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Girls hold banners urging passersby to stop and pay their respects during a minute of silence honoring the victims of Russia's invasion at 9 a.m. in front of Golden Gates metro station in central Kyiv.
WORLD / Society
Dec 14, 2024

Observing a minute of silence for Ukraine's fallen soldiers

As fewer people stop to pay their respects during a 9:00 am ritual for victims of the war, a small activist group is pushing for a change.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Papua New Guinea leader James Marape address a news conference in Sydney on Dec. 12.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2024

Australia shows how smart diplomacy is done

Recent deals reflect the laser focus the Australian government is devoting to its closest neighbors and a bureaucratic reorganization that translates into action.
A soldier stops a car at a checkpoint in Bishnupur, Manipur, India, in April.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 20, 2024

Fighters from Myanmar's civil war exacerbate ethnic conflict in India

The conflict between Manipur's mostly Hindu Meitei community and the mainly Christian Kuki tribes is seen as one of India's biggest law-and-order failures.
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.
Rohingya refugees Shamshida (left), who had to flee one of the last refuges in Myanmar for the Rohingya Muslim minority, and her sister Manwara in their tent in Teknaf, Bangladesh, on Nov. 5
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 29, 2024

For the Rohingya, tormentors change but not the torment

This violence was not at the hands of the military, though. Instead, it was from a pro-democracy rebel group that was raised to fight the army.
Members of the Wajima City Morning Market Association pose for a group photograph on the site where the market once stood.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Dec 30, 2024

In the wake of disaster, the revival of Wajima's market brings hope

Wajima's morning market on the Noto Peninsula was devastated a year ago. Now, led by women vendors and bold ideas, it is rising as a symbol of resilience.
Although meat consumption has been dropping, it's not happening quickly enough to meet climate targets, something to keep in mind over the holidays.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2024

Why are my vegan friends going back to meat?

Helping people eat healthier diets with more fruit, vegetables and fiber would have enormous benefits for human well-being and the planet.
Opium is harvested from poppies in Bang Laem Village, Shan State, Myanmar.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 31, 2024

Drugs, scams and sin: Myanmar’s war has made it the global crime capital

Growing opium poppies is illegal in Myanmar, but small-scale farmers see it is a relatively low-risk cash crop.
Tonoike Sake Brewery has been gearing their brewery toward tourism since the late 1980s, attempting to lure tourists to the town of Mashiko.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 3, 2025

Traveling for sake's sake: The emergence of brewery tourism in Japan

While sake consumption has declined in Japan, breweries across the nation are taking advantage of a rise in overseas interest to promote themselves as tourist destinations.
The message is clear: Many governments and authorities see encryption not as a human-rights safeguard, but as an obstacle.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 26, 2024

Will your encrypted messages remain private in Europe?

Governments and law-enforcement agencies have been increasingly eager to access encrypted communications, even if that means undermining public confidence in privacy protection.
Firms in Japan are becoming more proactive to fend off global rivals and activist investors showing renewed interest in the country after decades of stagnant growth.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 9, 2025

Japan’s ¥36.4 trillion M&A boom expected to grow as activist investors circle

Firms are becoming more proactive to fend off global rivals and activist investors showing renewed interest in the country after decades of stagnant growth.
Holocaust survivor Pedro Buchwald, 87, shows his badge used at the concentration camp during an interview in Buenos Aires on Dec. 26.
WORLD / Society
Jan 20, 2025

The Roma Holocaust: A little-documented genocide

Just 10% of Austria's 11,000 Roma and Sinti survived the Nazi atrocities.
In 2024, child mortality for children before the age of 5 reached a record low of 3.6%, down from over 25% in 1950. For most of history, about half of all newborns died as children.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2025

Even this year is the best time ever to be alive

Another way of looking at it: Every day over the past couple of years, roughly 30,000 people moved out of extreme poverty worldwide.
Teruko Nakazawa, a retired unpaid parole officer (back), talks with her former parolee in the smoking room of a cafe in Tokyo. Around 47,000 citizen volunteers  far outnumber the 1,000 salaried probation officers working in Japan.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 23, 2025

Japan's unpaid parole officers are driven by a 'love for humanity'

The around 47,000 citizen volunteers far outnumber the 1,000 salaried probation officers in Japan.
Roki Sasaki pitches in a game against the Czech Republic during the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo on March 11, 2023, the 12th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
BASEBALL
Feb 4, 2025

Roki Sasaki's road to glory was paved by ache of a tragedy

Long before he became a pitching phenom and signed a deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Roki Sasaki's life was marked by tragedy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 7, 2025

Ukraine keeps its Kursk bargaining chip for any Russia talks

Russian forces have, so far, reclaimed only about half of the area that Ukraine took last year.
Laborers at a shipyard on the outskirts of Dhaka. Worker deaths, injuries and exposure to hazardous substances are common in the ship-breaking industry, as is environmental harm with toxic chemicals seeping into the beach and water, harming marine life.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Feb 19, 2025

Shipyards of Bangladesh brace as heavy emitting ships near end of life

Worker deaths and environmental harm are common in yards where vessels that have supplied richer nations are dismantled for scraps that can be used in manufacturing.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky speaks during an interview at the Ukrainian Embassy in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 21, 2025

As Ukraine rift emerges, Kyiv's envoy says Japan must take on bigger global role

The remarks by Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky came amid what appears to be a dramatic reversal in years of U.S. support for Ukraine since Russia's invasion.
The Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani is expected to return to a two-way role this season.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 9, 2025

As Shohei Ohtani embarks on Year 2 in Dodger Blue, a unique encore begins

Ohtani has won two Most Valuable Player Awards as a two-way player, for the Angels in 2021 and 2023.
“Ravens” stars Tadanobu Asano as Masahisa Fukase, a real-life figure who was known for his photos of the psychedelic party scene of 1960s Shinjuku, portraits of his wife and images of the ravens of his home prefecture of Hokkaido.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 14, 2025

‘Ravens’ is a portrait of art, love and inner demons

Director Mark Gill brings the turbulent life of celebrated photographer Masahisa Fukase into focus in his new film.
Thames Water's Beddington Sewage Treatment Works near Croydon, south London, on Friday. Thames Water, and other British water companies privatized since 1989, are under fire for allowing the discharge of large quantities of sewage into rivers and the sea.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 15, 2025

A stain on Britain: Sewage contaminates its waterways and seas

Failings with the most basic services in British society, such as water and sewage, have been harming the broader U.K. economy.
An aerial view of Thames Water's Beddington Sewage Treatment Works near Croydon, south London on Friday. Thames Water — and other British water companies privatized since 1989 — are under fire for allowing the discharge of large quantities of sewage into rivers and the sea.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 17, 2025

A stain on Britain: Sewage contaminates its waterways and seas

The pollution affects the seafood and tourism industries, while delaying construction projects and hampering the economy.
A Russian soldier at an artillery position in the Kursk region of Russia on Dec. 2. Ukrainian forces have pulled almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia, ending an offensive that had stunned the Kremlin last summer with its speed and audacity.
WORLD
Mar 17, 2025

How Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk region unraveled

At the height of the campaign, Ukrainian forces controlled some 1,300 square kilometers of Russian territory. Now they hold just a small sliver of land along the border.
Israeli soldiers work by military vehicles, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, near the border with Gaza, in Israel, on Feb. 15.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Mar 21, 2025

In Israel, reservist burnout and little public appetite for more war in Gaza

A full-scale ground war against Hamas could prove more complicated amid waning public support, exhausted military reservists and political challenges.
Sachiko Asakawa (left) and her brother Kazuo Asakawa at a news conference in Tokyo in November 2009
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2025

Man recalls effects of Tokyo subway sarin attack on sister

Kazuo Asakawa's sister, Sachiko Asakawa, died in 2020 at the age of 56 after suffering severe aftereffects from the attack.
Midwife Tabita dos Santos Moraes prepares cassava flour in Tefe in Brazil's Amazonas state last October. Tabita's great-grandmother taught midwifery to her aunts, who taught her mother, who taught her, starting at the age of 15.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 21, 2025

In the remote Amazon, midwives care for women stranded by drought

Years of extreme droughts in the Amazon rainforest have made river journeys to and from remote communities perilous.
Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Mar 31, 2025

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

A growing industry quietly erases the final traces of those who die alone, exposing deep societal fractures.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 31, 2025

Who among the opposition would join the ruling coalition?

Concerns over the stability of the LDP-Komeito minority government are fueling talk of a possible new arrangement, and maybe even a new prime minister.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen (right) and teammate Yuki Tsunoda (second from right) alongside Racing Bulls drivers Isack Hadjar (second from left) and Liam Lawson at the F1 Tokyo Fan Festival 2025 in Odaiba, Tokyo, on Wednesday
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Apr 2, 2025

Red Bull and Racing Bulls display unity in Tokyo ahead of grand prix

Japan’s Yuki Tsunoda has moved up to replace Liam Lawson, who was demoted to the junior team.
Denny Hamlin celebrates after winning the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia, on March 30.
MORE SPORTS / Auto Racing
Apr 4, 2025

Veteran driver Denny Hamlin showing no signs of slowing down

On Sunday, Hamlin tied 1989 Cup Series champion Rusty Wallace for 11th on the all-time wins list with 55 Cup Series victories.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.