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Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Kenta Izumi will hold a parliamentary debate with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 13, 2024

First Diet debate among party leaders in three years set for June 19

The debate is expected to focus on political reform following the LDP slush fund scandal.
The Liberal Democratic Party's Gen Nakatani (center) speaks at the Lower House Constitution Commission on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 14, 2024

LDP scraps plan for constitution revision this Diet session

The conservative wing of the party is likely to lash out against the failure to achieve constitutional revision.
The number of consultations made by consumers regarding troubles on social media marked a record high in 2023, with people in their 50s or older particularly vulnerable.
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2024

Japan sees social media linked consultations hit record in 2023

In 2023, there were 910,000 consultations, and consumer damage from problematic transactions amounted to a record ¥8.8 trillion.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa reacts after being reelected as president of South Africa on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 15, 2024

South Africa's Ramaphosa survives ANC hammering to win second term

A skillful negotiator, Ramaphosa clinched the agreement with the white-led Democratic Alliance and at least two other smaller parties.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives at a Ukraine peace summit near Lucerne, Switzerland, on Saturday.
WORLD / Politics
Jun 16, 2024

Latest polls say U.K. Conservatives headed for election wipeout

The figures indicate Sunak’s weak position going into the campaign has deteriorated since he called the surprise vote three weeks ago.
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in March
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 17, 2024

Four Thai court cases that could unleash political crisis

Four cases before the courts on Tuesday involve the country's most powerful politicians.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
WORLD / Politics
Jun 17, 2024

Disastrous results in U.K. polling show scale of Sunak’s challenge

Seat-by-seat analysis by Survation found Labour to be on course to a large majority.
The ANC's Cyril Ramaphosa was re-elected president of South Africa after the country's lawmakers voted during the first sitting of the New South African Parliament in Cape Town on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2024

A historic deal sets South Africa on a new path

There's enough overlap between the ANC and its main coalition partner, the Democratic Alliance, to allow President Ramaphosa to try and fix the beleaguered economy.
Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's former prime minister, arrives at Don Mueang airport after returning from self-exile in Bangkok, on Aug. 22.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 18, 2024

Ex-Thai PM Thaksin formally charged in royal insult case

The mounting political uncertainty has rattled Thailand’s financial markets, prompting foreign investors to pull out more than $3 billion.
Foreign visitors learn how to make sushi in a cooking class at Sushi Making Tokyo in the Asakusa district of Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2024

Japan government paper seeks to promote rural areas to foreign visitors

Foreign tourists primarily spend their time and money in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, according to the paper.
Doctors take part in a rally to protest against government plans to increase medical school admissions, in Seoul on March 3.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 18, 2024

More doctors walk off the job in South Korea in one-day strike

The dispute began in January, when the South Korean government announced a plan to dramatically expand admissions to medical schools.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at a government meeting on crime prevention at the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2024

Japan's government demands stricter screenings of social media ads

Specifically, social media operators are being asked to draw up and disclose ad-screening criteria.
Internal affairs minister Takeaki Matsumoto bows after a bill to revise the local autonomy law was approved at a plenary meeting of the Upper House on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 19, 2024

Japan enacts bill for emergency state power over local governments

The purpose is to make sure that Japan can respond quickly to incidents not presupposed by existing laws.
Balaji Srinivasan addresses the Singapore Fintech Festival in November 2022. A techno-libertarian, Srinivasan, who made his name as an anti-government crusader, tried to attach himself to the U.S. government when he was under consideration for a position in the Donald Trump administration.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 19, 2024

How techno-libertarians fell in love with big government

When faced with the prospect of the government becoming a major client for Silicon Valley techno-libertarians, once-principled opposition to state power dissipates.
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Kenta Izumi (left) faces off against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a debate in parliament on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 19, 2024

CDP's Izumi challenges Kishida to dissolve Lower House

Izumi said Kishida ought to seek a fresh mandate from the public due to his party's handling of its slush funds scandal.
For hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year, heat is deadly. In the U.S., it takes more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods.
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2024

Heat waves are deadlier than hurricanes. Make them ‘disasters.’

For hundreds of thousands of people around the world every year, heat is deadly. In the U.S., it takes more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or floods.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike (left) and Renho, a member of the House of Councilors, both candidates in the gubernatorial election, attend a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in the capital on Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 20, 2024

The battle to be Japan’s most powerful woman is on

The race to become governor of Tokyo has officially kicked off, and is set to determine who will control a region that makes up more than 20% of the nation’s economy.
Japan is considering a system to let foreign visitors who are exempted from obtaining short-stay visa declare online their information such as purpose of stay before entering the country.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2024

Japan to launch online travel authorization system for visitors

The system's introduction aims to prevent illegal stays.
The Cabinet Office's latest white paper on Japan's aging society predicts that the percentage of people age 65 and above will reach 38.7% of the country's population by 2070.
JAPAN / Society
Jun 21, 2024

More of Japan’s elderly are lonely and have fewer friends, white paper says

Less than half of respondents age 65 years and above polled in 2023 said they had at least an average number of friends, compared with 72.2% in 2018.
During the attacks, private data on JAXA employees as well as information on external parties might have leaked, it has been reported.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2024

Japan’s space agency hit by repeated cyberattacks since last year

JAXA has begun a probe to determine the scope of the damage caused and taken measures to shut down the networks that may have been involved.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are both international pariahs, struggling to find ways to shore up their increasingly isolated countries.
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2024

Don’t be alarmed by the new Russia-North Korea partnership

Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are both international pariahs, struggling to find ways to shore up their increasingly isolated countries.
The holding lot of the Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation-Volkswagen joint venture in Shanghai in April 2023. As the European Union moves to impose tariffs on Chinese cars, Germany, with an auto industry deeply enmeshed with China, is stuck in the middle.
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2024

Germany hopes to head off a trade war with China

China’s EV exports threaten European automakers, but companies like Volkswagen have extensive operations in China and fear retaliatory actions by Beijing.
Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, greets supporters at the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) headquarters during election night in New Delhi, India on June 4.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 24, 2024

Some of Modi’s agenda could disappear in India’s fractured Parliament

A new Parliament taking office in India may give some hint of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s domestic policies are now in doubt.
Muslim pilgrims pray as sprinklers cool them down amid extremely hot weather during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Saudi Arabia, on June 16.
WORLD
Jun 24, 2024

Saudi Arabia says 1,301 deaths during Hajj were mostly unregistered pilgrims

Temperatures in Mecca this year climbed as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius, according to Saudi Arabia's national meteorological center.
A wind farm in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture. For Japan's future energy roadmap to center on clean sources, the government should reform the institutions overseeing energy policy to avoid vested interests from slowing the transition down.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 24, 2024

It’s time for Japan to set up a climate change agency

The government is currently reviewing Japan's Strategic Energy Plan. But who's shaping this key document for the future? It's mostly older men with vested interests.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has not yet formally announced whether he will seek another three-year term as party president.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 24, 2024

Pressure mounting on Kishida within LDP to give up on reelection

Veterans fear the LDP — under Kishida — will lose control of the government in a general election, while younger members don't want an unpopular president leading them.
A bus stop where a man attacked a Japanese school bus in Suzhou, China, on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 25, 2024

Three wounded in apparent knife attack on Japanese school bus in China

The attack left a Chinese woman seriously wounded and injured a Japanese woman and her child. A motive was not immediately clear.
An ingot of a rare earth metal used to make components for technology products at a factory in China. The country is the world’s top exporter of rare earth elements, but that may change if deep-sea mining gains traction in nations like Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 25, 2024

We’ve got to get deep-sea mining right

Seabed mining could muddy the waters of critical minerals' supply chains by tapping into new sources. But will environmental and legal concerns sink the project?
Israeli police detain a protester as they they try to disperse ultra-Orthodox Jews blocking a highway during a protest against changes to the laws on the military draft from which the ultra-Orthodox community has traditionally been exempt, in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak on Thursday.
WORLD
Jun 26, 2024

Israel top court rules ultra-Orthodox men must serve in army

The decision on the politically charged issue comes as calls grow for ultra-Orthodox men, historically exempt from mandatory service, to enlist.
An anti-government protest in Tel Aviv in January. In a TV interview on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the terms of a U.S.-led cease-fire deal and said he was prepared to open a second front against Hezbollah, in Lebanon.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2024

Netanyahu's strategy is war, war and more war

The Israeli prime minister gave a rare and revealing interview to a domestic TV channel on the weekend that confirmed that he has a plan for Gaza. And that is war.

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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