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May 02, 2025
 

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Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te, of Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP), and his running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, wave as they hold a news conference, following their victory in presidential elections, in Taipei, on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 13, 2024

Taiwan’s Lai Ching-te elected president in ‘victory for democracies’

The victory — described by Lai as a “victory for the community of democracies” — was historic third-straight win for the DPP, much to China's chagrin.
Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te and his running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, attend a rally outside the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei on Saturday night after winning the presidential election.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 14, 2024

Taiwan chooses continuity in pivotal presidential election

Lai's Democratic Progressive Party party won more than 40% of the roughly 14 million votes cast, but lost its majority in Taiwan’s parliament.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump greets attendees at a campaign rally in Indianola, Iowa, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 15, 2024

The Trump voters in swing states who are returning to the fold

To try to understand his enduring appeal, reporters spoke to five Trump supporters in five general election battleground states.
The Horizon IT system, built by a U.K. company Fujitsu acquired in the 1990s, resulted in hundreds of post office managers in the U.K. being wrongly convicted for theft and false accounting between 1999 and 2005.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 15, 2024

Fujitsu’s silence is making a tech scandal worse

Top-level executives at Fujitsu have so far stayed mum about the firm's involvement in the U.K. Post Office scandal, letting public outrage shape the narrative, unimpeded.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 16, 2024

Collapsed cakes and the price of perfection in Japan

As its labor crunch worsens, Japan might see more cases of skimping or slipshod quality.
Guards raise Taiwan's national flag on the Democracy Boulevard at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 16, 2024

China plays waiting game in run-up to Taiwan inauguration

China's muted response to the weekend victory by Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te may be the start of an uneasy four months before he takes office.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 17, 2024

Dissolving factions becomes focus of LDP funding scandal task force

The discussions have led to divisions between lawmakers, and at the moment the outcome of the debate remains hard to predict.
The caucus system is increasingly out of step with how modern America lives and picks its presidential candidates and how modern campaigns roll.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

It’s time to scrap the Iowa caucus

The concept behind the Iowa Caucus was both noble and novel when it debuted in 1972. Now many people think it has no place in modern politics.
The final 10 contestants of the reality show “The Debut: Dream Academy” in November. The show aimed to select the members of a new global K-pop girl group.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

K-pop without the ‘K’ just won’t pop

The BTS hiatus may have slowed K-pop down, but the answer isn't to take the Koreanness out of it. If not, all that's left is run-of-the-mill pop.
A signboard in Tokyo shows the closing numbers on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Jan. 11. Tokyo's Nikkei index closed above 35,000 for the first time in nearly 34 years on that day.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 18, 2024

Japan can guilt-trip its stocks past bubble-era highs

Tokyo’s equity market is achingly close to overcoming its bubble-era highs.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 19, 2024

Debate grows over whether expo funding should go to Ishikawa recovery

It has been suggested it would be better to postpone, or even cancel, the troubled 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo.
The concerns over artificial intelligence have parallels with historical apocalyptic movements, which have often been exploited for political purposes.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2024

AI apocalypse now? Only in our fevered dreams

The real question is why are cataclysmic prophets sometimes attract big followings. Understanding this can help us avoid the paths they may lead us down.
The health of China's economy will always be a factor in how other Asian economies fare, and some of those are doing OK despite their larger neighbor’s woes.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2024

The latest indignity for China’s flawed recovery

Neighbors whose economic fortunes were supposed to be tied to the heft of China’s rebound from the pandemic seem to be doing pretty well without it.
Farmers protest against the government's planned cuts to agricultural sector subsides in Brandenburg, Germany, on Jan. 10.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2024

Why Germany is rich but Germans are poor and angry

Germany's polarization peaks as the country's divided society faces economic turmoil.
Casey DeSantis introduces her husband, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as he makes a campaign visit ahead of the South Carolina presidential primary in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 22, 2024

Ron DeSantis ends campaign, endorses Trump as New Hampshire vote looms

The move leaves former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley as Donald Trump's last remaining challenger for the GOP nomination.
Ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics, resentment lingers over the handling of ticket sales last year that saw many locals priced out.
OLYMPICS
Jan 23, 2024

French gloom clouds Paris Olympics, six months from start

Several recent announcements have led to a spike in negative publicity for the sporting mega-event, which will start in just six months.
In the phone message, a voice edited to sound like Biden urged voters in New Hampshire not to cast their ballots in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. In reality, the president isn’t on the ballot in the New Hampshire race — and voting in the primary doesn’t preclude people from participating in November's election.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 23, 2024

Deepfake audio of Biden alarms experts in lead-up to U.S. elections

The ease of producing such doctored messages and the difficulty in tracing them to their source make them a very powerful weapon in the hands of bad actors.
Coming out of the pandemic, job vacancies were historically high in the U.S. because firms needed workers and could not find them.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2024

This year will mark the end of the post-pandemic economy

The trade-off between bringing down inflation and harming growth will come back with a vengeance in the post-pandemic economy.
Supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump react as results are announced during his New Hampshire presidential primary election night watch party in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 24, 2024

Trump defeats Haley in New Hampshire, moving closer to nomination

The former president's only remaining rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, remained defiant telling supporters at a primary night party: "This race is far from over."
Taiwan's roughly three decades of democracy have fostered a growing sense of self-identity, according to a long-running study by National Chengchi University.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 24, 2024

Taiwan’s China-backing party faces crisis after election defeat

Many voters are distrustful of the KMT's commitment to eventual unification with China, a goal shared by just a minority in the island.
Israeli soldiers fire a mortar toward Gaza on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 24, 2024

Unmoved by Gaza carnage, Israel remains committed to war at any cost

There is an intensifying sense within Israel that the world is more focused on the response to Oct. 7 than on the original act of savagery itself.
American President Joe Biden hugs Brittany Alkonis after giving a State of the Union in February. The wife of jailed U.S. sailor Lt. Ridge Alkonis ran a successful pressure campaign to get her husband released from a Japanese prison into American custody. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 24, 2024

Japan owes no apology for U.S. Navy officer’s treatment

The case of Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis is a divisive one, which both the U.S. and Japanese governments have tried to keep quiet about.
A law making its way through the U.S. Congress would authorize the confiscation of billions of dollars in frozen assets owned by the Russian central bank, that would then be handed over to Ukraine as compensation for the war.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2024

Seizing Russia's central bank funds is illegal and unwise

A big question about giving Ukraine seized Russian funds is would such an asset grab break international law?
Ice covers the Moskva river in downtown Moscow. The Kremlin still mostly relies on volunteers to fight its war in Ukraine, offering 210,000 rubles monthly.
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2024

Russia’s war fuels a wage spiral that threatens army recruitment

The competition for employees has pushed wages up at a double-digit pace and made once-relatively lucrative military service less appealing.
New research estimates that nearly 65,000 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 14 states that imposed total abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2024

Post-Roe America’s national shame: 65,000 forced pregnancies

New data has been filling in the picture of what access to reproductive health care looks like in the U.S. And the image forming is increasingly grim.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures to his supporters, as he departs for his second civil trial after E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago, outside Trump Tower in the Manhattan borough of New York City on Friday.
WORLD / FOCUS
Jan 27, 2024

Big money fails to stop Trump, again, prompting a donor reckoning

Donors have learned a hard lesson: Big money cannot win the GOP presidential nomination, at least not against Trump.
A paper published in The Lancet in December found that plastics likely enter most of our major organs and even affect the good bacteria that makes up our microbiome.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2024

We don't know how worried we should be about nanoplastics

Nanoparticles can slip into the bloodstream, get into organs, and sneak into cells where they may cause harm.
As a small open economy, Hong Kong is vulnerable to financial contagion and capital flights to and from China.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2024

Hong Kong is facing a repeat of 1998 Asia financial crisis

As the Hang Seng Index selloff deepens, bankers and traders are preparing for the worst.
BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda at a news conference in Tokyo on Jan. 23. In it, he delivered a consistent message about the bank's intentions moving forward.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 29, 2024

BOJ's Ueda finds his mojo as rate message cuts through

After some growing pains, BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda finally delivers a clear message on the bank's intentions. He should keep at it.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 29, 2024

Japan's opposition eyes united front on political funds reform

Lawmakers are targeting cross-party cooperation on a variety of issues including the revision of the Political Funds Control Act.
Nearly half of workers in Japan engage in ‘quiet quitting’
"Quiet quitting" is most common among the younger generation, with 46.7% of respondents to a survey in their 20s identifying with the practice, reflecting a less-motivated workforce more focused on work-life balance.
Israel protests after Kyoto inn seeks war crime declaration from tourist
A street in Kyoto in March 2023. An Israeli tourist was asked to sign a document stating that he had not committed war crimes when he checked in at a Kyoto guesthouse in April, prompting a response from Israel's ambassador.
U.S. and Ukraine sign resources deal after fraught negotiations
The United States and Ukraine signed a minerals deal on Wednesday, offering a measure of assurance to officials in Kyiv.
Puzzling decisions and opaque rankings are all part of sumo's charm
Chiyoshoma (right) battles Churanoumi during the New Year Basho in Tokyo in January. The Mongolian's drop down the sumo rankings ahead of the May tournament was one of the biggest surprises of the latest banzuke.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami
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.
CDP submits bill proposal on separate surnames, but challenges remain
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers speak to reporters in parliament on Wednesday after submitting a bill in the Lower House to allow married couples to retain different surnames.
Puzzling decisions and opaque rankings are all part of sumo's charm
Chiyoshoma (right) battles Churanoumi during the New Year Basho in Tokyo in January. The Mongolian's drop down the sumo rankings ahead of the May tournament was one of the biggest surprises of the latest banzuke.
North Korea's Kim sets sights on nuclear-armed navy
An unidentified weapons system is fired from the deck of North Korea's latest destroyer, the Choe Hyon, during two days of tests on Monday and Tuesday in this undated photo released Wednesday.
Single, or not? Japanese dating app launches relationship verification system
Tapple, one of Japan's most popular dating apps, has launched the nation's first feature to verify a user's single status via their My Number card.
Counting the reasons why there are so few American cars in Japan
Tesla's store in Tokyo's Shibuya district. While sales of American cars in Japan appear to be shrinking, Tesla's presence in the country is growing.

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One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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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
By Alex K.T. Martin

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