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Ryo Wakabayashi, a distal myopathy patient, lives alone in the city of Fukushima.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Regional Voices: Tohoku
May 20, 2024

Persistence pays off with approval of distal myopathy drug

The disease is estimated to affect only 300 to 400 people in Japan.
Israeli soldiers walk amid military vehicles near the Israel-Gaza Border, in southern Israel, on Thursday. Washington has long urged the Israeli government not to invade Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip without safeguards for civilians.
WORLD / Politics
May 10, 2024

Israel due to get more U.S. weapons despite Biden pause

A range of military equipment worth billions of dollars, some in the works since December, remain in the pipeline as a result of a slow approval process.
Osaka Metropolitan University has reviewed its records and interviewed faculty members and students but has been unable to determine the whereabouts of two missing bottles of cyanide.
JAPAN / Society
May 16, 2024

Two bottles of cyanide go missing from Osaka university

A laboratory worker discovered the bottles of deadly compounds were missing during an inventory check on May 2.
Medical workers walk across a pedestrian crossing outside a hospital in Seoul on March 11. A Seoul court on May 16 rejected a request by doctors and medical students to stop a government plan to increase medical school quotas, as a  monthslong strike by junior medics drags on.
ASIA PACIFIC
May 16, 2024

Seoul court dismisses doctors' bid to halt South Korea reforms

Citing shortages and a rapidly aging population, the government is seeking to train hundreds more doctors each year.
A scene following an Israeli strike on Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on April 22. Israel has carpet-bombed Gaza, obliterating neighborhoods and targeting hospitals, mosques, schools and camps for displaced people, according to a U.N. report.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 20, 2024

Impunity in Gaza is a threat to the international order

Israel's disregard for human rights and international law in Gaza, and the lack of consequences for such actions, are eroding the liberal international order that Japan relies on.
Shigeru Omi, then-Japan's top COVID-19 advisor, speaks to reporters at the Prime Minister's Office in April 2022. A study published this month has shown that many experts who spoke to the media about COVID-19 in Japan were harassed by the public.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 22, 2024

Many COVID experts in Japan harassed after speaking to media, survey shows

The research conducted by a professor at Waseda University is Japan’s first comprehensive survey on threats targeting COVID-19 experts.
The Japanese government updated its English education guidelines in 2017 to emphasize communication over grammar and memorization. Public school teachers are incredibly busy, however, which means schools haven’t been able to implement changes uniformly. Private and alternative schools are attempting to remedy this.
LIFE / Language / Longform
May 27, 2024

The language of opportunity: Bilingual education is on the rise in Japan

Stuck with a reputation for poor English, Japan is pushing its next generation to be bilingual. Privately run schools are seeing the benefits.
Osaka Metropolitan University
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 28, 2024

Man arrested for stealing sodium cyanide from Osaka lab

The suspect has admitted to the allegations against him, saying that he stole the poisonous compound to kill his father.
Aphelele Vavi (right), 22, who is studying sound engineering, at lunch with fellow students at SAE Creative Media Institute in Rosebank, South Africa, on March 19
WORLD / Politics
May 29, 2024

South Africa’s young democracy leaves its young voters disillusioned

The nation is heading into a pivotal election, in which voters will determine who will pick the president, but voter turnout has been dropping in recent years.
Hyappu Ishikawa (left) attends to children at the "Karafuru" Japanese language school in Nishio, Aichi Prefecture, in April.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2024

How one Japanese city supports foreign students through community education

In the city of Nishio, public and private sectors collaborate with schools to support foreign students in Japanese language education and raise their school enrollment rates.
The Saitama Institute of Technology is aiming to nurture engineers knowledgeable in self-driving vehicles.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2024

Technology institute to launch Japan's first autonomous driving major

The Saitama Institute of Technology will introduce the major next April, aiming to nurture engineers knowledgeable in self-driving vehicles.
Parasitic paper mills producing fake studies are flourishing by helping scientists cheat to bolster their resumes, snag competitive academic jobs and impress funding agencies.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2024

Fake scientific studies are a problem that’s getting harder to solve

Publishing house Wiley announced it was dropping 19 journals that they said were infested with fake papers.
Recently, Japan designated Hokkaido Prefecture (including its capital, Sapporo), Fukuoka, Tokyo and Osaka as special zones for financial and asset management businesses. Kumamoto Prefecture was also named a national strategic zone for semiconductors.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 14, 2024

International social infrastructure key to Japan’s high-tech future

Across the globe there is an ongoing search for talent, especially in high-tech sectors, and Japan is no different.
Akira Endo was born on Nov. 14, 1933, in Yurihonjo, a city in a mountainous area near the Sea of Japan.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 15, 2024

Akira Endo, scholar of statins that reduce heart disease, dies at 90

His research on fungi helped lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease.
Richard Katz argues in his new book that the key to Japan emerging from decades of economic sluggishness depends on stimulating companies with high energy and dynamism, over the lumbering, older firms.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 20, 2024

Hope for Japan, if the elephants get out of the way

Protecting older companies, the jobs they have produced and the political and financial relationships they have nurtured, starves newer, more innovative businesses.
The European leader to watch in the months and perhaps years ahead is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose far-right party was among the big winners in the recent European elections.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2024

EU populists are blind to the real threat to the bloc

The center-right will continue to dominate parliament, the surge in support for the extreme right evokes memories of the ugliest moments of the 20th century.
Shibuya Mayor Ken Hasebe (second from right) and Aikasa founder Shoji Marukawa (second from left) hold rental umbrellas during a media briefing on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 19, 2024

Shibuya launches initiative to set up 150 new umbrella-sharing stands

The initiative envisions a reduction of 76.1 tons in carbon dioxide emissions and 29.1 tons in waste per year.
The University of Tokyo in the capital's Bunkyo Ward
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jun 21, 2024

Japanese team uses AI to predict cancer risk from fatty liver images

The model has proved that it can predict cancer onset risk with 82.3% accuracy, researchers have said.
Nissan's Leaf electric vehicle, equipped with autonomous driving technology, during a test ride in the Yokohama Minato Mirai area in Yokohama in May
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 21, 2024

Japan focuses on smart cars as automakers fall behind U.S. and China

While driving assistance technology and map navigation features are installed in Japanese cars, they lack more advanced features.
An Afghan woman carries empty containers to fetch water in Balkh province, Afghanistan, in August 2023.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

U.N.-led Doha meeting with Taliban sparks outcry over women's rights

The U.N. has been seeking a unified, international approach to dealing with the Taliban, who have cracked down on women's rights since returning to power.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer (center), shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (left) and shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Paris in 2023
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

Labour's Brexit red lines set to limit shift in U.K.'s ties with EU

Officials believe the party will struggle to deliver a significantly different trading relationship unless it U-turns on certain issues.
A protest for equal voting rights for African Americans in Washington. Critics argue that identity politics distract from real issues of power, but racial solidarity has played a key role in the U.S. and beyond as a means of liberation.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2024

Two cheers for identity politics

Many people no longer identify themselves with their profession or class but seek meaning and purpose in the traits that make them different from others.
Samples of newly designed yen banknotes at the National Printing Bureau's Tokyo plant on June 19
BUSINESS / EXPLAINER
Jul 1, 2024

What you need to know about Japan's new banknotes

The last time the country redesigned its banknotes was 20 years ago.
Canada Day is held on July 1 to mark Canada’s founding in 1867. This year, the country celebrates its 157th anniversary among resounding successes and tough challenges at home and abroad.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2024

Canada at 157: Lots to celebrate, but also to rethink

At 157, Canada is stable and prosperous, but cracks are starting to form. Its citizens think politicians are out of touch and the country holds little sway abroad.
Coal piles at Jera's Hekinan thermal power station in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, in October 2021
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Jul 8, 2024

Japan should phase out coal power by 2035, climate group says

The nation should adjust its national targets and slash emissions by two-thirds by the middle of the next decade, according to the Japan Climate Initiative.
Visitors at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 12
WORLD / Politics
Jul 9, 2024

Xi’s efforts to reach to young Americans stumble with scripted moments

Beijing is making its largest outreach yet to U.S. students, but for some, a "curated" atmosphere leaves questions over what's not on show.
Beds that once were used by children to take naps at a kindergarten-turned-elderly center in Taiyuan, in China's northern Shanxi province, on July 2
ASIA PACIFIC / Society / FOCUS
Jul 13, 2024

Chinese kindergartens pivot to senior care as population ages

Some educational facilities are remaking themselves as a recreational center for people of retirement age and above.
Nihon University headquarters in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2024

Official at Nihon University's weightlifting club defrauding members

The official pocketed money for nonexistent fees for 10 years, using most of it for private purposes.
During a demonstration to demand a ceasefire and an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in Tokyo on June 24, Sophia University student Jumana Kasemu participates in “Tears for Palestine,” a global event that started in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 19, 2024

If the Gaza protests seem one-sided, it’s because the current violence is

Empathy for Israeli suffering doesn't prevent college students in Japan and beyond from manifesting their anger at indiscriminate violence leveled against Palestinians.
Smoke from a fires in the Pantanal, the world's largest wetland, in Corumba, Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, on June 12.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 24, 2024

From floods to fire: On Brazil's climate front line

Brazil faces months of record wildfires, with devastation already under way and set to worsen in coming months as high heat and winds tear through the midwest.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami