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The Tourville, a new French navy nuclear attack submarine, stops in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Friday.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2025

As Trump stirs doubt, Europeans debate their own nuclear deterrent

Talk of replacing the American nuclear umbrella over Europe with the small British and French nuclear armories is in the air, however vague and fanciful.
Smoke rises while members of the Syrian forces ride on a vehicle as they battle against an insurgency by fighters from ousted leader Bashar Assad's Alawite sect, in Latakia, Syria, on March 7.
WORLD
Mar 17, 2025

'Pray for us. They've arrived': How Syria descended into revenge bloodshed

Just three months after Bashar Assad's ouster, parts of western Syria descended into vengeful bloodletting.
Johan Leutwiler checks a sword he made at his workshop studio in the Kui district of Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Mar 24, 2025

Japan's first foreign swordsmith opens workshop in Hiroshima Prefecture

Johan Leutwiler hopes to promote the charm of Japanese swords following the completion of his five-year apprenticeship.
Japan, despite facing multiple territorial disputes, lacks a dedicated university program on the issue, unlike Western countries, and would benefit from an interdisciplinary academic initiative to foster expertise.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 17, 2025

Japan needs academic programs focused on territorial issues

While many countries have territorial disputes with their neighbors — in fact, there are at least 150 active disputes worldwide — Japan faces issues with nearly all its neighbors.
Japan's cyberdefense legislation is designed for the government to acquire and analyze communication information in normal times.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2025

Japan's active cyberdefense bills include normal-time monitoring

The bills also call for establishing an independent organization to supervise cyberdefense operations and file relevant reports to parliament.
Researchers from Anicom Specialty Medical Institute, the National Institute of Genetics and Kazusa DNA Research Institute decoded the genome of American Shorthair cats and published the results in an article last October.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 18, 2025

Japanese researchers set Guinness record for cat genome

Researchers decoded the genome of American shorthair cats and published the results.
Releasing on March 20, Assassin's Creed Shadows excels in atmosphere and open-world gameplay but falls short of narrative expectations.
LIFE / Digital
Mar 19, 2025

Assassin’s Creed Shadows puts samurai style over substance

Ubisoft’s latest game is a gorgeous jaunt through feudal Japan entirely unworthy of the controversy surrounding it.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attends a session of the Upper House Budget Committee in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 18, 2025

Why ousting Ishiba could be a tricky task

Passing a no-confidence motion could result in the dissolution of the Lower House within 10 days, triggering another election the opposition might lose.
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 19, 2025

Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description

The lastest scandal comes amid broader concerns over the LDP's misuse of political funds, further damaging Prime Minister Ishiba’s reputation.
Israeli soldiers work by military vehicles, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, near the border with Gaza, in Israel, on Feb. 15.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Mar 21, 2025

In Israel, reservist burnout and little public appetite for more war in Gaza

A full-scale ground war against Hamas could prove more complicated amid waning public support, exhausted military reservists and political challenges.
U.S. President Donald Trump with Elon Musk and his son at the White House this month. The Pentagon is scheduled on Friday to brief Musk on the U.S. military’s plan for any war that might break out with China, two U.S. officials said Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 21, 2025

Musk set to get access to top-secret U.S. plan for potential war with China

Providing Musk with access to some of the nation’s most closely guarded military secrets would bring into sharp relief questions about his conflicts of interest.
A sign at Tokyo's Haneda Airport shows users the way to the monorail in four different languages.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 22, 2025

Can we make it official? Language in the age of Trump.

The United States made English its main language, but in Japan things seem to be heading in a different way.
U.S. President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Saturday
WORLD
Mar 22, 2025

Trump’s makeover of U.S. diplomacy leaves many allies at a loss

Like with most things in Trump’s tenure so far, the president’s second-term playbook on diplomacy marks a significant shift from the past.
Children play with trading cards featuring "local heroes" created by a local community council in the Saidosho district of Kawara, Fukuoka Prefecture, in January.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Apr 7, 2025

'Local hero' trading cards nudge children toward community activities

The cards, which feature real people, are helping to break the ice between children and adults in Kawara, Fukuoka Prefecture.
U.S. Sen. Steve Daines meets with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 24, 2025

Xi must stop fentanyl flow before tariff talks, Trump ally says

Steve Daines laid out the condition in meetings with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend.
Now-U.S. President Donald Trump during a interview at his private club Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, on March, 4, 2024. Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with falsehoods, and now he and those around him are using false claims to justify their policy changes.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 25, 2025

In his second term, Trump fuels a ‘machinery’ of misinformation

The president and his advisers have ushered the United States into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (bottom center) and other Trump administration officials mishandled security by discussing a military strike on a commercially available messaging app, exposing vulnerabilities and raising questions about poor judgment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2025

U.S. allies get a Signal chat’s worth of red flags

In the short term, that may have few real consequences. Although insulting, the administration’s assessment of Europe’s weak military capabilities is correct.
Rescue personnel work at the site of a building that collapsed following a strong earthquake, in Bangkok on Saturday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 30, 2025

In Bangkok, grim vigils as people seek word of relatives at collapsed building

Eight bodies were recovered from the scene Friday but only one Saturday.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore speaks during a news conference in Paris on Saturday.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Mar 30, 2025

Trump can't stop 'sustainability revolution': Al Gore

Gore also condemned the administration's treatment of universities and student activists, but said the tide is turning.
Ryuji Matsumoto pats one of the sheep at his farm in the town of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Apr 14, 2025

The man behind Fukushima town's 'Strawberry Sheep'

Ryuji Matsumoto, 54, incorporates dried strawberries into the feed for his sheep, which gives their meat a certain sweetness.
Moore has seen firsthand the powerful impact that a Montessori learning environment has on students-including his own children.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / The Big Questions
Mar 31, 2025

Montessori head educates Tokyo’s children for life

British James Moore’s next goal is method’s first high school in Japan
High school student Soa Ono, 17, assists an elderly woman during a recreational activity at a nursing care facility in Nagoya in late February.
JAPAN / Society / Regional voices: Chubu
Apr 7, 2025

Caregiver apprenticeship for high school students expanding in Aichi

The program allows apprentices to earn an income while acquiring knowledge and skills through hands-on experience.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte holds a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 3, 2025

At summit, NATO eyes growing industrial collaboration with Asian partners

The summit comes as the military alliance seeks to step up ties with its Indo-Pacific partners.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers meeting at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.
WORLD
Apr 3, 2025

U.S. to remain in NATO, Rubio says, but higher defense spending needed

Rubio said Washington’s goal is for member states to prioritize defense spending to enable the alliance to become “stronger and more viable.”
The inner monologue has proven extremely difficult to study because it relies on people being able to describe how they think — and it turns out we are unreliable narrators.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 5, 2025

'I don't have a voice in my head': Life with no inner monologue

The inner monologue has proven extremely difficult to study because it relies on people being able to describe how they think.
A vehicle carries the coffin of a commander from Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah armed group during a funeral in Baghdad on Sept. 22, 2024.
WORLD
Apr 7, 2025

Iran-backed militias in Iraq ready to disarm to avert Trump wrath

The move to defuse tensions follows repeated warnings issued privately by U.S. officials to the Iraqi government since Trump took power in January.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte speaks during a news conference at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels last week.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 7, 2025

With focus on ‘projecting power,’ NATO eyes greater Indo-Pacific role

NATO chief Mark Rutte expects the alliance to ramp up its engagement in the strategically important region as threats become increasingly interconnected.
National flags flutter at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on April 2. The firing of Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, is the latest to rock the Pentagon.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 8, 2025

U.S. admiral at NATO fired in expanding national security purge

The firing of Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, is the latest to rock the Pentagon.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte speaks after touring the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami frigate at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 8, 2025

NATO chief makes Japan debut with focus on defense industry tie-ups

Rutte will speak with defense industry representatives to get their assessment on “what they do to ramp up production and how we can better work together.”
Yumi Watanabe (right), head of the residents' association of the Tsubamesawa public housing complex in Sendai, delivers a meal to a resident.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Apr 21, 2025

Disaster public housing complexes in Sendai work to boost interactions

Residents are working with volunteers to organize a children’s cafeteria and other events.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building