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One of the works that will be performed at Kyoto Experiment is “The Window of Spaceship ‘In-Between’” by the Chelfitsch theater company. The play questions what the Japanese language is today from a plurality of perspectives.
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 29, 2023

Kyoto Experiment explores fluidity of culture with performance works

The lineup for the international performing arts festival features 11 works from countries such as Brazil, Australia, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Many art critics rank Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d’Avignon," which hangs in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, as one of his greatest. But other critics describe the masterpiece as racist or exploitative.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2023

What should be done with art that is seen as racist?

So what exactly should we do when people consider extant art racist?
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington in December 2014.
WORLD
Sep 29, 2023

Long-serving U.S. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein dies at 90

Feinstein was a Washington trail-blazer who among other accomplishments became the first woman to head the influential Senate Intelligence Committee.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the crowd as he arrives at a Bhartiya Janta Party gathering in Ahmedabad on Tuesday.
WORLD
Sep 30, 2023

Murder claim in Canada is only helping India's Modi at home

India has gone on the offensive since Canadian leader Justin Trudeau accused Modi’s government of orchestrating the murder of a Sikh priest.
The Mikomotojima Lighthouse in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture, was designed by Richard Henry Brunton, a Scotsman who was employed by the Meiji government to build lighthouses across Japan in the 19th century. In "The Japan Lights," author Iain Maloney connects his personal travels and experiences in Japan to Brunton's pursuits.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 1, 2023

'The Japan Lights' traces a journey of self-discovery in the wake of 3/11

Iain Maloney's wise book connects his travels in Japan to the pursuits of Richard Henry Brunton, a Scotsman who built lighthouses across the country.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi address a joint meeting of Congress at the Capitol in Washington in June.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 1, 2023

Modi’s Hindu nationalism stokes tension in Indian diaspora

Canadian and U.S. universities have become battlegrounds for critics and defenders of Hindu nationalism, punctuated by threats of violence and even death.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on Sept. 13.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2023

Russia and North Korea's cartoon summit

Whether Russia is actually offering a deep and multifaceted relationship with North Korea implied by the summit remains far from clear.
Striking writers and actors stage a solidarity march through Hollywood on Sept. 13.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 1, 2023

The Writers Guild had a PR strategy like no other

So how did the Writers Guild union do it? First and foremost, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of social media in the equation.
Fort Myers Beach during a high tide in Florida
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 2, 2023

A hidden climate danger threatens coastal communities

Rising sea levels could push contaminated groundwater to the surface, releasing toxic chemicals from contaminated areas nearby.
Gamers play during the first day of Europe's leading digital games fair, Gamescom, in Cologne, Germany, in August 2019
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2023

Video game competitions should be in the Olympics

Esports is already among the world’s most popular competitive activities. Last year, the global audience totaled more than 500 million people.
Central to China’s global media campaign is the aggressive use of new technologies to target and spread messages, silence critics and create a digital infrastructure that is more easily controlled.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023

Pushing back against China’s media offensive

China is using propaganda, disinformation, censorship and covert tactics to promote its preferred narrative and suppress critical reporting.
The Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple where Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed in June in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Oct 4, 2023

India's spies infiltrated West long before Canada's murder claim

Canada's recent allegations have thrust India's secretive Research and Analysis Wing into the global spotlight.
A mother carries her child inside her burnt house, following a wildfire in Bejaia, Algeria, on July 25
WORLD / Society
Oct 6, 2023

Tens of millions of children uprooted by climate disasters

Weather disasters fueled by climate change sparked 43.1 million child displacements from 2016 to 2021, the U.N. Children's Fund has warned.
Most projections show the world will hit peak humanity in the 21st century as people choose to have smaller families and women gain power over their own reproduction.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2023

Don’t worry about global population collapse

While environmentalists have long warned of a planet with too many people, now some economists are warning of a future with too few.
A 19-year-old girl plagued with strange visions sets out with her younger brother to uncover the truth about her perfect family in Banana Yoshimoto’s “The Premonition.”
CULTURE / Books
Oct 14, 2023

Banana Yoshimoto’s new book is a sickly sweet fantasy

In “The Premonition,” the characters exist in a dream-like state of sweetness and steer clear of examining complex questions.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban meet in Budapest in October 2021. Modern autocrats focus on manipulating public opinion while gradually weakening the democratic institutions from which they claim legitimacy.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2023

No, the world's democracies are not 'backsliding'

Fears that we're turning the clock back on democracy are inaccurate — and unhelpful for dealing with new shades of authoritarianism.
A gender-equality supporter protests against discrimination at an event held in Tokyo for International Women's Day in March 2021
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 13, 2023

Japan’s gender gap has never been wider. Can Kishida close it?

The government emphasizes the need to improve gender equality, but correcting Japan's dismal record requires a nuanced approach.
Palestinians in Gaza City evacuate after an Israeli airstrike on Oct 9.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2023

The spiral of violence that led to Hamas

If Palestinians are ever to regain the moral high ground, they must hope for the destruction of Hamas.
International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach speaks on the first day of the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai on Sunday.
OLYMPICS
Oct 16, 2023

IOC members call on Bach to stay on past 2025

Elected in 2013, Bach is due to step down in 2025 in line with current Olympic Charter rules.
Israeli soldiers inspect the burned cars of festival-goers who were attacked and massacred by Hamas militants near the border with the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2023

The real dividing line between Israel and Palestine

The choice is not between hard-line factions; it is between the fundamentalists on both sides and all those who still believe in the possibility of peace.
China's ambitions to control the legacy chip market have implications for the world economy and Western nations are beginning to take countersteps.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2023

China's economic ambitions squeeze the developing world

While Chinese diplomats try to promote “win-win” solutions, Chinese policy is preventing developing-world partners from selling goods to China.
BUSINESS / Tech / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Oct 23, 2023

Hokkaido waits to gauge impact from upcoming Rapidus chip plant

The nationally backed effort to revive Japan’s semiconductor industry has been called the region’s largest-ever development project.
Various aspects of Japan’s Sado Island — noh, taiko drumming, business investment and cultural regeneration projects — weave their way into “L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima,” with characters and cultures coming together in a melting pot of real-world political problems, theater styles and dark humor.
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 20, 2023

Cultures collide in Ariane Mnouchkine's Sado Island-inspired play

The Kyoto Prize-winning French theater director's latest production, "L’ile d’Or Kanemu-Jima," draws from her experiences in Japan, both old and new.
Labyrinth organizer Russell Moench sparked controversy with transphobic tweets, leading booked artists to pull out of the highly regarded electronic music festival’s 2023 edition.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 20, 2023

Art and politics clash at Labyrinth 2023

A controversy surrounding the prestige electronic music festival sparks an old debate over separating art and the artist.
An employee installs solar panels in a satellite dish at the Leuk Teleport and Data Center in Leuk, Switzerland
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Oct 20, 2023

The world has already crossed a ‘tipping point’ on solar power

As wind power costs rise, solar power is vital for meeting emissions reduction goals.
Vagaries in Japanese law mean single mothers are sometimes left without financial support from their former partners.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Oct 23, 2023

Documentary shines a spotlight on Japan’s single mothers

"The Ones Left Behind" explores the successes and struggles of single mothers in modern Japan.
Japan’s crime thriller genre owes a lot to Kido Okamoto and Taro Hirai, who is better known by his pen name of Edogawa Ranpo
CULTURE / Books
Oct 22, 2023

Japanese thrillers and crime mysteries to curl up with this fall

As the nights grow colder, pick up a recommended read in crime fiction and dive deep into this unique intersection of art and entertainment.
Demonstrators march against the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians outside Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 14.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 20, 2023

Is silence on Israel support for Hamas?

One of the current problems with the Israel-Hamas debate is that a failure to condemn some wrongs is often taken as approval.
JERA's coal-fired power plant in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, is under construction in 2021.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Oct 22, 2023

Japan sticks with climate solution that critics say is far from clean

The government hopes to use ammonia on a massive scale to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants, but environmentalists remain skeptical.
U.S. President Joe Biden addresses the nation about the war in Israel and Ukraine from the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2023

New mantra for U.S. diplomacy: First, do no harm

U.S. power has diminished and the overweening advantage it enjoyed after World War II, even at the end of the Cold War, has dissipated.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji