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BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda said in July that the central bank’s holdings would decrease by 7% to 8% in about two years’ time, but they are set to stay at higher-than-desirable levels in the long-term.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 23, 2024

Japan's bond supply set to reach decade high as BOJ bond purchases slow

The BOJ’s plan to almost halve bond purchases comes as Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba plans additional spending in an extra budget.
Migrants seeking asylum gather near the border wall between the United States and Mexico after crossing a razor wire fence deployed to inhibit their crossing, as a member of the Texas National Guard escorts them on Dec. 19.
WORLD / Society
Dec 23, 2024

'Bless Donald Trump': Human smugglers cash in

"Coyotes," as they are known, are banking on a pickup in trade due to the president-elect's campaign promise to crack down on migrants once he takes office.
Hiroshi Shimizu (left), president of Nippon Life Insurance, and Satoshi Asahi, vice president and future president, shake hands after a news conference Wednesday in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 23, 2024

Nippon Life’s $12 billion acquisition spree is just beginning

Having committed to pouring billions into a pair of global insurers, the firm is now turning to asset managers, as it seeks to diversify business at home and abroad.
Hideko Hakamata (second from left), Iwao Hakamata's sister, in the city of Shizuoka on Sept. 26 following a Shizuoka District Court retrial verdict finding Iwao not guilty
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 23, 2024

Momentum builds for reforming Japan's retrial system

Prolonged proceedings for retrial pleas are common in Japan.
Israeli emergency responders inspect a crater at the site where a projectile fired from Yemen landed, in Tel Aviv early on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 23, 2024

Netanyahu vows to act with 'force' and 'determination' against Yemen's Houthis

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday vowed to retaliate against Yemen's Houthi rebels after they fired a missile at Tel Aviv.
A border fence along the Syria-Israel buffer zone near Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights on Thursday
WORLD / Politics
Dec 23, 2024

Israel and Turkey shape a new Syria from their borderlands

Syria’s leadership isn’t the only aspect of the country to be changing as a result of this month’s toppling of longtime dictator, Bashar Assad.
Hindu monks protest to stop the atrocities against Bangladesh's Hindu minority community, in Kolkata on Dec. 5.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 23, 2024

Minorities fear targeted attacks in post-revolution Bangladesh

Hindus make up about 8% of the mainly Muslim nation of 170 million people.
Elon Musk has waded into German politics twice in recent days on X.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 23, 2024

Germany’s SPD calls for antitrust act to clip Elon Musk’s power

While Wiese's comments will likely intensify the war of words with the world’s richest person, it’s unclear whether regulators in the U.S. will agree with his proposal.
The Nagano District Court found Daisuke Maruyama guilty of killing his 47-year old wife, Nozomi, who was a company executive, in September 2021 at their home in the city of Shiojiri, Nagano.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 23, 2024

Ex-Nagano assembly member sentenced to 19 years in prison for killing wife

Prosecutors argued that Daisuke Maruyama, 50, was motivated to kill his wife because she would not agree to a divorce.
A vendor selling spy cameras takes a phone call inside his shop at a market in New Delhi. Elaborate Indian weddings are big business, and for some families, the first step of celebration is not to call a priest or a party planner — but a private detective.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 23, 2024

Bride, groom, spy: India's wedding detectives

In a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches.
A woman who was displaced by a flood shells cowpeas as she sits outside her shelter in Banki, in Maiduguri, Nigeria, in October.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 6, 2025

The uphill battle against poverty

After the pandemic years, when tens of millions of people were pushed into poverty, the need for a renewed effort is obvious.
As the march of AI accelerates, a new requirement has become apparent: The next breakthroughs will consume colossal quantities of energy.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Jan 3, 2025

We need energy for AI, and AI for energy

AI guzzles electricity — a single ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much as a conventional web search.
Italy's Jannik Sinner in action during the Davis Cup Finals on Nov. 24. Sinner was cleared of wrongdoing in a doping case this year, but an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency means a potential ban of up to two years is still hanging over his head.
TENNIS
Dec 24, 2024

Players on edge after Sinner and Swiatek doping cases

Time out of the game to serve or fight a doping ban means a loss of income for players.
A Netflix advertisement for the Christmas Day NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Pittsburgh Steelers at a railway station in Munich on Nov. 10
MORE SPORTS / Football
Dec 24, 2024

Christmas Day games on Netflix to help NFL expand global reach

Two games will be available to almost all of Netflix's more than 270 million international subscribers.
Furaha Elisabeth applies medication on the skin of her child Sagesse Hakizimana, who is under treatment for Mpox, an infectious disease caused by the Mpox virus that causes a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever, at a health center in the Congo on Aug 19.
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 24, 2024

Global disease resurgence in 2024 shows rising health threat

The findings seek to renew the focus on the rise of preventable and climate-sensitive diseases, as well as a coordinated global response.
U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House in October 2017. Canada, like other nations in the president-elect's crosshairs, is scrambling to blunt the impact of his threat to implement steep tariffs once he re-takes office.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2024

The creep of national security threatens the WTO

In Trump's mind, tariffs are the cure-all for virtually everything that ails the United States.
Political reform bills clear the Upper House plenary session in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2024

Parliament wraps up, showing minority government's lack of control

Several concessions had to be made to the opposition before the ruling coalition could garner the support it needed to get its bills passed.
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, in October 2022.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2024

How one man became a Ukrainian traitor and Russian spy

Before the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian nationals were mainly recruited during trips to Russia, but approaches are more often made online now using social networks.
Internally displaced Syrians from eastern Ghouta queue for food in a Damascus countryside in April 2018.
WORLD / Society
Dec 24, 2024

Global hunger crisis deepens as major nations skimp on aid

The United Nations says that, at best, it will be able to raise enough money to help about 60% of the 307 million people it predicts will need humanitarian aid next year.
One researcher claims that the much-touted long lifespans of Japan, Italy and other countries may be propped up by faulty data.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 25, 2024

The secret to living to 110? Bad record-keeping, says Ig Nobel Prize winner.

The true secret to extreme longevity seems to be to "move where birth certificates are rare, teach your kids pension fraud and start lying," the researcher has said.
The United Nations headquarters in New York
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2024

Japan to stay the third-largest U.N. contributor

The share of Japan's contribution to the United Nation's regular budget will drop by about 1 percentage point from the current level to 6.930%.
Volunteers place eelgrass seeds on slabs of agar gel with tweezers during an event in Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture, on Nov. 9.
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2024

Seagrass bed restoration work spreads in Miyagi Prefecture

Seagrass and seaweed beds are capturing global attention as they absorb carbon dioxide.
A full house at Dolphins Arena takes in a bout featuring Takarafuji during the Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament in July.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Dec 25, 2024

New Nagoya arena won't ease sumo's ticket crunch

A shiny new arena in Nagoya will seat 17,000 but capacity won't be nearly that high for sumo, meaning there's no relief on the horizon for ticket-hungry fans.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2024

Ishiba aims for agreement on corporate political donations by March

While opposition parties are pushing for a ban on such donations, Ishiba has reiterated his opposition to such a move.
The United States Steel's Clairton Coke Works facility in Clairton, Pennsylvania. In a letter, a group that includes mayors in Pennsylvania and Indiana denounced the head of the United Steelworkers union over his refusal to negotiate in good faith with Nippon Steel its plan to acquire U.S. Steel.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 25, 2024

Mayors urge Biden to approve Nippon Steel acquisition of U.S. Steel

A total of 20 people, including the heads of administrative districts where U.S. Steel facilities are located, underlined the importance of the deal to the local communities.
The danger of overreaction and misinformation in the digital age is real, and authorities must provide clear explanations to prevent tragedies while also addressing legitimate concerns about drones.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2024

How to make America's drone panic so very much worse

The weak and ineffective response of government authorities should serve as a lesson in exactly how not to handle such incidents in the digital age.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya (left) and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing on Wednesday
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 25, 2024

Japan's top diplomat visits China as a step toward mending ties

Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya's trip marks the first visit by a top Japanese diplomat to Beijing since April 2023.
Despite impressive visuals that hark back to Peter Jackson’s live-action trilogy from the early 2000s, Kenji Kamiyama’s “The War of the Rohirrim” falls flat in its storytelling as a standalone film.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2024

‘The War of the Rohirrim’: Striking visuals, insipid storytelling

Kenji Kamiyama's anime addition to J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" universe has impressive qualities, but lacks the magic of Peter Jackson's film adaptations.
Tomoko Tabata brings verve and emotion as 11-year-old Renko in “Moving,” Shinji Somai’s forgotten classic from 1993.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2024

‘Moving’: A profound, poetic coming-of-age masterpiece restored in 4K

The 1993 film by Shinji Somai is rekindling interest in the late director as a generational talent.
This is set to be the first time Toyota will donate to a U.S. inauguration ceremony.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 25, 2024

Toyota to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration ceremony

President-elect Trump says he plans to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico, triggering concerns from automakers that rely on Mexican production for the U.S. market.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight