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The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Aug. 24 when it started discharging treated radioactive water into the sea
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2023

Second round of Fukushima wastewater release to start next week

In the first phase around 7,800 tons of water were released into the Pacific out of a planned total of 1.34 million tons.
IOC President Thomas Bach says the organization is keen to embrace esports as well as the use of artificial intelligence at future Olympic Games.
OLYMPICS
Oct 15, 2023

IOC to explore Olympic Esports Games

Estimates suggest over 500 million of those are interested specifically in esports, which include virtual sports and sport simulations.
A woman takes her meal alone in Tokyo's Yanaka neighborhood. As the country ages, Japan's average caloric intake has been shrinking.
PODCAST / deep dive
Oct 20, 2023

Table for one? What depopulation in Japan means for dinner.

As Japan’s population ages and more people find themselves isolated, solving their dietary needs is shaping the way the country feeds itself.
Niners running back Christian McCaffrey runs against the Jaguars during the fist quarter at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Nov 13, 2023

49ers rout Jaguars to get back on track after losing streak

San Francisco snapped a three-game losing streak with the win.
Australia's soccer chief James Johnson believes his country can help FIFA turn its new Club World Cup into a global success.
SOCCER
Nov 14, 2023

Australia aims to follow U.S. in 'building' FIFA's Club World Cup

Australia last month opted not to bid for the 2034 World Cup after facing competition from Saudi Arabia.
An official shot for this year’s lineup for NHK’s annual “Kohaku Uta Gassen.”
PODCAST / deep dive
Nov 22, 2023

Things get warmer with Xi; Johnny’s get the cold shoulder

While Japan and China look to ease tensions, NHK makes things tense with a Johnny’s-less “Kohaku” announcement.
For some brides to be, all it takes is one online search for wedding dresses or bouquets to trigger a flood of targeted wedding ads to their accounts.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 25, 2023

For brides on social media, diet ads are becoming unavoidable

Whether it's searching for bridesmaid dresses or posting pictures of their engagement rings, brides' innocuous online activity leads to targeted ads.
The Climate Action Network holds an event at the venue of the U.N. climate change conferences in Dubai on Sunday to give its 'fossil' award to countries including Japan.
PODCAST / deep dive
Dec 7, 2023

Feeling anxious? Wastewater, heat and Japan’s year in climate

In a year that saw Japan release 24,000 tons of wastewater (so far) from Fukushima No. 1 as the planet smashed heat records, it’s no wonder climate anxiety is on the rise. Mara Budgen joins us to break down the year in environment news, where we could see hope, and what we should be worried about....
Sungoliath center Shogo Nakano dives for a game-winning try on Saturday as Tokyo defeated Sagamihara.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Jan 20, 2024

Sungoliath leave it late to see off Dynaboars in classic

The Sungoliath, who came back late to win a week earlier, repeated the trick for their fifth win from six games.
The market cap of Japan’s largest automaker reached ¥48.79 trillion ($330 billion) at the end of Tokyo stock trading on Tuesday, with Toyota shares having closed ¥9 higher at ¥2,991 after briefly reaching an all-time high of ¥3,034.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 24, 2024

Toyota’s market cap hits record high for a Japanese firm

Market participants are keeping a close eye on Japan’s top automaker amid expectations that it will post strong earnings.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House in Washington in January 2023. Some Japanese businesses are keenly waiting for the results of the U.S. presidential election in November.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Feb 1, 2024

Japanese firms seek political stability and stronger alliance: survey

A possible Taiwan contingency is just one of the issues on the minds of companies in the country.
Pop superstar Taylor Swift delighted fans at her sold-out Tokyo Dome show on Wednesday by confidently telling the audience, “Eras Tour e yokōso!” (“Welcome to The Eras Tour!”)
CULTURE / Music
Feb 9, 2024

Taylor Swift slays her Tokyo era

Pop's reigning queen gets sold-out crowd singing along to her hits for the Japan leg of the global Eras Tour.
Taylor Swift kicked off her four-night stint at Tokyo Dome on Wednesday while Lionel Messi played at the Japan National Stadium, just a few kilometers away.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 9, 2024

The Taylor Swift and Messi moment shows Tokyo is back

On Wednesday, Swift and Messi wowed their respective fans, just 5 km away from each other. Their overlap in Tokyo is proof of the city's great resurgence.
An electronic board displays the value of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on Friday.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 16, 2024

Nikkei stock index nears all-time high

The index closed at 38,487.24, up by 329.30 points and near the all-time high of 38,915 recorded in December 1989.
During a time in which Western acts have seen their place of prominence in the Japanese market drop in favor of K-pop, Swift is a notable exception.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2024

What makes a Taylor Swift show worth flying in for?

Swifties say the pop star's concerts provide camaraderie and a sense of validation.
Beyond factors such as the "motherhood penalty," Japanese women struggle to advance in their careers due to the structure of the workforce, including the two-tiered clerical versus managerial track.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 6, 2024

Why is it taking so long to break the glass ceiling?

Japan isn't unique in having a thick glass ceiling, but some factors don't apply to other countries, like the U.S., where many more managers are women.
A war survivor details vivid recollections of World War II in footage never before made public. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has released parts of a collection of interviews with over 300 war survivors for public viewing this month.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 8, 2024

Witness accounts recall 1945 firebombing of Tokyo

The Tokyo government is screening a collection of interviews of survivors for the first time to serve as a reminder of the destruction of war.
Kyohei Yamasawa scores a try for the Wild Knights during the team's 36-24 win over Brave Lupus on Saturday at Kumagaya Rugby Stadium.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Mar 9, 2024

Wild Knights beat Brave Lupus in blockbuster League One clash

A 4-3 try-scoring advantage and four penalties from playmaker Rikiya Matsuda helped the Wild Knights hand the first loss of the campaign to Brave Lupus.
The Bank of Japan's tankan survey showed that large nonmanufacturers saw improvement in their sentiment with the index reaching the highest level since 1991, helped by a surge in inbound tourists.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 1, 2024

Japan service firms’ optimism tempered by softer factory sector

The deterioration in manufacturing sentiment partly reflects the impact from scandals among some vehicle producers.
A voter arrives at a polling station in San Diego, California. According to a recent survey, young U.S. men were the only population group in the United States or seven EU member states actually to have become more conservative since 2014.
WORLD / Politics
Apr 13, 2024

Despair makes young U.S. men more conservative ahead of U.S. election, poll shows

The study offered context for November's U.S. presidential poll and a plethora of votes worldwide, including an EU parliamentary election in June.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki warns he’s ready to take action in the foreign exchange market after the yen fell further past ¥154 to the dollar.
BUSINESS / Markets
Apr 16, 2024

Japan’s tepid warning on yen fuels renewed weakness ahead of IMF

The finance minister’s comments come after the yen set a fresh 34-year low of ¥154.45 following stronger than expected U.S. retail sales figures.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki (left), U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen (center) and South Korean Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok meet on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund and Group of 20 meetings, at the U.S. Treasury in Washington on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 18, 2024

U.S. nods to concerns from Japan and South Korea over slumping currencies

Washington's acknowledgement of concerns may lay the groundwork for intervention, some analysts said.
People work to move into a cemetery bodies of Palestinians killed during Israel's military offensive and buried at Nasser hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday.
WORLD
Apr 22, 2024

Bodies found at Gaza hospital as Israel vows to 'increase pressure' on Hamas

Gaza's civil defense agency said its teams had discovered 50 bodies buried in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex.
The skyline of central Mumbai's financial district
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2024

India seen overtaking Japan in nominal GDP in 2025

Japan's economy is expected to fall to the fifth largest in the world. In February, GDP data showed that Japan was overtaken by Germany in 2023.
Protesters in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and pro-Israel counterprotesters scuffle during demonstrations at the University of California Los Angeles on Sunday.
WORLD
Apr 29, 2024

White House urges 'peaceful' campus protests after hundreds arrested

The wave of demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York but they have since spread rapidly across the country.
An electronic screen in Tokyo displays the yen exchange rate against the U.S. dollar and the graph showing its recent swings, on Thursday.
BUSINESS / Markets
May 2, 2024

Yen swings stir talk that Japan is in the FX market once again

The yen advanced more than 3% and hit ¥153.04 per dollar as more than $4 billion of yen-related futures were exchanged.
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce celebrates with the Lombardi Trophy after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Feb. 11.
MORE SPORTS / Football
May 2, 2024

Travis Kelce 'extremely grateful' for new deal with Chiefs

The Chiefs reworked Kelce's contract, pumping up his salary to $34.25 million over the next two seasons.
A drone view of three berths able to load vessels with oil is seen after their construction at Westridge Marine Terminal, the terminus of the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, on April 26.
WORLD / Politics
May 2, 2024

Constraints on Canada's Trans Mountain pipeline may crimp oil exports

After 12 years, a project to nearly triple the crude-oil flow from Alberta to Canada's Pacific Coast began commercial operations, but with setbacks.
Manahel al-Otaibi wears western clothes in the Saudi capital Riyadh in September 2019. Human rights groups have denounced an 11-year prison term recently handed down by a counterterrorism court to the Saudi fitness instructor and women's rights activist.
WORLD / Politics
May 2, 2024

Saudi Arabia cracks down on online speech, jailing critics for decades

Fitness influencer Manahel al-Otaibi was recently sentenced to 11 years in prison after criticizing male guardianship laws and women's dress requirements.
Naoya Inoue (left) and Luis Nery following a pre-fight news conference in Yokohama on Saturday, two days ahead of their super bantamweight title fight.
MORE SPORTS / Boxing
May 5, 2024

'Monster' Inoue ready to tear down Luis Nery in title defense at Tokyo Dome

Ahead of boxing's highly anticipated return to the Big Egg, Naoya “Monster” Inoue said he's ready to knock out his opponent.

Longform

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