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The Bluesky social network has soared to one of the top positions in social network downloads in app stores in the past week since the U.S. election. The company reported a recent gain of 700,000 new users joining the social media platform, an alternative to X.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 18, 2024

How Bluesky, alternative to X and Facebook, is handling explosive growth

Bluesky’s meteoric growth underscores its role as a decentralized alternative to traditional social networks, prioritizing user control and developer creativity.
Leaders of over 70 universities and research institutions from Japan and India attended a forum in New Delhi in mid-October.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2024

Japan's public and private sectors seek workers from India

The number of technical trainees and what are known as specified skilled workers coming from India to Japan has been on the rise in recent years.
A drone view shows a tree on fire in Humaita, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Sept. 8.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 19, 2024

Can a COP29 deal clean up scandal-ridden carbon offsets?

Carbon trading is seen as one way for richer countries to meet their emissions reduction targets.
A rubber-tired tram system, tentatively called the “Fuji Tram,” would run along magnetic markers, reducing environmental damage, according to the Yamanashi Prefectural Government.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 19, 2024

Why Yamanashi gave up building a light-rail system on Mount Fuji

As an alternative, the governor proposed a new plan to use a rubber-tired tram system.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky said that while North Korea’s provision to Russia of military equipment and troops is certainly worrisome, what’s “really a serious problem” is what Moscow is giving Pyongyang in return.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 19, 2024

Ukraine ambassador warns of Russian military tech transfers to North Korea

What Moscow is giving Pyongyang in exchange for its troops could have direct security implications for East Asia, Kyiv's envoy to Tokyo warns.
Tomohiro Koyama (center), who was arrested for his suspected involvement in a fraud case, arrives at Narita Airport on Tuesday afternoon from Manila.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 20, 2024

Senior JP Dragon member linked to Luffy crime group arrested

Tomohiro Koyama was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department on board an aircraft while being deported from the Philippines.
The group executive is denying violating the employment security law, while the other four have admitted to it, according to sources.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 19, 2024

Japan police arrest executive of group referring women to sex trade

According to the sources, the group, called "Akusesu," had about 160 members who used aliases among themselves.
The scene where a car crashed outside the Yong'an primary school in Changde, central China's Hunan province, on Tuesday in which "multiple students were injured" according to state-run media.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 19, 2024

Car rams into students outside China primary school, hurting several people

Police said that a 39-year-old male was arrested but did not provide more details, saying only that investigations were continuing.
Workers remove flowers from a makeshift memorial outside the Zhuhai Sports Center in Zhuhai in south China's Guangdong province on Nov. 13, two days after 35 people were killed in one of the country's deadliest car attacks in years.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Nov 20, 2024

Mass casualty attacks in China put focus on mental health as economy slows

The events have led to a spike in worries about the health of society in China, where attacks have occurred with alarming regularity throughout 2024.
Media mogul Jimmy Lai leaves Mong Kok police station after being released on bail in Hong Kong on Aug. 12, 2020.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 20, 2024

After years in a Hong Kong jail, Jimmy Lai has his say in court

The media mogul said his now-shuttered newspaper, Apple Daily, represented the freedoms that people in the city valued.
Mika Abe (right) opened a restaurant committed to animal welfare in Sendai in November.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Dec 2, 2024

Restaurant committed to animal welfare opens in Sendai

Muku offers dishes including grilled pork from pasture-raised pigs and poached eggs from cage-free chickens, served as part of a salad bowl.
A Ukrainian soldier carries a shell to a field gun being fired at the advancing Russian Army, in the Donetsk Oblast on Nov. 16. As the war in Ukraine enters its fourth winter, a decision by the Biden administration now allows U.S. long-range missile strikes inside Russia.
WORLD
Nov 21, 2024

Ukraine fires U.K. cruise missiles into Russia, a day after using U.S. ATACMS

The strikes were widely reported by Russian war correspondents on Telegram and confirmed by an official on condition of anonymity.
The Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 (right) is anchored while being monitored by a Danish naval patrol vessels in the sea of Kattegat, near Jutland, Denmark, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Nov 21, 2024

Chinese ship stirs suspicions after Baltic Sea cables damaged

The Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier was in the vicinity of fiber optic cables connecting several countries when they were damaged.
Nylon is wrapped around fiber-optic cables at a SubCom factory in Newington, New Hampshire, in December 2018.
WORLD
Nov 21, 2024

Strategic subsea cables: the vulnerable links that enable our digital lives

Sweden and Finland have opened investigations into potential "sabotage" against cables damaged on Sunday and Monday in the Baltic Sea.
Chipmaker Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is reportedly targeting a December IPO.
BUSINESS / Markets
Nov 21, 2024

Chipmaker Kioxia to receive market listing approval, sources say

Bain-backed Kioxia will have a market value of about ¥750 billion ($4.84 billion) based on the indicative price for its initial public offering.
Shizuo Aishima's son next to a photo of his father in March. Aishima was one of the executives of spray-dryer Ohkawara Kakohki arrested on charges of illegal exporting in 2020. The charges were later dropped by prosecutors.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 21, 2024

Ohkawara investigators referred to prosecutors over falsified documents

Executives at Ohkawara Kakohki were arrested in 2020 on suspicion of illegally exporting chemical machinery, but the charges were later dropped.
A tiny sample of radioactive debris retrieved by a robot from Japan's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant will take at least half a year to analyze, its operator says.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2024

Analysis of Fukushima debris sample could take a year, operator says

The analysis could shed light on radioactivity levels and the chemical structure of the fuel debris.
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’

Junichi Yasuda’s film about a time-traveling warrior is a loving tribute to the “jidaigeki” (period drama) genre and its practitioners.
A rocket is launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to put an experimental space plane into orbit for the U.S. military. Washington is adopting a multipronged strategy to address security threats in space.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Nov 21, 2024

Biden’s track record in boosting U.S. space security

Japan needs to keep working with the U.S. to ensure growing threats from China and Russia in the space domain are met with the necessary security measures.
A push by U.S. antitrust regulators to force the sale of the Google Chrome browser to limit Alphabet's search dominance is likely to run into legal hurdles.
BUSINESS / Tech / ANALYSIS
Nov 22, 2024

Legal hurdles ahead for Google's forced sale of Chrome

The proposed remedies have been described as extreme, while a forced sale would not address several issues raised in the DOJ lawsuit, critics say.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a Liberal Democratic Party meeting on political reform on Thursday in Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 22, 2024

LDP approves proposal to ban political activities funds

The ruling party will look to revise the political funds control law by the end of this year.
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an event in Haifa port, Israel, in January 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 22, 2024

How an Indian billionaire's alleged bribery scheme took off and unraveled

Gautam Adani allegedly decided to bribe local officials to persuade them to buy 8 gigawatts of solar electricity.
After almost a decade of traveling around the world, a working holiday during the 2019 ski season in Nozawa Onsen was to be Rowie Geraerts’ last hurrah before she settled down in Australia.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 25, 2024

How a solo yoga teacher built a wellness community in the Japanese Alps

A budding entrepreneur from Australia, Rowie Geraerts has created Shizen Collective in Nozawa Onsen — a new home for herself, locals and visitors.
This 6-year-old pug loves being held, snuggling with his favorite blanket, relaxing on a sofa and going for strolls.
COMMUNITY / ADOPT ME!
Nov 25, 2024

After some rough times, Tosca needs a home for Christmas

This 6-year-old pug loves being held, snuggling with his favorite blanket, relaxing on a sofa and going for strolls.
While the ETH Zurich is an outlier for now in Switzerland, the decision has shone a spotlight on how universities in the German-speaking world are attempting to balance national security concerns with academia’s imperative to pursue open scholarship and collaboration across borders.
WORLD / Society
Nov 23, 2024

Swiss university applies stricter measures to Chinese students

Switzerland’s top technical university justified the move as complying with laws to counter international espionage.
Former Amagasaki Mayor Kazumi Inamura speaks to her supporters after she lost her bid to become Hyogo governor, on Nov. 17 in Kobe.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 23, 2024

Failed Hyogo governor candidate's team questions X account suspension

According to the group supporting former Amagasaki Mayor Kazumi Inamura, it set up an X account on Nov. 5, but it was suspended the following day.
Titan Cement's factory in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, Egypt
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 23, 2024

How big fossil-fuel-producing countries export emissions abroad

A loophole in the 2015 Paris accord has allowed countries to say they are making climate progress while also exporting fossil fuels at breakneck pace.
The time and location for Amapinight parties are never certain, but two things you can be assured of when attending are that there will be dancing and a lot of amapiano.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 24, 2024

There's no room for wallflowers at Amapinight

From amapiano to dancehall, Japanese dancers and DJs are moving the masses with African beats at Tokyo's most energetic party.
Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Nov 25, 2024

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

The modern sauna experience is more than just taking a seat in some steam — whisking, aufguss shows and spectacle all play a part.
Hiromi Yamamoto
ESG CONSORTIUM
Nov 25, 2024

Oji seeks optimal approaches to nurturing and utilizing forests

Oji Holdings, Japan’s leading paper maker, owns and manages 635,000 hectares of forests across the globe. Forest resources — for wood, paper and wood-derived materials or for biomass power generation — are attracting increased attention as sustainable resources. However, their sustainability hinges...

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