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October 13, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY

World

World
Japan
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado speaks to supporters while holding up electoral records during a rally in Caracas in August 2024. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday she was the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
COMMENTARY / World
Machado receives the Nobel Peace Prize as Trump’s attempts to secure award fall short
Machado, as the committee put it, is known for her tireless work promoting democracy for Venezuelans and her struggle against dictatorship.
COMMENTARY / World
A deal that might heal — or haunt — the Middle East
A recent American intelligence assessment warned that Tehran views the ceasefire as a “strategic timeout,” a chance to rearm its proxies while Washington celebrates diplomacy.
COMMENTARY / World
How Asia can reduce its dollar dependence
While geopolitical tensions and the risk of sanctions have fueled diversification efforts, the greenback’s international dominance is unlikely to diminish in the near term.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi addresses the media at the White House on June 27 as President Trump listens following a Supreme Court ruling that limited federal judges' power to block presidential orders.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2025
Global lessons from a press in peril
By Martin Baron
A democracy cannot survive without a free press. There has never been a democracy without a media that is free and independent.
A protester displays a poster featuring U.S. President Donald Trump at Incheon Airport on Sept. 12 after South Korean workers detained in a U.S. immigration raid at a Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia returned home.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2025
South Korea should turn the U.S. ICE raid into trade leverage
By Juliana Liu
U.S. officials sought to justify the operation by saying the 300 South Koreans arrested were working illegally. But that logic now appears to be on shaky ground.
A crime scene technician prepares to document evidence at the site of a shooting in West Baltimore in May 2015. U.S. cities are seeing murder rates fall sharply from post-2020 highs thanks to local violence-reduction efforts and pandemic-era investments.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2025
What’s behind the great American murder decline?
By Justin Fox
Homicides are plummeting in many places. The explanation may be the sheer volume of different efforts to reduce violence.
As Russia's economy faces stagnation, high inflation, a growing fiscal deficit and a demographic crisis, President Vladimir Putin is not ready to give up on his war in Ukraine just yet.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2025
Putin doubles down on Ukraine as economic woes grow
By Sergei Guriev
Understanding that under the current economic model he will run out of cash in less than a year, Putin just announced a budget for 2026-2028 which includes substantial tax hikes.
The oil tanker Eagle S sails alongside a Finnish border guard ship and tugboat in the Gulf of Finland on Dec. 28. The vessel was seized by Finland on suspicion of damaging underwater cables in the area at the time.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2025
Russia’s hybrid war looks increasingly like the real thing
By Brad Glosserman
European officials are warning that Moscow appears to be “at war” with countries it hasn’t invaded yet.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new Pentagon policy mandating pre-approval for unclassified information threatens to reverse nearly a century of First Amendment protections.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2025
Hegseth tries turning back 94 years of press freedom
By John Authers
The history on his side has been discredited by the Supreme Court for a century.
Jane Goodall communicates with a chimp named Nana in June 2004 at a zoo in Magdeburg, Germany. She was the world's foremost authority on chimpanzees.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2025
Without Jane Goodall, chimps need new champions — us
By Lara Williams
Goodall revolutionized the way we see both great apes and ourselves. We can’t let her legacy fade away.

University of Tokyo lands its highest spot ever in global higher education ranking
The University of Tokyo in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
After ruling bloc breakup, CDP and Komeito eye unified PM candidate
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yoshihiko Noda speaks to reporters at the Diet in Tokyo on Friday.
As the Osaka Expo comes to a close, what will its legacy be?
After a run-up marked by apathy, organizers soon found they had the opposite problem as crowd control became a concern.
Why Japan's coalition collapsed — and what's next
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi enters party headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
‘Takaichi trade’ starts unwinding as political calculus upended by Komeito exit
Less than a week ago, Sanae Takaichi seemed set to become Japan's first female prime minister.
‘Save the Ring’ calls intensify as Osaka Expo’s end nears
Visitors lounge on the grassy hill on the top of the Grand Ring during the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka in May.
A Japanese comedian walks into an Aussie bar … and stays there
Takashi “Waka” Wakasugi stopped by the Tokyo Comedy Bar in Shibuya Ward last month following his stint at Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing his show “Comedy Samurai.”
Chemistry Nobel winner Kitagawa says downtime helped him think up new material
Susumu Kitagawa speaks to reporters at Kyoto University on Wednesday after receiving the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry the same day.

Podcast

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

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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