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Lawmakers vote on the new national security law at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 19, 2024

Hong Kong adopts sweeping security laws, bowing to Beijing

The body fast-tracked a major piece of legislation that critics say further threatens the China-ruled city's freedoms.
A lack of comprehensive consumption — and inflation — data makes it impossible to get an accurate picture of India's poverty.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2024

India’s poor will not be wished away

Poverty remains deeply entrenched in India and appears to have increased significantly.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meets with a Palestinian child evacuated from the Gaza Strip at a hospital in El-Arish, Egypt, on Saturday.
WORLD
Mar 24, 2024

U.N. chief calls conditions in Gaza a ‘moral outrage’

For months, aid organizations have struggled to transport and distribute sufficient food and other supplies in Gaza.
According to Yano Research Institute, Japan's supplements market grew about 30% in the span of three years.
BUSINESS
Mar 29, 2024

Supplements market in Japan showing steady growth

Improved health awareness sparked by COVID-19 is a major factor fueling the growth, market research firms say.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has expressed his eagerness to revise the political funds law in the current session of parliament, slated to end on June 23.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 29, 2024

Spotlight on political reform after budget clears Japan's parliament

Ruling and opposition parties are eager to outline a bolder plan for reform to raise their profile among voters amid growing political disenchantment.
New regulations took effect this month to cap the working hours of hospital doctors, with the health ministry also specifying that hours spent on duties and self-development directly associated with education and research should be considered work hours.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 1, 2024

Japan starts work style reform to cap doctors' overtime

Medical services in Japan have historically relied to some extent on the self-sacrifice of doctors.
3M’s Cottage Grove, Minnesota, factory had been churning out varieties of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances since the 1950s. Recent studies have linked widely used compounds within the chemical family to reduced immune response and cancer.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 4, 2024

How PFAS 'forever chemicals' affect human health

There is firm evidence that at least one of the more than 4,000 human-made chemicals called PFAS causes cancer.
Police officers conduct a special inspection of Shinjuku Ward's Kabukicho in Tokyo in December.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 4, 2024

Japan's police crack down on host clubs

More than 200 administrative penalties have been issued against such establishments nationwide for various violations, National Police Agency says.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps speak during a news conference following an AUKUS defense ministerial meeting in Mountain View, California, last December.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 9, 2024

U.S., U.K. and Australia consider working with Japan on AUKUS security pact

The three countries said they were weighing inviting Tokyo to join the pact’s second stage, with talks with Japan and others set to begin this year.
Although intelligence agencies are engaging more with the public than they used to, spy-themed entertainment is still the primary source of education about espionage.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2024

James Bond and Jason Bourne ruined spies for all of us

The average person knows deep down that what they see in the movies and on TV isn’t the same as reality, but they don’t know how or how much.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, testifies before a foreign interference inquiry in Ottawa on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 11, 2024

Trudeau rejects claim China meddled to try to help his election

Canada's prime minister said he believes the elections were "held in their integrity."
A Wisconsin resident prepares to vote in the presidential primary election in Superior, Wisconsin, on April 2.
COMMENTARY / World / Geoeconomic Briefing
Apr 16, 2024

Can we trust the polls? How emerging technologies affect democracy

In a global election year, all eyes are on the ties between emerging technologies and democracy.
Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange protest on the day he appeals in a British court against his extradition to the United States, in Vienna, Austria, on Feb. 20.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 17, 2024

Assange extradition approaches as U.S. provides U.K. with assurances

The U.S. says that a sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed.
Former U.S. president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to court on the first day of opening statements in his trial in New York on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 23, 2024

On first day of Trump hush money trial, prosecutors say he corrupted 2016 election

New York prosecutors said on the first day of Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial that the former president corrupted the 2016 election.
Of 1,729 local municipalities nationwide, 744 have been identified as being at risk of disappearing.
JAPAN / Society
Apr 24, 2024

Over 40% of Japan's municipalities at risk of vanishing, study finds

The Tohoku region takes the top spot in both the number and percentage of municipalities at risk of disappearing due to a sharp population decline.
Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
WORLD / Politics
Apr 26, 2024

Israel prepares forces as conflict with Hezbollah intensifies

Israeli forces have been exchanging cross-border fire with Hezbollah almost daily since October as the potential for an all-out war only grows.
Defense Minister Minoru Kihara (third from left) attends a ceremony last month for the Ground Self-Defense Force's systems communications and cyber school.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Apr 26, 2024

The glitch in Japan's plans to bolster U.S. defense

Japan has suffered high-profile hacks in recent years that have elevated concerns over whether Tokyo can fully support its security partners.
Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said he has instructed his ministry to investigate whether or not there have been any further incidents.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 26, 2024

Five senior SDF officers punished for mishandling secret info

They passed on secret information to personnel within their units who were not cleared to handle such data.
Palestinian children stand amid the debris of a house destroyed by overnight Israeli bombardment in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 28, 2024

Some U.S. officials say Israel may be violating international law in Gaza

A joint submission from four U.S. bureaus raised "serious concern over non-compliance" with international humanitarian law.
Tatsufumi Shibata, deputy director-general at the Financial Services Agency, is pushing for greater disclosure by companies of their cross-shareholding practices.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2024

Japan suspects firms are evading disclosure of cross-shareholdings

Some companies are thought to be masking cross-shareholdings as being owned for purely trading purposes.
Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, which allowed customers to grab grocery items from a shelf and walk out of the store, is reportedly being phased out of its grocery stores.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2024

Amazon's AI stores seemed too magical. And they were.

There are plenty more examples of companies that have failed to mention humans pulling the levers behind supposedly cutting-edge AI technology.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at the United Steelworkers Union headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 17. Biden made clear that he does not want the proposed takeover of U.S. Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel to happen.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 4, 2024

Political furor over Nippon Steel's U.S. Steel bid puts investment panel in spotlight

Backlash over the deal has echoes of the 1980s when Nippon Steel tried and failed to buy another American metal company.
A U.S. Naval Special Warfare Operator fires a Switchblade 300 loitering munition during training exercises in Fallon, Nevada, last July. The U.S. Defense Department plans to use small drones — known in the Pentagon as “all-domain attritable autonomous systems” — to help counter Chinese military systems and tactics.
WORLD
May 7, 2024

Pentagon reveals drone types for Replicator program to counter China

The first tranche will include uncrewed surface vehicles, uncrewed aerial systems and counter-uncrewed aerial systems of various sizes and payloads.
Justin Trudeau
WORLD / Politics
May 7, 2024

Alleged Chinese meddling spurs foreign agent registry in Canada

The move comes after allegations China attempted to meddle in the last two Canadian elections.
Grant Shapps, U.K. defense secretary, departs following a meeting of cabinet ministers at 10 Downing Street on Nov. 22, 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 8, 2024

China seen hacking systems to build profiles of U.K. defense personnel

The U.K. is accusing China of using hacked data to build up their profiles of British military personnel and those in sensitive roles.
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Izumo helicopter carrier is docked in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in April.
JAPAN
May 10, 2024

Japan says viral video of MSDF ship likely real, not fabricated

The Defense Ministry said it has determined that the footage was not AI-generated because details matched that of the actual Izumo helicopter carrier.
Spectators gather on South Padre Island to watch the planned launch of SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft from the company's Boca Chica launchpad, near Brownsville, Texas, on March 14.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 14, 2024

Musk's SpaceX is quick to build in Texas, slow to pay its bills

Unpaid bills and finger-pointing among contractors have led many construction-industry businesses to file liens against SpaceX properties.
Samples of cannabis edibles are offered during The 1st Phuket Cannabis Cup in Phuket, Thailand, in March 2023. Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said marijuana should soon be classified as a narcotic again and its use limited to medical and health purposes.
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2024

Thailand’s cannabis U-turn is a cautionary tale

Banning the drug outright will no doubt cause a lot of pain to farmers, small business owners and consumers. A middle-ground approach to return to medical usage would be wise.
Though the West has supplied desperately needed weapons and ammunition, it has done little else to address Ukraine’s needs or establish shared goals.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2024

The war in Ukraine needs a stronger unified Western strategy

Though the West has supplied desperately needed weapons and ammunition, it has done little else to address Ukraine’s needs.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump sits for his trial at the Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on Tuesday.
WORLD
May 22, 2024

How Trump's hush money trial verdict could affect the 2024 election

Jurors could deliver a verdict as soon as next week.

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