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April 04, 2025
 

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Marc Champion
A poll shows that many Israelis support expanding the war to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon, though this poses risks of involving Iran and other international actors.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2024
Should Israel want a bigger conflict with Iran now?
A poll shows that many Israelis support expanding the war to confront Hezbollah, though this poses risks of involving Iran and other international actors.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius inspects Leopard II tanks that were due to be supplied to Ukraine at a military facility in Augustdorf, Germany, in February 2023.
COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2024
Ukraine has a Germany problem again. Here’s how to fix it.
Kyiv’s Kursk operation was aimed less at the battlefield than at Berlin and other allies.
Despite the deep pessimism about the Gaza cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, many parties involved, including the U.S., Egypt, Qatar, the Gulf States, Lebanon and Iran, stand to gain from an end to the hostilities.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 16, 2024
Only agents of chaos want more war in Gaza
It took a decade for the U.S. to catch Osama bin Laden after al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks; Israel may need to wait on catching Hamas’ Yahya Sinwar, too.
The only surprise about Ukraine's offensive into Russian territory is that it came so late into the war, and that’s primarily because of Western restrictions on the use of donated weapons.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2024
Want peace for Ukraine? Let it strike in Russia
The only surprise is that it came so late — 2½ years into President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
New Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar's ascension to power, combined with Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire unless the group capitulates, makes finding a resolution in Gaza difficult.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2024
New Hamas chief is an arsonist in a desert tinderbox
Yahya Sinwar fills a post that opened with the July 31 killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s politburo chairman, while on a visit to Tehran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Russian nationals, including Artyom Dultsev, Anna Dultseva, convicted of spying in Slovenia, and their children at an airport in Moscow on Thursday following a prisoner exchange with Western countries.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2024
Russia’s prisoner trade says all you need to know about Putin
Among those released to Russia were people convicted by independent courts of cybercrimes, insider trading and breaking sanctions.
An anti-government protest in Tel Aviv in January. In a TV interview on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the terms of a U.S.-led cease-fire deal and said he was prepared to open a second front against Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2024
Netanyahu's strategy is war, war and more war
The Israeli prime minister gave a rare and revealing interview to a domestic TV channel on the weekend that confirmed that he has a plan for Gaza. And that is war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Summit on Peace in Ukraine in Switzerland on Sunday. The gathering brought together over 50 heads of state and government, excluding Russia, to work out a way toward a peace process for Ukraine.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2024
Why Ukraine isn’t ready for peace talks
It's no exaggeration to say that what happens in Ukraine matters to the world order. A rushed peace would stop the fighting, but by compromising the country's future.
Ukrainian soldiers patrol a heavily war-damaged area of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on May 20.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2024
Ukraine and its allies need a new strategy. Here’s a start.
With the war in Ukraine, stop talking about ‘liberal’ democracy and the ‘rules-based international order.’
Israeli soldiers ready a tank near the border with Gaza on Thursday. The Jewish state's victory in the Gaza conflict will depend on addressing Palestinian despair.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2024
Israel will always be held to a different standard
Arrest warrants, campus protests and genocide accusations were not inevitable. These were the direct results of Netanyahu’s choices.
Mourners gather in Tehran's Valiasr Square on Monday to honor President Ebrahim Raisi and others who died in a helicopter crash a day earlier.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2024
Iranian President Raisi's failed experiment in ideological purity
Yet totalitarian regimes such as Iran don’t need their populations to be content, so long as they have security forces willing to kill to suppress dissent.
As the entire world is fixated on Gaza, the Iranian government has been arresting girls who go out in the street without headscarves and executing people.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2024
Don't let Gaza help Iran cloak its own repression
As the entire world is fixated on Gaza, the Iranian government has been arresting girls who go out in the street without headscarves and executing people.
The ruling Georgian Dream Party, whose leader is pro-Russian, holds a rally in support of the government in Tbilisi on Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2024
What if Russia wins in Ukraine? Ask Georgia.
A billionaire leader in Tblisi echoes Moscow as he rails against “global party of war.”
This Israeli Army handout released on April 18 shows Israeli soldiers conducting operations in the Gaza Strip against Hamas militants.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 28, 2024
Freeing hostages matters more than destroying Hamas
After a joint plea from the US and 17 other nations focusing on Hamas, Israel should lean into a deal.
Elderly women walk past a building destroyed during a Russian missile attack in the town of Selydove, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on April 14. The West needs to take decisive action to support an out-gunned Ukraine before the situation worsens.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2024
If only the West backed Ukraine as it did Israel
Western leaders need to take decisive action to support an out-gunned Ukraine before the situation worsens.
A direct military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities by the U.S. and its allies would likely only delay its program while risking regional war and increasing the likelihood of Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons in the long run.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2024
Iran hawks want to strike now. They're wrong.
One thing Iran hawks get right, starting with the contention that by attacking Israel directly on Saturday night, Iran changed rules of engagement.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made the decision to launch a missile attack on Israel on Saturday, one that was largely repelled by the latter’s air defense systems. This had the effect of weakening Iran’s position and strengthening Israel’s.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2024
Netanyahu can gain from Iran’s missile barrage error
Having repelled Iran's attack, the Israeli government can rebuild its standing at home and abroad by drawing attention away from its mistakes in Gaza.
The surprising election losses by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party to candidates of the Republican People's Party are signs of hope for democracy and secularism in the country.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2024
Turkey’s Erdogan is down, but don’t count him out
The election upset of President Erdogan’s AKP Party is just the start in a long fight for liberal democracy.
A woman pays her respects at a makeshift memorial in front of the Crocus City Hall in Moscow on Friday, a week after a deadly attack by gunmen there killed at least 143 people.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2024
Putin's conspiracy theories make Russians less safe
The Kremlin hopes that blaming Kyiv and the West for the attack will turn a difficult domestic political situation to its advantage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits a church outside Moscow on Sunday, a national day of mourning following the attack on the Crocus City Hall on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2024
Putin forgot Islamic State thinks he too is the West
The leader portrays Russia as a victim of Western imperialism, but the Islamic State terrorists who attacked Moscow on Friday reject this narrative.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ grows, more U.S. firms say retailers turning away products
Empty shelves with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of the BC Liquor in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 10.
Trump unveils 10% global tariff, with Japan levy set at 24%
Trump tosses a MAGA hat to the crowd during an event in which he unveiled new tariffs in the White House on Wednesday.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
Japan, South Korea and China vow to strengthen trade ties amid looming U.S. tariffs
Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yoji Muto (left), South Korean Trade Industry and Energy Minister Ahn Duk-geun (center) and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao during a trilateral meeting in Seoul on Sunday
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.
On defense, Japan may avoid Trump's worst impulses — for now
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth chat after reviewing an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Sunday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
By Johan Brooks

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BOARDING & INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL DAY 2025 (Sunday, April 20)
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