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OLYMPICS / Faces of Tokyo 2020
Jul 23, 2021

Japanese athletes who have overcome adversity to be at the Tokyo Games

The miraculous return of Rikako Ikee might grab headlines, but the country's swimming star isn't the only athlete who needed to battle tough times to qualify for the Games.
JAPAN / Explainer
Jul 22, 2021

Japan's vaccine passports: Here's what you need to know

With applications for the documents accepted from Monday, details have been set out on how to apply and where the passports can be used.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 22, 2021

‘Ridiculous’: Vaccine myths cripple U.S. uptake as delta surges

Just as the Biden administration appeared on the verge of snuffing out COVID-19 in the U.S., a shadow pandemic of disinformation threatens to prolong the crisis.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2021

Imagine the COVID-19 economy before Amazon and Zoom

Online services such as Zoom and Amazon have proven their worth during the pandemic. And COVID-19 may ultimately push our society to learn new ways of using digital technologies.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 22, 2021

The Sea of Marmara, a ‘sapphire’ of Turkey, is choking from pollution

The Marmara has been sickening for a long time, and this year, it suffered a paroxysm that choked its waters and suffocated marine life.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2021

Billionaire who missed out on TikTok is now trying to beat it

Flush with cash from an IPO, Kuaishou is cranking up spending to close the gap with ByteDance, more than four times its size.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 22, 2021

‘Inubu: The Dog Club’: Puppy love with a heavy dose of advocacy

Drawing from a novel based on true events, “Inubu” shows the barriers activists fighting for the humane treatment of animals face, their own physical and financial limits among them.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 22, 2021

COVID-19 may have claimed as many as 5 million lives in India

The numbers, derived from research and local authority data, range from three to 10 times the official count, hinting that the true cost of its outbreak has been massively underreported.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2021

Infected Olympians cast doubt on competition schedule and virus response

Organizers insist the “bubble” meant to protect residents from people connected to the Games — and vice versa — remains intact, even as the list of cases continues to grow.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 21, 2021

Australia, under lockdown, sees jump in COVID-19 cases

Australia's two largest states reported sharp increases in new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, a blow to hopes that lockdown restrictions would be lifted with more than half the country's population under stay-at-home orders.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, sentenced to 14 years for corruption, reflects the country's recurring cycle of leaders rising with military backing and then falling out of favor.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2025

Jailing Imran Khan won’t fix Pakistan’s problems

Pakistan’s economic recovery hinges on reforms, stability and military backing.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during the inaugural parade at Capitol One Arena in Washington on Monday.
WORLD
Jan 23, 2025

Musk calls for defunding of Wikipedia over description of gesture

A recent war of words pits the two tech giants against each other and highlights the starkly different ethos behind Musk's X and Wikipedia.
National Police Agency Commissioner-General Yasuhiro Tsuyuki speaks during a news conference on Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 23, 2025

Japan police agency sets rules for fake IDs in undercover yami baito probes

Investigations involving the use of fake IDs will target crimes such as robbery, special fraud, investment fraud and romance fraud.
"We will demand more than in the previous year to fulfill our role as a leading industry in Japan," Masashi Jinbo, head of the union, said in a news conference in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 23, 2025

Japan's electronics unions to seek ¥17,000 pay hike

"We will demand more than in the previous year to fulfill our role as a leading industry in Japan," union group head Masashi Jinbo told a news conference.
Shipping containers at an industrial port in the Keihin Industrial Zone in Kawasaki. Japanese businesses see a larger role for Japan if global trade breaks down and multilateral trade institutions become less effective without U.S. participation.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 23, 2025

Japan contemplates global free-trade leadership as U.S. goes protectionist

Tokyo could find opportunity in the turmoil while avoiding direct confrontation with Washington.
Japanese Communist Party leader Tomoko Tamura speaks at a Lower House session in Tokyo in December 2024.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 23, 2025

Japanese Communist Party's Tomoko Tamura faces leadership questions ahead of polls

Tamura is aiming for 6.5 million proportional representation votes, but experts say that's unrealistic.
The bus stop in Suzhou, China, where a bus used by a Japanese school came under attack from a man, since identified as Zhou Jiasheng, in June last year
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 23, 2025

China sentences man to death over Japanese school bus attack

A Chinese court deemed the death penalty as appropriate in view of the "extremely heinous" nature of the crime, which resulted in the death of a bus attendant.
Steps against diversity form part of U.S. President Donald Trump's broader campaign targeting the federal bureaucracy, which he has sometimes disparaged as the "deep state" secretly working against his agenda.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 24, 2025

Trump accelerates campaign to remake federal bureaucracy

The U.S. president says his orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs would make America a "merit-based country" once again.
Graffiti created by French artist Big Ben Street Art depicting Donald Trump as Darth Vader from "Star Wars" in Lyon, France, on Nov. 6, 2024
WORLD / Politics
Jan 24, 2025

Trump is back. But what happened to the 'Resistance'?

The U.S. has seen almost none of the mass mobilization that made opposition to Trump in 2017 the largest social movement in a half-century.
Daisuke Komatsu (left), who heads the Liberal Democratic Party's group in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, and others bow in apology during a news conference at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 24, 2025

LDP Tokyo assembly members to correct funds reports

Some LDP members of the assembly kept some revenues from fundraising parties held in 2019 and 2022 for themselves and did not declare the income.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda had sounded dovish after the central bank's December policy meeting, which led some analysts to say that rate hikes might only emerge in March.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 24, 2025

BOJ takes rates to 0.5% amid calm markets after Trump inauguration

The 25-basis-point move marks the first rate increase since July and takes rates to their highest level since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Upon the release of Dragon Quest VII in 2000, hundreds of customers lined up outside stores in Tokyo to secure a copy of the new game. With a remake of a 1988 title, the rest of the world is understanding why Japanese gamers love the series so much.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 25, 2025

Japan’s love affair with Dragon Quest spreads worldwide

The remake of a 1988 game serves as the latest chance for the rest of the world to learn why Japan loves Dragon Quest so much.
Mark Zuckerberg’s push to loosen moderation policies at Meta puts the company on a collision course with regulations in Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2025

Zuckerberg's newfound libertarianism is worrying Brazil

Meta's loosened moderation policy puts it on a collision course with regulations in Latin America’s largest economy.
Fuji TV's headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday
BUSINESS / Markets
Jan 24, 2025

Scandal-hit Fuji Media stock trading soars 1,767% on shakeup bet

A total of 237.8 million shares changed hands in Tokyo, compared with 12.74 million last week.
Undisputed super bantamweight champion Naoya Inoue celebrates after defeating Kim Ye-joon in their title fight at Ariake Arena on Friday.
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
Jan 24, 2025

Naoya 'Monster' Inoue retains undisputed title with 4th-round knockout

Promoter Bob Arum announced after the fight that Inoue will fight in Las Vegas this spring.
A woman lays a bouquet of flowers outside Shenzhen Japanese School following the murder of a 10-year-old Japanese child who was on his way to the school, in Shenzhen in September.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 24, 2025

Chinese court gives death penalty to man who killed Japanese boy

Friday’s sentence was pronounced on the same day the trial opened in an unusually quick decision.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Osaka in June 2019.
WORLD
Jan 24, 2025

Putin ready to talk to Trump and waiting for 'signals,' Kremlin says

The Ukraine conflict has plunged relations between the U.S. and Russia their lowest levels since the Cold War.

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