Search - member

 
 
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other Baltic politicians placed on Russia's wanted list risk arrest if they cross the Russian border, but otherwise declaring them as "wanted" is unlikely to have any practical consequence.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2024

Moscow puts Estonia PM on wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Baltic governments demolished the monuments they considered their former imperial overlords' propaganda tools.
U.S. President Joe Biden has presided over a growing economy and some foreign leaders have said after meeting him that he is sharp and focused in private meetings, but his age is still an issue that is posing a drag on his poll numbers.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2024

Democrats bungle Joe Biden age concerns, some critics say

Their strategy so far has not quelled criticism or concerns about the U.S. president's fitness for the Oval Office.
Military personnel conduct raid operations in the area surrounding Guayaquil, Ecuador on Jan. 27. President Daniel Noboa’s new war on gangs has received widespread support in a nation overwhelmed by violence, but experts warn it could endanger civil liberties.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 14, 2024

Terrorized by gangs, Ecuador embraces the hard-line ‘Noboa way’

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa's war on gangs is popular among citizens in spite of activists warning of human rights violations.
U.S. allies reevaluate priorities in relations with Washington out of concern Donald Trump may win the U.S. presidency again.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2024

U.S. allies fear the fallout of a new Trump era

The world appears to have priced in former U.S. President Trump’s disdain not only for allies but the entire global order his predecessors created.
The war in Ukraine has pitted the United States and its allies against Russian President Vladimir Putin (center).
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024

Russia’s advances on space-based nuclear weapon alarm the U.S.

A satellite-killing weapon, if deployed, could destroy civilian communications, surveillance from space and military command-and-control operations.
A Ukrainian soldier walks next to a howitzer while waiting for it to fire toward Russian positions, in the Donetsk region last month.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024

Democracy slides amid wars and political polarization, study says

Standards across the world fell amid the spread of wars, authoritarian crackdowns and declining levels of trust in mainstream political parties.
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged during a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 23.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 15, 2024

U.S. and EU talk Russia sanctions ahead of Ukraine war anniversary

A senior U.S. official said Washington and its allies are prepared to mark the war anniversary with "robust" sanctions.
Israeli officials evacuate a person who was injured by a rocket fired from Lebanon, in Safed, northern Israel, on Wednesday.
WORLD
Feb 15, 2024

Israel-Hezbollah tensions rise with strikes from Lebanon

The assault, presumed to be carried out by Hezbollah, prompted Israeli fighter jets to launch extensive strikes.
Naoko Motooka began hunting 10 years ago. Her hobby is one way Hokkaido hopes to curb a current boom in the deer population.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 15, 2024

Hunting in Hokkaido; Taylor Swift comes to Tokyo

You probably don’t think of guns when you think of Japan, but Hokkaido’s hunters do.
Sun simulation at the Rail Tec Arsenal facility in Vienna, Austria, on Dec. 15, 2023
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 16, 2024

Climate change threatens EU trains, but resilience is expensive

Europe’s railways, a safe, low-carbon technology that still carries a little glamor, are on the brink of a new era.
Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 16, 2024

Anxious over funding delay, Pacific island nations warn about China

The additional amount currently needed is a relatively small $2.3 billion.
Smoke billows following Israeli bombardment over Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 16, 2024

Israel raids main hospital in southern Gaza as Rafah concerns grow

The Israeli military said the raid was based on intel that Hamas militants were hiding and had kept hostages there, which the militant group denies.
Members of the LGBTQ community and supporters celebrate in front of the Greek parliament, after a vote in favor of a bill that approved allowing same-sex civil marriages, in Athens on Thursday.
WORLD / Society
Feb 16, 2024

Greece among first Orthodox Christian countries to legalize same sex marriage

While the ruling party abstained or voted against the bill, it gained support from the opposition in a rare show of cross-party unity despite tense debate.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s first Kumamoto plant in the town of Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture, on Feb. 10
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 16, 2024

Japan boosts aid to chip projects amid global race

Prompted by concerns, the government acted swiftly to prevent the potential loss of domestic production bases.
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Kazunori Yamanoi shows a Liberal Democratic Party survey about a slush funds scandal to reporters in Tokyo on Thursday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 16, 2024

LDP survey doesn't quell demand from opposition for ethics hearing

The scandal, and the demand to convene a meeting of the ethics committee, have Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a political bind.
Damo Suzuki, who passed away at the age of 74 on Feb. 9, was best known as a vocalist for the German “krautrock” pioneers Can. He later launched Damo Suzuki’s Network, a live music project that took him around the world, playing with different musicians every night. 
CULTURE / Music
Feb 17, 2024

Damo Suzuki forged a path outside of mainstream pop and rock

Idiosyncratic and spontaneous, the Can vocalist was an influential figure of the “krautrock” scene.
Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group, speaks during the SoftBank World event in Tokyo in October.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 17, 2024

Masayoshi Son aims to launch a $100 billion AI chip venture

The SoftBank Group founder is looking to create a chip venture to compete with Nvidia and supply semiconductors essential for AI.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow in August 2013. Navalny, the most outspoken domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died in prison, Russian state media said Friday.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Feb 17, 2024

Alexei Navalny's death deprives Russia's opposition of a leader and hope

His death leaves the groups that oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin with no obvious candidate to try to turn any discontent into mass protests.
French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a news conference at the presidential Elysee Palace in Paris on Friday after signing a bilateral security agreement.
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Feb 17, 2024

Bilateral accords offer Ukraine a way to shore up security

New agreements with Germany and France deal with both current military support for Ukraine and its future defense against Russia.
Brig. Gen. Esmail Qaani, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, speaks during a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of senior Iranian military commander Mohammad Hejazi, in Tehran, on April 14, 2022.
WORLD
Feb 18, 2024

Iraqi armed groups dial down U.S. attacks on request of Iran commander

A top Iranian security official said: "Commander Qaani's visit was successful, though not entirely, as not all Iraqi groups consented to de-escalate."
“The Rise and Fall of the EAST” author Yasheng Huang blames the “keju,” the imperial national civil service exam, for the decline in China’s technological innovation. Its influence continues in the “gaokao,” the annual university entrance exam that high school students take in June.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 19, 2024

‘The Rise and Fall of the EAST’: China’s ancient successes paint worrying picture of its future

Economist Yasheng Huang delves into the impact of the "keju" imperial national civil service exam on the ebb and flow of China’s technological innovation.
Smoke billows over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli bombardment on Sunday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 19, 2024

Prospects dim for truce as Israel rejects calls to spare Rafah

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls to spare Rafah, arguing that failing to launch the operation would mean to "lose the war."
Shoppers walk past an ID Hub, a Volkswagen showroom for electric cars, at a mall in Shanghai on Dec. 3, 2023.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 19, 2024

Firms with deep roots in China reconsider their Xinjiang ties

Volkswagen Group is reviewing the future of its joint venture in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China
A supporter of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in the West Bank city of Ramallah in front of a poster depicting Barghouti.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2024

Can Marwan Barghouti be the Palestinian Nelson Mandela?

Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who has spent two decades in an Israeli prison, could unite Palestinians in getting behind a compromise solution.
South Korea plans to increase the number of slots in university medical school programs by 2,000 from the current 3,058 next year to alleviate a shortage of doctors.
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 19, 2024

For South Korea’s top students, medical school beats chips

Students are enticed by what many see as better job security and higher pay in the medical field.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech as she visits Cafe Kyiv, in Berlin on Feb. 19.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 20, 2024

Von Der Leyen seeks new EU term with pivot on defense sector

Her candidacy, which was widely expected, comes as the EU faces a change in leadership with a possible surge in far-right and populist forces.
Education Minister Masahito Moriyama bows to parliament after a motion of no confidence against him was voted down in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 20, 2024

Japan opposition fails with censure motion against education minister

The CDP's move against a Unification Church-linked minister came as the party also called for questioning over a slush funds scandal.
Kites are flown over Rafah as smoke billows following Israeli bombardment on Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 21, 2024

Israel-Hamas war splits G20, risking paralysis at meeting

The group is so split on the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine that they may be forced to reduce the forum’s scope and avoid geopolitical issues.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Feb 21, 2024

How to reinvent yourself at 50: An IEA guide

It would be an understatement to say that the energy industry has gone through a lot of change.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (center) speaks during a cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on Tuesday. South Korean hospitals turned away some patients and delayed surgeries on the day, as hundreds of trainee doctors stopped working in a protest against medical training reforms.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Feb 21, 2024

Nearly 8,000 South Korean doctors walk out over plan to boost numbers

While the labor action has caused only minor disruptions so far, the junior medics play a key role in providing emergency care.

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