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Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto (third from left) flanked by several members of his Cabinet in Magelang, Central Java, on Oct. 25, 2024. Prabowo's first six months in power have triggered alarm bells for activists worried about a return to the country's authoritarian roots.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 21, 2025

'Pandora's box': Alarm bells ring in Indonesia over rising military role

The developments have critics anxious that the country could hark back to the days of dictator Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for decades.
The yen climbed to its strongest level since September against the dollar on Monday, briefly trading in the range of ¥140.
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2025

Speculative traders boost bullish yen bets to a record on tariffs

The yen climbed to its strongest level since September against the dollar on Monday, briefly trading in the range of ¥140.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami frigate is docked at the MSDF's base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, earlier this month.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 21, 2025

Japan and Indonesia continue frigate talks looking to boost defense-industrial ties

Ambassador Heri Akhmadi said Jakarta’s growing ties with Tokyo reflect its nonalignment policy, as it looks to avoid taking sides between China and the United States.
Takaaki Nezu, executive director of Maruto Group Holdings, says it is the company’s social responsibility to help tackle the falling birth rate.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
May 5, 2025

Fukushima firms seek ways to encourage marriages

One supermarket chain has said such moves reflect a corporate responsibility to tackle the nation’s chronically low birth rate.
Global trade, energy and financial networks are increasingly being leveraged as strategic tools by nations, with supply chains, shipping routes and financial systems becoming potential points of conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2025

How much 'weaponization' can the global economy take?

Global trade, energy and financial networks are increasingly being leveraged as strategic tools by nations.
An LNG tanker is guided by tug boats in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, on April 14, 2022. The European Union is looking at ways to make it easier for U.S. gas exports to comply with its methane emissions rules.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 21, 2025

EU explores tweaking methane rules for U.S. gas to help trade talks

The European Commission is looking at using flexibilities in how it applies the bloc's methane rules, which could benefit U.S. liquefied natural gas exporters, sources say.
Argentine artist Javier Sativa draws the face of the late Pope Francis on a street in front of the entrance of the Buenos Aires Cathedral on Monday. Francis died Monday at 88, a day after making a much hoped-for appearance at St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, the Vatican said in a statement.
WORLD
Apr 22, 2025

Pope Francis' death from a stroke sets off global tributes and mourning

World leaders from U.S. President Donald Trump to Russian leader Vladimir Putin paid tribute to the pope's moral and spiritual leadership.
St. James' Park, home of Newcastle United, stands in the center of Newcastle, England — neither hidden away on a retail park nor tucked into a neighborhood, fenced in by neat rows of red brick terraced houses.
SOCCER
Apr 22, 2025

A soccer field can be sacred

For many, the pitch is anticipation and thrill and hope, but it is also familiarity, and comfort, and belonging.
Executives from U.K. self-driving startup Wayve and SoftBank attend an event in Tokyo on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 22, 2025

U.K. AI startup Wayve makes Japan debut after Nissan partnership

Earlier this month, Wayve said it was joining forces with Nissan Motor to help build the next generation of its ProPilot driver-assist system.
A student in hazmat suit moves around a taxidermied giraffe at the "crime scene" set up in the warehouse of the Wildlife Forensic Academy in the Buffelsfontein Game and Nature Reserve near Cape Town, South Africa, on April 16.
WORLD / Society
Apr 22, 2025

Inside South Africa's wildlife CSI school helping to catch poachers

South Africa faces an acute poaching crisis, with more than 10,000 rhinos killed since 2007 according to the International Rhino Foundation.
Pope Francis waves to the crowd during his trip to Nagasaki Prefecture in November 2019.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 22, 2025

Japan joins world in mourning death of Pope Francis

Leaders commended the pontiff’s lifelong efforts in delivering the message of peace, which included a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Tiangong Ultra, a humanoid robot, crosses the finish line after securing the first position during the E-Town Humanoid Robot Half Marathon in Beijing on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2025

All hail the rise of the humanoid robots

Robotics is another of the critical emerging technologies, mastery of which will be central to 21st-century economic leadership.
People walk past the venue for the China Import and Export Fair in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, on April 15.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 22, 2025

China ramps up charm offensive toward Taiwan alongside pressure, study shows

The number of Taiwanese attending state-supported business events in China last year is 3% higher than 2023, a Taiwan-based nongovernmental organization says.
Hungarian Nikoletta Bogadi speaks during an interview in Budapest on April 2. Bogadi's life was turned upside down when one of her four children came out as gay and another one as transgender.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 22, 2025

Trump helps inflame anti-LGBTQ+ feeling from Hungary to Romania

The U.S. president's anti-LGBTQ+ push is emboldening similar efforts in Europe.
Nomura Holdings is seeking to build scale in the U.S. asset management market despite recent volatility caused by escalating trade tensions.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 23, 2025

Nomura bets big on U.S. market rebound with $1.8 billion deal

Nomura's executive officer said the latest disruptions don’t change the fact the U.S. remains the largest asset management market in the world.
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 24, 2025

Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability

Architects of country pavilions speak on the challenges that shaped their design choices.
The levels of a type of "forever chemical" found in seven current and former employees at Daikin Industries' Yodogawa plant in Osaka Prefecture were about 38 times those for nearby residents, according to a survey conducted by a team including Kyoto University.
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2025

High levels of PFAS found in blood of Osaka factory workers

The levels for seven current and former employees were about 38 times those for residents, with three showing signs of interstitial lung disease.
Asuka Tsuzuki (left), the principal of Linden Hall School's secondary school, and Kota Sugimoto, the school's head chef, display the Japanese Agricultural Standards certificate the school obtained for its lunches.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
May 5, 2025

In a national first, Fukuoka school obtains organic lunch certificate

A Fukuoka school has become Japan’s first to earn JAS certification for organic school lunches, using seasonal and local produce to promote environmental education.
Magokoro Yoshihira (center) is the managing director of Yui Associates, which operates the neighborhood fixtures of Sanya Cafe and Juyoh Hotel. Yusuke Takahashi (left) met Yoshihira during a difficult period in his life and now works as the cafe’s chef. Nancy Anne (right) has worked for over 10 years at Juyoh Hotel and enjoys the multicultural environment.
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Apr 28, 2025

Reclaiming Sanya, one meal at a time

Since 2018, Sanya Cafe has been building community in one of Tokyo’s most colorful — and infamous — neighborhoods.
A Sudanese soldier prays in front of a burned-out armored vehicle in Khartoum, Sudan, on March 28.
WORLD
Apr 24, 2025

'No one else will': Sudan's journalists risk all to report the war

Since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, at least 28 reporters have been killed, according to Sudan's journalist union.
Last year was the hottest on record in Japan and globally. An enduring stretch of peak warm weather worldwide has prompted scientists to look for the causes as they try to understand whether we have entered a dangerous phase of accelerated heating.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2025

Creating the best possible climate models is existential

Scientists' work in building and interpreting climate models must be fine-tuned so that this data can inform the policies capable of living up to the challenge of global heating.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato is is expected to meet with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Washington.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 24, 2025

U.S. indicates no hard target for yen ahead of key trade talks

The United States has argued that the yen is too weak, making its value against the dollar a top agenda item in trade discussions.
While Nissan slightly raised its sales forecast late Thursday, its statement warned that its net loss could be ¥700 billion to ¥750 billion.
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 25, 2025

Nissan sees $5.3 billion red hole as restructuring losses mount

While Nissan slightly raised its sales forecast late Thursday, its statement warned that its net loss could be ¥700 billion to ¥750 billion.
Pope Francis, a reformer known for his humility, inclusivity and focus on social justice, passed away at 88, leaving behind a divided church and a legacy of advocating for humanity's most vulnerable.
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2025

The Catholic church loses a lion

Francis’ spirit of inclusion should define who we are as human beings and his compassion should be the lodestar for action, both personal and political.
The Maersk Launcher, chartered by a seabed-mining company to explore the practices viability, returns from an expedition to the Clarion Clipperton Zone in the Pacific Ocean in June 2021.
WORLD
Apr 26, 2025

Trump moves to ramp up deep-sea mining for critical minerals

The move comes amid increasing concern over new Chinese curbs on the export of rare-earth materials.
A view of what North Korea says is a "new multipurpose destroyer," in Nampo, North Korea, in this picture released on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 26, 2025

North Korea's Kim attends ceremony for launching new 5,000-ton warship

Kim Jong Un, in a speech from the launch, said the warship would be handed over to the navy and go into service early next year.
The launchpad is seen after a Russian Soyuz 2.1A rocket carrying satellites took off at the new Vostochny cosmodrome outside the city of Uglegorsk, in Russia's far eastern Amur region in April 2016.
WORLD
Apr 26, 2025

Russian satellite tied to nuke program appears out of control, analysts say

The Cosmos 2553 satellite has had various bouts of what appears to be errant spinning over the past year.
Pope Francis leads a prayer in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Dec. 31, 2023.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 26, 2025

Pope Francis saw defending the climate as an urgent priority for the world

Pope Francis spoke and wrote often about climate change, telling oil and gas executives in 2018 that transitioning to clean energy was a "duty” to humanity.
Brazil's Urupadi National Forest Park, in the Amazon rainforest, in June 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Apr 26, 2025

Countries could use forests to 'mask' needed emission cuts, report says

The report said overly optimistic assumptions about how much CO2 forests might draw down was "masking the scale and pace of the fossil fuel emissions cuts needed."
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks to reporters at his official residence in Tokyo on Sunday before leaving for a diplomatic trip to Vietnam and the Philippines later in the day.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 27, 2025

Golden Week proves to be busy for traveling members of Ishiba's Cabinet

Some in the opposition camp are questioning the need for the trips amid economic turmoil.

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