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Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
May 5, 2025

A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan

How one artist is using history, culture and community spirit to revive a fading samurai legacy — and possibly reshape rural Japan’s future.
Nataliia Zelenina, 52, poses for a portrait in the office of the Svitanok charitable foundation, where she works as a social worker after having spent five years in Russian custody, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, on April 22.
WORLD
May 5, 2025

'Accept me': Organization offers haven for outcasts near Ukraine front

People living with HIV, those recovering from drug addiction, sex workers — all are welcome to seek medical guidance and respite from stigma.
With the June 1 reform of imprisonment penalties, Japan will shift the main objective of imprisonment from punishment to preventing repeat offenses.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 5, 2025

Japanese prisons prepare for imprisonment penalty reform

Japan will shift the main objective of imprisonment from punishment to preventing repeat offenses.
Imba, a clove farmer who inherited 70 trees from her parents, in Ternate, North Maluku, Indonesia. Colonial powers once warred over the cloves grown on the eastern Indonesian island of Ternate. Today, farmers say the crop's gravest threat is climate change.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
May 6, 2025

Climate change takes spice from Indonesia clove farms

Clove trees can take more than a decade to mature, and flowers can only be harvested in a small window that depends heavily on weather conditions.
The Trump administration has launched a full-scale federal "plastic patriotism" effort to eliminate paper straws, arguing they are ineffective, hazardous, more expensive and become soggy.
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2025

A world restored: The U.S. takes the offensive against paper straws

The Trump team has issued an executive order and a national strategy to rid the country of the pulpy, soggy mess of paper straws that torments too many of America's citizens.
The Giants' Kazuma Okamoto, seen during a game on April 16, suffered an elbow injury during a game against the Tigers on Tuesday at Tokyo Dome.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 6, 2025

Giants star Kazuma Okamoto expected to miss extended period with elbow injury

Giants manager Shinnosuke Abe told reporters Okamoto will miss a lot of time.
An Israeli military vehicle patrols on the Israeli side of the Gaza border on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
May 8, 2025

U.S. and Israel discuss possible U.S.-led administration for Gaza, sources say

There would be no fixed timeline for how long such a U.S.-led administration would last, which would depend on the situation on the ground.
A makeshift tent camp near a railway track, following a strong earthquake in Amarapura township, Myanmar, on April 4
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 8, 2025

Health care crisis follows Myanmar quake as junta drives medics underground

After medics took a prominent role in the anti-junta movement that emerged after the coup, the military administration has sought to root out opponents to its rule.
Akira Shimada, CEO of NTT, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 8, 2025

NTT to launch $16.5 billion tender offer for NTT Data in AI push

Japan’s biggest telecom operator is launching a tender offer of ¥4,000 per share for all stock it doesn’t own in NTT Data.
Paris Saint-Germain coach Luis Enrique has learned to control his emotions during matches.
SOCCER
May 8, 2025

Luis Enrique believes PSG's mentality helped fuel run to Champions League final

Enrique revealed that a turning point in PSG’s campaign came earlier in the season when results in the Champions League fell short of expectations.
Tokyo-based satellite maker Axelspace's initial public offering is expected to be approved by the Tokyo Stock Exchange later this month, people with knowledge of the matter said.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 8, 2025

Axelspace is latest Japan space startup to seek IPO, sources say

If successful, it would be the fifth such listing of a Japanese spacecraft venture over the last two years.
Teachers and students from Karachi University take part in an anti-India protest on April 28. Pakistan has warned that any attempt by India to stop water supplies from the Indus River could be seen as an "act of war."
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2025

New Delhi’s warning to Islamabad

Modi has thus retained strategic ambiguity, while sending a resolute message: Resource-sharing comes with conditions.
The Tokyo High Court in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. The court also upheld the Tokyo District Court's sentence of 18 months in jail, suspended for three years, for Kenichiro Yokomizo, the former president of a Hakuhodo group firm.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 9, 2025

Hakuhodo's appeal dismissed in Tokyo Games bid-rigging case

It is the first high court ruling in a series of bid-rigging cases related to the Tokyo Games, held in 2021.
Kotoba Slam Japan runs regional competitions to select a representative for the annual World Poetry Slam Championship, which will take place in Mexico at the end of the month.
CULTURE / Stage
May 9, 2025

Japan’s slam poetry scene is all about raw vulnerability

Slam poetry is a rarity in Japan, but the scene is full of energy and potential that the poets have been bringing to the world slam poetry stage for 10 years now.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (second right) and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer (left) meet with Japan’s economic revitalization minister, Ryosei Akazawa, in Washington on May 1. In an attempt to ease trade tensions, Bessent and Greer will meet with a Chinese team in Switzerland from Saturday. 
EDITORIALS
May 9, 2025

A moment of hope for U.S-China trade frictions

The U.S. and China will meet in Switzerland to discuss trade tensions, but deep mistrust and structural issues are hurdles they will have to overcome to make progress.
Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing leaves Red Square after the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 11, 2025

Myanmar junta chief meets China's Xi for first time

Beijing has long been eyeing Myanmar's resource-rich northern Shan state — now under rebel control — for infrastructure investment under its Belt and Road initiative.
A former nonregular government employee, who cooked lunch for a public school in the Tohoku region, says she was dismissed after she was made to take an open recruitment exam.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
May 19, 2025

Civil service contract workers fear lack of job security

Contracted civil servants are paid about half the salaries of regular staff or even less, and a fear of being dismissed hangs over their heads.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attend a news conference after trade talks with China, in Geneva on Monday.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 12, 2025

U.S. and China agree to lower tariffs in 90-day cooling-off period

The temporary move will give the world’s two largest economies three more months to resolve their differences.
Masayuki Omoto, Marubeni president and CEO, in Tokyo on Tuesday. Omoto has affirmed the Japanese trading house’s commitment to a long-term partnership with Berkshire Hathaway, echoing sentiments recently expressed by the U.S. investment firm.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 13, 2025

Marubeni aligned with Berkshire Hathaway on long-term value, says top exec

Berkshire has steadily increased its stakes in Japan’s five largest trading houses, with Chairperson Warren Buffett signaling in February that he plans to boost holdings further.
A Warren Buffett Squishmallow is displayed during a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, in May 2023. Buffett’s $25 billion bet on five Japanese trading houses reflects his belief that the country’s overlooked market rewards patient investors who embrace its unique business culture.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 13, 2025

Buffett’s little Japan handbook — and other lessons

The legendary investor recently revealed what inspired his interest in Tokyo’s trading houses — and offered a host of tips for would-be followers.
People smoking in Yuxi, in China's southwest Yunnan province. China is home to a third of the world's smokers and tobacco-related diseases are a major cause of death in the country — a trend likely to worsen as its population rapidly ages.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
May 13, 2025

Tobacco town thrives as China struggles to kick the habit

China is home to a third of the world's smokers and tobacco-related diseases are a major cause of death in the country.
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
May 14, 2025

Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia

The recent conflict is challenging long-held perceptions of Chinese weapons' inferiority to Western arms and sparking concern in places wary of Beijing.
New research by a U.S. climate scientists’ group reveals that extreme heat has increased the risks of preterm births and other pregnancy complications in Japan, nearly doubling the number of days that are harmfully hot for pregnant women over the past five years.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 14, 2025

Harmfully hot days for pregnant women in Japan nearly doubled over past five years

Heat stress can raise the risks of stillbirths, miscarriages, preterm births and low-weight births, as well as congenital abnormalities for the babies.
Japan ranked 14th out of 36 developed countries in the latest child well-being survey, improving from 20th place in the previous survey released in 2020, a report by a UNICEF research institute showed Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
May 14, 2025

Japan ranks 14th in UNICEF child well-being survey

Top positions in the latest overall rankings were held by the Netherlands, Denmark and other European countries.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (right) watches as U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday.
WORLD
May 14, 2025

Trump meets Syrian president and urges him to establish ties with Israel

Trump urged Ahmad al-Sharaa to join the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020.
Though the protagonist of “Jinsei” (voiced by rapper Ace Cool) is an emotional blank slate, his journey throughout the film takes wild turns.
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2025

‘Jinsei’: Ryuya Suzuki’s solo animation is a singular debut

The 30-year-old wrote, directed, animated, edited and soundtracked in isolation — creating one of the most striking films of 2025 so far.
Tokyo officials are pushing back against arguments that blame the dwindling national population partly on the concentration of people and businesses in the capital.
JAPAN / FOCUS
May 15, 2025

Regional revitalization faces Tokyo-countryside divide

Some blame Japan's dwindling national population partly on the concentration of people and businesses in the capital.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer travels to the resort island of Jeju, South Korea, to join his counterparts at the meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members on Thursday and Friday.
WORLD / Politics
May 15, 2025

Trade chiefs jostle for time with Greer at APEC meeting in South Korea

Many will seek talks with the U.S. trade representative to try to blunt the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s barrage of tariffs.
Over 30 years, U.S.-China trade talks have largely failed because Beijing prioritizes protecting its political system, making only symbolic concessions, while Washington struggles to win lasting changes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2025

The U.S. will never win a trade war with China

For sure, the 90-day truce is merely temporary relief. As long as negotiations continue as they are, the U.S. will not be able to win a trade war with China
Netflix has announced it will start streaming "Hotaru no Haka" (Grave of the Fireflies), an animated film produced by Studio Ghibli, from July 15 in Japan.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
May 16, 2025

Netflix to stream Studio Ghibli's 'Grave of the Fireflies' in Japan

It will be the first work by the Japanese anime powerhouse to be streamed on Netflix in Japan.

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