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Oracle plans to spend $6.5 billion building a cloud services center in Malaysia, becoming the latest global tech name to invest in Southeast Asian AI infrastructure.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 2, 2024

Oracle to invest $6.5 billion to set up cloud facilities in Malaysia

Oracle's venture is set to be one of the largest single tech investments in Malaysia so far.
A woman is silhouetted at The Pink Floyd Exhibition: Their Mortal Remains at the V&A Museum in London in 2017.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 2, 2024

Sony buys Pink Floyd music rights for $400 million, FT reports

The deal includes the band's name and portrait rights of its members.
A woman walks past a Samsung store in Seoul on June 28. Sources have said that the firm is planning overseas layoffs.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 2, 2024

Samsung to cut thousands of jobs amid struggles in AI market

Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10% in certain markets, a source said.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh meets his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, in New Delhi on Aug. 1. In a matter of three months, Vietnam's leadership engaged India, Russia and China while securing billions in U.S. and Western investments by positioning itself as a manufacturing alternative to China.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2024

Vietnam’s bamboo diplomacy has lessons for the Global South

In just months, Vietnam engaged India, Russia and China, securing billions in U.S. and Western investments by positioning itself as a manufacturing alternative to China.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda, seen on June 14, said on Wednesday that he told new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba that the central bank was "supporting the economy with loose monetary conditions."
BUSINESS
Oct 2, 2024

Ishiba says Japan not ready for rate hike after meeting BOJ's Ueda

"I told the prime minister that we are supporting the economy with loose monetary conditions," Ueda said.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba listens to a reporter's question as he attends a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 2, 2024

South Korea's Yoon and Japan's Ishiba agree to continue 'shuttle diplomacy'

In his first phone call with the South Korean leader, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba stressed the importance of the two countries’ maintaining close communications,
Kim Sang-man’s “Uprising” has attracted significant attention ahead of its world premiere thanks largely to the involvement of  its producer Park Chan-wook, best-known for directing ultra-violent thrillers like 2003’s “Old Boy,” which played a key role in bringing South Korean cinema to the global forefront.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2024

Netflix war epic to open Asia's largest film festival

Streaming-only content has contributed to a significant surge in the global visibility of Korean and Korean diaspora stories.
A person sorts through rubble in Dahiya, the predominantly Shia southern suburbs of Beirut, after a barrage of Israeli airstrikes, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Oct 3, 2024

Israel strikes the heart of Beirut, killing six and wounding seven

More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting with Israel.
Shoppers on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai on Wednesday
WORLD / Politics
Oct 3, 2024

CIA boosts its China recruiting efforts to exploit discontent with Xi

The CIA's online push comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping has consolidated power over a fifth of humanity to a degree unseen in decades.
Newly appointed industry minister Yoji Muto says there is no change to a government plan to safely restart nuclear power plants.
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2024

Japan to keep nuclear and boost renewables, new industry minister says

Yoji Muto says securing energy will be "the most important part of Japan's growth."
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington on June 1
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 3, 2024

Guns and transgender rights cases loom as U.S. Supreme Court returns

The justices return from their summer recess under intense scrutiny by many politicians and the public.
Students hold posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated chief of Lebanon's Hezbollah, during a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Oct 3, 2024

Iran's Khamenei warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him, sources say

Iran is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to the media after addressing the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 28.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 3, 2024

Russia stands alongside China on Taiwan and other issues, Lavrov says

Lavrov called for a "new architecture for Eurasian security" based on the principle of "regional solutions for regional problems."
A bus is seen submerged in floodwaters in Yufu, Oita Prefecture, on Aug. 29 as Typhoon Shanshan dumps torrential rain across southern regions of Japan.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 3, 2024

How climate change affects Japan's typhoons

The number of typhoons appears to be dropping, but the ones that do arrive are also becoming more violent.
Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the SoftBank World event in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 3, 2024

SoftBank’s Son envisions AI running households in the next few years

Masayoshi Son's rosy view of AI's potential often comes with a warning to skeptics that they may be left behind if they do not embrace the technology.
Walking through Tokyo's varied neighborhoods and the sub-communities within them can be the best way for a tourist, even one with limited time, to take the city in.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 5, 2024

Sure, Tokyo’s trains are amazing. But are they ruining your trip?

Amid a visit to the infinite urban landscape that is Tokyo, what does it mean to maximize your time?
While China's recent initiatives signal a willingness to address economic challenges, the road ahead remains difficult as the country's policymakers have yet to offer a clear road to success.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2024

A stimulus is good, but China still faces a hard slog

Beijing is back in investors' good books. To justify the euphoria, it needs some meaty goals.
Bourgeois is perhaps best known among the general public for her giant steel spider sculptures, particularly in Tokyo, where a nearly 10-meter tall bronze cast of the original spider has loomed over the walkway in Roppongi Hills since 2003.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 4, 2024

Japan’s biggest Louise Bourgeois exhibit yet leans into ambivalence

At Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, a large-scale retrospective of the visionary artist emphasizes her complex feelings toward femininity, memory, parenthood and the human body.
Palestinians inspect the site of Israeli strikes on houses in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 4, 2024

Gaza and a cease-fire slip out of focus as Lebanon conflict rages

With attention swinging to Lebanon, the war in Gaza risks being prolonged.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav has repeatedly stressed that Israel must take the fight to Lebanon.
WORLD
Oct 4, 2024

Israel's hawkish Yoav Gallant is driving the war in Lebanon

Officials in Israel like Yoav Gallant have called to push the Lebanese militant group away from their shared border to allow displaced people to return.
A section of forest in part of the Natura 2000 nature protection areas in Kirkkonummi, Finland, in July 2021.
WORLD
Oct 4, 2024

Europe’s global green ambitions push too hard once again

Europe forged an aggressive timetable three years ago to curb global deforestation, but it proved too much for some.
International Monetary Fund spokesperson Julie Kozack
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2024

IMF says Japan should keep raising rates if inflation data warrants it

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Wednesday that Japan is not in an environment requiring an additional rate hike.
The value of artificial intelligence companies has skyrocketed, fueling talk of a possible AI bubble.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 4, 2024

AI bubble or 'revolution'? OpenAI's big payday fuels debate

To critics, buyers don't really understand the technology, and the market needed for it to thrive is not mature yet.
In recent months, some of the biggest would-be developers of green hydrogen have canceled projects, axed orders and scaled back investment plans.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Oct 4, 2024

Green hydrogen hype fades as high costs force project retreat

Some of the biggest would-be developers of the fuel have canceled projects in recent months.
U.S. voters are increasingly concerned about misinformation spreading the good-old-fashioned way — through politicians sowing falsehoods.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 4, 2024

More than AI misinformation, U.S. voters worry about lying politicians

Politicians face almost no legal consequences for distorting the truth, researchers say.
Despite Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's serious and studious personality, he is by nature a nonconformist and is less socially inclined compared to other politicians.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 3, 2024

The Shigeru Ishiba I personally know

Ishiba takes pride in his mottos and interests, remains steadfast in his beliefs and stays true to his path.
Plamo Furniture’s Baum series of interior works, designed by Takuro Izumi, is made with vertically layered panels of engineered wood that can be custom-designed to seamlessly fit any space.
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Oct 5, 2024

Japan's flat-packed furniture doesn't skimp on aesthetics

Disappointed by flat-packed aesthetics? Not if you give these Japan-designed pieces a look.
For one night in Tokyo last month, Daniel Calvert (left) and Quique Dacosta brought their wildly different culinary styles together into a remarkable service.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 6, 2024

A meeting of Michelin minds at Tokyo's Sezanne

Daniel Calvert says no to most requests for pop-ups at two-Michelin-starred Sezanne — except when the chance to work with three-starred Quique Dacosta came up.
Diego Garcia — the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago and the site of a major military base used by Britain and the United States — is seen in this undated image the U.S. Navy provided.
WORLD
Oct 4, 2024

U.K. cedes Chagos Island sovereignty to Mauritius and keeps air base

Britain's deal also could pave the way for people displaced decades ago to return home.
Digital minister Taro Kono attends an Upper House committee session in June. The cautioning of Kono over his use of his smartphone to respond to a question in the Upper House last November attracted significant attention and led to a bipartisan call for digital transformation within parliament.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 4, 2024

Digitalization advances gradually in Japan's parliament

Improvement plans have been adopted but certain practices, such as the use of tablets at the podium during plenary sessions, remain off-limits.

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