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A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) banner outside the party's state office in Kolkata, India.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 26, 2023

Modi's ruling BJP plots election drive of epic scale

Growing anti-incumbency sentiment is conspiring with a newly formed national alliance to pose what BJP officials say will be Modi's toughest test by far.
Ukrainian refugees arrive at Haneda airport in Tokyo on April 5, 2022.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 26, 2023

Japan to introduce new residency status for asylum-seekers

A program to offer a long-term residence status that will allow asylum-seekers to work in Japan will be introduced in December.
Prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed on the grounds of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in British Columbia, Canada, in June.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2023

India-Canada clash should be a wake-up call on diaspora extremism

Western countries are failing to keep the radicalization of certain migrant communities in check. They have much to lose.
Finnish Army conscripts with the 2nd Military Police Company during a training exercise in a suburb of Helsinki on Sept. 6. After decades of going it alone in security issues, Finns are finding that life in a large alliance is complex, expensive and deeply political.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 26, 2023

Finland raced to join NATO. What happens next is complicated.

The country must integrate itself into the alliance and its requirement of collective defense — with all of its financial, legal and strategic hurdles.
Customers load their shopping into a vehicle at a New World supermarket in Wellington, operated by Foodstuffs New Zealand.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Sep 27, 2023

Cost-of-living stress fuels crime wave in Australia and New Zealand

While the thefts are brazen, organized and increasingly violent, experts say the shoplifting underscores the hardship many people are facing.
Nintendo Tokyo at the Shibuya Parco department store complex, the first such official Nintendo store in Japan
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 27, 2023

Microsoft buying Nintendo would have been a disaster

Imagine the clash of cultures. Nintendo executives famously cut their own salaries rather than lay off workers during the failure of the Wii U.
A cryptocurrency mining center in Russia
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2023

Bitcoin’s power-hungry history offers lessons for AI’s future

As AI grows, so does its energy footprint, but its developers needn't look much further than bitcoin's recent past to find climate-friendly solutions.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Sep 27, 2023

Frustrating September tournament contained silver linings

The worst possible outcome for a playoff has set up an even more intriguing storyline for the final grand tournament of the year in November.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 27, 2023

Tsushima mayor turns down request for nuclear waste site survey

The mayor expressed his decision at a municipal council meeting, saying that “there is not enough consensus building among citizens.”
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 27, 2023

Supreme Court may adjust requirements for gender status change

If the court deems the surgery requirement for a gender change to be unconstitutional, it is expected to pave the way for an amendment of the law.
In Australia, past El Nino events have led to destructive fire seasons, including the catastrophic Black Summer of 2019-2020.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2023

Australia hoped to dodge wildfires. El Nino has other plans.

The 1983, 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2015 fire seasons, some of the most damaging in the country’s history, all occurred during El Nino.
The higher interest rates that many countries are now experiencing are raising the costs of renewable electricity, the prices of which are dependent on the upfront expenditures needed to build new facilities.
COMMENTARY
Sep 28, 2023

What happens when renewable energy isn’t so cheap?

Renewable prices are determined by the upfront cost of building facilities whereas fossil-fuel energy prices are a mix, including fuel costs.
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?
The yen's slide to the cusp of ¥150 per dollar has put investors on high alert for the risk of intervention.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 29, 2023

Yen intervention a hard sell even as 'red line' beckons

To make even a ripple in the $5 trillion currency market, the BOJ would need to draw down massive amounts of dollar reserves.
Supporters of Niger's National Council of Safeguard of the Homeland wave a flag of the private Wagner military company during a protest near the capital Niamey on Sept. 16.
COMMENTARY
Sep 30, 2023

If the U.S. exits Niger, the terrorists and Russians win

What transpired in Niamey was obviously a coup. Nonetheless, the U.S. has global responsibilities that require it to stay in Niger.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 1, 2023

Yukio Edano moves to return as CDP leader

Yukio Edano, former leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, is believed to have begun his bid to return as party leader.
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.
Smer-SSD party leader Robert Fico (center) celebrates his victory in general elections alongside party members, in Bratislava on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 1, 2023

Slovak populists opposed to Ukraine aid win election

Analysts predict a Robert Fico government could radically change Slovakia's foreign policy to resemble that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Polish opposition leader, former premier and head of the centrist Civic Coalition bloc, Donald Tusk addresses participants of a rally in Warsaw on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 2, 2023

Polish opposition takes to the streets to energize campaign

Protesters supporting Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition swelled into Warsaw in last-ditch attempt to boost momentum and narrow the gap.
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.
Mori Building's Azabudai Hills complex in Tokyo's Minato Ward, which will house offices, shops, apartments, hotels and a school, is set to open in November
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 2, 2023

While Manhattan’s offices stay empty, Tokyo keeps building

Remote working has decimated offices in cities like New York and London. But Tokyo's workspaces have bounced back, also thanks to new builds.
A TotalEnergies tanker truck with sustainable aviation fuel at the 54th International Paris Airshow near Paris on June 19
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Oct 3, 2023

Too expensive, too scarce: Doubts grow over green aviation fuel

Generating the required quantities of alternative fuel would require huge areas of land and natural resources.
Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou speaks to members of the media at Taoyuan International Airport on April 7 after a 12-day trip to China.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 3, 2023

Taiwan's national day becomes polarizing celebration

Taiwan's identity, including how it relates to China, is a major issue for Taiwanese voters.
Katalin Kariko (right) and Drew Weissman, the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for their discoveries enabling the development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023

Nobel for mRNA vaccines shows the power of perseverance

Decades of work by Nobel Prize winners Kariko and Weissman made the rapid development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines possible.
A prescription injector for Ozempic, a weight loss drug
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2023

Ozempic cuts alcohol cravings. Liquor companies aren’t ready.

A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley’s AlphaWise research unit found that people consumed 62% less alcohol while taking weight loss drugs.
A new study defines some critical differences in certain biomarkers of people with long COVID.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2023

Long COVID is real. Now the evidence is piling up.

In what the researchers believe is a first, they did a detailed study of the differences between people with long COVID and those who are healthy.
Robert Fico, whose Smer-Social Democracy Party won Slovakia’s early parliamentary elections, exits a meeting with the country’s president on Monday. 
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2023

Can national reconciliation defeat European populism?

For the U.S., Slovakia's general election may produce another unreliable allied government.
Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters after he was ousted as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2023

McCarthy’s ouster highlights the depths of GOP dysfunction

The recent removal of Kevin McCarthy as U.S. House speaker is symptom of the wider malaise in a fractious Republican Party.
Volunteers work at a Salvation Army mobile health clinic in Montreal on Sept. 22. Canada, despite being a wealthy nation, is gripped by a surge in homelessness that has seen thousands of people living in the streets after being priced out of real estate and rental markets.
WORLD / Society
Oct 5, 2023

Homelessness explodes in Canada as rents and housing prices soar

Researchers warn government data is vastly underestimating the number of homeless across the country.
Generative AI will change work for young professionals, but their reasoning skills will still be needed.
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2023

Is ChatGPT coming for entry-level jobs?

If entry-level workers get that much faster and better, won’t companies be able to get by with fewer of them? Maybe.

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