Tag - development

 
 

DEVELOPMENT

An investor watches a board showing stock information at a brokerage office in Beijing.
BUSINESS / Markets / FOCUS
Oct 6, 2025
Thriving emerging markets look poised to wrap up banner year
Sentiment has rarely been this buoyant, with an HSBC Holdings survey showing emerging markets fund managers as the most bullish since the start of 2021.
Moroccan youth from a collective calling itself GenZ 212 chant slogans as they rally for a seventh straight day to demand reforms to public health care and education.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 5, 2025
Gen Z anger at ruling elites is erupting across the world
There has been a surge in Gen Z demonstrations in Africa and Asia against aging leaders and corruption.
Bangladeshis celebrate in Dhaka on Aug. 5, the first anniversary of student-led protests that ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2025
What Western media call insurrection at home, they call revolution abroad
Western media have perfected a seductive but dangerous narrative: the romanticized tale of youth-led “revolutions” toppling supposedly repressive, graft-ridden governments abroad.
An aerial view of Tuvalu in 2024. Rising sea levels caused by climate change have prompted the Tuvalu government to strike a climate migration pact with Australia.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 30, 2025
Developing countries accuse rich of broken climate promises at U.N.
Leaders of developing countries say rich nations must provide resources to cope with climate change, a crisis they created, but such nations have not met their commitments.
Bipinkumar Padaya (center) sits with his wife and son at home in Dharavi, a slum settlement in Mumbai.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 27, 2025
In India's Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia is for sale
The plan to redevelop Dharavi, led by Mumbai authorities and billionaire tycoon Gautam Adani, reflects modern India — excessive, ambitious, and brutal.
The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress in a major test of President Donald Trump’s efforts to wrest the power of the purse from the legislature.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 27, 2025
U.S. Supreme Court lets Trump withhold $4 billion in foreign aid
The case raises questions about how much authority the president has to rescind funds for programs that don't align with his policies.
China is reshaping the global energy landscape by pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy investments across the Global South, creating jobs and long-term influence on a scale comparable to the Marshall Plan.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2025
China is winning its power play for the Global South
Beijing’s green energy projects are bringing jobs, growth and cheap electricity to the developing world.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez listens to Bill Gates speak during an interview at the annual Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers Summit in New York on Monday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 23, 2025
Bill Gates pledges $912 million to health aid, urging countries to reverse cuts
Speaking at an event in New York, Gates said the world was at a crossroads, with millions of children at risk of dying if funding drops too steeply.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers a speech at the closing ceremony of the Japan-led Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, or TICAD 9, on Friday in Yokohama.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2025
TICAD adopts Yokohama Declaration to strengthen multilateral trade
The communique emphasized proposals to solve problems facing African states, apparently reflecting Japan's wish to highlight a different approach to that of China.
The World Health Organization's funding squeeze was sparked by the U.S. decision to leave the agency, announced on day one of Donald Trump’s presidency in January this year.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 22, 2025
WHO plans to relocate units and cease some work in wake of U.S. withdrawal
The organization cut its 2026-27 budget by 21% in May, has already halved its management team, and has seen over 400 staff depart since January.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meets with Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadera on the sidelines of the TICAD meeting in Yokohama on Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2025
Japan calls for private investments in Africa at TICAD
Tokyo is offering itself as an alternative to China as African nations reel from a debt crisis made worse by Western aid cuts, conflict and climate change.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (center) and African leaders prior to the opening of the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama on Wednesday
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 20, 2025
Ishiba unveils new regional economic initiative as TICAD 9 conference begins
The initiative is designed to enhance economic ties between the African continent and regions linking it with India.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meets Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at the prime minister's office in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2025
Japan to donate $550 million to Gavi vaccine alliance over five years
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will announce the pledge at the Ninth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, set to begin in Yokohama on Wednesday.
South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana (right) and the country’s reserve bank governor, Lesetja Kganyago, attend the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Cape Town on Feb. 27. 
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2025
A new trade agenda for climate-resilient development
Policymakers must be prepared to introduce new trade rules that support low-carbon transitions in Africa and across the Global South.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday. Ishiba plans to launch a new economic initiative to strengthen ties with India, the Middle East and Africa at an event near Tokyo next week.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 14, 2025
Ishiba to launch new regional economic initiative
The initiative is aimed at helping Japanese companies expand operations in India, the Middle East and Africa.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is looking to expand its presence in the market for debt swaps as a way for emerging countries to alleviate their debt burdens and put savings toward sustainable goals.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 13, 2025
MUFG in talks to arrange new debt swaps after $465 million deal
Japan’s biggest bank is looking to expand its presence in the market for debt swaps after helping to wrap up a deal for Cote d'Ivoire in December.
Beneficiaries line up to receive support at a WFP distribution center in Damboa, Borno State, Nigeria, on Sunday.
WORLD
Jul 24, 2025
Millions go hungry in Nigeria as aid dries up and jihadists surge
The limited food will soon run out by the end of July as Western aid cuts — including the dismantling of USAID — send humanitarian programs into a tailspin.
A nurse takes a blood sample from a child for an HIV test at a clinic in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, South Africa, on March 12.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 21, 2025
Tighter borders bar poor nations from summits — on poor nations
Sudanese climate activist Roaa should have been leading meetings with other youth advocates at a United Nations climate conference in Germany in June.
Women and children arrange their containers as they line up at a standpipe, where incomplete water connections caused by USAID funding cuts to the NGO Mercy Corps have led to ongoing water shortages, in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on June 16.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 20, 2025
Trump's funding cut stalls water projects, increasing risks for millions
The White House's decision to slash nearly all U.S. foreign aid projects has created new hazards for some of the people they were designed to benefit.
The $9 billion cut to foreign aid and public media the U.S. House of Representatives passed amounts to roughly one-tenth of 1% of the $6.8 trillion federal budget.
WORLD
Jul 18, 2025
U.S. House Republicans pass Trump plan to cut foreign aid and public broadcasting
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 216 to 213 in favor of the funding cut package, with only two Republicans voting against it.

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