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July 06, 2025
 

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DEMOCRACY

Pro-China supporters hold Chinese flags at an event celebrating the 28th anniversary of the former British colony's handover to Chinese rule, in Hong Kong, on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 1, 2025
Hong Kong rights record under fire as it marks China handover anniversary
Lee's government enacted a separate security law of its own in 2024 saying it was needed to restore order.
Taiwan, under constant threat from AI-powered disinformation by authoritarian regimes, has emerged as a global leader in digital democratic defense.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2025
Taiwan provides a model for digital defense of democracy
As the U.S. and others struggle to confront AI-driven disinformation, Taiwan’s resilience has become its latest key export.
Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Sham (center) speaks at a League of Social Democrats press conference at their headquarters in Hong Kong on Sunday. The League of Social Democrats, one of the city's last remaining opposition parties, said it will disband after a five-year political crackdown by Beijing, a year ahead of its 20th anniversary.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 30, 2025
Hong Kong opposition party disbands, citing 'immense' pressure
The League of Social Democrats is the latest opposition party to cease operating after Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020 to end democracy protests.
The United Nations Security Council holds a vote during a meeting on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the bodies headquarters in New York on Feb. 24.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Jun 26, 2025
Democracy shouldn’t be used as an ideological weapon
The democracy-vs-autocracy framing has widened the divide between democratic countries — “us” — and Russia and its allies — “them.”
Members of an inspection team check the apparent remains of a ballistic missile in northern Israel on Wednesday following the attacks by Iran.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2025
It will take democracy and regime change to end Iran’s nuclear threat
Thanks to Khamenei, Iran has spent almost four decades on a path to war with Israel, which he calls a “cancer” in the region that must be annihilated.
Security personnel keep watch near the portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong displayed on the Tiananmen Gate, in Beijing on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 4, 2025
We will never forget Tiananmen crackdown, Taiwan and U.S. say on 36th anniversary
The events are not publicly discussed in China and the anniversary is not officially marked.
A vehicle exits Shek Pik Prison after former leader of the Civil Human Rights Front, Jimmy Sham, served a four-year, three-month sentence for conspiracy to commit subversion in a landmark national security case, in Hong Kong, on Friday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
May 30, 2025
Second group of Hong Kong democrats freed after 4 years in jail
Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ+ activist Jimmy Sham, who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups.
A woman casts her early vote for the upcoming South Korean presidential election at a polling station in Seoul on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
May 29, 2025
How a Gen Z gender divide is reshaping democracy
Many angry, frustrated men in their 20s were seen breaking to the right in recent elections spanning North America, Europe and Asia.
The Chinese Communist Party has significantly expanded its global influence operations by using tactics like election interference, disinformation, elite capture and pressure on the diaspora to sway politics and policies in democracies worldwide.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2025
Is Beijing engineering election wins for 'soft on China' politicians?
Beijing legally requires all citizens to support Communist Party policies and views ethnic Chinese everywhere as instruments for advancing its global goals.
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.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in parliament in Budapest on Tuesday. Critics have likened recent moves by the prime minister to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to crack down on domestic rivals.
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2025
Viktor Orban tightens grip on freedoms in Hungary ahead of election next year
Over the past 15 years, the premier has expelled a university, overhauled the judiciary and whipped up propaganda campaigns against political opponents.
A car with curtains drawn, one of two, is seen leaving Hong Kong's Shek Pik prison just before sunrise on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 29, 2025
First batch of Hong Kong democrats freed after four years in jail
Four former pro-democracy lawmakers, including Claudia Mo, Kwok Ka-ki, Jeremy Tam and Gary Fan, were driven away from three separate prisons across Hong Kong around dawn.
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 21, 2025
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Among the world’s largest democracies, Japan has some of the highest minimum age requirements for politicians.
A wave of fear is spreading in immigrant communities as ICE uses secretive, aggressive tactics, bypassing legal protections and spreading panic reminiscent of authoritarian crackdowns.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2025
Unmarked vans and secret lists. The police state has arrived.
"It’s the unmarked cars,” a friend who grew up under an Argentine dictatorship said. He had watched the video of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil’s abduction. In the video, which Khalil’s wife recorded, she asks for the names of the men in plainclothes who handcuffed her husband.
Lo Kin-hei (center), chairman of the Democratic Party, attends a news conference after an extraordinary general meeting to seek members' views on the potential dissolution of the party in Hong Kong on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 14, 2025
Hong Kong's last major opposition party moves toward disbanding
The head of the Democratic Party says 90% of its 110 members had voted for disbandment arrangements to begin, followed by a final vote in the coming months.
Hong Kong's real estate sector is slumping, putting the government's development plans at risk and signaling a wider economic malaise that may become a spanner in the works of Beijing's plans to transform the territory's economy.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 7, 2025
Will China succeed in remaking Hong Kong in its own image?
Beijing can control Hong Kong politically, but to impose its economic vision on the territory it needs businesses to get on board as these face an economic and real estate plunge.
President Donald Trump outside the White House in Washington on Thursday. The 22nd Amendment is clear: President Trump has to give up his office after his second term. But his refusal to accept that underscores how far he is willing to consider going to consolidate power.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 7, 2025
Trump's third term talk defies constitution and tests democracy
The fact that Trump has inserted the idea into the national conversation illustrates the uncertainty about the future of America’s constitutional system.
On April 23, 1925, The Japan Times ran a story about the principal clauses of the new Peace Preservation Law that was enacted to suppress ideologies deemed dangerous by the state.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Apr 5, 2025
Japan Times 1925: Peace law has several teeth
The Peace Preservation Law was a means of ideological suppression that grew tighter over time until it was repealed by Allied authorities following World War II.
Demonstrators gather in front of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday, during a rally in support of Istanbul's arrested mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, the main political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2025
Inside Turkey’s executive coup
After 23 years in power, and with Turkey’s economy collapsing, Erdogan knows that no election — even a rigged one — is safe.
There is concern about a severe decline in democracy in Asia, with many former success stories now backsliding.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2025
An Asian democracy collapse amid the new world order
By the monitoring organization Freedom House's calculations, for 19 years, democracy has eroded around the world.
Japan braces for more quakes as authorities dismiss doomsday hype
Evacuees from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecuture, arrive at Kagoshima Port on Friday.
Hidden AI prompts in academic papers spark concern about research integrity
Waseda University is one of 14 institutions in eight countries found to have used hidden prompts in research papers.
A prophesied disaster (likely) won’t strike Japan this weekend
A viral manga prediction of a July 5 disaster has gripped Japan with anxiety and triggered an economic impact, but experts warn that while such dates are unreliable, the threat of a massive earthquake remains real. 
Residents of Tokara Islands begin evacuation as seismic swarm continues
Details about evacuations from Akuseki Island, located in the Tokara island chain in Kagoshima Prefecture, is seen written on a whiteboard in the city of Kagoshima on Thursday.
U.S. military apologizes over Okinawa sexual assault case
Col. Neil Owens (right), chief of staff for the 3rd Marine Division, bows in apology at the Okinawa Prefectural Government office in Naha on Thursday.
Ghibli’s Isao Takahata exhibit shows how beloved anime is made
“The man who planted Japanese animation” exhibition includes a variety of sketches, drawings and animation cels from Isao Takahata films such as color design for characters by Michiyo Yasuda from "Grave of the Fireflies."
Flag football facing challenges and opportunities ahead
Japan’s women’s flag football team at the 2025 International Bowl in Los Angeles in June. The sport is enjoying continued growth in the country.
From Hokusai’s Great Wave, shinkansen to One Piece: a cultural treasure box for Lego Japan
Michael Ebbesen, general manager of Lego Japan, says Lego bricks based on Japanese culture have a rich global appeal and are sellable around the world.
With farmed fish, RelationFish swims against the tide in fine dining
Chef Hideaki Matsuo (middle) and the staff of Oseto Suisan Fisheries prepare to check on their sustainably farmed fish.
As Southeast Asia heats up, a Japanese cooling giant sees a major opportunity
An employee of Daikin Cambodia explains the use of different tools during an air conditioner installation training session in Phnom Penh. Daikin is one of Japan’s oldest air conditioning companies, but as Japan’s population falls, the firm is keying in on overseas growth.

Podcast

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

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
By Alex K.T. Martin

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