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JAPAN
Aug 31, 2021

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry visits Tokyo to build momentum for U.N. summit

Kerry's stop in the capital, where he met with senior Japanese politicians, is part of a worldwide effort to raise ambitions ahead of the meeting in Glasgow.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Aug 30, 2021

Behind the push to improve universal access in Japan

Steps have been taken to create barrier-free facilities ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Games. But now that the Paralympics have begun, who is going to ensure such groundbreaking efforts continue?
JAPAN / Politics / EXPLAINER
Aug 27, 2021

Off to the races: LDP presidential election campaign begins

A number of challengers to Suga are beginning to emerge, with Fumio Kishida currently being the prime minister's strongest rival.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 19, 2021

Huawei CFO awaits Canadian ruling on extradition to U.S. after hearing ends

Prosecutors in New York have charged Meng Wanzhou with fraud, claiming she lied to HSBC about Huawei's operations in Iran as part of a scheme to violate U.S. trade sanctions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, in October. India and China reached a border deal for Chinese forces to retreat from disputed territory and for India to resume border patrols.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2024

How India’s soft power led to a border deal with China

New Delhi played its cards right, adopting a multipronged strategy that led to Beijing withdrawing from disputed territory that could be model for other countries, too.
Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in August 2021. From Syria to Ukraine, Merkel and former U.S. President Barack Obama’s missteps still haunt the West.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2024

Putin’s loss in Syria exposes Western failures

The West's indecision and failed liberal internationalist policies allowed Putin to bolster Assad’s regime and secure strategic advantages in Syria.
Indian activists angered over the jailing of a leading Hindu monk in Bangladesh try to break a police barricade during a protest in Kolkata on Nov. 28 demanding his release.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2024

Bangladesh’s descent into Islamist violence

An unstable Bangladesh mired in radical Islamism and political violence has long been India’s geopolitical nightmare
Japan wants renewable energy to account for around 40% to 50% of its electricity mix by fiscal year 2040 with nuclear power taking up another 20%, according to a new energy plan released Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 17, 2024

Japan aims to expand nuclear power in break from Fukushima era

The nation set out a proposed new energy strategy which urges both nuclear and renewables to be utilized to maintain growth and help curb emissions.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami reviews military equipment during an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, on Oct. 17, 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 18, 2024

Iran's Revolutionary Guards extend control of oil exports, sources say

All aspects of the oil business have come under the growing influence of the Guards.
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.
Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of semiconductor company Micron, addresses Semicon India 2023, India’s annual semiconductor conference, held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat state. India is trying to boost domestic chip production, a strategic move for its industrial growth and economic security.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2024

India’s budding chip industry: A cause for cautious optimism

Amid the global "chip war," India has entered the fray as it tries to become a semiconductor leader, a move welcomed by those diversifying supply chains away from China.
Supporters of then-President Donald Trump clash with police while storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Dec 29, 2024

Will the guardrails of U.S. democracy hold?

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continues to express admiration for authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington on Nov. 13.
COMMENTARY / World / The Year Ahead
Dec 31, 2024

Will the second Trump boom go bust?

Trump is inheriting a strong economy, but he faces a more challenging economic landscape than he did in his first term.
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.
Greenpeace activists protest next to a fake whale's tail in front of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin in 2010. The real motivation behind Japan's whaling may lie in asserting its maritime sovereignty, as the country defends its exclusive economic zone amid territorial disputes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2024

For Japan, whaling is intertwined with maritime sovereignty

While Japan has an undeniable culture surrounding seafood, the current generation of people do not show much interest in whale meat.
China’s solar industry is seeking to emulate OPEC’s cartel model, but differences in technological innovation, market dynamics and centralized control by Beijing complicate such efforts.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2024

An OPEC for solar power isn’t going to work

Geological advantages are perpetual, but technological advantages can quickly become obsolete.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Dec 21, 2024

Economists see BOJ's policy review as insufficient

The massive easing policy has caused adverse effects, such as a loosening of fiscal discipline, economists said.
Syrians step on posters of Bashar Assad and his father, Hafez Assad, in Homs, Syria, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 22, 2024

How Bashar Assad's inner circle fled Syria after his fall

The ousted president was accompanied by only a handful of confidants, leaving both family members and loyal aides to find their own means of escape.
People mourn over the graves of relatives who were killed after gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in the Kurram tribal district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Shalozan, Pakistan, on Nov. 22.
WORLD / Society
Dec 23, 2024

Terrorism roars back in Pakistan, 10 years after a campaign to end it

Violence has surged in northwestern Pakistan in the past few years, which experts attribute to the Taliban’s 2021 seizure of power in neighboring Afghanistan.
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.
Lucas Glover hits his tee shot on the second hole during the third round of the John Deere Classic golf tournament in Silvis, Illinois, on July 6.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Dec 24, 2024

Masters adds 10 to field, including Lucas Glover and Justin Rose

Glover had slipped outside the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking recently before returning to No. 50 on Monday.
Small businesses in Ino, a town in Kochi Prefecture known for its paper industry, show how a labor shortage is a growing threat to smaller companies that provide seven out of every 10 jobs in Japan.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 24, 2024

Small businesses with low wages struggle to tackle labor shortages

A worker shortage is threatening firms that are otherwise robust, including those that have invested in automation and creative hiring.
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.
The latest sale plan of Japanese government bonds reflects the government's efforts to fill a huge hole left by the BOJ's diminishing presence in the JGB market.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 26, 2024

Government plans to sell more JGBs for first time in four years, draft shows

Much of the increase will be made in shorter-dated debt to tap demand from Japanese banks.
Death row inmate Chisako Kakehi, who was convicted of murdering three elderly men between 2012 and 2013 with the intent of inheriting their assets, has died, local media reported Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 26, 2024

Chisako Kakehi, sentenced to death for cyanide murders, dies in custody

The 78-year-old death row inmate was convicted of murdering three men — her husband and two common-law spouses — to inherit their assets.
People cover themselves with umbrellas during a hot summer day in Tokyo's Ginza district in August. Temperatures shot up in early July, even before the official end of the rainy season, and the high temperatures persisted well into the fall.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Dec 29, 2024

Japan’s weather in 2024: Record temperatures hurt people’s health and wallets

Average temperatures across the nation and surrounding seas exceeded last year’s record-breaking levels "by a significant margin," affecting everything from well-being to farming.
Former President Jimmy Carter, furthest right, in a group photo with his successors at the White House in 2009. From his re-election defeat in 1980 until his death on Sunday, he was the odd man out, distant from the Republicans and Democrats who followed him.
WORLD
Dec 30, 2024

In the presidents’ club, Carter was the odd man out

Jimmy Carter’s relationship with his successors in the Oval Office, both Republicans and fellow Democrats, was generally tense because of his outspokenness.
Oleksandr, a 45-year-old Ukrainian soldier of the 1st Separate Assault Battalion Da Vinci, who left his unit without permission and later returned to the army, poses for a portrait in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Dec. 12.
WORLD / Society
Dec 30, 2024

Desertions spark panic, and pardons, in Ukraine's army

More than 90,000 cases have been opened into instances of soldiers in Ukraine going absent without leave or deserting since Russia invaded in 2022.
Hisamido set up a return box at its bookstore in Machida, Tokyo, to allow its customers to borrow and return books owned by municipal libraries.
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2024

Japanese bookstores collaborate with libraries for survival

A survey found that 493 municipalities had no bookstores as of November 2024.
A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in Tokyo on Oct. 27. Last year, incumbents in every major country that held a national election lost that vote, the first time that has happened in almost 120 years.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 31, 2024

The world is ever more angry. That is not good.

Hostility toward existing leadership stems from the belief that lives aren't improving and future generations will have fewer opportunities than previous ones.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear