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Brazil's Indigenous Chief Raoni Metuktire at Igarape Park in the country's Para state in 2023
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 7, 2024

As the Amazon’s biggest champion approaches 100, he’s still fighting

The Amazon’s plight set the tone for Raoni Metuktire’s remarkable life, which has taken him out of Brazil’s central Mato Grosso state and all over the world.
Digital transformation minister Taro Kono speaks at a news conference on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 7, 2024

LDP leadership hopefuls campaign across Japan

Six LDP members have declared their bids for the party presidency so far, with more expected in the coming days.
The Liberal Democratic Party's presidential race is expected to have a record number of candidates.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Perspectives
Sep 8, 2024

Unpacking Japan’s messy leadership election

With so many candidates and old rules gone, brace for the most unpredictable LDP race in ages
An aircraft operated by Qantas Airways outside a maintenance facility at Sydney Airport on Aug. 27
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 9, 2024

Australian airports face the worst climate-change risks

The findings of climate change impacting Australia's airports are a warning to aviation infrastructure owners worldwide.
Alimentation Couche-Tard said it is willing to engage in confidential discussions with 7-Eleven operator Seven & I Holdings and is keen on still pursuing an acquisition.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 9, 2024

Couche-Tard pushes for Seven & I deal talks after rejection

A potential deal would create a global convenience store behemoth with more than 100,000 stores.
U.K. Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom says the Indo-Pacific region offers a unique opportunity to not only tackle shared security concerns but also to generate new sources of economic growth.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 9, 2024

U.K. envoy to Japan pushes back on Indo-Pacific disengagement concerns

The region — and Japan — remain “critical" to Britain's interests, Ambassador Julia Longbottom told The Japan Times.
California has ambitious climate policies. But the state should shift more green energy-related costs from electricity bills to taxes to promote fairness and sustainability.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2024

California's crushing power bills challenge its climate goals

California is incredible, but making it livable, what with its droughts, floods, fault-lines and wildfires, has never been cheap.
Ashwini Vaishnav (left), the Indian minister of electronics and information technology, and N. Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Sons, take part in the foundation stone laying ceremony for India's first AI-enabled semiconductor fabrication facilities in Dholera, Gujarat, India, on March 13.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2024

Could India become an alternative to China in the ‘chip war’?

As decoupling from China gains traction, the U.S. and its allies are betting on India for supply chain restructuring and semiconductor development.
Economic security minister Sanae Takaichi speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 9, 2024

Sanae Takaichi unveils LDP president bid with call for party's rebirth

In an announcement laden with detailed policy proposals, the economic security minister says the party needs to be “reborn” in the wake of its slush funds scandal.
Global investors are expecting the yen may rise further since the Bank of Japan raised interest rates in July.
BUSINESS / Markets
Sep 10, 2024

Yen rally prompts an unwind of hedges in Japanese stocks but investors wary of earnings hit

Expectations that the yen may strengthen further have prompted strategists to recommend unwinding currency hedges on Japanese shares that have outperformed peers.
Ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader and prime minister, Fumio Kishida, attends a campaign event with then-LDP candidate Junko Mihara and lawmaker Shinjiro Koizumi (left) in Kawasaki in July 2022. Koizumi is viewed as a potential front-runner in the party's upcoming leadership contest.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 10, 2024

Japan’s public wants change. Can the ruling party deliver?

The LDP's upcoming leadership contest features a diverse field of candidates, including Shinjiro Koizumi, who is viewed as a potential front-runner.
Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato announces his entry into the LDP leadership race in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 10, 2024

Kato announces bid for LDP presidency, adding uncertainty to race

While the former chief Cabinet secretary's chances of winning are considered minimal, his candidacy adds an extra layer of unpredictability.
The town of Jasper, Alberta, on Aug. 15 after a wildfire devastated the tourism hot spot
WORLD
Sep 12, 2024

Canada's tourism continues to reel from threat of wildfires

Scientists paint a gloomy future for Canada, with more and larger blazes sparked by a warming climate.
The government is considering financial support for liquefied natural gas operators to secure storage tanks in Japan and abroad.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Sep 12, 2024

Japan considers company support measures for long-term LNG contracts

Possible measures included financial support for securing storage tank and a new program to assist LNG buyers committing to long-term contracts.
Pedestrians cross an intersection in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Japan has experienced a postpandemic travel boom, with tourists pouring back in after restrictions closed the country’s borders to travelers.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 12, 2024

Japan jumps to No. 2, from sixth place, in Best Countries index

It jumped from 6th place on the 2023 list as a post-COVID boom and reforms helped bump it up on the subindexes used to calculate the overall score.
Labor market reform will likely be a hot economic debate topic in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, the campaign of which kicked off on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 12, 2024

Labor market reform becoming hot topic in LDP leadership race

Candidates differ in how they intend to tackle labor market issues, especially on whether to give firms more flexibility in the dismissing of workers.
A firefighter sprays water to fight a forest fire in the city of Sao Carlos, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, on Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Sep 13, 2024

A continent ablaze: South America surpasses record for fires

Satellite data has registered 346,112 fire hot spots so far this year, topping the earlier 2007 record of 345,322.
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo. Some 53% of economists surveyed by Bloomberg said the earliest timing for a rate change would be in October.
BUSINESS / Economy
Sep 13, 2024

Over half of BOJ watchers see next rate hike coming in December

The survey results show most analysts believe the market ructions after the July 31 rate hike didn't derail the BOJ from the normalization path.
A CH-148 Cyclone helicopter and a CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft fly over the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Winnipeg in the Asia-Pacific region in November 2020. Canada has been gradually boosting its military engagement with Asian partners.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2024

Canada and Japan aiming to rapidly expand defense ties

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair has said he thinks there are "unlimited areas of cooperation" between the two countries.
An oil slick in the waters off the coast of Manila Bay, in Pamarawan, Malolos, Bulacan province, Philippines, on July 29.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 14, 2024

Philippine fishers call for justice after oil tanker sinks

The largest oil spill in the country since 2006 prompted the government to impose a fishing ban that has pushed the industry toward debt and hunger.
Candidates for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party presidential election stand together onstage at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 15, 2024

LDP presidential hopefuls outline approach to U.S. and China concerns

The nine candidates jostled over the best way to resolve Nippon Steel's contentious bid for U.S. Steel, while also grappling with the Chinese military challenge.
The four candidates running in the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan's leadership race (left to right), Yukio Edano, Yoshihiko Noda, Harumi Yoshida and Kenta Izumi, hold a public debate in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 15, 2024

CDP leadership race a battle between old and new

On Sept. 23, two veterans face off against two younger challengers, including the incumbent and a lawmaker in her first term.
Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, a candidate in the LDP presidential election, speaks during a televised debate in Tokyo on Saturday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 15, 2024

LDP presidential front-runners Koizumi and Ishiba split on snap election

While the two front-runners vie to be Japan’s next prime minister, conservative firebrand Sanae Takaichi gains momentum in the polls.
An online seminar held in late July by Norihiro Nishimura, a professor at Mie University’s Graduate School of Regional Innovation Studies, involved deep discussions that provided participants with direction in the fine-tuning of their research.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Sep 30, 2024

Chubu universities train corporate execs through graduate programs

The programs teach company presidents and executives how to look within their organizations — for issues, challenges and data — to grow their businesses.
Solar panels and wind turbines at a power plant in Hami in China's Xinjiang region. The U.S. and other countries have described China’s actions against Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, a key cog in the cleantech supply chain, as a genocidal campaign aimed at erasing an entire culture.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Sep 16, 2024

How China’s dominance of solar and batteries is impacting Japan’s energy transition

China has thrown its industrial might behind cleantech, putting Japan in a tough spot as it weighs human rights concerns against its climate targets.
Yukio Niiho (left) poses with a moped at his motorcycle shop in Tokyo's Adachi Ward on Aug. 8.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 22, 2024

Genchari moped users lament imminent farewell

For many bikers, they are seen as the starter vehicles that brought them into the world of two-wheeled motoring.
Kirin Holdings and others have established the technology to grow hops indoors.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 22, 2024

Brewers developing climate change-resistant beer ingredients

Reduced barley yields stemming from droughts and extreme temperature could see beer prices rise in Japan, some experts have said.
LDP presidential race candidates give campaign speeches in Nagoya on Saturday.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2024

Ishiba and Takaichi struggle to widen support among LDP lawmakers

The situation is still uncertain, as about 100 LDP lawmakers have not decided whom to support in the Sept. 27 party leadership election.
The U.S. team celebrates on the 18th green after clinching their victory over the European team to win the Solheim Cup in Gainesville, Virginia, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Sep 16, 2024

U.S. team savors Solheim Cup triumph after enduring long wait

Captain Stacy Lewis praised her players for their tenacity and fortitude in pressure-packed situations.
The BMW logo. It took the German automaker more than two years to discover the extent of a braking system fault that is expected to cost the carmaker nearly €1 billion ($1.1 billion) to fix.
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 16, 2024

BMW took two years to find extent of defect behind recall

The braking system fault is expected to cost the carmaker nearly €1 billion ($1.1 billion) to fix.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers