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Prime Minister Fumio Kishida poses for a group photo with other regional leaders prior to the Asia Zero Emission Community (AZEC) leaders meeting in Tokyo in December.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 16, 2024

Japan's energy diplomacy reflects global divide over how to reach net zero

Japan’s focus should be on advancing truly innovative and effective renewable technologies, rather than prolonging fossil fuel use.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Aug 17, 2024

How Trump’s intimidation tactics have reshaped the Republican Party

Those seen as disloyal to Trump and his Make America Great Again agenda have been the target of threats by his most ardent supporters.
Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus salutes to the attendees before taking an oath to head of the interim Bangladesh government, in Dhaka on Aug. 8.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 19, 2024

Bangladesh's Yunus reassures on Rohingya refugees and garment exports

Muhammad Yunus again committed to hold free and fair elections "as soon as we can complete our mandate to carry out vital reforms" in the nation.
Wind turbines in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture
BUSINESS
Aug 19, 2024

Japan offers lifeline to ESG investing amid backlash overseas

In light of the anti-ESG sentiment in the U.S. and Europe, analysts said that Japan can play a key role in driving sustainable finance globally.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui offers flowers for the victims of the massive landslides on the 10th anniversary of the disaster during a ceremony in Hiroshima on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2024

Victims of Hiroshima landslides remembered 10 years on

The landslides, which occurred in the early hours of Aug. 20, 2014, claimed the lives of 77 people and completely or partially destroyed 396 houses.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to members of the press at the David Kempinski Hotel in Tel Aviv on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 21, 2024

U.S. push for Gaza cease-fire falls short on key points, officials say

Israeli and Hamas officials have downplayed the idea that a cease-fire deal could be imminent.
Venezuelan opposition supporters participate in a global protest against Venezuela's disputed presidential election, in San Jose, Costa Rica, on Aug 17.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 22, 2024

Venezuela at a crossroads: Democracy or dictatorship?

The government of strongman Nicolas Maduro is doubling down on his disputed reelection victory while the opposition vows to resist "to the end."
An influencer uses a phone at the United Center, ahead of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), in Chicago on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Aug 22, 2024

At DNC, influencers battle journalists for space and access

The Democratic National Convention has credentialed more than 200 "content creators" to cover the four-day event.
Robert C. Neff, passed away at after a long illness at 77 years old on July 31, 2024, at his home in Hayama, south of Tokyo.
COMMUNITY
Aug 25, 2024

The American journalist ahead of the game on an ascendant Japan

Neff was part of a golden age of magazine journalism as Tokyo bureau chief for Businessweek magazine and a lover of hot spring retreats.
This screen shot from the Philippine Coast Guard video taken on Monday shows a Chinese air force fighter jet deploying flares near a Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources plane that was flying near the Chinese-controlled, Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 24, 2024

Philippines says China fired flares at its South China Sea plane

The unprovoked Chinese "harassment" included "deploying flares multiple times at a dangerously close distance of approximately 15 meters, Manila said.
Emergency responders assist a man who collapsed during lengthy heat wave in Phoenix in July last year.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Aug 24, 2024

Heat kills thousands in the U.S. every year. Why are the deaths so hard to track?

As heat waves become more frequent and intense, researchers and activists say the lack of effective tracking is leading to needless deaths.
Lions players celebrate after a win over the Buffaloes on Wednesday at Belluna Dome in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Aug 25, 2024

A fight over free agency in NPB, with help from an American union

The union representing players in NPB is fighting to secure rights over players' images and give them the opportunity to make the jump to MLB sooner.
Rohingya refugees gather to mark the seventh anniversary of their fleeing from neighboring Myanmar to escape a military crackdown in 2017, during heavy monsoon rains in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on Sunday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 26, 2024

Rohingya demand end to violence on seventh anniversary of flight from Myanmar

More than a million Rohingya live in squalid camps in southern Bangladesh with little prospect of returning home.
Boxes of Joban-mono marine produce such as flounder are lined up at the Hisanohama fishing port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Sep 2, 2024

Fukushima fishermen not in the clear yet

Challenges remain for the prefecture's fisheries industry a year after the release of treated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began.
The Panama Canal is Panama’s biggest source of revenue, bringing in nearly $5 billion last year.
BUSINESS
Aug 28, 2024

Panama Canal eases limits that caused global shipping bottleneck

Last year’s El Nino caused a significant drop in rainfall and forced the canal to implement daily transit restrictions.
Japan is facing a pilot shortage, but hiring foreign pilots is not easy due to opposition from unions. Japanese carriers also typically pay less than airlines elsewhere.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 28, 2024

Pilot shortage threatens Japan’s goal for 60 million tourists

Falling short may mean missing out on lucrative tourism money as carriers simply can’t find the crew to fly the necessary number of planes.
Nicholas Tarasenko trains at Minato stable in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, on Tuesday. Tarasenko’s potential in sumo was made obvious when he won U18 gold in the 90-kg weight class at the 2023 Baruto Cup in Estonia despite being four years under the age limit and having only had a total of one hour of sumo training before the meet.
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Aug 28, 2024

This English schoolboy has big dreams of becoming yokozuna — and more

Nicholas Tarasenko may only be 15 years old, but he is already making big plans for his burgeoning sumo career.
A map of western Japan shows the Nankai Trough and, to its north, the hypocentral region where the energy for an earthquake is thought to be building.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 30, 2024

Did you feel that? It may be time to refresh your disaster kits — and vocabulary.

Part of Japan got a scare when the first-ever megaquake alert was issued earlier this month, a reminder that knowing the right terms in a disaster is crucial.
Verdi took some time to warm up to ARK volunteers, but you'd never know to watch him now.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Sep 2, 2024

Verdi is looking for a home as affectionate as him

No wallflower, Verdi has proved himself a star among ARK personnel.
X owner Elon Musk speaks at the 27th annual Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles in May.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 31, 2024

Brazil judge bans X as Elon Musk challenges top court’s orders

The platform's ban caps a monthslong feud between Musk and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is spearheading efforts to combat fake news.
Local miners collect small rocks as they mine for gold in Benguet province in the northern Philippines.
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 1, 2024

Toxic, deadly, cheap: Life for women gold miners in the Philippines

One in three of the illegal mining workforce is female — and women are 90 times more at risk of dying on the job than men.
Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Hersh Goldberg Polin, speak at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Aug. 21.
WORLD
Sep 1, 2024

Israel recovers bodies of six hostages in Gaza, including an American captive

U.S. President Joe Biden, who has closely followed the fate of the hostages seized on Oct. 7, said the six included Israeli American Goldberg-Polin.
The challenge for Australia’s Indigenous communities that dot a harsh, sprawling landmass is how to mesh their thousands of years of cultural traditions that guide everyday life with today’s economic realities.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2024

60,000 years of history is facing economic reality

Both big business and governments have a role to play to improve the lives of Australia’s First Nations citizens.
Myanmar Prime Minister and State Administrative Council Chairman Min Aung Hlaing said the census data collected from Oct. 1 to 15 will be used to hold a general election next year.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Sep 2, 2024

Myanmar junta announces census for promised 2025 election

Opponents say the census in the first half of October is a ploy by the junta to collect information from the people that they will use to terrorize them.
Patients wait for medical treatment in Incheon, South Korea, on April 23.
ASIA PACIFIC / Science & Health
Sep 3, 2024

South Korea denies hospital emergency rooms collapsing as army doctors deployed

The government will send 15 military doctors to hard-hit emergency rooms and rotate 235 military and community doctors into troubled hospitals starting Sept. 9.
Masanori Murakami poses with a Willie Mays-themed clock during a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Monday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 3, 2024

The man who opened MLB's door to Japanese players

Masanori Murakami's time with the San Francisco Giants in the 1960s made him something of an accidental trailblazer.
Hiromi Kawakami’s “Under the Eye of the Big Bird” takes place in a future where humans have developed genetic mutations that allow them to read minds and have powers of prescience.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 3, 2024

'Under the Eye of the Big Bird': Hiromi Kawakami's speculative future sets civilization adrift

The author reimagines sexual reproduction, family ties and societal roles in a passionless world that is neither a dystopia nor an improvement on reality.
Mylene de Joya Garcia-Albano
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / The Big Questions
Sep 4, 2024

Philippine envoy highlights climate and smart farms

A native of the Philippine city of Davao, Mylene de Joya Garcia-Albano arrived in Tokyo in December 2022 as ambassador of the Philippines to Japan.
The future of 133-year-old remains, which lay buried beneath Kitakyushu for a century, is unclear amid the city's redevelopment plans.
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2024

Global conservation body calls on Kitakyushu to halt redevelopment plans

The city said the project will proceed as planned as there are no alternative sites and further delays could threaten the provision of public services.
Fulton County voters cast their ballots during the Georgia primary at Morningside Presbyterian Church in Atlanta on May 21.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 5, 2024

U.S. voters targeted by Chinese influence online, researchers say

The messaging does not appear to favor one side of the political spectrum — either Democrats or Republicans.

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Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat