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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Mar 1, 2022

The Beijing Games — the start of the end of China’s ‘COVID zero’ policy?

With its strict restrictions on people's movements, the country has faced a critical test in staging the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 1, 2022

Majority of Finns back joining NATO after Russia invades Ukraine, poll shows

In a first for the Nordic country, a poll by public broadcaster YLE showed 53% of Finns now back membership of the defense organization.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2022

The 2% inflation target should be consigned to history

It's time for rigid inflation targets to be scrapped and for more flexibility to be breathed into monetary frameworks.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 27, 2022

The West’s cyberattack appeasement helped give Putin a green light

A failure to respond in-kind on hacking since 2014 sent a signal of weakness on Ukraine. But it's not too late to fight back.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 27, 2022

Germany to lift defense spending in latest historic policy shift

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country will spend more than 2% of GDP each year on defense, in line with a NATO target that Berlin has consistently failed to meet.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World / Perspectives
Feb 26, 2022

Will the Ukraine crisis upend political ambitions in Asia?

The Russian invasion sets an alarming precedent, but China is unlikely to follow Putin's bellicose playbook.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Feb 25, 2022

Russia facing widespread fallout as sports world condemns invasion of Ukraine

'I'm sorry for the innocent people that are losing their lives, that are getting killed for stupid reasons and a very, very strange and mad leadership,' F1 driver Sebastian Vettel said.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2022

Putin's invasion of Ukraine is a sin all Russia will bear

It is not Putin who is cursed now — it's all of us Russians. Our identity will be tainted by this invasion, by our failure to stop the dictator long before he crossed this unspeakable line.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2022

Six early thoughts on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Be wary of anyone who is certain about how all of this will turn out. No one knows today whether the Ukraine invasion will be a great success or total disaster for Putin.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2022

Biden’s misery index doesn't bode well for Democrats' political fortunes

Democrats are rightly worried that surging inflation will hurt them in the midterm congressional elections this November — and possibly even in the 2024 presidential election.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Feb 24, 2022

Brooks Koepka says threat of Super Golf League isn't going away

'Somebody will sell out and go to it,' Koepka said.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 23, 2022

South Korean support for a domestic nuclear arsenal is growing — for surprising reasons

A new survey has found that a robust majority strongly backs a domestic nuclear program over stationing U.S. nukes in the country, with China cited as a growing concern.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2022

Japan set to fall short of February booster goal

The government plans to give boosters to 37.5 million people by the end of February, but to attain that target the pace of vaccinations would need to more than double.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2022

New COVID-19 variants complicate the question of vaccine mandates

Officials mulling new pandemic policies need to know how quickly vaccine protection wanes. But scientists don't have a clear answer.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2022

Bond between China and Russia alarms U.S. and Europe amid Ukraine crisis

China and Russia declared that they would work with other countries to 'promote genuine democracy” and counter American-led ideology and institutions.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 21, 2022

Will a presidential election mark the end of South Korea's tattoo taboos?

Almost all of the country's 50,000 tattoo artists are at the mercy of potential police raids and prosecution, facing huge fines as well as prison terms, in theory as much as life.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2022

How China’s 'COVID zero' policy is giving a polish to gold

Gold has mostly traded sideways since the start of the year, and the usual negative correlation between higher U.S. Treasury yields and lower gold prices — and vice versa — has disappeared.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Feb 19, 2022

Bots and fake accounts push China’s vision of winter Olympic wonderland

Inside the Potemkin village of China’s propaganda, the Winter Olympics have unfolded as an unalloyed success, a celebration of sports and political harmony that has obscured — critics say whitewashed — the country’s flaws and rights abuses.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Feb 18, 2022

Kremlin hits back at Olympic chief's criticism of Kamila Valieva coach

'When I saw how she was received by the closest entourage with such a tremendous coolness, it was chilling to see this,' Bach said.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2022

Deriding women’s complaints on equal pay is costly

What should the corporate world take from this judgment? A well-run business should be able to investigate claims of pay discrimination by women and resolve them before they go to a tribunal.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Feb 17, 2022

Hong Kong can’t live with the virus. It can’t stop it, either.

With hospital beds on sidewalks and testing lines winding through parks, the city's flailing response has exposed crucial weaknesses.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Feb 17, 2022

Taiwan sees China's Xi as too focused on party reshuffle for any attack

The Taiwanese government has assessed the current risk of a Chinese attack to be low, regardless of what happens between Russia and Ukraine.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2022

Is the civilian resistance tipping the balance in Myanmar?

'Myanmar has been in a state of civil war for a long time, but until now it has been limited to certain territories and ethnic regions. Now, even the Bamar heartland is in conflict.”
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 15, 2022

‘We need to oppose Russia’: Ukrainians find common purpose

Across the country, Lenin statues and hammer-and-sickle emblems of the Soviet past have been toppled, replaced by monuments to Ukrainians killed in the 2014 uprising.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 14, 2022

How China's cybersecurity laws could backfire

China wants to have control over the information cars have about drivers, roads and the faces and voices they pass, according to a draft law on data-security management issued in May.
Japan Times
JAPAN / FOCUS
Feb 11, 2022

Japan’s entry ban leaves students and universities counting the cost

Restrictions on new entries have seen projects disrupted, scholarships lost, international exchange undermined, career plans left in tatters and much more.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2022

‘Sapiens’? Humans aren’t wise, just too smart for our own good.

Perhaps that's what defines our species — neither wisdom nor folly, but the ability, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still function.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2022

Putin faces insurgency nightmare if Ukraine is invaded

The Ukrainians suffered greatly and at the hands of Russians over the past century. They can and will fight, and the Western democracies can help.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 10, 2022

Japan warms up to the potential of cryptocurrencies

Mitsui & Co. is planning a cryptocurrency linked to the yen-denominated price of one gram of gold.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?