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Fu Cong, Permanent Representative of China to the U.N., looks on after U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood voted against members of the Security Council allowing Palestinian U.N. membership during a Security Council at U.N. headquarters in New York on April 18.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 23, 2024

West blasts China on rights, China responds: What about Gaza?

Clashes over China's treatment of Uyghurs have become a common occurrence at both the United Nations in New York and the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The South Korean Coast Guard vessel Taepyongyang, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Waesche and the Japan Coast Guard vessel Wakasa patrol in formation during a trilateral exercise in the Sea of Japan in June.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 23, 2024

With ramped-up activities, U.S. Coast Guard plots greater Indo-Pacific role

The move comes at a time when a growing number of coast guards in the region are becoming deeply involved in patrolling disputed waters.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture. The government aims to restart the plant to ensure stable power supplies amid an expected increase in power demand for data centers and other facilities.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 23, 2024

Japan's parties divided over nuclear energy amid rising power demand

Political parties have made various pledges on nuclear power ahead of Sunday's general election, ranging from abolishing all nuclear plants to maximizing their use.
Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a 56-year-old dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, speaks during an interview in New York on Oct. 18.  The U.S. Justice Department alleges that an Indian intelligence official had directed plans to assassinate Pannun, a Sikh separatist, last year.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 23, 2024

U.S. pressures India for accountability over Sikh separatist murder plot

Washington wants a speedy resolution of the matter, which has led to a U.S. indictment of a former Indian intelligence official over the foiled plot.
Fernando Valenzuela speaks during a pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in July 2019.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 23, 2024

Los Angeles Dodgers icon Fernando Valenzuela dead at 63

The Mexican pitcher played 17 seasons in MLB for six clubs but was best remembered for his time with the Dodgers.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo. There is growing speculation that the central bank will push ahead with rate hikes in the coming months, particularly as the yen continues to weaken.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 23, 2024

Japan’s 40-year yield rises to highest since 2008 on Fed outlook

There is also growing speculation that the BOJ will push ahead with rate hikes in the coming months, particularly as the yen continues to weaken.
Trump has threatened blanket 60% tariffs on China, forcing some companies to consider shifting their supply chains to Southeast Asia.
BUSINESS
Oct 23, 2024

China's exporters run for cover as U.S. election nears

A Trump trade war 2.0 would be a moment of reckoning for many Chinese exporters, whose profits are dwindling under heavy deflationary pressure.
Stablemaster Oshima (left) congratulates Kyokushuzan on his promotion to the the jūryō division in 1995.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Oct 23, 2024

Former ozeki Asahikuni, also a trailblazing stablemaster, dies at age 77

In 1992, the stablemaster recruited six young Mongolian men into his stable, creating a lasting connection between sumo and the central Asian nation.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba arrives to deliver a campaign speech in Osaka on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 23, 2024

Polls show Japan's ruling bloc could lose its majority. What would happen then?

Depending on the final count, one option for the LDP and Komeito might be to invite another party into a coalition.
An apartment building damaged by a Russian air strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Oct. 1
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2024

Selling out Ukraine casts shame on the West

This war started because Moscow refuses to tolerate a successful democratic, independent neighbor, which also remains the chief impediment to ending it.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party looks set for a bruising election night. The question for its leader, Shigeru Ishiba, is how bad the damage will be.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 23, 2024

Ishiba and the LDP race to stem the electoral bleeding

Weeks into Shigeru Ishiba's premiership and mere days out from a general election, red alert signals are sounding in Tokyo’s corridors of power.
Former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi presents his report on the future of European competitiveness to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Sept. 17.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2024

Europe’s wake-up call on innovation and competitiveness

Europe stands at a critical juncture, needing to choose between maintaining the status quo or moving toward deeper integration.
Yahya Sinwar gives a speech in Gaza City in April 2023. Israeli forces cornered and killed the leader of Hamas in a ruined house in Gaza on Oct. 16.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2024

The killing of Sinwar presents a tricky opportunity

It’s always a mistake to speak of "solutions” in the Middle East, but plausible grounds for optimism can do a lot to dissolve the allure of fanaticism.
Shoji Maegawa raises his arms in joy in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, on Wednesday,
 following the approval of a retrial over the murder of a Fukui junior high school girl.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Oct 23, 2024

Court orders retrial in 1986 Fukui murder case due to witness coercion

The Nagoya High Court ruling stated that law enforcement agencies, facing investigative roadblocks, likely influenced witness statements.
People from Thailand look at used smartphones in Tokyo's Akihabara district in October 2022.
BUSINESS / Markets
Oct 23, 2024

Japan's secondhand smartphone market booms as households struggle

Sales of used goods in Japan have grown rapidly as households struggle to make ends meet.
Kazuya Shiraishi's "11 Rebels," a period actioner based on a long-forgotten script by Kazuo Kasahara, will open this year's Tokyo International Film Festival.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2024

Tokyo International Film Festival boasts strong line-up of Japanese fare

An excellent chance to see films from Japan, Asia and around the world, the annual event will kick off with Kazuya Shiraishi's gritty action feature "11 Rebels."
Naoko (Ayaka Onishi, right) starts moonlighting as a paid companion for older men under her missing colleague’s identity in “Strangers.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2024

‘Strangers’: A satisfyingly unnerving stolen identity drama

Kenta Ikeda and his cinematographer imbue the thriller about a woman who takes on the identity of her more carefree and flirtatious colleague with a sense of paranoia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi meet on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 24, 2024

Xi-Modi breakthrough followed months of pressure from India's CEOs

Indian businesses have increased pressure this year on Narendra Modi’s government to relax the restrictions on China.
People wait in a line to vote during the Super Tuesday primary election in Edinburg, Texas, on March 5.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 24, 2024

Chinese operation targeting U.S. down-ballot races, Microsoft says

The lawmakers were targeted because they had historically denounced Chinese government policies.
Smoke billows over the UNESCO-listed port city of Tyre after Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday.
WORLD
Oct 24, 2024

Israel and Hezbollah exchange heavy fire as Blinken pushes for peace

The intensifying exchanges come as Washington makes a final push for peace before the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election that could alter U.S. policy.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba visits Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, which was heavily damaged by the New Year's Day earthquake, on Oct. 5.
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2024

Noto residents view upcoming election with mixed hope and resignation

Only about 16% of publicly subsidized demolition work on buildings damaged in the Jan. 1 quake in Ishikawa had been completed as of the end of September.
Visitors walk past China's first nuclear missile on display at the Military Museum in Beijing.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 24, 2024

China speeds nuclear-weapons buildout, U.S. defense agency says

The Defense Intelligence Agency’s report offers the most detailed accounting yet of the country’s bid to catch up to the U.S. in an area where it lagged.
Taiwanese chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has halted shipments to a client after discovering semiconductors delivered to them found their way into Huawei products.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 24, 2024

TSMC cuts off client after discovering chips sent to Huawei

It’s unclear whether the TSMC client was acting on Huawei’s behalf, or where it’s based.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a training base at an undisclosed location in North Korea in a photo released on Oct. 4.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 24, 2024

U.S. says North Korean troops in Russia, possibly to fight in Ukraine war

But the U.S. defense chief and other officials said that it remained to be seen what exactly the North Korean troops would be doing in Russia.
Ryuichi Isaka, CEO of Seven & I Holdings, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo in April. Isaka is now assuring investors that the group's revenue will likely almost double by the 2030 fiscal year.
BUSINESS
Oct 24, 2024

Facing buyout bid, Seven & I tells investors sales will double by 2030

The retailer aims to reach ¥30 trillion in group sales by the 2030 fiscal year, with a greater contribution from convenience-store operations in markets abroad.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 24, 2024

Germany is courting India as ties with China sour: What to watch

The trip to India comes at a crucial time for Germany as it struggles to revive its economy, which has been buffeted by the war in Ukraine and competition from China.
Most economists expect the Bank of Japan to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged during their policy meeting next week.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 24, 2024

BOJ watchers believe rate hike unlikely now as half brace for year-end shift

Analysts will be closely watching for policy hints from a two-day meeting that ends on Oct. 31, a few days after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s first general election.
Leaders of the three major business groups — Keidanren, Keizai Doyukai and the Japan Chamber of Commerce — meet Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Oct. 4 in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 24, 2024

¥1,500 minimum wage or bust, Japanese companies told

Managers unable to keep up with the minimum-wage increase schedule “are unfit for their positions,” Keizai Doyukai Chair Takeshi Niinami has said.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to voters in Aichi Prefecture on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 25, 2024

LDP rapped over funds for local chapters of scandal-tainted candidates

The LDP secretary-general said the funding was provided to the local chapters to expand the party’s influence, not to support individual candidates.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pose for a group photo at a meeting on Ukraine reconstruction at the United Nations on Sept. 25.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2024

Shifting the paradigm in Ukraine

In Ukraine, inaction — the refusal to permit Ukraine’s government to act in self-defense — possesses the quality of death.

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