Search - new

 
 
A liquefied natural gas tanker arrives at a Tokyo Gas LNG terminal in Yokohama. Despite a decline in domestic gas demand, Japanese companies are looking to maintain their stake in overseas LNG markets, especially in Asia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 29, 2024

The double standard of Japan’s energy companies abroad

In Japan, energy companies like Tokyo Gas are striving to cut emissions. But overseas, they're shoring up LNG markets, making for a very different picture.
A Spain player holds the Women's World Cup trophy after the team won the 2023 tournament, in Sydney on Aug. 20.
SOCCER / Women's World cup
Apr 30, 2024

Mexico and U.S. withdraw joint bid for 2027 Women's World Cup

The two countries' soccer federations said they would now switch toward a bid for the 2031 tournament.
Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in March
WORLD / Politics
Apr 30, 2024

U.S. implicates five Israeli units in rights violations before Gaza war

The incidents in question took place in October outside of Gaza before conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas.
A cardboard cut-out of a cyborg is on display in the Hofburg, the former imperial palace in Vienna, during a conference on regulating autonomous weapons systems often referred as "killer robots," in the Austrian city on Monday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 30, 2024

AI faces its ‘Oppenheimer moment’ during killer robot arms race

Governments worldwide have taken steps to collaborate with companies integrating AI tools into defense
This combination of photos shows the cooling tower of the Emile Huchet coal-fired power station undergoing demolition in Saint-Avold, northeastern France, in February.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 30, 2024

G7 reportedly agrees end date for coal-fired power plants

The meeting in Turin is the first big political session since the world pledged at the U.N.'s COP28 climate summit in December.
The Ibaraki Prefectural Government has introduced an optional four-day workweek to serve as a model for work style reform.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 30, 2024

Are local governments in Japan ready to embrace a four-day workweek?

Several municipalities are testing the waters by allowing employees to opt for longer workdays in exchange for an extra weekday off.
Peaches grown in Fukushima Prefecture. A so-called zebra firm in the prefecture is selling substandard fruits to greengrocers in urban areas, which leads to higher incomes for local farmers.
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2024

Japan eyes socially mindful startups to boost regional economies

Starting in June, the government will launch pilot projects to help such startups cooperate with local governments, banks and companies.
(From left) Nanami Fukuoka, Natsumi Matsunaga and Riana Tashima, students from Denshukan High School in Yanagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, and Mutsumi Machitori, their teacher, show their research in late March.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Kyushu
May 6, 2024

Students in Fukuoka learn of school's tragic past in World War II

After investigating a cenotaph at their school, pupils researched 17 alumni who died at a nearby munitions factory.
Researcher Mercury Wong holds a rice plant on April 1.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Apr 30, 2024

Hong Kong team plants seeds to safeguard legacy grains

Scientists and farmers in Hong Kong are tending to local varieties of grain they say could be an important food source in the face of climate change.
Japan's industrial production rose 3.8% in March from February, as demand picked up after two straight months of declines.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 30, 2024

Japan’s factory output records weakest quarter since pandemic

The yen’s plunge to a fresh 34-year low versus the dollar could spur a resurgence of cost-push inflation via higher costs for imports of food and energy.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 30, 2024

What's next for Kishida after LDP's by-election loss?

Speculation has been rife over how he may decide to take responsibility, from dissolving parliament to making senior party leadership changes.
Japanese fashion designer Yumi Katsura (center) greets guests during the finale of the 2015 Yumi Katsura Grand Collection in Tokyo. Katsura has died at the age of 94.
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 30, 2024

Yumi Katsura, a pioneer of Japan’s bridal fashion, dies at 94

Katsura developed a unique style combining Japan’s traditional techniques with French motifs throughout a career spanning over half a century.
Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray controls the ball during game five of the first round for the 2024 NBA playoffs, in Denver on Monday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Apr 30, 2024

Nuggets send Lakers crashing out of the NBA playoffs

After a 4-1 series win, Denver will now face Minnesota in the next round.
A woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan, in January.
WORLD
Apr 30, 2024

Surrounded by fighters and haunted by famine, Sudan city fears worst

The contest for control of El Fasher in Darfur has prompted alarmed warnings from American and United Nations officials who fear mass bloodshed.
An aerial view of Prince Heinrich XIII’s Waidmannsheil hunting lodge, where German police searched for evidence while arresting dozens across the country in December 2022 in connection to an alleged insurrectionist plot, in Bad Lobenstein, Germany, on Dec. 8, 2022.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 30, 2024

The first court trial over alleged coup plot in Germany begins

A random assortment of people comprised a group that attempted a coup in Germany in 2022, but investigators say they were well-organized and dangerous.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 30, 2024

Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.

The size and timing of the swing indicates that the government stepped in after the currency fell significantly.
The United Nations Security Council votes on a Gaza resolution that demands an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas and unconditional release of all hostages, at the U.N.'s headquarters in New York on March 25. So far, such resolutions have proven ineffective.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2024

Can ‘minilaterals’ save the world?

Minilateral partnerships offer a new approach to addressing regional challenges effectively and ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
The trial hearing of Masumi Hayashi, who denied killing four people and poisoning 63 at a festival by lacing a pot of curry with arsenic, was the focus of The Japan Times’ front page of May 14, 1999.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
May 1, 2024

Japan Times 1999: Hayashi admits fraud, denies curry murders

The disturbing case of the Wakayama curry killer would continue for years, resulting in the eventual execution of the woman convicted of the crime.
The Naughton coal power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Ministers from the Group of Seven countries have agreed on a schedule for phasing out coal-fired power plants, setting as a goal the mid-2030s.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
May 1, 2024

G7 to phase out coal-fired power plants by mid-2030s

The move was hailed as significant by some environmentalists but slammed as "too late" by others.
A busy street in Kigali, Rwanda. Under the voluntary program, the U.K. will pay asylum seekers to move to Rwanda to help clear the backlog of refugees who have arrived in the country in recent years.
WORLD / Politics
May 1, 2024

Britain sends first voluntary asylum seeker to Rwanda, report says

The voluntary program is separate to a forced deportation program that Britain is about to embark on in the next few months.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak deliver remarks on the AUKUS partnership, after a trilateral meeting, at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California, on March 13, 2023.
WORLD / Politics
May 1, 2024

U.S. reduces arms licensing burden for U.K. and Australia to boost AUKUS

The U.S. State Department unveiled its proposal to reduce licensing requirements for transferring military equipment as part of the AUKUS defense project.
An Amazon Web Services (AWS) logo is pictured during a trade fair in Hanover, Germany, on April 22.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 1, 2024

Amazon triples quarterly profit as cloud surges

The Seattle-based company reported $10.4 billion in profit on revenue of $143.3 billion
Mitsunobu Inoike talks about the Kanakura district of Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, known for its terraced rice fields, on Friday.
JAPAN / Society
May 1, 2024

Noto quake survivors face tough choice: leave or remain

In the disaster-hit areas, many damaged houses are being left as they are.
The decision to cut the nearly 500-person group, including its senior director, Rebecca Tinucci, was made by CEO Elon Musk in the last week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 1, 2024

Tesla axes most of supercharger team in blow to other automakers

The decision to cut the nearly 500-person group, including its senior director, Rebecca Tinucci, was made by CEO Elon Musk in the last week.
An analysis of the Bank of Japan's accounts suggests an intervention of about ¥5.5 trillion took place on Monday to prop up the yen.
BUSINESS / Markets
May 1, 2024

BOJ accounts suggest Japan intervened to support yen

The Bank of Japan said its current account will probably fall ¥7.56 trillion — much bigger than the drop of about ¥2.1 trillion estimated.
Taiwanese soldiers participate in battlefield rescue training in Taipei on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 1, 2024

Taiwan on alert for post-inauguration Chinese drills

China has a strong dislike of Taiwan's President-elect Lai Ching-te, believing him to be a dangerous separatist.
A Starbucks logo adorns a store in Los Angeles in 2015.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 1, 2024

Starbucks posts first sales drop since 2020 amid global pullback

Consumers growing more hesitant to spend money has given Starbucks "perhaps the worst set of results of any large company so far," an analyst said.
Australia PM Anthony Albanese. Albanese on Wednesday announced new legislation to ban deepfake pornography and additional funding for the country's online watchdog.
WORLD / Society
May 1, 2024

Australian PM says violence against women a 'national crisis'

28 women have been killed in Australia so far this year — an average of one death every four days.
A forest road in Nasu, Tochigi Prefecture, near the site where the burned bodies of a Tokyo couple were found last month
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 1, 2024

Two more suspects arrested over burned bodies found in Tochigi

Police suspect the two men, both 20, were involved in the torching of the bodies of a Tokyo businessman and his wife.
A worker organizes cannabis flowers before the opening of the first legal recreational marijuana dispensary, located in the East Village in the Manhattan borough of New York, on Dec. 29, 2022.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 1, 2024

Marijuana could be reclassified in U.S. as less dangerous

The rumored move would ease access to cannabis for patients and researchers studying its medical applications without decriminalizing it.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years