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October 09, 2025
 

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DEMOCRACY

Fire engulfs Nepal's main administrative building in Kathmandu on Sept. 9, following a police crackdown on protests over government corruption and social media restrictions. This violent unrest is part of a larger pattern of instability in South Asia that threatens regional security and India’s strategic interests.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2025
India’s reckoning with its dangerous neighborhood
All these stories point to a larger worrying trend: Democracy in India’s neighborhood is in retreat.
A U.S. Marine and a member of the National Guard patrol outside a federal building in Los Angeles in June.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2025
Resisting Trump’s show of force
In Trump’s paradigm, this is all a reality show and we are merely inconsequential extras without lines forever in the background.
Pro-democracy activist and former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 29, 2025
Hong Kong activist Nathan Law says he was denied Singapore entry
Law said he’d been given a valid Singapore visa three weeks prior to his trip.
Protesters wave a Hong Kong flag and a sign during a demonstration against the city’s deteriorating freedoms outside the Chinese Embassy in London in July 2020.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2025
Britain must keep its promise to Hong Kongers
The U.K. has a moral obligation and an economic interest in safeguarding the path to citizenship for migrants from the territory it formerly ruled.
A woman carries a portrait of a relative killed in clashes with security forces while joining a protest march moving toward the prime minister's office in Kathmandu on Sept. 13.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2025
Nepal’s Gen Z protests and humanity’s shared future
This is not Nepal's story alone. It is a reminder that the future isn’t inherited but forged by today’s youth.
A woman passes a graffitied wall outside Nepal's torched Parliament in Kathmandu on Sunday. The country's new leader, Sushila Karki, vowed the same day to follow protesters' demands to "end corruption" as she began work as interim prime minister.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2025
Why Nepal’s new power brokers should worry India and China
If India and China continue treating Nepal primarily as a geopolitical pawn, they risk alienating future leaders.
China’s parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, attended by dictatorial leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, highlights Beijing’s attempts to rewrite history and promote an alternative authoritarian order.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2025
The disturbing message behind China’s ‘grand parade’
This international gathering in the Chinese capital's Tiananmen Square illuminated what might be termed the “Beijing Consensus” in its starkest form.
Protesters wave a pirate flag from the Japanese anime "One Piece," an internet trend used to criticize government policies, during a demonstration in front of the Bali police station in Denpasar, Indonesia, on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 2, 2025
Indonesia’s protests may fade. The fury won’t.
Politicians and business tycoons from the previous era still have clout, through dynastic parties, family owned businesses and patronage networks.
A correctional services van holding media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrives at the West Kowloon court for his national security trial in Hong Kong on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 28, 2025
Hong Kong wraps up pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai's security trial
The 156-day trial has become the most high-profile example of China's crackdown on rights and freedoms in the Asian financial hub.
Indian National Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi addresses the media in front of a screen showing India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (center) and Home Minister Amit Shah at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Aug. 7, ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the Indian state of Bihar.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 26, 2025
India's election commission faces claim of vote-rigging ahead of state poll
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said his party lost dozens of seats in the 2024 parliamentary elections as voter rolls were manipulated to favor the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order after signing it in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 26, 2025
Trump suggests many Americans 'like a dictator'
Democrats have repeatedly accused Trump of pushing presidential power way past its constitutional limits.
Democratic Texas Rep. Gene Wu speaks at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. State officials are redrawing congressional maps to benefit Republicans.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 22, 2025
Americans worry democracy is in danger amid gerrymandering fights, poll finds
As Texas Republicans redraw the state's congressional maps to benefit their party, California Democrats threaten to respond in kind.
Jimmy Lai at the Next Digital offices in Hong Kong in 2020. The national security trial of the Hong Kong media mogul, which began in late 2023, entered its final stages on Aug. 14, as lawyers present closing arguments.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2025
Why Jimmy Lai’s persecution should worry Japan
The trial of 77-year-old publisher is showing how Beijing uses Hong Kong as a laboratory for silencing critics worldwide, from students to exiles.
Political activist Tony Chung attends a demonstration outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office in London to protest the introduction of Hong Kong's Article 23 national security law on March 23, 2024.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 19, 2025
U.K. grants asylum to Hong Kong democracy activist Chung
Tony Chung, who became the youngest person to be jailed under the city's security law in 2021 at the age of 20, vows to never give up.
A prison van believed to be carrying Jimmy Lai arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts building for the closing submissions in the national security collusion trial of Jimmy Lai, founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, in Hong Kong on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 18, 2025
Hong Kong democrat Jimmy Lai given heart monitor for final stretch of marathon trial
Lai's lawyer told the court last Friday that Lai had some episodes where he felt that he was collapsing and had heart "palpitations."
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to punish Brazil with tariffs to protect former President Jair Bolsonaro is just one sign that the far right is shifting from rhetoric to real cross-border solidarity that undermines democratic norms.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2025
Trump is trying to build a far-right international alliance
There has been a lack of concrete solidarity among populist leaders. But Trump is changing that in his second term.
A woman casts her vote during parliamentary elections in Qom, Iran, in March 2012. Regime change in the Islamic country is harder than many think, but it has the institutions needed for democracy if it happens.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2025
Iran is more prepared for democracy than many realize
Some commentators, like the economist Nouriel Roubini and the Stanford political scientist Abbas Milani, see regime change as plausible or imminent.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (left) and Donald Trump during their meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 8, 2024
WORLD / Politics
Jul 21, 2025
'Trump before Trump': Orban's illiberal model on show
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been accused of silencing critical voices from the judiciary, academia, media and civil society, and of restricting minority rights.
Since January, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed to secure more power for himself, calling for judges to be axed, firing independent watchdogs and sidestepping the legislative process.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jul 19, 2025
'Frightening': Trump's historic power grab worries experts
The Republican leader has spent six months testing the limits of his authority like no other modern U.S. president.
The recent massive pride parade in Hungary shows that even under authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, popular resistance for liberal democracy persists — but the region’s deeper political stalemate endures.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2025
Is democracy stalemated?
Yet neither triumphalism nor fatalism captures the real dynamic. A more measured analysis shows that history’s arc is not bending at all — it is stuck.
How China waged an infowar against U.S. interests in the Philippines
Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU) Chairman Raul Lambino shakes hands with guests during a ceremony for the Award for Promoting Philippines-China Understanding at The Manila Hotel in Manila in June.
‘We have drawn lessons,’ Indian Army chief says of brief clash with Pakistan
Indian Army chief Upendra Dwivedi waves as he arrives to attend the ceremonial reception of Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in New Delhi in May.
Typhoon Halong to cause windstorms, heavy rain and high waves on the Izu islands
Typhoon Halong is moving north near the Izu Islands, with strong winds, high waves and heavy rain expected as it passes early on Thursday, prompting warnings from the weather agency.
Chemistry Nobel winner Kitagawa says downtime helped him think up new material
Susumu Kitagawa speaks to reporters at Kyoto University on Wednesday after receiving the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry the same day.
Takaichi's leadership lineup favors Aso and his allies while shutting out rivals
The LDP's newly-appointed election chief Keiji Furuya (far left), general affairs council chair Haruko Arimura (second from left), vice president Taro Aso (center left), president Sanae Takaichi (center right), secretary-general Shunichi Suzuki (second from right) and policy chief Takayuki Kobayashi in Tokyo on Tuesday.
With nuclear sub proposal, Japan faces array of political and tech challenges
The Jingei, the third of the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Taigei-class submarines, was commissioned in March last year. It is equipped with lithium-ion batteries, enabling it to have a longer diving time and cruising distance than older models with lead-acid batteries.
OpenAI’s Sora 2 is drowning in Japanese 'AI slop'
OpenAI has rolled out a social app powered by Sora 2, its artificial intelligence video generator, which was quickly flooded with videos featuring iconic Japanese intellectual property.
Trump has his eyes on the prize — but a Nobel win looks unlikely
A protester holds a sign with an image depicting U.S. President Donald Trump and the words "Nobel" written on it, as supporters and family members of hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, demonstrate to demand the immediate end of the war and the release of all hostages, outside the U.S. Consulate in Tel Aviv, on Sept. 2.
‘Takaichi trade’ stalls as political reality calls for wait-and-see approach
Tokyo stocks staged a powerful rally on Monday. On Tuesday, they rallied again, then retreated.
How a family-run landscaper turned the Osaka Expo green
The team at Ryokukou Garden consists primarily of a single family, including Toshiki Tanisaki (second from right), who led the company's efforts at the Osaka Expo, Chikako Tanisaki (fifth from right), who performs daily maintanence at the expo, and Takeshi Tanisaki (fourth from right), who added a nursery to the family farm more than 50 years ago.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
By Alex K.T. Martin

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Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo
Foreign wrestlers have a long history in sumo

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