Search - people

 
 
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.
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.
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.
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.
A monument stands in Fujigane Park at the former site of an Aum Shinrikyo facility in Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 19, 2025

Former member of Aum Shinrikyo expresses regret 30 years on

The 59-year-old man who has served time in prison admitted to following the doomsday cult's leader despite thinking it wasn't right.
A signed picture by photographer Joe Rosenthal of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima is shown as part of a display at the new National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, in November 2006.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 19, 2025

‘DEI’ purge prompts Pentagon to remove webpage on Iwo Jima flag-raiser

The Pentagon said that the page and others, which were removed under the Trump administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on diversity measures, were being restored.
The crew of NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 mission, including NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, pose for a photo aboard the International Space Station on Feb. 26.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 19, 2025

What happens to the human body in deep space?

Bone and muscle deterioration, radiation exposure and vision impairment are just a few of the challenges space travelers face.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waits for a session of the House of Councillors Budget Committee to begin in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Explainer
Mar 19, 2025

What's the fuss over Ishiba's gift vouchers?

The prime minister's standing has worsened following reports that he handed out gift vouchers worth ¥100,000 ($668) each to rookie lawmakers from his party.
A soldier stands guard at a railway station in the Sibi district of southwestern Balochistan province, Pakistan, on March 12 as part of a security operation after militants hijacked a passenger train the previous day.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2025

Pakistan’s economy is back. But so is terrorism.

The disconnect between the grim drumbeat of terror attacks on the country’s margins and the positive economic news from its heartland is startling.
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's assertion that U.S. aid cuts to programs including PEPFAR and USAID in Africa aren't causing harm is not true. Children and others are already dying as a result.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2025

Musk says aid cuts haven’t killed anyone. That's not true.

In South Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, the efforts by Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump are already leading children to die.
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 19, 2025

Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description

The lastest scandal comes amid broader concerns over the LDP's misuse of political funds, further damaging Prime Minister Ishiba’s reputation.
A former judge has admitted to buying shares using undisclosed information about tender offers while he was seconded to the Financial Services Agency last year.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 19, 2025

Former judge admits to insider trading

Soichiro Sato, 32, used information obtained while on secondment at the Financial Services Agency to buy company shares.
Tourists visit a park in front of the Imperial Palace amid snowfall in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 19, 2025

Japan's record snow in February attributed to global warming

The Meteorological Agency said global warming contributed to the record snowfall in northern and eastern Japan last month.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw takes part in a sumo demonstration in Tokyo on Friday.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Mar 19, 2025

Japan’s twin obsessions meet as MLB visits sumo’s heartland

Sumo is often referred to as Japan’s national sport but it’s baseball that is the country’s one true obsession. This week, those two sports are intersecting in Tokyo.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Mar 20, 2025

Putin advances strategic aims while ceding little to Trump

The agreement to a narrow ceasefire in which Russia and Ukraine would stop attacking each other's energy facilities gives Moscow an edge against Kyiv.
Women's March Tokyo, a demonstration march against sexual violence and discrimination against women, is held on International Women's Day in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward on March 8.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2025

Women remain underrepresented in Japan's news industry

Correcting the gender gap is an urgent issue in the industry, with such a change expected to bring women's perspectives to newsrooms.
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave gift vouchers to lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party while he was in office, according to party sources.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 20, 2025

Kishida among several ex-PMs who gave gift vouchers to LDP lawmakers

The revelation emerges as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba comes under fire for distributing gift certificates worth ¥100,000 ($674) each to rookie LDP lawmakers.
Hong Kong's Secretary for Security Chris Tang
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2025

Hong Kong aims to safeguard key facilities with new cybersecurity law

The law, set to take effect in 2026, aims to safeguard the security of computer systems vital to the functioning of critical infrastructure.
Some critics of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba call him weak and indecisive, saying his leadership has led to policy blunders that may make his grip on power increasingly untenable.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 20, 2025

Prime Minister Ishiba’s struggles put his leadership in jeopardy

With the world as turbulent as it is, the country cannot continue with such a weak and indecisive leader.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo