Search - 2022

 
 
Chugoku Electric Power Company's Shimane nuclear power plant
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2024

Chugoku Electric restarts Shimane reactor for first time in 13 years

The long-delayed restart of the reactor, which was shut down in January 2012, boosts the number of Japan's operational reactors to 14.
Employees at large Tokyo companies who travel to the office daily to work fell to 47.4% in 2024 from 53.1% in the previous year, a survey shows.
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 8, 2024

Hybrid work on the rise for Tokyo’s office employees: NRI Survey

For the July 2024 Nomura Research Institute survey, the firm polled 3,091 people from ages 20-69 who work for large companies in Tokyo.
Filipino housekeepers undergo training to work for a Japanese staffing company. By applying the same criteria when hiring overseas and local workers, Japanese firms tend to underutilize the unique skills that foreign nationals can bring.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 8, 2024

Firms should quit turning foreign workers into Japanese ones

Many foreign nationals struggle with the idiosyncrasies of Japan's employment system. Firms tend to assimilate overseas personnel rather than utilize their unique skills.
Police officers reinvestigate a Tobu Tojo Line railroad crossing in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward on Dec. 27, 2023, after a man was fatally hit by a train weeks earlier.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

Tokyo police arrest four men on suspicion of staging colleague’s suicide

They allegedly coerced the 56-year-old victim into standing on railway tracks where he went on to be fatally struck by a train.
Elon Musk, a co-leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, carries his son X Æ A-Xii Musk following a meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2024

DOGE's best idea yet is permanent daylight saving time

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s support for adopting a year-round clock would give the U.S. more sunshine and less confusion.
A man vapes on a beach in Nice, France, in 2019. In the absence of European Union regulations on vaping, each country now applies different rules and levels of excise tax on electronic cigarettes.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 9, 2024

EU countries want vaping included in bloc's tobacco tax law

Each country now applies different rules and levels of excise tax on electronic cigarettes, distorting the bloc's single market.
A defaced mural of Sheikh Hasina, the ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, in Dhaka on Nov. 5. The new governor of Bangladesh’s central bank, Ahsan Mansur, calculates that about $17 billion was siphoned from the country’s financial system in the 15 years before Hasina's government collapsed in August.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

How the Bangladesh economy was siphoned dry

Some economists guess that the true value looted during Sheikh Hasina’s rule before she fled the country could exceed $30 billion, but no one can say for sure.
Director Ema Ryan Yamazaki wanted to show situations that everyone, non-Japanese included, could relate to in “The Making of a Japanese,” her documentary about Japan’s schoolchildren. 
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2024

Documentarian praises the positives of stricter schooling

"The Making of a Japanese" director Ema Ryan Yamazaki reflects on the role of the Japanese educational system in creating empathetic children.
During the trial of ex-principal Hisayoshi Kitamura, one of his victims testified that she could not consult anyone when she was assaulted as a student because she had been taught to follow the instructions of teachers.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 9, 2024

Ex-principal gets 9 years for raping middle school students in 2010

The crimes came to light after one of the victims reported her assault to the Tokyo education board in 2022.
Al Nassr's Cristiano Ronaldo in action with Al Ittihad's Abdulrahman in a Saudi Pro League match in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Friday
SOCCER
Dec 10, 2024

'Humanizing' Saudi soccer': Netflix show paves way for World Cup

The series depicts how the Saudi Pro League has been transformed by the arrival of global stars.
A health ministry survey showed that 5,824 people age 65 and older died in a bathtub in their home or other residential facilities in 2022, more than double the number of people who died in a traffic accident.
JAPAN / Explainer
Dec 10, 2024

Winter chill, hot baths and the risk of heat shock: How to stay safe

Heat shock has come under the spotlight after popular actor and singer Miho Nakayama was found dead at her home last week.
Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Syrian President Bashar Assad in eastern Hangzhou city in September 2023.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / ANALYSIS
Dec 10, 2024

Assad's fall in Syria exposes limits of China's Middle East diplomacy

Chinese experts and diplomats say Beijing will now bide its time before recognizing a new government in Damascus.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attends a signing ceremony at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on Nov. 28.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2024

Lula faces Biden parallels as surgery raises questions over age

The operation raises difficult questions about whether the 79-year-old leftist leader is fit to meet the challenges that are piling up in front of him.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a hearing in his trial on corruption charges at the district court in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2024

Israel's Netanyahu dismisses allegations in corruption trial

Benjamin Netanyahu is the first sitting prime minister of Israel to face a criminal trial.
Signage at the Tencent headquarters in Shenzhen, China
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 11, 2024

Scrappy studio boss feeds Tencent’s lofty global game ambitions

"Arena Breakout: Infinite" is Tencent’s newest "Call of Duty"-style PC shooter, targeting a genre that typically tops spending charts.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks in Pyongyang on Nov. 21. North Korea is believed to have been engaging in nuclear development since the era of the late Kim Il Sung, the country's founder and the current leader's grandfather.
WORLD
Dec 11, 2024

Unstable global environment reduces NPT to mere shell

Some countries are moving to acquire nuclear weapons in an attempt to either maintain their dictatorial regimes or to strengthen deterrence.
A restaurant owner waits for customers at her empty restaurant in Seoul on Oct. 31.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Dec 11, 2024

South Korea's fading nightlife signals shift in hard-drinking culture

The change has been driven by corporate Korea's slowdown on after-work drinking sessions, younger female workers' refusal to partake and inflation.
Akihiro Kaneko, president of the Japan Council of Metalworkers’ Unions, speaks during a news conference in Tokyo on Dec. 3.
BUSINESS
Dec 11, 2024

Japan union head calls for government to work more on raising pay

The call comes as Japan prepares for annual wage negotiations that culminate in the spring.
Japan ranked second in both literacy and numeracy, and tied with Finland for first place in problem-solving in an international OECD survey of adult skills.
JAPAN / Society
Dec 11, 2024

Japan retains strong results in OECD’s adult skills survey

Overall, Japan’s scores exceeded the OECD average across all age groups though they tended to decline with age.
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a meeting in Washington in September.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 12, 2024

FBI chief Christopher Wray to resign before Trump takes office

Donald Trump has announced the nomination of staunch loyalist Kash Patel to head the top U.S. law enforcement agency.
Fans in Saudi Arabia celebrate after the nation was confirmed as host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup
SOCCER / World cup
Dec 12, 2024

Saudi Arabia awarded 2034 FIFA World Cup despite human rights concerns

FIFA also confirmed that Morocco, Spain and Portugal will be joint hosts of the 2030 World Cup, in which three games will also be played in South America.
A liquefied natural gas plant operated by Sakhalin Energy in Sakhalin, Russia. Japan, the world's second biggest LNG buyer, depends on Russia for 9% of its LNG.
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Dec 12, 2024

Rival supplies and depleting fields give Japan an exit from Russian gas

Japan, the world's second-biggest liquefied natural gas buyer, depends on Russia for 9% of its LNG.
The village of Szolosgyorok, in Hungary
WORLD / Society
Dec 12, 2024

Some German retirees find low-cost refuge in Orban's anti-migrant Hungary

Expats may be drawn to Hungary by right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban's hard-line anti-immigration rhetoric.
Outfielder Juan Soto officially joined the Mets on Wednesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 12, 2024

Juan Soto signs record 15-year, $765 million contract with Mets

"This is a seminal moment in franchise history," Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen said in a statement.
The head priest of Kiyomizu Temple writes the kanji "kin," which was chosen by the public as the character that best represents 2024, on Thursday in Kyoto.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2024

'Kin' selected as the kanji of 2024 after strong year for Japanese athletes

The choice also reflected the Liberal Democratic Party’s slush-fund scandal and the spate of robberies involving shady part-time jobs.
Brooks Koepka watches his shot from the 10th tee during a Liv Golf event in Carrolton, Texas, on Sept. 20.
MORE SPORTS / Golf
Dec 12, 2024

Brooks Koepka envisions Liv and PGA staging Ryder Cup-style event

Koepka said a competitive match next week "could transcend golf."
U.S. first lady Melania Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie Abe, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in May 2019
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 12, 2024

Widow of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes to meet with Trump

Akie Abe's late husband was once dubbed the “Trump Whisperer” for his close ties with the former U.S. president.
A projection mapping display illuminates the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building during a tourism promotion event in April.
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 13, 2024

20 LDP Tokyo assembly members underreported fundraising party sales

A similar scandal involving slush funds from unreported fundraising party revenues has plagued LDP parliament members.
Business sentiment among large manufacturers in Japan improved for the first time in two quarters, the Bank of Japan's tankan survey for December showed Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 13, 2024

Japan business mood improves slightly, but global risks cloud outlook

The Bank of Japan tankan survey results come ahead of a two-day policy meeting next week, when its board will debate whether to lift rates from the current 0.25%.
A man checks a tunnel found under a mosque in Tadamon district, which is littered with bones, in Damascus, Syria, on Thursday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 13, 2024

At site of suspected mass killings, Syrians recall horrors and seek answers

After Bashar Assad's ouster, residents hope the site in Damascus' Tadamon district can be cordoned off for those responsible to be held accountable.

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition