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SOCCER / WE LEAGUE
Sep 10, 2021

Japan's ambitious WE League aims to empower in historic first season

Japan's first professional women's soccer league will launch on Sunday with the goals of promoting gender equality and raising the country's level of play.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 8, 2021

Abe ally Sanae Takaichi enters LDP race as underdog

The hawkish conservative backs increased nuclear power over renewables, similar economic policies to her mentor and laws to protect Japanese research.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 11, 2021

Masayoshi Son to make personal investments with SoftBank’s Vision Fund

Business leaders don't usually mix personal interests with corporate responsibilities in order to avoid conflicts of interest, especially when there are public shareholders.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Jul 9, 2021

China's Didi crackdown is all about controlling big data

The crackdown shows how big data is quickly turning into the next major battleground in a clash of superpowers.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Jul 4, 2021

Why a carbon tax would help Japan achieve its green ambitions

The government needs to make clear that emissions come with high costs and encourage companies and individuals to come up with new ideas and take action.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Jun 9, 2021

How China is tightening its grip on Hong Kong’s media scene

The moves by the city's Beijing-appointed government have raised more questions about Hong Kong's viability as a financial hub.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2021

After tech crackdown, Xi looking to tap Chinese firms' wealth of data

Beijing is pouring money into digital infrastructure, with the goal of positioning China as a leader in transforming the world economy within decades.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 18, 2021

Thailand sold itself as a paradise pandemic retreat. No one came.

The economy is estimated to have contracted 6% in 2020, the biggest decline since the Asian financial crisis.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / Beyond COVID-19
Jan 5, 2021

A post-COVID labor revival?

As millions of people actively seek work in 2021, many will find that employers increasingly have the upper hand, particularly in the United States.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 10, 2020

For Canadians held in China, two years of isolation and uncertainty

The fates of the two men are seemingly intertwined with the future of China's tumultuous relationships with Canada and the United States.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 7, 2020

U.S. preparing new sanctions on Chinese officials over Hong Kong crackdown

The move will target officials from the Chinese Communist Party as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration keeps up pressure on Beijing in his final weeks in office.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2020

Investors and impacts drive businesses in Asia to take climate risks seriously

After years of pressure from mostly European investors, Asian companies are pulling ahead of their North American counterparts when it comes to climate risk reporting.
The $8.2 billion deal is the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese insurer to date and the second major transaction announced by Nippon Life this year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 11, 2024

Nippon Life to buy Resolution in $8.2 billion deal as it pursues U.S. growth

The deal is the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese insurer to date and the second major transaction announced by Nippon Life this year.
KKR is discussing investing several hundred billion yen for an equity stake in the operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 16, 2025

KKR considers joining Seven & I management buyout after Apollo

The U.S. firm is discussing investing several hundred billion yen for an equity stake in the operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores.
People line up to use an ATM  in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk, Ukraine, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022. Western financial sanctions have weighed on the Russian ruble, which has sunk from 34 to the dollar in 2013 to around 100 today.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2025

Putin’s war is fueling Russian stagflation

For a normal country, a budget deficit of 2% of GDP would be of no concern. But Russia is not a normal country.
Homes destroyed by wildfire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles earlier this month. Insured losses caused by this and other fires raging in the area in recent weeks have been valued at over $30 billion.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2025

Fossil fuel insurance is still way too cheap

Despite mounting losses from climate-induced disasters, insurers continue underwriting fossil fuels. Raising the cost of such policies would help cut emissions and benefit many.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged troops for a Ukraine peacekeeping force, but Britain and its military lack the resources to deliver.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2025

Starmer offers Ukraine a defense check it can't cash

Under Starmer’s leadership, there has been no sign that the U.K. is ready to expand its armed forces to the numbers that could sustain such a campaign.
"We sincerely apologize for our failure to promptly stop the spread of unauthorized credit card use and act quickly in our response to customers who suffered damage," President Shunsuke Shirakawa told a news conference on Thursday in Tokyo's Chuo Ward.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2025

Damage from Aeon card fraud in Japan reaches ¥9.9 billion

Such fraudulent transactions have been on the rise since last spring, affecting tens of thousands of Aeon card users.
A couple take wedding photos in Qingdao, China, in April last year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 23, 2025

Beijing simplifies marriages to encourage Chinese to wed

Couples having children outside of marriage is rare in China, where there is social stigma and fewer protections for such families.
Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa in Damascus on March 10
WORLD / Politics
Apr 15, 2025

Saudi Arabia to pay off Syria's World Bank debts, paving way for further funding

Plans would be the first known instance of Saudi Arabia providing financing for Syria since Islamist-led rebels toppled former leader Bashar al-Assad last year.
Stephen Ma, the head of Nissan’s operations in China, speaks during a news conference at the Shanghai auto show on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

Nissan commits another $1.4 billion to China with EVs in focus

"With China moving so fast, we want to stay and we want to compete,” said Stephen Ma, the head of Nissan’s operations in China.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato is is expected to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 24, 2025

U.S. indicates no hard target for yen ahead of key trade talks

The United States has argued that the yen is too weak, making its value against the dollar a top agenda item in trade discussions.
Then-U.S. President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Freedom to investor Warren Buffett at the White House in February 2011. His nickname, the "Oracle of Omaha," was something of a misnomer, as he credited his success to patience and a strict focus on businesses he understood.
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2025

The Oracle of Omaha caps a career built on humility

Nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha (a misnomer perhaps), he credited his success to patience and insisting on only buying the businesses he understood.
A security guard stands outside a branch of Yes Bank in New Delhi last August.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 10, 2025

Japan's SMBC to buy stake in India's Yes Bank

The Sumitomo Mitsui deal marks the biggest foreign investment in India’s banking sector, and is the latest move by Japanese lenders to expand in the country.
A Musee Platinum hair removal salon in the city of Saitama on Monday
BUSINESS / Companies
May 19, 2025

Hair removal chain Musee Platinum owes ¥1.5 billion, say former staff

More than 2,000 former employees of the company went unpaid between January and April.
People walk through Harvard Yard on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
WORLD
May 23, 2025

Trump's Harvard foreign student attack threatens key college revenue

The administration’s move to stop foreign enrollment is a huge blow to Harvard and sends a message to other universities.
Japan may offer cooperation on shipbuilding expertise and an Alaska natural gas project as part of trade talks with the United States.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 26, 2025

Japan touts ships expertise and LNG investment, with tariff talks key

There is rising momentum in the negotiations as the U.S. tariffs threaten to drag Japan’s economy into a technical recession ahead of the Upper House election.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth review an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo on March 30.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 21, 2025

Japan scraps ‘two-plus-two’ meeting with U.S. over defense spending demand, report says

The talks’ cancellation reportedly came after the U.S. asked Japan to hike its defense budget to 3.5% of gross domestic product.
Apartment rents in the capital climbed 1.3% from a year earlier in April and May for the largest gains since 1994, government data shows.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 26, 2025

Tokyo rents rising at fastest pace in 30 years backs case for BOJ rate hikes

Bigger outlays for accommodation are likely to further fuel a change in inflation expectations and behavior among households of all sizes.
South African Deputy Minister of Finance David Masondo (left), Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana (center) and South African Reserve Bank Gov. Lesetja Kganyago address a closing news conference on the last day of a meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Durban, South Africa on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 19, 2025

G20 communique delivers rare show of unity amid Trump trade war

U.S. tariffs have strained the G20’s multilateral foundations and complicated South Africa’s efforts — as this year’s rotating president — to keep the group’s agenda on course.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person