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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.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in Washington on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 25, 2024

Netanyahu sketches vague outline for postwar Gaza

Israeli leader also accused anti-Israel protesters as standing with Hamas, charging without evidence that they were backed by Iran
The entrance gate of the SEG electronics market in Shenzhen, China, on June 27.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 5, 2024

With smugglers and front companies, China is skirting U.S. AI bans

The U.S. worries advanced semiconductors could help China develop superior weaponry, launch cyberattacks and make faster decisions on the battlefield.
Ngun Nei Par, the general manager at Ginshotei Awashima in Numata, Gunma Prefecture, graduated from a university in Myanmar with a degree in geography.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 6, 2024

Japan needs foreign workers, but it might not want them to stay long

Japanese politicians remain reluctant to create pathways for foreign workers, especially those in low-skill jobs, to stay indefinitely.
Japan’s civil servants will likely see the biggest salary increases in over three decades in the current fiscal year.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 8, 2024

Japan’s public servants may see biggest pay hike in 32 years

The Finance Ministry estimates that implementing these recommendations could increase the financial burden of sustain services by roughly ¥382 billion ($2.6 billion).
An archival photo depicting a CWAJ board meeting from April 6, 1966
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Aug 15, 2024

From the division of war, 75 years of intercultural aid

Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the mission of the College Women’s Association of Japan remains straightforward yet ambitious: Women supporting women.
Casey Harrell, who is diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and observers react as a brain-computer interface system developed by University of California, Davis, works on the first attempt.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 16, 2024

Brain tech breakthrough restores ALS patient’s ability to speak

The brain-computer interface developed by University of California, Davis, is aimed at restoring movement, but its improvement of speech underscores its broader promise.
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, gestures during a news conference in Kabul on May 26.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 22, 2024

Taliban bars U.N. human rights special rapporteur from Afghanistan

Richard Bennett is based outside Afghanistan but has visited several times to research the situation there.
Job seekers crowd a job fair at Liberation Square in Shijiazhuang, China, in 2018.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
Sep 2, 2024

New unproductive forces: the Chinese youth owning their unemployment

Urban youth unemployment for the roughly 100 million Chinese aged 16-24 spiked to 17.1% in July, a figure analysts say masks millions of rural unemployed.
A woman walks along a road in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 20, 2023. Three years into its rule, the Taliban has codified its harsh Islamic decrees into law that now includes a ban on women’s voices in public.
WORLD / Society
Sep 9, 2024

With new Taliban manifesto, Afghan women fear the worst

A large majority of the prohibitions have been in place for much of the Taliban’s three years in power, squeezing Afghan women out of public life.
With the world's democracies and authoritarian regimes watching, the U.S. election on Nov. 5 will have global implications.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2024

The choice confronting American voters

Republicans and Democrats differ significantly on the role of government in society, a divide that the U.S. Supreme Court used to mediate.
A vendor attends to a customer at the secondhand books section of Panjiayuan antiques market in Beijing
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 13, 2024

China wants academic exchanges, but censorship could stand in the way

The Chinese Communist Party has exerted control over all publications since establishing the People's Republic of China in 1949.
Activists hold up symbolic eye masks during a protest against deepfake porn in Seoul on Aug. 30.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 13, 2024

South Korea is facing deepfake porn crisis

The industry creating AI technology must develop safeguards to address this epidemic.

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