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August 23, 2025
 

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MIDDLE EAST

The Iranian shores and the island of Qeshm are seen in the Strait of Hormuz on Dec. 10, 2023. Two U.S. officials said Tehran was gearing up to blockade the strait following Israel's strikes on sites across Iran last month.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 2, 2025
Iran made preparations to deploy mines in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. sources say
About one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments pass through the strait, and a blockage would likely have spiked world energy prices.
Traffic moves past a large banner depicting Iranian commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, at Tajrish Square in the capital Tehran on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 1, 2025
Iran arrests hundreds, executes dozens after conflict with Israel, activists say
Campaigners have been detained on the street or at home, executions expedited, prisoners transferred to unknown locations and minorities also targeted, according to rights groups.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh on May 14.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 1, 2025
Trump lifts U.S. sanctions on Syria in bid to boost new government
The order removes various sanctions on Syria, effective July 1, while keeping those on former President Bashar Assad.
Palestinian women react amidst the rubble of a school in the Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City following overnight Israeli strikes.
WORLD
Jul 1, 2025
Israel acknowledges Palestinian civilians harmed at Gaza aid sites
The United Nations says more than 400 Palestinians have been killed while seeking handouts of aid.
Fidaa al-Eissa hangs a rug to dry on the rooftop of her home, surrounded by the wreckage left by the civil war, in the Qaboun neighborhood of Damascus on Feb. 21.
WORLD
Jun 30, 2025
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria
The overthrow of Bashar Assad in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs.
Beachgoers wait in an underground bomb shelter after sirens sounded to warn of an incoming Iranian missile attack in Tel Aviv on June 20. Iran has found itself humbled after a ceasefire was declared but retains plenty of capacity to hit back.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 30, 2025
Israel emerges stronger from Iran war but risks blowback
Israel building military positions beyond its borders in Syria and Lebanon opened the country to risks of repercussions from regional partners wary of its assertiveness.
A satellite view shows an overview of Fordo underground complex, after the U.S. struck the underground nuclear facility, near Qom, Iran, on June 22.
WORLD
Jun 30, 2025
U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites set up 'cat-and-mouse' hunt for missing uranium
Iran's more than 400 kg of uranium is enough, if further enriched for up to nine nuclear weapons.
Hamas militants carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, amid a ceasefire between the two sides, in the central Gaza Strip, in February.
WORLD / FOCUS
Jun 28, 2025
Battling to survive, Hamas faces defiant clans and doubts over Iran
Hamas fighters are operating autonomously under orders to hold out as long as possible but the Islamist group is struggling to maintain its grip.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media at the White House in Washington on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 28, 2025
Trump says he'd consider bombing Iran again and drops sanctions relief plan
Trump reacted sternly to Khamanei's first remarks after a 12-day conflict with Israel that ended with the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.
This satellite image taken on June 19 shows damage at the Iranian nuclear facility at Arak in central Iran after an Israeli strike.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2025
An Iranian nuclear weapon just became more likely
The U.S. and Israel are likely to learn this the hard way when Iran abandons all doubts about pursuing nuclear breakout.
A monitor in Tokyo on Friday shows the 225-issue Nikkei average exceeding 40,000 for the first time since January.
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 27, 2025
Nikkei hits 40,000 level as trade hopes fuel Japan stock rally
Exporters such as carmakers were among the biggest contributors to gains.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference during the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague on Wednesday. He expressed anger and threatened to sue over media reports claiming the U.S. strike on Iran delayed its nuclear program by only a few months.
EDITORIALS
Jun 27, 2025
Airstrikes won’t end Iran’s nuclear ambitions — diplomacy might
The consensus of the U.S. intelligence community earlier this year was that Iran was up to three years away from being able to deliver a nuclear weapon to a target of its choosing.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a televised message, after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, in Tehran on Thursday.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2025
Iran would strike back if attacked, supreme leader says
In his prerecorded remarks, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised that Iran would not surrender despite U.S. President Donald Trump's calls.
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.”
A mural depicts Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Monday. Within days of Israel's airstrikes beginning on June 13, Iranian security forces started a campaign of widespread arrests and an intensified street presence based around checkpoints.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 26, 2025
Iran turns to internal crackdown in wake of 12-day war with Israel
Iranian rights group HRNA said it had recorded the arrests of 705 people on political or security charges since the start of the war, many of them accused of spying for Israel.
An aerial view of the damage to Iran's Fordo enrichment facility iafter the U.S. strikes on Sunday
WORLD / Politics
Jun 25, 2025
Fragile ceasefire holding as Trump envoy says talks with Iran 'promising'
As the truce held, news emerged of a classified preliminary U.S. intelligence report that concluded American strikes on Iran had only set back its nuclear program by a few months.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on April 7. Without further diplomacy, the Iran-Israel conflict could become an endless, no-win situation.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2025
Trump abandons ‘America First’ for Middle East quagmire
Iran's acceptance of the ceasefire is what in Japanese politics is called a “feigned death” tactic.
Taxi drivers wait for fares under a patriotic billboard in Tehran on Tuesday, the day of the ceasefire announcement.
WORLD
Jun 25, 2025
Twelve day Middle East war shows how 'normal' the unthinkable has become
The ructions that have torn through the Middle East aren’t likely to fully reveal their impact for years to come.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives a statement during a visit to the site of the Weizmann Institute of Science, which was hit by an Iranian missile barrage in the central city of Rehovot, Israel, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 25, 2025
Netanyahu sees redemption in Iran war, but Gaza looms large
After months of political turmoil, war and plummeting popularity, Israel's powerful strike on Iran is likely to reframe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's legacy, allies and analysts say.
The Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran scored a tactical win and prompted a tentative ceasefire, but they failed to eliminate the threat posed by Tehran’s nuclear ambitions or shift the long-term strategic calculus.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2025
There is no 'one-and-done' on Iran's nuclear ambitions
Trump still faces tough calls that will decide the future of non-proliferation.
Japan to revise romanization rules for first time in 70 years
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings.
JR East cancels luxury train run over crew's boozing
East Japan Railway said Thursday that it will cancel one trip of a luxury overnight sleeper service, which was originally scheduled to depart from Ueno Station in Tokyo on Aug. 30, after crew members were found to have been drinking alcohol on duty.
Women-only communities flourish in China
Chen Yani (right), nicknamed "Keke," eats lunch with friends and guests in a female co-living space she founded called "Keke's Imaginative Space" in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, on July 14.
Demystifying the manufacturing success of China
China’s massive scale, strong education system and competitive local governance have enabled it to reach the technological frontier and dominate high-tech manufacturing despite its low per capita gross domestic product.
Infectious diseases to watch for in Japan this summer amid surge of cases
An illustration of a colony of the Bordetella pertussis bacterium that causes pertussis, or whooping cough. As of Aug. 10, there were 64,467 cases reported this year, according to the latest data from the Japan Institute for Health Security.
Is the LDP’s catch-all approach to politics still effective?
Former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi visits Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Aug. 15. Political commentator Toru Hashimoto has suggested that Takaichi ought to lead a group of like-minded hawkish politicians out of the Liberal Democratic Party and form their own party.
Fingers sore from too much phone time? You might have ‘sumaho yubi.’
A catch-all term for tendonitis and arthritis caused by excessive smartphone use, 'sumaho yubi' may be difficult to treat for gadget-crazy Japan.
As farm minister, Koizumi is held ‘hostage’ by Ishiba
Farm minister Shinjiro Koizumi (center) attends a Lower House session on Aug. 1. Locking Koizumi into the Cabinet is Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s way of turning a potential rival into a team player, according to one expert.
Big burgers and bigger ambitions for Japan's Burger King
Kazuhiro Nomura, president of BK Japan Holdings, which operates Burger King in Japan
Tokyo crowned No.1 'workation' spot
Workations were a burgeoning trend in the corporate world for years before the COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged it.

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

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