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Israeli officials evacuate a person who was injured by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Safed, northern Israel, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Feb 15, 2024

Israel-Hezbollah tensions rise with strikes from Lebanon

The assault, presumed to be carried out by Hezbollah, prompted Israeli fighter jets to launch extensive strikes.
Smoke billows over Khan Younis in the distance as seen from Rafah following Israeli bombardment on the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024

Israel vows to press ahead with 'powerful' Rafah operation

Despite growing pressure to hold back, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists Hamas' battalions must be eliminated in the overcrowded city.
Buddhist devotees worship in heavy rain in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on May 5, 2023.
WORLD / Society
Feb 15, 2024

Domestic violence is cost of climate change for Sri Lanka women

Sri Lanka is among the countries most affected by extreme weather events as it grapples with the aftermath of a huge financial collapse in 2022.
Singer Crystal Kay reunites with producer Taku Takahashi for her single “That Girl,” which dips into the sounds of the 2000s as well as the modern thump of Jersey Club, a high-energy American style of dance music.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2024

Crystal Kay's star sparkles anew with Gen Z fans

The singer marks the 25th anniversary of her debut in J-pop with new single, "That Girl."
The U.K. economy has been hamstrung by the worst cost-of-living crisis in generations, as well as interest rate increases.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 16, 2024

U.K. recession deals fresh blow to Rishi Sunak’s economic promises

Statistics showing the GDP contraction emerged at a particularly bad time for the U.K. prime minister, with two by-elections taking place in England.
Displaced Palestinian children play as they take shelter at the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 16, 2024

Egypt setting up shelter area for Palestinians at Gaza border, sources say

Some 1.5 million Palestinians are currently in Rafah. A mass exodus into Egypt due to an Israeli offensive would be "a sort of nightmare."
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow in August 2013. Navalny, the most outspoken domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died in prison, Russian state media said Friday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 17, 2024

Alexei Navalny's death deprives Russia's opposition of a leader and hope

His death leaves the groups that oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin with no obvious candidate to try to turn any discontent into mass protests.
Demonstrators hold a rally to honor the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in front of the Russian Embassy in Warsaw on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2024

The lonesome death of a Russian opposition leader

The prison where Navalny died, Nicknamed “Polar Wolf,” is a freezing cold gulag for violent criminals. But Navalny — an anti-corruption lawyer and blogger.
South Korea has one of the lowest ratios of doctors to population in the developed world, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which shows 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 18, 2024

South Korean doctors warn of ‘catastrophe’ if punished for strike

About 2,700 interns and residents at five major general hospital groups plan to walk off the job.
Israel's Anastasia Gorbenko waves on the podium after earning silver in the women's 400-meter individual medey at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships in Doha on Wednesday.
MORE SPORTS / Swimming
Feb 19, 2024

Israeli swimmer booed at world championships

Anastasia Gorbenko shrugged off boos from the crowd at the world swimming championships in Doha on Sunday.
South Korea plans to increase the number of slots in university medical school programs by 2,000 from the current 3,058 next year to alleviate a shortage of doctors.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 19, 2024

For South Korea’s top students, medical school beats chips

Students are enticed by what many see as better job security and higher pay in the medical field.
Members of the Palestinian civil defense extinguish a fire in a building following Israeli bombardments east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 20, 2024

U.S. proposes its own U.N. Security Council draft opposing Rafah offensive

The U.S. draft comes ahead of a vote by the U.N. body on an earlier proposal for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which Washington has opposed.
Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024

Israel-Hamas war splits G20, risking paralysis at meeting

The group is so split on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine that they may be forced to reduce the forum’s scope and avoid geopolitical issues.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters demonstrate against U.S. extradition in front of the British Consulate in Barcelona on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024

Assange absent at final hearing against extradition to U.S.

The two-day session is likely the WikiLeaks founder's last chance to fight the extradition in Britain's courts after a half-decade battle.
Teamshares, an American startup, is bringing its employee ownership succession model to Japan in its first overseas foray to offer employees path to buy small businesses.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 21, 2024

MUFJ-backed startup gives employees route to take over small firms

The Teamshares model could help 2.45 million small business owners who will be 70 or over by 2025, almost half of whom have yet to identify a successor.
A Ukrainian serviceman with the call sign "Skorpion" prepares to fire a multiple launch rocket system toward Russian troops near a front-line, at an undisclosed location in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Feb. 4.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2024

Ukraine outnumbered, outgunned and ground down by Russia

Heavy casualties at the hands of Russian forces have been compounded by dreadful conditions on the eastern front.
Yasuhiro Otomo and Miku Narisawa during one of Odyssey Nature Japan's educational fishing programs.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2024

A young 3/11 survivor and her vow to protect the ocean

At 12, Miku Narisawa experienced a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami that destroyed her home. Now she is working to protect it.
What would you do if you received a juicy piece of gossip at work, do you know the Japanese for how you'd respond?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 23, 2024

Rumor, gossip and misinformation with neither roots nor leaves

Areas hit by the New Year's Day earthquake find themselves subject to damaging misinformation as they try to focus on reconstruction.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2024

Noto quake highlights aging water systems in depopulating areas

Nearly 22,000 homes in Ishikawa Prefecture are still without water, and the shortage has sparked debate on how to maintain services in depopulating areas.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with Ukraine's prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, during the Japan-Ukraine Conference for Promotion of Economic Growth and Reconstruction in Tokyo on Monday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 23, 2024

Where others dither, Japan delivers on aid to Ukraine

Japan is doing all it can to prove to the Kremlin that it will ultimately be Ukraine, not Russia, that will prosper when the war is over.
Vocalist Adam Lambert (center) and original Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor hit Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo and Tokyo for the final leg of their marathon Rhapsody Tour.
CULTURE
Feb 24, 2024

Queen wraps marathon Rhapsody Tour in Japan

The final leg of the global tour hit four Japanese cities, providing fans with an appropriately grandiose send-off from the rockers on Valentine's Day.
Palestinians walk past destroyed homes near the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
WORLD
Feb 25, 2024

Dead horses, scraps, leaves: Gaza's hungry get desperate

Contaminated water, power cuts, overcrowding and poverty plague a refugee camp as the bombardment continues.
Electron micrograph of Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis
JAPAN / Science & Health
Feb 26, 2024

Syphilis cases hit record high for third straight year in Japan

While the precise reasons for the surge in reported cases remain unclear, experts have identified several potential contributing factors.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh convenes a Cabinet meeting in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 26, 2024

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh resigns

The move comes amid growing U.S. pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority.
Koichi Kondo plays the harmonica. Playing harmonica was like life itself for members of the Bluebird Band, according to his words.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Mar 4, 2024

Harmonica melodies of Hansen's disease patients live on

A band featuring the instrument was founded in 1953, at a time when prejudice against the disease was still strong
A Sustainable Smart City Partner Program forum in Kitajima
ESG CONSORTIUM
Feb 27, 2024

NTT tool Sugatami reflects cities’ extensive possibilities

With the use of digital technology to solve rural social problems now promoted as a national policy, some places have begun trying to use data to analyze their current situation, identify problems and find solutions.
Visnu CEO Ryosuke Chiba explains an AI-equipped security camera his company is developing for the city of Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, on Feb. 22.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 27, 2024

Japan firms look to AI to bolster disaster prevention and mitigation

Tools are being developed to focus on getting timely information to the relevant parties to facilitate evacuation.
U.S. President Joe Biden walks to board Air Force One for travel to New York from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 27, 2024

Biden hopes for cease-fire in days as talks with Israelis and Hamas progress

The presence of both sides meeting mediators separately but in the same city suggested talks were further along than at any time since February.
An active member of the U.S. Air Force has died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington over the weekend in protest of the war in Gaza, the Pentagon said Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 27, 2024

U.S. airman dies after setting himself on fire outside Israeli Embassy

The incident, which was broadcast live online, comes amid ongoing pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests in the United States.
Displaced Palestinians gather to collect food in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday. One in six children under age 2 in northern Gaza suffers from acute malnutrition, a U.N. aid official said.
WORLD / Society
Feb 28, 2024

One quarter of Gaza's people one step away from famine, U.N. says

Practically all the 2.3 million people in the Palestinian enclave rely on "woefully inadequate" food aid to survive.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past