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A delegation of Ukrainian officials look at machinery used for debris processing in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in January.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2024

Japanese technology to contribute to Ukraine reconstruction, government hopes

Japanese officials will meet with Ukrainian counterparts in Tokyo on Monday to discuss measures to support the reconstruction of their country.
The International Olympic Committee denied Manny Pacquiao's request to compete in the Paris Games due to his age.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 19, 2024

Manny Pacquiao gives up Olympic dream after being denied spot in Paris

Pacquiao conceded that his Olympic boxing dream was over after being denied a berth at this year's Paris Games.
Damian Lillard scored 39 points and was named MVP after leading the East to a 211-186 win over the West in the NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis, Indiana, on Sunday.
BASKETBALL / NBA
Feb 19, 2024

East scores record 211 points to beat West in NBA All-Star Game

Milwaukee Bucks guard Damian Lillard scored 39 points and drained 11 3-pointers to lead the Eastern Conference to a record-setting 211-186 win over the Western Conference in the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday night in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Alexei Navalny, who Russian authorities say died on Friday, attends a 2019 rally in Moscow with his wife, Yulia Navalnaya (right), in memory of murdered dissident Boris Nemtsov.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2024

Navalny was too brave to be allowed to live

Alexei Navalny never stopped speaking truth to the powers of Russian despotism. His fearlessness was simply too much for the Kremlin to bear.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (right) presents a gift to a Ukrainian refugee an event at the Keidanren Kaikan in Tokyo on Monday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 19, 2024

As war fatigue grows, Japan pledges long-term support to Ukraine

Describing the aid as an investment in the future, Tokyo emphasized how Japan’s technology and expertise in reconstruction could serve Ukraine’s needs.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's supporters demonstrate against U.S. extradition in front of the British Consulate in Barcelona on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024

Assange absent at final hearing against extradition to U.S.

The two-day session is likely the WikiLeaks founder's last chance to fight the extradition in Britain's courts after a half-decade battle.
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, at a House Oversight Committee meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 10.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024

FBI informant got false dirt on Bidens from Russia: prosecutors

Alexander Smirnov, 43, a dual U.S. and Israeli national, was arrested last week.
A bloody demonic outbreak strikes Japan in “Visitors: Complete Edition.”
CULTURE / Film
Feb 22, 2024

‘Visitors’ revels in all its gory glory with deadpan humor

Kenichi Ugana’s extended version of his brilliant splatter short is endearingly shaggy — and messy.
Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (far left) and the prime minister of Samoa, Fiame Naomi Mataafa (far right), meet in Apia, the capital of Samoa, on Feb. 10.
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2024

Japan plays a game of Pacific islands geopolitical chess

The influx of Chinese investment and activities have introduced risk for some Pacific island nations, moves which Japan cannot ignore.
Specimen M831 stored at the National Museum of Nature and Science’s Tsukuba Research Departments in Ibaraki Prefecture
ENVIRONMENT / Wildlife / OUR PLANET
Feb 22, 2024

How a 13-year-old discovered a possible Japanese wolf specimen

A new paper by Hinako Komori and two academics says a specimen she found could be one of two Japanese wolves kept at Ueno Zoo in the late 19th century.
Passengers line up for security at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 22, 2024

The five most exciting innovations coming to an airport near you

Updating an existing airport terminal is time-consuming, expensive work that often costs hundreds of millions of dollars — and sometimes billions.
Hideo Shimoju points to a possible site that his fellow neighbors may relocate to. Such relocations have happened before, but not preemptively.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / Longform
Feb 24, 2024

In disaster-prone Japan, some communities consider major moves

Rural communities are considering collective relocation as a means to deal with worsening climate disasters.
A symbolic illumination called "Ray of Memory" is seen over the graves of Ukrainian soldiers who died in the war with Russia, at Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 24, 2024

Ukraine on the defensive as Russia war enters third year

On Friday, more than 50 countries, including Japan and the United States, issued a joint statement blasting Russia for the invasion.
Vocalist Adam Lambert (center) and original Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor hit Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo and Tokyo for the final leg of their marathon Rhapsody Tour.
CULTURE
Feb 24, 2024

Queen wraps marathon Rhapsody Tour in Japan

The final leg of the global tour hit four Japanese cities, providing fans with an appropriately grandiose send-off from the rockers on Valentine's Day.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson walks out of a vote on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Feb. 15.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 24, 2024

U.S. House speaker must now confront his own party’s sabotage

Multiple senior House Republicans, granted anonymity to speak frankly, now portray Mike Johnson as an insecure leader who faces a steep learning curve.
Takuya Yokota (second from right), head of a group of families of abductees to North Korea, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Sunday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 26, 2024

Families of North Korea abductees give Japan breathing room for summit

The group won't oppose Tokyo's lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang if all abductees are returned while their parents' generation is still alive.
A new future initiative aimed at training foreign workers is part of a broader strategy to address pressing labor shortages in Japan.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2024

Japan eyes training foreign workers amid labor shortages

The proposed training system will supersede the current foreign technical internship system.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 27, 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 26, 2024

Mark Zuckerberg’s Asia tour to focus on AI

The Meta Platforms’ CEO is in Japan with his family on a ski trip, and is set to meet with his developers in Tokyo to discuss virtual-reality and AI.
Japan's consumer price index for January rose 2% from a year ago, topping estimates to support the Bank of Japan's move to end its negative interest rate policy.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 27, 2024

January inflation topped forecasts, data shows, supporting BOJ policy shift

Consumer prices excluding fresh food rose 2% from a year ago, while prices of processed food gained 5.9% and prices for lodging increased by 27%.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's Cabinet approved an economic security bill on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 27, 2024

Japan Cabinet OKs bill on new economic 'security clearance' system

Government officials and private sector employees will be given access to classified information under the system once they pass a screening process.
Hankyu's new PRiVACE carriages will feature spacious seats arranged in three rows, equipped with partitions, reading lights, and power sockets.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 27, 2024

Hankyu railway to launch new premium seat service on Kyoto Line

The new PRiVACE carriages will feature spacious seats arranged in three rows, equipped with partitions, reading lights, and power sockets.
Apple started working on a car around 2014, setting its sights on a fully autonomous electric vehicle with a limousine-like interior and voice-guided navigation.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 28, 2024

Apple to wind down electric car effort after decadelong odyssey

Many employees on the team will be reassigned to focus on generative artificial intelligence projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.
Hong Kong has been promised significant autonomy until 2047, but Beijing's actions have undermined fundamental rights essential for its success.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 28, 2024

China says Hong Kong’s ‘one country, two systems’ is permanent

Hong Kong has been promised significant autonomy until 2047, but Beijing's actions have undermined fundamental rights.
The Bank of Japan is facing hardly any signs of opposition to scrapping its negative interest rate as the strongest price growth in decades weighs on households and businesses.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 28, 2024

BOJ should make straightforward policy shift, top finance professor says

Exiting policy should be like business as usual, said Hiroshi Yoshikawa, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and a friend of BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda.
1924
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Mar 1, 2024

Japan Times 1924: Japan nice but men dress in queer ways

A piece by women visiting Tokyo gives us a century-old take on what tourists in the 1920s thought of "weird Japan."
While Tokyo and Washington have maintained strong ties under U.S. President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida amid intensifying concern over China’s regional ambitions, Japanese officials are still hedging their bets by sending out feelers in the event of another term under Donald Trump.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 28, 2024

Ex-senior Trump official reassures Tokyo over possible comeback

A former deputy assistant to the ex-president swatted away concerns, saying Trump's 2024 White House bid "is a very different effort than 2016."
The flags of China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) behind security cameras in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee formally proposed the new security legislation on Jan. 30, with a one-month consultation period, to pass the city's own security law, including stepped-up efforts to ward against foreign interference.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 29, 2024

U.K. and U.S. blast Hong Kong's proposed new security law

Pro-democracy protests in 2019 prompted Beijing to impose harsher with sentences ranging up to life in prison.
I was skeptical of Lillian Cumic's avocado tempura, but I wound up loving it.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 3, 2024

Vegan or no, ‘Hawaii Washoku’ is a cookbook for all eaters

Chef Lilian Cumic offers creative versions of many of Japan’s most iconic dishes crafted from scratch with pantry staples found in most kitchens.
Trucks are seen as Ukrainian hauliers take part in an round-the-clock counter-demonstration against the blockade of the border by Polish protesters on Feb. 20.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 1, 2024

Companies in Ukraine see problems pile up, but most tough it out

"The war has taught us to respond flexibly"
Factions, cliques, caucuses — whatever they may be called, groupings in legislatures are not unusual in many countries.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Perspectives
Mar 2, 2024

Is the funding scandal unraveling the LDP?

The media is caught up in the money-politics scandal of the moment, framing factions as all good or all bad. Things are a lot more nuanced than that.

Longform

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