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April 26, 2025
 

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PACIFIC

A man walks past an electronic board showing the Nikkei 225 index on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the capital on Tuesday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 11, 2025
Asian stocks slide as U.S. growth worries grip markets
In Asia, stocks were battered across the board with Japan's Nikkei and Taiwan stocks hitting their lowest levels since September.
China’s overnight and seven-day repo rates surged in February, while bond investors took losses from a sharp rise in yields.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 10, 2025
‘Impossible trinity’ conundrum has caused a cash crunch in Asia
Countries can’t simultaneously control their currencies, independently set interest rates and allow capital to move freely across borders — something will break or give way.
A worker collects palm oil fruit in Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur, in 2014.
BUSINESS / Markets
Mar 10, 2025
The end of cheap palm oil? Output stalls as biodiesel demand surges
Aging plantations and slow replanting have led to lower yields even as demand for palm oil rises from various sectors.
As the U.S. under Donald Trump reassesses its commitment to Ukraine, countries worldwide, particularly in Europe and Asia, are reconsidering their defense policies and alliances with America. 
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2025
Europe braces for a post-American world. Is Japan ready?
A diplomatic posture that makes demands only of Ukraine and not Russia suggests, however, that Washington has taken sides.
Japan and South Korea are in their most fragile political states in decades just as their ally, the United States, enters the second administration of President Donald Trump.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 5, 2025
Japan and South Korea in the age of ‘America first’
Japan and South Korea are at their most fragile political states in decades just as their ally, the United States, has begun the second administration of Donald Trump.
Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo gives a short speech during a media briefing in Taipei on Monday.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 4, 2025
Taiwan says U.S. will 'not abandon' Asia-Pacific region
The remarks by Taiwan's defense minister came days after U.S. President Donald Trump's fiery clash with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
An event marking World Obesity Day in Brussels on March 6, 2024. Without a serious change, researchers estimate that 3.8 billion adults will be overweight or obese in 15 years — or around 60% of the global adult population in 2050.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 4, 2025
60% of adults will be overweight or obese by 2050, study says
Data from 204 countries paints a grim picture of a major health challenge facing the world.
A photo released by the Australia Defense Force showed an Australian Navy ship in the foreground and two Chinese navy ships in the Tasman Sea in February.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 1, 2025
China’s military puts Pacific on notice as U.S. priorities shift
While Washington is consumed with other matters, from Ukraine and the Middle East to budget cuts at the Pentagon, China keeps pressing.
Visitors listen to a keynote address at Consensus, a cryptocurrency event in Hong Kong on Feb. 15.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 23, 2025
Hong Kong and Singapore lead Asia's drive to cash in on crypto boom
Bitcoin recently hit a record of close to $110,000 while others have also rallied on the back of Trump's pro-crypto promises.
Japan is the world's No. 2 LNG buyer, a major investor in energy infrastructure and a trading hub with a glut of LNG that could help open new markets for U.S. gas in Southeast Asia.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 22, 2025
Trump seeks to reshape Asia's energy supplies with U.S. gas
While the Alaska LNG proposal faces hurdles, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and others are buying into the idea of increasing U.S. gas imports more broadly.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky speaks during an interview at the Ukrainian Embassy in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 21, 2025
As Ukraine rift emerges, Kyiv's envoy says Japan must take on bigger global role
The remarks by Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky came amid what appears to be a dramatic reversal in years of U.S. support for Ukraine since Russia's invasion.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (front right), Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (second left) and other officials and advisers attend talks in Riyadh on Tuesday where they met to discuss ways on ending the Ukraine war.
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2025
America's allies get a rude awakening
U.S. allies are understandably confused and dismayed by the Trump administration’s statements and behavior.
Donald Trump, the then-Republican presidential nominee and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet at Trump Tower in New York City in September. REUTERS
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2025
What is Trump’s foreign policy strategy, if there is one?
The rapid succession of policy changes and the speed at which implementation has taken place in the second Donald Trump administration has left many pundits in Tokyo dumbfounded.
People protest against the decision to virtually shut down the United States Agency for International Development, in Washington on Feb. 5. U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign aid freeze has halted vital projects in the South Pacific, aid workers and analysts say, risking lives and hurting U.S. efforts to woo the region.
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2025
U.S. aid freeze stops crucial South Pacific projects
For years the U.S. has helped to buy life-saving medicine, combat illegal fishing and better prepare coastal hamlets for earthquakes and typhoons.
The new French ambassador to Singapore said France and Europe do not want their Asian partners to have to choose between the United States and China.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 18, 2025
Asia should not have to pick U.S. or China, France's envoy to Singapore says
France sees increasing pressure, "maybe more on the U.S. side," that partners in Asia make a choice, its envoy to Singapore said.
Rear Adm. Jacques Mallard (right), commander of the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier strike group, speaks during a ceremony aboard the carrier at a naval base in Toulon, France, last September.
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 18, 2025
French carrier group chief draws lessons from first Pacific deployment in 60 years
The deployment helped deepen the French Navy's operational understanding of the region, and learn from and boost interoperability with partner nations, a top commander says.
According to a prepared text of Singaporean Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen's remarks posted on a government website over the weekend, the image of the U.S. "has changed from liberator to great disruptor to a landlord seeking rent."
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 17, 2025
Singapore says Asia now views U.S. as a ‘landlord seeking rent’
The image of the U.S. as a liberator has changed, Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen says in remarks prepared for the Munich Security Conference.
The 50th ASEAN-Japan commemorative summit was held in Tokyo in December 2023. Japan has strong relations with ASEAN member countries and should continue leveraging this position to pursue its Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Feb 14, 2025
Why ASEAN is crucial to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific
Tokyo understands ASEAN's centrality to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision better than Washington does and should continue leading in defending this regional order.
The U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (foreground), the Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Kaga (center) and the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier conduct a joint drill in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2025
Japan, U.S., France hold joint naval exercise in Pacific
The drill is the first involving MSDF vessels along with U.S. and French aircraft carriers.
New Zealand Ambassador to Japan Hamish Cooper says his country and Tokyo are close to inking a key intelligence-sharing agreement that will further reinforce growing security and defense ties.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 13, 2025
New Zealand paving way for deeper security ties with Tokyo, envoy says
The moves are part of a reset in New Zealand’s foreign and defense policy as Wellington looks to step up engagements with its Asian partners.
Naked man’s rampage in Saitama linked to one fatality and 10 injured
Police believe Daisuke Nishimura may have been involved in roughly 20 incidents in the 90 minutes leading up to his arrest, including a fatal hit-and-run and multiple assaults.
Japan set to fine cyclists on the spot for rule violations from 2026
Under new rules, those who use smartphones while riding a bicycle would be subject to the maximum fine of ¥12,000.
Japan brings forward deadline for electronic travel authorization system
Japan is planning to implement by March 2029 a new online screening system in which foreign visitors who don’t need a visa apply for a certification before entering the country.
Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
Social media helps fuel growing 'sex tourism' in Japan
People walk down a street in the red-light entertainment area of Kabukicho in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo on March 31.
Amid uncertain tariffs, is now the time to buy a new iPhone?
An Apple store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward in September. Prices for the newest iPhone models start at around ¥100,000 ($700) in Japan.
Built in a flash, Osaka Expo pavilions wrestle with sustainability
Kengo Kuma & Associates oversaw the construction of the Malaysia pavilion, which is encased in interwoven rows of bamboo that appear to ripple.
Japan weighs using U.S. rice imports as tariff negotiation tool with Trump
A restaurant owner pours California-grown Calrose rice into a rice cooker at his restaurant in Tokyo
Is Japan’s parliament ready to welcome more youth to its ranks?
Lower House lawmaker Kai Odake in his Tokyo office on Wednesday
Crow meat, goat tartare: Mauvaise Herbe raises its game
Crow meat, shaped into a ball and attached to a foot of the bird, is one of the peculiar offerings of game at Mauvaise Herbe.

Podcast

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

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.
By Tomoko Otake

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