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Sun simulation at the Rail Tec Arsenal facility in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 15, 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 16, 2024

Climate change threatens EU trains, but resilience is expensive

Europe’s railways, a safe, low-carbon technology that still carries a little glamor, are on the brink of a new era.
Fans of virtual YouTuber Selen Tatsuki and VTubers in general took to social media to express their outrage over major agency Nijisanji terminating Tatsuki’s contract.
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Feb 16, 2024

High-profile shakeups prompt scrutiny of virtual YouTuber industry

As VTubers enter a new era defined by prestige, Selen Tatsuki and Mikeneko's recent dramas demonstrate how complicated getting famous can be.
The decisions by JPMorgan and State Street to quit a global investor coalition will collectively remove trillions of dollars from efforts to coordinate Wall Street action on climate change.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 16, 2024

JPMorgan and State Street quit climate group as BlackRock steps back

Financial firms have faced growing pressure from Republican politicians over their membership in such groups.
Donald Trump's recent remarks on defense spending by allies, which were highly criticized, highlight the complexities of U.S. foreign policy.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2024

Trump's defense spending critiques: Valid concerns or political rhetoric?

Do U.S. allies need to step up defense spending? What do the numbers really say?
The Japanese equity market is likely to benefit a lot from the Bank of Japan's exit from its ultraeasy monetary policy.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 19, 2024

BlackRock sees Japan stocks as big winner from BOJ policy shift

Japan seems to be in its final stage of declaring victory over decades of deflation.
An Enechange electric vehicle charging station in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture. There are around 37,000 public charging ports in Japan.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 19, 2024

Japan needs more priority EV parking spots, Enechange CEO says

In space-challenged Japan, where electric vehicles only account for around 3% of new car sales, regular cars often park in charging spots instead.
An advertisement for the Nippon Individual Savings Account (NISA) at a Mizuho Bank branch, a unit of Mizuho Financial Group, in Tokyo on Jan. 31.
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Feb 19, 2024

Turning the tide? Japan warms up to becoming an asset management hub.

The beefing-up of the NISA program alongside a new policy plan by the government shows its commitment toward getting households to invest.
McDonald's Japan will start charging ¥5 for plastic bags of all sizes at some stores, starting in April.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 20, 2024

McDonald's Japan announces trial ¥5 plastic bag charge to curb usage

The firm will eye expanding the fee nationwide following a trial at 23 of its stores in Nagasaki Prefecture starting in April.
Mining magnate Dan Gertler in Congo in 2012
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 20, 2024

China's dominance of EV metals prompts U.S. to revisit stockpile 'panic button'

Budget cuts have shrunk U.S. strategic reserves to record lows, leaving it facing shortages of the raw materials needed to execute an energy transition.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Feb 21, 2024

How to reinvent yourself at 50: An IEA guide

It would be an understatement to say that the energy industry has gone through a lot of change.
COP28 president Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber is seen on a screen as he speaks during a high-level round table on COP energy and climate commitments organized by the International Energy Agency (IEA) at its headquarters in Paris on Tuesday. The world needs "trillions" of dollars to spur on the green transition and tackle global warming, the head of last year's COP28 climate talks said, warning that political momentum can evaporate without clear action.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 22, 2024

Political momentum on climate could evaporate, warns COP28 president

COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber hailed progress made at U.N. negotiations last year in Dubai but the deal lacked important details, including on funding.
Specimen M831 stored at the National Museum of Nature and Science’s Tsukuba Research Departments in Ibaraki Prefecture
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Feb 22, 2024

How a 13-year-old discovered a possible Japanese wolf specimen

A new paper by Hinako Komori and two academics says a specimen she found could be one of two Japanese wolves kept at Ueno Zoo in the late 19th century.
Biomass will heat the facility and provide clean CO2 for the plants.
ESG CONSORTIUM
Feb 22, 2024

A hothouse of ecological ideas will produce tomatoes in Aomori

Starting in April, a project in the Aomori city of Mutsu, at the northern tip of Honshu, will grow tomatoes using a new cultivation method that will go beyond zero carbon and actually absorb more CO2 than it emits. Built on a large abandoned farm, the facility will also create 100 new jobs.
Director of the Akan International Crane Center, Miyuki Kawase, says tourism is incredibly helpful for the birds, but the people who come to take pictures of the birds have to remember they are still wild animals.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Feb 24, 2024

Miyuki Kawase: ‘Experience, whether happy, sad or painful, makes you grow’

The director of the Akan International Crane Center in Hokkaido tells us how she found herself in a career centered around the symbolic white birds.
An artist rendering of Japan's first Arctic research vessel, "Mirai II"
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2024

Japan's first arctic research vessel to be named "Mirai II"

The name was selected from over 7,000 suggestions from the public.
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft passes over the near side of the moon following lunar orbit insertion on Wednesday.
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2024

Why it took the U.S. 51 years to get back on the moon

Intuitive Machines has landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon, becoming the first private firm to place a vehicle intact on the lunar surface.
Hideo Shimoju points to a possible site that his fellow neighbors may relocate to. Such relocations have happened before, but not preemptively.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / Longform
Feb 24, 2024

In disaster-prone Japan, some communities consider major moves

Rural communities are considering collective relocation as a means to deal with worsening climate disasters.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Feb 23, 2024

Noto quake highlights aging water systems in depopulating areas

Nearly 22,000 homes in Ishikawa Prefecture are still without water, and the shortage has sparked debate on how to maintain services in depopulating areas.
A woman passes by a jacaranda tree at Plaza Cibeles in Mexico City.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 26, 2024

Early jacaranda bloom sparks debate about climate change in Mexico

The trees have become an iconic, photogenic mainstay of the streets of Mexico City.
People read newspapers at a roadside tea stall in Patna, Bihar, India. Newsrooms are being reshaped, journalists say, by India’s richest press barons, many of whom are close to the ruling party and depend on millions of advertising dollars from the government.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 26, 2024

Billionaire press barons are squeezing media freedom in India

Many press barons are close to the ruling party and depend on millions of advertising dollars from the government.
Asahi Group Holdings chief executive Atsushi Katsuki
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 26, 2024

Asahi eyes overseas acquisitions to quadruple sales of Super Dry beer

Spurred on by the need to seek growth outside of the shrinking home market, Japanese firms went on an overseas buying spree worth ¥8.1 trillion last year.
Smoke rises from the Posco steel mill in Pohang, South Korea.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 26, 2024

South Korea’s biggest polluters made millions from carbon sales

Seoul was one of the first in Asia to start an emissions-trading system, but it has fallen short of encouraging industrial polluters to reduce pollution.
Organizers say they hope that the 2024 Paris Paralympics attracts packed audiences.
PARALYMPICS
Feb 27, 2024

Paralympics chief hopes for full stadiums and extensive TV coverage

Fewer than one million tickets out of a total of 2.8 million have been sold so far.
A Sustainable Smart City Partner Program forum in Kitajima
ESG CONSORTIUM
Feb 27, 2024

NTT tool Sugatami reflects cities’ extensive possibilities

With the use of digital technology to solve rural social problems now promoted as a national policy, some places have begun trying to use data to analyze their current situation, identify problems and find solutions.
The climate risks sparked by AI-driven computing are far-reaching — and will worsen without a big shift from fossil fuel-based electricity to clean power.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 27, 2024

AI is exploding data center energy use. A Google-created technique may help.

Data centers and transmission networks collectively contribute up to 3% of global energy consumption, with emissions comparable to the entirety of Brazil.
Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson receives information that Hungary's parliament has voted yes to ratify Sweden's NATO accession, at the government headquarters in Stockholm on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 27, 2024

The NATO welcoming Sweden is larger and more determined

The alliance's expansion was a consequence from the invasion of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin may not have calculated.
An employee at the Apita Kisarazu shopping mall in Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture. Pan Pacific International Holdings, the parent company of the firm that operates Apita, abolished its rules on hair color in 2022 following requests by its employees.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 28, 2024

Japan's retailers and restaurants ease dress codes amid labor shortage

More and more companies have abolished in-house rules prohibiting colored hair and piercings to help with hiring and retain staff.
An employee organizes baby supplies at a store in Siheung, South Korea, on Tuesday. A lack of babies is speeding up the aging of South Korean society, generating concerns about the growing fiscal burden of public pensions and healthcare.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 28, 2024

South Korea keeps shattering its own record for lowest fertility rate

The number of babies expected per woman in a lifetime fell to 0.72 last year from 0.78 in 2022.
The new national security law will target crimes including treason, theft of state secrets, espionage, sabotage, sedition and "external interference" including from foreign governments. The Hong Kong legislature, which is dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, is expected to approve it.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 28, 2024

Hong Kong moves toward enacting tougher security law amid concerns about freedoms

Lawyers and activists say the law criminalizes basic human rights such as freedom of expression, but Hong Kong authorities say the new law is necessary.
A firefighter walks on mud and rocks from a mudslide during a storm in Los Angeles on Feb. 5.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 29, 2024

U.S. and Philippines pay highest economic price for climate-fueled weather

The U.S. currently experiences the worst losses in absolute terms: about $97 billion annually.

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