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August 31, 2025
 

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EUROPE

In an era of fierce technological and geopolitical competition, especially in AI, true scale combining size, efficiency and cooperation with allies has become an urgent strategic necessity the U.S. and the West must master to counter China’s growing advantages.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2025
The AI arms race with China demands scale. The West must think bigger.
The race to create scale is critical amid the sizzling geopolitical competition over leadership in new technologies.
The EU flag and Meta logo in an illustration from 2023
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 22, 2025
Meta, X and LinkedIn appeal unprecedented VAT claim by Italy
Italian tax authorities argue that free user registrations with X, LinkedIn and Meta platforms should be seen as taxable transactions.
Shipping containers at Barcelona port
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2025
EU to prepare retaliation plan as U.S. trade stance hardens
The overwhelming preference is to keep negotiations with Washington on track in a bid for an outcome to the impasse ahead of next month’s deadline.
Cocoa beans are roasted at a chocolate factory in Paris.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jul 17, 2025
Europe’s cocoa slowdown highlights global chocolate struggle
Cocoa futures have more than doubled in the past two years and touched a record in December.
Soldiers stand during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to a military training area to find out about the training of Ukrainian soldiers on the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, in Germany in June last year.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jul 16, 2025
Ukraine celebrates Trump's weapons reversal, but the 'devil's in the details'
U.S. President Donald Trump has finally found a way to like arming Ukraine: ask European allies to donate their weapons, and sell them American replacements.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets veterans involved in the Ukraine war, at the Kremlin on June 12. Europe should tap Russia’s frozen central bank assets to fund Ukraine’s defense, given Donald Trump’s conditions on U.S. aid.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2025
Russia’s frozen $245 billion can pay for Ukraine’s arms
Replacing the U.S. military and financial aid provided by President Joe Biden’s administration would cost about $45 billion a year for the duration of the war.
A serviceman of the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces works with an Mk 19 U.S.-made automatic grenade launcher near the front-line town of Vovchansk in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, on March 13.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 16, 2025
Europeans open to buying U.S. arms for Ukraine under Trump plan but need details
Much of the plan remains undisclosed, including the amounts and precise types of weapons to be provided, how quickly they would be supplied and how they would be paid for.
Firefighters work to tackle a wildfire spread at Les Pennes-Mirabeau, near Marseille, southern France, on July 8
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / EXPLAINER
Jul 15, 2025
How climate change is fueling wildfires in Europe
Wildfires have burnt 227,000 hectares of land since the beginning of the year — more than double the average for this time of year over the past two decades.
A high school student uses social media applications in November 2024.
WORLD / Society
Jul 15, 2025
EU states to test age-check app to limit children's access to online services
The European Commission has unveiled a prototype of the app that Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Spain will customize and launch within several months.
Alberto, a local farmer, sprays an apple orchard with pesticides in the village of Agia, in the Thessaly region, Greece, on June 12.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Jul 15, 2025
Europe's illegal pesticide trade surges as farmers cut costs
At least 14% of pesticides used on European Union fields today are illegal, up from around 10% in 2015.
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.
Britain’s abolition of the "nondom" tax regime has triggered an exodus of wealthy residents to tax-friendlier countries like Italy, sparking warnings of lost revenue, diminished appeal and a missed chance to reform the system more effectively.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2025
The ultrarich move in herds. Just ask London.
The beneficiaries are countries such as Italy, which is attracting wealthy foreign residents with an annual flat fee of €200,000.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gives a speech during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on July 9.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 14, 2025
EU to engage more with other nations hit by U.S. tariffs — including Japan
The move comes as talks between the EU and the U.S. have dragged on and continue to be stuck on several issues, including cars and tariff rates on agriculture.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington in April.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 12, 2025
A U.S.-EU trade deal hinges on cars, agriculture and Trump
Cars and tariff levels on agriculture have emerged as key sticking points between the European Union and the U.S., sources have said.
Grok, a chatbot made by xAI, on Tuesday made antisemitic comments on billionaire owner Elon Musk's social media platform, X.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 10, 2025
Europe’s clash with Musk’s xAI escalates after Grok’s rants
The chatbot on Tuesday made antisemitic comments on social media platform X.
In the European Parliament, the plan for urgent consideration of the greenhouse gas reduction law aimed at cutting emissions 90% by 2040 from 1990 levels was backed by the Socialists & Democrats, Renew and Greens.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 10, 2025
EU’s far right to help shape 2040 climate goals after vote fails
An initiative to fast-track legislation, which would have stripped power from the climate-skeptical Patriots of Europe group, on the European Union's 2040 climate goals failed.
The European Parliament's censure vote against Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlights backlash over her rightward shift and, if passed, could force a choice between centrists and nationalists.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2025
Ursula Von der Leyen faces a moment of truth
Von der Leyen’s ongoing political ambiguity has become a strategic liability at a time when Europe’s allies need clarity.
Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attends the EU-Japan summit in Brussels in July 2023. Economic cooperation between the EU, Japan and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is showing promise but faces political and structural hurdles that could limit progress.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 8, 2025
EU-CPTPP talks highlight shared goals and stubborn obstacles
EU economic cooperation with Japan and the CPTPP shows promise but could face political and structural hurdles that limit progress.
A person wears a mask depicting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the back of the head during the Budapest Pride March on June 28.
WORLD / Society
Jul 7, 2025
Inside Budapest Pride: How organizers defied Orban's ban
The team behind the parade in Budapest went offline, meeting in private behind closed doors with everyone leaving their laptops and phones outside.
A front-page article from July 1950 reported that Kyoto's historic Kinkakuji had been "totally razed" in a fire.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Jul 5, 2025
Japan Times 1950: Kyoto’s ‘Golden Temple’ burns to the ground
The historic Kinkakuji was destroyed in an act of arson in July 1950, a shocking event that would serve as the inspiration for a novel by Yukio Mishima.
Philippine bid to acquire used Japanese warships gains steam
Tokyo is looking to transfer Abukuma-class vessels to the Philippines as part of broader efforts to boost the defense capabilities of like-minded neighbors amid growing Chinese military assertiveness in the region.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Top Japan trade negotiator canceled U.S. trip over rice, report says
Ryosei Akazawa
Most Japanese teens struggling with school find end of summer ‘painful’
Some 93.1% of Japanese teenagers who struggle with school life said they felt like they “wanted to disappear from the world" at the end of summer vacation ahead of the start of a new term, according to a recent survey released by Yokohama-based nonprofit Daisan Kazoku.
Most Trump tariffs are not legal, U.S. appeals court rules
Workers hang a large poster of U.S. President Donald Trump on the facade of the Department of Labor headquarters building in Washington on Wednesday.
Japan to launch broad review of immigration policies amid rise in foreign nationals
Foreign tourists at Narita Airport in June. A report released Friday stresses that Japan is at a turning point and that current ad-hoc measures on immigration are no longer sufficient.
Japan is warming up to tattoos — just not permanent ones
Tattoos have a complex history in Japan, but new types of temporary ink are letting locals curious about body art experiment without the commitment.
YouTube Music Weekend is where Japan’s internet-born performers go global
Headlining the second day of YouTube Music Weekend is Vocaloid artist Kikuo, who, with 1.46 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most popular artists in the genre.
Japan looks to build drone ‘shield’ in record defense budget request
A group of Ground Self-Defense Force service members discuss drone operations and capabilities at a joint static display during the Orient Shield 24 opening ceremony at the Yausubetsu Training Area in Hokkaido in July last year.
Can anime carry the memories of World War II?
Many schools in Japan show "Grave of the Fireflies" as educational material to tell the emotionally grueling story of a boy who has no means to prevent his sister from starving to death.

Podcast

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

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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

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