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Russian President Vladimir Putin meets North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow on Tuesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 17, 2024

Putin meets North Korea’s top envoy as arms flow builds

Putin held talks with Choe Son Hui on Tuesday during a visit to Moscow, the Tass news agency reported
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 18, 2024

Japanese Communist Party picks first-ever female leader

Upper House member Tomoka Tamura takes over the chair of the 102-year-old political party — Japan’s oldest — from Kazuo Shii, who held the post since 2000.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump exits the stage during a campaign event in Concord, New Hampshire, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Jan 21, 2024

For the anti-Trump wing of the GOP, it all comes down to Tuesday

The old guard of the Republican Party has rallied around Nikki Haley ahead of New Hampshire’s primary, in a long-shot bid to stop the former president.
According to the the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, international economic activity is expected to slow amid changing trade patterns.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2024

From 'hyperglobalization' to 'thin globalism'

How geopolitics, pandemics, and economic tensions are transforming global trade.
One way to cut the steel industry’s emissions is to recycle more iron and steel products than the world currently does.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2024

What steel decarbonization needs

One way to cut the industry's emissions is by recycling more iron and steel products than we currently do.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 26, 2024

LDP faction shake-up damages prospects of Kishida rivals

Numerous LDP lawmakers have announced they will leave their factions, weakening faction leaders who had been seen as possible Kishida successors.
Shitsui Hakoishi, 107, works with researcher Yasumichi Arai (left) while her younger brother, Hidemasa, looks on. Researchers like Arai believe the healthy and active Hakoishi's cells may hold the secret to living a long life.
JAPAN / Science & Health / Longform
Jan 27, 2024

Living until 100, if not forever, in good health

Immortality may be out of reach, but can a slew of research projects prolong our natural aging process?
Aryna Sabalenka celebrates with the trophy after winning her second-straight Australian Open women's singles title on Saturday in Melbourne.
TENNIS
Jan 27, 2024

Sabalenka overpowers Zheng to retain Australian Open crown

Aryna Sabalenka continued to be an irrepressible force at the Australian Open as she powered to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Chinese 12th seed Zheng Qinwen.
The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, even faster than the shinkansen. However, demand for the new railway service remains lacking.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 29, 2024

Linking 17,000 islands in Indonesia tests a nation on the rise

President Joko Widodo's grand vision for the world’s largest archipelago is colliding with financial realities.
Gold badges distributed to Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly members after the April 2023 election. The prices for both types doubled from four years ago.
JAPAN / Politics / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Feb 19, 2024

Gold assembly badges worth millions of yen unreturned in Kyushu

Each elected member receives a new badge for every election and is supposed to return them on losing an election or retiring from politics.
BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda at a news conference in Tokyo on Jan. 23. In it, he delivered a consistent message about the bank's intentions moving forward.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 29, 2024

BOJ's Ueda finds his mojo as rate message cuts through

After some growing pains, BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda finally delivers a clear message on the bank's intentions. He should keep at it.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 1, 2024

Curtain falls on Abe faction's 45-year history but scrutiny to continue

Unanswered questions over members' involvement in the LDP's political funds scandal mean the dissolution may not be the end of the story.
Foreign Minister Yōko Kamikawa will likely face some institutional challenges in achieving quick and meaningful progress in advancing the United Nation's Women, Peace and Security initiative.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 2, 2024

Japan unveils task force for gender-inclusive security issues

U.N. mandate spurs Japan into action with new task force aimed at enhancing women's roles in global conflict resolution.
Giant African snails are unpopular among local residents and are referred to as an alien species that shouldn’t be touched, as they damage crops and sometimes hosts rat lungworms.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 19, 2024

Giant African snails mark 90 years of history in Okinawa

The snails, one of the world’s largest of the kind, are native to East Africa, and their shells can grow to as high as 20 centimeters.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 7, 2024

KDDI to raise stake in Lawson to jointly run convenience chain

Japan's second-largest mobile carrier currently holds 2.1% of shares but will invest about ¥500 billion to increase its stake through a tender offer.
In the quest for immortality, some researchers believe mind uploading will be our ticket to an eternal existence.
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 8, 2024

Japan’s take on immortality; problems in Palworld

As scientists and technologists attempt to tackle the problem of aging and death, we discuss Japanese ideas about immortality.
While in recent years Donald Trump is better known for his trade war with China, the former president has a long history of Japan-bashing and should be taken at his word on the U.S. Steel purchase by Nippon Steel.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 9, 2024

Trump is wrong to oppose Nippon Steel deal

"I would block it instantaneously. Absolutely,” Trump said of Nippon Steel’s bid, and he should be taken seriously and literally.
The market in 2023 and 2024 has been marked by breathless enthusiasm for the potential of artificial intelligence as well as wildly disparate guesses about how the technology will translate into future cash flows.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2024

Is the S&P 500's surge signaling a bubble or a bull market?

Are we reliving 1995 — when, coincidentally, a previous "soft landing” economy pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 5,000?
U.S. television host Tucker Carlson interviews Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in on Feb. 6. Carlson was criticized for failing to challenge the Russian leader on much of what he said.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2024

Putin interview showed why he really invaded Ukraine

Tucker Carlson lobbed questions to help the Russian president serve up his usual string of half-truths and outright falsehoods about the war in Ukraine.
Pedestrians in Piazza Cordusio in Milan. Europe's fertility rate has been stuck around 1.5 births per woman for the past decade.
WORLD / Society / ANALYSIS
Feb 16, 2024

How Europe can dodge a birth rate hard landing

Europe's fertility rate has been stuck around 1.5 births per woman for the past decade, far short of the 2.1 needed to maintain population levels.
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.
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.
Italy's Ange Capuozzo in action with Ireland's Craig Casey at Dublin's Aviva Stadium on Feb. 11.
MORE SPORTS / Rugby
Feb 20, 2024

Capuozzo defends Italy's place in Six Nations ahead of France test

Italy heads to Lille on Sunday to play France, facing the possibility of earning another Six Nations wooden spoon.
A Rapidus factory construction site in Chitose, Hokkaido, in December
BUSINESS / Tech
Feb 21, 2024

Japan’s chip spree aims to kick economy into high gear

The government’s chip strategy aims to triple domestic chip sales to around ¥15 trillion by 2030.
After stints working in New Zealand and Germany, Yoshitada Katsuki opened his winery in his home prefecture of Miyazaki in order to work with grapes his own way.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2024

Despite ‘inhospitable’ Miyazaki, Katsuki Wines stays au naturel

For pest control, Yoshitada Katsuki applies to vines a solution of vinegar, sugar and local shōchū that he jokes “lets bugs get drunk before dying.”
Nippon Steel's Kashima plant seen from a park in Kamisu, Ibaraki Prefecture. Scrutiny over Nippon Steel’s China holdings threatens to add another complication to its politically contentious deal to acquire United States Steel.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 23, 2024

Nippon Steel’s China assets could derail United States Steel deal

Regulators may look unfavorably on whether the acquisition of U.S. Steel could allow more access to U.S. markets for Chinese-sourced steel.
Demonstrators protest inside the Rockefeller Center asking for a cease-fire in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as U.S. President Joe Biden attends an interview in midtown Manhattan in New York on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 28, 2024

Among key Democratic Party voters Biden faces rebellion over Gaza war

Officials say the depth of Democratic Party anger over U.S. President Joe Biden’s handling of the Gaza war has caught his campaign off guard.
A housing development next to the Sasol’s petrochemicals plant in Sasolburg, South Africa.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 2, 2024

What it's like to live in the most polluted place on Earth

Coal and steel plants offer steady work for residents in South Africa's Vaal Triangle, yet they’re also pumping out harmful emissions.
Hideo Takayama (front) and Nama Yoshimura head down a narrow alley where a small stream used to run.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Mar 9, 2024

Tracing Tokyo’s hidden rivers

Underneath the pavement are remnants of the way the city used to look. Discovering them is a challenge that increasing numbers of locals enjoy.
A woman holds a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a rally organized by Serbian ultra nationalist organizations in Belgrade in 2022.
WORLD / Politics
Mar 12, 2024

As Russia prepares to vote, Putin's sights remain set on new world order

Running for a fifth term in office this week, the Russian president has built up a system of domestic repression almost certain to guarantee his success.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.