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May 16, 2025
 

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POVERTY

According to a survey, some 70% of children from Japanese households with an annual income of less than ¥3 million take no after-school private lessons.
JAPAN / Society
May 15, 2025
Children from low-income families take fewer after-school private lessons
The proportion of children who take after-school private lessons and the frequency of doing so are higher as household income increases, a survey shows.
Dr. Raquel Gomez flips a tortilla at the Industrial Microbiology laboratory of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.
WORLD / Science & Health
May 13, 2025
Scientists in Mexico develop tortilla for people with no fridge
The wheat flour version developed by Raquel Gomez and her team contains probiotics — live microorganisms found in yogurt and other fermented foods.
Bill Gates, who pledged on Thursday to give away almost his entire personal wealth in the next two decades and said the world's poorest would receive some $200 billion via his foundation, during an interview in New York City, on Thursday
BUSINESS
May 9, 2025
Bill Gates says Musk is 'killing' world's poorest children by cutting aid
Bill Gates has pledged to give away $200 billion via his charitable foundation by 2045.
Those who entered the job market from around 1993 to 2004, when long-term stagnation started, are likely to struggle even more to make ends meet after retirement.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
May 7, 2025
Japan's 'ice age' employment generation is at risk of poverty during retirement
Due to low wages the generation tends to earn and protracted pension adjustments, many may end up relying on welfare benefits.
People wait for dinner at a shelter run by Sant'Egidio, a Catholic association dedicated to social outreach, across the street from St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on April 24.
WORLD / Society
May 5, 2025
Homeless sheltered by Pope Francis wonder who will follow
Pope Francis shunned much of the pomp and privilege of the papacy and sought to make the Roman Catholic Church more inclusive and less judgmental.
Palestinians receive food cooked by a charity kitchen in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on April 29.
WORLD
May 5, 2025
Hamas executes looters in Gaza as food crisis worsens under Israeli blockade
Hamas officials have accused some of the looters of working in collaboration with Israel, which has sealed off aid from entering Gaza.
Members of the pharmacology department take inventory of the last boxes of drugs delivered by the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID) amid medical supply shortages in a pharmacy storeroom at Lodwar County Referral Hospital in Lodwar on April 1.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 9, 2025
'Everything was stopped': USAID cuts hit hard in northern Kenya
Protests broke out last month after news that rations, already lowered last year, would be further reduced because of the cuts to U.S. foreign aid spending.
According to a survey by international nongovernmental organization Save the Children Japan, 74.6% of respondents said they changed diapers less often when they couldn't buy diapers.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2025
Half of needy households in Japan unable to buy diapers
An inability to buy baby formula has been experienced by 39.6%.
Many families with financial difficulties are cutting down on their living expenses to secure money to buy school uniforms, computers and tablet devices for their children entering school.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 31, 2025
Needy parents eye living expense cuts to fund kids' new school life
They are finding it especially difficult to secure money to buy school uniforms, computers and tablet devices, a survey shows.
Osamu Murata (left), the acting chairman of nonprofit Ashinaga, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward on Wednesday. Ashinaga, which provides financial aid to children, conducted a survey among parents and guardians of recipients to determine the challenges they face.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 27, 2025
Japan’s single parents struggle to raise children, survey finds
Such households grapple with economic hardship, "time poverty" and social isolation, according to a nonprofit that provides financial aid to children.
Midwife Tabita dos Santos Moraes prepares cassava flour in Tefe in Brazil's Amazonas state last October. Tabita's great-grandmother taught midwifery to her aunts, who taught her mother, who taught her, starting at the age of 15.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 21, 2025
In the remote Amazon, midwives care for women stranded by drought
Years of extreme droughts in the Amazon rainforest have made river journeys to and from remote communities perilous.
Elsie, a 45 year-old aid worker, who uses a pseudonym to protect her anonymity, used to spend her days wandering the narrow streets of Msogwaba township, near the South African city of Mbombela, to visit hundreds of children living with HIV.
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 20, 2025
U.S. aid cuts threaten South Africa's young HIV patients
Around 13% of South Africa's population live with HIV, and about 640,000 children were orphaned by the virus in 2023.
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's assertion that U.S. aid cuts to programs including PEPFAR and USAID in Africa aren't causing harm is not true. Children and others are already dying as a result.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2025
Musk says aid cuts haven’t killed anyone. That's not true.
In South Sudan, one of the world’s poorest countries, the efforts by Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump are already leading children to die.
People wait to receive bags of rice distributed by the World Food Program on the outskirts of Yangon in 2021.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 18, 2025
Myanmar faces 'untold' suffering due to U.S. aid 'betrayal': U.N. expert
A former U.S. congressman has torn into the cuts, saying they were politically motivated, based on distortions and being carried out in the worst possible manner.
Donald Trump has halted most U.S. government-funded aid globally for 90 days, while moving to dismantle USAID, which he accused of being run "by a bunch of radical lunatics."
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 11, 2025
U.S aid freeze risks handing influence to China in Beijing's backyard
Trump has halted most U.S. government-funded aid globally for 90 days, while moving to dismantle USAID, which he accused of being run "by a bunch of radical lunatics."
Shadrack Maseko, whose family has been residing on Meyerskop farm for three generations, looks over a piece of land, in Free State province, South Africa, on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 11, 2025
The stark inequalities South Africa's new land act seeks to bridge
Nearly three quarters of privately-owned land is in the hands of white people who make up 8% of the population, while only 4% is owned by Black people who constitute nearly 80%.
Far from making America great again, Donald Trump’s actions since assuming the presidency are giving a giant boost to China’s attempts at world leadership.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2025
‘America First’ in action
Far from making America great again, Trump is giving a giant boost to China’s claims to world leadership.
People protest at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Wednesday against President Donald Trump’s decision to effectively shut down the United States Agency for International Development.
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2025
Shutting USAID deprives the U.S. of a vital foreign policy tool
Trump's decision to suspend USAID is a blow to Japan, which has long valued aid as a stabilizing force.
Orphans and children separated from their parents in Kadugli gather to eat boiled leaves at a camp within the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North controlled area in Boram County, Sudan, on June 22, 2024.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 4, 2025
Millions of malnourished children face lifelong health woes
Famines and other food crises can leave an entire generation with physical and cognitive deficits, experts warn.
Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Feb 3, 2025
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?
They're no substitute for policy, but by providing food and belonging, these safe spaces are filling in the cracks of the nation's fraying communities.
Success of Chinese-made fighter jets against India raises alarm in Asia
Chinese J-10 fighter jets from the People's Liberation Army Air Force August 1st Aerobatics Team perform during a media demonstration at the Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Nakhon Ratchasima province, Thailand, in November 2015.
Japan to recognize Taiwan as place of origin in family registration system
Masataka Yuhara, secretary-general of the Friends of Lee Teng Hui Association in Japan, which has been calling for "Taiwan" to be permitted as a place of origin in family registers.
Japanese retailers turn to California rice for cheaper alternative
U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass eats California rice at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday along with Mitsuko Tsuchiya, vice president of retailer Aeon.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Two crew feared dead after ASDF training jet crashes in Aichi
Self-Defense Forces personnel collect apparent parts of an Air Self-Defense Force T-4 training jet from a reservoir in Inuyama, Aichi Prefeture, on Thursday. The jet crashed shortly after takeoff a day earlier.
Sumo title contenders already emerging in early stages of Tokyo meet
Onosato (left) battles Abi on Day 3 of the Summer Basho in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Harmfully hot days for pregnant women in Japan nearly doubled over past five years
New research by a U.S. climate scientists’ group reveals that extreme heat has increased the risks of preterm births and other pregnancy complications in Japan, nearly doubling the number of days that are harmfully hot for pregnant women over the past five years.
Japanese automakers looking at a ¥1 trillion hit from Trump tariffs 
Cars on display at Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama on Tuesday. The automaker posted a massive annual net loss and confirmed that it plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide.
Tokyo Stock Exchange wants stocks to be affordable for the average investor
The Tokyo Stock Exchange building in Nihonbashi. The exchange wants companies to lower the entry cost of investing in their shares.
Consumption tax set to dominate Upper House election debate
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba enters his office in Tokyo on Tuesday.

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SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones
Tsukuba massif granite, one of the world’s few heritage stones

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