Search - 2023

 
 
Ednaldo Rodrigues (right), seen in Rio de Janeiro on Feb. 27, was unanimously returned to the role of president of the Brazilian soccer federation on Monday.
SOCCER
Mar 25, 2025

Brazil soccer federation president re-elected after Ronaldo pullout

Ednaldo Rodrigues, who was reelected until 2030, celebrated "the triumph of democracy."
Relatives mourn Palestinian journalist Hussam Shabat, who collaborated with Al Jazeera Mubasher, during his funeral at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on Monday.
WORLD
Mar 25, 2025

Journalist killed, evacuation calls issued as Israel presses Gaza offensive

More than 206 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the war, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said.
Masamichi Koike, head of global markets business at Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, says the Bank of Japan is likely to increase the policy rate to 1% this year as long as the U.S. economy doesn’t falter.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 25, 2025

Sumitomo Mitsui markets head sees BOJ rate at 30-year high

The Bank of Japan is likely to increase the policy rate to 1% this year from the current 0.5% as long as the U.S. economy doesn’t falter, said Masamichi Koike.
Now-U.S. President Donald Trump during a interview at his private club Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, on March, 4, 2024. Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with falsehoods, and now he and those around him are using false claims to justify their policy changes.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 25, 2025

In his second term, Trump fuels a ‘machinery’ of misinformation

The president and his advisers have ushered the United States into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.
Nobuya Fukumoto (far left), a lawyer for the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, is surrounded by the media at the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday after it ordered the group to be stripped of its religious corporation status.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2025

Tokyo court strips Unification Church of religious corporation status

The order against the group, heavily criticized for its coercive tactics in soliciting donations, removes its tax-exempt status.
After falling behind despite helping pioneer the technology, Japan has the foundation to lead in artificial intelligence — if it seizes the moment.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 25, 2025

Japan urgently needs an AI vibe shift

Citizens’ embrace of AI also remains surprisingly low. Just 9% of consumers say they have used generative AI.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba waits for a session of the House of Councillors Budget Committee to begin at the Diet in Tokyo on March 14.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 25, 2025

Parties still at odds over corporate donations as deadline for agreement looms

The prospect of reaching a decision on whether to ban, restrict or continue to accept donations by the end of the month appears slim.
Increased reliance on AI and digital technology is weakening cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving, as people depend more on machines for tasks that once required mental effort.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2025

‘Use it or lose it’ — a grim mantra for the AI age

In sum, “excessive dependence on AI without concurrent cultivation of fundamental cognitive skills may lead to underutilization and subsequent loss of cognitive abilities.”
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Wednesday that the government will continue to provide assistance in addressing humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2025

Japan takes in Palestinian woman injured in Gaza war for treatment

Tokyo plans to accept another injured Palestinian woman in the coming days, marking its first acceptance of patients from Gaza since the conflict broke out in October 2023.
Tourists walk past shops and restaurants up the street leading to Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. Kyoto plans to raise its maximum accommodation tax to combat overtourism.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2025

Kyoto to raise maximum hotel tax to ¥10,000

The amount will be the highest among areas using a flat-rate tax system across the country, according to the internal affairs ministry.
Giants ace Shosei Togo is expected to get the start on opening day.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 26, 2025

Big-spending Giants aim to hold off BayStars and Tigers in competitive Central League

The Giants spent big as the club aims to win its first Japan Series title since 2012. But can the BayStars or Tigers spoil the Kyojin's fun?
While mobile games such as Pokemon Go are at the core of Scopely’s business, the company is developing or considering acquiring PC and console titles.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 26, 2025

Behind the $3.5 billion Pokemon deal lies a consolidation strategy

While mobile games such as Pokemon Go are at the core of Scopely’s business, the company is looking into PC and console titles.
Smoke and flames rise from a wildfire in Andong, South Korea, on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 26, 2025

Recent spate of wildfires in Japan and South Korea linked to climate change

A study by European researchers has concluded that the role of human-driven climate change in contributing to the wildfires was undeniable.
A member of a medical team takes a patient's blood pressure during an HIV clinic day in Kampala, Uganda, on Feb. 17.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 27, 2025

Trump’s foreign aid retreat guts funding for HIV treatments

The withdrawal is risking lives globally and threatening to unravel decades of progress made toward ending AIDS as a public health threat.
Masuo Fukuda, head of Citigroup’s investment banking business in Tokyo, says the hiring in Tokyo started in December targeting various levels of bankers.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 27, 2025

Citigroup hiring dealmakers in Japan with fee pool seen reviving

The Wall Street firm is expanding its investment banking team in Japan as it bets the country’s deal fee pool will finally rebound.
A Chinese Navy missile frigate. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to project power in the Indo-Pacific region.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Mar 27, 2025

Xi tests U.S. allies in Indo-Pacific as Trump looks elsewhere

From sending warships off Australia’s coast to putting pressure on Thailand over human rights, Beijing is ramping up efforts to project power.
A detailed view of the ball during the second half of game five of the 2024 WNBA playoffs between the Minnesota Lynx and the Connecticut Sun at Target Center, Minneapolis on Oct 8, 2024.
BASKETBALL
Mar 27, 2025

Expansion Valkyries first WNBA team to hit 10,000 season tickets

The Valkyries are the first team to join the league since 2008 and will begin play on May 16 at home against the Los Angeles Sparks.
Alysa Liu competes in the women’s short program during the World Figure Skating Championships at TD Garden in Boston on Wednesday.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Mar 27, 2025

Women's skating favorites falter as Liu leads at worlds

Three-time defending champion Kaori Sakamoto, trying to become the first woman in 65 years to capture four consecutive world crowns, was a disappointing fifth.
Kimio Hanawa (left), an honorary professor at Tohoku University and chair of the Meteorological Agency’s climate change advisory panel, expressed concern over rapid warming at a news conference on Wednesday in Tokyo.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 27, 2025

Without new countermeasures, Japan’s temperature could rise 4.5 C by 2100

The warmer surface temperature would lead to 17.5 more extremely hot days per year and 46.2 fewer winter days, according to the Meteorological Agency and other institutions.
The Hawks' Ryoya Kurihara fields a ball during spring camp in Miyazaki on March 7.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 27, 2025

Incumbent Hawks face fresh challenge from rising Fighters in Pacific League

Flamboyant manager Tsuyoshi Shinjo and his up-and-coming Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters may finally be ready to pose a challenge for the favored Hawks.
The interior of a Sindbad submarine vessel at sea off Hurghada, Egypt, in August 2024, in this still image obtained from video.
WORLD
Mar 28, 2025

Tourist submarine sinks in Red Sea off Egypt, leaving six people dead

The Red Sea Governorate said the submarine, named Sindbad, had 50 people onboard.
Miura and Kihara celebrate after winning the world pairs title on Thursday in Boston.
MORE SPORTS / Figure skating
Mar 28, 2025

Miura and Kihara edge German pair to win second world figure skating title

The Japanese duo scored 219.79 points to capture the world crown by 0.71 of a point over Germany's Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin.
Rohingya refugees hold up signs at a camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on March 14.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 28, 2025

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh fear U.S. aid cuts will deepen crisis

The U.S. had been the largest provider of aid to the Rohingya refugees, contributing nearly $2.4 billion since 2017, according to a State Department website.
The packaging materials that Chateraise refused to receive from its subcontractor on Thursday in Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 28, 2025

Japan FTC warns Chateraise over subcontract law breaches

The regulatory watchdog also urged the company, based in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, to take action to prevent a recurrence of such a problem.
How Fuji TV responds to the results of a third-party probe will be crucial to restoring public trust — and could determine whether sponsors, whose TV ads are the company's main source of revenue, choose to return.
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2025

Fuji TV returns to spotlight as deadline for scandal probe looms

How Fuji TV responds to the report will be crucial to restoring public trust — and could determine whether sponsors choose to return.
Yuki Tejima, who runs the Instagram account booknerdtokyo, hesitated to try her hand at literary translation until she won an award at the International Translation Contest.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 29, 2025

Yuki Tejima's metamorphosis from bookworm to literary translator

An Instagram “bookfluencer” and professional translator for over 10 years, Tejima’s love of books was, strangely enough, a hurdle to working in literary translation.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said fees for average households that use 260 kilowatt-hours of power per month will increase by ¥436 from March to ¥9,031 next month.
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2025

Japan household electricity bills to rise in April

Fees for the average household will go up by between ¥385 and ¥465 in April, due mainly to the end of government subsidies to curb inflation.
An 81-year-old apple farmer who lost her crop walks past the remains of her neighbors' homes after a wildfire swept through the area, in Andong, South Korea, on Thursday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Mar 30, 2025

South Korea's 'heartbreaking' wildfires expose superaged society

The inferno has also laid bare South Korea's demographic crisis and regional disparities.
Fluffy, low-hanging clouds generally have a cooling influence. They are big and bright, blocking and bouncing back incoming sunlight.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Mar 30, 2025

Clouds changing as world warms, adding to climate uncertainty

Cloud behavior is notoriously complex to predict and remains a great unknown for scientists trying to accurately forecast future levels of climate change.

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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