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BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2023

Japan’s travel industry urges people to get their mighty passports

Japan’s passport gives visa-free entry to 192 global destinations, according to the latest Henley Passport Index.
Participants in traditional Korean attire holds signs using the Korean Hangul script — used to document the language of the Cia-Cia ethnic group, which has no written form — on Buton island, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Oct. 14.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 20, 2023

Indigenous Indonesians use Korean letters to save dialect

The language of the Cia-Cia ethnic group in southeast Sulawesi province's Baubau has no written form.
Emperor Naruhito, Empress Masako and Princess Aiko pose for a photo at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Dec. 1.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 1, 2024

Japan emperor hopes for expanded support for needy people

Emperor Naruhito, in a New Year's message on Monday, expressed his wish that support will expand for people facing difficulties.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's New Year's speech in Beijing on Sunday had made reference to the inevitability of China's "reunification" with Taiwan.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 2, 2024

China calls on Taiwan's people to promote 'peaceful reunification'

Message by the head of the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office follows tone of Chinese president's New Year remarks.
Tomoyoshi Taniguchi (left), Ryuko Neya (center) and Taiko Minami with pets at the Misogichiku Community Center in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture. Pet owners were told they could not enter the shelter room and had to stay in hallways and the entrance hall.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 4, 2024

In Ishikawa, shelter for people but not four-legged friends

One pet owner's experience in quake-hit Ishikawa highlights the many challenges facing such people in times of disaster, and is a recurring issue.
Sunset at Cape Puyuni in Hokkaido, Japan. The northern island is home to the indigenous Ainu.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Jan 21, 2024

To Bird, a savage. To Chiri, alive and aglow.

When given a pen, Yukie Chiri wrote about the Ainu in ways outsiders never tried to understand.
The most relevant measure to gauge plastic bag use isn’t how many carriers get used, but how much material is consumed and how much pollution is produced in their making.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2024

Plastic bag bans have failed in every way except one

Reusable plastic bags need to be used 52 times before its environmental impact drops below that of a disposable one, according to a 2018 Danish study.
People gather as rescuers search for survivors under rubble in the town of Jandaris, Syria, on Feb. 6, 2023, following an earthquake that day.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2024

Japanese students working to help Syrian people hit by 2023 quake

About 30 companies are offering support for the students' efforts.
Eleven portraits of Ainu chieftains, completed in 1790, are now held by the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology in Besancon, France. There were originally 12 paintings in the original set, collectively known as the “Ishu Retsuzo,” but one has disappeared.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Feb 26, 2024

The ongoing mystery of the Ainu portraits in France

A former Hokkaido journalist is hoping to find out how portraits of Ainu chieftains from 1790 made it to Europe.
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.
Scientists on Wednesday identified what might be the genetic mechanism behind humankind's tailless condition — a mutation in a gene instrumental in embryonic development.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 3, 2024

People with tails? No, because of this ancient genetic mutation

The absence of a tail may have better balanced the body for orthograde — upright — locomotion and eventually bipedalism, said one scientist.
Managing Director of Cornerstone Recruitment Japan Director Matt Nicholls says a good recruiter has tenacity, drive and can handle the ups and downs of the job.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 9, 2024

Matt Nicholls: ‘People like having control over their earning potential’

A seasoned recruiter tells us why he's spent the last decade doing business in Japan and what he's learned from growing and leading multinational firms.
The Monrovia NSU Challenger bulk carrier transits the expanded canal through the Cocoli Locks of the Panama Canal in April 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 22, 2024

'We all need water': Panama's canal, and people, thirst for more

A severe drought last year caused water levels in Gatun Lake, which provides drinking water and is the main reservoir for the canal, to fall.
Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns says Japan's bears feel the pressure of human presence and have learned that encountering us is not worth their time.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 30, 2024

Amelia Hiorns: 'Guiding and introducing people to Japan's nature has been rewarding'

Wildlife researcher Amelia Hiorns shares how separate interests in Japan and in bears culminated in conservation work in the mountains of Nagano.
Rescuers cross a flooded street on their way to evacuate residents during a flood in the town of Orsk, southeast of the southern tip of the Ural Mountains on April 6.
WORLD
Apr 10, 2024

Russia and Kazakhstan evacuate over 100,000 people amid worst flooding in decades

The Ural, where the flooding happened, is Europe's third longest river, which flows through Russia and Kazakhstan into the Caspian.
Animator Hayao Miyazaki is among Time's 100 most influential people of 2024.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2024

Hayao Miyazaki among Time's 100 most influential people

Miyazaki, who won his second Oscar last month, was described as a "one-of-a-kind creator" in the magazine.
Health ministry officials enter Kobayashi Pharmaceutical's factory in the city of Osaka on March 30.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Apr 26, 2024

Kobayashi Pharma to cover bills of people who got ill after taking supplements

The Osaka company’s board has also set up a third-party panel to probe the company’s handling of the issue.
Former Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda is among the 4,108 people recognized for this year's spring honors.
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2024

Former BOJ head among 4,108 people receiving spring honors

Haruhiko Kuroda, who led the central bank's unprecedented monetary easing, was given the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
A human tooth discovered at Taforalt Cave in Morocco. Isotopic analysis has uncovered unexpected dietary habits among preagricultural communities in the country.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 30, 2024

New study offers insight into what people ate before agriculture

Chemical markers in the bones and teeth from the remains of seven individuals were analyzed, along with several isolated teeth, dating back 15,000 years.
Discriminatory remarks against the Ainu people by Lower House lawmaker Mio Sugita (center) have prompted calls for introducing penalties under the Ainu policy promotion law.
JAPAN
May 14, 2024

Calls grow for penalizing discriminatory remarks against Ainu

Calls strengthened after a series of discriminatory remarks by Mio Sugita, a House of Representatives lawmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party.
As Japan grapples with its population's rapid aging, supporting people who live and age alone is looming larger on the policy agenda.
JAPAN / Society
May 14, 2024

In Japan, 68,000 people over 65 projected to die alone at home this year

In the first official tally of solitary deaths, the National Police Agency said a total of 21,716 people had died alone at home from January through March.
Vendors protect themselves from the scorching heat and sun by using big shades and umbrellas in the Kalighat Temple area of Kolkata, India. The city is facing multiple extreme heat days this summer and citizens are trying to find ways to cope with the weather.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 16, 2024

Heat waves are testing India's ability to protect 1.4 billion people

Attempts to improve resilience to extreme heat have often been ill-conceived.
Burnt vehicles at a roadblock in France's Pacific territory of New Caledonia on Sunday. French forces smashed through about 60 road blocks in efforts to clear the way from conflict-stricken New Caledonia's capital to the airport.
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2024

France's Macron calls fresh emergency meeting on New Caledonia

In New Caledonia, French forces smashed through dozens of barricades in a bid to retake the main road to the archipelago's airport.
Smoke rises in the distance as a burnt vehicle blocks a road near the Montravel area of Noumea, New Caledonia, on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 21, 2024

Australia and New Zealand send evacuation flights to New Caledonia

Australia and New Zealand said they will send government planes to New Caledonia on Tuesday to evacuate nationals from the French territory, which has experienced a week of deadly riots sparked by electoral changes by the French government in Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a meeting with New Caledonia's elected officials and local representatives at French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc's residence in Noumea, New Caledonia on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
May 23, 2024

Macron arrives in riot-hit New Caledonia for high-stakes talks

Local group warns things may take a turn for the worse if the French president does withdraw an electoral bill that protesters fear will dilute Indigenous votes.
French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech at the High Commissioner's residency in Noumea, New Caledonia, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
May 24, 2024

The colonial-era inequalities that fueled the New Caledonia crisis

The island territory is marked by deep disparities in education and employment, according to data and experts.
A study has found that the share of people with high blood pressure increases as income decreases.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 6, 2024

Lower-income people more likely to have high blood pressure: study

The tendency seems to stem from alcohol consumption, obesity and lack of exercise.
The number of people stranded on Mount Fuji in Yamanashi Prefecture in 2023 surged 90.2% from the average in the five years through 2022.
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2024

Over 3,500 people were stranded on mountains in Japan in 2023

Among those stranded, the number of foreign nationals accounted for a record 145.
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, shelter at a tent camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Jun 20, 2024

Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah, forcing people to flee again

Some eight months into the war, there has been no sign of a pause as mediators have failed to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.
A bus stop where a Japanese mother and child appear to have been attacked in Suzhou in China's Jiangsu Province
JAPAN / Society
Jul 1, 2024

Chinese social media companies condemn hate speech against Japanese people after knife attack

Wechat owner Tencent said it had tackled 836 instances of content related to the attack that infringed its rules.

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