji, ahead of its reopening for the season in Narusawa, Yamanashi Prefecture in June 2024.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 17, 2025

Mount Fuji hikers to be charged ¥4,000 on all trails

Yamanashi Prefecture is doubling its ¥2,000 ($14) entry fee for the Yoshida Trail, while Shizuoka Prefecture will charge the same amount for its three trails.
A Russian soldier at an artillery position in the Kursk region of Russia on Dec. 2. Ukrainian forces have pulled almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia, ending an offensive that had stunned the Kremlin last summer with its speed and audacity.
WORLD
Mar 17, 2025

How Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk region unraveled

At the height of the campaign, Ukrainian forces controlled some 1,300 square kilometers of Russian territory. Now they hold just a small sliver of land along the border.
Tokyo Creative Salon combines elements of design, fashion and less easily categorizable artistic disciplines.
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 18, 2025

Tokyo Creative Salon sees the city as both runway and canvas

Through March 23, Tokyo’s streets, shopping centers and civic spaces will host an interdisciplinary celebration of creativity.
A Russian service member walks past destroyed buildings in the town of Sudzha, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, Russia, in this still image from video released on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 18, 2025

Trump and Putin to discuss power plants, land in talks to end Ukraine war

Trump has been trying to win Putin's support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin hold a bilateral meeting at the Group of 20 leaders summit in Osaka in June 2019.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Mar 18, 2025

Trump discussion with Putin to focus on what Ukraine will lose

In an echo of the Yalta Conference in 1945, the American and Russian leaders will talk on Tuesday about who gets what in the process of ending the war in Ukraine.
Emergency medical workers treat victims of the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system at a makeshift shelter before they are transported to hospitals on March 20, 1995.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025

Japan to preserve medical records from 1995 sarin attack

The health ministry will also interview medical professionals who treated the victims and compile oral records.
Okayama goalkeeper Svend Brodersen reaches for the ball against Urawa's Thiago Santana (front) at Saitama Stadium on March 8.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 18, 2025

Manga-loving German goalkeeper finds peace, and himself, in Japan

Svend Brodersen moved to Japan in 2021 and now plays for top-tier J. League side Fagiano Okayama, but he admits that initially he felt like he was "on another planet."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks to members of the media, as images are displayed of U.S. President Donald Trump receiving information on military strikes launched against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis, in the briefing room at the White House on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 18, 2025

Trump ramps up pressure on Iran with fresh Houthi threats

The U.S. president has raised the possibility of retaliatory strikes against Tehran if the militant group in Yemen doesn’t stop its attacks.
Despite recent market volatility and trade tariff concerns, Japan continues to see fund launches as global investors are drawn to its stock market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 18, 2025

Hong Kong hedge fund Polymer joins rush to debut pure Japan funds, sources say

The move will see the heavyweight joining a wave of fund launches in Japan.
Saul Luciano Lliuya in his home in Huaraz, Peru, on March 2. Lliuya is pursuing a lawsuit against German energy utility RWE, whose emissions he says have contributed to the melting of Andean glaciers, swelling a lake above his hometown to dangerous levels.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 18, 2025

Facing glacial melt-water flood risk, Peruvian farmer tests global climate law

Lawyers in the case say German energy firm RWE is responsible for 0.5% of global emissions, so should pay 0.5% of the costs for a local $3.5 million flood defense project.
People gather at the National Covid Memorial Wall on the COVID-19 Day of Reflection, marking 5 years since the start of the pandemic, in London on March 9.
WORLD / Society
Mar 18, 2025

Debt, job loss and eviction weigh on parents of children with long COVID

Five years after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, the families of over 111,000 children in the U.K. sick with long COVID feel invisible.
BYD's large cylindrical cell batteries are pictured at Smart Energy Week in Tokyo on Feb. 19.
BUSINESS / Tech
Mar 18, 2025

How BYD’s five-minute charging stacks up against the competition

The Chinese firm is now staking claim to a system it says will make it as quick to charge an electric vehicle as to refuel a gasoline car.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya has named the issue of fishery products imports as an important topic to be discussed with China.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 19, 2025

Japan, China and South Korea's top diplomats to meet in Tokyo

The last such trilateral meeting was held in November 2023 in the South Korean port city of Busan.
The Japanese postal mark displayed on a Japan Post post box in Tokyo
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025

Number of Japan Post clients affected by misuse of information rises to 10 million

"We deeply apologize for causing anxiety and worry," Japan Post Holdings Managing Executive Officer Miho Ichiki told a news conference.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent walks to a television interview outside the White House in Washington on Friday. Bessent had indicated a possible delay in the activation of new reciprocal tariff rates on the United States' trading partners.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 19, 2025

Trump still intends for reciprocal tariffs to kick in on April 2

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had indicated a possible delay but the White House says trading partners would need to negotiate deals in advance to avoid new tariffs.
Minoru Kariya, who lost his father, Kiyoshi, in 1995 in an abduction case involving the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, speaks during an interview in Tokyo in February.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2025

Aum Shinrikyo victim's son wants continued remorse

Minoru Kariya's father, Kiyoshi, then 68, was killed in an abduction case involving the doomsday cult in 1995.
Public Security Intelligence Agency officers enter the headquarters of Hikari no Wa, one of the three successor groups to Aum Shinrikyo, in Tokyo in July 2019.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 19, 2025

Aum Shinrikyo successor groups still dangerous, justice minister says

The minister also expressed concern about the groups' activities in recent years to recruit young people with little knowledge of the deadly attack.

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