Search - author

 
 
“‘Future of life,’ by Ishiguro,” the World Expo pavilion by roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, displays humanlike androids.
LIFE / Travel
May 2, 2025

Want to see the future at the Osaka Expo? Get in line.

Androids and lab-grown heart cells: A dispatch from the world fair.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has been a staunch advocate for constitutional reform.
JAPAN / Politics
May 3, 2025

Despite shifts in Japan's political landscape, constitutional revision still far off

Weak political leadership, traditional sensitivity around the issue, and new policy priorities have forestalled a larger debate over the Constitution.
A growing number of young professionals are becoming increasingly reliant on AI tools like ChatGPT for both work and personal tasks, leading to diminished confidence, critical thinking skills and potential emotional dependence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2025

Addicted to ChatGPT? Here’s how to reclaim your brain

Launched by OpenAI in late 2022, now regularly used by more than 400 million people.
In a world where capital and rich individuals can cross borders freely, only international cooperation can ensure that multinational corporations and the superrich are fairly taxed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2025

America is becoming the world’s largest tax haven

Trump is turning the U.S. into a tax haven by weakening enforcement, deregulating crypto and abandoning international tax cooperation, favoring secrecy and the ultrarich.
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.
Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States, appears on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Thursday.
WORLD
May 9, 2025

In his first appearance, Pope Leo offers three big clues about his papacy

Although Leo follows in the tradition of Pope Francis, he signaled he is a new, and different, pope.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (left), U.S. President Joe Biden (second from left), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (second from right) and French President Emmanuel Macron prepare to take a family photo during their "Quad" meeting in Berlin on Oct. 18. Leaders in the West have tried to revive the old order, but Donald Trump’s return to power shows they need a new way of looking at the world.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2025

Europe after the end of the liberal international order

We were wrong to think that we had secured a golden age of peace at the end of the Cold War. In reality, there was violence everywhere.
Empowering nuns and laypeople could help preserve struggling parishes and restore the Catholic Church’s role as a vital community anchor, especially with nuns who have long been its most dedicated and overlooked servants.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2025

To save Catholicism, let’s talk nuns, not popes

All eyes were on Rome as Pope Leo XIV was announced. But to secure the future of the faith, Catholics should look closer to home.
Ashikaga Takauji was a 14th-century warrior whose shifting alliances had a profound impact on the turbulent politics of his day. More than 500 years later, imperial loyalists were moved to channel their lingering fury at Takauji's betrayal of Emperor Go-Daigo.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
May 17, 2025

The emperor and the shogun: A power struggle across the centuries

For imperial loyalists of the late Edo Period, the experiences of Emperor Go-Daigo from five centuries past were an inspiration — and a warning.
U.S. President Donald Trump's policies, including attacks on research funding, immigration and trade threaten the foundations of American economic exceptionalism, and the resulting damage may be difficult to undo.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2025

American exceptionalism meets its maker

The question is whether U.S. President Donald Trump’s destructive policies have now brought this economic exceptionalism to an end.
Chief tariff negotiator Ryosei Akazawa and his delegation in the Oval Office of the White House in April. Since then, Japan's trade negotiations with the U.S. have produced no tangible results.
BUSINESS / Economy / FOCUS
May 16, 2025

Akazawa's dilemma: no tariff deal or a half-baked deal

Japan has realized the U.S. has no intention of seriously talking about duties on automobiles now.
Unlike Silicon Valley, many Asian societies, due to their penchant for risk aversion, need more government support to boost early-stage deep-tech innovation.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2025

Government capital is not just 'silly money'

Unlike Silicon Valley's predominantly private-sector-driven ecosystem, many Asian societies exhibit greater risk aversion, necessitating proactive government involvement.
A Rheinmetall  Leopard 2 tank production line in Unterluess, Germany. The country's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has pledged to make the Bundeswehr Europe’s strongest army, marking a sharp departure from post–Cold War pacifism and sparking economic optimism rather than fear.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 19, 2025

German rearmament is a welcome 'war dividend'

Merz’s planned arms buildup means the definitive end to the "peace dividend” that the Western world had enjoyed since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The crowded center circle of the Kansai Pavilion at the Osaka Expo, featuring photos and videos of various prefectures
JAPAN
May 25, 2025

Osaka Expo highlights uniqueness of Kansai region

The Kansai Pavilion offers numerous experiences to allow visitors to understand the rich history and culture of the region.
China’s Made in China 2025 program set an ambitious agenda, and a decade later, initial assessments conclude it had mixed success but maintain its goals will shape Chinese policy for years to come.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2025

Ten years of Made in China 2025 sees mixed success

MIC2025 set an ambitious agenda, and a decade later, early reviews say it has had mixed success but maintain that its goals will shape Chinese policy for years to come.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Feb. 13. Trump’s coercive use of trade threats against India during the Pakistan military crisis has undermined trust in the U.S.-India partnership and exposed Washington as an unreliable security ally.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 21, 2025

Trump’s wake-up call for India’s foreign policy

Trump may have done India a favor. His actions have exposed an uncomfortable truth: Under his leadership, the U.S. is not a dependable partner in matters of security.
Britain's King Charles inspects a guard of honor in Edinburgh, Scotland, last July. The rising cost of the British monarchy, marked by increased taxpayer funding and limited transparency, is prompting questions about whether the public is getting fair value for supporting the royals.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

A king’s ransom: The eye-watering cost of Charles III

Brits should be told how much their royals’ extravagant lifestyles are costing them.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato (right) and Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda wait for a group photograph to be taken at a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors’ in Banff, Canada, on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 22, 2025

Japan and U.S. reaffirm commitment to letting markets set currency rates

Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have made a point of not discussing a target yen-dollar rate.
Pakistan's army chief Gen. Asim Munir salutes after laying wreath on the martyrs' monument during a guard of honor ceremony at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 22, 2025

Support for Pakistan army chief surges after India conflict

A survey conducted after the conflict by a local pollster found that 93% of respondents felt their opinion of the military had improved.
A demonstration is held in Malawi as part of government efforts to pilot test the use of drones for humanitarian purposes, with assistance from UNICEF. As this and other technologies become more accessible, we must ensure their use advances sustainable development.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025

How efficiency can transform sustainable development

In our haste to improve efficiency, we can't ignore the interests of humanity. Democratizing access to AI and other technologies is a fundamental step in this direction.
The U.S. debt crisis can’t be fixed without reforming entitlements, and that means Americans must retire later and pay more in taxes.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2025

To fix the U.S. debt problem, Americans must retire later

The House’s proposed $3.7 trillion tax bill isn’t what sparked that Moody’s downgrade — it was the runaway growth of entitlement spending.
U.S. President Donald Trump shows a copy of an article he said is about white South Africans who had been killed, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Wednesday.
WORLD
May 23, 2025

Trump's image of dead 'white farmers' did not come from footage of South Africa

The image U.S. President Donald Trump used was pulled from footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mixue, a Chinese bubble tea chain, has become the world’s largest food and beverage chain, with tens of thousands of stores all over Asia. The company is just one example of the increasing reach and popularity of Chinese cultural exports across the globe.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 23, 2025

How China’s soft power is rewriting Asian culture

Chinese cultural exports are becoming increasingly popular across the world and especially Asia. Do they promote cross-border understanding or are they tools for propaganda?
With Russia holding the upper hand in Ukraine and its people likely to support a favorable peace, why is the Kremlin unwilling to negotiate?
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 22, 2025

Russia’s two minds on Ukraine

Russian people used to have savings; today, they spend whatever they can get their hands on and even take out loans.
Migrants wait to disembark from the port of Arguineguin, on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, in July 2024.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 24, 2025

Boat driver arrests up as EU eyes tighter smuggling laws

NGO's argue that the focus should shift from pursuing boat drivers to prosecuting criminal organizations.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s attempt to punish Harvard by targeting its international students is an unconstitutional power grab aimed at intimidating free institutions and advancing his authoritarian agenda.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2025

Harvard is fighting for much more than foreign students

Trump is trying to break the world’s leading university because he knows that higher education — everywhere — is one of the bulwarks of a free society.
The U.S. military’s longstanding dominance is eroding as China exploits its vulnerabilities with cheaper, faster and smarter warfare, demanding urgent American reinvention in energy, logistics and artificial intelligence.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2025

America’s hard power must get harder — quickly

Aircraft carriers and fighter jets look a lot less stealthy in a world of limitless drones and autonomous submarines.
Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
ENVIRONMENT / Earth science / Longform
May 26, 2025

Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?

Trees have long occupied a sacred place in Japanese culture. In the fast pace of the 21st century, however, they're increasingly losing out to progress.
A Boeing 747 from Qatar at Palm Beach International Airport, following President Donald Trump’s tour of the plane, in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Feb. 15. The president and his family have profited from the White House more than any other occupant, normalizing activities that once would have provoked heavy blowback and official investigations.
WORLD / Politics
May 26, 2025

As Trump family monetizes presidency, profits outstrip protests

The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking.
A Chinese J-10B fighter jet is put on display at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, China, in October 2016. The short May conflict between India and Pakistan became a live trial for Chinese arms, exposing vulnerabilities in its fighter aircraft and air defense systems.
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2025

Lessons from India-Pakistan war: Were China's arms overrated?

The short May conflict between India and Pakistan became a live trial for Chinese arms, exposing vulnerabilities in its fighter aircraft and air defense systems.

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