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Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda listens to a question during a news conference after a two-day monetary policy meeting at the central bank's headquarters in Tokyo on March 19.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Apr 8, 2024

Ueda's first year as BOJ chief marked by smooth handling of policy shift

But the central bank governor now has to balance various factors, including how further rate hikes might affect not just the yen but also households.
Supporters of the Senior Women for Climate Protection association outside the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on March 29, 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 8, 2024

How three European human rights cases could shape climate litigation

The verdicts will set a precedent for future litigation on how rising temperatures affect people's right to a livable planet.
Broken fridges in the yard of a recycling workers' tenement house in Dongxiaokou village in Beijing in 2014
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 8, 2024

Climate-warming gases being smuggled into Europe, investigation says

Law enforcement agencies across the European Union are struggling to keep track of illicit shipments entering via Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.
Seth Fischer, founder and chief investment officer of Oasis Management, says the fund has been investing in Kao for over four years and engaging with it for nine months.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 8, 2024

Activist Oasis reveals 3% Kao stake in battle for change at Japan cosmetics firm

Kao is the world's second-largest cosmetics and sixth-largest personal care product firm by revenue.
With the resignation of Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu, a major hurdle may have been removed in the construction of the maglev high-speed train, which is expected to connect Tokyo to Osaka in just over 60 minutes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 5, 2024

Maglev train is back on track after Shizuoka governor's derailing

Shizuoka's governor was blocking the construction of Japan's maglev bullet train. Now that he has resigned, the project can finally move at full speed.
The American and Japanese flags are posted on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House in Washington in preparation for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's state visit to the United States this week.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 8, 2024

More investment is needed to strengthen U.S.-Japan collaboration

Despite the countries' shared challenges, investment in U.S.-Japan intellectual exchange programs and expertise building is at a historic low.
A U.N. conference on Afghanistan in Geneva in September 2021. In December last year, the U.N. decided to appoint a special envoy for Afghanistan, but the role hasn't been filled yet.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2024

Could a new U.N. envoy move the needle on Afghanistan?

If the Taliban refuse to dialogue with other Afghans, the U.N. should empower those outside of the group. The appointment of a special envoy could help.
NATO headquarters in Brussels. In attacking the transatlantic alliance, Trump fails to see that the grouping is key to safeguarding the United States' own interests.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 3, 2024

NATO is not a hegemonic burden

Trump is wrong in wrangling over NATO. Withdrawing from the alliance would hurt U.S. interests — without really reducing its military spending.
Shizuoka Gov. Heita Kawakatsu speaks to reporters at the prefectural government office on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 8, 2024

Shizuoka governor to resign over gaffe

Heita Kawakatsu is under fire for a remark viewed as insulting to farmers and others.
Daihatsu Motor President Masahiro Inoue speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 8, 2024

Toyota tightens oversight over scandal-hit Daihatsu

Daihatsu will streamline the way it reports on development and certification to its parent Toyota Motor.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps speak during a news conference following an AUKUS defense ministerial meeting in Mountain View, California, last December.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 9, 2024

U.S., U.K. and Australia consider working with Japan on AUKUS security pact

The three countries said they were weighing inviting Tokyo to join the pact’s second stage, with talks with Japan and others set to begin this year.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani needs to find a way to keep his eye on the ball as he plays his first 162-game season without his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara.
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 9, 2024

Can Shohei Ohtani achieve Michael Jordan-level mental resilience?

One expert says ensuring that he can pivot smoothly into a new support system is crucial for the player.
Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour speaks with the media, accompanied by Yemen's Ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Ali Fadhel Al-Saadi and Algeria's Representative to the United Nations Amar Bendjama, at U.N. headquarters in New York on March 25.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

Security Council to decide within April on Palestine's U.N. membership bid

Palestinians have lobbied for years to gain full membership, which would amount to recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Deer that are kept in a fenced-off area in the city of Nara
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2024

Nara Prefecture to expand area for culling iconic deer

The prefectural panel will discuss culling methods and other details to draw up a new protection program in fiscal 2025.
Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Shane Bieber will spend this season off the pitch, after his team disclosed that he needed to undergo Tommy John surgery.
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 9, 2024

MLB insiders 'pretty worried’ by rise in young pitchers' arm injuries

There is reason to believe it is getting even more challenging to keep pitchers healthy.
Towa’s compression molding equipment. The firm commands two-thirds of the world’s chip molding equipment market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 9, 2024

AI demand spurs 390% surge in Kyoto chip company’s stock price

A growing demand for AI technology has been a boon for Towa, a little-known company that makes an essential component.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) concluded that China interfered in the last two elections, an official probe heard on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

Canada spies found China interfered in last two elections, probe hears

Intelligence analysts and the Conservatives say Trudeau's government has not done enough to combat Chinese interference.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits the Guozijian Hutong Alley in Beijing on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

Yellen threatens sanctions for China banks that aid Russia war

America’s ultimate weapon against financial institutions is its ability to cut off access to U.S. dollars, a threat for any bank operating internationally.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Kaga vessel was unveiled Monday in the city of Kure, in Hiroshima Prefecture, after completing the first stage of work to turn it into a flattop for F-35B stealth fighter jets.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

MSDF unveils modified Kaga vessel refurbished for F-35B stealth fighters

The former helicopter carrier's flat deck has been given heat-resistant paint, new markings and a reshaped deck.
Sapporo had hoped the Winter Olympics, which the city had hosted in 1972, would return in 2030, but it was not meant to be.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Apr 15, 2024

Why Sapporo’s bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics failed

Part of the city's downfall in trying to secure the Games was, ironically, snow.
The TSMC plant in Phoenix, Arizona. The chipmaker's projects in Arizona have become increasingly entwined with U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign message on revitalizing the economy.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 9, 2024

TSMC gets $11.6 billion in U.S. grants and loans for chip plants

TSMC’s projects in Arizona have become increasingly entwined with Biden’s campaign message on revitalizing the economy.
Pakistan finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb in Islamabad on March 22
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

Pakistan’s finance minister leaves behind banker's life and pay to fix economy

The country has Asia’s fastest inflation, anemic growth and one of the lowest tax-collection rates in the world.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol casts his ballot during early voting in parliamentary elections at a polling station in Busan, South Korea, on Friday, ahead of Election Day on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 9, 2024

South Korean parliamentary elections a political litmus test for Yoon

Wednesday's elections could have lasting implications for the final three years of President Yoon Suk-yeol’s single five-year term.
NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg (left) and the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a news conference in Washington on Jan. 29
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2024

World rush to rearm could cost G7 countries $10 trillion over next decade

Security challenges include an aggressive Russia, a volatile Middle East, and the Chinese military tugging U.S. attention toward the Pacific.
Players from Australia and New Zealand in the final of the Netball World Cup in Liverpool, England, in July 2019
MORE SPORTS
Apr 9, 2024

World Netball bans transgender players from women's internationals

The organization says it will review the policy on an annual basis.
Haruko Obokata speaks to reporters in the city of Osaka in 2014. Ten years after the STAP scandal, structural problems that led to the scandal persist, leaving ample room for researchers to tamper with research data, experts say.
JAPAN / Science & Health / FOCUS
Apr 9, 2024

Little change in Japan’s research sector 10 years after stem cell fraud

A decade after the STAP scandal, there is still a lot of leeway for researchers to tamper with data.
Flames blaze from a chimney at Western Europe's largest liquefied natural gas plant, Hammerfest LNG, in Hammerfest, Norway, on March 14.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 9, 2024

Banks made big climate promises. A new study doubts they work.

Researchers found a reduction in lending to sectors targeted under the pledges was the same as for banks that had not made the same commitment.
A recent near-hacking incident underscores the critical role of open-source software in the digital economy and the vulnerabilities inherent in its decentralized development process.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2024

The world narrowly escapes a supply chain doomsday scenario

A software engineer last month stumbled on what some say would have been the most widespread and effective backdoor ever planted in any software product.
Vladimir Putin knows that if NATO member states are dragged back into policing a restive Balkans, they will be distracted from their focus on supporting Ukraine.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024

Putin’s new front in the Ukraine war is in the Balkans

The Russian leader is pushing propaganda and religious strife in Kosovo and Bosnia to distract NATO from his illegal invasion.
Anne Mahrer and Rosmarie Wyder-Walti talk to journalists after the verdict of the court in the climate case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday.
WORLD
Apr 9, 2024

Swiss climate policy shortcomings violated human rights, top court rules

The European court's decision on the case, brought by more than 2,000 Swiss women, could have a ripple effect across Europe and beyond.

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